Tommy Pham, Otto Graham, Mister Frick discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I don't know, but it's fascinating. Yeah, they are, they are a chatty bunch bun. Agents and scouts chatting. Yeah, oh yeah. All right, well, we can end with a past blast before we bring Dan on, so this is episode 1953 and this past blessed consequently comes from 1953 and from Jacob and Sabres director of editorial content and chair of the black Sox scandal research committee and Jacob writes 1953 Otto Graham and Tommy Pham. You'll be forgiven for not remembering when Mickey Mantle's tenure as commissioner came under fire or when duke Snyder finally dethroned branch Ricky as champion of the Dodgers fantasy football league, that only happened in Ford Frick's imagination back in 1953. Baseball's commissioner surprised a lot of people before opening day in 1953 when he issued a sternly worded edict warning players from getting involved in high stakes wagers with each other off the field. Fantasy football wasn't the player's game of choice back then and the closest comparison to Tommy Pham in those days was hot headed Billy Martin. Syndicated columnist Robert rurac was one of several writers who mocked Frick's warning to the players in this piece from May 14th, 1953. Quote, I reckon the nation is safe for another year since friend Ford Frick, the galahad of baseball has issued a stern injunction against the game of hearts at high fee, and he has warned in a voice of doom that gambling is wicked for ballplayers. Commissioner Frick has declared himself against games of chance for high stakes and especially against consorting with shabby characters such as bookies, the deplorable state of Monte Carlo daring do, which aroused mister Frick's official concern comes as a result of pregnant rumor that the young farmhands are out distancing themselves in Clubhouse games of parcheesi or whatever they play these days, but if I am mister Frick, I will not worry too much about excessive gambling among his flock because unless baseball players have changed since my day, they experience acute agony at parting with a dime. It used to be a nickel, but now inflation is here. Jacob concludes Frick didn't call out any specific incidents or name any players who were throwing too much money around the pool rooms or poker tables, so his warning came and went without too much fuss in 1953. Who knows what he would have thought about today's big money Clubhouse bets between players, some of which spill over into public knowledge at least when Tommy Pham gets involved. We do not know if Billy Martin never took a swing at an opposing player for drafting forty-niners quarterback YA tittle over the browns Otto Graham with the number one pick. However, we do know Martin once punched out a marshmallow salesman and lost his job as the Yankees manager. That story was not a figment of anyone's imagination. So I guess this is another the more things change the more they stay the same, except these days says everyone is gambling and betting and sometimes Hawking things in serving as spokespeople and that is mostly allowed to this point and the commissioner looks the other way or actually looks right at it and says more. So I guess things actually have changed in this case. This is the same in the sense that players and people in general want to wager and want to bet on stuff. But the relationship to it has changed at least in an official capacity. Did I see that Pete Rose open sports budding in Ohio? Yes, he placed the first legal bet. He bet on