What A Relief It Was

   It would be immodest to claim that the corruption of World Series to World Serious originated in my old home town, although we had a particularly vigorous practitioner of this and countless other disfigures of speech.
   DoDo Mead swayed when he walked, as though he were aboard ship, with his ponderous belly serving as the prow, his pants held aloft by pale yellow suspenders that may have had a stripe or some other pattern to them.  His rockford socks were clearly discernible between his shoe tops and pant legs.  He was bald, with close-set eyes peering through  round wire-rim glasses. His voice was remindful of the whine of a saw blade cutting oak.
  If he were still among us, he likely would have lurched into Ivetz's last Wednesday, and, opening his mouth in synchronization with the door, began addressing the six or eight early morning regulars.
  "Them somnabuck Giants, they had that Bumgardener, and could he ever thow!  Never saw the beat of him since old Koofax thew for the Dodgers!  Can't think now if they was still in Brooklyn or if they was out in Los Anglees by that time.  Don't matter.  Damn, he was good!    And that kid for KC, he thew it for a hunnert m.p.h.!  Ain't seen nothin' like him since ol' Satchell Paige come thew here to pitch for Benteen City in '36!  Was any of you's to that game?  Somnabuck, them guys could thow that old apple! What a World Serious!"  If DoDo were still among us to say that, he would have been right.
  Before what used to be called the The Fall Classic began, most of the experts thought that pitching would decide the winner, specifically, relief pitching.  Indeed.  In the finale, Bumgarner of the Giants
was superb in relief.  The KC relievers who followed flame-throwing Yordano Ventura  were only good.    Lights out.  The Giants win the Series, The Giants win the Series, to sort of paraphrase Russ Hodges' 1951 expostulation.
  Fans across the country loved it.  It was the first Serious, excuse me, the first Series, played under the new and changed rules TV has imposed upon Major League Baseball.  Succumbing again, the American League's designated hitter adoption was the first surrender to the moguls' programming conceit, the 2014 tournament introduced Umpire Overrule and Precise Sliding Into Home Plate, with no objection to date.  The vast portion of those who see the games see them on television and are accustomed to multitudinous program interruptions.  Thus the rule changes will provide still more time for, guess what?  Commercial interruptions.  Not yet, to be sure, but soon. That's how TV
makes money and MLB does, too.
  The attention paid to relief pitching in 2014, including the WS, stimulates yet another stroll down Memory Lane.  Relief pitching has been part of baseball forever.  Games cannot be won if  pitching fails, so when that happens, starting pitchers are relieved of their duties for the day, to be replaced by other pitchers, called, in many cases whimsically, relief pitchers.   Because MLB pitching, generally, is in such an absymal state, there may be as many as five, or even six pitchers used by each side during the course of a game.  Other than  Bumgarner and Ventura, both teams prepared to do so in the WS, as they had in playoff rounds as well as the regular season. 
   The practice  of designating pitchers as relief specialists seems to have begun in 1924 with the original Washington Senators, founded and operated by Clark Griffith, Sr.  Griffith and his boy manager, Bucky Harris, selected a burly righthander, Fred Marberry for the assignment.
   Marberry performed serviceably over a 13-year career, despite having to bear the nickname Firpo.  Firpo was Luis Angel Firpo, a bruising heavyweight boxer from Argentina, whose nickname was the Wild Bull of the Pampas.  In his epic match with World Champion Jack Dempsey in 1924, the Wild Bull was knocked down seven times.  That was Marberry's rookie year, and he suffered the indignity of being knocked out of the box a number of times, thereby earning the Firpo sobriquet.
  The story is told of Firpo, traded to Detroit for the final three years of his career, feeling hunger pangs one day while on duty in the Tiger pen.  Firpo managed to sneak back to a concession stand, where he bought himself a hot dog complete with pickles, onions, mustard and ketchup, and started back to the bullpen.  His bullpen mates were near panic. "Come on Firpo," they shouted. "Skip wants you out there right now!"
   The Tigers were playing the Yankees.  "What's the deal?," Firpo asked.  "Two guys in and two on," he was told.  "And Ruth, Gehrig, Muesel and Lazzeri coming up!"  Firpo carefully put his hot dog down, strode manfully through the gate and onto the field, calling loudly over his shoulder, "Don't none of you birds touch that hot dog. I'll be right back!"
   The Yankees, had at least a pair of colorful relievers of their own.  Wilcy Moore had a great season with the 1927 Murderers' Row, winning 19 games and losing 7.  Moore was not an accomplished batsman however.  Babe Ruth, the prankster, bet Moore that he couldn't get three hits all year, and that Ruth would give him $100 apiece for three and another $100 for every hit over that.  Moore wound up with a total of three, and the Babe dutifully paid off.
   In spring training the following year, his teammates asked what he had done with the $300, and the big Texas farm boy replied, "I bought a team of mules.  I named one Babe and the other one Ruth."
   Toward the end of his career, Lefty Gomez, whose World Series record was 6 and 0, got a lot of help from Johnny Murphy, a fine righthanded reliever.  Asked about his prospects for 1941, the Gay Castillian answered that he'd be fine, as long as Murphy's arm held up.  Another time he said he should be listed as a dependent on Murphy's income tax return.
   Until he retired at the end of 2013, Mariano Rivera was a matchless one-inning wonder for the Yankees who spawned the term Closer.  The Closer is the go-to guy who shuts the opposition down in the ninth, sometimes in both the eighth and ninth.  Nobody's been better than Rivera, who's 2013 earnings likely exceeded the combined career earnings of fine earlier Yankee relievers such as Goose Gossage, Sparky Lyle, Fireman Joe Page, and Dave Righetti.  Rivera was worth what he got.  None of the others did.