Newspaper Page Text
An Argument Started
Joseph Torre Says Frank
Was Better Hitter Than Joe
By MILTON RICHMAN
UPI Sports Writer
NEW YORK (UPD—Outsi
ders start all the trouble.
One of them got a hassle
going in a minute the other
night between father and son
merely by asking a simple
question.
The question was:
‘‘Do you think your younger
boy is a better hitter than your
older one was?”
Joseph Torre, a well put
SPORTS
BETWEEN YOU'N'ME
CLEVELAND—(N E A)—
On May 7, 1957, the Cleveland
Indians hosted the New York
Yankees, and on the mound
for the Indians was the
“greatest pitcher in baseball.”
At 23, he threw faster than
anyone since Bob Feller and
until Sandy Koufax. He had
won 20 games for the Indians
the previous year, and had
fanned 508 batters in just two
big-league seasons.
With Gil McDougald at bat
for the Yanks in the first in
ning, young Herb Score let
go with a fast one, and
McDougald, a noted straight
away hitter, socked a vicious
liner through the box.
The sound was “crack
crack,” followed by a collec
tive gasp and shocked silence.
The ball had hit Score directly
in the eye and sent him to the
ground, clawing and kicking,
praying silently, “St. Jude,
stick with me.”
Here legend becomes myth
—that one hard liner was the
beginning of the end for Herb
as a flame-thrower with limit
less horizons in baseball.
Sure he came back, they
say, but he was never the
same—probably' gun-shy out
there. Score continued in
baseball another six years
and had some good moments.
In fact, not myth, a rather
common baseball injury (torn
elbow tendon) sent him look
ing for other employment.
Herb says, “I wasn’t gun
shy at all. Nobody likes to
have balls hit through the
box. but that's all part of the
game. The ball in the eye had
nothing to do with my becom
ing a worse pitcher.”
Score missed the rest of the
'57 season, but for the Indi
ans' home opener of ’SB, he
was the starter. Herb, weak-
together man in his 50’s, who
scouts ball players for the
Baltimore Orioles, cuts his gray
hair short and gives you a
direct answer, didn’t hesitate a
second.
“Frank, here, was a better
hitter by far than Joey is,” he
said. “There isn’t even any
question about it. He had a
better stroke and he took a
longer look at the ball.”
Talented Pinkie
Frank Torre, standing only
two feet away from his father
in the lobby of the Downtown
Athletic Club, shook his head in
disagreement.
“Joey has more talent in his
little pinkie than I have in my
whole body.” he said about his
26-year-old kid brother with the
Atlanta Braves who is making a
run at the major league home
run title and may even start
making a run at Babe Ruth one
Socked Eye or Sore Arm—
Which One's the Villain?
By MURRAY OLDERMAN
Sports Editor
Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
ened from a flu bout, lasted
only three innings before
manager Bobby Bragan
yanked him (the choice of
pitcher had been slightly
sentimental, anyway).
A few days later, Score
went all the way to beat the
Tigers and one week after
that victory, he shut out the
White Sox and fanned 13.
Then came the arm trouble,
and within six weeks, Herb
recognized he’d never be
quite the same.
He had another good spurt
in ’59 (a 9-4 mark to the
All-Star game) for Cleveland
but finished the year with
9 and 11.
“By that time I wasn’t
throwing the same,” Score
says. “It wasn’t intentional,
but I guess it was a physical
thing that forced it.”
He pitched with the White
Sox for a couple years and
became something of a com
muter between Chicago, San
Diego and Indianapolis. Then
it was fade-out the rest of the
way, “to black” as they say in
Herb's new b u s i n e s’s—tele
vision.
“After the ’63 season at
Indianapolis,” Herb recalls,
“the Indians told me they had
an opening on the television
broadcasts and a?ked me to
come down and try out.” He’s
now established as half the
Cleveland TV broadcast team,
“thankful to be able to stay
close to baseball” and health
fully philosophical about his
bad luck.
But as he greets the tele
vision audience with his
opening, the viewer’s thought
persists:
“Too bad about Score, he
could really throw. Probably
still could if he hadn’t got hit
in the eye.. .**
of these days.
The senior Torre wouldn’t buy
his oldest son’s opinion and he
let him know it.
“That’s what you say,” he
told 35-year-old Frank Torre,
one-time member of the Braves
when they still were in
Milwaukee and now president of
a local athletic equipment
company.
“I’ve been scouting 15 years
and I know better than you as
far as judging a hitter is
concerned,” the father told his
son.
“That’s true, but...”
“No buts about It,” cut in the
elder Torre. "You were the
better hitter, the more natural
one.”
Now it was the outsider’s turn
again.
