Showing posts with label Rocky Bridges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rocky Bridges. Show all posts

Sunday, February 15, 2015

The Sunday Funnies

Another Rocky Bridges story: In 1958, he was somehow selected to the American League All Star team as the sole representative of the Washington Senators. (He hit a whopping .263 that year.)

"I never got in the game," Bridges recalled years later, "but I sat on the bench with Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Yogi Berra. I gave 'em instruction in how to sit."

Sunday, February 8, 2015

The Sunday Funnies

Rocky Bridges, who died on Jan. 27, was a well-traveled utility infielder-minor league manager-raconteur, a baseball lifer who always had a cheek bulging with chaw and a funny story on his lips.

Eleven seasons in the bigs split among seven teams, a lifetime batting average of .247 and probably 247 ancedotes. I'm surprised, really, that I've done the Sunday Funnies for four winters and never used a Rocky Bridges story.

So let's rectify that ...

Bridges is managing in El Paso, and he's coaching third base when one of his players, Ethan Blackaby, hits a home run. As Blackaby rounds third, Bridges extends his hand in congratulations -- and presses his well-chewed wad of tobacco into Blackaby's palm. Blackaby took the chaw in stride -- and passed it on to on-deck hitter Tom Egan at home plate

It was Egan who nearly got sick.