by Steve Wulf
If all of the above happens in 13 seconds or less, congratulations! You’re still in the race.
Gordon’s pit crew races the clock on June 8, 2008, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Pocono 500 at Pocono International Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
LARCENOUS LOU
SITTING DOWN? LOU GEHRIG STOLE HOME 15 TIMES
The numbers that Lou Gehrig is usually associated with are 4 (his uniform), 23 (the record for career grand slams), and 2,130 (the record for consecutive games played, until Cal Ripken broke it). But there is one number belonging to Larrupin’ Lou that might surprise you: 15. That’s how many times Gehrig stole home in his career.
Although that’s nowhere near the record of 54 set by Ty Cobb, it is 15 more than the total of Lou Brock, who had 938 steals in his career, 836 more than Gehrig had in his. As you may have already guessed, stealing home was a more popular ploy when Gehrig was playing than it is nowadays. In fact, the only post– World War II players with more steals of home than Gehrig are Jackie Robinson (19) and Rod Carew (17).
New York Yankee Lou Gehrig slides into home plate past Washington catcher Hank Severeid, 1925.
Though the Iron Horse carried the alternative sobriquets Piano Legs and Biscuit Pants, he did have decent speed. All of his home thefts came on the front end of double steals, when he was on third and another runner was on first—if the opposing catcher threw down to second, Gehrig broke for home. (The tactic lives on in Little League.) The first of those steals of home was actually and anomalously Gehrig’s first career stolen base.
Because they were known as Murderers’ Row, the Yankees seldom got credit for their aggressive baserunning. But twice Babe Ruth stole second as Gehrig broke from third, the first time in the 1st inning, the second time in the 3rd. Thanks to Raymond J. Gonzalez of The Baseball Research Journal, here is a complete list of Gehrig’s home invasions:
6/24/25 vs. Washington: double steal in 7th with Wally Schang
4/13/26 vs. Boston: double steal in 1st with Babe Ruth
7/24/26 vs. Chicago: double steal in 3rd with Babe Ruth
6/11/27 vs. Cleveland: double steal in 5th with Tony Lazzeri
6/29/27 vs. Boston: double steal in 8th with Bob Meusel
7/30/27 vs. Cleveland (first game): double steal in 3rd with Bob Meusel
7/19/29 vs. Cleveland (first game): double steal in 2nd with Cedric Durst
6/7/30 vs. St. Louis: double steal in 6th with Bill Dickey
4/15/31 vs. Boston: double steal in 8th with Tony Lazzeri
7/28/31 vs. Chicago: double steal in 5th with Ben Chapman
4/12/32 vs. Philadelphia: double steal in 9th with Ben Chapman
6/20/33 vs. Chicago: double steal in 6th with Tony Lazzeri
6/28/33 vs. Detroit: double steal in 9th with Ben Chapman
6/2/34 vs. Philadelphia: double steal in 1st with Jack Saltzgaver
5/15/35 vs. Detroit: double steal in 7th with Tony Lazzeri
If you still doubt Lou Gehrig had speed, consider this: He also had six inside-the-park home runs.
WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK
HOW TO WHISTLE LIKE A MAJOR LEAGUER
Wanna be a major league baseball coach? Here’s a little tip that may help you land that job some day: Nearly every team in baseball has a designated whistler, somebody who can get the attention of an out-of-position outfielder or alert an infielder to a bunt by putting two fingers in his mouth and letting loose an end-of-shift-quality whistle. And even if you don’t get the job, these tips will help you hail cabs or herd cattle or harass the other contestants:
Step 1. Wash your hands!
Step 2. Use your index finger and thumb to form an oval, as you would to form the OK sign.
Step 3. Curl your tongue up and place the tips of your fingers (your thumb and index finger), still forming an oval, under the tip of your tongue.
Step 4. Insert the fingers into your mouth up to about the first knuckle. Place them on the center of your bottom lip, which should be taut. Then, wrap your upper lip over your fingers and tongue. Depending on the size of your mouth, you may be able to wrap your lips over your teeth as well and then press your fingers against your tongue.
