Sporting Life “Don’t be a damn fool,” said fellow scribe Jim Dawson, according to Jerome Holtzman’s book, No Cheering in the Press Box.“How long do you think it’s going to last? You stick with The Times. They’ll take care of you the rest of your life.” To that, Drebinger commented, “Prophetic, wasn’t it?” The Morning Telegraph went out of business after about a year — the year of the Great Crash. As for Drebinger, he would go on to write the lead stories for 203 World Series games from 1929 through 1963. He proudly called that his Lou Gehrig record and died believing it could never be broken. So far, no one has even come close. “Look at all the fun I had meeting all those people,” he told Holtzman. “Carl Hubbell, Mel Ott, McGraw, Ruth, Gehrig, the Waner brothers, all the way back to Christy Mathewson. By God, it was a tremendous thing to have known all those players. I knew everybody in the Hall of Fame – except Cap Anson” Indeed, reading his breezy reminiscences, whether recounted in Holtzman’s tome or told to his grandson Higgins is a Who’s Who of the Boys of Summer: John McGraw, who managed the Giants for thirty years, was one of Drebinger’s favorites. “God, he was an amazing man,” Drebinger said. “He did everything. Signed the players. Fired them. Paid them. Ran the show. He lasted thirty years, won ten pennants and finished second eleven times. Imagine that: twenty-one years, no worse than second.” By the time Babe Ruth joined the Yankees, they were Drebinger’s team at The Times. He attended their home games, their away games and held court with them on the raucous train rides. “Once my grandfather was playing cards with Ruth and others — as he often did in the club car of a train,” Higgins recalls from a story Drebinger told. “A semi-nude woman came running through the club car. Behind her was a semi-nude Babe Ruth running after her.” “One guy looked up and said, ‘Do you see anything?’ “My grandfather replied, ‘I didn’t see anything.’” Drebinger enjoyed “being in on the carousing,” Higgins says. “I’m not sure he was as much a participant as he was the bartender.” He was “Drebby” to the players and his fellow writers but never “Joe.” That name was reserved exclusively for Babe Ruth, who had a tendency to forget names. “We used to have a Christmas card that was originally sent to my grandfather from Babe Ruth,” Higgins remembers of his days growing up on West Kemp Road. “It said, ‘Merry Christmas, Joe.’” “Babe Ruth was a colorful character, to say the least, but he was a very kind, generous guy, too,”
His most impressive display of strength is the lifting of others’ spirits. A 34-year-old man in peak physical condition is not supposed to be fighting colon cancer. Yet that is just what Chris Ganser has been forced to do. With the support of the medical team at the Cone Health Cancer Center, Chris has defiantly stood up to his cancer. And now he unselfishly shares his experience to encourage others to overcome their own personal battles. Learn more about Chris and his passion for life at ExceptionalCare.com.
Exceptional Care. Every Day.
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40 O.Henry
April 2015
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro