"Lefty Gomez, the Yankees' great lefty of the '30s, owes much of his popularity to his ability to tell a good story on himself.
Like the time he went in to pitch with a runner on first, and with his windup, the runner stole second. McCarthy warned the rookie to watch the runner. Gomez wound up again and the runner stole third. Again the conference, again the windup, and the runner was safe with a theft of home.
'And that was the longest windup in history,' Gomez confesses. 'I wound up in St. Paul.' "
-John Mooney, Salt Lake City Tribune (Baseball Digest, May 1956)
THERE'S NO PURE POWER PITCHER NOW
Gomez Last To Get By With Only Fast Ball
"On the Yankees' train from Boston to New York this spring, the talk ran to pitchers, mostly because the radio finally beat the static and was telling about the tough luck defeat of Cleveland's Herb Score.
'That makes two he loses 1-0 and the season ain't two weeks old yet,' said Yogi Berra. 'The kid is snakebit.'
Casey Stengel said, 'I don't wish the fellow any more tough luck but if he has any I hope it's against us. He's hard to lick.'
Bill Dickey said, 'Score is like all great pitchers in one respect. The best you can get from them is a run here and there, sometimes none at all. What I mean is that you never get a big inning.'
'Hank Greenberg says Score is a ringer for Lefty Grove,' Hank Bauer said.
'No,' Dickey said. 'A little bit like Grove but no ringer for him. Got that full, wide delivery but doesn't blow you down like Grove did. Score is best when he's curving you.'
'Score showed me a pretty good fast ball,' Irv Noren said.
'Sure he's got a fast ball,' Dickey said, 'but he's no Grove or even a Feller.'
Whitey Ford said, 'Whattaya mean, Bill, when you say Score is not even a Feller with his fast one? You don't mean Feller wasn't as fast as Grove?'
Dickey said, 'That's right. That's just what I mean. I get tired hearing about Feller being the fastest in his time, but he wouldn't have been the fastest thing since Walter Johnson. Feller was the fastest in his time, but he wouldn't have been the fastest in Grove's time.'
'Maybe you were more impressed with Grove because he was a left-handed pitcher and you were a left-handed batter,' a baseball writer suggested to Dickey.
'Listen, I'm not talking about I hit against Grove,' Dickey said. 'What I'm talking about is how fast his ball used to come in there compared to Feller's.
'I'm not talking about the viewpoint of a man with a bat on his shoulder,' Dickey continued. 'I'm talking about as their batterymate. I'm the only man who ever caught both Grove and Feller in All-Star Games and that's why I say Grove was faster.'
'They were both power pitchers, Bill,' said Jim Turner, the Yankee pitching coach. 'There's nobody around like that anymore. Nobody who can blow you down for nine innings.'
'Sometimes Mr. Mack would use Grove for relief,' Dickey said, 'and there was no sense going up to the plate. When he knew that he only had to pound that ball in there for a couple of innings, you could hear more of it than you could see.
'Our guy Larsen is winning because he gave up trying to blow the ball past everybody and worked on his change-up,' Turner said.
'That's right,' Dickey said, 'and you should know because you kept screaming at him to stop being so proud and mule-headed about his fast one.'
Turner said, 'Look at the other pitchers who win in our league and none of 'em tries to overpower you. Pierce has got a good fast ball, but he gets you out on his change-up. Whitey Ford wins with good junk.'
Casey Stengel said, 'Look at them Cleveland fellers. That Lemon can throw that ball hard but he just keeps putting it around your knees and dares you to hit it.'
'Early Wynn mixes 'em up the best,' Turner said. 'He's got that fast ball, everybody knows, but he just uses it like a gun at your head to keep you respectful. Mostly he's just curving that ball up there or giving you his knuckler. He works around the plate like a guy doing hemstitching and never gives you anything much good to hit at.'
'The last pitcher I saw who could get by only with a fast ball was Gomez,' Dickey said. 'He didn't have any curve, never did develop one. He would just keep pumping that fast one.
'Gomez was a big winner because his fast ball was alive. He always aimed at the heart of the plate and never got one over the middle, because the thing would sort of snap, crackle, pop like the loose end of a live wire. So he missed the middle and kept hitting the corners, which made him a great pitcher and he should be in the Hall of Fame.' "
-Shirley Povich, Washington Post (Baseball Digest, July 1956)
STRUCK OUT AGAIN
"Lefty Gomez, a great pitcher but a big out as a hitter when he was in the baseball headlines, has a 13-year-old son, Gary, who is a pitcher-outfielder for Durham (Conn.) High School. The youngster affects an open stance at the plate. Lefty tried to change Gary's batting style to help him pull the ball. 'But Pop, I've read your clippings,' the youngster protested."
-Max Kase, New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, August 1956)
HALF PAST - THEN THE ALARM SOUNDED
"During an Old Timers' Day a while back those two pitching stalwarts of yesteryear, Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing, became embroiled in a violent but good-natured argument.
'My homer was longer,' Ruffing kept insisting.
'You're crazy,' said Gomez. 'Mine was the longest ever hit anywhere.'
The odd part about this conversation was that they weren't disputing home run balls they'd hit but home run balls they'd thrown. Ruffing's candidate was some obscure chap- his name was too unimportant to stick in memory- who lingered in the big leagues only long enough to hit one titanic homer off Ruffing before disappearing.
'That's kid stuff,' sneered Lefty. 'Let me show you what Jimmie Foxx did to me. See that corner of the upper left field stands alongside the bullpen? Old Double-X broke seats up there on a ball I pitched to him. I climbed up there the next day to see the damage and the trip was so long it exhausted me. About three rows down from the top and in the farthest corner- well, that's where he hit it. It must be at least 450 feet from the plate and the ball was still rising when it smashed the seats.'
Lefty shook his head wonderingly.
'It was a good pitch, too,' he said. 'I got it half past him. But, oh, brother, what he did with the second half!' "
-Arthur Daley, New York Times (Baseball Digest, August 1956)
LEFT SPEECHLESS
"Lefty Gomez, the only pitcher ever to win three All-Star Games (1933-35-37) and who perpetuated his mastery over National League teams by winning six World Series games and never getting beat, worked his last big league game for Washington. That was in 1943 when the Senators were beginning to take on a strong Latin-American flavor. He went to Washington from the Boston Braves on waivers, pitched one game and lost it.
That was all for Lefty and, although he was part Castilian himself, he hung up his spikes. 'I was under a handicap at Washington,' he said. 'I could only speak English.' "
-John P. Carmichael, Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, September 1956)
ONE LEFTY STILL HASN'T ANSWERED
"Lefty Gomez, the star Yankee pitcher of years gone by, remembers a long ago day- before umpires were scrupulous about enforcing the 'quickie pitch' rule- when he was inspired with a sure-fire plan to handle Hank Greenberg if the slugger came to bat with men on base.
'When I get two strikes on Greenberg,' Gomez confided to Catcher Bill Dickey, 'you walk half way to the mound and I'll walk half way in. We'll turn back, count to eight, and just as you get past the plate and I get to the mound, I'll fire a pitch. Greenberg won't know what hit him.'
Dickey suggested that Gomez detail the idea to Joe McCarthy, then manager of the New Yorkers. McCarthy listened patiently, then told Gomez: 'That's fine, Lefty, just fine. But there is one thing you overlooked. How are you going to get two strikes on Greenberg in the first place?' "
-David Condon, Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, October 1956)
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