Dr. Harvey Frommer On Sports

Odd and Interesting Old Yankee Stadium Facts for Hot Stove League Reading

2012-01-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

Odd and Interesting Old Yankee Stadium Facts

This time of year baseball and to my mind Yankee fans get especially restless for the season or at least spring training to get underway. Not a substitute but at least a quick reading fix for your reading pleasure--Strange, Odd and Interesting Yankee Stadium Facts.

1. Some wanted the brand new Yankee Stadium in 1923 to be called "Ruth Stadium." Owner Jake Ruppert wanted Ruppert Stadium. They settled for the nickname "the House That Ruth Built."

2. It took 500 workers 185 days to build the original Yankee Stadium.

3. At the start, names of Yankee players were imprinted in white chalk near the top of their lockers.

4. The practice of selling more tickets than existing seats lasted until a 1929 stampede in the right field bleachers left two dead and 62 injured.

5. Negro League teams who played at the Stadium when the Yanks were on the road were barred from using the Yankee dressing rooms. Instead, they were obliged to use the visitors' dressing room.

6. "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" was staged before 61,808 on July 4, 1939. His uniform number four was the first in baseball history to be retired.

7. In 1941, Yankee president Ed Barrow offered Civil Defense the use of Yankee Stadium as a bomb shelter in case of attack. He thought the area under the stands could provide a safe haven.

8. On August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth died of throat cancer at age 53. His body lay in state at Yankee Stadium and was viewed by more than 100,000 fans.

9. The last home run at the original Yankee Stadium on September 30, 1973 was hit by Duke Sims in his seventh day as a Yankee. A coin toss that day tabbed him to play. It was not until much later that Sims realized the significance of his home-run shot.

10. The film "61" was filmed in Detroit, not at Yankee Stadium. Billy Crystal explained the Motor City ballpark architecture was better able to be made to resemble that of the Yankee Stadium of 1961.

11. Sal Durante, the guy who caught the ball Roger Maris hit for his 61st homer, snagged tickets the day of the game at a less-than-sold- out Yankee Stadium.

12. Mickey Mantle originally wore number six, but equipment manager Pete Sheehy switched him to seven after Mantle was recalled from Kansas City.

13. 20,000 letters that Mickey Mantle never answered were not bid on in the old Yankee Stadium fire sale in 1974.

14. There was widespread and indiscriminate disposal of valuable items during demolition of much of the Stadium in the mid-1970s.

15. Among the items sold in the refurbishment "fire sale" at Yankee Stadium were player jockstraps, which had names on them for identification when they came back from the laundry. The selling of these jockstraps was stopped because of sanitary reasons.

16. In 1976, a homer by Chris Chambliss gave the Yankees the American League pennant. Such a mob crowded the plate that Chambliss was taken back a few minutes after hitting the homer, and he finally touched home plate.

17. All kinds of crazy things went on in the bullpens--some of them outlandish and some of them sexy--lots having to do with food.

18. In 1988, behind a wall that was closed off for decades, a scorecard, a program and what was supposedly the bases for the 1936 team were unearthed.

19. The less-than-capable 1990 Yankees had but one starting pitcher who won more than seven games, nine-game winner Tim Leary--but he also lost 19.

20. On September 11, 2001, within 90 minutes of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium was evacuated.

21. Ron Guidry, a good drummer, once kept a trap set at Yankee Stadium and also played in a post-game concert with the Beach Boys.

22. Joe Torre was witness to all three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history: He saw Don Larsen's beauty as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems of David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.

23. Bob Sheppard holds the record for seeing the most games at Yankee Stadium.

Check it out

2012-01-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

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Faux NBA: Caveat Emptor, Got Game? Or Gotcha?

2012-01-17T16:58:00.000-08:00

What was to be a Christmas gift for all pro hoops fans happened on December 25th. Like Santa Claus, the NBA returned to town. But unlike Santa Claus, this Faux NBA was not as gifted and gift-giving as the real NBA.
The lockout produced a truncated, compressed National Basketball Association schedule that at times seems as it was thrown together without any concerns about game quality, player's health, fan's remorse. Perhaps Chicago's Derek Rose says it best: "Every game now seems to be like "a back-to-back game."
Back to back to back to back is one of the themes of this sorry season. Other themes include mental fatigue, tired legs, weary bones, a bunch of even more injured players than ever and ejected and dejected coaches and a schedule from hell.
Players nowadays decline more than ever to speak to the media after games. Shooting percentages, minutes played, enthusiasm, spirit, verve, excellence, effort - -all seem to have belonged to the other NBA, not this Faux NBA.
Players reported late, out of shape. Trades were made. Guys have struggled in many instances to fit in for some there is doubt they ever will. A lack of any kind of a true training camp contributed to all of this. Players bonding, chemistry coming together, that was then.
Today malaise rules most teams. Energy baskets most of the time are reminders of times past not highlight reel stuff for today. Players are "out," "day to day," "uncertain for tonight's game." On the bench players are in expensive suits, scowling, smiling, subdued but not "having game."
According to Washington coach Flip Saunders, "Too many summer exhibition games bred "many bad habits. Those summer nights made it seem "a lot of things are going to be very easy," Saunders continued, "and turned out not to be."
Boston's Kevin Garnett is the poster child commentator.
"It's where we are -- we'll continue to work at this thing and get it better," he said. "It's not something that we're just going to hope and pray and wish, and all the good things like that. It's something that we're going to have to continue to work on. This is not easy. If we made it look easy in the past, it's not easy so far."
Coaches are castigating players for lack of toughness, for being out of shape, for playing with an attitude to stay out of harm's way. All await the time when the Faux NBA becomes the real National Basketball Association.
In the meantime there is "maintenance day," massage, and cold whirlpool baths. More treatment for sore muscles. And swelled heads.
Quite frankly, I am tired of hearing about it all. Quite frankly, there should have been some control over a game that got away from us but still costs the same amount of money (sometimes more) to attend.
Quite frankly, maybe some refunds are in order.

Best Baseball Team Ever: 1927 New York Yankees

2012-01-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

The talk of the town usually at year’s end and new year’s beginnings usually gets down in many sports quarters to rankings of the best of the best. Agreement is sometimes a hard fought but not often achieved goal. I, however, have a no-brainer for all - -hands down or up as the case may be - -the best of the best baseball teams is the ’27 Yanks.

The club was so consistent in every way that its roster was not ever changed that glorious season. The team began with ten pitchers, three catchers, seven infielders, five outfielders, and ended that way.

There was no shuttling of players up and down from the minors. The 25 guys who began the season remained on the big league roster all season long, tying a record for fewest players used by a major league team. On that legendary squad was an ex- teacher, a railroad fireman, a bartender, a former full-time boilermaker, a seaman, a logger, a cardsharp, a guy who had studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood, one whose youth was spent climbing tenement stairs in New York City delivering laundry, another who swam in the Hudson River and made the rounds of local pool halls. Possessed of an almost royal aura, another player had attended the finest prep schools and sported thousand dollar diamond rings. The ’27 Yankee ranks also included a meat cutter and an ex-vaudevillian, a talented painter, artist, writer and singer, a skilled piano (jazz and classical) player. There were some former farm boys and farmers. And there were a few who had never known anything but playing baseball. Average age of the all-white team was 27.6.They came from diverse backgrounds, had very different personalities, backgrounds, educations, interests, skills, avocations. Baseball boned them together.
The total payroll for that 1927 team was an estimated $250,000. Average salary was $10,000 as compared to $2,699.292 for the 2006 Yankees. Salaries ranged from Julie Wera's $2,400 to Babe Ruth's $70,000. That 1927 Yankee team had a pronounced German- American flavor from its owner beer baron Jacob Ruppert to Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mark Koenig, Bob Meusel, George Pipgras, Dutch Ruether and half Germans Waite Hoyt and Earle Combs. Although Some of tha 1927 bunch lacked a true formal education, a collegiate flavor permeated the roster: Lou Gehrig (Columbia), Miller Huggins (University of Cincinnati), Joe Dugan (Holy Cross), Benny Bengough (Niagara University), Earle Combs (Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College), Mike Gazella (Lafayette), Ray Morehart (Stephen Austin College, Texas), Myles Thomas (Penn State), Bob Shawkey (Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania), Ben Paschal (University of Alabama), Dutch Ruether (St. Ignatius College, now San Francisco University) One player (Babe Ruth) was educated at St. Mary's Industrial School. Another had been in an out of one room schoolhouses in cotton county locales. Mark Koenig, Joe Grabowski, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri and Julie Wera were the only 1927 Yankees born in the 20th century.

The shortest players were catcher Benny Bengough and utility man Mike Gazella. Bob Meusel was the tallest Yankee at 6' 3" and Babe Ruth was the next tallest at 6' 2". Other six footers included pitchers Wilcy Moore, Herb Pennock, George Pipgras, Dutch Ruether, infielders Lou Gehrig and Mark Koenig, and centerfielder Earl Combs. Only Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig weighed more than 200 pounds.

Only Lou Gehrig would start every game (155) at first base.Second baseman Tony Lazzeri appeared in 113 games. Mark Koenig got into 122 games at shortstop, Joe Dugan 111 at third base. Earl Combs started all but three games.

The final statistics on Ruth and Meusel would be misleading. The Babe would start 95 times in right field and "Silent Bob" 83 times in left field. But they flip-flopped starts at Yankee Stadium and in a few parks on the road. Six men accounted for almost 90% of the innings pitched.

There was an almost grotesque quality to the team collectively as well as individually. One player was only able to sleep sitting up. He had a heart condition that he kept secret from his teammates. Another seemingly unfriendly, at times very quiet, was an epileptic. Tony Lazzeri’s health condition was never mentioned by the press. One was taciturn, some would say miserable, a drinker, a scowler who looked at the world about him with annoyance and anger. One worked off-season as a mortician. Another (Lou Gehrig) was a "mama's boy," reportedly a virgin,very uncomfortable in the presence of women. He enjoyed fishing by himself for eels and living in an apartment with his parents.

There was one (Babe Ruth) whose hearty belches sometimes rattled bats stacked in the dugout, who slugged down great quantities of beer, ate prodigiously. His prowess with women was the talk throughout baseball.

Another was an uneducated dirt farmer, aged 30, or was it 40. There was also a Kentuckian, a church goer, a non-smoker, non-drinker, a man who never cursed and read his Bible on the road in hotel rooms. This terrific, talented team had it all including a four game sweep of the Pirates to roll to the world championship. It was a group of men who totally dominated baseball. It was a group led by Babe Ruth a free swinger in a free swinging time. Babe Ruth was the king. The 1927 New York Yankees were the royalty of baseball.

And if you loved the Yankees, it was the best of times.

NBA Team Nicknames, the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

2012-01-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

The NBA is back and so is Dr Harvey Frommer!

Back in the day as some are apt to say, I was interviewing and writing Red on Red. It was the autobiography of the legendary coach of the New York Knickerbockers Red Holzman. He is still the only coach to ever win an NBA title with the Knicks, in fact he won two.
Red was a walking history book when it came to pro basketball. He was especially informed about league trivia. He also knew had to spin a tale.
Before his days as Knick coach, Holzman plied his trade as a pretty good scout for the team. "I was scouting a kid from Czechoslovakia," Red said. "We decided to give him a vision test. I got hold of an eye chart and told the kid, 'All right. Let's hear you read the bottom line.' "'Read the bottom line?' he asked, 'I know him.'"
But back to the subject at hand - -NBA team nicknames.

There are all kinds of team names and nicknames in the world of the National Basketball Association, and even more interesting explanations of how these came to be. And although some clubs have moved from city to city, they kept the original nicknames they began with which makes for some odd combinations.
The Knicks and the Celtics are the only teams still playing in the NBA in their original cities. The name Knickerbockers dates back to when New York was New Amsterdam, and the city's Dutch settlers wore trousers bunched up at the knee known as "knickers." The name Celtics was given to Boston in 1946 by Walter Brown, the founder of the franchise.
"We'll call them the Boston Celtics," he said. "The name has a great basketball tradition, especially when you think of the original 'Celtics' team. Boston is full of Irishmen; so we'll put the players in green uniforms and call them the Boston Celtics after their Celtic ancestors."
The Atlanta Hawks were once the St. Louis Hawks, and before that they were the Milwaukee Hawks. Even before that in 1948, they were the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. The three cities referred to Moline, Illinois; Rock Island, Illinois; and Davenport, Iowa. Way back in 1831, the Blackhawk War was fought in that tri-cities area, and that's how the original Blackhawk's nickname, later shortened to Hawks, came to be.
The Rochester Royals played in the NBA for nine seasons and then transferred to Cincinnati. The name Royals was kept. In 1972, the franchise moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and the name was dropped to avoid confusion in the Kansas City area as the Kansas City and the Omaha baseball teams both used the name Royals. The new name for the NBA basketball franchise became the Kansas City-Omaha Kings and, in 1975, simply the Kansas City Kings. A decade later, when the team moved to California, they became the Sacramento Kings.
Not many people realize that the Denver Nuggets were charter members of the NBA. But that team only lasted one season. When the Denver Rockets of the American Basketball Association came into the NBA, they had to change their name because the Houston Rockets already existed. So the Denver franchise took the "Nuggets" name of the original franchise, which was appropriate for an area with a history of gold and silver mining of nuggets.
Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota and Orlando are among the newer teams in the NBA. All have interesting "name" stories. Originally, the Charlotte team was named the Spirit, but that didn't go over too well. It was soon dropped, and a contest was launched among fans to come up with a new name. Runner-up names included: the Charlotte Gold, the Charlotte Knights, and incredibly the original name - the Charlotte Spirit.
As every NBA fan knows; the winner was the Charlotte Hornets. Miami also held a name-the-team contest and received more than 5,000 entries. Some of the names that didn't make it included such choices as Palm Trees, Beaches, Suntan, and Shade.
Heat beat them all out. As one clever official explained, "When you think of Miami, heat is what comes to mind."
Over 6,000 entries were submitted for the Minnesota team name. The choice came down to Timberwolves vs. Polars. Timberwolves easily won. That animal is native to Minnesota, and no other professional sports team ever thought to use the name.
The "Orlando Sentinel" sponsored a name-the-team contest in that Florida city. As with Minnesota, the competition came down to two names: Magic and Juice. Orlando general manager Pat Williams explained why Magic won out: "Magic is synonymous with the Orlando area. We have the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld, and the tourism slogan here is 'Come to the Magic.'"

Some claim that the Chicago Bulls got their name from stockyards in that windy city. It was actually the franchise's first owner Richard Klein who came up with name in 1966. The rookie mogul liked "bulls" because of their power and toughnees. And his wish was to have team sporting those ahaving a team that had that quality.
The Pistons came into being early on in NBA history - back in 1948. They were known then as the Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons. It was a case of an owner naming a team for himself and the business that he ran. Fred Zollner owned a huge piston-manufacturing company. In 1957, the team moved to Detroit, and Pistons moved right along with it.
Way back in 1925, there was a Philadelphia Warriors team in the American Basketball League. In 1946, when Philadelphia joined the NBA, it took its nickname from that old team. Many years and many miles later, the Golden State Warriors are a descendant of the old Philadelphia Warriors. They've gone through a couple of geographical shifts. Philly became the San Francisco Warriors, San Francisco became the Oakland Warriors and Oakland became the Golden State Warriors.
A few years back a newspaper guy came up with the idea of teams trading names. The suggestion had some merit, but it was no dice. What the guys thought was that the Utah Jazz become the Utah Lakers and the Los Angeles Lakers become the Los Angeles Jazz.
Actually, both Utah and Los Angeles have names from cities both franchises vacated. Utah came into being in 1979, when the New Orleans Jazz moved there. That New Orleans basketball team is only a memory, but the Utah Jazz kept their name and team colors. The Minneapolis Lakers made the move to L.A. before the 1960 season and took with it its nickname that comes from the state of Minnesota's motto: "the land of 10,000 lakes". There aren't many lakes in L.A. or that much jazz in Salt Lake City - so maybe that newspaper guy had a good idea after all.
Here's how the three Texas NBA teams got their names. The Houston Rockets were once the San Diego Rockets. The name has worked well for both franchises - linked to space programs and industries. The San Antonio Spurs got their short name in a public naming contest - a name that makes you think of Texas, and the same is true of the Dallas Mavericks who came into being in 1980. A Dallas radio station sorted out many suggested names in a "name-the-team" contest and picked Mavericks thinking it had Texas flavor.
In 1963, the old Syracuse Nats were sold and became the Philadelphia 76ers. Anybody who knows anything about American history, knows how Philly got its name.
In 1968, the new Phoenix franchise offered a cash prize and a couple of season tickets to the winner of a "name-the-team" contest. "Suns" was the winning name, but runner-ups included Scorpions, Rattlers, and Dust Devils.
Two years later, in another "name-the-team" contest in Portland, nearly 200 people contributed for a new franchise name - Trail Blazers.
The New Jersey Nets began life in the American Basketball Association and were known as the New Jersey Americans. In 1968, the team left New Jersey and moved to Commack, Long Island and were re-named the New York Nets.
The reasoning was that since the New York metropolitan area had the football Jets and the baseball Mets, why not the basketball Nets? Just before the 1977-78 season, the franchise moved back across the Hudson River to New Jersey. There were some who thought the original name -New Jersey Americans - should be brought back, but the name Nets moved right along with the team.

What's in an NBA Name? Part III
A guy named R.D.Treblicox of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin got himself a brand new car for coming up with the name Bucks back in 1968 for Milwaukee's NBA team.
His pick beat out names like Stags, Skunks, and Stallions. R.D. said, "Bucks are spirited, good jumpers, fast and agile."
Treblicox knew both his bucks and his basketball. Alliteration was probably one of the reasons for the name Cavaliers winning out in a Cleveland newspaper competition back in 1970. But that name in recent years has been de-emphasized in favor of "Cavs."
I guess some of the media and a lot of the fans think that Cleveland's former name was a bit too ritzy for an NBA club. When the Indiana franchise came into existence in 1967 in the American Basketball Association, the owners said they named the team Pacers because they intended to set the pace in professional basketball. And when Indiana joined the NBA in 1976, the name Pacers went along.
The present Washington team began life as the Chicago Packers in 1961, and was named by its owner after his packing company. A year later, the name was Zephyrs. In 1963, the team was in Baltimore and was renamed the Bullets after the city's first basketball franchise that got started in 1946.
That club picked up its Bullets' name because it played its games near a foundry that made ammunition during World War II. In the 1973-74 season, a new name surfaced - Capitol Bullets. The name was never politically correct until Washington owner Abe Pollin finally changed the name to the Wizards in 1997.
The location of a huge Boeing aircraft plant in Seattle was the inspiration for Howard E. Schmidt's suggestion of SuperSonics as a name back in 1967 for the Seattle NBA franchise. Mr. Schmidt was rewarded with a free trip to Palm Springs, California and season tickets for Seattle's first basketball season. And the franchise got itself a nice space-age name.
Toronto, the NBA's 28th team and its first expansion franchise outside of the United States, picked up its Raptors name in a "Name the Team" contest. Its Canadian partner in Vancouver dubbed itself "Grizzlies", because Grizzly bears are part of the scene in British Columbia. The animal is also part of the mythology of the area.
One of the oddest name situations involves the Los Angeles Clippers who, in another life, were the Buffalo Braves. (Caution: you may have to read this explanation twice).
In 1971, the City of San Diego lost its NBA franchise when its team moved to Houston and became the Rockets. Seven years later, the Buffalo Braves moved to San Diego. The owners weren't too thrilled with San Diego Braves as a name. So one of those name-the-team contests was staged, and the winning entry was, you guessed it, Clippers. That was because, once upon a time, lots of beautiful clipper ships passed through the great harbor of San Diego.
There probably were never clipper ships in Los Angeles, but in 1984 when the franchise moved there from San Diego, the name Clippers came along.

