1959 Yankee of the Past: Jackie Jensen

Boston Finally Recognizes Jackie Jensen As

THE SOLID GOLDEN BOY WITH PLENTY OF BRASS

"Until last midseason, right field at Boston's Fenway Park sounded like a cattle ranch at roundup time whenever Jackie Jensen sprinted out thataway. Now he hears nothing but 'attaboys' and the soft tennis-like applause of appreciation. Has right field been the wrong field?

'Naw, we always liked Jensen out there,' declares one habitue of that location, the r. f. pavilion where he finds the price is right. 'We always knew the guy was a bundle of talent.'

So why the vilification, the bubbling anti-social 'brffsks' each time Jackie reappeared?

'Well, we have to show our dissatisfaction with the Red Sox, and Jensen was the nearest one within reach and so he has to take the abuse for the other eight guys, although it isn't exactly abuse because we really don't mean it at all.

'Someone calls him Mr. Doubleplay and it's a sort of catchy name and it becomes contagious. Mass psychology or something. We all know out there that only the better hitters pile up double plays. Most of them come from hitting the ball hard, right on the button.

'So now we are known, all around the league I guess, as the right field werewolves of Boston, but it ain't quite so. We just had to let off some steam and Jensen was handy. Let this be an apology. I hope Jackie boy, good old Jackie boy, will understand.'

I imagine Jackie has understood all along, since he happens to be one of the most intelligent, least irascible of major leaguers, dozens of whom have sound-detector ears and short tempers.

Once Jensen did dash to the low wall, appearing flushed and maybe eager to flip a handful of knuckles into a particular pest's face. Actually Jensen had his powerful person under control. 'I just wanted to ask this fellow why he kept on me,' explains Jensen, who was intent on argument, not assault.

Now that the wrongoes in right field have been won over to his side, the All-America boy is a favorite in all sectors of Yawkey's green acre- upstairs, downstairs, in the dugout, in the dressing room. He is receiving rightful recognition as one of the best ever to perform in Red Sox flannels. He can run, hit, field, hustle, throw and think. Several times a season runners are hoodwinked by Jackie's histrionics. Where do you get athletes like this? How can you hoot him, get a 'braaack' through your teeth?

One of Jensen's staunchest admirers around Fenway is the trainer, Jack Fadden. There's no drinking allowed on the premises, of course, but Fadden is akin to a bartender in that they all come to sit on the stool in his whirlpool bath and tell him their troubles whilst getting soaked. He gets to know the Red Sox intimately.

'Jensen never makes a project out of an injury and I know he's played many a ball game, and played it up to the hilt, even when he was hurting good,' says Fadden. He always minimizes injuries and is always available.

'A real solid citizen. He never gets involved. He comes to play, and play at his very best, showers, dresses and goes home. He's no clubhouse lawyer. He's a really great kid, a Golden Boy as you writers have christened him.'

This should not be construed to mean that Jackie is a 'loner' or a Pollyanna or a snobby type who will have no association with the other guys. He speaks his piece in firm words when he feels the time has come for him to talk.

Several seasons ago there was a Red Sox movement, the leader of which was thought to be Ted Williams, to have the baseball writers banned from the clubhouse for 30 minutes after the game. By that time a lot of players would be gone from the boudoir and a couple of editions, maybe, rolled off the press.

Jensen heard the Red Sox side. That didn't convince him. He had to hear the other. He visited with a quartet of baseball authors and asked them what a 30-minute waiting period would mean to them and their work. I don't know how Jackie voted on this small matter but the 30-minute referendum was defeated.

On another occasion, in the days before he called a truce and became pals with the press, Williams was blasting out a writer there in the Red Sox room. Williams claimed the writer had cost him a $25 fine for flipping a bat. 'You went to the umpire and told him I should get $25 just because you wanted an item for your (censored) paper. Otherwise, he wouldn't have put me on report,' growled Williams.

Another reporter told Jensen precisely what happened in the umpires' room. Chief Magistrate Charlie Berry had left before the reporters got there but the other umpires related that Berry was going to write the league headquarters and recommend a two-bit tariff on the Kid.

'Ted, you're wrong,' Jackie broke in and presented his information. Imagine telling Ted, in a tempest, that he was wrong. Evidently, Williams has as much respect for Jensen as the rest of the Red Sox. He desisted.

When you go to Jackie's locker after a game, you are always certain of an articulate, completely honest answer. There's neither a hem nor a haw in the handsome Californian. No alibis. 'I should have caught the ball,' he said of a Yogi Berra hoist which was twisted by the wind at Fenway. It accounted for three runs.

Once there was an Alibi Ike of an outfielder who, upon missing a fly ball, went so far to insist that it took a 'bad hop.' They'll go to such ludicrous extremes to escape the fault.

'The wind helped it a lot,' Jensen said after hitting a homer into the nets last summer, telling the whole truth at the cost of downgrading himself.

Picture that. Most of them would have said: 'It was a mean curve but I had my eye on it all the way and hit it one of the goldangest clouts a baseball was ever hit. I'll bet when they pick out of the nets they'll find the cover knocked off it.'

The only athlete ever to play in the Rose Bowl and the World Series, long overdue acclaim is finally catching up to Jackie, a fellow right out of fiction. Rival managers such as Al Lopez are calling him the best right fielder in the league. And his ex-critics in right field are standing up with reverence, as if it were the seventh inning stretch, when he returns to his position.

All this- and he's friendly with the sports writers, too. Why he even lived in a sports writer's house last season, one he rented for the summer right across the street from the eighteenth tee at Woodland in Auburndale, for his dazzling wife, the former Olympic diving champion, Zoe Ann Olsen, and their two golden children.

The Red Sox would be the Dead Sox, but definitely, without Jensen, who at long last has retrieved the 'journeyman' label and achieved the luster of stardom. Hear this from Manager Al Lopez of the White Sox, which I lift unblushingly from the files:

'I know Jensen is not very popular with the fans in Boston but it's time they started to appreciate what they have.

'For the life of me I could never figure out why he hasn't clicked with the customers. He makes a bad play every so often, and it seems to me the fans remember these and forget the good ones.

'Taking Jensen over the season, you won't find a better right fielder in the league. He's a solid player.' That seems to be the word most connoisseurs use, first off, in appraising Jensen: 'solid.'

Now this Jensen fellow never had on the boxing gloves in his life, so far as I know, and he would rather read Poet Robert Frost, his favorite teacher and a good friend, than Shakespeare. Yet there seems to be a striking resemblance between Jensen and Gene Tunney.

Both chose their trades only for money. Jackie is quick and frank to say that baseball, with all its traveling and night work, is not for him. He's only in it for the cabbage (guessed $30,000 a year). Both, while not snobs, carefully avoid the mobs. Tunney married the famous beauty with all the gold. Jensen captured the pin-up girl of the sports pages, the Olympic champion, with all the gold medals.

Only now is Tunney being looked upon with some late favor by the fight crowd. Recently he condescended to get back in the ring, shake hands with a lot of pug-uglies, and take a bow. The mob liked that- even though it took place on the terrace of the fashionable Shoreham Hotel in Washington where they held an unusual fight show for a charity in which Tunney has an interest.

Jackie, an ideal type like Tunney, is a real life Horatio Alger, now is attaining overdue recognition. The werewolves in right field at Fenway are beginning to take off their hats when he sprints out to his position, showing the reverence generally reserved for prelates and potentates. Not so long ago they were mooing him like a herd of Herefords.

How'd this come about? 'I'm sure I don't know,' says Jackie. 'I haven't changed anything except my socks. I'm just doing what I always try to do- hit the ball down the middle. When I first came here I took a look at the wall in left and decided to become a pull hitter but I'm not built to be a pull hitter.'

Jensen long since has stopped pulling for the wall, but General Manager Joe Cronin will never stop pulling for Jensen. It is no secret around Boston that the fans have been flailing Cronin, and they are not all cranks. Cronin must get many livid letters, asking that he do something or get off the swivel chair.

'He's a great one for bringing us  Porterfields and Stones and C. Nottingham Churns,' they complain by phone and salty letter and person-to-person ear bending. 'What did he ever do for us?'

Jensen is the answer. Jensen, who was swindled from Washington in the winter of 1953 for meliflous Maurice McDermott, who shagged the long drives hit by Satchell Paige as an outfielder at Miami, and Tom  Umphlett, who milled around at Minneapolis.

One swallow doesn't make a twister but one good deal can establish a general manager, and Cronin has that one to keep nourishing him. It was, at the time, a risky transcation because Maurice had just won 18 games and was throwing Grovian bolts while Umphlett had hit .285 and was a falcon after a fly ball.

Cronin showed the same fine timing he had when he was hitting pinch homers. Jensen had dropped to .266; Washington needed a left-handed pitcher and, of couse, someone to take Jensen's place, namely Umphlett.

Cronin caught the very Charles Dickens from the fans for letting McDermott go, but he had liked Jackie since his college days in California. Larry Woodall of the Red Sox' espionage staff once went to Oakland seeking Jackie's signature before New York grabbed him.

Intimates say the only player Casey Stengel ever truly regretted losing was Jensen. Stengel knew he was going to be his kind of guy but couldn't play him often enough to keep him from growing rusty.

When Billy Martin was traded, Casey is said to have distorted his rubber face into a mournful mask. But friends report he was more stung by the loss of Jensen. 'He looked like a Yankee more than any of the Yankees,' Stengel once said of Jensen.

Since the advent of the lively ball, third base has become a position to be played only by those a wing, a prayer and a wrought-iron rib cage. A third baseman should be permitted all the 'tools of ignorance' which adorn a catcher, except maybe the mask. A mouthpiece, like a fighter wears on his choppers, would be a suitable substitute. Third base is a position to be despised.

Very few know this, but three springs ago in Sarasota, aware that the Red Sox had a problem at third base where a fellow really exposes himself to the firing squad, Jack Eugene Jensen, although he loves life, went to manager Mike Higgins and volunteered. 'I'll play third. I'll start working there tomorrow,' said Jensen to Higgins, which was like offering to make it 401 for the charge into the versified Valley of Death.

Well, not quite that risky. Jackie, the All-America boy, the real life Jack Armstrong of whom we sing, was willing, yea, even eager, to abandon the rural existence in right field to play in the heavy traffic at third.

Nothing new. There's a heavy quotient of the hero in J. J. Not long ago there was a Golden Gater at Fenway Park and he told us about Jensen playing football for the University of California. 'It would be fourth down and a yard and California always gave the ball to Jensen. The other team knew he was coming and, sometimes, Jackie's opening wasn't there but I can't ever remember failing to get the 37 inches, the extra inch to make sure of the first down. And I never missed a game.'

Another time Jensen was in his restaurant, the 'Bow & Bell' in Jack London Square in Oakland when a customer suddenly got up and ran like sixty out the door. Jensen sprinted after him and, before his detractors have a chance to say he was chasing the guy for the bill, let me tell you that they both had heard a terrible cry for 'help, help.' Two kids had been thrown into the water of Oakland Estuary by the rough wake of a passing fireboat. Jensen and his customer saved two young lives.

Now let me see, what else is there to tell you about Jackie Jensen, the Golden Boy who has participated in the Rose Bowl, the World Series, the East-West Game and has done just about everything in sports except (1) win the Marathon and (2) finish first in the 500 at Indianapolis.

In my meanderings around Fenway Park to learn something about Jensen, both first and second-hand, I stopped for a chat with my favorite player, Jimmy Piersall.

