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By DWIGHT MORGANAs the two best baseball teams of 1980 square off for this year'd world series, one spectator’s sharp! blue eyes will follow each crackling throw, each thudding catch with special interest.The powder-haired man will know most of the players on the; field. Chances are, his age-spotted! hands fitted many of their uni-[ forms and personally sold them the gloves they will, use to dazzle, millions of fans. • •Eighty-year-old Oscar Rbettger,; affectionately known as Mr., Rawlings by the'press. the baseball trade, and’his co-workers at Rawlings Sporting Goods Com-, pany in St Louis, has been selling professional-baseball equipment for some 35 years and has been associated with the game all his life. He has met most of the greats, and even played with; one of the* greatest, George Herman Ruth, when; in 1923, the Babe led the New York Yankees to their first of a record 21 world-series championships. ,Helped Players “I hesitate to say that any one player was the greatest, but Ruth was one of the outstanding individuals to play the game,;’ Oscar recalled. “He was 29 then and spent a lot of time working with us younger players.”Oscpr, one of eight Yankee! pitchers that year, didn't get toj play in the scries. In fact, he didn’t ] get to pitch much that whole season.'*That was a great ball dub. he ihe played with a Western League team in Sioux City, Iowa. When they played Denver; his team had to travel by train -to Kansas City, then catch a second train for Colorado. They arrived in Denver at noon, played a game at 3 p.m., and returned to the train for the tiring two-day trip home. ,We carried suit rolls with a bat in the middle, and wicker traveling bags. Roettger said. “We stayed in a lot of boardinghouses; there was no air-conditioning. In the summer, players used to soak . in tubs—there weren’t many showers -and sleep naked and soaking wet to. stay cool. j •said, and I didn’t get to.play a lot:Quits Id 1*1Oscar hung up hb glove in 1941 after 20 years as a player. A year later, he joined the air force, where he traveled as a staff sergeant to Africa, India, Sicily, and, finally. England for the invasion.“When I got home, I needed work, he said. I was with Rawl-ings for a short time before the. war. so I joined the company again in their pro-sales department.‘ For a man who loved baseball and traveling, the job with Rawl-; ings was perfect.I used to travel in a station wagon all over the country, he. said, making one-night stands' with each ball club to sell them; equipment There were over 50 leagues then, compared with 18; today, so I was driving 30,000 to! 40,000 miles a year.”Oscar’s traveling partner on many of those trips' was Harryj Latina, who died earlier this year!
Newspaper Details
Williamsport Sunday Grit National Edition
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, US
Sun, Oct 12, 1980
Page 35
Full Page
Clipped by
Cassidy L.
NY, USA 13 Sep 2017
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