Yankees of the Past: June 2018

DIMAGGIO JUST DOESN'T KNOW YET
He Won't Rush Decision About 1952
"Joe DiMaggio sipped sallow coffee from a cardboard container. 'Made up your mind yet?' I asked.
We were sitting on stools in front of his locker in the New York Yankees' clubhouse before the Boston Red Sox beat the Yanks, 4-2, in the Stadium one night toward the end of the season. It was not necessary for me to explain the question. In the spring of the year DiMaggio told the ball reporters 1951 might be his last year as a player.
'I still feel the same way,' he said. 'I don't know.'
He paused and took a long drag on the cigarette.
'I really don't know,' he said. 'The point is I don't have to make up my mind the day after the season ... the day after the Series. When does the gun go off? The season starts in the spring, doesn't it? I got time to think it over.'
Eddie Lopat came over and asked him to autograph a baseball.
'You were really cutting the pie out there tonight,' Lopat said. 'You were like a young back taking your cuts.'
'Cool weather,' DiMaggio said, 'a clean uniform, a shave and a haircut.'
Most athletes turn cranky when you ask them about the old age that attacks them in their robust prime, but DiMaggio talked about diminishing skills as though he were another ball player on another team.
'No one is going to rush my decision,' he said. 'It's my decision. I'm smart enough to know you don't go on in this game forever. Your time comes.'
It is what all of them know but seldom concede.
'At times I'm strictly lousy,' he said. 'Then I go off into a streak. I really don't know.'
There was no bitterness as he appraised himself with a cruel knowledge. DiMaggio understands what is happening to him. They all do, but few have admitted it with as much grace as the greatest ball player of his generation.
'I'm not fooling anyone,' he said. 'I'm not fooling myself. I'm going out there and play ball. I'm doing the best I can. I'm trying to get the best out of myself, hoping I break loose.'
It is clear to him his splendid skills have diminished, but there is in him the belief he may be able to play center field for the Yankees another year. There is also much doubt.
'I haven't given up on myself,' he explained. 'There's no set date when I have to say anything about it. I put no limit on myself, so I'm taking my time.'
It had been a bad season for him, but not once during our conversation did he complain. I mentioned the numerous sports section obits that had been written about him this year.
'I don't want any pity,' he said. 'I haven't asked anyone for anything. It's up to them what they write. I'm just up there taking my cuts as often as I can. As long as I'm hitting in the fourth slot, I'm going to do the best I can do. I have nothing to regret.'
DiMaggio tapped his right arm with his left. 'I couldn't lift it up early in the season,' he said.
It was no secret around the league.
'It's strong as a bull now,' he said. 'It came around. It's all right now. I threw a guy out at Cleveland and a guy out in Detroit.'
He stood up and pressed his right elbow against his side and made a delicate flipping motion with his wrist.
'I threw this way,' he said. 'I had to. I don't know what was wrong with it, but when I threw it felt like the bones were coming apart. I couldn't throw overhand. I felt like my arm was coming off. I had to keep the arm close and throw like an infielder.'
DiMaggio has always tried to be accurate when describing what he does. It was that way that night. The truth is important to him even when it defaces his talent.
'It's real strong,' he said, 'but who knows how it will be tomorrow.' It was all there in that sentence. He can't be sure anymore, but he has to be positive because this is the great crisis of his life.
The strain of the worthless arm probably affected his hitting, but he didn't use that as an excuse.
'I used to warm up with Yogi Berra and had him falling up and down,' he said. 'I couldn't even lob the ball right. I'd get a ball in the outfield and hope someone didn't take advantage of me and get away with it. They knew my arm was bad ... the guys on the other team. Casey Stengel knew it. He went along.'
He smiled at the recollection of one of his few good throws when the arm was aching.
'Couple of them tried to take advantage of me and they didn't get away with it,' he said.
It was time for the game to start. He threw the cigarette into the sandbox and picked up his glove.
'The old boy has to go to work,' he said.
He walked out, tall and slim, and not appearing old at all."

