Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 162

The goop and confessions of an unrepentant spitballer iW 4" opportunity it presents to confess, for the first time, that he is indeed guilty of throwing the illegal spitball in competition a revelation that will come as absolutely no surprise to opposing players and baseball fans in general. Perry, after all, was being forced to strip in crowded stadiums long before streaking became the fad it is; umpires have been looking for the source of the goop that makes his ball behave so erratically for years. President Nixon even asked him once during a White House reception where he hides the stuff. Perry didn't tell him. He still isn't telling.

He does admit that he started out just spitting on Me and the Spitter By Gaylord Perry with Bob Sudyk Saturday Review Press. 222 pages. $6 95 Reviewed by James Elsener For the most part, Me and the Spitteris just another in the long list of nondescript sports books written by athletes and their collaborators that have glutted the market in the last few years. What distinguishes it from others of its kind is that Perry, pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, uses the James Elsener is a member oWTribune editorial staff. without electricity nntil Perry was 13, without an indoor toilet or shower until two years later.

But the core of the book is still the spitter, and the anecdotes he tells relating to it. There is the story of ex-teammate Orland Cepe-da, who once caught a Perry "slobber ball" in a first-base pickoff play. "The ball sank a foot and I dropped it," recalled Cepe-da. "When I threw it back to Perry the ball was still wet and sank again. The, runners advanced a base and I got an error." And the story of fellow spitballer John Wy att, who, Perry says, used to have so much grease hidden about his uniform that he once slipped off the dugout bench.

Delightful reading for baseball trivia fans. Actually it was Bob Shaw, former White Sox pitcher now coaching for the Milwaukee Brewers, who taught Perry how to throw the pitch in 1964, when the two were teammates with the San Francisco Giants. When the pupil began to outdo the master, Shaw asked him where he hid the stuff. He got the answer that even the President of the United States couldn't get. "lowed him that much," Perry writes, adding that he feels Shaw's teaching saved his baseball career.

Perry and his collaborator, Bob Sudyk, a Cleveland sportswriter, include much of Perry's life story as well. He and his older brother Jim, a teammate on the Cleveland Indians, grew up in North Carolina tobacco country, living in a farm house UP! Perry being inspected by Umpire Lou DiMuro in a 1973 game in Cleveland after Ralph Houk, New York manager, accused Perry of throwing illegal pitch, the ball. When rules year, he insists, he has reformed. He no longer needs artificial additives, he says; he needs only the natural oils from his sweating fingertips, and "they can't outlaw sweating." changes made that risky, he began applying Vaseline, K-Y Jelly, suntan lotion and other assorted junk stored in various hidden places on his body. This Inside the ad game the people he met along the way.

Of all those people, Daniels seems to have been impressed most by Ray Rubicam, creative guru at Young and Rubicam. Daniels worked for during the 1940's when the agency dominated advertising and radio with the trio of Jack Benny for Jello, Fred Allen for Sal Hepati-ca, and Arthur Godfrey for Lipton Tea. It was Rubicam's candor and nerve that impressed Daniels as much as his creative ability. He relates with relish how Rubicam dropped George Washington Hill, the tyrannical head of American Tobacco, as a client. Rubicam told Hill: and American Tobacco were both successful companies for some time before our association began, Mr.

Hill. I trust both will continue to be successful after our association ceases which it is doing, as of now." There's more like that. None of it is terribly significant. Much of it is fun. Alt of it is presented in easy-to-gulp sentences that have the look of a first draft.

Daniels might profitably have spent a little more time editing his chronicle. Some pages display all the excitement of a phone book as he stuffs in the names of long-ago cronies without justifying their presence with interesting detail. That's no big gripe, however. Daniels is one of those fortunate few who are very good at what they do and have a fine time doing it. The enthusiasm shines thru.

It's a book with real gusto. Giants, Pigmies and Other Advertising People By Draper Daniels Crain. 257 pages. $7.95 Reviewed by Les Bridges Leo Burnett had this idea that he hung onto with a tenacity it didn't deserve. He wanted to underline the in Schlitz and follow it with the slogan: "The stands for zest." It was a dreary phrase on which to build an advertising campaign, in the opinion of Burnett's creative chief, Draper Daniels.

In desperation, Daniels dredged up a synonym for the word zest. The word was gusto, and one of the most noted ad themes of the 1960s was born: "Real gusto in a great light beer." Daniels has been one of the brighter lights on the Chicago advertising scene since 1947, when he was transferred here from New York by Rubicam. His greatest business success took place from the mid-1950's to the early 1960's when he rocketed from a lowly copy supervisor to chairman of the Executive Committee for Burnett. In his words, this book is a "melange of anecdotes about advertising and advertising people." It is an apt description. He does make a half-hearted effort at setting down his advertising principles.

But mostly lie reminisces about a career that had a lot more ups than downs, and about Les Bridges is a Chicago writer. Pagz 4 Section 7 bml l.l S.UlM till I nil mill II -iTirmn I I i Chicago Tribune Book World April 23, 1974.