Nippy Jones had been a baseball player for a long time. He had played first base for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies, but a back injury and an operation put him back in the minors for a while. The Milwaukee Braves brought him back to big-league ball again. He was used mainly as a pinch hitter. Occasionally he filled in at first base.
The Braves won the National League pennant in 1957 and faced the New York Yankees in the World Series. The Yanks won two of the first three games. In the fourth game New York was leading, 5-4, in the bottom of the tenth inning, and Milwaukee’s chances looked dim.
Nippy Jones strode to the plate as a pinch hitter. Yankee pitcher Tommy Byrne delivered a low pitch that appeared to bounce in the dirt. The ball rolled all the way to the wall.
“That ball hit me!” Jones shouted to the umpire.
“I didn’t see it,” replied umpire Augie Donatelli.
“Sure it hit me, I can prove it,” Jones said. He got the baseball and showed it to the umpire.
“I shined my shoes before the game,” Jones said triumphantly. “Look at the ball and you’ll see that it hit me.”
Sure enough, there was a smudge of black shoe polish on the baseball. Donatelli awarded Jones first base, where he was replaced by a pinch runner. Then Johnny Logan hit a double to tie the game, and Eddie Matthews hit a home run to win it.
How strange that a shoeshine helped Milwaukee win the fourth game of the 1957 World Series. The Braves went on to become world champions that year.
From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippy_Jones
Howard Liss has written for young people more than sixty sports books as well as books on geography and science. He has also written adult novels and nonfiction.
Mr. Liss began his career as a comedy writer, thinking up jokes for such comedians as Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante, and others. He has written successfully for the Broadway stage and for a number of nationally syndicated comic strips. Mr. Liss makes his home in New York City.
Joe Mathieu is a popular illustrator of children’s books. Among his best selling titles are The Olden Days, Big Joe’s Trailer Truck, and many Sesame Street books. His credits include A Gallery of Monsters, The Book of the Unknown, and The Superkids and the Singing Dog. Mr. Mathieu has also illustrated traditional jazz record albums. He lives in Putnam, Connecticut, with his wife and two children.
A funny coincidence is that Jones was pinch hitting for Warren Spahn, one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game.
This is the last SBT post. You’ll need to turn to Cousin Matt for your whimsical posts from now on.
I’ve enjoyed them.
I’ve enjoyed them, too. Thank you, @butcherbakertoiletrymaker, for making time to post these every day.
Oh, and Liss is no longer with us, but the illustrator is.
Right, I knew I forgot to mention something. Thank you.
Oh, no problem. I think you mentioned Liss’ death previously.
But I was curious about the illustrator, since his “self-portrait” was on a bicycle, which would have been rare back in the early-to-mid-’80s. So I looked him up. He has a, uh, Muppet-centric portfolio.