And that's a slam dunk!

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2011-12-20T18:31:00.001-08:00

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Harvey Frommer's Sports Book Reviews: "Howard Cosell," "Shaq Uncut" and more

2011-12-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

Way back when I was interviewing for my Ph.D. in sports, culture and media at New York University, one of my professors suggested I check out Howell Cosell. The bombastic broadcaster was at the top of his game then.
I got to his office in Manhattan having arranged the interview with someone at ABC. "What is this all about?" I explained quickly, sensing that he was rushed.
"Why the hell do you want to do something like that?" he snapped. "Why not do work on racism in sports, something important."
I explained that I was too far along. All I wanted from him as a "designer voice" was a few paragraphs to put into the thesis to satisfy the powers-that-be over me.
"For crying out loud," he smiled, "why didn't you say so in the first place?"
Howard Cosell intelligently and quickly gave me what I needed, and he even spent some time chatting with me about sports. And that was that.
But I never forgot that meeting.
Now there is "Howard Cosell" by Mark Ribowsky (Norton, $29.95, 477 pages), a book that its subject would have enjoyed.
We are there with the man some called "the mouth" from the middle 1950s into the 1980s. Cosell was medium, message, massage. He was front stage, back stage, off stage a lawyer transformed into a broadcaster, a force.
Ribowsky has produced a mighty epic here, a loving, loathing, lingering portrait of Cosell. It is a book that reveals what drove a master media showman, what devils possessed him, and how he transformed sports and media at the same time.
Sections dealing with his relationship with Ali, with Monday Night Football, with his growing up years are especially insightful.
As Cosell said of himself: "Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, and verbose, a show-off, I have been all of these. Of course, I am." He was all of these, and he was something special. A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READ
In the same vein, sort of, as "Howard Cosell," there is also "Shaq Uncut" by Shaquille O'Neal with Jackie Macmullan (Grand Central Publishing, $27.99, 290 pages). It's a slam dunk of a book. The gang's all here in this tome sub-titled "My Story" - -Kobe, Phil Jackson, DWade, LeBron, Jerry West and Pat Riley, family members, friends and enemies. This is a page turned filled with honest and not so honest observations, filled with true confessions, filled with humor and even philosophy. The man called "Superman," "Diesel," "The Real Deal" and "The Big Shamrock" and lots of others things, has his say here. MOST ENJOYABLE.
"John Feinstein's "One on One" (Little Brown, $27.99, 533 pages) is a Niagara of a book focused on a memoir of just some of the author's inside sports (locker rooms, dugouts, clubhouses, etc.). Feinstein has been there, done , that, seen and heard it all, and he takes great pride in telling you about his times with Tiger Woods, Jim Valvano, Larry Brown, Dean Smith, Tony LaRussa and dozens and dozens more. Unabashed in its approaches, prideful in its approach, "One on One" is part gossip, part star gazing, part sports history - -all John Feinstein. And all lively and riveting reading.
"A Team for America" by Randy Roberts (HMH, $26.00, 268 pages) is truly about one of the terrific sagas in sports. Its focus the Army-Navy football game in 1944. The contest united a nation locked in a deadly war. Thorough, engrossing, this tome is a winner.
"The Greatest Game" by Todd Denault (McClelland & Stewart, $19.95, 336 pages, trade paperback) is also about a momentous sports contest the Montreal Canadiens versus the team of the Red Army on December 31, 1975. For hockey fans - a must.

YANKEES BY THE NICK-NAMES (I)

2011-12-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

With the hot stove baseball season in full swing, fans are eagerly awaiting the next one still many months away. Some have moved over to follow other sports. Some Yankee fans scour the news for free agent and trade rumors and moves. Others read Yankee books. Still others soak up what they can of Yankee history, trivia, oddities. For the "still others," this partial list of New York Yankee nick-names is for you.
Babe Ruth leads the pack in the number of nick-names attached to him. First called "Babe" by teammates on the Baltimore Orioles, his first professional team because of his youth, G.H.Ruth was also called "Jidge" by Yankee teammates, short for George. Opponents referred to him negatively as "The Big Monk" and "Monkey." He was also called "Two Head" negative nick-name used by opponents to describe the size of his head which seemed very huge to some.
Sports writers glamorizing the big guy came up with these monikers: "The Bambino", "the Wali of Wallop", "the Rajah of Rap", "the Caliph of Clout", "the Wazir of Wham", and "the Sultan of Swat", The Colossus of Clout, Maharajah of Mash, The Behemoth of Bust, "The King of Clout."
Other Yankee nick-names, expressions, bon mots that caught on through the decades include:
"Root" Owner Jake Ruppert's mispronunciation of Babe Ruth's name.
"Babe Ruth's Legs" - Sammy Byrd, used was employed as pinch runner for Ruth.
"Bam-Bam" - Hensley Meulens could speak about five languages. His name was challenging to pronounce.
"Biscuit Pants" - A reference to the way Lou Gehrig filled out trousers.
"Billyball" - the aggressive style of play favored by Billy Martin.
"Blind Ryne" - Ryne Duren's vision, uncorrected -20/70 and 20/200.
"Bob the Gob" - Bob Shawkey in 1918 served in the Navy as a yeoman petty officer.
"Brooklyn Schoolboy" - Waite Hoyt had starred at Brooklyn's Erasmus High School.
"Bulldog" - Jim Bouton was dogged.
Bye-Bye"- Steve Balboni, the primary DH of the 1990 Yankees, 17 homers but .192 BA.
"Chairman of the Board" - Elston Howard coined it for Whitey Ford and his commanding and take charge manner on the mound.
"Commerce Comet" - Mickey Mantle, out of Commerce, Oklahoma.
"Georgia Catfish" - Jim Hunter, name given to him by Oakland owner Charles Finley, shortened to just "Catfish."
""the CAT-a-lyst" - Mickey Rivers given this name by Howard Cosell.
"The Count" - Sparky Lyle, handlebar mustache and lordly ways "The Crow" - Frank Crosetti loud voice and chirpy ways.
"Daddy Longlegs" - Dave Winfield, for his size and long legs.
"Death Valley" - the old deep centerfield in Yankee Stadium.
"Dial-a-Deal - Gabe Paul, for his telephone trading habits.
"Donnie Baseball" - Don Mattingly was the only player in any sport to have a nickname with the actual name of his or her sport in it.
"Ellie" - affectionate abbreviation of Elston Howard's first name
"Father of the Emory Ball" - Rookie right-hander Russ Ford posted a 26-6 record with 8 shutouts, 1910, using that pitch.
Flash" - Joe Gordon was fast, slick fielding and hit line drives.
Four hour manager" - Bucky Harris, who put his time in at the game and was finished.
"Fordham Johnny" - for the college Johnny Murphy attended.
"Gator" - Ron Guidry came from Louisiana alligator country.
"Gay Reliever" - Joe Page for his night owl activity.
"Goofy" or "El Goofo" - earned by Lefty Gomez for his wild antics "The Great Agitator" - for Billy Martin, self explanatory.
"Horse Nose" - Pat Collins via Babe Ruth, a reference to a facial feature.
"Home Run Twins" (also "M & M Boys") - Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, phrase coined in 1961.
"Iron Horse" - Lou Gehrig, for his power and steadiness.
"Joltin' Joe" - Joe DiMaggio, for the jolting shots he hit.
"Jumping Joe" - Joe Dugan, for being AWOL from his first big league club as a youngster.
"Junk Man" - Eddie Lopat, for frustrating hitters and keeping them off stride with an assortment of slow breaking pitches thrown with cunning and accuracy.
"Kentucky Colonel" - Earl Combs, for his Kentucky roots.
"The King and the Crown Prince" - Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, self evident.
"King Kong" - Charlie Keller, for his muscular body type and black, bushy brows.
"Knight of Kennett Square" - Herb Pennock, for his raising of thoroughbreds and hosting of fox hunts in his home town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
"Knucksie" - Phil Niekro, for his knuckleball.
"Lonesome George" - George Weiss, for his aloof ways.
"Lou'siana Lightnin'" - Ron Guidry, for his fastball and the state he came from.
"Mail Carrier "- Earle Combs, for his speed and base stealing skills.
"Major" - Ralph Houk, for rank held in the Armed Forces and demeanor.
"Man of a Thousand Curves" for Johnny Sain and his assortment of curve balls.
"Marse Joe" - Joe McCarthy, for his commanding style.
"Master Builder in Baseball" - Jacob Ruppert, and that he was.
"The Merry Mortician" -Waite Hoyt, for his cheery soul and off-season mortician work.
"Man in the Iron Hat" - Captain Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Hutson, for the same squashed derby hat he wore over and over again.
"Man nobody knows" - Bill Dickey, for his blandness.
"Mighty Mite" - Miller Huggins, for his size and power.
"Milkman" - Jim Turner, for an off-season job delivering milk.
"Mr. Automatic" - Mariano Rivera, for his virtually unflappable behavior and special skills as a Yankee stopper.
"Mr. May" - George Steinbrenner's sarcastic jibe at Dave Winfield because of his postseason struggles as compared to Reggie Jackson's successes and Mr. October nick-name.
"Mr. November" - Derek Jeter, for his World Series home run, the first of November, 2001.
"Mr. October" - In Game Five of the 1977 ALCS Billy Martin benched Reggie Jackson. In a comeback win against Kansas City Jackson returned to slap a single. Thurman Munson sarcastically called Jackson "Mr. October."
"Moose" - Bill Skowron's, grandfather called him Mussolini because of a resemblance to Mussolini. As the story goes, the family shortened the nickname to "Moose."
"Murderer's Row" - Yankee lineup boasting powerful batters: standard version was the meat of the 1927 lineup of Tony Lazzeri, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Earl Combs and Bob Meusel. Backup version was the 1919 entry of Ping Bodie, Roger Peckinpaugh, Duffy Lewis and Home Run Baker.
"My writers" - Casey Stengel's phrase for journalists he was close to.
"Nightrider" - Don Larsen called himself that because it reminded him of comic books heroes he read about and it fit with his late-night bar wanderings.
"Old Reliable" - Mel Allen gave Tommy Henrich that nickname after a train that made its way from Cincinnati through Allen's home state of Alabama and was always on time and could be depended on. Henrich was also called "The Great Debater" for his sometimes loquacious and argumentative ways.
"Ole Perfessor" - Casey Stengel, for the time in 1914 when he had a spring training baseball coaching stint at the University of Mississippi.
"The Peerless Leader" - Frank Chance, for his keen baseball mind.
"Poosh 'em up, Tony" - Tony Lazzeri was a magnet for Italian fans at Yankee Stadium who would scream out this phrase urging him to hit home runs.
"Prince Hal" - Hal Chase, for his charismatic, elegant, royal quality. "The Principal Owner" - George Steinbrenner, no doubt here.
"Push Button Manager" - Joe McCarthy, for his by the book ways.
"Ragin' Cajun" - Ron Guidry, for his Louisiana roots and fire.
"Rags" - Dave Righetti, abbreviation of his name "Ruppert Rifles" - The Yankees, during Jake Ruppert's tenure.
"Sailor Bob" - Bob Shawkey, for his time spent mostly in 1918 in the Navy as a yeoman petty officer aboard the battleship Arkansas.
"Schoolboy" and "Schoolboy Wonder" - Waite Hoyt, for his major league debut in 1918 when he was a teen ager.
"Scooter"- Nick-name for Phil Rizzuto coined by Mel Allen. "When Mel saw me run, he said: 'Man, you are not running, you're scootin'. "And from scootin' I got "Scooter."
"Second Place Joe" - Joe McCarthy's three straight second-place finishes prompted this tag in the three seasons before the Yanks won four consecutive world championships, 1936-39. The name was also used when he was manager of the Cubs and had some disappointing second place finishes.
"Silent Bob" - Bob Meusel, for his aloofness.
"Silent One" - Chris Chambliss, for his taciturn manner, name given by Howard Cosell.
"Solid citizens"- Name Joe McCarthy gave to players he relied on.
"Slick" - Whitey Ford used a spitter to strike out Willie Mays in the 1964 All-Star Game. That was just one of the reasons for the Yankee star's nick-name.
"Slow" - Joe Doyle, for his time consuming pace.
"Smash" - Gil McDougald, for the verve of his personality.
"Springfield Rifle" - Vic Raschi, after his arm and his birthplace in Springfield, Massachusetts.
"Spud" - Spurgeon Ferdinand Chandler was called that,easier for everyone.
"Squire (or Knight) of Kennett Square" - Herb Pennock came from historic Kennett Square, PA an area of horsemen and fox hunters. Pennock himself was an expert rider and a master of hounds.
"Steady Eddie" - Eddie Lopat, for his consistency year after year as a Yankee pitcher, nick-name originated with Mel Allen.
"Stick" - Gene Michael, for his lean and long appearance.
"Superchief" Allie Reynolds, for his one-quarter Creek Indian ancestry and winning ways on the mound.
"Supersub" - Johnny Blanchard, home run hitter as a pinch hitter,. extraordinaire.
"The Switcher" - Mickey Mantle, for switch-hitting par excellence.
"T.J." - Tommy John.
"Tanglefoot Lou" - For Lou Gehrig, early days and fielding trials as a player.
"The Tabasco Kid" - Norman Arthur Elberfeld, for his liking of the stuff and his personality.
"Three Million Dollar Man" - Nick-name placed on Catfish Hunter when he signed with the Yankees as a free agent for that sum in 1974.
"Twinkletoes" - George Selkirk, for his running with his weight on the balls of his feet.
"The Unholy Trio" - Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, for their devilish ways.
"The Weatherman" - Mickey Rivers, for his knack for predicting weather.
"The Warrior" - Paul O'Neill, name pinned on him by George Steinbrenner for the outfielder's pugnacious ways.
"The White Gorilla" - Goose Gossage, for the way he looked.
"Whitey" - Whitey Ford, for the tow head blonde hair he sported as a 50s hurler.
"Window breakers" - Name given to the 1936 Yankees for their slugging power.
"Winny" - Dave Winfield, affectionate shortening of his name.
"The Yankee Clipper" - for Joe DiMaggio for the way he glided about centerfield at Yankee Stadium.
"The Yankee Clipper" - A slap at George Steinbrenner who longed to see his players clean-shaven.
"The Yankee Empire Builder" - Ed Barrow was all of that.

All About Baseball's Greatest team - - the New York Yankees

2011-11-26T17:08:00.000-08:00

With the hot stove season in full swing and baseball news about free agents and trades dominating the headlines, for fans of baseball's greatest franchise, the Yankees, there is also a treasure trove of history to appreciate. So enjoy:

Yankee Stadium Factoids and Oddities

The original Yankee Stadium had 36 ticket booths and 40 turnstiles that ticked like clocks tallying up the gate. F.C. Lane, in a 1923 issue of The Literary Digest, called it "the last word in ball parks." Egotistical baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis arrived at the first game there via the subway. He was caught up in the swarm of bodies outside the gates and had to be rescued by the police.

Despite claims to the contrary, the outfield wall at Yankee stadium has actually always been uniform height. The ground beneath sloped, and at the original Stadium, a sharp pitch to the outfield grass went uphill to the fence that was just three feet high.

Former star hurler Ron Guidry was a good drummer; he once kept a trap set at Yankee Stadium, and even had a gig in a post-game concert with the Beach Boys.

In 1988, a wall that was closed off for decades was unearthed. Among the findings; scorecard, a program and what was supposedly the bases used in 1936.

The shooting of the Billy Crystal film "61" took place in Detroit, not Yankee Stadium. Crystal maintained that the architecture there was able to more closely approximate that of Yankee Stadium in 1961.

The late and great public address announcer Bob Sheppard's favorite stadium moments; Don Larsen's perfect game, Roger Maris belting his then-record 61st regular-season home run in 1961, the Yankees' Chris Chambliss blasting a homer leading off the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS against Kansas City that gave the Yankees their first AL pennant in 12 years and the Yankees' Reggie Jackson's three home runs against the Dodgers on three consecutive pitches in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. Roger Clemens always patted the Babe Ruth monument for good luck before coming in to pitch.

Started in 1965, Bat Day has bragging rights to the longest running promotion.

By the Numbers

0002: After Allie Reynolds pitched his second no-hitter for the Yankees in 1951, Manhattan's Hotel Edison, where he along with some teammates lived, changed his room number from 2019 to 0002

1 1/2: This was the uniform number worn by opera star Robert Merrill, the man who for many years sang the national anthem at Yankee Stadium.

3: All three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history were witnessed by Joe Torre; Larsen's in 1956 as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems spun by David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.

14: Yogi Berra stayed away from Yankee Stadium for 14 years, unhappy with the treatment he had received from George Steinbrenner.

$15.00: Bob Sheppard's per game earning in 1951 when he began working for the Yankees.

18: Joe DiMaggio's original uniform, number given to him by equipment manager Pete Sheehy and later changed to 5 for historical significance reasons. Ruth wore number 3 and Gehrig 4.

No. 42, which has been retired from Major League Baseball in honor of Jackie Robinson. A "grandfather clause" permits Mariano Rivera to wear this number. When he retires, the Yankees will probably honor both Robinson and Rivera with the official retirement of the number.

56: Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak included 56 singles and runs scored. It covered 53 day games three night games, 29 at Yankee Stadium and 27 road games.

58: The original number of Mariano Rivera.

148: On May 12, 1959, Yogi Berra's errorless streak of 148 games came to an end when he committed an error on his 34th birthday.

185: Number of working days it took for the original Yankee Stadium to be built.

$400: This was the amount Mickey Mantle was paid in 1949 to finish out a minor league season.

413: Smallest Yankee home attendance for a game, September 25, 1966

454 2/3: This was the number of innings Jack Chesbro pitched for Highlanders in 1904.

457: Babe Ruth is the all time season leader in total bases. He reached this record in 1921 with 101 singles, 44 doubles, 16 triples and 59 home runs.

.471: Joe Torre's career winning percentage as a manager prior to coming to the Yankees in 1996.

1903: For the first time since 1903, two teams played two games in different stadiums he same day, July 8, 2000. The first game was at Shea Stadium and the second game was at Yankee Stadium.

$5,000: The reward promised to the one who caught the 61st home run ball of Roger Maris.

Roger Maris with Sal Durante, the young man who recovered
Maris' record-breaking 61st home run in 1961.

$6,000: The amount of money Don Larsen received for being on Bob Hope's TV show after he pitched his perfect game in 1956.

20,000: The number of letters Mickey Mantle never answered which were not bid on in the old Yankee Stadium fire sale in 1974.

