Five years ago, he was the National League’s strikeout king. Now Van Lingle Mungo was in a warehouse hiding behind cases of Ron Stacola Rum waiting to be smuggled out of Cuba on a seaplane...
Wonderful. i have sung Frishberg's Van Lingle Mungo and it is a fun song to sing. It is amazing how he put together all these 1930s and 40s baseball player names. It sparked me to go back to baseball reference site to look up all the name of players I had no clue about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Lingle_Mungo_(song)
Thank you for the kind words. Cherew, no kidding? The irony is that Buck (or Bobo) Newsom from Cherew was just as much of a character as Mungo was. Did the town have anything to mark that Newsom was from there?
Actually, Bobo was from Hartsville, SC (where I attended undergrad at Coker College, now Coker University) about 30 minutes away. I was unfamiliar with his having played in Cheraw, so I will have to look into that more. Hartsville has a highway named in Bobo's honor but I don't recall much else. This was early '90s before I was really into baseball history, so I easily could have overlooked something. However, Cheraw IS the hometown of '50s Red Sox pitcher Tom Brewer, who I published a story on today - https://beautyofagame.substack.com/p/in-honor-of-a-hometown-hero
A bit serendipitous that two articles mentioning little ol' Cheraw (pop. < 6,000) would be posted on the same day.
What a great story! I haven’t laughed like that since last October. Now I have to get Mungo’s biography. Thanks for writing this delightful tale of mischief and woe!
Thanks Gene, I'm glad you liked it. I've been wanting to write a Mungo story for years, but I just kept finding more and more great stuff on him. But, I finally said "enough!" and wrote the darn thing. Thanks for reading it!
Incredible.
It's hard to go wrong when you have material like Van Lingle Mungo!
This is something! Nicely done. I of course knew the name from the song and a little about his strikeout ability, but not much else. What a tale!
Wonderful. i have sung Frishberg's Van Lingle Mungo and it is a fun song to sing. It is amazing how he put together all these 1930s and 40s baseball player names. It sparked me to go back to baseball reference site to look up all the name of players I had no clue about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Lingle_Mungo_(song)
You absolutely need the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) book that has the bios of ALL the players listed in the Frishberg song – I can't recommend this book more, it's exceptionally well done and the perfect companion to the song: https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-digital-library-van-lingle-mungo-the-man-the-song-the-players/
LOL!! I"ve been a SABR member for a lot of years. I totally forgot about this one and thanks for reminding me!!!
As always, superbly researched, written and illustrated! You continue to outdo yourself Gary.
BTW, I grew up in Cheraw, SC (mentioned in the article), just a bit down the road from Mungo's hometown of Pageland.
Thank you for the kind words. Cherew, no kidding? The irony is that Buck (or Bobo) Newsom from Cherew was just as much of a character as Mungo was. Did the town have anything to mark that Newsom was from there?
Actually, Bobo was from Hartsville, SC (where I attended undergrad at Coker College, now Coker University) about 30 minutes away. I was unfamiliar with his having played in Cheraw, so I will have to look into that more. Hartsville has a highway named in Bobo's honor but I don't recall much else. This was early '90s before I was really into baseball history, so I easily could have overlooked something. However, Cheraw IS the hometown of '50s Red Sox pitcher Tom Brewer, who I published a story on today - https://beautyofagame.substack.com/p/in-honor-of-a-hometown-hero
A bit serendipitous that two articles mentioning little ol' Cheraw (pop. < 6,000) would be posted on the same day.
Two Cherew's on the same day? That's incredible!
What a great story! I haven’t laughed like that since last October. Now I have to get Mungo’s biography. Thanks for writing this delightful tale of mischief and woe!
Glad you liked it – you can't imagine the fun I had writing this one
A superbly entertaining story/bio! Very good use of quotes and games action.
Thanks Gene, I'm glad you liked it. I've been wanting to write a Mungo story for years, but I just kept finding more and more great stuff on him. But, I finally said "enough!" and wrote the darn thing. Thanks for reading it!