Ear on Chicago; Runs, Hits, and Errors: Comiskey Park

The Chicago White Sox are once again in the thick of the American league pennant race, and thousands of baseball fans in the Chicago area turn out at each home game to watch them play ball. But there is much more to a baseball team than the players and managers who appear on the field. Our program opens in the ticket office. To start out with, before you can get into the ballpark, you have to have a ticket. So we're going to do the story of the ticket sales at Kamiski Park. Now the ticket manager is Tom Maloney. Tom, we're standing right in front of the counter in which lies tickets for today's ball game. And I suppose for perhaps other ball games too. Now first of all, how many tickets do you have going on sale each time there's a game? It depends on the attraction. If it's a weekday and it's an attraction, it's not very popular. In other words, if it's a team not in the first division, we have a lesser amount and we have on when it's a team in the first division. When I like with the Yankees today coming in, you probably have as many as you can get your hands on, right? We have

approximately 47 ,000 tickets to put out if the necessity arises. You have a certain amount of tickets that have already been sold for the game, haven't you? Precisely. And then how many do they actually go on sale for today's game out at the ticket office today? Right now, we'll put out about 25 ,000 if we the business warns it, we'll throw more out as they're sold. Tom, let's walk over here and take a look at these tickets. Now here is a roll of tickets. What's this for the grandstand? That's a roll of ladies' tickets. Or today is ladies' day. Today is ladies' day and we use a roll ticket for the ladies. Now what about these tickets? What do they have to pay on those? Any female has to pay 25 cents to enter and that regardless of a rage as long as she's a female. And that's 25 cents as tax, isn't it? No that's a service charge, there's no tax on a 25 cent ticket. Well I see. Now what about the next roll of tickets? This is a big stack of them over here, looks like it's worth a fortune. Those are tickets for the bleachers, they're a 60

cents each and we put those on sale of the bleachers at the northeast corner of the stadium. And that's two rows of bleachers tickets. Now here over here to the left, three piles, looks like three piles of blue tickets. What are they for? Those are general admission tickets, they sell for $1 .25 and on this particular day, therefore, males only and as much as the females get in for 25 cents. Then the next to them are three more rolls, three more stacks and those are ladies' day. Those are additional ladies' day tickets and over here on the table, we have box seats. We'll put out approximately 10 ,000 box seats today. Well now Tom, what about rain outs? Perhaps if you have one today before the ball game is completed. How do you handle rain outs? Well, we give a refund on the ticket if the customer desires. Otherwise, we'll be very happy to change him for any performance for the remainder of the season. There's one thing I wanted to ask you about, Tom, perhaps you can talk about this and perhaps you can't, but I saw this check up here, the pay to the order of Charles A. Kamiski,

$7 ,500. What was that for? That was for $7 ,500 box seats back in 1913. At that time, box seats were only a dollar a piece. John P. Harding, is that the Harding restaurant? That's the John P. Harding, he's deceased now, but he was a founder of the Harding restaurants. He bought 7 ,500 box seats? In one day, you know. Is that your biggest sale? That's the biggest individual sale we've ever had. We've come close to it many times, but that's the biggest individual sale. Tom, we want to thank you very much for telling us about the ticket operation. Of course, that's probably the most important part of the business, because the Chicago White Sox, after all, are a business. And this is the way you make your money. Thanks a million. It's very nice to be here, and thank you very much. Here is a story that we're going to tell you about concessions at Kamiski Park. That I think anybody that is a ball fan will be very surprised at. You probably just take concessions at the ballpark for granted. The scorecards

and the hot dogs and everything that goes with it. But here's the man that has to do with all this business, and he's going to tell us a little bit of the background of the story. Dan Bauer is the concessions manager. Now, Dan, let's start first of all with scorecards. That's one of the first things a fan gets when he comes into the ballpark. And here it is early in the season for one thing, and you may have a little trouble with the lineups, because they change quite a bit when teams deal off players. How do you work that out? What we have finally done starting this year is to eliminate the batting order completely from the scorecard of our program. Now we have just a blank space, and we let the field announcer announce all the names and the batting order and let the fans fill in their names themselves. Thereby getting away from the many changes that occur during the early phases of the season. What about the team members and their numbers, Dan, that changes, too? Do you have to print a new card almost every day? That's correct. Our printing setup is so equipped that within 10 hours of a team coming into

