PROMISE TO A MOTHER
It Was A Real Nice Pitch
"The name of Dick Wakefield cropped up in the conversation. It does frequently when baseball men are talking, because baseball men have been trying for years to figure out how one guy can look as good in a baseball suit as Wakefield does, and play so poorly.
'When Wish Egan signed him for the Tigers,' a fellow was saying, 'he bought a million dollars' worth of ability for $52,000. On top of everything else, Dick is just about as decent, pleasant a guy as you could meet.'
'He is that,' said Birdie Tebbetts, the old catcher and new manager of Indianapolis. 'Of course, I've always felt especially close to him because when he joined the Detroit club I was catching there and Dick's mother wrote me a sweet letter asking me to look after her boy.'
'And did you?'
'It's not for me to say,' Birdie said, 'but I'll tell you a story. I was with Cleveland last season, you know, and you remember that Wakefield was out in Tucson trying for a job with the Indians. You never saw anybody, a rookie or a veteran, work harder than Dick did. He really gave it everything and everybody liked him.
'Before spring training ended, though, Manager Al Lopez took him aside and told him, 'Dick, I don't want to hurt you. The way things are, you can only sit on the bench as my sixth outfielder, and that means that the first time we have to cut the squad you have to go. I think it would be better for you if we turned you loose now so you could hunt up a job before all the managers have their clubs set.'
'Dick agreed that would be best, too, so the Indians released him and he joined the Giants to try out with them. He worked just as hard with New York as he had with us. Durocher was fond of him.
'On the way home, we were playing the Giants in Shreveport. We beat 'em, 1-0. I remember particularly because I got the base hit that drove in the run. I was catching a kid pitcher when Dick came up as a pinch hitter in the ninth. I think it was his first time at bat with the Giants.
'Now, I happened to know the score on the kid pitcher. It had already been determined that the Indians would send him out, so his future wasn't at stake here. I called for the pitch I thought Dick would be most likely to hit well.
'He did. He knocked the cover off the ball. A line drive to left-center for two bases. The next batter popped up and the game was over, 1-0.
'Walking off the field, I met Herman Franks, the Giants' coach. 'You took pretty good care of your boy,' he said to me.
'I said, 'What was the pitch? Did it have anything on it?'
' 'Yes,' Herman said. 'Pretty good stuff.'
' 'And what was the next pitch?' I said. 'The one the next hitter popped up. It was the same pitch, wasn't it?' Herman said it was.
' 'All right,' I said, 'so what are you popping off about?'
' 'Listen,' I told him, 'I don't take care of any guy when he's up there hitting against me. Spring training game or a championship, batters are all alike to me. I wouldn't take care of you. I wouldn't take care of my mother.' '
As Birdie finished the tale, his face was as straight as bonded rye.
'It was a real nice pitch,' he said. 'The one I figured Wakefield would be least likely to look very bad on. I told Franks I wouldn' take care of my mother. I didn't say Dick's mother.' "
-Red Smith, condensed from the New York Herald Tribune (Baseball Digest, March 1953)
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