Miscellany
In November 1934 a team of American baseball stars, including Babe Ruth, toured Japan. When they arrived for a game in the town of Narashino, each man was presented with a horseshoe-shaped flower wreath. Ruth detested the gift; he later told a Japanese baseball magazine that he considered such wreaths bad luck and had never hit a home run after receiving one.
Miscellany
New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson wrote in 1912 that he had heard the Philadelphia Athletics “had a spy” who stole signs and “tipped the batters by raising and lowering an awning a trifle.” In Philadelphia for the World Series the year before, Mathewson had looked for the culprit. “In the enemy’s camp, I kept watching the windows of the houses just outside the park for suspicious movements,” he wrote. “But I never discovered anything wrong.”
Miscellany
In 1982 John Candelaria, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was given $238 in per diem meal money while on a bus to Wrigley Field from the team’s hotel in Chicago. Candelaria threw his cash out the bus window, a few dollars per toss, much to the surprise of those on the street. “It just seemed like the thing to do,” Candelaria told a reporter.
Pages