It was between a day-night doubleheader with Detroit, and there was Jimmy with his feet in his locker, resting on two- well, er, foot-rests riveted to the sides. Piersall didn't go down to Kenmore Square to eat. He had only a clubhouse cup of soup and a sandwich, because a meal would make him too heavy, and now he was relaxing his limbs on the foot-rests which Dom DiMaggio first introduced. In his locker, and it's taken me an awful long time to get around to this, was a bat with the No. 4 on the knob.

A Jensen bat. Now it is not telling tales at recess to relate that Jimmy and Jackie are not exactly kissin' cousins. Oh, there not enemies. They just don't hit it off too well. You have guys in your own office like that. Playing center and right they naturally infringe on each other's territories. And Jimmy didn't like it too much a couple of seasons back when Jensen, in his frank and forthright fashion, rated another A. L. center fielder above him as a gloveman. Piersall was entitled to take a little heat.

'I'm trying Jackie's bat in practice,' says Jimmy. Here was another tribute to Jensen. You'd expect Piersall to be experimenting with a Williams willow, or a Mantle model, wouldn't you?

Jackie Jensen should have been christened Frank. While he bends at the waist from admiration of Ted Williams' hitting, Jensen thinks the kid could be a little cuter in left field. He thinks Williams could pretend to catch fly balls that are certain to hit The Wall and thus delude runners, preventing them from sweeping from first to third. 'We could do a lot of that faking, especially with the physical makeup of Fenway.'

The Golden Boy- with plenty of brass and abundant with class."

-John Gilooley, Boston Record (Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959)

"R.B.I. leader of the American League in 1958, Jackie was awarded the Most Valuable Player trophy. He had 18 home runs and 54 R.B.I.'s on the road and 17 round trippers and 68 R.B.I.'s at home.

Jackie led the A. L. in stolen bases [22] in 1954."

-1959 Topps No. 400

1959 Yankee of the Past: Lew Burdette

"Up to the last five weeks of the 1958 season, no one would have given Lew a chance to become a 20-game winner. But he got red hot and won nine games to enter the charmed circle. In the Series he beat the Yankees with a neat 7-hitter in the second game. Lew also hit a homer  in the second game of the Series."

-1959 Topps No. 440

NEEDLE STICKS STAN

"Lew Burdette has begun needling Stan Musial, a man who is supposed to have no nerves.

In a recent game, the Braves were protecting a one-run lead, but the Cardinals had loaded the bases with one out. Musial was the batter.

Burdette was called in to face Musial. His first two pitches were balls. Burdette walked in to argue with the home plate umpire.

He yelled, 'Don't be giving a .259 hitter a break,' mentioning Musial's batting average at the moment.

Burdette actually intended the conversation for Musial. He hoped to get Stan off stride.

Burdette's next pitch was on the outside corner but Stan tried to pull it, hit it to the second baseman and into a double play that ended the game. Musial did what Burdette wanted. He became overanxious and swung at the next pitch."

Pat Harmon, Cincinnati Post and Times-Star (Baseball Digest, September 1959)

BURDETTE'S GOPHER HUNT

Suddenly Braves' Ace Righty Finds They Go-For-Four On Him

"Now that speculation over Lew Burdette and his alleged spitball seems to have subsided, conjecture concerning the Braves' ace right-hander centers on the abnormal number of home runs hit off his wide assortment of pitches.

Burdette- who, incidentally, has always denied using the spitter except for psychological purposes- admits being concerned about the so-called 'gopher' pitches but he has a pretty good idea of what causes them and also has some plans for remedying the situation.

Of the 98 runs scored off Burdette during the first two-thirds of the season, 51 were made off home runs. He had given up 29, tops in the league, and they had been directly responsible for five of his ten defeats.

'That's a lot of homers, a lot of runs and too many games lost on one pitch,' the fidgety veteran said after he had scored his fifteenth victory despite two homers that accounted for four of the Cardinals' five runs.

Patiently, Burdette checked over the list of home runs in the scorebook without finding any definite pattern that might give him a clue to a possible solution. Seventeen of the homers, for example, had been hit by left-handed batters but there was nothing particularly significant about that.

'It does surprise me, though, that Gus Bell (Cincinnati) had hit three off me this season,' Lew said. 'That's at least two too many for a hitter like Bell.'

There was some slight reassurance in the fact that 16 of the homers had come with the bases vacant and only one (by Earl Averill of the Cubs) with the bases fully occupied.

The record for games at home and away was indicative of nothing special as to ball parks.

Home runs are ordinarily hit off of poor pitches. The pitcher's 'hanging curve' excuse is traditional. But Burdette has as good control as any pitcher in baseball. He annually is among the stingiest of pitchers in walks allowed. This season was no exception. Deducting intentional passes, he had walked an average of only one a game in his first 25 decisions. Also, his wide assortment of pitches includes such breaking stuff as sliders, curves, screwballs and sinkers.

So how come, Lew?

'It means I'm making my pitches too good,' Burdette said. 'They're not hitting any homers off any particular pitch. But they're hitting almost of them off high pitches.

'Even when I was strictly a fast ball pitcher, I had to keep my sinker low. I still have to. That one Ken Boyer hit today was way too high and the one George Crowe pulled into the right field stands was well below the belt but still not low enough. I wanted it down around the knees like the one he popped up on the time before.'

Burdette then paused and then asked, 'So that makes 29 homers off me? What's the record for a season and who holds it?'

Robin Roberts- 46, he was told.

'Yeah, and the hitters could hardly wait to bat against Roberts after he had lost something off his fast ball,' Burdette said. 'They knew he wouldn't throw at them and they trusted his control.

'Maybe that's what's happened to me. They know my control is good so they take a toe hold and wait for the pitch they want. It could just be that I'm going to make them a little less anxious to hit against me.'

Burdette didn't explain whether he meant to accomplish that by a few 'looseners' high and inside or by a stricter adherence to lower pitches that break even lower. He did give the impression of a pitcher who intended to do something about a situation that has become especially galling to a competitor who will do anything- well, almost anything- to win."

-Clem Walfoort, Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, October 1959)

1959 Yankees Rookies of the Past

"Beginning in 1924, there's been a Yankee dandy in almost every beginning group. The Yankees relied more upon shopping from their rivals than upon minor league resources in winning pennants in 1921-22-23.

Earle Combs, high voltage center fielder, was the first of the new parts when the original pennant machine began to wear out in 1924. Combs suffered a broken leg early that season, so his first big year was 1925, when Lou Gehrig was also launched.

The Yankees needed a midway combination in 1926, so they brought up both second baseman Tony Lazzeri and shortstop Mark Koenig- with championship results. George Pipgras and Wilcy Moore were pitchers who added new strength in 1927, another title year. The veterans were sound enough to keep the pennant in 1928, but cocky young Leo Durocher was fitted into the machine as a spare part.

The Yankees had to make way for the Athletics for the next three years. Meantime, they prepared for a fresh surge by adding Bill Dickey, Sammy Byrd and Lyn Lary in 1929; Ben Chapman in 1930, Lefty Gomez in 1931. Shortstop Frankie Crosetti and pitcher Johnny Allen put the finishing touches on the new championship production in 1932.

There were flaws, though, and the Yankees didn't receive the proper new parts in 1933 to prevent a crackup. Dixie Walker, much later a Brooklyn star, was tried and found wanting; Billy Werber was peddled to the Red Sox.

Then, in '36, their leader was taken to the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio opened the throttle for a run of four consecutive world championships.

Now the Yankee pattern was firmly set: have a minor leaguer ready for any weakness that might develop. So they reinforced with Tommy Henrich and Spud Chandler in 1937; Joe Gordon, Joe Beggs and Steve Sundra in 1938; Charlie Keller, Atley Donald, Marius Russo and Buddy Rosar in 1939.

Demand finally exceeded supply in 1940 when pitcher Tiny Bonham was the only pitcher of worth. The Yanks missed the pennant that year, but shortstop Phil Rizzuto came along in 1941 to touch off a three-year reign. The Yankees hung on in 1942 and '43 without too much new help: pitcher Hank Borowy and pitcher Johnny Lindell in '42, though Lindell's real contribution began when he switched to the outfield the next year. Stepping into the wartime breach in 1943 were Billy Johnson, George Strinweiss and Bud Metheny.

It wasn't until 1947 that the Yanks got their player production line rolling again. Meantime, Joe Page, a rescue specialist who first appeared in 1944, was the only important addition. Since then, except for 1953, when only outfielder Bill Renna showed up, for part-time work, the infusion of new blood into the Yankee dynasty has been steady and abundant:

1947: Yogi Berra, Bobby Brown, Karl Drews, Ralph Houk, Vic Raschi.

1948: Tommy Byrne, Frank Hiller, Cliff Mapes, Gus Niarhos, Bob Porterfield, Steve Souchok (this freshman class was comparatively large, but admittedly not up to Yankee standards and this was the club's only pennant miss in a span of seven years).

1949: Hank Bauer, Jerry Coleman, Dick Kryhoski, Jack Phillips (sold to Pittsburgh in midseason), Duane Pillette, Charlie Silvera.

1950: Joe Collins, Jim Delsing, Whitey Ford, Jackie Jensen, Don Johnson (Delsing and Johnson both sold to the Browns)

1951: Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Gil McDougald, Tom Morgan.

1952: Tom Gorman, Bob Cerv, Bill Miller.

1953: Bill Renna.

1954: Andy Carey, Bob Grim, Bill Skowron.

1955: Elston Howard, Johnny Kucks, Tom Sturdivant.

1956: Norm Siebern, Lou Skizas (sold to the Athletics).

1957: Al Cicotte, Woodie Held, Tony Kubek, Jerry Lumpe, Bobby Richardson, Ralph Terry (Terry and Held sold to the A's).

1958: Ryne Duren, Zack Monroe, Marv Throneberry.

And that's how a championship industry is born- and maintained. No other club has had the production consistency of first Ed Barrow and then George Weiss."

-from Can 1959 Match These Rookie Crops?, Bill Bryson, Baseball Digest, March 1959

1959 Yankees World Series of the Past: 1958

SECOND GUESSING THAT EERIE SERIES

"It was a topsy-turvy Series. It was a Series in which the Yankees played like sleep-walkers for two games, and then woke up on the edge of a precipice, locked in a deadly struggle for dear life.

It was a tough Series for the managers. And it was a glorious Series for the second-guessers.

Second-guessing is one of the lesser arts. Anyone can do it. All you need are eyes to see and tongue to let loose. In a seven-game Series in which the victor comes from behind after losing three of the first four games, like the Yankees did, everyone practices it, especially those who supported the losers. That means everyone who lives west of the Hudson River, as well as the experts who picked the Braves to win in six games. Among the latter groups is your reporter, who is heartily happy that he was not managing either of the two clubs.

No sooner had the Series begun than the second-guessers went to work. Hank Bauer singled and Casey Stengel ordered Gil McDougald to try a hit-and-run to right. Gil obeyed but the best he could do on the first two pitches was to slap fouls. Suddenly, Warren Spahn picked Bauer off base and he was caught on a throw from Joe Adcock to Johnny Logan. This was unbelievable- the slick-running wide-awake Bauer nipped on pickoff in a World Series game? To make matters worse, McDougald singled on Spahn's next delivery and took second on a wild pitch. Mantle fouled out, and now looks who's here- not Yogi Berra, but Elston Howard!