Book Review "West by West," "100 Yards of Glory" and more . . .

2011-11-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

All matter of sports books keep on coming out with all kinds of subject matters for all kinds of tastes. On the market now are quite a few of interest for even the most informed of readers.

"West by West" by Jerry West and Jonathan Coleman (Little Brown, $27.99, 352 pages) is a moving autobiography of one of the greatest basketball players of all time. The NBA logo has long featured his silhouette. West came out of a little West Virginia mining town, was an All American at West Virginia University, co-captained the 1960 USA Gold Medal winning basketball team and moved on to the Los Angeles Lakers and a Hall of Fame NBA career as player, coach and general manager.

All was not a rags to riches story as West recounts in moving detail. The sub-title of the book refers to "my charmed, tormented life." That it has has been. From the heights of great success to the downers of depressions, self doubt and abusive childhood. Unflinching, eye opening, riveting--the man (warts and all) behind the legend emerges page after page. Highly recommended.

"100 Yards of Glory" by Joe Garner with a DVD narration from Bob Costas (HMH, $35.00, 320 pages) is a coffee table slice of pigskin heaven for the fans of the National Football League. The best of the Super Bowls, runs, catches, quarterbacks, coaches. etc. forms the subject matter of this worthy piece. We are there for a survey of such moments as Roger Staubach's Hail Mary, the '67 Green Bay Ice Bowl, David Tyree and his immaculate reception in Super Bowl XLII. Archival images adorn these pages and add to the total package.

"The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach (Little Brown, $25.99, 512 pages) is the kind of novel you will return to again and again.This first novel reminds me a lot of "Bang the Drum Slowly," one of my favorite sporting reads ever. It is baseball fiction but much more than that. It is also the kind of book about a bunch of young players, their insular college world and the national pastime and why it has the hold on so many of us. Grand slam.

From STC publishers comes "The Mets" by Andy Martino and Anthony McCarron ($40.00, 320 pages). Pegged to the franchise's 50th anniversary, the tome is a blend of words and 250 images. All the usual suspects are here as well as the oft told tales.

Rich Marazzi, a writer for USA Today Sports Weekly and Baseball Digest, is writing a first person oral history book on the subject of Yale Football to help commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Yale Bowl in 2014. He is looking for amusing anecdotes and interesting stories (on and off the field) surrounding Yale Football and the Bowl. His e-mail address is: rtmarazzi@aol.com and his mailing address is: 105 Pulaski Highway, Ansonia, CT 06401

Shoeless Joe Jackson Belongs in the Hall of Fame!

2011-11-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

With one of the most exciting World Series ever played now truly “one for the books,” the memory of another long ago Fall Classic surfaces. It was the 1919 contest between the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds. It was the one that saw eight players ultimately and unjustly banned from baseball for life. It was the one that made “Shoeless Joe Jackson” into a scapegoat, victim and story that just won’t go away.
On July 16, 1889, Joseph Jefferson Wofford Jackson was born into a poor family in Greenville, South Carolina. He never learned to read or write. By the time he was six years old, he worked as a cleanup boy in the cotton mills.
By age 13, he labored amidst the din and dust a dozen hours a day along with his father and brother. It was hard and back-breaking employment. Playing baseball on grassy field was his way of escape. It was there where Joe’s natural ability stood out. Baseball was his game, and he loved it. The youth had such passion and skill that he was recruited to play for the mill team organized by the company.
One humid and hot summer day, Jackson was playing the outfield. His shoes pinched. He removed them and played in his stocking feet. An enterprising sportswriter gave him the nick-name: "Shoeless Joe." Even though it was reported that was the only time Jackson ever played that way in a game - the “Shoeless” moniker stuck. He hated the name, feeling it cruelly referenced the fact that he could not or write.
From the mill team, Jackson moved on to play with the Greenville, South Carolina Spinners. It was there in 1908 that a scout recommended him to Philadelphia Athletics owner/manager Connie Mack who purchased his contract for $325.
The youngster made his Major League Baseball debut on August 25, 1908. The more he played the more his potential impressed everyone. An article in the The Evening Times noted: “He has justified early predictions of his abilities. With experience and the coaching of Manager Mack, he should turn out to be…the find of the season.”
Sadly, Jackson was unable to read what the Philadelphia newspaper wrote about him. He could not even read menus. In restaurants he usually ordered what another player did. Sadly, he did not fit in with his teammates or the big city. Homesick, he jumped the team and took a train back home.
Mack sent Jackson down to a minor league team in Georgia in 1909 where he won the batting title. In 1910, Mack called him up to the big league team but decided that Jackson lacked the disposition to play in a big city like Philly. In one of the worst trades in baseball history, the six foot one, 190 pound Jackson was shipped to Cleveland for a player named Bris Lord (Bristol Robotham Lord , nick-named the (The Human Eyeball) and $6,000.
Shoeless Joe fit in quite nicely in Cleveland where he batted .408 in 1911. In mid-season of 1915, after compiling a .375 career batting average with the Ohio team, Jackson was traded after mid season for three players and $15,000 to the White Sox.
It was in Chicago that Jackson made a point of wearing alligator and patent-leather shoes -- the more expensive the better. It was as if he were announcing to the world, "I am not a Shoeless Joe. I do wear shoes. And they cost a lot of money!"
With the White Sox, Jackson became one of baseball’s storied stars. His defensive play was at such a remarkable level that his glove was called "the place where triples go to die."
On offense, he was one of the most feared hitters of his time. Babe Ruth copied his swing claiming Jackson was the greatest hitter he ever saw.
Then Along came 1919!
The 1919 Chicago White Sox were one of the greatest teams of their era. Paced by Jackson who batted .351, they won the American League pennant. They were 3-1 favorites to win the World Series as they prepared to face off against the Cincinnati Reds.
Prior to the series betting odds started to shift to even money. The word on the street was that New York gambler Arnold Rothstein was behind the swing, that the series was fixed.
Hearing the rumor, the 31-year-old Jackson asked Chicago manager Kid Gleason and owner Charles Comiskey to bench him. But they insisted he play. They would have been crazy to put down their best player.
During the series, Jackson hit the only home run. He posted the highest batting average. He committed no errors. He established a new World Series record with 12 hits. Nevertheless, the Reds won the Fall Classic.
Edd Rousch, who played for the Reds, insisted that charges that the series was fixed was nonsense. "We were just the better team," he said.
"Maybe I'm a dope but everything seemed okay to me," said umpire Billy Evans who worked the series.
But the rumor of a fix persisted as the 1920 season got underway. The White Sox were driving hard to their second straight pennant when a petty gambler in Philadelphia broke the news that a Cubs-Phillies game had been fixed in 1919.
That led to a gambling investigation - its focus the 1919 World Series. With only a couple of days left in the 1920 season, a Grand Jury was called to determine whether eight White Sox players should stand trial for allegedly throwing the 1919 World Series. Jackson was one of the eight players.
It took the jury a single ballot to acquit all eight accused players. Incredibly, the very next day, baseball's first commissioner - Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who came to power in the fall of 1920 with a lifetime contract and a mandate to clean up the game using whatever methods he saw fit - banned all eight players from baseball for life. The bigoted Landis was brought into organized baseball with a reputation of being a vindictive judge, a hanging judge. He was all of that.
Was there a plan to throw the World Series in 1919?
Was a plan carried out?
If so, which games were dumped?
What role did each banned player have?
Why was there a total banning of the players?
Buck Weaver was banned not for dumping but for allegedly having guilty knowledge that there was a plot.
Fred McMullen was banned though he came to bat twice and got one hit.
And Joe Jackson was banned although his performance exceeded his own standards.
Most importantly, the eight players were found not guilty in a court of law.
Yet, they were found guilty by a brand new Baseball Commissioner.
At the trial, Joe Jackson was asked under oath:
"Did you do anything to throw those games?"
"No sir," was his response.
"Any game in the series?"
"Not a one," was Jackson’s response. "I didn't have an error or make no misplay."
With the banning from baseball for life of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and the seven other White Sox players, it seemed the sport was saying - now we are clean. Now we have purged ourselves of the dishonest ways of the past in the national pastime. And if Jackson in the prime of his baseball career and the others were sacrificed, that was the way it had to be.
Shoeless Joe Jackson maintained that he had played all out in that World Series of 1919. Nevertheless, Major League Baseball was done with Jackson and his seven teammates. It was a miscarriage of justice, a field day for slander on parade. Powerless players were punished, scapegoated.
For a couple of decades Jackson attempted to play the game that he loved, the game that he had learned so well back in the days of his youth. He made an effort to play with outlaw barnstormers, mill teams, semi-pro outfits. Aliases and disguises did him not much good; his unmistakable talent brought the spotlight to be bear on him. Relentless, unforgiving, prejudiced Judge Landis, to keep Jackson from playing, threatened baseball team owners and league officials.
In 1932, Jackson applied for permission to manage a minor league team in his home town of Greenville, South Carolina. Landis denied the application.
In 1951, Joseph Jefferson Jackson died of a massive heart attack a week before he was to appear on the Ed Sullivan television show. He was scheduled to receive a trophy honoring him for being inducted into the Cleveland Indians Baseball Hall of Fame.
It is an old story
The roster of hall of Famers includes personalities with much shabbier credentials and far more soiled reputations. Attempts to get Joe Jackson into the Baseball Hall of Fame failed during and after his lifetime. Yet, Jackson's shoes are at Cooperstown. Yet, his life-sized photograph is there. So is a baseball bat he used, along with the jersey he wore in the 1919 World Series. So is the last Major League Baseball contract he signed.
Prominent attorneys like Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey have argued that Jackson should go into the Hall. There have been petitions, Congressional motions, letters sent to baseball Commissioners through the years - all to no avail.
Commissioner Bart Giammatti said:"I do not wish to play God with history. The Jackson case is best left to historical debate and analysis. I am not for reinstatement."
Commissioner Faye Vincent said, "I can't uncipher or decipher what took place back then. I have no intention of taking formal action."
Commissioner Bud Selig has not stood up for Joe Jackson even though he met with Ted Williams who pushed for Jackson's admission to the Hall of Fame.
Four times Jackson batted over .370. His lifetime batting average was .356, topped only by Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby. Ruth, Cobb, and Casey Stengel all placed him on their all-time, all star team.
Vilified through the decades by many who never knew or didn’t care to know the full story—his is a story that just will not go away.

CASEY STENGEL REMEMBERED

2011-10-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

The rambling, shifting, stream-of-consciousness syntax of Casey Stengel has filled thousands of newspaper and magazine pages with anecdotes amusing and wise, droll and banal, sometimes vulgar.
More than a million references to Number 37 exist on Google and Yahoo. He was on the cover of Time Magazine twice. And there are quite a books about him and his New York Yankees of the mid 20th century.
Like former president Harry S. Truman, Stengel hailed from Missouri and wandered in the wilderness before finally hitting his peak. Born July 30, 1890, he got a nickname a well earned nickname early on - - "King of the Grumblers."

In 1946, Stengel managed the Pacific Coast League Oakland Oaks to a second-place finish. In 1948, Casey and his "Nine Old Men" won the pennant. Del Webb, one of the three New York Yankee owners, offered the manager job to him on the recommendation of dour and businesslike General Manager George Weiss. Their friendship went back decades.
Stengel had a rap sheet going back to times with the Dodgers, Pirates, Phillies, Braves and Giants. It seemed he had been around baseball forever.
On October 12, 1948, six days after Yankee manager Bucky Harris was fired, the man whose greatest ambition once had been to be a left-handed dentist, was introduced as the new skipper of the Yankees. He presided over a crowded press conference and lavish luncheon at the posh 21 Club in Manhattan.
"Because I can make people laugh, some of you think I'm a damn fool," Casey told the assembled crowd. "But as player, coach and manager I have been around baseball for some thirty-five years. (He'd played in or managed over 5,000 games). I've watched some successful managers as John McGraw and Uncle Robbie work. I've learned a lot and picked up a few ideas of my own.
"I didn't get the job through friendship. The Yankees represent an investment of millions of dollars. They don't hand out jobs like this just because they like your company. I got the job because the people here think I can produce for them."
Heading back to California on the train after settling all his Yankee business, Casey told famed sports writer Grantland Rice: "I wonder how things will be next season, where I'll be a year from now."
"Casey Stengel," Hall of Fame broadcaster Curt Gowdy said, "was one of the funniest guys I ever met. Funny without trying to be funny. My first year broadcasting the Yankees was his first year as manager. I'll never forget, we went to a bar after a night game in Cleveland. He ordered a draft beer and knocked it down in one gulp. I said, 'Jeezus, Casey, why do you drink your beer so fast?' And Stengel said, 'I drink it like that ever since the accident.' I said, 'You were in an accident?' He said, 'Yeah, somebody knocked over my beer.'"
In spring training of 1949 Stengel told his Yankees: "I know nothing about the American League. You guys are big league ball players, and this year you will be on your own. I'm not even going to give you signs. You just play. This is my year to observe and find out what the American League is all about."
"It was a shock," Yankee star hurler Eddie Lopat said. "We thought we got us a clown. He never said too much of anything to anyone. It was a treat for him to be with us after all the donkey clubs he had. He didn't need notes. He knew what every hitter or pinch hitter could do against certain pitchers. He could make the moves."
"There was the Casey Stengel of the huge ego," Tony Kubek, who played for him, said. "There was the Casey Stengel of the public relations image. There was the Casey Stengel who could talk for hours on the long thirty six hours of train trips to Kansas City. There was the sensitive Casey Stengel. There was the Casey Stengel of the Yankee pride."
That rookie season for Stengel saw the Yankees devastated by injuries. The famous Charlie Keller-Joe DiMaggio-Tommy Henrich outfield was never in place. Keller missed the whole season. DiMaggio had a banged up heel and did not play until June 28. Little star shortstop Phil Rizzuto was out a lot.
Stengel coped. Stengel planned. Relying on players like Cliff Mapes, Dick Kryhoski, and Fenton Mole and other non-prime time performers, juggling, mixing and matching, patching game by game, Casey managed to manage it all.
The Yankees of Casey Stengel marched to the first of five straight world championships in 1949. Savoring the moment and the 5-3 pennant- clinching triumph, Casey screamed out in the locker room: "Fellas, I want to thank you all for going to all the trouble to do this for me. I want to thank all for giving me the greatest thrill of my life, And to think they pay me for managing so great a bunch of guys."
That first season Casey Stengel put his stamp on everything Yankees. There had been a Yankee culture before. Now it was a Casey Stengel Yankee culture. It would be part of the franchise in 1949 and through Casey's tenure as manager. It would also be part of the Yankee tradition for decades to come.
The "Ol' Perfessor" with the gravelly voice became a Yankee institution. He was as famous, perhaps more famous than any of his stars. He became a national figure, a mixture of Santa Claus and Jimmy Durante and Groucho Marx, duck-walking his way on the baseball stage of his era. "When we won the World Series in 1949 and came to spring training the next year," Eddie Lopat recalled, "Stengel told us: 'Last year is past history. We never look back. We gotta go back and beat 'em again this year.'"
Stengel inherited a Yankee team many thought of as a powerhouse. Within three years he had re-tooled it creating a totally different type of club. Instead of featuring superstars at most positions, Casey structured his team around the trio of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford. The rest of the team was mainly role-players. Stengel pitted them against each other for playing time. "The fella I got on third is hitting pretty good," Stengel explained, " and I know he can make that throw, and if he don't make it that other fella I got coming up has shown me a lot, and if he can't, I have my guy and I know what he can do."
"We had guys on the bench who could play as good as the starters," said Eddie Lopat. "They hated to get on the bench because they knew they might not get back for three or four weeks or ever. "When we played the other teams," Lopat continued,"we never under-estimated them or ourselves. We played the Giants in the 1951 World Series. We were told by the newspapermen that the Giants would run us off the field, that they were hot and they had won all those games down the stretch. Casey's attitude was our attitude. They would have to run us off the field, but not in the newspapers.
"In 1949," Lopat continued, "we played the Dodgers in the Series. We knew they were young fellows without that much experience and we could beat them. In 1952, however, we knew they were now a tough club, but we were prepared."
"Case," former slugger Bill Skowron mused, "would leave us alone to get in shape in spring training. But when those last ten days of spring training came around you knew you had to be better ready to play."
Stengelisms abounded: "I was the best manager I ever saw, but I tell people that to shut them up quickly and because I also believe it. But John McGraw was an enjoyable man, too."
"Make 'em pay. Make 'em pay you a thousand dollars. Don't go help those people with their shows for coffee-and-cake money. You're the Yankees--the best. Make 'em pay you high." -Casey Stengel In the dozen years he managed the Yanks when the team was home, Stengel lived with his wife Edna at the swanky Essex House in Manhattan. The love of his life, Edna was a former silent screen star, a high-fashion dresser who picked out her husband's clothes. The tips Stengel gave at the Essex House were over the top because as Casey said:"I got so much money I don't know what to do with it."
Off season, the big house in Glendale, California was the site of happening times for Edna's nieces and nephews and -- since Casey and Edna had no children of their own -- for Yankee players and their wives and children. At times there were 50 to 75 children "It was real Yankee family back then," Yogi Berra said. "Casey and Edna were like a father and mother to us all."
The talent just gushed to the Yankees in those Stengel years from the farm system or through trades: Jerry Coleman and Gene Woodling in 1949, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin in 1950, Tom Morgan, Gil McDougald, Bob Cerv and Mickey Mantle in 1951, Andy Carey and Ewell Blackwell in 1952, Bill Skowron, Enos Slaughter and Bob Grim in 1954, Johnny Kucks, Elston Howard. Don Larsen, Bob Turley, Bobby Richardson, Elston Howard and Tom Sturdivant in 1955. Ralph Terry came in 1956 and Tony Kubek came along in 1957. In 1958, Ryne Duren, Clete Boyer in 1959 and Roger Maris in 1960.
"I was astonished at the atmosphere on the team when I joined the Yankees in 1957 along with Bobby Richardson," Tony Kubek said. "Jerry Coleman and Gil McDougald went out of their way to help us and we were to ultimately take their jobs. It was typical of everyone helping the helping the team, the atmosphere that Casey Stengel put in place."
Stengel stoked the fierce competition for jobs. Players were trained not to be complacent, to do whatever Casey asked for the good of the team. Loyalty to the organization, pride in being a New York Yankee were part of the package. The almost annual certainty of a postseason check was also something very nice to count on - -a sort of bonus for being one of Casey Stengel's Yankees. Left-handed hitting Gene Woodling and right-handed hitting Hank Bauer shared outfield duties. "We didn't like it," Bauer said. "But you couldn't complain too much - - we walked into the bank every October."
When Elston Howard became a Yankee in 1955, Casey joked: "When I finally get me a nigger, I got one who can't run." It was a reference to Howard's slow foot speed and how long it took the team to have a black player eight years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color line. Casey and Robinson got into quite a few verbal altercations over the Yankee tardiness in integrating their roster. The two did not like each other. But the old man had a genuine affection for the stolid, reserved, and talented Howard.
In vintage Stengelese the skipper paid tribute to Howard: "He deserves credit and where would I be without him? Phew! He can give me a job in the outfield and he can catch, too. Good kid, too. He's good."
For most big league teams, the rhythm of the rotation was sacred. For Stengel, it was his call. The Big Four: Whitey Ford, Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, and Ed Lopat, were all used in relief if there was a need or if Casey felt it was the right thing to do.
"Sure he wasn't that young," Skowron said. "But he knew and we knew what we had to do. He'd leave us alone when we were winning. He'd holler 'butcher boy' and 'don't swing too hard at ground balls' and 'don't beat yourselves.' But when he saw us making mistakes, he'd get excited and do some yelling."
The Yankees took the 1958 pennant by ten games. The l959 Yankees finished in third place - their low point in Stengel's time as manager. There were some who thought it was the beginning of the end. Nearing 70, impatient, Casey made moves in games that seemed highly unorthodox even for him.
But in l960 in a tough pennant race, the Ol'' Professor rallied the Yankees to another flag. But Bill Mazeroski's walk off homer gave the world championship to Pittsburgh.
Yankee owners Dan Topping and Del Webb, who had wanted to get rid of Stengel for several years, used the loss to the Pirates as an excuse. Casey was fired. Actually, he was forced out as manager by a mandatory retirement age of 65 - -just for him.
"I'm just sorry Casey isn't fifty years old .... It's best for the future to make a change," Topping said. "Casey's writers," members of the New York Baseball Writers Association passed around a petition exhorting him not to retire.
"It was wonderful of them," the outgoing manager said," but I've been here twelve years and when a feller stays too long in one place he gets a lot of people mad at him and gets mad at a lot of people when they blame him for blowing tight games."
Later, in a sarcastic and stinging voice, he told dozens of reporters: "I commenced winning pennants when I got here. But I didn't commence getting any younger. They told me that my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth movement as an advance way of keeping the club going. The trick is growing up without growing old. Most guys are dead at the present time anyway and you could look it up. I'll never make the mistake of being seventy years old again."
Between the many hirings (as most know he surfaced again as pilot of the hapless Mets) and the firings, there is the amazing, amusing, arresting story of Charles Dillon Stengel, a man never at a loss for words.
"I was too old when I began," the crazy as a fox Stengel said, "I began playing in 1910 in some league that didn't even last out the season. I told Mickey Mantle one time how I used to do something. He looked at me like I was crazy and asked me if I played. What the hell do you think, I said, that I was born here on this bench as an old manager?
I started managing in 1925 and quit in 1965. I guess I know about managers and managing. What the hell is it but telling the umpire who is gonna play and then watching them play. The best thing to do is to have players who can hit right-handed and left-handed and hit farther one way and father sometimes the other way and run like the wind.
The dozen years Casey ran the Yankees saw the team cop 10 pennants and seven World Series. It was the greatest run by any manager in the history of the national pastime. Only once in his dozen seasons did his teams win fewer than 90 games; his Yankee career managing record was 1,149-696, a winning percentage of .623.
"There comes a time in every man's life," Casey said," and I've had plenty of them." He died on September 29, 1975 in Glendale, California.

Remembering Joe DiMaggio's 56-Game Hitting Streak, 1941

2011-10-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

By Dr Harvey Frommer

The 1941 Yankees were a loaded team. They would win 101 games, the American League pennant and the world championship. It was a team of stars--solid outfielders Charlie Keller and Tommy Henrich, rookie shortstop Phil Rizzuto, top second baseman Joe Gordon, rounded out by talented pitchers like Rud Ruffing and Lefty Gomez. But the star of stars was the man they called "the Yankee Clipper," age 26, in his sixth season with the Bronx Bombers.

Joseph Paul DiMaggio was one of nine children of a fisherman father who had emigrated from Sicily. It was all planned for Joe to become a fisherman like his father, but Joe could not abide the smell of fish and he often got seasick.

His real passion was playing baseball. He played the game with an almost poetical grace. He played when he was fatigued, when he was hurt, when it mattered a great deal and when it didn't matter at all.

He played in the "house that Ruth built," but it was his park now. Yankee Stadium was the first triple-decked structure of its kind--oval-shaped, a dull green, cathedral-like edifice where autumn's afternoon sun created strange mosaic designs on the center field grass where Joe DiMaggio held forth.

It was a park of pigeons, vast numbers of them, fat from the popcorn and peanuts. They lodged in the beams and rafters and fluttered about when the huge crowd rose to its feet cheering a big hit or a spectacular play. They had cheered countless times for Joseph Paul DiMaggio, their favorite.

That 1941 season, however, the Yankee did not get off to a quick start. Some even claimed he was slumping.

On May 15, a day when the United States was on the brink of war and people were startled to see newspaper photos of a London under siege by Nazi Luftwaffe bombers, Joe DiMaggio managed a single in four at-bats off stubby southpaw Eddie Smith of Chicago.

The hit was little noticed. What was noticed was the 13-1 pounding the White Sox gave the Yankees. The mighty Bronx bombers had now lost eight of their last 10 games and were six-and-a-half games behind league-leaders Cleveland.

Then on May 24 in his final at-bat against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, DiMaggio singled in two runs. By then he had a modest 10-game hitting streak.

On May 30 DiMaggio made three errors in the second game of a double header. That was bad news for the sure-handed center fielder. The good news was his fifth inning fly ball to right field was lost in the sun by Boston outfielder Pete Fox. The streak reached 16. DiMag was credited with a hit.

Singles in both games of a road doubleheader on June 1 against Al Milnar and then Mel Harder of the Indians moved the streak to 18. It was at 19 the next day, the day Lou Gehrig died. It was a sad day for the New York Yankees.

The American League record set by George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns of 41 straight seemed unreachable. But there were beginnings of speculation in the newspapers and on the radio. "That's when I became conscious of the streak," he later told friends, "although I didn't think too much about it."

Newspaper and radio coverage began to dramatize what Joe was doing. Most games back then were played in the afternoon, and radio announcers would routinely interrupt programs with the news of the Yankee Clipper's progress. "The streak is alive! The streak is alive!" announcers shouted.

Day and night radio disc jockeys played the Les Brown and his Band of Renown's recording of "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio."

"Who started baseball's famous streak...that's got us all aglow...he's just a man and not a freak...Jolting Joe DiMaggio...Joe, Joe, DiMaggio...we want you on our side...from coast to coast, that's all you hear...of Joe the one-man show...he's glorified the horsehide sphere...we want you on our side...he'll live in baseball's Hall of Fame...he got there blow-by-blow...our kids will tell their kids his name..."

He would step into the batter's box and stub his right toe into the dirt in back of his left heel. It was almost a dance step. His feet were spaced approximately four feet apart, with the weight of his frame on his left leg. Erect, almost in a military position, Joe Dee would hold his bat at the end and poise it on his right shoulder--a rifle at the ready. He would look at the pitcher from deep in the batter's box and assume a stance that almost crowded the plate. He was ready.

On June 17 at Yankee Stadium official scorer Dan Daniel of the New York World-Telegram, a buddy of the Yankee Clipper, credited DiMaggio with a hit when his grounder bounced up and hit Chicago shortstop Luke Appling on the shoulder. There were those who claimed the White Sox infielder could have been charged with an error. Several times during the streak there were questioned of rulings of official scorers. But the streak continued. With DiMaggio having hit in 30 straight games, the George Sisler American League record of 41 now seemed tantalizingly within reach. And so did the "Wee Willie" Keeler major league mark of 44.

The 1941 season moved on. War news was everywhere. So was the drama of Joe DiMaggio's relentless march to the record. At Yankee Stadium, at Comiskey Park, at Briggs Stadium, at all the ballparks in the eight team American League circuit that Joe knew so well, the Yankee Clipper kept it going.

Dom DiMaggio: "Despite their own personal rivalry Ted Williams rooted for my brother Joe. They had great admiration for each other. As a great hitter Ted could appreciate what Joe was doing. It was Ted, playing left field for our team at Fenway Park, who would receive info from the scoreboard operator about the streak. And we would yell out to me in center "Joe's got another hit."

It was Yankees vs. Senators on the 29th of June. A DiMaggio single off Washington knuckle-baller Dutch Leonard in the first game of a doubleheader moved the streak to 41. A seventh-inning single off Walt Masterson in the second game set a new record: 42.

Armed with the new record, the taciturn DiMaggio had become America's most famous athlete. Fame's relentless glare was solidly focused on him. Pestered by the media, ogled by fans, respected even more by teammates and opponents, he tried to take it all in stride, although at times it was painful for the reserved star.

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, ancient rivals, were at it again on a cloudy July 1 doubleheader at the Stadium before 52,832. DiMag paced a Yankee doubleheader sweep. In the first game he stroked two hits off Mike Ryba.

The first hit was questionable--a grounder in the fourth to Jim Tabor. The third baseman feeling the pressure of the consecutive game hitting streak on the line, rushed his throw to first base and DiMaggio wound up on second base. A hit? An error? Dan Daniel in the crowded stadium press box raised his right arm, signaling "hit." The huge and partisan crowd roared and applauded.

The second game was called because of rain after five innings, but DiMaggio got on the board again stroking a first-inning single, tying Keeler's 43-year-old major league mark of 44.

There were 8,682 in attendance at the Stadium the next day sweltering in the 95 degree heat and horrible humidity. They were there to see their beloved DiMag set the major league record of hitting in the most consecutive games. The starting pitcher for the Red Sox was supposed to have been veteran star Lefty Grove. He was on record as determined to end the streak. The oppressive heat, however, made Boston decide to start talented rookie Heber (Dick) Newsome.

Before the game started the head of American League umpires Tom Connolly met with DiMaggio near the Yankee clubhouse. The lively Irishman had known "Wee Willie" Keeler. "Boy, Joe, I hope you do it," he said. "If you do you will be breaking the record of the finest fellow who ever walked and who never said a mean thing about anyone in his life. Good luck to you."

The smell of cigarette smoke, the sounds of pigeons fluttering their wings scurrying for leftover food, and the hawking cries of vendors were backdrop for DiMaggio's quest that New York summer day at the Stadium.

DiMaggio's first at-bat resulted in a long drive that was run down by outfielder Stan Spence who made a leaping catch. The crowd groaned.

In his second at bat, DiMag got all of the ball, slugging it to deep center field. Off with the crack of his brother's bat, bespectacled Dom DiMaggio racing at top speed snared the ball and robbed his brother of an extra base hit.

"It was a great catch, "Joe recalled after the game. "It was one of the best Dom ever made, but at that moment the only thing on my mind was the temptation to withdraw the dinner invitation I had extended to my brother."

Knowing he could take no chances, Joe stepped into the batter's box for his third at bat. Two Yankee runners were on base. The count 2-1. The pitch. Home run--the 15th of the streak, into the seats in lower left field. Yankee Stadium rocked. Screaming fans yelled his name. Even guys in the press box applauded. Joe savored the moment and the record--hitting in 45 straight baseball games.

It seemed that he took even longer, loping strides longer than usual as he ran out the home run, tipping his cap to cheering fans. He touched home plate and bounded into the dugout where he was swallowed up by swarming teammates, happy for him, realizing they, too, were part of baseball history.

The Yankees won the game, 8-4; Lefty Gomez moved his record to 6-3 and recorded his fifth save. The man of the hour, some would say of the season, sat in front of his locker, sipping a beer, smoking a cigarette. He was sometimes moody, sometimes testy. Now he was relaxed as reporters gathered around.

"I don't know how far I can go," DiMaggio said, "but I'm not going to worry about it now. I'm glad it's over. It got to be quite a strain over the last 10 days. Now I can go back to swinging at good balls. I was swinging at some bad pitches so I wouldn't be walked. The pressure has been tough off the field as on it."

"It was a great tribute to me, and I appreciated it but it had its drawbacks, too. I got so much fan mail. There was some kind of good luck charm in every letter that I had to turn it over to the Yankee front office."

That night the brothers DiMaggio dined on steak and spaghetti.

Dom DiMaggio: "I told him, you know Joe, I could not have gone another inch for the ball you hit that I caught. But I am glad you have the record"

The streak continued when DiMag singled on July 5, making it 46 straight. The next day the honed in Yank racked up six hits in a doubleheader. Forty-eight!

A week later on July 8th, the All-Star Game was played at Detroit's Briggs Stadium. DiMag batted third in the powerful American League lineup ahead of Ted Williams. The Yankee Clipper's bat still had magic in it. "I doubled," he smiled remembering the time, "and (brother) Dom drove me in with a single."

The streak moved to mid-July. Many baseball fans stayed up past their regular bed times to learn if the elegant Yankee was still streaking. Radio announcers described to a sometimes unbelieving audience how Hitler's armies moved deeper and deeper into Russia. They also described the drama of how the great DiMaggio managed to keep the consecutive game hits moving forward.

The 16th of July saw the Yankees in Cleveland for the start of a series with the Indians at League Park II that seated 30,000. This day only 15,000 fans were on hand. Stroking a first-inning single off Al Milnar and two more hits later in the game, Joe Di moved the streak to 56. The sparse partisan Cleveland crowd gave him a thunderous ovation.

The management of the Indians had decided to schedule the next game at night at Municipal Stadium, a mammoth facility that could seat accommodate more than 78,000.

That Thursday July 17, 1941, DiMag and his buddy Lefty Gomez, scheduled to start for the Yankees, headed in a cab to the vast park for the night game. They stopped at a traffic light. The cabby had recognized DiMaggio and turned around: "I've got a feeling that if you don't get a hit your first time up tonight, they're going to stop you," he said.

"Who the hell are you?" an enraged Gomez snapped at the cabby. "What are you trying to do, jinx him?" DiMaggio said nothing.

In the streets outside the Stadium there was a carnival-like atmosphere, a lot of hustle and bustle, hawking of souvenirs. Sidewalks were clogged with Cleveland and Yankees fans anxious for the game to start. A large part of the gigantic crowd of 67,463, the largest night game attendance to that point in time, began filing in to the 10-year-old Stadium. Forty thousand had purchased their tickets long in advance. The bleacher seats were occupied very early. They majority of the huge throng had come see if "Joltin' Joe" could work his magic again.

It had rained earlier in the day. At game time a mist rolled in from Lake Erie. Walking the field, the Yankee star knew that with the ground still wet it might be a tougher run down the first base line. Mud stuck to his spikes.

Wearing his baggy road grays, DiMag stepped into the batter's box for his first at bat against veteran southpaw Al Smith. One man out. The Yankees led 10. Tommy Henrich was on second base. The first pitch was a fastball, high and away. The Yankee slugger slashed the next pitch hard past the third base bag. Playing deep, protecting the line, backhanding the ball, Ken Keltner fired to first. Out on a close play. DiMaggio showed no emotion.

In the fourth inning Smith walked DiMaggio with a curveball that broke inside. The huge crowd booed, displeased.

Honed in, the Yankee star came to bat in the seventh, lusting to extend his streak. Almost deafening was the continuous roar in the huge ballpark. Yet, the shouts of "C'mon, Joe!" and "You can do it!" could be heard over the bedlam. DiMaggio, perhaps over-anxious, lashed out at the first pitch curveball. Another shot to Keltner at third. Another backhanded play. Another close play at first base. Again, Joe showed no emotion.

With one out and the Yankees leading, 4-1, a spent Smith walked Tommy Henrich to load the bases. DiMaggio was next. Smith was done. Right-hander Jim Bagby Jr. took over. He ran the count to two balls, one strike. Some said DiMag swung at ball three, a low fastball. A grounder to shortstop Lou Boudreau that seemed to hit something in the grass and jumped up. Boudreau did not panic. Gloving the ball, he shuffled it to second baseman Ray Mack. The step on second, the throw to first. Double play.

The graceful DiMaggio passed first base and continued his run into shallow center field. In full stride, he bent down, lifted his glove off the grass. Then he calmly assumed his fielding position for the top of the eighth inning. The game still had to be played out.

Joe DiMaggio had faced types of pitchers during the streak. All hungered to be the one to stop him. He faced many top-draw hurlers including four future Hall of Famers: Bob Feller of Cleveland, Hal Newhouser of Detroit, Ted Lyons of the White Sox and Lefty Grove of the Red Sox.

"You'll start another one tomorrow," said Yankee Manager Joe McCarthy, his arm around the center fielder in the visitors' clubhouse.

At game's end Ken Keltner was escorted by police out of the ballpark for his own safety. Joe Di and Phil Rizzuto waited for the crowd to thin out before they walked through the mist back to the Cleveland Hotel. The Yankee shortstop headed to his room. The Yankee Clipper wound up in the bar.

It was remarkable--a hit every game for two months, from May 15 through July 16, 1941 in Yankee wins and defeats, in games played in the daytime and at night. Single games, doubleheaders, unimportant games and ones that counted--Joe DiMaggio was locked in for 56 straight.

Then incredibly, with the streak over, DiMaggio began a new one.

He hit in 16 consecutive games--giving him the distinction of having hit safely in 72 of 73 games that 1941 season.

Joseph Paul DiMaggio would play on until 1951, his 13th seasons as a proud Yankee. He never came close to the record streak again.

There are many who say it is the one baseball record that will never be broken.

Sports Bookshelf – Five for the fall -- “The Big Show,” “Fenway 1912,” and More . . .

2011-10-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

The variety and quality of books on sports keeps on coming. Some are sac flies, others are bunt singles, and still others could be considered double, triples or home runs. You pay your money and make your choice as to how you might classify the following lineup of books for fall 2011.

With the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park looming in 2012, all manner of books will be on the market to commemorate the occasion. (Full disclosure) Mine is already out there, Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of Red Sox Nation. Now on the shelves is Glen Stout’s Fenway 1912 (HMH, $26.00, 391 pages). Stout’s work traces as its sub-title proclaims: “the Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season, and Fenway’s Remarkable First Year.” For Sox fans, for baseball fans and also history buffs - - this terrific tome is a keeper. We are there amidst the construction, in the dugout, in the dog days of a long ago Boston summer, in the chill of autumn and the glory of brand new Fenway experiencing its first world championship.

Another work that celebrates baseball’s storied past is “The Big Show” by Charles M. Conlon and Constance McCabe, (Abrams, $35.00, 198 pages). The book contains the stunning photography of the famed Charles M. Conlon who was behind the camera from 1904 to 1942. Prolific, driven, a baseball aficionado, he concentrated his remarkable talents in the main creating revealing photographic portraits of figures from that time. We are there with Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, Joe DiMaggio and so many others, the famous and the not well known. The book is graced by an
eloquent and insightful foreword from the great Roger Kahn.

For those of a certain age “the shot heard round the world” still stays. It certainly stays with Ralph Branca who in his eighth big league seasons as a Dodger pitcher on October 3, 1951 served up the pitch that Bobby Thomson hammered. It resulted in doom and gloom in Brooklyn. It gave the Giants the National League pennant. For fans of the team that played at the old Polo Grounds, that was one of their most memorable baseball moments. It is an oft told story, one with many angles. A Moment in Time by Branca with David Ritz (Scribner, $25.00, 233 pages) possesses no new baseball revelations, but it is told in a sincere manner replaying what Brooklyn Dodgers fans called: “Dat Day.” Branca does reveal that his mother (who had 17 children) was born Jewish. She converted to Catholicism. Now 85, Branca claims he only recently learned this. “She never mentioned this to us,” he writes, “but it may explain my extraordinarily deep love of Jewish people.”
The busy Stout also is the Series Editor of “The Best American Sports Stories” (HMH, $14.95, 350 pages, paper). Selected by Jane Leavy, the book features fiction and nonfiction pieces from a variety of sources. This issue includes Selena Roberts, David Dobbs, Sally Jenkins and others.

