"Talkin' Baseball"

With the recent passing of Duke Snider, I've been pulling out some articles I wrote in my old newsletter. This one first appeared in 2005:

Baseball was in the blood of Dennis Minogue since he was a child.  He was born in New York City and grew up when the city hosted three major league teams.  His father was an NYPD cop whose partner was the father of Frank and Joe Torre.  He even managed to play in the Detroit Tigers' minor league system from 1959-60.

For all of his achievements in the game, Minogue knew he wasn't going to go very far in baseball and begin to work on his other passion -- music.  While shagging flies for the Detroit rookie league team, he was also singing with a group called the Chevrons.  They released a few records and even appeared on American Bandstand.  His connections with baseball and music would eventually come together nicely.

By 1966, Minogue's baseball career was a distant memory and his group had long since disbanded.  He was working in the music buisness as part of the promotion department of ABC records, but was still writing and performing music on the side.  To keep ABC in the dark about his "moonlighting" activities, Minogue assumed the pen name Terry Cashman.  He teamed up with Tommy West and they wrote a few tunes familiar to those who liked to listen to the radio during the late 60s and early 70s:  "Sunday Will Never Be the Same" by Spanky & Our Gang, "Cinnamon" by Derek and the duo's own "American City Suite."  Their best success came through their work with Jim Croce.  "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," "I've Got a Name," "Time in a Bottle" and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song" were big hits and are still in heavy rotation on oldies-format radio.  Sadly, that partnership ended when Croce was killed in a plane crash near Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1973.

All through his successful songwriting career, Cashman never wavered in his love affair with baseball.  He enjoyed discussing the sport, and was told by several friends that he should write a song about the sport.  Many songs had been written about the sport and its players through the years, but by the late 1970s it had been a long time since baseball had been mentioned in a popular song; perhaps the last time had been when Simon and Garfunkel asking "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" in 1968's "Mrs. Robinson." 

Cashman decided against writing a "baseball song" until a friend gave him a photo in 1979.  The picture was taken at an old-timer's game at Shea Stadium and showed the three starting centerfielders from Cashman's days growing up in New York.  Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider had been photographed from behind as they entered the field together, with the numbers clearly identifying them.  The picture inspired Cashman to pick up his guitar and spend about 20 minutes composing a song.

Even after quickly coming up with a tune, Cashman still held on to the song for more than a year.  He finally decided to record the tune in late 1980 and planned to get it into record stores by the time the 1981 baseball season opened.  After making the arrangements, booking the studio, paying the musicians and pressing the vinyl, the record was released.  "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey and the Duke)" wasn't a big radio hit like "Bette Davis Eyes" or "Jesse's Girl" but it was an immediate hit with the Baby Boomers who grew up at the same time as Cashman and felt the nostalgia of that era.

During that summer something happened that even Cashman  couldn't have forseen: the players began a labor strike that would eventually last 54 days.  As fans lamented the absence of their beloved sport, Cashman's song was held up as a reminder of a different era, when players didn't quarrel so publicly with owners about money.  His song was a big hit with baseball fans.

In Duke Snider's autobiography The Duke of Flatbush he repeatedly calls the tune "catchy."  He's right, but some of the lyrics puzzle fans who missed out on the era.  For instance, there's the line "One Robby going out, one coming in."  It's clear the Robby going out was Jackie Robinson, but is the one coming in supposed to be Brooks Robinson or Frank Robinson?  It's also worth noting that the line "The great Alexander is pitching again in Washington" is lost on those who don't know that he meant Ronald Reagan (who played Grover C. Alexander in a movie called The Winning Team in 1952).

Since "Talkin' Baseball" became a surprise hit, Cashman has continued to record songs about baseball.  In fact, he has earned the nickname "the Balladeer of Baseball."   Among the songs he's released are "The Money Doesn't Matter To Me," "Ichiro," and "The Ballad of Herb Score."  He's written songs about Pete Rose, sung versions of "Talkin' Baseball" specifically for almost every major league team, and "A Tattered Flag in the Breeze ('Michael's Song')," wirtten after Mike Piazza's home run during the first game played in New York after Sept. 11th, 2001.

For the benefit of those who've never heard the song, here are the words.  Cashman's single is hard to find as a 45, but it's been included on some compilations and shouldn't be difficult to add to your music collection. Here's a link to listen to it (available for a short time before I have to take it way)

Lyrics - "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey and the Duke)" - Terry Cashman, writer.

The whiz kids had won it,
Bobby Thomson had done it,
And Yogi read the comics all the while.
Rock 'n roll was being born,
Marijuana we would scorn,
So down on the corner,
The national past-time went on trial.

