Gil Hodges Mort Zachter
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and University of Nebraska Press Chapters Spring 2015 Gil Hodges Mort Zachter Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples Zachter, Mort, "Gil Hodges" (2015). University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters. 274. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/unpresssamples/274 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Nebraska Press at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Nebraska Press -- Sample Books and Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. GIL HODGES Buy the Book Buy the Book GIL HODGES A HALL OF FAME LIFE MORT ZACHTER University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London Buy the Book © 2015 by Mort Zachter All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953036 Set in Lyon Text by Lindsey Auten. Designed by Rachel Gould. Buy the Book For another team player, my wife, Nurit Buy the Book What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. PERICLES Gil Hodges was not only a good player and manager; he was a special human being. SANDY KOUFAX Buy the Book CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface xiii Prologue: His Reputation Preceded Him 1 HOME— Princeton and Petersburg (1924– 43) 1. Coal Miner’s Son 13 2. The Twig, the Branch, and the Lip 25 AWAY— The Pacific (1944– 45); Newport News (1946) 3. Okinawa 37 4. Newport News 49 HOME— Brooklyn (1947– 57) 5. Hanging On 61 6. Breaking Through 75 7. Four in One, One for Four 87 8. Great Expectations 101 9. A Bitter Uniqueness 113 10. Say a Prayer 127 11. The Day Next Year Arrived 145 12. Where in America Would You See That? 157 13. The Last Season 171 Buy the Book AWAY— Los Angeles (1958– 61) 14. The Worst Place Ever 185 15. World Champions 199 HOME— Manhattan (1962) 16. Casey 215 AWAY— Washington DC (1963– 67) 17. In the Cellar 229 18. Off the Floor 243 19. On the Doorstep of Respectability 259 HOME— Queens (1968– 72) 20. The Mets Get Serious 277 21. Contenders 295 22. Miracle 313 23. Struggles in the Spotlight 331 24. Easter Sunday 345 Epilogue: A Life 357 Afterword: Hodges and the Hall 369 Acknowledgments 377 Notes 381 Bibliography 459 Index 465 Buy the Book ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Showing umpire a shoe- polish- stained baseball, October 16, 1969 xvi 2. Petersburg High School football team, 1940 17 3. Petersburg High School basketball team, 1940– 41 18 4. Hodges had huge hands 29 5. Colonel Robert Merchant 43 6. Talking to marines, April 20, 1951 48 7. As a catcher, 1947 or 1948 56 8. With Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson, and Gene Hermanski, late 1940s 63 9. At Ebbets Field, late 1940s 64 10. Al Roon’s Gym, January 1950 89 11. Steam Cabinet, Al Roon’s Gym, January 1950 90 12. With Joan and Gil Jr., August 1950 91 13. With Jim Russell after loss, October 2, 1950 99 14. With Joan, Gil Jr., and Irene, September 1, 1951 106 15. Working out with Chuck Dressen, early 1950s 115 Buy the Book 16. Arguing with umpire Larry Napp, March 25, 1953 129 17. In Long Island College Hospital, April 2, 1953 131 18. With Wayne Belardi at Long Island College Hospital, April 3, 1953 132 19. Packing up his mail with Senator Griffin, October 1950 133 20. With Joan, Gil Jr., and Irene in Vero Beach, March 2, 1954 140 21. Loading up gifts for needy children, December 24, 1954 142 22. Visiting Robert Gray at the Rockefeller Institute, January 9, 1955 143 23. Buzzie Bavasi tossing Hodges his new contract, January 22, 1955 146 24. With Stan Musial being honored, January 25, 1955 147 25. With his parents and his children, 1956 158 26. Leaving Brooklyn on a barnstorming tour, October 1953 182 27. Diving catch, March 8, 1952 188 28. With Casey Stengel and Al Salerno, 1964 234 29. With Frank Howard, Bob Chance, and Ron Kline, January 12, 1965 249 Buy the Book 30. With Joe Pignatano, Rube Walker, and Pete Richert, February 9, 1965 250 31. Al Koch pitching, May 17, 1964 253 32. Bob Chance being tagged out by Felix Mantilla, April 12, 1965 255 33. Paul Casanova trying to tag out Al Kaline, June 23, 1966 267 34. Jim Hannan returning to the dugout, 1969 269 35. The Senators’ lineup on Opening Day 1967 270 36. Fans greet the Senators at the airport, August 13, 1967 271 37. Ticker- tape parade down Broadway, October 20, 1969 327 38. Visiting with members of the St. Joseph’s baseball team, 1969 328 39. With Earl Weaver, 1970 336 Buy the Book