"Fame" for Lee Arthur Smith, the big country kid

     To begin -- and paraphrasing John Denver's great song -- thank God for this country boy.
     Do not have a personal connection to Lee Arthur Smith, except one face-to-face interview in 1975 and one phone interview in 1987. Have not talked to him otherwise.
     But we are so proud of and so happy for the big country boy from Castor, Louisiana -- or next-door Jamestown, if you want to extend his home territory.

     Lee Smith's election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, many believe, is long overdue. If they had let me have the only vote, it would have happened years ago.
     But as of Sunday, it is reality, and we had two immediate reactions:
     (1) Love it. He is one of our favorites, he "belongs" to North Louisiana.
     (2) Wonder what Jerome Holtzman would have thought today?
     (Many baseball fans, and almost every baseball writer, know the name Jerome Holtzman. There is a personal story here, centered on Lee Smith. Read on.)
     The tall and then-lanky baseball and basketball star from Castor High School I interviewed for a Sunday sports story in The Shreveport Times (April 20, 1975) grew into an imposing, thick hard-throwing right-handed pitcher -- one of the top relievers/closers in baseball history.
     The Times and Shreveport Journal were always his home-area newspapers, even after he left for fame in Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and other major-league stops. 
     And the personal connection: That part of Bienville Parish is familiar to us. My wife, Beatrice, grew up in Jamestown -- where Lee was born and, in young adulthood, resided in a huge new home.
     Little did I know when I made the visit to Castor in 1975 how connected to that area I soon would be, how many visits to Jamestown were headed. Nor did we know where Lee Smith was headed.
     In The Times story in 1975, a "pullout" quote from Lee read: "I like playing basketball ... more than baseball. But if I get a good enough offer in baseball, I'll sign."      
     Seven weeks after the story ran, Lee Arthur was picked in the second round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Chicago Cubs, the 28th pick overall. The Cubs scout who recommended him -- and soon signed him -- was a baseball legend, Buck O'Neil.
     But he did not give up basketball. The next couple of times I saw him was when he was a member of the Northwestern State University basketball team playing against Centenary (he played some as a reserve 6-foot-5 forward) in the 1976-77 season.
     Saw him again in 1978 and '79 when he came to SPAR Stadium in Shreveport as a pitcher (a starting pitcher, incidentally) for the visiting Midland Cubs (Texas League).
     By 1980, his sixth pro season, Lee made it to the majors.
     For 18 consecutive seasons (16 full seasons), he pitched in the big leagues. So that was 1,022 regular-season games -- only six starts (five in 1982, none thereafter) -- and four postseason games (two with the Cubs in 1984, two with the Red Sox in 1988).
     When he retired -- at age 40 in 1998, after 12 minor-league games -- he was the alltime leader in MLB saves (478). 
      He since has been surpassed, by Mariano Rivera (652) and Trevor Hoffman (601). But, gosh, that's pretty nice company.
      Which is why members of the "Today's Game" Hall of Fame committee selected Lee for the Hall (along with White Sox/Orioles designated hitter Harold Baines, a "marginal" choice in our view).    
      And what's fitting is that next July 21 in Cooperstown, Lee Arthur Smith will be inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame on the same day as Mariano.
     Although he wound up pitching for eight major-league teams, it is with the Cubs that Lee is most associated. So we borrow from the bleedcubbieblue.com web site: 
     "Lee Smith was a dominant Cubs closer from 1980 until he was traded away after the 1987 season, including three 30-save seasons and being the closer on the Cubs' 1984 
National League East championship team."
     Which bring us to the Jerome Holtzman part of this story.
---
     One December day in 1987, for about five minutes, it was me vs. Jerome Holtzman debating the merits of relief pitcher Lee Arthur Smith.
     He was one of America's greatest sportswriters, baseball writers. Me? A nobody from Shreveport covering major-league baseball winter meetings [for The Times] at the Dallas Anatole.
     It was the only MLB winter meetings I ever covered; Mr. Holtzman probably covered more than 50, and everything important in the sport for that long.
     It was the day Lee Smith was traded from the Chicago Cubs to the Boston Red Sox. Mr. Holtzman was delighted; I was aghast at his delight.
     We were both in the room when the trade was announced. Dammit, I didn't like his reaction, and he came to realize that. As if it mattered, or he cared one little bit.  
     Please don't disparage the big kid from Castor.
     Jerome Holtzman, for five-plus decades, covered the Cubs and White Sox, usually for a half-season each, and here -- from Wikipedia -- is how highly regarded he was:
     "His influence and viewpoints made him something of a legend among newspapermen. Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard, who was sports editor of the [Chicago] Sun-Times for part of Holtzman's career, called him 'the dean of American baseball writers,' and went on to say, 'He never smiled, but he had the keys to Cooperstown. No major leaguer ever got into the Hall of Fame if Holtzman didn't want him there. He had tremendous sources. He was writing about the possibility of a baseball players union and a baseball players strike long before anyone else.' "
     OK, but by December 1987, Mr. Holtzman was not at all a Lee Smith fan. And I was.
      Holtzman never forgave Lee for a large failure in the 1984 National League Championship Series and, what's more, a difficult 1987 season.
      In the 1984 NL Championship Series, the Cubs -- with a 2-1 games lead in the best-of-five series, and one victory from breaking the 1945 curse -- lost Game 4 to San Diego  when Lee gave up a walkoff home run to Steve Garvey. The Padres then won Game 5 and went to the World Series.  
     From bleedcubbieblue.com again:     
     Smith had a rough year in his final year with the Cubs in 1987, with 12 blown saves and at times was booed off the mound. At the end of that season, it was felt that the Cubs needed to move on from him and he was traded to the Red Sox for Al Nipper and Calvin Schiraldi, one of the worst deals in recent Cubs history. Smith would go on to post six more 30-save seasons and three of more than 40, although he pitched in just one more postseason ..." 
     Mr. Holtzman's negative views on Lee, as I remember it, had to do with Lee's blown saves, ballooning weight and sore knees -- items referenced in my column from the '87 winter meetings.
     But when new Cubs director of baseball operations Jim Frey was asked about that, he praised Lee, even after he had traded him (at Lee's request, incidentally).
     "Wait, I've been one of his biggest defenders when some others in Chicago weren't," Frey is quoted in my column. "He almost never refuses the ball, he gets up and throws every day, he can work several days in a row, he's reliable, and he's not an old man. This guy is a horse, and he's been a horse.
     "We know we're giving up one of the premier stoppers. ..."
     My column includes numerous quotes from Lee. I do not remember this, but obviously I talked to him by phone that day. He made it clear that he was ready for a change of scenery from Chicago, and he was upbeat -- as he always was.        
---
      Here is an irony to Jerome Holtzman's view of Lee Smith then: One of Holtzman's greatest contributions to baseball is that he was the creator of the save statistic. He came up with that in 1959, and it was adopted as an official statistic beginning in the 1969 season, the first official new stats category since the RBI (run batted in) in 1920.
     So, maybe Lee Smith owes Mr. Holtzman thanks, no matter what the man thought in 1987.
     And when he retired from newspapers in 1999, Mr. Holtzman was named official history of Major League Baseball, a position he held until his death (stroke) in mid-July 2008.
     But, gosh, I wish he had been easier on Lee that December day in 1987.
---
      After Lee's playing career, he was a minor-league pitching instructor for a long while, including the San Francisco Giants' chain, which put him in Shreveport to work with the Captains during the 1990s.
      So the accompanying photo was taken at Fair Grounds Field. 
       It was fitting because Shreveport was the "big city" for the country boy from Castor (and Jamestown).  
       And now we can say that we were fans of this Baseball Hall of Famer for decades.
---
       Posted this on Facebook today, repeating it here ...
       Many, many stories written about Lee Smith over the years. This is the best story -- July 1987, Shreveport Journal, by Teddy Allen and John James Marshall, a first-place national award-winning story, a great read.
      http://www.designatedwriters.com/classic/lee-arthur-smith/?fbclid=IwAR0AyNyoevMRfex29ojdGrgi5Isys0duqi4ssv0NgIeGklZSZlbm9Ur6Lk8
---

