Talk about YOUR meetings with an MLB'er

[Duluth Eskimo]

Originally Posted by shelly

I have a Warren Spahn story. Bill Alsburg who used to run showes in Orange County set up a private signing with Warren. He sat down wrote on a ball his name backwards and said look in the mirrior. He then preceded to talk about baseball. Half way into his telling me about his life story he turns to Bill as asked him if was German. Bill said yes and Warren told him what a great job they did on the Jews. I looked at him like he was out of his mind. He then started to talk about Jackie Robinson and how he ruined baseball. I asked him why and he said the blacks are to good and they made the white man look slow. I then was in total shock when he then said he hated Hank Aaronn more because he did not have the balls to fight back when his teamates called him Nigg. I just left. Bill called me latter and said that Warren was drunk and he did not mean it.

He must have been pretty drunk. I picked him up at the airport and spent a couple of hours with him and never got that impression. I did hear many racist stories from a few of the guys from that generation. Spahn did tell some great stories about his times and how weak pitchers are today. He echoed the sentiments about how pitchers don't own the plate anymore and said if he had someone try to show him up he would have just hit him in the head. I gained a lot of respect for the hitters of that generation by listening to stories the pitchers told.

Eddie Mathews had some great stories as well and when I met him I was about 16 yrs old. We were getting stuff signed in a hotel room about 9am and had three drinks delivered to the room to get his day started. Mathews told a story about how he and Spahn and Atwo others would take separate cabs from the airport in a town, tear a $100 bill in half and tell the cab driver he could have the other half if he got to the hotel first. $100 was big money for the 50's and he said the cab drivers would drive on sidewalks about 50 miles and hour to get that other half of the bill.

A separate story from a 60's Twins pitcher related was how they would bring women back to their hotel rooms and drink, etc. one time he said he and another player were hitting golf balls off of her pub** hair with full golf swings. He stated they were so drunk he couldn't believe they even hit the ball. That was probably the craziest story I heard, but there were many that rivaled it.

The biggest thing I remember is how these guys described how little money they actually made and how many, even stars had to get jobs in the off season to earn extra money. Can you imagine walking into a car dealership and seeing your favorite player trying to sell you a car. Hard to relate to today's saleries.