Summer of '49: The Yankees and the Red Sox in Postwar America (11 page)

That brought Lopat to the promised land, the Chicago White Sox in 1944. There, he learned the slow curve from Ted Lyons, and also how to throw both short-arm and long-arm versions of his pitches (by either extending his arms or holding them in), which gave him four basic pitches instead of two, allowing him to vary motions and speeds. He mastered the way to look as though he were driving off his legs with full power while actually he was taking much of the power off. The batter’s eye, after all, was on the ball and the pitcher’s upper body; he did not see the pitcher’s lower body, which was the key to a pitcher’s power. And he picked up an additional deception: how to reduce the power in his pitch by taking the edge off the snap of his wrist.

Lopat was an even better pitcher in the major leagues than he had been in the minors. The more strengths the hitters had, the more he could use his intelligence and wide
assortment of pitches against them. Ted Williams listed Lopat among the five toughest pitchers he ever faced, along with Whitey Ford, Bob Lemon, Bob Feller, and Hoyt Wilhelm. Invariably he referred to him in conversation not as Lopat but as “that fucking Lopat.” Lopat was very proud of that. When he pitched against the massive Walt Dropo, the confrontation took on a certain circus quality. Because Lopat looked so easy to hit, Dropo was determined to crush his pitches. So Lopat threw him even softer stuff, and Dropo would be out seconds ahead of the pitcher. As, time and again, his at-bat was terminated by a weak grounder or strikeout, Dropo would curse Lopat. This occurred so regularly that Bobby Brown, the Yankee third baseman, could barely keep from breaking up with laughter every time Dropo came up.

Lopat took a special pride in his ability to pitch at a high level with none of the natural gifts of most front-line pitchers. From time to time Joe Page would needle him about his lack of speed. “Cutty-thumb,” Page would call Lopat, the pejorative term for a slow-ball junk-ball pitcher. But since Lopat was probably the foremost of the team’s needlers, these were verbal battles that Page rarely won. “Goddamn, you’re right Joe, I do throw junk. But hell, anyone can go out there on the mound with the stuff you’ve got and win. But Joe, if you can get ’em out with the stuff I’ve got ...” Here Lopat tapped his head. “That takes
brains,
Joe. Real brains. I’m sorry about it, Joe, I really am.” Soon in deference to the sharpness of Lopat’s tongue, Page stopped teasing him about his lack of power.

In February 1948 Lopat came home to find out that he was supposed to telephone a George Weiss.

“I don’t know anyone named George Weiss,” he told his wife. “The only one I know is general manager of the Yankees.”

He called Weiss. “Ed,” said
the
George Weiss, “we have just traded for you and you’re a Yankee.”

“I guess that’s all right,” he said, which later struck him as a less-than-brilliant answer. Thereupon Weiss immediately suggested that Lopat come to spring training and sign a contract there. Lopat said that was fine as long as they agreed in advance on his salary.

“I don’t want to go all the way down there and not sign and then come back,” he said.

“That has never happened,” Weiss said.

“Well, I would hate to be the first,” Lopat answered. Lopat had made $14,000 the year before and asked for $20,000. After several days of hard negotiating they got quite close. Weiss wanted him to sign for $18,500 plus $1,500 in expenses, which at least kept his base-salary level down.

“That’s more than a lot of pitchers here are making,” Weiss said.

“Mr. Weiss, I don’t care what they’re making,” Lopat said.

Weiss named a pitcher who had completed sixteen games the previous year and was making less.

“Mr. Weiss, I completed twenty-two games and was second in the league in earned-run average,” Lopat said.

“How do I know you can pitch like that for a contending club?” Weiss asked.

“Mr. Weiss, I heard that kind of talk when I was a rookie. I can do it, and I’ll keep on doing it,” he answered.

“Well, what if our other pitchers find out how much you’re making?” Weiss asked.

“Sir, if they find out it’ll be from you—not from me,” Lopat said, and got his salary.