(Refrain):

We're talkin' baseball!
Kluszewski, Campanella.
Talkin' baseball!
The Man and Bobby Feller.
The Scooter, the Barber, and the Newk,
They knew them all from Boston to Dubuque.
Especially Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

Well, Casey was winning,
Hank Aaron was beginning,
One Robby going out, one coming in.
Kiner and Midget Gaedel,
The Thumper and Mel Parnell,
And Ike was the only one winning down in Washington.

(Repeat Refrain)

Now my old friend, The Bachelor,
Well, he swore he was the Oklahoma Kid.
And Cookie played hooky,
To go and see the Duke.
And me, I always loved Willie Mays,
Those were the days!

Well, now it's the 80's,
And Brett is the greatest,
And Bobby Bonds can play for everyone.
Rose is at the Vet,
And Rusty again is a Met,
And the great Alexander is pitchin' again in Washington.

I'm talkin' baseball!
Like Reggie, Quisenberry.
Talkin' baseball!
Carew and Gaylord Perry,
Seaver, Garvey, Schmidt and Vida Blue,
If Cooperstown is calling, it's no fluke.
They'll be with Willie, Mickey, and the Duke.

A Question -- Feedback Requested

Some of you who remember my newsletters and other writings a long time ago might remember this:

(Copyright 2003)

This is a booklet I wrote and sold through my newsletters and website. They sold well, and I had a great time putting it together. Here are a couple of sample pages from inside:

(Click on the image to enlarge)

One of my favorite parts was that when I sold them, several buyers asked if I'd give them a signed copy. That wasn't a problem at all, except my signature is barely legible and I needed to take a little extra time to make it out neatly.

I was looking at my personal copy of this booklet and realized that I have learned a great deal in the last eight years. It's made me want to go back and do it again. This time, however, I'd like to make it more of a hobby guide and include basic hobby info such as grading, buying/selling, and other stuff. The color photos inside would be changed to black and white to keep down costs, but it would be a much more informative guide.

My question(s): If this booklet were to come out...say, at about 48 pages and a price (including shipping) of $15...would you consider buying one? If it were available as an eBook and could be used on a Kindle or iPad, would that be something you'd consider buying? How about if the eBook were free along with the hard copy? It would be entirely self-published and done through a local print shop, so I have a lot of say over how this would work.

I'm seriously considering this and can probably put it together within a couple of months if I decide to do it. I really appreciate any feedback that might be given about this. Thanks in advance.

Book Review

Since learning about the recent passing of Duke Snider, I dug through some archives of material I'd written for a hobby newsletter between 2002 and 2008. Here's a book review that I really should have featured earlier:

The Duke of Flatbush by Duke Snider with Bill Gilbert (1988)

I have no memory of the Brooklyn Dodgers other than what I've read in books, seen in pictures or heard from stories.  Fans -- still bitter that the team moved west -- let me know as I was growing up how much they hated the Yankees for beating their beloved Bums six times in the World Series, how great it was in '55 when "Next Year" finally arrived, and how heartbroken they were when Walter O'Malley announced that the team was leaving.

Duke Snider's autobiography is a good place to start if you'd like to understand why the Brooklyn Dodgers still hold a special place in the hearts of their fans.  Snider's story is presented here in plain English (though most of the credit for that should probably go to cowriter Bill Gilbert), and doesn't stray into the gritty "tell-all" tabloid material found in far too many sports-themed memoirs.  Duke follows the old saying that if he couldn't say anything nice about somebody, he shouldn't say anything at all.  There are no stories of raw deals from the front office, no sordid details about teammates and nothing at all about locker room gossip.  You get the sense that Duke realized how lucky he was to play baseball for a living, and that time only made him appreciate that more.  Snider's only real negative comments were reserved for Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, and he was even nice in the way he described what he felt was wrong about the book.

Duke tells about growing up in Southern California, watching Jackie Robinson play for UCLA and being honored to join the Dodgers the same year as Robinson did.  He talks of carpooling to Ebbets Field with Carl Erskine, Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo from Bay Ridge, and how they all had to take jobs in the winter months to provide for their families.  Snider grew up in the Depression, lost time from the game to do menial service in the Navy during World War Two (the Navy kept him away from danger because he was a ballplayer), and saw some of the worst in people when they reacted to Robinson, but Duke doesn't dwell on the bad parts of his story.

It was a great read and really gave a feel for what the game was like during the 1950s and helps explain why the Brooklyn fans were so fanatic about their team.


(The Amazon link below lets you pick up the book for as little as 1 cent.)

