Pop Flies Magazine in the Mail

The Fall 2009 issue of Pop Flies, the official magazine of the St. Louis Browns Fan Club, is in the mail (Dec. 10). That's the good news. The bad news is that last year it took the Post Office upwards to three weeks to deliver the publication due to the Christmas mail. Just be on the lookout and enjoy. Merry Christmas.

This issue features two known baseball players who were almost members of the St. Louis Browns. We call them "Almost Brownies." You can read all about Tommy Lasardo and Babe Ruth "almost" joining the Browns organization. Since we went to press, we learned about another known name player who was "almost a Brownie."  We'll give you an update in our next issue. (click on photo to enlarge)

A Great Christmas Gift

What a great gift for dad, grandfather, uncle, or any fan of old-time baseball (Baseball when it was a game). Make a donation to the St. Louis Browns Historical Society and we'll rush a copy of Pop Flies to you - or mail it direct as your gift.

Your donation of $25 can be charged to your credit card by clicking on the subscription information in the upper right hand corner of the website.  Or you can mail a check payable to the St. Louis Browns Fan Club to Frank Kane, 443 Fieldcrest Dr., St. Louis, MO  63119.

Yogi Scared To Be a Brownie

From Fay Vincent: essayist and former commissioner of Major League Baseball.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/dec/04/henrich-one-of-the-greatest-yankees-of-all/

Yogi Berra told me a story once that summed up this Yankee attitude. In his first season, Yogi hit a soft ground ball to second base and in frustration jogged to first base. The next time at-bat, he popped up and again failed to run hard to first. During the next half inning Yogi told me three senior Yankees — Keller, Dickey and Henrich — came down the bench and stood before the rookie.

“Look, kid,” one of them growled, “we saw what you just did. But here we bust our (butt) on every play. We count on winning that World Series money, and our wives count on it. If you want to play that way, we can get you back to St. Louis in a week. Got it?”

Yogi said he was so frightened of being shipped to the lowly Browns that he ran out every ground ball or pop-up from that day forward. That was how the great Yankees enforced their culture, and it certainly was effective. Everyone hustled on those teams from the great DiMaggio down to the newest rookie.