1954 Yankee of the Past: Chuck Dressen

WHY O'MALLEY CHUCKED DRESSEN
Here's 'Inside' On Amazing Bums' Rush
"Behind the amazing 'it-could-only-happen-in-Brooklyn' one-act managerial drama were the clash of two incompatible personalities, Walter O'Malley and Chuck Dressen, and the shadowy influence of Branch Rickey, Burt Shotton, Leo Durocher and Pee Wee Reese.
O'Malley, Dodgers' president, could have handled Dressen's peeve easily had he cared to retain Charlie. Instead, he seized almost gratefully on the 'long-contract or else' letter written by Mrs. Dressen. This missive put Chuck in the position of dictating to the front office- running the business- and O'Malley readily made it a case of 'or-else.'
The letter was the welcome peg on which to hang accumulated irritation of the front office by Dressen. In brief, Charlie talked too much about Charlie for O'Malley's taste.
The Dodgers' president is suave and tactful in his dealings and as a successful advertising executive, he has a keen sense of public presentation of a product. He has squirmed over the poor press baseball as a whole received in the Happy Chandler, player labor relations, and recent legal action episodes, largely because baseball did not care to make a clear and forceful statement of its own case.
Dressen made him writhe.
It began soon after Chuck took over in 1951 when he repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Shotton. It built up with such incidents as the castigation of Erv Palica, the magazine article that the Dodgers would not blow it again, the long-continued insistence that Chuck had wrong information from his coaches in pitching Ralph Branca to Bobby Thomson in the 1951 playoff defeat by the Giants. There was the 'Giants Is Dead' last September, which was perhaps not distasteful except as a part of the three-year pattern.
In addition, Dressen believed he was vitally important to the team, but the front office did not think so. O'Malley and associates feel the Dodgers are good enough to win under any competent manager. What they desperately need is a win over the Yankees. Otherwise, they are the best in a league by far, and yet in a desperate struggle to break even financially each year. Dressen's failure to appreciate the urgency of the World Series, his managing as if he were playing the Reds in June, burned the front office but was not the compelling reason for his ouster.
Chuck put himself on the spot, and while he has his pride, he might also have had his job if he requested, instead of demanded, a long contract.
The background on O'Malley-Dressen relations is fascinating. The president fired Shotton, after taking over the club from Rickey in bitter fighting late in 1950, on two admitted counts. One was the need for a more colorful figure than the 'old man' who would not wear a monkey suit. The other was the merciless crusade against Shotton by New York's largest newspaper. A third, not admitted, was the fact Shotton was Rickey's man.
O'Malley first indicated he made have made a mistake on Dressen about June 1951, when Chuck criticized Shotton in the western league cities. The president sent Fresco Thompson, veep, to interview several writers with the club, and to get Chuck's version first hand.
After the 1951 season, when Dressen blew to the Giants, as Shotton had to the Phils the year before, O'Malley was in a cul-de-sac. He did not want, as a baseball newcomer, to become known as a manager-a-year executive.
He got out gracefully by stating he had made mistake in firing Shotton, and that he would not make a similar mistake by firing Dressen. His point was that the organization should share the blame with the manager. Because of O'Malley's experience with Shotton, Dressen got a free ride which he held for two winning years.
All the while, through shifts from Durocher to Shotton to Durocher to Shotton to Dressen as manager, there was a little balance wheel on the Dodgers called Pee Wee Reese.
Through Durocher's screaming technique, through Shotton's brusqueness, through the 'I Am' regime of Dressen, Reese was the calming influence on a group of athletes which included highly temperamental members.
Whether naturally or by design, Reese gradually eased himself out of the cliques of MacPhail's time and took stature with the entire squad as the sort of senior statesman, or cracker-barrel philosopher of the clubhouse.
After any game, you would find players coming to Pee Wee with their squawks, or asking his advice, while he puffed on his pipe and made considered judgments. Jackie Robinson, most tempestuous of the Dodgers, will rave about Reese as 'a real captain, on the field, in the clubhouse, everywhere.'
Pee Wee is Leo Durocher's boy. It was The Lip who made Reese captain, pushed him into assuming responsibility, and taught him the shortstop trade, as Brooklyn manager under MacPhail. Reese to this day respects no one in baseball more than Durocher."

-Joe King, condensed from the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, January 1954)

HE ASKED FOR IT!'
"Charlie Dressen, speaking at a dinner in Fresno, Cal., this spring, concluded his talk with a question-and-answer, audience-participation period. Everything went fine until one diner stood up and asked:
'Charlie, this season when you're thinking about taking a pitcher out- are you going to ask your wife?'
It took a corporal's guard to keep Dressen's coat on his back and keep him off the diner's."

