The W*p Bets Against The Yankees
Friday, August 26, 1927: Detroit
Little Julie Wera, our self-pleasuring utility infielder, is a mathematical savant. He never made it to high school but his head seems to be filled with numbers. At the end of an inning, he can tell you a pitcher’s ERA before the hurler gets back to the dugout from the mound, and he can tell you a batter’s average as soon as the umpire calls him safe or out.
The players use Little Julie’s crazy photographic memory for numbers to keep track of the scores of their multiple card games being played by different groups throughout the season. He also keeps tabs on the various insane bets.
My favorite wager this season is between Tony “the W*p” Lazzeri and the rest of the team, minus the coaches and Earle Combs. Earle doesn’t bet for religious reasons.
The crazy bet came about during spring training when Mark Koenig’s allergies kicked up and he was sneezing night and day. Because Koenig and the W*p are roommates and also play right next to each other at second and short, his constant sneezing — and his constant whining, “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Gesundheit?’” — really got on the W*p’s nerves.
Lazzeri is one of those guys who chews nails and spits rust. He claims he’s never had a cold in his life, and I’ve no reason to doubt him. He got so fed up with Koenig that right in the middle of an exhibition game, while they were out on the field, the W*p started hollering at Koenig to shut up and quit acting like he had the Spanish Flu. Koenig started hollering back, and then after one sneeze too many, the W*p called Koenig a pussy and bet him $50 that he, Lazzeri that is, could go the entire season without sneezing once.
At the end of the inning, when everyone was coming back into the dugout, Ruth, who’d been trying to listen in on the squabbling from out in left field, asked them, “What the fuck was going on out there between you two keeds?”
The W*p told the Babe about the bet and Ruth hollered, “I’m in for $100!”
“A hundred bucks for what?” asked Dugan.
Ruth filled Jumpin’ Joe in, and told him, “I’m in for $100 against the W*p, ’cause there’s no fucking way he goes the whole season without sneezing once.”
“World Series included?” asked Dugan.
“Shit, yeah,” said the W*p.
“Then I’m in, too,” said Dugan.
By the end of the conversation, everyone in the dugout but Combs was in on the bet. Now, since the W*p makes $8,000 for the season, he didn’t want to bet everyone on the team $100 apiece, so it was agreed that he would be into Koenig for $100 and everyone else — 23 guys — he’d bet $20, making it a $560 wager.
In the clubhouse right after the game there was a quick team meeting to set the ground rules, and it was agreed that no one could do anything to cause the W*p to sneeze — like spike his pillow with snuff.
The Babe cheated a bit on that one, though, the last time we were in St. Louis. He took the W*p with him to the House of the Good Shepherd and had the madame put Lazzeri in a room with two girls in feathered outfits, and had the whole room covered with loose feathers. Ruth must have spent a couple of hundred on the setup. Afterwards, though, the ravaged girls said that not only did the W*p not sneeze but they were both pretty sure he didn’t even notice all the feathers the three of them sent flying.
Little Julie’s carrot waxing head was spinning numbers wildly today during our game against the Tigers. As usual he was sitting in the dugout — he’s only played in 32 of our 123 games — and at the start of the game he was calculating how much each of the Yankees is paid per base hit.
“Combs is a bargain,” Little Julie said, after Earle led off the game with a double. “That’s his 26th double, and his 171st base hit. He’s making $10,500 this season; so, right now, Col. Ruppert and Uncle Ed are paying Earle $61.40 a hit.”
“Jesus,” says Benny.
“We’ve got 32 more games to go,” says Little Julie, “so my guess is that by the end of the year Earle’s number goes down below $50 a hit.”
“What about Ruth?” asks Benny.
“Well, the big fellow’s pocketing $70,000 this year. And he’s got 147 hits — oh, wait, let’s see what happens this at-bat.”
Ruth takes the first pitch for a strike. On the second, he tries to check his swing and ends up tapping the ball back to the Tiger pitcher, Lil Stoner, for an easy out at first.
“Okay, $70,000 divided by 147 hits, as of that at-bat, means right now Jidge is making $476.19 per hit.”
“Jesus,” says Benny.
“Get a load of these numbers,” says Little Julie. “The Babe and Lou both have 40 homers. Jidge’s hitting them at $1,750 a pop, but Lou’s only costing the team $200 a pop, since he’s only makin’ eight grand.”
“Jesus,” says Benny.
“Now that dirt farmer over there,” says Little Julie, pointing at Wilcy Moore, “he’s costing Uncle Ed $1,250 per hit!”
“Jesus,” says Benny.
“But,” I say to Little Julie, “Cy’s not paid to hit.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Little Julie replies, “‘cause Cy makes $2,500 — which I might add is $100 more than I’m making this season — and he’s only got two hits in 42 games and 55 at-bats, for an .036 batting average.”
