Sportspeople From San Francisco

"Casey Stengel once said of Japanese baseball players: "They have bad hands." The recent decision by Dick "Dr. Strangeglove" Stuart to play in Japan should enhance the legend. Stuart has worse hands than a hard-luck poker player."

"Stuart with a bat in his hand is a threat. Unfortunately, he is a threat also to the good and welfare of his own team when he has a first baseman's mitt on his hand. Stuart's adventurous attempting to field batted balls or ground balls for the last season earned him the sobriquet of "Dr. Strangeglove.""

"It has occurred to a number of baseball people that the could have the leakiest infield in the game next year when pitches ... Bo isn't noted for his hustle in fielding a ball ... Dick Stuart, the first baseman ("Dr. Strangeglove"), likes to toss a coin with the pitcher to see who covers first base ... Dick likes to stand back when he gets a ground ball and let the pitcher run to cover the bag ... On third base will be , who swings a hot bat but has iron hands ... All in all, , who has a low boiling point, could go slightly daft."

"He hit 28 homers and drove in 95 runs. However, Stuart's lack of skill afield has caused him to be dubbed "Dr. Strangeglove.""

"Every home run gives me the deepest personal thrill, although I've hit droves. Last year at Lincoln I hit 66, yet it gave me the deepest personal thrill every time I seen that ball flying nine miles out of the park."

"I thought I could catch him. I demand a rematch."

"I guess you're the manager of nothing."

"Guess I'll send Bragan a wire to and tell him I see he is where he belongs and I'm up here where I belong."

"I was gonna hit one. Can I help it if Maz got cute?"

"There must be the best 169-pound slugger in baseball."

"I imagine they'll boo me in Philadelphia just as they did in Boston. That can be a rough town. I read where they even booed there."

"Philadelphia fans don't discriminate enough. They boo everybody. In Boston and Pittsburgh, they only booed me."

"I never did get a hit off him in the American League. One day Lou Clinton hit one back and it hit Wyatt right in the face. Cut his lip all up, big gash. They held the game up 15 minutes. He got up on the mound, the blood all coming out of his mouth. He sees me standing in the batter's box and decides he can pitch. Struck me out on three pitches."

"Sure he'll get his job back; he used to park cars in downtown L.A."

"It was Hank Aaron who hung that Dr. Strangeglove tag on me. I told him, to his face, that he would never amount to anything."

"That was when I started telling s. Actually, Maz robbed me. If I had hit that home run, I would have made a lot more out of it than Maz did. He never made much effort to capitalize on it. Can you imagine what that homer would be worth in endorsements today?"

"I guess you could say I never understood baseball trades. In 1963, I hit 42 home runs for the Red Sox and drove in 118 runs. You'd call that a pretty good year, wouldn't you? Next year, I'm down to 33 homers and 114 RBIs. In other words, you're looking at 75 home runs in two seasons. Are the Red Sox happy? Not so you'd notice. They trade me to the Phils. Boston was a crazy place. Now, with those good statistics, I tell the Phils I'm entitled to a healthy raise. You know what they tell me? They say I still haven't done anything for them. I did get a raise, though."

"I had a good time there. Moby Dick was my nickname. I struck out four times one night, and in the papers they said Ahab got his whale."

"Hello, Stone-fingers."

"The commandos stormed ahead. They ran right over the body of dead Nazi laying on . The 'Nazi' was Dick Stuart, Lincoln's home-run-hitting outfielder. That scene from the movie ', was probably the first and last time anyone will ever run over Dick Stuart."

"He's about the gosh-awfullest outfielder I've ever seen. But on the other hand, we've only had 10 home runs this spring and he's hit five of them, so what are you going to do? It's a funny thing. Stuart has a good arm. Strong, and his throws are accurate. But he just can't field. And he doesn't want to. He's got no desire. The other day, we were playing the Phillies and he let a ball drop right at his feet. The crowd groaned. Everybody knew any other fielder could have caught the ball with his chin. He's a smart enough kid. Not a wise guy at all. He likes to hit. Loves to hit. But it's got to be a real good hit for him. In that same game with the Phils he was up with bases loaded and two out and he hits one back to the pitcher. He might have beat it out, but he just trots down to first, holding his finger like he hurt it. I talked to him that night and I said, "We just sent Johnny O'Brien back to Hollywood but he knows he gave it all he had and if he keeps it up he'll be back for another chance. You hit 66 home runs and you might be on your way to Hollywood tomorrow," I told him. "And if you are, it'll be because you let that ball fall at your feet and because you didn't run out that ball to the pitcher with the bases loaded.""

"If he'd concentrate, he could get good enough to be just bad."

"You all wrong. You try to hit home run every time but you no can do. No man can do. I wish you try to hit ball like you did when you joined team last July. Then you just try to meet ball because you want to make good showing after coming from minors. You swing easy and ball goes into centerfield seats. Next day, you swing easy again and ball goes over left field wall. Now you swing too hard. Try to hit home run every swing. You wrong. You have no timing, you miss ball. Please, for me, just try to meet ball when we open season. You have so much power, you just meet ball and whoosh—it goes over fence. Stu, with my brains, if I have your power, I make $200,000 in baseball."