-Newark News (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

1954 Yankee of the Past: Branch Rickey

PIRATED?
"Branch Rickey, Sr., of the Pirates, had a cruiser moored at a dock on the Allegheny River at East Brady, Pa., all summer. Said cruiser was equipped with 27 fishing rods and 11 boxes full of tackle. It was a bit chilly on the river one Sunday and to keep himself and guests warm, Mr. Rickey provided some of those doeskin cloth coats, lined with sheepskin, mainly used by athletes. Across the back of each coat, in large letters, was 'Brooklyn Dodgers.' "

-Al Abrams in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, January 1954)

FALLING BRANCH
"When Branch Rickey was boss of the Brooklyn front office, he loved to discourse in dramatic tones. Let Tommy Holmes of the Brooklyn Eagle tell this one:
'Rickey had a quaint stock script for dramatizing the sort of situation he faced. He would lean back in his swivel chair, pretend to suffer from an attack of dizziness, reach out wavering hands. 'I am slipping out of a high window,' he would declaim in Shakespearian tones. 'I must have help. Only one man can save me. Who is that man?'
'He reeled off a list of half a dozen names. 'Is this the man who can save me? Or this? Or this?' Rickey asked.
'There was a moment of silence. Then one of his aides piped up. 'Do you think you'll bounce when you hit the sidewalk, Mr. Rickey?' ' "

-Baseball Digest, January 1954

WHEN RICKEY OUTSMARTED HIMSELF
"Undeniably Branch Rickey is a shrewd man with a baseball player and with a buck, but he, too, has been outsmarted on occasion. In fact, he once outsmarted himself.
It happened back in 1941. Rickey, then with the Cardinals, sold Don Padgett, a big but largely undistinguished outfielder, to the Dodgers for $25,000. However, he neglected to inform Larry MacPhail, then Brooklyn president, that Padgett had enlisted in the Navy.
When MacPhail found out that Padgett was in Service, he swore he would never hand over the $25,000 over to the Cards. MacPhail then went into the Service. Two years later Rickey moved to Brooklyn to run the Dodgers.
Rickey had barely installed his favorite swivel chair in his new office in Brooklyn but who should report to the club but Padgett. He was out of Service and ready to play ball again. MacPhail still had never paid St. Louis for him. So Commissioner Landis ruled that Rickey had to pay the Cards the $25,000 before Padgett could play for Brooklyn."

-Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, April 1954)

RICKEY'S TWO-PUNCH MEAL TICKET
He Sold Danny O'Connell Twice
"An odd thing in the trade of young Danny O'Connell to Milwaukee is that it was the second time he was dealt off by Branch Rickey, each time for the same reason- money. What's more, had Clark Griffith been a bit more punctual in returning a telephone call back in the winter of 1949, O'Connell might have been the Washington shortstop, second or third baseman today.
As the story is told by Harold Parrott, who served under Rickey at Brooklyn and is business manager of the Dodgers today, O'Connell was ticketed for Washington. It was not Griffith's doing, but Rickey's.
'The Old Man (Rickey) had been burned when Brooklyn had a football team in the National League,' Parrott relates. 'In order to balance the budget, Rickey decided to sell some of his prize stock off the farms. He didn't want to sell O'Connell to a National League club if he could help it, and he didn't want him to wind up with the Yankees or Indians or some club that might play the Dodgers in a future World Series.
'So (Parrott continues) he called up Griffith and said:
' 'I know you are looking for a shortstop. I've got one to sell. He's a young fellow named O'Connell. Look up his record, talk it over with Bucky Harris, and call me back by 1 o'clock this afternoon.'
'Griffith put it off. When he finally called, Rickey told him that because he hadn't heard from him by 1 o'clock, the Dodgers had sold O'Connell to Pittsburgh.
'Rickey sensed Griffith's disappointment and said, 'Well, I've got another young player you might like- a center fielder. His name is Irv Noren. Ask Harris about him, because Bucky saw him play in the Pacific Coast League. If you want him, I'll sell.' '
That's how Noren came to Washington. In subsequent trades, Noren was transformed into Jackie Jensen, who in turn has been transformed into Pitcher Maurice McDermott and Outfielder Tom Umphlett. Not bad, but O'Connell was the prize Rickey originally extended to Griffith.
When Rickey moved from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh, he fell heir to O'Connell again, saw him blossom and, apparently, ran into his old bugaboo, lack of cash. So he sold him to the Braves for cash and five players.
Rickey thought enough of O'Connell to send him a telegram after his sale to Milwaukee. 'He was telling me how sorry he was to let me go,' Danny said recently. 'I don't see anything to be sorry about. It's just great. Imagine, making the jump from a last-place club to a team which has a good chance. I'm really happy. Now when I dream about a World Series, it isn't impossible.' "

-Francis Stann, condensed from the Washington Star (Baseball Digest, April 1954)

