RSN: Jim, How did the idea for a book on baseball eccentrics come about?
JP: I had the idea for awhile that a proper book should be written on the great eccentrics of the game. The thing I like most about baseball is the eccentric nature of the sport and its great characters. The very makeup of the game, the fields with their angles, slants and different features all add to the eccentric nature of the sport. Fenway Park is an excellent example of this and it has led to all sorts of eccentric behavior. Most recently of course was Manny’s disappearance into the Green Monster during a game. In short, what convinced me that a book like this was necessary is my belief that baseball has lost something in recent years in terms of this. There is no doubt that today’s players are superior athletically but I believe that the color of the personalities has lessened. Players like Dizzy Dean and Yogi Berra, to name just a couple, were great players but they also knew how to have a good time on the field as well. I wanted to tell the stories of some of the great characters of the game and I was lucky enough to have Bill Lee help tell these stories.
RSN: What qualified a player as being eccentric?
JP: Bill and I purposefully divided the book into chapters depending on the type of eccentricity. Not everyone is a Bill Lee who is a very intelligent, literate person and can speak on any subject. Some eccentrics fall into the category of the Absorbine Jr. in the jockstrap or hotfoot category. That came into a lower category of eccentricity in our minds. There were the deep thinkers and philosophers like Moe Berg who was a spy during the war and who could speak five different languages. The chapter names in the book denote the type of eccentricity that we grouped them under. The common denominator was that they were all out of the mainstream and not afraid to show that they were different from their fellow ballplayers.
RSN: Was it much of a task to divide the players into these different categories?
JP: It was not as difficult as you might think. For example, with categories like the philosophers, the ranters and ravers, the hotfoots and hotdogs, the misanthropes, malapropos and magicians, the superstitious and bizarre -- you could probably fit many into a couple of categories but usually each leaned more to a certain type. No one could deny that Satchel Paige was a great philosopher. He is quoted as often as many of the great academic philosophers. His, “Don’t look back something might be gaining on you” is a classic example. Joe Garagiola was in this category as he had thoughts on all aspects of the game; Moe Berg because he was perhaps the most intelligent person ever to play the game. Interestingly, once he read a newspaper he considered it dead and anyone who picked up the paper and read it after him was despoiling the dead. Dan Quisenberry is one of my favorite characters in the book. He had a poet’s spirit. He was a very articulate man who looked beneath the surface of the game and saw a beauty that most players did not see. The ranters and ravers is the x-rated part of the book. Men such as Tommy Lasorda and Earl Weaver fit well here. Tommy Lasorda’s most famous rant was likely the one where he was asked about his thoughts on a game, and on Reggie Jackson’s performance in a game that he just lost. Weaver actually had a fake rant that he and the Oriole announcer did before the game where he used every profanity possible. Lee Elia, at the time the Cub’s manager, launched into a tirade about his own fans asking why so many of them were at the park that afternoon. He asked, “What is the matter with them, don’t any of them have jobs?” Leo Durocher and Ted Williams were also great ranters. Hotfoots and hotdogs was the category that Bill Lee was least excited about, believing that this was the lowest rung of eccentricity. There were certainly some very hilarious characters in this group such as Moe Drabowsky and Mickey McDermott. The late McDermott was one of the funniest people I have ever interviewed.
RSN: You have mentioned several players who have played for the Red Sox. If I throw out a player’s name, can give us an example of what qualified him to be in the book? Let’s start with Gene Conley.
JP: Gene Conley, along with Pumpsie Green, after one game where Conley took the loss, decided to go bar-hopping after they left the team bus. Conley decided that the pair should bolt the team and go to Israel. Initially, Green thought that it was a good idea but came to his senses upon reaching the airport and talked Conley out of it. Conley probably would have gone, but it wouldn’t have been because of his Jewish roots because he wasn’t Jewish.
RSN: How about Luis Tiant?
JP: Tiant is one of my all time favorite Red Sox players. One reason he made it, of course, was his unorthodox motion but he was also a great entertainer with a great sense of humor. Not only did the fans love him but he was also a favorite among his teammates. Both Yaz and Bill Lee thought he was the funniest man in the game. He did more for team chemistry on those Red Sox teams than any other person. When Tommy Harper came to the Sox he was a very shy person but Tiant broke down that shyness and brought him into the group. Tiant should really have his own category. I have the utmost respect for him.
RSN: What is your favorite Jimmy Piersall story?
