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Well, here he is again, folks. Dizzy Dean, brought to you by the makers of Johnson's Wax for Carnew,
the wax-sportified auto-polish that cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
Howdy, folks. Say, Frank, I wish you'd explained something to me. What does that wax-sportified mean exactly?
Well, I'm glad you're curious, Dizzy. And this is Frank Ashen, happy to satisfy Dizzy Dean's curiosity.
It means the polish is fortified or made more effective, Dizzy, by the wax that is one of the ingredients.
And that means fortified, Frank.
Yes, Dizzy. And here, perhaps, is a better way to explain it to you.
You remember when you were a youngster, you probably could throw pretty hard.
You probably were a good pitcher right from the start with that strong arm.
Yes, Frank, it was some arm. But don't worry, I'm not going to tell you that I knocked squirrels out of trees left-handed so I wouldn't bruise them up too much.
Ah, thanks for passing that one, Jerome. But we were having a lesson on the word fortified.
Well, even with that strong arm, you became a better pitcher when you learned to throw a curve.
In other words, the acquisition of a curve fortified you as a pitcher. Fortified. See, Jerome?
Now I know what you mean, Frank. I like to learn them things.
But I was pretty well fortified, Frank, with that just fast ball. If anybody should drive up in a nice, slick, shiny car and ask you, then you really were fast, Dizzy.
I'll say I was fast. Boy, I wish I could throw that hard one now. I'll never forget a game back in them good old days.
This story will give you an idea of how fast a man can be, Frank.
An anecdote, I dare say.
Right you are, Frank. We was playing the Phillies in late season doubleheader, and along about the eighth inning of the second game, it was a Saints the umpire that would call the game.
Bruce Ogredoski was my catcher, and he kept telling me he couldn't see the ball in it too good himself, and he didn't figure the batters could see it either.
Well, we had a one-run lead, but with two out, the Phillies get a couple of bloopers, and Dick Bartell comes to the plate.
He was a tricky hitter, a guy with a lot of courage, and he was swinging from these heels up there.
I got a couple of strikes on him, though, and then Ogie comes running out to the mound and says, I got a 90, Dizzy.
I'll keep this here ball after just pretending to give it to you.
Then you rad back and go through your pitching motion, and I'll do the rest.
I told Ogie, umpire Sioperman would call a bulk on me, sure.
But Ogie says, what's the difference?
They're only move three runners to second and third, but I've always wanted to try this here trick.
Well, old days was never one to tell anybody they couldn't have no fun as they went through life.
So I take my position, look back at second and over to first, take my stretch and wham.
I pretend to let go of the fast one.
Ogie pops the ball into his mitt.
Umpire, Furman, kind of blanks a little, but he calls her, strike three and you're out.
Bartell starts to kick up a fuss, but Furman interrupts him.
Dick, that was right through the middle.
Furman tells him, and then Bartell says, Si, I know Doug going well now that you are blind.
That pitch was a put outside.
That settles it, Diz, that settles it.
I'll admit that you must have been well fortified as a pitcher in those days with that fastball.
Right now, how are you fortified with information for rising young America on the baseball diamond?
It's time, Coach Dean, to give out with counsel for the kitties.
I always enjoy this part of the program, Frank.
It takes me back to the days when I was playing sandlot ball and blaming up the big legs.
I'm going to talk to the boys about hitting today.
Dizzy Dean, the pitcher, talks about hitting?
Well, I'll admit you were a fair sticker, Jerome.
Yes, and I'd have been a better hitter, Frank, if I hadn't been a pitcher.
You know, pitchers don't get a chance to play every day.
It takes daily practice to develop batting power and skill,
and that's exactly the point I want to make for you young ball players.
Right now, just one point today, boys today are just the same as they were when I was a youngster.
They go out to the ball field and they're so anxious to get that game started
that they don't bother to take no practice at all.
Did you ever see a bunch of kids go to the trouble of having batting practice before a game?
They may warm up their throwing arms a little and have feeling practice,
but not much of that and very little batting practice.
You ain't going to develop in two hitters that way.
Here's what I want you to do.
If you've got a game schedule for next Saturday,
I want you all to get together Friday afternoon and take one hour of batting practice,
or two hours, or maybe three hours.
Just hit till your plumb worn out.
There must be a couple of the boys with pretty good control.
Let them do the pitching.
They don't have to be pitchers.
Control is the main thing.
Just have them throw the ball over the plate with some speed.
Not too much.
Don't try to throw curves.
The idea is practice hitting that ball.
And don't try to hit home runs every time up there.
