Bird Hunting In

Ebbets Field, The Dodgers & The 1949 Pennant Race

By

Bob Mack

Copyright © 2008 by Bob Mack

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-4357-1190-7

To The Fans Of The Brooklyn Dodgers

Past, Present, And Future

Contents

1st . The Winter Of '48: Wherein The Mahatma Disposes Of Old Favorites And Konfronts The Klan 1 2nd Inning. : Wherein Fails To Turn The Other Cheek, And The Grand Dragon Belches Smoke But No Fire 24 3rd Inning. The Season Opens: Wherein Turns A Trifecta, And The Lip Pummels A Dodgers' Fan 55 4th Inning. Early Returns: Wherein Arrives In The Big Leagues, And Jackie Robinson Exchanges Holiday Pleasantries With The Lip 76 5th Inning. The Race Begins: Wherein Stan The Man Begins His Annual Blitzkrieg Of Flatbush, And Annie Gets Her Gun In 115 6th Inning. The All Star Break: Wherein Mr. Robinson Goes To Washington, And Stan The Man Defrocks The Flock 169 7th Inning. Tight As Ticks On A Dog Days: Wherein The Old Sourdough Rolls Sevens And Craps , And the Grand Grenouille Croaks In Atlanta 233 8th Inning. The Stretch : Wherein The Old Sourdough Outfoxes The Lip, And A Pair Of Second Division Patsies Feast On Fowl 280 9th Inning. World's Series: Wherein Casey Returns To Flatbush, And The Faithful Are Frustrated 406

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1st Inning. The Winter Of ’48: Wherein The Mahatma Disposes Of Old Favorites And Konfronts The Klan

“Never surrender opportunity for security.” --

The City sporting press, never a particularly charitable bunch, had, over the years, bestowed upon the president of the Brooklyn Baseball Club a variety of nicknames for a variety of reasons (the “Deacon”, the “Mahatma”, and “El

Cheapo” were the best known); but everyone in the Dodgers’ organization always called Wesley Branch Rickey "Mister".

Rickey was nearing his 67th birthday in the fall of 1948, a native of the Midwest who voted Republican, and prayed Methodist, characteristics guaranteed to raise the quills of the prickly cynics that covered baseball in the Big Apple. Rickey possessed a heavy jaw, a steady gaze, and brambly, expressive eyebrows that he used in purple-prosed orations the way less talented speakers used their hands. He wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses, and preferred bow ties to four-in-hands. Bow ties were efficient. They were cheap, fast to put on, and could ably conceal a threadbare collar or a dirty shirt, ideal neckware for a man who was careful with dollars and careless with ashes.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 2

The Mahatma was not particularly concerned with either appearances or the opinions of sportswriters. At the ballpark, he often covered his head with a battered old slouch hat that looked as if it had been punched back into shape after being run over by a DeSoto. When he worked at the cluttered desk in his office in the musty building on Montague Street--the cubicle that waggish journalists had dubbed the

“Cave of Winds”--his thick brown hair, mostly untouched by the passing years, rumpled like one of his business suits. It seemed to be the only thing about the man that lacked discipline.

Rickey’s frugalities were legendary. It was rumored that wore street clothes in the in order to his boss money on laundry bills.

Another story had the Mahatma instructing the ushers at to collect balls into the stands during batting practice so the club could reuse them. After signing his contract one year, said, “I received a million dollars worth of advice and a very small raise.”

Rickey was generous with words, of which he possessed an inordinate supply.

He spent them on motivating and teaching, on advising and cautioning, on persuading and inspiring. He believed in the art and science of character building, in the “Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God”. His heroes were

Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. He trusted whole-heartedly in the American

Republic and the free enterprise system.

“I believe that thrift is and should be a blessing to mankind,” he said. “I don’t like the subtle insinuating infiltration of 'something for nothing’ philosophies into the very hearthstone of the American family. Work is the zest of life.”

3 Bob Mack

During Rickey’s early years in Flatbush, fans of the Dodgers had hung him in effigy.

In Brooklyn, the ball team was like family, and Brother Branch had been busy shoving old favorites out of the nest. One of his axioms was that it was better to trade a man a year too early than a year too late, so one by one, the stalwarts that had won pennants in ’41 and ’47 and contended until the bitter ends in ’42 and ’46 were being jettisoned. Rickey had spent the war years scouring the country for youngsters with baseball ability, and the results of his quest were beginning to pay dividends.

“We’re going to contact a lot of boys,” he had said, “and we’ll make connections with them, and when they come out of the service, in all probability, they’ll contact us because they don’t know anybody else.”

The Mahatma had not allowed his parsimony to affect the procurement of his players. “This is an expensive experiment,” he had informed his head scout, Clyde

Sukeforth. “If we win the war, it will be worth it. If we lose the war, what difference does it make?”

One of the boys signed as an amateur free agent was a graceful teenager from

Los Angeles who had been nicknamed “Duke” by his father. Edwin Snider was beginning his third season in Brooklyn. He had arrived as a . Not everyone had been happy to see him.

“I went out to shag some balls and I asked Dixie Walker how the ball came off the wall. He told me, ‘Find out for yourself. You’re not taking my job.’”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 4

In 243 at-bats over the course of two seasons, the left-handed hitting Californian had compiled a .243 average with flashes of power, but had reached base in only twenty-nine percent of his plate appearances and had struck out 51 times. Snider had potential, but he kept flailing at pitches that he couldn’t have touched with a butterfly net.

“We’ve got to teach him the location of the strike zone,” observed the Mahatma.

“He is going to be a great hitter when he learns it is not high and outside.”

Rickey believed the main difference between a big leaguer and a busher was in the ability to consistently identify a strike from a ball. Brooklyn scout and Hall of

Fame batsman had twice compiled averages over .400 and had struck out only 327 times in a major league career that spanned fifteen seasons. The

Mahatma assigned Sisler the task of tutoring the free-swinging Snider.

“We had an and everything,” recalled Duke. “The ump would call ‘em and then I would give my own opinion. At first we were wide apart in our decisions. Then I began to notice that I was really calling some of ‘em right. After a while, I didn’t lunge at so many wide pitches.”

Sisler’s instruction had, in Rickey’s opinion, readied the California lad to take over as the Dodgers’ full time center fielder. Snider’s impending ascension, however, created a problem for the Mahatma, and that was what to do with

Brooklyn’s longtime hero, Pistol .

Reiser had been one of Rickey's favorites. The Mahatma had admired the ’s abundant talent--he had once touted him, with typical Rickian hyperbole, as “the greatest player in the game.” During six seasons with the

5 Bob Mack

Dodgers, Reiser averaged .306 with 100 runs scored for every 154 games played; but Pete crashed into ballpark walls with loving regularity, and Rickey thought the

28-year old kamikaze had finally caromed off one immovable object too many.

Reiser had a bad arm, a bad leg, saw spots, and suffered dizzy spells. Rickey had decided not to gamble on Reiser's return to form, not with Pete’s history of misadventure--he was already earning too many of the Mahatma’s precious rupees.

Rickey suggested retirement. At the very least Reiser should take the 1949 season off. But Pete had baseball in his blood, and jobs were scarce for a man whose only talents were smacking a ball with a stick and running headlong into barriers.

Baseball’s rules would only allow Rickey to cut Reiser’s salary by twenty-five percent, not nearly a large enough decrease to justify keeping his fading star in a

Dodger uniform when he had healthier and cheaper flychasers--eight of them, to be precise. At any event, Pete did not want to play for the Mahatma anymore. He was tired of the yearly contract squabbles, and he had been unhappy with the Brooklyn organization ever since the boss had maneuvered his volatile manager Leo “The

Lip” Durocher into resigning midway through the 1948 season, installing in Leo’s place an ancient crony, 63-year old Burt Shotton.

"I'm a Durocher man”, Reiser had said. “Shotton let me cool my heels. That's why I laugh when Rickey says I should take the 1949 season off to rest. The

Dodgers gave me a rest in 1948. Why rest two seasons?"

Burt Shotton, the object of Reiser’s ire, had started his career with the St. Louis

Browns in 1909. A fleet-footed ball hawk specializing in the , the old

Ohio sourdough had been nicknamed after the then-famous racecar driver, Barney

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 6

Oldfield, and had spent forty years in as a player, , and manager.

The laconic Shotton and the fustian Rickey had been pals since the early ‘teens when Rickey had emerged from the St. Louis front office to manage the Brownies.

After two mediocre seasons, the Mahatma had been fired, and Shotton shipped to the Senators (“First in war, first in peace, last in the ”). In the meantime, Rickey joined the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, was commissioned a major, and spent 1918 in France in command of a training unit in the AEF’s “gas and flame” chemical warfare division that included on its duty roster Captains Ty

Cobb and , and Lieutenant George Sisler. In 1919, Rickey returned to baseball as manager of the Cardinals, and re-acquired his fading buddy

Shotton from Washington on a waiver claim. Soon, the Mahatma was managing six days a week, and resting on Sundays like the Good Lord intended while his secular sidekick directed the ball club.

“I’m not a goodie-goodie about these things,” Rickey said of his Sabbath observations. “I’m liberal and tolerant. My personal choice, of course, is my business.”

Shotton’s playing career ended quietly in 1923 with an appearance as a pinchrunner (he scored). Five years later, the Old Sourdough from Ohio began a six-season stint as manager of the woeful . The Phils had lost

103 games in 1927. Shotton’s hiring had an immediate effect--they lost 109 games in 1928. The following year, he guided the Quakers to a 71-82 record. In 1930, the

7 Bob Mack

team dropped 102 of 154. The outfield billboard that proclaimed “The Phillies Use

Lifebuoy” was amended that summer by an irate fan: “And they still stink.”

In 1931, Shotton’s charges improved to 66-88. In 1932, they finished with a respectable 78-76 log that surprised everybody, including Shotton. He had become pilot in sixteen years to steer the pathetic Baker Bowlers to a winning record. Manmade miracles, however, are not usually replicable, and in 1933, the

Phils resumed their wretched ways, losing 92 times and disappointing the paying customers who had been gulled into believing that their wreck of a club had permanently improved. During that long summer, the front office and the remaining rooters who had not yet switched allegiances eight blocks west to Shibe

Park where ’s Athletics cavorted, grew tired of Shotton’s genial but ultimately unsuccessful ways. The snowy-headed skipper had been given opportunity enough. Except for the balls that enemy batters kept driving over the ramshackle tin wall in right field, the team wasn’t drawing flies; besides, they were knee-deep in red ink. Shotton was working under a long-term contract, but the

Phillies were more than willing to negotiate a buy-out, and by the end of the year, he had accepted a job coaching for the .

After a successful stretch in the Cardinals’ farm system as the skipper of

Rickey’s Columbus club (he had been voted the Minor League Manager of the Year in 1941), the semi-retired Shotton rejoined the exiled Mahatma in Brooklyn as a part-time scout. Then, in the spring of 1947, manager was suspended from baseball for conduct detrimental to the game.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 8

The flamboyant Durocher had piloted the Dodgers since 1939. Leo was a sports celebrity who had never deserted either his old friends or his old habits.

Unfortunately, many of Leo’s old friends were gangsters and gamblers, and his old habits had kept him in trouble ever since he’d joined the big leagues. Loud and abrasive, Leo lived his life in constant search of an edge. The New York beat writers who knew him best considered him to be the foulest-mouthed human ever to breathe clean air. He was also, perhaps, the best manager in the National League.

The balding, beady-eyed Durocher wore flashy clothes and chased flashier women.

Inexplicably, they sometimes chased him back. He bet on horse races or dog races or high stakes poker games--on anything but baseball. Baseball was enough of a gamble by itself.

“It’s possible to spend money anywhere in the world,” the Lip casually explained. “If you put your mind to it.”

By 1947, the , most of the youth organizations in

Brooklyn, every umpire in the Senior Circuit, and more than a few magistrates and barristers from coast to coast had concluded that Mr. Durocher was an incorrigible scoundrel of the first magnitude whose comeuppance was long overdue. One of the few people who believed otherwise was Deacon Rickey.

It had been the worst of all possible times for the Mahatma’s reprobate skipper to offend the powers-that-be. Rickey was about to break the unofficial ban on

Negro players by introducing Jackie Robinson into the major leagues, and he needed a steady hand down on the field. There were a lot of people who wanted

Robinson to fail, and not all of them were in the enemy dugout. Desperate for an

9 Bob Mack

interim manager, Rickey called upon his old pal Burt Shotton to step into the breach. Shotton had lost 549 major league games in his career. The Mahatma thought he was just the man for the job. Losing that many times instilled a sense of perspective in a person who hadn’t yet shot himself.

“He was too old for ball games and for ball players to keep him awake at night,”

Dodgers’ announcer observed. “You did what you could, and that was that.”

Managing in street clothes because he felt he was too ancient and too angular to fill a uniform properly, Kindly Old “Boit” Shotton--“KOBS”, as he was dubbed by

Dick Young, the acerbic writer for the New York Daily News--guided the rookie

Robinson and his sometimes reluctant cohorts to 94 victories and the National

League pennant despite the periodic sniping of the Durocher contingent on the

Dodger bench, who felt that, compared to Leo, the Old Sourdough couldn’t pilot his way from a paper sack.

Durocher returned for the 1948 season--“he’ll clinch the pennant in July,”

Shotton had predicted in January--but by the All Star intermission, the Dodgers were languishing in fifth place, two games under .500, and 8½ games behind the pace-setting Boston Braves. On July 17th, the baseball community was stunned when Leo suddenly resigned and replaced as the new field boss of the New

York Giants. Burt Shotton, said Rickey, would return as skipper of the Dodgers.

The Mahatma announced the change in Cincinnati with an uncharacteristically terse statement: “Durocher is out, Shotton is in.”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 10

Fan reaction in the Big Apple was predictably mixed. The Lip was not a man who inspired apathy:

“From today on, I am an ex-Giant fan!”

“You can’t win pennants with love!”

“Without Leo, the Dodgers ain’t the Dodgers anymore!”

“Geez, it’s Poil Harbah fer da Giants!”

The Old Sourdough succeeded in reversing the fortunes of the ‘48 Dodgers, leading them to a 48-33 record in the second half and a third place finish while

Durocher’s new club collapsed into the second division. Despite the standings, many die-hard Dodgers’ fans considered their Flock to have been the best team in the league, laid low only by injuries and mismanagement. Rickey and Shotton knew better. So did Wilbur Wood, of the New York Sun, who wrote that Brooklyn was “long on hot air, instability, and inexperience”.

Shotton consented to return as manager in 1949, and he agreed with the

Mahatma that Pistol Pete was no longer of any use to the ball club. Still, the Reiser name had some residual value, and Rickey was determined to capitalize on it as best he could: “A nickel here and a nickel there will pay for my cigars.” So the

Dodgers’ boss and peddler-in-chief was going to make his rounds, and his first stop was the Windy City.

“I venture to predict,” intoned the Mahatma upon his arrival, “that the surprise team of the National League next season will be the .”

11 Bob Mack

This statement put everybody in Chicago on guard, especially the lowly Cubs, whose general manager, Jim Gallagher, was usually so intimidated by Rickey’s oratory that he tried to avoid him like the plague.

“That fellow just hypnotizes you with his silky flow of words,” said Gallagher.

“I learned some time ago how to deal with Rickey from . Ol’ Case said you let him talk for three hours on the strong and weak points of the players he wants to scoop; then, when he says, is it a deal, you snap, ‘No,’ and walk out on him.”

Local scribes hypothesized that the Brooklyn chieftain was trolling for Steady

Eddie Waitkus since Waitkus was expendable, and the Dodgers lacked a . Young had logged 96 games at the front corner in ’48, but he was listed on the roster as a . Gallagher was more than willing to deal

Waitkus, but he had no interest in Pete Reiser--he wanted rubber-armed Joe

Hatten. Rickey, however, had no intention of parting with his 32-year old southpaw. For one thing, the Dodgers were short on left handed pitching; for another, Oakland Joe had compiled a .603 during his three years in the big leagues. Still, Rickey’s technique did not permit him to dismiss proposals out of hand. You never knew what could happen if you kept your opponent gabbing; besides, the Mahatma’s contract guaranteed him a ten percent commission on player sales.

Rickey was ready with a counter-offer. He told Gallagher he’d take Waitkus and

$100,000 for Hatten. Hypnotic oratory or not, Gallagher hadn’t just fallen off a turnip truck. He asked Rickey instead about a hard-throwing minor league pitcher

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 12

named Don Newcombe. Certainly, said the Mahatma, I can let you have

Newcombe for $500,000. Gallagher gulped. Rickey shrugged. After three days of dickering, the Mahatma left Chicago empty handed. Waitkus was still a Cub, and

Reiser was still a Dodger. Rickey was not particularly disappointed--first base might not be the problem that everyone anticipated. The Mahatma thought that if

Hodges could hit .275, his fielding would take care of itself--Hodges had the biggest hands anybody had ever seen.

“With hooks like that,” infielder said of his roommate, “he doesn’t need a glove. The only reason he wears one is that he doesn’t want to be different and attract a lot of attention.”

***

While Rickey was beginning to shape the Dodgers’ 1949 roster,

Jackie Robinson and sophomore catcher were playing their way through the south with a team of all-stars culled from the Negro Leagues. The junket was sponsored by Alejandro Pompez, former Harlem associate of the gangster Dutch Shultz, and present owner of the New York Cubans, a team of mostly Latino players that had won the Negro National League pennant in 1948 and then became a farm club for Horace Stoneham’s Giants. Officials in the former

Confederate states were happy to host the black stars, as long as they stuck to competing against each other and stayed out of the “Whites Only” restrooms.

Baseball’s barnstorming season began immediately after the World’s Series as ad hoc teams of major league stars formed to give the lumpkins in the hinterlands a

13 Bob Mack

glimpse of the Big Show. It was a good way for the professionals to pick up some extra cash and to postpone reporting to their off-season jobs for a few weeks.

The original barnstormers had been stunt pilots who, during the early days of civil aviation, financed their flying time by performing suicidal aerobatics for the benefit of the awestruck rubes from whose fields they would temporarily operate.

The flight-crazy aviators earned their nickname because of their practice of dropping showers of handbills onto local hayricks to advertise their arrival, a method of promotion not entirely dissimilar to that which the touring hardballers employed.

On October 13th, Robinson walked, stole two bases, scored a run, and lashed a hit in a 12-8 defeat at the hands of the Memphis Red Sox. Four days later in New

Orleans, Robinson’s squad drew the largest crowd of the year to Pelican Stadium as they walloped the Negro Southern American League Stars 12-7 with Campanella occupying the starring role. The burly backstop whacked a , , and two singles while Jackie contributed a pair of hits. Before another packed house in

Shreveport on October 22nd, Robinson broke a 1-1 seventh inning tie with a , then stole two bases in a three-run ninth inning rally, downing Memphis 7-2. The

Dodgers’ speedster was spinning turnstiles everywhere he went. Robinson’s gate appeal in the south did not go unnoticed by Mr. Rickey.

As the barnstorming season drew to a close, Robinson’s burgeoning popularity garnered him an invitation to join Cleveland pitcher ’s all-star team for a game in Los Angeles on October 31st against and the Kansas City

Royals. Robinson had grown up in Pasadena, and had attended UCLA, but he had

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 14

not played in the city since joining the major leagues. The contest attracted 14,625 customers who got to see Jackie perform one of his specialties in the very first inning when he walked and scored from first base on Al Zarilla’s single, surprising Kansas City catcher Bill Hariston, who let the throw from the outfield get past him. In the third, Lemon cracked a double off his Cleveland teammate Paige, and Robinson drove him in with a single. In the field, Jackie handled four chances cleanly at second base, and initiated a . Lemon’s stars won the game 8-4, handing Paige his first loss of the exhibition season.

Robinson and Campanella returned to New York to spend the winter, taking jobs as youth instructors at the Boys Work Shop Division of the Harlem Y.M.C.A.

Robinson also debuted as a nightly sports commentator on Station WMAC where one of his first guests was Branch Rickey. The Mahatma inspected his second baseman’s sometimes expansive waistline, then discussed plans for spring training:

“It may interest you to know, Jackie, that we have scheduled games at Fort Worth again. Beaumont and Atlanta have been added, along with other southern towns after we break camp at Vero Beach.”

***

Fresh from receiving “Christian Sportsman” honors from the Federal Council of

Churches, Rickey let it slip through the grapevine that his asking price for Pete

Reiser was $75,000. This accomplished two purposes. It allowed his opponents to know that Reiser was available, while at the same time persuading them that the

Dodgers still valued his talents, diminished though they may have been. Baseball’s

15 Bob Mack

winter meetings in Chicago were looming on the calendar, and the trolling

Mahatma was beginning to feel some nibbles at the end of his hook.

On December 14th, the Cubs swapped and pitcher to the Phillies for Walt “Monk” Dubiel and Emil “Dutch” Leonard.

Rickey, who had been forced to leave the Chicago conclave prematurely due to the illness of his ancient mother-in-law, contacted Philadelphia President Bob

Carpenter to make a cash offer for their now excess first sacker, George Sisler’s son

Dick, a left handed hitting former Cardinal, but Carpenter’s $100,000 price tag was too rich for the Mahatma’s blood. What the Phillies really wanted was either a slew of blue chip players from Brooklyn’s loaded farm system, or a top-notcher from the major league roster. There was some interest in Reiser, but with Del

Ennis, , and the recently acquired ex-Cub Bill Nicholson already on board, there was no place for Philly to play him.

“As soon as [the Dodgers] offer men I think will strengthen the Phillies,” said

Carpenter, “I will talk business.”

One team in dire need of outfield help was Boston, where middle gardener Jim

Russell was recovering from a rheumatic heart ailment, and power hitting left fielder was nursing an ankle broken late in ’48. It was uncertain whether either player would be ready for action by the beginning of the season. Braves’ president Lou Perini, well satisfied with a previous transaction with the Dodgers that had netted them their sparkplug second baseman Eddie Stanky, requested permission from the Mahatma to talk to Reiser in Chicago. Rickey readily acquiesced. Four days later, Pistol Pete became a Brave. Rickey had increased the

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 16

of recuperating outfielders on the defending champions’ roster by thirty- three percent while solving one of his own major personnel problems. In return for

Reiser, the Dodgers received 31-year old utility man Mike McCormick.

“I’ve known Mike for years,” bubbled Burt Shotton, “I know all about him.

Why, I got him his first big league job with the Reds. Mike isn’t any , but he’s a hustler, a good team man. He will go any place you want to play him.”

Actually, Shotton couldn’t see how he was going to be playing McCormick much of anywhere, but since most of the Brooklyn outfielders swung from the left side, McCormick provided some needed balance. He was a .283 lifetime hitter who had notched a World’s Series record 24 with Cincinnati in 1940.

As Christmas approached, Shotton had solidified only half of his starting lineup:

Robinson at second and the veteran were no-brainers, as was strong-armed outfielder . Furillo would be moving to right field to accomodate young , who would be given every opportunity to claim the center field spot. The portside hitter Gene Hermanski would probably start in left against righthanded pitchers, but either Marv Rackey or could give him a battle. Campanella had the inside track at catcher, but the 27-year old ex-Negro Leaguer had only played a half season in the majors and was unproven.

Chronically sore-armed was Campanella’s projected backup with

Hodges in reserve. Shotton hoped Hodges would hit enough to win the first base job--assuming Rickey couldn’t make a deal for a Waitkus or a Sisler--and third base was a crapshoot, with former Pirate shortstop probably the best of a weak

17 Bob Mack

hitting bunch: “He can out-run, out-throw, and out-hit any of the others,” said the

Brooklyn skipper, “provided he plays the ball of which he’s capable.”

On January 13th, Rickey publicly announced the team’s spring training schedule. Beginning on April 7th, the club would march through Georgia and the

Carolinas, playing six games against the and the Atlanta Crackers,

“the highest number of major league exhibitions,” said the Mahatma, “that we have been able to book since the advent of Jackie Robinson two years ago.” Old times in the South, Rickey believed, were slowly changing. “I wouldn’t have scheduled any of those places,” he said, “if there had been any objection to Jackie.”

The next day, someone objected.

Samuel Green, Atlanta obstetrician and Grand Dragon of the KKK, had been trying to revive the moribund Klan since 1946, with limited success. His Stone

Mountain cross-burnings were popular events, but in general, it had been wearisome work expanding a semi-clandestine organization whose ultra-secret passwords had been revealed to every kid in America who had listened to Superman battle the “Clan of The Fiery Cross” on the radio. This kalamitous breach in Klan security had been kaused by a traitorous “klavalier”, who had slipped the Ku Klux kodes to the producers of the popular Kellogg’s show. Prior to the first broadcast,

Doc Green had received warning from the bureau chief of the Associated Press in

Atlanta that his satin-robed ranks had been infiltrated:

“Superman’s on your trail--sounds to me like he’s got a pipeline into your klaverns. You’d better watch your step.”

“I smell a rat,” said His Lizardness. “Just wait’ll I get my hands on him!”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 18

“You’d better make it snappy. Superman just flew over your Imperial Palace to case the joint.”

“Nuts,” hissed the Supreme Salamander.

Doc Green had thereafter been forced to spend part of each day glued to his radio so he could alter the Klan’s secret signals as soon as the Man of Steel gave them away. Infuriated, the Grand Serpent had attempted to organize a corn flake boycott among white supremacists in Atlanta, and had offered a $1000 a pound bounty to any Klansman who could nail the unknown informant’s traitorous buttocks to the local klavern wall.

Doc Green was determined to arbitrarily shield the citizens of Dixie from pernicious outside influences. He was adamant that state laws prevented mixed- race baseball from being played in Georgia. “If Brooklyn wants to play them,” said the Big Iguana, “that’s all right. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Doc Green believed that Herman Talmadge, the Democratic governor of

Georgia shared his opinion; but “Hummon” referred the matter to the Fulton

County solicitor’s office, which was unaware of any statute covering the situation.

Macon City Attorney Ed Sell said that he believed the segregation laws applied to audiences rather than participants. Doc Green fulminated some over northern carpetbaggers and Yankee newspapers that stirred up trouble, and vowed to

“investigate further.”

In Brooklyn, Branch Rickey said, “It certainly would not be our intention to break the law. That we would never do.” Would he play in Atlanta without

Robinson and Campanella? “My answer to that is an emphatic ‘no’. Nobody

19 Bob Mack

anywhere and at any time can tell me what players we can use. That is a decision I leave entirely to my manager, Burt Shotton.”

On his radio program, Robinson said that he would play wherever the Dodgers wanted him to play.

By the 18th of the month, local officials in Atlanta had passed the buck to state authorities. Attorney General Eugene Cook explained to the northern press the liberality of Jim Crow ordinances in the Peach State: “We have no law dealing with segregation except in the school system, transportation, marriage and such. There is no prohibition in Georgia against Negroes playing baseball with white people.”

Undaunted, Doc Green vowed to continue his legal researches. The Mahatma went back to worrying over his roster.

“We have 15 outfielders,” he said, “and none of them outstanding. That’s really a gang. Nine of ‘em will be with the Dodgers at Vero Beach and the other six with our farm clubs. Barney’s infield is much sounder than the outfield. I don’t believe he has any real problem at third base. Nobody has any greater promise at first base than Gil Hodges. But we’ve simply got to get set on three regular outfielders.”

Despite this glut of flychasers, the Mahatma succumbed to the urge to add one more. He signed Monte Irvin, five-time Negro League All Star, from the recently disbanded Newark Eagles, and assigned him to Brooklyn’s St. Paul affiliate.

Rickey's high-handed acquisition of Negro League talent had infuriated Effa

Manley, general manager and impresario of the cash-strapped Eagles, ever since the

Mahatma had inveigled Don Newcombe away from Effa’s club in 1945. Effa's

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 20

husband Abe, who owned the Newark franchise, was the former numbers king of

Camden, so Effa thought she could recognize a racket when she saw one.

Labelled the "hula-hipped Harlem beauty" by Time magazine in her younger years, the unconventional Mrs. Manley used to flash signs to her players by crossing and uncrossing her shapely legs. The Eagles rarely missed a signal in those days, although shortstop Willie Wells once got so excited looking for the bunt that he was hit in the head with a baseball.

“[Rickey] discerned a wealth of material,” said Mrs. Manley. “He became especially interested because of the diminishing caliber of white players. Organized

Negro baseball has been ruined in the metropolitan area. It still thrives in

Baltimore, Birmingham, and Memphis. But in the north, where it suffers from the competition of the majors with Negro players in their lineups, it is finished. And all because of the very few Negro players in the majors--, Satchell Paige,

Jackie Robinson, and Roy Campanella. Our 1946 Eagles would have beaten

Rickey’s Brooklyn club. By the close of 1948, we had been completely disorganized.”

Effa had hawked Doby’s contract to , owner of the , in 1947. “[Veeck] was sincere,” she said. “Other folks dashed in and grabbed players without so much as a by-your-leave. They disregarded contracts held by

Negro clubs and just rode rough-shod.”

The former hula-hipped beauty reserved a special blast of vitriol for Robinson, who had been critical of the Negro Leagues in an article published by Ebony

Magazine.

21 Bob Mack

“I charge Jackie Robinson with being ungrateful and--more likely--stupid.

Jackie Robinson is where he is today because of organized Negro baseball. Jackie says that Negro baseball needs a house cleaning from top to bottom. Does he speak his own mind, or does his statement have a purpose even though he doesn’t understand? Whose insincerity does he reflect? I do not think it’s fair for a half- baked statement to come from irresponsible members of our race and have it stand unchallenged. He says Branch Rickey was fair and democratic. How much did

Rickey pay the for Robinson? The answer? Zero. At this moment, the livelihoods, the careers, the families of 400 Negro ballplayers are in jeopardy because four players have been successful in getting into the major leagues.”

Irvin had been the batting champion on Effa’s 1946 team. Now he was with

Rickey, that bow-tied buccaneer, and she hadn’t a nickel to show for it. Effa’s attorney, Jerry Kessler, opined that Irvin’s contract was exactly the same as those that bound players in perpetuity to the major league teams.

“There is a which Branch Rickey violated,” said the Eagles’ mouthpiece. “He did the same thing when he signed Don Newcombe.”

Effa filed a formal protest with the Dodgers and the Commissioner’s Office, in which she claimed that, though the Negro National League had disbanded, her club was intact, and consisted of a bus, uniforms, and the contracts of Monte Irvin and

20 other players. Rickey, who had no intention of being drawn into a squabble over baseball’s sacrosanct but legally uncertain reserve clause, released the hard-hitting outfielder, whereupon Mrs. Manley promptly sold him to the Giants.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 22

***

As winter edged into spring, contract wrangling began in the major leagues.

Robinson was one of the first to officially rejoin the Dodgers for the 1949 campaign. He received a substantial salary increase, but failed to extract from

Rickey the attendance bonus that he had half-heartedly sought. Pitchers Ralph

Branca and Johnny Van Cuyk signed on, as did outfielder Dick Whitman, and Billy Cox. They joined hard-throwing right-hander and outfielder Carl Furillo as early, if not completely satisfied, signatories.

“Mr. Rickey has a heart of gold,” said Gene Hermanski. “And he keeps it.”

Burt Shotton predicted that the Dodgers would win the pennant, but he said the same thing every year. Rickey was less optimistic. The club was young, it had holes, and the pitching staff was essentially unchanged from 1948. Time would tell. In the meantime, Rickey dragooned the sometimes-suety Robinson into extolling the value of conditioning to catcher Campanella.

“He has a bigger belly than you do,” observed the Mahatma.

Rickey left for California to inspect Brooklyn’s new Los Angeles affiliate, the

Hollywood Stars of the . Along the way, he stopped in Ash

Flat, Arkansas to obtain the contract of 33-year old pitcher Elwin “Preacher” Roe.

Elwin, an initiate of the arcane and illegal art of the spitball (“heck, what else y’gonna do with all that sweat?”), was a former Pirate beginning his second season with the Dodgers. Rickey was counting on the skinny hillbilly along with dependable to be the lefthanded mainstays of his starting rotation, with hard-tossing youngsters Barney and Branca anchoring the starboard side.

23 Bob Mack

In Los Angeles, Rickey checked into the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel, and reassured the locals that their ballclub would be a pennant contender in the near future: “The

Stars might even surprise this season.” As for the Dodgers, he said, “I look for one of the tightest fights ever in the National League--and Brooklyn will be in the thick of it.”

Before returning home, Rickey stopped in San Francisco and inked Hatten and

Mike McCormick to their 1949 deals. He now had 29 members of his 40-man roster under contract. Down South, Doc Green’s allies introduced a pair of bills in the Georgia legislature to prevent Robinson and Campanella from screwing up hoary and honored goober traditions by playing ball with the white folks.

Spring training was nine days away.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 24

2nd Inning. Spring Training: Wherein Jackie Robinson Fails To Turn The Other Cheek, And The Grand Dragon Belches Smoke But No Fire

"Only in baseball can a team player be a pure individualist first and a team player second, within the rules and spirit of the game." --Branch Rickey

On February 27th, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ advance party boarded the Atlantic

Coast Line’s East Coast Champion streamliner at Station for the 25- hour journey to their training camp at Vero Beach, Florida. The contingent included regulars Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Gene Hermanski, and pitcher Rex Barney. Billy Cox, , and Buddy Hicks, all contenders for the wide-open third base job, completed the crew. Also aboard was the big Negro pitcher, Don Newcombe, officially a member of the

Royals, but slated to work out with the major leaguers. Outfielder Carl Furillo and utility man Eddie Miksis joined the group in Philadelphia.

Rickey’s new 2200-acre Dodgertown facility at Vero Beach was a former naval air station that retained much of its military patina under the Mahatma’s rule, including a night watchman who would whistle everybody out of bed in the morning and an interminable line of grumbling men in uniform that slowly but steadily snaked into the mess hall. Players were known by numbers, not names, and their activities were governed by mimeographed orders-of-the-day. Grizzled drill

25 Bob Mack

instructors in baseball knickers put their charges through their paces while they scribbled esoteric notations in mysterious grimoires.

Housing hundreds of players and personnel from 23 farm teams and the big club in the same kind of cold and drafty barracks in which many of them had spent the war, Dodgertown was a laboratory where Rickey experimented with innovative methods of baseball instruction. Here were the pitching machines: the “Bazooka”,

“Iron Mike” and “Overhand Joe” (whose mechanical motion reminded bemused

Dodgers’ batters of Braves’ lefty ); there was an automated outfield ball return known as the “Pipeline”; there were batting tees and stringed contraptions that delineated the strike zone for the elucidation of anarchic-armed pitchers; there were batting cages and a six-lane cinder track where a football coach named Cornbone McMullen supervised endless wind sprints; there were sliding pits where Branch Rickey Junior, known as the “Twig”, taught the art of professional glissading; and there were the baseball diamonds where all of the sweat-inducing theory was put into practice.

“Next year,” said Fresco Thompson, the assistant director of minor league operations, “we’re putting in three mechanical batters. Then we’ll be able to leave the players at home.”

Overseeing all of the hustle and bustle was the slouch-hatted Mahatma, who had been tardy arriving at camp due to the illness of his daughter, hospitalized in

Philadelphia.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 26

“Our crying need here is for a stronger faculty,” explained the Brooklyn patriarch. “We desperately need teachers, fellows who can analyze a ballplayer quickly, evaluate him properly and correct his faults.”

Rickey’s design, he told Red Barber, was to prepare his minor league prospects to join the parent club in less than three years: “We are trying to reduce this game to a science. There are techniques which can be imparted. Down here at Vero

Beach, we have undertaken to do a bit of instruction, to tell men how they should do things, what the proper practices are. We will challenge their intelligence at many points so that there will be a more rapid development of the player. It is surprising how many pennants and even are won or lost in spring training camps.”

On the eve of the first day of workouts, the mercury in Florida dropped to a near-record low. In the morning, Manager Shotton held the first team meeting of the spring. Each of the Dodgers’ key players stood up to soberly, fearlessly, and frankly confess his baseball faults to the others. Jackie Robinson admitted that he could not slide to his left: “Those taggers know I can only slide to the right, and they make the tag on me automatically now.” Pee Wee Reese, the veteran shortstop, wanted to stop taking so many first strikes. Gil Hodges said he had trouble hitting the change-of-pace. Carl Furillo, the rifle-armed outfielder, wanted to stop running with the ball before unleashing one of his throws: “I know that every step I take is a step for the base-runner too, and I want to work on getting the ball away fast.” Duke Snider thought he needed more practice on identifying the strike zone. Pitcher , a notorious night owl, said he needed to

27 Bob Mack

improve his hitting. “You don’t need more hitting, Henry,” corrected Burt Shotton.

“You need more sleep.”

The first day’s drills were scheduled for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Shotton ran his hurlers back and forth covering first until, despite the freakish cold, their tongues hung out like the counter displays in a Bensonhurst delicatessen.

“I feel like I have no feet,” panted Jack Banta, who had thrown eleven for the Dodgers over the course of two major league seasons and wondered if he would survive to throw twelve.

Shotton added 52 non-roster players to the 40-man Dodger contingent, and created four teams for the intersquad games that would begin in two days. Reese,

Billy Cox, Eddie Miksis, and Bruce Edwards were named managers.

“The responsibility of handling these players in practice is solely the manager’s,” instructed the Old Sourdough. “Each team has a coach--Milt Stock with Reese, with Cox, with Edwards, and with Miksis--but the coach will not offer any advice unless the manager asks for it.

What I want to do is bring out some initiative and aggressiveness that has been lacking in these boys.”

“Well, that will be something to see,” remarked the Mahatma.

With the batsmen still perfecting their timing, the first game was a six-inning pitcher’s duel, won by Reese’s team, 2-0. The highlight of the scrimmage came in the second, when infielder-turned-outfielder Tommy Brown ran into the rickety left field fence and collapsed it while chasing a long fly ball off the bat of Gil Hodges.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 28

In the second game, the Miksis team defeated the Cox crew 6-5. Don Newcombe tossed three innings of one-hit, ball.

Dropping into the press room after the day’s activities, Rickey spoke about his infield problems with typical obliqueness: “This catching staff,” he informed the assembled scribes, “is the finest I have ever seen in my years in the major leagues.

I don’t mean one man, mind you, I mean all three of them together--Bruce Edwards,

Gil Hodges, and Roy Campanella.”

The writers looked at each other while the Mahatma continued: “So, if I’ve got the best catching staff, and I can’t all three of ‘em, and I need--let us say, a first baseman--I can’t very well keep these three when I need to fill another position, can I? If I had another first baseman and Hodges behind him, I wouldn’t need to fret about first base.”

This, the assembled scriveners assumed, meant that either Edwards or

Campanella was available for trade. They rushed for their typewriters while Rickey smiled like a cat that had just batted a few rodents around.

Reese’s squad made it two in a row when they walloped the Miksis team 10-2, despite the discouraging fact that and Rex Barney, Pee Wee’s first two twirlers, were unable to throw strikes. Palica allowed four walks. Barney passed the first three batters to face him, and uncorked a . Submarine-baller

Frank Laga, hoping to make the varsity, was effective until he developed a blister on his pitching hand. In the nightcap, Edwards’ squad handed the Cox team its second consecutive defeat, 5-3.

29 Bob Mack

The next day on dusty Field No. 2, Hodges lifted a fastball from Oakland Joe into a stiff following wind that swept it well over the flimsy left field fence for his first of the spring. In the second game, skipper Billy Cox whacked a triple, but piloted his way to another loss, 6-5 to the Miksis mob. After a week of training, Cox had become the camp’s worst manager but its most consistent hitter.

“I was all mixed up last year,” admitted the stringy third baseman. “I just couldn’t seem to do anything right. It wasn’t that island malaria I picked up in the

South Pacific--that’s left me for good. I guess I was just down mentally and tired physically; but I’m going to play ball this year.”

Another determined Dodger was the newly pugnacious Jackie Robinson. Under strict orders from Rickey, he had spent his first two years in the major leagues being tenaciously non-confrontational. The strain had given him the beginnings of a stomach ulcer and a blossoming chip on his shoulder.

"It was hard for a man as assertive as Jack to contain his own rage,” said Rachel

Robinson, “yet he felt that the end goal was so critical that there was no question that he would do it. And he knew he could do it even better if he could ventilate, express himself, use his own style."

As the 1949 season began, Rickey thought it time to unfasten his second baseman’s fetters.

“I realized the point would come,” explained the Mahatma, “when my almost filial relationship with Jackie would break with ill feeling if I did not issue an emancipation proclamation for him. I could see how the tensions had built up in him for two years and that this young man had come through with courage far

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 30

beyond what I had asked; yet, I knew that burning inside him was the same pride and determination that burned inside those Negro slaves a century earlier. I knew also that while the wisest policy for Robinson during those first two years was to turn the other cheek and not fight back, there were many in baseball who would not understand his lack of action. They could be made to respect courage only in the physical sense. So I told Robinson that he was on his own. Then I sat back happily, knowing that with the restraints removed, he was going to show the

National League a thing or two.”

Two days before the opening of the citrus league schedule, Jackie’s mercurial temper made its first major league appearance when he booted a ground ball in a game against the Brooklyn rookies. Disregarding the unspoken edict that decreed veterans to be beyond the reproach of freshmen, the plebes began to taunt the celebrated Dodger. Jackie suspected he was being given the treatment because some of the tobacco-chomping fresh fish, especially the big Fort Worth pitcher

Chris Van Cuyk, were old-fashioned, southern-style “nigger-knockers”--the same breed of lout that had made Jackie’s first few months in the big leagues so hellishly unforgettable. Robinson swapped barbs with the bushers for a while, then stepped to the plate amid a shower of gibes, waved his bat at the yakking Van Cuyk, and pronounced judgement: “You’ll be a damn 20-year man in Class C ball!” The 6’5” right-hander responded by firing back-to-back fastballs at the startled infielder’s legs. This was a serious, almost unimaginable, breach of training camp etiquette--

Jackie made a good part of his living with his gams.

31 Bob Mack

“That soft shit you’re throwing wouldn’t hurt anybody if it hit ‘em in the fuckin’ head!” screeched the outraged Dodger.

Still seething after the game, Robinson accosted Van Cuyk in front of the dugout as the big rookie headed for the showers: “Don’t you ever do that again, you fuckin’ busher! I’ll kick your ass!”

“You tried to show me up on the bases,” mumbled the Texas League twirler, taken aback by the smaller man’s verbal assault.

Having served notice that his mild-mannered comportment of previous seasons had mutated into something more ferocious, Robinson voiced his displeasure over being thrown at in an exhibition game, and said of his opponents: “They’d better be rough on me this year, because I’m sure going to be rough on them.”

In the summer of 1946, after 15 of the 16 major league club owners had opposed his plan to break the unofficial color barrier, Branch Rickey had quietly traveled to

Kentucky to meet with the Commissioner of Baseball, Albert Benjamin “Happy”

Chandler.

“I can’t go ahead unless I’m assured of your support.”

“Can this man play?”

“He could make the major leagues today,” said the Mahatma.

“Then the only reason he’s being kept out is because he’s black. Let’s bring him in and treat him as just another player. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Happy Chandler had been instrumental in helping his fellow Freemason integrate the game, but the “Great Experiment” was still, in the Commissioner’s opinion, a fragile undertaking, and he did not want any on-the-field incidents to

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 32

endanger its progress. Jackie’s ominous remark to the press, coupled with his foul- mouthed tirade before the paying customers, evoked Chandler’s concern. He summoned Robinson to Miami and cautioned him against further outbursts.

“It wasn’t anywhere near as serious as the newspapers made it appear,” Jackie explained, diplomatically omitting the fact that the hulking Fort Worth rookie had twice tried to plunk him in the legs. “We just jockeyed each other as players do once in awhile, and I lost my temper in the heat of the moment and said something I shouldn’t have. I was sorry a minute after I said it.”

As the Brooks prepared to meet the defending champion Braves in Miami, where the stringent Florida segregation laws had been waived in order to allow

Robinson and Campanella to appear, Burt Shotton said of his club, “If Snider clicks, we will win the pennant. But if we can’t outslug ‘em, we’ll outrun ‘em. A single will score a run for us where it will take a double for anyone else.” The skipper had identified what he considered to be his team’s greatest strength--speed on the basepaths, led by the greyhounds Robinson and Reese. Shotton’s concomitant inference was that Dodger pitching would be strong enough to win the close ones, by no means a certain proposition, considering the early ineffectiveness of Barney and Branca, both of whom were recovering from ankle injuries. Barney was especially problematical. No less an authority than Joe DiMaggio once declared that the Brooklyn right-hander threw harder than Bobby Feller in his prime. Over nine seasons, DiMaggio had averaged only 31 for every 154 games. In the 1947 World’s Series, Barney fanned him the first time he ever saw

33 Bob Mack

him. As surprised as DiMaggio by the , Barney had remarked that he “sort of felt ashamed of myself.” DiMag walloped a home run two at-bats later.

“Barney throws the fastest ball I’ve ever seen,” affirmed National League umpire Babe Pinelli.

“I try to get the first ball I throw over,” said the Wild Man, “even if they hit it out of the park. Then, if I’m successful, I pitch to the batter’s weakness.”

Barney’s dilemma was that he rarely got the first one over. His fastball regularly approached speeds of 100 miles an hour, but good major league hitters hardly ever missed the cheese if they knew it was coming, especially if it lacked “hop”--that last few inches of movement that created the illusion that the pitch had jumped over their bats.

Branca had won 21 games at the age of majority, then posted a 14-9 log the following season. Despite his outstanding record, he had displayed a disturbing tendency to crack under pressure. He had the skills to win twenty again, but maybe not the psyche.

The Old Sourdough was going to pitch rookies Elmer Sexauer, Bob Austin, and

Pat McGlothin in the first game against Boston. Maybe one of them could show him enough to eventually make the club. The skipper decided to leave Robinson in the clean-up slot. Allen Roth, the Mahatma’s statistician, calculated that Jackie in

1948 had batted .350 with runners on base, 54 points better than his overall average.

Miami Stadium was packed to its unassuming rafters on March 12th, continuing the pattern of Robinson’s teams selling out their venues. The 7,518 paying customers included 2,000 animated Negroes who had turned out to cheer for

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 34

Robinson and Campanella. They were herded into segregated bleachers behind the left field foul line.

Boston manager was starting the old Cardinal ace, Johnny

Beazley. Beazley had won 21 games in 1942, then spent the next four years in the air force where he hurt his arm pitching in an exhibition game. He was attempting a comeback, trying to earn a spot on a new team, and Shotton figured he would be doing his best to impress the Boston brass.

The Old Sourdough inserted rookie outfielder Cal Abrams in the leadoff slot.

Abrams was a left-handed hitter who had looked good in camp, but his only realistic chance of cracking the roster was as a pinch-hitter and caddie for Carl

Furillo.

“Managers count that day lost,” wrote , sports columnist for the New

York Herald Tribune, “when they fail to think up a dozen new superlatives to describe some lop-eared newcomer who not only hits like Ted Williams, throws like Dom DiMaggio, runs like George Stirnweiss and fields like , but also can cook, sew, sing, play the piccolo and talk Sanskrit like a native. The South is crummy with young phenoms and boy wonders, but when the championship season opens the managers will depend, for the most part, upon players whose major-league quality has been proved in the major leagues.”

Beazley blanked the Brooks through his three innings of work, allowing only three harmless singles. The sore-armed Sexauer escaped first inning trouble when

Robinson dropped a pop fly in shallow right field with the bases loaded, but Jackie recovered and threw out at the plate. In the fourth, Robinson was

35 Bob Mack

greeted with thunderous applause when he stepped up to face Boston’s southpaw bonus baby . He lined the kid’s first pitch twenty-five feet over the fence in left center field where it rattled around the steel girders of the Orange

Bowl. Jackie pigeon-toed his way around the bases while the fans in the segregated bleachers jumped up and down like corn popping in hot oil.

Boston tied it up in the bottom half. Abrams misplayed a single by speedy Earl

Torgeson into a double, and the bespectacled Brave came home on a single by catcher . With the score knotted at 1-1 in the sixth, Robinson gave the

Old Sourdough temporary heart failure when he crashed into Boston second baseman after the oddly named infielder had booted his hopping ground ball. The collision knocked both men senseless. Jackie left the game with a lump on his head that was rising like a yeast biscuit, but he had managed to get Snider in with the tie-breaking run, and Tommy Brown followed with a home run.

Campanella hit another roundtripper to lead off the seventh, and the Brooks tallied again in the eighth, when Snider singled, moved to third on a sacrifice and an infield out, then scored on a hit by Billy Cox. Shotton was pleased with the afternoon’s endeavors. He had learned a few things about his players, his rookie pitchers had performed decently, Robinson was relatively uninjured, and they’d beaten the Braves 5-2. Tomorrow, they’d do it all over again.

The next day’s game set an all time attendance record for Miami. Robinson’s fans came out in droves, ground rules had to be invoked, and there were Negroes lining the track from the Dodgers’ dugout to center field. Shotton kept Robinson

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 36

out of the lineup as a precautionary measure--the knot on the second baseman’s skull was still painful (“It only hurts when I laugh,” Jackie said).

Braves’ ace started for Boston, and the Dodgers showed the breaking ball maestro (“He could drop a curve in a coffee mug,” marveled Rex

Barney) no respect at all, hammering him for five runs in five innings. The opposite-field hitting Abrams pulled a double, homer, and two singles to right, driving in four runs. , Jack Banta, Willie Ramsdell, and Frank Laga combined to whitewash the champions on two hits, and the Flock captured their second straight, 6-0.

The team returned to Vero Beach for a day before being bussed to West Palm

Beach for a game against the venerable Connie Mack and his Philadelphia

Athletics. would give his arsenal of slippery pitches its first test of the season, with Harry Taylor and Erv Palica working the final six innings. The two easy wins against the Braves had the Bums brimming with confidence, and they breezed through their morning drills.

“It was the best workout we’ve had,” said Pee Wee Reese. “The rest of the boys seemed to think so too. We had a good turn of batting practice, and then we did a lot of running.”

“We ran for about twelve minutes,” said Robinson, the knot on his head beginning to subside, “and I feel a lot better than I did. I also gained two pounds while not playing yesterday, and now I’m off ice cream.”

Roe had a rough time against the White Elephants. The A’s touched him for three runs in the opening frame when Ferris Fain’s double-play ground ball clanked

37 Bob Mack

off Robinson’s glove and Hank Majeski and Sam Chapman smacked back-to-back doubles. After that, Preach settled down, and Taylor and Palica were crackerjack.

Shotton thought that Palica, the youngest member of the Dodgers, might just have the best stuff of anyone on the staff. Maybe it was too good. A big league pitcher had to learn to rely on his head as much as his arm.

Robinson singled in the second inning and notched the first tally for the Dodgers on a base hit by Billy Cox. Hodges belted an inside-the-park home run in the seventh, cutting the Philadelphia lead to 3-2. Tommy Brown started off the ninth with a single; then Cox, who was rapidly becoming the leading candidate to open the season at third base, whacked a two-strike triple off the fence in right to tie the game. Hodges bounced a double down the left field line, and the Dodgers suddenly had a 4-3 lead. Palica snuffed the A’s in the bottom half, and the Brooks had their third straight triumph. They had outhit Philadelphia 13-6, Palica had tossed three innings of hitless ball to pick up the win, and Reese and Robinson had turned a snappy double play.

The next day in Vero Beach, the Athletics turned the table on the cocky Brooks, winning 4-3 in eleven innings, and ending the Dodgers’ modest winning streak.

Branca had a decent outing, striking out one and allowing no hits in two innings of work, and Oakland Joe had looked solid, but Barney was still a question mark (“He was Gorgonzola,” snorted the Old Sourdough).

The Wild Man’s deliveries had traveled everywhere except where he’d aimed them. He’d walked two, unleashed a wild pitch, and surrendered three first inning runs. Shotton had started Abrams in center, and the rookie collected another hit, but

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 38

continued to look suspect defensively, misplaying a catchable fly ball by Pete Suder into a triple. The Dodgers blew an opportunity to win the game when Bruce

Edwards flied out with the bases loaded in the ninth. Despite the loss, the Bums had outhit the A’s, and set their fourth consecutive citrus league attendance mark.

Robinson had singled in the sixth inning and dropped a perfect in the tenth. Jackie was pleased with his progress: “I know I’m a better hitter now than ever before. There isn’t a pitcher in the league I can’t hit. I used to be fooled by certain pitchers. Now I hit where the ball is pitched. Although I never hit .300 in the big leagues before, I’m sure I’ll be over that this season. Honest, I’ll be disappointed if I fail to reach .320.”

The next afternoon, the Mackmen handed the suddenly humbled Dodgers a 9-8 defeat in fifteen innings. Robinson and Snider belted homers, and the red-hot Cox bagged two more triples; but the Brooklyn pitching quintet of Erskine, Ramsdell,

Behrman, Johnny Van Cuyk, and Phil Haugstad issued eight bases on balls and surrendered fourteen hits. Erskine walked four in a row before the Old Sourdough mercifully yanked him. Snider took a called third strike to end the game, then headed for the locker room to meditate on his hitting zone.

Despite what was shaping up as a seriously inconsistent mound crew, Shotton decided that the hard throwing Newcombe, who had been the best pitcher in the

International League in 1948 with a .739 winning percentage, was not yet ready for the big show. “This boy has everything a pitcher needs,” he said, “except know- how.” Privately, the skipper believed that Newcombe was a hotheaded troublemaker--the youngster had popped off to Dodgertown officials a number of

39 Bob Mack

times throughout the spring--and he did not want him on the same team with

Robinson and Campanella.

“It will be much better for him to build up his confidence by spending another season at Montreal,” the Old Sourdough told the press. “A year too soon in the majors could wreck a great future.”

Back in West Palm Beach for their fourth straight game against the Athletics, the

Dodgers attracted another record crowd, which included former army Chief of Staff and Secretary of State, General George C. Marshall. Barney took the mound for the

Brooks and left in full retreat after giving up five runs and seven hits in five stanzas of ersatz hurling, and the Dodgers dropped their third in a row, 6-0. The Bums managed only five hits--two by Robinson--against Philadelphia pitchers Lou Brissie and Joe Coleman, and no Dodger reached second base until the ninth inning.

With their spring record at .500, the Brooks returned to Vero Beach for an unscheduled game against Newcombe and the Montreal farm club on field No. 1, which lacked a grandstand. Consequently, the only spectators were Rickey, his assistants, and a few of the beat writers that covered the team. The contest was played in a strange semi-silence--no cheering, no jeering; only the magpie chatter of the infielders, the crack of the bat, the slapping of glove leather, and the occasional trilling of a passing sea bird. Newcombe fanned seven Dodgers, and headed into the last inning with a 5-1 lead before a blistered hand reduced his effectiveness and the varsity caught up with him, winning 6-5. Laga took the loss, surrendering a bases-loaded triple to third base hopeful Johnny “Spider” Jorgensen, and a sacrifice

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 40

fly to Snider. Branca had been ineffective again, giving rise to questions about the soundness of his throwing arm.

“I couldn’t get loosened up, and only threw a couple of fastballs late in the game,” he explained. “But my arm is all right.”

The Mahatma professed to be unconcerned about either Branca or Barney:

“They’re not giving their all right now,” he said. “But there’s nothing wrong with their arms.”

Preacher Roe worked four scoreless frames in an intersquad game the next afternoon. Rookie left-hander Morrie Martin was the winning pitcher and Erskine tossed five solid stanzas, temporarily easing Shotton’s concerns about his mound staff. The skipper’s current worry was about wood--the Dodgers’ bats had gone quite dead. They hadn’t scored in their last eighteen innings.

Back to West Palm against the A’s, déjà vu all over again. If the Dodgers were weary of playing the White Elephants, they didn’t show it, beating the Mackmen 5-

3 to end the losing string and get back on the bright side of .500. Robinson knocked in four of the five Brooklyn runs, and Behrman, the Night Owl, squelched a ninth inning Philadelphia rally.

Gil Hodges caught nine innings in the next day’s intersquad game, and the Old

Sourdough finally admitted that Bruce Edwards was nursing a wounded wing.

“Of course Edwards’ arm is sore,” said the skipper, who had spent the better part of the week denying it, “but he can throw. I don’t want him to throw and take a chance on hurting it. You remember that another great catcher, , had a sore arm for a whole year and then came back as good as ever.”

41 Bob Mack

But Edwards had never been a great catcher, even when he was healthy. The jaded journalists who reported on Dodger doings were beginning to suspect that

Rickey’s penchant for doubletalk had rubbed off on his manager. Was Campanella now the number one receiver and Hodges his backup? Or was Edwards the backup? Or was Edwards number one and Campanella his backup? Was Hodges still a first baseman? Was Rickey, currently huddling with Cincinnati’s Warren

Giles, planning on trading one of his backstops? What did Shotton know and when did he know it? Things grew murkier by the moment.