-Jimmy Cannon, condensed from the New York Post (Baseball Digest, November 1951)

PERSONAL TO DIMAGGIO: DON'T CHANGE YOUR MIND, JOE!
"Joe DiMaggio has received thousands of ovations in his thirteen seasons with the New York Yankees, but none more sincere, more touching, than the applause which beat accompaniment to his every jogging step as he returned to his position in the ninth inning of the last 1951 World Series game.
The tribute started, ironically enough, when DiMaggio was thrown out at third base to end the Yankees' half of the eighth, but that had nothing to do with the reaction of the fans. They simply wanted Joe to know what they thought of him on this, his last appearance in a big league uniform.
It may not have been his last, but the fans sensed that it was. The Old Pro had compiled quite a Series record after a bad start. He had collected six hits, including a home run, in his last twelve times at bat. He had fielded his position flawlessly. He was ahead. It would be a good time to quit. He seemed happier, more friendly, than he had appeared in months.
Some observers believe his strong finish in the Series will encourage him to try another season and thus use the loophole left in his retirement announcement after the Series, but his best friends hope he will hang'em up. By the old DiMaggio standard, he had a depressing year. He batted only .263, hit only twelve home runs, batted in only seventy runs. Three times in the season, opposing managers did what none ever had dared to do before. They walked the man ahead- because they believed Joe would be less dangerous.
On two of these occasions, DiMaggio responded with a base hit, but that was beyond the point. The fact remained that the Jolter wasn't frightening people anymore. He couldn't get his bat around with the old speed and power, and everyone in baseball knew it.
Early in the Series, the New York Giants crowed openly that they had discovered how to stop DiMaggio. They were pitching away from him. If that was a discovery, the Giants were the first to learn that the sun rises in the East. American League pitchers knew it all along. DiMaggio was dangerous only when an opposing pitcher couldn't throw his fastball where he wanted to throw it.
Joe turned 37, November 25. As baseball ages go, that's well beyond the average, even for a fellow who has not been plagued with serious injuries from his first year in the league. The game no longer can be fun for him. His attitude all season made this obvious.
If he tries to play again in 1952 he will do so for one reason only- money. I was surprised to learn in New York that DiMaggio actually was paid a salary pretty close to the $100,000 advertised. This made him tops among baseball's earners. No one in his right mind believes that Ted Williams got within $40,000 of the $125,000 rumored.
In any case, if that final Series game in Yankee Stadium marked the last appearance of his famous Number Five, he couldn't have had a warmer, or a more richly merited bon voyage from the fans. I hope he calls it a career while the cheers are still fresh in his memory."

-Ed McAuley (condensed from the Cleveland News, Baseball Digest, January 1952)

TWELVE HITS MAKE .300 HITTER
"'Hustle means running out those pop flies behind the pitcher's box,' said ex-Cleveland Manager Oscar Vitt in addressing a group of New York Yankee prospects. 'Don't throw your bat away in disgust and jog to first. Once in a while those sure outs are dropped.
'You know the difference between a .280 man and a .300 hitter? Only twelve base hits in a 154-game schedule. If you scramble for the extra twelve you can make the .300 circle. I never did myself. In my day the emphasis was on fielding.
'I'll take the plodding hustler. If I had to win one game on a certain day, I'd take Tommy Henrich over Ted Williams in the clutch.'
Vitt had an afterthought. 'They talk about DiMaggio's hitting,' he said. 'Why, Big Joe beat more clubs with his glove and his arm than he did with his bat,' and Vitt is no man to discount DiMaggio's power.
'Cleveland had a first baseman named Hal Trosky who could hit a long ball with the best of 'em,' Vitt recalled.
'One day in the big Cleveland park, Trosky cowtailed one out of sight with the bases loaded, two outs,' Vitt told the Yankee gathering. 'I waved out runners around. I challenged DiMaggio to get THAT one.
'He did. He retreated to the wall, 450 feet away and speared it one-handed. Okay. So DiMag can play deep.
'Next time up, Trosky took his usual toehold and DiMag was in deep center. But Trosky hit the ball on his fists for a blooper behind short. I challenged Joe to get THAT one.
'He did.'"

-Will Connolly, The San Francisco Examiner (Baseball Digest, April 1952)

