Caruso is living memorial for Warren Spahn
From Mike Woods at the Appleton Post-Crescent on May 26, 2012, with mention of SABR member Gary Caruso:
If not for a couple of sports writers, Warren Spahn might just be another hall-of-famer.
OK, implying run-of-the-mill and hall-of-famer in the same breath is probably a crime in at least 46 states. But 297 guys are immortalized in Baseball’s Hall of Fame, yet not all of them are immortal.
Spahn is. And we have Gerald V. Hern and Gary Caruso, who share no connection other than an appreciation for Spahn and their occupation, to thank.
Hern was the sports editor of the old Boston Post who was so smitten with Spahn and Johnny Sain, he wrote a poem about the two pitchers. It was later shortened to an epigram all baseball fans know well: “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.”
Caruso grew up years later in Ohio. He loved Spahn and loved the Milwaukee Braves. Loved the uniforms, their baseball cards, the team’s success. Caruso loved the Braves so much that, upon his graduation from Marietta College, he headed to Atlanta, where the Braves headed after they left Milwaukee in 1965.
Sure enough, he landed himself a job at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he covered the team. Then later, for 16 years, he was the editor and then the publisher for ChopTalk, the official monthly magazine for the Braves.
Read the full article here: http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120527/APC0206/305270100/Mike-Woods-column-One-writer-living-memorial-Spahn
Originally published: June 11, 2012. Last Updated: June 11, 2012.