Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? Read Free Page B

eating out of the garbage, and that’s just what the Mets is going to have to be doing. This is terrible. I mean, this is really going to be bad.”
    Rogers did not take his job lightly. On this day, for example, he slipped his hand into a pocket of his checked sports jacket and came out with a pair of contact lenses which he put on so he could study closely what was on the field, in front of him. And what was on the field gagged the Rajah. In his time, Hornsby was an unbelievable hitter who three times finished with an average of over .400, reaching .424 in 1924, a record still standing. This background has not made him exactly tolerant of the ability of baseball players. To illustrate, we reprint herewith the most glowing report on an individual which Hornsby handed in all season:
    LOOKS LIKE A MAJOR-LEAGUE PLAYER
    The name at the top of the sheet said the report was about Mickey Mantle.
    It did not take long for the Mets to have an adverse effect on Hornsby’s luck. There was one day, when he had no game to attend, that Rajah got into his yellow Cadillac at a little before ten o’clock and headed for Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where Arlington Park Race Track happens to be located. En route to the track, Hornsby stopped for gas, or to have the windshield wiped, or just to stop, period, and each time he would jam himself into a phone booth and make phone calls dealing with situations at such places as Rockingham Park and Aqueduct.
    He arrived at Arlington Park at 11:15. Post time for the first race was 2:30. This gave Rogers just enough time to get a seat in the grandstand—he feels the clubhouse is a place for suckers—and begin the tedious job of handicapping a nine-race card. He also had invested in two fifty-cent tout cards sold at the track entrance. One of them, in which Rogers placed great stock, had a horse named Frisky Phil, 15-1 in the morning line, on top in the sixth race.
    Frisky Phil was trained by a Kentucky gentleman named Henry Forrest, and the Rajah caught up with Forrest before the race.
    â€œThis is a horse that’s been out with leg trouble for seven months now,” Forrest said. “As a rule now, only one horse in a hundred that’s been away for six months or more can win first time out. The price should be 50-1 to begin with. Here you’re takin’ 15-1 on a horse that just don’t seem to figure at all. Don’t bet.”
    â€œWell, then you pick me a winner here in the race,” Rajah said.
    â€œI don’t do that,” Forrest said. “Every time I give out a horse, it loses, and a man don’t make many friends like that.”
    â€œNever mind that, you just give me the horse you like in this race,” Hornsby insisted.
    Forrest relented and mentioned a horse, the name of which is forgotten. Hornsby bet $200 on him. The name of the horse is forgotten because of what happened in the race. Frisky Phil got out of the gate on top, and his legs folded and unfolded beautifully, and he never took a bad step. They are still trying to get him. He paid $33.60.
    Hornsby went home. He did not forget.
    Last season, as things got rougher and rougher with the Mets, Rogers Hornsby could be found at the Polo Grounds, or in Chicago and on his way to a scouting trip in Decatur, and he summed up his feelings in one bitter quote:
    â€œYou can’t trust them Kentucky bastard trainers.”
    The Mets’ run of luck held to the end. They finished their first season on September 30, a dull afternoon in Chicago. They were at Wrigley Field, playing the Cubs. Losing, 5-1, in the eighth inning, the Mets went to work on Bob Buhl. Solly Drake opened with a single, then Richie Ashburn singled. Nobody out, runners on first and second, and Joe Pignatano, the catcher, up. Buhl gave him a fast ball, and Pignatano, a right-hander swinging late, hit a looper into right field. Drake, on second, thought the ball would drop in. He took off for