JP: I think Mickey McDermott gave me my favorite Piersall story. After one particular at bat when he was called out on a third strike by the home plate umpire, Piersall took a gun out of his pants and pointed it at the ump and pulled the trigger. A big blast of water hit the umpire in the center of his forehead. The umpire was so shocked he fainted right at home plate.
RSN: That is a great story. What is a favorite Bernie Carbo moment?
JP: Bernie did all kind of things. He had a stuffed animal he used to take with him everywhere. He used to bring it into restaurants and order it food and drinks. He also had a grand slam home run once where he was congratulated by some of his teammates who expressed surprise that Zimmer had let him bat against a left handed pitcher. Bernie replied, “No, he wasn’t left handed. Zim would never let me bat under those circumstances.” His teammates replied, “No, he was left handed, and with the bases loaded no less.” Carbo replied,” Bases loaded, the bases weren’t loaded.” So not only he didn’t know who he was hitting against, he had no idea of the situation either.
RSN: Let’s go back a few years to a famous Sox pitcher, Dutch Leonard.
JP: Well, one time Leonard was pitching a shutout for the Senators, against the Philadelphia Athletics, when a one-hop liner was hit right back at him. It struck him in the stomach. Leonard tried to find it, believing it was between his glove and his stomach, but it wasn’t there. He glanced around the mound and couldn’t see it when all of a sudden he realized there was an extra ball in his pants. When he went to grab it the ball began to fall down his pant leg and there he was on the mound swatting at himself like a man being devoured by insects. By the time he finally freed it, the runner was already safe at first.
RSN: One final Red Sox player I would ask you to comment on is Curt Schilling.
JP: Certainly he is all business on the mound and is a real student of the art of pitching. So when you hear someone talking like, “My foray into the lower gut was a lot of fun, completing the rogue of the last circle quest was a blast, the camping roster was a nightmare,” you possibly would think that this was an illegitimate son of Casey Stengel. But, of course, it refers to his computer compulsion for the game “Everquest”.
RSN: This book must have been a lot of fun to write.
JP: It was on several counts. I enjoyed doing research and finding out about the lives of many of these guys. Some, like Berra, Dean and Stengel were well known, but there were others like Charlie Faust. Faust wrote a letter to New York Giant manager John McGraw asking for a job. Faust was considered a pretty feeble-minded lad by many but McGraw invited him along with the team and he became sort of a mascot, entertaining the fans before games. He actually got into a couple of games. Was it just pure coincidence that the teams luck began to change after Faust became part of the team and the Giants went on to win the pennant? His is a very interesting story and readers would be well served to do a bit of research on him.
RSN: The cover of the book has Yogi Berra on it. As a Red Sox fan, did this cause much debate or was it a slam dunk decision?
JP: Well, Bill Lee did not think that a Yankee should ever be on the cover of a book he was involved with, but I did not feel quite as strong about it. He has added so much to the lexicon of the game and society. He embodies so much about the eccentricity of the game. He was not a Rhodes Scholar but he was a scholar of the game of baseball. He took the time to talk off the field and to entertain. Once someone on the Yankees approached him and told him that his wife had called and said to tell him that she might be late picking him up after the game as she was going to see Dr. Zhivago. Yogi replied, “Oh God! What’s wrong with her now?”
RSN: One last story, Jim?
JP: It has to be a Bob Uecker story. Bob does not mind being the butt of his own jokes; he has that self-deprecating sense of humor. As a career .200 hitter, I once asked him how he would compare himself to the great Ted Williams. He replied, “When Ted walks down the street, people will say there goes the greatest hitter that ever lived, and after I retired I didn’t walk down streets, I walked down alleys. Once, on the Johnny Carson Show, Johnny asked him about the Cardinals 1964 World Series win. Bob answered, “Well I had to sit out all the games because I had come down with hepatitis.” Carson asked, “How did you get that?” Uecker answered, “Oh, the trainer injected me with it.”
RSN: I lied, Jim. I must ask you to share a Bill Lee story.
JP: There is one conversation he had with Dennis Eckersley when they both played with the Sox where Eck said to Bill that he threw salad while he himself threw cheese. He called Bill the “saladmaster.” He said to Bill, “I will say this -- you can certainly paint.” Bill said, “You mean like Rembrandt?” Eckersley answered, “Who is that? I was thinking more like Sherwin-Williams!” Bill said in answer to my question about what had made him an eccentric replied, “I used to play for the Alaska Goldpanners, and when you play on permafrost, and it warms and your centerfielder disappears, that leads to eccentricity.”