Summer of '49: The Yankees and the Red Sox in Postwar America (10 page)

The team that wanted to sign him most desperately was the St. Louis Browns. They not only offered more money but guaranteed his father that he would play every day. The Yankees made no such commitment. But it was the Yankees he chose—it was the team that all the best players wanted to join because of those magical ingredients: tradition, class, and excellence. The Browns were forty-four and a half games out of first that year. “The Browns will play you every day, Tom,” his father had countered. “But suppose I’m a good ballplayer and I end up with the Browns,” he answered, “then I’ll always be unhappy and I’ll always blame myself for not going with the Yankees. I’ll always wonder whether I should have bet a little more on myself.” His father listened and told him to bet on himself and sign with the Yankees. Tom Henrich never doubted that he had made the right choice.

That summer Joseph Lelyveld was a sixth-grader in New York City. A serious Yankee fan, he owned some thirty books on baseball. All his allowance went to the
Sporting News
and assorted baseball magazines, and his most prized possession of all was an autographed copy of Joe DiMaggio’s autobiography,
Lucky to Be a Yankee.
He knew all the baseball statistics, past and present. He collected cards, and in his room, on the bulletin board, were autographed photos of the Yankee team that were bought at the Stadium.

When he took piano lessons in 1948, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, he found out that his teacher’s apartment was near that of the great Babe Ruth. After his lesson, he would run outside the apartment building at Eighty-third and Riverside, hoping for a glimpse of the Yankee slugger. Ruth, in failing health at the time, never did make an appearance.

He had become interested in baseball in 1946 when his
family had moved to New York from the Midwest. Lonely and unsure of himself, in a new school where the kids seemed to be much tougher, he found order and symmetry in the universe of baseball as he did not in the world around him. Besides, not very far from where he lived was Yankee Stadium. His father, later a prominent rabbi in the civil rights movement, was certainly not a fan. His parents tolerated his obsession, but did not encourage it. They hoped he would grow out of it.

Technically his favorite player was DiMaggio, the greatest of Yankee stars, but DiMaggio was a god, far too great to identify with. So he chose Tommy Henrich as his favorite player. Henrich was clearly one of Mel Allen’s favorites—Old Reliable, in Allen’s phrase. The articles about him in
Sport
magazine were always complimentary; they told that he was a good family man and that he was respected by his teammates.

That spring, with DiMaggio ailing, Henrich had to carry the team, and Lelyveld tried to help him do it. He did it by creating a ritual in which he could, through fierce concentration, help Henrich to hit home runs at critical moments. He would sit in his room with the radio on, listening to Mel Allen. He was not to be interrupted. He had a calendar with the Yankee schedule, and slowly, as the game progressed, he would ink out a proportionate amount of the small square of that day. If four and a half innings had passed, he would ink out half of the square. As the game progressed he would ink out more. The inking he thought was important, for there was a certain finality to it—he was closing off the game.

When Henrich came up in a clutch situation Lelyveld would put his glove on and bounce a ball off the wall. Then he would look at the window at the New Jersey side of the Hudson. There, right across the river, was a huge Spry factory with the company’s name in flashing lights. At the moment Henrich hit, he would look at that sign. Lelyveld
used his powers carefully and he was not promiscuous with them; he did not seek unnecessary home runs that merely added to Henrich’s statistical prowess. In that sense he was like his hero himself. But when Henrich came up in the late innings with the game tied, or when the Yankees were a run or two behind, Lelyveld turned on his full powers. His eye did not wander from the sign. He did not drop the ball. His powers were nothing less than phenomenal. (He tried the same ritual, he once admitted, with other players, but had nothing like the success he enjoyed with Henrich’s at-bats.) No wonder, then, that Tommy Henrich had such a phenomenal spring; again and again he got the game-winning home run or double, carrying the team in the absence of DiMaggio.

On Opening Day, Lou Boudreau, the Cleveland shortstop, once said, the world is all future, and there is no past. The Yankee season opener was against Washington. There were 40,000 spectators. Thomas E. Dewey, still a governor and not the president after his defeat by Harry Truman the previous fall, was there, but he did not throw out the first ball. Joe DiMaggio was there, but in civilian clothes. He had gone out by cab. Nearing the Stadium, he looked up to check the flag. He always liked to see which way the wind was blowing, and on that day it was blowing out. A hitter’s wind, he thought. Opening Day and a hitter’s wind and I’m not playing. He had been on crutches the day before.