town, we can hold off printing the actual scorecard. Dan, getting back to food, as you said, you have a great deal of problems in the food department, wondering just how much you have to put out and so on. Well, what if you have a day where you've supplied it enough or say maybe 18 or 20 ,000 people and only 5 ,000 show up? Now, do you have a place to store that food here in the ballpark? Or what do you do? Yes, I have approximately 55 ton of refrigeration in this park. 55 ton? That is correct. I have speaking offhand six large walk -in coolers, while just figuring it in terms of winters, each of these walk -ins can hold approximately 3 ,000 pounds or a ton and a half of winters. So, with six of them, we actually have enough to hold 9 ton of winters. Now, on a good weekend, we will go through close to 6 ton of winters, so you can see where we do need all this refrigeration space. You sure do. Now, what about, well, one thing I wanted to mention was a couple of

jars of mustard are sitting over here on the desk in your office. What are you doing with a thing like that? We constantly experiment with the condiments that go into our foods towards providing a more zestful and tasteful sandwich for our people. And this particular mustard happens to be sitting here as a highly spiced mustard, whereas right now we are using a bland type. And it's just a question of whether we're going to go to this highly spiced one in order to increase the tastiness of the winters sandwich. Well, do you have an average taste, Dan? You have to make the decision. Yes, I have an average taste, but I never follow my own particular leanings on taste. We have found that by sections of the country, this being the Midwest, the strangest it may seem, people are inclined towards a little spiciness. Just a trifle over the bland side. Is that right? That's correct. Dan, how many employees do you have in the concessions office? Most of my people are what we term part -time help. Either vendors who are on a commissionable basis or

daily people who come in as cashiers and commissary workers, but on a large given day, my employees will number over 500 people. Well, we couldn't take in everything that your office handles. We've left out peanuts and we left out popcorn. We left out ice cream bars and a few of the drinks and so on. But if we covered the whole concession story, Dan, I suppose we'd be here for a good half an hour. We want to thank you for telling us about at least that much. You're entirely welcome and it's been a pleasure. When a baseball fan goes to the ballpark, he usually takes with him a newspaper or a scorecard or if he doesn't have something when he goes, he gets something when he gets there, wrappers from hot dogs and so on and he usually just leaves them where he's sitting. Now, here's something that I don't think fans usually think about. There's somebody that has to clean that up. Now, the man that's in charge of the entire park here is Archie Cunahan. They call him the park superintendent. Now, Archie, this is a problem that I just mentioned and let's take a big day. Let's say a night game or a double header when you have a

lot of people here. How much of a job is it? Well, we have the hire about 40 extra men to clean up after our night game to get set for the next day after no ball game. Now, what about, for example, on a Saturday night? Next day is Sunday. You've got another big day. Now, we have to work that night, too, like Saturday night. To get cleaned up for Sunday's double header and probably on Sunday at all depends on who's coming in. We may have to open up a 10 o 'clock in the morning so we have to do a lot of work that night. Archie, how do you go about it? Brums and... Brums. And how about getting it out of the park? All the rest of you? Well, then we have a man come in with a great big truck and they haul it away for us. Archie, what about the rest of the park itself? Now, we're going to talk to Gene Bossard, the groundskeeper, about the grounds. But, how about seats? Do you ever have a child or something? Yeah, there's a few seats get broken every once in a while. And we have our man go right there and repair it right off the start. How about the scoreboard? Do you have to keep tabs on that? Well, I have two electricians up there every day when the team is home. And then we have electrician maintenance man here all the time. Well, it's a big job. Certainly

