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
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