An Innocent Abroad On The Baseball Diamonds

Leo Durocher was the only person to give me the hard time I really deserved.

When Mr. Nice Guys Finish Last strode out toward his position as third base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers , I stepped out of the Cub dugout and aimed my camera in his direction. Immediately he turned his back.

I walked around to the other side of him, set my camera, and he reversed himself again. After the Dodger half of the inning was over, he returned to the dugout and took a spot at the edge of the steps. He made a good picture relaxing in the sun. So I crossed over to snap it.

As I aimed he leaped up and disappeared inside the clubhouse. The next inning there was another session of back-turning at third base. And by this time people in the stands were snickering. They appreciated the fact that Leo was putting a pest in his place.

After that half inning I followed Durocher to the Dodger dugout. When he sat down I decided I might as well act like the pain in the neck he had already decided I was. "Am I making you nervous?" I asked him.

"You certainly are," he answered. "You certainly are."

Durocher had a tendency to repeat himself. He would be my choice for the Mad Hatter in an Alice in Wonderland movie.

"You certainly are! I'm not going to stand around while you shoot nine or 10 pictures of me doing this, that and the other thing."

"But I don't want nine or 10 pictures," I said. "I only want one."

"If you'd stop with one," Durocher answered—and he seemed to be speaking now for the benefit of the players in the dugout—"I'd be very happy to oblige. But I'm not going to stand around while you shoot a whole magazine layout on me. No sir. No thank you. No sir."