it's taking care of this park. Sure is. And how about dugouts? Do you ever have to go into there? Well, Gene Bossard takes care of the dugouts. Anything that's on the field. Yes, he's that they're all cleaned up in the field, especially. Well, talking about the Gene Bossard, he just came in and we want to talk to him right now. Archie, thanks a million. You're welcome, thank you. Gene, you have an important job indeed and that's to keep that grounds in shape. Let's go back before the season starts and talk a little bit about the change over from the football season to the baseball season. Now, they scratch that place up pretty bad out there when the Chicago Cardinals play at Kamiski Park during the winter time. How much of a job is it to get it in shape for baseball? Well, it's a lot of work. We have to resod the whole infill in the outfield. And this year we put in 4 ,400 square yards of sod. And all in all, it's a lot of a tremendous amount of work. Do you often plant new grass out there or is it always you use new sod? Always re -sod it. You never plant grass. Very seldom. You don't have the troubles that we have in the front yard of my house then. No, no, our grass is three years old and we get it in.

Is that right? That's right. Well now, what about your equipment? How many pieces of equipment do you have to keep that ground in shape? Well, we got what I call nail drag. That's for loosening up the dirt and we got scrapers and we got door mats for leveling. And the infill itself is dirt, of course. And you have to keep that in darn good shape and make sure that there's no big boulders out there to deflect the ball. How do you go about that? Well, that's our biggest problem. We work on that about two hours every morning just softening it up with rakes. And we roll it and then we mat it for make sure it's good and live on. How many men do you have there? I have four men besides my cell phone, the field. And of course we have 17 other men available in case it rains for the big canvas. That's right. I was going to ask you about rainy days. What do you set ready and waiting when there's looks like it might rain to get that canvas out in the hurry? Yes, we're always ready. We have a 170 foot square nylon canvas. Have you ever timed yourself? About four minutes it takes us. To get the whole canvas out there? That's right. Well, that's a big job. Yes, it is. A lot

of work. And four minutes is that a record? No, I wouldn't say it's a record, but it's a good time. Gene, do they do a better job in Cleveland? Well, they do a pretty good job up there. You know, I asked that question for a reason. I know your dad is the groundskeeper out there and I understand he's one of the best in the country. Yes, dad's been up in Cleveland for 20 years and they got a nice ball field there. How long have you been in the business? About 20 years. I'll be here 15 years in September at Komiske Park, except in two and a half years in the service. Well, okay, Gene. Thanks a million for talking to us. I know you're in a hurry to get out to there because you got to get that field in shape for this big Yankee game. Thank you. It's been nice being on. We've come up to the clubhouse now and we're going to talk to some of the boys who are working behind the scenes of the Chicago White Sox. And have to do with players and equipment. Now, Ed Dock -Frolick here is the trainer of the ball club and he's the guy that you see running out on the field when a player might get hurt. Ed, when

you do go out there, do you make the decision whether that player that has either been hit with a ball or a batter something whether he's going to stay in that game or not? Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes it's a matter of the player making the decision because after all said and then he's the fellow that knows how well he can perform. Whatever. Because I say it's a flexible thing. Like sometimes you might go out there and you see somebody very badly spiked and he might think he can stay in the ball game and he can't. So you're the fellow that makes the decision in a case like that. In other words, say you're out. That's it. That's it. Well now, Ed Dock, what about the ailments of the players? Some of them have sore arms, some of them have bad legs. You have to take care of all that, don't you? Just about, yes. And how about rub down to you to rub them down before the game or after the game? Yes, most of it is done before the game because after the ball game is over any stretching or massaging that you might do is not going to do the fellow any good except for his personal well -being after the ball game is over and we're not concerned with that. What kind of special equipment do you have, Doc? Well, we have everything here. We have dyothermic, we have infrared,

