MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Jim Matson]

"Real" injuries?

[emeritusprof]

Before television and email, I went to school in St. Louis.  We had an 8-4 arrangement, with no junior high or middle school.

Because football was considered too dangerous for little guys, we played interschool soccer instead.  Football began in high school--no little leagues.  For me, it was only sandlot football (tackle without proper gear) out of school--soccer in school.

The only serious injury I sustained was in a sandlot football game.  Soccer was pretty restrained, but perhaps only because we were not very good soccer players.  I always had much more body contact playing basketball than playing soccer.

I still believe it would be wise to restrict tackle football to high school and beyond.

[Knightstalker]

I played both football and one season of soccer in hs.  Playing football I got beat up but was able to play every week and practice almost every day.  I tore up my knee and ankle worse in soccer than in any other sport.

[Knightstalker]

I figure this is the place to ask this trivia question.  It is baseball trivia and unfortunately for many it is Yankee trivia. 

Yesterday Bernie Williams became the fifth yankee player to play in 2,000 games, can anyone name the other four, without looking it up.  Hint they are all hall of famers.  The other four were also two sets of two team mates.

[joehakes]

I'll guess Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and a teammate of each.  The Babe was in and out and didn't begin or end his career with the Yankees.  Tony Lazzeri maybe?

Prikkel should have this one stored in his massive cranium somewhere.

[joehakes]

I looked it up.  I got one right since Gehrig is a no-brainer.  But I should have gone with my first instincts on two of the others.  I won't say who the other three are, but let a few more folks weigh in.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It's gotta be Berra for sure, even with the injuries he was there for so long.

Gehrig is obvious.

I think Babe Ruth is the teammate.  No one else on that team had a career long enough for it.

Mickey Mantle would be my other choice.

Really not too difficult when you think about it; although I did grow up a Yankees fan (don't worry, I only loved the old guys; I've pretty much disowned them since Steinbrenner screwed over andy Pettitte.  In fact, I'm amazed I hung on that long).

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

And yes, Tony Lazzeri is in the Hall of Fame, but I don't think his career was long enough.

[Gregory Sager]

Frank Crosetti, the Ruth/Gehrig/DiMaggio era shortstop comes to mind - Crosetti would later be the Yankees thirdbase coach for 30 years - and certainly was "in" a Yankee uniform for more games than any other Yankee.

To me, Frankie "the Crow" Crosetti will always be the petty old sourpuss who coached third base for the Seattle Pilots in 1969, as immortalized in Jim Bouton's Ball Four. One of my all-time favorite baseball players, who made a cameo appearance in Ball Four, just died the other day -- reliever Moe Drabowsky, the pride of Ozanna, Poland (his birthplace), who played for nine major league teams during a 17-year career and still holds the record for the most strikeouts by a reliever in a World Series game (11, which he got after coming in for Dave McNally for the Orioles in Game One of the 1966 WS against the Dodgers). Drabowsky was one of the all-time great clubhouse pranksters in MLB history. He was a walking arsenal of hotfoots, cherry bombs, whoopee cushions, joy buzzers, live snakes, and the odd dab or two of Atomic Balm that would inevitably end up in a teammate's jockstrap. He gave MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn a hotfoot while Kuhn was being interviewed on television by Tony Kubek during the 1970 World Series, and he managed to discomfit opponents by putting sneezing powder in the air conditioner of the visiting team's clubhouse in Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium and live goldfish in the visiting team's dugout water cooler.

His specialty was monkeying around with bullpen phones. Once, when he was with the Orioles in the mid-'60s, they were playing a game against the Kansas City A's in KC's Memorial Stadium. Starting pitcher Jim Nash of the A's was mowing down the Orioles left and right. Drabowsky was sitting in the visiting team's bullpen, and he surreptitiously picked up the bullpen phone when nobody was watching. As a former A's reliever, he knew the extension of the home team's bullpen phone and the fact that you could dial it from the visiting team's bullpen. So he dialed it, barked "Get Krausse up!", and hung up the phone. A's reliever Lew Krausse scrambled to his feet to begin warming up, to the total confusion of Nash, A's manager Alvin Dark, and his coaches in the home team's dugout. Perhaps his ultimate prank came when, on a dare by his fellow Orioles relievers, he used the bullpen phone at Anaheim Stadium to order Chinese takeout ... from a restaurant in Hong Kong.

[emeritusprof]

Seems Moe missed his calling.  He should have been a St. Louis Brown.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

We'll have to compare sources there Sager.  Perhaps these were multiple occurances, but they had a Moe tribute on the radio here in KC yesterday with a bunch of his old teammates telling stories.  They said he did the bullpen call thing against the Orioles and was impersonating Earl Weaver.  Moe got some reliever up three separate times and Earl sat him down twice before realizing that Moe "was in the stadium" that day.  They also told the Chinese take-out story, but it was from KC's own bullpen and it was possible because there had been a concert the night before and the outside lines hadn't been disconnected from the bullpen phone.

To add to it, they also mentioned a story about how he used to set guy's hats on fire.  He's spray lighter fluid on them and light them up.  One such occurrance happened to coincide with a close play at the plate and a stadium filled with fans were horrified as one of the Royals came running out of the dugout to celebrate with foot-tall flames coming out of the top of his head.

Moe was a great guy.

[Knightstalker]

I have been having connection problems, I really love comcast, really I do.

Most of the people who attempted got at least a couple of them right.  They are Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra.  No one between Mickey and Bernie.  Bernie is also third on the all time doubles list only a couple behind Donnie Baseball.

Mickey and Yogi both had injury issues but you have to remember how long both played and Yogi extended his career when he moved to left field to make way for Elston Howard behind the plate.

What is great about baseball stories is by they time they are told a bunch of times they happened in every major league city, sometimes in cities that didn't have teams when the incident supposedly occured.

[Pistol Pete]

A question for the Illinois prep hoops fans among you:

I see my old alma mater, the U of Chicago, has signed as a recruit a young fellow named Jake Pancratz from Schaumburg.

Having been away from Illinois for a long time, I don't hear much about prep players, but on paper this guy looks good.

Any takes from your perspectives?

I see Greg and some of my other old friends are still on the board.

Hope everyone is well.
Cheers,
Pistol

[robertgoulet]

pete,

pancratz is a good get for u of c. great bball pedigree (both brothers went D-1, full ride...mark at wisonsin-milwaukee, zach at northern illinois). good fundementals, good bball IQ.

[Pistol Pete]

A relation to Andy Pancratz, who also played DI a generation back, I wonder?