The Orvis Guide to Small Stream Fishing by Tom Rosenbauer (Universe, Rizzoli, $35.00, 208 pages) is a work aimed at a large but select readership audience. Nevertheless, it also will appeal to the general public for the wealth of information imparted by the author on fly fishing in small streams. At once a guide, a beautiful picture book, a primer on the art and science of small stream fishing, this is the kind of book to savor. Categories like “Reading the Water,” “Care and Ethics,” “A Philosophy of Small-Stream Casting” and others are instructional as well as aesthetic.

So there you have it – “Five for the fall.”

"Sandman" Mariano Rivera & the "Save Rule"

2011-09-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

By Harvey Frommer

"Enter Sandman" blared again over the Yankee Stadium speakers. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees tipped his cap to the crowd and beamed. The Yankee "stopper" had set a new major league record - 602 career saves. Needing just 13 pitches, the storied hurler notched a shutdown ninth inning on September 19th, locking up the Yankee 6-4 win over Minnesota. He got Trevor Plouffe, Michael Cuddyer and Chris Parmelee in order.
On May 23, 1995, the slender 25-year-old rookie Mariano Rivera, in his major league debut, lasted but 3 1/3 innings, yielding 8 hits and 5 runs. The Yankees lost, 10-0, to the Angels at Anaheim Stadium. That season the son of a Panamanian fisherman started ten games, allowed eight homers and 35 runs in 50 innings and was demoted to the bullpen,
On May 17, 1996 at the old Yankee Stadium against the Angels, Rivera recorded his first career save, the first of five that season. He was primarily John Wetteland's setup man then. In 1997, he became the closer for the Yanks. His money pitch, a sizzling cut fastball, was and is his mighty, some would say, his only weapon. Year after year opposing players have known it was coming, but they have done very little against it.
Throughout the baseball season of 2011 especially in New York City there was much hype and hoopla over the 12-time All Star's quest to set the all- time saves record. And there has been much celebration, exaltation and lauding of the feat now accomplished.
Stats galore have been trotted out in tribute to the magnificence of the gentlemanly Rivera's career achievements. Mo has a record 15 straight seasons of 25 or more saves, a stunning record 89% save percentage and the lowest career ERA (2.22) since the 1920s. In his 17-season Yankee career, Rivera has gone 75-57 with 602 saves recorded in 674 opportunities.
And many have labeled the gentlemanly Yankee the greatest pitcher of his era. Others have gone further calling him one of the greatest pitchers of all time. There are those who refer to Rivera as the greatest closer in baseball history. On the other hand, however, there are some who claim that he ranks as the most overrated player in baseball history.
Bill Plaschke of the, LA Times notes: Rivera has recorded an average of barely more than three outs, with 1,209 innings pitched in 1,039 games. How can he be considered among the game's greatest pitchers if he works one-sixth of the time? How can he be considered among the game's greatest players if he plays one-ninth of a full game?"
And legendary sports expert Len Berman adds: " For someone to amass so many saves he not only needs longevity, he needs to play on winning teams for a great number of years. That's why all saves aren't created equal. You can hit homers, or have a high batting average against
anyone. But to get saves, you really do need a 'little help from your
friends' (The Yankees)."
These insightful comments notwithstanding, it is not Mariano Rivera under fire in the "saves" controversy. It is really the "save stat" and the whole culture connected to it.
The "save rule" was created by respected Chicago baseball scribe Jerome Holtzman in 1960. "At that time,"as Holzman explained, "there were only two stats to measure the effectiveness of a reliever: earned run average and the win-loss record." What Holzman had concocted was baseball's first new major statistic since the RBI in 1920. "The save" was officially adopted by Major League Baseball in 1969.
Rule 10.20 in the Official Rule Book states:
Credit a pitcher with a save when he meets all three of the following conditions:
(1) He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his club; and
(2) He is not the winning pitcher; and
(3) He qualifies under one of the following conditions:
- (a) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; or
- (b) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, or at bat, or on deck (that is, the potential tying run is either already on base or is one of the first two batsmen he faces; or
- (c) He pitches effectively for at least three innings. No more than one save may be credited in each game.
What Holzman had wrought became an over-blown, over-hyped, over-used stat that revolutionized the game. "Firemen" back in the day generally toiled multiple innings in a game. They also generally returned to pitch again the next day. From the time the save rule became an official stat through 1985, one inning saves composed only 21% of all saves. Then things began to change.
Today's stoppers have a much reduced workload, mostly one inning of work and generally no work the next day. Many hurlers would not have had the success they had had they been starters. Suddenly they became superstar stoppers and wealthy men as a result of the "save rule." Pitchers today make millions a season working almost solely ninth innings of games when their team is ahead.
This is the culture of the "save" and one that for better or worse Mariano Rivera has been part of that culture.
Red Sox broadcaster and Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, beneficiary of all the "save" had to offer is, quite frank: "The save is overrated."
All of this, however, has nothing to do with Mariano Rivera. His grace under pressure, his machine-like efficiency, his piling up all these saves is a one of a kind, top of the hill accomplishment. The rules were not made by the great Rivera. He simply did his job year after year in the time of the one-inning closer. His greatness is not to be questioned.
However, the rules governing the "save" deserve some thorough questioning and perhaps some tinkering.

Harvey Frommer is in his 36th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM was published in 2008 and his REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION was published to acclaim in 2011.

His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, USA Today, Men's Heath, The Sporting News, among other publications.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.
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Dr. Frommer is the Official Book Reviewer of Behind the Bombers Online
*Autographed copies of Frommer books are available .

Sad Days at Fenway Park in the 1960s

2011-09-19T17:33:00.001-07:00

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 - - now available in stores, on-line and direct from the author)
By Harvey Frommer
The joy and passion and full houses (breaking the 700 straight sellout mark and counting) and winning ways now on parade at Fenway Park all are a sharp contrast to the way things once were at the little ballpark in most of the 1960s.
There are still those around who recall that time, some with mixed emotions.
SAM MELE: I came into Fenway a lot when I managed Minnesota from 1961 to 1967. My home was still in Quincy, Mass. So I slept in my own bed. It was funny. I was managing against the team that I loved.
In 1965, we beat Boston 17 out of 18 times, 8 out of the 9 at Fenway. It actually hurt me, to beat them. I felt sorry because in my heart I was a Red Sox fan. I had played for them, I had scouted for them. Tom Yawkey would come in my office. And we would talk a lot. Oh yeah, geez, he had me in his will.
The losing, the miserable attendance, the doom and gloom that pervaded Fenway was on parade big time on the 16th of September. The tiniest crowd of the season made its way into Fenway Park - - just 1,247 paid and 1,123 in on passes. Dave Morehead opposed Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians.
Fenway was a ghost town of a ball park in 1965 when the team drew but 652,201, an average of 8,052 a game . The worst came late in the season. On September 28th against California only 461 showed to watch the sad Sox. The next day was even worse against the same team just 409 in the house. Finishing 9th in the ten-team American League, the Sox lost 100 games and won 62. The nadir had been breached.
Managers kept coming and going. Top prospects somehow never made it for one reason or another. Billy Herman was in place as the 1966 season started. Early on Dave Morehead, just 24, regarded as a brilliant future star, suffered an injury to his arm and was never the same. Posting a 1-2 record in a dozen appearances, he symbolized the Red Sox of that era - promise but pathos.
In 1966, the Sox lost 90 games and finished ninth. Attendance at Fenway Park was 811,172, an average attendance per game of 10, 095. It was pitiful.
JIM LONBORG: The 1967 season started off as a typical Red Sox season. There were 8,324 fans on a cold and dreary April 12th, Opening Day. We beat the White Sox 5-4. Petrocelli hit a three-run homer. And I got the win.
The next day there were only 3,607 at the ballpark. And then we went on a road trip. We came back having won 10 straight games. And when our plane landed there were thousands of fans waiting at the airport. That moment was the start of the great relationship between the fans and the players.
BOB SULLIVAN: I went to Dartmouth, and we used to road trip down to Fenway and get standing room without any trouble. It was eight dollars for grandstand seats. But so many seats were empty. You would flip an usher a quarter and you could move down into the seats. Then it changed. What happened was '67.
A noted oral historian and sports journalist, cited in the Congressional Record and the New York State Legislature, Harvey Frommer has written forty one sports books. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New York Daily News, Newsday, USA Today, Men's Heath, The Sporting News, among other publications.
Dr. Frommer, dubbed "Dartmouth's own Mr. Baseball" by the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, received his Ph.D. from New York University. Professor Emeritus, City University of New York, he has been a professor in the MALS program at Dartmouth College since 1992, where he has taught courses in oral history and culture and sports journalism.

New York Yankee September Pasts (from the Vault)

2011-09-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

Whenever the month of September comes around, thoughts turn to BUCKY DENT'S HOME RUN October 2, 1978 and THE BOSTON MASSACRE, September 7, 1978. But there have been other marker moments that linger in memory. A brief list follows: .
SAM JONES, NO HITTER, SEPTEMBER 4, 1923
His major league career began with the Cleveland Indians in 1914, continued with the Red Sox from 1916-21, with the Yankees (1922-26), the Browns (1927), the Senators (1928-31), and the White Sox (1932-35). Twice a 20-game winner, Samuel Pond Jones won 229 games and lost 217 in 22 seasons pitching in the American League.
A stylish right-hander, one of the first major leaguers to wear eyeglasses on the field, Jones had his ups and downs. Like most pitchers of his time, he relieved and started. His eight saves in 1922 were tops in the league.. In 1923, he won 21 games, but lost a league-high 21 in 1925 as the Yanks dropped to seventh place
Jones won 67 games as a Yankee in five seasons. No game was more dramatic for him than his September 4, 1923 no-hitter, a 2-0 gem against the Athletics. It capped his career year, a time he was the Yankee ace, hurling New York to its first World Championship.

JIM ABBOTT NO HITTER, September 4, 1993
The Yankees traded for him on December 6, 1992. He was born without a right hand, but he persevered, more than persevered. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Jim Abbott carried the United States flag during the opening ceremonies at the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis and pitched for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team.
In 1989, he went directly from the University of Michigan to the Angels' starting rotation. A solidly built southpaw, the intense Abbott won a dozen games and posted a 3.92 ERA in his rookie season. On the mound, he wore a right-hander's fielder's glove over the stump at the end of his right arm. After delivering a pitch and when completing his follow-through, he adroitly switched the glove to his left hand to be in a position to handle any balls batted back to him.
In 1991 he looked like one of the best young left-handers in the game after winning 18 games for the Angels while posting a 2.89 ERA. The Yankees traded their best prospect first baseman J.T. Snow and pitchers Russ Springer and Jerry Nielsen to California for Abbott. The media spotlight in New York City seemed to be on him daily. Abbott said he wanted to be like Nolan Ryan and not like Pete Gray, the one handed pitcher.
With the Yankees, Abbott had his ups and downs in two seasons in the Bronx. His record was 20-22. But he did have one especially shining moment. It came just six days after he had been touched for ten hits and seven runs in only three and a third innings against Cleveland. Facing Cleveland again, in the in the heat of the pennant race, Abbott tossed a 4-0 no-hitter against the Indians. "I remember it was a cloudy day. A day game, the kind of game I like to throw."

CAL RIPKEN: LAST YANKEE STADIUM GAME, SEPTEMBER 30, 2001
The day was drizzly and cold. The Yankees played against the Orioles for 15 innings, and the game was called finally because of rain. There were 55,351 fans around at the start and much less at the finish.
Many in the crowd had come out to see Cal Ripken, Jr. in his 126th game at Yankee Stadium, the most by an opposing player. His first game there was June 18, 1982.
There was an orange No. 8 painted on third base, as well as the Orioles' on-deck circle. Ripken was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch to Derek Jeter. Gifts presented to Ripken included a sterling silver press pin from Don Mattingly, a watch, an enlarged and framed copy of the commemorative ticket each fan was given reading "Farewell Cal Ripken.'' Black-and-white pictures of Ripken and Gehrig were on the tickets.
Ripken's pregame speech near home plate was staged near where Lou Gehrig, dying, said goodbye. "I know there will be many things that I'll miss about baseball, but coming to New York and playing in Yankee Stadium will always be at the top....

"I remember Graig Nettles making diving catches. I remember Louisiana Lightning I didn't like facing him that much. . . Willie Randolph and Dave Winfield. One of my all-time favorites at first base, Don Mattingly. It's really been a great run," Ripken said. "Let's get to the game."
The game was in Ripken's words: "Eerie. The weather, the gray sky, the wind, the rain. I was punched out four times and went 0-for-7, but I still had a lot of fun competing."

" A Talk in the Park" "Clubhouse Confidential," Greatest Game Ever Pitched"

2011-08-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

It never fails to amaze one to see the volume and variety of sports books - -terrible economy or not - -that keep being published. It is a testament to the scope and hold our games have on us and the "acts of faith" by publishers and writers to serve up these tomes - - some of top quality and others middling in many ways. None of the volumes reviewed below fit into the latter category - -all belong on your sports bookshelf.

"A Talk in the Park" by Curt Smith (Potomac Books, $27.50, 308 pages) is a worthy work focused as it is as its sub-title proclaims on "nine decades of baseball tales from the broadcast booth." Active and retired "voices" participate, 116 in all, in compelling oral history story-telling.
There is Pat Hughes recalling Harry Caray broadcasting with a tea bag dangling from his ear, Bob Wolff and the longest ever wild pitch, Lou Piniella exposed in all his varied poses - -lovable and excitable and clothes and unclothed. Ranging, riveting, really great stuff, "A Talk in the Park" is baseball history as well as very up close and personal memories of changing times in broadcast booth by those who lived it. NOTABLE

"The Greatest Game Ever Pitched" by Jim Kaplan (Triumph, $24.95, 241 pages) is billed the pitching duel of century - -Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn. Its focus is a summer night in 1963 before almost 16,000 plus, a game that went 16 innings and way past midnight. Kaplan meticulously, marvelously brings back the time. TERRIFIC READ

"Clubhouse Confidential" by Luis "Squeegee" Castillo with William Kane (St. Martin's, $25,99, 293 pages) is a behind the scenes and no holds barred looked at the New York Yankees for whom he worked for as a bat boy and clubhouse attendant from 1998 to 2005. A star in his own rights, a guy who had the Bleacher Creatures calling his name, Castillo lays it all out - -wild nights and days, gambling, an inside look at the privacy of the Yankee clubhouse, what it was like to know and work with Bernie Williams, David Cone, Joe Torre, Don Zimmer, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens, etc. "Clubhouse Confidential" is a bit self-serving, but I guess that's the nature of the genre. Tighter editing would have improved the read but for Yankee fans this is the real deal.
"A Glove of Their Own" by Debbie Moldovan, Keri Conkling and Lisa Funari-Willever (Franklin Mason Press, $15.95, illustrated by Lauren Lambiase) is a beautifully executed and carefull conceived tome. Reading it one is taken back to early days of playing the game - mine were on the "mean streets" of Brooklyn, stickball, and I did not have a glove of my own or a bat either. The book begins "In our town there's a park, with an oak tree so tall. We meet there each day, so we can play ball. The spot is home plate for our everyday game. Sticks are the bases; they work just the same." And from that beginning, the reader is swept away . . .HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

EXCELLENT E-BOOKS: For the casual fan or the totally involved, "Ballpark E-Guides" overseed by Kurt Smith http://www.ballparkeguides.com/index.html is well worth your attention. The price is right, too, just five dollars each to download with PayPal or major credit card.

Just a couple of examples that stand out for their content and execution are Yankee Stadium E-Guide http://www.ballparkeguides.com/fenway-park.html and Fenway Park E-Guide http://www.ballparkeguides.com/yankee-stadium.html. The e-guides are attractive and accesible and offer such features as All About Baseball Tickets, Parking, Food, best way to get to the Park, what to eat when you get to the game. "Tightwad Tips" is worth the price of admisison.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
　

DR. HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS

2011-08-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

" A Talk in the Park" "Clubhouse Confidential," Greatest Game Ever Pitched"
It never fails to amaze one to see the volume and variety of sports books - -terrible economy or not - -that keep being published. It is a testament to the scope and hold our games have on us and the "acts of faith" by publishers and writers to serve up these tomes - - some of top quality and others middling in many ways. None of the volumes reviewed below fit into the latter category - -all belong on your sports bookshelf.

"A Talk in the Park" by Curt Smith (Potomac Books, $27.50, 308 pages) is a worthy work focused as it is as its sub-title proclaims on "nine decades of baseball tales from the broadcast booth." Active and retired "voices" participate, 116 in all, in compelling oral history story-telling.

There is Pat Hughes recalling Harry Caray broadcasting with a tea bag dangling from his ear, Bob Wolff and the longest ever wild pitch, Lou Piniella exposed in all his varied poses - -lovable and excitable and clothes and unclothed. Ranging, riveting, really great stuff, "A Talk in the Park" is baseball history as well as very up close and personal memories of changing times in broadcast booth by those who lived it. NOTABLE

"The Greatest Game Ever Pitched" by Jim Kaplan (Triumph, $24.95, 241 pages) is billed the pitching duel of century - -Juan Marichal, Warren Spahn. Its focus is a summer night in 1963 before almost 16,000 plus, a game that went 16 innings and way past midnight. Kaplan meticulously, marvelously brings back the time. TERRIFIC READ

"Clubhouse Confidential" by Luis "Squeegee" Castillo with William Kane (St. Martin's, $25,99, 293 pages) is a behind the scenes and no holds barred looked at the New York Yankees for whom he worked for as a bat boy and clubhouse attendant from 1998 to 2005. A star in his own rights, a guy who had the Bleacher Creatures calling his name, Castillo lays it all out - -wild nights and days, gambling, an inside look at the privacy of the Yankee clubhouse, what it was like to know and work with Bernie Williams, David Cone, Joe Torre, Don Zimmer, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens, etc. "Clubhouse Confidential" is a bit self-serving, but I guess that's the nature of the genre. Tighter editing would have improved the read but for Yankee fans this is the real deal.

Pine Tar Game July 24, August 18, 1983 (From Vault)

2011-08-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

The 1983 season was an up and down one for the Yankees. But on July 24, things were on the upside. They were positioned to take over first place as they prepared to play the Royals of Kansas City at Yankee Stadium.

The game that was played that day was fairly ordinary. As it moved to the top of the ninth inning, the Yankees had a 4-3 lead. The Royals came to bat in the top of the ninth. No one could have forecast what would come next.

There were two outs. Goose Gossage was one out away from the wrap up of the Yankee victory. George Brett had other ideas. Home run, into the stands in right field!

The Royal superstar ran out the homer that had apparently given his team a 5-4 lead. But just seconds after crossing the plate and going into his dugout, Brett saw Yankee manager Billy Martin approach home plate rookie umpire Tim McClelland.