BRANCH RICKEY'S THREE POINTS TO STARDOM
"Baseball is my business, but it is much more than that. I still get the same thrill out of the game I did as a kid. In our Pittsburgh organization there are nearly 400 players, most of whom I know personally, as well as many of their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles.
I'm no father to these boys- they don't want that. I am their employer, and they have to make good. But I also want to be their friend and will do everything I can to help them.
These players have ability- all of them. Many will play in the major leagues if they perform up to their capabilities. It is my job, and that of our manager and coaches, to bring men to their best- to help make ability and capacity meet.
Some of the players will come through. Others won't.
What makes the difference?
There are three qualities which seem to be highly valuable, if not indispensable, to success.
First, a man should feel that the job he is doing is worthwhile. A man can sell something better if he believes in it. The fact that the product is worthwhile dignifies his efforts; he is continually challenged to do better.
It is simply great if a ball player believes that what he is doing has purpose and dignity and is worthwhile.
The second point is even more important, and is best illustrated by two contrasting stories.
Many years ago, when I was managing the St. Louis Browns, I lost a game to Detroit in the last half of the eleventh inning in a very unusual manner- nothing else like it in the record books anywhere. Detroit came to bat in the last half of the eleventh inning in a tie-score game, two men out and nobody on the bases, when Ty Cobb came to bat.
Cobb got a base on balls then scored the winning run without another ball being pitched. By sheer adventure and skill he forced two wild throws by St. Louis infielders. His daring at first base, his boldness and skillful turn at second, his characteristic slide ten feet before he reached third, his quick coordination before his slide- all brought about four 'breaks' in his favor. He made what amounted to home run out of a bases on balls.
In the very same game, there was a player on my team by the name of Walker, a man who had all the physical qualities to be a great player. During a game in Beaumont, Tex., the following spring, Walker hit what should have been a home run- and was thrown out at third.
Walker's slow start to first base, as he watched his hard line-drive fall between the left and center fielders, cost him 20 feet. Next, he lost another 30 feet making too wide a turn around first toward second base. Then, seeing the elusive ball on its way to the Texas prairies (the left field fence was down for repair), he slowed to a jog trot. This easily cost him still another 50 feet, and he was now 100 feet behind schedule.
Suddenly the ball struck some object, a board or stone, and bounced back into the hands of the surprised center fielder, a boy by the name of Al Nixon. Nixon's quick turn and his strong arm brought the throw toward third. Walker, seeing that a play could now be made on him, put on a great burst of speed. He made a fall-away slide to the right and into the very hands of the third baseman. Walker actually tagged himself out.
Exclamatory groans came from our bench. One chap in disgust kicked over the water bucket and another threw a bunch of bats helter-skelter into the air.
In discussing the play later, however, everyone agreed that if Walker had not made any one of four mistakes- the slow start from home plate, the wide turn at first, the walking trot around second and the slide to the wrong side of third- there could have been no play on him. And if he had made all four correctly, he would have scored a home run standing up.
What is the difference between Cobb and Walker? They had about the same age, weight, height and running speed. Walker had a stronger arm than Cobb and more power at the bat. Yet one rose to unparalleled fame; the other lives in obscurity. Cobb wanted to do something so much that nothing else mattered. Walker punched the clock.
A consuming desire to be great is the important second quality that will help make ability and capacity meet. This desire can turn a faulty, youthful hitter like Enos Slaughter into a great batsman. It can produce a good base runner out of a slow runner. The greatest single factor that makes a champion player is his desire to be one, and the greatest quality of a championship club is a collective, dominating urge to win.
Luck? Yes, there is luck in all athletic contests, due to causes we don't control and cannot anticipate. Usually, good luck is the by-product of planned effort. Bad luck will feature any club which is satisfied with mediocrity. A man who has the bad habit of looking at his batted ball, which he can no longer direct, or follows a course that carries him 30 feet too far, or assumes victory before he has it, shouldn't charge his failure to 'bad luck.'
Baseball clubs can have injuries and illnesses and military drafts and 'bad breaks,' but I think these should be regarded as merely incidents on a highway of progress.
There is a third quality which makes a difference in men.
I have seen many players who have had the material requisites for greatness- youth, size, speed, power, and even desire- and yet fail utterly. Such cases are tragic, indeed, where the boy wants to be great, his people counting on him, and yet he cannot master the little skills which go with excellence. He cannot learn to hold men on base, or he cannot slide, or he overstrides at bat, or he cannot get a proper lead. There are a hundred so-called 'little things' that mark the difference between the ordinary and the exceptional.
I like to into a dentist's office where the magazines are current. Somehow, I anticipate newer techniques, better treatment. I like to go into a church of any faith, where the builders have had in mind a beautiful edifice. Not elaborate, necessarily, but with attention to detail. Once inside, the pews, the chancel, the pulpit, the choir loft, the organ and the windows- all and everything- seeming to combine to produce a sense of worship, even without music or without a word being said to anybody. I like that. You can feel at once that you are in a place where you are already getting what you need- spiritual medicine.
I like players who are masters of detail in their work. Men acquiring these little skills please everybody and 'sell' themselves.
I shall be very happy when the time comes in Pittsburgh that we have boys who, first of all, feel that what are doing is something worthwhile. Second, as gentlemen, they want to win a pennant so much that they never ask the price, but pay it. And, third, I shall be gratified beyond expression if they are skilled, real masters of technique, both on offense and defense. For then, the Pittsburgh club will be highly rated in the National League and they won't scare in the World Series."

