“Nobody gets any fun out of baseball any more,” said Walter James Vincent (“Rabbit”) Maranville, in a mood of gentle nostalgia after last year’s World Series had been stowed away in the record books. “I guess a kid’s crazy not to be serious about it when he’s drawing down $20,000 or $30,000 a year, and any smart-aleck gag you try may be your last. But what’s life without a laugh?”
Breadbasket Fielder. Life without a laugh was always unthinkable to Rabbit Maranville. The chunky little (5 ft. 4 in., 150 Ibs.) infielder tried plenty of gags, on and off the baseball field, from the very first day he played and made his first “breadbasket” catch of a fly ball. The catch, with cupped hands resting on his belt buckle as the ball skimmed by his peaked cap, always brought a gasp and then a cheer from the crowds, and it became the Rabbit’s trademark. He performed legendary fielding feats with George Stallings’ famed Boston Braves of 1914, who got up from eighth place on July 4 to win the pennant. Though Shortstop Maranville’s lifetime average as a hitter was just .258, his chips-are-down .307 average that year helped the Braves sweep the World Series from the Athletics.
Rabbit’s off-field capers also became a legend, even in baseball’s rough and ready era. There was the time when the Boston police found Maranville and Jim Thorpe high in a treetop, yowling like banshees as they played Tarzan. There was the hot night in St. Louis when the Rabbit dived fully clothed into a fountain pool (though he always denied that he came gurgling to the surface with a goldfish clenched in his teeth). There was the time when he was playing in Brooklyn and staged a fake killing, complete with gunshot, that was daffy enough even by Dodger standards. And there was the time when he got news of his appointment as manager of the Chicago Cubs. “A’nice way to celebrate this,” mused the Rabbit, “would be to fight a couple of Irish cops.” So he did.
League Leader. On the field, 14 years after his first World Series, the durable Rabbit hit .308 in a series for the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1923, he led all National League shortstops in fielding; nine .years later, at 39, he was still nimble enough to lead all second basemen. Finally, after 23 years as a major leaguer (with five clubs), the Rabbit, still playing baseball to the hilt, broke his leg sliding into home plate in a spring exhibition game and ended his active career.
He finally took the pledge, too, though it did not seem to lessen his zest for fun or the game he loved. In recent years he directed the New York Journal-American’s sandlot-baseball program. Among his alumni: Yankee Pitcher Whitey Ford, Brooklyn Pitcher Billy Loes. Last week, as baseball writers were sealing their ballots for elections to the game’s Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Rabbit Maranville, among the leading candidates, died of a heart attack at 61 in his New York City home. There were many who fondly remembered the Rabbit’s quick chuckle as he finished a story: “Well, we had a lot of laughs.”
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