HOW HARDER HELD DIMAGGIO TO .180
"Mel Harder, the pitcher who gave Joe DiMaggio the most trouble throughout his career by Joe's candid say-so, did it by wasting his famous curve and then fastballing him tight.
Harder is a big right-hander standing six feet one and weighing 200 pounds. He wears glasses in keeping with his professional status of coach of the Cleveland Indians under Manager Al Lopez. He has not worked a game since 1947, the year he retired after twenty seasons with Cleveland. His forty-two birthdays hang lightly on his shoulders.
We remember the October day in 1936 when DiMaggio came home to the family flat on Taylor Street near Lombard. Joe had just completed his freshman semester with the New York Yankees. He said then that the one pitcher up there who gave him fits was Harder. The Clevelander was a twenty-two-game-winner the year before and annoyed other batsmen than young Joe.
Sixteen years later, ol' Joe was asked the same question on the occasion of his retirement, and the answer was the same. Mel Harder consistently got in his hair the worst- not Bob Feller, not Lefty Grove, not Hal Newhouser.
What kind of stuff did Harder throw at DiMaggio that he didn't like? How did Harder work on DiMag? 'Come clean, now, Mel,' we urged recently. 'Both you guys are inactive.'
'Honest, there was no secret which other pitchers didn't know,' Harder said. 'I just happened to have the equipment that didn't mesh with DiMaggio's gears. I had the Indian sign on him the first year he came up from Frisco. Joe got off on the wrong foot against me. Ever after, I held an edge upstairs in the mind.'
Oh, come out of it, Melvin. DiMag wasn't one to be psychologized. He hit pitchers who were as good as you. What technical deliveries did you aim at him that he couldn't hit with a paddle?
'Well, I'll tell you,' Harder began. 'In the first place, DiMaggio took a flat-footed stance and didn't swing until the last fraction of a second. He looked over what you had to serve before committing himself.
'Consequently, you couldn't fool him with a curve. He murdered a breaking ball. It comes in slower than a straight one. I was known as a curve-ball man, so DiMaggio expected me to curve him.
'I never gave him my curve over the plate. I'd throw the curve and slider four and five inches outside the corner. Good enough to swing at but not good enough for DiMaggio to get the thick part of his bat on it.
'I wasted my curve on him, deliberately, as a threat. I wanted him to know I had it. Give him a look, as they say. It would be suicide to hang up a curve in DiMaggio's strike zone. He had it timed before it left your hand.'
Harder neutralized DiMag by pouring the fast one inside on his wrists. Ball players call it 'on the fists.'
From what Harder says, you had to weave an Oriental rug pattern to fool DiMaggio. Tease him outside with breaking stuff that he couldn't reach- and then whoosh one hard under his chin.
The worst day, among many, that DiMaggio suffered at the hand of Harder was in 1940 when Mel beat the Yankees, 5-4, at Cleveland. He fanned DiMag three times on eleven pitched balls.
'He was never easy for me,' Harder amends. 'I had to work like a dog to get him out. I guess I'll be famous in years to come as the pitcher who held DiMaggio to a .180 average.'"

by Will Connolly, San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, July 1952)

IN ABSENTIA
"After a New York Yankee defeat by Detroit, a fan bellowed: 'There's another game Joe DiMaggio lost.'
'What do you mean 'Joe DiMaggio lost'?' snapped Joe's roommate, Gentleman Georgie Solotaire.
'By not playing,' retorted the fan."

-Earl Wilson in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, July 1952)

THEN YOU'RE OVER THE HILL, BROTHER!
"Joe DiMaggio, now a TV commentator rather a New York Yankee flychaser, tells how a ball player knows when his youth is going.
'It's like this ... you're chasing a ball and your brain sends out commands to your body.
' 'Run forward,' your brain says.
'Then: 'Bend!' ... 'Scoop up the ball!' ... 'Peg it to the infield!' ... '
'Yes, and then what?' asked an eager friend.
' 'When,' said Joe, 'your body says, 'Who, me?' you know you haven't got it anymore.'"

-Baseball Digest, August 1952

MEMORY COURSE
"Lefty Gomez, who was Joe DiMaggio's roommate for six years, tells this story on the immortal DiMag:
'Joe wasn't with us too long before the papers began writing him up in glowing terms. 'DiMaggio is so good he'll make people forget Tris Speaker,' the columnists insisted. Joe got to believing it. So, like Speaker, he began playing a shallow center field. Used to drive me goofy. I complained, but DiMag would only grin and say, 'I'm the guy who is supposed to make people forget about Tris Speaker, remember?'
'Finally, we were in Detroit, and Rudy York, that Indian monster, was at bat. I looked around, and there was DiMag, only a few yards back of second base. I tried to wave him deep, but Joe persisted. Well, it happened. York unloaded a line drive that rattled around center for half an hour before Joe flagged it down.
'Riding back to the hotel after the game, I asked DiMag why he didn't smarten up and play deep when guys with muscles all over like York were hitting. 'I'm supposed to make people forget Speaker,' laughed Joe. 'Yeh,' I didn't laugh, 'but before you do that you'll make people forget Gomez!' ' "

-Bob Stevens in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, September 1952)

Yankees of the Past

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

1952 Yankee of the Past: Joe DiMaggio

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

1951 Yankees of the Past: Zack Taylor and Bill Wight

1951 Yankee of the Past: George Stirnweiss