-Branch Rickey, condensed from Guideposts (Baseball Digest, August 1954)

RICKEY'S ONE-DOLLAR 'SALE'
"This, I believe, is the best trade story I have ever heard in baseball and the fellow who told it to me swears it's true.
Several years ago a man whom we shall call Smith, because that wasn't his name, approached Branch Rickey in Brooklyn asking for a price on one of his reserve outfielders.
'$100,000,' Rickey said and said it as though he meant it, too.
Smith said it was too high, much too high. They talked back and forth for several minutes and Rickey inquired about a player on Smith's team.
'Why, he's just a waiver price ball player; why talk about him?' Smith replied.
'Okay,' Rickey cut in. 'I'll give you $50,000 for him.'
Now Smith was worried. Did Rickey know something about this player that Smith didn't? Well, Smith couldn't take the chance and asked to look over Rickey's list of players.
Smith came to the name of Monty Basgall and asked the price.
'I'll take $50,000 for Basgall,' Rickey told him.
Now it was Smith's turn to hit the ceiling again. 'Why he's not worth $50,000 and you'll never get $50,000 for him.'
'Tell you what I'm going to do,' Rickey smiled at Smith. 'If I don't sell Basgall for $50,000 within the next few weeks I'll give him to you for one dollar.'
Smith grabbed an envelope and made up a hurried contract, asked Rickey to sign it, agreeing to give Smith the services of Basgall for one buck, if he wasn't sold for $50,000 within a certain time.
Rickey signed and Smith left, feeling good that he had put one over on the master trader.
On the way out, a Rickey aide seemed quite perturbed and asked his boss how come he could allow himself to get involved in such a deal. Why, he might lose a ball player for one dollar.
'Son,' Rickey told his aide, 'I just want to teach that Smith a lesson. Don't worry about the Dodgers losing Basgall for one dollar. I've already sold him to the Pirates for $50,000 and it will be announced tomorrow. I'd just like to see the expression on Smith's face when he reads it.' "

-Les Biederman in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, September 1954)

1954 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez

WHEN GOMEZ DISCOVERED HE THREW A GUMBALL

He Put His Hand In A Hornet's Nest

"Vernon Lefty Gomez had some pictures of his family. There was Duane, nine months old, shown on all fours. 'Mrs. Gomez wanted to have at least one likeness of the old man when he used to come home early in the morning,' the former Yankee pitcher explained.

Then there was Gary, going on 12 years. He hit .345 in the Little League last year. Stands just like Joe DiMaggio at the plate ... feet wide apart, shoulders squared, bat poised. 'Maybe if you didn't take such a long stride, you'd get much more power into your swing,' Gomez advised.

Gary gave his father a forgiving smile. 'You forget, Dad,' he said, 'that I've read your scrapbook!'

The oldest Gomez girl, 14, is such an accomplished pianist that she's got a repeat engagement at Carnegie Hall next May. Meanwhile, their mother, June O'Dea, the former actress, just sticks close to the homestead at Durham, Conn.

Gomez hurled for the Yankees from 1930 to 1942, with a lifetime record 189 wins. His highest salary was $27,500 a year.

Once when he demurred against a pay cut to $15,000 they threatened to trade him to Cleveland for Wes Ferrell. He signed for $18,500.

'But we didn't have many real holdouts those days,' said Gomez, who now works for a sporting goods company, 'because you always could go to spring training, get in shape with the team and continue the argument. Now you can't report until you sign.'

Because Lefty likes to put a fanciful interpretation on things, he long ago came to the conclusion that pitchers are believed to be dumb. 'Must be so,' he insisted,' the things the managers and coaches say to you. One day I was in trouble and Joe McCarthy sent Art Fletcher out to the mound.

'Fletcher whispered to me: 'The bases are full.' I told him I didn't think those other guys were extra infielders!'

McCarthy was a great gum chewer, and the flavor didn't last for him. One day as Gomez sat alongside him on the bench, Lefty brushed his hand along the bottom. 'It felt like a hornet's nest from wadded gum,' he recalled, 'and I looked inquiringly at Joe. He just said: 'You put it there with your bases on balls,' and I understood.' Gomez never lost a World Series game, winning six in a row. It was in 1936 that he beat the Giants in the second game. As he walked off the field, Owner Jake Ruppert of the Yanks called him over to the box. 'Can you pitch tomorrow, too?' Jake asked.

With a perfectly straight face, Lefty answered: 'If the manager wants me to.'

He didn't, of course, but as he walked off the field at the end of the third game, Ruppert again summoned him to the box. He shook hands with Gomez and beamed: 'Maybe tomorrow, huh?' ... and when Lefty relaxed his hand there was a check for $1,000 in it.

'That's what he cut me in the spring,' Gomez said.