Newcombe took the hill against the varsity again, and was working on a 3-hit shutout in the sixth inning when back-to-back defensive bricks by outfielder Sam

Jethroe and catcher Toby Atwell gave the Dodgers their first run. Newk was visibly displeased, and spent the rest of the game absorbing imaginative insults from the

Dodger bench jockeys. Shotton had seen nothing to make him change his mind about the big guy. Gene Hermanski, meanwhile, made the best play of the spring when he pulled infielder from a barnacle-encrusted piling before the rookie could be swept out to sea by a vicious Vero Beach riptide. Assisted by utility paddler Eddie Miksis, Hermanski dragged the bleeding Morgan through the surf and beached him safely ashore, where he was examined and bandaged by camp doctor William Liles, who said, “He’ll be ready to play again day after tomorrow.”

Edwards was behind the plate in the next day’s game against the Senators. He hit a home run, but the only place he was willing to throw the ball was back to the mound. Robinson singled and doubled, driving in one run and scoring another, and

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 42

Martin and Banta combined to whitewash Washington 4-0, the Dodgers fifth victory of the spring.

Robinson’s bat was blazing: “George Sisler has been helping me. He told me,

‘Always look for a fastball. If you look for a curve, the pitcher is going to fool you with speed. Just look for the fast one.’ And old George is right. I feel right now like I could hit Warren Spahn as if I owned him. Last year he was pretty tough on me.”

Rickey dumped Hank Behrman after the Washington game, selling the Night

Owl to the Giants for an estimated $40,000. Behrman had been in the Mahatma’s doghouse ever since he had deserted the assistant groundskeeper’s job Rickey had given him to keep him out of trouble over the winter.

“They wouldn’t let me touch the grounds,” complained the Night Owl. “All I did was some painting and handy work at eight dollars a day, five days a week.”

The hedonic hurler was now Durocher’s problem. Henry turned in his uniform, borrowed ten dollars from the Twig, and hopped a morning plane for Phoenix.

The Dodgers played the A’s again. Barney finally cranked up a decent game.

He was still wild as a razorback, walking five and tossing a wild pitch that allowed the winning run to score; but he allowed only three hits before losing 3-1 in the ninth.

The Dodgers last game at Vero Beach cost them the services of Eddie Miksis.

The utility man suffered a dislodged nasal bone when he was hit in the face by a ball that deflected off the knee of St. Paul baserunner Jim Pendleton. Doc Liles patched Eddie’s proboscis, sticking a plug in his left nostril to keep the bone

43 Bob Mack

stationary, but the infielder was going to be out of action for the better part of a week. The rest of the Dodgers flew to New Orleans enroute to Texas, except for reluctant airmen Abrams and Cox, who took the train. Inclement weather forced the club’s charter flight from the Big Easy to land in Houston, where the airsick ballplayers staggered onto a bus for the rocky ride to Beaumont.

Rickey had seen the boys off from the Vero Beach Airfield where he professed to be irritated by persistent rumors out of Clearwater that had him trying to pry outfielder away from the Phillies: “There is absolutely no truth in such a story. I talked with Bob Carpenter not long ago, but it was strictly a social chat. As for [advance scout] being in the Philly camp, he has been, or will be, in all the National League camps, and is there openly. There is no F.B.I. approach on his part. It is his job to look over all these clubs and report on what he sees. But there is no deal pending in the sense that specific conversations about specific players have been held.”

The weather was wretched for the Dodgers’ first game in the Lone Star state, but the Brooks proved to be fair mudders, crushing the Exporters 14-2. Despite the intermittent downpours, Beaumont fans spun the turnstiles in record numbers to see the Dodgers and Robinson play--the line in front of the ticket window had been two blocks long by 10:30 in the morning.

“I had to get the police to get me into my own ballpark,” gushed Beaumont president Guy Airey. “Anyone would think it was at Yankee

Stadium.”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 44

Branca went the distance, the gimpy-winged Edwards cracked a , and

Snider stole home. After the game, the Bums packed up their soggy jockstraps and caught the train for San Antonio.

Pee Wee Reese, who had been nursing a painful abdomen for a week, left the game against the Missions in the second inning. The Dodgers’ trainer, Harold

“Doc” Wendler, suspected a hernia, but no one would know for sure until Pee Wee was properly examined in Houston. Billy Cox replaced Reese, and the Bums won again, 8-1. Robinson doubled, singled, and stole a base, delighting the crowd of

8,245, and Oakland Joe hurled Brooklyn’s second consecutive , giving Shotton hope that his wobbly pitching staff was rounding into form; but the

Old Sourdough was uneasy about the possible loss of his shortstop. Reese and

Robinson had been covering the middle of the infield like wall-to-wall carpeting.

Pee Wee’s pain turned out to be nothing more than a strained muscle. He suited up in Houston for the game against the Buffs, took batting practice, then the skies opened, and the contest was rained out.

“It doesn’t hurt me to swing a bat,” said Reese, “but I can’t make quick starts or run bases properly without pain.”

As the Bums headed for Fort Worth for a game against their Texas League affiliate, all the newspaper scuttlebutt concerned supposedly imminent player shifts.

Red Smith of the Cubs had been trailing the Dodgers around Texas like a hound dog after a pork chop. Chicago wanted infielders; the Dodgers had them--Miksis,

Bob Ramazzotti, and Buddy Hicks.

45 Bob Mack

“Sure we’ve got the men they want,” said Burt Shotton dismissively. “But they can’t get them for a dime. That club always wants players at the waiver price. We haven’t got that kind. They’re going to have to come up with their prices if they want our boys.”

The wildest of the proliferating trade rumors had the Giants’ slugging first baseman joining the Dodgers in a three-way deal with the Pirates for a bevy of “unidentified players”.

“I don’t think [Rickey] would make a deal like that without consulting me, do you?” commented Burt Shotton. Would he like to have Mize in Brooklyn blue?

“I’d like to have most anybody--under the right conditions. I’d have to know first, whom we are expected to give up.”

La Grave Stadium, home to the Fort Worth Cats, was overcast and cold and the crowd was uncharacteristically small, but the Dodgers stayed hot. Reese, taped up like a kidnap victim, singled in a pair of runs. Robinson tripled, and Cox and

Abrams homered as the Brooks continue to maul the Texas League clubs, this time by a 9-3 count. The next day’s score was even more ridiculous. The Dodgers pounded their silly, tallying 15 runs in the fifth and sixth innings, and winning 16-10. Barney walked four, allowed a pair of hits, and committed an .

Robinson took a 12-game hitting streak to Dallas. The Eagles stopped his string, walking him three times, but Jackie sparkled defensively. Hodges and Campanella cleared the fences, and the Dodgers won 8-3.

Shotton’s sluggers moved on to Oklahoma City for a game against the Indians.

Interest in the Dodgers was running so high that J.D. McCarty stood up in the

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 46

Oklahoma House of Represenatives and said, “Mr. Speaker, we have distinguished visitors in the city this afternoon. I move to adjourn.”

Rickey had flown in to observe his marauding club at first hand. Asked to comment on the recent spate of trade rumors, he said, “I see no possibility for the

Cubs to give us anything we want.” What about the Giants? The Mahatma waved his cigar and said, “We are not interested in Johnny Mize. Not now, anyway.”

“I’ll follow Mr. Rickey around until I get what I want,” vowed Red Smith.

“I haven’t found out yet what he wants,” grumbled Rickey.

At Texas League Park, the Brooklyn boss encountered another difficulty.

Travelling Secretary Harold Parrott had stowed the Mahatma’s tickets in his pocket, but Parrott was on the roof wassailing with the writers.

“We have no passes for a Mr. Rickey,” drawled the comely Texas belle behind the ticket window.

“Just what do I have to do to see this game?”

“Buy a ticket like all the rest of these nice people.”

The Mahatma sourly dipped into his normally quiescent purse and purchased a ducat, the unexpected expense dampening his mood until his red-hot baseball team launched a 16-hit attack (3 doubles and 13 singles) and beat the Indians 7-5.

Branca’s fastball popped like a gunshot through the first six innings, and Rickey thought he “looked great”.

The next victims were the Tulsa Oilers. If all the trade talk was making the

Dodgers nervous, they didn’t show it, bashing 14 safeties, including a 360-foot home run by Snider. Oakland Joe stopped the Oilers on three hits, and the Brooks

47 Bob Mack

won 10-0, their seventh straight triumph. After the game, the team boarded a chartered flight to Macon, where the Peaches and the Ku Klux Klan waited.

“We don’t fear anything in Georgia,” asserted Branch Rickey. “The greatest danger to Robbie and Campy, as I see it, will come from people with pens in their hands--autograph hounds.”

“Everybody knows we are going there not through choice,” added Robinson, who was born in the Peach State, “but because we have a job to do for our employers.” Privately, however, he was not as sanguine: “I’ve been dreading this weekend.”

Doc Green, who was saving his ire for the Atlanta series, sent assurances that the

Klan would not cause trouble in Macon. His group, observed the Imperial Lizard, was but a noble fraternal organization of like-minded citizens, accustomed to obeying the law, much like the Elks Club or the Knights of Columbus. The good doctor could not, of course, speak for the actions of excitable private individuals who might or might not attend the proceeding. Thusly reassured by the August

Serpent, Robinson and his teammates readied themselves for the first interracial baseball game in the history of the state of Georgia.

Two hours before game time, the grounds surrounding Luther Williams Stadium were mobbed. Extra police were drummed into service as auxiliary ticket-takers.

An hour later, every seat was filled in the colored bleachers, and Negroes began to rim the outfield track. In thirty minutes, they were four deep, and were being admitted into the formerly “whites only” stands in right. By the time the first pitch

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 48

was thrown, the Dodgers had set another attendance record. 6,532 spectators jammed the 4,000-seat ballpark.

Robinson stepped to the plate amid a crescendo of cheers from the bleachers and the outfield standees, and a smattering of boos from the palefaces in the grandstand.

Jackie took a couple of pitches; then lined a hit to left. The catcalls changed to applause. The single drove in the first run of the game. He added two more hits later, and Furillo and Snider homered as the Brooks won their eighth straight, 11-2.

“I must have been more nervous than I thought,” Robinson mused. “The first two pitches thrown to me were perfect strikes. I wanted to swing at them, but I couldn’t. I was actually paralyzed. I guess you would call it subconscious nervousness. Finally, I loosened up and smacked one. I heard the clapping and the cheers, and I knew everything was going to be all right. I’d been worrying far too much. The reception was the best I’ve gotten anywhere on this trip.”

So far the south had been relatively hospitable, but now the Dodgers were going to Atlanta, and none of them really knew what to expect from a city where every other street seemed to be named “Peachtree”, and the unfinished likenesses of

Confederate generals were carved into a local mountainside. Southern quirkiness even extended to the Crackers’ home park. Ponce de Leon Field had the only ground rule in history that covered hit into a giant magnolia tree. The fragrant landmark sprouted from the center field terrace, 462 feet from home plate and in play. The only hitter ever to reach it on the fly had been Babe Ruth.

Peaches and magnolias aside, Atlanta was still the red-clay citadel of the

Invisible Empire and its threadbare Knights. Doc Green, whose favorite ballplayer

49 Bob Mack

was Georgia’s own , announced that he had received pledges from 10,000 people who, he said, would “never enter the Atlanta baseball park again if a game is played there by players of mixed races.”

“The Atlanta Baseball Club will lose thousands of dollars if the game is played tonight as scheduled,” the Imperial Komodo predicted. “There is no law against the game. But we have an unwritten law in the South--the Jim Crow law. The Atlanta

Baseball Club is breaking down the traditions of the South, and the club will pay for it.”

Outside the ballpark, sporadic Klan pickets were nearly trampled by the throngs that were stampeding to see Robinson and the Dodgers. Beleaguered vendors hawked programs and pennants to fans that chewed their way through sacks of boiled peanuts and swilled bottles of pop while they waited for the gates to open.

In the visitor’s locker room, the mood was not quite as exuberant. Burt Shotton read the team a letter from an anonymous southern sharpshooter who threatened to kill Robinson as soon as he stepped onto the field.

“Why don’t we all wear Number 42?” cracked Gene Hermanski. “Then the nut won’t know who to shoot at.”

The Brooks limbered up before another standing-room only crowd. Hundreds of

Negroes watched from behind ropes that stretched around the outfield and onto the far terraces beneath Babe Ruth’s magnolia. Robinson and Campanella and the rest of the boys signed autographs on the sidelines while the Old Sourdough kept an eye out for rebel snipers.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 50

Jackie batted in the first inning to a tumultuous ovation from the colored crowd and scattered hooting from the whites in the grandstand, and once again he won almost everybody over when he slapped a single to left. He added another hit later, making him 5 for 8 in the Peach State, drove in a pair of runs, and the Dodgers won

6-3.

“I never felt as good in my life as I did when the fans gave me that big hand on my first trip to the plate,” Robinson said afterward.

The crowds grew larger over the next two days--special trains from Savannah rolled into Atlanta carrying hundreds of Robinson fans--but the Dodgers winning streak ended when the Crackers knocked them over 9-1 and 8-4. Rex Barney continued his wanton hurling in Saturday’s game, walking four, unleashing a pair of wild pitches, and failing to make it out of the fourth inning. Sunday’s contest drew

25,221 spectators and shattered the Southern League’s attendance record. Robinson doubled, singled and pilfered home, but Brooklyn’s pitching failed again, as

Erskine, Ramsdell, Banta and Clarence “Bud” Podbielan were ineffective.

“It was the most orderly crowd we have ever had,” raved Earl Mann, president of the Crackers. “There was not one bit of disturbance, not one single incident to my knowledge. I would say this was significant because it should prove that the

South is perfectly capable of working out its own social problems.”

The Dodgers endured consecutive washouts in Greenville and Charlotte, then headed north to wrap up the exhibition season with games in Baltimore,

Washington, and a final series with the Yankees in New York before opening the regular season against the Giants at Ebbets Field. Rickey was pleased with the way

51 Bob Mack

the lucrative southern tour had transpired--nothing had really gone awry except the weather--but he was beginning to worry that the boys were growing complacent.

“The squad’s too satisfied,” he groused. “Everyone has been picking them to win the pennant, and they’ve begun to believe it. Confidence is a fine thing in a team, but pride goeth before a fall.”

Rickey flew to Baltimore where the Brooks were scheduled to play the

International League Orioles. The spring rains that had followed the team up the coast continued, and instead of watching baseball, the Mahatma spent the day indoors in negotiations with the ever-persistent Red Smith, who was still trying to wheedle a surplus infielder from Rickey’s roster. The Brooklyn boss was not ready to sell, at least not at the prices the Windy City agent bandied about: “When you consider the cost of such an operation as Vero Beach, which runs to $240,000 for the development of players, $85,000 is a paltry sum for a boy who can play right now.”

That evening, the Mahatma addressed the Baltimore Advertising Club. His subject: baseball’s reserve clause, that hallowed paragraph in each standard player’s contract, which--like the marriage vow--tied the athlete to his signing club till death

(or the unconditional release) did them part. Former Giants’ outfielder and unemployed jumper had filed an antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York charging Organized Baseball with monopolistic restraint of trade. Gardella’s suit threatened to make each player a free agent, able to offer his services to the highest bidder. To Rickey, such a turn of events would be an unmitigated disaster, and would spell the ruin of the grand old game by

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 52

devastating the pocketbooks of its conservative proprietors and destroying the continuity of its teams.

“[The reserve clause] has worked out splendidly,” the Mahatma informed the gathered admen. “The person cheating is not the baseball owner--more fortunes have been lost than won in this game. So far as I know, players favor the clause unanimously.” Rickey paused for effect, then leveled the dramatic charge that the legal attack on the reserve clause had been sponsored by “persons of avowed communist tendencies who deeply resent the continuance of our national pastime.”

“Baseball,” Rickey intoned, “is a profound sport. The game is ideal. We have a great commissioner with majestic power. Some think too much power. This game is important to America and you.”

The Mahatma took his seat to enthusiastic applause. His remarks, however, did not resonate with everyone.

“Rickey has had dictatorial powers so long, he doesn’t recognize the true principles of American life,” responded Danny Gardella’s attorney, Frederic

Johnson. “The treatment Branch Rickey has accorded baseball players would have made Simon Legree blush with shame. At least Simon had the initial sanction of the law and of the Constitution.”

The rains finally stopped, and the Dodgers played the Senators in Washington before the largest crowd that Griffith Stadium had seen in fifteen years. Robinson’s fans were in full-throated fettle. Jackie singled in the first inning and scored on

Furillo’s 400-foot triple, but had to leave the game in the fifth with a sore ribcage.

53 Bob Mack

Griffith Stadium was the toughest home run park in the American League for a right handed hitter--405 interminable feet down the left field line--but skinny Billy

Cox belted a pitch from Sid Hudson into the distant bleachers for the winning run as the Brooks prevailed 3-2. Joe Hatten, tuning up for his Opening Day assignment, stretched his string of scoreless innings to 20, and Pee Wee Reese returned to the lineup for the first time since the Fort Worth game.

Shotton’s club looked sharp, but the Old Sourdough still worried about his unpredictable pitching and he was not certain whether Gil Hodges could make the grade at first base.

“We can carry him as a .250 hitting catcher, but not as a .250 hitting first baseman. There is a lot of that kind.”

Robinson had played the entire 1947 season at first, but the Brooklyn skipper was not going to move Jackie back to his old position: “He doesn’t like it, and I’m not going to break up the Reese-Robinson combination at short and second while it’s the best double-play outfit in the business.”

Yankee Stadium was unseasonably warm when the Dodgers arrived on Good

Friday to begin their final pre-season series. The team continued its exhibition assault, subduing Bombers and their new manager Casey Stengel by a 6-

1 count before a crowd of 27,731. Snider slugged the 23rd Dodger home run of the spring into the old “Ruthville” section of the right field stands in the eighth inning, and Barney, Harry Taylor, and Palica shut down the DiMaggio-less Yanks. Barney, however, issued five bases on balls, and Taylor had to be pulled from the game with shoulder tightness.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 54

The weather was cooler on Saturday for the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field debut, but the

Brooks stayed hot, staging an eighth inning rally and beating the Yankees 7-6 when an errant throw by allowed Reese to score the winning run. Snider connected for a Bedford Blast over the 37-foot high right field wall, but Ralph

Branca’s pitching was less than stellar--the right-hander allowed 11 hits and five walks in seven innings of work.

Sunday’s game produced another Brooklyn triumph. Hodges alleviated some of

Shotton’s concerns when he belted a two-strike grandslam into the lower left field stands, sparking a 9-4 Dodgers’ win. Rookie Pat McGlothin bailed Jack Banta out of a sixth inning jam, and Robinson burgled bases at will.

“All you guys,” grumped Yankee manager Casey Stengel, “when you get into the locker room, I want you to check your lockers. He stole everything out there he wanted today so he might have stolen your jocks as well.”

Brooklyn’s spring offensive had colored the predictions of most preseason prognosticators . The Bums had compiled a winning percentage of

.692 against major league competition, and had ruthlessly crushed the minor league teams that had the temerity to cross their path. The consensus of the nation’s baseball writers was that the Bums would be facing the in the

World’s Series come fall, with the Braves finishing second and the

Pirates third. ’s aging St. Louis Cardinals were picked to finish fourth.

So that was it. The preliminaries were over. Baseball from now through

October would be a deadly serious business. It was, as Ty Cobb once said, no place for mollycoddles.

55 Bob Mack

3rd Inning. The Season Opens: Wherein Gene Hermanski Turns A Trifecta, And The Lip Pummels A Dodgers’ Fan

“The teams to beat in 1949 will be the Dodgers and the Cardinals.” --Branch Rickey

On the eve of the opening game against the Giants, Branch Rickey surveyed the baseball team he had constructed, and was content: “Looking over the seven other teams on paper, I find that they are strong, but when I get down to the Dodgers, I find something else--that we have an edge over all of them. This is the best big league squad I’ve ever been associated with, either at St. Louis or in Brooklyn.”

The Dodgers were loaded. Unable to make a deal for an established first baseman, Rickey had called up young Kevin “Chuck” Connors from Montreal as insurance for Hodges. Campanella and Edwards would handle the backstopping.

Gloveman Billy Cox had secured the third base job with some unexpectedly hot hitting. Cal Abrams had played his way into the starting lineup at left field. Center fielder Duke Snider had been catapulting baseballs into the seats for most of the spring. The pitching had been spotty, but Joe Hatten and seemed to have rounded into shape, Preacher Roe was solid, and Rex Barney had the potential to win twenty games if he could throw strikes. Shotton had returned the unhappy

Don Newcombe to the minors where he was to continue his “maturing” process.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 56

Newk believed he deserved a spot on the roster, and so did coach Clyde Sukeforth.

After watching one of Newcombe’s spring outings, Sukey had said flatly, “If that’s a sample of his work, he certainly is a better pitcher than several with the Dodgers.”

Pennant fever was already running high in Brooklyn, and the Dodgers were expecting a record crowd for their Ebbets Field inaugural against Durocher and the invaders from Harlem. The two teams did not like each other, and neither did their fans: “I would have rooted for the Red Russians over the Dodgers,” said one fervent

Giant supporter. “All I wished for them was fourteen-inning games played in the rain.”

Brooklyn loyalists were even more intense. Once known as the “City of

Churches”, the Borough played host to every denomination and every creed, but its true religion was baseball, and Ebbets Field was the cathedral where the Faithful came to worship. Former Flatbush second baseman Eddie Stanky explained: “All

Brooklyn kids learn of the Dodgers from the cradle on up. The Dodgers are drummed into them so that they think there’s no other club in the world like them.

And when they’re old enough to travel about alone, one of the first places they head for is the ballpark.”

The two teams had been professional enemies ever since the Brooklyn

Bridegrooms lost to the Giants in the prehistoric championship series of 1889.

Long before the War Between the States, amateur squads from Brooklyn and the

City had cordially detested one another. In New York, baseball grudges were family heirlooms--freshly polished each spring like old silverware.

57 Bob Mack

Ebbets Field, the Coney Island of ballparks, had been repainted a flashy red, white, and blue for Opening Day, the souvenir hawkers at Sullivan and McKeever were in gravel-voiced mid-season form, and the Fourteenth Regiment Band had rehearsed for the traditional out-of-step march to the center field flagpole.

Shotton’s last minute roster adjustments included optioning pitcher Harry Taylor and infielder Buddy Hicks to St. Paul. Taylor had been in disfavor with the manager since he had displayed what the Old Sourdough considered to be a lack of

Dodger determination by refusing to pitch through questionable shoulder discomfort against the Yankees, and there was no chance that Hicks could supplant any of the Brooklyn reserves.

April 19th was sunny and mild. The gates opened at 11:00 a.m. 34,530 high- spirited baseball aficionados, including President Truman’s daughter Mary

Margaret, and Mayor O’Dwyer (“Hizzoner” annually mooched a package of complimentary tickets from the Mahatma) poured through the marble rotunda for the day’s festivities. In the bleachers, boys in blue waved their Dodger standards, munched on red-hots and craned their necks for a glimpse of their favorites. The air smelled of peanuts and popcorn and cheap cigars. The field was as green as

Ireland.

Everett McCooey, son of the late Brooklyn Democratic boss John McCooey, sang the National Anthem, the Dodgers dedicated a seat in Section 10 to the late

Jack “Shorty” Laurice, leader of the raucous Sym-phoney Band, Borough president

John Cashmore threw out the first ball, and Giants’ second baseman slammed Oakland Joe’s second pitch of the game into the left field seats.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 58

Hatten’s adrenalin was pumping. He was overthrowing and getting the ball up in the strike zone where it could be belted. Pale haired left fielder Carroll “Whitey”

Lockman ripped a single to right, and Campanella moseyed out to settle down

Oakland Joe. Brooklyn-born Sid Gordon batted next. Unlike Rigney, Gordon, the son of Jewish émigrés from Russia, was a legitimate longball threat. Power was the stock-in-trade of the slow-footed Giants. Seven of their players had hit ten or more home runs in 1948, and they had averaged over nine runs per game during the exhibition season. Campy pounded his mitt on the outside corner, and moved inside while he chattered amiably at Gordon. Tricky. Hatten sidearmed a curve low and right on target, and Gordon hit a bouncer to Cox, who threw to Robinson at second. Jackie fired the ball to Hodges at first for an around the horn double play.

Two down, but Oakland Joe still hadn’t found his control. Big Johnny Mize walked. , the “Flying Scot”, grounded an outside pitch for a single to right, and Willard Marshall drew another walk to load the bases. Walker Cooper, the slugging catcher, ambled to the plate like a Sherman tank rolling from a tree line. The game was less than fifteen minutes old, and the Giants were threatening to blow it wide open. Campanella visited the mound again. He wanted the ball low and outside, where the burly Cooper couldn’t get his beef behind it. Hatten got it outside, but up. Cooper tried to pull it, and clobbered it instead to deep center field.

The partisan crowd despaired, but Snider glided back, hauled it in, and the Brooks were out of trouble.

Larry Jansen, the Giants’ ace right-hander, took the mound for New York.

Jansen was a 27-year old who had won 30 games in the Pacific Coast League in

59 Bob Mack

1946, then joined the Polo Grounders, going 21-5 in 1947 and 18-12 in 1948. He was an authentic tough customer--one of the first major leaguers to rely on the slider, the pitch that Ted Williams said “was getting everybody out.” Jansen retired the Dodgers in the first, but he had never pitched well in Ebbets Field, and Furillo lined his first offering of the second inning into the lower deck in left to knot the game at 1-1.

Hatten was still shaky, and the Giants nicked him again in the fourth. Marshall singled. The leaden-legged Cooper somehow stretched a single into a double, and weak-hitting shortstop Buddy Kerr smoked a pitch off Hatten’s glove and into the outfield, scoring both runners. New York 3, Brooklyn 1. Jansen struck out, but

Rigney, who had Oakland Joe’s number, cracked one off the wall in right. Smelling double, “The Cricket” took a big turn around first but Kerr had already stopped at second. Furillo played the tricky concrete barrier with its garish advertising like a virtuoso, rifling the ball to Robinson, who relayed it to Hodges before Rigney could return to the bag. When Lockman followed with a popout, the Giants had run themselves out of a potential big inning.

The Dodgers capitalized immediately. Jansen hung a breaking ball to Robinson to open the home fourth, and Jackie hammered a long home run into the left field stands. Slightly rattled, Jansen walked Furillo. The Faithful smelled blood. Cox grounded into a force; then, with Hodges batting, Billy took off for second.

Cooper’s throw beat him to the bag, but Rigney, continuing the gaffes he had begun a half-inning before, dropped the ball. Umpire Scotty Robb called Cox out anyway.

The stands erupted in protest. So did the Dodgers. Captain Reese vaulted from the

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 60

dugout like a Doberman confronting a trespasser, and the season’s first rhubarb was underway. Robb’s brother arbiters--Art Gore, Babe Pinelli, and Frank Dascoli-- advised their colleague of his unwitting malfeasance, his decision was reversed, and

Hodges followed with a single to left. Ebbets Field was vibrating with noise.

Jansen threw a slider to Campanella that hung over the plate, and the Brooklyn catcher unloaded, driving the ball just inside the left field foul pole and nine rows back for a three-run homer and a 5-3 Dodger lead. Campy grinned his way past the tight-lipped Durocher in the third base coaching box and sashayed home to handshakes and a standing ovation.

Leo replaced the dejected Jansen with Henry Behrman. Hank still owed the

Twig ten bucks. Cox drilled a triple, and the Night Owl obligingly wild-pitched him home. Brooklyn 6, New York 3.

Oakland Joe had found his groove. Suddenly, he was getting the ball just where he wanted it, and the Giants were hitting everything on the ground. Hatten set the

Durochermen down for the third consecutive inning, and--after the Faithful had finished their seventh inning stretching--his relentless compadres struck again.

Reese singled and scored on hits by Robinson and Cox. The Night Owl uncorked another wild pitch. Robinson trotted home. Hodges singled. Campanella got into another one, smacking a mile-high fly to deep center. Everyone thought it was going to clear the fence, but the wind knocked it back. Bobby Thomson waltzed under it, then inexplicably tottered and fell. The ball hit the ground and bounded toward left field. Thomson sat helplessly and watched it roll. pursued the retreating horsehide until he suddenly dropped. It was as if Rickey had

61 Bob Mack

planted sharpshooters in the grandstand. Campanella wound up on third after the

Giants’ entertaining Keystone Kops routine, two more runners had crossed the plate, and Brooklyn had increased its lead to 10-3.

“Everything,” noted Red Barber, “happens at Ebbets Field.”

The Brooks had won one in a row, and all was well in Flatbush. The game had been played in a snappy two hours and eleven minutes, and everyone in the lineup had hit safely except for Abrams and Hatten. The Bums had blasted three homers against one of the top pitchers in the league, and Oakland Joe had recovered from a wobbly beginning to finish the game. The Old Sourdough’s managing had been tip-top. He had employed the same defensive shift against lefty slugger Johnny

Mize that Durocher used to employ--three infielders on the right side, one up the middle, and the outfielders bunched to port--and it cost the “Big Cat” a base hit.

The Brooklyn interior line had been bulletproof. Robinson, Reese and company combined for 20 putouts, 15 assists, and a pair of twin-killings.

Branca took the mound the next afternoon against Sheldon “Available” Jones, a right-hander from Tecumseh, Nebraska. The Giants continued to field like a vaudeville troupe, committing four official miscues, two by Rigney. Branca was sharp--he struck out the side in the seventh--and the Dodgers won their second straight game, 6-2, despite managing only four safeties. Available Jones had supplied most of the Brooklyn offense himself, walking seven batters in his short stint. Abrams had gone hitless again, but had reached base on one of Rigney’s errors, and had been at third on the front end of a double steal with Reese.

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Durocher benched the fumble-fingered Rigney for the series finale, and loaded his lineup with righthanded hitters against Preacher Roe. Preacher’s dipsy-doodles

(“If it’s a good ‘un, it drops like a dead duck just as it crosses the plate.”) stymied the Giants until the sixth, when Sid Gordon drilled a 3-2 pitch into the left field seats with a mate aboard. An inning later, reserve catcher Mickey Livingston belted another two-run homer, and the Durochermen won 4-1. Brooklyn’s bats had suddenly gone silent. The team had managed only eight hits in their last seventeen innings. Abrams took the collar again, as did Robinson. Still, the Bums had taken two out of three. They were a half-game behind Cincinnati and Boston as they headed for Philadelphia and a weekend set against the 1-3 Phillies.

That evening, the Twig was in Baltimore, scouting disgruntled Don Newcombe.

Newk was superb, spinning a three-hit, 5-0, shutout. The Orioles had been flat-out overmatched. Hitting Newk’s fastball was like picking up a live wire.

“He was very good,” said Montreal manager Clay Hopper. “He didn’t strike out many, but he had ‘em popping up.” Did the Twig’s presence mean that Newcombe would be called up to the big club? “I don’t know,” responded Hopper glumly. “I hope not.”

Friday’s game against the Phils was postponed due to soggy conditions at Shibe

Park, and Saturday wasn’t much better. Shotton sent Barney to the mound in the intermittent drizzle against ’s young flamethrower , but neither pitcher could get past the fourth inning. Roberts was even more scatter- armed than the Omaha Wild Man, allowing six free tickets to Barney’s two, but

Rex added a hit batsman to his ledger. In the eighth inning, the clouds suddenly

63 Bob Mack

parted and a rainbow appeared beyond center field. The Phillies lost anyway, 8-6, and the Dodgers notched their third win in four tries. Reese, still hobbled by the abdominal injury he had suffered during spring training, smacked a bases loaded double, and Abrams collected his first major league hit. The slumping Robinson went oh for four.

The Dodgers played their first of the season on Sunday. Oakland

Joe, seeking his second win, took the hill for the opener, opposed by Ken

Heintzelman, an old gray fox with a sneaky fastball that looked faster when it was thrown through the gloaming. It was sunny and cold in Philly. Pee Wee got the

Flock going in the first inning, crushing a pitch into the upper deck in left after

Abrams had walked.

Harold Henry Reese, team captain and Kentucky gentleman, was the senior player on the Brooklyn roster. He had broken in during the 1940 season, when the previously derided Dodgers had recast themselves as pennant contenders. Durocher had watched Pee Wee work out, handed the kid his fielder’s mitt, and retired permanently to the bench. “Nobody ever won a pennant,” Leo observed, “without a star shortstop.”

Reese entered the service in 1943. The communist newspaper Daily Worker, boasting the best sports section in the People’s Republic of Brooklyn, gathered

10,000 signatures on a petition requesting that the running dog Rickey replace Pee

Wee with Negro League star Willie Wells (“For a fuckin’ communist,” Durocher told writer Lester Rodney, “you sure know your baseball.”). Rickey deposited the petition in his waste can. Pee Wee returned from the war in 1946 after losing three

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 64

of his prime seasons. The Mahatma doubled his salary. Reese was not the best fielding shortstop in the circuit-- of the Cardinals was better--and he was not the best hitting shortstop--Alvin Dark of the Braves and Stan Rojek of the

Pirates had logged higher averages--but Pee Wee possessed qualities that made his teammates better players, maybe even better people. He was the best shortstop in the National League.

With the Flock leading 2-0 in the second, Hatten threw a slow curveball into

Stan Lopata’s wheelhouse, and the Phillies’ catcher hit it onto the roof of the left field pavilion. The Dodgers made it 3-1 on Snider’s third inning two-out double and Robinson’s first hit in fourteen at-bats, but the Phils tied it in the fourth. Del

Ennis tripled and scored on a ground ball double play initiated by Reese. Light- hitting second baseman Eddie Miller launched a two-out home run that reached the upper deck in left. The wind was gusting, and the baseball flew through the North

Philadelphia smog like a V-2 rocket.

The Phils picked up an unearned run in the fourth when Abrams fumbled a single by Ennis that allowed Eddie Waitkus to score from first base. Mike

McCormick came off the bench in the sixth to tie the game at 4-4 with a pinch single following a double by Cox. Erskine relieved Hatten. In the seventh, with

Heintzelman on base, “Oisk” hung a breaking pitch to spray-hitting Richie

Ashburn. The little speedster from Nebraska blasted it over the corrugated right field wall. It was only the third home run of his short career, and the first he had ever hit out of a park. It was a wind-aided Ripley moment, and it buried the

65 Bob Mack

Brooks. Heintzelman rubbed salt in the wound by retiring the last ten Dodgers in a row to end the game in the Phillies’ favor, 7-4.

In the nightcap, Branca improved his record to 2-0 as the Dodgers hung on to win 6-5 after blowing a four-run lead. Waitkus gift-wrapped the Brooklyn victory when he ended a Phillies’ rally in the seventh with an unsuccessful two-out delayed steal of home. Campanella had sniffed out the play, and instead of making his peg to second, had thrown directly to the mound. The decoy worked like a charm.

Waitkus broke for the plate, Jack Banta flipped the ball back to Campy, and

Waitkus was easily out. In the ninth, Steady Eddie popped out to Reese, stranding

Ashburn on third with the tying run after the Phillies’ center fielder had singled, stolen second, and advanced to third on Campanella’s wild throw.

The twin bill in Philly proved one thing to Burt Shotton--Campanella was now his first string catcher. For one thing, the rotund receiver was hitting .475; for another, he was handling the erratic Dodger pitching staff like a master; besides,

Bruce Edwards couldn’t toss out a week-old fish, while Campy had the best arm in the business: “I like to throw,” he said.

“Roy really settles you down,” noted Oakland Joe. “If I get mad, or get working too fast, he takes my mind off it.”

There wasn’t much that Shotton or his coaches--even the former backstop

Sukeforth--could teach Campanella about catching. Campy had been well schooled when he’d arrived in Brooklyn, and he’d been improving ever since.

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“He handles low balls better than anybody I’ve seen in some time,” said Sukey.

“He calls plays. As a matter of fact, he’s shown us some things that weren’t in the scouting report. He’s a righthanded hitter who can place balls to right.”

“The Lord made him a good catcher,” agreed Burt Shotton.

Campy had changed his batting stance during the spring. He had opened up, and cut down on his swing. His new style was paying dividends: “When you don’t make the big swing, you see the ball all the way.”

Campanella had been a professional baseball player since he was fifteen years old. He had learned his craft from the grand old Negro League receiver, Raleigh

“Biz” Mackey. Mackey and Campanella had similar personalities, and the grizzled veteran had taught the youngster all the tricks of the trade. Mackey had showed the kid footwork and technique, how to set up hitters, and how to distract them. Most importantly, he had educated him in the arcane science of calling a game, of coaxing good performances from often discouraged hurlers who many times had to pitch without their best stuff--most moundsmen were high-strung anyway, prone to unreasoning hysteria at the sight of enemy base runners, and outright panic when their arms were periodically bitten by the inevitable twinges and twangs of their profession.

Campanella squatted behind the plate like a tree stump, setting up closer to the hitters than did most catchers: “I hate for balls to get by me with men on base, so I sit down closer to them.”

Branch Rickey had recruited the 24-year old prior to the 1946 season, and had assigned him to the Nashua club in the Class-B Eastern League where he was

67 Bob Mack

billeted with teenaged pitcher Don Newcombe. Jackie Robinson mentored the two players from long distance.

“Jackie would call us up,” recalled Newcombe, “and he’d lay down the guidelines for us. That was fine with me and Roy. Jackie was more mature and the leader. As three black guys, we were doing something we had to do, and Jackie was telling us how to do it.”

Campanella was named the Eastern League’s Most Valuable Player. He was promoted to Montreal in 1947 where he again won the Most Valuable Player Award against tougher competition. Following a 35-game stint with St. Paul in 1948, during which he batted .325 and generally tore the league apart, the amiable receiver had been summoned to Brooklyn. He banged out nine hits in his first three games, and spent the season sharing playing time with Bruce Edwards.

Campy had been born within hiking distance of , the son of an Italian immigrant father and a Negro mother. He had been a fan of Connie Mack’s

Athletics as a boy, and his favorite player was the great A’s catcher, Mickey

Cochrane. Jackie Robinson was “thrilled”, according to his wife, when Campanella joined the Dodgers; but Roy was not nearly the civil rights firebrand that Robinson was.

“Jack would get impatient with Campy,” said Rachel Robinson, “because he wanted him to speak up more. Campy would get impatient with Jack because he thought he spoke up too much.”

With the burly Philadelphian permanently installed behind the plate, Burt

Shotton’s ball club looked as strong up the middle as any team in the league.

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The Dodgers returned to Ebbets Field with a 4-2 record and a half-game lead over the Giants and Reds in the early pennant returns; but the entire loop was bunched within two and a half ticks of the top--way too early to discern anything of importance.

The defending champion Braves rolled into Brooklyn playing .500 ball and denying press reports out of Boston that alleged mutinies in their clubhouse. The feuding champs looked ready to be taken, but “Old Ninety-Six” had the Dodgers swinging at curves in the dirt all afternoon, and he shut them out on six hits, 3-0. The loss dropped the Bums into a second place tie with the Braves and

Pirates, a half-game behind the Giants.

The next day, Shotton benched Cal Abrams. The rookie had hit his way into the starting lineup during spring training, but once the games began to count, played his way right on out of it. The Old Sourdough replaced Abrams with Gene Hermanski, who immediately made his skipper look like a genius. Hermanski slammed a

Johnny Sain curveball onto Bedford Avenue in the first inning, and started the first triple play by a Dodgers’ team in five years in the third. In the fifth, Reese lined his second home run of the young campaign into the left field seats, extending a modest hitting streak to six games. Preacher Roe was the beneficiary of this largesse, and

Ol’ Preach went the route, winning 5-2 and evening his record at 1-1. The Dodgers were now 5-3, and had reclaimed first place from the Giants, who lost in eleven innings in Philadelphia.

Shotton started Paul Minner the next afternoon at the , the third consecutive game he had trotted a lefty to the mound. The bathtub shaped ballyard

69 Bob Mack

between Coogan’s Bluff and the Harlem River scared the stuffing out of most pitchers. The fences down the lines were so close that hitters could smell the hot dogs that the fans were eating in the bleachers. Pop flies that would have been routine outs anywhere else in the majors became “Chinese home runs” in the bizarre den that the Giants called home. The hazy straightaway from home plate to the center field bleachers, on the other hand, was so distant that a catcher could barely see Eddie Grant’s monument with his naked eye. If a pitcher could keep the hitters from pulling the ball, he had a chance.

Minner never made it through the second inning. Sid Gordon punched a double to left in the first, and Johnny Mize popped a homer into the right field seats for a 2-

0 lead. In the second, Mickey Livingston ripped another two-bagger, and Minner threw “Lucky” Jack Lohrke’s grounder into right field for a three-base run-scoring error. The southpaw looked like a deer caught in a poacher’s spotlight, and the Old

Sourdough hooked him in favor of Rex Barney. Barney began the third by displaying his specialty--the . He passed Gordon and Bobby Thomson, and threw one down the middle to Lohrke, who whacked it for a triple. Livingston singled Lucky Jack home, and it was 6-0, New York.

The Dodgers roared back to take an 8-6 lead after a six-run sixth inning that featured a 400-foot homer by Snider, courteously provided by his old pal, the Night

Owl, who couldn’t get anybody out but himself. Brooklyn relievers Clarence

“Bud” Podbielan and Pat McGlothin, however, proved as inept as everyone else, allowing a run and loading the bases in the seventh. Rookie outfielder Pete Milne

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cracked a screaming line drive past the diving Snider and all the way to the distant bleachers for an inside-the-park grand slam. The Giants won 11-8.

The Old Sourdough was beginning to feel the worms of worry in his gut. His offense had been inconsistent, but that was more or less to be expected at this time of year with the weather still chilly and the hitters striving to find their timing. It was the pitching that concerned him. Hatten, Branca, and Roe looked okay, but

Shotton had no idea what he was going to do for a fourth starter. Barney was a big inning waiting to happen, and Minner acted like a man forced to participate in his own execution. Rookie Morrie Martin had given him seven decent innings against the Braves, so maybe he was the answer, but Martin didn’t look like he had the kind of arsenal that would carry him through a 154-game season. In Newark,

Newcombe had pitched his second consecutive three-hit shutout, striking out 13 and going two for four at the plate; but Shotton did not want Newcombe on the team.

The last thing he needed was some hotheaded youngster firing baseballs at the thick skulls of every rednecked National Leaguer that called him “nigger”. “Scoutin’s overrated,” said Clyde Sukeforth, who had recruited both Newcombe and Robinson.

“You should be a psychiatrist.”

Branca took the mound on Thursday seeking his third victory of the infant season. The Dodgers handed him a 4-2 lead, then exploded for eight runs in the sixth inning, eventually winning by a lopsided 15-2 score. Snider homered again, as did McCormick and Campanella, and Pee Wee collected four safeties. Branca went the distance, surrendering four hits and walking six. The real fireworks, however, took place after the game, when Leo Durocher was accused of punting the

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cullions of a vituperative Dodgers’ fan who had spent the afternoon disparaging

Leo’s antecedents from a box seat behind first base.

Fred Boysen made the dramatic indictment from his hospital cot, while his attorney, Samuel Reinish, who had been hurriedly retained while the allegedly aching testicles of the unemployed ice cream man were being tended, asserted that a complaint would be filed forthwith against the Giants’ skipper.

“Nothing happened,” protested Leo. “Somebody tried to take my cap as I stepped out of the dugout. I shoved him, grabbed my cap back, and that was all there was to it.”

It was hard to credit Durocher’s disavowal--this was not the first time he had been accused of assaulting a paying customer--besides, Boysen had witnesses.

Granted, one of them was his equally unemployed cousin, but the other--Morris

Golding of West 86th Street--was an apparently neutral bystander. Golding substantiated Boysen’s account of the incident, stating that Leo had attacked the

Brooklyn man from behind, knocked him down and kicked him in the crotch before being subsequently dragged away by Johnny Mize and Giants’ coach Frankie

Frisch.

Leo’s travails grew more serious the next day. Commissioner Chandler, who held Durocher in approximately the same regard as tuberculosis, slapped Leo with an “indefinite” suspension pending a 10:30 hearing on Tuesday. Steaming once again in the hot water in which much of his career had simmered, the embattled

Giants’ manager expanded on this latest incident to reporters:

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“It’s one of those things that happen a hundred times on ball fields when we rush to the clubhouse,” he said. “I can’t understand all this sudden uproar that I struck anybody. If I had been silly enough to have hit this fellow, I would have continued right up to Mr. Stoneham’s office and turned in my resignation.

“About the sixth inning, I heard someone riding me hard from the stands and using pretty vile language. On returning to the bench from the coaching line, I asked some of the players to try and spot him for me. They finally pointed him out, but after taking one look at him, I decided to ignore him, and that I did right up to the end of the game. With the last out, I started from the coaching lines to the clubhouse. Just as I was going past second base, somebody rushed up to me. I thought he was trying to steal my cap, which frequently happens on ball fields. I didn’t even know this was the same fellow who had been riding me from the stands.

I shook him off and continued on my way. And, so help me, that’s all the attention

I gave it until later in the evening the newspapers kept calling me up as if I had murdered somebody.”

The New York players and coaches, none of whom had been sworn in, vouched for Leo’s version of events:

“[Boysen] must be mistaken,” said Johnny Mize. “I was nowhere near Durocher when the trouble started.”

“Leo was just ahead of me as we hustled off the field,” recalled Sid Gordon. “I never saw him strike or jump anybody. This is the most exaggerated nonsense I ever saw.”

73 Bob Mack

Fred Boysen, back home in Flatbush after being discharged from Sydenham

Hospital where attending physicians announced they had discovered no bruises, no lacerations, and no broken gonads, said, “Whoever suspended him knew it was for the best. If Durocher can’t take a razzing, he has no business coaching a team.”

Sam Reinish quit the case less than twenty-four hours after he had taken it, stating that he had fulfilled his duty as a citizen, and besides, he was only a tax attorney. Morris Golding said that Durocher’s suspension was unjust: “I wish I’d never been there. If Boysen will take my advice, he’ll kiss and make up.” The

New York baseball writers, enroute to Boston with the Giants, voted Leo a

“unanimous expression of confidence”, but at McKeever’s Bar in Brooklyn, one patron, reflecting the sentiment of the majority, said of Durocher, “That monkey had a bigger batting average with his fists than he ever had with a . I say give it to him, and give it to him good.”

The Dodgers returned to Ebbets Field on Friday against Heintzelman and the

Phillies, but they had left their bats at the Polo Grounds. Campanella went three for three with a pair of home runs, but the rest of the boys could only manage a double and four singles for their afternoon’s work, and they lost 5-2, falling a half-game behind the Giants.

Campy was leading National League hitters in everything except venereal diseases. The chunky catcher was batting .471, 140 points ahead of runner-up

Willard Marshall; he had clubbed four homers, and knocked in 13, one better than

Pee Wee, who was also among the leaders with an average of .366. Gate receipts had been accumulating handsomely at Sullivan & McKeever. The Dodgers were

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drawing almost 18,000 per game to their cozy little ballpark. If you lived in

Brooklyn, Ebbets Field was home.

Saturday’s game would wrap up the season’s initial month. The weather was beautiful. 19,572 enthusiastic fans chose to watch Jack Banta pitch against Hank

Borowy of the Phils instead of attending the annual parade of progressives along

Eighth Avenue that had been rescheduled from Mayday in order to compete with the annual Loyalty Day Parade taking place simultaneously on Fifth Avenue.

While the leftists and the loyalists promenaded and dosey-doed down the sidewalks of old New York, Burt Shotton continued his quest for a fourth starter.

For a while, it looked as though he might have found one. Banta’s fastball was hopping, he had a 2-0 lead, and he hadn’t allowed a hit as he faced to begin the fourth inning. Banta was a hard thrower--he had paced the

International League in strikeouts in both ’47 and ’48.

Granville Hamner had joined the Phillies at the age of 17 in 1944. His older brother Garvin had followed in 1945. Granny could hit, Garvin could not, but both

Hamners were accomplished hoofers--their sister Dinty was a dance instructor.

Granny’s first full season had been 1948. He had appeared in 129 games. Garvin’s first season had also been his last. He had appeared in 32.

Hamner became Banta’s fourth strikeout victim, but Steady Eddie Waitkus lined a single to left. Banta’s no-hitter was gone, and so was his magic. He hit Del Ennis with a 3-2 fastball, and issued back-to-back walks to Bill Nicholson and Willie

“Puddin’ Head” Jones to force in a run. Eddie Miller stood in. Campanella trotted to the mound to settle his pitcher down. The count went to 2-0. The Old

75 Bob Mack

Sourdough had seen enough. He sent Sukeforth out to change pitchers. Rex

Barney emerged from the . Barney took his warmup tosses, completed the walk to Miller to force in another run, ran the count to 3-2 on Seminick, who lined a two-run single to left center, and walked Borowy to reload the bases. Sukey bolted from the dugout as if it was an outhouse full of wasps. He waved frantically to the pen. Paul Minner took the ball, loosened up confidently, and surrendered a run- scoring single to Ashburn. Seminick scored on Hamner’s second out of the inning.

Waitkus popped out to Billy Cox. Six Philadelphia runners had crossed the plate, and the demoralized Dodgers were trailing for good. In the fifth, Puddin’ Head

Jones cracked a two-out single and Eddie Miller bashed a two-run homer into the lower deck in left. Pat McGlothin took over from Minner. The Phillies torched

McGlothin for four more runs to make the final score 12-4.

No one in the bleachers would have blamed Burt Shotton had he trotted his troubled pitching staff off to a convenient glue factory. There hadn’t been much for the Faithful to cheer about. Reese continued his uncharacteristic power surge with a pair of homers, and Campanella went two for three to raise his average to an incredible .500; but the loss evened the Dodgers’ won-lost record at 6-6, and dropped them into a third place tie with the Cardinals. Baseball men said that you couldn’t win the pennant in April, but you could always lose it. If the race was close in September, the Dodgers’ mediocre start might return to haunt them.

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4th Inning. Early Returns: Wherein Don Newcombe Arrives In The Big Leagues, And Jackie Robinson Exchanges Holiday Pleasantries With The Lip

“Our pitching staff is a conspiracy of if’s.” --Branch Rickey

Jackie Robinson was in a slump. His swings were hard, but his outs were easy, and his infrequent hits had been earned mostly with his legs--bleeders and bunts where he outran an infielder’s throw.

No player ever knew how he got into a slump, and none knew for sure how they’d escaped. “If you want to cure a batting slump,” suggested Phillies’ outfielder Richie Ashburn, “Take your bat to bed with you and get to know it better.

I’ve been to bed with a lot of old bats.”

Slumps seemed to come and go like the common cold. There were mathematicians who did not believe that they existed at all. They thought that every performance anomaly in baseball could be explained statistically except for

Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak in 1941. As the noted philosopher

Lawrence “Yogi” Berra said, “Slump? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hittin’.”

The Dodgers continued their performance anomalies by losing their third straight to the Phillies, 4-2. Preacher Roe surrendered his fifth and sixth home runs of the season to Del Ennis and . Philadelphia pitcher Russ “Mad Monk”

77 Bob Mack

Meyer handled the Bums easily except for Snider, who singled, doubled, and homered, and Robinson, who collected a pair of scratch singles and a stolen base.

Brooklyn’s frustration was so pervasive that even the jovial Campanella was affected, ejected from a game for the first time in his professional career after arguing a called third strike in the eighth inning. The Brooks were a game under

.500 and 2½ behind the pace setting Braves.

While the Dodgers traveled to West Point for an exhibition game against the cadets, the embattled Leo Durocher readied for his hearing with the Commissioner in Cincinnati. Despite the fact that this was not Leo’s first time in the dock, public sentiment in the Big Apple was beginning to tilt in his favor. New Yorkers were rooting for the lion instead of the lamb.

“It’s nice to know that you have somebody behind you,” Durocher rasped.

As it turned out, Fred Boysen was not really a lamb--he was a weasel. An attorney with the unlikely moniker of Julius November had been sitting directly behind Freddie at the Polo Grounds.

“This belligerent customer,” said Mr. November, “ was loud and insulting. He made insulting remarks about Durocher and his wife. He exceeded the bounds of decency. I wondered why he was not ejected from the park.

“After the game, this man jumped over the railing onto the playing field and ran after Durocher. As he approached, he raised one hand over Durocher’s head, maybe to grab his cap, maybe for some other reason. Durocher turned and pushed him and went on his way. He absolutely did not strike him or kick him.”

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A long-time Giants’ fan named George Cronk submitted an affidavit in which he stated that he was the person who’d delivered the fateful kick to Freddie Boysen’s ballocks.

“I watched the game from behind the Dodgers’ dugout,” declared Mr. Cronk.

“After the game, I went out on the field, following Durocher, the other players, and the fans toward the exit. Just after I passed second base, Boysen made a lunge toward Durocher. He apparently must have touched Lippy, because I saw the manager swing his left elbow around and touch the man. But Lippy didn’t look back. Boysen lost his balance and fell. I was so close behind him, I couldn’t help myself--I tripped over him. I suppose I kicked him in the leg or some other place in so doing, and then stepped over him. I apologized, and walked out of the park. I didn’t give the thing a second thought because I thought it was just a trivial incident. At no time did Durocher see Boysen and at no time was Durocher behind

Boysen. I was behind Boysen.

“I remember hearing Boysen heckling Durocher while the crowd was walking across the field. His words weren’t distinct, but they sounded as if he were saying to

Lippy, ‘You’re still the bum you were in Brooklyn,’ or something to that effect.

When I saw Boysen’s picture in the paper, I realized he was the man I tripped over.

I assure you, Durocher didn’t strike him at all.”

Even Leo’s old adversaries in St. Louis were offering support. The Cardinals’ players asked manager Eddie Dyer to contact the commissioner’s office to request leniency for the Lip.

79 Bob Mack

“We don’t know the details whether or not Durocher hit the man,” said coach

Terry Moore. “But we know that the personal abuse you take from the stands is on the increase, and some of the cracks are awfully low--about a player’s wife and family, for instance.

“The worst thing now, though, is that people are rushing onto the playing field during and right after games, stealing gloves, grabbing caps off player’s heads, and even trying to get away with favorite bats.

“We’re not saying ball players or managers should hit anyone, any more than they should be molested. But we do hope for leniency in this case because, under certain circumstances, the same thing could happen to any of us.”

The Daily Worker, whose writers had originally reported the Durocher incident relatively free of Marxist cant, had in the interim discovered that Freddie Boysen was Puerto Rican. Letters to the editor from baseball-loving Brooklyn Bolsheviks made it clear to the communist columnists that Caucasoid Leo had to be guilty of something. A concerned Bill Mardo wrote, “This writer would like to take note of the serious criticism he has received for the errors of omission which resulted in a poor, politically incorrect column. There should have been no discussion of

Commissioner Chandler and Durocher without linking it to the main question of white chauvinism inherent in this whole case.”

While Leo awaited his fate, Burt Shotton’s second stringers took on the army.

The Old Sourdough started Barney against the cadets, hoping to get his fluctuant fireballer straightened out in a setting where he couldn’t damage anything important. The Omaha Wild Man left the game after six innings, trailing 3-0, but

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 80

the score was misleading. Barney had walked seven and tossed a wild pitch. It was safer on the grenade range.

Shotton was frustrated: “I just don’t know what’s wrong with him. I’ve asked other people in the organization, discerning judges, and they don’t know either.

I’ve watched his striding, and I can’t see anything wrong with it. It’s a mystery, this sudden change in him over the winter.”

“I think the danger,” mused the Mahatma, “is that when we go to throw a pitch to the plate, we take in too much territory. You see the big belly of Campanella, and you see that big umpire standing back there, and you see the hitters standing up there, and the strike zone. But you should concentrate and pitch to a spot. Most wildness in normal men is due to a lack of concentration.”

The second place Cincinnati Reds, tabbed in the pre-season as certain cellar- dwellers, roared into Brooklyn sporting a surprising 7-5 log. Ralph Branca, undefeated, and the closest thing Shotton had to an ace, strolled to the soggy mound to brake the Dodgers’ skid before an underwhelming crowd of 6,883. The “Hawk” got stronger as the game progressed. He struck out seven--four in the last two innings--and throttled the Rhinelanders on six hits, winning 3-0. The Dodgers collected eleven singles and a homer by Robinson, his first since Opening Day; but the biggest cheer of the afternoon came in the third inning when “Tex” Rickard, the malaprop-prone public address announcer, informed the Faithful that the

Commissioner’s office had issued a stay of execution for Leo Durocher.

The Lip’s reprieve came about because Commissioner Chandler could not uncover enough evidence to justify a hanging. Still, somebody had to be scolded,

81 Bob Mack

and the Commissioner decided, in somewhat mangled syntax, that it would be the

Giants:

“There is ample evidence that the Polo Grounds was not properly policed on the afternoon of April 28th, or Fred Boysen would not have been permitted to move about in the box seat section for which he had no ticket, and to hurl insulting language, which he directed at Durocher principally, and would not have been on the field at the conclusion of the game. Clubs and leagues are responsible for the policing of their baseball parks. And,” the Commissioner added, “people who go to the games have an obligation to conduct themselves with decency.”

So Leo was back at the helm, and the club owners were vowing to constrain rowdy customers in accordance with the Commissioner’s magisterial afterthought.

A smiling Durocher arrived at LaGuardia Field that evening, posed for photographers, waved to wellwishers, then left for his apartment and a solid night’s sleep. The next installment in the Dodgers/Giants rivalry would not commence until Decoration Day.