Just practice meeting the ball.
Practice swinging only at the strike.
In that way, you'll sharpen that batting eye and get better acquainted with that strike zone.
As far as young batter's stance is concerned, don't worry about that.
I have talked to some of the best hitters in the big leagues ever seen.
Roger Hornsby, Joe Medrick, Bill Terri and Stan Musil.
And they'll all tell you the same thing.
Be comfortable up there at the plate.
You may want to spread a little,
or you may want to be back far in the batter's box.
When it comes to batting, just be natural up there.
In other words, the way you feel good hitting, that is the way for you to hit.
But practice is the big thing.
And if you boys would just take about two days a week at batting practice,
you'll find you're getting a whole lot more fun out of your actual game.
Because you'll be hitting that old apple against the fences, and a lot more often.
Well, there's, I know, you enjoy giving that advice to the youngsters.
I see a twinkle in your eye.
Yes, Frank, when I was saying the kids would get a lot more fun out of their game,
the story popped into my head.
And when a story pops into busy deans here, they just must pop out.
So pop away, Jerome.
We was playing an exhibition game in Florida, Frank,
and it was really too early to schedule any games.
We'd been in a camp only a few days,
and the pitchers weren't putting nothing on the ball.
It was over at Avon Park, where the fences was about a mile from home plate,
and if a ball happened to get past an outfielder, it just rolled and rolled.
Well, I was pitching and just lobbing the ball over the plate.
We were playing a farm club, Plumbus, or Rochester,
and was having a lot of fun seeing the kids hit.
Terry Moore was out in center field, and he really was having a workout,
chasing him to right center and then to left center.
Finally, after retrieving one of them long ones,
and stood up throwing the ball in, Terry just carried it.
He walked all the way into second base and then to the mound.
He handed me the ball and said,
hey, Dears, please walk a couple of them guys, will you?
I feel like I get my win back.
I'm sitting busy the way it looks to me.
You were trying to give Terry and the other outfielders a real workout.
You know, you had a reputation of not barring your friends
when you were looking for a chance to play a joke.
I heard all about what you did to your radio engineer in New York last summer.
Did you hear that one, Frank?
Well, I might as well tell it before you do.
We were traveling with the Browns, broadcasting their ball games, play-by-play,
and we had to take our engineer along with us on this trip.
I guess maybe that was because they didn't have none in Boston or Philadelphia
who could talk my kind of English.
Anyhow, we had a fine young fellow named Stingel as our radio engineer,
and we nicknamed him Casey after my old friend.
Well, we put Stingel up in fine style with a private room in the New Yorker Hotel.
Casey was bragging about having a fine room, but said he wasn't used to being that high up.
He was on the 32nd floor.
Well, a big storm come up that night.
It was boring to beat the band, and the lighting was flashing, the thunder was rolling.
Me and Johnny O'Hara was rooming together, and the storm woke us up,
and we knew dog gone well, this Stingel was woke up.
Two, so Johnny gets on the telephone, changes his voice, so it sounds like a room clerk
and tells Stingel that on the count of the severe electrical storms and the danger and bobb,
all gas above the 25th floor was requested to kindly get dressed
and spend the balance of the night in the lobby.
We didn't think Casey would fall for it, but he did.
The next day he told us how he spent most of the night on a divine in the lobby.
Jerome, Jerome, that's not a kindly way to treat a friend.
But if you want to reverse that and really be of service to all your friends, I've got an idea.
What's that, Frank?
Well, do you know who some of your biggest fans are?
Who you thinking of, Frank?
Automotive and hardware dealers and service station men.
A lot of them are able to hear this program and listen in on ball games while they're working or between jobs.
They're real friends of yours, Diz, and real friends of Johnson's Carnot, too.
Well, I reckon they know most of us are about cleaning up the old family car wagon.
We like Sunday's shine, but we don't like Saturday's shining, that's the ticket, Diz,
and they know that Johnson's Carnot solves that problem.
You see, men, Johnson's wax-fortified Carnot cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
Just rub it on, let it dry into a white powder, and wipe it off.
When you rub it on, Carnot's five cleaning ingredients cut right through that sticky road film that water won't touch.
You know that road film made up of oil, bugs, exhaust fumes, and all the other things that stick to the finish of your car.
Then when you wipe it off, wax-fortified Carnot polishes your car,
gives your car a high, bright luster that sparkles from bumper to bumper.
So if you like to tool down the road in a car that glistens in the sunlight,
if you like to, how did you say that before, Diz? If you like Sunday's shine, but you don't like Saturday's shining.
