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From Day to DeRosier to Keiner, it's double play with DeRosier and Day.
With our guests Ralph Keiner and Nancy Chafee, here's another chapter of double play with DeRosier and Day.
Welcome to another visit with baseball's most exciting and controversial couple, Lorraine Day and Leo DeRosier,
with their guests for today, Ralph Keiner and his lovely wife Nancy Chafee.
And now Leo is about to meet one of his guests, Nancy Chafee, who seems very impressed and says,
Oh, you're the man that they call the All-American Out.
Oh, great. Well, that tore it. I'm sure Leo will have something to say about this.
But first, this message.
And now back to double play with Leo DeRosier and Lorraine Day and their guests, Ralph Keiner and Nancy Chafee.
Hi there, everyone. This is Lorraine Day.
Baseball leads into some mighty hot sessions with some of the famous personalities we'd like you to meet on our program.
Guests like Casey Stengel, Ralph Keiner and Nancy Chafee, Duke Snyder, Bob Lemon, and on and on.
And I'm here to represent you fans because, well, because I'm a baseball fan myself.
I eat baseball, I sleep baseball, I dream baseball, and I get a lecture about baseball every morning for breakfast.
So I should be qualified.
But right now, we want you to meet two wonderful people, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Keiner.
Tell me, Leo, have you ever played tennis?
No, I never have, Nancy.
Well, I'd like to show you how to hold the racket. You see, you put your hand this way.
Oh, no, Leo. Isn't it tough enough being a baseball wife in the summer and a golf widow in the winter without my having to worry about tennis?
I only wish I had this thing when I was playing baseball. Maybe I'd have hit more than 220.
Look, Ralph, I've never seen a ballplayer hold a bat the way you do.
And there's two grips I think you use. I'd like to see one of them. I have a golf club here, Ralph.
Could I see the way you hold a golf club?
What stance you want, my good stance or my 11-handed stance?
Well, I'll take the good one, Ralph.
Well, this is about the way I do it.
Now, look, look, girls, look where he has the finger on that golf club. That is what is known as a golf grip.
Now, let me see that bat here. I want to show you something.
Show me something.
And show me the same, the way you hold a bat, Ralph.
I change a little bit, Leo, because I don't overlap, of course, but I hold my hands about the same position.
Well, why? Now, what I want to know is this. Why do you have your fingers so high up on the bat?
Well, it's comfortable in one respect to me. I like it that way. My hands feel right on the bat.
And the other reason is I get more bat coverage with my hands.
In other words, Ty Cobb used to split his hands like this to get more bat control.
Well, I get the same amount of bat control by turning my hands this way, and it feels better.
I wish some of my hitters had learned to use a bat like that.
Well, come on, let me see your 220 grip.
I want to ask you something. Was that 220? Does that mean you're batting average, or is that your weight?
You and your...
Leo wasn't such a bad hitter. Why, he hit 400 one year.
Yeah, 200 left-handed and 200 right-handed.
Yeah, I didn't know you were a switch hitter.
Come on, let's get out of here.
Ralph, I mean, I...
You got to getting up.
I don't think that Ralph has told you that it's no bed of roses to be the wife of a baseball player.
I don't know anything about it, because this is my first season.
Oh, I feel so sorry for you. You just wait until Ralph gets into a hitting slump, or until he strikes out with men on base.
Well, I've seen him strike out before. In fact, one game in Pittsburgh, I don't remember who the Pirates were playing, but he struck out three times.
And then the fourth time he came up, I looked at this friend of mine and I said,
gee, if he had only hit a pop fly, now that shows how much I know.
I know nothing about baseball.
You thought it would make him feel better.
Well, anything but the swing and the miss all the time. That's terrible.
Of course, he gets a lot of home runs, too.
Oh, sure. That makes up for it. I know I get a little nervous every time Ralph comes to the plate.
So do I. But differently, I think.
You're protecting your husband's team.
Yes, and you're rooting for yours.
Yes, that's so right.
Well, you know, we had a slump of losing 11 games straight in a row.
Well, I want to tell you that during that slump, I became acquainted with more wrestling holes, because Leo would never go out.
