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Sports Arena
Now Pitching For New York, Mr. Magoo
Sticking with your team, wherein patience is rewarded (cue “Ya Gotta Have Heart”).
Knowing what an acute analytical mind he has, I wasn’t surprised to learn that Charles Krauthammer is a baseball fan of the first order, or to learn that he is a habitué of Nationals Park, where the Washington Nationals are playing some fine baseball this spring.
Krauthammer is in his regular seat at Nationals most week nights and enjoying his team’s division-leading efforts this year. He stuck with them during a string of forgettable seasons while they were losing lots of games and doing a pretty good impersonation of the old Washington Senators. That team long represented a city that history tells us was first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League.
OK, the new Washington team, formerly the Expos of Montreal where Krauthammer was raised and attended McGill University, is a National League team. But it started life in the Capital the way the old Senators finished theirs. Losing a lot. Now Krauthammer’s patience and loyalty, and that of other long-suffering Washington fans, are being rewarded. The team is really good. Moral victories are being replaced by actual ones.
I can relate. I spent an unsupportable number of hours keeping up with and pulling for the Tampa Bay Rays in their first decade (the Devil Rays in those bad old days) when the team threatened to outdo even the St. Louis Browns for baseball futility and consecutive last-place finishes. Now they are very entertaining winners.
In a column last week Krauthammer chronicled some of his favorite Nationals, including 19-year-old rookie phenom Bryce Harper and manager Davey Johnson, a baseball graybeard who has been in the game since Father Time was playing in the Tri-State League. He also spoke of pitcher Henry Rodriguez, who recently lost his job as the Nationals’ closer. Henry can throw 100 mph, but may as well be nicknamed Scud, because he never knows where the missile will come down.
Rodriguez, his stuff and his lack of control, recalls to my baseball-story-clogged mind, one Ryne Duren, a flame-throwing reliever who had a couple of good years with the Yankees in the fifties before losing his stuff and drifting on to short stints on a half dozen other major league teams. (His final team: the Washington Senators.) The Yankees called Duren up in 1958 from their American League farm team, the Kansas City Athletics.
Baseball fans of a certain age will recall that Kansas City was where, in addition to Duren, the Yankees developed such stars as Roger Maris, Art Ditmar, Ralph Terry, et al., and where they stashed Enos Slaughter when they didn’t need him. Being banished to Kansas City in those pre-double-knit days was the baseball equivalent of being cast into outer darkness. In 13 seasons in Kansas City the A’s never played .500 ball. But they did help keep the Yankees dominant by passing their promising talent on to them.
But back to Duren in pin-stripe days. He almost certainly put up triple-digit speed. But this was in the days before speed guns, so we don’t know for sure. A guy who throws this hard is downright scary to hitters, at least the sane ones, and was probably even more so in the pre-batting helmet fifties. Here’s how the ever-eloquent Casey Stengel, Duren’s manager with the Yankees, put it: “I would not admire hitting against Ryne Duren, because if he ever hit you in the head you might be in the past tense.”
Exactly so. A baseball may only weigh five ounces. But it has the approximate density of a rock. And any pitcher with the muzzle velocity Duren had then must be approached, as one would a poisonous snake, with great respect if the encounter can’t be avoided altogether.
Adding to the terror in Duren’s case was the fact that he had the visual acuity of Mr. Magoo and wore Coke bottle lens glasses. Also, he could be wild. He would, intentionally I believe, throw one of his eight warm-up pitches over Yogi Berra’s head. When the batter stepped in, Yogi would say stuff to him like, “Geez, I have to give Ryne signals with my whole hand. He can’t see fingers.”
All this led opposing hitters to think more about self-preservation than about squaring one up. I don’t remember anybody digging in on Duren. The guys in the on-deck circle didn’t take their eyes off him. Sometimes even the home-plate umpire — who in those days wore a thick, outside chest protector big enough to stop shoulder-fired missiles — looked like he was ready to bolt.
Thus endeth my baseball story. But don’t get me started. I have lots more. Baseball, with its rich history and host of slightly off-plumb characters, is a story-teller’s dream.
In our febrile, quick-cut, modern existence, many of us have forgotten that patience is a virtue. Baseball, for those of us with the requisite attention span to attend it, reminds us of this. And teaches that patience is often rewarded for lifetime enthusiasts like Krauthammer, and me. Unlike the many manic pastimes now available, the luxuriously-paced Grand Old Game, with its endless subtleties, remains a feast for the careful and unhurried observer.
