Pinstripe Empire (47 page)

He was timed running to first in an amazing 3.1 seconds. “We’d all stop to watch him in Arizona that first year,” said Berra. “Everything about him.”

Carmen Berra added, “We kept hearing about how handsome he was. Then one day that year we were in the lobby of the Concourse Plaza Hotel and he came out of the elevator. It was the first time I saw him up close. Oh my God!”

He would be the first superstar of the burgeoning television era of the game, and thus could be seen in homes across the country, a privilege Ruth, Gehrig, and DiMaggio had not enjoyed. And his fame would be national because he would play in twelve World Series in his first fourteen seasons, becoming as much a fall network TV star as Milton Berle. By 1952 he was already a third-place finisher in MVP voting.

His handsome face graced the cover of
Life
magazine and he’d appear on
The Ed Sullivan Show
.
Sports Illustrated
came along in 1954 and sold more copies with him on the cover than anyone else.

DiMaggio fans were somewhat disdainful. He struck out too much. Joe didn’t do that. And Joe had more “class.”

DiMaggio, seventeen years Mantle’s senior, was not much of a mentor. He may have resented the attention, or, seeing all the strikeouts, resented the idea that this could be his successor. “I never volunteered any advice to Mickey or any other ballplayer,” said Joe. “Sure, when he came up as a green kid I tried to help him in the outfield, but that’s different from presuming to give unasked advice to a recognized star.”

When I assisted Bowie Kuhn with his memoir in 1984, he paused in reflection while speaking of the game’s accomplishments during his sixteen years as commissioner, and said, “… and we did it all without ever finding another Mickey Mantle.” Such was the power of the Mantle story.
¹⁰

MICKEY’S REPUTATION THROUGHOUT his playing career was one of a clean-living family man, a wholesome hero. Fans learned after his career that this wasn’t quite the case. But by then, an entire generation had embraced him
as the true successor to the unbroken line of Yankee greatness. By the time he retired, with the most games played in Yankee history despite a long list of injuries, he was third on the all-time home run list, behind only Ruth and Mays.

Mantle’s best friends on the Yankees would be Ford and Martin, guiding Mantle into big-city life and all the pluses and minuses associated with it. Ford would be drafted into the army and would not actually be a Mantle teammate until ’53, so Billy had Mick to himself in those first two seasons and the bond between the two was set.

All didn’t go smoothly in ’51. He was given uniform number 6—pressure enough for a nineteen-year-old, to wear the “next number” after 3, 4, and 5—and when he hit a 452-foot homer in Chicago on May 1, it only raised expectations. But he struggled at bat and had to be returned to the minors to get his confidence back. After hitting .361 in 40 games for Kansas City, he returned to the Yanks, was given number 7 (Cliff Mapes, the previous 7, was sold to the Browns, and Bobby Brown, back from military duty, took his old number 6), and never again wore any other uniform but the Yankees’.

The struggles, and the return to the minors, allowed another Yankee rookie—versatile infielder Gil McDougald—to earn the Rookie of the Year Award in ’51.

McDougald, another San Francisco native for the Yankees, was signed by Joe Devine for a $1,000 bonus and replaced Billy Johnson at third. Employing an odd batting stance that would gnaw at Stengel whenever he slumped, he wound up making the All-Star team at second, short, and third during his career.

ANOTHER NEW ARRIVAL in Yankee Stadium in 1951 was a public-address announcer, a forty-year-old speech teacher and former quarterback from St. John’s University named Bob Sheppard. His debut coincided with Mantle’s.

PA announcements had long been handled by the rotund Jack Lenz, a frequent object of teasing from players as he left his seat next to the dugout and paraded around with his megaphone: Yankee Stadium didn’t have an electronic PA system until 1936. (George Levy, who had teamed with Lenz at the Polo Grounds, stayed behind to handle just the Giants when Yankee Stadium was opened.) Lenz was said to have handled more than two thousand consecutive games.

PR director Red Patterson handled the chore prior to Sheppard’s hiring.
It wasn’t much for him to slide the PA mike over to his seat in the press box, when all that was required was announcing the starting lineups and substitutions.

Sheppard’s role was much the same for almost twenty years. But by 1967 the Yankees, recognizing the commanding dignity of his magnificent voice, had him announcing each at-bat. He had been doing between-inning commercials on matters such as upcoming home games or Yankee yearbooks for sale. (Never would the stadium make announcements about lost children, engines running, or lost bus drivers. They would sometimes, but not always, make announcements in the event of an emergency.) Fans had little idea what Sheppard even looked like until I happened to put his photo in the 1971 yearbook, recognizing the obvious—he was by now part of the Yankee Stadium experience.