You know, it never goes out when we lose. So we have to sit and the only thing he'll watch on television is wrestling.
I don't know why all of a sudden, but oh, I can do all these things.
Really? Imagine the night that I'd sit home if we never went out when the pirates lost.
Well, that's wonderful. You don't have to worry about the whole team is different being a player's wife,
because you're only concerned with that particular player.
But being a manager's wife, you've got every player on your mind and everything every player does,
so we stay home and watch television.
Were you interested in baseball before you married Liam?
Oh, no, and it was so pleasant. It was just wonderful. I went along smiling all the time.
I could read the newspapers without worrying about that.
Come on, Ralph. Let's get in here and break this up. You know how it is when baseball wives get together.
What happened?
She just knew it when she started like that.
What happens when baseball wives get together?
Well, I'm telling you, Nancy, you know, a few years ago, the Chicago White Sox had a rule.
The players could not bring their wives, even their automobiles.
What do you mean, even their automobiles?
Well, I'd rather have my automobile, wouldn't you?
Oh, Ralph! You're a hero.
Well, now why, Neil?
Well, they just wouldn't let them do that because they didn't think that they paid enough attention to baseball.
And I know it's, I've read it in the paper that the Philadelphia Phillies are not going to allow their players to have their wives in spring training camp.
Well, I asked Mr. Ashburn about that and I said why, and he said,
well, the year that they won the pennant, wives weren't allowed in spring training.
And so they're just sort of superstitious. They think they'll win it this year, but...
That superstition doesn't go too well, you know. Sometimes, I used to wear the same suit all the time, the ballpark, if I got a hit that day,
but I found out that you have to swing the bat, too, you know.
The suit doesn't win it for you?
Not a bit. You've got to swing the bat.
Well, you know, Rob, we were in Santa Domingo and this was in 1947 when Leo was managing the Dodgers.
That's right.
And we could tell them.
Well, in 1947, we had a rule also. We were over there at Ciudad Trigil and Mr. Ricky, your present boss, Ralph, had made a rule.
A bow to the South now?
Oh, you bow, really bow. And he made a rule that we couldn't have any of our wives over there in spring training camp.
And Pete Reeser, formerly of your ball club, had his wife come over there and actually paid all our expenses and she lived at another hotel.
But still it caused a big, what we call in baseball, a rhubarb.
And there was a lot of dissension and finally Mr. Ricky sent Pete Reeser and his wife back to Barrow Beach.
Ralph, it wasn't that they didn't like baseball wives. It was because there were only so many rooms allotted to the Brooklyn Dodgers for spring training.
They still had to take care of their tourists and they just didn't have room.
Well, I think that the wives are good for a ball player in spring training camp.
They're settled down. They have someone to be with in the evening. They have dinner with them. They go to the picture shows.
And I think they're more settled and they just don't have to worry about writing home every night.
They have their wife with them and I think they're much more contented and they're happier.
Well, what I hear about most of the trouble caused by baseball wives is in the stands.
Now I don't know about it because I don't happen to sit with baseball wives.
This is for you, dear.
Your first lesson.
Well, for instance, well.
Yes. Well, for instance, any pitcher's wife is sitting next to any infielder's wife and maybe the infielder makes an error and it costs the pitcher the game.
Well, I understand that in the heat of the moment that possibly the pitcher's wife would turn to the infielder's wife and say,
well, if only your husband could learn to pick up the ball, my husband wouldn't lose this game and now you're in trouble.
What do you think will happen to you then?
What will happen to the ball players?
I don't know. I think I'm going to sit home and listen to it on the radio.
See, now there we go. That's how wives get into trouble.
I won't say a word. I never get nervous when he goes to bed.
What do you mean you won't say a word?
I mean with the other baseball players.
Let me ask you something, Ralph. If I may interrupt here about baseball, how does it feel to be a tennis husband?
Say, this sounds like it's going to be mighty interesting, but before we get started on it, here's something else that's interesting.
And now, what was that question again, Leo?
How does it feel to be a tennis husband?