As part of his job, Gomez attends all matter of banquets and public functions. He does a lot of traveling and sees a lot of games. He thinks the White Sox have the only real chance to end the Yankee dynasty- maybe this year.

'They'll catch the Yanks quicker than the Indians will,' he predicted. 'Better team balance.'

That, of course, is the secret of Yankee success. It was even in Lefty's day. Once when he was in a losing streak he asked McCarthy if Arndt Jorgens could catch him instead of the immortal Bill Dickey, just to see if anything would help. Gomez won two straight with Jorgens. Then Red Ruffing, also in a slump, also wanted to try Jorgens.

Ruffing won also. When the game was over McCarthy called Gomez and Ruffing into his office and said: 'Now boys, this is fine, but let's not make Dickey mad.' "

-John P. Carmichael, condensed from the Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, April 1954)

IT'S THAT GOMEZ AGAIN!

" 'I met a friend up north not long ago,' Lefty Gomez was saying recently, 'and I am not feeling too well. I have a stiff neck from a cold and you know what you do when you feel that way- you keep jerking it from one side to the other to try to stop the pain. So this friend says to me, 'Lefty do you have some nervous condition that makes you jerk your head that way?'

' 'No,' I say to him, 'if you had to hold as many runners on second base as I did you'd have that twitchy neck, too.' ' "

-Chester L. Smith in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

"Lefty Gomez sat in the Yankees' dugout and gazed at the 150-pound left-hander Steve Kraly. 'I was skinnier than that when I joined the Yankees, and I was much taller. I wound up with the number 11 but when I started they gave me number 1. I wasn't wide enough to wear two digits on my back.' "

-Hy Goldberg in the Newark News (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

HESITATION PITCH

"There was the time Jimmie Foxx came to bat with the bases loaded against Lefty Gomez. Lefty shook off every sign Catcher Bill Dickey gave. Finally, Dickey strode to the mound and asked what pitch Gomez had in mind. Said the Goof:

'Bill, I'm not at all sure I want to throw at all.' "

-Baseball Digest, May 1954

1954 Yankee of the Past: Paul Waner

WANER STILL HAS THE ANSWERS
"Paul Waner, the old Pittsburgh star who is now a free-lance hitting professor, has thousands of customers in the summer, when he runs a batting range in Pittsburgh. There are five pitching machines, all throwing fast ones up to the plate. Customers pay 25 cents for ten swings.
Most of the patrons come out just to look at Waner, and talk to him. He's had so many interruptions at the range that he had 5,000 cards printed. He carries a stack with him, and when someone approaches, Paul hands him a card. It reads:
'Paul, how are you?- Fine, thank you.
'How is your brother Lloyd?- Fine, thank you.
'What is he doing?- Nothing.
'What are you doing?- Practically nothing.
'What do you think of the Pirates?- Practically nothing.
'Any good hitters at your batting range?- One.
'Why don't you sign him for the Pirates?- I am too old."

-Pat Harmon in the Cincinnati Post (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

1954 Yankee of the Past: Johnny Mize

THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE
"Johnny Mize, who's going to do some broadcasting for the Giants this season, may require some warming up before he learns to babble with the inconsequential insouciance characteristic of radio spielers. Get him started talking, and he can ramble along at considerable length, but garrulous isn't the first word that comes to mind when you're describing the man. At least, it wouldn't come first to Heywood Hale Broun's mind.
Several years back Woody Broun was covering baseball, having not then forsaken journalism for the theater, in a season where a pitcher took his life in his hands every time he entered a ball park. Home runs were whistling over the fences at a rate that would have had the Atomic Energy Commission eyeing the baseball manufacturers suspiciously.
Woody sought Mize's opinion as to the reason why home run records were crumbling everywhere. 'What do you mean?' John asked.
'Well,' Woody said, 'take a fellow like Eddie Miller, the shortstop. In the past nobody ever confused him with you or Babe Ruth or Jimmie Foxx, but here it is only June and he's hit 11 homers already. How do you explain a thing like that?'
John thought it over. Then, choosing his words, he gave judgment.
'He's hitting the long ball,' he said."

-Red Smith in the New York Herald Tribune (Baseball Digest, April 1954)

1954 Yankee of the Past: Joe DiMaggio

NO ESCAPE
"Ted Lyons, the Brooklyn coach who was in the Navy during the war, pitched for a service team on Guam. The first game his club played he faced Joe DiMaggio who was with an Army outfit. 'I left the country to get away from DiMaggio,' said the old White Sox pitcher, 'and there he was.' "