The Brooks banged ten hits on Wednesday, and thumped the Reds again, 5-1.

Hodges collected three singles and knocked in his first run of the season.

Hermanski belted an opposite field home run, and Campy extended his hitting streak to ten games with a double and a single--he also surprised everybody in

Ebbets Field, including himself, when he swiped second base. Oakland Joe scattered seven hits and earned his second win. The defense behind him was sterling. Reese, Robinson and Hodges turned the Dodgers’ thirteenth double play

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of the campaign, and Pee Wee robbed Reds’ catcher of a hit when he snared a hot shot in the hole between short and third.

Dodgers’ pitchers had allowed only one run in the last eighteen innings, but they’d been playing the Reds, a team the Flock had owned since 1948 when they’d beaten them 17 times in 22 meetings. The Old Sourdough wasn’t sure whether to attribute the success of his hurlers to their sudden improvement, or to the feebleness of Cincinnati’s alleged hitters. Major league managers were professional worriers.

When things went well, they worried that it wouldn’t last, and when things went poorly, they worried that it would.

At the Polo Grounds, Durocher returned to action and the crowd cheered him from the center field clubhouse all the way to the Giants’ dugout. The Lip, more familiar with lynch mobs than love-fests, said, “That was wonderful. Words can’t describe how it feels. My, but that was a long walk.”

Jack Banta pitched the final game of the Cincinnati series on Thursday against

Herm Wehmeier. Wehmeier, a tall righthander with control problems--he had walked 75 batters and allowed 179 hits in 147 innings in ’48--usually pitched better on the road. At Crosley Field, he had become a preferred target of the boobirds that perched in the bleachers above the “goatrun” in right field.

Banta couldn’t get past the fourth inning. Podbielan and Martin came on in relief, and Billy Cox, after failing to drop a sacrifice bunt in the eighth, belted a three-run homer to defeat old Harry “Gunboat” Gumbert, 7-5. Martin was credited with his first big league win. Robinson, with a double and single, appeared to be breaking out of his slump. Hodges whacked his first home run of the year.

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Campanella’s consecutive game hitting streak was stopped at 10. The sweep improved Brooklyn’s record to 9-7, and tied them with the Giants for second place, one length behind the Braves.

The Cubs were in town on Friday for the first of the season. Johnny

Schmitz, a Dodger-killer in ’48 when he beat them six times, was manager Charlie

Grimm’s choice to open the series for Chicago. Schmitz was another tricky lefthander. His deliveries were so slow that Duke Snider said he once swung at a pitch twice and missed it both times. Burt Shotton, his pitching staff a work in progress, countered with Rex Barney.

Although night baseball was relatively new to the major leagues, the game had been played under the lamps since 1880, when two rival Boston department stores took each other on at Nantasket Beach. The novelty did not catch on with the public as fast as paid holidays. Fifty-five years later, President Roosevelt flipped a switch in the White House, and Crosley Field glowed in the dark six hundred miles away. As once said, “It’s a beautiful day for a night game.” The

Reds defeated the Phillies 2-1, and the era of night baseball was born, midwifed into existence by Cincinnati’s maverick general manager Larry MacPhail, the same character who would later be responsible for turning Durocher loose on Brooklyn.

Most of the major league magnates hated night ball in the beginning. They were conservative men, fond of tradition, slow to change, and distrustful of ideas that had not proven themselves sound while the glaciers were forming. By 1949, however, every team except the Cubs played under the arcs.

“The reason is quite obvious,” explained the Mahatma. “It pays so much better.”

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The 30,041 customers who spun the turnstiles at Ebbets Field on Friday night should have waited for daybreak. The Windy City southpaw hoodooed the Bums again, blanking them for eight and two-thirds innings, and taking a 4-2 decision.

Barney didn’t walk anybody for a change, but Chicago catcher Al “Rube” Walker tattooed a long home run over the scoreboard clock--the 23rd of the year allowed by

Brooklyn pitchers. The loss edged the Brooks perilously close to the break-even point again, at 9-8.

On Saturday, the Dodgers staked Branca to a 2-0 lead in the first, then Chicago outfielder rapped a pair of wind-blown homers, and the Hawk left in the fourth trailing 4-2. The Brooks retaliated with seven runs off dead-armed veteran , sending him into permanent retirement, and winning 10-4 for reliever Pat McGlothin. Snider displayed his blossoming power by slamming an opposite field homer through the gusts, his third of the season, and Billy Cox collected a pair of doubles and a single.

Snider’s early play was justifying the painstaking efforts Rickey had taken in instructing the youngster. It hadn’t been easy. Duke was a good kid, but at times he could be a bullheaded egomaniac, impervious to advice, and prone to pouts and sulks when things did not go his way. The Faithful, convinced they were witnessing the development of a left-handed Joe DiMaggio, were not always patient with the young slugger, and Snider was an athlete who needed back pats and praises. Grandfatherly Burt Shotton was the perfect manager for the mopish center fielder. Shotton loved teaching the game to youngsters. In the Rickian system, this meant instruction in the Heavenly Virtues as applied to baseball. Rickey’s way was

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the Dodger Way, and his lessons were standardized and taught from the lowest of minor leagues all the way to Brooklyn. In Rickey’s estimation, the difference between winning and losing in the major leagues derived from how well or how poorly the fundamentals of the game were executed--and the only way to satisfactorily learn the fundamentals was by constant repetition: “Sweat,” preached the Mahatma, “is the greatest solvent there is for most players’ problems.”

Eddie Dyer’s St. Louis graybeards were playing like pimply adolescents--they couldn’t score. Despite a team average of .277, the Cardinals were plating fewer than four runs per game. Stan “The Man” Musial, the loop’s Most Valuable Player in 1948 when he batted .376 with 39 homers, had been held to a pedestrian .280 mark, and had knocked in only a half-dozen runs. Pitchers weren’t giving Musial much to hit, and when they did, he didn’t.

Oakland Joe, seeking his third victory of the season, started the first game. After five innings, the Dodgers trailed 7-2; then Hodges, his average up to .313, slammed his second homer of the season. Furillo, Tommy Brown, and Hermanski singled to cut the St. Louis margin to 7-4. Robinson led off the seventh with a single.

Campanella, Cox, and Hodges walked. Furillo singled to center. Campanella scored. Reese hit a sure double play grounder that second baseman dropped like a dead rat. Cox scored the tying run. Hermanski hit a low line drive to shortstop. Marty Marion trapped it. Kazak thought the ball had been caught, failed to cover second, and Marion had to throw to first. The force play was botched, and the elusive Reese stayed in a rundown long enough for Hodges to score the go-ahead run. The Old Sourdough called on Preacher Roe to preserve the

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lead. Glenn “Rocky” Nelson tripled to open the ninth. Tommy Glaviano hit a two- hop grounder to Reese. Pee Wee juggled it, but recovered in time to nip Glaviano.

Nelson remained inexplicably rooted to third. Eddie Sauer followed with a low liner inside the first base bag. Hodges made a game-saving grab, and the Brooks won, 8-7. Robinson’s double and two singles brought his season’s average up to an almost respectable .261, and the gratuitous win put the Dodgers’ record at 11-8.

They trailed the first place Giants by a game.

The next day’s affray was a full-fledged disaster. Billy Cox turned his ankle on a spongy spot during infield practice after the groundskeepers had wet down the dirt, and was taken to Swedish Hospital for x-rays. While Cox was being carted off, Tommy Brown pulled a muscle in his leg. Bob Ramazzotti, Cox’s replacement at third, threw a ball away in the first inning that allowed two St. Louis runners to score. Hodges and Furillo committed errors. Morrie Martin failed to cover first on a ground ball and the mental mistake cost the Brooks another run. Bud Podbielan surrendered a three-run homer to the Cardinals’ clubhouse comedian “Harpo”

Glaviano in the third. Eddie Kazak hit a grand slam off Oakland Joe in the eighth.

The Old Sourdough used six pitchers during the 14-5 drubbing. Robinson provided most of the Brooklyn offense with his third homer and a pair of singles, driving in two and scoring three, and boosting his average to .288, but the rest of the lineup had not mustered much of an attack. Campanella, who had started his slump when Robinson’s ended, had managed just one hit in his last 16 at-bats.

The good news from Swedish Hospital was that Cox had not fractured his ankle, but it was severely sprained. He would be unavailable for at least two weeks.

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Shotton would have to use Johnny “Spider” Jorgensen at the hot corner against right-handers, with the weak hitting Ramazzotti starting against southpaws. The skipper’s other problem was that his pitching was deteriorating faster than cheap paint

The final game against the Cardinals was washed out. Shotton decided to let

Barney open the series against the 9-12 Pirates. Pittsburgh manager started 28-year old rookie against the Wild Man in the first of the short two-game set, the fourth lefthander the Dodgers had faced in their last five outings.

Werle was well cured for a freshman, having signed from the Pacific Coast League where he had won 17 and lost 7 in 1948. Pitching mostly in relief for the Buccos, the side-arming Werle was working on a string of sixteen consecutive scoreless innings.

Barney took the mound in unseasonably cold weather and was nicked for a hit by former Dodger Stan Rojek to open the game. He threw a two-strike fastball past another ex-Bum, the old “Peepul’s Cherce”, Dixie Walker, then got set to face the dangerous , a 26-year old slugger from Santa Rita, New Mexico who had averaged 38 home runs per season since his major league debut in 1946.

Barney delivered a blur of a fastball. Kiner smashed it out of the yard, his fifth homer of the season, and the score was 2-0 before the Faithful had warmed up their seats. Werle stifled the Brooks on one hit until the seventh, then weakened in the ninth, allowing a fluke two-run homer to the light-hitting Ramazzotti, but it was too little, too late, and the Dodgers dropped their second straight, 5-3. Barney had walked six and thrown another wild pitch in falling to 0-2 on the year. Robinson

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continued his hot hitting with a double and a single, and was now nudging the .300 mark. Hodges hit in his 13th consecutive game. Campanella went oh for four--the frustrated backstop was batting only a miniscule .050 over the last five games.

Branca halted the Dodgers losing streak the next afternoon, striking out nine, and boosting his record to a perfect 5-0. He was turning out to be the ace of a staff full of wild cards. Furillo and Campanella escaped their slumps, Furillo with a triple and two doubles, and Campy with his fifth homer. The Brooks won 11-6, ending the long homestand with a mediocre 6-6 record. As they packed their gear for a 12- game road trip beginning in Boston, their overall log stood at 12-10. They were one game behind the Braves and Giants.

The date was approaching when major league clubs were mandated to trim their rosters to 25 players. The Mahatma had decided to return Johnny Van Cuyk, Cal

Abrams, , and Kevin Connors to the minors. Despite their pitching woes, the Brooklyn brain trust did not believe Van Cuyk could help them, and the three position players were not ready to hit big league hurling; still, something had to be done to bolster the beleaguered mound corps. Notwithstanding Burt Shotton’s misgivings, Rickey decided that the time had come to promote Don Newcombe.

The next afternoon, the Royals announced that Newcombe “will be pitching his last game for Montreal tonight.” Brooklyn had purchased his contract. Newk was heading for the big leagues.

Braves Field was a dank and windy monolith on the Charles River, one mile west of . Wind whistled into the field from the water, blowing dust and railroad cinders from a nearby switching yard into a batter’s eyes, and forcing

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potential home run balls into holding patterns until outfielders could camp beneath them. Smoke from nearby locomotives imbued the place with the distinctive aroma of barbequed pig-iron. The right field bleachers were known as the “Jury Box”, and were home to bands of rowdy, Narragansett-swilling Irishmen. Runs were usually scarce in the “Teepee”. Pitchers loved the place.

Preacher Roe faced off against Johnny Sain before 32,157 in the series opener on

Friday. Sain was the right-handed half of the “Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain” tandem that had captured the National League pennant in 1948. The Navy veteran had compiled a 24-15 record during Boston’s championship run.

The Braves were a team in turmoil. Despite the repeated denials of players and management, mutinous sentiment was as common in the Boston clubhouse as liniment. Billy Southworth’s postwar teams had a history of dissension. The

Braves’ skipper was a tough taskmaster, quick to claim credit for his team’s successes and faster to blame his players for its failures. Since the death of his son,

Billy Junior, in a watery warplane crash near Flushing, New York in 1945,

Southworth had become emotionally unstable and periodically sodden. His incapacitations left the Braves floundering at times, with emergency management being provided when necessary by hard charging second baseman Eddie “The Brat”

Stanky and teetotaling shortstop Alvin “Blackie” Dark. Billy the Kid was one of the best strategists and tacticians in the game, but he was beginning to drown in an ocean of alcohol, and he was pulling his ballclub down with him.

Stanky, Dark, and third baseman Bob Elliott overwhelmed the Brooks in the opener, combining for 13 hits in 16 trips to the plate, including three doubles by the

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former Dodger Stanky. Preacher was in the showers before the end of the fifth, and the Braves won 6-5 in ten innings on Elliott’s bases-loaded single through a drawn- in infield. Snider had belted the game’s only home run, a drive into the right field bullpen in the opening inning that left the park like a premature ejaculaton. The

Brooklyn defense had turned three double plays to keep the score close; but young

Palica, after escaping a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the ninth, was unable to duplicate the feat an inning later, and the Dodgers dropped into fourth place, a half- game behind the Reds, and two behind the Giants and Braves.

The teams went at it under the lights on Saturday night, Oakland Joe versus Big

Bill Voiselle, the 6’4” South Carolinian who had toiled for the Giants until his trade to Boston in 1947. Voiselle had been the Pitcher of the Year in 1944 when he’d compiled a 21-16 record with a league-leading 161 strikeouts.

Hodges belted a grand slam off the left field scoreboard in the eighth to erase a

4-1 Boston lead, but the Braves tied the game in the ninth, and the teams went into for the second straight day. Robinson tripled Snider home in the twelfth for a 6-5 Brooklyn lead, but Barney was unable to hang on in relief, and

Sibby Sisti’s pinch single in the bottom half won it, 7-6. The Dodgers had dropped four of their last five. Burt Shotton announced that Don Newcombe would be joining the team in Chicago.

In wintry weather on Sunday, blanked the Brooks 4-0 to complete the Boston massacre. It was the second time the Dodgers had been goose-egged by the Braves. The Bums reeled off to the Windy City like catatonic sailors, their season’s log at 12-13. They trailed the Giants and the Braves by four, and had lost

91 Bob Mack

five of their first eight road contests. They weren’t playing like pennant contenders; they were playing like the St. Louis Browns.

During the fifteen-hour train ride from Boston, Bob Ramazzotti was dealt to the

Cubs for former Dodger Hank Schenz and a cash consideration. The Mahatma had not been as interested in reacquiring Schenz as in getting his hands on the cash.

The deal provided him with an additional advantage in that it freed up a roster spot for Newcombe before cutdown day. Schenz was ticketed for the minors. The

Mahatma had also decided to option pitchers McGlothin and Podbielan. Clay

Hopper needed arms in Montreal now that Newcombe was headed south.

Chicago had acquired its “Windy City” sobriquet not from the gales that regularly played havoc with baseballs at Addison and Clark, but from a pair of local bombasts, John Stephen Wright and “Deacon” Bross, who toured the East Coast in the 1850’s loudly touting the virtues of their home metropolis. During the 1893 competition for hosting rights to the Columbian Exposition, Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, had popularized the nickname when he wrote an editorial blasting “the nonsensical claims of that windy city. Its people could not hold a world’s fair even if they won it.”

The Cubs had fallen on hard times since their pennant-winning 1945 season.

Their victory totals had declined from 98 in ’45 to 64 in ’48, although attendance at

Wrigley Field had inexplicably increased. Bad baseball was good business in

Chicago.

Wrigley Field had been built in 1914 as the Federal League home of the Chicago

Whales. Originally known as Weeghman Park, it had been renamed in honor of

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Cubs owner William Wrigley in 1926. Tucked into a residential North Side neighborhood, the ballpark’s brick walls were covered in bittersweet and Boston ivy that had been planted by Bill Veeck in 1937. The Dodgers had not played particularly well in Chicago during the previous two campaigns, winning 11 and losing 11.

The Brooks were only a game and a half ahead of the last place Cubs as the teams began a short series on May 17th. No one in the Dodger organization had expected their pennant-favored squad to be anywhere near the bottom feeders with sixteen percent of the season gone.

Branca took the mound in the opener in search of his league-leading sixth victory. He was tasked once again with halting a Dodgers’ losing streak. Charlie

Grimm countered with Monk Dubiel, the 31-year old right-hander acquired from the Phillies during the winter.

The Cubs were confident they could handle Branca as easily as they had in

Brooklyn, but the Dodgers’ right-hander entered the eighth inning with a three-hit shutout and a 2-0 lead. A pinch-single by Harry “Peanuts” Lowry followed by a two-strike, two-run pinch homer by Forrest “Smokey” Burgess knotted the score, and the Dodgers went into extra innings again. Robinson opened the eleventh with his second double. Hodges followed with a bunt single, extending his hitting streak to 18 games. While Cubs’ second baseman Emil Verban argued the call at first with the baseball tucked safely in his mitt, Robinson rounded third, kept right on going, and scored the go-ahead run. The daring surprised the bone- headed Bruins. Grimm brought in right-hander Jesse Dobernic, and Campanella

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slammed a long homer onto Waveland Avenue. Eddie Miksis, making his first start of the season, singled for the third time, then stole his way to third base. Branca walked, and Reese and Snider singled, putting the Dodgers in front by the comfortable margin of 8-2. The Hawk ran out of gas in the twelfth. Verban singled, and Furillo went back to the ivy to haul in a long drive by Phil Cavarretta.

Andy Pafko slugged his fourth homer of the season into the right field seats.

Shotton sent Sukeforth out to recall Branca. Hank Edwards smacked a homer into the left center field stands off Palica. The Cubs had closed to 8-5 with only one down. Palica retired on a bouncer to Robinson. Frankie Gustine singled, but new Bruin Ramazzotti grounded out to Reese. Branca was 6-0, and the

Dodgers’ losing steak was over.

“You know why [Branca] is a great pitcher this year? The answer is that he doesn’t get mad at himself anymore,” explained Burt Shotton. “Before, if he accidentally pitched high to a highball hitter, he’d get so mad at himself that he’d tighten up and aim the ball. It would go over the plate with nothing on it, and wham! Or it would sail wild. The result was either a base on balls or a base hit-- and he’d be out of there.” The Old Sourdough sighed. “The ball is livelier this season than I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know what they’ve done to it. Maybe they’ve wound the yarn tighter. But whatever it is, there’s no doubt about the ball being much faster.”

Branca and Roe thought that the strike zone, officially codified as the area between the batter’s shoulder and his knees, was undergoing arbitrary revisions by senior circuit arbiters.

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“It’s a laugh these days,” said the Hawk. “They cut about a foot off it. A pitcher just can’t get a strike called above the letters anymore.”

“Sometimes,” agreed the Preacher, “you don’t get the strike if it’s above the waist. That’s really making it tough. You’ve got to get the ball between the belt and the knees.”

“Yeah, and most of the good hitters in this league are lowball hitters.”

“Someone suggested a twenty-inch plate,” said Shotton. “I’m strongly in favor of that, and I’ll tell you why. Every move in the last few years has been to make it tougher for the pitchers. Ballpark owners are moving the fences in and manufacturers of baseballs have developed the liveliest ball in the history of the game. A twenty-inch plate would give the pitchers an equal chance and at the same time not take any of the hitting power and the dramatics of home runs away.”

The Dodgers mauled three Chicago pitchers for 20 hits in Wednesday’s rain- slicked game, building a 12-0 lead before finally winning 14-5. The baseballs weren’t just lively--they were frantic. Snider and Campanella homered, and

Hodges collected a pair of singles to stretch his hitting streak to 19 games.

Everyone in the lineup bagged at least two safeties, including Oakland Joe, who went the route for his third win of the year.

Before the team left Chicago, the Mahatma engineered a swap with the Pirates, obtaining the veteran and a wad of cash for outfielder Marv Rackley.

Hopp was a speedy first baseman/outfielder who had compiled a .294 average over

10 seasons.

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“It scared me that we only had Gil Hodges to play first,” explained Rickey.

“What if he was hurt? We wouldn’t have had a first baseman. What if Bruce

Edwards and Roy Campanella were injured? Shotton would have had to bring in

Hodges to catch, and we still wouldn’t have had a first baseman.”

“[Hopp] will score for you like Jackie Robinson, not just stand around on the bases,” said the Old Sourdough. “I’m tickled to death to have him.”

In St. Louis, the Cardinals were still recovering from the shock caused by the death from cancer of their longtime former owner “Singing” Sam Breadon on May

10th. Breadon and Rickey went back a long way.

“In 1920, when I was field manager and he was a minority stockholder,” said the

Mahatma, “I got him to take over the presidency of the club. We always got along splendidly, even after I came to Brooklyn.”

Well, the man was dead. What was Rickey supposed to say?

The Breadon-Rickey combine had been responsible for building the farm system that had turned the Cardinals into a National League powerhouse, winners of nine pennants and six world’s championships, but they’d had their tiffs. Breadon had fired Rickey as manager in 1925, and demoted him to vice-president. In 1938, he had refused the Mahatma’s entreaties to sue for illegally seizing Cardinal property when the autocratic baseball commissioner had declared

90 Cardinal farmhands free agents. Landis, who despised what he termed Rickey’s

“plantation” system, had accused the Mahatma of illegally signing players, then hiding them in his minor league “chain gangs” until he could sell them. Rickey had been furious. He had been guilty of nothing more, he said, than providing

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employment for players during an economic depression. The Mahatma wanted his day in court to clear his name and recoup financial losses from the Commissioner’s office, but Breadon refused to enter the suit. In 1939, Breadon had fired farm club auditor Donald Beach, an old fraternity pal of Rickey’s, without first notifying the

Mahatma as had been his prior custom. In 1940, he fired manager Ray Blades, another of Rickey’s chums. Singing Sam was breaking up Branch’s old gang faster than Hitler was carving up Europe. The two men parted company for good in 1943 when an irreconcilable difference finally arose--the Cardinal owner refused to re- sign Rickey to another lucrative contract with its clause that guaranteed the

Mahatma his beloved commission on player sales. Now Rickey was in the process of duplicating his achievements in Brooklyn, and Singing Sam’s ashes were scattered in the Mississippi, drifting to the bottom where the sunken hulks of old steamboats rested in the mud.

The Cards had won the pennant in 1946 by defeating the Dodgers in the first playoff series in National League history. They’d finished second in ’47 and ’48.

The current consensus was that the team’s best years were behind it. Most of the stars that had powered the Redbirds through the Forties had grown old or been discarded. The Cards had lost 9 of their last 13, and were two games below .500 at

10-12.

Preacher Roe took the mound under the lights at Sportsman’s Park on Thursday night with his dipsy-doodles under control for the first time. He allowed eight hits-- three by Musial--walked only two, and blanked the Redbirds 2-0. Reese, Mike

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McCormick, and Campanella accounted for the six Dodger hits off lefty Howie

Pollet.

Newcombe made his long-anticipated debut on Friday, and did nothing to make the Faithful forget dearly departed Clarence Podbielan. Newk came on in the seventh, and was cuffed about for four hits in a third of an inning, the coup de grace coming at the hands of Country Slaughter, who smacked a three-run double to put the game in the roost for the Redbirds, 6-2. Shotton had taken a chance in debuting

Newcombe in St. Louis, a city where Negroes could not even purchase grandstand tickets at Sportsman’s Park. The racial slurs directed at the Dodger rookie had been so venomous that an outraged Dick Young devoted the majority of his game story the next day to describing them in detail. Young’s editor deleted the graphic accounts prior to publication. Newk insisted that the hostility of the crowd hadn’t bothered him as much as the segregated, air conditioner-less hotel that he,

Robinson, and Campanella were forced to stay in.

“I had my stuff,” he said. “They just hit it. My arm felt good.”

The rookie’s rough outing did not upset the Dodgers’ manager. Shotton had needed to gauge Newcombe’s self-control. Newk would make his first start Sunday against the Reds.

Duke Snider’s dad had been in the stands at Sportsman’s Park, the first time he’d ever seen his son compete in a big league game. Snider had treated the old man to a three-hit performance that included a booming triple to left center field. The

Dodgers were 15-14, tied for third place with the Reds, three games off the lead.

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Branca went for win number seven in the rubber game on Saturday, but removed himself at the end of the second inning trailing 3-1, claiming that his arm was fine but “I just couldn’t get anything on the ball.” The Brooks clipped right-hander Jim

Hearn for three runs in the fourth, then erupted for eight more in the ninth and won

15-6. Robinson drove in six with a pair of doubles and a single, stole a base, and scored three times. Pee Wee had four hits, including a three-run homer, swiped a bag, and scored five. Barney worked the last three innings to earn his first win, despite allowing a two-run homer to Eddie Kazak in the eighth that cut the

Brooklyn lead to 7-6.

The swing back east began with a Sunday doubleheader in Cincinnati, where the

Dodgers hadn’t lost since 1947. Crosley Field was a cozy little redbrick nest on

Findlay Street and Western Avenue in the West End of the city. Overlooked by the

Superior Towel and Linen Service in left and the Crescent Tool Company in center, ballpark billboards advertised “Hudepohl Beer”, “Petri Wine”, and “Shillito’s

Department Stores”. On game days, vendors sold bratwurst and burgers and Ibold

Cigars in the bleachers. The dimensions were comfortable--the center field fence was only 390 feet from the plate. There was no cinder track in the outfield. An inclined terrace warned players when they were nearing the walls. An embarassing stumble over this treacherous terrain in 1935 had convinced an aged and overweight

Babe Ruth that it was finally time to retire his flannels.

The Cincinnati Red Stockings had been baseball’s first professional team.

Playing for paychecks in the National Association season of 1869, the original mercenaries went undefeated, compiling a 57-0 record, eventually running their

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unbeaten streak--including exhibitions--to 130-0, before losing to Brooklyn 8-7 in

June of 1870. Professionalism had been so successful that it doomed the gentleman’s game that had been played for civic pride and the side bets of the gambling fraternity. It also proved that amateurs had no chance against pros.

The Reds joined the National League in its inaugural season of 1876. They were expelled from the circuit in 1880 for serving beer to the fans. In 1882, they became a founding member of the rival American Association, which had been organized expressly for the purpose of serving beer to the fans. Encouraged by their sudsy supporters, Cincinnati captured the initial AA championship. In 1892, the National

League absorbed the Association, and became a 12-team monolith known as the

“Big League”. In 1919, the Reds captured their first modern-era championship when they defeated the in the World’s Series. Key Chicago players, however, had contracted with New York gamblers to lose intentionally, and the ensuing “Black Sox” scandal changed the face of the game. Club owners instituted the office of Commissioner in 1920, and appointed Kenesaw Mountain

Landis, a former federal court judge from , as the first dictator of Organized

Baseball.

Their victory tainted through no fault of their own, the fortunes of the Cincinnati franchise steadily declined. Radio magnate Powell Crosley purchased the bankrupt ballclub in 1933. Redland Field was renamed, the innovative Larry MacPhail was hired as general manager, and by 1939, the team had regained the National League pennant. In 1940, they defeated the Tigers and won a legitimate World’s

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Championship. Since 1944, the Reds had taken up residence in the second division, with a fifth place finish in 1947 as their best showing.

The Don Newcombe that took the mound for the first game of Sunday’s rainy twin bill was not the same jittery freshman that had been knocked around by the

Cardinals two days earlier. After allowing the first two Cincinnati hitters to reach base on an infield hit and a bloop single, Newk retired the next thirteen in a row.

By then, the Dodgers led 3-0 on back-to-back first inning doubles by Snider and

Robinson, and a two-run single in the second by Newcombe, who could swing the bat like a regular. broke Newk’s hitless string with a single in the fifth.

Virgil “Red” Stallcup collected his second single of the game in the sixth, and Ted

Kluszewski singled in the seventh for the final Cincinnati hit. Newcombe had easily won his first major league start. No Cincinnati batter had gotten any further than second base. It was the first shutout by a debuting National League hurler in eleven years.

“He has the makings of a great pitcher,” observed Reds’ broadcaster .

Hoyt had seen a lot of great pitchers over the years--he had been one himself, winning 237 games over a 21-year career. From 1921 through 1930, he had anchored the mound corps for the great Yankee teams of Babe Ruth and Lou

Gehrig. “He has a smooth and flowing delivery,” Hoyt said. “He gets off the mound and fields his position too. His control for a rookie is excellent.”

Oakland Joe and Reds’ lefty Kenny Raffensberger faced off in the nightcap.

Raffensberger was a forkball pitcher who could thread a needle with his languid serves. His deliveries floated to the plate like beach balls, but the baffled Brooklyn

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batters could not seem to hit them solidly. Hatten had his best start of the year, but

Raffensberger was better, taking a no-hitter into the eighth before Hodges spoiled it with a line single to left. Undeterred, the Reds’ lefty disposed of the next six batters in succession. It was the slow-baller’s third shutout of the season. The 2-0 defeat snapped the Dodgers’ 19-game winning streak in Cincinnati, but the team was now just 2½ games from the top. Robinson had taken over the league RBI lead with 28, and Pee Wee and Campy were tied for third with 24 each.

Following an off day on Monday, the Dodgers began the final leg of their western trip in Pittsburgh. The Pirates were a lack-luster team but customers were attending their games in droves to watch Ralph Kiner launch baseballs into orbit.

The Pittsburgh outfielder was second in the league in batting with a .365 average, and had belted eight homers, one behind Johnny Mize of the Giants. Branca, seeking his seventh win, took the mound for the Dodgers. Shotton benched the .221 hitting Carl Furillo in favor of Johnny Hopp, who presumably knew the pitchers on his old club as well as anybody. Rain had followed the Brooks to Pittsburgh, and they were unable to take batting practice. They didn’t need any. Robinson slammed his fourth and fifth home runs of the season into “Greenberg Gardens” in left in the first and third innings before being clipped by a message pitch in the fifth by , and Snider collected a double and three singles. Branca coasted, losing his shutout in the seventh when former teammate Marv Rackley knocked in

Pittsburgh’s lone run. Hopp was hitless in five tries. The 7-1 win allowed the

Brooks to pick up a half-game on the first place Braves. Robinson’s batting average was up to .324, and his RBI count had reached 32.

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Things were going so well for the Dodgers that Shotton decided to give Barney another start. With lefty Bill Werle pitching for the Bucs, the skipper rested Snider, putting Mike McCormick in center and Tommy Brown in left. Part of the maneuvering paid off. Robinson gave Barney the lead in the first with his third homer in two days, a two-run blast following the first of Brown’s three singles; but the Wild Man couldn’t hold it. He was touched for home runs by Pete Castiglione,

Wally Westlake, and Kiner, and departed in the third inning trailing 4-2. Furillo celebrated his return to the lineup with a two-run game-tying single in the fourth and a 400-foot triple to right center that gave the Dodgers the lead in the sixth. Jack

Banta notched the 8-6 win in relief, evening his record at 1-1. The Brooks had captured 7 of 9 on the road trip after losing their first three. They headed back to

Ebbets Field for a series with the league leading Braves.

Brooklyn had the fever. 33,714 of the Faithful attended Friday’s opener to watch Preacher Roe duel Johnny Sain. The Braves had dropped two in a row, and had not scored a run in fifteen innings. It was chilly, and the wind was blowing in from left. None of the sluggers could beat the breeze, and the game progressed scoreless into the bottom of the seventh. Hermanski blooped a single to left.

Hodges, who was developing into an excellent bunter, sacrificed Hermanski to second. Furillo lined a single to left. Hermanski scored the first run, and moved up a base when outfielder Jim Russell bobbled the ball. Campanella was walked intentionally. The Preacher fanned on a two-strike bunt attempt. Reese hit a slow grounder to Al Dark. Dark’s hurried throw skidded away from first baseman Elbie

Fletcher, and everybody was safe. Spider Jorgensen whacked the next pitch off the

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concrete wall in right. Three unearned runs crossed the plate, and the Dodgers won

4-0. It was Preacher’s second consecutive shutout. When the Giants lost in

Philadelphia, the Bums were suddenly tied for first place.

“I try to keep the hitters off balance, never givin’ ‘em a decent pitch,” said the loquacious Roe. “When I put one over the middle of the plate, it’s an accident and you read about it in the papers. The feller who gets that fat pitch usually slams it over the fence for a home run. I’m always aimin’ for the corners, never throwin’ the same pitch twice, or what the hitter is expectin’. Them hitters get downright suspicious of Ol’ Preach on the mound.

“I was originally a fastball pitcher, except that I wasn’t a pitcher. I was jes’ a thrower. I couldn’t win, neither. Then Al Lopez went to work on me. He taught me a slow curve, a slider, and the start of a screwball. He changed my stance on the mound to improve my control. and taught me the ‘who, what, where, when, and why’ of pitchin’. I haven’t had a losin’ year since.”

On Saturday, Newcombe made his Ebbets Field debut, and Pistol Pete Reiser extracted his revenge on his old club. Newk pitched well, leaving in the seventh with a 6-3 lead; but in the eighth, reliever Morrie Martin allowed back-to-back singles by pinch hitters Phil Masi and . Shotton brought in Erv Palica, who retired Eddie Stanky, then walked Elbie Fletcher. Reiser batted with the bases loaded. Pete worked the count to 3-2, then drilled a fastball onto Bedford Avenue.

The 7-6 win moved the Braves in front of the Dodgers by a game. Robinson collected three more hits, including a little pop fly behind first base that he turned

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into a triple. Jackie’s average had ballooned to .340. The Brooklyn stolen base count reached 31 when Pee Wee swiped two and Hermanski one.

On Sunday, the Dodgers faced an old nemesis, the Braves’ five-game winner, hooknosed southpaw Warren Spahn. Spahnie was a 28-year old war veteran whose resume included the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He had thrown grenades in

Europe for four years before returning to the States in ’46 to toss baseballs for bullion.

“After what I went through overseas,” Spahn said, “I never think of anything I’m told to do in baseball as hard work. You get over feeling like that when you spend days on end sleeping in frozen tank tracks in enemy threatened territory. The army taught me something about challenges and about what’s important and what isn’t.

Everything I tackle in baseball and in life I take as a challenge and not as work.”

Robinson came to the plate in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and the

Dodgers trailing 2-1, and lined a two-run single to left. Oakland Joe set the Braves down in order the rest of the way, and the Bums eked out a 3-2 win. Brooklyn was in a three-way tie for first with Boston and New York. Next on the schedule was a holiday twin bill with Durocher’s Giants at the Polo Grounds. The season was beginning to get interesting.

***

Managing a baseball team was an inexact science. The only thing a manager knew for sure was that, sooner or later, he would be fired. His job performance was measured in wins and losses, but no one could pinpoint for how many of each the

105 Bob Mack

field boss was responsible. A manager was always judged on circumstantial evidence.

“The big job,” said Burt Shotton, “is to find out what the players’ peculiarities are, what you can expect from them, what you can’t. The big thing is to work on what they can do, but don’t do well. The less I have to do with a team once it’s set, the less I have to fuss with it, the better for the team.”

Leo Durocher, on the other hand, loved to fuss. “I’m never satisfied with my ball club. I always want to try something. First, you’ve got that 25-player limit, and look, who are you going to let go? You just don’t let go of a player at random. If you’ve got two infielders, you try and keep the one who can play the most positions, the one you can get the most mileage out of. Then, when your team is set, you’re still not set. If you’ve got an ‘anesthesia’ ball player, you’ve got to get rid of him. Say he’s at second base. He’s failing you every day over there. It’s like being in the hospital with your leg amputated, and someone comes in and says,

‘How are you?’ You say, ‘All right.’ You don’t know your leg is off, you’re still under the anesthesia. That’s what’s happening at second base. Your leg is off there and you don’t know it.”

On the field, a manager’s style reflected his personality. Shotton was calm and non-confrontational; he managed in street clothes and stayed in the dugout.

Durocher was a bellicose back-alley brawler who ran his team from the third base coaching box, and enjoyed nothing better than wrangling with umpires.

“If a player jumps up, I jump up,” said the Lip. “It makes him feel his skipper is behind him, fighting for him. If the decision against me is a bang-bang play, and I

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squawk loud enough, maybe we’ll get the break on the next close one. One break, and you can win a game.”

Leo believed that his performances energized his team, and he would conduct them even when they were unnecessary: “Sometimes the ump admits to me, ‘I missed that one,’ before I even start to tell him what a woodenheaded son-of-a-bitch he is. But I keep on talking. Maybe I’m telling him I’ll buy him a beer after the game.”

Leo believed in the knockdown pitch and the sucker punch. He thought that nice guys finished last. He strategized like a poker player; the Old Sourdough preferred chess.

“I play hunches,” the Lip said pointedly. “Maybe other managers are afraid to take chances.”

***

53,053 customers, the largest crowd of the season in the National League, jammed the Polo Grounds on Monday for the dual melees between the co-leaders.

People were packed end to end in front of the Eighth Avenue police barricades.

The Giants and the Dodgers were the best hitting teams in the league, the Polo

Grounders at .278 with 41 homers, and the Flock at .272 with 34 roundtrippers.

The New York advantage in power was offset by Brooklyn’s baserunning--

Shotton’s jackrabbits, led by Robinson and Reese, had stolen 31 bags to the Giants’

11. The disparity in foot speed equalized the run scoring potential of the two clubs: the Giants were averaging 5.6 runs per game, the Dodgers 5.66. Pitching, as was usually the case, was going to be the difference.

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Rex Barney’s control problems had been easing. Rickey himself had worked with the Wild Man for hours. No one could discern any technical faults--Barney’s mechanics were sound; but when he traded velocity for accuracy, he surrendered hits. The Old Sourdough fretted every time he sent the Wild Man to the mound.

Monte Kennedy was the only left-hander in Durocher’s four-man rotation.

Kennedy had gone 4-3 thus far, but he was one-dimensional, unable to consistently throw his curveball for strikes--a death sentence in the major leagues, unless a pitcher could compensate with a fast one that trailed smoke and showed more movement than a Miami fan dancer. Kennedy had fanned seven Cubs in his last start in Chicago and still lost 3-2.

The Giants were happy to be back home. They had dropped 7 of 12 out west, but at the Polo Grounds, where their pull-hitting sluggers held an advantage--Mize was second in the league behind Kiner with nine homers, and Sid Gordon and

Bobby Thomson were tied for third with seven each--the Giants were 13-3. The

Dodgers had won 10 of 17 on the road--good baseball, but not up to the home pace of the New Yorkers. Durocher, who knew the odds on everything from horse races to high jumping, thought he would win two of the three games.

Barney and Kennedy pitched like wraiths from the dead-ball era, trading goose eggs for seven innings. Barney had allowed just three hits and Kennedy four. In the eighth, the Wild Man singled and moved to third on a sacrifice and an infield out. Furillo laced his third hit into right. Barney walked home, and the Brooks had broken the deadlock. Kennedy’s arm was turning to mush. Robinson ripped a double to right. Furillo stopped at third. The Lip brought right-handed Andy

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“Swede” Hansen in to face Hodges. Hodges was hitting .302, but had only managed one hit in his last fifteen at-bats. Shotton pinch-hit with the lefthanded

Hopp. With first base open and Jorgensen on deck, Leo decided to pitch to the lefty. Hunches. The ex-Pirate popped out to the catcher.

Barney was still throwing smoke. Durocher sent three consecutive pinch-hitters to the plate in the bottom half of the inning, and the Wild Man retired all of them.

The Dodgers went down meekly in the ninth. Barney needed three outs. He walked

Whitey Lockman. With the tying run on first, Bobby Thomson was late getting around on a fastball and skied out to Furillo in right. Willard Marshall walked.

Lockman moved into scoring position. Sid Gordon worked the count to 3-2 and looked at strike three. Johnny Mize was up. The Big Cat took a ball. Barney went into his motion. Strike one. Campanella tossed the ball back to Barney and resumed his squat. The Wild Man fired the next pitch over Campy’s head and back to the screen. Lockman raced to third and scored when Campanella couldn’t find the ball. The game was tied, and the winning run was perched on third. Shotton sent Sukeforth out to make the pitching change. Erv Palica was ordered to intentionally walk Mize. The Old Sourdough would take his chances with Walker

Cooper. Despite his perennial All-Star status, the veteran catcher had been in

Durocher’s doghouse for most of the season. He was hitting only .221. Palica popped him up, and the game went into extra innings.

Dave Koslo was the Giants’ new pitcher. Leo had been using Koslo mainly out of the bullpen. The southpaw was unscored upon in his last 16 1/3 innings.

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Thomson led off the New York eleventh with a two-bagger and moved to third on an infield out. Shotton ordered intentional walks to Gordon and Mize, then pulled his infielders and outfielders in, and crossed his fingers. Cooper was up with another chance to win the game. The Polo Grounds was rocking. He bounced into a double play. Leo’s backstop was breaking more hearts than Rita Hayworth.

The game inched into the thirteenth. Koslo was pitching in and out, hitting the corners. He hadn’t allowed a hit. Robinson thought the lefthander would work him away. Koslo’s pitch caught too much of the plate, and Jackie lined it into the lower deck in right field. The homer won the game for the Dodgers, 2-1. Durocher was furious at his catcher.

“I told Cooper to hit to right field [in the 12th]! Robinson was playing behind second base. Reese was pulled way over. Even an easy grounder on that side of the diamond would have scored the winning run. Cooper refused to do it. He pulled the first pitch down towards third. It was a double play around the horn. The inning was over and we lost the game right after that.

“Here’s the point--Cooper is a long ball hitter. He hits well to left field. But I’m the manager. You can only have one manager on a team. He can be wrong, dead wrong. But that’s the way it’s got to be until he gets fired.”

Branca took the mound in the nightcap against Clint “Hondo” Hartung. Hartung had been a “can’t miss” prospect who had missed. Branca, 7-0, had been pitching like all season, but this time he pitched like Andrew, and the Giants impeached him. Lockman belted a two-run homer in the first. Singles by Marshall,

Thomson, Rigney, and Mickey Livingstone plated two more runs. In the second,

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Mize belted his 10th homer, scoring Sid Gordon in front of him. In the seventh,

Snider hit a two-run blast for the Dodgers to bring the score to 7-4. Robinson followed with a single, tried to steal second while Leo was making a pitching change, and was sent back to first by Umpire . A ruckus flared. There had been bad blood between Robinson and Durocher for a long time.

“He doesn’t not like you because you’re black,” Pee Wee Reese once told

Jackie. “He doesn’t like you because you’re you.”

Robinson had reported to spring training in ‘48 woefully out of shape after a hard winter on the Fried Chicken Circuit. Durocher took one look at his porcine infielder, put him in a rubber suit, and said, “Start running, fat boy.”

Durocher and Robinson were fierce competitors who shared a love for winning games and taunting opponents. Between the white lines, they played under the black flag.

“I love it when Leo starts out of the dugout,” said Mrs. Durocher, the actress

Laraine Day. “I think everybody does. He sort of erupts out, like boiling water.”

Mrs. Durocher was from Hollywood. She appreciated a good show. After marrying Leo, she had contracted her husband’s antipathy to Robinson and the

Dodgers.

“Anybody who likes Leo and the Giants is my friend,” she said. “Anybody who likes the Brooklyn baseball team isn’t. With Leo and me, it’s best to have the

Giants win, and next best to have the Dodgers lose. That’s just how I feel about

Brooklyn. Leo does too, and I don’t care who knows it.”

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The Lip lived the way he managed--as if there were no tomorrow, and the sun was going down rapidly today. He had met his wife, the former Mrs. Ray Hendricks, in

Los Angeles, chivvied her to Juarez for a Mexican divorce, and wed her in Texas because she was still legally married in California. “My God,” said Leo, “I came west to play golf, and I end up with a wife and three kids!”

Durocher’s domestic arrangements provided fodder for Robinson’s sharp tongue: “I can smell Laraine’s pussy.”

“My dick to you, Robinson!”

“Give it to Laraine. She needs it more than I do.”

“Tell that cocky bastard to shut up and play ball,” the Lip told umpire Barlick.

The Dodgers lost 7-4. Robinson angrily asked reporters, “Who does Durocher think he is, that I can’t talk to him! Where does he get off that I’m cocky?”

Schoolyard stuff--Durocher and Robinson were like two delinquents scuffling over someone else’s lunch money. The fans loved it. They loved anything that helped fuel the duel between Brooklyn and New York.

***

Baseball and Brooklyn--like an old married couple, they had been intimate so long that there were no secrets between them. In the 1850’s, when America was first going mad for the game and social clubs formed by the dozens for the purpose of competition, the Excelsiors of Brooklyn were one of the first of the amateur congregations to dimly realize that it mattered not how you played the game, but whether you won or lost, a sentiment echoed by Leo Durocher ninety years later.

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By 1858, the Island was home to four famous ballclubs--the Excelsiors,

Atlantics, Eckfords, and Putnams. Across the East River were the Knickerbocker,

Gotham, Empire, Eagle, and Union clubs. Members paid dues for the privilege of playing, and the squads were large, consisting of the “first nine”, and the bench warming “muffins”. Inter-city games did not exist, but public interest and rivalry between the Island and its neighbor grew to the point where an all-star match between representatives of the various teams attracted thousands of customers willing to shell out fifty cents apiece to watch the antagonists compete. The contest was played on the Fashion Race Course on Long Island on July 20, 1858. Extra trains were called into service on the Flushing Railroad to handle the demand for transportation. The clubs rode to the grounds in omnibuses festooned with pennants, and drawn by prancing teams of horses with feathers in their livery.

Thimble-riggers and cardsharps erected tables by the entrance where they fleeced the arriving gullibles of their gold. Inside the grounds, vendors sold lager beer and water.

New York defeated Brooklyn 22-18 in this first game for which paid admissions had been charged. The idea of baseball as a business was born. Holder, the

Brooklyn second baseman, had made the only “home strike”, and, as reported in the

New York Times, “a beauty it was, clean out of the middle field, which brought him to the home base amidst the most unbounded applause.” Van Cott, the New York pitcher, was commended for “stealing runs judiciously,” and Wright and O’Brien for “catches on the fly in the long fields.”

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After the match, refreshments were furnished to players and guests. Van Cott proposed a toast: “Health, success, and prosperity to the members of the Brooklyn

Base Ball Clubs.” Everything, said the Times, “passed off in the most good- humoured manner, and the Base Ball match between the Brooklyn and New York nines will be long remembered with pleasure by all lovers of this noble and invigorating game.”

***

The last game of the month was played under the lights at the Polo Grounds on

Tuesday evening before 43,922 impassioned spectators. The Giants and the

Dodgers were the hottest ticket in town. Durocher started on two days rest against rookie Morrie Martin. Jack “Lucky” Lohrke, who had received his nickname after providentially exiting a minor league team bus in Spokane fifteen minutes before it crashed into a ravine and killed eight of his teammates, belted a homer and three doubles. The Brooks tied the game at 4-4 in the ninth on a Hodges homer into the upper deck in left. The teams went into extra innings again, two punch-drunk pugs, neither one smart enough to know when he was beaten.

Durocher had apparently decided to see how much abuse Jansen’s arm could take before it fell off. The right-hander remained in the game until the fourteenth inning.

Shotton, meanwhile, had yanked Martin in the fourth, then used Palica, Branca, and

Jack Banta.

Furillo led off the fourteenth with a go-ahead homer into the same area that

Hodges had targeted earlier, and Campanella smashed a triple. Leo finally took pity on the worn-out Jansen, and replaced him with the lefty Koslo. Banta, who had

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hurled 4 2/3 innings of no-hit relief, drilled a single. Campy bounced across the plate, and the Dodgers won 6-4. The game had taken nearly four hours to play, and had been marked by a skirmish that saw Robinson and Sid Gordon hit by pitches.

The Giants and the Dodgers--fisticuffs, , rhubarbs, and extra-innings.

Good humored baseball. You had to love it.

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5th Inning. The Race Begins: Wherein Stan The Man Begins His Annual Blitzkrieg Of Flatbush, And Annie Gets Her Gun In Chicago

“Problems are the price you pay for progress.” --Branch Rickey

Stan Musial was as fond of Brooklyn as Sitting Bull had been of the Little Big

Horn. Stan the Man hit so well at Ebbets Field that even the hard-bitten Flatbush

Faithful admired him: “If someone must beat us, leave it be dat ‘Musical’ instead of one of dem udder bums.”

In 1948, Musial had rocketed baseballs around the Dodgers’ domicile at a .522 clip. He had hit safely in 24 of 46 at-bats, belted four homers, knocked in 12 runs and scored 17. If he had been a disease, he would have been quarantined. In his first two games at Brooklyn in 1949, Stanley had batted .333 and scored five runs.

Musial had a unique left handed batting stance that was described variously as

“corkscrewed”, “peek-a-booed”, or “like he was looking around the corner for the cops.” He was earning $50,000 a year, but team owner Fred Saigh said he was worth $2,000,000: “That’s how much Musial means to me at the gate and to the

Cardinals.” Saigh was attempting to quell reports that had him shipping Stanley to the Pirates. “I would need to have my head examined if I sold or traded Musial. It would be impossible to give up a player like that and continue to live in St. Louis.”

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Rumor had it that the Redbirds were in desperate financial straits. Lawton

Carver, sports editor of the International News Service, had authored a story in which he reported, “The Cardinals aren’t drawing enough at the gate to pay postage on a letter of denial of their plight.” This was not quite accurate. Despite two games at which the only people in the stands appeared to be Fred Saigh and his beer vendors, the Cardinals were averaging almost 15,000 in attendance, not exceptional, but hardly a harbinger of imminent collapse.

The Cards, in fact, were streaking as they visited Brooklyn for the second time.

They had won 7 of 8, improved their record to 19-18, and had closed to within 2½ games of the Dodgers. One of the reasons for the turnaround was that Musial was finally starting to hit. Preacher Roe was asked how he planned to pitch to the St.

Louis slugger: “Throw him four wide ones, then try and pick him off first base.” In the first inning, Musial belted a long home run. Preacher craned his neck as the ball disappeared over the right field screen: “That guy is the best hitter I ever seen!”

The St. Louis starter was a jug-eared sinkerballer from Oklahoma named Alpha

“Cotton” Brazle. Brazle had compiled a 4-2 record in the early going. The

Dodgers were drained after their fourteen-inning marathon at the Polo Grounds, but they nicked Cotton for three runs in the third. Robinson scored the final tally from first base after a single by Hodges and an errant throw by outfielder Chuck Diering.

The play resulted in the ejection of Cardinal catcher Del Rice following an entertaining, equipment-tossing tantrum during which Rice made the mistake of pushing Umpire Scotty Robb.

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Musial's second homer of the game, an opposite-field drive into the left center field seats in the ninth, chased Roe and tied the score at 3-3. Brooklyn relievers

Palica and Morrie Martin walked the bases loaded. Vernal "Nippy" Jones hit a , and Bill Baker, the replacement catcher, cracked a two-run double.

The Brooks filled the bases in the bottom half, but couldn't score, and the Redbirds took a 6-3 decision. Musial’s two homers and single had boosted his average fourteen points to .284--.500 at Ebbets Field--knocked the Flock out of the lead, and moved the Cards to within 1½ games of second place. The grand eccentric Satchel

Paige once said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” The

Dodgers could hear the footfalls behind them.

***

The Atlantic Base Ball Club of Brooklyn won the 1859 championship with an

11-1 record. In 1860, the rival Excelsiors added the phenomenal Jim Creighton to the roster, and took dead aim at the Atlantics’ crown. In an era when the idea was for the pitcher to let the batter hit the ball, Creighton’s novel concept was to try and not let anybody hit anything. He threw an underhand, rising fastball that he delivered with a snap of the wrist from 45 feet away. He also developed a change- up, which he called his “dew-drop”.

On June 30, 1860, the Excelsiors traveled to upstate New York--the first road trip in baseball history. They won five straight games, then returned to the Island for a big match against the Atlantics. Over 12,000 spectators swarmed the

Excelsiors’ Court Street grounds on July 19th. Crowds watched from nearby rooftops. Daredevils who couldn’t find other accomodations hunkered down on the

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masts and spars of docked sailing ships. Creighton pitched for the home nine, and the Excelsiors defeated the reigning champions 23-4. On August 8th, the two teams met again on the Atlantics’ home turf at the corner of Marcy and Gates. A huge throng of gamblers, fancy dans, and pickled partisans enveloped the grounds.

Creighton’s deliveries lacked their usual snap, and the Atlantics scored nine runs in the seventh inning, holding on for a 16-14 win. The rubber match for the championship was played on the Putnam’s field on August 23rd before a host of spectators, most of who had bet money on the reigning champs. The rowdies in the crowd outnumbered the decorous and--after swilling redeye for half the game--went completely out of control. Cursed by dangerous sots that had wagered on the

Atlantics, and pummeled with fruits, vegetables, and empty whiskey bottles, the

Excelsiors refused to take the field for the sixth inning. Leading 8-6, they retreated from the grounds followed by gangs of jeering roughnecks. The match was declared a draw, and the champions officially retained their title. The Excelsiors finished the long season as runners-up. In November, Creighton pitched the first shutout game in baseball history.

The Atlantics continued to rule in the blood year of 1861--the season inconveniently shortened by civil war--before being dethroned by the Eckfords in

1862. On October 18th, one month after the great battle near Antietam Creek, Jim

Creighton took a mighty swing during a game against the Morrisania Unions, and heard what he thought was his belt snap. Four days later he had bled to death from a ruptured bladder, baseball’s first on-the-field casualty. He was just 21 years old.

119 Bob Mack

After the untimely demise of their star pitcher, the Excelsiors faded as a top-tier club. The Atlantics see-sawed through the decade alternating championship years with second place finishes. They claimed the title of 1869 by beating the defending champion Eckfords, although the Red Stockings of Cincinnati had gone undefeated.

That set the stage for a winner-take-all match in 1870, the self-proclaimed champions from Brooklyn against the unblemished powerhouse from the

Porkopolis. The Red Stockings arrived in town brandishing an official 89-game winning streak.

The contest was held at the Capitoline Grounds in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the only park in history to feature an outhouse in right field. Any player hitting a ball over the red brick privy was treated to a bottle of champagne, after which he was allowed to visit the facility to redeposit it.

The Atlantics provided the game balls, which they had hospitably frozen beforehand, further deadening horsehides that were already candidates for last rites.

The game was played in a July heat that had wilted everything except, said the New

York Times, “the miserable partisan character of the assemblage which was the most discreditable gathering we have seen on the Capitoline Grounds for many years.”

The game was tied 5-5 after nine innings, and the Atlantics, satisfied to retain their title on a draw, left the field. The umpire, heeding the threats of rambunctious topers who had paid fifty cents apiece to see the game and bet God only knew how much on a clear winner, informed the Atlantics that they would forfeit if they did not reappear. The game went to extra innings. In the bottom of the tenth, the

Atlantics put two men on base. Red Stockings’ shortstop George Wright

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intentionally dropped a popup and turned it into a nifty double play that killed the rally. Fortunately for Wright, the infield fly rule had not yet been invented.

Cincinnati scored two go-ahead runs in the top of the eleventh, but Brooklyn scored three in the bottom half, winning 8-7 and retaining their title until they were beaten by the Mutuals later in the year. In 1869, the Red Stockings had gone undefeated, and had earned only $1.39 in profit. After the loss to the Atlantics, their investors withdrew, no longer willing to support a club that had unaccountably slipped to 89-

1.

“The baseball mania has run its course,” trumpeted the Cincinnati Gazette. “It has no future as a professional endeavor.”

Harry Wright and his brother took their business and most of their players to

Boston.

In 1871, baseball’s first professional league, the National Association, was formed. Brooklyn did not field a team until 1872, by which time their best players had jumped to other clubs. When the National League was inaugurated in 1876, the

Atlantics were not invited to join.

***

By the time Big Newk faced off against the Cardinals’ Harry “The Cat”

Brecheen on Thursday night, 32,992 of the Faithful had squeezed into Brooklyn’s bantam-sized ballpark. Organist Gladys Gooding, an Ebbets Field institution since the late thirties, performed the National Anthem, and freckly Al “Red”

Schoendienst stepped to the plate, as spotted as a Dalmatian. The Cardinals were playing without the services of catcher Del Rice, who had been suspended and fined

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$50 by league president Ford Frick for his part in Wednesday’s brouhaha. The suspension, said Frick, was for “laying hands upon an umpire”. The fine “was for prolonging the argument.”

Newcombe was throwing seeds, and the switch-hitting Schoendienst went out easily, as did shortstop Marty “Slats” Marion. Musial stepped to the plate. When

Stan was in his groove, there was no “book” on him. He turned on inside pitches and belted outside pitches to left. He hit everything. Newk just reared back and fired. Musial singled. Ron Northey grounded a hit between Robinson and Hodges.

Musial moved to third. Newk stared in for Campanella’s sign, started his windup, and dropped the baseball. Home plate umpire Babe Pinelli called a . Musial scored, and Northey advanced to second. Unnerved, Newcombe uncorked a wild pitch before finally retiring Chuck Diering.