Please join me in wishing the best to Krauthammer and his talented young Washington Nationals. And raise a cup to Ryne Duren, who died last year at 81 in the small Central Florida town of Lake Wales, where I began my journalism career 40+ years ago.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
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JimH| 5.29.12 @ 9:30AM
Sounds like Charlie Sheen’s Wild Thing in Major League. Larry I was born in Queens and raised as a Mets fan, so I to know a bit about futility and unexpected success. I now live in the Brandon area and have taken the Rays to heart. I do wish they would build a new field in the Fairgrounds. I think that would go a long way toward solving the attendance issues.
Occam's Tool| 5.29.12 @ 11:18AM
The Great Ryne Duren.
Who Knows?| 5.29.12 @ 12:16PM
Larry---may I call you Larry?---you’re getting old enough to lose your attachments, especially to sports teams.
See, teacher divided class into teams. Let’s play that baseball-like game, where the pitcher rolls a big red ball up, and the “batter” kicks it. Oh, what fun!
Who won?
Who lost?
“My” Oregon Ducks still try to grab my identification with them, but, truly, the players on any team in 2012, have as much to do with “my” 1962-1966 lived experience when a student at that school as---you do.
To every thing, a season---
Bill| 5.29.12 @ 12:56PM
Yankee need pitchers, all the way through nine innings.
no calls| 5.29.12 @ 2:48PM
I remember Ryne Duran from my childhood in the early 1960s when I began to watch MLB on TV. I also have met a number of St Louis Browns fans. They used to call St Louis, "First in booze, first in shoes, and last in the American League". The St Louis Browns Historical Society and Fan Club is at http://www.thestlbrowns.com/
Bob| 5.29.12 @ 3:23PM
I grew up in NYC and have been a life-long Yankees fan. I joined the Air Force in 1960 and have only been back to visit. I remember Duren well. He would spray warm-up pitches all around the home plate area and then throw strikes to the batter. The Yankees are the best team in baseball that money can buy.
jwmatney| 5.29.12 @ 3:58PM
Ryne used to deliberately throw a high fast one at the backstop to scare the batters. I saw that once and when I got around to watching Major League, it was pretty easy to figure out the writer was plagerizing Ryne's bio. As for the usual sour grapes about the Yankees, name one company, university sports who wouldn't try to get the best that money could buy. It does no good to have lots of money and spend it foolishly aka Washington Redskins. There are a lot of reasons why the Yankees are the best team in the history of baseball and money is only one of the reasons.
Jon| 5.29.12 @ 8:49PM
I'll absolutely toast to Mr. Krauthammer. Not to the Nats, though; they're making my Braves look sick!
cuban pete| 5.29.12 @ 8:58PM
I was playing Babe Ruth league baseball(13-15 years old) when Duren was pitching and he spawned a few imitators in our league. One kid used to do a "Jimmy Piersall" also after the movie with Anthony Perkins -"Fear Strikes Out" came out.
Leveut| 5.29.12 @ 9:47PM
While raising a glass to Ryne Duren, let's raise another to Steve Dalkowski, who was so wild he never made it to the majors, but who was also so fast, he scared the ___ out of major league batters who faced him.
J.C.Eaton| 5.29.12 @ 10:25PM
Ryne Duren was the nephew of my parents good friends and they brought him over to the house one night to introduce him to me, a pint-sized embyonic pitcher. They thought I'd be impressed and maybe learn something. I did. Ryne Duren was a boyish, understated, nice young man. I had some trouble focusing on his eyes though because they seemed to be in a state of perpetual motion behind the impenetrable glasses. He was a big guy too...the thought of him hitting someone with a baseball made me switch the channel when the Yankees played on tv. Didn't want no part of that. As to Steve Dalkowski, just heard Hawk Harrelson and Steve Stone , the White Sox announcers the other night say Stevie D was the fastest pitcher of all-time. Not that he had any control but crazy fast. Thanks for the memory. Best,
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Bodfish| 5.30.12 @ 7:54PM
I saw Duren only on the Saturday afternoon Game of the Week. Black and white, no replay. They kept the camera on the warmups and I still remember the sound of his pitch hitting the screen. Not only high, but far wide. Announcers noted that the on-deck circle was not a safe place: "Juuuust a little bit outside."
Even Yogi seemed uncomfortable. Yet, Duren, glasses and all, got a lot of batters out in relief.
Thanks for the memory.
Occam's Tool| 6.11.12 @ 7:22PM
Duren was an all star in 3 separate seasons in his 10. He had a problem with alcohol which he conquered. RIP.