Lawrence S. Ritter

“They always talk about Cobb playing dirty, trying to spike guys and all. Cobb never tried to spike anybody. The base line belongs to the runner. If the infielders get in the way, that’s their lookout. Infielders are supposed to watch out and take care of themselves. In those days, if they got in the way and got nicked they’d never say anything. They’d just take a chew of tobacco out of their mouth, slap it on the spike wound, wrap a handkerchief around it, and go right on playing. Never thought any more about it. We had a trainer, but all he ever did was give you a rubdown with something we called “Go Fast.” He’d take a jar of Vaseline and a bottle of Tabasco sauce—you know how hot that is—mix them together, and rub you down with that. Boy, it made you feel like you were on fire! That would really start you sweating. Now they have medical doctors and whirlpool baths and who knows what else.”
― Lawrence S. Ritter, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It

“Yeah, Kid Elberfeld, what a character he was. Kid Gleason was on the Detroit club about then, too. Another rugged little guy. Do you know that those guys actually tried to get hit with the ball when they were up at bat? They didn’t care. They had it down to a fine art, you know. They’d look like they were trying to get out of the way, but they’d manage to let the ball just nick them. Anything to get on base. That was all part of the game then. Kid Gleason used to be on that old Baltimore Oriole team in the 1890’s. You know, with Willie Keeler and McGraw and Dan Brouthers and Hughie Jennings, who later became our manager at Detroit.”
― Lawrence S. Ritter, The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It