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But Birdie had a few more years of playing ahead. In 1947 he was traded to the Boston Red Sox, where he hit as well as he ever had, showed a remarkable talent for making friends with terrible-tempered Ted Williams, and only fell into disfavor when he opened his mouth once too often. In the fall of 1950 he called some of his teammates "moronic malcontents" and "juvenile delinquents." He was promptly traded to Cleveland. In 1953, just as soon as they could get a catcher to take his place, the Indians sent Birdie to the Cleveland farm in Indianapolis to start his career as a manager.
Looking for Loopholes. In 1948, while he was picking up some spare cash on the off-season banquet circuit, Birdie, then 36, met a brown-haired ex-WAVE namec Mary Hartnett. Mary was not only exceptionally pretty, but had the added attraction of apparent immunity to the Tebbetts charm. It was nearly a year before Birdie could get a date. But when he did, he wooed Mary with the same ardor that helps him win ball games. They were married in the fall of 1950.
Mary has long since resigned herself to the fact that while he loves her dearly, Birdie loves baseball more. He has occasionally been caught reading a novel, but even in the dead of winter he is more likely to spend his evenings digesting the Baseball Register, or poring over the rule book. "I don't know whether he's refreshing his memory or looking for loopholes," says Mary. Occasionally she will interrupt him by asking: "Well, dear, what inning are we in now?"
When he reads bedtime stories to his three button-nosed girls—Susan, 5^, Elizabeth, 4, and Patricia, 2^—Birdie never gets away from the great American game. "Instead of Jack and Jill going up the hill," says Mary, "Birdie will say, 'Jack went out, picked up a bat and hit a home run.' Instead of Peter Rabbit going under the fence into Mr. Whatshisname's garden, he'll say, 'And Peter Rabbit got a base on balls and Mopsy was up next.' Sometimes I pick up the same story and the children say, 'No, no, you're not read, ing it the way Daddy reads it.'"
A Game of Momentum. This year, if ever, Birdie has reason to concentrate on baseball. Cincinnati fans have already decided that the pennant is in the bag. They are so proud of their team that they have stuffed the All-Star ballot boxes so full that the All-Star game voting (which picks every starter except the pitchers) has been reduced to a patriotic absurdity. The poll count decreed that the National League start Cincinnati Redlegs at every position except first base. There, St. Louis' sturdy oldtimer Stan Musial managed to stand off the Redlegs' rooters. Though the balloting was perfectly legal under the somewhat farcical procedures followed by the big leagues, Commissioner Ford Frick felt compelled to step in last week and decree that the Redlegs may have only five starting positions. The All-Stars, Cincinnati public opinion notwithstanding, must have room for such as Hank Aaron and Willie Mays from other clubs.
Even the most passionate Redleg fans know that winning the games that count in the season's statistics will take a lot more than cheers and votes, especially in this year's National League.