"I was feeling pretty good about myself after hitting the homer," Brett said. "I was sitting in the dugout. Somebody said they were checking the pine tar, and I said, 'If they call me out for using too much pine tar, I'm going to kill one of those SOBs.'"
McClelland called to the Royal dugout and asked to see Brett's bat. Then he conferred with his umpiring crew. Martin watched from a few feet away. Brett looked out from the bench. Then McClelland thrust his arm in the air. It was the signal that indicated George Brett was out - - excessive use of pine tar on his bat.

McClelland had brought forth rule 1.10(b): "a bat may not be covered by such a substance more than 18 inches from the tip of the handle." The umpire ruled that Brett's bat had "heavy pine tar" 19 to 20 inches from the tip of the handle and lighter pine tar for another three or four inches.

The home run was disallowed. The game was over. The Yankees were declared 4-3 winners. Brett, enraged, raced out of the dugout. Then mayhem and fury took center stage. Brett, not your calmest player, lost it.

At one point, umpire Joe Brinkman had Brett in a choke hold. That was the easy part for the Royal superstar. The next thing that happened to him was that he was ejected from the game and went berserk. Others did, too.

Royals pitcher Gaylord Perry grabbed the bat from McClelland who tossed it to Hal McRae who passed it on to pitcher Steve Renko who was halfway up the tunnel to the team clubhouse. Then Yankee Stadium security guards grabbed him and grabbed the bat which was then impounded.

The Royals lodged a protest of the Yankee victory. The Yankees went off to Texas where they won three games and took over first place for the first time that season.
The almost comical mess was debated by baseball fans all over the nation. The media couldn't get enough of it. "Why a .356 hitter like George Brett," Time Magazine commented would lumber along with a Marv Throneberry Model (lifetime .237) is the sort of paradox that, scientists say, has trees talking to themselves."

Eventually American League president Lee McPhail over-turned McClelland's decision. Acknowledging that Brett had pine tar too high on the bat, McPhail explained that it was the league's belief that "game's should be won and lost on the playing field-not through technicalities of the rules."

Yankee owner George Steinbrenner was miffed. "I wouldn't want to be Lee MacPhail living in New York!" he snapped.

The Brett home run was re-instated. The Royals' protest was upheld. The contest was declared "suspended." Both teams were told to find a mutually agreeable time, continue playing the game and conclude it.

The date was August 18th. Play was resumed for the last four outs of a game that had begun on July 24th. The Yankees, strangely anxious to make a few more bucks, announced they would charge regular admission for the game's continuation. There were fan mumblings of protest. The Yankees quietly changed the charging admission idea. It was too late and to no avail. Only 1,200 fans showed up.

The atmosphere was bizarre. To show their rage and annoyance at the whole turn of events, the Yankees for the final out of the top of the ninth played pitcher Ron Guidry in centerfield and outfielder Don Mattingly (a lefthander) at second base. Guidry played center field because the Yankees had traded away Jerry Mumphrey, who had come into the game for defensive purposes. New York's George Frazier struck out McRae for the third out. In the bottom of the ninth Royals' reliever Dan Quisenberry was able to retire the Yankees in order.

The "Pine tar Game(s)" belonged to history.

2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008. Frommer's newest work is REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK - (http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/)

FOLLOW Harveyon Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd. on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?locale=en_US on the Web: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frommer

Get autographed, discounted copies of books directly from the author @ harveyfrommersports.com. He is available for speaking engagements. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

The ESPN book and other Summer Reads

2011-08-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

DR. HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS

"Those Guys Have All the Fun" by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales (Little Brown, 763 pages, $27.99) is a mother lode of data about the world of ESPN. This oral history has more than 500 voices including Chris Berman, Erin Andrews, Jimmy Kimmel, Tony Kornheiser, Rush Limbaugh, Tony Hawk, Dick Vitale.

The result is a masterwork a behind-the-scenes look at the media monolith that was and now is more than ever - -ESPN told by many of the people who observed and experienced it. As an oral historian, I can truly appreciate the hard work and the creativity that went into this exceptional book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

From Excelsior Editions (SUNY Press) comes a quartette of sports titles of varying subject matters but all interesting. The star of the four is "The Stadium" with photographs by Jon Plasse ($19.95, coffee table size). This slim volume is sub-titled "Images and Voices of the Original Yankee Stadium." One could quibble with that wording since the "original Yankee Stadium got a face lift in the 1970s. No Matter this is a worthy work showcasing artful black and white images to my knowledge never before seen in a book. BELONGS ON YOUR SPORTS BOOKSHELF.

Others from Excelsior include: "When Boxing Was a Jewish Sport" by Allen Bodner, $24.95,207 pages, paper), "Blows to the Head" by Binnie Klein ($19.95, 197 pages). The book's slant is how boxing changed the author's mind. And finally there is "Six Weeks in Saratoga" by Brendan O'Meara ($24.95, 267 pages) all about the wondrous tale of Rachel Alexandra, the three-year-old filly who ran to triumph in the Preakness 2009.

Full disclosure: As the author of what people are calling the definitive book on Fenway: "Remembering Fenway Park" and as one of the newest members of Red Sox Nation, I am pleased to review the children's book "Frankie Goes to Fenway" by Seneca Clark and Sandy Giardi with illustrations by Julie Decedve and "Fenway Park" by Saul Wisnia.

"Frankie Goes to Fenway" (Three Bean Press, $18.95, coffee table size) is sure to please fans of all ages. It is cleverly written, artfully illustrated and a product that much loving care went into. It features Frankie who exited his Vermont domicile and happily took up residence at Fenway. It was a blissful existence until a New York cat came on the scene. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED .

The Wisnia book is a slight job with a hefty price tag 173 pages and $29.99. Many long sentences mar coherence; a good editor was needed.

NUN'S DAY

2011-08-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

By Harvey Frommer

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 - - now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author)

JOHN SHANNAHAN: The summer of 1962 my uncles Patrick and Teddy took me to my first game, a weekday afternoon against the Minnesota Twins. We sat on the third base side, upper box seats. I asked my uncles which team is which. Red Sox are in the white uniforms and the Twins in the grey, they said. But in the bright summer sunny afternoon they all looked white to me.
It was Nun's Day, and it looked like there were thousands of nuns in front of us dressed in their old black habits with the white coifs around their faces. In the early 60s, Richard Cardinal Cushing would hold a Nun's Day at Fenway every year. Later on when I went to my second game at Fenway, I wondered: “How come the nuns aren’t here?”

BISHOP JOHN D’ARCY: Nun’s Day was a big day at Fenway. The nuns wore the old long habits and Cardinal Cushing -- a great, bigger-than-life Boston figure and a big baseball fan -- would come along. He'd wear a straw hat, which was common in those days, and a black suit. Back then the priests always wore black to the games, and there were a lot of priests at the games.
SISTER ANNE D’ARCY: There were probably hundreds of nuns at the game, from all different communities, and it was such a treat to meet the other sisters and take in the game from seats in the grandstand. It was kind of a like an outing where everyone could enjoy this treasure of this Red Sox team even if they were not that good.

ALAN CAMASSAR: On a beautiful June day, my wife and I were with our son at his first major league game. Two nuns in full black garb were behind us. It was a good game, but the Sox lost and my son was visibly disappointed. One of the nuns just reached over, put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t cry. It’s just God’s will.”

About the author :

2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008, and the Boston Globe best seller REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION was published in 2011.

FOLLOW Harvey
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd.
on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?locale=en_US

Get autographed, discounted copies of books directly from the author @ harveyfrommersports.com. He is available for speaking engagements. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

“The House That Ruth Built,” “An Accidental Sportswriter” and other Summer 2011 Reads

2011-07-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

DR. HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS

Robert Weintraub’s “The House That Ruth Built” (Little Brown, $26.99, 420 pages) takes us back to the 1923 season, the creation of Yankee Stadium and the seeds of the Yankee dynasty that was to come.
Nice to see four references to works of mine in the bibliography – and a tip of the Yankee cap to Weintraub for an impressive list of references all of which he has made good use of in this detailed and dramatic narrative. Part memoir, part history of sports since 1957, part name dropping, part graceful and moving and nuanced love letter about sports “An Accidental Sportswriter” by Robert Lipsyte (Ecco, $25.99, 246 pages) leaves the reader wanting more. I can’t wait for Part II. Lipsyte, a former award winning sportswriter for the NY Times has penned an –inside-the- parker. MUST READ

“The Wisdom Wooden” by John Wooden and Steve Jamison (McGraw Hill, $22.00, coffee table size)is the final word of the late and great legendary hoops icon. It is a primer on living life the right way. Archival images, many never before published, adorn the pages of this appealing tome.
From Simon & Schuster comes Timothy M. Gay’s “Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert ($15.00, 349 pages, paper) a roller coaster ride through baseball before Jackie Robinson. The focus is on Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean and Bob Feller and much more. Barnstorming as big business and social revolution and much more.

A piece of sports history that made big headlines back in 1968 but for many has faded into obscurity has now re-surfaced in “Something in the Air” by Richard Hoffer (University of Nebraska Press, $19.95, 268 pages, paper). A very interesting book that probes the stories of both black and white athletes gathered for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City and the paths they chose to express themselves.

Fenway Park Flashback: All Star Game 1999

2011-07-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 By Harvey Frommer - - now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author)

One of the marker times at Fenway Park not ony of that season, but the entire decade took place July 13, 1999 at the 70th All-Star Game. On hand were the candidates for the All-Century Team as well as the 1999 All Stars. And since it was staged on Boston’s home turf – the center of attraction was Theodore Francis Williams.
Four dollars ($3.80 plus 20 cents tax) was the charge at the All-Star Game for a Footlong Dog with fixings like onions, peppers, diced tomatoes and giardineira.
CHRIS ELIAS: A lot of the National League stars got their first look at the manual scoreboard. Many came inside for a closer view; some signed the walls.
ART DAVIDSON: Pre- game, the 50 greatest players and current All Stars were lined up on the baselines.
CHARLIE PATTERSON: PA announcer Sherm Feller said: " And now ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please direct your attention to the doors in center field and welcome the greatest hitter of all time, THE KID, THE THUMPER, THE SPENDID SPLINTER, TEDDY BALLGAME------------THEODORE SAMUEL WILLIAMS!!!!!!!"
ART DAVIDSON: As Ted came out in a golf cart from center field to the Fenway Park infield. Spontaneously, players rushed to embrace Ted.
The 80-year-old legend of legends, clad in a blue shirt and tan pants, was visibly moved. He brushed away tears as he spoke to the players surrounding him.
Then Williams got set for the ceremonial pitch to Carlton Fisk. With San Diego’s Tony Gwynn steadying him, he waved at Fisk and lofted the ball 40 feet into the glove of the Hall of Fame catcher to cheers, shouts, and applause.
Wasn't it great!" a visibly moved Williams said afterwards. “It didn't surprise me all that much because I know how these fans are here in Boston. They love this game as much as any players and Boston's lucky to have the faithful Red Sox fans. They're the best."
LOU GORMAN: Ceremonies over, we escorted Ted to a luxury box. Through my Navy contacts I had arranged for a Navy fighter squad flyover over the top of the ballpark.
He wanted to meet the pilots. “Look," I told them, just shake his hand. He’s getting very tired." But Ted invited them to sit down, and they talked for about ten minutes.
A Marine Corps contingent had been down on the field. The very young captain who was in charge asked if some of his guys could meet Ted.
“Just meet him and shake his hand and be brief,” I told the Captain. He made them sit down and talked for another ten minutes. Ted said being a Major League player was a great honor and being a Hall of Famer was an even greater honor. But the greatest honor of his life was to have the privilege of wearing a Marine uniform.
The American League won the All Star Game, 4-1. Pedro Martinez thrilled the home town fans and everyone else – striking out the first three batters he faced and a total of five in two innings. He was the game MVP.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Pedro is my favorite all-time pitcher, the best pitcher I’ve ever seen. When Pedro pitched, it was an event with Dominican flags flying and all the excitement in the ballpark.
TOM CARRON: The entire All-Star Game experience from the homerun derby to Landsdowne Street -- throbbing with people trying to get home runs balls as they came over the Monster, to Ted Williams being at the heart of it all, to Pedro’s performance, to the Sox taking over a parking lot for the media hospitality, using every nook and cranny, having something going on everywhere you would turn. . . it was special.

About the author
2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008. Frommer's newest work REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION (Abrams) is available direct from the author or at online sites or at bookstores.

http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/

He is available for speaking engagements.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

SUMMER OF 1927 (Excerpt from Five O'Clock Lightning )

2011-06-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Harvey Frommer

"It isn't a race in the American League, it's a landside."
-- John Kieran, New York Times

July would be the best of all months for the Yankees. They would win 24 of 31 games and stitch together their longest winning streak of the season, nine games, from June 13th through July 23rd.
In first place where they had been all season, flying, unstoppable, cocksure, determined and proud of what they were accomplishing, they played on.

And Gehrig and Ruth especially played on. Ruth played off Gehrig, and Gehrig played off Ruth. They both gave opposing pitchers fits and the fans delight. The pennant race was over. It had actually been over before it began.

But the "Home Run Derby" was in full throttle, mesmerizing more and more baseball fans day after day. Gehrig and Ruth, Ruth and Gehrig. Neither man could gain significant separation from the other as they took those mighty swings that baseball summer. And what separation there was, was never more than two home runs.

On the first day of July, the Yankees faced the hapless Red Sox. The Buster and the Babe were tied with 25 home runs each. Gehrig slammed a home run to pace the 7-4 Yankee win, the 13th straight defeat for Boston. That game was a marker moment for the "Bammer" the first time since 1922 that he trailed a rival on that date in the home run race.

"There's only one man who will ever have a chance of breaking my record, and that's Gehrig. He is a great kid," the King of Clubbers said.

Whenever Ruth hammered a homer, Gehrig waited at home plate to shake his hand as he rounded third and touched home plate. If Gehrig homered with Ruth on base, the two would trot around the bases. The Babe waited for Lou to touch home. Then the happy pair like two school kids, smiling all the way, would enter the Yankee dugout to the cheers of their adoring fans, to the congratulations of their teammates.
The younger Gehrig said: "There will never be another guy like the Babe. I get more of a kick out of seeing him hit one than I do from hitting one myself."

The older Ruth said: "Gehrig is one of the greatest fellows in the game and a real home run hitter."

And the self effacing Iron Horse said: "I'm just fortunate enough to be close to him."
But Tony Lazzeri, who knew the score all too well, noted: "They didn't get along. Gehrig thought Ruth was a big-mouth and Ruth thought Gehrig was cheap. They were both right."

Despite Lazzeri's comments, there was no public animosity, no obvious jealousy, no enmity evident between the pair. Ruth even had a kind of big brother, semi-paternalistic interest in Gehrig. "This college kid," the Babe said, "is one of the queerest ballplayers I ever knew. It seems he never feels the cold weather. The coldest day in winter he'll come swinging down Broadway without an overcoat, his coat open and no vest. Never wears gloves and half the time goes bare-headed. Some of the boys claim he never had an over coat on his shoulders until he joined the Yankees."

They were known in the media and by the fans as the "home run twins." But when it came to who was the favorite, it was no contest.

Ruth struck out in a game, and Gehrig followed with a homer. Afterwards at the exit gate kids swarmed all over the Big Bam with adoring looks and cheers, scorecards, pieces of paper, autograph books. Ruth obliged every one of them. No one paid Gehrig any attention. Seemingly content, he walked away and down the street.

"Babe and Gehrig were entirely different disposition-wise," Bill Werber said. "But they both had an intense desire to win. And you'd better have the same disposition on that ball club, or they were on your ass. Eating or drinking during the course of the game, you'd better not do that."

Their lockers were just a few feet from each other and like all the rest at Yankee Stadium, their names were printed in white chalk near the top:
"RUTH,"
"GEHRIG"

The Yankee first baseman's locker was orderly. The Yankee outfielder's locker was the opposite. Overflowing with telegrams, letters in the hundreds, salves and balms and toiletries, phonograph records of "Babe and You," the top of locker had a green gourd about five feet long on it. After games ended, Gehrig sat on a stool in front of his locker, dressed quickly and left. Ruth hung around. Sometimes he sat on a stool but most times he stood, enjoying the give and take with reporters.

Spring Roundup (Part VI) SPORTS BOOK REVIEW

2011-06-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

"Knuckler" by Tim Wakefield (HMH, $25.00, 274 pages) is a winner. The Red Sox vet (now age 44) flutterballer lets it all go in this up close and personal story of his life and times and of course his up and down moments with his favorite pitch. A wonderful idea for a book that mixes and matches Wakefield's life with the legend and lore of the knuckler. BUY IT

Another pitcher, another story - -"Nobody's Perfect" (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24.00, 246 pages). Most baseball fans recall the imperfect perfect game pitched on June 2, 2010 by Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, the gem that was almost the 21st perfect game flubbed by home plate umpire Jim Joyce. Now like Torrez and Dent, or like Thomson and Branca - the pitcher and umpire linked together tell all about their roads to that momentous moment in baseball history. The book stretches to fill pages...but it has its moments.

"Evel" by Leigh Montville (Doubleday, $27.50, 378 pages) is a full blown bio with an attitude by one of the best sports authors around these days. The magnificent Montville touches all the bases in this evocative and provocative tome focused on the life and times of the high-flying Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil and legend. HOME RUN

Another bio of Ernie Banks. And why not? Under the deft hand of Phil Rogers "Ernie Banks Mr. Cub and the Summer of '69 (Triumph, $24.95, 288 pages) goes over a lot of the same old territory but in such a winning way that engagement with this book makes for pleasant warm weather reading. The inspirational hard times to good times story and Banks' musing about people along the way is engaging.

Now in paperback "The Last Hero" by Howard Bryant (Anchor Books, $16.95, 600 pages, paper) is a winner based as it is on massive research and many interviews to bring forth "A Life of Hank Aaron."

"The Dickson Baseball Dictionary Third Edition (Norton, $25.00,paper) Is a mother lode of info on the language of the national pastime that includes more than 10,000 terms and 18,000 individual entries and 250 or so photos. Mother lode and load. Even two of my books are included in the bibliography - -"Sports Roots" and "Sports Lingo." If you into baseball and especially into words this terrific tome is for you.

2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work is REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION (Abrams).
He is available for speaking engagements. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.
FOLLOW Harvey on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd.
FOLLOW Harvey on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?locale=en_US.

REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/
"Harvey Frommer's Fenway Park first captivates the reader with its visual beauty. They are all there, some in color some in black and white, Ted the Thumper, the matchless Yaz, Mysterioso Manny, even The Babe. And the people, yes the people, from all corners of New England. Add to these images Mr. Frommer's trenchant prose and you have one memorable book."
- Roger Kahn
"Daringly organized as a mosaic of Red Sox Nation, Remembering Fenway Park glitters with fond memories and delightful surprises. Anyone who has ever sat in Fenway, or longs to, will love this book. In his sure hands with oral history, Harvey Frommer is a treasure of our national pastime."
-John Thorn, Official Historian for Major League Baseball

*Autographed for FATHER'S Day REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/
Appearances BOSTON area

Thursday, June 16th 12:30p-2:00p SIGNING Borders 10-24 School Street, Thurs June 16th 6:00p-8:00 Boston Public Library EVENT Reading / 700 Boylston Street, Friday, June 17th (1:00p-3:00p SIGNING B & N 96 Derby Street, Hingham Friday, June 17th 7:00p-9:00p SIGNING B & N 98 Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington Saturday, June 18th 2:00-4:00pm SIGNING Booksmith. 82 Central Street, Wellesley Saturday June 18th six PM Barnes & Noble 210 Andover St, Peabody

Spring Roundup (Part IV) SPORTS BOOK REVIEW

2011-06-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

The hits and runs and errors keep coming on the baseball field and the sports books (especially baseball) keep ushering forth on all types of topics. Most of these books are well worth reading.

Jonah Keri’s “The Extra 2%” (Ballantine Books, $26.00, 251 pages) is an up close and personal look at what once was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now just the Rays) and how former Goldman Sachs figures Stuart Steinberg and Matthew Silverman as owners of the team melded their Wall Street ways into a master plan for the team. Insightful, interesting, subtitled “How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First,” --“The Extra 2%” is a book you must read this season.

“Donnie Baseball”(Triumph, $24.95, 207 pages) is billed as “the definitive biography of Don Mattingly. While not quite up to its billing even with a loving and highly readable foreword by Joe Torre and lots of replays of the life and times of its subject, “Donnie Baseball” is highly recommended reading for Yankee fans, Dodger fans.

BACKLIST: Len Berman’s “The Greatest Moments in Sports” and “The 25 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time” (Sourcebooks, $16.99, 136 pages, coffee table size) are two for your sports bookshelf. Penned one of the most affable and informed sportscasters of all time, the two tomes terrifically tell tales of players and moments that hold special places in sports history. For browsing, for research, for reading - these titles have what it takes.

Harvey Frommer is in his 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work is REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION (Abrams)
REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/
"Harvey Frommer's Fenway Park first captivates the reader with its visual beauty. They are all there, some in color some in black and white, Ted the Thumper, the matchless Yaz, Mysterioso Manny, even The Babe. And the people, yes the people, from all corners of New England. Add to these images Mr. Frommer's trenchant prose and you have one memorable book."
- Roger Kahn
"Daringly organized as a mosaic of Red Sox Nation, Remembering Fenway Park glitters with fond memories and delightful surprises. Anyone who has ever sat in Fenway, or longs to, will love this book. In his sure hands with oral history, Harvey Frommer is a treasure of our national pastime."
-John Thorn, Official Historian for Major League Baseball

http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.FOLLOW Harvey on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd. He is available for speaking engagements.

EIGHTIES AT FENWAY PARK: MORGAN MAGIC

2011-05-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author) **Special Father's Day Autographed copies Available**

Don Zimmer had survived the Bucky Dent home run and recorded a five year tenure as skipper. He had survived Bill Lee's calling him a gerbil and less complimentary names. With five games left in the season, it was time for Zim to go. He was replaced y interim manager by Johnny Pesky, who had last managed in 1963. Boston drew 1,956,092 and finished in fourth place, 19 games out.
RALPH HOUK: Mr. Yawkey had been trying to bring me to the Sox for a long time. Whenever I was at Fenway with the Yankees, he would tell me, "If you ever need a job come to our club."
I had been retired for two years in the autumn of 1980 when Don Zimmer was fired and Haywood Sullivan hired me. It was great -- they offered me such a good contract, our daughter lived in the Boston area, and I was treated real good by ownership and the writers. Of course, having Yaz on my side was a big help, too.
Fenway is always an exciting place to go because of the fence, and we managed differently because of it. We decided to pitch inside, which a lot of people didn't do.
Houk had Yaz but not on opening day. Suffering from back spasms, Yastrzemski could not answer he bell. It was the only opener he ever missed.
Carlton Fisk, long time Boston stalwart and now brand new member of the White Sox, homered triggering a 5-3 Chicago win. The cheers that had greeted him at the start of the game turned to jeers.
Another long-time stalwart, Fred Lynn, came back to Fenway in 1980 wearing an Angel uniform.
FRED LYNN: If I made a good play, fans gave me a nice hand. So there was that. But one game I took a home run away from (Bill) Buckner diving into stands in the right field corner. I came back out onto the field after hitting my head on the seats, bleeding from my forehead. The fans loved that. So there was that, too.
JON MILLER: In '81, there was a day game mid-April against Baltimore and a power outage.
BOB SULLIVAN: You could get a box of Cracker Jacks, you could get a candy bar. But you couldn't get any hot food. None of the coffee machines or hot dog machines worked. And it was really cold. There were all these hollow sounds coming from players taking batting practice.
Sherm Feller, the longtime PA Man, leaned out of his window up on the rooftop with a megaphone and announced that there'd been a power outage but the game would be played anyway. You couldn't hear the lineup announcements; you couldn't hear anything. It was like people getting ready to play ball on a back yard field.
On his bullhorn, Feller began to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner," and everyone stood. Acapella, Fenway Park sang the national anthem along with him.
There was a complicated play in the 6th or 7th inning. A score was put up incorrectly, and it stayed up for an inning. Then a bat boy ran out across left field, opened the scoreboard door. A minute later a run came down and a zero went up.
Nowadays, they have generators that work. Quite possibly, that was the last professional baseball game that was played that way. But it was magical. Sox, incidentally, won 7-2.
GARY TITUS: Sherm Feller was proud of being the Red Sox announcer and he was a real statesman for the Red Sox, too. He'd walk into the children's hospital with a box full of Red Sox paraphernalia that he probably just took from Fenway. Feller and Kiley - the 1-2 punch, the sound of Fenway Park.

2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work is REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION .
He is available for speaking engagements. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.
FOLLOW Harvey
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd.
on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/edit?locale=en_US
On the Web: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frommer.

SPORTS BOOK REVIEW Spring Roundup (Part IV)

2011-05-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

Lots of feedback about my reviews One and Two and Three – hope you all like Four. There are some special books commented on here that definitely belong on your bookshelf - -and if have not yet picked up a copy of my REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK – you don’t have to be a Red Sox fan to enjoy . . . so what are you waiting for.

The Yankee Clipper continues to provide a source of fascination for writers and readers. Now there is “Joe DiMaggio The Long Vigil” by Jerome Charyn (Yale University Press, $24.00, 192 pages) and “Beyond DiMaggio - Italian Americans in Baseball by Lawrence Baldassaro, professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (University of Nebraska Press, $34.95 472 pages).

The Charyn book goes way beyond hits, runs and errors. He begins his slim but significant volume with “How can I ever explain the old Yankee Stadium to anyone who has not grown up in the Bronx? It was the one ornament we had in a borough that was nothing but a series of hinterlands.” And then the novelist and cultural critic goes off in an eye opening examination of DiMag – icon, Hall of Famer, money making commercial machine. There is lots of space devoted to Joe and Marilyn Monroe, not that much space as usually happens to his ball field exploits. That is okay. And it is also okay that Charyn carefully and with nuanced writing restores some of the glow of the old “Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?” image. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

“Beyond DiMaggio” by Lawrence Baldassaro (University of Nebraska Press, #34.95, 471 pages) has a foreword by Dom DiMaggio (Joe’s brother) and as Yogi probably would have answered if asked – “He must have written that before he died.” It also has all kinds of stories about the magic and mystique of a host of “name” Italian American baseball players including Yogi, the “Little Professor,” Ron Santo, the Conigliaros, the talented and astute Rico Petrocelli and on and on. The Italians have made it big in all sports but “biggest in baseball.” Lawrence Baldassaro has a scholar’s slant, fan’s enthusiasm and an Italian’s heart as he invokes and evokes the memories and stories of those who line up “beyond DiMaggio.” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Still in an icon frame of mind – there is from Yale University Press “Hank Greenberg” by Mark Kurlansky ($25.00, 224 pages). Sub-titled “The Hero Who Did not Want to be One,” this terrific tome traces the life and times of an incredibly talented and also honorable man. Greenberg took a stand on all kinds of moral issues. MUST READ

“Take Time For Paradise” by A. Bartlett Giamatti (Bloomsbury, $15.00, 105 pages) is a slender work that speaks volumes. Philosophical, profound, the late commissioner has left us a remarkable read on the manifold aspects of the national pastime.

Harvey Frommer is in his 36th consecutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 41 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work is REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION (Abrams) Read all about it:
Upcoming event: SUNDAY JUNE 5, 5:00p- BOOK SIGNING / READING at Northshire Bookstore. 4869 Main Street, Manchester Center, VT.
REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/
"Harvey Frommer's Fenway Park first captivates the reader with its visual beauty. They are all there, some in color some in black and white, Ted the Thumper, the matchless Yaz, Mysterioso Manny, even The Babe. And the people, yes the people, from all corners of New England. Add to these images Mr. Frommer's trenchant prose and you have one memorable book."
- Roger Kahn
"Daringly organized as a mosaic of Red Sox Nation, Remembering Fenway Park glitters with fond memories and delightful surprises. Anyone who has ever sat in Fenway, or longs to, will love this book. In his sure hands with oral history, Harvey Frommer is a treasure of our national pastime."
-John Thorn, Official Historian for Major League Baseball

http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.FOLLOW Harvey on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd. He is available for speaking engagements.

The Bucky Dent Home Run

2011-05-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 - -By Harvey Frommer now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author)

STEVE RYDER: Then all of a sudden:

BILL WHITE (GAME CALL) "Deep to left! Yastrzemski will not get it -- it's a home run! A three-run home run for Bucky Dent and the Yankees now lead . . . Bucky Dent has just hit his fourth home run of the year and look at that Yankees bench out to greet him..."

CARL YAZSTREMSKI: I've always loved Fenway Park. But that was the one moment I hated the place, the one moment the wall got back at us. I still can't believe it went in the net.

BILL LEE: Torrez threw that horseshit slider that is still sitting there in middle of the plate, and Bucky Dent hit right near the end of the bat. I couldn’t believe he hit it out, but he did.

ROGER KAHN: My memory is Dent slamming a foul ball into his foot and hobbling around and there was a delay of several minutes. During that whole delay Mike Torrez did not throw a single pitch. Normally, you just throw to keep loose. Dent got a new bat from Mickey Rivers. And the first pitch Torrez threw after the break that may have been five minutes, was that shot to leftfield. You could see Yastrzemski thinking he could play the ball and kind of crumpling when the ball went out.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: It was a ball that everyone thought was going to be caught, a nothing kind of hit.

DON ZIMMER: When Bucky hit the ball, I said, “That's an out.” And usually you know when the ball hits the bat whether it's short, against the wall, in the net or over the net. I see Yaz backing up, and when he's looking up, I still think he's going to catch it. When I see him turn around, then I know he's going to catch it off the wall. Then the ball wound up in the net.

MIKE TORREZ: I was so damn shocked.I thought maybe it was going to be off the wall. Damn, I did not think it was going to go out.

BUCKY DENT: When I hit the ball, I knew that I had hit it high enough to hit the wall. But there were shadows on the net behind the wall and I didn't see the ball land there. I was running from the plate because I thought I had a chance at a double. I didn't know it was a home run until the second-base umpire signaled it was a home run. It was an eerie feeling because the ballpark was dead silent.

STEVE RYDER: It was just a pop fly off Mike Torrez. It just made the netting. The crowd was just absolutely stunned, absolutely stunned.

REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/

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"Remembering'' has everything a fan could want: iconic images, funny stories, and a sense of reverence. - BOSTON GLOBE
"A handsome coffee table book marks the centenary of the grand old park." -SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
"Gem of a book about a jewel of a ballpark -- --GEORGE F. WILL
"Worthy of its sacred subject.. Unforgettable." -DAN SHAUGHNESSY, BOSTON GLOBE
NEXT EVENT:
Greenwich CT Saturday May 14th 2-3pm Greenwich CT Library Talk/Book Signing 101 West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT. Marianne Weill, Events Coordinator (203.622.7933, mweill@greenwichlibrary.org). (250)

SAY HEY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY Willie Mays Is 80 (From the Vault)

2011-05-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

The month of May was always Willie Mays' time. Willie Howard Mays was born on May 6, 1931 in Westfield, Alabama - 69 years ago today.

The New York Giants called him up on the 15th of May in 1951 from Minneapolis in the American Association. He was bating .477 after 35 games.

Garry Schumacher, publicist for the Giants at that time, recalled the first time he ever saw Mays.

"The Giants were on their way from Chicago to Philadelphia to conclude the last three games of a road trip," Schumacher said. "I was by the front door of the Giants' office on Times Square. Suddenly, this kid comes in. There were always a lot of kids coming around; some of them wanted tickets and some wanted tryouts. He was carrying a few bats in one hand and a bag in the other that contained his glove and spikes. He was wearing the most unusual cap I ever saw, plaid colored. When I found out who he was, we bought him some clothes and then sent him to Philadelphia to join the club. He was wearing the new clothes when he left, but funny thing - he refused to take off that funny cap.

He made his major league debut with the Giants on May 25, 1951. But his start in the majors after just 116 minor leagues games was a shaky one. He was hitless in his first 12 at-bats, cried in the dugout and said, "I am not ready for this". He begged manager Leo Durocher to send him back down to the minors.

But "Leo the Lip" refused to listen to the pleas of the rookie center fielder just as another Giant manager John J. McGraw had refused to send a youthful Mel Ott to the minors.

"You're my center fielder as long as I am the manager of this team," Durocher said. "You're the best center fielder I have ever seen."

Mays' first home run was off the great Warren Spahn. He hit it over the roof of the Polo Grounds.

"We had a meeting of the pitchers," Spahn recalls. "We knew Mays was having trouble. I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out."

In Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field, Rocky Nelson blasted a drive 457 feet to deep dead center. Galloping back, Mays realized as his feet hit the warning track that the ball was hooking to his right side. The ball was sinking and Mays could not reach across his body to glove the drive. So just as the ball got to his level, Mays stuck out his bare hand and made the catch. It was an incredible feat.

Durocher told all the Giants to give Mays the silent treatment when he returned to the dugout. But Pittsburgh's General Manager Branch Ricky sent the Giant rookie a hastily written note: "That was the finest catch I have ever seen ... and the finest I ever expect to see".

There is that catch and so many others. There are also the images of Mays playing stickball in the streets of Harlem with neighborhood kids, running out from under his cap pursuing a fly ball, pounding one of his 660 career home runs, playing the game with a verve, a gusto, and an attitude that awed those who were around him.

"Willie could do everything from the day he joined the Giants," Durocher recalled.

"Everybody loved him," notes his former teammate Monte Irvin. "He was a rare talent. Having him on your team playing center field gave us confidence. We figured that if a ball stayed in the park, he could catch it."

Mays was The Natural. He led the NL in slugging percentage five times. He won the home run crown four times. Twice, he won the NL MVP Award.

"He lit up a room when he came in," Durocher said.

The superstar of superstars, the man they called the "Say Hey Kid" was on the scene for 22 major-league seasons. He is all over the record book and in the memory of so many baseball fans.

Happy Birthday, Willie Mays!

# # #

REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/

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Spring Roundup (Part III) SPORTS BOOK REVIEW

2011-04-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

DR. HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS

The baseball season moves along and so does the publication of all manner of books on the national pastime from all levels of publishers. All of this happening reveals the tremendous depth of the sport, the myriad manners in which to view it.

Batting in first position is “Cuban Star” by Adrian Burgos, Jr. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28.00, 302 pages) about “Alex” Pompez - -the man who was the preamble to the great run of Latin baseball players that are on the scene today. Funny, poignant, dramatic, filled with all kinds of insights, “Cuban Star” is a full fledged bio of the Pompez who was finally admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. He cut his bones, as they say, with gambling revenue to finance and keep afloat the team he owned the -- New York Cubans. In short, he was number one in Harlem’s numbers scene. He also was a pioneer later on in his career working for the San Francisco Giants as a scout and bringing to the team standout Latin American stars. The book is a keeper.

"Baseball Codes" by Jason Turbow (Anchor Sports $15.00, 304 pages) is now in paperback. I liked it in hard cover and I still like it. A revealing look through the eyes of the players - - "inside baseball."
"The Runmakers" by Frederick E. Taylor (Johns Hopkins University Press, $24.95, 272 pages) is a breakthrough look at the way evaluations in baseball have always beenpart of the scene. Taylor's first book is a home run. He has created a formula "bases per plate appearance" to measure the efficiency and greatness of hitters. If you are into the game - - -you will be into the book's potential runs per game (PRG) measurement tool.

“56” by Kostya (Sports Illustrated Group, $26.95, 367 pages) is once more to 1941 and Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak. It is a many times told story but there is a good re-playing of the legend and the times he lived in.

NOTABLE: Though not a baseball book, "Wimbeldon" by David Green sub-titled "101 Reasons to Love the Greatest Tournament in Tennis" (Abrams, $18.95, more than 100 pages) is a concise and cleverly crafted look at a sports phenomenon and a showcasing of British culture so much in the air nowadays. Much to like from the careful research to the excellent imagery and the trivia and factoids sprinkled throughout.

DR. HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS BOOK REVIEW (Part II)

2011-04-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Spring Roundup

“Baseball in the Garden of Eden” by John Thorn (Simon and Schuster,$26.00, 365 pages) has as its sub-title “The Secret History of the Early Game.” In what can be viewed as a book that is part detective story, part investigative reporting, part labor of love - - and all eye-opener, the acclaimed baseball historian tells it like it was and is.
If you are still under the impression that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, forget about it. If you are still under the impression that Alexander Joy Cartwright invented the national pastime, forget about it. Check out with John Thorn showing the way -- Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton and Louis Fenn Wadsworth.

Thorn begins his ground breaking tome: “In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, heroine Catherine Morland comments, ‘I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.’”

That opening paragraph sets the tone for Thorn’s trip and ours through a tangled web of baseball’s beginnings. Pathos, humor, wit punctuate the pages of “Baseball in the Garden of Eden.” A MUST READ

From Neil Lanctot comes “Campy” (Simon and Schuster, $28.00, 516 pages). A bit padded, a bit meandering, the book does bring back as its sub-title states “the two lives of Roy Campanella.”

“Derek Jeter From the Pages of the New York Times” (Abrams, $29.95, 224 pages) is a keeper. It is also a truly original kind of sports book – I should know having reviewed thousands of them since the 1980s. This terrific tome draws upon nearly 5,000 news articles and features from the New York Times and nearly 100 color photographs. It also showcases a fabulous intro by Tyler Kepner that begins: Derek Jeter grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan next to a baseball field. Every day, just behind his backyard, it was there, calling him to play. And so he did, and he has never stopped.” HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

A bit off the beaten path is “”Pitching in the Promised Land” by Aaron Pribble (University of Nebraska Press, $24.95, 238 pages). The book is filled with anecdotes, amazing happenings -- as then 27-year-old Pribble interacts with a zany cast of characters who wanted to be part of the first (and last) season in the Israel Baseball League. The author had many unique times – falling in love with a beautiful Yemenite Jew, being exposed to an alleged terrorist opening day attack, finding himself a part of what can be viewed as the ultimate baseball fantasy camp. WORTH READING.