That's it. Just ask your service station attendant or other dealer for Johnson's wax-fortified Carnot, that's C-A-R-N-U, Carnot.
And now, Dizzy Dean, we come to the mailbag.
Frank Winschel of Jacksonville, Florida recalls that the Cardinals of your day were about the most colorful and baseball history.
He wants you to tell him a little about that color.
Frank, there was so much color on that bald club, I don't know where to start.
I'm afraid I'll have to divide this up in a couple of installments.
First of all, when you talk about color, I think of Pepper Martin.
I guess he really was the top man in that gashouse gang business, Frank.
He looked like a gas-houser. You could pretty him up in the clubhouse, but after five minutes on the field, he'd be dust from head to foot.
Life was just one laugh after another, Pepper. He'd be sitting on the bench and all of a sudden he'd start laughing, and then he'd tell us what he'd done.
One of his tricks was to carry a sneeze powder around with him.
One night in New York, he saw a nice old couple setting together in the lobby, mining their own business.
The old gentleman was reading the paper, so Pepper goes up on the mezzanine. That's the balcony above the lobby floor, Frank.
Yes, I saw one once you're all.
Now, Pepper dropped some sneeze powder so it lands on the old gentleman's paper.
In a few minutes, the man is letting out one sneeze after another.
It was red hot July weather in New York, but the man's wife turned to him and said,
I told you, Roscoe, that you should have put on a heavier suit than that, and that made the evening perfect for Pepper Martin.
And another time we was on our way to Brooklyn in the subway, Pepper edges toward the front of the car,
and he opens the door, letting in a big windy drought. He flipped some sneeze powder up in the air.
Before you know it, the whole car is sneezing. Boy, that Pepper would drive you crazy.
He sure would.
Now, this wasn't a bag of water another of the Pepper Martin tricks.
It sure was, Frank. One evening in Boston, we was all standing outside the hotel on the sidewalk,
and Pepper tries to douse us with a big laundry bag full of water.
Just as he threw it, Coase, Buzzy Wares and Manager Frankie Frish walked out of the hotel,
and a bag of water exploded on the sidewalk right between them.
Brother Frank and Buzzy could have dried off by jumping into the Charles River.
What Frish knew about that?
He went straight up to Martin's room and told Pepper that would cost him $50.
But Pepper pleaded with Frank that it was a mistake, that he wasn't trying to hit his dandy little manager.
I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Frish said, Martin, real polite lack.
To show you the high respect I have for you as a gentleman and as a manager, I will win the Mars game for you.
And I know then that you won't find poor little Johnny.
And dog-garner, that wasn't just what Pepper done.
We got only about three hits off of Danny McFadden, but one was a home run by Pepper, and we win, one to nothing.
And did that $50 fine stick dizzy?
What do you think, Frank?
Well, I think it's time for you to cast your eye on the big lead picture. What do you see today?
Okay, Frank, and I think I've got a good fasten right through the middle of the plate.
Let's pass the two penant races this time. They're still red hot, and it's anybody's race.
We got time for that next week.
Baseball lost a great figure this week, Frank.
I'm not going to add anything to what already has been said about Babe Ruth and what he meant to baseball.
What I want to talk about is what he will always mean to baseball.
Frank, I hear there's a Babe Ruth Foundation to do things to help untrived kids.
Well, I got a suggestion, and I am talking now to the fathers and big brothers of the country,
to the board of aldermans and the city consums all over the America.
Let's form a Babe Ruth Memorial Committee in every city and town and village.
And here's the idea. Build an extra baseball dam in every city and town and call it Babe Ruth Memorial Field.
That field will be for the kids to use.
If a city has 20 diamonds, one more will help.
Call it Babe Ruth Field, and if a town ain't got any baseball field at all for the kids, bill one, and call it Babe Ruth Field.
It'll be a big job, but it can be done.
Let's all get together.
Somebody in every town appoints himself chairman of a Babe Ruth Memorial Committee, call a meeting, and let's get going.
That's a good idea, Diz, and let's get going now.
Folks, we hope you'll be right back with us at the same time next week to listen to Dizzy Dean.
He's brought to you by Johnson's Car New, a wax fortified auto polish that cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
Rub it on, and Car New cleans your car.
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Get some Johnson's Car New today, and get a high polish without hard work.
Because remember, to give your car that Sunday shine, rub it on, and wipe it off is all you do with Car New.
And this is Old Diz. Hope all you folks understand this time next Saturday.
I'll be pitching them across again for Johnson's Car New.