Hi Eric --

(I don't know if my first letter came through. I'm trying again.)

I bought your book two weeks ago and read it avidly. I wondered: If Blackie were alive today, would someone have interceded and helped him claim the title as one of the best all-time pitchers ever? Would Blackie have let anyone interecede on his behalf? I hate to think there are people out there right now with his talent falling through the cracks.

Thanks for writing the book. It was sad and wonderful at the same time.

Isabel Stuart

I think if someone wants to fail, they're going to. On the other hand, there's a lot more money in sports these days than there used to be. Probably a trainer or manager, or both, would work to save Ralph Schwamb today. He'd be worth too much money to just let him self-destruct.

Of course, lots of big-time players do, but not in the same spectacular way that Schwamb did. How many of them get mixed up with gangsters and the mob? (Maybe I am just naive.)

Al

They'd certainly try a lot harder to get him the help he needed these days. The Browns signed him for $600 (he made more than that in a night beating up deadbeats on behalf of gangsters), paid him $250 a month in the minors and $5,000 a year in the majors. Not much of an investment. These days he'd be an instant millionaire and the major league minimum is approaching $400,000 per year. They'd do what they could to protect their investment. Then again, rehab doesn't work for everybody, so it's impossible to know how it would work out.

Before we get carried away let's keep in mind that in his one year major league career Schwamb made five starts and 7 relief appearances but only managed 32 innings pitched.

This is presumably explained by an 8.44 era in a league averaging 4.28... his SO/9 was 1.97...while he walked 5.91/9. He has 0 WS. Of course the Brownies lost 94 games that year so there weren't a lot of them lying around loose...

Of course he might have done better sober; but I knew a guitar player who dried up after 15-20 years, and he had to learn to play all over again, so maybe not... at any rate we're not talking Mark Fidrych here...

Actually, his record was 1-1. I guess the evidence for how he could do when he was sober was his prison record - where he could only get an occasional buzz from homebrew. In prison he played on teams where he was the only player with any professional experience, yet he consistently beat semipro teams that included major and Triple-A minor league players in tiny prison-yard ballparks (hitters fields.) He pitched three no-hitters in prison, all three against teams that were almost entirely made up of major and minor leaguers. Most of the people I talked with who played against him in the majors said that he had good stuff, but that he was young - he'd start out strong and then get rattled. When he'd come in from the bullpen with the Browns losing 14-2 or something like that, he didn't see much point in making much of an effort. That's not to excuse him, but...