In the second inning, Robinson reached base on Eddie Kazak’s error, swiped second, and scored on a hit by Campanella. Pee Wee slugged a two-run homer in the fifth. Jackie stole home in the sixth. The Dodgers led 4-1. Newk had settled into a rhythm, but by the ninth, he was losing steam. Spotted Al Schoendienst opened the inning with a single. Newcombe retired Marion, and that brought

Musial to the plate, as welcome as tetanus. Stan ripped a tracer that almost stripped

Robinson of his glove. Northey whacked a long drive that caromed off the screen above Furillo. Schoendienst scored. Musial stopped at third. Hal Rice scored

Musial with a long sacrifice fly. Kazak singled Northey home to tie the game. Jack

Banta relieved Newcombe. Ebbets Field had gone as quiet as a country graveyard.

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Banta retired rookie first baseman Glenn “Rocky” Nelson easily and the shell- shocked Dodgers crawled off the diamond.

George “Red” Munger set the Flock down in the ninth. The Dodgers were facing their sixth extra-inning game of the year, the third in four days. St. Louis pecked away at Banta, but he kept walking Musial, and none of the other Cardinals could knock anyone in. relieved Munger in the eleventh. The Brooks were tired from all the overtime, and couldn’t manage even a loud foul. In the fourteenth, Stan the Man batted with runners on first and second. Banta was pitching his fifth inning in relief. Shotton had Paul Minner up in the bullpen, but decided to go with the weary Banta. Banta was worn out, and with two men on base, he could no longer pitch around Musial. Stan fouled off three pitches, and clobbered the fourth high off the right field scoreboard.

“Judas Priest!” exclaimed the Mahatma from the owner’s box, “that Musial can hit!”

Shotton made his pitching change. Now he had the left-handed Minner facing the right-handed Diering. The tired Old Sourdough was operating bass-ackwards.

Diering doubled. Musial scored. The Redbirds won 7-4, and the Cardinals moved to within a half-game of the Brooks.

Oakland Joe started on Friday. The Cards took a 2-0 lead in the fifth on a two- run homer by Nippy Jones, but the Dodgers spoiled ’s shutout in the seventh, climbing ahead when Hodges connected for his fifth roundtripper, and finally winning by a 5-2 count. Musial ended his Ebbets Field sabbatical with 11

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hits in 13 at-bats, including a triple and two homers. He had boosted his average thirty points to .302.

The Dodgers’ victory left them only a game and a half behind the league leading

Braves with what they hoped would be an easy series with the last place Pirates coming up.

Pittsburgh was awful. They had Ralph Kiner and little else. Manager Billy

Meyer had used 30 pitchers in one ten-game stretch, and they had been bombarded for 63 runs on 114 hits. They had taken more shots than Fort Sumter. Meyer had an outfield that could hit the ball but couldn’t catch it, and an infield that could turn the double play, but botched everything else. Bill Werle and Murray Dickson, his two reliable pitchers, never got any run support, and the others could never get enough.

Meyer had managed in the Yankees minor league organization for sixteen years and had ended up suffering a heart attack; Lord only knew what the Pirates were going to do to him.

Kiner was having a Triple Crown season--he was leading the league in average and home runs, and he was dating the Chiquita Banana girl. People came to the park early just to watch him take batting practice. Kiner was mildly dyslexic and prone to malaprops--he once told a teammate who was hanging his pitches that he was “holding his balls too tight.”--but his hitting was as grandiloquent as a well- oiled Southern stump-speaker.

The Dodgers had played the equivalent of seven and a half games in five days.

The bullpen was blown, especially Banta, who had made three appearances totaling

15 2/3 innings. At the rate Shotton was using his pitchers, they’d be paralyzed by

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the All Star break. The Old Sourdough decided to give the erratic Barney another try. He hoped that the Wild Man could at least last long enough to give the relievers a rest.

***

The residents of Kings County were devotees of all things Brooklyn, from

Nathan's hot dogs and Mrs. Stahl's knishes to the tar covered old cobblestones whose tops got so soft in the summer that boys wrote their names on them with popsicle sticks--and there was nothing so redolent of Flatbush as the Dodgers.

After the formation of the National League in 1876, Brooklyn no longer hosted a professional baseball club. The third largest city in the United States had become a sports backwater, as high and dry as a steamboat landing after the river had changed course. In 1883, realtor Charles H. Byrne organized a new franchise in Brooklyn.

The team joined the infant American Association in 1884. In 1885, they finished

26 games behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Brown Stockings. Known variously as the “Atlantics” or the “Grays”, the Brooklyn team had by 1888 improved to 88-52, and had closed to within 6½ games of St. Louis. In 1889, led by outfielder Thomas P. “Oyster” Burns (.304, 100 RBI) and pitcher

(40-11) the club wrested the flag from the Brownies and acquired a new nickname--

“Bridegrooms”--after four of their players had simultaneously “jumped the broomstick”. In 1890, the ‘Grooms and the Reds joined the National League.

Brooklyn, powered by Oyster’s 13 homers and 128 RBI, became the only major league team to ever win consecutive pennants in two different leagues. The Island was back on top. Playing its home games at breezy near the junction

125 Bob Mack

of a number of heavily used trolley tracks, the club acquired a new nickname in honor of the many spectators who cheated death by commercial vehicle in order to watch them play: “Trolley Dodgers”.

The game of the ‘90’s was a rough, tough sport played by a group of hard and profane old cobs who mauled opponents and umpires, and invented tactics such as the bunt and the hit-and-run play that were still used successfully sixty years later.

The main proponents of this style of “inside baseball” were the , managed by the innovative Edward Hugh “Ned” Hanlon, and his two on-the-field leaders, firebrand third baseman John J. McGraw, and brainy catcher Wilbert

Robinson.

In 1893, baseball’s rules were altered. The pitching distance was increased to sixty feet, six inches. The league batting average jumped like a scalded frog. In

1894, the opportunistic Orioles invented the Baltimore chop, perfected the bunt, and led the loop in hitting with a .343 team average, winning the first of three consecutive National League championships. In 1899, Hanlon left Baltimore with a wagonload of ex-Birds, including outfielders “Wee Willie” Keeler and , and took over as Brooklyn’s manager. The Trolley Dodgers were now called

“Hanlon’s Superbas”, after a vaudeville troupe of the same name. They improved by 47 wins, vaulting from tenth place to first, and won the pennant in ’99 and ’00.

Following the death of Charles Byrne, the club’s secretary-treasurer Charles

Hercules Ebbets assumed the presidency. Ebbets was Brooklyn to the bone, a former alderman and avid bowler who had started his baseball career selling tickets at old Washington Park. The new boss was concerned about the rent he was being

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 126

charged at his current venue. His club was successful but not wealthy, and they weren’t going to improve their cash flow by spending money needlessly. He moved the team to its former grounds near the odiferous Gowanus Canal, and in

1908, began to quietly purchase pieces of a reeking garbage dump in a central

Flatbush location known as “Pigtown”.

Brooklyn was changing. In 1898, the city had merged with , Queens, the Bronx, and Richmond to form Greater New York. Brooklyn was now one of five boroughs, four of which suffered in comparison with the glittery media fulcrum that was Manhattan. Manhattan was the beautiful sister with all the boyfriends;

Brooklyn and the others wore hand-me-downs and stayed at home on Saturday nights.

The Superbas declined on the field. In 1902, Brooklyn Charlie purchased a controlling interest in the team, blocking Hanlon from acquiring ownership, and foiling the manager’s scheme to move the club to Baltimore. By 1905, Hanlon was out as field boss, replaced by , , then . By the end of 1911, Ebbets had completed purchasing his four and a half acre garbage dump in Pigtown, and in 1912, he was ready to begin construction of a fireproof ballpark upon a foundation of mud, old fruit rinds and coffee grounds.

"I've made more money than I have expected to, “ he said, “but I am putting all of it, and more, too, into the new plant for the Brooklyn fans. Of course, it's one thing to have a fine ball club and win a pennant, but to my mind, there is something more important than that about a ball club. I believe the fan should be taken care

127 Bob Mack

of. A club should find a suitable home for its patrons. This home should be in a location that is healthy, should be safe, and it should be convenient."

The site of Brooklyn Charlie’s new park, if not yet healthful, was about as convenient as it could get. Just east of Prospect Park, and bounded by Bedford

Avenue on the east, Cedar Place on the west, Montgomery Street on the north, and

Sullivan Street on the south, it was accessible by 15 different transit lines, and was only twenty minutes away from Wall Street and City Hall by subway.

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on March 4th, and was attended by

Borough President Alfred E. Steers, who, as a boy, had witnessed the great match between the Atlantics and the Red Stockings through a knothole at the Capitoline

Grounds.

“Mr. Ebbets is doing a fine thing for Brooklyn in giving the city one of the greatest ball parks in the world,” he said. “I was born in this neighborhood, and every bit of the ground is dear to me. I think Mr. Ebbets will give us the best team in the country--and it will play right here!”

The contractors presented Brooklyn Charlie with a silver spade. He picked out a soft spot in front of the speaker’s platform, tossed a celebratory shovelful of sod into the air, then trundled his guests off to Consumer’s Park Restaurant for lunch.

The Italian pick and shovel crews got down to business. They chased a few stray goats off the lot, then started to demolish the disheveled shanties and hovels that looked as if they’d been left on Brooklyn Charlie’s dump by vagrants accustomed to better quarters.

***

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On Saturday, the Wild Man allowed four hits and five walks in two and a third stanzas of convincing ineptitude. Burt Shotton was suddenly trailing 3-0 with a bullpen full of convalescents. In the fourth, Buc third baseman Pete Castiglione displayed a Pittsburgh specialty--the two-base error. With Tommy Brown safely ensconced on second following the misplay, Robinson slammed a triple off the right field abutment. Streaking Gil Hodges hammered his sixth homer of the season, and the game was tied until Bill Werle fell apart in the seventh. Hodges opened the inning with a double and scored on a single by Furillo. Bruce Edwards doubled

Furillo home. Palica walked. A single by Reese brought Edwards home. Palica went first to third, but jammed his right ankle into the bag, and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher. Werle was shipped to the showers. Shotton sent Oakland

Joe in to run, and brought Newcombe in to pitch the eighth. Working for the third time in six days, Newk had nothing on the ball except his best wishes. Ed Stevens and Marv Rackley singled. Les Fleming boomed a 395-foot triple that ricocheted off the center field exit gate. The rapidly aging Jack Banta came in to pitch again.

With first base open and one out, Banta walked Stan Rojek. Castiglione hit what looked like a double play bouncer to Reese, but Robinson’s leisurely relay to

Hodges was in the dirt, and Bob Chesnes scored the tying run.

Robinson led off the Dodgers’ eighth with a two-strike single. The Pirates pulled their corner infielders in, anticipating a bunt. Hodges executed the sacrifice perfectly. Instead of stopping at second, Robinson raced to third, which had been abandoned by the charging Castiglione. Furillo lined a single to left. Jackie waltzed home. Furillo scored on a two-out double by Eddie Miksis. Banta pitched

129 Bob Mack

a one-hit ninth, and the Dodgers won 8-6. Banta had improved his record to 3-2, and the Pirates had dropped their 9th game in the last 11. Robinson’s RBI count had reached 40, and he was third in the league in batting with a .350 mark.

The race had tightened. Brooklyn and New York now trailed Boston by a half- game and St. Louis had moved to within two. The youthful Phillies, labeled the

“”, by the press, had reached the .500 mark, and were closing in on the

Cardinals.

Jackie Robinson’s daring on the basepaths was giving National League pitchers fits. Branch Rickey called his second baseman the “best since Cobb” at the running game.

“Hitting alone will not win ball games,” the Mahatma insisted. “I want speed on my team. I’m unable to tolerate a team that cannot run.”

The “Book”, that unwritten gospel of conventional wisdom, said that speed won the close games, and the Brooks were 10-6 in contests that were decided by two runs or less; but their primary weapon seemed to be the bludgeon. When the margin of victory was five runs or greater, the Dodgers had won 7 of 9 for a .778 percentage. Shotton’s problem was what to do about all the three and four run battles in which his club had gone 8-11, a pace only marginally better than that of the last-place Pirates.

Palica’s ankle was swollen but intact. He would be out of action for a week or so. Brooklyn’s overworked bullpen faced an endurance test. Branca pitched on

Sunday against Elmer Riddle, a Pittsburgh reclamation project who was not quite salvageable. The Hawk struggled through seven innings, leading 4-3, thanks to

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home runs by Edwards and the red-hot Hodges. The Old Sourdough needed to rest his bullpen, but he also needed to win ballgames. When Branca walked the first two hitters in the eighth, the skipper brought in Paul Minner to face left-handed

Dixie Walker. Walker walked. Kiner was up with the bases loaded. The Pirate slugger had hit in 15 straight, and carried a league-leading .366 average. Shotton’s only available right-hander was Barney. The Wild Man was as uncontrollable as a squirrel, and Kiner hit him like he owned him. The Old Sourdough sighed, and made the wave to the pen. Baseball was a trying sport at times.

***

The cornerstone for Charlie Ebbets’ new baseball emporium was laid on July

6th, 1912. It was an overcast day, and the mist made everybody’s skin feel oily.

The lot had been scraped clean of garbage, leveled, and seeded, and the concrete and steel work on the grandstand was about to commence, unless it was delayed by a threatened ironworkers strike. After the requisite speeches and celebratory luncheon, Brooklyn Charlie and his guests repaired to Washington Park where the

Dodgers were playing the Giants. The Brooks lost, 5-3.

By August, Ebbets realized he was overextended financially. He needed an influx of capital in order to continue work on his new ballpark, and the only thing of value he owned was the baseball team, presently 40 games out of first place in the

National League, but an attractive speculation in the futures market. Contractors

Steve and Ed McKeever agreed to become his business partners. Together, they bought out minority partner Henry Medicus, formed the Brooklyn Baseball Club,

131 Bob Mack

Inc., and divided the stock 50/50. Brooklyn Charlie remained president, and Ed

McKeever became the new vice-president.

By the spring of 1913, the double-decked grandstand and curved brick façade of newly named Ebbets Field had risen from the dirt of Pigtown. With its classically arched windows and terra cotta trim, it was a sight to behold. The entrance at Cedar and Sullivan was a 27-foot high rotunda fashioned from Italian marble. A mosaic baseball was set into the floor haloed by the words “Ebbets Field”. An electric light chandelier hung from the ceiling, its twelve arms shaped like bats. It held twelve illuminated globes in the shape of baseballs. Inside the park, the dimensions were generally spacious. It was 419 feet to left field, 476 to center, and 500 to right center; but, due to the proximity of Bedford Avenue, only 297 feet from home plate to where the right field foul line met the newly finished concrete wall; still, that was

62 feet further than the major league minimum. No one expected many balls to be hit over the fences in Brooklyn Charlie’s yard.

The strain of assuring financing and overseeing the thousand and one details that were part of any large construction project had finally frazzled Mr. Ebbets. With his field completed except for the bolting of the spectator seats to the concrete flooring, he placed Charlie Junior and Steve McKeever in charge and hopped a boat for old New Orleans and a rejuvenating fling in the jazz stews of Storyville and the

Vieux Carre.

On March 16th, Ebbets Field was opened to the public. 15,000 residents of

Brooklyn availed themselves of the opportunity to visit the new home of the

Superbas--or Dodgers, as the team was again beginning to be called. Most of the

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reserved seat tickets for the inaugural exhibition against the Yankees and the

Opening Day game versus the Phillies were sold by dinnertime. The Elks Club purchased $1,500 worth of ducats. Scalpers tried to corner the market on the rest, but the Dodgers were vetting large orders and refused to sell to speculators. Ebbets

Field was for the fans.

Saturday, April 5th, was a beautiful spring day in Flatbush. The Brooklyn

Dodgers were going to play the in the first game ever at Charlie

Ebbets’ baseball palace--the first competition on the grounds of Pigtown, excluding drunken brawls and games of chance--since the Battle of Long Island 137 years previously. 30,000 of the Faithful jammed into the park while another five or ten thousand milled about outside. Hundreds of beauties in their spring finery had come to see the game. Charlie Ebbets always encouraged the ladies to attend his games. Ebbets had returned from New Orleans rested and fit. He felt like he did on the day his son was born.

The first home run ever hit in Ebbets Field came in the fifth inning, an inside-the- park line drive off the bat of the Dodgers’ Kansas City-born center fielder, bowlegged Charlie “K.C.” Stengel. First baseman Jake Daubert hit another in the sixth, and Brooklyn rolled into the ninth leading 2-0. The Yanks tied it up, but the

Dodgers scored the game winner in the bottom half, successfully christening their new home with a 3-2 victory.

Winter had returned to Flatbush by Wednesday, when the Dodgers officially opened the park. Brooklyn Charlie bundled up and sang the National Anthem,

133 Bob Mack

accompanied by the 23rd Regiment band, but the icy gusts held down both the attendance and the scoring as the Dodgers lost 1-0.

By the end of the year, the Dodgers had jumped a spot in the standings, from seventh to sixth, and attendance had improved by 114,000. They were a second division club cavorting in a first class ballpark. On November 17th, Ebbets fired

Bill Dahlen. On the 18th, the old Oriole, , became the new manager.

***

Kiner knew what he was going to see from Barney--fastballs and more fastballs.

The Wild Man would throw the curve if he was ahead in the count, but he rarely got ahead. Barney wound up and threw his fastball right into Kiner’s happy zone.

Kiner took a home run cut, but Barney had muscled the pitch up there, and Ralph was late getting around. He hit it closer to the bat handle than he wanted, and sent a flare to right, too shallow for an advance on Furillo’s arm. batted next, the second most reliable hitter on the team. Westlake couldn’t get around on

Barney’s fastball either, but he finally hammered one on a line to deep right.

Furillo made . Stan Rojek scored the tying run.

Knuckleballer Murray Dickson relieved Riddle. Most major league hitters detested pitchers. So did their catchers. Writer Jimmy Cannon called the pitch “a curveball that doesn’t give a damn.” Baseball was a predictable game that occurred in unpredictable patterns. The knuckler was anarchy in motion. Even the man who threw it had no idea where it was going. The pitch upset the natural order of things. It lacked spin, and it was slow. You couldn’t hit it and you

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 134

couldn’t catch it. Some backstops took to wearing mitts the size of a pillow in order to try and at least get some leather on the godless freak before it bounced past them on its way to perdition.

Dickson set the Dodgers down in order in the eighth and ninth. Barney walked a pair of Pirates and committed a balk, but pitched his way out of trouble. Kiner came up again in the tenth, and this time he had the Wild Man’s fastball timed perfectly. He crushed it into the upper deck in left center for his thirteenth home run, the third he had banged off Barney. Dickson disposed of the Brooks handily, and the Bucs won 5-4. Barney’s record dipped to 1-4. In Boston, the Cardinals beat the Braves 8-1, and the Giants defeated the Reds 6-1 at the Polo Grounds. The

Bums dropped into third place, only a half-game in front of streaking St. Louis.

***

Happy Chandler was a magnanimous man, unless he was dealing with anything in which Leo Durocher was involved. While the Dodgers were busy losing to the

Pirates, the Commissioner was announcing terms of pardon for eighteen suspended

Mexican jumping beans--players who in ‘46 had violated their major league contracts in a quest for phantom fortunes south of the border. Among the outlawed eighteen were two former Dodgers, catcher , and outfielder Luis

Olmo. The Missouri-born Owen was practically a neighbor of the old Kentucky

Colonel Chandler: “Get your bag packed, boy,” drawled Happy, “and get to your club right away.”

The Mahatma was a bit startled by the commissioner’s decision. “He surely caught me by surprise. I had no inkling of any such action. I’ve been in touch with

135 Bob Mack

Owen from time to time. I have always been very fond of Mickey personally. He has visited me since his suspension. He was a misled boy, and I’m convinced that he’s sorry for going to the Mexican League.” Would Rickey add Owen or Olmo to the roster? “I really haven’t any idea if either of ‘em would aid the Dodgers in the present pennant race. But they will get a good looking over. I’m sure the

Commissioner doesn’t want us to place these boys on the active list immediately.

I’ve no doubt that he will work out the details satisfactorily to everyone.”

Burt Shotton was equally non-committal. “I hear Olmo was a fine prospect,” he said. Luis had played with the Dodgers during the war, and had averaged .289 with gap power. He was currently batting .387 for Maracaibo in the Venezuelan League, but there was really no spot for him in Brooklyn. As for Owen, he was not optimist enough to believe he was going to replace either Campanella or Edwards.

The Dodgers drew 30,053 to their Monday night game. Newcombe threw the ball so hard that the Pirates’ hitters were swiping at the hiss it made when it zipped past them. Newk struck out eleven, allowed only four hits, and walked two in the

5-1 win. Hodges continued his hot streak with a bases-loaded single. Hermanski doubled and tripled, and Snider slammed his eighth homer into the seats in dead center field. Newk contributed at the plate with a double and single, improving his pitching record to 2-0 and his batting average to .357. The Dodgers were tied for first place.

Shotton had a surfeit of outfielders again. The Pirates had returned sore-armed

Marv Rackley, and Johnny Hopp, hitless in fourteen at-bats, had rejoined his former club. The return of Rackley was marked by a touch of controversy. “My arm’s all

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right now that I’m back in Brooklyn,” he told the writers. The Mahatma was incredulous.

“That was a spectacular statement for the boy to make. Are you sure he said it?

I didn’t know he had a sore arm. Burt Shotton hadn’t heard anything about it-- moreover, he didn’t believe it. I checked further with coach Clyde Sukeforth and

Pee Wee Reese, our captain. Neither of them knew anything about it either.”

Rickey did not consider himself to be a purveyor of lemons: “There was no misrepresentation at all. I read some such charge in the papers. The President of the Pittsburgh club authorized me over the long distance telephone to say that he had never said any such thing. It’s a blankety-blank lie. And I’d like to meet the man who circulated it face to face.

“I never misrepresented a ballplayer I sold in my life. I was accused of it falsely once when I disposed of to the Cubs. But the Chicago club knew all about Dean’s sore arm before they bought him. They had the doctor’s report before them.”

The Mahatma rose from his desk and began to pace. “Well, I’ve got no first base insurance again. But I could have a couple of first basemen ready if anything should happen to incapacitate Gil Hodges. I could trade for a too. I don’t believe in ‘em, but they are a necessity, I guess. But if Rex Barney pitches the way he pitched at the Polo Grounds against the Giants on Memorial Day, we could go with six pitchers. The Dodgers are quite a ball club. They are close to greatness, and I’d like to send ‘em over the top.”

***

137 Bob Mack

Wilbert Robinson was a genial, rotund gentleman who became known to a generation of Dodgers’ fans as “Uncle Robbie”. His public persona masked the fact that he was as tough a nut as had ever played ball, a man who understood the game inside and out--he had even invented some of it.

“I remember the first chest protector I ever wore,” Robinson recalled. “I put it on and stuck out my chest and said to a big pitcher, ‘Hit me right here.’ So he did.

The next thing I remember, a glassblower was trying to blow breath into my lungs to save my life. They thought I was killed. I was just trying to see if you could get hurt with one of those things on you.”

Robinson had played in the big leagues for sixteen years during the game’s roughest era. He had gone behind the plate 1,316 times, and he held the record for most hits in a game with seven. Following his retirement as an active player, he had been John McGraw’s pitching coach on the Giants, and had earned a reputation as the best in the business. Uncle Robbie knew pitchers the way John D.

Rockefeller knew dollars--strategy and tactics he had learned at the feet of the masters.

“I feel that my long experience under two such capable tutors as and

John McGraw fits me for the task at hand, and I see nothing ahead but a winner. I will follow McGraw’s general system just as closely as possible.”

Unlike his mentors, Robinson was no martinet. He wanted his players to play hard but relaxed. The pressures on a big league ball field were intense enough, he thought, without the manager adding to them.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 138

In Robinson’s intial spring training with Brooklyn, he established his bona fides as the first in a long line of Dodger eccentrics when he agreed to attempt to catch a baseball dropped from an airplane at a height of 555 feet. The stunt was a variation on a feat originally performed in 1908 by Senators’ catcher , who had, on his thirteenth try, snagged a ball tossed off the Washington Monument. The object that descended upon Uncle Robbie from the blue yonder, however, was no baseball, but a grapefruit that exploded off his shoulder and knocked him on his amply upholstered backside. Drenched with fruit juice that he mistook for gore, the intrepid Dodger manager wailed, “Help me, lads! I’m covered with my own blood!”

Resident prankster Charlie Stengel had supposedly arranged the substitution of citrus for horsehide, although aviatrix Ruth Law later admitted she had forgotten the ball, and had instead dropped her breakfast on the hapless Robinson.

“I wish the guy that threw the ball from the Washington Monument had used a grapefruit,” Uncle Robbie remarked. “It would have been a whole lot more comfortable to have had this thing tried on somebody else first.”

Under Robinson’s guidance, the Dodgers displayed a steady improvement. A fifth place finish in 1914 was followed by a leap to third in 1915. The team was now known as the “Robins” in honor of its personable field boss--the Brooklyn

Eagle sometimes referred to the club as the “Flock”--but just to confuse the issue, the “Superbas” and “Dodgers” nicknames were used interchangeably. The official name of the outfit remained the “Brooklyn Baseball Club, Inc.”.

In 1916, the Robins, splendiferous in new blue-checked uniforms, bolted from the gate, winning 20 of their first 31 games. With strong seasons from Jake

139 Bob Mack

Daubert, left fielder , and pitchers and , Uncle

Robbie’s boys captured the National League pennant in a tight race with the

Phillies, clinching the flag with a 9-6 win over the Giants at Ebbets Field that disgusted John McGraw so much that he left the field in the fifth inning.

Despite a three-year winning percentage of .541--a 131-point improvement over the 1911-1913 period--Uncle Robbie was not performing to unanimous acclaim.

Syndicated sportswriter wrote in , “[Robinson] is a grand fellow to whom no one would begrudge a victory; but if he is a great manager, I’m going to ask for Caruso’s job. He is not a good handler of men.

When he tries to look severe, it is comedy. During the summer, his own players were howling that he mismanaged pitchers fearfully, and they have a dozen jokes about his breaks on playing the game.”

The Robins lost the World’s Series to the Boston Red Sox in five games, and began a three-year sojourn in the second division. As 1920 began, Uncle Robbie had become a fixture in Brooklyn, but his managerial abilities were still being questioned. Was he the man who had guided the Robins to 249 wins and the

National League championship in his first three years at the helm, or the mediocrity who had compiled a .470 record from 1917 through 1919?

No one expected the Flock to be in the thick of the 1920 pennant battle, but they played excellent ball in the second half, and a ten game winning streak in early

September helped them clinch a second flag for Uncle Robbie. Reliable Zack

Wheat batted .328 and won 23 games, but the club faltered once again in the Fall Classic, losing to the Cleveland Indians five games to two. Despite

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a disappointing ending to a sterling season, Charlie Ebbets was happy to sign his pudgy chieftain to a new three-year contract valued at $15,000 per season. Uncle

Robbie’s second National League championship had silenced his critics, and he was regarded as the most popular manager in the history of the franchise.

The 1920 Robins had been a well-balanced team. Their pitchers led the loop with a 2.62 average; their hitters were second in batting and slugging percentages. In 1921, the club fell to earth, finishing fifth. Wheat and Grimes contributed fine seasons, but their supporting cast was pedestrian. Brooklyn Charlie had seen the last of his pennant winners.

On April 18, 1925, Charlie Ebbets, who had battled a heart condition since 1923, passed away in his suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. After a conference between the

McKeevers and National League President John Heydler, it was decided to go ahead and play that day’s game.

“Charlie wouldn’t want anyone to miss a Giant-Brooklyn series just because he died,” said Uncle Robbie.

***

The Cubs had shoveled a hole for themselves, and were prepared to hibernate in it until spring. Chicago had been terrible since being inflicted with the Curse of the

Billy Goat in 1945. They were second in batting average but next to last in runs scored. They hit when it didn’t count, and didn’t hit when it did. , whose job security was eroding faster than a Mexican beachfront, sent the old knuckleballer Dutch Leonard (Leonard’s butterfly ball, said Jackie Robinson,

“comes up, makes a face at you, then runs away.”) to the mound for the first game

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of the series against the Dodgers’ backwoods philosopher and resident spitball practitioner, Preacher Roe.

The spitter and its country cousins the resin, tobacco juice, talcum powder, paraffin, shine, slippery elm, and emery balls had been outlawed by the Joint Rules

Committee in 1920, but had been trading briskly on the black market ever since.

Pitchers adulterated baseballs with any substance they could find that would make the horsehides dip, drop, or dive like a duck. Some hurlers had become so proficient that they could make a doctored ball do most anything except walk a dog.

The problem with slippery pitches was that not only could hardly anyone hit them, hardly anyone could throw them reliably. The spitter and its sloppy relatives were uniformly hard to control; once hit, they were difficult to field; and many baseball men thought that their use over time injured a pitcher’s arm.

“Your fingers have no hold on the ball, which is controlled by the thumb,” explained the old White Sox salivator Urban Clarence “Red” Faber. “ I used tobacco juice, which made the ball slip off easily. It goes toward the plate like a knuckle ball without turning, but does not wobble like the knuckler. Because it is thrown harder, it breaks more sharply than the knuckler.”

Giants’ manager John McGraw in 1905 described the wet one from a hitter’s perspective: “Very little rotary motion is imparted to the spitball. It comes up big and slow, and the batter can almost see the seams. Just as he draws back to hit it, the ball seems to receive new impetus and drops or jumps as if struck down from behind. If the batter hits where he aimed, he misses it probably by a foot.”

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The spitter had its defenders--usually pitchers who wanted to use it. Said

Boston’s Warren Spahn: “They should legalize it and stop this nonsense. I’ve said this before, of course, but the mound is the only place where they get technical.

Batters can cheat, fielders can cheat, and so can base runners. But they really bear down on the pitchers. Every major rule change while I’ve been in the big leagues has been against the pitcher.”

“The rules keep a pitcher from doing anything--even sneezing,” groused moundsman-turned-broadcaster Dizzy Dean. “Sure, fans like to see free-hitting games, but I b’lieve they want to see them hits earned fairly. We all know the game has softened a bit. I say, let’s harden it up again! Let’s legalize something illegal!

Let’s bring back the spitball!”

“Anyone who believes the spitball is a thing of the past probably thinks America was dry from 1920 to 1933,” wrote Red Smith. “Years after one noble experiment was abandoned as unworkable, baseball still theoretically enforces its own version of Prohibition. Pitchers feel that, since the spitball was outlawed in 1920, every single revision made in the rules has benefited the hitter at the expense of their beleaguered brotherhood. It is all very well to talk of ethics and sportsmanship, but in the last analysis it comes down to a basic question of bread and butter.”

“By Judas Priest,” exclaimed Branch Rickey, “if the spitter comes back, ‘twill turn the game of baseball upside down.”

None of the Dodgers admitted to knowing much about Preacher Roe’s Beechnut sinkers.

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“Campanella certainly had to know,” said Jackie Robinson, devolving into

Rickian double-speak, “because he wouldn't have been able to catch that ball. I see a ball go up and dip, but frankly we don’t know because he doesn’t tell us and certainly then, if he told us, and we started being alert toward it, the umpire would know about it. So although we knew by conversation that Roe was a spitball pitcher at times, just like we know that there are many other guys in baseball that are spitball pitchers, we don’t know the given pitch that he is going to throw it on.”

“I don’t throw it to the extent they think I do,” Ol’ Preach said frankly. “It’s one of those things where you jes’ mess with the mind of the hitter. They start lookin’ for that thing and they really get messed up. Some of those guys work themselves into a lather. You don’t have to throw it often. In fact, I very seldom throw it.

There are others who throw it a lot more than me.”

The penalty for utilizing a felonious delivery was a 10-day suspension, but umpires had to apprehend an offending slabman in the act, like a public urinator.

For stealthy tricksters like Roe, who had perfected the art of the multiple fidget into a routine of prestidigitation that even the great Houdini would have admired, apprehension by the profane was virtually impossible.

***

William Sianis, a local restaurant owner, had imposed the Billy Goat hex on the

Cubs after ushers had ejected his smelly, good-luck animal, Murphy, from Wrigley

Field during the fourth game of the 1945 World’s Series. Sianis was furious--the goat had a valid ticket. “Cubs, they no gonna win no more!” the Greek angrily promised, as he and Murphy were escorted onto the street. The ensorcelled Bruins

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proceeded to lose the Series to the Tigers, and shortly thereafter, as promised, became permanent residents of the second division.

Aided by the curse of the Greek, the ghost of Murphy the goat, and a fresh pack of Beechnut gum, Preacher allowed the Cubs two first inning hits, then made their bats disappear. Meanwhile, his teammates roughed up old Dutch Leonard. Billy

Cox, back in the lineup after a month’s absence, ripped three straight singles.

Snider doubled and crashed his ninth homer of the season onto Bedford Avenue.

Preach, a notoriously inept bat handler, astonished the tiny crowd by poking a pair of singles, collecting two RBI, and knocking the Dutchman out of the game in the sixth. By the time Preach’s mouth began to dry, the Dodgers led 6-0. Andy

Pafko’s sixth homer, four of which had been belted off Brooklyn pitching, made it

6-1, but Preach went the full nine innings, striking out 10, and taking a 7-1 decision.

It was the second consecutive complete game by Dodgers’ pitchers, and it gave

Shotton’s bullpen a needed respite. In New York, Stan the Man slammed a pair of homers, and the Cards defeated the Giants 3-0 behind , their 13th win in their last 15 games. The Flock had first place all to themselves, but the perch was precarious. The National League was, said Red Barber, “as tight as a tick.”

The Brooks were on top with a 27-20 log, but both the Cardinals and the Braves were only a half-game back. The Giants trailed by one, and the Phils were three behind.

Barney pitched the second game against Bob Muncrief. Muncrief was a 33-year old journeyman that the Cubs had recently claimed on waivers from the Pirates. He

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had spent most of his career toiling for the St. Louis Browns, compiling a 74-71 mark over 10 seasons, with an of 3.68.

Barney was a different hurler than the man the Cubs had beaten in May. He was throwing strikes. The Dodgers clipped Muncrief for a first inning run when

Rackley grounded a two-out single, stole second, went to third on a wild throw by catcher Rube Walker, and scored on a bad-hop triple to center by Robinson. In the third, Pee Wee singled, and swiped second. Robinson smacked his second hit, increasing the Dodger lead to 2-0. Barney had allowed only a second inning single by Frankie Gustine as he started the fifth, but he walked Gustine, then Muncrief lined a ball to right center that took a funny carom off the wall and hopped past

Snider. Gustine scored, and Muncrief went all the way to third. Barney stranded him, and the Cubs couldn’t touch him after that. Hodges knocked in the third

Brooklyn tally in the sixth after Snider had walked and advanced to second on a sacrifice by Robinson. The 3-1 victory was the Dodgers’ third straight.

“The plate was there all the time,” mused Barney. “They were just hiding it from me.”

Robinson’s two hits had increased his batting average to .340 and his league leading RBI count to 45, nine ahead of Philadelphia’s Del Ennis. At the Polo

Grounds, the streaking Cardinals kept pace, as Gerry Staley shut out the Giants 2-0.

***

Ladies’ Day at Ebbets Field was a tradition started by Brooklyn Charlie back in the old whenever, and instituted as a regular promotion by Larry MacPhail in the

‘30s. Flatbush girls loved their Bums. They started fan clubs for their favorites,

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baked them cookies, and worried like protective mothers when they slumped. Even the dour Furillo had his distaff admirers. On Thursday afternoon, a walk-up crowd of 5,000 Dodgers’ damsels swelled the gate to 16,495 as tall, dark, and semi- handsome Ralph Branca took the hill against .

The Brooks hammered Long John from the mound in the second inning. Five singles--two by Robinson--a double by Reese, an intentional walk and three stolen bases sent the high-strung Dodger-killer scampering for cover. In the fifth,

Robinson, Hodges, and Snider singled. Branca connected for a two-run double, and the Dodgers led 9-0. The grandstand girls were giddy. Branca entered the eighth with a four-hit shutout, but walked Smokey Burgess, and four consecutive Pirates collected hits before Shotton concluded that his pitcher was through. Sukeforth shooed the Hawk to the showers, and a rusty Paul Minner took the mound. A walk, a single, and a sacrifice fly plated two additional runs, but Minner retired the Cubs in order in the ninth to clinch Branca’s eighth win. The 9-5 final maintained the

Brooks’ half-game edge over the Cardinals and the Braves. Robinson’s three hits raised his average to .348, and vaulted him into the National League batting leadership, three points ahead of Kazak of St. Louis. The Dodgers were on their longest winning streak of the season. The Cubs limped out of Brooklyn. Charlie

Grimm was fired the next day.

***

Warren Giles, President of the Cincinnati Reds, thought that Pee Wee Reese was the best player in the National League.

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“Call it treason, if you like,” said Giles, “but in my opinion, there is no doubt that Reese is the star of our league. He excels in so many departments that I have to rate him tops. And that is not a hasty decision I have reached since Musial, a really great ballplayer, started this season in a slump. Waite Hoyt has a recording to prove that I rated Reese over Musial before the season opened. It was my answer when he asked me on his radio program to name the best ballplayer--and why not? Pee Wee is the smartest and best player at the most difficult fielding position. He can throw, run, and knows how to steal bases. He can bunt better than anyone else. He has the power to hit the ball out of the park and does it when a home run is most needed.”

Giles would get no argument in Flatbush. The Faithful loved their unassuming shortstop.

“A really nice man is a rare man,” said Jackie Robinson, “and the crowd always spots him. They sure guessed right about Pee Wee.”

Reese’s nine-game hitting streak had raised his batting average to .325. He and

Robinson were tied for the lead in steals with ten each, and Pee Wee’s 35 RBI placed him second in the league behind his double-play partner.

“Watching the play of Reese and Robinson,” gushed the Mahatma, “is one of the true joys of my life. Beyond that, it is a civic joy for Brooklyn, and an artistic joy for one and all.”

The Brooklyn infield tandem was as good as it got. Schoendienst and Marion of the Cardinals covered more ground, but Reese and Robinson were faster runners and better batsmen. The Cincinnati combination of Red Stallcup and Jimmy

Bloodworth was nowhere near as dangerous as the Dodgers’ duo, but the gray-

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haired Bloodworth made a statement of sorts by slamming a pair of homers off

Oakland Joe in the opening game of the series on Friday night.

Bloodworth’s first homer gave the Reds a 3-1 lead, but the Brooks forged ahead in the sixth before blowing the game open with six runs in the seventh. The big inning had plagued Cincinnati all season. They’d suffered 19 frames in which they’d allowed four or more runs to score. Reds’ pitchers were like ticking time bombs.

Furillo’s bat had started to warm up with the weather. The moody right fielder began the day batting .253, then cracked a homer and a single and knocked in four of the ten Brooklyn runs. Bruce Edwards, subbing for Campanella, banged his second homer of the season, and Reese bagged a pair of safeties, extending his hitting streak to ten games. Hatten went the distance, the third complete game for the Dodgers in the last four. Oakland Joe was 5-3 for the year. The 10-5 win kept the Flock a half-game ahead of the Braves, and a game and a half in front of St.

Louis, beaten 3-2 by Ken Heintzelman in Philadelphia.

The Dodgers made it six in a row on Saturday, clobbering the Reds 11-3 behind

Newcombe. Newk fanned nine, allowed only five hits, and improved his unblemished record to 3-0. Burt Shotton’s decision to bury Newcombe in the minors for the first month of the season was looking as foolhardy as Abe Lincoln’s trip to the theater.

Campanella returned to the lineup and launched his 8th and 9th homers of the season; Pee Wee hammered his 8th, and made two terrific plays in the hole at deep short to steal hits from Kluszewski and Stallcup. The Brooks kayoed Ken

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Raffensberger in the sixth inning. In Philadelphia, the Cardinals kept pace by beating the Phils 6-3.

On Sunday, Raffensberger lost in relief as the Dodgers scored 10 runs in the fifth inning and smashed the Reds 20-7, the highest output of the season by any team in the majors. Hodges hammered a change-up into the left field seats with the bases loaded in the seventh after having belted a homer and a double in his previous plate appearances. It was his second slam of the season. The first baseman’s eruption was good for 8 runs. Billy Cox clobbered a pair of round trippers and knocked in six. Barney had started the game, but was ineffective, and

Minner gained the win in relief. When the Cardinals split a double header in

Philadelphia, the Dodgers led St. Louis and Boston by two full games. The slumping Giants had fallen five back. The Reds hobbled back to the Rhineland, having been battered by the Brooks for 41 runs in 27 innings.

The 308 runs scored by the Dodgers led the National League by a wide margin.

Everyone in the Brooklyn lineup had home run power, and no team could match their speed. They had overcome their pitching deficiencies with brute force at the plate and grand larceny on the bases. The Flock had captured 9 of 12 on the homestand, outscoring their opponents by a whopping 89-49, and their overall record had ballooned to 32-20.

While the club journeyed to St. Louis via Cleveland to begin their second western trip of the season, the Mahatma traveled to Cooperstown to present the keynote speech for the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies of old timers Mordecai

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“Three Finger” Brown, Charles “Kid” Nichols, , Charlie Gehringer, and Harold “Pie” Traynor.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame had opened on June 12th, 1939 as part of the game’s 100th anniversary celebration, a shrine to baseball’s past, and an advertisement for its future. The first inductees were legendary: Babe Ruth, Ty

Cobb, , Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson.

“They started something here, and the kids are keeping the ball rolling,” the

Babe had remarked during the opening ceremonies. “I hope some of you kids will be in the Hall of Fame. I’m very glad that in my day I was able to earn my place.

And I hope youngsters of today have the same opportunity to experience such feeling.”

Ten years later, Rickey, decked out in his customary bow tie and rumpled suit, unveiled the plaques of the 1949 inductees. After extolling the on-field accomplishments and virtues of the old war-horses, the Mahatma said, “We can hold baseball up to the world as the national pastime of America. It has three great qualities: first, the beauty of it; second, the comparative freedom from danger of injury to participants; third, the marvelous exactitudes and precision of measurements relating to human skills.

“Of greater significance than the one day a year we come here to pay honor to the baseball greats, is the sense of our responsibility to the boys of America,

20,000,000 in number. What is significant in the life of a nation is in its everyday living--and in stressing that America worships constructively its baseball heroes, baseball does furnish the heroes to guide the steps of 20 million boys.”

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The Mahatma neglected to mention that professional baseball was also a game where pitchers doctored the ball, hitters corked their bats, fielders swindled base runners, coaches and managers cozened signs, and umpires interpreted the strike zone according to whimsy. If the game reflected the values of the nation, then honest cheating was as American as the apple pie that Mom made with a pre- packaged mix.

***

“Them Brooklyn boys are the best team in baseball, and they’ll win the pennant by ten games,” drawled ex-pitcher and current broadcaster Dizzy Dean as the

Dodgers trooped into Sportsman’s Park to begin a series with the Cardinals. “An’ that Rob’son is the best player in baseball.” What about Musial, Diz? “Wal, podner, I must of meant infielders.”

Ol’ Diz always always meant what he said, even if he didn’t always say what he meant. Once in St. Louis, after listening to the Mahatma pontificate, Diz said, “He must think I went to the Massachusetts Constitution of Technology.” After being skulled into unconsciousness by a relay throw in the 1934 World’s Series, Dean returned from the hospital and said, “Wal, boys, they x-rayed my head an’ didn’t find nuthin’.”

As a player, Dizzy had been a product of Rickey’s so-called plantation system.

He and the Mahatma went back a long and not always happy ways.

“I completed college in three years,” Rickey once said. “I was in the top ten percent of my class in law school. I’m a Doctor of Jurisprudence. I am an honorary

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Doctor of Law. Tell me why I spent four mortal hours today conversing with a person named Dizzy Dean.”

“I won twenty-eight games in ’35,” recalled Diz, “an’ I couldn’t b’lieve my eyes when the Cards sent me a contract with a cut in salary. Mr. Rickey said I deserved a cut ‘cause I didn’t win thirty. The man was a cheap bastard.”

“I used to get very annoyed with him,” the Mahatma remembered, “because he signed every letter to me ‘The Great Dean’. One day he was in my hotel room for a conference and I’d just received half a dozen notes signed ‘The Great Dean’. So I determined to take the egotism out of him. I pulled all the stops on him. He sat quietly while I spoke with withering sarcasm of anyone who had the impertinence and impudence to sign a letter ‘The Great Dean.’ Finally, I shook my finger at him and said, ‘Don’t you ever sign another letter to me in that fashion.’ Two days later I was back in St. Louis and an envelope arrived bearing a Houston postmark. I opened it and, by Judas Priest, it was signed ‘The Great Dean’.”

In 1938, Rickey sent the dead-armed Diz to the Cubs for three players and

$185,000. The Great Dean still harbored ill feelings eleven years later, but that didn’t prevent him from favorably assessing the Mahatma’s current crop of athletes.

Preacher Roe, Tuesday’s starter, was an Arkansas boy like Diz, and he too was an alumnus of Rickey’s farm system, having tossed two innings for the Redbirds the year that the Mahatma peddled Diz to the Windy City.

“Everything in a pitcher’s mind,” observed Rickey, “tells him he must be able to throw the ball hard. But Roe will pitch a game that will be 50-50 or even 75-25 curve balls to fastballs. Oh, it’s marvelous to possess a change-of-pace pitch,

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provided that you use it. But once they hit it, you forget about it for the rest of the game. You don’t do that with a fastball when it is hit. You come back again with it. There’s a subtle little reason for that. The fastball is a strikeout pitch. And you’ve got confidence in yourself built around the effectiveness of that pitch every time you strike out a great hitter. When you don’t strike many men out on the change-of-pace, you don’t think confidently. It is the reason Mr. McGraw came to control every pitch, because, he said to me, ‘If you let ‘em alone, they’ll all throw fast ones.’ So he called every pitch, and pretty soon he became known as a curve- ball manager. If you’ve got control of a curve ball, then use it, particularly since most hitters believe that you will go to the fastball when you’re in the hole and they are looking for that pitch. You know well enough that surprise is in your favor when you cross them up with a curve ball or a breaking ball.”

It was wet on Tuesday night, just the way the Preacher liked it. Rain delayed the start of the game by 25 minutes. The mound was muddy and the field was slow.

The Dodgers ripped four straight singles off Howie Pollet in the first; then, with

Robinson and Furillo in motion to avoid the double play, the law of unintended consequences jumped up and bit Burt Shotton in the seat of the pants: Hodges lined into a triple play. Pollet’s luck didn’t last for long. The Dodgers chased him to the showers in the fourth after clipping him for 5 runs and 10 hits. The Cards were hitting Preach’s Beechnut sinkers mostly right to Billy Cox--the third baseman finished the day with eight assists and a pair of twin-killings. Hermanski, pinch- hitting for McCormick, slammed a Jim Hearn slider onto the pavilion roof in right in the seventh, and the Brooks won their eighth straight, 7-2. Preacher had

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surrendered 10 hits in winning his fifth game. He’d kept Musial under control for once. Stanley managed only a harmless single and a walk in four trips to the plate.

Robinson, Hodges, and Reese were now the top three RBI men in the league.

Robinson continued to lead the loop with a .350 average. The loss dropped the

Redbirds three games behind, while the surging Phillies beat the Cubs in Chicago to move a half-game in front of the Giants.

In Brooklyn, the Buddy Johnson tune “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That

Ball?” blared on radios from Bensonhurst to Brighton Beach. The Bums were in first place, and Buddy’s ditty had climbed the charts along with them.

***

Baseball and its statistics danced together like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Numbers defined and identified the players: 60 = Babe Ruth; 4190 = Ty Cobb; .406

= Ted Williams; 56 = Joe DiMaggio. Everyone knew that a .300 hitter was good, a

.200 hitter was bad, and a .500 team was mediocre. The game was a counting clerk’s dream. For every success on the part of one man, there was a corresponding failure by another. Everything that happened on the diamond could be tabulated and recorded and made to tell a tale, and the results distributed via the daily newspaper boxscores. Players who never read anything other than menus and their room numbers perused the sports pages like cryptologists for evidence of who was hot and who was not; for hidden patterns that might provide them with an edge against an upcoming opponent. For every big leaguer, there were 23 minor leaguers waiting to take his job. A man needed all the help he could get.

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Cardinals’ first baseman Nippy Jones was 2 for his last 12 before he ripped two singles, a double, and a three-run homer off Minner to sink the Dodgers 9-5 and squelch the winning streak. It was the fourth homer of the year for Jones, and three of them had come at the expense of Brooklyn pitchers. Minner could have looked it up. Branca had been knocked out of the box in the second inning after being rocked for four runs. His elbow ached like a bad tooth every time he tried to snap off a curve.

“The boy wanted to pitch,” said Burt Shotton, “but what was the use in letting him try it? He wasn’t himself. He couldn’t get his curve ball over, and the batters were just digging in and waiting for his fastball. They knew exactly when it was coming and crucified it.”

Snider drubbed his 10th homer in the losing cause, a two-run shot onto the well- dented pavilion roof. It was the league-leading 57th long ball of the season for the

Dodgers; unfortunately, their pitching staff had also surrendered 57, tops in the circuit as well. Robinson collected two more hits, raising his average to .353, and all but assuring himself a berth on the National League All-Star team.

***

The fraternity of professional hardballers called the women who followed the players from city to city “Baseball Annies”. Old timers had known them as

“Chicago Sadies”, and the only danger they usually posed was from an unexpected paternity suit or a sudden onslaught of the green weenie; but on Wednesday night in the Windy City, a nineteen-year old psychotic brunette shot Phillies’ first baseman

Eddie Waitkus with a rifle and almost killed him.

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By all accounts, Waitkus was never one to steal a roll in the hay with an available Annie, but--straight arrow or not--he still caught a slug in the breastbone.

Eddie’s misfortune placed all the Dodgers on alert, especially the roustabouts who spent the evenings entertaining in their rooms.

Don Newcombe was due to start the rubber game of the Cardinals series, but

Shotton skipped him and went with Joe Hatten, hoping to nullify the left handed power of Musial and Enos Slaughter. The Dodgers took an early 2-0 lead, but the

Redbirds tied it up in the sixth, then went ahead for good in the seventh, the big blow being a two-run triple by Musial off reliever Erv Palica. Furillo continued to heat up--his three hits boosted his average to .270, but St. Louis had halted

Brooklyn’s momentum and cut their lead to a single game.

The next stop was Chicago, where the Waitkus ambush was still the talk of the town. Pee Wee started a collection for flowers. The wounded Cub was recovering in Illinois Masonic Hospital while his assailant, Ruth Ann Steinhagen, played ball in the recreation yard at the county jail.

The Cubs had dropped five straight under new manager Frankie Frisch.

Suffering Bruin loyalists wanted to toss the team into the caboose with Ruth Ann.

Frisch had piloted Rickey’s Gashouse Gang from 1933 to 1938. He had given up on managing after a mind-numbing stint with the Pirates.

“No more baiting the umpires,” he had declared. “No more watching those bases on balls. They can’t pay you enough for that kind of anguish.”

Frank was no stranger to anguish--he had managed Dizzy Dean. The Great

Dean always clashed with authority figures on general principle. Once, before a

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game in Brooklyn, Diz had disputed Frisch’s advice on how to pitch to Dodger infielder Tony Cuccinello.

“We’ll curve him low and outside.”

“Frank, he couldn’t hit my high, hard one with a paddle.”

“You pitch him high and tight and he’ll murder it.”

“Don’t make no diff’rence. They ain’t gonna hit many off Ol’ Diz today.”

In the ninth inning, with the Cardinals ahead by ten, Dean walked two consecutive hitters. Cuccinello was up. Diz shook off catcher Bill Delaney’s signals one by one. Frisch finally trotted to the mound.

“Frank, I walked them guys just so’s I could get a crack at Cuccinello with my high, hard one. We’re way ahead. Lemme try.”

It was getting late. It had been a long afternoon. Frisch was tired. He gave the

Great Dean his assent. Diz went into his wind-up, threw a fastball up and in, and

Cuccinello hammered it all the way to Greenpoint. Dizzy watched the baseball vanish into the ozone, shook his head, and walked slowly to second base.

“By golly, Frank, you was right all along!”

Frisch was a manager of the old school. He never played favorites--he abraded umpires, the opposition, and his own players equally. He had broken in with

McGraw’s Giants, and he had played with the Lip in St. Louis. He always came to beat you, as the old cliché went, but the Cubs didn’t have anybody he could beat you with.

Newcombe, who was rapidly replacing Branca as the ace of the staff, made his sixth start on Friday, and pitched another gem, a six-hit complete game that handed

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the reeling Cubbies their sixth straight loss. Campanella provided Newk with a 1-0 lead when he cracked a 400-foot homer to left center off sophomore right-hander

Warren Hacker, a coal miner’s son who had no desire to end up in a shaft. The

Cubs tied it in the sixth when Robinson slipped while fielding a grounder by Hank

Edwards, allowing Emil Verban to score from second; but a ninth inning single by

Hodges scored Snider with what proved to be the game-winning run. The 2-1 victory was Newcombe’s fourth without a loss. The Dodgers, as usual, ran Cubs’ backstop Rube Walker ragged. Hodges swiped two sacks, and Robinson one, increasing Brooklyn’s league-leading felony count to 51, sixteen of which had come at the expense of noodle-armed Chicago catchers. At Sportsman’s Park,

Robin Roberts pitched the Phillies into a second place tie with St. Louis, blanking the Redbirds 8-0.

Robinson was leading all the National League All-Star candidates with 34,716 votes, surpassing even the fence-busting Kiner. Waitkus had been leading the field at first base, but now that he was out for the season, it looked as if runner-up Gil

Hodges would be the starter. Reese was 3,211 votes behind Slats Marion at shortstop. The Dodgers were close to having three-quarters of their infield starting in the Mid-Summer Classic.

The All-Star game was a meaningless exhibition that meant a lot to everybody.

The first All-Star game had been played at in Chicago at the height of the Great Depression in 1933 during the Century of Progress celebration. The

American League beat the Nationals 4-2 on Babe Ruth’s two-run homer, and they’d been flaying their senior circuit cousins ever since. The AL’s 11-4 record was an

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embarrassment to partisans of the National League, but this year’s NL squad looked like the stronger entry. Excitement was beginning to grow, and there were still a lot of ballots to be cast.

Rex Barney, whose on-off/on-off performances reminded his manager of a kid fooling with a light switch, got the nod for Saturday’s game against old Dutch

Leonard. Barney had two-hit the Cubs in Brooklyn, and this time he spun a five- hit, 2-0 shutout, dropping Frisch’s record to 0-7. The Cubbies had scored only seven runs since Frank had become manager--a Chicago pitcher had to throw a shutout to win, and none of them could count to zero. It was the eighth straight time the Dodgers had skinned the Bruins.

Furillo extended his hitting streak to eleven games. He was a second half hitter, and July was hoving into view. The Brooks had scored 46 more runs than any other team in the league, had stolen almost three times as many bases, and only the Giants could match them in home runs.

Johnny Schmitz and the law of averages finally beat the Dodgers on Sunday.

Frisch wasn’t around to savor the 8-2 victory, having been banished by home plate umpire Larry Goetz in the third inning along with catcher Rube Walker. Banta and

Palica were ineffective. Andy Pafko tagged each of them for a home run. Minner finished the game. The loss cut the lead to one when St. Louis edged the Phils 6-5 on a ninth inning single by Chuck Diering.

The Cardinals beat the slumping Giants 7-2 in St. Louis on Monday and pared the Dodgers’ lead to a half-game. Catcher Walker Cooper, who had been traded to the Reds on June 13th, laid the blame for the decline of the Giants on the Lip.

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“I’ve always felt Durocher would ruin any good ballclub. He’s just too outspoken. There’s a certain type of men you got to handle a different way to get the best out of them. There’s a lot of feeling on the Giants about the way Durocher handles men and pops off. They’ll be lucky to finish in the first division.”

The Dodgers were in the Rhineland on Tuesday for what they thought would be an easy series against the Reds. Cincinnati was mired in the second division, behind New York, but ahead of Chicago and Pittsburgh. ’ pitchers were used up. They had been worked like mules on their recent road trip, and they hadn’t been overpowering when they were fresh. His hitters were vulnerable to lefthanded pitching. The Old Sourdough scheduled the Preacher and Oakland Joe to bookend Newcombe. Branca was still nursing a sore elbow, and Shotton wanted to give him a few extra days of rest.

Rain had followed Roe from St. Louis. The first pitch on Tuesday night was delayed for almost an hour, but the Dodgers’ offense wasn’t dampened at all.

Snider singled, doubled, and belted his eleventh homer; Furillo lashed a pair of doubles and singles and drove in three runs; Robinson singled three times and swiped his fourteenth and fifteenth bases. Ol’ Preach ran out of chews in the seventh, and Shotton had to bring Barney in to finish the game. The Brooks scored five runs over the last three innings, and walked away with a 9-4 win. In St. Louis, the Giants nipped the Cardinals 6-5 in twelve innings, restoring the Dodgers’ lead to a game and a half.