With the Yankees, Lopat was helped by Carl Hubbell, the great Giant pitcher. Hubbell’s own career had finished five years earlier; he was somewhat at loose ends and often came out to the Stadium to watch games. Lopat introduced himself, and the two became friends. Hubbell had thrown a brilliant screwball, a pitch that Lopat did not have in his
repertoire, and which there was no point in learning now. But Hubbell taught him something very important: “Ed,” he said, “when I was ahead I would sneak the fastball in, but when I was behind I threw the breaking ball, or the screwball.” It sounded simple, but the idea lingered with Lopat. Brilliant, he began to think, absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. It was the complete reverse of what you are supposed to do. Every other pitcher in the league came in with the fastball when he got behind. That meant that hitters thought fastball. But Hubbell had been confident enough of his control to reverse the order. So Lopat reversed it too, and his success grew significantly. (“The trouble with that fucking Lopat,” Williams said, “is that he selects his pitches ass-backwards.”)

There was a wonderful cockiness to Lopat. Once during a pennant race with Cleveland, with the bases loaded and the Yankees ahead by one run, he faced Al Rosen with a 3-and-2 count. Rosen was a legendary fastball hitter, and he yelled out to Lopat, “You haven’t got the guts to throw me your fastball, you sneaky little son of a bitch.” Lopat reared back and fired his fastball. In it came, getting to the plate just a little-behind time. Rosen swung mightily and missed. He was still righting his body when Lopat walked past him on his way to the dugout. He turned to Rosen and grinned. “That’s my blazer.”

The ace of the staff in 1948 might well have been Vic Raschi. On the days he pitched, even his own teammates were afraid to go near him. He seemed, in Lopat’s phrase, like a bear who had missed breakfast. Allie Reynolds once said, “Vic pitched angry.” He spoke to no one. Before the game he sat by himself getting angrier and angrier at whichever team he was supposed to face. He hated it when his infielders tried to talk to him during a game. He intimidated his catcher Yogi Berra. If Raschi was missing the plate, Berra was supposed to go out and talk to him. Raschi would have
none of it. Even as Berra approached the mound, he would angrily wave him away. “Yogi, you get your Dago ass the hell back behind the plate,” he would say. Or, “Yogi get the hell out of here with your goddamn sixth-grade education.”

Raschi’s sense of purpose had always been exceptional. In high school in Springfield, Massachusetts, he had been a prominent three-sport athlete. Despite his success as a schoolboy pitcher, he was determined to go to college, and the Yankees were able to sign him only by promising to pay for his education. In his own mind his best sport was basketball, which he played at William and Mary. One of the conditions of his Yankee-endowed education was that he not play football. Basketball, the Yankees said without much enthusiasm, was permitted. In his freshman year he played center at six feet one and a half inches and did well, although he tore a tendon in his ankle near the end of the season. He was named All-State center after his freshman year. A member of the Yankee organization called him up, congratulated him on the award, and then mentioned the bad ankle and said, “Vic, that was a wonderful year, but no more basketball. The Yankees can’t risk those injuries.” Raschi had not been pleased—he had a vague sense that the Yankees were controlling him. He continued his education and contented himself by playing minor-league baseball at the same time. He did reasonably well in the Yankee farm system, served as a physical-fitness teacher for three years during the war, and got out in 1945.

In 1946 he was called up to the Yankees for the final days of the season. In his first appearance in the majors he pitched against the Philadelphia Athletics in the Stadium, and in the fourth inning he found himself in trouble with two men on and a tough batter up. Suddenly he heard a voice coming from somewhere nearby saying, “He can’t hit a high fastball.” Raschi stepped off the rubber and turned around, wondering who had said that. In those days there were only
three umpires and so one of them had to go between second and the pitcher’s mound with men on base. Bill Summers was bent over behind the mound. Raschi looked at him. Summers’s head never moved. But the disembodied voice spoke again. “Yeah, you heard me right—he can’t hit a high fastball.” Then there was a brief pause, and he heard the voice again: “We Massachusetts boys have to stick together.” So Raschi went to his high fastball and got the batter out.

