by Roy Exum
posted October 21, 2007
 Roy Exum |
Be it Don Larsen’s perfect game, Mantle & Maris or “The Shot Heard Around The World,” no other sporting event has the colorful aura the World’s baseball championship series gives to us.
That said, the other day I wrote about Freddie Russell, the great sports writer out of Nashville who was the consummate gentleman, a great journalist but who was also a character if ever there was one.
So, years ago, the teams playing in the World Series would travel back and forth between the two cities by train and the railroad would literally reroute hundreds of other trains so those carrying the players and car loads of adoring fans could pass unfettered.
The sports writers of the day would sit in the lobbies of the host hotels, talking to the managers and the players and the rest of the entourage, and it was delightful fun to get caught up in the excitement before the teams played that afternoon.
Understand, this was before CNN and color TV and writers would literally get stories back to their newspapers by Western Union. It was a quieter, easier time, in a way, but the entire nation got caught up in the series because there were far fewer distractions.
So one morning about 8 o’clock our man Freddie was sitting in the lobby when this big woman came storming to the front desk to scald the hapless clerk for not delivering a wake-up call.
I mean this “blue-hair” really let the kid have it, threatening to have him fired and even said her husband had enough clout to assure the poor boy would never again work in the entire hotel industry. “Yes ma’am, Mrs. Murphy. I understand… yes ma’am, I am oh so sorry …yes ma’am, never again…yes ma’am.”
Well, Freddie watches the scene unfold and later said he never felt so sorry for a kid in his life. Then, as she whirled to scurry back to her room in her robe and curlers, Mrs. Murphy made a grave mistake when she shook her finger one last time and reminded the cowed kid, “In the morning you had best remember, room 264 at 7:30 a.m.!”
The kid looked like he was going to cry, but the immaculately-dressed Freddie Russell craftily reached for his reporter’s pad as he sat on a sofa across the way and wrote, “Murphy…264 …7:30.”
Soon everybody was swept up in the day and the incident was seemingly forgotten. The big buses were at the curb to take the fans to the ball park and the players looked determined and baseball was king, king indeed.
The home team won later that day and life was fun. Everybody had parties to go to that night and great merriment continued in the city.
But early the next morning, Freddie Russell hauled himself out of bed earlier than usual because not only was he one of the nation’s best story tellers, working for the Saturday Evening Post as well as the old Nashville Banner at the time, he was also one of the premier practical jokers who ever lived.
A man slight in stature, he had the ability to pitch his voice so he could sound exactly like a female. So about 7:25 he snuggled himself inside a lobby telephone booth, deposited his dime, and called the very hotel where he was staying.
“Mrs. Murphy in room 264, please,” he said and the hotel operator replied, “One moment please…and I’ll connect you.”
Mrs. Murphy, who had been partying until late, answered sleepily to hear what she would later describe as a feminine voice brightly say, “Good morning, it is 54 degrees outside, the World Series will begin promptly at 2:30 this afternoon and it is now time for you to get your big, fat a** out of that bed! Good day!”
About two minutes and 20 seconds later, here comes a livid Mrs. Murphy towards the front desk and Freddie would later recall he couldn’t remember a finer World Series.
royexum@aol.com
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