STL All Sports

Once, to shake the Brooklyn team out of a .long losing streak, manager Wilbert Robinson asked the newspapermen to pick his lineup for the afternoon's game.

"You wise guys are always winning games for me in your newspapers," grumbled Uncle Robbie. "Now let's see you win one out there on the field."

So each baseball reporter in the press box picked a lineup. Manager Robinson tossed them all into his baseball cap, drew one out and gave that lineup to the umpire. That lineup had Babe Herman, then masquerading as a first baseman, in left field. And the Dodgers went out to play the tough St. Louis Cardinals, led by the immortal Rogers Hornsby.

Miraculously, for eight innings all went well and the Dodgers managed to hold on to a slim one-run lead going into the ninth. But in the Cards' final inning, Hornsby, with two on and two out, poked a high fly to left. Babe Herman got all set to catch the ball, but it cracked down on his head and St. Louis had the ballgame.

Immediately after that game, an angry Wilbert Robinson stormed into the Brooklyn press box and roared at the newspapermen: "Who's the crackpot who put Herman in left field?"