Why not Berra? Why is Yogi batting fifth instead of the cleanup spot? What the heck's the matter with old Casey? Is he getting senile?

Howard flied out, the inning was over and, gadzooks, Berra opened the second inning with a single to left.

Obviously, Casey's head need an examination. So did Bauer's- didn't he know that Spahn has the best pickoff move in the majors. And what was the matter with Ralph Houk, the first base coach?

This, dear friend, gives you an idea of how to second-guess. It costs nothing. You can't lose. You can make gross misstatements and get away with it. You can even feel a thrill as Berra, dashing around second in the second inning of the first game on Moose Skowron's single to left, is snuffed out at third on Wes Covington's throw. Who, for example, ever heard of a runner trying to make third on a simple single to left? Why didn't Frank Crosetti, coaching at third, give Yogi the stop sign at second? Ye gods, but the Yankees looked awful.

As a matter of fact, the Yanks didn't look good in the first game. Bauer was overconfident- he let himself get picked off base. And Yogi gambled that Covington would not throw accurately to third. That these two veterans of many Series games should have erred was surprising, but the fact obviously that they were suffering from opening game jitters, an affliction that annoys the coolest heads in baseball.

As for Casey's choice of Howard as his cleanup batter, it may be pointed out that Howard hit hard in the first game, but his blows went directly into the hands of Brave outfielders. And Berra, a left-handed batter, seemed less likely to hit as well as the right-handed Ellie against the clever Spahn.

The Yankees stayed in contention in the ten-inning thriller. They went into overtime, tied with the Braves, 3-3, thanks to homers by Skowron and Bauer. Their real weakness was in the outfield, where fly balls were SLIGHTLY misplayed and where Mickey Mantle looked slow in making up his mind as to which base he should throw to.

Bill Bruton won the game in the tenth with a run-scoring single. But the real key to the Braves' victory was Fred Haney's offensive strategy in the fourth inning.

Whitey Ford had been pitching tight ball until then, with six strikeouts to his credit. The Yankee southpaw walked Hank Aaron to open the fourth, but retired Adcock and Covington on easy grounders. Suddenly, the Braves began to hit first pitches, Del Crandall, Andy Pafko and Spahn singling in succession for two vital runs. Haney had noticed that Ford was sneaking a first strike over, putting his batters in a hole. It was clever strategy- because it worked. If it hadn't, Fred would have been gooseberry pie for the second-guessers.

When a team wins by a 13-5 score, and has a 13-2 lead going into the ninth, as the Braves did in the second Series game, the second-guessers ought to keep their traps shut- but they don't.

Take that first inning for example. Lew Burdette went into it with a scoreless streak of 24 innings, only five shy of Babe Ruth's record set in 1918. And what do the Yanks do? Bauer opens the game with a single. He takes second on McDougald's grounder, and third when Eddie Mathews messes it up, and then Mantle walks, and Bauer tallies on Howard's infield out. True, Berra ends the inning by hitting into a double play, but the Yanks have a one-run lead.

Bill Bruton evened things up with a home run on the first pitch by Turley. And Red Schoendienst doubled. But Turley fanned Mathews, and after Aaron was intentionally passed, Covington singled, scoring Red to put the Braves ahead, 2-1.

And NOW what does Casey do? He removes Turley, his 21-game winner, for Duke Maas! Maas paves the was for a seven-run inning by failing to trap Aaron in a run-down off third, and then gets his brains knocked out.

At that moment the second guessers were spreading through the Braves' fine new stadium that Old Casey was really through. Had Haney panicked when Burdette allowed a run to score? Heck, no! But Casey, lacking confidence in the strongest right-hander on his staff, put Maas, inexperienced in Series play, up there to be shelled in a fare-thee-well.

Would Casey resign after the Braves took four straight? How long can a man keep going? That's what they were asking that night in old Milwaukee.

But in the third game it was Haney who made the boo-boos. Glance at the score: Yankees 4, Braves 0. Don Larsen, the imperfect Perfect Pitcher, yielded seven singles, fanning eight. Bob Rush pitched fairly good ball, but he had a fit of wildness in the fifth, and that was that.

Or was it?

Look back on that crucial fifth inning ... the game still scoreless, Norm Siebern on base as the result of a walk, and two out. Siebern was perched on second, with McDouglald at bat, and not a cloud in sight.

And what does Haney do? He orders Rush to walk McDougald.

Did you ever hear of such nonsense? McDougald bats right, Rush pitches right. McDougald had been a batting slump all year. And the next batter was Larsen, an all-around athlete who can clout a ball to the fences. The keen-eyed Larsen worked a pass to fill the bases, and then Bauer drove an outside pitch to right field for two runs! That, gentlemen, was the ball game!

The Braves went whacky on bases that day. Schoendienst was trapped off third in what might have been a big sixth inning, offering the second-guessers a noble opportunity to pounce on Red, on third base coach Billy Herman, and even on Hank Aaron, who was hung up between second and third like a diabolo on a string.

Yet the real goof the Braves made came in the eighth inning. Stengel had noticed that Larsen was tiring, and sent Ryne Dyren in to relieve him at the beginning of that stanza. The hefty fireballer was so wild at the start that he walked Mathews on four straight pitches.

It was a spot for wait-and see tactics, but Haney gave no wait sign to Aaron, who hit the first pitch for an easy out. Then Covington worked another pass, but again Torre and Crandall failed to wait out the notoriously wild Duren, and the inning ended without a score.

Remember ... it was only 2-0 then, for Bauer had not yet made his two-run homer off Don McMahon. If ... if Haney had onlyl made Duren pitch and pitch and pitch ....

That's what the second-guessers after the dust of battle rose, revealing the wreckage of the Braves' hopes for a four-straight triumph.

The less said the better about the fourth game, which ended with the Braves winning, 3-0.

But the second-guessers never say less than a million words, no matter what happens.

Before play began, it was announced that Howard, who had cut a gash in his knee in the second game, was fit to play. Yet Casey sent Siebern into left field to become the saddest Series flop since Roger Peckinpaugh committed eight errors in 1925, sending the Washington Senators down to an ingnominious defeat.

Why Siebern, a left-handed batter, against the devastating southpaw Spahn? Hadn't the right-handed Howard led the Yanks at bat during the regular season? Wasn't Howard a longer hitter than the poking Siebern?

And shouldn't Ole Case, really old by now, have known that Howard is a cool cookie who may not be the greatest outfielder on record, yet who knows where a ball is going and tries to catch it?

Poor Siebern, a fine boy, misplayed a fly into a triple, let a soft Texas Leaguer fall in front of him, and went blind on a routine fly into the left field corner, adding a cheap double to the Braves' attack.

Of course, Siebern hadn't played that way during the season. He'd had his weaknesses in the field, but he'd been improving, and he hit .300.

In this case, as later events proved, Casey was second-guessed correctly. Howard replaced Siebern; his fielding plugged a hole in the Yankee outfield; his catch on Bruton in the fifth game was the turning point.

But would you have known that in advance?

It was Haney who caught the second-guessers' shafts as soon as the fifth game began. Turley was starting again. He'd looked bad in the second game. He walked Bruton, the leadoff man, in the first inning.

Then Fred ordered Schoendienst to sacrifice. It's true that Mathews and Aaron couldn't bring Bruton home, and Turley was to go on to pitch a classic shutout.

But why hadn't Haney ordered Schoendienst to try the hit-and-run? After all, Red is one of the game's most adept place-batters. Is it possible that Fred noticed that Turley, despite the pass, was about to have one of his best days? Maybe ... 

But there it is- Schoendienst, whose hitting, fielding and savvy gave the Braves that professional look, was wasted on a sacrifice. My, oh my ...

And again Haney's misfired in the fatal sixth, when the Yankees, leading 1-0, suddenly pounced on Burdette and at last got him off their necks.

Singles by Bauer and Mantle and Berra's double had made it 2-0; and then Fred ordered Burdette to walk Howard for Skowron. Let's agree that Haney's first-inning sacrifice of Schoendienst was according to his book, which calls for the bunt when the leadoff man gets on in the opening inning.

But where was his book in the sixth? How come he ordered right-handed batting Howard, batting against right-handed Burdette,  to be walked? And for Skowron, who with seven RBI's was to press Bauer (with eight) for high in that department for the Series?

Skowron doubled into the right field corner, scoring two runs and, man, the game was in the bag.

Or could you have guessed better than Fred Haney?

The sixth game was the key to the Yankees' final victory. It was one of the great games of Series history. It was a heart-breaker for gallant Warren Spahn. It was a field day for second-guessers.

The Braves were now the jittery team. The Yankees were rolling along with rugged determination, their championship chariot now in high gear.

Bauer's homer gave the Yanks a run in the first. Logan's sacrifice with Schoendienst was successful; Red scored on Aaron's single to even things up. Ford didn't have it; three straight singles gave the Braves a precious run in the second, and Whitey, after walking Schoendienst, went out for Ditmar.

The bases were full with one out. Johnny Logan sent a fly to Howard in left and then Billy Herman out-second-guessed himself. It was a medium-distance fly. Andy Pafko, now a slow-footed 37-year-older, was on third. It would have been suicide to have sent Pakfo in to score.

It WAS suicide.

For Herman, recalling that Howard had thrown wildly to the plate in the loose second game, gave Andy the go-sign.

Goodness gracious to Betsy, Herman, what made you do that?

Pafko, of course, was doubled at the plate. The rally was busted up. Ditmar held the Braves until two singles, an outfield fumble and that man Berra's sacrifice fly tied it up, 2-2, in the sixth.

Naturally, the fact that Mathews repeatedly flubbed with men on bases during the Series (and who would have been the next batter if Pafko had stayed on third) must be forgotten. Or that Ditmar and Duren made the Braves look sick at bat as the game went into extra innings.

Then, in the tenth, Haney again became the butt of second-guessing critics. The great Spahn was only human after all. McDougald opened with a home run. Spahn retired Bauer and Mantle, no mean feat, but Howard and Berra chipped singles.

Haney went to the mound. He didn't want to lift Spahn, that was obvious from his attitude. He put McMahon in the box.

And Skowron immediately clouted a single to score Howard with what was to prove the winning run.

Second-guessing is easy here. Why not Rush to relieve, instead of McMahon? Rush had relieved successfully during the regular season. He had held the Yankees to three hits in seven innings in the third game of the Series. The Yanks had shown little respect for McMahon earlier in the Series. Rush, of course, would have easily retired Skowron. Or would he?

And, come to think of it, why not pass Skowron? The Moose, long frustrated in his search for fame, was having a fine Series. The next batter was Duren, the worst hitter in baseball. To have used a pinch hitter would have been to get him and his cannonball out of the game.

Oh, boy, but there's a real second guess!

By the seventh game all Milwaukee, between liebfraumilch, kulmbacher and niblets of landsjagerwurst, was busy second-guessing. For once, errors of commission had put the Braves in the hole, and errors of omission kept them there.

In the first and third innings, the Braves filled the bases, yet scored only once. Meantime, inept fielding around first base gave the Yankees a one-run lead. Del Crandall evened matters with a homer in the sixth, and then Burdette suddenly collapsed with two out in the eighth and went down with colors flying as the Yankees scored four runs. The final score was 6-2. Casey Stengel was still the Little Napoleon, the Master Mind, the Old Perfesser, the Wunderkind; and Fred Haney was good old Fritz, the dunderhead, but a good guy, at that.

