GOMEZ FIELD DAY
"Lefty Gomez, the ex-New York Yankee pitcher, managed the Caracas team in Venezuela several winters ago, although he speaks no Spanish. The team finished one game out of first place. Gomez also managed the Binghamton, N.Y. team and finished in last place. 'It proves,' he says, 'that a manager is better off keeping his mouth shut' ... He never could hit, and his dream was of some day breaking a baseball bat. 'Years after I quit playing, I broke my first bat,' he reports. 'Ran over it, while backing my car out of the garage.'"
-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
EATING JIMMIE'S WORDS
"American League President Will Harridge is still chuckling over his trip to the major-minor convention in St. Petersburg. He was on the same train with Lefty Gomez and Jimmie Dykes, new manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.
Dykes and Gomez had dinner together and when they were handed the check, Gomez jumped up with it, walked down the car to Prexy Harridge and presented the tab.
'I figure you might as well pop for this check,' Gomez declared. 'With Dykes back as a manager again in this league, you'll have picked up enough fines from him by the end of the season to still leave you a handsome profit.'"
-Lyall Smith in the Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, February 1951)
NOT EVEN A SINKER?
"At St. Petersburg, Fla., Lefty Gomez and other baseballers watched some kids perched on the Gulf wall spearing fish, throwing their pitchfork-like poles with uncanny accuracy. 'Why don't you try it,' one gent asked Gomez. 'You ought to have good enough control.' The one-time Yankee left-hander grinned and said: 'My control is all right, but I haven't enough stuff to break the water.'"
-Max Kase in the New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, March 1951)
WANTED: LOCAL CALL, NOT LONG DISTANCE BLOW
"Lefty Gomez once faced Jimmie (The Beast) Foxx with the bases loaded and the score tied in the ninth. Catcher Bill Dickey called for a curve, a fast ball, then a change-of-pace pitch, only to have Gomez call him off emphatically each time. Finally Dickey called time and, striding toward the mound, bellowed: 'Why don't you throw the dadgumed ball?'
Gomez swallowed, twitched, and whispered: 'I'm afraid to. Let's just wait. Maybe he'll get called to a phone.'"
-Arch Ward in the Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, June 1951)
WHEN SNAKEY FAST GONE ALMOST FANNED GOMEZ
"Lefty Gomez, famous as a pitcher for the New York Yankees and as a practical joker, nearly ended his career with a prank in Atlanta.
Lefty picked up a realistic-looking paper snake while on a trip to Japan and brought it with him when the Yankees played an exhibition game with the Crackers. In the hotel Lefty entertained himself by coiling his snake beside a chair, waiting quietly until a lady sat down, then yelling 'Snake!' and watching her go into hysterics. The gag worked several times in the lobby.
Then Lefty planted his snake in the night club and yelled when a bus girl stepped over it. She dropped her tray and ran screaming to the kitchen. Seconds later she came back, with a carving knife. She didn't try to kill the snake, as everyone expected, but went after Lefty.
Observers in the club said if her skirt had not been too tight for fast running, she might have amputated one of the most famous left arms in baseball."
-Willard Neal in the Atlanta Journal (Baseball Digest, July 1951)
GOMEZ OF THE KEEN EYE
"Probably Lefty Gomez's favorite press clipping is from a New York paper and the story stems from the opening game of the 1937 World Series between the Giants and Yankees. It's Gomez vs. Carl Hubbell and after six innings it's a 1-1 tie.
'I lead off the seventh and you know what kind of hitter I was,' Lefty relates. 'Hubbell gets a little careless and throws two balls in a row. I stepped out of the box and looked to Art Fletcher, who's coaching third base, and he gives me the sign you'd expect. 'Take it,' he signals.
'I took it- a called strike. Again Fletcher signals the 'take.' Hubbell threw another ball and it's three-and-one. Now, just out of habit, I step out again and look at Fletcher and, naturally, he relays the 'take' sign. Hub throws a strike and it's three-and-two.
'Now I really look at Fletch and, with three-and-two, it's 'take' again. I step out and walk down to him, but Art has orders from Joe McCarthy on the bench and he says, 'Gomez, don't swing. Maybe he'll miss the plate.'
'Sure enough, Hubbell misses by half an inch and I walk. It upsets Carl so much we have a six-run inning and win, 8-1. But the payoff was the headline in a New York paper the next day. It said: 'Gomez's Keen Eye Starts Six-Run Rally.''"
-Francis Stann in the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, August 1951)
UNSPRUNG
"One of Lefty Gomez's favorite stories is about a trap play he and Bill Dickey, his New York Yankee catcher, planned for Hank Greenberg, one of the game's greatest right-handed sluggers while he was with Detroit.
'When I got two strikes on Greenberg,' he'll tell his listeners, 'Dickey was to step out of the catcher's box as if I was going to throw a pitchout. Then he'd jump back as Hank relaxed and I was to wing one over the plate for the third strike.'
At this point of the story he'll pause and wait for someone to ask this question which invariably follows:
'Well, how did you make out?'
'I don't know,' he'll reply. 'I could never get two strikes on the guy.'"
-Ed Pollack in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, November 1951)
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