HUGH CASEY - OF ANOTHER ERA
Cutlass Personality Cursed by Timing
"Hugh Casey's personality was shaped for the business end of a buccaneering cutlass and he was cursed by timing which hurled him swearing into the opaque, gray tones of the Twentieth Century. Spiritually, he belonged in the company of Robin Hood or the Black Prince's brawling bands, but destiny chose to match him with a society based upon capital gains and a fly-blown tenor leaking in through the radio. He should have pitched for the likes of John McGraw or George Stallings. Instead, he was forced to sweat with athletic young businessmen motivated almost entirely by the figures in their contracts.
For Hugh Casey was the old-fashioned ball player who chased red likker with Tabasco sauce, doused umpires with sprays of tobacco juice and played with a passion for his profession. There was little beauty in his character, but he was bleakly sincere- a man of raw courage and physical skills.
In the early hours of a Georgia morning, Hugh Casey pressed the muzzle of a shotgun against his throat and touched it off. So he tore loose from life in a fashion geared to his primitive nature- with the burly fury of a bull smashing into granite ramparts. For Hugh Casey was not geared to subtle poisons or the cobra hiss of an open gas jet. If it had to be, it had to be by reckless violence- in a blood-dewed room with a thunderclap battering against him.
But this was only tragic anticlimax, for the essential climax of tragedy came in Ebbets Field on the afternoon of October 5, 1941.
One of baseball's noblest relief pitchers, Hugh Casey could never quite cover the price of fame for which he spent so much in craft and solid bravery. But on that autumn-tasting afternoon in 1941, the ultimate laurel seemed plastered against the palm of his soiled right hand.
This was the fourth conflict of the World Series between New York and Brooklyn- Yankees leading, two games to one. With the Dodgers grasping at the short end of 3-2, the Bronx invaders had filled the fifth-inning bases with two out and Casey strode in from the bullpen for the third time. He walked with a rowdy swagger- uniform fouled by sweat and dust- a brown sneer stained upon his face.
Joe Gordon waited at the plate swinging a bludgeon which had already claimed five hits in eight times at bat. One had been a triple, another had cleared the wall and Joe had driven in two runs. Working with a cunning patience, Casey watched the batsman lift a meek fly into the hands of Jimmy Wasdell.
In the bottom of the fifth, Dixie Walker doubled and Pete Reiser hit an Atley Donald pitch across the scoreboard to drive the Dodgers out front, 4-3. With Casey insolently in the groove, that seemed quite sufficient. For in the next three innings, he faced only 11 men. Johnny Sturm singled with two out in the fifth and Joe DiMaggio marked the seventh with a topped roller which was shabby for an infield hit. The others didn't come close.
In the ninth, Sturm was smeared on a placid nudge and Casey threw out Red Rolfe. Came Tommy Henrich, the pro, and Casey pitched with meticulous care as the count ran out at 3-2. From the press box, we could see the muscles along the Casey jaw in a rigid curve of bronze as he studied the pattern before him.
The Yankees play it by the book and, in this instance, the book called for a fastball. But the men of New York were unaccustomed to a Casey who played it like a Mississippi River gambler riding his luck on an inside straight. Casey came up with a curve against a left-handed batter.
Rearing back in a stubby windup which was without artistry but rich in power, Casey blew a blur of white across the inside. As such things are done, it was exquisitely molded. The ball came up to brush a corner and Henrich, waiting for a speed pitch, cut hard. But at the instant of destiny, the spin of the projectile screamed a warning.
Desperately he sought to check the momentum of bat's end, but it was all too late as his wrists collapsed and the swing went on as the ball swerved past his straining hands. Strike three and the game was over. Casey had beaten the Yankees and the World Series had come level once more.
But catcher Mickey Owen reached lazily across instead of shifting. The pitch caromed from his leather and rolled to the screen while Henrich went sweeping down to first. There was no fear on Casey's face- only fury seething beneath the peak of his cap. He brushed caution from his path and set out to overpower the enemy.
DiMaggio bored a single into left. With two strikes and no balls reared against Charlie Keller, Casey came in burning fast and Keller angled off the wall for two bases. Bill Dickey walked and Gordon rifled a long blow over Wasdell's questing glove. Four runs and that was the end of it.
Or was the end of it until six years later when found himself in another World Series with the Yankees? Pitching with heart and arms blended into a weapon of sinister magnificence, he entered into combat with thirty-five batsmen- allowed five far-spaced hits and a single run. He won two games, but he won them in a losing cause and losing causes are forgotten rather quickly."
-Walter Stewart, condensed from the Memphis Commercial Appeal (Baseball Digest, September 1951)
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