The Washington pitcher was Sid Hudson, a good pitcher who had the misfortune to play for one of the worst teams in the league. He had lost 16 games the year before while winning only 4. Henrich liked Hudson and often teased him about a game the two had played in a few years earlier. Hudson had been pitching in the ninth inning of a tie game. The Yankees were up. There were two outs and a man on third. Bill Dickey, one of the slowest men on the team, was
the batter. The third baseman, Bobby Estalella, was back on the grass when Dickey dropped down a beautiful bunt—a dead fish as the players then called it—along the third baseline. Estalella charged from third, but, even as slow as Dickey was, there was no way he could throw him out. The only hope was for the ball to roll foul. Unfortunately, Estalella, a Cuban and one of the first Hispanic players in the majors, spoke little English. Hudson yelled, “Let it roll.” Estalella charged. “Let it roll!” he shouted again. Dickey touched first base. Estalella scooped up the ball. The game was over. After that Henrich always teased Hudson about his Spanish. Hudson loses 15 or 16 or 17 games a year, Henrich thought, but if he pitched for the Yankees, he would win that many.

On this day Hudson was making it close. He was pitching very well, especially against Henrich. In his first four trips to the plate Henrich struck out once and altogether had stranded six runners. He was a fastball hitter who wasn’t seeing any fastballs. In the ninth inning, with the score tied 2-2, Phil Rizzuto tried a bunt and was thrown out. Then Gene Woodling popped up. That brought up Henrich, and for the first time Hudson fell behind in the count. With 3 balls and 2 strikes, Henrich stepped out and looked at Hudson. All he could think was fastball. This time, he thought, I’ll see one. In it came, and Henrich hit it into the right-field seats. The Yankees won 3-2. The next day, with Vic Raschi pitching against Paul Calvert, Henrich hit a ball deep into the right center-field bleachers to give Raschi the only run he needed. The Yankees won again.

Thanks to Henrich, the Yankees had gotten off to a quick start. It soon became obvious that another major asset was their veteran starting pitchers: Raschi, Reynolds, and Lopat. If the Yankee lineup was in transition that year, with an aging outfield built around a crippled DiMaggio, then the pitching staff had finally stabilized. It was a great starting
rotation and it had to be, because Cleveland, with Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, and Mike Garcia, was every bit as good. With Boston the matchup was power hitter against power hitter, but with Cleveland it was pitcher against pitcher. In those games no one gave anyone an edge; both sides pitched tight and hard. Once Allie Reynolds came in too tight against several Cleveland hitters. Early Wynn, who was on the mound, sent the word back through Yogi Berra that he was going to deck Reynolds. “You tell Early go right ahead,” Berra told Jim Hegan, the Cleveland catcher, “but tell him to remember that The Chief throws a hell of a lot harder than he does.”

On another occasion Frank Shea was pitching for the Yankees against Bob Feller. That day someone on the Cleveland bench was riding Shea unusually hard. Without showing that it bothered him, Shea called over Billy Johnson, the third baseman. “Billy,” he said, “find out who it is who’s busting my ass.” A couple of minutes later Johnson walked over to the mound. “Spec, it’s Al Rosen,” he said. So when Rosen came up to bat, Shea knocked him down. Rosen picked himself up and Shea knocked him down again. Two innings later, Shea came to bat. “Spec, I wouldn’t dig in too much if I were you,” Hegan said. “Feller’s pitching, Spec.” In came the first pitch and it knocked Shea down. He picked himself up and started digging in. “Spec,” said Hegan, “I think you ought to listen to me, and like I say I wouldn’t dig in.” “What do you mean?” Shea asked. “Well, Spec, how many times did you throw at Rosen? Twice, right?” In came the next pitch and it knocked Shea down again. “You’re okay now, Spec, but just remember, we give back one for each one you throw.”

In 1947, the Raschi-Reynolds-Lopat rotation had not existed. Reynolds had already come over to the Yankees and done well, but Lopat was still in Chicago, and
Raschi had been a spot pitcher, a rookie brought up in mid-season, winning just 7 games. Then, in 1948, it had come together: Raschi had been 19-8 on 31 starts with 18 complete games; Lopat, 17-11 with 13 complete games and the lowest earned-run average of the three; and Reynolds, 17-6 with 11 complete games. They were a manager’s dream, the power of Reynolds and Raschi contrasting with the soft, tantalizing pitches of Lopat, already known as the Junkman.

