Hobie Landrith was missing. Well, he died last week, but I mean he was missing from my autograph collection. He was a good example of the type of player I would not care about having in the collection — a back-up catcher for a variety of teams over a respectable but unspectacular 14-year career. But his obit today made him a “must get” in my eyes: He was the first ever Met!
When the Mets (along with the Houston Colt 45’s) were formed in 1962, an expansion draft was held. Each Major League team could protect most of its roster, but the new teams could draft unprotected players. Houston went first and grabbed shortstop Eddie Bressoud from the Giants. Then the Mets made Landrith their first choice. When Manager Casey Stengel was asked why they chose Landrith, he said you gotta have a catcher, or else you’re gonna have a lot of passed balls. Landrith was the catcher and batted eighth in the Mets first regular season game. He went 0 for 4, made an error, and allowed three runners to steal. Oh, well. It’s baseball — not a fairy tale.
On May 12, 1962, Landrith came up to pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth with the Mets down 2-1. Rod Kanehl was on base, having pinch run for Gil Hodges. Before Landrith stepped into the box, Stengel called time and whispered something in his ear. The great Warren Spahn was pitching for the Braves. Landrith sent the first pitch over the fence for a game-winning home run. When Stengel was asked later what it was he whispered, he said “I told him to hit a home run.”
It was almost negated. Kanehl failed to touch third base. Luckily, third base coach Solly Hemus noticed and stopped Kanehl in his tracks and had him go back and touch third before Landrith did. Had Landrith touched the base first, Kanehl would have been called out and the Braves would have won the game on a walk-off home run by the opposing team.
[Side note: I rode the subway home from a Mets game once along with Solly Hemus. That’s how I got his autograph. He was very friendly.]
One of the other teams Landrith played for was Cincinnati. According to Wikipedia, it was during the height of anti-Communist sentiment in the U.S., and the Reds officially changed their name to the Cincinnati Redlegs to remove any potential “confusion” between the baseball team and Communists.
Let’s just tip-toe away from that. Comments could only diminish its luster.
When I noticed that Landrith was missing from my collection, I went on eBay and picked up a nice signed card by him for under $10. It’s pictured below. The lack of monetary value is more than made up for by the story, the historic value.
Landrith is survived by his wife, six children, his brother, 11 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. He was 93. He’ll be settling in behind the plate once he gets through those pearly gates. Even Heaven can always use a solid back-up catcher.
“Weezie” had a perceptive and heartfelt comment on today’s puzzle, IMHO. The puzzle included Toni Morrison, Nat King Cole, Langston Hughes, stuff from India (tandoori oven and atta flour), and Ravi Shankar. Also Michaela COEL, British actress and screenwriter.
Weezie noted: I really appreciated how non Eurocentric/white-centric this puzzle was. It is a great example of how much more inclusive crosswords can be while still being accessible. Another fabulous example in another dimension of inclusion was cluing STEER as “Use a wheelchair’s push rims, for instance.” Seeing that casual inclusion of disabled people’s experiences – not in any kind of exceptionalizing, pitying, or “inspiration porn” way – feels like it normalized disability, much like it normalized decentering whiteness.
Wow — a lot of attention on Tennessee lately. Last month, during deliberation on a bill to allow the use of firing squads as an execution method, GOP State Representative Paul Sherrell suggested adding an amendment that would allow lynching as well: “hanging by a tree.”
In response, Democrat Justin J. Pearson attempted to read out the names of lynching victims in Shelby County, where the majority of the lynchings in Tennessee took place, but was cut off by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who stated he was “out of line,” the “he” being Pearson, of course, not Sherrell. Sherrell apologized for the remarks two days later. Members of the Tennessee Black Caucus criticized his apology for being “insincere.” Sherrell was removed from the Criminal Justice Committee. Yup — that probably wasn’t the best committee for the guy.
The theme for Sunday’s puzzle was aphorisms where only the first half is given and the remainder can be omitted because it’s understood. A BIRD IN THE HAND is all you need to say, right? Similarly, WHEN IN ROME, or IF YOU CANT STAND THE HEAT. Some took issue with the inclusion of SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, claiming that it has no second part. But the consensus was that it does – something like Speak of the devil “and he appears,” or the more lurid “and you see his horns.”
Each of these is an example of an “anapodoton.” That’s what they are called. Another example from the puzzle was ALL THAT GLITTERS, and one person corrected that, claiming it should be “all that glisters.” WTF?? Can’t be! But it sort of is. The saying predates Shakespeare by several hundred years, but his version of it (in The Merchant of Venice), was “all that glisters is not gold.” It changed to glitters by the time Dryden used it in 1687, and that’s the current common usage. Both words mean the same thing.
Three cheers for Ronnie Gajownik, first female manager of a High-A level minor league ballclub, The Hillsboro Hops, in the Diamondback farm system. Hillsboro is in Oregon, in the Portland area.
She’s gay too! Here’s a sweet shot from her wedding. Owl Chatter will be pulling for the Hops bigtime this season! So far, so good — they are 3-1.
Let’s close on that nice note — see you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 