So close to baseball royalty

By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]

I felt like, wow, what a great way to make a living. If I goof up, there’s going to be a relief pitcher come in there. Nobody’s going to shoot me.”--Warren Spahn, on baseball versus the Army

Warren Spahn tried to fix me up with his granddaughter once.

Many people have taken an interest in my love life, including co-workers at several places of employment, friends and a gaggle of old ladies in Youngstown. (In fairness, I can probably use all the help I can get.) But a baseball hall of famer? Well, not everyone’s that lucky.

I was in Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame induction weekend in 1992. So was Spahn. Apparently, he made it to every induction from his own in 1973 to the one last summer, the last one he attended before his death last week week at the age of 82.

One of the features of induction weekend was an autograph session with as many living hall of famers as they could throw together into a room, including the man regarded as the best left-handed pitcher, if not the best pitcher, in baseball.

I was standing in front of him with a postcard or something for him to sign and an Indians cap hiding my thinning hair. He had brought one of his two granddaughters along. I was 14, and she looked about my age. But she was thin and pretty. I was a bit of a nerd (yeah, was…let me delude myself).

“Are you a good kid,” Spahnie asked. I told him I thought I was. “Are you going to be successful?”

Spahn was sitting next to Bob Feller, possibly the best pitcher ever to put on an Indians uniform. Rapid Robert gave me a ringing endorsement.

“Hell yeah, he’s gonna be successful,” he said. “He’s wearing an Indians cap!”

“I just want to fix my granddaughter up with a guy who’s going to be successful!”

She turned red. “Grandpa!” I offered a smile, silently sympathizing at how your grandparents can embarrass you (I still remember Charlie, my grandfather, yelling across three aisles of the Sparkle Market on Meridian Road for me) and moved on, with one more story to tell.

Ted Williams said he wanted people to look at him and say, “There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter that ever lived.” And for the most part, he achieved it. Joe DiMaggio insisted on always being introduced last at Old-Timers Games as “the greatest living ballplayer.”

But Spahn knew what was serious and what wasn’t. A veteran of the European Theater in World War II, he received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, and saw combat at Remagen and the Battle of the Bulge.

When I left my internship at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the wizened, grizzled wire editor, Harry Meem, took me aside and offered two pieces of advice. One was that I should never trust The AP. The other was that I should take my job seriously, but not myself.

I’ve tried to do that. As a journalist, I’ve dealt with too many self-important people. I prefer people who understand that a lot of life is a game. There are some moments that are deadly serious, for sure, but the rest is just details.

Spahn realized that after World War II. He came home and won 363 games and a World Series, for the Braves in Boston and Milwaukee. He was even a fairly good hitter, as far as pitchers go. But it was a game. That’s why I could appreciate him.

Well, that and he tried to fix me up with his granddaughter once