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- The Forgotten Men of Game -Down Through Years They Wander—Glamour and Plaudits GoneBy GORDON MACKAYthrough the years they wander, players who once enjoyed the fame of the great, the wealth of the fortunate, the glamor that came from the repute they had .manufactured. Today they are the Forgotten Men of Baseball, with few too willing to do them honor, none too humble to pass them by without perhaps a sniff or a sneer.True, some sigh as they ponder on the fate of these men. whom fortune destined lor immortality, then promptly forgot as they strolled through this vale of strife and storm, abandoned hulks in the sea of sport.You’ll find the greatest of them all, perhaps, promoting softball m St. Louis, which city once regarded him as the idol of boy-• hood, a hero to be worshipped from afar. In his heyday he was the leading hitter of his league, dubbed the greatest man at his post that baseball ever knew.A great college pitcher, then an immortal first baseman, now just another of those who are out of the game. He ranked with Cobb. He yielded to no Ruth. He was subdued by no fate when he rated as the best in the land. The scroll of fame will ever contain hia name as one of the illustrious, but today he is just George Staler, one of baseball's Forgotten Men.Behind the glass slot of. a cashier’s desk in a beanery in Toledo, you’ll find another to the Forgotten Men. Years ago. lie was a catcher, some say the best the game ever knew. He paired with the mighty Mathew-son, wore the first pair of shin guards that ever a backstop donned.His name was mighty, his fame apparently imperishable. He went from the Giants to the Cardinals as manager and part owner. He gathered the shekels until his store of the world’s goods was not to be despised. He invested in baseball,.‘lost his money. Penniless now, he was given the job of turnkey of the city lockup. He, who once was the admiration of thousands, the catcher rated without a flaw.Loses Job With New Party in Control.Politics turned a cold shoulder to this veteran when the parly in power that gave him a job lost its hold upon the city.Ousted, he looked about, without hope, without funds, without a future, until he got his job in a beanery. He. the man whose name once sent a grandstand into a tumult, rocked a bleacher1 wherever the Giants played.Then he ‘was famous, today he is just Roger Bresnahan, another Forgotten Man of baseball.Twenty years ago. liis name rambled on many Jlps as baseball’s odds, ends, characters and achievements were discussed before the bar. at the table or down by the crackerbox in the village store. Peerless, handsome, the greatest master of his place that the ball players who were his contemporaries ever beheld. Fate seemed to hold him in her lap as a favored darling., Then came the shift in admiration, the change in fortunes. Steadily he drifted, dark were the talcs that were told as he left a post in one city to find a brief billet in another. Finally the curtain came down I. on his major career, he became a wanderer on the face of ihc land.Few cared what fate he had encountered, though all of those who had watched him as he performed so brilliantly, mourned for a nature that, oould not measure to *tlic man’s opportunities and feats. Silence man-lied his whereabouts. lie was a pariah upon Ihc earth. Then the Yankees trundled into ! a little city in the Southwest last spring.I A bedraggled, tram pish figure came into the hole! lobby and risked to see the trainer of the club. The clerk was loathe to summon such an august man as .the trainer of the New York Giants to receive the visitor. Finally compassion got 1he upper hand of conduct and Mr. Trainer received him. . ' •Into each other’s arms fell the derelict and the trainer, while tears rolled nakedlyGrover C. Alexanderand unbidden down wrinkled, tawny and seamed cheeks. The derelict told his story, a baseball lshmacl wandering about from place to place, unwelcome in many after his identity became known. Now just a washer in a garage. Once the idol of the National Game, today just Hal Chase—they used to call him—Prince Hal—another Forgotten Man of baseball.HLs angular figure Is lanky and fleshlcss, apparently as Jean and sinewy as sonic 20 and more years ago when he startled the world as a rookie hurlcr by blanking the Mackmcn. champions of the world, in . a spring game before the curtain rose for the vendetta that marks the champion and the dub in our National Game.From that auspicious occasion, he went on and on and on until he ranked with the mightiest pitchers whose arm ever sent poison to batiing averages, in hook and fast ball. He soared on the wings of popularity and might to one of the coaspicuous places in baseball's annals.His peak and pinnacle or success came one day when he ambled across the grounds an thousands sat . in the Yankee Stadium to watch that ambling, lanky, gawky figure come slowly o’er the lea. He stood in the pitcher’s box, whisked four .shots down the alley unheeded by the batter, but caught by the catcher.Then as cool as a polar bear squatting on an iceberg, he flung three of ’em past Tony Lazzeri to'fan the great Italian in a pinch. It was a matter of minutes until that might.v right arm humbled the Yankees and the Cardinals had became' world’s champions. - The first of their breed in the city, where Eads Bridge is still worthy a visit.Then he was Grover Cleveland Alexander. a hero, an idol. Alexander the Great. Last year he wandered over land and field, pal of a bewhiskcrcd tribe known as the House of David. He hurled an Indolent inning. forced lo fight fate wllh his right arm while his years spanned a half century. In 1U2C. he was Grover Cleveland Alexander, the toast of Missouri and the hero-of the World's Series.Today he is only Aleck, unveiled member of Ihe Housl of David. The Hero of other days is now another of 1lie vanishing race—Forgotten Men of Baseball. •So the roil may be called—Jack Quinn, Rube Benton. Ferdie Schupp. Cy, Young—. some more fortunate than othcrfc, but. all members of the same clan of the Forgotten Man. Fans, like republics, are oiten forgetful if not .ungrateful and the ‘ranks of those who have been forgotten -a/e filled from the file of the great. It is Kismet;
Newspaper Details
St Louis Sporting News
St Louis, Missouri, US
Thu, Oct 25, 1934
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Michael W.
NA, 31 Jul 2023
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