 

"Fast Eddie:" A world of trouble ... a sad ending

     He was one of those kids we knew in the late 1950s -- a rough-edged, tough young guy. And then, where did he go?
     It is a sad story, a horrible one, really. Ended tragically. Two weeks ago, we got a reminder.
     Someone contacted me looking for information on this man, provided some background (not all of it correct), sent a photo, and asked, "Is this 'Fast' Eddie Smith?"
     Instant recognition. Yes. Yes, it is/was Eddie Smith.
     The photo -- from a Woodlawn High School yearbook -- was the kid we remembered ... from our neighborhood and our schools (Sunset Acres Elementary, Oak Terrace Junior High and Woodlawn). 
     We had been on the same kids' baseball team one year, I was certain of that. Read on, you'll see why I remember.
     The information sent said he was a 1965 graduate of Woodlawn, but, no, actually he was in the Class of '66. So a year behind us in school -- for eight years. 
     What was correct was this: In 1983, a man named Willie Eddie Smith was murdered in Shreveport.
     Intriguing. And, of course, I thought: This might make for an interesting blog. Time to do some research.
     Did not remember this happening, although it must have been in the papers. To find out, to be reminded 35 years later, was a bit of a shock.  
     We were in Shreveport in 1983, working as part of a terrific, talented, fun-loving sports department at the Journal. The big story in sports for us that year was second-year pro Hal Sutton's emergence as the top money winner on the PGA Tour and the PGA Championship wire-to-wire winner that August. 
     By then, Eddie Smith -- from Sunset Acres -- had been dead for 2 1/2 months. 
     Shot to death May 23 in an argument related to a card game (poker).   
     The "Fast Eddie" nickname, referenced in a newspaper story a week after Willie Edward Smith's obituary in The Shreveport Times, was a hint to the fast, wild, sordid life of the victim.
     Just how wild we learned by tracking down two people: (1) a Smith family member -- Eddie's nephew, a son of his oldest brother -- and (2) one of our school buddies.
     "Eddie stayed in trouble," said the nephew, R. Lewis  Smith. "Some people just find trouble wherever they go, and that was Eddie. And the trouble got worse and worse through his life."
     Until he met a fast death.
---
     Details of the end (taken from stories in The Times): Shot three times, in the head and the abdomen, and also beaten in the face.
     He had been the lone white man in a group of five at 2911 Portland, Apartment A, located in the Queensborough area (close to the State Fairgrounds).
      Much like Sunset Acres, Queensborough had been a comfortable, working-class, almost all-white residential neighborhood, but by 1983, it had become more mixed-race, lower-income, and the streets were meaner.
     The shooting, said the July 6 story which reported that the triggerman -- Jack King, then 34 -- had pleaded guilty, followed an argument over (what else?) money.
     King was allowed to take a lesser plea of manslaughter -- rather than second-degree murder -- in agreement to a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.
     After the Shreveport police investigation, King was arrested within two days after the shooting. 
     That day and over the next week, four people -- three men (one King's roommate) and one 20-year-old woman -- also were arrested and charged as accessories after the fact, meaning they witnessed the act, then helped clean blood from the apartment and dispose of the body. (Two of the "accessories" lived in the apartment.)
      Early the next morning after the shooting, Eddie's body was found in the rear seat of his compact foreign car [a red Plymouth Barracuda] on Hardy Street (some nine blocks from the Portland apartment).
       At the time of the murder, King also had been charged with armed robbery and aggravated burglary in another case. But that was dismissed in September 1983.
       The four "accessories" cases ultimately were dismissed, one by that July, the others late the next year.
       Guess the murder sentence was enough for the courts, and that with King in prison, the "accessories" were given leniency.
      No leniency for Eddie. But while his death "was a hard time for all of us," said nephew Lewis Smith, "it wasn't surprising.
     "He always ran with the wrong crowd. It was a downward spiral that Eddie went through for years and years."
 ---      
     In the stories in The Times, Eddie is listed as living in Keithville -- just south of Shreveport. But his obituary said he lived in Shreveport and his nephew said he resided at the  home that had been the family's for years -- 2867 Hollywood, the northeast part of Sunset Acres (the "other" side of the canal from us, about 11 blocks from our house, 10 blocks from the elementary school).
     That is where we remember him from the late 1950s.
     Willie Edward was born late in 1947, the "baby" of his family -- with a much older father (Robert Calhoun "Shorty" Smith) and mother Margaret Gould Smith, and two brothers who were almost a generation older -- Robert by 17 years, Jerry by 14. 
     The family dynamics were problematic.
     "He never got along with his father, my grandfather," said  Lewis Smith. 
     There was little connection with the brothers, who had long moved away from home by Eddie's teenage years.
     The tie with the mother was stronger, for many years. But the relationship soured as trouble mounted, and finally fell  apart.  
     Dennis Storey was a Sunset Acres friend, in the same grade as Eddie throughout school days, also a Woodlawn '66 graduate. He was a frequent visitor to the Smith home, and felt that Eddie "was an 'accident' child.