-Jimmy Cannon in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

DIMAGGIO- ALMOST A SECOND DEMPSEY!
"Joe DiMaggio felt almost lost the other lunchtime in the establishment bearing his name, during the photo flashed signing of the Olson-Castellani fight papers. Most of the athletic personages in the restaurant were identified with the fight scene. Joe- the new Joe- rushed back into the act when he made his speech. He told the time he almost became a heavyweight prizefighter under the management of Jack Doc Kerns.
'Doc buttonholed me at Toot Shor's in New York,' Joe remembered. 'First, he asked me how much I made a year. I told him about $50,000.
' 'You'll make ten times that much with me,' said Kerns, 'and you won't have to wear sweaty, heavy, dirty old uniforms. I'll give you a clean pair of shorts and a light pair of boxing gloves.' '
Joe told the assemblage he almost considered the idea, but that night he looked at a mirror, twisted his nose this way and that, and decided he was satisfied with its present shape.
Later on the program, when Kearns made his little talk, he said he remembered the incident. 'Sure,' said the Doc, 'when I saw all that hitting power, I decided this kid could be another Dempsey. But he stayed in baseball. Well, they all make mistakes.' "

-Art Rosenbaum in the San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, September 1954)

1954 Yankee of the Past: Babe Ruth

THE SQUABBLE THAT MADE RUTH QUIT BASEBALL
"One June evening in 1938, when I was writing sports for the New York World-Telegram and covering the  Brooklyn Dodgers, the desk told me to get over to the Leewood Golf Club at Tuckahoe, N.Y., early the next morning. There might be a Page One exclusive involving Babe Ruth.
I was camping on the front porch of the golf club when, at 9:30 A.M., the Babe arrived. Ruth talked. He was about to emerge from three years of retirement to join the Dodgers as first base coach. Under the terms of his contract with Brooklyn's Larry MacPhail, Ruth would also indulge in batting practice.
'Don't know if the eyes or the reflexes are up to it but I kinda think I can still bend into the ball some,' boomed Ruth as he headed toward the first tee.
On our next Western trip, the Dodgers unveiled Ruth in St. Louis at a Sunday double-header with the Mercury pushing 90 degrees. A pre-game hitting-for-distance contest, featuring the Babe, had been arranged and publicized. Ruth would slug the ball against the likes of Joe (Ducky) Medwick, Johnny Mize and Don Padgett, of the Cardinals, as well as Dolph Camilli and Ernie Koy, of the Dodgers. Each batter was allowed five clouts from a 'thrower' of his choice.
To the roaring delight of some 15,000 fans- 6,000 more than on our last Sunday game in St. Louis- Ruth won all the marbles by belting a long drive over the right field wall. The ball traveled 430 feet, landing in the second car tracks on Grand Avenue, five feet farther than Medwick's best smash. It made good copy. Fat and wheezing, the perspiring 43-year-old Sultan of Swat couldn't have been happier if he'd knocked one out of the park to decide a World Series.
Although Brooklyn was only a seventh place outfit that summer, the Babe somehow gave it 'Derby' class. With Ruth aboard, you couldn't be confused with baggage freight. Sportsman's Park ... Wrigley Field ... Ebbets Field ... it didn't matter. The Babe remained the Big Apple- the big guy could still swell the gate!
During the games, the Babe was stationed along the first base coaching line, where, waving his arms like a circus seal, he'd bark encouragement. Brooklyn didn't own the most potent batting order in the league, but we featured the mightiest first base coach in captivity! Life was real- it was fun! We weren't winning many ball game but we had the number one road attraction.
With Ruth at first and the Dodgers' manager, Burleigh Grimes, coaching at third, Brooklyn's strategy was seldom overpowering. Nevertheless, the Dodgers would occasionally rise up and punch some flag contender on the nose.
There was the August night we were playing the Boston club (now Milwaukee) under the Ebbets Field lights. The game, a real pitching duel, was tied 0-0 going into the last half of the 11th inning. Buddy Hassett led off with a single and advanced on Camilli's walk, Ernie Koy popped up and out, and Cookie Lavagetto came to bat. After looking the situation over, he lashed a pitch to center field. Hassett, off and running with the pitcher's motion, reached home yards ahead of the peg. The Dodgers won, 1-0, and 25,000 Brooklynites went wild.
In my story, I wrote, 'Hassett singled but after Camilli walked, Ernie Koy popped out. Lavagetto came to bat, and getting the hit-and-run signal from Babe Ruth, smashed a line drive single to center, Hassett scoring from second for the ball game.'
The following afternoon, we were rained out. Looking for filler copy, I ultimately landed in the Dodgers' dressing room. Except for Grimes and his captain and shortstop, Leo Durocher, the room was empty- the others had showered and departed.
Grimes glared at me.
'We don't need you in here,' he growled. 'Give a rookie reporter an inch and he walks all over you. Better get your stories from the pressbox from now on.'
'I'm not looking for a story,' I replied, taken by surprise. 'I have a sore throat.' Continuing into Trainer Eddie Froelich's room, I sat down.
'What's Grimes burned up about?' I asked.
'Seems you wrote something about Ruth flashing the hit-and-run,' whispered Eddie. 'Burleigh's not happy about it. And Leo's been shoveling on the coal.'
I returned to the locker room as Grimes and Durocher were leaving.
'I understand you don't like today's story,' I said.
That's as far as I got. Grimes blew his top, with Leo keeping score and pinch-hitting whenever Burleigh paused for breath. The gist of the matter was that, until further notice, Grimes would continue to call all strategy from behind third base. As boss, he expected the credit as well as the abuse for whatever the Dodgers' success or failures.
In effect, Ruth's arm-waving and other extra-curricular rumblings from behind first base constituted dumb show and noise. That being so, it was high time that I, a cub reporter, realized and appreciated Babe Ruth for what he was. 'He's a white elephant ... out here to drag in customers ... nothing more.'
It was my turn. I told Grimes that I'd take my advice from my newspaper. Furthermore, if Ruth's presence in Brooklyn meant additional customers in the park, any time I could tip my hat to the Babe in print I would. And Grimes and the rest should get down on their bony knees and give thanks that Ruth was helping pay their salaries.
Before I'd finished by Barbara Frietchie oration, Grimes and Durocher had stomped out, slamming the door, leaving one spouting cub reporter, sputtering through indignant tears.
For a while there wasn't a sound. Then, draped in a giant pink Turkish towel, the Babe appeared in the doorway of the shower room. There, completely unnoticed, he'd been toweling himself- and had heard every word.
He looked at me a moment, then said, 'Well kid, I guess that's how it is.'
One week later in Brooklyn, we were rained out of a Sunday doubleheader. With another reporter, I made my way to the locker room. The place was full of uniforms and confusion as ball players scrambled to get away for a half-holiday. Next to his locker, the Babe, strangely quiet, was just finishing. He was about to put his baseball spikes into his locker when he spotted me.
'Kid,' he gruffed,' what size shoe do you wear?'
'Nine and a half C,' I replied.
'Same as me,' commented Ruth, and handed me his spikes. 'Even if you don't use 'em, maybe someday you'll have a kid of your own. And maybe he'll like these.'
Adjusting his famed camel's-hair cap, the Babe patted a speechless reporter on the shoulder and walked out of baseball for the rest of his life."

