BOOK REVIEW: Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms : A Lifetime of
Memories from Striking Out the Babe to Teeing It Up With the President
Written by Elden Auker with Tom Keegan (Triumph Books; ISBN: 1892049252)

Review by Stuart Shea

There aren't many people alive who pitched against Babe Ruth. There are even
fewer whose lives didn't peak with that event. Elden Auker is one such man,
and his recently-released autobiography, "Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms"
[Triumph Books] is a welcome treasure.

At 90, Elden (misspelled "Eldon" during his playing days) Auker is still spry
and full of life. He and his co-author, New York Post baseball columnist Tom
Keegan, have spun an enteraining book of stories about Auker's baseball life
and his encounters with the famous (Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Cochrane, Ted
Williams, the Kennedy family, Joe Louis, Lefty Grove) and the not-so-famous,
including the folks in his hometown of Norcatur, Kansas. Many of them simply
couldn't conceive of little Elden actually being paid to play professional baseball.

"Sleeper Cars" is jammed with stories about the greats and not-so-greats of
Auker's time. A star right-handed hurler who played in the majors from 1933
through 1942, Auker won 130 games in the majors, played on two pennant
winners, and was one of the most successful submarine pitchers of all time.

A member of the 1934-35 Tigers, who won a World Series against the Cubs and
lost one against the Cardinals, Auker talks about Cochrane, Dizzy Dean, Hank
Greenberg, Goose Goslin, and others of his time, and many of these stories
have never been told before. He also has things to say about some other
well-known at the time but now-forgotten figures such as Tommy Bridges, Chief
Hogsett ("Babe Ruth couldn't hit Chief Hogsett with a handful of sand"), and
Wes Farrell.

Perhaps the most amazing story is a tale concerning Babe Ruth and a famous
infielder-turned-manager that has, to my knowledge, never before been aired
in public. I'm not going to spoil it by telling.

When Auker was done in the majors, he went on to a long career as a salesman
in the bonded abrasives business. During his travels, he met several U.S.
presidents, and he tells some good stories about them, too.

The only real problem with this book is that when you've finished reading it,
you've learned precious little about Elden Auker himself. Save a touching
tribute to his wife of close to 70 years, Mildred, in the last chapter, there
is not much in "Sleeper Cars and Flannel Uniforms" about Elden Auker--about
what kind of pitcher he was, about what his strategy on the mound was, about
what kind of pitches he threw. You also don't get much of an idea of how he
felt about the historical events unwinding around him: integration, politics,
higher salaries, the changing American society, and the like.

Auker's few comments about such matters ("We played for the money, too. To
say that we played for the love of the game is to perpetuate a myth",
"Baseball careers and Oreo cookies both have short shelf lives") are
interesting enough and welcome enough that you end up wanting much more of
him and fewer stories about his colleagues. And that's the sign of a truly
interesting person.