Eddie’s favorite victory against the Indians came when they tried to beat him at his own game. They arrived at 4:00 for an 8:00 game, and were surprised to see the Tribe taking batting practice two hours before the customary time. They had another soft-tossing lefty, and they were practicing the art of merely punching Lopat-like slow curves to the opposite field. The right-handers would knock the soft-curves over the second baseman’s head, lefties over the shortstop. Over and over, they would rap these soft-little knocks, never once taking the type of hearty, from-the-heels full-cut that had led to so many losses.
The problem was that Eddie saw the whole thing. When his catcher, Yogi Berra, arrived at the park, Lopat told him the scoop: No slow-balls today, Yogi. Don’t even call for ‘em. Fastballs and sliders only. And the first time through the lineup, that’s how it was. Lopat acted like some other man, some man gifted with velocity…but he wasn’t gifted with velocity. Lopat’s fastballs and sliders were the sort of pabulum that Cleveland would normally feast on, but these new Indians were geared for the other Eddie Lopat; The Junkman. What they got instead was Eddie The Adequate, and they were crossed up. They didn’t score.
After he’d been though the line-up once, the Indians switched to their normal method, and Eddie returned to his normal “Now-you-see-’em, now-you-don’t routine.” He won, again, by a score of 5-3. It was years before the Indians knew that Lopat had spied on them.
Comments are welcome!
Hat tip to Zita Carno and Kirk Robinson for parts of this post.
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