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Category Archives: Baseball
Highway Farty
Highway Farty refers to the local St. Louis pronunciation of old US 40 (now I-64), where the “o” vowel is shifted to an “ar” sound. It is a characteristic feature of a native St. Louis accent, which also turns neighboring I-44 into farty-far. In this instance though Highway Farty alludes to a YouTube channel on local St. Louis history. I watched this series’ first five episodes that explains why Babe Ruth liked coming to St. Louis to play baseball more than anywhere else in the country. Here is a heads-up, it wasn’t the baseball that attracted him.
The first episode acts as an introduction to this series and centers on Sportsman’s Park and its role in the 1926 World Series. At the time St. Louis had two MLB teams, the Cardinals and the Browns. Located on the northside, both teams shared Sportsmen’s, with one team on the road, while the other team at home. The American League Browns regularly brought the Yankees to town. In 1926 Ruth hit three homeruns in the fourth game of that world series. Most famously one for 11-year-old Johnny Sylvester who was sick in the hospital at the time.
Baseball may have first brought Babe Ruth to town, but it was his favorite whorehouse in the whole country that made him actually want to come here. Episodes 2-5 detail the search for this once famous, but now elusive house of ill repute. Host Don M. Kaiser travels around town, following his clues. False starts and dead ends include the House of the Good Sheperd, Magdalene Laundry and Busch’s Grove. Sifting evidence, he finally hits paydirt.
In St. Louis, on August 29, 1925, Ruth was fined $5,000 ($100,000 in today’s dollars) and suspended from the Yankees for violations of team rules. Given a train ticket, he was ordered back to New York. Instead, he headed back downtown and straight to his favorite bordello, whose site is currently occupied by a Salvation Army parking lot, near the midtown IKEA. On September 3, 1925, the Post Dispatch reported a police raid at this location where the moral squad arrested two young women and a maid. Ruth apologized to management and patch things up with his team and was in St. Louis again next year.
Cochiti Redskins
Did you know that since the start of the 20th century many Native American communities have had baseball teams? Many famous early 20th-century Native American baseball players started the sport at assimilationist boarding schools. This painting of men in baseball caps and jerseys emblazoned with the words “red” and “skins” speaks to that history. The slur was the name of the DC NFL football team until 2020, when it was renamed the Washington Commanders. Mateo Romero was actively involved with changing the name beginning in 1992. Here, he reclaims the term with Cochiti Pueblo members dressed and posed like a baseball team. Though Romero’s team is imaginary, Cochiti Pueblo has had a minor league baseball team for decades, the Cochiti Braves.
Euclid Beach
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Take Me Out of the Ballgame
The other night, we socialized with the neighbors at the Cozy Inn. George, always a stalwart at these events was there too. He regaled the night’s pretty good crowd, with the news of his cabin. A few months ago, he had had a fire and inquiring minds wanted to know. He has reached a settlement with his insurance that include plans for the new cabin and a bill of materials. He still has to select a contractor, but teardown of the old cabin should begin in a week or two. The new place will be slightly larger than the old one, in order to accommodate the county’s new ADA regulations. It will be a framed building and not a log cabin.
I do not know how we got on the subject, but more interesting, at least for me, was George’s recounting of his father’s geriatric softball career. His dad had joined this league with a minimum age of 75 and played until he turned 103. Even more amazing, he played catcher, which is generally considered to be a younger man’s position. George is a tall man, so I figure that his old man was one too. His dad passed a few years ago at 107. The most amazing aspect of this story is that in all of the years of defending the plate, George’s father had three opponents die in his arms there. Me being me, I had to ask, were the runner’s safe or were they out? This question evoked a round of chuckles, and it was eventually agreed that they had all made it safely home, sweet home.
Fort Sumter
South Carolina’s license plate says, “First to Fight,” still rebelling after all these years. North Carolina’s says, “First in Flight,” in honor of the Wright brother’s feat. Fight or flight are two instinctual defense mechanisms, but I am not going to go there, because Anne has just won the license plate game. Rhode Island was the last holdout. She restarted the game and then saw another Little Rhody plate. This means that Rhode Island will not be the last holdout. Come on Hawaii!
There was sad news this morning that my childhood hero Willie Mays had died. I came of age in the world of baseball rooting for the San Francisco Giants. My brother and I would follow their games daily on our newly acquired transistor radios, cheering on Mays and the Giants and jeering their arch rivals the LA Dodgers. For a while we lived on base, near old Candlestick Park. Once our mother took us to a game there. Our dad dropped us all off and then went to work. We were waiting in line outside of left field when a towering home run from Mays’ teammate Willie McCovey came crashing down in the parking lot near us. The game was sold out and that home run might have been all the baseball that we saw that day, except that it was a double header. After the first game, some businessmen were leaving early, and Mom scored us box seat tickets for the second game. This was my brother’s and mine first MLB game.
Today’s itinerary was nautically themed, we first visited the aquarium and then Fort Sumter. The aquarium had lots of silent fish and screaming children. Sumter is on an island, so we took a ferry there, another three-hour tour. There were no working bathrooms at the fort. This message was repeatedly drilled into us. I surmise that the real reason during the Civil War that this fort fell was not that it could not holdout any longer, but the defenders couldn’t hold it any longer. 😉