Army vs Notre Dame
November 23, 2010
The other baseball stadium game last weekend was at Yankee Stadium, a rematch of some legendary games of yore between Army and Notre Dame. The Irish won this year's game fairly easily, but I must admit seeing those two teams play at that 87-year-old stadium brought back a lot of memories.
The first time Army played Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium was in the late 20's. I can remember taking the train from my dormitory at Pitt to attend the shindig.
Notre Dame was a great powerhouse coached by Newt Rockne while Army was led by Biff Jones.
But the real story was behind the scenes. The Black Knights of the Hudson, as was traditional for many underdog schools in that era, added a few ringers to improve their chances. One of them was a large lineman named George. They also added a couple of George's Columbia pals, Tony and Louie. These guys were great athletes and really would have helped Army's chances of victory.
The problem was that the ringers had spent the night before the game at a local bordello favored by George. Louie insisted on spending some time with one of the newer girls, Kay. Unfortunately Kay was not much for cleanliness and Louie came down with a nasty staph infection. The next day the entire Army team was bent over with Louie's illness and Army star Red Cagle was barely able to stand. Needless to say, Notre Dame won the game.
After the game George, known better to us as "The Bambino", turned to his vomiting teammate and said "Gehrig, you lucky bastard, they'll probably name this disease after you".
And now you know the rest of the story.