PASSED BALL
"There was the afternoon in Washington a few years ago when Lewis Norman Newsom, an interant pitcher who called everybody Bobo and who answered to the same name, was working on a shutout for the Senators.
The first batter in the seventh opened with a single. It was a bunt situation and everybody knew it as Bobo's pitching opponent came up with a bat in his hands. The umpire was Red Jones.
As Newsom fired his fast ball, Eddie Yost broke in from third base and charged down the line. The batter took the pitch ... 'Stike One.'
Bobo fired another fast ball. Yost again broke for the plate, in expectation of making the play he made best- a barehanded pickup of a bunt. The batter also took this one ... 'Ball One,' called umpire Jones.
Bobo threw still another fast ball, his third in a row. Once again Yost tore in toward the plate.
Newsom suddenly called time and summoned Yost over to the mound.
'Cut that out,' he told Eddie.
'Cut what out?' puzzled Eddie.
'Cut out charging to the plate every time I throw my fast ball,' grunted Bobo.
'What's wrong with that?' countered his third basman.
'Old Bobo is a-throwin' that ball as hard as he can,' said Newsom. 'But you're getting to the plate faster than my pitch. What're you trying to do ... show me up?' "
-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, March 1959)
THE HARD WAY
"It took a master of the art of alibi to talk him out of the spot in which Bobo Newsom once found himself. Hurling for the St. Browns against the Athletics one day, Newsom was sweating out a massacre. When the Browns came off the field in the seventh inning, the score had mounted to 15-0 in favor of the A's.
'Gosh, Bobo,' a teammate kidded, 'they're really cracking you up today.
'Aw, nuts!,' Newsom replied. 'How d'ya expect a pitcher to win games if his club don't get any runs?' "
-Baseball Digest, May 1959
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