On Wednesday, Newcombe allowed a pair of early homers by Ted Kluszewski and Harry “The Hat” Walker, then pitched shutout ball for 7 2/3 innings before

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tiring with two outs in the 11th. Shotton failed to relieve him, and Newk took his first loss of the season when Harry “Peanuts” Lowry kicked a perfect relay throw from Furillo out of Campanella’s glove and scored the winning run. Robinson’s three hits boosted his league-leading average to .368, nineteen points better than runner-up , who doubled during the Cardinals 11-8 comeback win

In St. Louis.

The league office notified Shotton on Thursday that he had been added to Billy

Southworth’s All-Star squad.

“I told Billy when he mentioned it that I couldn’t be his coach because I wouldn’t get into uniform,” said Shotton, “but he said he wanted me anyway. So I have a job.”

Tony Cuccinello, the former Dodger now coaching for the Reds, had devised a not so original plan for beating Brooklyn: “We’ve got to keep Robinson off the bases.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bucky Walters, “but how are we going to do it? Kidnap him before the game?”

Jackie was hitless on Thursday until he doubled in the eighth to extend his streak to eleven games. The Dodgers were held to seven safeties overall, but Cincinnati nibblers Eddie Erautt and Frank Fanovich walked seven, and Oakland Joe won his sixth game, 7-2. Rackley misplayed a fly ball by Red Stallcup into a triple in the first inning, after which Hatten was untouchable until an error by Reese in the ninth led to a second Cincinnati run. The Cardinals, aided considerably by four New

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 162

York errors, defeated the Giants in St. Louis 10-8. It was looking more and more as if the Redbirds were going to be the team the Dodgers had to beat.

“You’ve got to beat them all,” said Burt Shotton. “The whole league’s tough.”

If it was, the evidence hadn’t been discovered. The Dodgers were 27-9 against the loop’s tomato cans, but only 10-14 against the first division Cardinals, Phillies, and Braves.

On Friday night in Pittsburgh, Barney walked four, surrendered Kiner’s 16th home run--he had slugged twenty-five percent of his homers off the Wild Man--and failed to make it through the first inning as the Buccos won 4-2. Except for a second inning roundtripper by Furillo and a triple in the eighth by pinch-hitter

Hermanski, the Brooks were unable to mount an attack against Tiny Bonham. It was an opportunity lost because Banta had been brilliant in relief, working six and two-thirds hitless innings and striking out eight.

“Banta’s by far the best pitcher I’ve looked at,” said rookie Dino Restelli, who had joined the Pirates on June 14th. “He’s sneaky fast and doesn’t give you a good ball to hit.”

Although major league attendance had dropped since the postwar boom ended in

‘48, fans in Pittsburgh flocked to to watch Kiner belt the long ball.

Saturday’s game gave aficionados of the four-master their money’s worth. The

Dodgers and Pirates combined for nine homers--one short of the major league record--in a slugfest won by Brooklyn 17-10. Hodges hit for the cycle--a single, double, triple, and a pair of round-trippers; Furillo doubled and homered; Robinson homered, singled, and knocked in four runs. Kiner raked Branca for his

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seventeenth and eighteenth homers, and Westlake, Eddie Stevens, and Restelli also connected for the circuit. Branca pitched the full nine innings, walking five and striking out five, despite being hammered for ten runs on twelve hits. The booming

Brooklyn bats had tendered him his ninth victory; but Branca had tossed a lot of pitches for a man recovering from an inflamed elbow.

The blue collared Furillo was on a tear. In the first game of Sunday’s twinbill, the taciturn right fielder singled three times, tripled, and homered for the third day in a row, pacing the Dodgers’ 15-3 win. Furillo’s rampage raised his average to

.290. Sweltering weekend heat had given way to showers, and the game was delayed for 24 minutes in the sixth inning. After the resumption of play, the Flock erupted for 10 seventh inning runs. It was their second 10-run inning of the season.

Newcombe was the beneficiary of the twenty-two hit attack, going the distance for his fifth win and sixth complete game. The second game fell victim to the weather and antique Pennsylvania blue laws. Barney worked three ineffective innings, but the Dodgers rallied to take a 5-4 lead before rain forced the cancellation of play.

The game lasted just long enough to disrupt the Old Sourdough’s pitching rotation.

The Brooks returned to Ebbets Field having won 7 of 12 on the western swing.

Their home and away records were similar--20-12 in Brooklyn, 19-13 elsewhere--a fine pace for a sport in which a team that broke even on the road was usually in the thick of the chase.

Mickey Owen, the Dodgers’ Mexican jumper, returned to the club, and started behind the plate in Monday’s 4-3 exhibition win against Cleveland. Owen collected a single in four plate appearances, and nailed Larry Doby on an attempted steal. It

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 164

was a showcase appearance, designed to prove that Owen could still perform against major league competition. The Mahatma was looking for buyers, not backstops.

In Philadelphia, Eddie Sawyer’s precocious Phillies were confounding the pre- season prognosticators by staying in contention long after they were expected to have settled into seventh place where they belonged. The Phils had been defeated more times than any team in the history of the National League. They’d finished in last place 17 times and next to last 10. They’d lost with old players, and they’d lost with young. This was consistency that no amount of money could buy--it was tradition.

Eddie Sawyer was an ex-biology professor who was familiar with fastballs and their phylum, a Phi Beta Kappa with a photographic memory--a helpful characteristic when he wanted to recall which one of his players had ruined his day.

The Phils’ skipper had worked his way up from the minors with many of the men he was now managing. They had made the big leagues together, Mother Eddie and his Whiz Kids, along with a few grizzled old birds that owner Bob Carpenter had thrown into the pot as filler.

The Phils were coming off a 9-5 western trip that had pulled them to within 3½ games of the lead, but cost them the services of their first baseman. The next two weeks would be spent battling the Dodgers, Braves and Cardinals. The Whiz Kids were hungry, and this was the time when they could make or break their season.

Preacher Roe faced eight-game winner Robin Roberts in the first game of the series at Shibe Park, guile against youth, but the 22-year old Roberts had the savvy of an

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old-timer: “When you take up a hitter in a clubhouse meeting, no matter what his weakness is, it’s going to end up low and away or high and tight, and the curve ball must be thrown below the belt. That’s the whole story of pitching.”

Baseball, like love, was a simple game that was as complicated as anybody wanted to make it.

The Brooks scratched their way to an early 2-0 lead, picking up a run in the second on a single by Hodges, an error by Puddin’ Head Jones on Furillo’s slow roller, and a sacrifice fly by Billy Cox. Robinson manufactured another run in the fourth when he singled, stole second, went to third on a short fly ball to Stan

Hollmig in right, and scored on a bloop single by Cox. Then it was deadball until the sixth, when Del Ennis slammed one of Preach’s pitches into the upper deck in left with on base. In the seventh, Roberts walked Campanella and Roe.

Reese dropped a predictable bunt. Seminick went for the force at third. Campy, who was faster than he looked, beat the throw, and the Dodgers had the bases loaded with nobody out. Hermanski lifted a fly ball to shallow right. Hollmig’s throw to the plate was perfect, doubling up Campanella. Now there were runners at first and second with two outs, and Roberts could see his way out of trouble. Snider took a strike, then turned on a fastball that caught too much of the plate, and drove it over the right field wall. The Phils rallied for a run in the ninth, but Preach struck out Seminick and Putsy Caballero and got Eddie Miller on a fly ball to Snider.

It had been pennant-race baseball, two contenders nose to nose, and the Phillies had blinked. Preacher had fanned eight, and the Dodgers had displayed the power and speed that were the hallmarks of the team. The 5-3 win was Roe’s sixth

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straight, and it improved his slate to 7-2. In St. Louis, Howie Pollet blanked the

Cubs 5-0 to keep the Redbirds a single game back.

The second game of the series was as much of a must-win for the Phils as any mid-season contest could be. A loss would drop them 5½ games behind; worse was the damage it might do to their conviction that they belonged in the race.

The Dodgers had gone 18-9 since Memorial Day. St. Louis had posted a 20-8 mark and the Phils, 20-11. Everybody from the Mahatma on down believed that the

Cardinals were the team to beat, but all that meant was that the Flock had to trim the other teams as often as the Redbirds. There were no one punch knockouts in baseball.

Luis Olmo, the Dodgers’ other Mexican jumper had rejoined the team. Olmo carried a right-handed bat that had some pop in it. Shotton started him in left field against the Phillies’ 20-year old bonus baby .

Baseball’s bonus rule was designed to prevent wealthy clubs from monopolizing talent by offering more money to young players turning professional than could be afforded by their less prosperous brethren. It stipulated that the contracts of players signing for more than a specified sum could not be transferred to a lower classification for a certain period of time unless the player first cleared waivers.

This meant that the so-called “bonus babies” were guaranteed a roster spot before they’d earned it. Most of the veterans shunned the bonus babies as if they were pickpockets.

The Phillies had signed Simmons for $65,000. He was learning his trade on-the- job. The young southpaw had posted a 7-13 record in 1948, and was 3-6 so far in

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’49. He was a gap-toothed, bushy-browed kid with a crewcut and a big league arm, but his composure and control were still in the minors.

Branca started for the Dodgers, his elbow as sound as the dollar. The Hawk blanked the Phils until the ninth when a pair of walks and a single by Putsy

Caballero knocked across the only Quaker tally in a 5-1 Brooklyn win. Reese swiped second and Snider stole home as the Brooks continued to run their opponents ragged. Olmo’s game ended early when he jammed his ankle in the fifth inning. The victory improved Branca’s record to a league leading 10-1, and kept the Dodgers a game in front of the Cardinals, who defeated the Cubs 7-4 at

Sportsman’s Park.

Opposing managers kept throwing southpaws at the Dodgers. This was puzzling, considering that Snider was the only regular lefthanded hitter in Shotton’s lineup. It was even more confounding that the Brooks kept losing to them, 13 times in 25 tries, as compared to a 29-12 mark against right-handers, just the opposite of what you might expect. On Thursday, Eddie Sawyer trotted Kenny Heintzelman to the mound to pitch the rubber game, the 26th lefty the Flock had faced in 67 outings.

Two of Heintzelman’s eight wins had already come at Brooklyn’s expense.

Sawyer’s imperative was to avoid being swept. Another loss to the Dodgers would drop the Phils 6½ games behind--a lot of ground to make up against a club as good as the Bums.

The Dodgers couldn’t do much against Heintzelman. They plated a pair of runs in the third on a homer by Pee Wee. Oakland Joe went into the eighth with a 2-2 tie, but the Phils scored two on a bunt single by Ashburn, a double by Sisler, and a

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single by Ennis, and won, 4-2. Robinson collected two of the five hits allowed by

Heintzelman--he now had 99 for the season--and he’d swiped another sack, stealing second after Heintzelman had picked him off first. In St. Louis, the Cubs beat the

Cardinals, 12-5, on a pair of homers by Hank Edwards. The Brooklyn lead remained one game as they headed for the Polo Grounds and another set-to against

Durocher and the Giants.

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6th Inning. The All Star Break: Wherein Mr. Robinson Goes To Washington, And Stan the Man Defrocks The Flock

“Let’s not get panicky.” --Branch Rickey

Leo Durocher was a prick and proud of it. He attracted trouble the way a wet basement attracted mold.

“I just wasn’t built to be a nice guy,” Leo explained--testimony that every umpire in the National League seconded.

The ancient topographical surname of “Durocher” had originated in the

Burgundy region of France, deriving from the old French word “roche”, meaning a person who resided near a rock. If the primal Durocher had been anything like his better-known descendant, he had probably lived under it.

Leo had broken in with the Yankees at age 19, picking up an at-bat in 1925 before appearing in over a hundred games in 1928 and 1929. Ruth and Gehrig and

Durocher--it was like putting a sardine on a plate of prime rib.

The Babe had trouble retaining roommates, partly because of his carousing, but mostly due to his proclivity for passing massive amounts of gas. He had once taken first place in a Prohibition-era farting contest. He kept the trophy on a shelf next to his baseball awards.

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“Boy, I had to down a lot of beer and limburger to win that one,” Ruth would proudly inform his guests.

Leo, the lowliest bird in the Yankee barnyard, was assigned to room with the flatulent Champ. The amiable Bambino liked the kid shortstop. He nicknamed him

“the All-American out”. He liked him right up to the moment he discovered his missing pocket watch and some hundred-dollar bills that he had marked stuffed into a compartment in Leo’s duffel bag. That episode, combined with Durocher’s growing habit of paying for his snappy wardrobe with rubber checks, soured the

Yankees and the American League in general on him.

Claimed on waivers by the Reds in 1930, Leo spent the next three years catching almost everything that was hit to him, missing almost everything that was pitched to him, and humping almost anything he could get to hop into the back of a hack.

In the spring of 1933, the Lip was traded to Rickey’s Cardinals, the notorious

Gashouse Gang of the Brothers Dean, Frankie Frisch, , Joe “Ducky”

Medwick, and a supporting cast of depression-era roughnecks and pier six brawlers.

The foul-mouthed, umpire-baiting bench jockey fit in comfortably. It was an odd crew for a bible-thumper like Branch Rickey to be sponsoring, but the Mahatma rarely let his personal preferences interfere with winning games.

“It was a high class team,” Rickey said of his old reprobates, “with nine heavy drinkers who were paid more money over a period of ten years than any other club in the National League, excluding their World’s Series takes. They were the best team I ever had.”

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Frisch had learned how to manage from John McGraw, who had learned from

Ned Hanlon; now Leo was learning from Frisch--the Lip would manage every club he ever piloted as if they were the old rough and tumble Orioles.

During the summer of ‘37, Leo was at loggerheads with the aging Fordham

Flash, accusing him of covering less ground at second base than second base. In

October, Rickey dealt his caustic shortstop to the Dodgers, where he combined with mercurial president Leland “Larry” MacPhail to form the baseball equivalent of nitroglycerin.

The Dodgers had fallen on hard times since the heyday of Charlie Ebbets.

President Steve McKeever was dead, the bankrupt Bums were in receivership, a million dollars in debt, and were being run by the Brooklyn Trust Company. “Ol’

Stubblebeard” Burleigh Grimes was the field manager.

“Don’t have hope and optimism, and you’ll never be disappointed,” Burleigh preached, a lesson learned during many a desolate Flatbush summer.

In his heyday, Grimes had been a great pitcher for the Dodgers, a slippery elm chewer who’d won twenty or more games five times; but as a manager, he had no players, no plan, and no slippery elm.

“You may be the nicest and softest guy in the world,” said Ol’ Stubblebeard,

“but when you're out there managing, you've got to be absolutely ruthless about putting in your best men and winning. Otherwise you're going to second-guess yourself, and you don't need that. Was I second-guessed much? No, I don't think so. They couldn't second-guess me too much because with what I had to work with,

I was lucky to be able to get in my first guess.”

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The Dodgers had succeeded at failure for a long time--they hadn’t turned a profit since 1920. George McLaughlin, head of the Brooklyn Trust, needed a man to run the team who had the knack of turning garbage into gold. Branch Rickey recommended his old protégé MacPhail, out of baseball since resigning as general manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

“He has great imagination and is completely fearless,” said the Mahatma. “He is a wild man at times, but you’ve got to stay with him. He has more ideas than a dog has fleas.”

MacPhail was a public relations genius, a brilliant general manager, and a surly drunk. Rickey had once fired him for the latter trait, but the Mahatma did not hold the weaknesses of the flesh against a man with talent. When he drank, the obstreperous MacPhail’s booming voice grew louder, his temper shortened, and his fists were mysteriously attracted to the sides of adjacent jaws. He had once clobbered a Cincinnati policeman and shrugged off the resultant hullabaloo as

“good publicity”. McLaughlin gave the redheaded dynamo $300,000 and free rein to run the club.

“You can’t build a winning team in twenty minutes,” warned the Dodgers’ new boss, “and there are no short cuts.”

The innovative MacPhail had introduced night baseball, new uniforms, radio broadcasts, and cigarette girls in satin pants to Cincinnati. The long-suffering

Dodger Faithful were normally satisfied just to observe winter’s end--but they wanted the cigarette girls in satin pants installed at Ebbets Field right away.

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Charlie Ebbets’ neglected baseball emporium had been allowed to fall into disrepair. MacPhail gave her a needed facelift. He renovated, resodded, and repainted the place in Dodger blue. He instructed the churlish corps of ushers in the novel concept of common courtesy. He began to purchase players, one of his first acquisitions being hard-hitting first baseman Dolph Camilli from the cash-poor

Phillies. He installed six light towers for $72,000, and scheduled ’s first night baseball game for June 15th against the Reds.

“I don’t know how to make money without spending plenty of it,” he said.

The first game under the lamps turned out to be Johnny Vander Meer’s second consecutive no-hitter, a classic somewhat marred by a blizzard of bases on balls. In the last of the ninth, Vander Meer walked the bases loaded. Durocher batted with two outs. Leo worked the count to 2-2, then flied out to center fielder Harry Craft.

In the grandstand, Babe Ruth stood up and applauded. “Nice going, kid,” said the

Babe, happy for Vander Meer’s achievement and happier still that Leo hadn’t been the one to spoil it. Three days later, MacPhail hired Ruth as his first base coach.

The Babe could still pack ‘em in. People came to Dodgers’ games just to watch the old slugger whack balls into Bedford Avenue during batting practice.

Everybody liked having the Babe around except for Burleigh Grimes, who was afraid Ruth was after his job (he was), and Durocher, who was afraid the Babe would tell tales of Leo’s light-fingered days with the Yanks (he didn’t).

The Dodgers played better in ’38 than in ’37, but dropped from sixth place to seventh. Attendance, however, had risen by almost 200,000, and the club posted an

$11,000 profit. The Brooklyn Trust Company was satisfied, but MacPhail wasn’t.

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“People won’t come to see us play day or night if we are lousy,” he said. When the season ended, MacPhail fired Old Stubblebeard.

“A few weeks or so before the close of the season,” Grimes recalled, “MacPhail called me in and told me there was going to be a change.

‘I expected that,’ I said.

‘Not surprised, eh?’

‘Can't say that I am.’

‘Not really your fault.’

‘You'd better be careful what you say, or else I'll ask you why you're letting me out.’

“We both laughed. Then he asked me if I had any suggestions as to who my successor ought to be.

‘Yes, I think I do. You've got a guy right on the club now who’s pretty smart, has got a lot of guts, and ought to be a damned good manager.’

‘Who's that?’

‘Durocher.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, sir, I certainly do.’

“Shortly after that they signed Leo.”

The Lip gave the Babe the expected boot. Ruth was out of baseball now for good, and Leo began the transformation of the moribund Brooks into a unit that featured Gashouse Gang baseball--rhubarbs and beanballs and stolen bases, and high stakes poker games in the clubhouse.

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MacPhail persuaded radio station WHN to carry the Dodgers’ games. He imported Walter “Red” Barber, his old Cincinnati broadcaster, to handle the play- by-play. Erudite and aloof away from the microphone, folksy and companionable behind it, the Southern-born Barber soon had everybody in Brooklyn listening to baseball. His style was precise and descriptive, sprinkled with Dixie-isms that blended smoothly with his narrative. Unlike his Yankee counterpart ,

Red was not a rooter. He was a reporter. Listening to Barber was like reading the

New York Times while eating catfish and grits.

MacPhail rebuilt the press box in Ebbets Field, installed an adjacent watering hole that grateful sports writers nicknamed “Larry’s Saloon”--it never hurt to keep the “knights of the keyboard” lubricated--and instituted “Knothole Gangs”, where kids could get into the park for free and grow up to be rabid Dodgers’ fans.

Attendance kept rising. Brooklyn was baseball crazy again.

***

The Dodgers arrived at the Polo Grounds just in time for Durocher’s latest return from a five-game suspension, the result of an altercation with umpire Lee

Ballanfant in Chicago.

“I knew I would be suspended,” Leo explained. “I deserved it. But I think the rhubarb served its purpose. I woke my guys up. They played heads-up ball that day, even though they lost. As long as they hustle, they’ll have no trouble from me.”

The Giants had spent the month of June dropping 16 of 27, and falling eight games off the pace. The more Leo thought about it, the angrier he got.

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“I’m tired of being a nice guy,” Leo stormed. “I’ve decided to go back to my old way of managing. Rip and tear and slash, with a little rhubarb mixed in for good measure. These guys have been getting away with murder. I’ve been too easy on them. But it’s going to be different now. They may not like me. They’ll probably hate me. But they’ll win or I’ll know the reason why.”

The primary cause of the New York decline was that Giant batsmen no longer hit in the clutch. They had scored only 4.2 runs per game in their last 27 starts, down from 5.4 in their first 40. Their pitchers had exacerbated the problem by surrendering 2.2 more runs per game on the road than at the Polo Grounds. While

Leo’s batsmen slumped, Shotton’s sluggers had improved an already strong offense by .9 runs, with most of the increase coming at Ebbets Field where they had averaged a whopping 7.4 per game.

Newcombe and Koslo started the first game of the series. Koslo had worked his way out of the bullpen to become the Giants’ most reliable starter after having inhabited nice guy Durocher’s doghouse for two months because he had missed a bunt sign during the home opener.

The two clubs went into the eighth tied 1-1, another Giant-Dodger nail-biter, but

Newk ran out of gas before Koslo. The Polo Grounders scored three times and took the game 4-1. Newcombe’s record dropped to 5-2. Furillo supplied most of the

Dodgers’ offense, collecting a pair of singles and a double, and raising his average to .292. The loss did not affect the standings. The Reds defeated the Cardinals 10-

2 in St. Louis, and Brooklyn maintained its one-game edge.

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The starting lineups for the All-Star game were announced in Chicago. A late turnout at Coogan’s Bluff had elected Johnny Mize at first base over Hodges and the wounded Waitkus. Robinson and Reese were runaway favorites at second and shortstop; Eddie Kazak of the Cardinals would play third; Kiner, Musial, and

Willard Marshall of the Giants gained outfield berths; and the Phillies’ Andy

Seminick outpolled Campanella at catcher. 4,637,743 ballots had been cast.

The Mahatma finally disposed of Mickey Owen, selling the veteran receiver to the Cubs for the $10,000 waiver price, the baseball equivalent of a package of Phil

Wrigley’s gum.

“Baseball’s like this,” explained Frankie Frisch. “Have one good year and you can fool them for five more, because for five more years, they expect you to have another good one.”

Durocher was manipulating his lineup like a demented chiropractor. Sometimes, he benched his two all-stars, Mize and Marshall; at other times, he sidelined every player in his infield. He had no regular second baseman. On Saturday, he used a

.135 hitting non-entity named George Hausmann in the leadoff spot. Lucky

Lohrke, whose major talent was escaping death, was Leo’s third baseman except when outfielder Sid Gordon played there. The only constants were Whitey

Lockman in left and Bobby Thomson in center. Every other position seemed to be up for grabs. Durocher’s tinkering was fraying everyone’s nerves.

Clint Hartung, the “Hondo Hurricane” was seeking his third victory over the

Brooks, but they had seen enough of him now to get a read on his deliveries, and they staked Barney to a four run lead that slipped through his fingers like a wiggling

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fish. The Giants could still hit the long ball, and Barney kept serving them up.

Walks to Hausmann and Mize, and homers by Thomson and Gordon tied the game at 4-4 in the third and sent the Wild Man to the showers. Minner gave up a solo shot to ancient catcher in the fourth and issued a pair of free tickets in the fifth before a three–run homer by Marshall put the Giants ahead, 8-4.

Hermanski belted a grand slam off Swede Hansen in the sixth to tie it up. Reese hit his 10th homer with the bases empty in the eighth. In the ninth, ex-Dodger Kirby

Higbe attempted to quell the Brooklyn onslaught. Higbe had joined the Giants in

June, too shopworn for even the pitching impoverished Pirates. Furillo led off and ripped a hanging breaking ball to center field. Bobby Thomson tried for a shoestring catch. The ball bounced past him, all the way to the distant bleachers.

Furillo circled the bases easily. Billy Cox singled and Bruce Edwards walked.

Higbe retired Palica, and Pee Wee belted another homer into the upper deck in left.

Palica hurled his fourth straight shutout inning in the bottom half, and the Bums won 13-8, evening the series at a game apiece. They had tallied more than 400 runs in less than half a season. In St. Louis, Johnny Vander Meer blanked the Cards 3-0, the second time he’d whitewashed the Redbirds, and suddenly the Dodgers had some breathing room.

On Sunday, the Giants drubbed the Flock 16-0, the most lopsided defeat the

Dodgers had suffered since the Giants had clubbed them 19-2 at Ebbets Field exactly two years earlier. Branca was pounded off the mound in an inning and a third, his record dropping to 10-2, and pitcher Monte Kennedy punctuated the rout by belting an insulting grand slam off rusty reliever Morrie Martin in the seventh.

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The Dodgers’ difficulties against left handed pitching continued. The loss, coupled with the Cardinals’ 8-1 win over Cincinnati, chopped the lead to a single game.

Independence Day, and New York was roasting. It was 80 degrees at one o’clock in the morning. Sweltering citizens wrapped themselves in wet sheets and slept on fire escapes. The Dodgers had scheduled a morning-afternoon twinbill against the Phillies. By game time, it was 84 degrees and as humid as a Turkish bath. 22,314 of the Faithful gulped down breakfast and headed for Ebbets Field while the less devoted stood in line and waited for the air-conditioned movie houses to open.

Hodges hit his 12th homer into the lower left field seats off in the third inning after the Brooks had chased Curt Simmons, and Cox smacked his 4th of the year in the seventh. Preacher Roe went into the ninth leading 7-0. Puddin’

Head Jones belted one of Preach’s few mistakes out of the park after which the

Quakers surrendered meekly and headed gratefully for the showers. Roe had disposed them with just 97 pitches. He was still as fresh as a cactus.

While the Brooks celebrated the Preacher’s eighth win, 3,000 sweaty picnickers at the July Fourth celebration hosted by the Knights of Columbus in nearby

Prospect Park were informed by the Right Reverend Edward Curran that

Communist Russia should be expelled from the United Nations, and that the United

States should lead the effort. In progressive New England, Senator Brien

McMahon postulated that, “in our hatred of communism, we may unthinkingly espouse Communist doctrines of thought-suppression.” This was a veiled barb at

Representative John Wood, chairman of the House Un-American Activities

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Committee. Wood was preparing for public hearings to investigate inflammatory statements made in Paris by actor and vocalist Paul “Old Man River” Robeson during the Negro entertainer’s recent tour of Europe and the Soviet Union. The left-wing tunesmith had remarked, in his rich baritone, that he loved Russians, and that American Negroes would never bear arms against the residents of Uncle Joe

Stalin’s socialist paradise. Representative Wood expected real Americans to fight anybody. One of Wood’s witnesses was going to be former U.S. Army First

Lieutenant, Jackie Robinson. Robinson, under the tutelage of Branch Rickey, had become as anti a communist as J. Edgar Hoover.

“Paul speaks only for himself,” Robinson grumbled. “I’ll be very glad to tell the committee how I feel.”

Newcombe started the afternoon game against newcomer John “Jocko”

Thompson, a rookie call-up from the International League. Halfway through, the temperature suddenly plummeted fifteen degrees, and a violent windstorm struck the Greater New York area. Six people drowned on the Sound when their boats capsized. At Ebbets Field, dust devils ripped through the grounds, no one could see the diamond, and the game was delayed for 21 minutes. When the dirt had settled back onto the infield, the Brooks scored five runs and beat the Phils, 8-4. Newk won his sixth game, with an from Banta, and logged a perfect day at the plate-

-three hits in three tries. Reese, Furillo and Edwards smacked home runs.

Robinson swiped his 15th and 16th bases, and Pee Wee bagged his 13th. Luis

Olmo returned to the lineup, doubled and singled, and picked up the Dodgers’

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fourth steal of the afternoon. The doubleheader sweep, coupled with a St. Louis split in Wrigley Field, increased the Dodgers’ lead to two games.

An ancient baseball canard had it that the team occupying first place on the

Fourth of July would win the pennant. The Dodgers’ overall record stood at 44-28, second best in the majors behind the Yankees’ 48-25 mark. Brooklyn’s 422 runs scored was tops, sixteen better than Casey Stengel’s club. If you believed in the old voodoo, it would be the Bums versus the Bombers come October.

***

Interim Dodgers’ president Ed McKeever stood, hat in hand, with the windswept mourners at Greenwood Cemetery as they laid poor Charlie Ebbets in the cold ground on the raw afternoon of April 21, 1925. McKeever’s nose was running. By eight o’clock that evening, he was feeling feverish. His lungs began to fill with fluid in the morning, and he was dead within the week.

The rapid demise of yet another Dodgers’ CEO caught National League

President John Heydler by surprise. Heydler had been one of Brooklyn Charlie’s honorary pallbearers; now there was going to be another funeral, and he hadn’t even had time to get his mourning clothes back from the cleaners.

“The flags are still flying at half-mast for Mr. Ebbets in some of the parks,” he said. “What tribute will be accorded Mr. McKeever, I do not know. I would like to think it over before I say. Today’s game between the Giants and the Robins will not be postponed.”

A month later--after confirming that his insurance premiums were up to date-- the stockholders of the Brooklyn Baseball Club elected Wilbert Robinson as their

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new president. The selection was not without rancor. Steve McKeever wanted the presidency for himself, but his brother’s widow and Brooklyn Charlie’s heirs opposed him. Uncle Robbie was a compromise choice that Steve viewed as a sellout to the Ebbets faction. The directors’ meetings would henceforth serve as battlegrounds for the wrangling families, with Uncle Robbie the convenient target of abuse by both sides, a portly piñata who was slowly having the amiability whacked out of him.

Robinson continued to act as field manager. Veteran outfielder Zach Wheat was his chief assistant. The board of directors felt that Uncle Robbie was too big of a drawing card to be stashed away in the front office like a moth-eaten moosehead in somebody’s attic. Robbie was as much a Brooklyn institution as the Steeplechase or the Bridge. Many of the Faithful, having watched the Dodgers perform, thought that the rest of the club should be institutionalized as well.

“Members of this team have been guilty of many boneheaded plays this year,” observed Uncle Robbie. “I have decided upon a new system at the opening of the training season next year. Bonehead plays are going to be marked on the salary ledger in red ink. Each bonehead play is going to cost only a small sum, probably not more than a dollar. By that system, I think the players will learn to show better judgement on the field.”

The Dodgers’ activities on the field spurred the Faithful to ever more energetic exercises of their rights to free speech. One Brooklyn bonehead who grew tired of the disapprobation was the one-dimensional Jacques “Jack” Fournier. Fournier had been traded to the Dodgers from Rickey’s Cardinals in 1923, and had averaged .345

183 Bob Mack

with 116 runs batted in per season since. He had also paced NL first basemen in errors in 1923 with 21, finished second in 1924 with 22, and tied for second in 1925 with 15.

“During the three years I have been with the Robins,” he said, “I have always given my best efforts on the playing field, but, judging by the actions of the

Brooklyn fans towards me during the last six weeks, my best is not good enough. I have been sixteen years in baseball, and am accustomed to the fickleness of crowds; but the roasting I have received in Brooklyn has been so savage that I cannot play in a Brooklyn uniform and retain my self-respect. Every vile name has been hurled at me over and over again because I made the ordinary run of errors, or had not done something that foul-mouthed persons in the stands had expected me to do. I have become ashamed in Brooklyn of a profession to which I was once proud to belong.

My wife has long since stopped going to the games.”

Fournier calmed down over the winter and returned for another season of abuse in 1926, but he was 36 years old and almost through as a player, appearing in only

86 miscue-filled games, not really enough to allow the boo birds to draw a good bead on him. His replacement was a 23-year old Californian named Floyd Herman, better known as “Babe”.

Babe Herman was an athlete shaped in the Dodger mold--a bat full of dynamite and a dud for a glove. He avoided balls hit in the air as if they had dropped from the hind end of a buzzard. By the middle of the ’27 season, Herman and his infield cronies had circled helplessly under so many pop-ups that Uncle Robbie found it necessary to conduct morning remedials. Babe missed most of those too.

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Like an old Broadway hansom, Herman navigated the base lanes with gleeful disregard for other traffic. He passed other runners and allowed them to pass him while he admired a base hit or the weather or the pretty girls in the grandstand.

During his rookie year, he tripled into a double play when he slid into a third base that was already occupied by two other boneheads. Brooklyn management and fans grudgingly tolerated Babe’s lapses because he generally batted in more runs than he destroyed. Sportswriters coined a new name for the team based largely upon

Herman’s misadventures--the “Daffiness Boys”.

The war between the McKeevers and the Ebbetses heated up again in mid-1928.

Passions centered once again upon the rotund figure of Wilbert Robinson.

Columnist Westbrook Pegler explained the Flatbush fracas: “The McKeever group, alarmed because some of the Brooklyn athletes have learned the passwords to the speakeasies in the region of the ball yard and because the customers have allowed their devotion to relax, would fire Uncle Wilbert Robinson, the man who on two occasions has set forth on a baseball season managing, as he said, a lot of raggedy bums by the name of Joe, and kidded them into the championship of the National

League. The interests of the Ebbets heirs would sustain Uncle Robbie and retain him, more to thwart and plague and upset the McKeever interests than to reward

Uncle Robbie.”

Actually, the move to oust Robinson had as much to do with his lofty contract as with the laxity of his bed checks. By the end of the year, Steve McKeever had temporarily thrown in the towel.

185 Bob Mack

“So far as I can see,” said McKeever, “there is no way that Robbie can be put out. His contract still has another year to go, and we will have to let it go at that.

The club cannot afford to pay him in full and dismiss him, nor will the club hire someone else to manage the team so long as Robbie is being paid to do that as well as act as president.”

“I guess we’ll just be the one big, happy family we have been in the past,” laughed the old Oriole, “and I’ll be in there doing the best I can.”

Uncle Robbie was publicly sanguine about his club’s chances in 1929: “First base? Bissonette--fine. Second base? Flowers--fine. He’s home with ptomaine poisoning. Shortstop? Wright--right. Third base? Gilbert--if he proves he can hit-

-if not, Hendrick, maybe. Say, if John Heydler’s ten-man idea meant an extra man to hit for the third baseman instead of the pitchers, I’d never stop yelling for it.

Well, now. Outfield? Fine. Pitching? Fine. Catching? Fine.” And where will this fine club finish, Robbie? “Just a moment, just a moment. I’m giving you information, and you’re asking me riddles? Is that a square shake? Put Manager

Robinson down as refusing to answer on the advice of President Robinson.”

The Robins finished sixth. When Uncle Robbie’s contract expired on New

Year’s Day, the civil war in the front office began anew. A compromise was finally reached with the McKeevers whereby Robbie agreed to resign as president while being tendered a new two-year contract as manager. Freed from executive worries, the rotund Robinson retired to the dugout, and by the middle of September, had somehow maneuvered his club into first place.

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On September 15th, the Robins won their 11th straight game, 13-5 over the

Reds, a contest highlighted by ’s being passed between first and second bases by shortstop Glenn Wright, turning the latter’s home run into a single.

Wrote in the New York Times: “It is respectfully suggested that as soon as the yachting series is over, the Brenton Reef Light be removed from its rocky base off Newport and erected at first base on the Brooklyn diamond. Ordinarily it could be left dark, but when Herman gets on the bases, the great light should be turned on, and the lighthouse keeper and his whole family should get busy and polish the mirrors and reflectors. It would be a warning that runners in the wake of

Babe Herman had reached dangerous territory and should go at half-speed, tooting a foghorn every thirty seconds.”

The victory gave the Robins a one-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals, but

Uncle Robbie’s crew embarked upon a seven-game losing streak the next day that dashed their pennant hopes and unceremoniously dumped them into fourth place like a barrel of fishheads. Defeated but undaunted, Uncle Robbie started the last year of his contract by lambasting his club once again regarding the execution of what had come to be a Dodger trademark--the boneheaded play.

“This thing of one runner standing still on the base lines while another runner passes him has got to be stopped,” he explained earnestly. “We can’t win ball games that way.”

The ‘31 Robins ran the bases better but finished fourth again. On October 23rd, the Brooklyn Board of Directors named as the new manager of the

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baseball team. After eighteen years in Flatbush, Wilbert Robinson was out. He hadn’t even known the directors were meeting.

***

Philadelphia’s Ken Heintzelman had beaten the Bums three straight times, allowing them less than three runs per game. On Tuesday, he made it four in a row, stopping the Dodgers’ home winning streak at nine. Oakland Joe failed to survive a six-run first inning, and Shotton’s men were sluggish in the 7-2 loss. The Brooklyn lead dropped to a single game when the Cardinals nipped the Cubs in 10 innings, 2-

1.

On Wednesday, the rosters for the 16th All-Star game were announced in New

York. Campanella and Hodges were added to the National League squad, as were pitchers Preacher Roe, Ralph Branca, and Don Newcombe. The Phillies were furious over what they perceived to be the snubbing of Heintzelman.

“It’s an injustice,” griped skipper Eddie Sawyer. “How could any baseball man pick Branca or Newcombe or Blackwell over Heintzelman? Branca has won ten games but finished only seven, and Blackwell has pitched only a few innings all year. Newcombe hasn’t been in the league more than a month or so. If

Heintzelman’s 10-3 record--which includes nine complete games--isn’t enough to warrant being selected for an All-Star game, I’ll have to learn what pitchers are supposed to do.”

“This is the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard of,” squawked pitcher Russ

Meyer, “to select George Munger and Don Newcombe over Ken Heintzelman and

Robin Roberts. I hope the National League takes the worst beating it ever took.”

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“What kind of a league is this?” asked shortstop Granny Hamner. “And they talk about fair play. That’s a joke.”

“I’m darned disappointed,” Heintzelman admitted. “I never had a chance before.

But Southworth is the manager, and he knows how he wants to play his ball game.

There’s nothing to do about it but go ahead and finish the season the best I can.”

Billy Southworth, who had spent much of the year fielding vitriol from his own caviling players, was almost grateful to be catching it from elsewhere for a change.

“Being manager of an All-Star club is a thankless job with nothing to gain except criticism--and it seems I have run into plenty of that from all sides at all times,” he said. “I took because he looked splendid against us in two innings and pitched 2 1/3 innings of great ball against the Dodgers. I chose

George Munger because when he worked against us in St. Louis, he was in complete command all the way. I haven’t any likes or dislikes in the league and I certainly don’t dislike Heintzelman. I’m sorry about the whole affair.”

The Brooks were in Boston, where they were oh for 1949. All-Stars Branca and

Bickford locked horns in the opener, and Branca was all-gone after surrendering a pair of first inning runs on a homer by Elbie Fletcher and another two in the second on a two-run double by Eddie Stanky. It was the second consecutive game in which

Branca had been routed early, and--although he insisted that his balky elbow was fine--his manager was not so sure.

Campanella hit his eleventh homer in the second, and by the eighth, the Brooks had closed the gap to 5-4. Shotton brought Newcombe in to pitch relief. With two

189 Bob Mack

outs and Jim Russell on first, belted a home run that put the game away for the Braves 7-5.

Both of the Old Sourdough’s All-Star pitchers had failed, but--thanks to a bases- loaded single in the ninth by Johnny Hopp--the Pirates rallied to beat the Cardinals in Pittsburgh 4-3, maintaining the Dodgers’ one-game lead. It was the fifth win in a row for Billy Meyer’s improving Buccos.

Branca’s recent struggles concerned the front office. The Dodgers’ offense was unquestionably of championship caliber, but the pitching had been dangerously inconsistent all season, and, if Branca was less than one hundred percent, things could get ugly. Newcombe’s success as a starter had so far bolstered the mound corps, but the Mahatma did not want to go into the stretch with a staff consisting of

Preacher Roe, Joe Hatten, a rookie, and potluck. Branca’s roommate Barney had been unreliable, and the other hurlers were better suited to the bullpen. While his club continued the series in Boston, Rickey flew to Montreal to watch Pat

McGlothin pitch.

Oakland Joe was back in action on Thursday against Warren Spahn. The Brooks staked him to an early 3-0 lead on a bloop single by Furillo and a two-run chalk line double by Hodges that boosted his average to .328 and increased his league leading

RBI count to 64, three ahead of Robinson. Hatten held the lead and recorded his seventh victory, 5-2; but he was prouder of his three singles--pitchers loved their hits the way old men loved their lonesome molars.

The Dodgers returned to sold-out Ebbets Field for the last series before the break. Durocher had added Jersey City outfielder Monte Irvin and infielder Henry

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Thompson to the roster since the Brooks had last seen the Polo Grounders--the first

Negro players in the history of the New York Giants. The world hardly noticed.

Clint Hartung had never lost to the Dodgers. He was due. He walked Robinson in the second then clipped him with an errant throw. Jackie rabbited all the way to third while the Giants retrieved the ball from right field, then scored the first run on an infield bleeder by Furillo. The Dodgers added two in the fourth on a single by Hermanski, a triple by Snider, and an RBI single by Hodges.

Newcombe was on the mound for his third stint in five days. By the fifth inning, his arm was drooping like day-old lettuce. With one out, Thompson and Whitey

Lockman walked. Newk retired Bobby Thomson, then surrendered singles to Mize,

Gordon, and Marshall. Shotton dispatched Sukeforth to make the pitching change.

The Faithful greeted Rex Barney as if he was a bat flitting from an open coffin.

Buoyed by the ignoble reception, Barney walked Ray Mueller and threw three consecutive pitches out of the strike zone to Buddy Kerr. With 34,468 paying customers preparing to vent serious spleen, Kerr took an automatic strike on the 3-0 count, then popped out. The Faithful cheered the Wild Man all the way back to the dugout. The Brooks had escaped the inning with a 3-3 tie. They took a 4-3 lead in the sixth when Reese tripled and Snider brought him home with a long sacrifice fly.

In the eighth, Barney walked pinch-hitters Joe Lafata and Monte Irvin. Palica relieved the Wild Man with two on, nobody out, and a one-run lead to protect--a tight spot for the 21 year old, although not as suspenseful as trying to pronounce his real name, which was Pavliecivich. The kid retired the law firm--Thompson,

Lockman, and Thomson--in order. In the ninth, he disposed of Mize, Gordon, and

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Marshall. Palica had faced six batters, and none of them could get the ball out of the infield. Barney was credited with his fourth win in nine decisions. In

Cincinnati, the Cardinals defeated the Reds 6-1, securing the Dodgers’ two-game lead for the day.

On Saturday, the Mahatma announced the recall of right-hander Carl Erskine from Fort Worth. “Oisk” had gone 10-4 during his stay with the Cats, completing

11 of his 14 games, and Shotton planned on using him in the rotation.

“I’ve only got one starting pitcher,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve guessed it.

He’s Roe. I’ll have two now with Erskine. I expected to get Carl back three weeks ago. I’m going to make Palica a starter too, as soon as I can get him out of the bullpen. But I seem to need him for relief every day.”

With the Dodgers playing uninspired ball since the beginning of July, The Old

Sourdough began to juggle his pitchers. On Saturday, he started Banta and used

Branca, Minner, and Hatten in relief. The shakeup proved futile. Lockman nailed

Banta for a first inning home run, and Mize hit his 13th off Branca in the sixth.

Giant lefties Kennedy and Koslo shut down the Dodgers on six hits, and the 9-5 defeat cut the lead to a single game when Musial’s 15th homer carried the Cards to a 3-2 victory in Cincinnati.

It was Preacher Roe in the rain on Sunday, but this time there was too much water for even Ol’ Preach to handle. The contest was delayed for an hour and a half at the outset, and commenced in a steady drizzle that persisted all afternoon. By the sixth inning, the game was knotted at three, and Roe was sliding off the mound during his follow-throughs. Home plate umpire Artie Gore stopped play, and the

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Ebbets Field bucket brigade assaulted the muck with pails of sand. In the bottom half, Shotton sent Marv Rackley up to pinch-hit for his waterlogged pitcher, and

Palica took the mound. In the lucky seventh, Snider tripled off the 395-foot marker on the center field exit gate. Robinson followed with a line single to left that broke the tie. Hodges sacrificed Robinson to second. Furillo rifled a single to left center that scored another run. Durocher yanked Swede Hansen, who had replaced

Available Jones in the third, and called in the Dodgers’ old confrere Hank

Behrman. The Night Owl finished the inning without event, but in the eighth, Pee

Wee slammed one of his fastballs into the lower left field stands. The ball bounced back onto the playing field. Umpire Babe Pinelli signaled home run. Reese circled the bases, but crew chief Frank Dascoli overruled Pinelli’s call. The hit was declared to be a ground-rule double, and Reese returned to second. Behrman walked Gene Hermanski, who had walloped a game-tying homer over the scoreboard in the fifth, and Durocher waved for Koslo to face Snider. The Old

Sourdough countered with right-handed pinch-hitter and signaled for the bunt. The strategy was sound--the infield was slow and the ball was wet--but Olmo popped out to third baseman Sid Gordon. Robinson was up. Shotton called for the same play. Jackie deadened the ball perfectly and outraced Gordon’s throw to first.

Down by a pair with the bases loaded and one away, Leo pulled his infield in to cut off the run. Koslo’s first pitch slipped from his grip, went all the way to the backstop, and Reese scored from third. Hodges was walked intentionally to reload the bases. Furillo hit a line drive to Lockman in deep left, Hermanski strolled in with the seventh run, and that was the way it ended. Palica’s relief effort earned

193 Bob Mack

him his fourth win, but the Cardinals had beaten the Reds 8-6 and 9-6 in Cincinnati, and the Dodgers lead shriveled to a half-game.

***

With the season a bit more than half over, it was time to take stock. The

Dodgers had done their best work against the hapless Rhinelanders, compiling a 9-2 record. Their worst efforts had been against the defending champion Braves, 4-6.

Against the contending Cardinals, they were a game under the break-even point at

5-6. The Flock had consistently roughed up the circuit’s weak sisters; but if they were going to win the pennant, they had to start knocking off the tough guys.

Burt Shotton’s tactical style reflected the Deadball era in which he had played.

With a team full of sluggers, the Old Sourdough bunted twenty percent more than the league average and called for the steal twice as often as the other National

League pilots. Defensively, he had handled his pitchers as erratically as they had performed. He had left some in games too long, and removed others too early. He had worked poor Jack Banta to death then used him hardly at all. Since the beginning of July, Erv Palica had become the skipper’s favorite fireman. Shotton had brought the kid into four games in which he had tossed 15 innings. Although the righthander had responded brilliantly, allowing only 4 hits and 1 run, the pace was punishing. He had endured two long outings within four days then worked back-to-back two and three inning stints.

The skipper’s reluctance to promote Newcombe at the start of the season had been a dreadful mistake. On the other hand, he had stuck with Furillo until the right fielder had finally broken loose from a two-month slump, and he had platooned

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 194

Hermanski effectively in left field. He had used a set lineup, and his insertion of

Robinson into the cleanup slot had paid off handsomely (thanks to Allen Roth’s

1948 stat sheets); but the Old Sourdough’s major contribution to the Dodgers was his temperament. He did not rejoice over victories nor despair about defeats. He rarely criticized his players to the press--he didn’t have to. The Faithful informed the boys in no uncertain terms when they were not performing to expectations.

A local tollbooth attendant allowed Branch Rickey to pass through his station without paying the fee.

“I don’t understand,” said the puzzled Mahatma. He had never seen the man before in his life.

“We won today, din’t we? I wouldn’t charge you whenever da Brooks win,

Branch--but I wish’t you’d get dat Rex Barney straightened out.”

Shotton allowed the players to police themselves--Reese and Robinson handled problems in the clubhouse. Hodges helped. Hodges never needed to say anything to straighten out a delinquent teammate. He would just smile at the malefactor and crack his big knuckles.

Yankee slugger was not going to play in the All-Star game.

Henrich had been nursing a bad knee for a week, and it had not improved much.

This was not the good news it might otherwise have been for the National League, because American League manager announced that Joe DiMaggio would be taking Henrich’s place in the outfield.

The “Yankee Clipper” had been disabled for most of the season with bone spurs on his heel, but he had returned to the lineup on June 28th, and immediately began

195 Bob Mack

to mulch American League pitchers. DiMag slammed four homers against the Red

Sox in his first three games, knocked in four runs against the Senators, then connected for another home run in a return bout with the Bosox. In the twelve games since his return, Joe had batted .350 with five homers and fifteen RBI. Ted

Williams had fractured a rib chasing one of DiMaggio’s home run balls in Yankee

Stadium, and the injury made Williams a doubtful starter. The Clipper had spread destruction like a tornado in a trailer park.

The American League was a “bet-seven-to-win-five” favorite. Since 1933, they had compiled an 11-4 log in the Midsummer Classic, and bookmakers always admired a favorable track record. Boudreau named Red Sox eleven-game winner

Mel Parnell as his starting pitcher. Parnell was a left-handed Irishman from New

Orleans, a neighbor of Cardinals’ lefty Howie Pollet. Despite the heat and humidity

(perhaps because of it), the Crescent City was a breeding ground for professional ballplayers. Big leaguers from the Big Easy included former Giant Mel Ott, Bobby

Brown of the Yankees, Putsy Caballero of the Phillies, Connie Ryan of the Braves, former Phillie and Dodger Charlie Gilbert, Jack Kramer of the Red Sox, and Lou

Klein of the Cardinals.

Billy Southworth hadn’t chosen his starter yet. He was leaning toward Warren

Spahn, but with DiMaggio added to the AL lineup, starting a right-hander like

George Munger might be prudent. Billy the Kid wouldn’t decide until just before game time.

The 16th annual All-Star Game would be the first in which Negro players would appear. Robinson, Campanella, and Newcombe had made the National League

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team, and Larry Doby had been named to the American League squad. Effa

Manley once said that Robinson couldn’t carry Doby’s glove--Cardinal second baseman Red Schoendienst disagreed.

“Without Robinson,” Schoendienst said flatly, “the Dodgers would be in the second division.”

Tuesday’s forecast was for fair weather with 75-degree temperatures, but the day dawned with lowering skies over Brooklyn and the smell of rain in the air. The gates at Ebbets Field opened to the multitudes at 11:00 a.m., and the last 3,000 unreserved tickets were snapped up like shark chum. Meanwhile, Billy Southworth and Burt Shotton were playing musical dugouts. The Old Sourdough had suggested that the National Leaguers occupy what was normally the visitor’s bench on the third base side of the field since it would be closer to the coaching box where Billy the Kid would be stationed. Unfortunately, the executives of the National League and their guests were seated behind the first base dugout, which, due to the unscheduled switch, was now on the American League side of the diamond, an embarrassing situation that NL president Ford Frick had to remedy--the game was being televised. So Brooklyn batboys Stan Strull and Charlie DiGiovanna patiently repacked the lumber and leather and horsehides and lineup cards, and moved all of it back from whence it had come. Everything happened at Ebbets Field.

While the batboys were trundling the equipment back across the infield,

Southworth made the decision to start the game with Spahn, who usually pitched well in Brooklyn. In ’48, Spahnie had won one game by a 1-0 score and two others by 2-1 counts. He had dropped his only Flatbush start in ’49, 3-2. The Boston lefty

197 Bob Mack

kept the ball down to right-handers, and he would hold the same-side advantage over portsiders aiming for the short fence in right field; the only lefties in the AL lineup other than Parnell, however, were Ted Williams, playing with his injured rib, and Washington’s Eddie Robinson. Billy the Kid was going to be hearing from the carpers again.

Bobby Thomson and the NL sluggers rattled the seats with line drives during batting practice. Then the American Leaguers came out to shag some balls, and Joe

DiMaggio shocked the festive crowd by completely missing an easy fly.

Grandstand oracles that studied subtleties on the field as if they were peering into goat entrails noted that the early portends were favorable for the Nationals.

It was time to go to work. The inimitable Tex Rickard introduced , the Tigers’ third baseman, as “George Keel”, and Cleveland’s second baseman Joe

Gordon as “Jack”. Gladys Gooding trilled the National Anthem, and Red Sox outfielder Dominic DiMaggio, Joe’s little brother, struck out. The diamond diviners groaned. Fanning the first batter had long been considered a bad omen for the home team. The jinx began to take effect immediately. Kell hit a grass-cutter to Kazak at third. Kazak had been butchering grounders at Ebbets Field all season.

He threw low to first, and Mize couldn’t bend over far enough to corral it. Roscoe

McGowen, the official scorer, assigned the error to the lumbering Big Cat, but the autodidacts in the press box disagreed, so McGowen changed his decision and debited the scatter-armed Kazak. Williams was up next, taped like a mummy beneath his road jersey. Southworth deployed his fielders into the radical

“Williams Shift” that had been popularized by Boudreau in the ’46 Series. Kazak

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moved over by second, and everyone else took up station on the right side of the diamond. Shotton had used the same positioning successfully against Mize in the first game of the season. Williams struck out, but Kell swiped second ahead of

Seminick’s slow throw. The Yankee Clipper singled to left field, scoring Kell. 1-0

Americans. A’s shortstop drew a walk. Eddie Robinson singled to right on a ball at which Mize waved hello then said goodbye, and DiMaggio scored.

2-0 Americans. White Sox second baseman Cass Michaels sent a bouncer to Reese.

Pee Wee dropped it. Joost scored. 3-0 Americans. Catcher Birdie Tebbets singled to left, scoring Robinson. 4-0 Americans. Parnell struck out. The television cameras followed the chastened Nationals as they slunk off the field like coondogs that had lost the coon.

Reese received a rousing ovation from the Faithful as he stepped in to open the home half. He ripped a slider back to the mound that bounced off the startled

Parnell like a hailstone. Parnell pounced on it and just nipped Pee Wee at first.

Robinson was up, the first black man to ever bat in an All-Star contest. Like Cobb and Ruth or Williams and Musial, Jackie usually excelled under pressure.

“If a big throng is in the stands, and they give him a big hand,” Eddie Sawyer observed, “Robinson rises to the occasion and gives a dazzling performance. If the fans sit by calmly and quietly, Robinson reacts to their feelings and goes about his work in an ordinary way.”

All of the Negro All-Stars knew they were making history. Before the game,

Newcombe said, “Fellows, we’re here and now they can’t turn us around. We’re gonna give ‘em hell.”

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Parnell kicked and fired, and Robinson slammed a double to left. Musial stepped in. Parnell and Boudreau were well aware that the Man was a .300 hitter, but both of them believed that his otherworldly performances in Flatbush were merely the result of mediocre Brooklyn pitching. The cosmically attuned Dodgers’

Faithful knew better. Stanley blasted a two-run homer fifty feet over the right field screen and into Bedford Avenue. The AL lead was cut in half.

In the second, Spahn surrendered a one-out single to George “Keel”, then walked Williams. Southworth brought Newcombe in. The first Negro to pitch in an

All-Star game and he had to face Joe DiMaggio with two men on base. Newk took a few deep breaths and got to work. His fastball was humming--the spin on the thing could knock the bat from a hitter’s grip and numb his hands for an inning.

From first base, Ted Williams thought that Newcombe threw as hard as Cleveland’s

Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller or Detroit’s Virgil “Fire” Trucks.

“He sure rears back and fires that fast one in there, doesn’t he?” Williams remarked. Johnny Mize just grinned.

Newk got the Clipper on a fly ball to Kiner in left and Joost on a popup to

Robinson. The National Leaguers came to bat still down by two, but they had gotten out of a jam, and Billy the Kid was feeling lucky.

Parnell began the second by walking Willard Marshall. Kazak grounded a single to left. Parnell hit Seminick in the ribs with a fastball. Bases loaded, nobody out.

Boudreau waved for Trucks, the blazing fast right-hander. Newcombe teed off on a fastball and sent it on a line to deep left field. Williams, never known for footspeed or glovework, raced to the wall, leaped, and made a one-handed catch that some

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writers said was the best defensive play they had ever seen in an All-Star game.

Marshall scored from third. 4-3 Americans. Everybody in the park was rooting for

Pee Wee to tie it up, but the Dodgers’ captain grounded one to second that Michaels turned into a double play. Inning over.

Miscues by Seminick and Marshall in the third enabled the Nationals to tie the

All-Star record for most errors with four, and it had taken them less than a third of the game to do it. “All they need is a keg of beer at third base,” remarked a press- box comic.

Robinson walked to begin the Nationals’ attack, and Musial singled to left.

Williams casually retrieved the ball and was surprised to see that the Dodger daredevil had not stopped running. Jackie raced into third ahead of Ted’s belated throw. Kiner was up next, and the capacity crowd urged the Bucco big boy to launch one of Trucks’s fastballs into orbit. He hit into a 6-4-3 double play, Joost to

Michaels to Eddie Robinson, and Jackie scored the tying run. Trucks could see his way out of the inning, but Mize singled to right, and Marshall drew a two out walk.

Southworth sent Hodges out to run for the Big Cat. Kazak singled to left. Hodges scored the go-ahead run ahead of the throw from Williams. 5-4 Nationals.

Hodges stayed in the game to play first base, and Southworth sent Campanella in to do the catching. Five of the nine National Leaguers on the field were Dodgers.

It felt like a Brooklyn home game. Sid Gordon replaced Kazak at third, and the ball found him right away. He threw out Little DiMaggio. Kell singled to left.

