The ep06 Great Athletes-Past and Present

This is Jimmy Powers and Happy to Becoming Your Way with another Grantlin Rice Story. Oh, this is Jimmy Powers transcribed about to bring you another chapter from the Grantlin Rice Story, the tumult and the shouting.

Today we're putting the finger of immortality on some of the great athletes of the past and present who, through their unquestioned stamina, rank high in what Granny calls iron ore content. So with a nod to the young and hard spirit of Granny Rice, I once again open the book and take up the narrative in first person.

There aren't any Ironman left in sport today, but then yesterday there weren't any Roger Banisters, John Lundy's or West Santees either. The old time Ironman has been replaced by the modern specialist in business as well as sports.

However, the age of the Ironman was largely from another era, and I knew my share of them. If Ty Cobb wasn't an Ironman, who was? Ty traveled at top speed on a pair of fairly thin legs for 24 years. He hunted all winter, and he played baseball all spring and summer. He played in more than 3,000 ball games, and

he scored over 4,000 runs, always in rapid action. If Sy Young wasn't an Iron Man, who was? Sy left a small farm in Ohio in 1890 for Cleveland. His square name was Denton, but after he had been given a tryout and had knocked the boards right out of the backstop with his high hard one, one critic said it looked as if a cyclone

had hit the place. After that it was no longer dentin' young, but Si for Cyclone Young. In Si's first game he shut out Chicago 3-0. Then one more games, 511, than most pitchers ever pitched. He worked through more than 800 ball games in both leagues and finally retired when the kid named Grover Cleveland Alexander beat him one to nothing in 1911.