David Malcolmson > Quotes

“He not only wanted to talk; he half-believed that, if he talked to his dog as a person, in time London would come to understand. It’s the way a child learns the language. All sorts of things are said to a baby; and all at once he knows what is being told him.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“The manager gave him a copy of the contract. From a carbon he read aloud, “’In addition said player will be permitted to convey his German shepherd dog on all road trips in his own conveyance.’” He laughed, “A clause to make baseball history. When do we see this famous dog?”

“You’ll meet him tonight. He’ll be on the field.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“With the Irishmen at bat the dog acts as a charm. He sits at the far end of the dugout. Whoever touches him on his way to the plate will have luck with hi as he swings. Each batter leaving the dugout places his hand on London’s head.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“Chuck swore he would never leave him again so long as he lived. He lost his own sense of failure in making it up to London for the blow he had dealt him. London responded in a way far beyond anything Chuck could have expected. As a result, Chuck Eisenmann, with London, found a new career crowned by success beyond his highest hopes in the world of baseball.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“Baseball at Kearney differed from ball in a big-league park in this minor respect: here that ball was still claimed by the management, regardless of what fan was able to get his hooks on it. Before the time of London, however, boys and cops had a time of it, trying to enforce the claim.

Into the proper row ran the dog, pushing past knees. There was no ball to be seen, and no one to give the culprit away, but a dog’s nose was able to tell when he reached a man with the ball in his pocket. It would be bad form to threaten force to get it back, so London merely stared the man down until in embarrassment he had to fish the ball out of his pocket. Nor would London let him throw it back over the wire to its rightful owners; he blocked the pitch, determined that the ball was his, to be surrendered only to him, his until he could turn it over to the cop.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“I was in London once…”
Once in London a German V-2 rocket blasted Captain Eisenmann clear through a wall…
For three months he had lain in a hospital, trying, on his back, to find out what it was he wanted in this world. Always before he had been too busy to wonder, busy creating a pitching arm. In London he had had searched for a larger meaning to life. London to Chuck became a word meaning something more than was reasonably to be expected.
London was the name of his dog years before London was born. “London!” Chuck had said to a five-week-old pup. “London. That’s your name.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team

“Each man who gives his heart to a dog must realize how the time will come, and is never far distant, when there will be a leave-taking. Seven times as fast as a man, a dog races to the end of the journey.”
― David Malcolmson, London: The Dog Who Made the Team