Williams walked. The Yankee Clipper hit a roller to Gordon that moved Kell and

Williams into scoring position. First base was open, but this was the All-Star game,

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and the fans had come to see the players hit. Newcombe pitched to Joost. The

Philadelphia shortstop hit a spinner off the end of the bat. It hopped crazily toward first, eluded Hodges’ frantic barehanded stab, and rolled into the outfield for a two- run single. 6-5 Americans.

With two outs in the Nationals’ fifth, Gordon doubled off the wall in left.

Campanella took three straight balls from Athletics’ pitcher Lou Brissie. Boudreau didn’t much care what the fans had come to see. He ordered the intentional pass.

Southworth sent Andy Pafko up to pinch-hit for Munger. Brissie struck him out.

In the sixth inning, the American Leaguers jumped all over Vern Bickford. Dom

DiMaggio whacked a double down the left field line, and Kell walked. Williams belted a fly ball deep enough to right-center to allow Little DiMag to take third.

Big DiMag hit a ringing two-bagger to left-center that plated both his brother and

Kell. Joe took third when Kiner’s throw got past Campanella. Campy’s error was the fifth for the National League, setting a new mark for All-Star defensive futility.

8-5 Americans.

In the bottom half, Pee Wee drew a base on balls and Jackie grounded into a force out. The rain that had been threatening to disrupt the proceedings finally arrived and the umpires halted play. Commissioner Chandler, bravely anchored to his box seat to prove to the television cameras and the sponsors that a little water was nothing to worry about, almost drowned. The grounds crew did not bother to cover the infield, and the base paths turned swampy. After eleven minutes, hostilities resumed. Musial was retired on a tapper that stuck in the mud in front of

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the plate, but Kiner hit a long fly to left that snuck into the seats over the 351-foot sign. 8-7 Americans.

Howie Pollet took the mound in the seventh. Former Yankee star Joe “Flash”

Gordon, winding up his career with the Indians, cracked an opposite field double.

Pollet retired and Vic Wertz, the latter on a diving catch by Pafko in center field; then Little DiMag singled in Gordon with the insurance run and advanced to second on Kiner’s throw to the plate. 9-7 Americans. Bob Dillinger of the Browns singled in DiMaggio. 10-7 Americans. Cleveland’s doubled to left. Dillinger scored the third run of the inning. 11-7 Americans. The two-out rally had broken the game open. of the Yankees held the NL scoreless the rest of the way, and the Americans had won their fourth consecutive

All-Star match.

The sporting press almost unanimously disparaged the game. It had been sloppily played; it had been too long, too boring, and too wet. Jackie Robinson agreed with the critics, but said he was happy to have been a part of it anyway.

“I certainly got a great thrill,” he said diplomatically.

“I was proud, scared, and nervous,” said Don Newcombe, “but mostly proud to have that uniform on and to represent our people and to be with Jackie, Roy, and

Larry. I was scared to death when I went to the mound to relieve Warren Spahn.”

“I suppose it’s silly to alibi our defeats,” commented the Mahatma, “especially when so many have been inflicted upon us. But it seems to me that the nationwide fans’ voting idea is not the best one. I may be wrong in that; but I am sure of this, however--the manager should not be forced to start with the fans’ top selections,

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and then play them for three innings. He should be privileged to start anybody he sees fit and use him as long as he desires. You might have noticed that after the first three amateurish innings, the game was played in a smoother and more interesting manner. That was because the managers were left free to run things the way they wanted.”

The way they wanted to run things in the National League dugout, Rickey had noted, was to play Brooklyn men.

“Look back on the records of the All-Star game,” the Mahatma continued, “and you’ll see how intense has been the desire of the American League to win. I haven’t the figures before me, but you’ll see that their great stars always played a full game. We went at it as though it were a frolic. Everybody got in for the fun, great stars and fellows who weren’t stars at all. They all played. By Judas Priest, that’s no way to win! I think you are going to see things run differently from now on. After all, Reese, Robinson, Kiner, and Musial played the whole way this year.

We have to match our best with their best.”

***

The Dodgers started the second half of the season with a three game series against the Reds at Ebbets Field. Oakland Joe had gashed the index finger on his pitching hand, but the Old Sourdough started him anyway. Hatten pitched as well with four fingers as he had with five, leaving after seven innings with a 3-2 lead, all three tallies courtesy of a solo homer and two-run single by Duke Snider.

Banta took over in the eighth, and drilled poor in the chest with a fastball that almost killed him. The Reds pitcher was knocked flat, the air punched

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from his lungs. Fox lay motionless in the dirt for a few long moments while his lobes reinflated, then got up and staggered off to first. The Faithful gave the damaged hurler a rousing ovation--they always admired hairsbreadth escapes; then, after Harry “the Hat” Walker singled and Peanuts Lowrey tripled, they cheered Fox as he puffed his way around the bases to give Cincinnati the lead. Shotton signaled for bullpen help, and Branca strode onto the field to a chorus of boos. It seemed like harsh treatment for a man who was second in the league in wins, but nobody in

Brooklyn was fooled by a fancy gate that only opened onto the town dump--Branca had been terrible lately. The Hawk gave up a sacrifice fly to Hatton that scored

Lowrey, and it was 5-3, Reds.

Ewell Blackwell took the mound. “The Whip”, former Rhineland ace, was pitching himself into shape after off-season surgery had left him one kidney short of a set. Shotton sent Dick Whitman in to hit for Branca. Whitman lined a single to right, advancing to second when bobbled the ball. The error was

Cincinnati’s fourth of the game, reason enough why the Queen City club was fifteen games out of first. Reese drew a base on balls, and Hermanski bunted the runners into scoring position. Snider ripped a grounder to Bobby Adams at deep second, driving in Whitman--Duke’s fourth RBI--and Reese moved to third, but now there were two outs, and it was up to Robinson to keep the rally alive. Jackie clotheslined a single to left, never a doubt, and it was 5-5.

Babe Herman, scouting for the Pirates, had come close to signing Snider in

1943, but the Dodgers passed him on the bases again. The Mahatma had inked the semi-pro for $1000, $14,000 less than Herman had been willing to pay.

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“I was scared to death when I first came up,” said Snider. “The glare on the field for day games bothered me a lot after all the night hitting we did in the minors. The white shirt background at Ebbets Field and Wrigley Field in Chicago was troublesome, too. But I’m becoming adjusted to all that. It’s a funny thing, but whenever I change a league, it’s always quite a while before I start hitting.” Snider grinned crookedly. “I’d like to spend all my life in baseball, if I don’t go crazy first.”

Palica handled the Reds in the tenth, then a bad-hop single by Rackley followed by a long double to left center by Cox gave the Dodgers the 6-5 win, their tenth in twelve tries against Cincinnati. In Philadelphia, a homer by Del Ennis in the bottom of the ninth boosted Heintzelman and the Phils to a 1-0 win over the

Cardinals and increased the Dodgers’ lead to a game and a half.

Newcombe made his first start since the All-Star game on Ladies’ Day Friday.

Home runs by Robinson (9), Campanella (12), and Tommy Brown (1), gave the big rookie an 11-5 win, his seventh of the season. At Shibe Park, the Cards turned the tables on Robin Roberts and the Phillies with a 1-0 victory behind Howie Pollet, improving Pollet’s record to 12-5, and maintaining the status quo in the National

League race.

On Saturday, Shotton sent Preacher Roe to the mound in search of the sweep.

Carl Erskine had not yet arrived from Fort Worth, so the Dodger bullpen consisted of Palica and the usual suspects.

Walker Cooper had gone home run crazy since joining the Reds. The Durocher cast-off touched Ol’ Preach for his 13th of the season in the second, and salted the

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game away with a two-run upper deck blast off Barney in the tenth. In between, the

Dodgers pulled off a triple-swipe in the second with Robinson, Hodges, and Cox as the larcenists. It was the second time Jackie had stolen home this season. In the eighth, he had belted his tenth homer. In Philadelphia, the Phillies won 4-2 to capture the rubber game in their set with the Cardinals.

The Dodgers’ 7-6 defeat ruined an opportunity for them to extend their lead.

The Reds had been due for a win at Ebbets Field; still, Shotton had gone too long with the tiring Roe, then replaced him with the unreliable Barney.

Erskine showed up in time for Sunday’s doubleheader against the Cubs. The

Old Sourdough relieved Palica from relieving and sent him out to pitch the first game while Oisk shuffled off to the bullpen. Shotton had decided to use his best fireman as a starter, and his new hurler--who’d won ten games as a starter in Texas-

-as a reliever.

Johnny Schmitz, the Dodger-killer, took the mound for Frankie Frisch’s tail- enders. It had rained again, and the Ebbets Field grounds crew had dumped sand over a dozen percolating infield bogs. Frisch’s incompetents had dropped ten of fifteen in a half-month of what passed for baseball. The old Flash scouted the

Brooklyn infield for a few convenient sinkholes into which he could march his team. Former manager Charlie Grimm was learning that watching the travails of the Bruins was worse than orchestrating them.

“This is really rough on the nerves,” said the new Chicago vice-president. “You just have to sit and take it. Down there, I used to work off that nervousness when

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things were going bad by walking around, swinging my arms, talking, shouting, or something else. Now you just take it.”

The Cubs granted Jolly Cholly’s incipient ulcer temporary relief when they jumped on Palica for a pair of runs in the second on a single by Emil Verban, a triple by former Red Frankie Baumholtz, and a single by Phil Cavarretta. In the third, Hank Sauer, another ex-Rhinelander, belted his 16th homer of the season to make it 3-0.

Schmitz once again demonstrated his strange mastery over the Dodgers. Long

John rolled into the eighth with a two-hit shutout, but he was tiring, and pitches that the Brooks had been beating into the ground all afternoon were beginning to rise.

Tommy Brown singled to left. Campanella pinch-hit for Erskine, who had taken over for Palica in the sixth. Campy slammed a two-run homer to left. Verban dropkicked an easy grounder by Reese, and Pee Wee went to third on a single by

Cox. Schmitz coaxed another grounder from Furillo, but the wet grass slowed the ball. Shortstop Roy Smalley forced Cox at second, but Furillo beat Verban’s relay and Reese scored the tying run.

A 3-3 tie in the ninth was the ideal time for Shotton to use Palica, but Palica was gone. The skipper called for Banta, who retired the side relatively easily. Luis

Olmo, platooning in center field in place of Snider, smacked Schmitz’s second pitch in the bottom half into the lower deck in left for a game-winning homer. The 4-3 win evened Banta’s record at 4-4, and--with the Cardinals bashing the Giants 10-1 at the Polo Grounds--ensured that the Brooks would retain their lead, at least through the lidlifters.

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Rain intervened in the nightcap, and the game was called in the second inning after Branca had thrown a scoreless first and the Dodgers had blown a bases loaded opportunity against Bob Rush. The Cardinals-Giants tailpiece was also washed out, so the Brooks continued to lead the Redbirds by a length and a half. On Monday,

Mister Robinson went to Washington.

The un-American Activity hearings had commenced with Manning Johnson’s identification of Paul Robeson as a closet Communist who had been recruited by

Moscow to inculcate mushy-skulled American highbrows with Soviet propaganda.

“They just wanted to use him, as a great artist,” said Johnson, former National

Committeeman for the CPUSA, “to impress other artists and intellectuals generally.

It is regrettable, indeed, that such an able man has sold himself to Moscow.”

Robeson’s membership in the Party was a high secret, Johnson said, the revelation of which was punishable by immediate expulsion from the ranks of the revolutionaries. Johnson also casually mentioned that one of the Party’s projects was to establish a Negro People’s Republic on the Eastern shore of Maryland, extend it into the Deep South, secede from the Union, and inaugurate a second armed rebellion. Discussion of this irrationality was not conspiratorial sedition, claimed the Marxists, but free speech protected by the First Amendment to the

Constitution.

Coincidentally, a “Bill of Rights” conference, chaired by Paul Kern, late of the

New York Municipal Civil Service Commission, and attended by a polyglot assembly of left-leaning loudmouths, began at the Hudson Hotel at the same time as the Washington hearings. The idea for this conclave of collectivists had been

209 Bob Mack

cooked up by former Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace,

Robeson, and Clifford Durr, president of the National Lawyer’s Guild, as a device to steal headlines from the hearings in Washington. Their first order of business was the ritual denunciation of the F.B.I. as an instrument of “fascism, American- style”.

“We have been encouraged to become a nation of spies and informers,” said speaker O. John Rogge, former Assistant Attorney-General, whose prosecutorial career had demonstrated unflagging support and encouragement for people who spied and informed on anti-communists. “Our neighbors are being encouraged to go to the F.B.I. with all kinds of junk. That is not the America I grew up in.”

Joseph Forer, one of the mouthpieces for the N.L.G., denounced the F.B.I. wiretap files that had been introduced into the trial of accused Soviet spy Judith

Coplon. “The F.B.I. commits many more federal crimes than it ever detects,” he said, a sentiment once shared by Al Capone, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Ma” Barker, and

John Dillinger.

Robinson was somewhat perplexed that he had been thrust into the midst of all this domestic intrigue.

“I’ve had a great many messages come to me by wire, phone, and letter urging me not to show up at this hearing. And I ought to make it plain that not all of this urging came from Communist sympathizers--of course, most of it did. It isn’t very pleasant for me to find myself in the middle of a public argument that has nothing to do with the standings of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the pennant race--or even the pay raise I am going to ask Mr. Branch Rickey for next year.”

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The regular crush of reporters, photographers, and gawkers were waiting when

Robinson and his wife arrived at the House Office Building for the ten o’clock hearing. The Dodger second baseman was in mufti, a tan Palm Beach suit replacing his Brooklyn flannels. The flashbugs stood him in front of the Capitol Dome for photographs as if he was some benighted potentate from heathendom absorbing his first brush with civilization.

“The Bums’ll will the pennant,” Robinson confirmed. “No, I don’t know where my extra power is coming from. I haven’t changed my stance. Those ten homers I have now are the most I’ve ever had at this stage of the season. It must be the lively ball. There’s no doubt about it, the ball is livelier than it was last year. Everybody on our club is hitting homers this year.”

Robinson was the final witness to appear before the Committee, and the one everybody had been waiting for. The ex-Red Manning Johnson had been entertaining, but no one had ever heard of him except the other Commies and the

CPUSA registrar who watched over the membership rolls like a sailor searching for leaks in his ship.

“I don’t pretend to be an expert on communism or any other kind of a political

‘ism’,” Jackie testified. “Going to college at UCLA, helping to fight a war with about ten million other fellows, trying to break into professional baseball, and then trying to make good with the Dodgers--and trying to save some money for the time when my legs lose their spring--all this, together with my family life, has been enough to keep me busy without becoming an ‘expert’, except on base-stealing or something like that.

211 Bob Mack

“But you can put me down as being an expert on being a colored American, with thirty years of experience at it. And just like any other colored person with sense enough to look around him and understand what he sees, I know that life in these

United States can be mighty tough for people who are a little different from the majority--in their skin color, or the way they worship their God, or the way they spell their names. I’m not fooled because I’ve had a chance open to very few Negro

Americans. It’s true that I’ve been a laboratory specimen in a great change in

Organized Baseball. I’m proud that I’ve made good on my assignment to the point where other colored players will find it easier to enter the game and go to the top.

But I’m very well aware that even this limited job isn’t finished yet.”

Robinson’s appearance had been engineered to achieve a political effect, just as the bogus Bill of Rights conference in New York had been choreographed to produce its opposite; still, a platform was a platform, and Jackie used his opportunity in front of the Congressional microphones to argue for an end to intolerance and the repeal of Jim Crow laws in the South, saying little about Old

Man River’s Parisian remarks until he neared the end of his testimony.

“The statement, if Mr. Robeson actually made it, sounds very silly to me. But he has a right to his personal views, and if he wants to sound silly when he expresses them in public, that’s his business and not mine.”

As to the subject of Negro loyalty, Robinson said, “Any loyalty that needs defense can’t amount to much in the long run. What I’m trying to get across is that the American public is off on the wrong foot when it begins to think of radicalism in terms of any special minority group. It is thinking of this sort that gets people

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scared because one Negro, speaking to a Communist group in Paris, threatens an organized boycott by fifteen million members of his race. I can’t speak for any fifteen million people any more than any other one person can, but I know that I’ve got too much invested for my wife and child and myself in the future of this country to throw it away because of a siren song sung in bass.”

Somebody shouted “Amen”. The Committee members thanked Jackie for appearing. Outside, reporters asked him more questions about his proposed salary increase in 1950 than about his plea for an end to Jim Crowism in America. It was, after all, the first time anyone could remember that an employee had requested a raise under oath.

“I’m no spring chicken, you know,” Jackie said. “I’m 30, and though I feel as good as ever, I figure to start slowing up in a little while.”

Said one newsman: “I don’t know that Robinson can sing as well as Robeson, but he sure behaves a lot better.”

That completed the burning business in the Capitol. Robinson was leading the

National League in batting, had the most hits with 117, was first in runs scored with

73, tops in runs batted in with 68, led in stolen bases with 21, and was first in appearances before Congressional committees with 1. It was time to head back to

Brooklyn. There was a game to be played tonight.

***

On Monday evening, Oakland Joe tossed the first Dodger shutout since Barney had blanked the same punchless Chicago contingent back in June. Robinson,

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whose long day had apparently not wearied him, swiped second base and home plate in the sixth, then tripled in a run in the eighth.

“[The Dodgers] can do everything,” said an admiring Frankie Frisch. “Run, hit, throw--and what bench depth! What else is there?”

The 3-0 win was Hatten’s eighth against five losses, and a 7-4 Cardinal defeat at the Polo Grounds stretched the Brooklyn lead to two and a half games.

Newcombe started on Tuesday against Pittsburgh’s Bill Werle. Billy Meyer’s

Corsairs were playing their best baseball of the season, having won 14 of their last

18, and four in a row since the break. Newk was in fine fettle, but Robinson unexpectedly floundered. Jackie suffered his worst performance of the season, taking a called third strike in the first inning, bouncing into a double play, popping out, bunting into a second double play, and losing an easy fly ball in the glare that dropped in for a two-run single and gave the Bucs a 3-1 that they could hold only until the bottom of the seventh. In the ninth, Bruce Edwards, inserted behind the plate after Campanella had departed for a pinchrunner in the seventh, singled Snider home with the winning run. The 4-3 win increased the lead over the fading

Cardinals--5-2 losers in Boston--to three and a half games.

Appearing at a rally for the so-called “Trenton Six” at Newark’s Broad Street

Mosque, Paul Robeson declined to comment on Robinson’s remarks before the

HUAC.

The “Trenton Six” had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in 1948 for stealing $50 from a junk shop owner, then smashing his skull open with a pop-bottle. The New Jersey Supreme Court had recently

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overturned the verdict after months of furious agitation and propagandizing by assorted Communist front organizations. Robeson’s support for the temporarily liberated killers consisted of warbling his hit tune, railing against the U.S. government, and deploring the way black folks were treated in Dixie. He performed “Old Man River” while pickets from the V.F.W. dumped his effigy into the murky Passaic.

On Wednesday, Kiner slugged his twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth home runs of the season to propel the Bucs to an 8-6 victory over the Bums. Shotton had started

Branca on the mound, worked his way through Banta and Palica, and finished up with Newcombe, whose arm was still reeking of yesterday’s liniment. Campy whacked his 14th homer and a triple, but Kiner’s three-run clout off Newk in the ninth nullified the catcher’s efforts. Robinson singled and was hit by an Elmer

Riddle pitch in four trips to the plate. At , the Redbirds won 6-4 in 10 innings to slice the lead to 2½ games.

In San Francisco, the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards served up a commendation for Paul Robeson amid the usual blather about unspecified

“reactionary forces” and resolutions denouncing American foreign policy.

Robeson, said the sea-going socialists, was “a truly great American”, while Jackie

Robinson was merely “one of a small group of subservient Negroes”. In New

York, the former commander of the V.F.W., New York Republican Bernard

Kearney, recommended Jackie for the organization’s Good Citizenship gold medal.

“Robinson is a real American citizen compared with statements of another member of his race,” Representative Kearney said.

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“I want to ask Paul Robeson a question,” Jackie wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle, his last salvo before putting the issue to rest. “Can you sit down in Russia and say the head man is a louse? Not unless you want to play center field in the Siberian

League. Living in a democracy calls for the teamwork of every race, creed, and color. We’re all just players. We can’t all be pitchers or umpires, and some of us have to be groundskeepers and batboys.”

The Old Sourdough pulled Erskine out of the pen on Thursday. “Oisk” worked the first five innings against the Pirates, walked six, and allowed four hits and five runs--but two of the runs were unearned because of errors by Robinson. Since his trip to Washington, Jackie had gone two for thirteen, his average had dipped eight points, and his fielding was as sluggish as the Gowanus Canal.

“The race is tight,” said Robbie. “The Cardinals are right up there with us. It’s quite a strain to be playing ball and knowing that every move counts. I’d rather be in a walk-away any day.”

Trailing 5-2, Hodges tied the game with a three-run eighth inning homer, his

13th. Banta walked Hopp and Restelli to open the ninth, and Shotton brought

Palica in to face Kiner. The youngster had started on the seventeenth, skipped the eighteenth, and had worked in every game since. Kiner took a rip at a fastball and popped it up to Hodges. Wally Westlake struck out on a breaking pitch. Dixie

Walker bounced a single up the middle to give the Bucs a 6-5 lead, and ignite the grandstand grumblers--how could that senile old fool have sent that kid out there again? Stan Rojek drew a walk to fill the bases. Catcher Clyde McCullough strode to the plate. Shotton sat on his hands. It was Palica’s game, for better or worse,

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and it looked like it was going to be for worse. The kid was tired, and he was having trouble throwing strikes. When Umpire called ball three on a pitch that appeared to have cut the plate, Palica squawked like an affronted chicken.

Branca beefed so loudly from the bench that Barr called time and ejected him from the premises. The brief respite allowed Palica to summon enough energy to crank up a decent fastball, and McCullough fouled out to Campanella.

The Dodgers needed runs. The Cardinals had already beaten Johnny Antonelli 8-

1 in Boston. With one out, Campanella lined a double into the left field corner. The

Old Sourdough sent fleet-footed Eddie Miksis out to run for Campy, and ordered his reserve catcher Bruce Edwards to bat for Palica. Edwards had the platoon advantage, would stay in the game if it went into extra innings, and Shotton would have an extra hitter on the bench--unless Edwards hurt himself, in which case

Hodges would have to don the backstopping tools, and the skipper would have to come up with a warm body to play first. If Billy Meyer brought in a right-hander to pitch to Edwards, Werle would be out of the game, and Vic Lombardi would be the only southpaw left in the Pittsburgh bullpen. That would give either Hermanski and

Snider or Robinson and Hodges the same-side advantage next inning.

Meyer let Werle pitch to Edwards and Shotton unveiled some old-time derring- do. Miksis broke for third as Werle delivered the pitch. Edwards slapped a run- and-hit ground ball into the hole in left to tie the score. The Old Sourdough flashed the bunt sign to Reese, and Pee Wee dropped it perfectly. Werle threw late to first, and there were two men aboard. The skipper sent Luis Olmo up to pinch-hit for

Hermanski, and Meyer brought in the old Brooklyn relief ace . The

217 Bob Mack

right-handed Casey had won 70 games and saved another 50 for the Dodgers during his seven-year sojourn at Ebbets Field. The thirty-five year old had been released by Rickey and signed by the Pirates prior to the season.

Olmo fouled off Casey’s first pitch, and lined the second into center field.

Edwards roared home, and the Brooks won 7-6. Palica had been the pitcher of record in all three games, winning two and losing one. The kid’s overall record now stood at 7-4.

The Brooks were on a roll. They were 6-2 since the All-Star break, and only St.

Louis still pursued them closely; but the Cardinals would be in town tomorrow, and--despite his successful gambits against the Pirates--Shotton had emptied his pockets like a sailor on shore leave. He had used eleven pitchers in the series.

Palica was all in, and Newcombe needed his full complement of rest after pitching in two straight games. Well, as Durocher always said, never worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow it might rain.

The four-game St. Louis series was the biggest of the season, although it was of more importance to the trailing Cardinals. The Redbirds needed two wins just to maintain the status quo. They’d been treading water since the break, a 4-4 record.

Their 33-year old captain Enos Slaughter, described by the Mahatma as “well- veteranized”, had sizzled in the Hub, with six hits in thirteen at-bats, but the player

Burt Shotton and the Brooklyn Faithful worried most about was the Man. Musial was batting .684 at Ebbets Field, not including the homer and two singles he had bashed in the All Star Game that boosted his overall average in Flatbush to .696.

No one, including Musial, knew why he hit so well in Brooklyn. His approach was

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the same there as everywhere else: “Wait for a strike, then knock the shit out of it.”

The shell-shocked Faithful had bestowed Stanley’s famous nickname upon him in

1946.

“Ebbets Field was very close to the stands, and you could hear everything the fans were talking about,” Musial explained. “The Brooklyn fans were great--they knew baseball, loved baseball, and they backed the Dodgers. I would be walking up to the plate, and you could hear them say, ‘Here comes the Man again. Here comes the Man.’ , a great writer from St. Louis, and our traveling secretary, heard them too. And that’s how I got my nickname, ‘Stan the Man’. I have a warm spot for all of the Brooklyn fans. They’re great.”

In a way, the recurring disasters that Musial inflicted on the Dodgers were their own fault. In the spring of 1941, young Stan had been a left-handed pitcher for the

Cardinals’ Triple-A Columbus affiliate. He had been warming up before an intra- squad game when his manager, Burt Shotton, noticed that the kid’s left shoulder was giving him trouble--Musial had jammed it in 1940, and it had never healed properly. Shotton’s batting practice pitchers were throwing harder. The Old

Sourdough sadly trundled off to inform Branch Rickey that their kid pitcher had an arm requiring a decent burial. Musial slammed a few hits that afternoon, including a long home run. His ailing limb was still lively enough when it gripped a bat.

After the game, the Mahatma thoughtfully paced off the distance that the kid’s blast had traveled on the fenceless field then said, “Stan, we’re going to make you an outfielder.”

219 Bob Mack

Musial had grown up a Pirates’ fan in the steel mill town of Donora,

Pennsylvania. He was the son of Polish immigrants, and money was scarce during his youth. His mother made his baseballs from colored yarn and black electrical tape. He learned to hit breaking pitches by whacking bottle caps with a broomstick.

Stan had started pitching for his high school team when he was fifteen. One of

Rickey’s roving scouts spotted him--the Mahatma had more men in the field than the U.S. Army--and Musial signed with the Cardinals in 1937 at the age of sixteen.

He was called up to the big club in September of ‘41, ripped twenty hits in twelve games for a .426 average, and never looked back.

Stan had paced the National League in triples in 1943 and 1946 with twenty, and in 1948 with eighteen. In ‘48, he had finished second in home runs with 39 to Ralph

Kiner’s 40.

“Kiner was the home run hitter, and he was making more money than anybody,”

Stan said. “So I figured I better start hitting more home runs. I started hitting the ball more to right field. I went down to the end of the bat and I felt good and strong. But when you try and hit home runs, you overswing, overstride, and take your eye off the ball. Home runs generally come naturally. I like to spread the ball to all fields--use the entire field. I don’t concentrate on home runs. I’d rather hit a triple. The triple is an exciting play in baseball.”

Despite his stated preference for the three-bagger, Musial opened Friday’s ballgame by slamming a two-out, first inning change-up from Preacher Roe over the right field screen and into Bedford Avenue. It was his third roundtripper of the season off Roe, and the second time he had victimized him in the first inning.

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The Bums struck back immediately. Snider turned on one of Red Munger’s fastballs and drove it into the outfield, a high liner that screamed into right center like a fighter plane. All 33.120 of the Faithful thought the ball was gone, but it bounced off the top of the fence and ricocheted back into play--a game of inches.

Snider raced to third, and Robinson brought him in with a clutch two-strike single.

The Redbirds jumped back in front in the third when Hermanski misplayed

Chuck Diering’s single into a double. Diering advanced to third on a groundout by

Schoendienst, and Stan the Man was back at the plate. The Preacher pitched to the

St. Louis slugger as if he was radioactive, nibbled his way to a 3-2 count, and then walked him. Nippy Jones bounced a double-play grounder to Billy Cox, but Musial barreled into Robinson so thunderously that Jackie was unable to complete the relay, and Diering scored.

Munger was almost unhittable. The St. Louis hurler helped himself in the sixth with a single that scored Slaughter with the third Cardinal run. Slaughter was a hard-nosed throwback to days when players sharpened their spikes before games and slapped soggy cuds of chew over open wounds to stop the bleeding. On the field, Slaughter never cantered when he could gallop. Raised on a North Carolina tobacco farm, he had been given his nickname “Country Boy” in 1937--later shortened to plain old “Country”--by his minor league manager, Burt Shotton.

Shotton sent Spider Jorgensen out to hit for Roe in the eighth, and brought the rubber-armed Palica in to pitch the ninth. The weary youngster got himself into two-out trouble--runners at the corners, and Musial looking for his third hit of the day. Palica got the Man on a high foul to Campanella, and was rewarded with a

221 Bob Mack

long and appreciative ovation from the Faithful. Hermanski ripped a leadoff single to give the crowd some hope in the bottom half, but Snider and Robinson skied out to Diering, and Slaughter made a great leaping catch against the left field fence of a long drive by Hodges to end the ballgame. Preacher’s seven-game winning streak was history, and the 3-1 loss shaved the Dodger lead to a game and a half.

Eddie Dyer was saving his ace, lefty Howie Pollet, to face Newcombe on

Sunday, so Saturday’s game featured Gerry Staley against Oakland Joe. Staley was

6-5 on the season, and had allowed only 1.04 runners to reach base per inning as opposed to Hatten’s 8-5, and 1.38. He was a husky sinkerballer from the Evergreen

State who specialized in inducing grounders. Staley had started the year working out of the bullpen, but Dyer had put him in the starting rotation on May 28th, and he had stuck.

Saturday was Reese’s thirtieth birthday. Munger and Pollet gave the shortstop a bag of aggies and catseyes and assured him that they would be the only marbles the

Dodgers collected in 1949.

Robinson had finally shaken the dolor that had settled over him since his trip to

Washington. He singled Snider home in the first inning to give the Dodgers an early 1-0 lead. The Cards tied it in the second on a triple by Slaughter and a two- bagger by Eddie Kazak, but Kazak injured his ankle on a kamikaze slide into second, and the Ebbets Field security guards carried him from the field on a stretcher surrounded by so many Cardinals that the infield looked like the Holy See.

Hodges singled to left center in the third. Staley tried to sneak a fastball past

Billy Cox, got it up in the zone where the third baseman could bust it, and Hodges

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scored from first on the long double. It became a 3-1 game in the sixth when

Robinson walked, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by the .313 hitting Hodges, and trotted home on a single by Furillo. The Dodgers had their insurance run, but no more. The problem with playing for one run is that one run is sometimes all you get.

Oakland Joe pitched around Musial in the seventh, and Stan took first with his second free pass of the day. Nippy Jones smoked a hit to right so hard that Musial had to stop at second. Slaughter was up, his average at .317 and climbing. Shotton liked the lefty vs lefty matchup, the more so when Hatten froze the Cardinal captain on a 2-2 curveball for strike three--except Umpire Frank Dascoli called the pitch a ball. The Dodger bench jockeys wailed and cursed and pulled their hair like Persian harridans. Slaughter had life, and he made the most of it, lashing a run scoring single to right. Banta replaced Hatten. The reinstated Mexican Leaguer Lou Klein struck out. Marty Marion cracked a long drive to left center. Hermanski caught up with it deep in the gap, but Jones waltzed home with the tying run.

Reese drew a base on balls to open the Dodgers’ half. Hermanski sacrificed him to second. With only nine precious outs to go in regulation time, Shotton had voluntarily relinquished one. Snider batted with a runner in scoring position and the platoon advantage. Dyer had his relief ace loosening up in the bullpen, but decided to stick with his starter. Snider bounced out to second baseman Schoendienst. Reese advanced to third.

There are seven ways to score a runner from third base with two outs--by hit or error, by wild pitch or passed ball, by balk or interference, or by grand larceny.

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Bunting was not one of the approved methods. Robinson’s surprise maneuver stunned the Cardinals’ infielders. They had been playing deep and guarding the lines. Jackie’s bunt rolled to a leisurely stop between the pitcher’s mound and the first base line. Staley was the only player that had a chance at it at all, but his throw to first hit Robinson in the back as Jackie tumbled over the bag. Reese crossed the plate with the go-ahead run. The Faithful erupted. It was the kind of daredevil baseball at which Robinson excelled. The Cardinals protested vehemently. Jackie had interfered with the throw, they claimed, by running illegally in and out of the baseline. Eddie Dyer raced across the diamond to confront Umpire Babe Pinelli as if he had caught him stealing chickens. Robinson stood on first while the salty St.

Louis skipper argued his case. Pinelli’s patience suddenly snapped under Dyer’s relentless onslaught of bad breath and creative profanity. He exiled the furious manager to the showers. The banishment of their chief subdued the other Redbirds, and the game finally resumed.

Banta retired the Cardinals in the eighth, and Wilks did the same to the Dodgers.

Musial led off for St. Louis in the ninth. Banta walked him.

“That should never happen,” said Stan. “He should make me hit even if I put one over the wall. Why? Because that only ties the game anyway, and Brooklyn still has its half of the inning. But by putting me on, Banta allowed the lead run to come to the plate. As a matter of fact, I laid off some good pitches in that frame.

He was trying to make me hit to left, but I made up my mind if I didn’t get a ball I could pull, I’d wait it out.”

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The Old Sourdough brought Palica in to relieve Banta. The second-guessers couldn’t believe their tired eyes. The kid was in there for the fourth straight game-- he’d pitched in five of the last six. Shotton used Palica more than the men’s room.

The Dodgers’ infield was expecting the bunt. Acting manager Terry Moore played it by the Book. Nippy Jones bunted the ball too hard, and Palica, with a chance to nail either Musial at second or Jones at first, did neither. The Cardinals had two on and nobody out. The bunt was still in order. Slaughter stepped in. The veteran outfielder could handle the bat. Hodges and Cox charged the plate as Palica delivered his pitch. Instead of bunting, Slaughter rifled a vicious shot down the first base line. Hodges, in imminent danger of decapitation, skidded to a frantic stop, swatted at the missile as it streaked past his ear, and snagged it in his big mitt. He outraced Jones to first for an improbable, game-saving double play. Palica went to

3-2, and walked Klein. Marty Marion was in an oh for 22 slump, and Moore had improvidently used all his left-handed pinch-hitters. If he hit for Marion, it’d have to be with a right-hander. He ground his molars and let his shortstop bat.

The game was on the line. Palica was only twenty-one, but his arm felt like sixty. Erskine was in the bullpen, ready to go, but each time Palica peeped into the dugout, the Old Sourdough appeared to be asleep. Marion showed no sign of breaking out of his funk, but, down to his last strike, he reached for a Palica curveball that didn’t bite quite as much as it had a few days before--a waste pitch really--and slapped it to the opposite field for a hit. Musial scored the fourth run.

Now Garagiola was up, and he bounced Palica’s first pitch between Cox and Reese into left field. Klein crossed the plate, and the Dodgers, having been just one strike

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away from a 4-3 win, were now trailing 5-4. Shotton stirred in the dugout at last, and Sukeforth trudged out to relieve Palica of the baseball. The kid stared at his shoes and never looked up as he took the long walk to the showers.

Wilks retired Jorgensen and Reese in the bottom of the ninth, then walked

Hermanski. Snider was up, batting .273 with thirteen homers--the potential winning run, the potential final out. The crowd was roaring. Wilks got two quick strikes on the center fielder. Since spring training, Snider had disciplined himself to wait for a good pitch to hit. George Sisler, his batting sensei, had stressed patience, patience, patience. Behind in the count, Snider figured Wilks would try and get him to chase something, probably an offspeed pitch down and away. Lay off it, he told himself. Make him come to you. Snider took a deep breath and tried to relax. He would have less than a half-second to make his swing/no-swing decision. Wilks went into his windup. Snider waited, watching the pitcher’s right arm for the release point. Duke’s brain told him, curveball, curveball, curveball--but Wilks threw a fastball down the middle. Snider was immobilized. He barely heard Frank

Dascoli call him out. The lead was down to a half-game.

Sunday’s contest was crucial for the Dodgers. It had taken them less than a week to fritter away most of their advantage, and another loss would have them pursuing the Cardinals instead of the other way around. Saturday’s game had been devastating, one of those defeats that could suck the marrow from a team’s bones and leave them bleaching in a ditch waiting for next year. To halt the skid, Burt

Shotton handed the ball to Don Newcombe, the rookie he hadn’t wanted, in the most pressure-packed game of the season.

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The contest attracted the third largest crowd of the season, pushing the Dodgers over the 1,000,000 mark in attendance, and Newcombe didn’t last an inning.

Schoendienst and Klein led off with singles, Newk unleashed a wild pitch, and

Musial conked a triple. That was enough for Shotton. He quick-hooked the rookie and brought in Minner. Slaughter singled and Northey doubled. It was 4-0, St.

Louis, and there was nobody out. It was going to be one of those days.

After three innings, the Redbirds led 10-1. They continued to pour it on.

Musial had another of his Ebbets Field jubilees, skying out to left in the second, then adding a single in the third, a homer in the fifth, and a double in the seventh before Shotton finally surrendered, and ordered Oisk to walk him in the ninth.

Stanley had knocked in four runs and scored three in . His mates added another twelve safeties, and when the carnage was over, the Cardinals had a 14-1 victory. The Brooks were flat on their backs and a half-game out.

The Dodgers were in a must-win situation on Monday. They were embarking on a 14-game western trip--today’s game was mandated to end at 4:00 p.m. due to travel arrangements--and being forced to chase St. Louis on the road was not a prospect Burt Shotton relished. The skipper had to solve a vexing problem: his club was tanking against top opposition. Their record was now a miserable 15-21 against the first division ballclubs--5-9 against the Cardinals, 4-6 against the

Braves, and 6-6 versus the Phillies--while they feasted at 38-15 on the league’s soft underbelly.

Branca took the mound against another refugee from the Taco Circuit, lefty Max

Lanier. Lanier was one of the certified Dodger-killers, 21-7 lifetime. Musial

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continued his slugging frenzy with a triple and double off Branca, and a single off

Preacher Roe, working in relief. Hermanski smacked a pinch-homer off Wilks in the sixth, and the clock ran out with the game deadlocked at 4-4.

Except for the inconclusive finale, the series had been an unmitigated disaster for the Dodgers. Stan the Man had destroyed them again: nine hits in fifteen at-bats for a .600 average; seven runs scored; two doubles, two triples, two home runs; six runs batted in. Shotton had shuffled his relief pitchers frantically in an effort to halt the inevitable, but he mostly kept turning over the same cards--Palica in three games, Roe in two, and Erskine in two. Preach had tossed eleven innings, and

“Oisk” seven and a third. They both needed some time off. Palica needed pallbearers. The train ride to Chicago was gloomy despite the efforts of some of the veterans to lighten the mood. “Who died?” asked a jocular scribe passing through the player’s car.

The Brooks were only a half-game out with 65 left to play, but the Redbirds had beaten them so decisively in their own balliwick that no one in the front-running sporting press considered the Dodgers to be the shoo-ins for the pennant that they had been just a week before. The high-flying Flock, they thought, had been exposed as a bevy of fallen doves.

National League President Ford Frick was in a snit over what he perceived as

Monday’s snub to his authority. Frick thought that one of the teams should have contacted him to rubber-stamp the schedule deviation that led to the tie.

“I am writing letters to both clubs,” he announced, “telling them to notify me when they plan any time limit games. There are no league rules to govern such a

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situation except that the game must be started 3½ hours before the train leaves.

They did that, all right. There is no rule saying when you must stop the game to make your train connection.

“We used to have a league rule on games that were stopped before a decision had been reached,” Frick continued peckishly. “We’d restart them at the exact point where play was stopped. They called them suspended games. But the clubs didn’t like the rule, and voted it out of the books.”

No one knew what Frick’s point was, except to remind everyone that he was in charge.

On Tuesday, the Dodgers’ struggles continued. Frankie Frisch’s last place Cubs blanked them 6-0 behind the dreaded Johnny Schmitz. The Bruins had beaten the

Bums only three times all season, and Long John had been the victor in each. Joe

Hatten absorbed the loss, his record dipping to 8-6. Robinson’s three singles boosted his average to .365, but his mates could manage only four additional safeties. Campanella was forced to quit after uncorking bad throws in the first and fifth innings. The shoulder that he had bunged in a plate collision with Nippy Jones on Saturday had worsened significantly. Further constricting Burt Shotton’s options was the fact that Rex Barney had been left behind in Brooklyn with a raging stomach ailment and would not be available to the club for two or three days. The skipper finished Monday’s game with Banta and Erskine, but Oisk’s arm was not particularly suited to frequent use, and he allowed three hits and two runs in his one inning of work.

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Excepting Monday’s tie, the Dodgers had dropped four games in a row.

Compounding their woes, the Brooks fell further behind the league leaders when the Cardinals whipped the Phillies 9-5 in a night game at Sportsman’s Park.

On Wednesday, the Brooks pelted Dutch Leonard and a medley of maladroit boobs from the Chicago bullpen for eleven hits. The efflorescent Hodges slammed his fourteenth home run and Bruce Edwards, catching in place of the battered

Campanella, hit his fourth. Hodges was making another run at Robinson’s RBI lead. He trailed by two now, 73 to 75. Newcombe, with ninth inning sustenance from Palica, recovered nicely from Sunday’s lambasting, and upped his season’s log to 8-3; but a 7-3 Cardinal win over the Phils kept the Brooks from gaining ground. The streaking Redbirds had captured 13 of their last 17.

The Dodgers’ long ball barrage continued on Thursday as they completed the series by downing the Cubs 7-1. Snider and Robinson thumped their 14th and 11th home runs respectively, and Hermanski slugged his second grand slam of the season. Branca gave the bullpen a needed respite by pitching all nine innings for his 11th triumph. Furillo, who had played in every game since Opening Day, had requested the afternoon off. His average had declined from .292 on July 1st to .271 currently, and he needed a rest. The Old Sourdough blew his snowy top.

“How does he expect to make any money?” Shotton groused. He pointed to a

Chicago player lollygagging in the Wrigley outfield: “Look, there’s a fellow who doesn’t like to play either. He goes along a while, then wants out. Even a last- place team doesn’t want him.” The skipper folded his haughty arms like a Prussian field marshal: “I am not going to play Furillo against right-handers.”

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Furillo was a man of few words, a blue-collar Italian who could hold a grudge as if it was his last lira. “He’s boss,” the right fielder said flatly. “I didn’t think I did anything wrong.”

“He’s a stubborn, 64-year old man,” wrote Dick Young, the most persistent of the Old Sourdough’s pressbox disparagers.

In St. Louis, the Cardinals scuttled the Phillies 10-2.

For the Dodgers, the weekend series against the Cards was like hopping through a looking glass. The Brooks’ one and a half game lead had become a one and a half game St. Louis lead; they were in Sportsman’s Park instead of Ebbets Field; and instead of a Monday afternoon finale that ended in a 4-4 draw, the Friday night opener concluded after one o’clock in the morning with the two clubs knotted at three. Light rain that turned into an old fashioned Missouri cloudburst had delayed the start of the game for an hour and twenty-eight minutes and the curfew law ended it inconclusively after the teams had played wildcat baseball for nineteen minutes. In between, Howie Pollet had goose-egged the Bums for seven innings, and Preacher Roe had horse-collared Musial and Slaughter, but faltered against

Schoendienst and Jones, each of who collected three hits. Jack Banta and the convalescing Barney, who had flown in from New York in the afternoon, finished things off for Shotton. He had used three pitchers in a game that didn’t count.

On Saturday, the Dodgers lost to their western rivals for the sixth straight time, coughing up leads in the third and eighth innings, and falling 2½ games behind the surging avians. They couldn’t beat these guys. It was as if they were wearing phylacteries that had been cursed by Sam Breadon’s mercurial Mississippi, causing

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them to come a-cropper whenever they saw a uniform sporting Redbirds perched on a Louisville Slugger.

The 7-6 decision was the ninth consecutive triumph for the Cardinals. It had come at the expense of Palica after the Dodgers had climbed out of a 5-2 hole on the strength of Robinson’s two-run single off Wilks in the seventh; but Burt Shotton was not easily rattled. The Dodgers’ manager was a leathery old wagon-master who had shepherded pilgrims across the Plains so many times that he welcomed the sight of hostiles just to crack the monotony. Shotton made his decisions, then left matters in the hands of Providence. Worry was for greenhorns. The only thing that could keep the Old Sourdough up at night was an enlarged prostate. Besides, tomorrow it might rain.

Newcombe went to the hill on Sunday. The last time he had seen the Cardinals, they’d ripped into him as if he was a bag of birdseed. This time, they threatened in the first inning, but Country Slaughter managed to get himself hit with a ground ball between first and second bases, Newk pitched out of the jam, and after that it was easy. The Cards couldn’t score until the ninth, Newk walked off with a 4-2 win, his ninth, and the Dodgers left town no worse off than they had been coming in.

Shotton’s new outfield platoon of Rackley, Snider, and Hermanski had combined for five of the ten Brooklyn hits, and the Brooks had harried poor Joe Garagiola for three steals.

So, it was off to Pittsburgh for a set against the 45-49 Pirates. The Dodgers had finished July with a 15-12 record, but they had been outscored for the first time,

149-141. Stricken Brooklyn pitchers had been clipped for 5.6 runs per game while

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St. Louis moundsmen had surrendered only 3.4. The Dodgers’ one game advantage at the end of June had become a game and a half deficit as August dawned. The momentum seemed to have shifted west; but there were sixty contests left in the regular season, and the bookmakers had both the Cards and the Dodgers listed at 6-

5 to capture the pennant. The smart money was saying it was still anybody’s race.

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7th Inning. Tight As Ticks On A Dog Days: Wherein The Old Sourdough Rolls Sevens And Craps Out, And The Grand Grenouille Croaks In Atlanta

“You can’t solve everything in a minute.” --Branch Rickey

The sultry period that coincides with the conjunction of the Sun and Canicula, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, had generally been a time of discomfort and disease for the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean, although the hardy grapes and olives in the lands that bordered Mare Nostrum usually prospered.

In modern times, it was when even tough-as-nails professional baseball players withered on sun-baked major league diamonds, when weak teams stumbled and good ones endured and flourished.

Named after Augustus, the Exalted Emperor formerly known as Gaius Octavius, the eighth month was the dies caniculares, the “dog days.” As they used to say at game time in the Coliseum, “Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat--it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”

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Newcombe’s win against the Cardinals on getaway day had positioned the

Dodgers favorably for their hot weather offensive. They were a game and a half behind with four games upcoming against the second division Pirates while the

Redbirds faced a tougher series in St. Louis against the third place Braves.

Brooklyn’s problem--besides the immediate suppression of the Pirates--was that the defending champs had dropped 9 of their last 14, and manager Billy Southworth appeared to have lost control of his club.

“A manager who is not in sole charge of his players,” observed the Mahatma,

“cannot run his team. A few players will soon find his weakness and start managing him.”

“I saw two games of the Braves’ last stay,” said Braves’ president Lou Perini,

“and I developed the start of an ulcer.”

It was still early in the season to start charting the out-of-town results, but some of the Dodgers couldn’t resist a peek as they got underway at Forbes Field on

Monday night--especially after Reese walloped one of Tiny Bonham’s fastballs off the left field scoreboard to begin the game. It was Pee Wee’s 13th homer, the first time he’d ever connected for more than a dozen. Rackley singled to right, Snider walked, and Robinson and Hermanski lined singles to left and right to hand the

Brooks a fast 3-0 lead. The porcine Bonham hadn’t retired a soul, and Billy Meyer yanked him in favor of Murray Dickson. Hodges ripped a long, high double to left center, scoring Robinson. Catcher Clyde McCullough waved futilely at a can- canning knuckleball that showed the stitches on its backside before it high-kicked its way to the backstop. Hermanski scored on the wild pitch. Billy Cox walked,

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and Campanella sent Wally Westlake scurrying off toward the right center field fence to track down his long drive. Hodges waltzed home, and the Dodgers had plated half a dozen runs before the Pirates saw their first pitch.

Branca had beaten the Bucs thrice already, and the Hawk was in fine feather.

The Brooks added a run in the second on a long triple by Robinson following a walk to Snider, another in the eighth when Hodges banged his 15th homer off the scoreboard (Boston was leading St. Louis in the fifth inning), and one more in the ninth when Snider pulled his 15th round-tripper into the upper deck in right. Branca rolled into the ninth leading 9-0. He retired Dino Restelli, the sixteenth consecutive

Pirate to go out; then Kiner, who’d rapped two of the three Pirates’ hits, cracked his third, a line drive that scooted past Hermanski in right for two bases.

Branca was fagged. The pitch to Restelli had finished him off. All he had left was the big lead, but the Old Sourdough was not going to waste another arm on a game that was already won--a pitcher with a nine run edge ought to be able to get two outs by accident. Branca lobbed his next few pitches to the plate, and Snider snagged drives to deep left center by Westlake and to retire the side.

Robinson once again paced the Brooklyn batsmen, collecting three hits in five trips to boost his league-leading average to .367, and he and Hodges remained one- two in runs batted in with 81 and 76 respectively. Branca’s strong back-to-back performances against the Cubs and Pirates warmed the septa of his manager’s pitching impoverished heart. The Hawk’s 12th victory had slashed the Cardinals’ lead to a half-game.

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The next evening, Shotton made a decision that appeared to herald the onset of early senility. He gave Barney the start--his first in a month--against a team whose best hitter, Kiner, had hammered the erratic hurler like a second-hand xylophone all season.

“If Barney comes through,” predicted the Old Sourdough, “we’ll win the pennant.”

It was a meaningless remark that reeked of stable dreck, a throwaway quote to pad the copy of the sports scribblers; but it seemed to galvanize the Wild Man.

Barney had thrown well in his few relief appearances since recovering from

Montezuma’s Revenge, and he’d been itching to get back into the starting rotation-- he just hadn’t expected to get there so soon.

The unpredictable Wild Man pitched a 5-hit complete game, and handed the troublesome Kiner the collar. The Robinson-Hodges tandem combined for four safeties and knocked in all of the Brooklyn runs, Gil with his 16th homer and a double, and Jackie with a pair of singles and a stolen base. Snider chipped in with three singles, and the Dodgers won 5-2, staying a half-length behind the Cardinals, who bounced back to defeat the Braves 7-2.

Lady Luck had taken a sudden and inexplicable hankering to the Old Sourdough.

On Wednesday, Shotton started Erskine against the not very puzzling Elmer Riddle, and the kid tossed a route going 6-hitter, winning 10-5. It was the team’s fourth consecutive triumph. The streaking Snider slammed the 100th Dodger homer of the season in the seventh, only the third time in franchise history they’d reached that milestone, and the skipper’s Rackley-Snider-Hermanski outfield combine reaped

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five hits, scored five runs, and batted in six. Robinson collected a single in five trips, his average dipping to .365, but added an RBI to his pace-setting number. At

Sportsman’s Park, Howie Pollet blanked the Braves 7-0 to improve his slate to 14-

5, and maintain the Cardinals half-game advantage.

On Thursday, Billy Meyer tried to take advantage of the portside jinx that had plagued the Dodgers all season by sending ex-Brooklyn lefty Vic Lombardi to the hill. Shotton countered with right-hand hitters Tommy Brown and Luis Olmo in the outfield corners. Dame Fortune continued to whisper sweet nothings into the Old

Sourdough’s hairy ears--Brown whacked a homer and Olmo collected a hit and scored a run. Hodges and Snider also slammed four-baggers, each man’s third in the last four days. Newcombe tossed the club’s third consecutive complete game, improved his record to 10-3, and the Dodgers won their fifth straight, 11-3, sweeping the series. In St. Louis, Musial and Schoendienst led a 17-hit barrage as the Redbirds destroyed the moribund Braves 10-2. Despite their winning streak, the

Bums still trailed the Cardinals by a nose.

The Mahatma, stung by a torrent of criticism for the arbitrary curfew that had resulted in the tie game of July 25th, announced from the Cave of Winds that the contest would be replayed at Ebbets Field on the afternoon of August 23rd with the

Dodgers’ share of the proceeds going to local Brooklyn charities, and the Cardinals’ portion being donated to benevolent associations in St. Louis. Rickey could be generous with his tithes, particularly when philanthropy served a dual purpose.

The season to date had followed a path uncannily similar to the Mahatma’s spring prospectus. The Brooklyn boss rarely indulged in wishful thinking. Like old

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Ben Franklin, Rickey believed that “most of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things”. St. Louis pitching was proving stronger than anticipated, and his own weaker; on the other hand, the Dodgers were exhibiting more batting punch than he’d expected. Barring unforeseen injuries, he saw no reason why his club could not win the pennant and a good many reasons why they should.

On Friday night, Preacher Roe, winless since Independence Day, took the mound at Crosley Field in search of his elusive ninth victory. Cincinnati had captured 8 of their last 13 and four in a row, but the Brooks had humbled them a dozen times so far in ’49, and not a Rhinelander could be found who felt confident about their immediate prospects.

“Hodges and Snider are going good.”

“Who ain’t going good on the Dodgers?” wondered Reds’ manager Bucky

Walters.

Preacher Roe, the Arkansas hill-william, never as unlettered a gent as copy- hungry scriveners characterized him, quickly fell behind when he surrendered a two-run first inning homer to third baseman Grady Hatton. The Dodgers cut the lead in half in the second on back-to-back doubles by Hodges and Cox, and tied the game in the third on a single by Rackley and an RBI double by Snider. Reds’ pitcher Howie Fox was struggling, and in the fifth, a walk to Reese, another single by Rackley, a two-run double by Robinson, and a sacrifice fly by Hermanski ended his day. Preacher lasted until the seventh, when a hard single by burly Ted

Kluszewski and a Jimmy Bloodworth two-bagger off the left center field fence

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brought the well-rested Palica into the game. The Dodgers plated a final run in the eighth when Robinson scored on an error by shortstop Red Stallcup. Palica disposed of the Reds in the ninth, and the Brooks took a 6-4 decision. They’d won six in a row, and still couldn’t catch the Cardinals, 1-0 victors over the Giants in St.

Louis. Robinson, in a mild slump that had seen his average tumble seven points, continued to knock in baserunners. His 86 RBI were four more than runner-up

Hodges. Rackley, the sore-armed castaway who had been returned to the fold by the Pirates, collected three more hits. The South Carolinian was hitting .351 while

Furillo was off consulting with his physician in Reading.

On Saturday, Billy Cox tied an unenviable National League record by committing three errors in the eighth inning. The disastrous trifecta scuttled a fine pitching performance by Branca, who had been leading 2-1 when the supports were kicked from under him. The 5-2 loss snapped the Dodgers’ victory string at six, but they remained a half-game behind the Cardinals thanks to a fortuitous balk call by

Umpire Jocko Conlon that negated a two-run homer by Nippy Jones and allowed

Cuban lefthander Adrian Zabala and the Giants to come away with a 3-1 victory in

St. Louis.

Oakland Joe started and finished Sunday’s twin bill, whitewashing the Reds 7-0 in the first game on just 93 pitches, then tossing an inning and two thirds in the nightcap to save a 2-1 win for Barney. The Old Sourdough’s dalliance with Lady

Luck had turned torrid. Robinson belted his 12th homer of the season in the first inning of the lidlifter with the resurrected Furillo on first base, and Bruce Edwards clobbered the Dodgers’ fifth grand slam of the year in the sixth to put the contest on

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ice. If the Brooks were easy pickings for southpaws, you couldn’t prove it by Ken

Raffensberger, whose lifetime record against the Flock dropped to a pitiful 5-21.

There were extinct species that had fared better.

In game two, Shotton replaced Cox at third with Spider Jorgensen. The little used bench warmer blasted the homer that gave Barney and the rubber-armed

Hatten all the runs they needed, and the Bums vaulted into a first place deadlock with the Cards, 9-2 winners over the Giants in St. Louis.

The 10-3-1 road trip sent the Brooks back to Ebbets Field in a rollicking good humor.

“I’ve got the best 25 men in the league,” crowed Burt Shotton. “Edwards could be the number one catcher on many teams. Before the first game, I pointed to the center field fence and told him, ‘That’s closer than the seats in center at Ebbets

Field, and you hit the ball into the stands there. Have you thought of hitting one over that wall?’ and sure enough, he did it an hour later.”

The Brooks wore their satin evening suits on Monday night, trotting onto the arc-lit field like a swarm of blue and white glowworms. Durocher and his Giants were in town for a single game, and 33,826 enthusiasts had arrived for the expected fireworks. The Polo Grounders had moved into third place ahead of the faltering

Braves and Phillies, but were a distant ten games behind. The National League pennant chase had essentially become a two-horse race.

Newcombe took the mound in East Coast humidity that felt as thick as oatmeal.

