Fans pack A’s Society Museum to Greet Long time favorite Eddie Joost
By Mike Morsch
Executive editor
Chuck Pizagno was visibly moved. He had just introduced his 8-year-old grandson Eric, of Warminster, to one of the grandfather’s favorite big league ballplayers of all time, Eddie Joost.
“I had a rough childhood. He gave me hope. He’s an honorable man,” said Pizagno, 66, of Buckingham, without elaborating.
Joost, the 92-year-old former player and manager of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954, the team’s last year in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City, was in Hatboro at the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society’s museum and gift shop Saturday, Jan. 17, to greet fans and sign a limited edition Heartland figure of himself.
“I’ve often said this to Ernie (Montella, executive director of the A’s Society), if he ever thinks about not keeping this going, I’m going to shoot him,” said Joost of the A’s Society, which for more than a decade has kept alive the memory of the Philadelphia A’s by hosting events featuring former A’s players.
“This has been a wonderful thing for not only myself, but for the other players,” said Joost. “The A’s will always been remembered because of this.”
Joe Lovinfosse of Cheltenham, who was just 7 years old when the A’s moved to Kansas City, showed up to the event wearing a Joost jersey, which he had the former player sign.
“He’s just a nice guy,” said Lovinfosse of Joost. “The older players really enjoy talking to the fans. I was just a mere tot when the team left, but I had a couple of uncles who were A’s fans and I heard all their stories.”
The event at the museum and gift shop attracted about 120 guests, many getting everything from baseballs and pictures to bats and other memorabilia signed by Joost and sharing personal stories with the ballplayer.
“It’s amazing because half the stories the fans tell me I don’t remember,” said Joost. “People come up to me and tell me things that happened with myself. It’s really fabulous. That’s why I come to these things. I like to talk to people.”
Joost, who now lives with his son outside Sacramento, Calif., began his career in 1936 as a 20-year-old middle infield, mainly at shortstop, for the Cincinnati Reds. Four years later, he was a member of the 1940 Red that won the World Series by defeating the Detroit Tigers in seven games.
By 1947 he was the starting shortstop for the A’s.
“My favorite memory was the fact that Mr. Mack (Hall of Fame manager Connie Mack, who also owned the A’s) had the confidence in me to bring me back to the major leagues (in 1947). Because the year before, a fellow by the name of Casey Stengel had me sent to the minor leagues because he and I didn’t get along.
“Let me put it this way, he (Stengel) got hit by a taxicab in Boston that year, broke his leg, and at the end of the year in Boston, a paper there always gave an award to the person who did the most for baseball in Boston. Guess who they gave it to? The taxicab driver that hit Stengel.”
Joost has the distinction of still holding a Major League Baseball record. Playing shortstop with the A’s in 1949, he and the doubleplay combination of Pete Suder at second base and Ferris Fain at first base turned 217 doubleplays, a number that still stands today as a single-season record and one that Joost and A’s Society members hope gets formal recognition from the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
In fact, Joost made the trek to Cooperstown in early August 2008 to make a pitch for the recognition of the record.
“The record has been established for 60 years and they’ve never even mentioned it at the Hall of Fame,” said Joost. “When I there recently I asked why, and no one could give me a complete answer. So I insisted they look it up and establish it as a record because of the longevity of it. We did something that no one else has yet bettered.”