SEVENTIES AT FENWAY PARK : ALL THAT YAZ, AND MORE

2011-04-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 - - now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author)

The Red Sox decade of the seventies began on April 14 at Fenway - -Yankees against Red Sox. There were 34,002 in the house. New York manager Ralph Houk was pitted against new Red Sox skipper Eddie Kasko.

Another opening day. Missing was a long time fixture, the center-field flag pole. No one seemed to notice. Olde Towne team rooters exited happily after watching their team behind Ray Culp win 8-3 win aided by homers off the bats of George Scott, Tony Conigliaro and Reggie Smith.

(Opening Day Lineup at Fenway April 14, 1970

Mike Andrews 2b

Reggie Smith cf

Carl Yastrzemski lf

George Scott 1b

Rico Petrocelli ss

Tony Conigliaro rf

Luis Alvarado 3b

Jerry Moses c

Ray Culp p

Old Towne team fans reveled in the potential of their team which blended depth, youth and experience, a powerful offense and some strong pitching. And more help in the form of the Luis Tiants, Fred Lynns, Jim Rices was in the offing. With Carl Yastrzemski, the Red Sox were always exciting, never out of a game.

Fans at Fenway came to see "Yaz" as they had come to see "Teddy." On May 16th he slammed a pitch out of the park duplicating what up to then only Jimmie Foxx and Bill Skowron had been able to do.

JOHN KENNEDY: It seemed everybody thought Tom Yawkey kow-towed to Ted Williams and Carl Yaz because a lot of times people would come into the locker room and see him sitting with them. But he didn't ignore anyone. My locker was right by the clubhouse door, and he would always stop and ask how were the kids, was there anything I needed?

EDDIE KASKO: In those years, there was a long-time nucleus in place at Fenway - a special fan, the organist, the P.A. guy, the switchboard operator, the head groundskeeper, the top PR guy. Sherm Feller was the P.A. guy. He'd always hold court in the press room. He had hearing aids that you tuned in with a dial. You'd be hearing the "eeeeeeeeeeerr, eeeeeeeeeerrrrr." He'd reach in and say, "Hold it, hold it, I'm getting Shanghai." guy.

EDDIE KASKO: John Kiley on the organ basically was the only music at Fenway. A big man, he was going to be there until he couldn't do it any longer. Bill Crowley was a big Irishman, a tough type just like Joe Mooney and a few others. He knew every member of the media, all the secrets. Joe Mooney ran the grounds crew with an iron fist. He was a short Irishman, tough, like a James Cagney type. If you were where you weren't supposed to be on that field, boy, he just gave you hell and he didn't care if you were the biggest star. When it rained, he had a bunch of summer kids, and they would jump to it. And he'd have the tarp on his beloved field in no time. The brothers Conigliaro were center stage on the 19th of September 1970. Tony and Billy homered in the nightcap of a twin bill and the Red Sox romped, 11-3 over the Senators An attractive team that drew better than any other American League team, 1,595,278 at Fenway, the Red Sox were 52-29 at home but just 35-46 on the road. Had they been a bit better away from Fenway who knows what they might have accomplished that season they finished in third place in the AL East.

RICK MILLER: I made my debut with the Red Sox on September 4, 1971, coming in late in the game as a pinch hitter. I was really nervous. I swung at the first pitch. It was a high fast ball. It went for a double off the Green Monster. I loved Fenway, loved to play there. But as an outfielder you were challenged. I had to learn the tricky configurations and angles, how to get great jumps, how to play players. I would cheat, I knew the counts and moved on each pitch according to the count.

BILL LEE: I started out as a reliever and became a starter in '73. Old guy Gene Clines was in the pen and he asked to see my grips. I showed him my curveball grip. "No,no, no. That's how you hold a cocktail." So I learned what you learn out in the bullpen is bad habits. You learn how to smoke, chew tobacco and waste your time. But it wasn't a bad environment at Fenway. Fans would bring you anything you wanted. During rain delays, I would sneak out with an usher named "The Whale." We would run out the back entrance down Ipswich Street, cut back through the back alleyway and end up in the Eliot Lounge. They'd hear the clicking of my spikes and they'd have a beer pulled for me. I'd have two beers, watch them pull the tarp off the field, be back in time and never miss a pitch. In the bullpen Sparky Lyle worked in a strange way, throwing his first pitch real slow, just a lob. And the second pitch he'd throw 90 plus miles an hour. Because they weren't expecting, he'd hit catchers in the chest and worse a lot of times Around the fifth inning, Sparky would go to the Triangle, get a cheeseburger and be ready to go.

DON LENHARDT: As first base coach under Eddie Kasko from 1970-1973, we'd go to Mr. Yawkey's office after games. It had a nice bar and a barman. We would talk about the game, the roster. Once I told Mr. Yawkey "We need to get rid of Yaz and Reggie Smith." Of course, it was just a joke. But to tell the truth, they wore me out game after game at Fenway. Everybody wanted to go home when the games were over. But those two always wanted more batting practice, and I was usually the guy who obliged and pitched it to them.

Spring Roundup (Part I) SPORTS BOOK REVIEW

2011-04-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

As the weather gets warmer,more and more sport books (especially baseball) make their appearance. All sizes, all matter of subject matters, all kinds of quality. Herewith, a sampling: "Baseball Scorekeeper (Chronicle Books, $16.95, 40 pages). This is a wonderful tool for fans of the national pastime providing a sturdy book of easy-to-use scorecards that will serve as a permanent record of what goes on at the game.

Jimmy Breslin’s “Branch Rickey” (Viking,$19.95, 147 pages) is a slim look at the man who along with Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line back in 1947. There is not that much that is new here but the charm of it all is the voice of “Breslin, very New York, very unique.

If you can’t get enough insights into baseball and the doings of stars – there is a new effort “Diamond Dishes” by Julie Loria (Lyons Press,$24.95, 181 pages). The recipe - -get a hold of some of the biggest stars and have them talk about their favorite edibles, family traditions, and special ways to make their favorite dishes.

Now in paperback – “High Heat” by Tim Wendel (DaCapo Press, $15.00, 274 pages) is billed as the secret history of the fastball and the improbable search for the fastest pitcher of all time.

Two kind of off-beat efforts are among the more interesting baseball books of the season: “The Most Famous Woman in Baseball” by Bob Luke (Potomac Books, $27.50, 256 pages) and “Havana Heat” by Darryl Brock (University of Nebraska Press,$18.95, 322 pages). WORTH READING.

The Luke effort focuses on Effa Manley and the Negro Leagues and especially her time as owner of the Newark Eagles. The Brock effort focuses on Luther “Dummy” Taylor, one of the first deaf players in baseball history and his accompanying of the New York Giants of John McGraw on a barnstorming trip to Cuba. REWARDING

From Triumph Books comes Phil Pepe’s very interestingly told tale “1961,”( $20.00, 288 pages). As the beat writer for the old New York World Telegram & Sun, Pepe covered the battle for the home run title. TOP DRAWER. Also from Triumph is Jim Kaplan’s “The Greatest Game Ever Pitched” ($24.95, 238 pages). Kaplan packs a lot of drama into his re-telling of the pitching duel between Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal on July 2, 1963. To re-live the game, buy the book.

SIXTIES AT FENWAY PARK

2011-04-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Boston Red Sox/Abrams 2011 - - now available in stores and on-line and direct from the author)

September 28th, 1960, Red Sox vs. Orioles. Overcast, dank, chilly the final day of the final home stand of the 1960 season. Only 10,454 showed up. The game was not televised locally or nationally. “You Made Me Love You,” playing over the loudspeaker, created a melancholy mood.

FRANK MALZONE: I wish there was more people there. They didn’t realize, you know. Curt Gowdy, Red Sox radio and television voice, began the spare ceremony: ''Twenty-one years ago, a skinny kid from San Diego, California…”' Boston Mayor Collins, seated in a wheelchair, presented a $1,000 check to the Jimmy Fund, the favorite charity of Ted Williams, 42, who was given a plaque by the local sports committee. The inscription was not fully read. Williams hated a fuss. He even was annoyed by the news announced to the crowd that his uniform number, 9, would be permanently retired. It was the first time the team ever honored a player that way. Williams said over the loudspeaker: ''In spite of all the terrible things that have been said about me by the knights of the keyboard up there ... and they were terrible things, 'I'd like to forget them, but I can't…. I want to say that my years in Boston have been the greatest thing in my life.''

FRANK MALZONE: Ted hit two balls good, the first one got into the wind in the right field corner and was pulled back and caught by the right fielder, the next one the center fielder caught.

CURT GOWDY (Game Call) "Everybody quiet now here at Fenway Park after they gave him a standing ovation of two minutes knowing that this is probably his last time at bat. One out, nobody on.

BOB KEANEY: Ted dug in, wiggled his fanny, and glared at pitcher Jack Fisher. Everyone stopped breathing. Ted swung as hard as he could, but he missed the fat pitch and nearly sprained his arms. Some dreamers said later that Ted missed on purpose, so that Fisher would be fooled into throwing that fast ball again.

CURT GOWDY (Game Call) Jack Fisher into his windup, here's the pitch. Williams swings -- and there's a long drive to deep right! The ball is going and it is gone! A home run for Ted Williams in his last time at bat in the major leagues!"

JERRY CASALE: I was in the bullpen with Bill Monbouquette and Mike Fornieles and others. We were all up front looking over the railing. The ball went over our heads. Williams circled the bases as he always did, in a hurry, with his head down trotting out Number 521, his final homer. The crowd stood and cheered the man and the moment.

BROOKS ROBINSON: I was playing third base. He went running around the bases, and I looked at him as he passed second base. I had my arms folded as he passed me. That was absolutely a magical moment to be a part of that history.

STEVE RYDER: He had that regal trot around the bases. Didn’t tip his cap, didn’t look at the stands, just right into the dugout. The inning ended and Williams went out to play left field in the the top of the ninth. Just before the inning began Carroll Hardy replaced him. “The Kid” ran in. The crowd had one more standing ovation in it. “We want Ted. We want Ted!" The fans chanted. But he refused to come out for a curtain call. Later it was reported that players and umpires tried to get him to come out. No dice.

FRANK SULLIVAN: We all wanted him to stop and at least take his cap off but that sonofabitch, he just ran into the dugout. He didn’t stay around or let us say anything. You know that was the way that Ted was. He went down the dugout steps straight into the tunnel. That was it, aloha. We didn’t know that that was his last game but we all suspected it. We were out of contention, so he wasn’t robbing the team. It was just Ted was Ted. In My Turn at Bat, Williams wrote: "You can't imagine the warm feeling I had, for the very fact that I had done what every ballplayer would want to do on his last time up, having wanted to do it so badly, and knowing how the fans really felt, how happy they were for me. Maybe I should have let them know I knew, but I couldn't. It just wouldn't have been me."

First Match Up At Fenway: April 20, 1912 (From the Vault)

2011-03-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

It will soon be Yankees Vs. Red Sox at Fenway Park to open the 2011 season there. The historic rivals are at it again and the "Great Rivalry" -- and it is a great rivalry despite some commentary from an NPR sage -- is at fever pitch. Former Baseball Commissioner

- A. Bartlett Giammati made the statement: "When I was seven years old, my father took me to Fenway Park for the first time, and as I grew up I knew that as a building it was on the level of Mount Olympus, the Pyramid at Giza, the nation's Capitol, the Czar's Winter Palace, and the Louvre - except, of course, that it was better than all those inconsequential places." Contrary to some rumors probably spread by Yankee fans, the scholarly Giammati was not around for the start of play at Fenway which was a very long time ago. Prior to 1912, the Red Sox played at Huntington Avenue Grounds, now part of Northeastern University. Fittingly, the first American League team to visit Fenway Park was New York -- at that time known as the Highlanders, soon to become the Yankees. It was a damp and chilly New England spring that year.

The Red Sox actually played their first game at Fenway 11 days before, defeating Harvard University in an exhibition game played in a snowstorm. Then the Red Sox and Highlanders had to sit out two rainouts before facing off on Saturday April 20, just a few days after the sinking of the Titanic.

The future grandfather of President John F. Kennedy, Boston Mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was one of the 27,000 in attendance. He threw out the first ball in the park that was built at a cost of $350,000 that would come to be known as "Boston's Sistine Chapel." They played on into extra innings. Boston prevailed finally winning,7-6, on a Tris Speaker RBI in the bottom of the 11th inning. Red Sox spitballer Bucky O'Brien and Sea Lion Hall defeated New York's Jumbo Jim Vaughn. Opening day turned out to be a good predictor of the season's fortunes for both Boston and New York.

The Red Sox took the American League pennant in 1912 with a 105-47 record, good for a winning percentage of .691, and went on to beat the New York Giants in the World Series. The Highlanders, suffering their 6th straight loss, went 50-102 (.329), finishing in last place, a whopping 55 games behind the Red Sox. Even after the BoSox had Fenway as a home park, they didn't always play all their games there. From time to time, they scheduled "big games" at Braves Field to accommodate larger crowds than their little park could accommodate. But that worry is way in the past - - now a seat at Fenway is one of the toughest tickets in all of baseball.

About the Author: 2011 marks Harvey Frommer's 36th consutive year of writing sports books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 40 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history was published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his classic "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball." Frommer's newest work REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF RED SOX NATION (Abrams) is available direct from the author or at on line sites or at bookstores. http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/ He is available for speaking engagements. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time. FOLLOW Harvey on Twitter: http://twitter.com/south2nd. Web: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frommer. 　

FIFTIES -- (Excerpt from REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF THE RED SOX)

2011-03-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from Dr. Harvey Frommer's REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOME OF THE RED SOX)
IKE DELOCK: He didn’t like the press and there a lot were a lot them – he wanted to ban them from the clubhouse. The players said, “You can’t do that.” So he eased up. But whatever he wanted he damn well got.

At the urging of Williams, Red Sox players agreed to a one hour interview lag after games before reporters could enter the locker room. The Sox icon would stand outside the door wearing just a towel, counting off the seconds. “Okay,” he'd snap. “Now all you bastards can come in. “

MEL PARNELL: Ted was called out on strikes and came back to the dugout and complained that home plate was out of line. General manager Joe Cronin argued about it but agreed to have home plate checked. At nine the next morning the ground crew was out there. They checked. It was out of line. Ted had the greatest eyes. He was a man with strong opinions about everything, and his own way of doing things.

The “Splendid Splinter” ordered postal scales for the Boston clubhouse to accurately measure the weight of his bats. He trusted no one. While in the on-deck circle, he would massage his bat handle with olive oil and resin. The noise, a kind of squeal, did not endear him to disconcerted pitchers.
The eighth day of June, 1950 was a perfect day at Fenway for those who loved offense, hot weather and the home team. Scoring 29 runs in 90 degree heat before just 5,105 fans, the BoSox romped. Bobby Doerr smashed three homers while collecting 8 RBIs. Walt Dropo homered twice, driving in 7 runs. Ted Williams launched two homers and had 5 RBIs. A half dozen Major League offensive records were set that day by the slugging BoSox.

On the first day of July, Whitey Ford made his major league debut at Fenway.
WHITEY FORD: I was 21 years old. I wasn’t what I would be. I lasted 4 2/3 innings giving up seven hits, six walks, and five earned runs.

Another rookie, Boston’s Walt Dropo, had a better day than the Yankee southpaw. He slugged a grand slam home run. Boston won, 13-4.

On August 17th Fenway Park became the site of the American League’s first Ladies Night Game. More than 7‚000 women saw the home team down the A's‚ 10-6. It was the 19th straight loss for Philadelphia at the Fens dating back to September 12‚ 1948.

JIMMY PIERSALL: My first day in the big leagues was September 7, 1950. I was 20 years old. And we were playing Washington and I was sitting on the bench. We’re down by four runs and Steve O’Neil who had replaced Joe McCarthy as manager said it’s time for me to pinch-hit. He called me “pierseraroll”— he didn’t know what the hell my name was.

JOHNNY PESKY: A big left handed pitcher was going against us. Piersall was going up for his first at bat. “Goddamn this guy’s awful wild, God damn it, I’m afraid,” Jimmy said.
“If you’re afraid,” I told him, “you better get a lunch pail and go home.”

JIMMY PIERSALL: I walked up. My hands were sweating. I swung at the first pitch and the bat lands beyond the third base dugout. And I’m standing there without a bat. The on deck circle guy gives me another bat. The count goes to 3-2, and I hit a ball between second and third for a hit.

With Pesky, with Williams, with DiMaggio, with Parnell and now with Piersall, the 1950 Red Sox were a formidable foe at home where they posted a won and lost record of 55-22; on the road they barely played .500 ball.

On April 15, 1951, exactly four years to the day that Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, almost exactly six years to the day that he and Marvin Williams and Sam Jethroe were passed over by the Red Sox in the “tryout” at Fenway in 1945, “the Jet Jethroe” returned as a member of the Boston Braves in the pre-season City Series game – Boston Braves versus Boston Red Sox. The speedy Jethroe showed the Sox what they had missed in not signing him. Going 4 for 5, homering, driving in two runs, Jethroe dominated. But the Braves lost the game 6-3.

A month later the Red Sox celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first game in Boston. On hand were 29 old-timers who had played‚ managed‚ or umpired in the American League in that first season including Connie Mack‚ Dummy Hoyt‚ Cy Young‚ Hugh Duffy and Clark Griffith. In the game that followed Ted Williams slammed his 300th career homer.

On July 8th, Red Sox fans rejoiced as a Yankee pitcher failed to complete a game for the 20th straight time at Fenway Park. Five days later Sox fans rejoiced even more when Mickey Mantle struck out four times in a doubleheader.

Just before the 1952 baseball season got going, the last City Series game between the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Braves was played at Fenway Park on April 13th before a tiny and chilled crowd of 3,813 who braved 40-degree weather. Pitcher Gene Conley, a Celtic and future member of the Sox, started for the Braves. Faye Throneberry (the brother of “Marvelous Marv”) homered with two outs in the seventh. The Sox won the game, 2-1. The Braves moved to Milwaukee the following season and that ended the City Series with the Boston Braves.

GENE CONLEY: That April 13th was the first time I saw Fenway Park. “My goodness, what a small ballpark,” I thought. Some of the minor league parks I had played in were bigger.

REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK: http://harveyfrommersports.com/remembering_fenway/
"A handsome coffee table book that marks the centenary of the grand old park." -Sports Illustrated

"For Red Sox fans, this gem of a book about a jewel of a ballpark is
enough--well, almost enough- to banish from all thoughts of Bucky Dent and other disappointments. --George F. Will

"For a baseball fan, hours of pure enjoyment. Great book, beautiful, fantastic."--New Hampshire Public Radio, Morning Edition

"Harvey Frommer has produced a book worthy of its sacred subject. Remembering Fenway Park is unforgettable." -Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe

"A tribute to a ball park, a celebration of a game, and a love song to the players, coaches, and fans who've turned a tract of grass and dirt into sacred ground." - -James S. Hirsch, Author of "Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend"

Harvey Frommer on Youtube on Remembering Fenway Park

2011-03-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

PART 1

PART 2