The temperature augured a hitter’s night, but after Robinson launched a hanging curveball into the upper deck in left in the second inning, the pitchers took over.

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Newk was throwing his live wire fastball, Dave Koslo was hitting his spots with his breaking pitches, and when either man missed, the thick air held the ball up for his outfielders. It was like trying to hit a sponge.

Hodges opened the seventh with a triple off the concrete in right center, but no one could bring him in. Going into the bottom of the eighth, it was still 1-0,

Dodgers. Furillo, on parole from Shotton’s doghouse, lined a single to center for his second hit. Whitey Lockman mishandled Robinson’s line drive single, and the

Brooks suddenly had runners at second and third. Hodges drew an intentional walk, setting up a force at any base, and Shotton sent the right-handed Edwards in to bat for Snider. Koslo walked him on four pitches. Brooklyn 2, New York 0.

Lockman led off the ninth with a redemptive home run over the right field screen to make it 2-1, but Newcombe struck out Thomson and Mize on fastballs, and

Willard Marshall, the third leading batsman in the league at .319, sent a fly ball that

Furillo snagged in front of Abe Stark’s scoreboard sign for the final out. Newk’s four-hitter improved his record to an impressive 11-3. He’d fanned 87 batters in his

154 innings, and was walking fewer than two per game. In St. Louis, Country

Slaughter slammed a pair of homers and Howie Pollet notched his league-leading

15th win, a 9-3 shellacking of the hapless Reds, keeping the Cardinals neck and neck with the Dodgers.

Brooklyn pitching was the best it had been all season. Since the first of the month, Dodgers’ twirlers had permitted just 2.33 runs per game, down significantly from the 4.58 they had allowed through July 31st, and the team had compiled an 8-1 record. The Redbirds had been almost as good. St. Louis moundsmen had

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surrendered 2.5 runs per game in August, 1.48 better than through July--but the

Cards had only managed to win 6 of 8. The Dodgers had hit better than the

Redbirds, scoring 6 runs per game to the Cardinals’ 5.63. The overall Brooklyn advantage was only a half-run, but it had been enough to gain them a game and a half in the standings.

Since their last meeting with the Dodgers, Eddie Sawyer’s Phillies had gone 12-

17 and dropped out of contention. The Phils had become a team with more streaks than country bacon, winning three and losing five, winning three and losing five, then winning three. Their pitching had soured and their bats had gone cold. Since the advent of August, they’d been outscored 41-25, had been blanked twice. They were languishing in fourth place, 12 games back, as the Flock arrived in the City of

Brotherly Love for a three-game fracas.

Erskine, making his third start, matched up against Robin Roberts in the opener.

Roberts had pitched better than his 10-10 record indicated. He had become something of a hard-luck hurler since the beginning of the hot weather. In his seven outings since July, his teammates had spotted him 27 runs to the opposition’s 21, but the Phils had managed to win only two games.

The Dodgers took the lead in the first. Reese walked, moved to third on

Rackley’s single to right, and scored on Robinson’s short fly ball to center field, barreling into Andy Seminick ahead of Richie Ashburn’s throw, and rendering the

Mad Russian hors de combat with a fractured tooth. In the second, Cox tripled, and scored on a double by Campanella. In the fourth, Hermanski, Hodges, and Cox singled, and Campy whacked another two-bagger, the barrage sending Roberts to

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the showers. In the fifth, Robinson tripled, Hermanski walked, and Shotton signaled for the double steal. Jackie was safe, his fourth swipe of home, giving him a fair shot at the major league record of seven, held by Pete Reiser, who’d turned the felonious trick back in ’46. Hodges, Cox and Campanella followed with base hits that drove reliever Ken Trinkle into the showers with Roberts. Meanwhile,

Oisk’s changeups were baffling the Philly batters, and he took a two-hit shutout into the ninth before Swish Nicholson tripled into the right field corner and scored on a grounder to deep short by Del Ennis. The 8-1 triumph was Erskine’s second, and kept the club knotted with the Cardinals, who beat the Reds again 4-1. Country

Slaughter had picked up two more hits, and his .334 average was second in the league. Jackie’s lone RBI gave him 90 for the season, and Campanella’s four brought the chunky backstop to 57 in his 85 games.

On Wednesday, Furillo bagged four hits, knocked in a run, and scored two. Ken

Heintzelman, who’d beaten the Brooks four times, couldn’t handle them at all, but his mates drove Branca from the box in the seventh and tied the game at 5-5. The rally energized the Philly masses until Robinson punctured their bubble with a two- run ninth inning homer--his 14th--off a former nemesis, palmballer Jim Konstanty.

The blow prompted the visiting Mahatma to leap jubilantly from his box seat and wring his second sacker’s calloused paw. Banta set the stunned Whiz Kids down in the bottom half, and the happy Dodgers celebrated their fifth straight win. The

Bums had captured 11 of their last 12, but they couldn’t shake the accursed

Cardinals, 8-0 victors over the Reds.

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The Dodgers finally wrenched undisputed possession of first place from the idle

Redbirds with a 10-7 win on Thursday night beneath a Philadelphia moon that looked like a fried egg. Captain Reese was the latest Brooklyn hero, cracking a three-run homer in the eighth off creaky veteran Lynwood “Schoolboy” Rowe. Pee

Wee’s 14th homer put the game away for Oakland Joe in relief. It had been a seesaw affair before Reese’s drive broke it open, the Phils jumping to an early 5-3 lead on Barney, the Brooks tying it on Snider’s 18th homer in the fifth, the Phils regaining the lead in the sixth, and Hermanski’s two-run double putting the Bums ahead in the seventh; then the Phils chased Palica and knotted the game at 7-7.

After Reese’s blast, Banta pitched the eighth and ninth in relief of the economical

Hatten, who was credited with the win despite tossing only four pitches.

The Dodgers were 67-39 for the season, holders of the best record in the major leagues. They had scored more runs and stolen more bases than any club in the circuit. They had won six straight games and 12 of their last 13. They were going so well that no one suspected that their bandwagon was about to drive off the edge of a cliff.

***

By the spring of 1941, Larry MacPhail and Leo Durocher had assembled a

Seabiscuit-like roster of cast-offs and reclamation projects that ran better than it looked. The club had shown steady improvement since the advent of the Terrible

Twosome, finishing third in 1939 and second in 1940, but the farm system was still a work in progress. The only home-grown players expected to crack the starting lineup were the two the papers had taken to calling the “Gold Dust Twins”,

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sophomores Pee Wee Reese and infielder-turned-outfielder Pete Reiser, and they had initially been signed by other organizations.

Reiser had been one of the Cardinal farmhands that had become free agents through the imperious 1939 edict of Judge Landis that had so infuriated the

Mahatma. Most of the emancipated Redbirds were run-of-the-mill minor league chaff, but Reiser was a blue-chip special, a shortstop that Rickey felt combined the speed of Ty Cobb with the power of Babe Ruth. The Mahatma enlisted MacPhail's help in conducting a secret operation that would keep Reiser buried in the Dodgers' low minors until 1940, at which time it would become legal for Rickey and the

Cardinals to trade for him. MacPhail owed the Mahatma a favor or two, and agreed to the plan.

Reiser was inked by the Dodgers for a hundred bucks, and assigned to their

Elmira club. In the spring of 1940, Durocher, who was not a part of the Rickey-

MacPhail conspiracy, played him in an exhibition series against the Cardinals. Pete clobbered four homers and was on base eleven consecutive times. Rickey and

MacPhail were furious. Leo might just as well have plastered Pete’s face on a billboard in Times Square. MacPhail wired the Lip, "DO NOT PLAY REISER

AGAIN." The Dodgers' manager was incredulous. The kid was great. Why shouldn't he play him?

Leo wrote Reiser into the lineup again before the start of the next series. John

MacDonald, MacPhail's chief of staff, immediately cornered the Lip, told him to scratch the kid, and to report to MacPhail at full speed. A bewildered Durocher entered his employer’s suite where the irate Scotchman told him to pack his bags,

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that he was through. Midday, and the boss was already half puddled. After a few minutes of heated discussion, MacPhail lost his celebrated temper. The redhead rained curses and insults upon his baffled ex-manager. Leo responded by shoving

MacPhail over a bed, at which point the suddenly repentant magnate stood up and threw a comradely arm around the baffled Lip. The teary-eyed MacPhail told Leo he was still the skipper of the Dodgers, but that Reiser absolutely had to be optioned to the Pioneers for “further seasoning”.

Pete hit .378 while ensconced anonymously in Elmira, but the Bums were unexpectedly contending for the pennant, so MacPhail double crossed the Mahatma and promoted the kid to Brooklyn, where he hit .293 in 225 at-bats. Rickey could gnash his teeth all he wanted, but Reiser was a Dodger.

“I feel pretty good out there,” Reiser said of his new billet in the Brooklyn middle garden. “Of course, when you’ve played another position, everything’s different, but I like it there, and I think I can make it.”

One of Durocher’s main hopes was that his old pal , the once mighty ex-Gashouse Gangster, would return to his Triple-Crown form. In June of

1940, MacPhail had shelled out a hundred and twenty-five grand and a wagonload of second-stringers to the Mathama in return for Ducky Joe and former 22-game winner , only to see his prize acquisition skulled five days later by a fastball from former teammate Bob Bowman and carried off to Caledonian Hospital on a litter. Medwick returned to hit .300 for the Dodgers with 14 homers, but he did not look like the same fellow who had left--not surprisingly, considering that he

247 Bob Mack

had double vision and was suffering from post-concussion headaches that would have felled a small horse.

The Medwick beaning had been a cause celebre in Brooklyn, with some hotheads (MacPhail) calling for the immediate dismemberment of the criminal

Bowman, while more rational residents requested only his lifetime banishment from both baseball and the continental United States.

“Had anybody else but Medwick been hit,” wrote John Carmichael, of the

Chicago Daily News, “there’d have been no hue and cry. But the setting was perfect for what happened. Medwick, the man who is to fetch Brooklyn’s first flag in twenty years, was struck by a pitcher from his old club. The Dodgers needed no further incentive to fury.

“There isn’t another city like Brooklyn in the country. Its citizens look differently, talk differently, act differently than in other places. It is a melting pot for all nationalities, all types. Its language is slang, and its customs are born of impulse.

“We stood next to MacPhail the other night while they ran the flag up the pole in center field, a transcribed Kate Smith sang the Star Spangled Banner, and you could have heard a pin drop on the velvet infield. ‘Look at ‘em,’ whispered Larry.

‘Standing, every last one of ‘em. They’re all singing, too. You know, this is a great town and I love it. Damn if I don’t.’ ”

The sudden flowering of the 1940 Dodgers had taken everybody in the Borough, including MacPhail, by surprise: “I felt that we had a club good enough to be in the first division, yet saw little probability that Brooklyn would be a red hot contender.

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We were looking further into the future than that. Circumstances and the fans changed that all around. The boys start off with nine straight victories, the town goes crazy talking about their pennant chances. The fever of the fans sets a new high. We started drawing customers far in excess of our gate at a corresponding period last year. If the club hadn’t been going so well, we wouldn’t have been so anxious to make a deal for Joe Medwick. But with the fans as hopped up as they were, we owed it to them to go to town, to forget about next year and make the best deal possible for immediate help.

“I wasn’t thinking about Medwick at all. I was trying to make a deal with another club, almost had it made, too, when Branch Rickey telephoned and said that the Cardinals were in the mood to do some trading.

‘Who will you trade?’

‘Anybody.’

‘Does that go for Medwick, too?’

‘Yes.’

“So I flew out to St. Louis, and it all came true.”

Medwick was to be the finest jewel in the crown that the Dodgers were planning on acquiring; when their brand new All-Star outfielder sprawled motionless in the dirt, MacPhail, Durocher, and the entire Borough went temporarily insane.

MacPhail challenged the entire St. Louis bench to combat, penned a hasty screed for the press in which he impugned everything from Bowman’s courage and ancestry to his taste in evening wear, then threw a few wild punches at the pitcher when he encountered him on his way from the park; the next day, Queen’s County

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District Attorney William O’Dwyer began an inquiry into possible criminal charges against the St. Louis hurler; the Lip exchanged angry words with Cardinal manager

Billy Southworth over a breakfast table at the New Yorker; and Durocher and

Redbird catcher Mickey Owen came to blows during that evening’s ballgame.

From St. Louis, President Sam Breadon recalled an earlier game at Sportsman’s

Park when Brooklyn twirler Hugh Casey had plunked Don Padgett, Johnny Mize, and Enos Slaughter.

“We did not accuse the Dodgers of using bean-ball tactics that afternoon,” sniffed Singing Sam, neglecting to mention that Casey hadn’t clobbered any of the ruffled Redbirds in their thick heads.

The only person whose emotions weren’t getting the better of him appeared to be Medwick. “It was just one of those things,” Ducky Joe said from his hospital cot.

An uneasy armistice prevailed between the two clubs after Southworth visited

Medwick’s sick-room to convey the regrets of his former mates for his injury, and after MacPhail’s impromptu address to the St. Louis players in the locker room at

Ebbets Field following the game on June 19th:

“I know many of you fellows,” Larry said emotionally. “You’ve played for me at Cincinnati and Columbus. I’m for you, and the best of luck.”

Now, in the spring of 1941, MacPhail, convinced that the flag had been lost in

1940 primarily because of the catastrophic skulling of Medwick and the somewhat less disastrous beaning of young Pee Wee Reese, was trying once more to break through the hide-bound traditionalism of the baseball establishment by introducing

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batting helmets to the big leagues. Despite the obvious interest club owners should have had in protecting their investment in player-flesh, nary a one rushed to place an order for a piece of superfluous equipment they thought fit to be worn only by nancies.

“The objection I heard from other club owners was that the players would never wear them,” said MacPhail. “Well, they wouldn’t wear a thing that was cumbersome and so conspicuous that everyone could see it. My players are solid for this one, and they’re all going to use it.”

Helmet was actually a misnomer for MacPhail’s device, which was a little plastic insert (designed by Dr. Dandy, the John Hopkins neurosurgeon) that fitted into a pocket inside the cap. Medwick and Reese each wore the protectors for an entire exhibition in Havana against the Indians.

“You’d never know you had it on,” said Ducky Joe. “There’s not enough difference in the weight or the feeling to bother anybody.”

“I want to make a prediction,” said MacPhail, “that within a year, every player in the major leagues will be wearing it.”

Helmeted or not, Medwick was raring to go. Newly acquired catcher Mickey

Owen said of the Duckman: “I’d like to see that fellow hit ‘em like he did when I first came up with the Cardinals. Boy, he could sure powder that ball.”

“It’ll be much easier to win the pennant this year than it was to bring Cincinnati up from seventh place,” mused MacPhail. “And much easier than it was to bring

Brooklyn up from the second division.”

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Despite Laughing Larry’s confidence, the Dodgers had some holes to fill.

Second base incumbent Pete Coscorat had batted only .237 in 1940, and his work in the field indicated that the Bums would probably be better off with the 35 year-old

Durocher manning the keystone sack himself. MacPhail, however, was angling for the Cubs’ 10-year star , a .310 lifetime hitter starting to go long in the tooth, but nothing was definite.

“I haven’t talked business with Brooklyn since January,” said Chicago manager

Jimmy Wilson from Los Angeles. “I don’t know anything about a trip by MacPhail, but if he comes here to talk trades, he’ll receive a cordial welcome.”

The Dodger outfield was also questionable. Medwick seemed healthy and had been pounding the ball in the exhibitions, but the highly regarded Reiser was untested over a full season and was learning a new position, and right field was in the antique hands of 38-year old Paul “Big Poison” Waner, the former Pirate star, toffed out in an unfamiliar uniform as he began his sixteenth big league campaign.

Jack Doyle, the New York oddsmaker, set the Dodgers’ chances at winning the pennant at 9-5 the day before the season began. Doyle thought that MacPhail’s former club, the Reds, was the team to beat, and his assessment was the same as the collective opinion of the nation’s baseball writers, all of who were in love with the defending champions.

War colored 1941 like a metallic haze. Metropolitan newspapers smelled more of brass and gunpowder than printer’s ink, the exception being the sports pages, a refuge where Borough residents sought welcome shelter from each day’s alarming headlines.

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Less than two weeks into the season, Pete Reiser was hit in the face by a fastball from Ike Pearson of the Phillies. The Flock had dropped their opening series to the

Giants, then rebounded to win 6 of 7 when Pearson’s errant pitch felled Pistol Pete.

In 1940, Reiser’s beaning would have doomed the Dodgers’ pennant drive; in 1941, all of the Brooks were wearing MacPhail’s head protectors. The little plastic insert had largely absorbed the force of the ball. Reiser would have a sore mug for a few days, but no lingering impairment. MacPhail’s foresight had saved the season.

On the sixth of May, MacPhail acquired the second baseman he had sought when he pried Billy Herman away from the Cubs for $25,000 and minor league outfielder Charlie Gilbert. The deal had been consummated at 3:30 in the morning in Jim Gallagher’s room at the Commodore Hotel--MacPhail soddenly persistent, and the Chicago general manager half asleep--and at 12:30 in the afternoon, the newest Dodger reported to Durocher from the Polo Grounds. The Lip inserted

Herman in the lineup batting second behind Reese, and Billy finished his first day in Flatbush with three singles and a double in four trips to the plate.

“This is a great baseball town,” he said. “It’s like playing in a world’s series game every day.”

MacPhail added the final piece to the Dodgers’ pennant puzzle by subtracting old Paul Waner. The antediluvian’s bat had slowed to an arthritic crawl, and

MacPhail released him on May 11th. When Reiser returned to action a week later,

Dixie Walker became the regular right fielder.

Fred “Dixie” Walker had spent eight years in the American League with the

Yankees, White Sox, and Tigers, compiling a .295 average, before joining the

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Dodgers in 1939. In 1940, he led the team in batting with a .308 mark, and in doubles with 37, but started the ’41 season on the bench. With Dixie’s insertion into the starting lineup, Durocher had .300 hitting outfielders stretching from stem to stern.

In June, Hitler’s legions invaded the Soviet Union. The Dodgers dropped the first game of a series in Cincinnati, falling three games behind Rickey’s Cardinals.

“Rack ‘em up,” the Lip told his team before Sunday’s double-header. The Dodgers swept the Reds 2-1 in 16 innings, then won 3-2 in regulation time. They would win

15 of their next 19, and roar through August and September with a 40-18 mark.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. on September 25th, Dodger third baseman Cookie

Lavagetto juggled a ground ball by Max West of the Braves, recovered, and threw

West out at first. ’s 6-0 shutout of the Hubmen ended a 21-year stretch of Dodger futility.

“We’re in!” all Brooklyn seemed to cry in unison, as if they had witnessed a miracle. “We’re in!”

At Dan & Matt Flynn’s Bar & Grill, a watering hole adjacent to Ebbets Field, mixologist Mike Hughes compounded an impromptu cocktail of gin, apricot brandy, lemon, and sugar, and christened it “MacPhail’s Punch”. The vendors at

Barney’s Frankfurter Stand at Myrtle and Adams Streets had to assist an old man who choked on his bun. Judge Samuel Liebowitz stood up in court and said,

“Brooklyn, gentlemen, has defeated Boston. Pittsburgh, gentlemen, has defeated

St. Louis. The pennant is ours. This trial stands adjourned.”

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Wyatt’s 22nd win had tied him with teammate for the most victories in the league. Reiser led the loop in batting with a .343 average, Medwick was runner-up at .318, Dixie Walker finished at .311, and first baseman Dolph

Camilli topped the circuit in homers with 34 and in RBI with 120. Brooklyn’s 100-

54 record lapped the second-place Redbirds by two and a half games. Who,

Durocher was asked, had been his most valuable player?

“Everybody,” said Leo. “I knew we’d make it. These boys couldn’t miss with their spirit.”

As the Dodgers Pennant Special Express sped home from Boston, Larry

MacPhail, accompanied by a milling posse of newsmen and photographers, waited at 125th Street Station to join his triumphant club before they arrived at Grand

Central, where 10,000 of the delirious Faithful had assembled. Aboard the locomotive, Durocher heard that some of his players planned to bolt as soon the train halted in order to celebrate their victory privately in a quartet of fashionable uptown saloons. Unaware that his boss was waiting, Leo told the engineer to skip the stop. The dumbfounded MacPhail was left standing in a cloud of soot and cinders as his team roared past him. Apoplectic and embarrassed, and feeling like a man who had just seen his wife abscond with his accountant, MacPhail fired his pennant winning manager on the spot.

MacPhail was always firing Leo. The terminations usually occurred when the volatile Scotchman was in his cups, and ended the next morning when sobriety reared its aching head.

255 Bob Mack

“There’s a thin line between genius and insanity,” Durocher said of his high- strung employer, “and in Larry’s case it was sometimes so thin you could see him drifting back and forth.”

“Leo claims he was sacked as Dodgers’ manager forty times,” said Brooklyn traveling secretary and part-time Durocher ghostwriter Harold Parrott, “but I was there and I can verify only twenty-seven."

The World’s Series was something of an anti-climax. The Dodgers and the

Faithful were just glad to be there, while the American League champion Yankees played for blood and money. The New Yorkers took the first game 3-2; Brooklyn captured the second by the same score; the Yanks won the third 2-1; then came

Game Four, a belief-defying debacle that traumatized the Dodgers and their fans so badly that the memory would torment them and their progeny for years, a livid sports anamnesis that inferred the Island’s inferiority and spawned the phrase that would become Brooklyn’s epitaph: “Wait ‘til next year.”

It had been over, that was the maddening thing-—over, kaput, finis. The

Dodgers had won it and evened the series at two games apiece. Reiser’s two-run homer in the fifth had put the Bums ahead 4-3 on an unseasonably scorching

October afternoon, and Atlanta-born Hugh Casey had shut down the Yanks the rest of the way--took ‘em down one-two-three in the ninth, fanning Tommy Henrich for the final out on the damndest 3-2 breaking ball you ever saw--except that it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Hughie’s strikeout pitch, the third out, that big, beautiful final out, skidded off Mickey Owen’s glove, Henrich was safe at first, and the hair on the necks of the 33,813 spectators in Charlie Ebbets’ ball yard stood up as if they

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had seen a ghost. What happened next was described in Meyer Berger’s doggerel in the New York Times:

Casey In The Box--1941 “DiMaggio got a single, Keller sent one to the wall.

Two runs came pounding o’er the dish, and oh, this wasn’t all;

For Dickey walked and Gordon a resounding double smashed,

And Dodger fans were sickened. All Dodger hopes were dashed.

Oh, somewhere north of Harlem, the sun is shining bright.

Bands are playing in the Bronx, and up there hearts are light.

In Hunt’s Point, men are laughing, on the Concourse children shout;

But there is no joy in Flatbush. Fate had knocked their Casey out.”

The Dodgers and their befuddled followers were as dazed as earthquake survivors. The 7-4 loss had been as sudden and deadly as the fissure that swallowed

San Francisco.

“Everything happens to me,” lamented Casey. “I’ve lost one when a balk was called against me, and just about every funny way you can think of. But I never lost one before by striking out a guy.”

“The Lord must be on their side,” whispered Dixie Walker, a Southern man not normally inclined to assume heavenly dispensation for Yankees.

“Today,” rationalized Durocher, “was just one of those things.”

MacPhail stalked the tomb-like Dodgers’ clubhouse with tears in his eyes and denial in his heart: “Those guys haven’t beaten you a blasted game yet! Wait’ll they really beat you! They haven’t beaten you fellows a game, and they haven’t beaten you in the series yet either!”

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But they had. And everybody knew it. Monday’s 3-1 Yankee victory formally ending any lingering Dodger hopes had been ordained on Black Sunday when

Casey’s pitch eluded Mickey Owen.

“I think my boys played good baseball,” an upbeat Durocher told reporters afterward, “but they beat us. We just didn’t have quite enough.” Leo paused reflectively. “I’ll be seeing you again, or at least I hope I will. I won a pennant, but

I lost a series--and a guy never can tell, you know.”

It had been a pitcher’s series, straight from the benighted depths of the Deadball

Era. The Yanks had outhit the Dodgers .247 to .182, and outslugged them .325 to

.270. Leo’s leading batsman had been his buddy Medwick, but Ducky Joe had managed only a meager .235 mark.

“A very good team beat a good team,” was MacPhail’s judgement, “but the

Yankees are not supermen.”

Despite rumors to the contrary, MacPhail was satisfied with Leo’s field generalship--he hadn’t fired him in over a week. The series loss was hard to digest, sure, but the Dodgers prexy, like the rest of Flatbush, always had next year, and he had already decided that Durocher would have it also.

“One of these days,” said Leo, “MacPhail will shove a piece of paper at me and say ‘sign this,’ and I’ll sign. I’ll look at the figure first, though.”

On December 6, 1941, the moguls and their minions began to assemble in

Chicago for baseball’s winter meetings, the annual chinwag that combined business with banquets. MacPhail’s pressing need for the upcoming season was the acquisition of a left-handed starting pitcher, and the latest hot stove rumor was that

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the impetuous Scotchman would send third baseman Harry Lavagetto to the Giants for 29-year old . No one knew that by morning, the country would be embroiled in a bloody war, and--for major league baseball--next year might never come.

***

After Friday night’s game against the Braves, the Dodgers suspected that Lady

Luck had scrammed, that the flighty strumpet had found herself another Romeo in another town and left the Old Sourdough on the high lonesome again.

Newcombe started against the only club in the circuit he hadn’t beaten, and surrendered two-run homers to lefties Tommy Holmes and Jeff Heath. The

Dodgers entered the eighth inning trailing 5-3. Nels Potter, the 37-year old right- hander that Billy Southworth had pulled from Connie Mack’s scrap pile, was baffling the Brooklyn batters. They were fastball hitters to a man, but the slop that

Potter was delivering was velocious in name only--they had all seen changeups with more zip; still, they couldn’t lay any lumber on the infernal things. Two of their three runs were unearned, and they hadn’t managed anything more intimidating than a few singles. Snider, who had a hit in the sixth and scored the Dodgers’ third run, finally got hold of one of Potter’s floaters and whaled it to the fence in deep center where it banged off the screen or the seats, and pinballed back onto the playing field. Coach Milt Stock held Duke up at third base, but Umpire Scotty

Robb, who had seen Art Gore twirl his hand signaling a homer, waved him in. A minute later, Gore was in the Brooklyn dugout ordering the unhappy Snider back to third.

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“I misinterpreted the rule,” the umpire said. “I saw the ball hit the screen and bounce back, but I thought hitting the screen made it a home run. It’s my mistake, the ball was in play all the way.”

Shotton argued the decision vigorously through his mouthpiece Clyde Sukeforth, contending that Gore’s initial call had caused Snider to slow down, whereby he had lost his opportunity for an inside-the-park homer. After the game, the Old

Sourdough filed an official protest with the league office. His argument was questionable, to say the least, but the Dodgers had nothing to lose since they’d dropped the game 5-3. If Ford Frick upheld their complaint, they’d play the whole thing over. Still, having an important homer negated was something that didn’t often happen to a lucky team.

The Dodgers were idle on Saturday. A cold front accompanied by heavy rain postponed the games at Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. In St. Louis, Ralph

Kiner slugged his 30th home run, and the Pirates downed the Cardinals 6-3. The two front-runners were deadlocked again.

Sunday’s game, despite a resounding 7-2 Brooklyn win, provided the Dodgers with further evidence that Dame Fortune had not only taken a powder, but that the vituperative old trollop was now working against them. Prior to the start of play,

Roy Campanella, who had been whirlpooling a ribcage muscle torn during

Thursday’s 10-7 win over the Phillies, was informed by trainer Doc Wendler that the injury would probably keep him sidelined for another week and a half. After the day’s action commenced, the Preacher left the mound in the third inning suffering from dizziness and abdominal pain, and was whisked off to Swedish

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Hospital for observation. “Attention!” announced the eloquent Tex Rickard. “The reason for Roe’s removal from the game--he doesn’t feel good.”

Johnny Sain, enduring a miserable 8-12 season, plunked Hodges with a pitch that the Dodgers thought was too far inside to be accidental. Oakland Joe sent

Holmes sprawling in return. The Old Sourdough claimed not to have ordered the knockdown. Hatten had been in the league since 1946, and had played for the Lip for a year and a half. No one had to tell him what to do.

Every pitcher in the league threw at the Dodgers--they led the loop in contusions. As had been the case each year since he’d entered the majors,

Robinson was the snipers’ favorite target. In ‘47, pitchers were trying to chase him out of the majors. In ‘49, the man was batting .364, and they were trying to chase him off the plate. Intimidation was an accepted part of the game--but so was retaliation.

“If a pitcher learns to protect himself by keeping the batter away from the plate, that’s good baseball,” said Burt Shotton. “But under no circumstances should a close pitch be thrown in heated anger.”

Hitters owned the plate middle-in; the battle was for the outside corner. But paradoxically, in order to own the outside, a pitcher had to throw inside. Batters made their living on the deliveries that missed and caught the plate; they went to the hospital on the ones that missed high and tight.

In the eighth inning, a spectator reached onto the playing field and snatched a ball that had been driven down the right field line, turning a probable bases loaded triple by Snider into a ground-rule double, costing the Dodgers a run, and Duke a

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four RBI game. The offender was a guest of umpire Frank Dascoli. Dascoli made the fan interference call that resulted in the ejection of his buddy from the ballpark.

Everything happened at Ebbets Field.

Hatten, pitching from the bullpen again, worked the last four and a third innings and earned his eleventh win. Billy Cox bagged three hits, Snider and Robinson two each. Robinson’s average was rising again, and he was only half a dozen RBI short of 100. In St. Louis, Kiner slammed his 31st homer and shut out the Cardinals 4-0. The Dodgers had regained sole possession of first place, but they were a touch uneasy. The breaks were starting to go against them.

The Bums vacationed on Monday, and the Cardinals took advantage, ripping twelve safeties, including Musial’s 20th homer, and beating the Cubs 5-2 at

Wrigley Field to cut the Brooklyn lead to a half-game.

On Tuesday, the Whiz Kids arrived in town, losers of 5 of their last 6, and fresh from a trip to manager Eddie Sawyer’s woodshed.

“The club has been more than generous to you, both in your style of traveling, and the liberties you have been allotted,” Sawyer had informed his peach-fuzzed charges. “I know, however, that you have not been hustling as you were earlier in the year. I feel that if everyone gets down to business, we can finish in the first division. We have the men to do it. It’s up to you. If you don’t hustle and finish there, it will be your loss and your headache.”

Newcombe battled Dodger-killer Ken Heintzelman through eleven innings in the first game before losing 2-1 in the twelfth on a two-out triple by singles-hitting

Richie Ashburn. Furillo’s 9th homer--his first since the Fourth of July--had

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provided the Brooks with their only run. It was Heinzelman’s fifth triumph over the

Dodgers. At Wrigley Field, the Cubs rallied for three runs in the ninth to upset the

Cards 5-4.

In Boston, the axe finally fell on embattled manager Billy Southworth. It was announced that he had accepted a “leave of absence” for the remainder of the season.

“The Braves’ owners,” stated club president Lou Perini in carefully nuanced language, “believe it will be better to have a healthy Billy Southworth managing the team in the spring than to have him so tax his physique and nerves now that he might not ever recover completely.”

Coach Johnny Cooney was appointed interim field boss. Cooney had played for the Braves as a pitcher and outfielder from 1921 through 1930, and again from 1938 through 1942, compiling an average of .286 and a won-lost record of 34-44. It was his first managing job. Billy the Kid had been drinking the club into the second division--the defending champs were thirteen and a half games out with only 44 to go. Barring a complete and simultaneous collapse by both Brooklyn and St. Louis, the Braves were reduced to playing out the string.

The Dodgers had dropped Tuesday’s game when they didn’t hit; they dropped

Wednesday’s when they did. The Phillies broke a 5-5 tie with five runs in the eighth inning off Palica--the overworked reliever was no longer the wunderkind of the Brooklyn bullpen--and a potential ninth inning Dodger rally was cut short when

Hermanski and Hodges occupied third base simultaneously in a bit of comedy

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rarely seen at Ebbets Field since the departure of Babe Herman. Everybody involved seemed to want to be credited with the base running blunder:

“I made a mistake,” said Hermanski.

“It was my fault,” admitted Hodges.

“I held Hermanski up,” confessed Coach Milt Stock.

The 11-7 loss coupled with the a 4-3 St. Louis victory in 13 innings at Cincinnati moved the Cardinals a half game ahead of the Dodgers in the see-saw National

League race.

On Thursday, Barney and Erskine were torched for five runs in the sixth inning as the Phillies completed their sweep with a 9-5 win. Sawyer’s tongue-lashing had apparently taken effect.

“Why didn’t he wait until the Cardinals came to Philadelphia?” moaned Clyde

Sukeforth.

Shotton’s troopers were now a full game behind the idle Redbirds. The Old

Sourdough had used nine pitchers during the last two games. His starters were faltering, his bullpen was cracking, and half of his regulars were banged up--Billy

Cox had joined the recuperating Campanella on the bench with contusions of the knee, Robinson and Reese had already played most of the season with assorted dents and dings, and Jackie was suffering from a bruised heel. Hodges had sore ribs, and the Old Sourdough wasn’t feeling too chipper himself.

In Atlanta, Samuel Green dropped dead in his front yard. The Klan Kapitan had attended his last Konklave, had fired up his last tarry cross. It was AKIW for His

Lizardness (A Klansman I Was). The United States Attorney General had recently

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declared the good doctor’s “fraternal order” to be a subversive organization.

Klansmen were barred from holding federal jobs or serving in the military. Doc

Green had always felt persecuted by Yankee-owned newspapers, scalawag officials and carpet-bagging northern bureaucrats. The little obstetrician considered himself a Southern patriot to the very end, which arrived unexpectedly while he was cutting his crabgrass. According to his obituary, Doc Green had been from Pennsylvania.

***

The Dodgers entrained for Boston and a series against the discombobulated

Braves, after which they would host the Cardinals for the last time. The season was getting close to the bone. From now on, each day that passed would narrow the possibility that a team could recover from its lapses, the tolerance for error growing smaller and smaller as August ended and September waned, until finally, a contender could not afford to make any mistakes at all. This was crunch time-- when a manager and his players had to earn their keep.

By the bottom of the ninth in Braves Field, the Dodgers had labored to a 4-0 lead, thanks to superb pitching by Oakland Joe and Marv Rackley’s perfect day at the plate. A road team with a four run edge in the final inning has a 97.3% chance of winning, but for teams in tailspins, the laws of probability become merely suggestions. Singles by Jim Russell and Jeff Heath, a wild pitch, and a base on balls to Tommy Holmes, chased Oakland Joe just shy of his 12th victory. Banta trotted in to relieve Old Rubber Arm, surrendered a two-run single to Al Dark, then headed for the showers when Shotton decided he wanted the southpaw Minner to pitch to Pete Reiser. The Dodgers would have the platoon advantage--which hadn’t

265 Bob Mack

worked particularly well for Hatten--or Johnny Cooney would have to counter with a weaker batsman. Boston’s neophyte skipper sent Eddie Sauer up to hit for Reiser, and the ex-Cardinal blooped a single to left to reload the bases. Minner fanned pinch-hitter Mickey Livingstone for the second out, but the vexatious Stanky dumped a two-base looper just fair down the right field line to tie the game.

Braves Field was not a comfortable venue for the Dodgers. The dank and breezy pitcher’s park negated much of Brooklyn’s batting punch--homers were hard to come by in the Teepee--and the Flock had dropped 18 of 27 games to the Braves over the past three seasons.

Erskine and Boston’s took over the mound chores in an uneventful tenth. In the bottom of the eleventh, the Braves loaded the bases. With one out and

Stanky , Cooney called for the suicide squeeze.

The suicide bunt was one of the riskiest tactics in the manager’s canon, a high risk/high reward gambit that demanded perfect timing, the element of surprise, and a skillful batsman. It either resulted in a run, or the loss of the runner at third.

Because it was a sacrifice, the play was attempted only with less than two outs.

Surprise was essential, but not easy to achieve.

Sibby Sisti, the runner on third, was acknowledged to be the best bunter on the

Boston roster, possibly the best in the National League. He was therefore well acquainted with the intricate timing required for success. Sisti could not start his dash for the plate too soon lest Erskine suss out the play and either pitch out or throw the ball where it would be impossible for Stanky to bunt it. On the other

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hand, if he broke too late, he increased his chance of being thrown out by any drawn-in infielder that gloved the ball.

Stanky was an excellent bat handler and a superb judge of the strike zone, walking almost three times for each time he struck out; but because the Braves’ second baseman was bereft of any significant power, the Dodgers would at least be considering the possibility of the bunt. For the play to work, Stanky absolutely had to get his bat on the ball. If he missed, Sisti was dead, and the Braves’ rally thwarted.

The delivery on which Cooney would call the play was the key to attaining surprise. The first pitch was always a good choice. Erskine had decent control, and would not want to fall behind in the count. On the other hand, if Shotton suspected the squeeze--the Dodgers, after all, knew Stanky’s strengths and weaknesses as well as Cooney--he could order Erskine to pitch out, in which case Sisti was a goner. If

Cooney waited until the second pitch to put on the play, and Erskine threw a first pitch strike, then the Brat would only have one chance to make good--a foul would put him in an 0-2 hole. If Stanky was retired without getting the run in, the Braves would lose the immense advantage of batting against the drawn-in infield. If

Erskine’s first pitch was a ball, however, the chances of Stanky getting a good pitch to bunt on the second delivery would be almost 100%--Shotton would probably not pitchout on a 1-0 count, and--with Sisti breaking from third--all the Brat would have to do would be to dump the ball on the ground to end the game. Cooney would only delay the play until the third pitch if Erskine went to 2-0, but at that point it would probably be worthwhile to see if Stanky could work the count to 3-0,

267 Bob Mack

perhaps even drawing the walk to force in the winning run. The Braves’ skipper signaled Sisti to go on the first pitch.

The Dodgers were aware of the possibility that Stanky would bunt. On the other hand, he might not. There wasn’t a lot they could do. With the bases loaded,

Erskine had to throw strikes, and the infield had to come in, sharply increasing the chances of a ground ball getting past them and into the outfield.

Campanella had returned to the lineup sooner than expected. His ribs were taped, he had trouble taking a deep breath, and he couldn’t get much power into his swing, but he was still better than Bruce Edwards. If Campy said he could play, he was going to play.

Erskine’s best pitch was his change-of-pace curve, but Campy couldn’t call for it. He needed a strike, and he needed it on a fastball up in the zone, a dangerous pitch because it could be hit a country mile; but Stanky was not a highball hitter on or off the field. He lacked power, and the high pitch was harder to bunt and not easy to hit on the ground. Erskine shook off his catcher’s sign. Campy gave it to him again. The final decision on a pitch was always up to the pitcher, but the high fastball was the right call, and Oisk knew it; he just had to throw it to the proper location. Erskine went into his windup. Sisti broke for the plate.

The pitch was where Campanella wanted it, hard, and letter-high. Stanky’s hands slid up the bat handle, and he made contact half an inch below the baseball’s centerline. The ball popped up instead of down, and flew over Hodges’ head as he charged in. Sisti crossed the plate. Robinson had no play--the ball wasn’t hit high enough. Erskine’s follow-through had carried him toward the first base line. He

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was the only infielder close enough to have a chance. He lunged desperately, reached out and made the catch, then lobbed an unhurried throw to Reese covering third. Sisti was doubled up, and the inning was over.

Reese and Rackley opened the Brooklyn twelfth with singles--Rackley’s fifth straight hit--and Barrett fell behind Snider three and nothing. Shotton gave his center fielder the green light, and Snider belted a screaming line drive into the alley in left center. Both runners scored, and the Brooks had a 6-4 lead. Oisk finished off the Braves in the bottom half, and the Dodgers won a game that should have been decided in their favor in regulation time. The victory tied them with the

Cardinals for first place. At Forbes Field, Kiner had belted his 33rd home run, defeating the Redbirds 8-2.

Despite the victory, the Old Sourdough was not happy with the team’s performance. They looked sluggish at bat, afield, and afoot: “They just don’t do anything right. They don’t even think right. They are not taking advantage of their openings. They are leaving too many runners on third base. You’d think they never saw a curve ball before in their lives.”

Saturday’s contest seemed to confirm the skipper’s bleak assessment. Spahn tossed a 4-0 shutout. Roe and Barney were the victims of the Dodgers’ inept offense, and the team fell a game off the pace when the Cardinals defeated the

Pirates 4-3.

The fading Flock failed to score for Newcombe on Sunday, eighteen innings now in search or a run, the Brooklyn batsmen as pathetic as balding lotharios feeling for enough hair for a comb-over. Bill Voiselle scattered eight hits and

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Reiser smacked his 8th homer for the victorious Hubmen. Robinson and Reese were worn out, their averages starting to flatline. Pee Wee was down to .295, and

Jackie--still leading the league--had dipped to .358. They both needed a rest,

Shotton knew it, but he couldn’t give it to them. It was no time to let up, not with

St. Louis clawing at them day after day. The Dodgers were all healthy young men.

They could rest in November.

In Pittsburgh, the Cardinals divided a twin bill with the Bucs. The Dodgers fell a game and a half behind.

On Monday, Campanella slammed his 15th homer. The Brooks finally plated some runs, then coughed up their lead in the ninth inning and lost 7-6. Back in

Flatbush, the Faithful were starting to tense, and the New York press sniffed blood, particularly Dick Young, who wrote of “chokers” and teams that “lacked the guts to win a championship.”

“I do not mind public criticism,” said Branch Rickey. “I am in a business that is under scrutiny of able and facile writers continuously.”

Monday’s game lingered like one of the ballpark franks that Rex Barney said

“could kill a snake.” The Dodgers had turned a 5-2 deficit into a 6-5 lead in the ninth inning only to see it erased on a home run by Stanky off his old roommate

Branca. It was the Brat’s first homer of the campaign, and only the seventh he had hit during his seven years in the league. Branca couldn’t believe his eyes.

Unglued, he walked Elbie Fletcher, then trudged off the mound mumbling to himself as Sukeforth removed him from the game. The grizzled old coach rubbed up the baseball while Palica ran in from the bullpen.

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Palica took all of his allowable warm-ups. The kid’s arm felt like dough that had been rolled too thin. The first Boston hitter was Al Dark. Dark was hitting .281, but Johnny Cooney wanted him to bunt. Palica fielded it and threw to second for the force out on pinchrunner Sibby Sisti. Reiser was retired on a fly ball to Rackley in left. Palica went to a full count on Jeff Heath. Heath had banged five homers in his 49 at-bats. He slammed the kid’s 3-2 pitch to deep center field. Snider raced back, back, back, crashed into the fence, and went down in a semi-conscious heap.

The ball trickled away, and Dark walked home with the winning run. The Bums had dropped two full games behind the idle Redbirds. The Dodgers’ recent pattern of collective ineptitude had continued. Banta had worked the first six innings, allowing only six hits, but had fallen behind 4-2.

“You go out and see [Banta] pitch,” mused the Mahatma, “and you go away sure that you’ve seen a great workman who could win in any league. But he doesn’t win.

I don’t understand it.”

Defensively, the Dodgers were not the impregnable unit they had been earlier in the season. Furillo had misjudged a Connie Ryan fly ball in right that fell for a double. Rackley had played Vern Bickford too deeply in left, and the pitcher had chipped a run-scoring single in front of him. If the ballclub performed like this against the Cardinals, they’d be out of the race by Labor Day.

***

From the banks of the Gowanus to Sheepshead Bay, the Faithful prepared for what everybody agreed could be the Dodgers’ last stand. The Cardinals were coming to town. The Redbirds had won only 5 of their last 10, but Musial and

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Slaughter--the Jesse and Frank James of St. Louis--were both on fire. Since his last visit to Brooklyn, Stan the Man had increased his home run count to 20 and raised his overall average to .316, good for third place in the batting race. Slaughter was at

.325, second only to Robinson’s .355.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t hit .330 at least,” Musial said. “I’m in the groove again, finally, and I’m hitting the ball the way I did last year. If Jackie Robinson wasn’t having such a good year, I’d still have a good chance to keep the batting championship.”

The Bums had to win two of the three games, but they’d taken only 6 of 16 from the Redbirds all season, and their current slump had seen them drop 6 of their last 7; still, St. Louis manager Eddie Dyer was expecting a tough series.

“I’ve been sure all along that this would be a helluva race all the way,” he said.

“There’s no super team in this league, and that Brooklyn club is too sound to quit over a few nasty suggestions that they choked up.”

For the Dodgers to win, Robinson had to hit. Prior to the first game of

Tuesday’s day/night doubleheader, Jackie was asked about the soundness of his ailing heel.

“Two weeks ago when I hit the home run to win a game in the ninth, no one bothered to ask me how my heel was,” Robinson snapped. “But now that I’m in a batting slump, everyone is asking about my heel. I guess the slump hurts worse.

The way I’m going, I can’t hit the ball out of the infield.”

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“That’s right, you’d better get going,” jibed Reese. “If you don’t hit when I’m on base, I don’t score runs. And if I don’t score runs, how am I going to beat you out for the scoring championship this year?”

In the St. Louis dugout, Enos Slaughter and Red Schoendienst watched the

Brooks take batting practice. Slaughter, a professional ballplayer so tough that opponents said he could crack hickory nuts with his toes, had listened to the previous day’s Dodgers’ game on the radio in his hotel room. When Stanky hit his unlikely homer, the Country Boy almost fell out of bed.

29,529 of the Faithful arrived at the ballpark for the matinee. The Old

Sourdough sent Oakland Joe to the hill for the 29th time. Opposing him was the veteran southpaw . Lanier had gone 6-0 in 1946 before the promise of pesos drew him south of the border. Returning to the Cardinals following

Commissioner Chandler’s reinstatement of the contract jumpers, Lanier had started his first game on the Fourth of July, and, eight tries later, was still searching for his first post-Mexico win. He and teammate had a $2,500,000 lawsuit pending against Organized Baseball, but, to the dismay of their attorneys, the litigation had become superfluous now that the two were back in uniform.

The Dodgers disposed of Lanier in the third, but Musial and Slaughter arranged a Missouri bushwhacking in the fourth, and the Redbirds handed the Brooks their fourth straight defeat, 5-3. Slaughter singled, doubled, tripled, and scored three runs. Musial belted his 21st homer, singled, walked, and played right field like it was his front lawn. St. Louis bullpen ace Ted Wilks tossed six and two-thirds

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innings of five-hit ball and was credited with his tenth win, despite late-inning homers by Snider and Cox.

Three games back, and if ever a team needed a win, it was the Dodgers on the evening of August 23rd. The Old Sourdough appeared serene between tilts, but the signs of desperation were evident--Preacher Roe was pitching on two days rest, and

Mike McCormick was starting in left field for the first time since the beginning of

July.

“I’ve just washed my face and combed my hair,” Shotton told the scribes who milled around the Brooklyn dugout, “and if we can win a ball game, I’ll be practically human again.”

Howie Pollet, the National League’s winningest pitcher at 16-7, would oppose

Ol’ Preach in the nightcap. The Arkansas hillbilly had gotten so gaunt that they joked in the clubhouse that he needed a share of World’s Series money to buy himself a blood transfusion.

30,642 apprehensive Dodgers’ fans jammed Ebbets Field. After losing two

World’s Series and one National League playoff in eight years, the Faithful reacted to big games the way turkeys reacted to Thanksgiving.

Following a single by Schoendienst in the first inning, Stan the Man rifled his twenty-second homer over the right field scoreboard and onto Bedford Avenue, his second circuit smash of the day. Musial’s swath of destruction in Flatbush was almost complete. His average for eleven games was .564. He had belted six homers, driven in fourteen runs, and slugged for a percentage of 1.231.

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Down 2-0, the Dodgers had to strike back quickly before the Cards could drive a stake through their hearts. Reese and Cox led off with singles, but Pollet stranded them both. The crowd sensed disaster, but Preach was starting to hit the outside corner with his sinkers, and in the fourth, a single by Furillo and a line double to the gap in right center by Robinson cut the St. Louis lead in half. Musial saved a run with a diving catch of a shot down the right field line by Hodges, Robinson advancing to third. Thanks to the Old Sourdough’s pre-game perambulations, the little-used McCormick was at bat. Pollet, whose sinkers were as effective as Roe’s if not as wet, got the Moose swinging on top of a drop, and he Englished the ball down the third base line. Robinson broke for the plate. Tommy Glaviano had no play on Jackie, and he was going to have to hurry to get McCormick. He threw the ball into the Dodgers’ dugout. Tie game. In the fifth, Reese collected his second single, Cox bunted him to second, and Furillo brought him around with a double to right center. 3-2 Brooklyn. The Cards came right back to tie it on a bloop double by

Nippy Jones and a single through the box by Slaughter that had Roe skipping rope.

The game, reported Red Barber, was “tighter than a new pair of shoes on a rainy day.”

Preach set ‘em down in the seventh and eighth, then Campanella and Snider ripped back-to-back doubles off the left and right field walls and the Dodgers had a

4-3 lead. Del Rice struck out on a Beechnut sinker to open the ninth. Pee Wee snatched a line drive off the bat of Glaviano. Two away. Cox snagged a hot shot behind the third base bag, pirouetted, and threw Lou Klein out at first. The Brooks were back in the race. The team surrounded the Preacher, slapping hands and

275 Bob Mack

laughing. The skinny lefthander hadn’t had so much fun since the hogs ate grandma. The slump was over. They could all feel it.

The next day, Newcombe tossed a six-hit 6-0 shutout to cut the St. Louis lead to a single game. Furillo, Campanella, and Hodges belted homers, Newk cracked a bases-loaded two-bagger, and Robinson doubled and swiped a base. With lefty Al

Brazle pitching for St. Louis and Tommy Brown nursing a balky stomach, Luis

Olmo was back in the outfield from whence he had been exiled because of recurrent defensive lapses. Olmo saved the shutout with a two-out leaping grab of Musial’s liner to the exit gate with runners at second and third in the fifth.

"You go from hitter to hitter. Not inning to inning,” Newcombe explained.

“Hitter comes to the plate and you do whatever you need to do to get him out.

That’s my approach."

The Dodgers were back on track, but they hit a left-handed speed bump by the name of Johnny Schmitz in the first game of Thursday’s doubleheader with the cellar-dwelling Cubs. Long John, the soft-tossing Dodger-killer, beat the Bums for the fourth time, a bases-loaded double by Frankie Baumholtz in the eighth delivering the coup de grace in a 4-0 whitewashing. Barney allowed only four hits but walked seven in his seven innings of work, his record dropping to 6-8.

Banta took the hill in the second game against Dutch Leonard. The right-hander clipped Andy Pafko with a pitch in the second, allowed him to score two outs later on a wild pitch, then slammed the door. Robinson’s RBI double capped a three-run

Dodger third, and the second baseman turned a Bob Scheffing line drive into a game ending double play in the ninth to salt the 3-1 win away. Jackie’s average had

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dipped to .350, but his 101 RBI paced the league, nine better than Pittsburgh’s

Kiner, who had surpassed Hodges for second place. At the Polo Grounds, doubles by Musial and Slaughter helped the Cardinals to a 5-2 win. The St. Louis lead was back up to a game and a half.

“What do I think of the race?” the Old Sourdough asked rhetorically. “What race? There isn’t any. We’re a cinch to win.”

Third base coach Milt Stock said, “Speedsters like Robinson, Reese, Hermanski,

Cox and Miksis remind me of the fast Giant teams John McGraw had back in 1912 and 1913.”

It wasn’t his baserunning or batting that worried Burt Shotton--it was his pitching. Inconsistency on the mound had hurt the Dodgers all season. Now they were heading into the stretch, and the Old Sourdough was still juggling his hurlers.

Banta had replaced erstwhile ace Branca in the rotation--“I want my starters to last more than two innings,” Shotton said--and he had decided to sink or swim with

Barney, hoping that the Wild Man would throw more 90 mile-per-hour strikes than

100 mile-per-hour balls.

Oakland Joe was routed in the third inning of Friday night’s contest, his record dropping to 11-8 as the Cubs took a 4-2 decision; but Larry Jansen and the Giants toppled the Cardinals at the Polo Grounds by an identical 4-2 score. The standings remained unchanged.

On Saturday, the Brooks set an all time team record for home runs in a season when sixth inning clouts by Furillo and Cox increased the club’s total to 124. The six-run explosion broke a scoreless game wide open, and Preacher Roe won his

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11th game, 6-l. Despite the victory, the Bums fell further behind when the

Cardinals swept a double header from the Giants, 5-2 and 11-2, increasing their lead to a full two games.

The Dodgers had won 4 of 7 since August 23rd, and so had the Redbirds.

Stalemate. The Brooks were going into a three-game set with Pittsburgh, against whom they were 13-4 on the season, while St. Louis would battle the Braves, whom they had beaten 12 of 16. Stalemate redux. But the Dodgers were playing at home while the Cards were in Boston. It was not the advantage it appeared. St. Louis had played at a .587 clip away from Sportsman’s Park while the Dodgers were only

.580 at Ebbets Field. In September, the Dodgers would be on the road for 17 of 29 games while the Cards would play 19 of 29 at Sportsman’s Park. The schedule seemed to favor the Redbirds, but no one knew for sure, least of all Burt Shotton,

Eddie Dyer, and their players, all of who tried to take things one pitch, one hitter, one inning, and one game at a time. Tomorrow was a luxury professionals could not afford when a 90 mile-an-hour fastball was heading at you today. Tomorrow it might rain.

On Sunday, Newcombe pitched his second consecutive shutout, stopping the

Pirates 9-0 on four hits for his team-high 13th victory. Hodges and Snider belted their 20th homers, Campanella clubbed his 17th, and skinny Billy Cox whacked his second of the weekend and 8th of the season. The Brooklyn machine was firing on all cylinders again, but the dratted Cardinals swept their second straight double header 9-7 and 7-1. St. Louis had played four games in two days and won them all.

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On Monday night under the lights, Robinson rediscovered his batting stroke, lashing three hits, including a two-run eighth inning homer, and helping Banta to a

5-1 victory. Reese smacked a homer of his own, and Banta went the route for the first time in his major league career, allowing the Bucs just six safeties. In Boston, the Redbirds won again, scoring seven runs in the seventh inning to down the

Braves 8-2. The St. Louis lead remained at 2½ games. The Brooks received more bad news when National League President Ford Frick disallowed the club’s protest of the 5-3 loss to the Braves on August 12th.

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” said Burt Shotton. “Mr. Frick is the president and has the final say.”

Tuesday was Fan Appreciation Day at Braves Field, not that there were many rooters in Boston who appreciated the season the team had turned in--the defending champs were 12½ games out. Despite Musial’s 27th homer, the Hubmen hammered a quintet of Cardinal pitchers for thirty-one in a 12-4 win that

Shotton and the Dodgers found more satisfying than did the surly Teepee crowd of

8,607. The Redbirds had finally lost--thank you, Jesus--and the Bums had a golden opportunity to cut into the St. Louis lead. But the Dodgers were in trouble themselves. They trailed Murray Dickson and the Pirates 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth at Ebbets Field. They had managed only four hits--a two-bagger by Hodges and singles by Reese, Cox, and Barney. The soft-tossing Dickson was a nibbler who always gave the Dodgers fits.

Robinson hit an easy two-hopper to shortstop Stan Rojek for the first out, and some of the less Faithful began to head for the exits. Campanella’s line drive hit to

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left returned them to their seats. The Old Sourdough sent Miksis out to run for

Campy. Hodges got ready to bat with the tying run on base. The big first baseman was a dead fastball hitter, but he’d see Great Caesar’s ghost before he saw a hittable heater from Dickson. Hodges flailed at a curve for strike one. Dickson threw him another hook. Hodges lunged at it. Strike two. 13,708 of the Faithful groaned in unison. Dickson wasted an eye level fastball, changing the plane and velocity to throw off Hodges’ timing. One ball, two strikes. Dickson got his sign from Phil

Masi and threw a knuckleball that didn’t knuckle. The first baseman jumped on it, driving the pitch high and deep. Would it fly far enough? Everyone in the park waited for it to come down. Kiner retreated until his back was flat against the

Lucky Strike sign in left field. The baseball began its descent. The Pirates started for the clubhouse. Hodges’ 21st homer of the season landed in the seats. The

Brooklyn bench erupted. The 3-2 last chance win cut the Cardinals’ lead to a game and a half.

“When the great player sees a chance for victory,” said the Mahatma, “he will find a way to beat you. That’s why he is great.”

Next were the woeful Reds, whom the Dodgers had beaten 14 times. The Cards were in Philadelphia where their winning percentage was only .500. The pennant race was red-hot, but the weather was indifferent. The games in Brooklyn and

Philadelphia were rained out.

“I hope it keeps right on raining,” said Jackie Robinson, who had used the hiatus to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed. “This jaw is giving me fits and I’d like a rest. I think I caught cold after the tooth was pulled.”

