(This could maybe be in GQ, but ties into the repeat column from today.)
Are these real people who write into Cecil, and do they give real names?
In this latest one on why the Incas didn’t invent the wheel, the people named as the authors of the query are Eddie Yuhas and Al Brazzle. Now I’m a pretty big Cardinals fan, but I certainly didn’t recognize the name of Eddie Yuhas, who pitched on the redbirds’ roster for only two years, '52 and '53, neither of which was a pennant year. I did a quick check on baseball-reference.com and noticed that Al Brazzle had died in Grand Junction, CO, on October 24th 1973 (so possibly before Cecil even started his column), and this particular column is dated 1983.
So unless Cecil holds onto letters for 10 years before deciding to answer them, then they didn’t write that. And how could Brazzle have known of a column which would have just began (if it had been begun by October at all) in an alternative newspaper published in Chicago, when he was presumably in failing health living in Colorado at the time? And unless Cecil is not only a huge baseball fan but additionally an expert on the 1952 St. Louis Cardinals, (a decidedly unremarkable 3rd place team despite the presence of Stan the Man, Enos Slaughter, and Shoendiest), then he couldn’t possibly have known those names.
So what gives? Are people even actually writing in to Cecil at all? Does he make up these names and letters out of whole cloth? Or did some actual writer to Cecil simply come up with such an obscure pseudonym as that? This may have been discussed before, but here we have some specific examples.
The OP does make a good point. The obvious explantion is that the person (or persons) who wrote the letter was a ball fan and used those names because he thought it would be funny or clever or whatever. But if that’s the case, how likely is it that Cecil would have recognized those names? Do they check out the name of everyone who writes him to see if they are somebody famous or important? Remember that this was '83 so they couldn’t just type them into Google to see what comes up. Would a publication like The Chicago Reader have files so extensive that they include obscure ball players? And would they bother to search those files for every letter writer?
I just thought of another possibility. We don’t know for sure that Cecil acknowleged the names in the original '83 column. It’s possible that a reader wrote in and informed him of the origin of the names after the column was first published or after it was placed online. The online version could then have been changed to include this info.
I’m just fascinated by the notion of someone “writing into Cecil”. I have this image of a big ball-point pen jabbed into his abdomen and scribbling away on his mesentery.
Or more likely, what was meant was “writing in to Cecil”.
An interesting hypothesis, except that the comment appears in the first published book, THE STRAIGHT DOPE (published in 1984.) It was therefore not an alteration for the “online version.”
BTW, the books are available from the “Buy Stuff” section of the website, accessible from the Home Page.
Remember, letters written into newspaper columns are often edited - it is possible that there was more to the letter that wasn’t printed. Also we aren’t seeing it in its original context. There could have been extra text making the source of the names more obvious, or it could have been written on Cardinals stationery or something like that.
I don’t know how old Cecil is exactly, but I can remember the most unremarkable players from the early 1950’s around the American League. I grew up with the Washington Senators as my home team(pity me). But I knew Baltimore players and Yankees, even guys who were bums and might have only made it out of spring training. I know players names who only appeared on a baseball card which went through my hands 10 years later. So one of those names may have tipped Cecil to the letter writer’s attempt at a joke.
It’s not hard to imagine that Cecil, living in Chicago, might know St. Louis players, merely from the proximity of the towns.
And, a Baseball Encyclopedia is standard equipment in my house. Probably Cecil’s also. I read it for fun. And discover things never important until…well, they’re important.