Yet even in this sudden-death struggle, the second-guessers could fault the managers. Why had Casey risked victory by starting Larsen, when Turley, as events proved, was to pitch another superb game? And why had Haney started Burdette (who had only two days rest)?

If you choose, you can claim that Casey showed great wisdom in starting Larsen. He got nearly three innings out of Don at the cost of one run, and then could count on Bullet Bob to finish up fresh.

You may say that Haney might have started Rush with the same in mind ... a few innings from him and then as much as possible from the arm of the dauntless Burdette.

But that's water under the dam, Schlitz under the gullet now. The Series is over. What's your guess on who'll be second-guessed when next October rolls around?"

-Charles Dexter, Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959

1959 Yankee Season of the Past: 1925

THE YEAR THE YANKEES FINISHED SEVENTH

Waite Hoyt Remembers It Well - 28 1/2 Games Back Of Washington

"The Year the Yankees finished seventh was 1925. Waite Hoyt remembers it well. Too well, perhaps.

The man who broadcasts the Cincinnati Reds' games on WKRC was one of the Yankees' stars in those days. He pitched important victories while the team won pennants in 1921, 1922, and 1923 and finished second in 1924.

But 1925 was different. 'We got away badly,' he recalled recently. 'We'd had four great seasons in a row with the same team, without a replacement. And now, in the fifth season, we grew tired. A team can get tired just as an individual gets tired.

'We were tired of the pressure of being on top. Of having everyone gun for us.

'It was still a good ball club, but we seemed to lose our desire. It seemed like we had a joy ride all season.

'We had bickering and fights.

'We thought we should have won our fourth straight pennant in 1924, and we thought it was an accident that we didn't. So nobody bothered to make any changes to the club.

'No one realized the club was falling apart. Aaron Ward on second base was going downhill. Everett Scott at shortstop couldn't move anymore. Wally Schang, the catcher, was really through in 1924 but nobody was prepared for it.

'Wally Pipp, our first baseman, got hurt. He was hit in the head in batting practice. Charlie Caldwell, later the football coach at Princeton, threw the pitch. Pipp couldn't play that day and Miller Huggins put in a young first baseman, Lou Gehrig. Pipp never got back into the lineup.

'Babe Ruth had a bad year.' (Records show he hit .290. The year before he hit .378 to lead the league.)

Hoyt won 11 games. The team finished 28 1/2 games back of Washington, which won.

'They didn't have farm systems back in those days,' pointed out Hoyt. 'Now you have farm systems, and a club like Milwaukee, trying to keep on top, moves second basemen and outfielders up and down. We couldn't do that.

'But Gehrig came to the club. And Earle Combs and Mark Koenig. Next year, we added Tony Lazzeri. And in 1926-27-28 we won three straight pennants again.'

Hoyt came back, too. He led the league in 1927, and before he was through he had won 237 games in 20 years."

-Pat Harmon, Cincinnati Post (Baseball Digest, August 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Allie Reynolds

ABOUT REYNOLDS

In seven of his 12 seasons with the Indians and Yankees, Allie Pierce Reynolds won 16 or more games (20 in 1952), totaling 182 wins against 107 defeats from 1943 through 1954. But his greatest triumph of all was in the 1949 World Series opener, as detailed here.

-Baseball Digest, October 1959

10 YEARS AGO: REYNOLDS' GREAT VICTORY IN '49

"Allie pitched one of the finest games in World Series history by edging the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1-0, in the opening game of the 1949 set. But unless you saw Reynolds pitching against Don Newcombe, you couldn't appreciate what was happening to Reynolds. It looked as if he were losing, honestly, it did.

Hardly anybody expected Reynolds to finish the game, for the very reason that he seldom does. Imagine a pitcher winning 17 games and being able to finish only four of what he started. That was Reynolds during the 1949 season.

Yet Reynolds pitched nine full innings in heat and humidity. He won. He gave up only two hits. What else can a guy do before 66,224 screaming mortals? What else ... ?

Allie worked on track and baseball in his undergraduate days at Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater. The Cleveland Indians signed him, and the first thing we knew, just as the war was warming up, Allie was promoted from Wilkes-Barre to Cleveland.

Bill Veeck wanted Joe Gordon and Larry MacPhail wanted Reynolds, which is how Allie got to win 19 games for the Yankees in 1947 and become a loud instrument in their pennant music. But when it came time to pick a pitcher for the opening game of the Series, Bucky Harris, then manager of the Yankees, delivered a supreme insult to Allie. He picked chubby Frank Shea, a rookie, and he made Allie wait until the second game.

Allie swallowed hard and took the bitter pill. Nobody wrote or said anything within his hearing that Harris thought Allie was too timid, but everyone knew what Harris was thinking and why. So Allie pitched and won the second game, 10-3.

'That's a typical Reynolds game,' carped the critics later. 'He doesn't like those tight games.'

Now it is 1949 and Reynolds is winning a flock of games, mainly with the help of Joe Page. Four complete games for a pitcher of Reynolds' capabilities! Wonder why they were talking about the guy's ticker?

They were waiting for him to blow up all during the first game of the Series. He was up against a great hurler, Newcombe. Allie gave up a double in the first inning, a fly by Spider Jorgensen that Lindell would have caught in faster going in the outfield. But Allie got Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson.

Still, Allie was getting second billing in the grandstand conversations, so terrific was Newcombe. But Newcombe wasn't better than Reynolds, wasn't as good, if you looked at the performances. It just seemed that way.

All of a sudden it was the eighth inning and only one Dodger (Hermanski in the second) had got past second base. Then you saw an odd sight. The Yankee bullpen was alive with guys throwing baseballs. No need for it. Allie was strong and good. Didn't Allie usually blow up close to the wire? Those four complete games must have been haunting Casey Stengel, the nervous manager of the Yankees. Casey had picked Allie as his starting pitcher. Timid? Casey didn't think so.

Yet Casey tossed his thoughts against the walls of the Yankee dugout and had caught them in his cap. He considered yanking Allie, despite the 0-0 score, and finishing with Joe Page. But Casey didn't. He went down to the wire with Allie, down through the ninth inning. He let Allie pitch that BIG inning to Robison, Hermanski and Furillo. Allie handled the three as if they were toys.

Why not? Allie had struck out nine men to 11 for Newcombe. They kept it close, much too close for a timid guy if Allie was that type. Besides, Allie didn't allow a hit between the first and eighth, when Pee Wee Reese singled.

You know the story of the ninth. Newcombe's third pitch to Henrich ... a home run ... the rush to the subways. And for Reynolds, the pitcher who was losing a tie ball game, a triumph because ... 

Well, because he wasn't timid."

-Frank Lewis, Cleveland Press (Baseball Digest, October 1959)

1959 Yankee Coach of the Past: Chuck Dressen

WOULD YOU HAVE MADE THESE DEALS?

Here Are Some Senators Spruned, Says Dressen

"The ranking braintruster on Walt Alston's staff, Chuck Dressen, insists he is what he is- a coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers. But the feeling is strong that old Perpetual Motion is apt to bounce into the headlines at any time.

He could manage the Milwaukee Braves before the season is over. Or the Detroit Tigers. Or the Chicago White Sox. Or the Boston Red Sox. Or even the Dodgers. This is just a feeling. Dressen, himself, doesn't speculate.

'I'd still be with Washington if the old man had lived,' Chuck says instead. 'Clark Griffith was my kind of baseball man. Me and him would sit for hours, even after a night game when he was old and not feeling strong, and talk for hours.'

This is a man who has managed three different clubs- Cincinnati, Brooklyn and Washington, and no matter what anyone says, including Dressen himself, he'd grab a chance to manage again. You can make book on it. The man couldn't help himself.

'I liked Washington when I went there,' Chuck reminisces. That was in 1955, when he had implausibly left the Dodgers of 1953 of his own accord. 'Griff and me was going to make a lot of deals. We talked the same language. After Calvin (Griffith) took over, it was different, but I wanted to stay with the Senators because Cal was so sure he was going to move to Los Angeles.'

'Calvin was sure?'

Dressen chuckles. 'Remember one time the papers said that Calvin was trying to reach me on the coast to talk about a trade, only he couldn't find me? Shucks, I was hiding.

'I was out there checking on the transfer of Washington to Los Angeles. It was so secret I didn't even stay at a hotel. He wasn't trying to reach me. I was hiding on his orders.

'Washington had first crack at Los Angeles, ahead of Brooklyn. They booted it.'

Something like 18 games after the 1957 season began, Dressen was removed as field manager of the Senators. 'They gave me a title- assistant to the president- but, hell, what good was that title?' Chuck goes on. 'I could have stayed ... I had a two-year contract with Washington. You didn't know that, did you?

'I wasn't fired. I quit. They wasn't going to do nothing. Sherry Robertson was going to run the farm system, and he don't think like I do. And Calvin was going to run the Senators. What did that leave me to do? Nothing.

'I wanted to tear apart the Washington club. Who did Calvin get for Pete Runnells? Albie Pearson, mostly, and he's a nice kid, but once I had a chance to get five ball players from Cleveland for Runnels.

'That's the truth. Hank Greenberg, when he was general manager of Cleveland, gave me a list of ten players. I could have any five, except only one left-handed pitcher, for Runnels. Cal McLish was on the list. So were Gene Woodling and Bobby Avila.'

Needless to say, the trade didn't come off. 'Calvin said he couldn't give up Runnels because Pete had a good year,' Dressen remembers.

'When you got a bad club, the time to trade a ball player is when the man's up, when he's hitting. I wanted to trade Runnels, Eddie Yost and Roy Sievers. Not all at once ... just one of them so's we could begin building up the club.

'One day George Weiss of the Yankees told me he was looking for a left-handed hitter. 'Well, we don't have what you're looking for,' I told him. Then we got to talking about Sievers.

'Weiss offered me Billy Martin, Woodie Held, Bob Martyn and a pitcher I woulda insisted be Ralph Terry. I called Calvin.

' 'We can't trade Sievers,' he told me. 'The fans would run me out of town.' 

'I told Calvin that's the way you have to go- give up a big man to rebuild. I said 'Calvin, I don't care how many home runs Sievers hits. We're still finishing last.' '

One other notable Dressen deal that wasn't made.

'Early in June 1956 the White Sox thought they were going to beat the Yankees. I talked to Chuck Comiskey and he was all excited. Chicago offered us Minnie Minoso, Jack Harshman, Walt Dropo, Sammy Esposito (a needed shortstop) and $75,000 for Sievers. Calvin was passing on trades at that time, although the Old Man was alive, and he turned it down.

'No, we didn't hit it off too good, me and Calvin. But you know, I like Calvin.' "

-Francis Stann, Washington (Baseball Digest, May 1959)

CALLS 1,000-TO-1 SHOT

"The transfer of pitcher Bob Porterfield from the Cubs back to the Pirates recalls the comment made recently by Don Gutteridge, the White Sox coach.

Don pointed out that after the 1955 season, Washington peddled two of its star pitchers- Porterfield to the Red Sox and Mickey McDermott to the Yankees. He added:

'Everyone said that they'd be terrific winners with the good clubs that they'd been sent to. Everyone, that is, except Charlie Dressen, who was managing Washington. He shrugged off the deals by saying that he'd kept one pitcher, Pedro Ramos, who'd win more than the two combined.

