Month: July 2012

If I’ve learned one thing from my exhaustive study of the Shirelles and Killing Joke, it’s that it’s always darkest before the dawn.   All but resigned to consigning the yo la tengo anecdote to the annals of legend, Ralph Kiner comes to our rescue.  In what we in the scientific community refer to as peer review, Scott from Brooklyn has endorsed our postulation of July 22, 1962 as the Day Most Likely.   And now thanks to  independent research conducted by Christopher from Hoboken, it appears that noted yo la tengo skeptic Frank Thomas may have changed his tune.  Responding to a question posed about Elio Chacon on the Crane Pool forum, Thomas replies (in part):

In my book I mentioned the story and stated that I thought Richie made the whole thing up for its comic appeal, but I recently found photographic evidence that may now support Ashburn’s story. While going through some old boxes of photos I found one of me helping Richie off the field after a collision. Richie is holding his head and I have my arm around his shoulders, and a very sympathetic look on my face. There’s no date or caption on the photo, so I can’t completely say that it confirms Richie’s story, but it definitely adds credibility to his tale.

In late July 1962, the Mets played a three-game series with the Milwaukee Braves, with Ashburn, Thomas and Chacon in place for all three.  Playing left field and first base for the Braves is Arthur Lee Maye, the foremost baseball-playing R&B singer of all time.   Ashburn, Thomas and Chacon’s final appearance together until September happens in the first game of the team’s next series, on July 27 in St. Louis.  Anyone got a copy of that Frank Thomas/Richie Ashburn photo?

 

 

Like the 2012 Mets, the wheels seem to have come off our search for yo la tengo.  Yesterday’s post, a five-days-belated report on a tussle with the Pirates, was a textbook case of what the bard termed missing the forest for the trees.  Not only did I fail to acknowledge missing two other Ashburn/ Thomas/Chacon lineups, but in so doing I blew by the most likely candidate yet for our holy grail.

 

Correspondent Ben from Jersey City, noting this investigation’s complaints about the paucity of detail in accounts by Roger Angell and Jimmy Breslin, alerted us to Ralph Kiner’s version,  published in 1987:

[I]n a game against Cincinnati, the Mets led by two runs but the Reds loaded the bases. The batter was the dreaded Frank Robinson. He hit a high fly to short left-center field. Chacon scurried back and Ashburn raced in. “Yo lo tengo,” Ashburn yelled, and, sure enough, Chacon pulled up. Ashburn settled under the ball and was just about to make the catch when he was bowled over by Frank Thomas, the burly left fielder. Thomas spoke only English. Naturally, the Mets lost.

Now we’re getting somewhere!   The Mets played the Reds 18 times in 1962, and lost 13 times.  Two of those 13 games had our principals in their rightful positions—April 25, dismissed as a contender in our initial post, and July 22.  Digging deeper we see that entering the bottom of the 6th inning, the Mets were leading by three runs.   Frank Robinson is the fourth batter that inning.  When he comes up, the Red have two men on, and one run in, in other words  a mere baserunner  off from Ralph’s scenario.  And yes Robinson hits a single!  (One of the challenges of this project is not knowing whether the play—assuming it ever happened—was scored a hit or an error.) Eureka?

What’s the opposite of eureka?  Reliable sources place Robinson’s hit landing in right field, a dealbreaker.

(Meanwhile, Ashburn, Thomas and Chacon play together four games in a row July 24-27, 1962.  I’ll get back to you on that one.)

 

A confession: As Mets victories have been few (one) and far between of late, I may have over-celebrated last Thursday’s win against the Nationals.  But this I promise–when I came to, mere hours ago, my first thought was not some question right out of “Once in a Lifetime,” it was “Oh no, I have failed to update the search for yo la tengo.”   In my extended tailgate party, I blew right past the July 19, 1962 game against the Pirates, in which Richie Ashburn, Frank Thomas and Elio Chacon once more took the positions that baseball legend demands: center field, left field and shortsop respectively.  I can find no evidence of comic collisions in the outfield, though admittedly that could be attributable to the lingering effects of my bender.

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