Joost to Suder to Fain

By guest blogger Bruce Solomon

In 1949, the Philadelphia A’s set a still-standing major-league record by turning 217 double plays. The A’s went on to accumulate a three-year total of 629 DPs, a record that stands today, even with MLB’s longer playing seasons. Most of these twin-killings involved their keystone combination of shortstop Eddie Joost and second baseman Pete Suder, along with first baseman Ferris Fain. Using the meter of Franklin Pierce Adams’ famous “Tinker to Evers to Chance,” the A’s PR director Dick Armstrong in 1950 composed a poetic tribute to these now-forgotten A’s record-setters, “Joost to Suder to Fain”:

Voluminous prose has been written by those

Who have this one thought to advance:

That the greatest combine in the double play line

Was Tinker to Evers to Chance.

Those three famous Cubs were surely not dubs.

Their fielding was something sublime.

They were far and away the class of their day,

The double play kings of the time.

But they’ve since been dethroned and partly disowned.

No longer as kings do they reign.

For a new DP team is ruling supreme,

Known as Joost to Suder to Fain.

These sensational A’s have perfected their ways

To a point where they lead all the rest.

As twin killings go, three years in a row

They’ve ranked as the Major Leagues’ best.

There’s never a worry; they’ll comply in a hurry,

When a quick double play is desired.

A roller or liner just couldn’t be finer,

You can bet that two men are retired.

You may already know what the record books show,

Three years they’ve continued to shine,

All others surpassing this record amassing:

A total of six twenty-nine!

Eddie Joost rings the bell as a shortstop as well

As a mighty good man with the stick.

To select someone who has an arm that’s as true,

It would be an impossible pick.

On second there stands “the man with the hands.”

If a ball’s hit to Pete there’s no doubt.

You never need look, jot it down in your book,

It’s a cinch that the batter is out.

A hitter’s accursed with Ferris on first.

There’s no one as clever as he,

At spearing a bounder or sizzling grounder

And completing that tough three-six-three.

A long time from now, when they’re telling of how

So and so could get two with no strain,

We’ll think of the days of Connie Mack’s A’s,

And of Joost and Suder and Fain.

— Dick Armstrong, 1950