'He could have had 1,000-to-1 odds against it- but it turned out that he was right. Porterfield won three and McDermott won two the next season, while Ramos got 12 wins- six of them against Boston.' "

-Leo Fischer, Chicago American (Baseball Digest, August 1959)

Charlie Dressen, coach of the Dodgers: "If I had been managing the National League team in the second All-Star Game and that guy (Casey Stengel) had used all those left-handers, I'd have had a left-handed pitcher in there mighty quick. I might have let Don Drysdale pitch to only one or two batters, then changed. You play the game to win, don't you?"

-Baseball Digest, October 1959

1959 Yankee of the Past: George Halas

"Poppa Bear became head coach in 1920 and left after the '29 season. He returned in '33 and left in mid-1942 for Naval duty. George came in '46 and 'retired' after the '55 campaign. He again assumed control in '58 and the league has been more active since.

A University of Illinois all-around athletic star, George also played baseball with the Yankees. His pro football playing career as an end was with Hammond, the Decatur Staleys and the Bears. He's the winningest coach of all time- 376 victories, 121 losses.

Halas was one of the league's organizers."

-Pro Football Handbook 1959

1959 Yankee of the Past: Bobo Newsom

PASSED BALL

"There was the afternoon in Washington a few years ago when Lewis Norman Newsom, an interant pitcher who called everybody Bobo and who answered to the same name, was working on a shutout for the Senators.

The first batter in the seventh opened with a single. It was a bunt situation and everybody knew it as Bobo's pitching opponent came up with a bat in his hands. The umpire was Red Jones.

As Newsom fired his fast ball, Eddie Yost broke in from third base and charged down the line. The batter took the pitch ... 'Stike One.'

Bobo fired another fast ball. Yost again broke for the plate, in expectation of making the play he made best- a barehanded pickup of a bunt. The batter also took this one ... 'Ball One,' called umpire Jones.

Bobo threw still another fast ball, his third in a row. Once again Yost tore in toward the plate.

Newsom suddenly called time and summoned Yost over to the mound.

'Cut that out,' he told Eddie.

'Cut what out?' puzzled Eddie.

'Cut out charging to the plate every time I throw my fast ball,' grunted Bobo.

'What's wrong with that?' countered his third basman.

'Old Bobo is a-throwin' that ball as hard as he can,' said Newsom. 'But you're getting to the plate faster than my pitch. What're you trying to do ... show me up?' "

-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, March 1959)

THE HARD WAY

"It took a master of the art of alibi to talk him out of the spot in which Bobo Newsom once found himself. Hurling for the St. Browns against the Athletics one day, Newsom was sweating out a massacre. When the Browns came off the field in the seventh inning, the score had mounted to 15-0 in favor of the A's.

'Gosh, Bobo,' a teammate kidded, 'they're really cracking you up today.

'Aw, nuts!,' Newsom replied. 'How d'ya expect a pitcher to win games if his club don't get any runs?' "

-Baseball Digest, May 1959

1959 Yankee of the Past: Paul Waner

Paul Waner, one of the finest hitters the game ever knew:

"A good hitter doesn't permit his wrists to break. He lets them roll with the swing. No one can actually get much power from his wrists."

-Baseball Digest, April 1959

WANER'S FURIOUS STRETCH DRIVE

Ranking 32nd With .318 Near Midseason, He Won Title With .362

"Sitting across from each other in the St. Louis Cardinal clubhouse this spring were two of the greatest hitters in history, Paul Waner and Stan Musial.

Musial, in the autumn of a brilliant 18-season career, turned to a visitor and said:

'One could say you were looking at a couple of fellows who have over 6,000 hits between them.'

Waner, now a Cardinal batting coach, grinned and nodded. The former Pirate and Hall of Famer was stripped down to his shorts and baseball socks. The frame of his emaciated body, recently ravaged by an attack of tuberculosis, was accentuated by thin, bony arms and legs.

One who didn't know him would never know or guess that here sat one of the most skillful hitters the game has ever known.

'You're not far from passing me in hits, are you, Stan?' Waner asked.

'I don't really know,' Musial said. 'I'm not sure, but I think I have 3,116.'

'I don't even know how many I wound up with,' Paul added.

A statistically-minded reporter supplied the information. He said the figure was 3,152.

'That would leave you only 35 away from me,' Waner told Musial. 'It shouldn't take you long to get that many. I hope you go on to make a thousand more.'

'Thanks' Stan said. 'At my age getting those 35 is going to be hard.'

They both laughed at this.

Between them, someone said, Waner and Musial had made 6,268 hits. 'That's a lot of bingles,' whistled a Cardinal rookie.

'You wouldn't believe this,' Paul told his listeners, by now almost a dozen players and writers, 'but there was a time when I was playing when I got tired making so many hits.'

Everybody laughed at this. 'You mean there was ever a ball player who didn't like his base hits?' asked a credulous scribe.

'That's right,' Waner replied. 'I was getting so many 'three for four' and 'four for five' days one season I got tired of it.'

'The guy must be nuts,' a rookie whispered.

'I'd like to be as nuts and as great a hitter as he was,' said another.

'I only got tired of making a lot of hits one year,' Waner admitted with a laugh. 'The first time I went into a prolonged slump, I got over the idea in a hurry.'

Paul was all wound up conversationally by now. 'Then there was that year, 1934 I think, when I was hitting only about .318 at the end of June.

'You remember that, Stan? You were in the league for a couple of years then, weren't you, Old Man?'

Musial laughed and said he was about 13 years back in 1934.

'Anyway,' Paul continued, 'there I was hitting .318 and the rest of the Pirates were kidding me about 31 other players hitting better than that in the league.

'They burned me up with the ribbing, so one day I told 'em I'm taking all bets that I'm catching the field before the season ended. I must have made about $500 in bets.

'By Labor Day, only Ducky Medwick was ahead of me by three points. That day he went one-for-ten and I got seven-for-nine. It was a breeze after that. I think I won the title with a .362 mark.' (Editor's note: He did.)

'How about the money?' someone asked.

 'I never collected a cent of it,' Waner laughed.

'I think I'll go out and do a little running in the outfield,' Musial said to break up the party.

'Take it easy, Old Man,' Waner kidded. 'You're not as young as you used to be.' "

-Al Abrams, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, May 1959)

COULDN'T SEE HIM

"Paul Waner possessed extraordinary eyesight as well as remarkably supple wrists. For Pittsburghers, he and Honus Wagner will never be replaced as the greatest hitters of all time.

Chet Smith, sports editor of the Pittsburgh Press, remembers the day when a Brooklyn Dodger rookie southpaw named Harry Eisenstat came into the game and the left-handed Waner tripled on the first pitch.

'I don't mind the triple,' Eisenstat complained in the clubhouse, 'but he didn't have to insult me.'

His listeners asked exactly what he meant.

'Well, he never looked at me once going up to the plate, or even standing there. He didn't even know I was a left-hander. I thought he was asleep until the ball got right to the plate. Then his eyes popped open and that rifle shot.' "

-Fred Russell, Nashville Banner (Baseball Digest, September 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Dazzy Vance

 LOOK OUT! NO GOOD CURVES AHEAD: VANCE

"Dazzy Vance, who had one of the sharpest-breaking curves in the business when he was at his peak with the Brooklyn Dodgers, can't understand why there are so few pitchers with a good curve ball in the major leagues today.

'You never or rarely see a good curve,' the old Dazzler said this spring. 'Every club has a pitching coach, which we didn't have in the old days, but what are these coaches doing? Are they afraid to tell a young pitcher that he doesn't know how to throw a curve? I know it can be done because I've worked with a lot of kid teams in Florida. I took one young fellow with a strong arm, very poor control and no curve at all and I got him where he could throw such a good curve that I sold him for a good figure to a big league club.'

Could he think of any good reason why the young pitchers didn't learn to throw curves?

'Well, I've noticed one trend that may have something to do with it,' Vance replied. 'I've heard coaches- pitching, infield and hitting- say very important like, 'Now we don't want to change any boy's natural style. We'll point out things he's doing wrong, but each man must find the style he likes best.' Maybe that's the trouble. Show a boy the right way to throw a curve and make him do it that way. He ain't old enough to have a natural style. So give him one. And give him the right one.'

Dazzy, who won 197 games between 1922 and 1935, recalled that George Sisler got him his big break in the major leagues. 'We moved into Mobile with an exhibition game with the Browns late in the training season,' Vance recalled. 'We'd been in training five or six weeks and old Robbie (the late Wilbert Robinson) hadn't given me a tumble. I hadn't had a starting assignment. I guess everyone else was tired, but anyhow Robbie accidentally put me in that game at Mobile. If I do say it myself, I had a pretty good curve in those days. I broke one off for Sisler, and George struck out. And as he passed Robbie he said, 'That was the doggondest curve I ever saw.' Robbie heard it and asked who threw the curve and somebody told him it was that big, new guy, Vance, and that's how he found out I was on the ball club.'

Vance's curve was the biggest this writer ever saw. Mike Haley, covering the Browns for another St. Louis paper, was sitting with us, directly behind the plate in the Mobile ball park. After one of Vance's pitches he turned and said, 'Did you see what I saw?' 'Yes,' we replied, 'but we don't believe it. That curve broke twice.'

It must have been a difficult task to catch old Dazzy and it was no wonder the Dodgers gave him a personal catcher in Hank DeBerry."

-J. Roy Stockton, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Baseball Digest, May 1959)

NO KNUCKLEHEAD, HE

"Back when Dazzy Vance was riding high on his sizzling fast one, he decided to augment it with a dipsy-do knuckleball pitch.

After a few weeks of experimenting, he was ready to test his knuckler and summoned Otto Miller to catch him. His very first pitch veered off to plunk Miller behind the ear. Exit Otto.

Eddie Ainsmith volunteered as a replacement. Dazzy's next knuckler blackened Eddie's eye. Exit Ainsmith. In came Bubbles Hargrave to pick up a catcher's mitt.

He came to when they poured a bucket of water over him, and, despite a lump on his head, went out that afternoon and poled five straight hits.

The next morning he walked up to Vance and handed Dazzy a ball. 'Hit me again,' he grinned."

-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, August 1959)

1959 Yankee Farmhand of the Past: Mayo Smith

ADVERSITY MOLDED MAYO SMITH AS A PILOT

Illness, Losing Streak Aid Him

"Edward Mayo Smith, new manager of the Cincinnati Redlegs, believes a man learns more managing in adversity than when he is in the throes of success.

Smith, a rugged, balding man of 43, learned this through the harshest of experiences. What he went through was a living hell. He survived baseball fire and brimstone.

After six years of minor league managerial apprenticeship, in his twenty-third consecutive season of professional baseball, Mayo, then 40 years of age, was blessed suddenly with the opportunity to lead a big league team. The Phils' general manager, Roy Hamey, had plucked him out of the New York Yankees' farm system to manage the Philadelphia National League club.

This was in 1955. Mayo, who had played only a year in the majors himself, was taking over a club whose nucleus consisted principally of the same ball players who, as Whiz Kids five years earlier, had captured the pennant. They had gone through two managers since 1950, however, while finishing fifth, third and fourth in the post-pennant years.

Mayo enjoyed a pleasant spring period while getting acquainted with his major league charges, and had a so-so first week as the championship season began. Suddenly, everything went wrong. 'We started to lose and I just couldn't stop the slide,' Smith related to a visitor to his quarters during the World Series.