Buy the Book PREFACE There is a fundamental difficulty in writing about Gil Hodges. Voices in the background keep screaming for restraint and yet every instinct is to succumb to temptation and spill forth the superlatives. ARTHUR DALEY I was born in Brooklyn four months, twelve days, and six hours after the Brooklyn Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets Field. I never saw Jackie Robinson steal home or Roy Campanella double down the left- field line or Pee Wee Reese gracefully field a ground ball. But I wish I had. Gil Hodges, the only Dodgers star player that still called Brooklyn home after the team moved to Los Angeles, lived a few blocks away from where I grew up. Every morning as I walked to my elementary school, PS 197, I crossed Bedford Avenue and looked north in the direction of Hodges’s home, proud that he had stayed. By then Hodges had retired as a player and was managing the New York Mets. In large part due to his leadership, the Mets’ annual attendance from 1969 to 1972 exceeded that of the New York Yankees by more than one million each season. That had never happened before, not for one season, let alone for four consecutive seasons, and it hasn’t happened since. Yet, however unlikely it may seem today, for a few brief shining seasons nearly half a century ago, the Mets dominated baseball headlines in New York. Paradoxically, during this period of unprecedented popularity, the Mets’ manager was— by his own admission— “not colorful, not what you’d call good copy.” In Brooklyn it didn’t matter. We knew what we had. Although I never met him, Hodges was a visible figure in the neighborhood. He could be seen walking xiii Buy the Book his dog, a German shepherd named Lady Gina, down Bedford Avenue or stopping by Gil Hodges Field on McDonald Avenue to watch the kids play, or buying Marlboros at Benny’s Candy Store on Avenue M. But Hodges died of a heart attack in 1972 at forty- seven, and with each passing year his name fades from the national consciousness. For some, memories remain. Well after Hodges’s playing career ended, Willie Mays could still recall Hodges’s ability to turn the mundane act of tagging a runner on a pickoff attempt into art. “It looked,”Mays said, “as if the pitcher’s throw hit Hodges’ glove and the glove swatted the runner at the same time. The whole thing . done in one smooth motion.” Others remain fiercely loyal. Bill “Moose” Skowron, who played for Hodges when he managed the Washington Senators, asked me, “Can you tell me why Gil isn’t in Cooperstown?” A good question, since Hodges hit more home runs in his playing career than anyone else that also managed a World Series– winning team. Red Smith, a revered member of the writers’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame, wrote, “He was a first baseman of rare polish. A hitter with power to swat 42 home runs in a season and a team player who drove in more than 100 runs a year for seven consecutive seasons. If votes are based, as the rule says, on the player’s integrity, sportsmanship, and character, Gil Hodges will ride in. Those words were coined for him.” Unfortunately, integrity, sportsmanship, and character are unquantifiable. They are also a challenge for any writer hoping to cut through the legend that surrounds Hodges hoping to find the humanitythat lies beneath. Don Demeter, one of Hodges’s teammates who later became pastor of Grace Community Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, made this abundantly clear to me. “I don’t know anything bad about Gil Hodges,” Demeter said, “and you don’t either.” Readers will ultimately decide if I’ve succeeded in finding the man behind the myth. But what I can tell you for certain is this: if you walked into Benny’s Candy Store shortly after Hodges had left, you could hear the owner, Ben Chodesh, in a voice so filled with excitement you would have thought the Dodgers had just moved back to Brooklyn, saying over and over again, “Hodges was just here, Hodges was just here, Hodges was just here . .” xiv Preface Buy the Book GIL HODGES Buy the Book 1. Shea Stadium, Flushing, New York, October 16, 1969, bottom of the sixth inning of the fifth game of the 1969 World Series: Mets manager Gil Hodges showing umpire Lou DiMuro a shoe- polish- stained baseball as Donn Clendenon looks on. Courtesy of Sport- ing News © 1969. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Buy the Book PROLOGUE HIS REPUTATION PRECEDED HIM No man lives his image.