Fate’s Take-Out Slide: A Baseball Scout Recalls Can’t-Miss Prospects Who Did by George Genovese, Dan Taylor

Abstract

Reviewed by: Fate’s Take-Out Slide: A Baseball Scout Recalls Can’t-Miss Prospects Who Did by George Genovese, Dan Taylor Rob Edelman George Genovese with Dan Taylor. Fate’s Take-Out Slide: A Baseball Scout Recalls Can’t-Miss Prospects Who Did. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017. 214 pp. Paper, $29.95. Across the decades, how many up-and-coming movie actors have been hyped as the next James Dean, the wannabe Marilyn Monroe, the hot new Humphrey Bogart? Each gripped the attention of moviegoers with star-turns in highly-publicized films only to have no follow-up, no second-act. Five years later, those who lauded their initial successes were asking themselves, “Gee, whatever happened to so-and-so? What was his name again?” It’s the same in sports. The 1954 Topps baseball card dubbed 18-year-old Frank Leja a “prize Big League prospect” who “has been likened by Yankee scouts to the immortal Lou Gehrig.” But Leja played in just twenty-six major league games. In twenty-three at-bats, he made just one hit. How many other youngsters have been tabbed as sure shots by big league scouts, managers, or coaches, only to quickly fade into oblivion? This question is at the core of Fate’s Take-Out Slide: A Baseball Scout Recalls Can’t-Miss Prospects Who Did, a thoughtful and, at its best, fascinating volume charting the plights and fates of “can’t-miss” superstars. Its author is George Genovese, who played in the minor and (ever-so-briefly) major leagues, managed in the minors and, most impressively, topped his career as a big-league scout. Genovese of course has no spot in Cooperstown; however, the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation honored him with its lifetime achievement award. And his awareness of the quirks of scouting is summed up in his Introduction. “Success and failure can be as close as the length of a gnat’s wing,” he observes. “For every Maury Wills, whose speed changed the game, there is a Howie Jennings, who might have achieved as much or more if it wasn’t for a bad decision. For every Sandy Koufax, whose name became synonymous with pitching greatness, there is a Paul Pettit, who may have been every bit as good were it not for a flawed idea. For every Juan Marichal, who used a unique pitching style and great talent to reach Cooperstown, there is a Nestor Chavez, whose date with brilliance was taken by tragedy” (3–4). Fate’s Take-Out Slide combines Genovese’s recollections of his career with bits of baseball history penned by Dan Taylor, his co-author. A range of individuals are touched upon, each in a separate chapter. Perhaps the best-known is Monty Stratton, whose big league promise was negated by crippling tragedy when a hunting mishap shed him of his right leg. “Maybe he’d [sic] would have been like Lefty Gomez and Bob Feller,” Genovese muses. “Maybe he would have followed his teammate, Ted Lyons, into the Hall of Fame. Who [End Page 229] knows” (26–27). Of infielder Jim Baxes, a 1949 Pacific Coast League all-star-turned minor league nomad with one lone big-league campaign a decade later, Genovese observes, “He had a lot of ability. He should have been in the big leagues back when he had that big year with Hollywood, but that girl (sultry screen newcomer Barbara Payton) had a ring in his nose. She really ruined his career” (45). The ballplayer on the book’s cover may not be readily recognizable, but it is a face who in 1950 was earning headlines as baseball’s initial $100,000 bonus baby. That would be the aforementioned Pettit, who never quite cut it as a big leaguer. “Paul Pettit was tremendous,” Genovese recalls. “He was something special . . . . Paul was a very good athlete. He could hit, he had power, and he could run, too. It’s unfortunate that when people talk about Paul, they talk about the money because he was a very good ballplayer, a real good ballplayer and a real good person, too” (46). The sagas of Pettit, Baxes, and Stratton cover the first...