we have physiotherapy of every type of description, whirlpool. We have everything that's necessary for the care and treatment of athletic injuries and athletes in general. Now we want to talk to Shaki who is the equipment manager and he's been standing right here listening in on this conversation. Now he's all set to talk about equipment. Shaki, you've got two big trunks right here in front of us. Are these trunks used on trips? Yes, these are used on trips. There's about 14 of them on trips during a regular season and you have a lot more during spring training, around 28 -30 in spring training. Shaki, let's start from the beginning. That's with bats and balls. How do you take care of those? How do you get them and so on? Well, we have one of the coaches or gets the number of bats they want and they're a model of bats and he sends them an order to Hilrich and Hilrich males them into us. Who's Hilrich? Hilrich's bat company. I see. What about balls? Balls are sent directly from the office from New York and ten dozen cartons

and I get a sheet from the umpires every day. How many they need and go up and get them and how many the ball club needs. How often do you order new balls? Well, they come in every month, they come in on shipment, a hundred dozen every month. Getting back to bats, do you have to order special bats for special players? Do they request certain weights? Every player has his own model bats with special weight and they're numbered on the end so when they go wire in they send them their model bats and their name is right on the bats. What if he breaks his special weight? Well, they always have about a half a dozen on hand. Oh, so they're all set? Well, now Shaki, what about uniforms? They get dirty off leaves. Well, we send them out to cleaners as soon as they get dirty and the cleaner gets them back as soon as he can. They have two sets, new bought new every year of weight, grades and whites. Then we saved a set from the last year to fill in perx trees so we'll have extra uniforms. Which do you have the most trouble with the whites of the grades? Well, the whites you'll have more trouble with because they pick up the dirt and they're easy showing than the grades. The grades

don't show it so much. How about gloves and shoes? Do the players take care of them themselves? The players take care of their gloves and that. And I have two bat boys that take care of their shoes every night after they come in to clean up their shoes. Well, now that's one thing I was going to ask you about. I see a lot of equipment hanging around here and this is the clubhouse and that's normally what you would expect to see. But you have to watch it after the players leave. I take care of it and wash up the clubhouse, take care of it after they leave and everything. Okay, Sharky, thanks a million. You're welcome. We brought our tape recorder now to the bar room, which is a very famous place at Kamiski Park. And this is where the press gathers just before the game and many times just after a game. Ernie Carroll is one of the famous men of Chicago. He's taken care of the press at the bar room for, well, I think through three owners or three managers, three general managers of this ball club. And he knows it from way back. Ernie, what about this room here? Now, we're sitting here over a cup of coffee at a long table covered with a beautiful white tablecloth.

You've got a bar back here to serve drinks and back there is the kitchen. What's your job, just a general overseer here? Well, no, I do all the cooking and preparing the food for the press and the fish of the white socks ballpark. I've been here about 35 years now on the Charles A. Kamiski. You came when the club started practically? Well, it seemed that way I started when I was 12 years old, 12 years of age. Is that right? That's right. Well, Ernie, what about the press? How often do they come in? They come in before the ball game and outside the ball game. They come in and write stories and then they go upstairs and come back and interview the ball players and write another story and have lunch and they go to the press room. I mean, up in the press coop there. And the radio and TV boys are in here too? Yeah, they're in here three times a day. What about the ball players themselves? Do you feed them? Well, some kind of ball players come in a little late and I have to fix a sandwich for them. And during the double header, I fix different kinds of sandwich like lettuce and tomatoes and milk and pie at half of the ball game to have some doing intermission. Well, Ernie, you've got a real interesting job. I bet you like it.

I love it. Thanks a million for talking to us. Thank you very much. One of the things which the fans have seen more of than hear more of than the back rooms of the Kamiski Park. Of course, the announcer on the radio and the sports writer. Now, in order to tell that story, we called upon one of the great sports writers of the country and one of the great sports casters of the country. John Carmichael, who has covered many a baseball game, his sports editor of the Chicago Daily News. And Bob Elson, who has been announcing baseball probably for more years than he'd like to remember, are here in the White Sox dugout to talk over their particular jobs and old times with the Chicago White Sox. John, you know, if we could pick a team out of all the great players that we've seen, I think we'd be unbeatable. I think we would too. And I think it'd be a nice time to have the team this year too. We could get it together. Put them all on a White Sox uniform. And that's very good. I was right. You know, I was interested in the thing that the St. Louis sporting news is

