Drinking On Air With Dexter and Fields

Pete Dexter

If a time machine could whisk us back to the 1970s newsrooms of the Evening Bulletin and the Philadelphia  Daily News, the contrast would be striking.

            The staid, boring Bulletin would be the home to a few good writers and many old hacks.  By contrast the Daily News would be a sort of  joyful madhouse full of  eccentric personalities and talented writers.

            Larry Fields was a veteran of many newspapers and wrote a man-about-town style Daily News column.  He also had a two hour talk show on WWDB-FM

            No one remembers the exact year or date but one evening Fields’ on-air guest was his Daily News colleague Pete Dexter who was making a name for himself as the wittiest newspaper columnist in Philly.

             It was an era of celebrity journalist - writers such as Jimmy Breslin and Mike Royko. Dexter and Fields fancied themselves as hard-drinking, wild and crazy guys. So a lot of newspaper people were listening, expecting a real laugh-fest.

            Dexter arrived at the radio studio with a bottle of Bourbon and the two hard-driving newspaper men started drinking.  Dexter refused to take any question seriously. 

            Asked what he thought of Daily News’ editor Gil Spencer, a man liked by everyone,  listeners remember Dexter declaring something to the effect that Spencer went to prison as a child molester. 

            Another joking exchange some remember was Fields saying the Daily News was good for lining his bird cage. Dexter asked if the bird liked to read the newspaper.

            What almost everyone with a memory of the show recalls is Field’s asking Dexter his favorite part of Philadelphia. Dexter’s answer: the part of my girlfriend between her knees and her navel.

            The show went downhill from there.   

Words were slurred.  Belching and cursing was heard.  Women callers were insulted or subjected to sexual innuendo

Toward the end of the show, a caller excoriated the pair for their on-air obscenities.

Many remember what Fields said next. “The only obscenity that I know is spelled G-O-D.”  Fields followed this with a passionate and drunken anti-religious screed.

And then, mercifully, the show ended.   

But it didn’t end. 

After the station break and news. Fields was back on the air – minus Dexter.

Fellow Daily News reporter Frank Dougherty, who was in the studio, says. “For the first time the person  (radio host) who was supposed to replace Fields didn’t show up.”

Fields was only on the air briefly before the station pulled the plug. The young woman who did the news breaks (with the odd name Michelle IaIa)  abruptly took over the microphone. 

Doughtery recalls that Mayor Frank Rizzo sent a police patrol car to pick up Fields at the radio station and get him home safe.

Everyone in the Daily News newsroom that evening was listening aghast – including editor Spencer.

Fields lost his radio show.  The very liberal-minded Spencer handled the matter behind closed doors. Apparently, he gave his bad-boy reporters a brief lecture and that ended the matter.

It’s a long story, but after Dexter was nearly beaten to death with baseball bats in a Philly taproom, he decided to stop drinking.   

He Made Money Rubbing Balls

His name was mud.

Actually his name was Russell “Lena” Blackburne.  So, mud wasn’t his real name but mud was his game.

Everyone called him Lena. He was an old-time big league baseball player, coach and manager.  He played in 539 games for five teams, including the Chicago White Sox.  His longest association as player and later coach was with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics.

Born in Philadelphia in 1885, Blackburne died at age 81 at his home in Palmyra, N.J. He was the third base coach for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1938 when his name forever became synonymous with mud.

A baseball rule required umpires to rub new baseballs with something – usual dirt – to take the shine off the leather cover and therefore make it less slippery for the pitcher.  However,  dirt discolored and often scratched the leather.

Something inspired Blackborne to collect mud from either a stream or the Delaware River near Palmyra.  He said It had the consistence of chocolate pudding and proved ideal for rubbing baseballs.

Collecting and selling “Lena Blackborne’s Rubbing Mud" became a sideline business.  The entire American League started buying  Lena’s miracle mud. Both leagues and the minor leagues soon adopted it as standard.

Lena always kept secret the exact area where he mined the mud, sharing it only with one close friend.  He died in 1968 and the mud business has stayed in the friend’s family ever since.

Lena Blackborne’s Rubbing Mud Company has a nice website. It claims to still sell its product to all the professional and semi-pro teams. Containers of the mud sell for $25 to $100.  The large size should last a season. 

We guess that, if the TV show Shark Tank was around in 1938 and Lena appeared asking for a loan to start a mud business, he would be laughed off the show.

Meet The Steagles

They were bitter rivals.

The coaches didn’t like each other. The players on both teams were military rejects afflicted with flatfeet, bad hearing, blindness in one eye or weak knees.

​The year was 1943. The Second World War was raging, but President Roosevelt thought the continuation of professional sports was good for home-front morale.

​The problem for most NFL football teams was a lack of players. Everyone was off fighting. Wikipedia claims that 600 NFL players served in the military during the war years.

​Both the Eagles and their cross-state rival, Pittsburgh, were low on players. With only six-contract players, the Steelers were in really bad shape.​

The owners came up with an unusual plan.
Let’s merge the Steelers and Eagles for the season into one team.

They would be called Phil-Pitt team. 

Soon sports writers and everyone else called them The Steagles.

​The leading receiver for the mixed team was Steeler Tony Bova. The Army rejected him because he was blind in one eye and the good eye was not so great.

​Eagles center Ray Graves was deaf in one ear and tailback John Butler had poor eyesight and a bad knee. When the season started there were 25 Steagles.

​You might think the NFL could open up team rosters to black players, but the whole league was whites only and stayed that way.

​There were some Steagles who were fit and really good. 

Port Richmond’s Bucko Kilroy would play for the Eagles for many years and became an All-Pro guard. Quarterback Allie Sherman would have an outstanding football career as a player, head coach, executive and sports commentator.