     "He was a spoiled kid," Storey remembered. "The way he talked to his Dad ... If I had talked to my Dad that way, he'd have whooped my ass." 
     "Shorty" Smith was a painter, and Eddie worked with his father some in those years. "I thought he would end up as a painter, too," said Storey. Did not happen; the obituary listed him as a plumber.
---
     Our brief tie with Eddie Smith was on a St. James Episcopal Church-sponsored midget league baseball team (ages 10-12) in either the summer of 1959 or 1960. He was a compact-built kid, a catcher, one of the better players on a team with little talent and few victories. 
     But here is the distinct memory ...
     Late in the season, on a game-ending play, an opposing runner crashed into Eddie at home plate and flattened him. He was hurt.
      In fact, he was hurt badly enough that the coach and concerned parents took him to a hospital. Internal injuries caused swelling and shock, and the vivid memory is that Eddie's body overnight had to be packed in ice.
     That incident perhaps was a sign of woes to come.
     He recovered, but he did not play again that summer. Don't recall him playing baseball again.
     But Storey said he remembered Eddie playing running back for our junior-high team: "He was a helluva football player ... he'd just as soon run over you as look at you." Another friend recalled Eddie running track one junior-high year. (I don't recall him in either sport, but I don't doubt it.)
     By high school, he was a different guy. He had the look, frankly, of a hood, a thug. The hair was slicked back, not a total ducktail -- so hood-looking in those days of the crewcut or flattop that our faculty much preferred -- but close.
     A memory from school: Eddie swaggered his way around.
     "His demeanor was that he wanted to be the tough guy," said Storey. "I did not run around with him by then. I thought he would eventually run into trouble. 
     "He was hanging around the wrong people, riding motorcycles. And I think he got in a gang."
    Storey, retired after 32 years of working in traffic engineering for the City of Shreveport and now living in Blanchard, recalled a chance meeting many years later at a convenience-store stop in Bossier City. In the parking lot, he noticed a familiar -- but changed -- figure.
     "He looked like a gang member," he said of Eddie. "Black leather jacket, the motorcycle ('choppers' they called them), beard, mustache, he was -- as they called it -- 'flying the colors' for the gang.
      "I talked to him, but I knew I didn't want to stay around long. It was obvious he was gang-related and dope-related."
     Mike Flores (Woodlawn Class of '65) was another neighborhood resident who lived closeby and said, "I remember Eddie Smith's name better than I remember Eddie the person. As I recall, he was on the periphery of all my groups."
     Flores said it had been decades and he had no knowledge of Eddie after high school.
     "My memory is that he ran with a rougher crowd," Mike said. "Maybe his associates caught up with him in the end."
     For sure, Eddie Smith was a black-cloud person, accidents waiting to happen. 
---
     Lewis Smith, 63, a Shreveport resident who is a certified public accountant and registered financial advisor, said that writing about Eddie now would not be a problem for the family. "We all know the story," he said.
     The trail of trouble was long, and Lewis offered some details. So did our check with the Caddo Parish Clerk of Courts office.
     • An altercation with the Shreveport police in which he was a holdout inside a house, then was shot and had a severe stomach wound.              
     • A conviction for possession/distribution of methamphetamines Dec. 7, 1972, and a sentence of two years hard labor at the federal prison in Oakdale, La.
     • A couple of motorcycle wrecks. On one, he hit a median curve going 70-80 miles an hour ("he was totally reckless," said Lewis), causing a shattered jawbone and a total reconstruction of his jaw. Lewis: "He kind of mumbled after that." 
      • A conviction for receiving stolen goods, Jan. 10, 1983, a guilty plea, a fine of $500 and costs or 50 days in the Caddo Parish jail.
       A little more than four months later, the end.
       Lewis, who had been a funeral director for Rose-Neath before becoming a CPA, knew some of the people who made the arrangements for Eddie's service and burial (Lewis was one of the pallbearers).
     For the final decade of his life, family members occasionally would see Eddie. Lewis said his younger brother Charles Wayne also was a plumber and at times crossed paths with Eddie at work.
     ."He [Eddie] was always on the fringe of the family," Lewis said. "He might show up for holidays, but he was not really part of it."
     And even the mother, who had tried to maintain a relationship, gave up.
     "She settled up with Eddie several years before [his death," Lewis said, "and did not have much to do with him. She was tired of financially bailing him out and supporting him."
      The death "was hard to Memaw to accept, it was a grueling time for her. But it also put her at peace. It put a lot of things to rest."
---
      There is no redeeming message in Eddie Smith's story. It is an example that even in an idyllic neighborhood and schools of our youth not everything turned out well in our Camelot. 
       It is, though, a heartbreaking story -- one of several from our area.
       "It wasn't that Eddie did not have good examples in his household," Lewis Smith said, recalling his grandparents' efforts. "Memaw could not understand what happened to him.
       "He could not change, or he didn't want to. Other people go through rehab, and some make changes. Some don't. He didn't even try."