Step 5. Here comes the tricky part. The angle of your tongue, teeth, and fingers form what’s called a bevel, and the sound of the whistle is the result of air flowing over that bevel. You are essentially creating a blowhole, and you want to channel the air through it to achieve a crisp whistle. Apply pressure to your fingers with your tongue, keep air from creeping out of the corners of your mouth, and blow.
Everyone’s whistling apparatus is different, so you will have to adjust lip placement, finger angles, blowhole size, tongue pressure, and moisture in the mouth until you find a system that works for you. Make small changes, and you will gradually go from hearing a gush of air to hearing the kind of piercing whistle that would get Manny Ramirez to move to his left.
Until you master it, though, you might want to get a bib.
The team doctor for the 1908 New York Giants, Joseph Creamer, was banned from baseball for trying to bribe an umpire $2,500 to help the Giants beat the Cubs.
SPECIAL K
WHY K STANDS FOR STRIKEOUT
Maybe you know how to work a box score. Maybe you love to paste up a long row of Ks when your team’s pitcher blows away the other guys. You may even think it’s cool that Roger Clemens named his sons Kory, Koby, Kacy, and Kody. But do you know why we use the letter K—not the letter S—to stand for “strikeout”?
The credit for this quirky bit of sports notation goes to Henry Chadwick, who was born in England and moved with his family to Brooklyn at the age of 12. There, he played cricket and other early ball games, such as rounders. Eventually, Chadwick went to work as a sportswriter for various New York papers, mostly covering cricket matches. He reportedly first encountered baseball in 1856 and almost immediately got hooked on the game. He soon abandoned the wickets in favor of the diamond. Along the way, he developed the box score, the basic template of which has changed only slightly since its inception, and the notations used with it. (He was also the first to calculate such statistical measures as ERA and batting average.)
Henry Chadwick, circa 1890.
Chadwick, whose contributions to the game earned him induction into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, apparently favored the last letters of words as much as the first. He explained his method in such volumes as the Beadle’s Dime BaseBall Player of 1861, among the first books to catalog the rules of the game and from which the following is excerpted:
In order, also, to record the movements of each player during the game, a series of abbreviations are adopted, those we use in scoring being as follows:
A for first base. D for catch on the bound.
B for second base. L for foul balls.
C for third base. T for tips.
H for home base. K for struck out.
F for catch on the fly. R for run out between bases.
Double letters—
H R, or h r, for home runs.
L F for foul ball on the fly.
L D for foul ball on the bound.
T F for tip on the fly.
T D for tip on the bound.
The above, at first sight, would appear to be a complicated alphabet to remember, but when the key is applied, it will be at once seen that a boy could easily impress it on his memory in a few minutes. The explanation is simply this—we use the first letter in the words Home, Fly, and Tip, and the last in Bound, Foul, and Struck, and the first three letters of the alphabet for the first three bases.
Got it? We actually prefer the simplicity of one of Phil Rizzuto’s scorecard notations: WW. That stood for “Wasn’t Watching.”
Beadle’s Dime Baseball Player of 1873.
IN THE BAG
INSIDE PHIL MICKELSON’S GOLF LUGGAGE
You know what’s in your golf bag: eight used golf balls, a crumpled scorecard, and a golf glove that you’ve been wearing since your last birdie,
six months ago. But do you know what’s in Phil Mickelson’s golf bag? Here to tell you is Jim “Bones” Mackay, Lefty’s longtime caddy:
We travel with 16 or 17 clubs, so each week we have to figure out what’s in and what’s out, depending on the course and weather conditions. We haven’t played many tournaments this year with a 3-iron, but we did last week in Atlanta because of the long par 3s. Phil won Colonial with five wedges, and there were a few other tournaments where we had that setup.
He shows up at the beginning of the week with everything, and it’s my job to make sure we’ve got in there what we need. He’ll have rain pants, a short-sleeve rain top and a long-sleeve rain top, of course the umbrella, and the cover for the top of the bag should it start raining. I check the weather every evening before we go out.