'We lost and lost and lost,' Mayo continued. 'We made terrible mistakes. Mental errors as well as physical errors. In seven of the 13 games we dropped, we led in the eighth or ninth innings. Then something would go wrong. Believe me it was an awful thing to live through.'

'What did you do about, Mayo?' the visitor asked.

'After every loss I'd go into the clubhouse ready to blow my top. Coming off the field, I'd tell myself I'm really going to let these guys have it. Then I'd look at at the clubhouse scene and I'd see my players were suffering as much as I was. They'd sit there in front of their lockers staring down or into space. Nobody was having any fun.

'I'd ask myself then, Mayo, if you blow your top now, with these men feeling this bad, what good could you possibly do?'

'Each time I'd have to admit it would do no good at all. I'd bite my tongue. The next day we would go over our mistakes of the day before calmly and hope to do better.'

Somehow Mayo's Phils contrived to find new ways to blow games- 13 of them in succession.

'Did you sleep well in that time, Mayo?'

'No, I liked to died, but suddenly it straightened itself out and we won a game or two. WE weren't hot or cold, but we got out of that awful streak.'

Then in late July or August, the club put together a winning streak of 11 games and began a climb toward the first division. The team that once stood last, 17 games below .500, finished all-square with a 77-77 record and fourth place.

Mayo won't quite say it this way, but it's obvious that it was that depressing period at the start of his major league managerial career that helped to mold him into a solid manager, who was able to stay with the Phils until July of last year when they parted company. Solid enough to get this second chance in Cincinnati.

Mayo's Cincinnati predecessor, Birdie Tebbetts, had told a story during the past summer about baseball sympathy. The details were repeated to manager Smith, who recalled the incident that involved him.

'Yes, right in the midst of the losing streak, we're in Cincinnati and one evening long before the game the Reds' clubhouse boy came into the visitors' clubhouse to say Birdie would like to see me in his office. I didn't know what to expect, but I went,' Mayo chuckled.

'Birdie was very nice about it. He said he knew what I was going through and advised me to keep my chin up. He said he was doing it because he had known some depressing periods in his first year himself and he had welcomed a kind word. I admitted my spirits were real low and I thanked him.

'Well, when we got into that winning streak later on Birdie brought the Reds into Philadelphia and you know what? We knocked 'em off five straight. They'd beaten us seven straight at one period. It was a miserable way to repay Tebbetts for his kindness but, as a result of that series, we finished fourth and the Reds finished fifth.'

'Yes,' a man said, 'and that taught Birdie a lesson, too. He said no matter how much he liked an opponent he would never commiserate with him again as long as he was on the opposite side. In baseball, you live by only one rule- and that is to win.'

The visitor's next question was a blunt one. 'Mayo, you must know that Jimmie Dykes finished the season as interim manager of the Reds with a great deal of success and public acclaim. There was a 'ground swell' in Cincinnati and other Redleg rooting points for Dykes to get the 1959 appointment. Do you feel this puts you on a hot seat right off the bat?'

'Yes, I've heard,' Mayo said. 'Dykes did a great job. I can understand the feeling for him. But I can't start out this new responsiblity worrying about the reaction of the fans to my appointment.

'One way to please the fans is by winning. That's the essence of this business. You have to win. I want to worry about improving the power and the pitching and whatever else we need to win,  and maybe go all the way. I think we've got the nucleus of a good ball club. My problem is to develop a winner. If I do, then the people will be on my side. If I lose, then I expect I'll have to take the consequences.'

'Seems to me,' general manager Gabe Paul spoke up, 'if there's any blame, I'm the guy, not Mayo, who should get it.'

As noted before, Mayo Smith played but one season in the big show- that was 1945. It was a season marked by sheer mediocrity at the plate; his batting average was .212. We wanted to know more about that season and how it was that a man with such limited experience eventually became a big league manager.

It developed that illness had something to do with it. Mayo had been a minor leaguer for 12 years- most of that time in Triple-A ball in Toronto and Buffalo in the International League. In 1944, playing for the Buffalo Bisons, he batted .340 and won the league batting championship.

That winter, at the annual baseball draft meeting, Smith was drafted by the Philadelphia Athletics as an outfielder at age 30, to play for Connie Mack in the 1945 season. Mr. Mack wrote him and said he would be given a chance to make the team.

But it was in that same winter that Mayo became seriously ill. Doctors diagnosed his case as rheumatic fever and prescribed long bed rest.

'I was on my back for three months,' Smith recalls. 'I figured I had blown my major league chance forever. In fact, the doctors told me not to consider playing ball again. Every ball player, I guess, thinks about managing some time, but I hadn't actually given the idea much serious thought. I had lots of time to think.

'I asked myself a question. 'Mayo, what are you going to do now? A minor leaguer is no kid at 30. If this game means as much to you as you've always thought, you'd better give some serious thought to a career as a manager.' That was the beginning.'

Strangely enough, Mayo did recover in time to spend about half the season with the A's, although he missed all of spring training. It was 1945; the war was still on; baseball was digging down to the bottom of the manpower barrel for talent.

The .212 batting average, however, was a bar to his future as a big leaguer. Mayo, who studied Connie Mack's managerial methods, now that he had decided inwardly to pursue a pilot's career, was sold to Portland of the Pacific Coast League the next winter.

At Portland, the manager was Jim Turner, former National League league pitcher, whom Smith had known as a rival player in the International League. Another Coast League manager was Casey Stengel,  who had the Oakland club.

Turner liked Smith from the start and began to give him little extra duties. They were together for three years and by the third season Smith had become an unofficial player-coach for the Portland Beavers.

At that time, the Yankees had a loose working agreement with Portland and actually had assigned Turner to the club as manager. It is part of the Yankee system to ask for recommendations among its farm managers for possible managerial talent among the players.

It was Turner, who advised George Weiss, general manager of the Yankees, that Mayo Smith had managerial promise. At the end of the 1948 season, Stengel was named manager of the Yankees and invited Turner to become his pitching coach.

The Yankees kept title to Mayo and asked him to become player-manager of the Amsterdam, New York, club of the Canadian-American League. His pilot's career was launched in 1949 at age 34.

During the World Series, a reporter sought out Turner and asked the basis of his recommdation of Mayo Smith as a manager.

'From the beginning,' said Jim, 'Mayo was a good listener. When Mayo talked, he asked the right kind of question. He knew about outfielding, but he wanted to know more about pitchers, catchers and infielders.'

In the winter time, Smith would go back to Buffalo on occasion since he had played there four years. Usually, he would find a way to visit the town's most famous baseball resident, Joe McCarthy, longtime manager of the Yankees, and consult with him about managing.

'Another managerial privilege,' Mayo recalls, 'was serving on the faculty of the Yankees' preseason school at Lake Wales, Florida. I got to study Stengel's methods closely.

On this phase, Turner adds a thought. 'When I saw him operate in our school,' Jim says, 'I kind of thought myself proud of having picked Mayo. My impression of him as a manager was that he knew what to do when the game was on. He thought situations out very well.'

Smith managed in the Yankee chain for six years, the last two for Birmingham in the Class AA Southern Association. After the 1954 season in which the Birmingham Barons finished third, he went to the Phils.

Now the Redlegs expect him to 'think situations out very well.' "

Si Burick, Dayton News (Baseball Digest, February 1959)

1959 Yankee Farmhand of the Past: Harry Craft

THE BREAK THAT MADE CRAFT A MANAGER

"When the Kansas City A's played the Reds this spring, Manager Harry Craft, one-time Cincinnati center fielder (there was never a better one defensively in a Red uniform), renewed acquaintances with Frank McCormick, his one-time roommate. McCormick works these days as an expert on televised Cincinnati games.

To a fellow who happened along as these old chums talked over old times, Craft said, 'I could never forget McCormick, even if I wanted to. He's the fellow responsible for my becoming a manager.'

Craft was traded to the Yankee organization by the Reds in 1942. (Remember the deal? Harry went with pitcher Jim Turner to the Yankees for two outfielders, Francis Kelleher and Eric Tipton.)

'In 1948, I'm with the Kansas City Blues when they are a farm club for the Yankees,' Craft recalled. 'We're playing a spring exhibition at Lake Wales, Florida, against the Boston Braves. Frank's playing first base for Boston. Well, Hank Bauer hits one down to first and McCormick rifles the ball into second to force me. I slide in there hard as I can to try to break up the double play and I feel some bones pop in my knee.

'They put me on a stretcher and send me John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Dr. Bennett takes one look at the knee and he says, 'Harry, if you want to stay in baseball, you'll have to find another medium. You're through as a player.' I finished the season as a player-coach; they used me to pinch-hit a few times, and the next season the Yanks hired me to manager their farm at Independence, Kansas.

'If McCormick had fumbled that ball Bauer hit to him, or if he hadn't gone for the double play, I'd have kept right on playing and I might have never had my chance to manage.' "

-Si Burick, Dayton News (Baseball Digest, June 1959)

1959 Yankee Prospect of the Past: Eddie Sawyer

HANDING HIM A LESSON

"Those who think Eddie Sawyer of the Phils is an easy-going individual might be interested in this story:

When he last bossed the Phils in 1952, the former Ithaca College professor (he also holds a Phi Beta Kappa key) admits he bore down on a certain player who was violating training rules.

'One night we had it out in the clubhouse after everybody had gone,' Sawyer relates. 'I whipped this fellow and whipped him good. All he could understand then was fear. I made him fearful.

'Nobody saw this fight except the player, myself and a clubhouse attendant. The man I had a fight with turned out to be a pretty good ball player.' "

-Les Biederman, The Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, August 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Leo Durocher

Leo Durocher, on what it takes to be a good manager: "I'll say this from the standpoint of a guy who had good years and bad years, and who still gets a call now and then from a general manager who has a job open: The good manager can't manage scared. He has to manage boldly and stick to his decisions. He can't manage to please the newspapermen. He can't kowtow to his general manager. He can't let what the players think, or the fans think, affect his judgment.

"He also can't worry about whether the players like him or not. How can you possibly have all 25 men in a group like you? They don't have to like you, but they had all better respect you. If you don't have their respect, you're lost. You have to be able to needle your players a bit- and hurt 'em with what you say, if necessary, because you've got to get through to 'em."

Baseball Digest, July 1959

1959 Yankee of the Past: Bill McKechnie

"Bill McKechnie, manager of the Pirates the last time they won a World Series, in 1925, who is living in retirement in Florida, got a big bang out of the All-Star Game. Told he's looking remarkably fit for a man in his 70s, he quipped:

'I'm just waiting for the third big league to get started. I have it all figured out to do a comeback. Leo Durocher, Jimmie Dykes and I will come back together to play third base- three innings each.' "

-Harry Keck, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph (Baseball Digest, September 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Joe McCarthy

TECHNICAL K.O.

"Ball players who knew Joe McCarthy, the old Yankee manager, consider him the greatest in his line. Hank Greenberg recalls having a clubhouse boy who worked in the visiting clubhouse in Detroit. The kid eavesdropped on the opposition and reported the gossip to Greenberg.

'Somehow Joe found out about it,' says Greenberg. 'You know how sharp he was. He found out about everything. So one day he called a meeting and made me the chief topic of conversation. He told his club to knock Greenberg down. Keep knocking him down. Throw at him every time he comes up. Of course, he was only doing it so the kid would run to me with all he said. He did, too, and I was pretty uneasy at the plate all during the Yankee series.' "

-Jimmy Cannon, New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, May 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Branch Rickey

CREW FOR RICKEY'S SALESMAN-SHIP

"Bob Cobb, former owner of the Hollywood Stars, contributes another reason for Branch Rickey's success in baseball.

