Imperial Valley Press

By HENRY McLEMORE

TAMPA, Fla., March 24 (UP) -
It won't appear in the record book, but Jimmy Wilson gets an assist for this story.

Talking baseball with Jimmy in his apartment in the St. Catherine hotel on Catalina Island just a month ago, he suggested that when I got to Florida for a look at the spring training camps I do a story on Ernie Lombardi, the massive catcher of the world champion Cincinnati Reds.

"There have been hundreds of stories done on Big Lom," the manager of the Cubs said, "but they all have dealt with him as a baseball player. You know, what a tremendous hitter he is, how smart he is back of the plate, and how well he handles pitchers. But I never had read a story telling how Lommie is the most loved man in all the major leagues."

Jimmy gave me part of the story right there. "I have played on lots of ball clubs in my time," he told me, "but not until I went to the Reds was I ever on a team that had a player who had the respect and love of the other players the way the big Italian has. That goes from the rawest rookie to Manager Bill McKechnie. There never is an unkind word spoken about him, no matter what he does on the ball field. And although any player is bound to make mistakes now and then, there never is a word of criticism of Big Lom.

"Slow, easy-going, patient, understanding and kind, that's Lommie. Say, I'll bet he gives away $500 to rookies during the spring training. He is always slipping the kids three or four bucks for spending money, and he always makes them swear they won't tell where it came from."

So, when I got down to Tampa and the Reds' training camp, I made a check on Lombardi. Everything Wilson had told me was right as rain. The first man I talked to about the big fellow was his boss, Bill McKechnie.

"There never was one just like Lommie," Bill said, and he is not a man given to extravagant praise.

"I think Wilson used the right word when he said the players loved him. A great personality, and a great ball player. You know, you hear more about Lom's hitting than you do about his catching, but he is a smart, smart catcher. You can watch him all season and you won't see him make many mistakes. He knows a lot of baseball."

Bucky Walters, Paul Derringer, Eddie Joost, Frank McCormick, and all of the others confirmed Wilson's report on Lombardi's standing with the team.

"Remember that last world series game with the Yankees - the one in which the writers and the customers made Lommie the goat?" A Red regular asked me. "Well, there wasn't a man on this team who ever criticized Lommie, and he never said a word about it, either in the clubhouse or later on. He just took the blame and let it go at that."

Lombardi is the first man to reach the park during the season and the last to leave, McKechnie told me.

"He likes to get to the park early, settle himself in a big chair, and talk. He settles his 230 pounds comfortably, leans back, and answers any and all questions, hands out advice to those who want it and serves as the good-natured butt of the good-natured jokes the boys play on him."

I asked McKechnie if it were true that Lombardi sometimes removed himself from games without a word from his manager.

"Yes," laughed McKechnie, "he does that once in a while in the summer when the heat begins to get him down. He just walks into the dugout, sheds his protector and mask and says 'too hot for ol' Lom. Too hot.' I know he is a man who gives of his best all the time, so that satisfies me. If Big Lom is too hot, well he's just too hot, that's all. He's all man, Big Lom - and two yards wide."