-Dave Camerer, This Week (Baseball Digest, January 1954)

"INSIDE" OF RUTH'S SHIFT TO OUTFIELD
Players Talked Barrow Into Allowing Change
"Subscribers beyond the sub-voting age will recall Harry Hooper as a component of the Boston Red Sox outfield of Hooper, Duffy Lewis and Tris Speaker, considered by most historians as the best there ever was.
Harry Hooper, now a prosperous businessman of Capitola, Cal., takes pen in hand thus: 'My object in writing is to attempt to correct an impression that has prevailed many years and which has apparently been accepted as fact. It is that the late Ed Barrow, in his wisdom and farsightedness, took Babe Ruth out of the pitcher's box and made him an outfielder.
'It is true that as manager of the Boston Sox, Barrow made the decision. But he did it reluctantly and against his conviction. At that time Heinie Wagner (coach) and Everett Scott (shortstop) and myself formed a board of strategy, as it were. We believed the Babe in the outfield would be more valuable to the team, and we argued with Barrow that it would certainly help the gate to have Ruth as a daily attraction instead of every fourth or fifth game as a pitcher.
'The three of us on the 'board' and the Babe himself pleaded with Barrow all during the spring training trip. I think it was after the season started that Manager Barrow let down and decided to play Babe in the outfield.
'Barrow's argument was reasonable. He protested that he would be crazy to take what was probably the best young left-handed pitcher in the American League then, and make an outfielder of him. If he guessed wrong fans would laugh him into scorn.
'I recall Barrow's very words when he finally consented to make the change. He said: 'All right, I'll put Ruth out there, but mark my word, after the first slump he gets in he'll come to me on his knees begging to pitch again.'
'Don't get the idea that I have any grievance with Barrow. I was captain and field director under him in 1918 and 1919 and we got along fine. I don't think Ed ever played pro ball and there was a lot he didn't know about the finer points of the game, though he was a good executive. He ran the club with an iron hand and his discipline made us better men, but on the field we played our own game.
'As for telling Ruth when to hit- he always was permitted to use his own judgement, and if he bunted it was always on his initiative. The Babe was fast on his feet despite his size and could beat out a bunt.
'I was there when Ruth walked out to pitch his first major league game in Boston in 1914 and I played with him through 1919. I played against him for five years after that when he had joined the Yankees. In the five years he was with us he was the finest left-handed pitcher I ever laid eyes on, from Rube Waddell to Mose Grove.
'To me the Babe's greatest triumph in Boston was in 1918. The fans gave him a 'day.' He hooked up in a duel with Lefty Williams of the Chicago White Sox. Near the end  Ruth broke up the game by hitting a perfectly pitched low outside fast ball over the left center field fence of Fenway Park. That was a feat I never saw duplicated even by right-handed batters. Fans carried him off the field on their shoulders.
'If smart pitchers had pitched to him in his heyday the Babe could have knocked 70 or 80 homers. His 60 can be written off as a minimum performance. They walked him more times than they allowed him to swing.
'Babe was always grateful to me, I like to think, for my part in urging Manager Barrow to station him in the outfield. Many years later Ruth named me on his all-time all-star outfield. He did it out of a sense of gratitude.'
The Babe, concludes Ex-Outfielder Hooper, was like that. He couldn't remember a first name to save his soul but he always remembered chums who befriended him in the critical years when he was a nobody from a Baltimore orphanage."