trying to find out the player of the last 10 years. And it's a pretty tired thing. I imagine you got a ballot as I did. I got a ballot bobbin. It's a pretty tough thing because you have fellas like Stan Muget. You got fellas like Williams and Feller. And then you have a lot of fellas that weren't listed. They just gave you a little guide, you know, or a list of some of the players to give you a little guide. But you take a fella like Old Luke Appling. Now, he did pretty well for our club. Wonderful ball player, I should say. And then you go back to some of those old club guys that were pretty fair. And you have a great modern player like Williams. It's pretty rough. I tell you, I thought over the thing for a long time and tried to really reason the thing out. I had an awful time not putting Joe DiMaggio in first place. Well, I would kind of agree with you there. He would be my idea of either certainly no worse than one tool in any player that I've ever seen in my time in baseball. He certainly is one of the great players of all time. And I'd almost have to say he's the best baller on ball player that I ever saw. You and I have seen another great ball player, a great pitcher who, through the years, has never changed much. And that's Bob Feller. I have a great regard and respect for Feller. I

knew him when he first came up. I think I broadcast the first game he pitched. And another eventful game that I know you covered too when his mother was hit over the head. That's right. I think he hit the ball. And he pitched the ball. And somebody else fouled it. There were some 42 ,000 people in the park and it hit his mother the first time she's seen him. And they had to take 12 stitches in her head. It broke her glasses. It made quite an impression on her. I imagine it did. I wonder if she's been back to another game where he was pitching since. You know, John, there's no way to get away from it. But I have a feeling of regret every time that Feller goes out now and loses. And you feel that maybe he's at the end of the road. But there's nothing much you can do about these great careers. These fellas come and spend their years and they're gone. But I know you feel about it as I do. It's just too bad that they ever have to leave. Well, I do because I always feel bad for Feller. That 1948 series he pitched a two -hit ball game in Boston against the Braves and lost that one one and nothing. Then he came out to make another start in Cleveland before it all his home fans and sympathizers and all that. And they really clobbered him that day. Didn't even

finish the game. And that's probably the last chance that he'll ever have to pitch in the World Series. Because he didn't pitch in the 1954 series as you recall. That was the sore point with me. I was hoping they'd give him a chance to start. He couldn't have done any worse. No, no. They lost four straight. But Al Lopez was backed up against the offense after they'd lost three. And there was just one more to go. He had to shoot his best shot. That's back with Lemon. Well, that's what he explained afterwards in short -term sentences. He didn't go into it too much. But he was faced with a proposition. If you don't start lemon and lose, then you're a bomb manager. If you start lemon and lose, everybody says why didn't you pitch Feller? Well, I think if he'd won one game out of those first four, I think he'd have started Feller. I really do. You know, we are engaged in the same type of thing. Our work sort of parallels each other. But in a sense, it's different in that you cover a ball game and you set up in the press box. And you have a typewriter there. And you can sort of

peruse that record book. And you prepare your story maybe in the afternoon for that night edition. Where we don't get a chance much to, we've got to say it, and that's it. And it's gone with the win. Well, that's enough radio experience to know that. It's very true, Bob. And the thing, of course, the radio broadcasting has revolutionized baseball writing, too, because you have to assume that everybody who was interested in the ball game knows from the broadcast that the game is over, what the score is, who won the essentials of the game. So, therefore, it is up to the writers, especially writers for afternoon papers of the following day to develop feature twists and feature angles and feature stories to give the readers something new besides just the bare details, because they've already got that from your channels. By the way, what about your pen and picks at the beginning of the season? How are they doing? You imagine you had the white socks and the Yankees up there pretty close. I did, Bob. I picked the Yankees to win in the league. I picked the Red Sox second and the White Sox third and Cleveland fourth. I would like to drop the Red Sox out of there any time now, but I won't do it right