             

One of the most colorful all-time Yankees is ... Brown

     (Note: Wrote this for "Designated Writers," the web site of two longtime sportswriting types with Shreveport ties, Teddy Allen and John James Marshall. So I was a "Designated Contributor," and the intro was written by Teddy.)
---

     Nico Van Thyn (former boss and mentor of your DW co-founders) and his forever wife Bea live in a nice retirement spot in Fort Worth. One of his fellow retirement teammates is … a recognizable name. For a New York Yankees fan such as Nico is, it’s like living next door to a boyhood baseball card. He wrote this in July and I read it with joy then and … forgot to post it. Because I am selfish. Unlike former Yankees star infielder and American League President Bobby Brown. The picture is from 2016 at the 70th annual Yankees Old Timers Game; Dr. Brown is in the middle, flanked by Don “Perfect Game” Larsen on the left as you look at the picture and first baseman Eddie Robinson, still the oldest living Yankee at 97).
 --- 

     One of the real treats for me here at Trinity Terrace is that Dr. Bobby Brown -- Yankees star third baseman from 1947-54 (with two years interrupted by the U.S. Army and the Korean War), American League president (1984-94) and well-known Fort Worth cardiologist for 25 years -- lives here.
     We see him at breakfast every morning, Bea more than me because don't go down for breakfast too often, but I speak to him in the dining room (he is there almost the same time every night, sitting in or near the same area, by himself).
     I have sat with him several mornings at breakfast, and here are some stories and opinions from Dr. Brown ...
     Dr. Brown mentioned that [the Rangers'] Joey Gallo has something like 200 strikeouts already. I told him that Aaron Judge has 132 and asked what he thought the difference was in today's game.
     He talked about the big swings and lack of sacrifice with two strikes, how emphasis used to be on just making contact. Said he struck out 88 times. I asked, “That was your season high?” His reply: “That was for my career.”
---
     He said players asked longtime Yankees third-base coach Frank Crosetti — “a great guy” — for advice. “ 'Until you get two strikes,' ” Cro told them, “'swing from your ass.' That was our hitting coach.” He was laughing. So was I.
---
     I was telling Dr. Brown about the YouTube video John W. Marshall had sent me about one of baseball’s best umpire-manager arguments: umpire Jerry Crawford and Cubs manager Don Zimmer. (Look it up; it was quite a scene).
     The mention of Zimmer brought a couple of Dr. Brown stories. They were friends -- Zimmer was a young player late in Dr. Brown’s career, and then they had the late Yankees’ connection when Zimmer was Joe Torre’s bench coach.
     When he was the Cubs’ manager, Zimmer lived on the 60th floor of Chicago's Sears Tower (then the tallest building in the U.S.). He was asked why so high.
     “If the ballclub is going bad, and I feel like I want to jump out the window,” he answered, “I don’t want to be merely wounded.”
---
     Zimmer’s daughter was an airline stewardess. When they asked Zim if she looked like him, he replied, “Good God, I hope not. If she does, she is in trouble.”
---
     Dr. Brown said Lefty Gomez, long one of the Yankees’ pitching aces and known for his humorous personality, had a ball hit back to him one day with runners on base, and he kind of froze, then threw the ball to second baseman Tony Lazzeri, who had no play anywhere. After the game, Gomez was asked why he threw the ball to Lazzeri. He replied: “He’s the smartest guy on our team, so I figured he would know what to do with it.”
---
     Gomez married an actress, June O’Dea, and the talk was that the marriage would not last 30 days. (I looked it up and early on, it was a quite contentious marriage). But when they reached their 55th wedding anniversary, Lefty observed that, “Well, I guess we beat that 30-day mark.”
---
     Dr. Brown said he invited Gomez to Fort Worth to speak one day at Shady Oaks CC (where Ben Hogan hung out). Picked him up at airport and they drove past the zoo. It was a very hot day and they heard a loud noise.
     “What was that?” Gomez asked. 
     “Those are the lions,” Dr. Brown told him.
     Another roar. “Must be too hot for them,” Gomez observed. 
     “You know,” Dr. Brown answered, “it gets pretty hot in Africa, too.”
---
     Dr. Brown loved Whitey Ford, said he is “a wonderful guy” and he told this story about Ford’s rookie season (1950) ...
     Said Ford came to the majors at the All-Star Game break and he immediately was sensational, something like 10-2 in mid-September when the Yankees were fighting Detroit for the American League pennant and barely had a lead. Three-game series, first two games were split, and Ford was the starter for the third game with first place on the line.
     “We were worried about it,” Dr. Brown said, “and we did not know what to expect from him in a big game.”
     Ford’s mound opponent was Dizzy Trout (I looked this up, and Dr. Brown was correct about most things in his recollection of the game).
     In the middle innings, the Yankees had the lead and Ford was cruising. When he was about to face the Tigers’ catcher — Bob Swift, Dr. Brown said — Ford signaled to Dr. Brown at third base and gave him a “come here” wave. Dr. Brown thought, “Oh, oh, he’s about to let the pressure get to him.”  
     Dr. Brown trotted to the mound. “What’s that guy’s name?” Whitey asked him. Dr. Brown gave him the name.
     “You know, he looks fatter than he did when he batted last time,” Whitey said.
     “I knew then that this kid was going to be all right, and so were we,” Dr. Brown said. “He was not going to get shook up.”
---
     He has lots of Yogi stories. Here are a couple of quick ones: 
     Yogi was being introduced as a Houston Astros’ coach in 1985, and at the same time, the Astros had signed a reserve outfielder. When the player was being introduced, his statistics were cited, and the year before he had something like 19 RBI.
     Afterward, Yogi said to this outfielder: “Did they say that you drove in 19 runs last season?” “Yes,” the young man replied. “I drove in 22 one day in Newark,” Yogi told him.
