THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE
"Johnny Mize, who's going to do some broadcasting for the Giants this season, may require some warming up before he learns to babble with the inconsequential insouciance characteristic of radio spielers. Get him started talking, and he can ramble along at considerable length, but garrulous isn't the first word that comes to mind when you're describing the man. At least, it wouldn't come first to Heywood Hale Broun's mind.
Several years back Woody Broun was covering baseball, having not then forsaken journalism for the theater, in a season where a pitcher took his life in his hands every time he entered a ball park. Home runs were whistling over the fences at a rate that would have had the Atomic Energy Commission eyeing the baseball manufacturers suspiciously.
Woody sought Mize's opinion as to the reason why home run records were crumbling everywhere. 'What do you mean?' John asked.
'Well,' Woody said, 'take a fellow like Eddie Miller, the shortstop. In the past nobody ever confused him with you or Babe Ruth or Jimmie Foxx, but here it is only June and he's hit 11 homers already. How do you explain a thing like that?'
John thought it over. Then, choosing his words, he gave judgment.
'He's hitting the long ball,' he said."
-Red Smith in the New York Herald Tribune (Baseball Digest, April 1954)
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