KEOKUK, Iowa. Elwood "Bud" Zaremba, pioneering knuckle-ball pitcher, died in his sleep in a nursing home here Sunday night after a brief illness.
Zaremba played with five major league teams over a 17-year career during which he gained a reputation as a solid middle-reliever and a practical joker par excellence.
"Bud was always up to something," said Red Rodney, his manager when Zaremba was with the AA Sault Ste. Marie Frost Heaves. "One time he beat me home from the ballpark and got into bed with my wife to pretend they were having an affair. I had to stop for gas and a quart of milk and got back a little late and, well, let's just say nature took its course." Rodney's wife had twins as a result of the gag gone awry, but his manager never begrudged Zaremba the indulgence. "I raised those kids like they were my own--Bud was such a fun guy to be with."
On another occasion Zaremba gave umpire Jim Barnes a "hotfoot", a trick that involved sticking a wooden match between the sole and leather of someone's shoe, and then lighting it. Barnes' pants caught on fire, causing third degree burns over most of his right leg and an end to his career as an umpire.
"That was just Bud being Bud as they'd say nowadays," Barnes said from his wheelchair. "Some people thought he was mean, but he was really just a cut-up."
Zaremba's career paralleled that of Moe Drabowsky, another pitcher of his era who liked to pull zany pranks on his teammates. "If Drabowsky was the Bob Hope of baseball practical jokes, Bud Zaremba was the Lenny Bruce, because his jokes would really sting you," said baseball historian Peter Arsdale of Iowa State University. "Moe would put a snake in your shoes, but Bud once put a live alligator in the back seat of an opposing pitcher's car. The guy lost half his hand, and was subsequently referred to as Leonard 'Two Fingers' Curley."
Zaremba didn't leave his sense of whimsy in the dugout either. "One time I went out to the mound and called for an intentional walk," Red Rodney recalled. "Bud said 'Why waste my energy on three extra pitches? I'll just hit him.'" Zaremba eventually perfected a pitch he called a knuckle "slurve", a fast-dipping pitch that didn't sting but rarely missed, and he often used it in lieu of an intentional walk.
Zaremba holds one major league record that is unlikely to be broken. Every team he played on subsequently moved to another city, changed its name or both. He spent his rookie year with the St. Louis Browns, now the Baltimore Orioles; four years with the Milwaukee Braves, who moved to Atlanta; four with the Kansas City Athletics, who moved to Oakland, and seven with the second coming of the Washington Senators, who became the Texas Rangers. In his final season, 1969, he appeared in 23 games for the Seattle Pilots, who a year later became the Milwaukee Brewers.
"I don't know that Bud had anything to do with it," Arsdale notes, "but after you'd played with him for awhile, most people wanted to get out of town."
Funeral arrangements will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Institute for the Study of BIHT, beanball-induced head trauma.
CHICAGO. In 2003, Cubs' manager Dusty Baker caused an uproar by saying that black and Hispanic players were better suited to play in the sun and heat than whites. As the 2006 season enters the dog days of August, Baker is at it again.
His latest race-based claim? "White people smell like wet dogs," the straight-shooting skipper told reporters outside the batting cage at Wrigley Field before today's game against the Cincinnati Reds. And unlike his prior assertion, this time Baker says he has an expert to back him up. "Go talk to my man up in Evanston," he said, referring to Allen Reynolds, a sociology professor at Northwestern University.
"Dusty's view is based on a stereotype, but like many prejudices it has a grain of truth to it," Reynolds said. "Upper-class white people do smell like dogs favored by the affluent, such as black labrador retrievers and Jack Russell terriers. The odor is caused by the natural fibers they wear--the people, not the dogs--and by their participation in privileged outdoor activities such as field hockey and lacrosse." He noted that the phenomenon was especially pronounced among graduates of small liberal arts colleges.
Baker, who is African-American, was unapologetic at a post-game news conference. "I'm not racist," he complained. "Wet dog smell is a good thing." Baker then compounded his original offense by telling a joke that some white reporters in attendance took exception to. "How do you spot the bride at a WASP wedding?" he asked, then paused for effect. "She's the one kissing the golden retriever!" he said to scattered laughter and a few groans.
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was accused of a double standard when Baker made his initial comment in 2003, since John Rocker, a white Atlanta Braves pitcher, had previously been disciplined for insensitive racial remarks while Baker went unpunished. Rocker was philosophical about Baker's latest gaffe. "I think we've all got to loosen up a little bit and not be so thin-skinned," he said by telephone. "After all, Bud Selig does smell like a dachshund."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