-Will Connolly, San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, May 1954)

LIGHT SEPTEMBER SCHEDULE AGAINST RUTH "SUCCESSORS"
"Back in 1940, Joe Kuhel, an excellent American League first baseman and a good but not exceptional hitter, banged away to a flying start.
Never known particularly as a home run hitter (he was a good bit like the man who succeeded him at first base in Washington, Mickey Vernon), Kuhel, who was with the White Sox at the time, started hitting home runs with regularity. He had seven or eight after just a couple weeks of the season.
Someone noted that he was 'two games and four days' or some such ahead of Babe Ruth's all-time home run record of 60 in 1927. An enterprising Chicago newspaper played the story big, assigned a writer to give Kuhel day-by-day coverage, what he ate, how he relaxed, what type of bat he used ... and it frightened poor Joe almost to death.
He eventually wound up that year with 27 homers ... the high water mark by far of his career but he never got over the shock. 'I thought they were kidding,' he said one time. 'The last thought I ever had was of breaking Ruth's record.'
Ever since, though, almost every season the comparison table has been used with one hitter or another- Ralph Kiner and Ed Matthews and this year Stan Musial. As Stan himself has said, he still hits the ball where it's pitched and lets the home runs take care of themselves. That's why he always has been such a great hitter because no one overshifts on him. It takes a radical change like Birdie Tebbets' four-outfielder gimmick to protect against him and that calls for a specific situation more than anything else.
To get back to Ruth, comparisons with his all-time record are unfortunate for one reason. Ruth finished with a tremendous kick. Seventeen of his homers were hit in September of 1927.
In those days, there was a full schedule in September. Now, to guard against the late postponements which would be washed off the schedule- and also to provide days to get in rained-out contests, the clubs have a light schedule that month. Most of the teams have only about 20 games in September ... so, if a player went into the month even with Ruth's record ... he'd have to average almost a homer a game to tie the mark of break it."

-Robert L. Burns, St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Baseball Digest, August 1954)

1953 Yankees of the Past Alumni Team

Former Yankees on 1953 Spring Training Rosters

MGR - Chuck Dressen (Brooklyn Dodgers)
CH - Leo Durocher (New York Giants)
CH - Bucky Harris (Washington Senators)
CH - Bill McKechnie (Boston Red Sox)
C - Sherm Lollar (Chicago White Sox)
C - Clint Courtney (St. Louis Browns)
1B - Dick Kryhoski (St. Louis Browns)
1B - Steve Souchock (Detroit Tigers)
2B - Jerry Priddy (Detroit Tigers)
3B - Billy Johnson (St. Louis Cardinals)
3B - Jim Dyck (St. Louis Browns) (OF)
SS - Pete Suder (Philadelphia Athletics)
SS - Billy Hitchcock (Detroit Tigers) (2B)
LF - Hank Sauer (Chicago Cubs)
CF - Jim Delsing (Detroit Tigers)
RF - Jackie Jensen (Washington Senators)
OF - Jim Greengrass (Cincinnati Reds)
PH - Allie Clark (Philadelphia Athletics) (OF) (retroactive designated hitter)
PH - Bob Addis (Chicago Cubs) (OF)
P - Karl Drews (Philadelphia Phillies)
P - Bob Porterfield (Washington Senators)
P - Frank Shea (Washington Senators)
P - Duane Pillette (St. Louis Browns)
P - Johnny Lindell (Pittsburgh Pirates)
P - Bob Keegan (Chicago White Sox)
RP - Ellis Kinder (Boston Red Sox)
RP - Lew Burdette (Milwaukee Braves)
RP - Bill Wight (Detroit Tigers)
RP - Bobo Newsom (Philadelphia Athletics)

1953 Yankees of the Past: Steve Souchock and Bill Wight

STEVE SOUCHOCK
"Steve is big and strong and is capable of hitting a long ball. He appeared in 92 games for the 1952 edition of the Detroit Tigers, hitting .249. He also plays first base.
Steve has been in baseball since 1939. He first hit the major leagues in 1946, after three years of military service, with the New York Yankees. He was with the Chicago White Sox in 1949."

-1953 Bowman No. 91


BILL WIGHT
"Bill began the 1952 season with the Boston Red Sox and finished it with the Detroit Tigers. He appeared in 10 games for the Beantowners, winning 2 and losing 1 and his earned run average was exactly 3.00. For Detroit, he was in 23 games, won 5 and lost 9 and his earned run average was 3.88.
He began in organized baseball in 1941 and came to the majors with the Yankees in 1946."

-1953 Bowman No. 100