"Lefty Gomez met a friend who didn't know that Lefty's Binghamton team had ended the season in the Eastern League basement. 'How'd your club finish, Lefty?' asked the friend. 'With nine players,' answered the Goofy One."
-Baseball Digest, January 1948
THEY CAN'T DO THAT TO HIM!
"Vernon Lefty Gomez, the old Yankees' pitcher, now managing Binghamton in the Eastern League, recently was recalling the old days with Marse Joe McCarthy. Lefty recalled how infuriated McCarthy was when El Goofo, pitching against the New York Giants in the 1937 World Series, paused in his work and nonchalantly watched an airplane flying overhead. When the airplane disappeared, Gomez went back to work against Mel Ott, the Giants' batsman of the moment. Later, Lefty got a blast from McCarthy. 'You want to lose the game?' roared Joe. 'When you're not thinking like that, Ott might knock one out of the park.' 'Not,' answered Gomez, 'when I've got the ball in my hand. If that's the way these Giants play, hitting homers when I've got the ball in my hands, I'm getting out of baseball right now.'"
-Arch Ward in the Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, February 1948)
"When Lefty Gomez filled out a detailed application blank and questionnaire for a job recently, one line asked the question, 'What was your last employment?'
'Pitching baseball,' Gomez answered.
Then the next question: 'Why did you leave that employment?'
In complete honesty, Gomez wrote: 'Couldn't get the other side out.'"
-Fred Russell in the Nashville Banner (Baseball Digest, February 1949)
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