     “And that’s true,” Dr. Brown confirmed. “I was on that Newark team with him, and it was a doubleheader and every time Yogi came to the plate, there were men on base, and he drove them in, so … 22 RBIs in one day.”
     Yogi was at the New York Giants’ press conference when they announced the signing of Paul Giel, a terrific all-around athlete at the University of Minnesota who chose to play baseball as a pitcher (he later was the athletic director at Minnesota).
     It was the off-season and Yogi, who lived across the river, went to Toots Shor’s for the press conference … “he didn’t have anything else to do,” Dr. Brown said, laughing.
     Afterward, Yogi saw Giel and said, “Did they say you are a right-hander?” Yes, Giel confirmed.
     “I murder right-handers,” Yogi told him.
---
     I have asked him about various Yankees’ players — Gil McDougald (who platooned with him at third base a couple of years), Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, Billy Martin, Mantle.
     On Raschi: “If we got to the seventh inning and we had the lead with him on the mound, the game was over. Every pitch he threw from then on was faster than the one before. He was not going to get beat.”
     On Reynolds, like me, he thinks he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. “The biggest crime in baseball,” he said of his omission.
     “When that Big Indian came in late in game [he often was used as the closer], he did not mess around. It was bang, bang, bang … strike one, strike two, strike three. You’re in the clubhouse.”
     On Martin: “He was impossible. Crazy. You never knew what he was going to do off the field. If they could have put him in a cage right after a game ended and then let him out right before the game the next day, they would have been all right.”
     About Mantle: “Just a great talent. But his brain didn’t work that well.”
---
     On Casey Stengel: “I would watch him in the dugout and listen to him," Dr. Brown said. "A guy would go up and swing at the first pitch and Casey would say, “Why does he do that? Why doesn’t he wait and see what this guy is throwing?” Next guy up would take the first strike, “Why doesn’t he swing the bat? The pitch is right in there, that’s a good ball to hit.
     Dr. Brown: “You never knew what he was going to say.”
     I asked if he thought Stengel was a great manager. He was evasive, or diplomatic with his answer. “Well, he had great players,” he said, smiling. “Casey always said, ‘I couldn’t have done it without my players,’ and he was right.”
     I asked him how players felt about being platooned by Stengel. “Well, they didn’t mind,” he said. “We had such great teams, we always had 4-5 guys on the bench who were just as good as the guys on the field. … We had guys who really were better in big games — DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Yogi, Johnny Mize, Gene Woodling, me,” (and he didn’t even mention players such as Hank Bauer, McDougald, Martin and, obviously, Mantle.)
     I asked if he ever had contract battles with George Weiss, who was a penny-pinching general manager for the filthy rich Yankees. 
     “I did,” he said. “But they didn’t last long. I had an advantage. I was a medical student and they knew (in the early 1950s) that I eventually was going to have a career in medicine. So I would tell him [Weiss], ‘Look, I don’t need to be playing baseball. If I don’t play, the sooner I can get my medical studies done and go into practice.’ So he would raise the offer some and we would settle on a figure.”
---
     About Steinbrenner:
     “A total [bleep],” he said quickly, shaking his head at the thought. “Really, I did not have much to do with him, or him with me.”
     “If he was dealing with a baseball executive who had not been a player, he would say, ‘That guy never played. He doesn’t know anything about the game.’ If he was dealing with a former player or a manager or GM, he would say, “He doesn’t know anything about running a business.
     “He did not know what to do with me — I was a former player and I had my medical practice for all those years. So he left me alone.”
     But, “He loved my wife; she was a really good-looking woman. So we would see him in New York City, and he would acknowledge me, but he always gave her a big hug and he would pay a lot of attention to her. I would just be standing there watching him, thinking, ‘What a guy.’ ”
     He said when Buck Showalter was the Yankees’ manager, Steinbrenner would demand that Buck could not leave the ballpark without talking to him. "Sometimes it would be 2:30 in the morning, and Buck is still there," Dr. Brown recalled.
     “I told Buck -- who came here, Dallas-Fort Worth, often because he had a kid at SMU -- you can’t keep doing this. There are a lot of guys in hospitals with coronary problems because they worked too many hours.’
     "… And the first chance Buck got to leave the Yankees, he took it.”
---
     A final story: Dr. Brown's Rangers’ tickets are in row 12, seats 1-2-3-4, in the section just to the first-base side. He was offered tickets behind home plate, but he knows that the scouts like to sit there — they find seats that are empty — and he does not like to ask them to move.
     The man who has seats in the row in the front of Dr. Brown operates a business and they visit a couple of times a season. The man at times brings customers or friends. One night before a game, Dr. Brown was sitting in his seat and  one of the customers or friends noticed a scout sitting down the way wearing a huge ring. He speculated it was a World Series ring, and Dr. Brown confirmed that.
     “Think he’d let me see it,” the guy said. Dr. Brown told him he probably would.
     The scout was Gene “Stick” Michael of the Yankees.
     So Dr. Brown waved to Michael and indicated that the man wanted to see the ring. Michael came over and complied, and the man was oohing and aahing about the ring.
     “He’s got one, too,” Michael said, pointing to Dr. Brown.
     The man was incredulous, and asked Dr. Brown to see it. His 1949 ring — which I have seen him wearing — isn’t nearly as fancy as you can imagine Michael’s was. The man  looked at Dr. Brown and asked, “Who are you?”
     Dr. Brown's answer. "Babe ... Ruth."