You know, it's one of the worst feelings in the world.
I get up in the morning and she isn't around. She's out in the tennis court practicing tennis.
So I have to cook my own breakfast.
Oh, you poor boy.
I know by the time I want to get my golf clubs out and go out and play golf, I haven't got a car and the golf clubs are in the back of the car.
So this goes on all day and I have a tough time.
Well, what is this I hear, Ralph, that you may be going on a few tours with your wife, Nancy, on some tournament tennis. Is that so?
Well, I don't know, Leo. That's kind of a, well, I should do it. Actually, I beat her, you know. I can beat her all the time.
Oh, that's just your idea.
Hey, this is where you go.
This is what happened. He said, I'll put you in the game.
How'd you make out?
Beat the wire.
How'd you make out?
That's the final score that counts.
Oh, but this is different. We played and he said, I'm going to serve every game.
So he served every game and beat me 6-3.
So that's the same thing as if you had played a baseball game and the same team hit every half inning or inning or whatever you call it.
I never served the ball.
Do you think that you would have beaten Ralph if you had a chance to serve?
He has no chance.
How can you say that, honey?
Do you feel that tennis interferes at all in any way with baseball because I've heard this argument about golf and baseball.
Well, they give you these arguments.
Joe Cronin, who was probably one of the greatest shortstop's that ever played baseball, took up tennis to learn how to hit.
And he said that the movement from hitting a tennis ball is very similar to getting your hips and everything out of the way to hit a baseball.
And he says that it actually helps his hitting.
So I think that any sport that you do play, it has to help you in other sports.
It teaches you coordination, gives you timing, and you use it later on in anything else you do.
Yes, but what about golf? Now, I've heard you in these little off-the-record chats saying that you don't believe that ballplayers should play golf during the season.
Now, I say that ballplayers shouldn't play golf, dear, on the day that they're playing baseball.
I say that if you have an off day and a fellow wants to go out and play golf, I think it's an altogether different game.
The ball is standing still and you have to hit it with the club.
And baseball, the ball is moving, and it's an altogether different thing.
But I think that the rhythm and the timing in golf and in baseball are practically the same.
And I don't see where it hurts a ballplayer that goes out and plays a game of golf on an off day.
The only thing that I don't want my players to do is to play golf, like, on a day when you're playing a night game.
That, I think, tires them out, and I don't think it's good for them.
But I do think that golf is all right, and I certainly haven't seen any ill effects as far as my club is concerned.
I think that you're right when the fact that if you do play, it does worry you out before a ballgame.
I don't play, well, last season I hadn't played a game from March until the season is over.
I just completely quit during the season, and after the season is over, I take it up and play it all winter.
It keeps your coordination.
And you, it gives you something to do.
You're walking at least six or seven miles a day the way I play.
It's about nine miles a day.
I wish some of the day, Dr.
I wish some of the day that you played my club, I wish that you played golf that day.
Before you came out to the park.
Before you came out to the ballpark, because many of us, oh, yes, it is, Dr.
He wants you to have a good time.
One thing about being a manager, you got to put up with all that stuff.
I wouldn't want to be a manager at all. That's terrible.
I don't want to be a manager's wife, either.
But why? What's wrong with being a baseball manager's wife?
Look, in the first place, you get the second guessing.
That's just the most wonderful thing.
That's the worst part of it all. You shouldn't second guess.
But why not? The paper's second guessing all the time.
Yeah, but he's got to have the first guess, and that's it.
I mean, that second guessing stuff is...
But I'm dying to get out of here.
Oh, I got to get out of here. You can't get a word in with these girls.
I mean, they're worse than umpires.
Well, I see that our time's about up, folks, and don't forget to write now. So long.
You've been listening to another chapter of Double Play with baseball's most exciting couple, Lorraine Day and Leo DeRosier.
Today, Lorraine and Leo had as their guests, Ralph Keiner and Nancy Chaffey.
Join us when again it's time for...
Double Play with Leo DeRosier and Lorraine Day plus another big-time guest star.
Double Play is produced by Marty Martin, directed by Ted Nealon, and is a MarTed production.