The three pitchers were each other’s friends, a team within a team. Reynolds and Lopat were particularly close: They roomed together for seven years, though oddly enough, they did not know everything about each other. When Reynolds became player representative, it was his job to hand out the paychecks. At the first meeting Lopat ambled up to him. “Allie, you got one there for Lopatynski?” he asked. Reynolds thumbed through the checks. “Yeah,” he said. “Who’s Lopatynski?” “Me,” said Eddie. The three reinforced and taught each other. They also shared a mutual concern for what they at times called “The Project,” known to the others as “Bringing Up Yogi.” As a rookie, Lawrence Peter Berra was subjected to unmerciful teasing because of his odd, chunky body to which arms and legs seemed to have been haphazardly attached. In 1946, when Berra came up at the end of the season, there was a Yankee-Red Sox game, and Charlie Keller started joking around with Red Sox pitcher Mike Ryba. Ryba, who was considered to be a less-than-handsome figure himself, had created what he called his All-Ugly team. Its playing captain, he had always claimed, was Charlie Keller, so powerful and hairy that his nickname (which he hated) was “King Kong.” Keller took the ribbing from Ryba because he believed Ryba even uglier than he. When their teams played they always argued about who was on the All-Ugly team. “I’ve got a new playing captain for you,” Keller told Ryba.

“There’s no way, Keller,” Ryba said. “There’s no one uglier than you in baseball.”

“Yes, there is,” Keller said. Just then Berra came out of the dugout and walked past the two players. Ryba stared at him.

“I take it back, Keller,” he said, “it’s all over for you. You’re off my team. You’re no longer ugly enough.”

He was the son of Pietro and Paulina Berra, Italian immigrants who lived on The Hill, which was the Italian section of St. Louis. The small houses there were well kept, and almost every one had a vegetable garden in back. The language spoken in his home was Italian, not English. His mother never learned to speak English. She called him Lawdie, which was her version of Lawrence. Pietro, who had come to this country as a bricklayer, had found work in a brick factory in St. Louis. Like many other immigrants, he hated the idea of his son playing baseball, which, as far as he was concerned, was a totally useless endeavor. He was convinced it was the cause of his son’s poor grades in school. Yogi played regardless, but he tried to keep his clothes clean—his father would slap him if his clothes were dirty; if he had gotten too grimy he would stop at a neighbor’s house and wash up, and, if necessary, change his clothes. His boyhood was an odd combination of life in the old world and life in the new world. One of his primary responsibilities as a boy was to have a fresh bucket of draft beer ready for Pietro when he got home from work. When he heard the factory whistle blow, he would race from his ball game to the kitchen, pick up his father’s can and fifteen cents, and dash over to the local tavern. Berra did poorly in school—he had almost no interest in it. His love was baseball. For a time he took a job on a Pepsi truck, making twenty-five dollars a week, all of which he turned over to his family and from which he was given back two dollars.

People had always looked at him and had their doubts.
He didn’t look right, didn’t look like a ballplayer. When he had wanted to turn pro as a boy, despite his success as a schoolboy and sandlot player, his looks had been held against him. He attended as many pro tryouts as possible, and though his physical power was considerable, it was well enough concealed by his odd physique that the scouts were not impressed. Branch Rickey, usually brilliant at spotting talent, took one look at him and said, “That boy is too clumsy and too slow.” A triple A ballplayer at best, Rickey decided.

Still Berra was offered a contract and a bonus of $250 to sign. He turned it down, and eventually signed with the Yankees for $500. When he played in his early years at Norfolk he made $90 a week. He was still growing, and desperately hungry all the time. His mother sent him a small money order regularly so that he would have more money for food, but warned him never to let his father know, or he would make him come home.

Even when he finally proved that he could hit through the minor leagues, his looks seemed to work against him. There was a constant cruelty to the way he was treated. Rud Rennie of the
Herald Tribune
once turned to Bucky Harris and said, “You’re not really thinking of keeping him, are you? He doesn’t even look like a Yankee.” Harris kept him but called him The Ape. He bore it all. He had heard the jokes before, and the one thing that had saved him was his ball playing. He was good at that, and because of his skill people had been forced to respect him.

Fortunately for Berra, Stengel fell in love with his talents, and realized he had to protect him before the locker room baiting, which had a cruel edge, got out of hand. This was remarkable, for Stengel had a quick and sometimes cruel tongue himself. “My assistant manager Mr. Berra,” is what he often called him to writers and other players, and there was no sting to it. One time, writers surrounded Stengel and started talking to him of recent Yogiisms. “I wish I had
gone to college because then I could have been a bonus player,” was one he had just told one of the writers. Normally Stengel encouraged banter of this kind. This time he cut it off. “He talks okay up there with a bat in his hands,” Stengel said. “A college education don’t do you no good up there.”