'When we were part of the Dodgers' great farm system,' says Cobb, 'Rickey would assemble his scouts in a room and ask them: 'Whom can we sell that won't hurt us?' Rickey would write the names on a blackboard as the scouts mentioned players. Then he would start with the top name and inquire: 'We're going to sell this player to what team that can't  hurt us?' If that player was a pitcher, and Rickey knew the Cardinals or Cubs could be annoying with more pitching, he eliminated them as possible purchasers.' "

-David Condon, Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, March 1959)

Branch Rickey, Pittsburgh's elder statesman: "I would rather have errors of enthusiasm than the indifference of wisdom."

-Baseball Digest, June 1959

Branch Rickey, asked what the format for the World Series would be if his plan for a third major league were adopted: "The three teams would play a round robin. A team would be eliminated upon losing its fourth game. In such a plan, it is conceivable that a Series would end in eight games, but that would be the minimum and most unlikely. At the same time, it would not be possible for the Series to run beyond 11 games, at which time two of the teams would each have had four defeats. There would be more tension and drama in such a playdown. It would test the tactical gifts of the managers to the limit, and it would be more profitable to players and club owners."

-Baseball Digest, July 1959

1959 Yankee of the Past: Clark Griffith

COMPOUND INJURY

"Once when he unloaded a weak hitting outfielder for a pitcher who had won only four games, the late Clark Griffith agreed it was a minor deal. Both players slid out of the majors before the year was out and Griffith was philosophical when the trade was recalled to him. He said, 'It was an even swap- both clubs were hurt.' "

-Shirley Povich, Washington Post (Baseball Digest, April 1959)

FAVOR-ITE TRICK

"That an umpire is obstinate about returning a favor was best demonstrated in the early years of Clark Griffith on a day when he was pitching for the Chicago White Sox and John McGraw was playing for the Orioles. Joe Cantillon, the game's lone umpire, who in the custom of the times called balls and strikes from behind the pitcher, was furious with McGraw's constant wrangling with his decisions.

When McGraw drew a walk and Pitcher Griffith started to work on the next batter, Griffith could hardly believe his ears when he heard Umpire Cantillon whispering, 'Pick McGraw off first.' Given that astonishing authority, Griffith lured McGraw off the base with a palpable balk motion and threw to first. 'Yer Out!' Cantillon told McGraw.

McGraw screamed 'Balk!' in protest but got no satisfaction from Cantillon, and when the next batter singled, Griffith picked him, too, off first with the same balk motion he had used on McGraw. Griffith was surprised when the umpire ruled 'balk' and waved the runner to second base. He protested to Cantillon that he had done nothing differently.'

'Yeah, I know,' the umpire said, 'but when you picked off McGraw, it was a favor to me. If you're gonna pick anyone else off, you gotta obey the rules.' "

-Shirley Povich, Washington Post (Baseball Digest, May 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Frank Baker

THEY CALLED HIM HOME RUN BAKER

"'Home Run' Baker they called him. He first glamorized the home run. He worked the third base corner of the famous $100,000 infield, representing the Philadelphia Athletics and including Jack Barry, Eddie Collins and Stuffy McInnis.

His name is etched in bronze in baseball's Hall of Fame. He has now seen 72 summers come and go. Every morning he's up at 6 a.m. and, as when he was a boy, he spends the day in the fields tilling the ground and working his farm near Trappe, Maryland.

A remarkable man in physique, in age, in mind and in heart. Long on character, modesty and sincerity.

'It was just 50 years ago, this past September, about the 18th or the 20th, that I arrived in Chicago from the Reading club to join Connie Mack and the Athletics,' he says with a smile. 'I went into the Lexington Hotel and walked right in the dining room where Connie Mack was eating.

'I said, 'I'm here, Mr. Mack.' And Connie looked at me and said, 'I see you are.' That afternoon I went to the park and who was warming up but Big Ed Walsh. He could break a spitball into a bucket from the mound. I fouled off a pitch, he threw me a ball and then I doubled over Fielder Jones' head in right field.'

That was the beginning of John Franklin Baker's 13-year career in the American League. He got another double over Jones' head in the same game. In the 1911 World Series, he hit home runs off Rube Marquard and Christy Mathewson and became an American idol.

It was then that they started referring to him as 'Home Run' Baker. He was in an era of the dead ball. 'I don't like to cast aspersions,' he says, 'but a Little Leaguer today can hit the modern ball as far as grown men could hit the ball we played with.'

Baker also had to swing at the spitter, the emery ball and paraffin ball- all doctored pitches which are outlawed today. 'Russ Ford of the Yankees had the emery ball down perfect. He had a hole in his glove with a little piece of emery hidden in the padding,' Baker readily recalls.

'One day Eddie Collins took three strikes and then complained. Tom Connolly was the umpire. He went out, inspected the glove and found the emery cloth.'

Pitchers in Baker's day also threw at hitters. Carl Mays accidentally killed a man, Ray Chapman, on August 17, 1920. Even Walter Johnson, a noble individual, once aimed at an opposing player. Baker was his target.

'I was told that Walter Johnson on his deathbed said I was the only man he ever threw at deliberately. I remember it. I fell to the ground twice on two straight pitches. Gabby Street was the catcher. He was laughing. He asked me why did I duck.

'I looked at him and said it was either 'duck or no dinner.' I used to have luck hitting Walter. It was only hearsay, but I heard that his teammates kept after him to throw at me. Not many pitchers in my time threw at hitters and not many do it today, either. There's just no place in baseball for something like that.'

While Baker took his living room guest down memory lane, he got up and went to a closet for some old equipment. He had autographed balls which were 40 years old, his original gloves and bats which Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth and he himself had used.

'I showed this glove to Joe DiMaggio at an Old Timers' Game in New York. He couldn't believe it. He said, 'No man alive has a right to make a catch in anything like this.' But we did and you can see that we had to catch the ball in the pocket because the fingers aren't tied together and there is no webbing.

'I remember in 1908 we used to carry our uniforms to the field in a roll. That was when all the players went to the park in a horse-drawn streetcar. The next year we had trunks for our uniforms. Really, the uniform hasn't changed too much. The caps are different. It used to be more of a skullcap. Today they have long peaks on them.'

Baker was asked how he had discovered Jimmie Foxx, another Maryland member of the Hall of Fame. 'It was in this very room,' he answered. 'Foxx's father brought the boy to see me when I managed the Easton team in 1924. I signed him. His first two swings in spring training, when we practiced up by the old schoolhouse, were over the outfielders' heads.

'That same year I sold him to the majors. I loved Connie Mack. But I didn't think it was fair to offer him to only one team. I waited until the Yankees came to Philadelphia. I went down in the dugout and Ruth and manager Miller Huggins were talking. I told them about Foxx and said he could be playing on their team next year. They laughed. Huggins said he wasn't interested.

'Then I walked over to the A's dugout and saw Mr. Mack. I told him the same. He said, 'I'll take him.' He gave us $2,500. The next year Jimmie was with the A's. He made the jump all the way from Class D. I got a letter in the draw in the other room from Mr. Mack which he later wrote and told me, 'Foxx is all you said he was and more.' '

Baker was asked to demonstrate his position at the plate. He obliged. He had an old bat in his hand which had been a gift from Cy Young.

With his feet about 18 inches apart and his stance closed, 'Home Run' Baker probably didn't look much different than he did 50 years ago.

'I hope I never do anything to hurt baseball,' he said with a sudden grimness to his voice. The words seemed to come from the depths of his soul. 'Home Run' Baker hurt baseball? Not in half a century. Not in a lifetime. It could never happen."

John F. Steadman, Baltimore News-Post, (Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez

QUICK RETURN MATCH

"You name it ... and Lefty Gomez will have a story to fit the occasion.

Recently he was asked whether he ever gave a manager an argument when he was being taken out of a game. The big southpaw, who helped the Yankees win six world championships a couple of decades ago, replied that he was usually so glad to escape a bombardment that he met the pilot halfway to the mound. He did, however, remember one pitcher who was ready to debate the issue. As usual, this fellow didn't want to leave. Turning to the manager he insisted:

'Gee, I can handle the next batter. I struck him out the first time I faced him, remember?'

The pilot turned his head sadly and replied: 

'Yeah- but that was this inning!' "

-Leo Fischer, Chicago American (Baseball Digest, December 1958-Jan. 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Tony Lazzeri

TONY LAZZERI WAS LIKE THIS

Even As A Rookie, They Looked To Him When Going Was Tough

"Mae Lazzeri, widow of Tony, came in from San Francisco for the World Series last fall and seeing her again after so many years kicked up a lot of memories of her guy when he was one of the key figures on perhaps the greatest of all major league clubs.

Tony joined the Yankees at St. Petersburg in the spring of 1926. The year before they had finished seventh and few thought they would do much better for another year or so, but Miller Huggins said:

'If that kid at second base stands up we can win the pennant.'

It seemed a curious thing for him to say. Off the San Francisco sandlots and with only a couple of years in the minors behind him, Tony appeared ill-equipped to save Huggins with the responsibility the manager thus placed on him. Yet the season was but a month old when Tommy Connally, dean of the American League staff said:

'I shouldn't say this, being an umpire and all, but that young Eyetalian is a ball player. When things get tough out there, the others don't look to Ruth or any of the veterans. They look to him, and he never fails them.'

So the kid at second base stood up and the Yankees won the pennant. They lost the World Series with the Cardinals. The climax was reached in the seventh inning of the final game when Grover Cleveland Alexander came in to relieve Jesse Haines for the Cardinals. With two out, the bases filled, and Lazzeri at bat.

"Everybody remembers when I struck Lazzeri out,' Alex was to say many times thereafter. 'Nobody remembers that the second strike was a line drive into the left field stand that was foul by only about two feet.'

Tony was a handsome youth, square-shouldered and tremendously strong for one of his comparatively slender build, resulting from his having worked in a boiler factory with his father. He was thoughtful, shy and, even among his friends, had little to say. But he could be a hard man on the field when an opponent tried to take advantage of him, and no one ever challenged him to a fist fight.

During the 1927 World Series with the Pirates, George Grantham was on first base and a ground ball was hit to Lazzeri. He came up with it, tagged Grantham and threw to Lou Gehrig at first base for a double play. Then he advanced on Grantham, who had sought to knock the ball out of his hand and said:

'You try that again and I'll stick the ball down your throat.'

'I don't think he meant to do it, Tony,' the first base umpire said.

'Back off,' Tony said. 'This isn't your business.'

When Joe McCarthy was engaged to manage the Yankees, starting with the spring of 1931, his position was not an enviable one. Many of the players thought the Babe should have had the appointment as a reward for his services to the club over the years. Others, resentful in the beginning only because an outsider from the National League had been put in command of them, were restive under Joe's strict discipline. McCarthy cared little or nothing about how they felt. He knew he needed only the support of Lazzeri, their acknowledged leader. He gained it in an unexpected fashion.

Without meaning to do so, Tony walked in on McCarthy giving a merciless verbal raking to one of the younger players in an otherwise empty clubhouse. As the boy, close to tears, left for the field, Tony said to McCarthy, 'I didn't know what kind of guy you were, but I know now, and I want nothing to do with you.'