“You’re not saying you're
partial to one of your sons over
the other, are you Mr. Torre?”
Equally Proud Os Both
“Never in a million years,”
I r »SL* H
I gdMr
If -
(NEA Telephoto)
REVOLUTIONARY DESIGNS of the Granatelli car are causing most of the noise
at Indianapolis, even though its turbine-powered engine is practically silent. Fea
tures include motor at the side of driver, four-wheel drive and kerosene fuel.
Parnelli Jones is to drive the car in the annual 500-mile Memorial Day race.
Lindbergh
Continued from page one
into the field of commercial av
iation.
Lindbergh was responsible
by his own acts and character,
as well as partly the result of
forces beyond his control; he
was worshipped, mobbed, pho
tographed, and villified, as per
haps n* other private individual,
before or since.
The phenomenon known as
“hero” worship gripped the
world at the time, and continued
until the early 1940’5, when he
began to make speeches on the
political reasons for the United
States getting into World War
11.
He resigned as a colonel in
the U. S. Air Corps Reserve be
cause of criticisms of the presi
dent. He. was a private citizen
again, and became a key figure
at Ford’s Willow Run plant in
the spring of 1942 in the produc
tion of B-24’s for the war effort.
Later, he went to the South
answered the stocky scout for
the Orioles. “I’m equally proud
of both. A man couldn’t have
better sons than I have. I feel
the same way about each, only
I think Frank, here, was the
better hitter.”
Frank Torre smiled. He knew
when to quit arguing with his
father.
“I remember the first time I
brought Joey to the ball park
for a tryout with the Braves,”
he recalled. “We lived in
Brooklyn so I took him to
Ebbets Field one day when we
came in to play the Dodgers.
“He was still a kid then, only
about 14 or 15, but you never
saw a kid so fat. He weighed
230 pounds.”
"That’s right,” confirmed the
elder Torre.
“I used to kid him, call him a
fat slob and everything because
I wanted him to get his weight
down,” said Frank. “Nothing
helped until that day I took him
Pacific theatre as a technical re
presentaive of United Aircraft
Corporation.
He flew 50 missions, and dow
ned at least two Japanese Zero
planes with a Lockheed P-38
“Lightning” fighter. During this
period, he was writing another
book with the tide of “Os Flight
and Life”, which everyone shou
ld read.
His first book was published in
1927 with the help of ghost wri
ter under the title of “We”. It
sold more than 1.000,000 copies
printed in 38 different editions.
Lindbergh also has written se
veral articles on various sub
jects, and his 1953 book “The
Spirit of St. Louis” shows the
influence of his wife, Anne Mor
row Lindbergh. This book ter
miniated in such a fashion that
he has room for a sequel, which
I suspect he is presently writing.
Lindbergh was born on Febru
ary 4, 1902, in Detroit, Mich.
In 1953, when the Eisenhower
administration took office, steps
were taken to correct the politi
cal injustices that had been
done to Lindbergh. President Ei
senhower nominated him for ap-
out to Ebbets Field.
Kidded About Weight
“You know wnat great
kidders Warren Spahn and Lew
Burdette are. Well, they took
one look at Joey after he took
off his street clothes to put on a
uniform and they really let him
have it about how fat he was.
“I think they really embar
rassed him, but it did Joey a
lotta good. Right after that he
took a lotta weight off.”
Frank Torre and his father
talked some more about Joey
and what a fine ball player he
turned out to be.
“I’ll say one thing about my
sons,” beamed Joseph Torre.
“I’ve got three of them, Frank,
Joey and Rocco, who also
played ball and now is with the
police department. You never
saw three brothers get along
any better.”
Frank Torre listened as his
father spoke.
He had no argument.
pointment to the rank of Briga
dier General in the United States
Air Force Reserve. This title
was confirmed by the Senate,
and he still holds this honorary
rank.
Presently, Lindbergh is a dir
ector of Pan American Airways,
and is doing research at the Be
thesda Medical Center on keep
ing animal tissue alive for possi
ble use to replace human organs.
The Lindbergh’s permanent
home is near Darien, Conn., and
they have a modest chalet in the
Swiss Alps overlooking Lake
Geneva and the Rhone Valley,
with a view of Mont Blanc in
Switzerland.
Charlie Chaplin lives about a
mile away. Lindbergh is still
honor all invitations to any pub
lic meetings, even to the 40th
publicity shy, and refuses to
anniversary celebration on Long
Island on May 20, where he left
for Paris on that historic day in
May 1927.
For a definitive biography on
Charles A. Lindbergh, read “The
Hero” by Kenneth S. Davis, pub
lished in 1959 by Doubleday.