AN ARTICLE FROM THE BASEBALL
MAGAZINE: NOVEMBER
ONEMOREINNING
A
FLICKERING EMBER
EDDIE
BENNETT
MISSHAPEN MIDGETS,
HUMPBACKED UNFORTUNATES, STUNTED
DWARFS.
BAT BOY OF
THE
IT WAS THE AGE OF RITUALISTIC, MYSTICAL
MASCOT’S
WHO WIELDED A
NY YANKEES
PAROCHIAL
MUMBO-JUMBO MAGNETISM OVER TEAMS & GAMES. A PAT ON
THE
HEAD,
SOFTLY RUBBING
THE PROTUBERANCE OF A
HUNCHBACKED
FORM,
A HANDSHAKE
FROM A TWISTED BODY, RUBBING
A BAT OR GLOVE OR A PLAYER’S CAP IN A CERTAIN WAY
YIELD-ED POWERFUL RESULTS.
THE EARLY 1900’S GAVE
US A PLETHORA OF TEAM MASCOT’S WHO EITHER PROMISED US MIRAC-ULOUS RESULTS
(IE CHARLES “VICTORY” FAUST) OR THE TOUCH OF THEIR BODY
HERALDED VIC-TORY (SEE LOUIS
VAN ZELST) OR GOOD LUCK CHARMS SUCH AS TY COBB’S L’IL RASTUS AND
AL-EXANDER GEORGE WASHINGTON RIVERS AND BABE RUTH’S LITTLE RAY
KELLY.
IN THE 1920s & ‘30s
BASEBALL HAD THE DIMINUTIVE EDDIE BENNETT:BATBOY OF THE YANKEES.
BORN A HUNCHBACK, EDDIE
REACHED THE HEIGHT OF 4 FEET 6 INCHES AT MATURITY. AN OR- PHAN, HE TRAVELED
FROM HOME TO HOME. GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND LACK OF OPPOR- TUNTIES OFFERED
TO HIM, HE ENDED UP IN THE CIRCUS AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. FOR TWO YEARS HE
WAS SURROUNDED BY THE SOUNDS AND SMELLS OF ELEPHANTS, TIGERS, HORSES, AND
LIONS. HIS WORLD INCLUDED BEARED LADIES, GLANDULAR LOOKING TIGHTROPE WALKERS
AND HIGHWIRE ARTISTS, THIN BUSTED AND WIDE-HIPPED FLORID WOMEN ACROBAT’S
AND POS-EUR’S, FAST TALKING CARNY HUCKSTERS, GLOOMY LOOKING AND BITTER
CLOWNS WHO DRANK TOO MUCH AND ONLY PLAYED POKER AT NIGHT AND MADE FUN OF
HIS HEIGHT AND GENERAL APPEARANCE.
HE WOULD TRY TIME AND TIME
AGAIN TO REMOVE HIMSELF FROM THIS TYPE OF LIFE BUT TO NO AVAIL. NOBODY WANTED
HIM….THAT IS UNTIL….AT THE AGE OF 16 HE ANSWERED A
CHICAGO WHITE SOX AD AND….
“I’ll tell you it was the accident
that done it. The pain is giving me the willies Mark.
Sometimes it
drive’s me off my
nut.” Little Eddie Bennett
was sitting next to Yankee shortstop Mark Koenig & talking to him about
his recent automobile accident. “I aint been much of a drinker before
but this son of a bitch thing is
makin’ me crazy. The onlyist
thing that helps is to have a few good stiff ones and even then I get up
at night with my back whacking me.” The
Yankee team sensed a change
in their lucky mascot
since he had been hurt. He was
glum, couldn’t move easily, & he had to stand with his back rigidly
planted against the dugout wall for long periods of time. What was worse,his
luck had run out. The team had stopped winning.
He had been wonderful though since joining
the Chicago White Sox in 1919 & then
going to Brooklyn and finally
the hapless New York Yankees. Eddie had been
magical, teams won with him
around! Babe Ruth would have him by his side in the on-deck circle just before
he batted. A team ritual was to have Eddie be the first person to greet Ruth,
Gehrig, Lazarri , and Bob Meusel
when they came to home
plate after hitting a homerun and then they must shake his hand otherwise
the magic wouldn’t work the next time.
He was as well known as the players on
the team. For 14 years he could be seen giving the players their bats, umpires
the balls, his cap being rubbed by the team before crucial games, and sitting
next to Miller Huggins on the bench pointing things out on the field.
Mid season of 1933 his accident was causing
so much pain, he could no longer function as a batboy. He left the team and
pretty much stayed in his furnished room at 115 West 84th street.
He started drinking heavily. He had no real family he could turn to and his
adopted family, the NY Yankees who had won 7 pennants and 4 World Series
while he had been with them, were involved in playing the game of baseball.
He was alone.
Mrs. Margaret Scholtz was the first to
find his body. She had attempted to talk to him that afternoon, found he
was drinking heavily, and left his room. Coming back later, she found him
crumpled up on the floor. He had been dead for over an
hour. A small radio was playing some dance music by Charlie
Spivak. Mrs. Scholz remembered the song, “It’s the Same Old
Dream” with a vocal by Irene Daye because it was one of her favorite
records. Not realizing what had happened, she began to pick things up from
the floor and turned off the radio. From outside the window she could hear
a fire truck, blowing it’s siren and she looked out to watch it go by.
Noticing that the noise didn’t wake up Bennett, she went over to him
to see if he was OK. He wasn’t.
A metaphor for Eddie Bennett’s life
(and death) could be a description of his furnished room. Small, with faded
paint, one window with a torn window shade drawn halfway up, a small doorless
bathroom with water dripping from a faucet into a stained sink, and a rolled
up carpet by the side of a metallic, unmade bed. The room had been transformed
into a cathedral of sorts though. On the walls were photographs of Eddie
Bennett with some of the greatest stars of the game. Poses featuring arms
around Eddie’s shoulder, his waist, smiling faces of Ruth, Gehrig, and
Cobb and Simmons and so many other’s looking down at this 4 foot 6 inch
hunchbacked mascot. In boxes, and on shelves were autographed boxscores,
baseballs, and programs. Letters from players Eddie had befriended over the
years, requests to vist hospitals to cheer up the patients., were stuffed
in drawers and suitcases. And the bats and gloves were everywhere.
It
was a miniature museum depicting a fragile life. A life
that had been a small, flickering ember in the history of the game.
Jacob Ruppert, the owner of the Yankees,
was informed of his death by Ed Barrow. Attempts were made to locate members
of his family but management
was informed that he had none. There were no bank accounts, no addresses
of friends, no assets except for the mem-orabilia found in his room and no
money to provide for a funeral. The prospect for a pauper’s grave loomed
large until Ruppert stepped in and took charge. Ruppert saw to it that funeral
services were held in the venerable Church of St. Gregory at 144 West
19th street. A fair sized crowd attended with a Priest who had
never heard of Bennett and knew nothing about the game, leading the services.
A few cars took his body and some of
the members of the Yankee staff to St Johns cemetery in Queen’s. One
of the cars had trouble going though the snow which had turned to slush,
and ended up getting lost.
None of the members of the Yankee team
attended the
funeral.