away. In the National League, I picked Brooklyn to win and the Cardinals to be second. And I don't know who I picked third. It could be Milwaukee, I believe, but I'm satisfied with that arrangement right now. Milwaukee ball club seems to be staying together pretty well. They could be a threat right down to the wire. Yes, I think they could, if they can survive a lot of those double headers they're going to be up against now. After all those war shots at home and of course they, I don't think they're pitching as strong as it has looked up to now, but maybe I'm wrong. Whether this year continues to be a factor, and we can remember when they started the season a lot earlier, and now they're trying to start it later every year, and before they know it, football is caught up with it. And there just doesn't seem to be any way to get away from the old weather bugaboo that has become a major headache for the Major League. Well, it has become a major headache because you lose games, especially Sunday games. Early in the season, and you can't get those back again because you just don't have room to schedule them, and if you put them on a weekday, well the customers can't come on a weekdays, at least

not as many numbers as you'd like to have them. Thank you both, gentlemen. Bob Eltson, sportscaster with the Chicago White Sox, John Carmichael, who is the sports editor of the Chicago Daily News. Well, we can say we've saved the best for the last. We're going to talk now to the vice president, and the namesake of the founder of this club, Chuck Kamiski. Chuck, we've, the fans often see, don't know anything about a deal until they see it in the papers or hear it on the radio. And then I suppose they wonder just how it all came about. How long do you study a deal before you actually make one? Well, here there's no way you can put on a time element on any deal. It depends what you need for your own individual ball club. You study your own ball club, you find where you might need pinching and left -handed wise or right -handed wise. Whether you need another right or left -handed pitcher to balance off your pitching staff. And then after that, you go

around and explore the rosters of mainly the clubs in your own league where it's easier to deal. And also the nationally clubs, pardon me. And then after that, while you try and balance out, after all, most of these owners and people handle a deal for these major league clubs are aware of the talents of your ball players as well as you're aware of the talent of their ball player. So you're trying to arrive at some solution wherein you know that you can make an attractive offer to them. And then you call them, give them the offer, and they usually kind of rack by saying, well, let us study it or let us think it over. And sometimes they'll call back and say, no, right off the bat, and then the other time they'll turn around and say, well, if you would take so and so out of it and put so and so in it, we would give it serious consideration. And then it starts from there. Sometimes you can make a deal in five minutes, and sometimes it takes five months. It really varies. Do you have a lot of conferences going on in your office between you and Johnny Rigny and manager, Marty Marion?

Yes, very often. I would say that we probably, well, John Rigny and I probably, you might term a conference every day. And then Marty's in here particularly when the lineup, but the team itself is generally discussed every day between the three of us. To try and feel the best club that we possibly can. Chuck, I'll ask you one more question, and then I know you're busy and we'll let you go. Your grandfather founded the club here in Chicago, and now your general manager. How do you how do you feel about a club, a baseball team, fitting into the picture of a community, a big community like the city of Chicago? Oh, I think it's an absolute necessity. I really do. Baseball being the American past time, and the great game that it is, it's ever changing game day by day, ending by ending pitch by pitch. I think it's a great thing for the morale of a city, and Chicago is a great sports center anyway. I've

always felt. And I think that they're in a good position to support a couple of major league ball clubs, which are presently doing a couple of football clubs in the hockey team and et cetera. Chicago has great sport enthusiasm, and in this town, even though the fans when you're losing can get on you pretty hard. If they go down to the corner and somebody says something about their team, why there's a good fight on their hands, because they're loyal. I mean, they die as much as we die when we lose inside, and they just want to see every team win. So I think Chicago is a big thing in the team sport teams, and I hope particularly the White Sacks is a big thing for the city. And the uppermost desire, I'm sure of myself and everybody in the organization, is that that enthusiasm that the fans in Chicago possess, we can reward them with a penit. Chuck, thank you very much for talking to us. Good to you.

This has been the story of the Chicago White Sacks of how the people behind the scenes help put the baseball club on the field so that you this fan can go out and see them at Kamiski Park. This is Hugh Hill speaking.