cherchez la creneau

[softball66]

Is Marty Marion saying, "You know what you can do with this Eddie." Paul Rogers, SABR head here, sent me copy of this wirephoto of Mr. Shortstop "Slats" Marion viewing the tattered glove of Eddie "The Crab" Miller. Some considered Miller a better fielding shortstop than Marion who had a great reputation as such. Marion acknowledged Miller as a fine fielding shortstop in several interviews. I will do a story on gloves with holes in them.

[vintagebrett]

That's a great photo. He one was on the biggest endorsers of the OK and early Sonnett gloves - wonder if that is one of them!

[softball66]

This glove was NOT OK! Ha!
Very NOT OK.
A Pro BH (black hole)

Besides Wagner, Marannville , Durocher, Bartell all cut holes in their palms.
Wasn't it our own forum Cowboy poster who's teammate claimed played with a glove "with a hole in it?" or was that mine?

[Cowboy7130]

Oh, did I tell a story? Imagine that ...

I remember a video I saw years and years ago about a contemporary outfielder who had a hole worn through the palm of his favorite glove. I remember him being a tall, angular African-American, but I don't remember exactly who it was. I think it was someone like Amos Otis, or Oddibe McDowell .... Anyway, he said the glove gave him a good "feel" for the ball as he let it transfer from the web to the palm to his throwing hand after a catch ...

... now, who was that guy? ....

[docglov]

it was Amos Otis with KC I saw the glove many times. Then so was Sandburgs.

Bob

[softball66]

The April 26, 1991 Sports Collectors Digest carried a long interview & story on Marty Marion wherein Marty talks about the shortstops of his day. There's a nice shot of Marty with his Rawlings (big glove for the day). Few remember that Marion won the National League MVP in 1944, and based almost purely on his defensive wizardry.
Here's Marty's quotes on Miller and a couple of other shortstops of his time.

"I thought Eddie Miller was one of the better shortstops of our time. He was a heckufa player, but he didn't get the publicity we got. I got a lot of publicity, Pee Wee got a lot of publicity. Rizzuto got a lot of publicity. They got more than I did here in St. Louis because they played in New York."

It was said the 1946 Cardinal infield of Whitey Kurowski at third, Marion at short, Red Schoendienst at second and Stan Musial at first base was maybe the best of all time.

An interesting aside to this story was that when I interviewed former Rawlings Advertising man Elmer Blasco in the early 1990s, he said Marion asked for more money on his royalty of glove sales from then president Clark Carr. His Marty Marion model glove was the best seller at that time and best seller of all time behind the Bill Doak glove. He got an increase in his percentage.