Last fall I wrote a profile of Spahn adapted from Stolen Season, a book by David Lamb. Here are some good quotes from the book, from a World War Two veteran and the left-hander with the most wins in major league history:
“I’m just not sure the kids now have the same dedication we did. We’ve gotten too lazy as a nation, too spoiled.”
“That saying – it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game – well, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. You show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser, period, someone who didn’t try hard enough.”
He added: “The consensus of everyone in baseball was that I played a year too long. Maybe I did. But I honestly thought I could still be a winner.”
He said: “I still see a lot of the people from the old Braves days as I travel around, but more and more I go back to Boston or Milwaukee and I ask people, ‘Where’s so-and-so?’ and I find out they’ve died.”
Spahn, who died in 2003, summed up old age like this: “I see someone with gray hair who’s growing old, and you know what? It makes me feel good, sort of content. I like where I’ve been and where I’m at. Baseball and the military did that for me. They gave me everything.”
Here’s a headshot of the Spahn puzzle that Donruss inserted into its 1990 wax baseball card packs:
