A WOPper of a Story
Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:08 pm
My favorite team that I never saw was the 1927 New York Yankees.
I made it a mission this year to try and learn as much as I could about the team and most of its players.
Hence, the earlier Joe Dugan post.
I don't trust modern day folks to tell me about these Yankees, because they saw them as much as I did.
Never.
So, I've taken to going back over old newspaper stories about the team to get a feel for what it was like through the eyes of writers who were watching the game.
For those with political correctness issues. You know, those that make up less than one percent of our country, yet seem to make the new rules, you best look away.
One of my favorites on that team was Tony Lazzeri.
Here is an article straight from an editorial column of the New York Telegram in 1927-
(Anything in parenthesis is me)
'If Tony Lazzeri had as many lives as a cat, Manager Miller Huggins would use all of them at once, for the San Francisco Wop is baseball's most versatile player.
The Yankee Pilot has had Tony filling in for everybody but the catcher and pitcher, and when he gets the pennant race sewn up, he intends to let him play an inning at every position.
(Huggins did want to do this, but Lazzeri did not want the attention in such a gimmick, so he declined)
Not a few players believe Tony is a better third baseman than Dugan, a niftier shortstop than Koenig, a classier second sacker than Morehart (second was Lazzeri's usual position), a steadier and flashier first baseman than Gehrig, and as good as an outfielder as anybody Huggins has.
On the field, Tony is a bristling and snarling battler.
Off the field, he is quiet and reserved with little to say on anything except baseball.
SOME GUY, DEESA BOY TONY!'
- New York Telegram
I made it a mission this year to try and learn as much as I could about the team and most of its players.
Hence, the earlier Joe Dugan post.
I don't trust modern day folks to tell me about these Yankees, because they saw them as much as I did.
Never.
So, I've taken to going back over old newspaper stories about the team to get a feel for what it was like through the eyes of writers who were watching the game.
For those with political correctness issues. You know, those that make up less than one percent of our country, yet seem to make the new rules, you best look away.
One of my favorites on that team was Tony Lazzeri.
Here is an article straight from an editorial column of the New York Telegram in 1927-
(Anything in parenthesis is me)
'If Tony Lazzeri had as many lives as a cat, Manager Miller Huggins would use all of them at once, for the San Francisco Wop is baseball's most versatile player.
The Yankee Pilot has had Tony filling in for everybody but the catcher and pitcher, and when he gets the pennant race sewn up, he intends to let him play an inning at every position.
(Huggins did want to do this, but Lazzeri did not want the attention in such a gimmick, so he declined)
Not a few players believe Tony is a better third baseman than Dugan, a niftier shortstop than Koenig, a classier second sacker than Morehart (second was Lazzeri's usual position), a steadier and flashier first baseman than Gehrig, and as good as an outfielder as anybody Huggins has.
On the field, Tony is a bristling and snarling battler.
Off the field, he is quiet and reserved with little to say on anything except baseball.
SOME GUY, DEESA BOY TONY!'
- New York Telegram