Pinstripe Empire (91 page)

¹
Among the candidates was Hall of Fame owner and innovator Barney Dreyfuss, who owned the Pittsburgh franchise. It was said, “He is too good a sportsman. His place is with the American League. He has given every indication that he is sick of the National League, its schemes, and his associates.” But Dreyfuss stayed in Pittsburgh.

²
Oddly, it was the only .500 season in the team’s history.

³
Daniels, an outfielder, skilled base stealer, and hit-by-pitch specialist, played for the Yanks from 1910 to 1913.

⁴
Bush set the record that year for most wins in a season without a shutout.

⁵
Until 1939, when the radio ban was lifted, evening re-creations were common with Jack Ingersall, the best-known of the announcers.

⁶
The five-year waiting period for the Hall of Fame was not enacted until 1954, but waived for DiMaggio because of his strong support immediately after his retirement.

⁷
Broaca is believed to have been the first Yankee to wear glasses.

⁸
Painter, bitter after receiving no explanation for his firing after thirteen seasons, went to see McCarthy in Buffalo, but to no avail.

⁹
The teams rotated against each other, with the total runs for each team’s seven innings at bat producing a winner: Dodgers 5, Yankees 1, Giants 0.

¹⁰
Of course, he still suspended Mantle (and Willie Mays) from their jobs as spring training instructors for taking post-career PR jobs with Atlantic City casinos.

¹¹
“Spahn and Sain and pray for rain” was the rhyme that made them famous.

¹²
Perhaps the most notable of these “Phantom Yankees” was Pitcher Robin Roberts, who spent two weeks with the team in April 1962, without an appearance. He does not appear on the club’s all-time roster.

¹³
The price included $650,000 for Blues Stadium, formerly Ruppert Stadium, in Kansas City, where the Athletics would now play.

¹⁴
Cooperstown gained the honor thanks to the tale of General Abner Doubleday inventing the game there in 1839. The tale was debunked by the time the Hall of Fame opened in 1939, but the setting was deemed just right to celebrate the game’s origins.

¹⁵
The second game was added in 1959 to increase contributions to the players’ pension fund. The experiment ended after four years.

¹⁶
A brief return to the Yankees came in 1974 when Home Box Office, still a small regional cable service, presented nineteen Yankee games, with Marty Glickman, Dick Stockton, and McDougald sharing the booth with the Yankee announcers.

¹⁷
More than fifty-three thousand fans welcomed the world champion L.A. Dodgers to Yankee Stadium in June 1960 for the game’s resumption, the Dodgers’ first return to New York.

¹⁸
Martin may have managed the Tigers, but he remained a New Yorker at heart. One Friday afternoon, stuck in horrendous Third Avenue traffic, he pulled his starting nine off the team bus and led them to the Lexington Avenue subway, just in time to arrive for the game. Few managers could claim to know where to find the 4 train to the Bronx.

¹⁹
Clancy the doorman (who had a line in the film
Bang the Drum Slowly
as himself), hadn’t seen the caper.

²⁰
This nickname was first used in print by Mike Lupica.

²¹
His appearance conjured memories of a TV commercial for motor oil, showing “Mr. Dirt” gumming up engines.

²²
Over the years, some of the children of Yankee players who ran around the club house were Roberto Alomar, Sandy Alomar Jr., Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., and Prince Fielder.

²³
Flood had refused a trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia and sued Major League Baseball, but ultimately lost in the Supreme Court by a 5–4 vote in 1970. The court seemed to be saying, “Congress needs to resolve this, not us,” but MLB saw it as a vindication of the status quo and was hoping the arbitrator would agree.

²⁴
The nickname actually grew from a sarcastic remark made by Munson during the ALCS when Martin sat the slumping Jackson. “Billy probably just doesn’t realize Reggie is Mr. October,” he said.

²⁵
Not out of any lack of respect for tradition: The flagpoles in the new stadium were no longer easily accessible for such a ceremony.

²⁶
Also: the playing of Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” after Yankee victories, which began in the late seventies; Liza Minnelli’s version played after losses.

²⁷
Steinbrenner was speaking to Jack Butterfield, the team’s vice president of player development and scouting, who would himself perish in a Paramus, New Jersey, auto accident three months later. His son Brian would later manage in the Yankee organization and coach in the major leagues.

²⁸
Roger Clemens became the second in 2003.

²⁹
The Dodgers, by then a Los Angeles team, were the first to cross the threshold in 1978.

³⁰
The Yankees went twenty-two years—1981 to 2003—without leading the American League in attendance.

³¹
Clemens later said he confused the piece of the bat with the ball, an odd claim that still doesn’t explain why he threw it at Piazza.

³²
Jose was Robinson’s selected pitcher in the 2011 Home Run Derby at the All-Star festivities. Robinson won it.

³³
Andrew Brackman, at six foot eleven, beat that record in 2011 and became the fifteen hundredth Yankee in the process.

³⁴
Advertising signage in Yankee Stadium seemed to grow each year as new spots became available. Rotating signage behind home plate began in 1994, irritating purists, but it eventually became an accepted part of the modern stadium landscape.

³⁵
The Core Four, along with the rest of the roster, participated in a community outreach program called HOPE Week, begun by Media Relations Director Jason Zillo in 2009—an annual weeklong program in which the team recognized individuals, families or organizations; visited them, brought them to the Stadium, and called attention to their special needs.

Alexander, Charles.
Ty Cobb.
New York: Oxford, 1984.

Allen, Lee.
The American League Story.
New York: Hill & Wang, 1962.

———.
The Hot Stove League.
New York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1955.

———.
100 Years of Baseball.
New York: Bartholomew House, 1950.

———.
The World Series.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1969.

Allen, Lee, and Tom Meany.
Kings of the Diamond.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965.

Allen, Maury.
Roger Maris: A Man for All Seasons.
New York: Donald J. Fine, 1986.

Allen, Maury, with Susan Walker.
Dixie Walker of the Dodgers.
Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2010.

Allen, Mel, and Ed Fitzgerald.
You Can’t Beat the Hours.
New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

Anderson, Dave, Murray Chass, Robert Lipsyte, Buster Olney, and George Vecsey.
The New York Yankees Illustrated History.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

Angell, Roger.
A Pitcher’s Story: Innings with David Cone.
New York: Warner Books, 2001.

Antonucci, Thomas J., and Eric Caren.
Big League Baseball in the Big Apple: The New York Yankees.
Verplank, NY: Historical Briefs, 1995.

Appel Marty.
Baseball’s Best: The Hall of Fame Gallery.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977.

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Joe DiMaggio.
New York: Chelsea House, 1990.

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Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain
. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

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Now Pitching for the Yankees: Spinning the News for Mickey, Billy and George.
Kingston, NY: Total Sports, 2001.