Tusa: Mel Stottlemyre’s grand slam
From SABR member Alfonso Tusa at The Hardball Times on February 21, 2019:
Mario rolled his light blue shirtsleeves to the elbows and slid the cue between his left thumb and index finger. The impact scattered the triangle across the green felt. A man with a silver beard looked at him, his hands buried in his back pockets. He hadn’t seen Mario so thoughtful and distant before. He knew what baseball meant to Mario, but this wasn’t like him. He picked up the purple chalk and painted the tip of the cue.
“It’s okay. I know what Mel Stottlemyre meant to you. But why do you have to stop talking?”
Any time they had a discussion, Mario stretched the navy blue suspenders until he almost tore them off the pants. His mute trumpet’s voice, as if in the middle of the most silent jazz, slid over the table’s varnished wood and disappeared among sighs. Stottlemyre was the first pitcher of those everlasting Yankees he had seen. Called up in the middle of 1964, and then hurling three games in the World Series. Between reflections and liquor sips, Mario looked to the radio on the oak shelf on the other side of the room.
Read the full article here: https://tht.fangraphs.com/stottlemyers-grand-slam/
Originally published: February 22, 2019. Last Updated: February 22, 2019.