The master of tracing baseball anecdotes is Rob Neyer, who started out as Bill James’ assistant tracking down (and mostly disproving, but not necessarily disapproving)  many gussied-up stories, and who has branched out and published a fine book running down such stories as a baseball righter in his own write. (ROB NEYER’S BIG BOOK OF BASEBALL LEGENDS: THE TRUTH, THE LIES, AND EVERYTHING ELSE).  Admiring Rob’s tracers has, however, impaired me in that I can no longer read anyone’s account of a colorful event in baseball history without wondering, "Hmmmm, is there sufficient detail in here to allow me to check and, if possible, to blow a truck-sized hole in this story?"

I was reading another fine book of Rob’s, THE BIG BOOK OF BASEBALL BLUNDERS, the other day when I came across a very colorful (and very sad) story that struck me as both chockful of checkable details and chockful of fecal matter. The blunder Rob described was the Mets’ acquisition of Joe Foy in 1970, and assorted roster-wrecking maneuvers that went along with it, such as their de-acquisition of Amos Otis; the truly sad part was that Joe Foy was, apparently, a drug-user whose habit made it impossible for him to continue playing major-league ball, and for that matter to live very long. (Foy died at the age of 46.) The anecdote in Rob’s book concerns one crucial play that Jerry Koosman related in Peter Golenbock’s Amazin’. The excerpt starts with Koosman relating a grave sin Foy committed one day when he stopped in the Mets’ dugout and blocked Gil Hodges’ view of the playing field. This doesn’t seem like a major transgression to me—the remedy for it, it seems to me, is for Hodges to yell, "Hey, Foy, move your ass! You’re blocking my view," but in Koosman’s telling, it was a "no-no." It was "a disaster about to happen." It was a sign that Foy "wasn’t in his right mind."

Really? Sounds like a sign that Hodges was out of his mind to get cheesed off for more than a few seconds, but let’s go with it. Hodges put Foy onto the field to play third base, although the whole Mets’ team ("we") apparently "knew that he wasn’t capable of playing that day," and sure enough

the first batter hit a hard ground ball by Foy, and after the ball went by him, he was still patting his glove and saying, "Hit it to me, Hit it to me." He never even saw it.

We were looking at each other and saying, "Oh, my God, you gotta get him out of there." But Gil left him in a little longer just to let everyone see that he didn’t fit in that ball club.

And it was not long after that that Joe was gone.

Couple of issues that aren’t really relevant here:  Is this good managing? Deliberately playing someone to demonstrate that he isn’t ready to play? Giving away at least one out, and risking giving away several more, to make that point, when as the manager, you could simply sit the guy on the bench and, if need be, argue with your GM that the guy is stoned and has to be replaced on the roster? This story is more damning of Hodges’ managerial style, and his insecurity about his players supporting his decisions, than it is of Foy’s drug abuse.

Not that I believe it to be true: I’m an admirer of Hodges’ managerial style, if not his scouting acumen. Neyer and others make a pretty strong case that Hodges was responsible for the Mets’ choice to trade Amos Otis and Nolan Ryan –at the least, he certainly didn’t oppose either trade, suggesting that scouting future All-Stars was not among his strong points. But I don’t see a lot of evidence that Hodges was a vindictive man, as this Foy story implies, or the kind of manager who makes unwise moves in a game just to embarrass a player.

Maybe there are big-league managers who deliberately play men incapable of catching (or even seeing) a baseball to make a point, although I can’t think of one off-hand, but if there were, I’d have to think that these vindictive managers would certainly limit such humiliating spectacles to games that have already been won or lost, or maybe in pennant races that have long slipped out of sight.

The details Koosman supplied, however, give the lie to that possibility. According to Koosman’s story, Foy blocked Hodges’ view during the first game of a doubleheader when he wasn’t in the lineup, so Hodges started Foy in the second game of the doubleheader. In other words "the first batter [who] hit a hard ground ball" was the first batter of the second game, the exact opposite of a game that has long been won or lost.

Furthermore, the Mets finished 5 games out of first place in 1970, and were only 2 games out a week before the season ended, after the season’s final double-header had been played, so for this story to add up, it would mean that Hodges was deliberately giving away outs, and possibly games, while his team was in a hot pennant race.

Doesn’t sound like Hodges to me, or any sane manager.

Because Koosman specifically places the story during a doubleheader, and moreover a doubleheader in New York, this was fairly simple to trace. Foy played only one season for the Mets, which again simplifies the search. The Mets played only eight doubleheaders in Shea Stadium that year, and the scenario described applies, it turns out, to none of them:

April 19:  Foy started the first game of the doubleheader

May 24: Foy didn’t play either game

May 31: Foy started the first game of the doubleheader

August 2: Foy started the first game of the doubleheader

August 23: Foy started the first game of the doubleheader

September 7: Foy sat out the first game, and played the second. But the first batter grounded out to second base, and the next batter struck out, the third batter singled to right field, and the fourth batter grounded out unassisted to first base. In other words, no one hit a fair ball anywhere near Foy in the first inning

September 9: Foy sat out the first game, and played the second. But the first batter struck out, and the next batter flied out to right field, and the third batter struck out. In other words, no one hit a fair ball anywhere near Foy in the first inning.

September 20: Foy started neither game, and played in neither.

Now, it’s entirely possible, of course, that Koosman got one of the details wrong in his telling, in a way that opens up the chances that this exact incident took place, say, in a doubleheader on the road, or in a single game where Foy had offended Hodges the previous night, or the fatal groundball was hit to Foy in a later inning: I certainly didn’t look at every play-by-play of every inning of every game the Mets played in 1970, and I have no way of knowing what this play would look like in a play-by-play account, outside of "single (LF)" which occurs maybe four or five times in each game. No "single (LF)" occurred in any game that matches the details of Koosman’s telling.

Since the details as given-- "a double-header" "in New York" where Foy sat out the first game but played the second game, in which "the first batter" hit a "hard groundball to third base" that Foy never saw—did not happen, though Golenbock and Neyer print it as reliable gospel, I have to wonder what else in this story that I find implausible also never occurred. For now, I’m going to go with "Der Gantzer Megillah," as we Latin scholars like to say.