Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-05-25

A strapping
lad of six feet two, Van Lingle showed more
of an inclination for baseball and other sports
than for commerce in his youth. AS early as
1880 when he was with the Winston Salem
club in the Piedmont League, big league
scouts were looking him over.
One of them. Dick Rudolph of the Braves
(now called the Bees) reported back to his
manager Bill McKechnie, that Mungo would
never do as he didn't have a fast ball This
sour notice cost Rudolph his job the following
season. Nap Ruckcr, scouting through the
hiuterlands Of Dixie for the Dodgers had
also looked over Mungo and tabled him as
a conner. on Maps say-so, the Dodgers had
bought him and sent him to their Hartford
farm in 1881.
Called up 10 the parent club at the end Of
the Eastern League season. MunEo made his
debut at Ebbets Field one day in September
1881, in the second game of double header
with the Bees. With a fast ball that reminded
the Dodger fans of Dazzy Vance who was
then on the way out. Mungo turned back the
Boston club in his firstmajor league effort
AS Manager McKechnie and Judge Emil
Fuchs then president of the Braves, were
walking across the diamond 10 the club house
after the game, the Judge asked
Who was that young fellow who pitched
against us in the second game ?"
oh that guy" said Bill He's that
Mungo fellow from the Piedmont League that
Rudolph said didn't have a fast ball"
Fire Rudolph at once" ordered the Judge.
So MunGo whom trouble seems to follow
like his shadow, began his career as a big
league pitcher by being the innocent cause
Of a scout losing his Job.
Dodger fans who said that day that Van
Lingle Mungo would fill vances shoes, didn't
know that he was actually filling them at the
very moment they were talking about il.
The big fellow forgot to bring his shoes
along from Hartford when he reported so
he borrowed pair of Dazzys hunion cases
In Hartford, where they insure practically
everything. they wouldn't issue a policy on
Mungo because he is somnambulst.
One of the most comical condolences since
one suffering guy asked another stammerer
how to get TO Blocker street and got a
punch on the nose instead of the right direc-
tons, took place in Hartford when Mungo
was assigned to room with Paul Richards
Paul also did roadwork in his dreams
There was strange goings-on in their room
when the dead of night had descended on dear
old Hartford Night after night one or the
other would be awakened by the commotion
made by his roommate in doing his Dan
OLeary around the bed room. More than
once, they saved each other from stepping out
of sixth floor window into space
Mungo will never forget the night he and
Richards sleep-walked double-header Mungo
woke up under the bed and also, under the
impression that he had just walked through
the center Of the earth to Shanghai, China
Richards came TO in clothes closet which
refused TO open its walls and let him pass
through on his way around the bases on a
home run that broke Babe Ruths record.
In view of Vans nocturnal pilgrimages
while in the realm of Morpheus it could well
be that he was walking in his sleep when he
arrived in the room occupied by the two
women in the Hotel Nacional, on that fatefit
morning during the Ides OF March
One Of Mungo's coolest adventures hap
pcncd in 1856 when he allowed himself to be