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The Toothpick Gang
Classic quote from the Halberstam book about the trials and tribulations of being a baseball exec, in this case legendary Cards GM Bing Devine.
He was sure that a good farm system in working order would always keep enough strong-armed young men in
the pipeline to deliver first-rate pitchers. In putting this Cardinal team together, he had been guided by that
philosophy; several years earlier, he had made an important trade of that kind, giving up Toothpick Sam Jones,
quite possibly the best pitcher on his team and a man who always pitched with a toothpick in his mouth, for Bill
White, a promising outfielder-first baseman, who had played for only one full season in major-league baseball,
and who had been away for two years in the army. It was not a popular trade at the time in St. Louis, or even in
Devine’s own household, and he had come home that night only to find his wife and daughter at the dinner table,
both of them with toothpicks in their mouths.
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