Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? Read Free

the ball. The relay came, and he stepped on first base. Across the infield Throneberry was standing on third. He was taking a deep breath and was proudly hitching up his belt, the roar of the crowd in his ears, when he saw the umpire calling him out at first.
    â€œThings just sort of keep on happening to me,” Marvin observed at one point during the season.
    Which they did. All season long. And at the end, here was this balding twenty-eight-year-old from Collierville, Tennessee, standing at home plate with a big smile on his face as he proudly accepted a boat which he had won as the result of a clothing-store contest. Throneberry was not too certain what he would do with the boat. The most water he had seen in several years was a filled-up bathtub on Saturday night back in Collierville. The nearest lake to his house is 150 miles away, and 150 miles as the coon dog runs, Marv cautioned. “Take the road, it’s a little further,” he said.
    But this was all right. If he had been living in Johnstown, they would have given him a well pump. Things just go like this for Throneberry. It was all right with him. It was, that is, until two days later, when Marvin found out just how rough the season really was.
    The whole incredible thing started in the agile brain of a Madison Avenue public-relations man whose accounts include a large chain clothing company. He also represents a book publisher, but the clothing store does not hold that against him. The clothes client had made a ticket sales tie-in with the Mets. Just before the season started, the P.R. man barged into the clothing company’s offices with an idea that was so hot he was dizzy from it.
    â€œWe’ll put up a sign on the outfield fence,” he said. “The player who hits it the most over the season gets a boat. Where do we get the boat? We work a tie-in with another client of mine who makes them. It’ll be terrific.”
    The first sign certainly was. Out on the left-field fence, it spelled out the client’s name, and inside a circle was a picture of the boat. Anybody who hit the circle on the fly got five points. Anybody who hit any other part of the sign on the fly received three points. If the ball hit it on the bounce it was worth two points. Whoever had the most points at the end of the season was to win the boat. An official point-keeper was assigned to watch every Met game and keep a tally on the points. Before half the season was over, the scorer wanted to go to the needle trades union over the matter.
    The sign was a beauty. It also was remindful of the famous New Yorker cartoon which showed the outfield wall of a ballpark and a sign on it stating, “Hit the sign and Abe Feldman will give you a suit absolutely free .” In front of the sign, hands on knees, was the outfielder, waiting for the next pitch. And right behind him, at the ready, was Abe Feldman. Abe was bald and he wore a vest. He had a catcher’s mitt on his right hand and a first baseman’s mitt on the other.
    The clothing sign disturbed Casey Stengel, however. Upon seeing it for the first time, Stengel squawked.
    â€œWe get to the end of the season, and I might need a couple of games to finish higher [optimism was rampant at this time] and what am I going to get? Everybody will be standing up there and going, whoom! Just trying to win theirselves a nice boat while I’m sittin’ here hopin’ they’ll butcher boy the ball onto the ground and get me a run or two. I don’t like it at all.”
    George Weiss, the Mets’ general manager, moved quickly to satisfy Stengel. In a lifetime of baseball, Weiss has learned many things, one of which is that when a man like Stengel has a complaint of this type, it is to be acted upon promptly. The sign, Weiss decreed, had to go.
    He was telling this to the wrong guy. This P.R. man leaves in the middle of a job for only one reason: the client isn’t coming up with the