A 95 Year-Old "New" Discovery

Here's a card that is 95 years old, yet has been seen by very few collectors:

(This may be the first time I've ever shown a card here that's been graded)

This is not my card. Nor do I have any sway with its owner. This was graciously shown to me by a person who helped make the discovery.

1916 Tango Eggs weren't assigned a number in the American Card Catalog, because Jefferson Burdick and his fellow collectors didn't know they existed. In fact, little was even known about the set until a large cache of them appeared about 20 years ago. Even then, it isn't known how many of the cards make up a complete set. There were 16 different cards in the "find" but it isn't yet known if there are 18 or 20 that make up the set. Among the speculated "extra" cards was one of Ty Cobb, but one never materialized.

The card above is proof that one does, in fact, exist.

Tango Eggs were originally offered by L. Frank and Co., a New Orleans-based poultry company. The fact that the South really isn't as baseball-crazy as Northern cities (where most collectors are from) probably explains why these cards went unnoticed for so long. The card above was discovered in Louisiana, which gives hope that the two "missing" Tango Eggs cards -- Honus Wagner and Joe Tinker -- will also surface someday. The Cobb card is likely being sold to the highest by a major auction house in the coming months.

For additional information about the Tango Eggs set, check out this blog post from Dean's Cards.

The Setting Sun

Back in November, I showed this "card":

It's a modern creation by Gary Cieradkowski (of The Infinite Baseball Card Set Blog) featuring Wally Yonamine, who was a pioneer in two sports. First, he was the first professional football player of Asian descent when he suited up for the 49ers in 1947. Second, he was the first American-born player in Japan's professional baseball league, and played at a time when there was still a great deal of uneasiness from the Japanese that was caused by several years of war with the United States.

As a man who was ethnically Asian but brought up in another country, Yonamine was often seen as rude and aloof when he simply didn't understand the culture. His aggressive style -- learned on American ballfields -- seemed odd to his Japanese opponents and fans, which led to him being booed until enough people began realizing that games were being won. Later, he served as a liaison with other American players, giving them pointers on the differences they would experience. After his playing days were over, he went on to manage and earned a place in the Japanese baseball Hall of Fame.

Sadly, Yonamine died last week at 85. Though death is a natural event that is going to happen after enough time passes, it still leads me to pause and think about the stories that are now forever silenced.

Wally Yonamine's story is an interesting read. Most readers of this blog don't know much about him (and, to be fair, neither do I) because we tend to focus on the sport from an American perspective. However, most fans realize that baseball is a huge sport in Japan. My post in November had a link to a book about Yonamine's life and times. Feel free to check it out now that the final chapter has closed for him.

Q&A

Occasionally, I share questions sent to me from readers and visitors to my website. Here's a neat one from last week from a visitor named Steve:

Q: "I have two Gold Coin Chewing Tobacco cards with the first design.  They are Flint, catcher, Chicago and Clarkson, pitcher, Chicago.  They are both encased in plastic covers.  Can you tell me the value of these or where I might find out this info?"

(Here's a example of a "first design" card from my site)

 

(This is one of the three possible backs from the set)

A:

You can find some basic info about the set from my Vintage Baseball Cards website, but one thing you won't find there is a price. For that, here's a link to the set description from Old Cardboard, which says a common in VG condition can fetch about $145. That covers your Flint card, but the card you have of John Clarkson will be much more valuable since he is a Hall of Famer.

Buchner Gold Coin cards feature generic artwork rather than genuine photos, which makes them less sought-after than other sets. That said, there are enough collectors of 19th Century material that you'll likely get a decent amount if you are looking to sell them.

All of this info is assuming that "encased in plastic" means that they're either in the holder of a third-party grader (which will help you get a good price) or a screw-down holder.

Another Card From the Collection

Today, I'll share another card from my personal collection. While I usually take this space to show off some of my "cards with character," this one is actually a really nice card for its age.

It's a W515-1 strip card from 1923. Although it's missing the bottom part that identifies him as a Yankee, it's in excellent shape considering it's printed on a 88 year-old piece of thin paper. Strip cards in general get little respect from hobbyists because they arrived after the end of tobacco and caramel issues but before bubblegum issues, yet represent an excellent way to pick up stars at a great price. 

Here's why having a car from 1923 of Bob Shawkey is neat: 1923 was the first year the New York Yankees played in Yankee Stadium, and Bob Shawkey took the mound for the very first game they played there. He pitched the complete game against the Red Sox on April 18th and won by a 4-1 score. He was aided by a home run by Babe Ruth in the 4th inning.

At the end of the season, Shawkey was a member of the first Yankee team to win a World Series and won Game 4. Later, he was the team's manager for the 1930 season.