​While the players got used to working as a team, having two head coaches was always a problem. The Eagles’ Alfred “Greasy” Neale and the Steeler’s Walt Kieserling hardly spoke to each other.

​Attendance at home games was good. For the final game against Green Bay, 35,000 fans watched the Steagles lose a close contest. The season ended for the Steagles at 5-4-1.

​The next season, 1944, the draft laws eased up and the Eagles had a enough manpower to bid adieu to Pittsburgh. The poor Steelers had to merge with the Chicago Cardinals in ’44. The Card-Pitts lost every game and got the nickname The Carpets.

​Apparently, there is enough interest in a team that played one season 74 years ago, that you can go on-line and purchase a full-line of Steagles’ gear.

​Baseball had the same shortage of players. The Phillies had some teenage players, too young for the draft.

Hilarious Headlines From The Daily News

We present a few very clever headlines from the Philadelphia Daily News.

JUST AS IRISH AS PADDY'S PIROGI
McGillian’s Olde Ale House was sold by the original McGillian family to Polish-American brother named Szczepanial.


PAY-PER-CHEW
Mike Tyson was disqualified and fined $3 million for biting Evander Holyfield ears.


STINKO DE FLYO
The Philadelphia Flyers lost an important game on May 5 - Cinco de Mayo.


THE NEW FUROR
Front page photo of President Trump with arm out – Nazi style. The furor surrounded Trump’s travel ban

Misquoting Franklin and Making The Most Of Your Almanac

Quick. What is Benjamin Franklin’s most famous wise saying?

You probably guessed, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

This is a good guess, except Franklin scholars can’t find anywhere that Ben used these words.

What did appear in Poor Richard’s Almanac of 1737 was “A penny saved is two pence clear."
This seems to make a bit more sense. 

Occasionally, one of Ben’s sayings makes no sense in the 21st century:
“A pin a day is a groat a year.” 
Huh?

On the topic of almanacs, here’s a question: Why did our colonial forefathers buy an annual almanac?

No, no, no – not for weather predictions. No one took these annual predictions seriously.
Not even the most modern weather person can tell us in January if October will be rainy.

The real value of an almanac was found in the first 12 pages.
It was a calendar for the year.

Hoarder Of History Christian Sanderson

If you have never been to the Christian Sanderson House Museum in Chadds Ford, GO!

We guarantee you will smile. Maybe chuckle and you will certainly be amazed by the man—a man we nominate as the Delaware Valley’s all-time, premier hoarder/ collector.

Born in 1882, Sanderson died at age 84 in 1966 amid huge piles of stuff he had been saving since he was a child. However, Sanderson was more than a nutty pack rat. He was a beloved neighbor, school teacher, radio personality for four decades, musician, historian and popular lecturer.

Among Sanderson’ neighbors were artists N.C. and Andrew Wyeth. He was the subject of several Wyeth paintings. The Wyeths also gave him paintings, prints, drawing and every year a Wyeth-made Christmas card.

He saved goofy stuff from his own life and real treasurers. 
There is a matchstick used to light birthday candles, painted Easter eggs starting from 1886, his baby highchair from 1882, the handles from a suitcase he took to college in 1898.

Yes, he even saved the class rosters from the country schools where he taught and notes from parents: “please excuse Mary on account of planting potatoes.”

He saved the pencil he used to vote for Alf Langdon for president n 1936.

Crazy stuff like a piece of paper where Sanderson wrote: “Written with my Waterman pen on May 6, 1935, the day Frank Waterman, company president died”

But he collected all sorts of real historical artifacts: 
A piece of a bullet-shattered fence from the Battle of Gettysburg, the purse of the only woman killed at Gettysburg. Posters and photos by the thousands: reward poster for the missing Lindbergh baby, election poster from 1882 for Benjamin Harrison.

He collected weapons galore from ever war starting with the Revolution, cannon balls, arrowheads, musical instruments, a rock from Iwo Jima, a piece of Fort Ticonderoga, a small part from the airplane that crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945 and a small part from Lindbergh’s famous Spirit of St Louis airplane.

Sanderson started organizing his collection in only two of the many small rooms in his house. His friends saved the house and organized the collection. It would consume endless hours to see everything.

You Got No Tips from NBA Mogul Eddie Gottlieb

Eddie Gottlieb in suit with early Warriors team

We intend to write more about Mister Basketball Eddie “the Mogul” Gottlieb. 
For now, we’ll relate a tale of Eddie’s reputation as a tightwad.

The Mogul was a founder of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and owner-coach of the NBA Philadelphia Warriors.

In 1952 Gottlieb recruited Temple student and All-American standout basketball player Bill Mkvy, called “the Owl without a Vowel.” Mkvy was in class when a Temple dean arrived and said Gottlieb wanted to see him at his Center City office.

Excited, Mkvy and his future wife rushed to Gottlieb’s Chestnut Street office with dreams of big bucks in professional basketball.

Mkvy later recalled the stairs and Gotty’s office were cluttered with boxes. The college star was given a paper to sign. The new Warrior obeyed and asked what he had just signed.

“Don’t worry kid, You’re going to be rich,” declared the Mogul. “You just signed for $1,200.”

Rich? Even cab drivers or garbage men were making $3,000 a year in the early 1950s.

Next, Gottlieb offered to take the new rookie and his girl friend to lunch.

Mkvy was thinking they would dine at some fancy Center City restaurant like Lew Tendler’s at Broad and Locust. Gotty led the couple to a nearby White Tower where he ordered three hamburgers and three Cokes. “The whole bill came to 95 cents,” Mkvy recalled.

“Gotty got a nickel change. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. No tip. And that was my signing bonus. My entrée into the NBA,” Mkvy told an interviewer.