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My guest today will be Al Schach, the famous clown prince of baseball. I'll start the interview
with Al right after this important message.
Well Al, how many years have you been going out and doing your act?
Clowning, I started independently. I put the board of the so to speak, in baseball, 1937.
I quit the American League. Jack Dempsey knocked me out of the American League.
Jack Dempsey did.
Yeah, well I did a burles price fight, one man price fight at the Yankee Stadium when
I was with the Red Sox in 1936. And we fooled around, he hit me on the shoulder and knocked
me on my back and I fell down and tore my shoulder and I decided right there and then
I couldn't eat applause so I decided to go out and make a business out of it by appearing
in different ball parks, which I did. So I used to make 128 towns in 130 days and I did
that for 10 years. As a matter of fact, I made more, I could have made more money catching
runaway horses on Park Avenue than I did as a coach on the Boston Red Sox or the Washington
Senators.
Let me ask you this Al, we've always talked about the importance of coaching, the importance
of managers. How about coaches? Are they really important to the winning and losing
of board games?
Well Jack, I'm glad you asked me that question. I coached a third base for 13 years in the
Major League. I claim a third base coach is the most important man on the field when his
home team is at bat. He can win and lose your game by using bad judgment. Now let's take
an example. In the first inning, there's a man in first base and a long ball is hit
and there's nobody out. Now if there's any chance of that man being thrown out at home
plate, if he's thrown out, it's bad judgment. It's not second guess because he's just as
good a third base with nobody out. Then you'd have a man on third and second with nobody
out whereas if he's thrown out at home plate with nobody out, you only got one out and
a man on second base. Now if you lose that game by one run, it's a poor judging by the
coach. Now there's a lot of times a coach will take a chance and score a man. For instance,
there's a man in first base and you're down the ninth inning and there's two out and
here comes your running. You figure the only chance he's going to get him is he's got to
be a perfect throw at home. If you send him home and if the ball is perfectly thrown,
you know he's going to be thrown out by five feet or ten feet. But if it's thrown, it
depends on the throw being bad, you're hoping for it. If it's throw bad, your man scores,
he makes a great slide, he comes in, he gets a crowd, gives him a big hand, he's making
a great slide but he's caught at home and said, why didn't he hold him at third base?
He's with a third baseman, never can be right. But there's a third baseman's brains or judgment
and on those pads, first base coach doesn't mean too much. Third base coach is your man.
Uh huh. Well I agree with that. Now Shaq, I just want to say that I've enjoyed this
tremendously. Thanks for taking the time. Thank you for calling on me. Well that just
about does it for now fans. See you soon.