STONES IN THEIR SHOES
Truck Hannah Discourses On Catchers' Tricks, Ruth's Conversion
"Harry (Truck) Hannah, baseball's answer to the Rock of Gibraltar back in the days when he played a single-handed game of squat tag behind home plate for the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels, among others, dropped in the other day during the social hour.
After a saucer of cambric tea, the ex-Angel manager, catcher and one-man strong-arm squad retired to the bullpen to warm up a few touches. Clyde King, the new Hollywood field marshall, slid into the act while practicing base-stealing techniques and it was with a great deal of pleasure that I introduced him to Brother Hannah.
I explained that Truck was a scholar who believed in fair play, especially when it favored his team. I also felt duty bound to inform King that Hannah had long since retired from baseball and that it was no longer necessary to keep a sharp eye on him lest he steal the pants right off your hip pads. While on the field Truck was every other inch a gentleman, which is giving him a little of the best of it.
Among other things, Truck used to make a habit of squatting innocently behind the plate, reaching down and grabbing a handful dirt and assorted debris and pouring it inside the batter's shoes.
'I gave that up after a while,' confessed Truck. 'There got to be too many guys in the game from Arkansas and Oklahoma. I'd toss rocks and sand in their shoes, but since they hadn't worn any until they were at least old enough to vote, it sort of felt good to them to have something biting at the soles of their feet. It was just like being back home again and they got to hitting the ball a lot better than they did when there was nothing inside their shoes but feet.'
Hannah had a reputation in the diamond set for being able to tip a hitter's bat without the umpire ever suspecting he was tampering with the equipment of the man at the plate. Tipping the bat is the term used when the catcher knocks the stick out of alignment and prevents the hitter from getting an accurate swing at the ball. The penalty is an automatic trip to first base.
'I wouldn't dream of knowingly committing such an offense,' objected Truck. 'This would be unethical and I want no part of such practices. Of course, now and then, in my eagerness to catch the ball, I would reach out and my hand or glove would come in brief contact with the bat. This was probably due to the fact that I had large hands and the knuckles were a little stiff so that I could not bend my fingers and keep them out of the way. Hitters who misunderstood me used to get pretty put out by it all.
'I used to practice a form of distraction that was quite legal, however,' Truck went on. 'At least it was legal until Harry Williams, the Pacific Coast League president, issued a special ruling directed solely at me.
'In a tough situation with men on base and a rough guy at bat, I would pick up a handful of dirt and pebbles and just as the ball reached the plate I'd throw them at the hands and wrists of the batter. Didn't hurt him any, but the shock was enough to make him flinch and before he recovered he was walking back to the dugout wondering what happened.'
We got to talking about sharp-eyed coaches who could tell from the way a pitcher held the ball or through some mannerism he unwittingly committed precisely what his next pitch was going to be. By shouting a prearranged signal to the batter he could get set for whatever was being served him.
'Marty Krug, who was in the majors with the Red Sox and Cubs, was the best man at reading a pitcher's mind I ever saw,' Truck declared. 'There used to be a spitball pitcher named Harry Krause at Seattle who was a dazzler. Or he was until Marty finally nailed him. It turned out that he held the ball to his mouth on every pitch, but would only supply the saliva when the occasion suited him. Krug watched him closely and detected that every time the spitter was coming up Krause ducked his head ever so slightly. He was easy pickings after that.
'And speaking of getting to the pitchers, do you know why Babe Ruth left the mound and went to work as an outfielder?'
'I always thought it was because he was such a great hitter that they wanted him in the lineup every day,' I replied.
'He was a good hitter, all right, but was well on the road to becoming one of the all-time pitching greats. Pitched twenty-nine and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play, for one thing.
'But what actually sent him to the outfield is that suddenly the batters were getting to him. None of the men on his Boston Red Sox team could figure out why, since he had the same stuff that was virtually unhittable before.
'What happened was that a coach nailed him and the word got around. Every time he threw a curved ball he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. It was a dead giveaway and all the batters had to do was dig in and swing from the sacroiliac, for they knew exactly what was coming.'
The Bambino also stuck out his tongue when he swung a bat. But a fat lot of good that did the pitchers."
-Ned Cronin, Los Angeles Times (Baseball Digest, May 1957)
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