Big Al on Season’s End – and More

Chase Utley, the Phillie’s heady second basement, ranged onto the outfield grass behind the bag, speared a hard grounder, cleverly faked a throw to first and then cut down the runner trying to score. The Phillies in five! A quality closing of the book that saved what was developing into a disaster of errors and bad thinking that might otherwise have constituted our memories of the 2008 World Series between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay.

Two other books were closed this year—with profound finality. Herb Score (1933-2008) and Elwin Charles “Preacher” Roe (1916-2008) passed away. Score was as overpowering a young left handed fast ball pitcher for the Cleveland Indians as one could imagine for his first two and a quarter years. He was Rookie of the Year with a record of 16 and 10 in 1955, went 20 and 9 in 56, led the American League in strikeouts both seasons, and then in early 1957 Gil McDougald, the Yankees’ fine third baseman, lined a fastball right back at him. Score’s face was shattered. He was blinded in one eye. He struggled through a few more years of low-quality ball and retired to become an outstanding baseball announcer for the Indians. Bob Feller, one of the greatest pitcher of all time, considered young Score in the league of Sandy Koufax, whom Feller declared the greatest pitcher he had ever seen. Chance robbed Score and us of his grandeur in baseball, but he proved a gifted announcer, had a splendid career associated with the great game. He was a class act on and off the field, and it’s an honor to say goodbye.

Preacher Roe was a great one too. At Harding College, Arkansas, he averaged 18 strikeouts a game. He walked a passel too, unfortunately, and bounced around the minor leagues from 1936 to 1944, when he won 13 games for Pittsburgh, notched 14 the next year and led the league in strikeouts. A concussion and skull fracture he suffered from a fight on a high school basketball court, where he was coaching a girls’ team, took him out of things for a while, and when he finally regained himself it was as a crafty slow ball pitcher reputed to wield the spitball on occasion. “I got three pitches,” he said: “my change, my change off my change and my change off my change off my change.” Colorful and gifted? You bet. Did he throw the spitter occasionally? Sure. And he helped the Dodgers make it to the World Series, which they did not win, however, until the Preacher retired. The game needs more of his engaging kind.