Kiner’s Korner

From the headline of this blog, it would be reasonable to think, Again on Joe and Marilyn, Marilyn and Joe? But there was another slugger, with the second-highest home-run percentage (next to Babe Ruth) in Major League Baseball history, who dated a Hollywood beauty around the years Monroe and The Clipper made headlines….

“Bing Crosby owned the Pirates at the time. It was off-season, and I then lived in California. Bing called and asked if I wanted a date with Elizabeth Taylor. ‘Who wouldn’t?’ I responded. I arrived at what struck me as a rather modest house. We were going to the film premiere of Twelve O’clock High, and I wore a tuxedo. She was late, so I had to spend an hour chatting with her parents. Her father turned out to be an affable soul, but her mother behaved in an abrupt, almost rude manner. Mrs. Taylor treated her husband as if he were an incidental person in the household.

“Elizabeth finally emerged in an evening dress and proved to be a lovely lady, not yet spoiled by her success. After the premiere, we attended a party at Romanoff’s. Hedda Hopper asked Elizabeth about me, and since the Pittsburgh Steelers were in town to play the Los Angeles Rams in a football game that weekend, Liz erroneously identified me as the Steelers quarterback. I didn’t bother to correct her.”

—Ralph Kiner
Quoted in David Heymann’s Liz: An Intimate Biography of Elizabeth Taylor

(Always on the ball, Martin asks if Kiner got to first base. Keep in mind he was one of the most adept ever at circling all the bases.)