Baseball Quiz: What ballplayer who was elected to the Hall of
Fame in the last twenty years played for 8 different major league
teams? Answer below.
Barnum Veeck
From a 1959 Sporting News article by Edgar Munzel, regarding
that great showman, baseball owner Bill Veeck.
“Bill (Barnum) Veeck presented the most spectacular sight ever
seen as a sideshow to a major league game when he paraded the
Christiani Brothers circus between halves of a double-header
with the Yankees at Comiskey Park, June 28.
“The entire circus personnel, from the midget billed as the
”Smallest Man in the World” to several huge elephants, from
exotic dancing girls to aerialists, from clowns to bareback riders,
circled the rim of the field in a colorful procession.
“For the most part it was just a parade. But there were acts going
on at the same time in typical three-ring fashion with a long-
coated, top-hatted ringmaster at the microphone.
“There was a juggler performing at first base, a tattooed sword-
swallower at third base and a trained dog act at second base.
“Meanwhile, other individual performers came out of the
procession for introductions or performances at home.
“There was an act by a ponderous elephant doing a shuffle and a
dancing horse also went through its routine.
“Among those introduced briefly was a snake-charmer with a
diamond-back rattler curled around her neck.
“Lions, tigers and other caged animals were supposed to be in
the parade. However, the gates of Comiskey Park didn”t offer
enough clearance for the wagons to enter, despite the fact an
attempt was made to excavate at the entrances.
“A crowd of 42,121, largest in two years at Comiskey Park, saw
the circus and the twin-bill, in which the Pale Hose squared some
old accounts with the Yankees with a double victory.
“All in all, the weekend provided quite a variety of Veeck
entertainment for the fans during the series with the Yankees.
“On the night of June 26, he contented himself with a booming
fireworks display at the close of the game. However, the
entertainment on June 27 touched new bizarre heights when he
observed International Specialty Food and Confection week in
Chicago with two gifts to fans who found certificates under their
seats.
“The first included 500 tins of eels in seaweed, fried caterpillars,
French-fried ants and fried grasshoppers. The other was
composed of 500 jars of whale meat, barbecued snake meat,
iguana meat, smoked octopus and smoked sparrows on skewers.
“Samples of the fried grasshoppers and the smoked sparrows on
skewers were served to some fans along the aisles by several
waiters from the famous Pump Room.”
Kind of beats wristband day, huh? Maybe the Montreal Expos
should try something similar to get the fans through the gate. To
get a sense of just how sorry the franchise is, Friday night the
Expos hosted what should be their biggest rival, the Toronto
Blue Jays, in an inter-league game. They drew 8,600.
We”ll have more on Bill Veeck over the coming weeks.
Baseball in the Dominican Republic
Steve Fainaru had an interesting piece in the Washington Post
the other day concerning the plight of many Dominican
ballplayers who are trying to make it to the major leagues. There
are currently about 6,900 players under contract to major or
minor league teams. 44% of them are from outside the U.S., and
25% of the total are from the Dominican Republic, a country
with just 8.4 million people and a monthly per capita income of
$450.
But many of the players are being taken advantage of by the
street agents or “finders.” The agents often control and train the
prospects from puberty, with the problem being that for those
who are eventually signed to professional contracts, they don”t
realize that the agents are taking advantage of them; in some
cases to the point of stealing most of their money.
The “system” has produced superstars like Pedro Martinez,
Vladimir Guerrero and Sammy Sosa. But there are also cases
like that of Willy Aybar, an 18-year-old third baseman in the
Dodgers farm system.
Aybar was first noticed at age 13 by finder / scout Enrique Soto,
a former minor league ballplayer. Soto runs a camp where kids
train to be professionals, with Soto picking up their room and
board. But the athletes have virtually no education and when
contracts are signed, they often let their guard down.
In the case of Aybar, he received a $1.4 million signing bonus
from the Dodgers when he turned 16, the minimum age for the
major leagues to offer contracts. It was paid out in two
installments, with the first being for $490,000 after taxes. But
since Aybar or his mother didn”t know anything about banks, let
alone how to open up an account, they let Soto handle the funds.
Soto, who recently discovered the Oakland A”s standout
shortstop Miguel Tejada, then gave Aybar”s mother $6,250 with
provisions for a monthly stipend of less than $2,000. A
Philadelphia-based agent received $35,000 and Soto kept about
$430,000 for himself. When Aybar was asked by Fainaru if he
ever personally saw a dime, he responded, “Nada.” And this is
evidently the norm throughout the Dominican Republic.
For their part, the Dodgers were alerted to the mishandling of the
first funds and made sure that Aybar deposited his second bonus
installment directly into a bank account in his name. But as of
today, Soto refuses to turn over any of the $430,000 he basically
stole.
Top 3 songs for the week of 6/19/61: #1 “Moody River” (Pat
Boone) #2 “Travelin” Man” (Ricky Nelson) #3 “Quarter To
Three” (U.S. Bonds)
Nessie
The most famous photograph of the Loch Ness monster, taken by
a supposedly respectable London surgeon in 1934, was revealed
in 1993 to have been a hoax involving a foot-long toy submarine
with a plastic-wood head and neck. Sorry to have burst your
bubble if you thought the picture was real.
Why is the “Right whale” called a right whale?
“Because they produced plentiful oil and whalebone, were slow
swimmers and easy to kill, and floated when dead, these animals
became known as the ”right” whale to hunt.” Sea? Err, See?
Sorry, folks, I just received my “Encyclopedia of the Sea.” It is a
truly exciting moment for the editor and I will burden you with
all manner of facts this summer. Like this tidbit, in honor of
South Africa”s Retief Goosen, who pulled one of the all-time
sports choke jobs on Sunday in the U.S. Open.
The “steenbras” is a powerful, predatory fish that is found in the
deeper inshore waters of eastern South Africa. At a length of 6-
feet and a weight of 150 pounds, the steenbras is one of South
Africa”s premier game fishes. Spearfishermen also seek out this
species, and there are undocumented reports of attacks on divers.
Now use steenbras in a sentence. For example:
“When native son Retief Goosen missed a two-foot putt for the U.S.
Open title, forcing a playoff for the championship, the whole
country wanted to dump him in a tank filled with steenbras.”
Baseball Quiz Answer: Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry
threw for San Francisco, Cleveland, Texas, San Diego, New
York Yankees, Atlanta, Seattle and Kansas City. He won his
300th while with the Mariners.
Beer Tax
There is a movement afoot in Congress to repeal the 1990
installment of the federal beer tax, which was one of many hikes
on “luxury” items that year, such as yachts. 150 members of
Congress have signed on, including Jerry Kleczka (D-Wis.). “If
Congress can repeal the estate tax for billionaires,” he said, “then
Congress can roll back the beer tax for Joe Six-Pack.” Hear!
hear!
Currently, the beer tax equates to about $1 a case, with the 1990
increase accounting for 50 cents of it. Repealing it would cost
the federal government $1.6 billion a year.
You”re reading Bar Chat…next one Wednesday…Dion.