Cannon's friend, but not Captain Shreve's

Bobby Olah, with his Louisiana High
School Sports Hall of Fame plaque
(Livington Parish News photo)
July 2018

     One name in the book on Billy Cannon -- subject of a blog piece a couple of months ago -- caught my attention:
     Bobby Olah.
     We remember that guy, and not fondly. Hint: He was a basketball referee.
     Olah's connection to Cannon was as a longtime friend. But they first were competitors, not in football, but in basketball.
     Olah was from Albany, La., a small place near Hammond about 40 miles directly east from Baton Rouge, and we think he still lives there. Olah was an All-State guard at Albany, a Class B (non-football) school which in 1956 played against Class AAA giant Istrouma (BR), for whom Cannon was a roughhouse forward.
      Albany was a power in its class and came to Baton Rouge to play in the prestigious Wedge Kyes tournament. Cannon was into basketball season after a sensational senior season leading Istrouma to the state football championship.
      Istrouma's basketball players had gone to a game to scout Albany and Olah, and knew Olah was the go-to player, top scorer and ballhandler.
       Cannon decided the way to guard Olah was to be physical with him, at every chance. So as the story in the book on Cannon relates, that is exactly what happened.
      And Billy apparently roughed up Olah. He admits to it, with emphasis, in the book. And Olah's memory: "I distinctly recall looking up at him from my back on the floor. He was standing over me, grinning."
     Albany did win the game, 45-43, and the tournament championship. It later advanced to the Class B state semifinals for the first time in school history.
     Olah was also a standout baseball player and signed to play two sports at McNeese State, but circumstances led to his winding up at then-Southeastern Louisiana College (near his hometown), where he was mostly a reserve in basketball. 
    Officiating basketball for fun was something he liked, and  in 1959 -- while in college -- he signed up to call area high school games. 
     His reputation grew into playoff-level assignments and he eventually moved into college games -- and stayed for 35 years, including being on the Southeastern, Southwest, Southland and Gulf States (all-Louisiana) conference crews. 
     But we remember him most for one state tournament, the "Top Twenty," and primarily for one -- infamous -- call.
     In 1970, he made the charging call that (arguably) kept Captain Shreve's team -- one of the greatest Shreveport-Bossier teams in history -- from winning the Class AAA state championship.
     It played in one of the most dramatic state finals ever. One reason: A titanic matchup -- Brother Martin (New Orleans) was 35-0, Captain Shreve was 35-1, with a 34-game winning streak.

     Second reason: There were nearly 16,000 fans packed into 12,000-seat Rapides Coliseum in Alexandria. No room to move anywhere. 

      The Louisiana High School Athletic Association did not have a workable ticket plan, no reserved, assigned seating. Had never needed it. So tickets were sold to anyone who could cram into the place. It was hard to breathe.
     (Official attendance for the night session was 15,676. Obviously, the fire marshals were no factor.)
     Shreve was so much better earlier in the game. Led by 16 at one point in the first, and still by 12 at halftime. One huge problem: foul trouble.  

