Babe Ruth, bloomers & Scallios

 The latest food police actions by NYC Mayor Bloomberg jump-started my fat pen into an enormous what if.

What if Babe Ruth, the Bronx Bomber, has sent his latest gal-pal. attired in bloomers,  down to the corner bar window with a pail or three, and the beertender had said "miss, I can only only pour 15 ounces at a time."

Laws varied from locality to locality but for a long time, women weren't allowed in bars, but they could go to a split- side door at a bar and get  their pail filled with beer.

I recall Scallios , a one-time bar on Hollins St in southwest Baltimore, had a front split-  door, a few feet from their entrance door. The co-owners Frank & Sonny Scallio would casually relate some of those pail-door stories from their childhoods.

BTW, Scallios was not too far from the bar/house where Babe Ruth was raised, and it's the wall across from the bar was lined with black & white photos from local and national boxers.

Reporting live from nanny-free, sugar- happy Baltimore.

7/14/13

Time for a  photo Chris (Crush) Davis in front of the Babe Ruth Museum

8/12/13

Anyone  from southwest Bmore recall Medusa, the after-hours dive around the corner from Scallios?

9/25/13

I wonder if Babe Ruth ever met Dashiell Hammett while in Baltimore.

10/27/13

Has Bloomberg had his Big Gulp today?

10/29/13

San Francisco wants to levy a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on all sugar-sweetened beverages sold in the city.  A can of soda, for example, would cost 24 cents more. Big city nannies  can't help themselves.

11/13/13

The Trans Fat cops are it. And I'm not talking about catching fast Pontiacs (Trans-Ams) or fat trannie hookers

1/25/14

Did Dashiell Hammett and Babe Ruth ever meet?

2/1/14

I bought many double shots of Jameson at Scallios and one night Sonny Scallio suddenly slid a fifth of  Jameson  with about 4oz remaining along  the bar top toward me, and it felt like something from a movie as I grabbed the bottle with my left hand and in what seemed like one motion guzzled the contents. 

3/7/14

I read a column in the Baltimore Sun print edition about Fayetteville NC celebrating itself as the place where Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run  for the minor league Baltimore Orioles  during an intrasquad game. A bit of a stretch.

3/8/14

Ruth’s first major league home run came against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds on May 6, 1915.

3/17/14

The 2/1/14 St Paddy post is a catalyst  for these memories:  political debates vs Warren at Max's. 
Doing the irish Jig in the parking lot with Kevin and the rest of the "pearl" kitchen crew as a Sowebo Festival (Memorial Day weekend ) was winding down.

10/7/14

Chris Davis was suspended for using an amphetamine. Is the lesson: hot dogs and beer work better?

2/6/15

Babe Ruth 's birthday- he'd be a 120

6/28/15

Back to Scallios memories:When Sonny or Frank Scallio turned on their satellite TV, the menu could vary from the Rush Limbaugh's half hour TV show to Sunday Night,  David Sanborn's eclectic music show.

10/2/15

Babe Ruth's called shot was hit in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 WS held on October 1, 1932. my take away: In 2015   the MLB regular season isn't over

4/23/16

A short walk from Sowebo to the then new OPACY for an O's and the cartoonist and I  started the walk  discussing the derivation of the word hipster from opium smokers who laid on their hip to smoke. As we were entering the stadium he waxed ecstatic on his lifelong ardor for the St Louis Cardinals  and we found our way to how the St Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles.

6/13/16

Everyone is talking about the Orlando shooting so I'm suggesting the O's put Chris Davis into the pitching  rotation. What a lame weekend for the O's pitching staff!

10/1/16

#dashielhammett was a regular at the Enoch Pratt Free Library/Hollins Street Branch,  formerly at 1401 Hollins Street, in the early 1900s. #sowebo , a southwest section of Baltimore city.

12/18/16

While  looking at birthdays today  I discovered this quote from Ty Cobb born 12/18/1886

"When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch."

 #baberuth and #tycobb didn't get along well while playing baseball but did play a few amiable rounds of golf together in retirement .

2/4/17

Looking back to the late 80s and early 90s when I would take the paleocon, a less popular side,  in semi-organized debates in various bars in Sowebo, a bohemian section in SW Baltimore. And lived to tell about it. Seriously, I don't recall any of the visceral hatred I see brewing in Berkley and elsewhere. If you want your friends and associates to think exactly as you do, you're going to miss a lot of good experiences.

6/6/17

#rennerthotel mentioned in Hammet's Glass Key and other novels was located on the corner of Liberty & Saratoga in Baltimore City.

11/22/17

When I heard that #charliemanson died, I recall a bartender (circa 1990) playing a bootleg of Manson's "when I'm hungry I go to the dump" to clear out the Cultured Pearl, a Sowebo bar, at 2AM.

1/1/18

Last night I was asleep before midnight. About 30 years ago, I fell asleep drunk on the cold tile floor of the #telltalehearth bar in #Sowebo in Baltimore ,  woke up around 5AM, nodded at the Edgar Allan Poe mannequin sitting on a barstool, entered the alarm code, and drove home.

3/18/18

I heard some baseball pundits mentioning #baberuth would have a great #WAR stat ( Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player’s total contributions to their team in one statistic) , and can envision his response: give me a pail of beer and some hot dogs.

07/26/18

Hey #MLB don't outlaw the shift ! It's time for the players to do what #weewilliekeeler, a member of the Hall of Fame,  stated " hit 'em where they ain't,” 

8/18/18

Looking back 10/7/14: #ChrisDavis was suspended for using an amphetamine. Is it time to put some benzedrine in Mr Davis Ovaltine ?

1/14/19

#frankrobinson signed the first 100K contract in Orioles history on 1.14.67.  check out his comment at the time about possibly  getting a few bucks more: " I didn't think it was worth haggling over."

1/20/19

Did President  #herberthoover ,  serve hot dogs to the 1932 World Series champs, the  Babe Ruth Yankees on their visit to the White House?  Pretty sure  the tradition of WS champs visiting the White House started in 1924 when Cooldge was President.

1/26/19

#adamottavino is catching some flack for saying this: "Look, #BabeRuth with that swing, swinging that bat, I got him hitting a buck-40 with eight homers.". It took him a day or two to state the obvious:  "and it's not even something that can be proven anyway"

4/9/19

I recommend #baberuth 's diet of beer and hot dogs for #chrisdavis with 47 consecutive hitless at-bats.

6/16/19

   #BabeRuth road jersey dating to 1928-30 sold at auction for $5.64 million. That's nuts!

 6/30/19

  Two of Babe Ruth 's former MLB teams, Red Sox and Yankees, are playing  regular season games in #london this weekend.  If Ruth would've played in London in the 1920's, he would've given the local press some amusing quotes.
7/6/19: Maybe #ChrisDavis had a pre-game Babe Ruth diet, hot dog and beer, last night. He had a solo homer and two run single.
9/4/19:  Michael Lorenzen of the Cincinnati Reds  pulled off a feat last accomplished by the Babe Ruth by hitting a homer, earning a win, and making an appearance in the outfield.
2/21/20- Ok I missed this: #baberuth would've been 125 on 2/6/20. And, repeating a post from 2013

6/9/20: Thirty years ago:  #EddieMurray, a Dodger and a former Oriole, hit homers from each side of the plate for the tenth time in his career.

5/29/21: Biden relaxed Cuban policy and a Cuban baseball player, César Prieto, jumps off the Cuban team bus into a waiting car in a rapid defection  during trip to Florida. I started thinking about some great Cuban- born players, Tony Oliva, Luis Tiant, etc.

2/6/2022: Here's your 2022 funny from Sad Max Scherzer: "We don’t need mediation because what we are offering to MLB is fair for both sides" 

2/7/22: Half of a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card sells at auction for $475,960. 

May 30, 2022

Sowebo Festival memory from thirty plus years ago. Kitchen Kevin demanding I do the Irish jig in the parking lot near a music stage. I did a one-legged "jig" and Kevin did his version while a small contingent dug the scene.

June 9, 2022

 I'm unsure if you saw this from Nina's post. Parke Green, bartender at the Cultured Pearl in the early 1990's, died from an allergic reaction to a wasp sting while walking with his wife Nina.  Last time I saw him was when he visited Baltimore on business about five years ago. My last phone call with him was a year or so ago when he called to talk about the death of Poodles, a former waitress at CP. He was a great friend and a he!! of late night partymate in Sowebo. 

June 22, 2022

and now Michele H, a barkeeper who I often chatted with late night in the early 1990s at "The Pearl", Max's, and Scallios passed away a few days ago.

Oct 18, 2022

The Pfister Hotel, 424 E. Wisconsin Ave in Milwaukee, WI houses a vast collection of Victorian pieces and is also famous for spooking a lot of MLB players. When the Pirates were in town in 2016, Pirates MGR Clint Hurdle explained to a player who phoned him because a ghost had turned on his TV twice in one night. I bet Babe Ruth would have slept through someone turning on his radio.

Sept 28, 2024

While reading a book on the St Louis Browns- Baltimore Orioles history I stopped on this name. Buster Mills, an outfielder for the Browns, Bosox , etc and  the Redlegs MGR for 12 games in 1953.

 Elvis and Lucy Mills gave  Buster, their fourth child the first name of Colonel, after the rank of either dad's best friend or a Civil War great-uncle. During WW2, as a soldier, he introduced himself to officers as "Colonel Mills". 

James Ellroy & Grace Jones, then Chandler

I finished the book White Jazz by James Ellroy about two years ago.

Sometimes, you just have to put a book down or  bookmark the page, get out  a pen, and write down a  great quote. And sometimes run to a dictionary..

When I finished the chapter, I must've put on a Grace Jones CD.

“Aah, a prod. Christianity’s second string. God bless them. Do you still believe, lad?”

from page 160 of White Jazz:  Dudley Smith to Lt David Klein

My initial reaction:

Catholic arrogance cracking me up smart ass comments ruthless behavior and tithing. Cops, cops, cops cop a feel. A warm leatherette cracks into string purses along stagnant canals near urban blight.

The quote takes me back to my Catholic catechism class when  a nun referred to the kids  who did not attend our school as publics.  I never did grasp the concept that we Catholics were on the #1 team and those Lutherans & Methodists were silly to build churches in our community. I can't recall meeting a Jewish person until I traveled across town to attend a public high school and was perplexed that they were still waiting for their Jesus.

 I need to lapse further into Deism.

Ellroy's Irish LA cops rambled on elsewhere  about puerile interdiction.  After reviewing several sources, I think this was about the silliness of the Catholic Church forbidding clergy to marry.


Post blog quandry: Where's Balzac when you need him? 

11/22/12 

 Just finished Little Sister by Raymond Chandler . It had been awhile since I read it and  Philip Marlowe was more sentimental and cynical about Los Angeles than I remember.  Too bad Chandler didn't write more. Love the way they spelled marihuana with an h--must've been Mexican influences.

11/24/12

 No doubts that Robert Mitchum was the best Marlowe.

3/8/13

 Listening to some mid 1980's  Grace: I'm not perfect but

5/10/13

  Iggy did this song first, then Grace, then both:  Nightclubbing- Iggy & Grace

6/13/13

 I've read most of the short stories in Raymond Chandler's - The Simple Art of Murder and Pickup on Noon Street is as gritty and to the core as noir can be. Language is lean and one gets a vivid picture.  The edition includes an Atlantic Monthly essay Chandler wrote on crime writing, and I enjoyed his critique of Agatha Christie-  "preoccupied with hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish." He adds kind words for Hammett.

Who comes closest today to being similar to Grace Jones & Raymond Chandler? As far as Chandler, maybe Jo Nesbo? As far as Grace, I don't see anyone.

11/12/13

Chandler: "Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency."

12/4/13

Grace song title could be a line in a Chandler or Hammett novel: I've seen that face before

1/20/14

“What is worse? Taking the life of a person who wants to live or taking death from a person who wants to die.” ― Jo Nesbø, The Snowman

3/1/14

Ides of March in two weeks.  Does a world figure get assassinated? Perhaps near the Black Sea?  Grace covers  Demolition Man

4/23/14

It appears that Nesbo may bring Harry Hole back. His latest work Police was a wild gruesome ride  including Hole marrying Rakel, his ladylove.

4/24/14

For Cindy:  Sweden's Ake Edwardson: Erik Winter series ; Shadow Woman #2, sun & shadow #3, never end #4, frozen tracks #5, sail of stone #6

5/17/14

Dashiell Hammett penned this in The Thin Man

“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two."

5/20/14

Hey Cindy : reading #7 in  the Winter series. Room #10. Plenty of nuts & bolts investigating.

5/21/14

I'm almost finished room #10 and feel like I need the family flow charts you needed for Faulkner novels, but it's great to have to pay attention to every word.

5/23/14

I don't re-read passages often, but I'm still a bit confused as to who did what in room 10 as far as Borge, Mario Ney, & Jonas Sandler. Fascinating read.

8/9/14

This blog roams from noir to Grace J . A mellow tune from GJ: Victor should have been a jazz musician

10/27/14

Veering back to Mitchum: In a mid 1970's Village Voice interview with Carrie Rickey, Mitchum explained that the term hipster derived from an opium user laying on his hip when he smoked the pipe.

11/9/14

I read about a third of Complex 90, a book drafted by Mickey Spillane and finished by Max Allen Collins, last night. I enjoyed some of his descriptions of Moscow & NYC in the late 1960s but  was turned off  by Hammer's self absorption and skipping over details. I see why folks were ambivalent about Spillane as a writer, but his Cold War sensibilities  are worth considerering when viewing Putin.

1/11/15

Jo Nesbo's latest ,The Son, reels the reader in immediately. His description of prison life and junkie crooks is stunning. Plenty of book left. BTW, this isn't part of the Harry Hole series.

1/13/15

Somewhat surprised that the ending was slightly happy. Good read- interesting twists. High level of police corruption.

4/8/15

Patti Smith is narrating the new audio edition of Jo Nesbø’s latest thriller Blood on Snow

5/16/15

Couldn't pass up this quote attributed to #RobertMitchum:

When asked what he looked for in a script before accepting a job, he said, “Days off.”

6/14/15

I'm reading Nesbo's the redeemer (Harry Hole series) out of sequence, but the Croat assassin who started his career crawling under Serbian tanks to install explosives is fascinating

7/5/15

Chandler notes analyzing pulp detective magazines of the 1920s.  Here's a quip from Feb 15 ,1950:

pulp paper never dreamed of posterity 

8/21/15

Keeping it light today: I recall the looks on the new wave kid's face at a Towson, MD record store circa 1981 when he rang up my purchase of the Psychedelic Furs debut album (approval) and the Grace Jones single "pull up to the bumper" (disdain) . My reply was "it's a big world."

10/21/15

Reading Ellroy's Blood on the Moon published in the early 80's.Some rough passages-.he's come a long way.

10/31/15

This could be more myth than fact, but I recall hearing a story of how Mitchum attended  a Halloween party on the Eastern Shore in MD in the  raw lathered with mustard and replied to questions about his costume with : "I'm a hot dog".

11/26/15

You could apply this quote from Maltese Falcon to more than crooks:

“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”- Dashiell Hammett

2/12/16

Mitchum quote:

 Every two or three years, I knock off for a while. That way I`m always the new girl in the whorehouse.

9/11/16

to #Hillaryclinton from one of the deplorables -Grace Jones covers a tune and it is for you she's lost control

10/11/16

No politics this morning
“Who was the mad bastard who taught you to drive?"  Jo Nesbø, Nemesis

11/12/16

Grace Jones title everybodyhold still is what I'm asking of the anti-Trump protestors, then read a civics book. BTW, I'm not saying Grace agrees with me.

11/13/16

No politics. Instead lines from Raymond Chandler:

"From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away."

4/23/17

reading The Flanders Panel by Perez-Reverte, Arturo, an interesting read that has me screaming this #raymondchandler quote, "Chess is the most elaborate waste of human intelligence outside of an advertising agency."

6/4/17

I'm a big fan of  #jonesbo #harryhole series and just finished #thethirst.  My blood related non-spoiler: Too much iron can kill.

11/22/17

“It’s All Right: He Only Died,” a #raymondChandler story that was found in a shoebox donated to University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, has been published by Strand magazine.

6/22/18

#nesbo 's latest lead character Macbeth is potent and erratic, but I still prefer #harryhole

5/26/19

For no particular reason: 

“Sometimes we’re wrong when we think that we know the truth about our parents.” ― Jo Nesbø, The Son

7/15/19

 #Knife, the latest in #harryhole detective fiction series from #Nesbo , is a solid book.  Various parts of story lines of Norway murder investigations are tied to ex-soldiers with PTSD, particularly from NATO tours in Afghanistan.  9k Norwegian soldiers served in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014.

2/2/20

 “She had that fine-drawn intense look that is sometimes neurotic, sometimes sex-hungry, and sometimes just the result of drastic dieting.” ― #RaymondChandler, The Long Goodbye 

1/23/21

#jonesbo 's latest, The Kingdom, is a wild ride through rural Norway and doesn't end up with good guy or gal winning. There aren't any angels in this tale that centers around the bond between two brothers, Roy and Carl. Roy felt his talent was in in "disarming people---- the same way you disarm bombs.".

9/9/21

“You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.”― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

Feb 20, 2022

Circling back to Ellroy for a morning jolt: “I am the son of a murdered woman—anybody who'd call my books misogynistic is, frankly, out of their fucking mind."― James Ellroy

The "Wokers" are jokers who cast aspersions based mostly on raw emotion.

June 25, 2023

Kingdom Come, the latest in the Harry Hole series, damn, I'm learning a lot about parasites.

 I enjoyed the character Lucille's comment on Uma Thurman being a Janey come lately on the Weinstein take-down.  "When, for years, you’ve tacitly allowed all those young, hopeful actors to walk into Weinstein’s’ office alone because you with all your millions, by speaking out might—might—miss out on yet another million-dollar role, then I think you should be publicly whipped and spat upon.”  author Jo Nesbo.

Interesting twist "suicide by criminal" ending to Kingdom Come. Hole's dying buddy Aune switches roles and receives the injection of parasites instead Hole. Later, it's morphine from his wife for the finale. 

Sept 2, 2023

Second Murderer, Denise Mina's version of Philip Marlowe, went up and down. At times, he nearly becomes a 2023 social justice guy planted in the 1940s. Other times, she captured Chandler's Marlowe- chicks confused him and always will. Dyke bar scenes stirred up some memories for me. It was set in the 1940s but some things don't change. 

I spent a little too much time in the 1980s-hanging with lesbians and the bi-chicks.😉

Oct 1, 2023

Ellroy's latest, The Enchanters, uses real names. Liz, Marilyn, JFK, Hollyweird, etc, get strafed. I'm unsure how he is avoiding lawsuits. I've read 50 pages.