“[Shortstop Elio] Chacon… was eager but not very talented. And he kept running into the outfield and knocking down Richie Ashburn as he was about to catch a fly ball. And he didn’t speak any English, so Joe Christopher went to him and tried to explain this and then he went to Richie Ashburn and said, “If you’re going to catch a fly ball,” he said, “and you see Chacon coming out, what you want to say is, ‘Yo la tengo. Yo la tengo.’—‘I’ve got it.’ And he’ll pull up.” So Richie practiced, he said, “Yo la tengo” and a game came along and it was a fly ball. He looked up for the fly ball. Chacon rushed out for him. Richie said, “Yo la tengo, yo la tengo,” and he put his hands up—and was knocked flat by Frank Thomas, his left fielder. That was the Mets.”
—
Roger Angell on the 1962 New York Mets, the losingest major league team in the modern era, as quoted by Geoffrey C. Ward in Baseball: An Illustrated History. (via nullarysources)
And that’s where Yo La Tengo’s name comes from!
(via mightyflynn)