Reynolds was a formidable athlete, probably the best all-around natural athlete on the team. At college the track coach had tried to guide him to the track team and had spoken often of the Olympics; the football coach had fawned over him and he had even received a bid from a professional football team; and Hank Iba, the basketball coach, had tried to talk him into playing basketball. Sports always came easily to him—he was fast, strong, and agile. Once when he was a Yankee he drove out with Tommy Henrich for an evening of boccie ball at Yogi Berra’s house. Henrich asked him how he thought he would fare. “Quite well,” Reynolds said. Why was that, asked Henrich. “Because I’m good at all sports,” answered Reynolds without any affectation. He was part Indian, suffered from diabetes (“the classic Indian disease,” as he liked to point out), and had problems with his stamina. But his skills were so obvious, the only question was how best to use them.

Some hitters thought he threw as fast as Feller, and others thought he threw a curve almost as good as Feller’s. Other pitchers were in awe. Johnny Sain, a wily pitcher short on pure power, came to the Yankees two years later. Once he sat in the dugout with Whitey Ford and discussed what he’d most want for a big game. “I’d like ten of Allie’s fastballs.” “How would you use them, Johnny?” Whitey Ford asked. “Whitey, I’d make them the first ten pitches I threw in the game,” Sain answered, “and then make them guess the rest of the game if I was going to throw any more.”

Yet when Reynolds first joined the Yankees, the results were not remarkable. Chuck Dressen, then a Yankee coach,
decided that Reynolds was too tense on the days that he pitched. He decided that for his first start he should be given one shot of brandy as he warmed up, another when the game started, and a third in the third inning. That would loosen him up. Reynolds, who did not like to drink, could barely stand up by the third inning. From then on Reynolds wanted nothing to do with Dressen.

The Yankee management soon decided that his lack of stamina was not due to a bad attitude; if anything, Reynolds was too competitive and tried too hard in big games. Reynolds later reflected that he had arrived in New York as a thrower. But pitching and throwing were very different matters—throwers impress, pitchers win. Early on, Spud Chandler came over to him and told him that he was not putting out enough. Reynolds was annoyed by this and argued that he was. “No,” Chandler said, “you think you’re putting out, but you’re not. You’re not nearly mentally disciplined enough, and you’re not aggressive enough. You could be a lot tougher.” What Chandler was talking about, Reynolds soon figured out, was about knowing what to do at all times, so that he, rather than the hitter, set the tempo.

Charlie Keller helped him too. “Allie,” Keller asked, “would you like to know the impression I have of you as a pitcher?” “Sure, Charlie,” Reynolds said. “Do you remember the triple I hit off you in Cleveland that went down the right-field line?” he said. Reynolds remembered it. “It was hit off a curveball, right?” Keller said. Reynolds agreed. “Do you know I never saw another curveball from you,” Keller continued. Reynolds realized Keller was right, that he had never thrown him another curve and that Keller was saying he had to vary his pitches more. Slowly but surely he learned to think, to use his curve, and to set hitters up. Soon he became one of the foremost pitchers in the league.

Eddie Lopat came over from the White Sox in a trade. Having him for a teammate, Reynolds thought, was like
having an additional pitching coach. Many of his teammates thought Lopat was the smartest pitcher of his generation in the big leagues, a master at keeping hitters off-balance and using their power against them.

He was a converted first baseman who had become a pitcher in the minor leagues during the war. His friend Reynolds thought, and he did not mean it pejoratively, that if not for the war years, Lopat would never have made it to the majors. He did not throw particularly hard, and in normal times he would have been weeded out for lack of a fastball. At one point, in 1942, after six years in the minor leagues, Lopat had thought of quitting; he had been sold to the Chicago Cubs but the deal had not gone through. His wife talked him into giving it one more year. By that time he had done it all, traveled on every bad train in the South, and been paid a pittance again and again—$275 a month in Oklahoma City, where he knew he would not last very long because the team was so poor, always selling its players just to keep afloat. Then in Little Rock he held out for $400 a month, finally got it, and won 19 games.