As incompetent as Wilcy may be at the plate, he more than makes up for it on the mound. Hell, outside of Ruth and Gehrig, and maybe Lazzeri, our 30-year-old rookie sidearm sinkerball pitcher is probably the most valuable player on the team this year.
Miller Huggins certainly thinks so. He’s pitched Cy in 42 games, mostly as a reliever, though Hugg also starts Cy, like he did in Cleveland last Monday — which is nuts, since we have a 16-game lead on the rest of the league.
That said, William Wilcy Moore is without a doubt the worst hitter that anybody has ever seen.
He’s so awful that in spring training, as soon as he made the team, the Babe bet him that he couldn’t get three hits all season. Given the great disparity in their salaries — “Ruth makes 28 times as much as Cy, and 29.1666 times as much as me,” Little Julie points out — the Babe gave Wilcy substantial odds: Cy only had to put up $15 against the Babe’s $300.
Now, 123 games into the season, Cy’s sitting on two hits, both of which came against the Tigers when we were last in Detroit, back in July.
Today, Huggins brings Wilcy into the game in the bottom of the seventh. In the top of the eighth, Cy lays down a picture perfect bunt. The Tigers’ third baseman and their pitcher both decide to let the ball roll foul — only it doesn’t. It stops about halfway down the third base line, right in the middle of the chalk.
“Holy shit!” everybody in our dugout yells (except for Earle Combs), before we all give Cy a standing ovation.
After our 8–6 win, Ruth is in a great mood, having gone two for four, with a double (“his 26th,” says Little Julie) and a triple (“his sixth”) for three RBIs. In the locker room, Babe walks up to Wilcy and peels off six $50 bills from the bankroll in his pocket, and loudly presents them to Mr. Moore.
“Wow,” says Little Julie, “$300 is 12 percent of Cy’s salary.”
Ford Frick points out to Wilcy that all three of his hits this year have been in Detroit’s Navin Field. Cy deadpans, “It’s a hitter’s ballpark, Frick,” to great laughs from all the pencils and cleats in the locker room.
Back in the hotel around midnight, I’m hanging out in Schoolboy’s room reading the papers when Koenig bangs open the door and, in a full blown panic, shouts, “I need you right now!”
We dash out of the room and run across the hall. There on the floor, dressed in a purple suit, with a green shirt and an orange tie, is Lazzeri. He’s vibrating like he’s wearing one of those weight loss belts the Babe endorses. His jaw is clenched tight. There’s spit coming out of the side of his mouth. And he’s making grunting noises. He looks like a guy trying to stifle a sneeze.
Schoolboy knows better. He sees a metal shoe horn on the dresser, grabs it and jabs it into the W*p’s mouth.
“That’s to keep him from biting or swallowing his tongue,” he tells us.
Schoolboy gets off the floor and pulls a blanket off one of the beds, the way a magician would pull a tablecloth off a table full of plates. He then gently covers the W*p and cradles him, waiting for the seizure to subside.
Back in 1926, when the W*p was hitting 60 home runs for the Salt Lake Bees in the Pacific Coast League, none of the major league teams would sign him, because it was rumored that he suffered from epilepsy. Those rumors turned out to be true. But Paul Krichell, the same scout who first found Gehrig, told Ed Barrow, “60 home runs is worth the risk. And the w*p’s never had a fit on the field — he just gives opponents fits.”
So the Yankees signed him. After finishing 10th in the MVP voting last year, one spot ahead of Gehrig, Lazzeri will definitely be in the top 10 this year. If he can stop shaking like a leaf.
None of the fans know anything about his condition, since it’s certainly not something the press would ever write about in a million years.
After what seems like an eternity, Lazzeri’s fit subsides. But he’s still unconscious.
Suddenly, his eyes start blinking and his face goes into spasm.
Then the W*p sneezes.
Koenig, Schoolboy and I look at each other.
“Take off his shoes and tie, and let’s get him into bed,” says Schoolboy.
Half a pack of cigarettes later, close to one o’clock, Schoolboy’s satisfied that the W*p is resting quietly for the night. He and I get up and head for the door, leaving a nervous Koenig behind.
“Hey, Schoolboy — Myles?”
“Yeah, kid,” says Schoolboy.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” Schoolboy says.
“And Schoolboy….”
“Yeah?”
Koenig, who’s ghost white, gets up and takes a hold of Schoolboy by the arm.
“Don’t tell anyone about the sneeze.”
- Ben Paschal Can’t Sleep
- THE DETROIT NEWS, August 27, 1927: “Hit Costs The Babe $300 And Tigers A Ball Game”
- August 26, 1927: “Yanks Make Sweep Of Detroit Series”. New York Times article and Box Score.