His reputation grew. People enjoyed imitating his delivery. He was now instructed to announce every batter, every at-bat. Players considered it part of the big-league experience to have Sheppard say their names. And he was a perfectionist, always checking with visiting players to make sure that he got their names right.

Bob Sheppard would continue as “the Voice of God,” as Reggie Jackson nicknamed him, until his late nineties. His introduction of Derek Jeter, however, continued via a recording that Jeter requested for the rest of his career. He was honored with a plaque in Monument Park in 2000, and always said that all that a PA announcer needed to be was “clear, concise, and correct.”

THIRTY MONTHS AFTER being hired amidst snickers, Casey Stengel entered the season with a chance at a third straight world championship. He was suddenly a genius, and his system of platoon baseball was hailed as revolutionary.

The Yankees and the Indians were in a tight race for much of the ’51 season, a season in which all home and road day games were televised on WPIX, owned by the
Daily News
, “New York’s Picture Newspaper” (hence, PIX). The Yankees thus began a forty-eight-year run on Channel 11, the longest-running business arrangement the team has had with any company save two—Harry Stevens’s concessions and Allied Maintenance, employers of the ground crew and maintenance workers.

With Whitey Ford lost to the army for two years after his spectacular 1950 debut, the Yanks essentially relied on Reynolds-Raschi-Lopat, who won a
combined 59 games, with no one else winning more than nine. On July 12, Reynolds hurled a 1–0 no-hitter in Cleveland, beating Bob Feller. It was the first by a Yankee since 1938.

On August 29, the Yankees traded a kid pitcher, Lew Burdette, to the Boston Braves for the veteran Johnny Sain, the hero (with Warren Spahn) of the Braves’ 1948 pennant.
¹¹
Again it was a wise late-season veteran pickup, as Sain appeared in seven games, winning two and saving one. (A decade later, Johnny would be the Yankees’ pitching coach for three pennant winners, 1961–63.)

Burdette, too, would be heard from again.

The Indians were a game ahead of the Yankees on the morning of Sunday, September 16, as 68,760 poured through the stadium turnstiles to see Reynolds and Feller in a rematch of the earlier no-hitter. Reynolds emerged the winner again, this time 5–1, creating a tie for first.

The teams met again the next day, first place on the line, Lopat against Bob Lemon.

In the ninth inning with the bases loaded and the score tied 1–1, Lemon threw a pitch near Rizzuto’s head, but Scooter dropped down a perfect bunt and DiMaggio raced home with the winning run as Lemon fielded the ball too late to throw anywhere. It may be the most famous bunt in baseball history. Lemon fired the ball and his glove against the backstop in frustration.

Mantle, on deck, was just as delirious, jumping up and down. “I was going crazy because I didn’t have to bat next,” he said. “I think Casey would have me bunting too.”

Rizzuto didn’t have a helmet on that day, but during that season he became the first Yankee to wear one. Helmets were being constructed by a company started by Branch Rickey, and Phil had agreed to try one out.

The Yanks won nine of their last twelve and won the pennant by five games. The clincher was a classic in itself. On Friday, September 28, in the first game of a doubleheader, Reynolds faced Boston’s ace, Mel Parnell. The Yanks had an 8–0 lead through eight, so the outcome was clear. What kept the fans on edge was Reynolds working on another no-hitter. No one had pitched two in a season since Johnny Vander Meer of the Reds in ’38 (his were consecutive).

With two out in the ninth, Reynolds had to retire Ted Williams. Ted
swung on an 0-and-1 pitch and hit a pop-up behind home plate. That would be it—except Yogi became disoriented under the pop-up, began to lose his footing, dropped the ball, and fell down. The great Williams would be given a second chance. Yogi wanted to crawl into a hole.

The crowd of 39,038 sighed as one. They commiserated with the popular catcher; they didn’t boo. He was Yogi, and he was beloved: He would win his first of three MVP awards in 1951. Reynolds helped him to his feet and patted his rump. It would be okay, he assured him.

Remarkably, Reynolds induced Williams into hitting another pop foul. It seemed like a miracle. This one was near the Yankee dugout, and Yogi caught it and clutched it tightly. It was both a second no-hitter for Reynolds and an eighteenth pennant for the Yanks. It was also a moment frozen in time for all who saw it in person or on TV.