"It must also be remembered that baseball is played not only at the plate but in the field, and it is here, on defense, that Stuart sometimes offers more aid and comfort to the enemy than to his own club. Pittsburgh ex-manager Bobby Bragan has called him "one of the worst outfielders I've ever seen." True, Stuart is not a "natural" in the style of Willie Mays, but he does not have to be as bad a fielder as he is. He can, when the spirit moves him, conduct himself on defense adequately if not always with consummate grace. He is not fleet enough tyo be a good centerfielder, but he could be effective in right or left field, and he has a wonderfully strong and accurate throwing arm. Unfortunately, however, Stuart afield tends to become a study in dejection. His natural endowment goes largely to waste because he is busy thinking about the last home run he hit, the home run he failed to hit, or the home run he hopes to hit just as soon as he can return to the dugout and exchange his glove for his beloved bat. Manager Bates at Atlanta, who experimented with Stuart not only in the outfield and at first base but also at third base, was inclined to ask himself not where Stuart could do the most good but where he could do the least damage."

"He's like Bill Buckley, late of New York's mayoral election. You may not like what he does, but you'll have to admit he does it with flair."

"No, but I sure look a lot like Dick Stuart."

"You're slowing up, Dick. Two years ago you could have gotten out of the way of that ball."

"In left field, he was as mobile as the . At first base, he resembles a dinosaur egg. But at the plate he looks like a man swinging the Empire State Building at a dinosaur egg."

"I hope Stuart doesn't think he means him."

"If I look older, it all began when I got Dick Stuart. Remember the play in the '60 World Series, when we had Mickey Mantle hung off first but he slid around ? Somebody asked Stuart if he would have played it the way Nelson did, and Stu said he didn't think so, because he wouldn't have caught the ball to begin with."

"This fan bent over from a box seat and called me a couple of vile names. Before we could stop him, Stu popped the guy. I said to Stu: "Now why did you do that? We might have a law suit." Stu told me that he had called me the same vile names, but he said: "I don't want any strangers calling you things like that.""

"I understand they're making a special license plate for you this year: E3."

"After two months of careful and forgiving observation of Dick Stuart of the Red Sox, this humble voice suggests that he be given the nickname of Sailor. Sailor Stuart fields like the Ancient Mariner, who, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name, "stoppeth one of three.""

"No male animal ever looked more like a big league ball player than Richard Lee Stuart and no character out of Ring Lardner ever sounded more like a busher than the same Dick Stuart in some of the statements attributed to him on the sports pages. When he came to training camp with the Pirates in 1957 he was promptly put away as an eccentric—partly because he had hit 66 home runs for Lincoln, Neb. the preceding summer, which is not normal behavior for anybody; partly because his gift for reticence was as undeveloped as his skill in the outfield; partly because of his undisguised loathing for gloves and all other appurtenances of defensive baseball."

"He had a golden bat and an iron glove."

"Peter Sellers is now in the $250,000-per-picture class—that was his deal with Stanley Kubrick for "Dr. Strangeglove" [sic]—and inasmuch as he makes pictures as fast as he can read scripts, he should be a millionaire by Saturday."

"The Giants' , who has averaged at least one error per game thus far, has a new nickname: "Dr. Strangeglove.""

"Blame Herb Caen for inspiring this, but another current movie makes you wonder—if the erstwhile Yankee doctor-infielder Bobby Brown were still playing and having a bad day afield, would they call him Dr. Strangeglove?"

"Although we fully realize that is well versed in baseball management, we also know that he must also eventually bow to the fans' wishes. We, therefore, plead that Twins' fans join us in petitioning to keep Dr. Strangeglove off first base. Vic Power fans everywhere should stand up and be counted before a disastrous decision is made and he is benched or, even worse, traded. Let the outfielders battle among themselves for the three positions available. "To Tell the Truth," we think the real first baseman should stand up—where he belongs."

"Overheard at a game: "That Dick Stuart can really swing that bat, can't he? But around first base he looks like Dr. Strangeglove.""

"Parting shot: A new Dick Stuart nickname circulating about—Dr. Strangeglove.""

"Washington writer 's nickname for many-thumbed first-baseman Dick Stuart: Dr. Strangeglove."

"Stuart, known as "Dr. Strangeglove," made a couple of fine fielding plays — and what better evidence it wasn't to be the Yanks' night?"

"In left field, he was as mobile as the . At first base, he resembles a dinosaur egg. But at the plate he looks like a man swinging the Empire State Building at a dinosaur egg. This, of course, is Dick Stuart, the Dr. Strangeglove of baseball and, ho-ho-ho, the newest of the Fainting Phillies. When does start?"

"You hear about people wearing fur, but you don’t think about what they’re doing to the animals to get that fur. … [It's] scarier than any scary movie that’s out there. … Just imagine if you were in that situation — put yourself in their shoes. … Animals are just like us."

"All of my decisions I made when I was a kid were decisions, would my mother and father be proud of."

"There are two great rules of life: never tell everything at once."