When you get into the pockets, there’s a ton of things in there. Obviously, you’ve got the tees and the balls, 12 every day for us. We almost always use between six and nine balls.
We’ve never come close to running out until last week in Atlanta, when we started to talk about having to use used balls. He made five birdies in seven holes and started handing them out to kids. I probably should have been quicker to warn him about that. He played the last three holes with the same ball. It was kind of oval at the end, but he was making birdies, so it didn’t matter.
If I have time, I’ll mark them all before the round, but usually there’s so much going on, watching the warm-up, getting pin sheets, rules sheets, wiping down grips.… Sometimes you don’t have quite enough time to mark 12 balls. It takes a little more time than you might think.
Food’s a necessity. I buy and pack two different kinds of energy bars that he likes. Sometimes there are snacks out there, but you can’t count on them. When we play in the last group on the last day, there’s a couple of crumbs left. There’s water on the tees, but we always carry it in the bag because you can go through it quickly. Depending on the weather, he can drink seven, eight, nine bottles of water, if not more.
Let’s see, two or three training aids that he uses for his putting drills. There’s Advil, allergy medicine, an extra pair of contacts, contact solution, sunscreen. Sharpies. Very critical, Sharpies, (a) for marking balls, (b) for autographs afterward. Pencils. There’s a rule sheet for each particular week. Lead tape, laser, the shaft Phil uses to check his alignment on the range. Adhesive tape if his hand cracks a little bit when he’s practicing hard. Gloves, four, five, six, something like that. He’s not a long-tee guy. He likes white golf tees, not the old-timey short white ones, but—I don’t know—2¼ inches? They’re very hard to find on the road, so I’ve got to bring them.
I’m not real sure what the bag weighs. Callaway makes a heckuva golf bag. It’s not so much the dead weight as much as how well the weight is distributed, and the Callaway bags are fantastic in that sense. They’re not particularly heavy. I’m totally guessing here, 45 pounds or so loaded.
More if we’re playing at Pebble Beach, though. There, I carry everything that we’ve named, plus a sweater, a sweater vest, and mittens.
GENIUS IN A JIFFY
THE FIVE BEST SPORTS LEADS
The creed of the sportswriter is Write better than anybody faster than you and faster than anybody better than you. With that in mind, we present five examples of timeless leads written while the clock was ticking:
Reporters at New York’s Polo Grounds during the 1913 World Series.
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden.”
— Grantland Rice, New York Herald Tribune, on Notre Dame’s 13–7 victory over Army on October 13, 1924
“Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”
— Red Smith, New York Herald Tribune, on Bobby Thomson’s home run off Ralph Branca, which gave the New York Giants a 5–4 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in their final playoff game in 1951
“Olympic Village was under siege. Two men lay murdered and eight others were held at gunpoint in imminent peril of their lives. Still the games went on. Canoeists paddled through their races. Fencers thrust and parried in make-believe duels. Boxers scuffled. Basketball players scampered across the floor like happy children. Walled off in their dream world, appallingly unaware of the realities of life and death, the aging playground directors who conduct this quadrennial muscle dance ruled that a little bloodshed must not be permitted to interrupt play.”
— Red Smith, The New York Times, at the 1972 Munich Olympics
“For those of you who missed the Russo-Finnish War, the Johnstown Flood and Custer’s Last Stand, be of good cheer. Muhammad Ali is going to ‘fight’ Chuck Wepner, Type O. Like the Titanic fought that iceberg.”
— Jim Murray, Los Angeles Times, previewing the 1975 Wepner-Ali fight
“They played like it was the seventh game of the World Series.”
— Peter Pascarelli, The Baltimore News-American, after the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles in the seventh game of the 1979 World Series
You may have noticed that Red Smith wrote two of those. Yes, he was that good and that fast.