'Tony,' Joe said, 'I'm sorry you had to hear what I was saying to him but in a way I'm glad. He's a good kid and has all the ability he needs to make him a star, but he's running around with a bad crowd and I don't want to see him ruin himself. I've tried every other way I could think of to drive some sense into him, not because I need him, but only for his own good.'

'That's different,' Tony said. 'I'm on  your side, Joe.' "

-Frank Graham, New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, February 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Lou Gehrig

THE DAY GEHRIG ALMOST HIT FIVE IN A ROW

"Rocky Colavito is indebted to Connie Mack, deceased, for his recently acquired place in the record book (four successive home runs).

You might say Colavito got there before he was born ... which is somewhat better than par for the course.

With his A's trailing the Yankees by seven runs in the ninth inning, June 3, 1932, Connie Mack made a seemingly innocent defensive move.

He switched Al Simmons from left to center at Philadelphia's Shibe Park.

With what he later described as 'the greatest catch I ever made- I guess!' Simmons then proceeded to dash back to the center field wall to spectacularly pull down a line drive.

The catch probably cost Lou Gehrig his fifth consecutive home run of the contest. ('At least a triple,' Simmons confessed. 'And the velocity of that ball could well have given Gehrig an inside-the-park home run.')

That's how close young Colavito, born 14 months later, came to not joining Gehrig and charter member Bobby Lowe of Boston in the Four-in-a-Row record club.

Jimmie Foxx was in that ball game. When this agent saw him Foxx described Simmons' tremendous play as 'the catch of the year. Gehrig hit that ball a mile-a-minute.'

What was behind Mr. Mack's defensive move that put Simmons in center field for the ninth inning?

Foxx says, 'My recollection is that Doc Cramer played center that day, but was removed for a pinch hitter in the eighth inning. Mr. Mack sent Bing Miller into left field and moved Al (Simmons) to center.'

Gehrig had stroked George Earnshaw's pitches for three home runs and found Roy Mahaffey for a fourth (matching Lowe's 1894 record), before facing Ed Rommel in his fifth and final time at bat.

The Yanks won 20-13, the two teams totaled 77 bases (Ruth, Combs, Lazzeri, Cochrane and Foxx also homered) and Gehrig was of five straight homers by the long arm of Al Simmons.

Had the ball got past Simmons for even a triple, incidentally, it would have given Gehrig 19 total bases for the game.

In that event, Joe Adcock wouldn't have been in the record book, either, for his 18 bases (four homers, not successive, and a double) at Ebbets Field in 1954."

Jerry Nason, Boston Globe (Baseball Digest, September 1959)

"Mrs. Lou Gehrig confides that Lou's greatest thrill came out of All-Star Game. 'He hit a lot of homers (492),' she says. 'But the one he liked to recall was the one in the game at Washington in 1937.

'It came off Dizzy Dean and he hit the ball so hard that the imprint on the ball ... even down the lettering and signature of the league president ... still can be seen on the bat. I know. For I still have it back home in New York.' "

-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, September 1959)

1959 Yankee of the Past: Babe Ruth

BABE RUTH WOULD HIT MORE THAN 60 NOW!

Expert Estimates Vary From 68 To 100

"The questions recur as insidiously as a wife's memory of her husband's past misdeeds ... 

How would Babe Ruth do today?

Or- How would Ernie Banks do in New York?

The consensus of opinion:

The Babe would do even better today.

The old-timers think that Babe would hit more than 60 home runs a year.

Ted Lyons, the old White Sox pitcher, thinks he'd be good for 68 or 70 homers a year.

George Hildebrand, for many years an American League umpire, says he'd be good for at least 100 a year.

But he may have to change his style.

Ruth was a 'muscleman' hitter; Banks is a 'wrist' hitter.

Ruth was almost 50 pounds heavier than Banks.

Ruth used a bat weighing from 11 ounces to a full pound more than the 31-ounce bat used by Banks.

All this adds up to a different style in slugging. Today we have the era of the slim slugger.

Ruth touched off the 'lively ball' era; he played when the ball was becoming so 'radioactive' that it almost went off in the pitcher's hand.

Banks came along in the 'lively bat' era; he gets his power through the speed- not the weight- of the bat.

'This new era has been developing for ten years,' says Ted Kluszewski, a muscleman who plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

'When I came into the league, the average weight of the bat was 35 or 36 ounces. Now, that's considered a heavy bat.

'Home runs today are not due so much to the lively ball as to the lively bat.'

The Babe, aside from his natural talent- had this advantage over Banks: an amiable fence in Yankee Stadium that snuggled comfortingly close to the plate.

The fence in Yankee Stadium was designed to be alluringly close to a left-handed batter like Ruth.

Along the right field foul line, it is only 296 feet. (If Banks pulls to his power field- left field- he has to clear a taller barrier some 355 feet from the plate.)

From home plate to right center in Yankee Stadium- where the Babe hit many of his homers- is about 367 feet.

The distance to left center in Wrigley Field- where Banks hits most of his homers- is about 375 feet.

They differed, too, in their personalities.

The Babe was a man on robust and gargantuan good cheer who was often getting into trouble. Banks is a quiet, reserved young man who goes home after a game.

But until we can transfer man in terms of time as well as space, the final answer will never be known"

-Bill Furlong, Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959)

RUTH'S TARGETS 232 FEET FURTHER

"Old George Hildebrand, venturing the guess that Babe Ruth would hit 100 home runs or more if he were batting under today's conditions, made much more of the fact that today's rules alone would enormously help the Babe in his output.

'Ruth batted in a tougher era,' he said, and he ought to know for he umpired in the American League all through the Babe's career. 'A ball that sailed out of the park fair but then curved foul while we could still see it we had to call foul. Under today's rules, that kind of ball would be fair. It makes no difference now what it does after it clears the fence. And the Babe hit plenty of those we called foul.'  (The rule was changed in 1931).

Probably as Hildebrand suggests, today's rules would be the greatest single factor in letting the Babe break his record of 60 in a season (1927). To me, though, the most intriguing thing about today's conditions, if not the most important, are the parks themselves- the shorter fences today's sluggers have to shoot at.

There isn't a park today, except Yankee Stadium, which hasn't undergone a face lifting of some kind since the Babe swung his mace. A little research by the American League office in Chicago has produced some interesting comparative measurements of the two eras. Yankee Stadium, with a left field foul line of 301 feet and a right field line of 296,  remains as it was in the Babe's day. But look at the others:

Left Field      Today     Babe's Day

Boston            315         320

Chicago           352         362

Cleveland      352         362

Detroit            340          340

New York       301          301

Philadelphia-

Kansas City     330        334

St. Louis-

Baltimore        309        360

Washington    350        358

Right Field      Today     Babe's Day

Boston              302         358

Chicago             352         362

Cleveland        320         290

Detroit               325         372

New York          296         296

Philadelphia-

Kansas City     353          331

St. Louis-

Baltimore          309        320

Washington     320         328

The Babe, a mighty man was he, indeed. In the aggregate, he swung at fences 232 feet farther from the plate than today's. The few instances where the fences were shorter in his day are plentifully offset by those longer now.

The Babe did have some advantages he wouldn't have today. Pitching repertoires, for instance, have improved, although he did have to hit against the spitter and a slightly 'deader' ball. And the rules did count a hit that bounced into the stands as a home run. (He hit about eight or ten of these 'bouncers' in his career, but none in his all-time record year of 1927.)

What occasional slight advantages he might have had, though, can never dim the luster of his record. One phase of it is particularly significant. In the year in which he hit his 60 homers, the entire American League hit only 439. This past season Mickey Mantle led the same league with 42- and the entire league hit 1,057.

Maybe the Babe wouldn't hit 100 today as Hildebrand thinks, but he'd certainly break his record of 60 and break it easily."

-Oliver E. Kuechle, Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959)

THE BABE STRUCK OUT, TOO

Like Mantle, He Sacrificed Average For Home Runs

"Mickey confesses that this past year his strikeouts mounted and his batting averages declined because of his eagerness to hit home runs. In other words, he was swinging with one eye on the ball and the other on the distant stands or fences. Other hitters have had the same trouble. Mickey is the only one sufficiently candid to admit it.

Babe Ruth had it. He always was well up in the numbers when it came to striking out. In the course of his career, he struck out more times than anybody. That means anybody since 1876, when the National League came into existence, and the keeping of major league records was begun. The Babe's awe-inspiring mark is 1,330. Of these, 1,306 of these were with the Yankees and Red Sox and 24 with the Boston Braves in his final, brief whirl in 1935. And when he struck out, it was a great show, almost as great a show as when he hit a ball over the hill and far away.

Striking out, though, never bothered him. He'd taken his cut and missed and to hell with it. In his best years, when he stood alone as a home run hitter and was rolling toward his strikeout record, his batting averages from .359 to .393.

That was one reason why he was the greatest home run hitter. Some day, perhaps, someone will equal or shatter his mark of 60 for one year, which he set in 1927. But you should live ... and be in good health ... long enough to see someone else hit 714.

There were other reasons. Among them were the sheer joy he derived from watching a ball he'd hit soar into the blue and the ease with which he bore the responsibility he owed to the fans. On both, this is what he said, unaware of the significance of what he was saying:

There was this day in Indianapolis, where the Yankees had stopped off for an exhibition game on their way to Chicago to open a Western tour. Before an overflow crowd in the old ball park down near the freight yards, he failed to hit a ball out the infield in three times at bat. When he walked to the plate for the fourth time, the fans were giving him the hoarse hoot. He responded with a smash high over the right field fence, and when last seen from the vantage point of a rickety press box on the roof of the wooden stand, the ball was bouncing from track to track, on the tops of the box cars.

He had delivered the blow in the top half of the ninth inning. When the game ended, shortly thereafter, and the Yankees, who had dressed at the old Hotel Claypool, were running for the waiting line of cabs, he said: 

'Well, I guess I showed those buzzards something!'

So he had. He showed them something they'd always remember. What they couldn't possibly have known was that at that moment it was just as important to him as though he'd hit it in a World Series.

Then there was this day, after he had retired and he and Frank Frisch were cutting up old touches, that he said:

'The way the other clubs used to play for me, with the infield and the outfield shifted to the right, with the second baseman on the grass near first base, the shortstop back of second base, and the third baseman playing shortstop, I could have hit .600 if I wanted to. All I had to do was bunt the ball past third base and walk down to first.'

Then, as the vision of what he could have done rose before his eyes, he said:

'Why, -------- it! With the left fielder almost in center field, I could have walked to second!'

'That's right,' Frisch said. 'Why didn't you?'

'Why didn't I?' the Babe roared. 'That wasn't what the fans paid to see! They paid to see me hit home runs!' "

-Frank Graham, New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, December 1958-January 1959)

WRITING OFF A COUPLE OF INNINGS

"Waite Hoyt, Cincinnati broadcaster who was a star with the Yankees during Babe Ruth's heyday, always has a new story to tell about the Babe. This spring Hoyt was watching some kids besiege Roy Sievers for autographs and it reminded Waite of a Ruth story.

'Babe hated to play nine innings in an exhibition game,' Hoyt recalled with a chuckle. 'So, before the game, Babe would bribe some kid to come out on the field for autographs about the seventh inning. The one kid out there would open the floodgates and there'd be so many kids that the umpires had to hustle Babe out of there and he'd have a short day.' "

-Bob Addie, Washington Post, Baseball Digest (June 1959)