     Olah and his officiating partner called it closer and closer until Shreve's team -- admittedly with little depth; only six players had most of the playing time -- had to bench its star players, All-Staters Mike Harrell and Jeff Sudds, or risk them fouling out. 
    Olah and partner then loosened up. They allowed Brother Martin's pressing defense enough contact to force turnovers, kill Shreve's momentum, and the Crusaders warmed up to make it a back-and-forth game for the last quarter.
     It was tied in the final minute. With time running down, Captain Shreve had the ball. The Gators set up a play, but the ball went out of bounds. Still Shreve's possession, 0:09 remaining.
    The ball went in to guard and floor leader Shelby Houston, whose drive on the right baseline was stopped by contact with a Brother Martin defender. 
      Olah's call: Charge!
      Damn. Might not have been the worst call in state-tournament history, but it's the one we remember most. 
      Easily could have called a foul on Brother Martin for blocking. But in front of Brother Martin's large, loud student cheering section -- the all-boys Catholic schools from New Orleans always had great followings -- Olah made what we thought was a South Louisiana decision, just as he and his partner had for most of the second half.
      So Houston, a cool team leader, never got a chance for free throws. When Brother Martin missed a last-second shot, the game went to overtime.
       And quickly in OT, Captain Shreve's two super big men, Harrell and Sudds, fouled out -- and Brother Martin won the overtime by an astounding 16-0. (Four Gators ended up fouling out; only one Crusader did so.)
      After the game, in the front lobby of Rapides Coliseum, Olah was out there talking and laughing with friends. Two sportswriters from Shreveport -- a young one (from The Times) writing this blog and the other one, the very large and imposing Jerry Byrd (the Journal) --  were there standing several feet away.
      Byrd stared down Bobby Olah for what seemed like a full five minutes. Never took his eyes off him. Never said a word.
      Not sure that Olah noticed; he was too busy cajoling with his friends. But if [Byrd's] looks could have killed, Bobby had just officiated his final game.
      One thing for sure: He never lacked confidence in his own ability. He had a swagger.
---
     Maybe Bobby was tired that day. It was his second game of the day; he had called the Class C final that opened the Saturday card -- the memorable Ebarb-Pleasant Hill matchup, two district rivals from Sabine Parish playing each other for the 11th time that year.
     Ebarb featured the all-time leading high school career scorer, Greg Procell, but it was his longtime teammate Walter "Tootsie Roll" Meshell who made a hurried 15-foot jumper at the buzzer -- or as the Pleasant Hill folks forever claimed, after the buzzer -- to give Ebarb a one-point victory.
     Rapides was already packed for that game (attendance was listed as 11,545). But that night, about 4,000 more people paid their way in.     
     Olah officiated one game too many that day, and made one too many charging calls.
     In the Livingston Parish News story I saw, Olah said that afterward then-LHSAA commissioner T.H. "Muddy" Waters "told me that I was the best official to ever work a state tournament." 
     Oh, geez, did I miss something?
     And Waters, who made his home in nearby Hammond (regional prejudice?), then recommended Olah to the SEC. 
     He did officiate in the SEC for a long time, worked games in some of the country's biggest arena and largest crowds, and I am sure that some people -- maybe even coaches -- considered him a competent official. 

     To be fair, I did not know Bobby Olah at all. And he has had a good life. Sadly, his wife June passed away in late August (cancer). Sorry to hear that.
      Saw in the Livingston Parish News story that Bobby, now about 79, (1) was a junior high coach in Albany, then worked in the Louisiana Department of Education for a couple of decades and (2) he was inducted into the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame this past April. 
     Good for him. We did not get a vote. But we are sure he got a lot of support from the Brother Martin crowd.
---
https://www.livingstonparishnews.com/sports/basketball-albany-s-bobby-olah-comes-full-circle-with-induction/article_d49485bc-8918-11e8-91ba-af58d2066723.html

Excuses, whining are for ... losers

     OK, observations on the LSU-Texas A&M football game that was quite the spectacle Saturday night. Hey, we have nothing else to do, and it seems to be quite the talk on Facebook. So ...
     First, two quick thoughts: (1) A&M deserved to win; (2) LSU did not deserve to lose. 
     (Yeah, that's confusing. But I am conflicted.)   
     Make all the excuses you want, place all the blame -- on officiating, on the highly paid defensive coordinator -- and whine forever. Not into that personally.

LSU linebacker Devin White (40), from Springhill was outstanding in
this game,  as he has been all season, but he and his teammates
 could not keep their grip on A&M QB Kellen Mond or the victory. 

     (Well, I do have one "excuse" for LSU, but it is more an analysis/explanation. Stay tuned.)
     LSU fans are upset -- mad? crazy? -- and you could say rightfully so. They feel robbed -- by the officials -- and I could make a case for that.
     But a fact: The final result ain't changing. And, frankly, the whining/excuse-making is tiring. Give A&M credit for not giving up, for making play after play after play, and for having lots of luck.
     Give the LSU kids credit -- despite some odds -- for never giving up, for proving that this is a football team that has given all it for most of this season. It is not a great team, but it is a darned competitive one.
     Aggies fans are elated and, gosh, they needed this victory ... because they are Aggies. 
     Look, I root for LSU -- and Louisiana Tech -- in every instance. I also have a bunch of friends with A&M ties, some good longtime friends, and it is a wonderful university (as almost all universities/colleges are). The tradition there is outstanding ... and some of the traditions are, well, weird.
     Sorry, Aggies, not about to apologize for feeling that way. You are proud of your place; we just shake our heads.
     Oh, heck, back to the football game. Posted this on Facebook, and will repeat it here: 
     A helluva football game. Great win for Aggies, no shame for Tigers. Both teams fought their hearts out. (more below)
---
     There were several debatable calls in the final minute of regulation and in the overtimes. Officiating is what it is -- never going to be perfect.
     But here is a fact: LSU had a dozen chances to end this game. Could not do it. One play in any of those situations -- offensively or defensively -- would have done it. 
     Starting with the 3rd-and-4 play when a first down -- with A&M out of timeouts -- would have clinched it at the 2-minute mark. The Tigers' play call was too predictable, too conservative -- a run to the right by QB Joe Burrow -- and easily stopped. Forced a punt.
     (I think Steve Ensminger has done a really nice job with play-calling all season, and in his stint two years ago, too. But not a perfect job.)