THE WRITE STUFF
DAVID WRIGHT ON HOW TO GET AN AUTOGRAPH
Back in 1995, Jason Isringhausen was a 22-year-old pitcher for the Norfolk Tides, then the Mets’ triple-A affiliate. Somewhere in the crowd of kids always asking for his autograph at Harbor Park was a 12-year-old named David Wright. Years later, they would meet again, Isringhausen as the closer for the St. Louis Cardinals and Wright as the third baseman for the Mets.
Having been on both sides of the pen, Wright has a special appreciation for the right way to ask for an autograph: “I would say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and that’s what I listen for as a player. It sounds simple, but as players we really appreciate politeness because people look at us differently sometimes and take things for granted.”
Here are some basic rules to follow if you’re looking for autographs:
1. Be polite. Try saying “Mr. Brady” instead of shouting “Hey, Tom!” Players are attuned to the people in a crowd, and they’ll often overlook the pushy autograph seekers and seek out kids who are being shoved aside. Nice guys do finish first.
2. Be patient. It’s a little like fishing: Get to an event early, scope out the best locations, and wait. “During batting practice,” says Wright, “find the path a player takes from the field to the dugout. Try to catch his attention, but don’t be overbearing.” A less crowded spot in which to wait is along the outfield lines, where players usually do their stretching. There are also opportunities after a game, but you have to be very patient for those.
3. Be prepared. Bring along a pen, preferably a Sharpie, which now comes in a miniature version. Bring along something to sign: a ball, a hat, a card, a program. “Doesn’t matter what,” says Wright. Keep a roster or lineup handy to help identify players and coaches.
4. Be organized. What you do with the autograph after an event is just as important as what you do to get it. If thrown cavalierly into a sock drawer after the game, it is liable to sit around so long it becomes unrecognizable. So keep a special place for the signatures, out of the direct sunlight.
5. Don’t be particular. While everyone clamors for the big stars to sign, other players go unnoticed. You never know what will become of them. Brett Favre was once a third-string quarterback, Albert Pujols an unknown rookie. Minor league ballparks are especially good places for autographs: not as much competition, and in a year or two that signature may be attached to a much bigger name.
By the way, Wright may have Isringhausen’s name, but Isringhausen has Wright’s number: 0-for-6 lifetime.
The number of baseballs used during a major league game is
between five dozen and six dozen (60-72).
THROWDOWN
THE SECRETS TO ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
In Korea, it’s known as gawi, bawi, bo. In Germany, it’s Schnik, Schnak, Schnuk. In Chile, ca, chi, pun. You know it as rock, paper, scissors, and it’s a game as universal and ancient as football. At the same time as your opponent, you throw out your hand in the symbol of one of three objects: rock takes scissors, scissors take paper, paper takes rock. Could be one and done or best of three or a World Series–like best of seven. But you know all that. And you probably think it’s pretty much a matter of luck.
Wrong, says Graham Walker, a co-founder of the World RPS Society. “It is not a game of random chance because both players have to make a choice about what throw to pick. There’s always something motivating our actions.” Walker’s advice boils down to play paper, play quickly, and play opposites. As he explains, “Rock is for rookies, the most common throw for beginners, so play paper instead. The less time you let your opponent think between throws, the more likely they will be to fall into a predictable pattern. Finally, players have a tendency—when rushed—to play the throw that you last played.”
For more advanced players, there are gambits, like “the avalanche,” three successive rocks. There’s also “cloaking,” which is waiting until the last nanosecond to reveal your throw, and “player profiling,” in which you study your opponents’ tells and dominant throws.
So, no, it’s not all luck. Not even if you’re playing kamen, papir, makaze in Bosnia.
REEL GOOD
JEFFREY LYONS PICKS THE FIVE BEST SPORTS MOVIES
Since the inception of the Academy Awards in 1929, 13 sports movies have been nominated for Best Picture (or the equivalent award). But which movies have been the best sports pictures? We asked the noted film critic and sports expert Jeffrey Lyons for his five best, and oddly enough none of them has ever been nominated for Best Picture. Here are his choices, with a trailer from each: