Fri 5 May 2006
Who’s the Al Schacht of our generation?
Who’s Al Schacht for that matter?
Schacht was the original Clown Prince of baseball who started touring the country as an entertainment act in the 1920’s after an arm injury ended his pitching career early.
Schacht has a couple books out about his travels, which are pretty funny. One story that sticks with me is how he bought a goat on the way to a game. He wanted to add the animal into a skit that night….which is great when you think about how he was totally rolling the dice on what the goat would do. We’ve all seen dog acts….but dog’s are trained. Goats are pretty much doing their own thing, especially one you buy off the street on the afternoon of the game.
(for more on Schact you can hunt for the out of print books, Clowning Through Baseball
I was just thinking…what ever happened to that? Former players going on the road because they loved the game and had such a strong personality they could make it work.
After Schacht you had Jackie Price and Max Patkin….but now? Mark Fidrych doesn’t tour, Al Hrabosky has never worked with a goat, and Joe Charboneau never used his popularity and charm to work the minor leagues entertainment circuit.
Do you put Sun’s MC Cedric Ceballos in that mix? …..or the Harlem Globetrotters? Seems like a lost art or something can has just faded from plausibility.
If Charles Barkley could only ride a unicycle we might have something.
-Cudo