A&M's Kellen Mond (11) made so many big plays late in this game.
 (Associated Press photo by David J. Phillip)

     On the Aggies' tying drive at the end of regulation, LSU's defense gave up pass completions of 12 yards (on 3rd-and-10), 13, 20 (on 4th-and-18), 22 and then the crushing 19-yard TD (after the disputed 0:01 put back on the clock).
     Five plays made by A&M QB Kellen Mond and his corps of receivers, who got better and better as the game wore on.
(And it did wear on.)
     In the overtimes, the Aggies -- especially Mond, scrambling away from LSU's attempted defensive pressure -- had gains of 12, 9, 17, 25 (TD pass), 10, 21, 13, a tying PAT pass, and a 4th-and-6 tying TD pass (and spectacular, one-handed catch by Kendrick Rogers -- the play of the game, in my opinion).
      No way to win a game defensively.
     Yes, a couple of very tough calls went against LSU -- the targeting/ejection call, and the last pass interference against  Shreveport's Greedy Williams. (Greedy can play, and he's going to be a first-round NFL draft pick. But he did get beat on the 1-second-remaining tying TD pass.)
     But, darned it, here's a couple of defensive points for the LSU defense: 
     (1) Aggies ran 6 plays inside the LSU 4 during the overtimes, did not score; that is a heroic effort; 
     (2) LSU played this game without five defensive starters (a linebacker, a down lineman, two cornerbacks, the free safety) -- all hurt, a couple out for the season. Then the starting middle linebacker is ejected in overtime. 
     So, you have the fifth-through-seventh best defensive backs on the team on the field for most of the game. And little depth or experience to replace them. (And this is my excuse for LSU; you don't have to buy it.)
     Those kids played their butts off. You want to blame the defensive coordinator, who is one of the nation's best (and highest paid), you do so. I won't.
     As for blaming the officials or the replay official, it is too easy, too convenient. Yes, I question putting the one second back on the clock -- that's what Coach O and the LSU staff were furious about afterward -- and I thought A&M's nine-man line of scrimmage was pretty obvious before the spike play (think it is a 5-yard penalty, but no clock runoff). But that's life in athletics, folks.
     It was A&M's great fortune that a screwup, Mond fumbling the snap, picking it up and then throwing a deflected pass that was intercepted, became a giant break when his knee touched the ground as he picked up the fumble. Think the replay was clear on that.
     Another fumble, the muffed punt return by LSU, recovered by A&M in the third quarter was a real momentum-breaker at the time for LSU. After the Tigers' defense, not too stout in the first half, had settled in and forced two Aggies' punts, that fumble hurt and gave A&M a short field (29 yards) for a tying-breaking touchdown.
     Practically forgotten in all the overtime drama.
 ---    
     The rest of my original postgame Facebook post: There is a reason why for years I have said and written that overtime is BS. Coaches do not have to "go for it" at the end of games, they can settle for another OT. Jimbo took the easy way out twice, Coach O once. No guts. Some games should just be ties.
     John James Marshall will vouch for this: Since 1985, I have written and said -- repeatedly -- that overtime is unnecessary for regular-season high school and college football. Playoffs, yes, there has to be a way (if the old first downs or penetrations method was unacceptable).
     It is a long and separate argument (and blogs), and one of my friends (Jimmy Manasseh put a proposal on Facebook today that I like) ... but back to Saturday's game.
     Jimbo Fisher could have made the decision at the end of regulation, when it was 31-30, LSU, to have his team go for a two-point PAT -- win or lose, right there. But he chose the tying PAT kick, and even refused an offside penalty on LSU that would have put the ball at the 1 1/2-yard-line on a retry.
     Worked out for Jimbo and A&M, but it was a chicken-spit way out. 
     At the end of the second overtime, LSU scored and was one point behind. Coach O chose to go for the tying PAT kick (and a third overtime). He could have had the Tigers go for two -- win or lose, right there. Nope. Chicken-spit way out.(Hey, Paul Dietzel would have gone for two.)
     These head coaches are paid millions a year to make those tough calls. But the rules, at the end of regulation and the first two OTs, give them an easy out -- a "no guts" out. Make the so-tired kids play some more overtime(s). 
     Yes, it is great theater. What happened in this game, the tremendous do-it-or-lose scenarios, was riveting. (Of course, I did not watch; I refuse to watch the OTs in college or high school football, my own statement of protest. No guts.)
---
     One more angle on A&M-LSU football, the sentiment that it was not a rivalry. How stupid and short-sighted a thought.
     The Bryan Eagle web site headline: "Texas A&M needs to beat LSU to help the series become a rivalry." Heard that in the pregame comment on TV, too.
      In memory of John David Crow, Ken Beck and Richard Gay -- North Louisiana football fans will remember -- A&M-LSU long has been a rivalry, always will be. The on-field games have been going for more than a century; the recruiting battle is fierce in many areas -- especially around  Houston.
     So what if LSU had won the previous seven games? Never easy, always competitive. Think it wasn't a rivalry when A&M won six out of seven in the 1990s, five in a row from 1991-95. Think that Cotton Bowl at the end of the 2010 season (LSU, 41-24) wasn't tough?
     Think that A&M did not kind of resent playing 16 times in a row in Baton Rouge -- and rarely ever won? Think that one of those rare Aggies' victories, 20-18 in 1970, on a 78-yard pass from Lex James to Bucky McElroy with 13 seconds remaining, wasn't devastating for LSU?  
      Look, Alabama has beaten LSU eight times in a row, and Bama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant beat his former player and then-LSU coach Charlie McClendon 14 out of 16 (the only Tigers' wins were in 1969 and '70), but -- darn it -- it is still a rivalry. And it was when LSU beat Bama seven out of eight starting in 2000 (Nick Saban's first season as LSU coach).
      Too many "not a rivalry" experts out there. Too many fans second-guessing everything that didn't go their way.   
      LSU fans should be proud of this season's team. Stop complaining. Yes, a 9-3 regular season could have/should have been 10-2. Still, these Tigers were a pleasant surprise,  fought hard and achieved a great deal, and -- my opinion, again -- deserve a New Year's Day bowl game. 
        I have gone overtime in this blog, several overtimes. I should gave gone for a two-point PAT much sooner.