A Great Opportunity....

drc · #1 07-31-2012, 08:18 PM

My friend who's a sports and Hollywood celebrity fan, once went up to Al Barlick's house in Springfield Illinois and knocked on the door. Al's wife answered the door and Al was watching tv. The wife invited him in and my friend got a chat and a few autographs about. My friend's an easy going likable guy with Southern manners (born in Mississippi), so he could get away with that.

I'll tell this friend your story.

milkit1 · #2 07-31-2012, 08:24 PM

I didnt realize barlick lived in springfield and I lived there my whole life.
looking forward to hearing about erskine.

JimStinson · #3 07-31-2012, 08:35 PM

WOW !!!! An old time collector once told me that in 1955 the toughest non-signers on the Dodgers were Billy Loes & Carl Furrillo. I'd ask about that , then I'd ask about what Koufax was like his rookie year 1955. I always heard the players thought he was a LESS than average pitcher (in 1955-1958) Of all people Erskine could shed light on that and lastly I'd ask him why "The Brow" always signed his name next to Campy & Jackie .....Heck ...just going to I-HOP is a blast ! (smile) have fun ! Attached is a 1955 signed yearbook.

jgmp123 · #4 07-31-2012, 08:40 PM

Jim,

Will do! All great topics. To add to Koufax, wasn't his control an issue when he came up for a number of years and he didn't really hit his stride until they hit LA?

JimStinson · #5 07-31-2012, 09:30 PM

From what I heard Koufax couldn;t do anything right.....and then he did EVERYTHING right, in fact his curve ball was a thing of beauty, Batters were throwing down their bats and bailing out of the box on called strikes ....THATS a curve ball !

mr2686 · #6 07-31-2012, 09:53 PM

That's great news James. I'm glad you followed up on meeting him for breakfast. One great disappointment in my collecting has been not getting a chance to meet Mr. Erskine. I really love the interview they did with him in "The Ghosts of Flatbush" where he talked about walking in to Branch Rickey's office after a good year and walking away just happy he still had a job. I sure hope he comes back to sign soon in California.

Scott Garner · #7 08-01-2012, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgmp123

Jim,

Will do! All great topics. To add to Koufax, wasn't his control an issue when he came up for a number of years and he didn't really hit his stride until they hit LA?

James,
What most people don't realize about Koufax, unless you read about his story in Ed Linn's great book from the mid 1960's entititled "Koufax", is that he actually played very little baseball before being recruited out of the University of Cincinnati as a Dodger "bonus baby". Sandy was a basketball player and if not for one of his sandlot baseball coaches from Brooklyn lobbying hard for the Dodgers to recruit Sandy, the world may have never seen one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history develop.

Because of Koufax being signed as a bonus baby, he was never able to develop his undeveloped pitching technique in the minor leagues. Instead, because the Dodgers had a rather forminable pitching staff, Koufax mostly rode the pine in his early years with the Dodgers. It wasn't until the early 1960's that one of Koufax's catchers recommended that Koufax back off on throwing his hardest fastball that he was able to finally harness the control that had eluded him for so many years.

Jim Stinson is right, although Koufax's fastball was tremendous, it was his amazing curveball that made him mostly unhittable once he finally hit his stride. During the years 1962-1966 Koufax put together possibly one of the greatest runs in pitching history, making Koufax an icon. Because of the arthritis that Koufax developed in his throwing arm, he was forced to leave the game way to early at age 31.

jerseygary · #8 08-01-2012, 07:34 AM

I got the chance to sit down with Carl about 12 years ago at an Indianapolis Indians game. Like everyone will tell you, he's a really nice guy and unbelievably easy to talk to. Out of all the things he related, my favorite was that back in the '50's people always mistook him for Clem Labine!

You should have a great time!

HexsHeroes · #9 08-01-2012, 07:37 AM

.

Back in the early 2000's I sent an autograph request to former Detroit Tigers' Red Borom. In the cover letter I mentioned that my wife use to live in the Dallas area, and that we would be visiting that area a month or so later. Two weeks later, out of the blue, I get a phone call from Red Borom stating that he would love to meet me at his favorite Dallas-area restaurant for breakfast (which he did daily), when my wife and I visited Dallas. He had his son-in-law search and locate my home phone number, so that he could make the call. Red asked me if it would be OK for his son-in-law to join us, since Red's eye sight was quite poor, and his son-in-law drove him around. I said that would be just fine, and we scheduled a date and time to meet. It was a lovely visit, that lasted a couple of hours. Just one of those unexpected, memorable moments that you treasure.

tazdmb · #10 08-01-2012, 09:27 AM

Back in 1998, when Lee got in the HOF, I got his address in FL and he was actually listed in the phonebook. My dad and I called him up and asked if we could come over for an autograph. He said sure! My dad ended up "friending" him and they met for lunch several times since then.

Another story is in regards to Al Lopez, since I was a big IP collector and he never did shows, I wrote to him in 1996 asking if I could come to his house (flying in from MI to Orlando on holiday) and get an autograph. He wrote me back saying that when I come to Tampa, stop by and he would sign 1 (underlined) autograph-and did not sign the letter. Finding his house (in the days before mapquest/GPS) was no easy task. We get to his house only to find out he wasn't home. I was devastated and left a note in the mailbox (only to find the keys to his home inside, no I did not steal them). Went to dinner and went back for one last try. Sure enough, he answered the door! He couldn't have been more gracious and laughed that someone came from Michigan for his autograph. He wished us well and signed my most cherished baseball.

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