American Pastimes: The Very Best of Red Smith (The Library of America) by Red Smith

Author:Red Smith [Smith, Red]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781598532760
Publisher: Library of America
Published: 2013-05-16T04:30:00+00:00

A Real Rough, Lovely Guy

The Late Bill Cissell and His Bad-Boy Ways

NEW YORK, N.Y., May 7, 1953

BILL CISSELL was a rough, tough, go-to-hell guy out of the cavalry who served a ten-year stretch in American League infields with a couple of years off for bad behavior. The White Sox paid a good chunk of gold for him as a rookie in 1928 and he should have been a great star, but he drank.

He drank with the White Sox and the Indians and the Red Sox and he never made any secret about it because he was a dead honest guy. In the autumn of 1936 Connie Mack drafted him from Baltimore and Al Horwits, who was a Philadelphia baseball writer then, said: “He is a good ballplayer and he has had a couple of years down in the minors and the chances are he has learned his lesson.”

“Yes,” Connie said, “I understand he is not drinking in the daytime now.”

This story isn’t primarily about Bill Cissell, but in order to make a point it is necessary to explain what sort of guy he was. It has been ten, maybe eleven years since Ciss was last encountered and that was out in California and he had a number of teeth missing. Not from age; probably from knuckles. He was a real rough, honest, lovely sort of guy.

Once he told a story about the first time he ever saw Ty Cobb. It was his rookie year with the White Sox and Cobb was an elderly gentleman playing out the string with the Athletics. Cobb went into third base, Ciss related, and Willie Kamm was in the way so Cobb upped with his spikes and cut Kamm out of the way.

All the White Sox were enraged because they were fond of Kamm, the quietest, most inoffensive guy on the ball club. None was more furious than Cissell, the rookie at second base.

Next time Cobb reached first base and started for second, Cissell got the ball and, holding it in his bare fist, tagged Cobb squarely between the eyes. Then he invited Cobb to make something of it if he chose.

The ensuing dialogue, as Bill repeated it, eludes memory but the substance was this: Cobb, getting to his feet and dusting himself off, expressed willingness to meet Cissell under the stands after the game if Ciss insisted. But he managed to make it clear that he did not resent Cissell’s energetic tactic and that he had used his spikes on Kamm without malice. Cobb had sought to reach third base and Kamm had endeavored to prevent it, and somebody had to lose.

Next day Cobb was out early giving Cissell a few pointers about playing ball.

There is another story which Grantland Rice tells about an evening in a hotel room with two retired ballplayers, Ty Cobb and Nig Clarke, the old Cleveland catcher.

Clarke was describing a technique he had perfected for retiring runners at the plate when there were two out. He’d catch the ball,

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