The Dodgers and Giants tied for first in the National League, forcing a three-game playoff; they split the first two. That led to the decisive game at the Polo Grounds on October 3, and Berra was among a group of Yankees who went to the game to scout the teams in preparation for the World Series.

It was perhaps the most famous game in baseball history, as Bobby Thomson hit the “shot heard round the world” in the last of the ninth, turning a loss to a win, as the Giants won the pennant. As for Yogi, who would become famous for saying “It ain’t over til it’s over”: He left early to beat the traffic.

The World Series featured a matchup of rival rookie stars as Mantle and Mays opposed each other for the first time. The Series, however, ended early for Mantle. In the fifth inning of game two, Mays flied to right center and Mick badly injured his knee, coming to a sudden stop and then falling as his foot hit a year-old sprinkler-system drain, with DiMaggio calling him off the play.

The torn ACL was severe and would change Mantle’s career. He didn’t have it repaired for two years, playing on it for two full seasons before finally undergoing surgery in ’53. His rookie season was the only year he played at relatively full strength. He would always have a little bit of a limp; he would never be the Mantle he might have been. His blazing speed was diminished. It was the start of a host of injuries that would plague him. This one forced him to play with his leg wrapped tightly in Ace bandages for every game for the rest of his career.

In the fourth game, DiMaggio hit the final home run of his career in a 6–2 Yankee win that evened the Series at 2–2. McDougald’s grand slam in
game five helped the Yanks to a 3–2 edge, and in game six, reliever Bob Kuzava induced pinch hitter Sal Yvers to line out to Bauer in right with two runners on, Bauer catching it while sliding on the seat of his pants.

The Yankees won the game 4–3 for Casey’s third consecutive world championship, and the Yankees’ fourteenth.

DIMAGGIO WAITED UNTIL December 11 to make his plans public. Similar to what Ruth had done after his last Yankee season, he toured Japan and Korea with a traveling U.S. team. But when Red Patterson alerted the New York press to come to the team’s Fifth Avenue office in the middle of the Christmas shopping season, they knew this was the day that Joe would retire.

“I’ve played my last game of ball,” he said.

Joe never wanted to be embarrassed on the field, and hitting .263 with 12 homers on a painful heel was not a DiMaggio season to be proud of. His mother had died in June. The two scouts who had arranged for the Yankees to acquire him, Joe Devine and Bill Essick, had died twenty days apart in the fall. A magazine had published a scouting report on Joe that said he’d become very ordinary in some areas. He exited on his own terms, dignity intact. He probably wished he had quit a year earlier.

DiMaggio played only thirteen seasons, having lost three to the war. In ten of them, the Yanks played in the World Series. He hit .325 lifetime, but the rest of his lifetime stats reflected just thirteen years of play, not the long career he could have had. It didn’t matter to people who loved the game and knew perfection when they saw it. He would be the standard of on-field excellence for a generation.

The “retirement” of a player was rare; most got released when it was time to go. Before the breakdown of baseball’s Reserve Clause in 1976, a retirement created the oddity of a player still bound for life to a team. Had DiMaggio chosen, say, to come back at age forty-four seven years later as a pinch hitter for the San Francisco Giants, he would have found that the Yankees still controlled him. Over the years, the Yankees’ list of “retired players” was small, but technically they held lifetime control over anyone who left that way—like Reynolds, Brown, Coleman, McDougald, Collins, Kubek, Richardson, and Mantle, plus a few lesser names.

DiMaggio would replace Dizzy Dean on Yankee pregame telecasts, looking awkward in the process, and in 1954 would marry Marilyn Monroe for 274 days, sealing his place in American history as not just a baseball star
but as an iconic figure in American culture. Ernest Hemingway would write about him in
The Old Man and the Sea.
Gay Talese wrote a landmark piece about him for
Esquire
magazine. Paul Simon would use his five-syllable name in “Mrs. Robinson.” He attended all but one Old-Timers’ Day for the rest of his life, which lasted forty-eight more years. (After 1988, he ceased wearing a uniform at those gatherings; he took his last at-bat in 1975.) His Yankee association always trumped any other commitment; he loved the connection and still loved hearing the roar of the crowd. Though some believed he could be difficult, he understood his place in American lore, and when all was said and done, there was only one Joe DiMaggio.