ESPN's \"The Diary of Myles Thomas\"
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General) North American (US New York, New Jersey, Bronx, Brooklyn)Transcript
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1927. The Diary of Miles Thomas is an experiment in storytelling, the core of which is a diary of a picture on the 1927 Yankees, though no real diary exists. Our historical fiction is based on factual research and chronicles baseball immortals, jazz pioneers, prohibition bootleggers and gamblers, as well as race, sex, mortality and the meaning of heroes. True to the era, the diary will occasionally include mature language and subject matter. Friday, April 22nd, 1927 Philadelphia Jumping Joe Dugan Joe Dugan hates playing in Philadelphia. Joe Dugan hates Philadelphia. Joe Dugan hates Philadelphians, and every time we play the athletics in Shibe Park, it's more than clear that the feeling is mutual. Dugan began his major league career here when he was barely 20 years old. He was a promising shortstop but was more broken promise. In his first three years with the A's, Joe committed over 100 errors and as bad as he was in the field, he was worse at the plate. In 1918 his second year, Joe had the dubious honor of having the lowest batting average in the American League. When Joe first came to the Yankees midway through the season in 22 and he walked into the locker room. Karl May's greeted him with a hearty welcome 1 95 which was Dugan's average. That miserable season, Dugan immediately charged him. Everybody who's ever met Carl Mays thinks he's a ***** right there with Cob. So when Dugan went after May's within the 1st 30 seconds of walking into the Yankee clubhouse, he immediately became one of the most popular boys on the team, especially with Miller. Huggins. Hug is a real gentleman, but he loathed managing May so much that I once overheard him tell a reporter, If Carl Mays was in a gutter and I had the opportunity, I'd kick him. The Philadelphia fans are notorious hecklers as bad on their own players as they are on opponents. Maybe worse, because once they get one of their own players in their gun sights there on them 77 times a year, more than a few fans come out to the ballpark just to yell at the players. Shockey says it makes them less likely to beat their wives. Guys like Ruth and Waite Hoyt love it when fans get on them. Hoyt loves shutting them up, and Ruth loves winning them over outside of screwing, eating or hitting home runs. And I have no idea in what order the baby would list his preferences. Ruth loves nothing more than jockeying with fans during a game. When Ruth hits a home run or makes a great play in the field, he'll often about the same fans who've been writing him all afternoon. They love it. He completely wins them over until the next game, that is. Then the baby and the fans start the same dance all over again. As long as no one screams anything about Ruth's mother or cause the babes are right with almost anything, they yell at him. They can call me overpaid. Fat, ugly, stupid ****, they could even call me a queer. They just can't get personal, is how the baby puts it. As for Hoyt, his favorite line is to yell back at some blowhard in the stands. Hey, buddy, you might want to go home and check on your wife. Two of our ballplayers are missing. Joe Dugan, unfortunately, never had the temperament for jousting with fans, especially when he was a young kid with the A's. It was just too tough for him to take a number of times. It got so bad, he just up and left the team. He's not a big drinker like Museo or author, so he wasn't getting lost in a bottle. He was just getting lost. The A's would send folks out to try and find Dugan, but they never could. He wasn't anywhere in the city. He was just gone. Jumping the team like that earned him his nickname. Jumping Joe Dugan. You'd think he'd mind being called Jumping Joe because it would remind him of his bad times in Philly. But he doesn't. The sad part is that Connie Mack, who's been managing the A since the turn of the century, literally always loved Dugan. He personally signed. Dugan loves telling the story about how when he was 17, he was eating dinner with his family. He's one of 10 brothers and sisters, and the doorbell rings so one of his sisters gets up to answer the door. His sister comes back to the table and says, there's a man at the door named Mac. Joe's father tells him to get rid of the guy because we don't need any insurance or Bible salesman bothering us at dinner time. When Joe goes to the door, he sees a familiar face from the newspapers. Since Connie Max Athletics had won three of the last four World Series. Once inside the house, Mr Mac tells Duggan's old man that is, a scouts think a lot of his son. Then he places 5 $100 bills on the dining room table and says When young Joseph comes of age and decides to play organized baseball, I sincerely hope you will let him join the Philadelphia Athletics Ball Club. Young Joseph is speechless. His old man is not according to jumping. Joe. His father stands up, shakes County Max Hand and says, ****, for $500 you can have the whole family right now. Joe played a year of college ball at Holy Cross, and then he went to the Philadelphia Athletics Ball Club as promised, even though other teams were offering them more. After a couple of months with the A's, Joe would have taken a lot less to be able to play any place but Philadelphia a lot less almost from the start, the Philadelphia fans were merciless in how they treated Joe, and it got worse with each error. Even later, when Joe is playing well in the field and at the plate, and by his fourth year in the league, he was batting 3 20 regarded as one of the top defensive third baseman in the game. The fans just wouldn't let up on him. I know because a couple of times at the ballpark I was in the stands yelling along with the rest during college for Three springs at the end of the year, just before my summer league games would begin. My roommate, Stephen, whose house are now Rent, and I would drive from Penn State to Philadelphia to see the A's play for a couple of days. We'd sleep overnight in Steven's car. This was back when Dugan was at his worst, and so were we. In 1918 for two games in a row, Stephen and I sat along the third baseline amongst the mob that was merciless to Dugan. Steven was bad, but I was worse. We were having a blast trying to outdo each other both games. The second day, Dugan made two errors in the second inning that ended up costing the S five runs. From that point on. Given that the A's were the worst team in the league and the game was out of reach, riding Dugan became the focus of our afternoon. I had too much beer and me to recall most of the details, but there's one moment that afternoon I wish I could forget. As the A's walked off the field for the last time, I shouted, Hey, Dugan! And then just before I could share something smart with the rest of the mob, Joe looked up and from less than 100 ft away, he stared right at me and loudly asked, What? What more do you have to say, kid? And then he trudged slowly into the dugout. A couple of times since I've been with the Yankees late at night on the train, I think I've caught jumping Joe, looking at me, trying to remember where he knows me from. A couple of times I've come close to confessing, but then I think better of it. What I tell myself is that we're all part of the mob, every one of us. It's in our nature the fan, the beer vendor, the shopkeeper, the schoolteacher, the college kid, the cop, the judge, the banker, the bootlegger, the gambler, the politician, the preacher, the musician and the *****. Even the dirty face. Kids are sneaking to the ballpark. We ballplayers think we're different because for a few years we get to play out our dreams between the white lines on a ball field. But for us every game there's a price we pay. And that price is being at the mercy of the mob, especially in Philadelphia.