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8th Inning. The Stretch Run: Wherein The Old Sourdough Outfoxes The Lip, And A Pair Of Second Division Patsies Feast On Fowl

“Luck is the residue of design.” --Branch Rickey

Summer was over. The Grand Army of the Republic, its ranks thinned to six fragile centenarians who had worn the Union blue from 1861 to 1865, struck camp for the eighty-third and final time. In Virginia, U.S. District Court Judge Albert

Bryan ruled that segregation by race did not violate the Constitution of the United

States. In Washington, the U.S. Senate voted to increase the minimum wage from

40 to 75 cents per hour, then took the week off for Labor Day. The Economic Co- operation Administration reported that 14,000 pounds of bubble gum and 30 beer coolers had been shipped to Europe as part of the war recovery effort. In Brooklyn, where things were supposed to be zany, the weather improved, and the final month of the baseball season began, 29 games that would decide the fate of the Dodgers.

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The return of the Flock to mid-season form was reflected by the fact that they were now 8-5 favorites to cop the flag, while the front-running Redbirds had dipped to even money. Brooklyn’s 690 runs led the league. The Cardinals had scored 606.

St. Louis pitchers had allowed 495 runs, Dodger hurlers 545. The Bums had the hitting, the Redbirds the pitching, and the oddsmakers were favoring the batsmen.

Wednesday’s rainout had been rescheduled as an afternoon/evening twin bill on

Thursday, the eighth doubleheader of the season for the Brooks, their third against the Reds, and their fourth at Ebbets Field, where they’d swept one and split two.

September doubleheaders were treacherous when every moment of rest was precious. No team was as physically sound as it had been in April. The long season had taken its toll. Like automobiles that had been driven for too many miles, some clubs needed tuneups, oil changes, and tire rotations; some were in need of major repairs; and some should never have been allowed on the road in the first place. The Dodgers were tired and aching, but their injuries were minor and their fatigue would pass. The Old Sourdough was not going to idle any of them.

“You can’t win a pennant sitting on the bench,” he said. “I am convinced that any of the regulars can do better, whether sick or hurt, than anybody I can bring off the bench--that is, if the regulars have the desire. We tried taking men off the bench and filling in. A rusty man can’t do as good a job as a regular. We can’t afford to do without our regulars playing every day.”

Oakland Joe started the first game, couldn’t find the plate, and was squeezed when he did. Shotton yanked him in the second inning in favor of Erskine. By the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers had built a 6-4 lead. Robinson slammed his

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16th homer of the year, and the Brooks tacked on five more runs. Oisk ran out of gas in the ninth. Palica replaced him, but was wild. So was home plate umpire Art

Gore, who had been calling two balls for every strike all morning. Paul Minner relieved Palica, and Gore’s sphincterish strike zone contracted even more.

Following the Brooklyn protest of the August 12th game against the Braves, Artie had been reprimanded by President Frick for failing to familiarize himself with the ground rules at Ebbets Field, and the Old Sourdough suspected the veteran arbiter was nursing a grudge. When Grady Hatton walked on a 3-2 pitch that looked like strike three to force in another Cincinnati run, the Dodgers’ skipper was sure of it.

Kindly Old Boit Shotton exploded, reviling everything from Art Gore’s antecedents to his impaired eyesight. Coach Jake Pitler libeled everything the Old Sourdough forgot. Artie, who, as a freshman, had been behind the plate at the Polo Grounds when Shotton made his debut as the Dodgers’ skipper, gave them both the heave- ho. It was the first time the Old Sourdough had ever been exiled from a game he was managing. The final score for the matinee was 11-8, closer than it should have been courtesy of Artie’s four gift tallies. Robinson and Reese collected three hits apiece, and Furillo notched a pair. Jackie scored his 100th run, and his three RBI boosted his league-leading total to 108.

Preacher Roe did his usual yeoman’s job in the nightcap, surrendering early homers to Peanuts Lowrey and muscle man Ted Kluszewski, but pitching into the eighth inning with a 3-2 lead, thanks to some clutch hitting by Captain Reese, who tripled and scored in the first, then dropped a bunt single to knock in the go-ahead run in the fifth.

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Despite Shotton’s pre-game rant, Mike McCormick started the second game in place of Snider. Duke had already appeared in 121 contests--more than twice as many as he had ever before played in a season. He was suffering from a sore back and aching legs besides being as tired as a plough horse. Now, with pinch runner

Bobby Adams on second base and two outs, the Dodgers’ manager paid the price for his decision when Red Stallcup’s easy pop fly dropped in center field between

Robinson and McCormick allowing Adams to score the tying run.

In the ninth, the Reds put runners at the corners with nobody out. The Preacher was pooped, the game was on the line, and the Cardinals had already beaten

Philadelphia 4-0. Cincinnati was 27 games off the pace--the Dodgers were in imminent danger of being mugged by a dirty skid row bum. Rex Barney, normally more adept at getting into than out of jams, was warmed up in the bullpen. The Old

Sourdough made the wave. This time, Barney got his man, and Oakland Joe, working both ends of the doubleheader, finished pitching the Brooks out of trouble.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers mounted their own offensive against weary

Herm Wehmeier. Hodges lined a single to left. Furillo dropped a bunt down the first base line. Big Kluszewski went for the force at second, but Hodges beat the throw. Kluszewski’s unsuccessful gamble put the winning run in scoring position with nobody out and Campanella up. The Brooklyn catcher put a charge into a failing Wehmeier fastball, driving it to deep left center field. Rookie outfielder

Lloyd “Citation” Merriman galloped to the fence, leaped, and saved the day for the

Rhinelanders with a miraculous catch against the boards. The Faithful groaned in disbelief. The play took the heart from the flagging Dodgers. Gene Hermanski

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batted for McCormick and popped up. Rackley pinch-hit for Oakland Joe and struck out.

Palica retired the first two batters in the tenth, then unloaded a fastball that caught too much of the plate. Catcher Dixie Howell drilled it into the left field corner. Dick Whitman couldn’t corral the ball, and Howell went all the way to third. A dangerous situation, but there were two outs, and Palica thought he could get one more. He threw two good strikes to Kluszewski, nickel curves that fooled the big first baseman badly. Campanella called for the heater. Palica threw it right down the middle for a ball. Palica and Campy squawked, but home plate umpire

Scotty Robb owned the only opinion that counted. Kluszewski followed the missed call with a smash to center field. The achy Snider, who had replaced McCormick at the start of the inning, misjudged it, the ball went over his head, and Howell scored what proved to be the winning run. The split dropped the Dodgers another half-tick behind the Cardinals. They were two full games out. There were 27 left to play.

“Somedays you eat the bear,” mused the Preacher, “an’ somedays the bear eats you. Today, we got et by the bear.”

On Friday, the Dodgers returned to Coogan’s Bluff. Durocher’s club was enduring a disappointing campaign. The Giants had taken four straight but were still 2½ behind the Braves and only a half-game in front of the fifth place Phillies.

The blame for the poor showing had been placed directly on the Lip. Leo had tinkered with his lineup until he had alienated his veterans and confounded his freshmen. He had dumped Walker Cooper--now Johnny Mize was gone as well,

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waived from the league, and signed by the Yankees. Joe Lafata played first base in place of the Big Cat, and rookie Henry Thompson was the starting second baseman.

Thompson had starred for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American

League before trading his glove for a machine gun that he operated with lethal efficiency during the Battle of the Bulge. In 1948, having abandoned his Browning,

Thompson used a pistol to permanently settle a discussion in a Dallas taproom.

Justifiable homicide, ruled the Texas court. Shootouts were a grand old tradition among the Longhorns. Thompson was back on the ballfield within days.

44,248 die-hards packed the Polo Grounds in anticipation of another Dodgers-

Giants brawl. The Dodgers were after the pennant, and Durocher was after the share of World’s Series swag that would go to the third place finisher.

Don Newcombe’s pitching was as lethal as an electric chair. Newk struck out five of the first six hitters to face him, tossed his third straight shutout, and ran his string of consecutive scoreless innings to thirty. The 8-0 win cut the St. Louis lead to a game and a half as the idle Cardinals prepared for a weekend series against the

Reds at Sportsman’s Park.

Newcombe, the freshman hurler from Madison, New Jersey, the hotheaded

Negro that Burt Shotton hadn’t wanted on his team in May, had become the ace of the staff, and maybe, just maybe, the man who was going to pitch the Dodgers to the National League pennant in September. Newk’s record was 14-6. His seven strikeouts tied him for the league lead with Warren Spahn. A single and a double had raised his batting average to .244.

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Reese, Robinson, and Furillo had bagged two hits apiece off Durocher’s beleaguered hurlers, and Jackie’s two RBI raised his league leading total to 110, 12 ahead of Kiner. The streaking Furillo was closing rapidly on .300.

The Giants and the Dodgers somnambulated through nine inept innings on

Saturday. The Polo Grounders committed four errors, the Bums two. Brooklyn blundered on the basepaths, failed to hit in the clutch, and the Giants took a 6-3 decision. In St. Louis, the curfew curtailed the Reds-Cardinals game, tied 9-9 after fifteen innings. The magic number, that combination of St. Louis wins and

Brooklyn defeats that would mathematically ensure the pennant for the Redbirds, was 25.

Barney started on Sunday. The scatter-armed right-hander had been relatively effective since the Old Sourdough had unexpectedly reinserted him into the rotation. He was a hard man to hit when his deliveries went where he aimed them, and Shotton desperately needed a few men who were hard to hit.

Reese opened the game with his 16th homer of the year. By the eighth inning,

Barney was clinging to a 3-2 lead. Robinson and Hodges reached base via a walk and an error by the oh-for-21 first baseman Lafata. With two outs, Leo called on the veteran Kirby Higbe to pitch to the streaking Furillo. It was the right move, the percentage move, the move that gave Leo the platoon advantage. Durocher was not wedded to The Book--he played hunches more than any pilot in the game--but he had managed Furillo, and he knew the Brooklyn outfielder lost much of his power when he faced right handed pitching. Furillo slammed Higbe’s first pitch into the upper deck in left, and the Dodgers won 6-2. Baseball was not an exact science.

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Barney’s record was even at 8-8. Hermanski had returned to the lineup, but injured his shoulder while making a diving catch in the sixth inning and went back on the shelf. In St. Louis, Mexican League refugees Max Lanier and Fred Martin whipped the Reds 6-4 and 11-2. Despite the Brooklyn victory, the infernal

Redbirds crept further ahead.

The Dodgers had a doubleheader to play against the Braves on Monday, seven games in five days since the beginning of the month and no rest in sight for another week, while the Cardinals had to endure another twinbill with the Pirates, four tilts in two days in St. Louis. The long season was slowly grinding teams to powder.

Mental toughness was as important now as physical skill, and the best players were those who possessed both, men like Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson and Stan

Musial and Enos Slaughter--veterans with grit in their craws and the will to win burning in their bellies.

“There’s a cause, there’s an effect,” observed the Mahatma. “The law of it in your lives--in everything you do--is just as inexorable as the law of cause and effect. You think a certain way, and it’s just as sure to bring a characteristic, a definite response to your thinking, as it would if you hit a drumstick on a drumhead and made a noise.”

Oakland Joe started the morning game, and didn’t last an inning. Hatten had pitched 172 innings in his 32 games, not an onerous amount for a professional hurler. There were a number of slabmen in the loop who had tossed considerably more--Newcombe, for one--but Oakland Joe’s performances had been mediocre of late. His manager was concerned. As early as 1947, Shotton had developed the

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habit of pitching the rubber armed southpaw in both games of doubleheaders, often starting him in the lidlifters then bringing him in to relieve in the nightcaps, a tactic made necessary by a dearth of lefthanders in the Brooklyn bullpen. The Old

Sourdough wanted to win ballgames, not baby his moundsmen.

“It doesn’t do a pitcher any harm to pitch twice in the same day,” Shotton explained. “Arms don’t tighten up until the next day.”

Erskine came on in relief, got Eddie Sauer to rap into a doubleplay, and surrendered no hits for the next six and one-third innings. Oisk was effectively wild, striking out six but walking seven, and Shotton replaced him with Minner after a pair of walks in the eighth. Minner finished the inning, retired the Braves in the ninth, and the Dodgers won 7-2. The normally nettlesome Spahn had given the

Dodgers little trouble, his record dropping to 17-12. The Boston defense had been porous, committing three errors. Hodges belted his 22nd homer, Reese a double,

Furillo a triple, and Erskine recorded the win, his fifth in six decisions.

The second game was a laugher. The Dodgers held a 7-1 lead after three, then pulled away, winning 13-2 behind Preacher Roe. Reese and Snider bagged three singles apiece, and Furillo smacked two singles and his 13th homer. Preacher threw all nine innings for his 12th victory, and the Brooks cut the St. Louis lead to a game and a half when the Redbirds split their pair with the Pirates. The doubleheader had drawn a total of 55,175 patrons to Ebbets Field, boosting the season’s take to

1,440,513 with eight home dates remaining.

The race for individual batting honors had tightened. Robinson’s league-leading average had dipped to .348, with Country Slaughter closing quickly at .342, and

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Musial a distant third at .328. Robinson led Kiner in RBI, 112-102, Hodges and

Musial were tied at 96 each, and Kiner was distancing Stan the Man in round- trippers, 42-28.

The Dodgers had started the stretch drive playing good ball. They had won 5 of

7 in September, but the math was unyielding--the Cardinals had captured 4 of their

6 games, and their magic number had dwindled to 22.

***

On September 23rd, 1942, 52-year old Larry MacPhail resigned his position as president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers in order to accept a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army at a considerably lower salary.

“I leave here very unhappily,” said the tearful MacPhail. “The five years I spent in Brooklyn were indeed happy ones. I don’t think I’ll have another baseball association other than Brooklyn.”

MacPhail was a serious imbiber of strong liquors, had the spotted liver and erratic behavior to prove it, but his favorite intoxicant had always been adrenaline, and he had spent a lifetime cadging tastes whenever he could. As a young man,

MacPhail had commanded an artillery battery in World War I, had been gassed and wounded in the Argonne Forest, and had made an abortive and unauthorized attempt to kidnap the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm in Holland, escaping with a souvenir ashtray fashioned in the likeness of a pipe chewing wolf. The Dodgers’ boss had been itching to get back into harness, but at his age and condition, the Army had determined he was in no shape for the field, and had decided to billet him in

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Washington in the Services of Supply where the powers-that-be could keep an eye on him.

In St. Louis, Branch Rickey's Cardinal contract had less than four months remaining. The Mahatma and Singing Sam Breadon were headed for a parting of the ways. It had been a long and profitable relationship, but the differences between the two men were now irreconcilable. The big club was on its way to the

World’s Series, but the Redbird farm teams had lost wads of cash. Rickey's fabled services had grown too pricey for the Cardinal czar (who felt that his own considerable contributions to the success of the franchise had been woefully undervalued by both the press and the public), and Singing Sam's 1941 concordat with the Falstaff Brewing Company that gave them sponsorship of Dizzy Dean’s radio broadcasts made the abstemious Mahatma increasingly uneasy.

The Dodgers needed a new general manager pronto, and the man they’d had their eyes on for years would soon be available, although the team’s directors would not publicly identify just who that man was. Rickey and the Dodgers were being as coy as schoolgirls.

“We are going after the best,” stated Vice-President James Mulvey.

“Brooklyn needs the best,” agreed the outgoing MacPhail, “because it is

Brooklyn, and needs an executive who will see to it that it remains Brooklyn.”

In the clubhouse on the Friday following his resignation, MacPhail said goodbye to Leo and the players:

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“They don’t like you around the league. That’s fine. I hope they keep on hating the Dodgers in the seven other cities. Brooklyn likes you, and that’s what counts.

They like you enough here to come out four million strong in four years.”

“The next head of the Dodgers will find a burial ground,” Branch Rickey commented ominously from his Missouri homestead. “The Brooklyn club has started to disintegrate. MacPhail had a lot on the ball, and Durocher was an astute manager. But Durocher--or any new man--will have a tough job next season.”

Rickey arrived at LaGuardia on October 20, and was met by the usual groundswell of reporters. “I’m here on personal business,” said the Mahatma.

What about the Brooklyn job? “I can’t discuss it.”

Rickey stayed in the Apple for 24 hours, then returned to St. Louis as evasive as ever: “I would rather not say anything about it. But I very definitely have not done anything about the Dodgers, nor have I seen or talked with anyone about them.”

The New York World-Telegram reported on October 23rd that Rickey and the

Dodgers had agreed to terms of the Mahatma’s recompense for serving as the new club president and general manager. When asked about the story, Rickey snorted,

“No--both ways. It isn’t so.”

“The Brooklyn position is still open,” emphasized Jim Mulvey. “When we reach an agreement, we’ll call everybody in and let them know.”

No matter how many times Rickey and the Dodgers said “no, no, no”, everyone knew they meant “yes, yes, yes”, and on October 29th, the Mahatma was formally introduced as the new Brooklyn boss. The partnering of the deacon Rickey with the zany Borough provided ample fodder for sports page speculation.

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“Oil and water do not mix,” wrote Jack Cuddy of the United Press. “We do not know what makes St. Louis tick. But we can tell you that the pulse of Brooklyn--as far as sports go--is in that area known as Brownsville, as tough a balliwick as there is in the entire United States. And if you’re going to succeed as a Brooklyn sports promoter, you must please Brownsville, home of Murder, Inc.

“Brooklyn takes its baseball seriously. But the human equation is far more important along the banks of the Gowanus than the mere winning of pennants.

Flatbush fans--accustomed to the Uncle Robbies, Casey Stengels, Max Careys, and

Larry MacPhails--can grin and bear it when the tide of fortune turns against their team, if they like the guy responsible. If the man in the limelight--the target--is their type, they can say, as they have often done, ‘Just wait ‘till next year.’ But when the man isn’t their type, as Branch Rickey certainly is not, you have a situation pregnant with any number of possibilities.”

“Well, Branch Rickey’s the man, all right,” opined Jack Smith of the New York

Daily News. “A darn good man, in all probability, but we hope he knows exactly what he’s let himself in for. Even with his great dignity and brilliant reputation, he cannot expect to be honored as ‘Mr. Bum.’ There are no such class distinctions in

Brooklyn. He is either a plain, ordinary, everyday ‘bum’ or he just doesn’t fit.

“As we size him up, Rickey has one major handicap--cold efficiency. In the book of rules, this is a highly commendable trait, but unfortunately, all the rule books have been thrown out of Brooklyn, and cold, even warm efficiency, is not akin to its people. They understand color, showmanship, ballyhoo, and

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individuality, but efficiency is one of those ugly words, not even to be used in reference to the Giants.”

“They’re really building up that Brooklyn club,” chortled Giants’ Secretary

Edward Brannick. “They had Leo the Lip. Now they’ve added Branch the Brain.

How do you suppose Professor Rickey is going to get along with those Dodger rooters? You know, the only man in baseball who could understand what Rickey was talking about was Moe Berg and, so far as I know, Moe never paid any attention to him. They’d better have an interpreter on hand when Branch talks to his Brooklyn fans. Rickey in Flatbush! Why, that’s like Alice in Wonderland.

This is going to be good! Wait until those Brooklyn fans get a load of his speeches.

They’ll go mad.”

The Mahatma’s first order of business was securing a manager. The incumbent field boss, said Rickey, was “an astute and fine tactician on the field”, but his military status was uncertain. “Everything is out of the picture until I talk with

Durocher.”

“With this man in charge,” Leo observed, “things are going to be different. I will never say anything against MacPhail, who I still think is a great guy. But Larry picked up every little thing and wanted it explained and sometimes flew off the handle, and I was always the guy who landed in the middle. At times I felt like a football. But this is a new deal. I don’t know whether Mr. Rickey wants me as manager or not. We haven’t talked about that yet, although we have discussed the team on several occasions.”

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Durocher was indeed the man Rickey wanted, but only if the Lip would agree to a few caveats. “There are many angles to be ironed out,” explained the Mahatma.

“There is the matter of terms. Also Durocher’s possible playing condition, should we need him as a player; and general ideas which I have concerning a manager, such as discipline, both as applied to one’s self and one’s players. I do not want to start with a manager and then have something come up that will be disputed later. I want to make all these adjustments and understandings now. After all, we have plenty of time. There isn’t much for a manager to do just now.”

“This is a bit difficult,” Leo agreed. “I’m not happy yet.”

One of Rickey’s general ideas was that the Brooklyn clubhouse should be a clubhouse, and not the high stakes poker parlor into which Durocher had turned it.

“The Dodgers gambled as much in 1941 as they did in 1942,” Leo pointed out.

“It did not hurt their chances in 1941. However, I will say this: Maybe the stakes were higher in 1942.

“I have been accused of winning vast sums from my own players. I never took any money from my players. If I won, I put the money in a little account. If a player won a ball game for me, I would give him a bonus of a couple of hundred out of what he owed me in the card games. I never took my players’ dough. I want to be frank about this because this is the sort of thing that requires absolute frankness.

We were gambling too much. It is a bad practice, and I intended to eliminate it even before Mr. Rickey came to this club. I never saw this card playing business as serious until the last six weeks of the season, and then it struck me that it had gone too far, that stakes had gone too high, and that as manager, it was up to me to stop

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it. I say this--from now on, Brooklyn players who happen to be playing cards will be restricted to 15-cent limit poker.”

On November 19th, Rickey announced that Durocher had been retained as manager for the 1943 season.

“Our discussions were amicable,” the Mahatma informed reporters. “Certain requirements were involved. They have been met. Did we talk about variances on discipline? Yes. I regard Durocher as a man of courage and ability, a fine manager.

Actually, I never really considered anybody else, though I did look around--for reasons which perhaps are apparent. He gets a one year contract as a player. He will have to be a player as well as a manager.”

Leo’s shortstopping days were over; Rickey knew it as well as anybody. The

Lip could barely get the ball to first base--acorns” in his elbow, he said--but the standard player’s contract gave the Mahatma some maneuverability in case

Durocher was drafted into war service, or in the event of Leo’s failure to mend his wicked ways. It enabled Rickey to terminate the Lip on ten days notice.

“Durocher and Rickey in double harness--there’s a pair for your life,” commented Eddie Brannick from the Polo Grounds. “Rickey already gave a Sunday

School lecture to Leo and only signed him up on parole, so to speak. How long do you think the Lip is going to listen to such bunk from a stranger who just moved in?

Why, I’m no pal of Durocher, and I’ll admit like everybody else that it would have been a crime to take away his job, but Rickey made him sit up and beg for it. The

Brooklyn club’s getting Rickey is a great mistake, and I hope it sticks!”

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In the hope of acquiring an insignia as distinctive to his Dodgers as the twin redbirds perched on a Louisville Slugger had been to his Cardinals, the Mahatma offered a lifetime pass to Ebbets Field for any Flatbusher creative enough to devise one; but the team already had its trademark, an eccentric cartoon character invented by Willard Mullin of the New York World-Telegram in 1937 that perfectly expressed the quirky idiosyncrasies of the borough--the Brooklyn Bum.

“The Dodgers were playing a doubleheader with the Giants one day,” the cartoonist recalled. “I lingered in the press room after the second game, and then came out of the park to find the streets deserted. I hailed a taxicab, and the driver said to me, ‘How did our Bums do today?’ I told him they had split two. He was elated. I sat back thinking, all the way to the World-Telegram office, thinking of the cabbie’s designation of the Brooklyn club. All of a sudden it struck me that I had something far more important than any idea growing out of the even break for the

Giants. The Bum was created in my mind.

“By winning the first game that day, the Dodgers got briefly into the first division. By losing the nightcap, they dropped back into fifth place. I drew a cartoon of the Bum busting into a restricted club labeled First Division and, finding himself unaccustomed to the luxuries of the place, acting so outrageous as to be thrown out into the street.

“The Bum created a fine reaction right off the bat. Every once in a while, some prissy person writes me, and chides me for demeaning the Brooklyn players with that lowdown representation: ‘How would you like your boy to be called a Bum?’

These people do not know that in Brooklyn, the term ‘Our Bums’ is one of

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endearment. No Dodgers’ fan resents it. And let me put outsiders straight. The real Brooklynite calls the Dodgers ‘Our Bums.’ Players on other teams, especially the Giants, are ‘Dem Bums.’ The distinction is subtle, like all things in Brooklyn, and ultra-important.”

On the first of March, World War II ended for Leo Durocher following a subway jaunt from Brooklyn to the Induction Center, where the United States Army found him unfit for military service, a judgment that disheartened every umpire in the

National League. Ironically, the Lip was afflicted with a perforated eardrum.

“A fellow with a perforated eardrum is unacceptable,” Leo explained. “A gas mask would be no good to me. That gas would get through the eardrum. Heavy cannonading is another thing such an ear wouldn’t stand. I was in perfect condition otherwise.”

“Mr. Durocher will be put in 4F,” a spokeswoman at Draft Board No. 133 said.

“This class includes any man who is mentally, morally, or physically incapacitated.”

“It takes a great weight off my mind,” confessed the Mahatma. “From a patriotic viewpoint, I’m sorry to see Leo rejected, but from the team’s standpoint,

I’m happy to have him remain.”

By the spring of ’43, the war effort was in high gear. The results of bond drives and blood donations were regularly reported in the sports pages along with the baseball news. The Dodgers anted three gallons of gore to the Red Cross in April, the Mahatma’s claret being unfortunately rejected because of its vintage. The club’s war bond purchases entitled them to fly a Treasury “T” flag. Game day bond

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sales combined with Red Barber’s radio appeals had netted $75,000,000 for the

War Loan campaign by the end of the month. The Flock was worth as much to the government as a brigade of infantry.

With their roster depleted by the draft and the beginning of Rickey’s rebuilding program, the Dodgers nonetheless approached the All Star break in another battle with the Cardinals for first place in the National League. That ended on July 9th, when Durocher suspended 35-year old Louis “Bobo” Newsom, a 24-carat character from Hartsville, South Carolina, and the Dodgers’ leading pitcher with a 9-4 record, for failing to follow Leo’s pitching instructions during an 8-7 extra-inning victory against Frankie Frisch’s Pirates. The Lip’s precipitate action, coupled with the team’s perception that Leo had lied about the reasons for it to the press, resulted in an impromptu player strike initiated by shortstop prior to the next day’s contest. Intervention by Rickey ended the walkout but not the corrosiveness in the clubhouse. By August, the team was mired in fourth place, sixteen games from the top, and struggling through its longest losing streak since 1937. The

Faithful, in ill temper since the Mahatma’s disposal of Dolf Camilli to the detestable Giants, needed someone to blame for the sudden decline of their favorites, and the newly installed Dodgers’ president was their target of choice.

“Rickey ruined the Dodgers and we’ll ruin Rickey,” chanted a group of Ebbets

Field malcontents during Sunday’s game.

“I think it would be marvelous if Branch Rickey fired the whole Brooklyn club, including himself, and then converted Ebbets Field into something useful, such as a

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pari-mutuel dog racing track,” wrote a Long Islander to the sports editor of the New

York Times.

“I’m not used to a losing ballclub myself,” responded the Mahatma. “I could be tempted to join the howling fans, but the fact remains that whatever changes were made were calculated to help the club. I do not propose to deviate from such calculations. I would have made the Camilli deal even could I have foreseen the terrific unfavorable reaction. It was sound baseball and it was necessary. We are committed to a policy of forward motion here, and there will be no ‘wait till next year.’”

Durocher’s future seemed murky. Baseball was an enterprise in which past success did not guarantee future security, and the rumor peddlers were conducting a brisk trade in suggestions of Leo’s imminent departure from Flatbush.

“There are more important matters to be settled,” admonished Rickey. “I haven’t had the time to think about the manager. From this statement you may draw your own conclusions. However, I am not going to get panicky, that’s certain.”

“Dolf Cameel-ee-ee wuz our hero,” warbled Roy Richards, the singing newsdealer at Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard. The wizened Richards kept a picture of Durocher framed in black crepe on his newsstand. “He wuz our

Superman, but he left wit’ a broken hear-r-rt! Oh, Mister Rickey, whut have you done to us?”

Tempests pass. The Dodgers finished the ’43 season in third place, twenty-three and a half games behind the pennant winning Cardinals. 1944 began with Leo still

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ensconced as the Dodgers’ manager, and still being asked by the Mahatma to agree to a one-year player’s contract.

“If Mr. Rickey thinks it is going to be absolutely necessary that I get into condition to play ball this year,” said the 38-year old Durocher, “I’ll go to Dr.

Robert Hyland in St. Louis, and let him operate on my arm. I’m sure Dr. Hyland can take out these ‘acorns.’ ”

Leo had spent the winter touring army hospitals and camps with the USO. “I found that those soldiers, the wounded ones and the well ones, knew more baseball than I thought any man could know. And the questions they asked! Everywhere I went I had fellows inquiring about a fistfight between Camilli and Medwick. I don’t know where they got that from--Camilli was Medwick’s only friend on the team!

“Everyone wanted the lowdown on and the rebellion. They’d ask what kind of person Branch Rickey was, how the Dodgers would do in 1944. I told them, if we play 154 games, you can bet that any ball club Mr. Rickey is in charge of will be pretty good.”

For their twenty-eight night games in 1944, the Mahatma announced, the

Dodgers would be attired in flashy new uniforms, shiny ensembles of what he called “skinner satin” that scoffers said would have the team resembling a gang of overgrown jockeys.

Except for their gaudy evening duds, the Dodgers’ season was dreary. By the

All Star break, they had lost thirteen straight and were anchored in sixth place.

Despite the team’s misfortunes, the Mahatma was sticking by his manager.

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“I am contemplating no change right now,” Rickey said. “But I could change my mind tomorrow or in five minutes if reasons presented themselves. But I do not anticipate those reasons.”

The season got worse. The Dodgers finished seventh, forty-two games behind the Cardinals and a mere game and a half from the basement. Durocher was rewarded with a new one-year contract. Rickey’s two-year reign had cost the team

41 wins and five places in the standings. In November, the Mahatma, attorney

Walter O’Malley, and local businessman Andrew Schmitz purchased twenty-five percent of the Brooklyn Baseball Club from the estate of the late Ed McKeever.

Rickey had hired O’Malley as the Dodgers’ general counsel in the winter of

1942-43 on the recommendation of George McLaughlin of the Brooklyn Trust

Company. The upwardly mobile former bankruptcy lawyer was an Irish-German schemer with a sharp eye for a dollar and the juridical acumen to collect it, a glad- hander and ward heeler--in most ways the antithesis of the pontifical Rickey.

“We’re both Brooklyn boys,” said Andrew Schmitz. “We both are long time

Dodger rooters and we have faith in the future of the club. In joining in this purchase with Mr. Rickey, we feel that we are keeping that much more of the ownership in Brooklyn where it belongs.”

By the spring of 1945, the battered legions of Adolf Hitler were retreating to the

Fatherland. The Dodgers bestowed season’s passes on the first local soldiers to cross the Rhine, Brooklyn residents Bob Packer and Frank Oliver of the 83rd

Infantry Regiment. The war was concluding, but the manpower shortage it had caused in major league baseball was so acute that the Mahatma was forced to sign

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42-year old scout Clyde Sukeforth to a player’s contract. “I expect Sukey to catch at least fifty games,” Rickey said.

Durocher was back in trouble in June, arraigned in Felony Court for allegedly blackjacking a medically discharged veteran named John Christian beneath the grandstand at Ebbets Field.

“We been expectin’ somethin’ like this for a long time,” acknowledged

Brooklyn cabbie and longtime Dodger fan Bill Tate. “Lippy can dish it out to the umpires, but he can’t take it hisself.”

Hilda Chester, the raucous, cowbell-wielding Queen of the Bleachers, defended

Leo in the partially intelligible dialect of deepest Flatbush: “The pernt is dis:

Christian had been pickin’ on nearly all da Dodga playas for more’na munt--wit’ a verce like a foghorn. He shouldn’ta been pickin’ on ‘em when da Bums is playin’ alright--an’ he shouldn’ta been usin’ langwidge dat shocked us ladies.”

“When our men are in trouble, we will stand with them without fear of criticism,” declared the Mahatma at a Rotary Club luncheon. “This team stands as a unit against unfair abuse, against indecent or vulgar remarks from fans in the stands. We have a strong, competitive ball club, a team of ferocious gentlemen.

We are not dismayed by what has happened. We shall not fail the players of this club in our duty toward them.”

Besides his arraignment on felony charges, Leo’s rap sheet for 1945 included banishment from games on May 27th in Chicago; on July 4th in Cincinnati; on July

18th in Chicago; and on August 16th in Brooklyn.

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“Leo,” the Mahatma observed, “has an infinite capacity for taking a bad situation and making it immediately worse.”

By mid-season, the war in Europe was over. Former major leaguers had begun to trickle back from the service, but qualified professionals were still at a premium.

Rosters were thin, and in July, the Dodgers, unaccountably occupying first place in the National League, were looking for pennant insurance. The Mahatma thumbed through a dog-eared rogue’s gallery of cast-offs, has-beens, and never-weres before finally deciding on middle-aged Babe Herman, who was out of baseball and placidly tending to his California turkey farm.

“I’m cleaning out my pens Monday night,” recounted the Babe, “when the wife calls out that I got a long distance phone call. So I go in and answer it. On the other end is Branch Rickey. He asks me can I still hit the ball and I say I guess so, but I can’t run a lick. I don’t have to run, he tells me, just meet that ball once in a while.”

The legendary leader of Uncle Robbie’s old Daffiness Boys was back in the fold.

In his first at-bat, Herman, who’d once shattered 77 Louisville Sluggers in a season, splintered another, then ripped a single to right, rounded first base, and fell on his face, scrabbling back to the bag on his hands and knees. It was just like old times.

The Cardinals had knocked the Dodgers from the top spot by the three-day charity break formerly reserved for the All Star game, but the turnstiles were still spinning in Flatbush. Brooklyn led the major leagues in attendance with a season’s total of 715,465, its best showing since before the war.

On August 6th, the game between the Dodgers and the Braves in Boston was postponed due to inclement weather. On the other side of the world, a ten-foot long

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explosive device designated MK-1, and nicknamed “Little Boy”, was dropped from a modified B-29 bomber and detonated in the skies above the Japanese city of

Hiroshima. In 43 seconds, the city ceased to exist. Three days later, a second MK device, nicknamed “Fat Man”, incinerated the port of Nagasaki. The two atomic bombs effectively ended World War II.

Rickey, O’Malley, and penicillin magnate John Smith purchased the block of stock owned by the estate of . The Rickey group now owned 75 percent of the Brooklyn Baseball Club, 25 percent remaining in the possession of

Mrs. James Mulvey, Steve McKeever’s daughter. The Mahatma didn’t need it.

With controlling interest in the team securely in his pocket and his old nemesis

Kennesaw Mountain Landis safely in the grave, Rickey could begin implementing a plan that had been gestating within him for most of his adult life. He was going to integrate major league baseball.

"Character is a great thing to have in an athlete, a team,” mused the Mahatma.

“It's a great thing. And I wonder if there is any condonation, any explanation, anything that can be done to make an extenuating circumstance out of something that violates the right of a part of our citizenship throughout the country when I know that the Man of 1900 years ago spent His life and died for the sake of freedom--the right to come, to go, to see, to think, to believe, to act. It is to be understood, but it is too profoundly regretted. Education is a slow process. It may solve it. It is inevitable that this thing comes to fruition. Too many forces are working fast.” He also said, “The Negroes will make us winners for years to come,

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and for that I will happily bear being called a bleeding heart and a do-gooder and all that humanitarian rot.”

The Mahatma’s decision, while less lethal than President Truman’s, was, in its own way, just as transforming. No Negro had appeared in a major league game since Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884.

“Within the first month in Brooklyn,” Rickey said, “I approached what I considered the number one problem in the hiring of a Negro in professional baseball in this country--namely ownership. Ownership must be in line with you, and I was at that time an employee, not a part-owner of the club.”

Rickey’s scouts had scoured the Caribbean countries and Mexico in search of talent. The results had convinced the Mahatma that the greatest Negro players were in the United States. Now he had to find the right one.

Rickey’s list of possibles included two catchers, Josh Gibson and Roy

Campanella; first baseman Walter “Buck” Leonard; second baseman Marvin

Williams; Jackie Robinson and Lorenzo “Piper” Davis; and outfielders

James “Cool Papa” Bell and . The Mahatma considered Gibson,

Leonard, and Bell too old, Campanella and Williams too young. Jethroe was not as good as either Robinson or Davis; besides, there were questions about the validity of the dates on his birth certificate. Robinson and Davis were both college men and multi-sport athletes--Davis played basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters during the off-season; both were speedy infielders; both were slashing, line drive hitters.

Who to choose? Rickey dispatched Clyde Sukeforth to the Midwest to watch

Robinson play.

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"Mr. Rickey wanted me to check Robinson's arm,” said Sukey. “So I went to

Chicago. The whole thing was done very quietly. I just bought my own ticket and sat there in the stands. Mr. Rickey had told me before I left that if I liked his arm then I should bring him back to Brooklyn for a meeting. But we would only do this if Robinson's schedule permitted it. When I got to Chicago, it was discovered that

Robinson had hurt his throwing arm. Somehow, he had fallen on it during a game.

So he had been benched for a few games to allow the arm to heal. That's all I needed to hear. I thought this would be as good a time as any to bring him back to meet Mr. Rickey. Since Robinson was out of the lineup anyhow, nobody would think anything of it if he wasn't around. So I talked to Robinson, introduced myself and told him of Mr. Rickey's plan. Robinson agreed to come to New York with me.

I gave him a train ticket and he came back with me.”

“I had to get the right man off the field,” Rickey said. “I couldn't come with a man to break down a tradition that had in it, centered and concentrated, all the prejudices of a great many people north and south unless he was good. He must justify himself upon the positive principle of merit. He must be a great player. I must not risk an excuse of trying to do something in the sociological field, or in the race field, just because of sort of a ‘holier than thou.’ I must be sure that the man was good on the field, but more dangerous to me was the wrong man off the field.

It didn't matter to me so much in choosing a man off the field that he was temperamental--righteously subject to resentments. I wanted a man of exceptional intelligence, a man who was able to grasp and control the responsibilities of himself to his race and could carry that load. That was the greatest danger point of all.”

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The Mahatma had investigated Robinson thoroughly. He knew that the man possessed courage; that he would face his tormentors and fight. What no amount of scrutiny could tell him was whether Jackie had the nerve not to fight. Rickey had embarked upon a course that encompassed far more than the fortunes of one man or one baseball team. He had to choose the correct person to carry out his plans. There would be no second chances. A mistake, an incorrect judgment, would have dire ramifications for his family, for his industry, for an entire race of people. He needed to engage his candidate in person, to evaluate his worth as a man and as a human being. He needed to assess his soul.

Rickey’s Montague Street meeting with Robinson was a three-hour tour de force, possibly the most amazing job interview even conducted by an American executive.

“Do you have a girl?” the Mahatma began by asking. “When we get through today, you may want to call her up because there are times when a man needs a woman by his side.”

Rickey liked his ballplayers to be married. Women provided young men with needed stability; a family was a core for which sacrifices were easily made; besides, a married man was likelier to keep better hours and cause less trouble than his unattached counterparts.

The Mahatma wanted to know whether Jackie was under contract to or had oral playing agreements with the Kansas City Monarchs.

“No, sir. We don’t have contracts. I just work from payday to payday.”

“Do you know why you were brought here?”

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“I heard something about a colored team at Ebbets Field.”

“No, that isn’t it. You were brought here, Jackie, to play for the Brooklyn organization, on Montreal to start with. Later on, if you can make it, you’ll have a chance with the Brooklyn Dodgers.”

Robinson was stunned.

The Mahatma’s gnarled ex-catcher’s hand slammed upon his desk. “I want to win pennants, and we need ballplayers! Do you think you can make good in organized baseball?”

Robinson struggled to find his voice.

“If I got the chance,” he said quietly.

“There’s more here than just playing! I wish it meant only hits, runs, and errors-

-things you can see in a box score. What will you do when they call you a black son-of-a-bitch? When they turn you down for a hotel room and curse you? When they come at you with spikes high and throw at your head?”

“Mr. Rickey, they’ve been throwing at my head for a long time.”

“I know you are naturally combative. But for three years, you will have to do it the only way it can be done. Three years! Can you do it?”

“Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who’s afraid to fight back?”

“I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back! You’ve got to do this job with base hits and stolen bases and fielding ground balls, Jackie! Nothing else!”

Rickey’s breath was hot in Robinson’s face as the Brooklyn boss played the parts of the invective-spewing bigots that Jackie would confront: “Can you do it?

Can you do it?” It was an exhausting performance. The Mahatma quoted a passage

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from Papini’s Life of Christ: “To answer blows with blows, evil deeds with evil deeds, is to meet the attacker on his own ground, to proclaim oneself as low as he.

Only he who has conquered himself can conquer his enemies.”

“Mr. Rickey,” said Jackie, “I’ve got two cheeks. If you want to take this gamble, I’ll promise you there will be no incidents.”

The Mahatma had his man.

Two weeks later, Brooklyn came close to losing its team. The Wabash Limited carrying sixteen Dodgers and nine newspapermen from a series in St. Louis crashed into a gasoline truck forty miles from Chicago. The resulting explosion killed the engineer and turned the locomotive into a blazing torch that colored the pre-dawn

Illinois sky an angry orange. With the players’ car enveloped in fire, windows breaking in from the heat, and athletes and sportswriters beginning to panic like cattle in a slaughter pen, Manager Leo Durocher took charge:

“Don’t run, fellas! Take it easy and go out by the rear door!”

As smoke filled the coach, the Lip calmly shepherded his entourage safely outside. It was his finest performance of the season.

None of the Dodgers had been seriously injured. Outfielder Luis Olmo’s arm had been cut by flying glass, and Coach Charlie Dressen had bruised his knee.

Local firefighters extinguished the blaze that had spread to a nearby lumberyard and freight depot. After a harrowing two-hour delay, the Dodgers’ train got back on track.

Having escaped the second division and being burned alive all in the same season, most of the Brooks considered the 1945 campaign to have been a success.

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Second baseman Eddie Stanky collected his 148th walk in the last game to break a

34-year old National League record. On October 23rd, the Mahatma announced that the , Brooklyn’s top farm team, had signed Jackie Robinson to a contract.

“I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that I am the first member of my race in organized ball,” Robinson said. “I realize how much it means to me, to my race, and to baseball. I can only say I’ll do my best to come through in every manner.”

***

The Braves ended Newcombe’s string of scoreless innings at 32 early on

Tuesday evening when Bob Elliott scored in the second on ’s fly ball to Furillo. The right fielder whistled a throw home in a desperate effort to save the shutout, but the slow-footed Elliott crossed the plate standing, and just like that, the streak was over. The 28,681 that had turned out to watch the Dodgers’ freshman chase ’s 1933 National League record groaned, but Newk shrugged it off and got back to work. In the bottom half of the second, a single by Robinson, a triple by Hodges, a double by Furillo, and errors by pitcher Bill Voiselle and outfielder Marv Rickert led to five runs, more than enough to put the game in the bank. The 10-2 win was the 13th triumph in the last 17 outings for the Dodgers.

They had moved to within a game of the idle Cardinals, but 14 of their final 21 games would be played on the road, where the pennant hopes of many a club had foundered during a season’s waning days.

Newcombe had beaten every team in the league. His season’s slate was 15-6, an impressive enough showing to make him the odds-on favorite to capture Rookie Of

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The Year honors; but the Mahatma never evaluated pitchers by their won/loss records, simplistic measures that he did not believe sufficiently took into account either the quality of the club for which a hurler toiled or the ever-present luck factor, and were therefore subject to inherent biases that obscured a man’s true abilities. A pitcher’s job was to avoid base runners by commanding the pitches in his arsenal--by throwing strikes, and preventing batsmen from hitting the baseball solidly. The Brooklyn chief therefore calculated a hurler’s effectiveness through the use of two metrics: the total of his walks and hits allowed divided by the number of innings he had pitched; and the proportion of his strikeouts to his walks.

“Whenever you find a pitcher who has allowed an average of less than one hit per inning, and has fanned more batters than he has walked,” said the Mahatma,

“you can be reasonably certain that he is a good pitcher.”

Using this formula, Newcombe was not only the Rookie of the Year--he was the second best twirler in the National League. The best pitcher in the league was

Preacher Roe, and nobody knew it but Rickey.

Wednesday’s contest was enlivened by a fifth inning brawl between Spider

Jorgensen and Eddie Stanky, from which Jorgensen, in the lineup for the second

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straight day while Billy Cox nursed a sore ankle, emerged looking like first runner- up in a medieval sword fight. After the melee, park police escorted Stanky and the leaking Dodger third baseman from the diamond. Spider sported a 10-inch gash on his thigh, a cut on his forehead, and four superficial spike wounds to assorted sections of his anatomy; but his ejection angered him more than his lacerations:

“It’s the first time I was ever put out of a ball game in my life.”

In the seventh inning, Eddie “Miksis Will Fix Us”, replacing the bloodied

Jorgensen, belted a two-run homer that won the game for the Dodgers 5-4. Jack

Banta earned the victory with a solid six-hit performance, striking out nine before giving way to Hatten in the ninth. Campanella continued his late season surge, slugging his 18th home run in the second inning to raise his average to .282.

Furillo’s triple maintained his mark at .305. At Sportsman’s Park, the Cardinals defeated the Cubs 3-2 when Marty Marion singled home the winning run in the last of the ninth. The Redbird rally kept the Dodgers at arm’s length; more importantly, it reduced the St. Louis magic number to 21.

On Thursday, the Durochermen were back in town. Jorgensen, stitched and soldered shut, was back on third base, and 22,036 of the noisy Faithful were back in the stands. With left handed pitcher Monte Kennedy scheduled to go against

Barney, the Old Sourdough unveiled one of his zaniest lineups of the season, inserting the right-hand hitting, sore-armed catcher Bruce Edwards in left field instead of Luis Olmo, Mike McCormick, or Tommy Brown. Shotton’s eccentric formation set the tone for the rain-delayed, interminable contest, in which Giant pitchers Kennedy, Hansen, Higbe, and Hartung, and Dodger slabmen Barney,

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Erskine, and Palica combined to walk twenty-two batters, one short of the National

League record. Despite the Dodgers’ 12-7 win, the game was as dreary as the weather, and when the affair finally ended at half past midnight, there were 29,000 empty seats in the ballpark. Pee Wee Reese, gutting it out with a strained ribcage, had driven in three runs. Duke Snider’s 21st homer was good for another three, and

Furillo had connected for his 14th round-tripper, a solo shot in the fourth inning.

Erskine was shaky, but lasted five and two-thirds in relief of Barney, and received credit for his sixth win. Edwards scored three runs while going hitless in four at- bats, and handled two outfield chances without incident.

The Bums kept winning, but they could not overtake the Redbirds, 8-0 victors over the Cubs on Harry Brecheen’s three-hit shutout. The Cardinals’ magic number had dropped to 20, and--with the remaining schedule favoring their club--fans of the

St. Louis Swifties were already beginning to celebrate their tenth National League pennant.

Branca was scheduled to start on Friday, but Preacher Roe asked Burt Shotton for the ball, and the skipper gave it to him. The Preacher and Dave Koslo swapped zeroes for six innings, but in the seventh, with the wind whistling out to right, the

Ozark southpaw suddenly lost his stuff. Sid Gordon singled, Bobby Thomson slammed a two-run homer into the left field seats, Willard Marshall doubled, and

Bert Haas singled him home. Henry Thompson followed with a high drive into the slipstream. The baseball slammed into the Schaefer Beer sign on top of the right field scoreboard, and stuck in the electrified letter “h”. Thompson gleefully circled the bases while the “h” blinked like a harbor light. Preacher trudged off to the

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showers. Branca came into the game, was clubbed about, and only Campanella’s seventh inning homer allowed the Dodgers to avoid a lopsided whitewashing. The final score was 10-1 in favor of the Polo Grounders. Brooklyn’s six-game winning streak was history. The Redbird lead remained at one game when the Cardinals dropped a 6-1 decision to the Reds in Cincinnati; but the Brooks still trailed in the critical loss column, 50 to 52, and the Cardinals’ magic number was down to 19.

Leo Durocher had spent his life in search of an edge. Leo believed that, all things being equal, he could lose; therefore, the prudent thing was to ensure that the odds were always in his favor. Years of poker playing had taught the observant

Giants’ manager how to read an opponent’s tells, and he applied the same meticulous scrutiny to the baseball diamond. Durocher’s teams were notorious for swiping signs. During spring training, Leo had observed a flaw in Jackie

Robinson’s base stealing technique. He could tell when the Dodger speedster was going to run. Being Leo, he had boasted about his discovery ever since, but no one except he and his pitchers knew exactly what Robinson’s giveaways were, and none of them were talking. The Giants had picked the Brooklyn infielder off first base four times.

“I’ll tell you this much,” Durocher said. “He tips off when he is going to run by a move of his legs, just as a pitcher tips off when he is going to throw to the bag.

You can just say that we know how to stop him.”

Robinson was not about to acknowledge that Leo had his number. He didn’t believe it anyway. The Giants had just been lucky. Talk of anything beyond luck was just another of Leo’s dirty tricks to try and get under his skin; besides, except

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when he tried to steal home, Robinson only ran when Shotton gave him the green light. There were lots of teams in the circuit that Jackie thought were tougher to run on than the Giants.

“Warren Spahn’s picked me off plenty in previous years,” he pointed out, “so this year, I decided to stick around first when he’s on the mound.

“George Munger and Marty Marion of the Cardinals give me trouble when I’m at second base. They have the best pickoff play in the league. I watch my p’s and q’s when we play the Cards. They’ve given me the most trouble trying to steal-- they got me going to second twice the last series we played.

“Vic Lombardi of the Pirates keeps me pinned to the base, but we all think that he makes a balk. Herman Wehmeier of the Reds has a good move to first for a right handed pitcher.”

The Giants were conspicuously absent from Robinson’s list.

On Saturday, in the eighth inning of a 4-4 tie, Jackie beat out an infield single.

His was the go-ahead run, but he had to get into scoring position. Monte Kennedy was pitching, only two days after his early kayo. Kennedy wasn’t much of a fielder and, despite being lefthanded, possessed only an average move to first. With one away, the Old Sourdough flashed the steal sign. Kennedy’s pitch was a fastball, high and outside. He had spent most of the afternoon tossing curves. Had the

Giants been tipped? It wasn’t a pitchout, but the delivery was the perfect speed and in the perfect spot for Durocher’s 37-year old catcher, Ray “Iron Man” Mueller, to unload a quick, accurate throw that arrived at the bag, said Umpire Jocko Conlon,

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just before Robinson. Leo and his bench proxies mocked the protesting Dodger all the way back to the Brooklyn dugout.

Campanella’s 20th homer, a pair of singles by Newcombe and Reese, and a sacrifice fly by Miksis had staked the Dodgers to a 2-0 lead in the opening frame, and Newk pitched into the sixth inning before the Giants nicked him for the runs that put them in front 3-2. For the first time since August 12th, Newcombe failed to finish what he started. The Brooks forged back ahead in their half of the sixth on walks to Miksis and Furillo, a bunt single by Robinson, and errors by Mueller and

Henry Thompson, the latter miscue caused by Jackie’s rolling-block slide that took the legs from under the rookie, prevented an inning-ending twin-killing, and allowed Furillo to score the go-ahead run.

The ancient enmity between the Giants and the Dodgers had grown more pronounced since Leo’s defection to the Polo Grounds. The Dodgers had captured

12 of their 20 games against New York, but 9 contests had been decided by three runs or less, games in which the victor had been determined by little things done well or poorly.

The Giants tied it in the seventh. With Palica pitching in relief, Bill Rigney singled to center. The ball got past Snider for a two-base error. Rigney scored on a base hit by Whitey Lockman. The teams went into the bottom of the ninth knotted at 4-4. In Cincinnati, Musial’s three-run last chance homer had beaten the Reds 6-

5.

Joe Lafata was pressing. The 27-year old career minor leaguer was suffering through his second long batting drought since taking over for Johnny Mize at first

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base, an oh for twenty-four stretch that had dropped his average to .231, and he was worried that Leo was losing patience with him. Lafata had no desire to return to the

International League, or--worse yet--the Northern League, where he had spent the

1941 season. He had had three chances to drive in runners today, and had failed in all of them. In his imagination, Lafata already felt the cold winds of Eau Claire whistling through his flannels.

On the other side of the infield, Rigney, who Leo had shifted from shortstop to third base, replacing the banged-up and defensively challenged Sid Gordon, was pre-playing the inning in his mind, reminding himself of his various responsibilities in all the different situations that were likely to occur. Rigney, who had managerial aspirations, wondered if Leo hadn’t outguessed himself by taking Gordon’s bat out of the lineup. The Giants were in a sudden death situation on the road, and if the game went into extra innings, it would be nice to have Sid’s big bat in this bandbox.

In the Dodgers’ dugout, Burt Shotton gazed serenely at the Giants’ infield.

Since replacing Newcombe with Palica in the sixth, the only play the Old

Sourdough had put on was Robinson’s abortive steal of second in the eighth, and it had cost him the potential winning run. After that, he had decided not to decide anything. He was going to let the players play it out, and leave the thinking to

Durocher.

Edwards led off for Brookyn. The catcher had spent the game in left field again.

Bull didn’t like it. There wasn’t much to do out there, and when there was, he didn’t know how to do it. At least he was getting a few at-bats to chip the rust from

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his swing. He had been to the plate only 136 times this season. His average was a meager .221, but he had hit 7 homers and driven in 23 runs.

“If I can have piddling hitters out in left field dropping ‘em,” Shotton remarked,

“I can have power hitters out there doing the same thing.”

“When I used Edwards out there one day,” Durocher recalled peevishly,

“everybody said I was crazy.”

Edwards had been hitless in three at-bats.

On the mound, Kennedy looked in for his sign. The southpaw had held the

Brooks in check, scattering seven hits--six of them singles--by relying on his breaking ball. He saw no reason to change now. Neither did his catcher, the old pro, Mueller. Durocher called most of the pitches from the dugout, which Mueller thought was a joke. When he was a player, Leo hadn’t known much about pitching or hitting. Disagreements with the Lip over mound strategies were one of the reasons why Leo had disposed of Walker Cooper.

Mueller had broken in with the Braves in 1935--Babe Ruth had been one of his teammates. The Iron Man had smacked a home run off the great Carl Hubbell in his first major league at-bat, after which his power had dissipated. Except for the talent-thin war years, Mueller’s career had been spent largely as a reserve. He felt a little sorry for his colleague Edwards, formerly one of the top receivers in the league, and now relegated to wandering around left field like an old man in search of a toilet.

Edwards was a dead pull hitter. The Book said pitch him high and tight then low and away--tie him up, then make him reach; but the inside pitch was dangerous, the

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more so in tiny Ebbets Field, where even a punch-and-judy batter could drive a mistake into the seats in left. Mueller called for the curve away, and Kennedy missed with it. Ball one.

The Bull was itching for a pitch he could lace, but he commanded himself to be patient, to wait for something he could handle. Kennedy had been nibbling all day, rarely challenging the hitters. He wasn’t giving in, and Edwards didn’t expect to see a hittable fastball; but if Kennedy was going to get him out with the curve, he was going to have to throw it over the plate.

A curveball from a left-handed pitcher breaks into a right-handed batter.

Kennedy had been successful spotting his curve on the outside, but if he failed to start it far enough outside, the pitch would ride right into a hitter’s happy zone. The release point had to be precise. Mueller called for a fastball outside, give the Bull a different look, a different velocity. Kennedy missed again. Ball two.

Ahead in the count, Edwards thought he might see another fastball, since the

Giants did not want to walk him. Kennedy curved him outside. Ball three. 3-0 was not the perfect hitter’s count because anticipation of the cripple pitch made many batters overanxious. Most managers only gave the 3-0 green light to their best hitters--if a pitcher had already missed with three deliveries, why not give him a chance to miss with four? Edwards looked into the dugout for a sign. The skipper sat on his hands. Edwards was on his own. Kennedy’s fastball was wide. The Bull took it, and trotted down to first.

Campanella had drilled one of Kennedy’s few mistakes into Section 32 earlier in the game. Kennedy was not going to let him do it again if he could help it. Campy

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took a crack at an outside pitch and tailed it to right. Smart hitting, but Willard

Marshall made the catch for the first out.

Snider was up. He had started to hit lefties with regularity, but the Old

Sourdough didn’t believe he hit them well enough yet to bat him third, so Duke was hitting in front of the pitcher with Furillo moved up in the order. Snider’s improvement against southpaws was the result of sacrificing power for contact, opting to meet the ball instead of swinging from his heels. He had singled earlier off Kennedy. Had the bases been empty, Kennedy may have pitched around him; this time, he had to pitch to him, and Snider smashed a grounder to third. Rigney was playing closer than normal to the bag, not guarding the line, but not playing in the hole either. Snider did not usually hit the ball hard to the left side, so Rigney had been ready to charge anything that came his way. Snider’s speedy ground ball took the third baseman by surprise, went under his glove and into the outfield before he even realized he’d missed it--Duke had botched Rigney’s hit, now Rigney had botched Duke’s--and Edwards lumbered into third.

Leo’s maneuvers were backfiring. He’d moved Rigney for defense that hadn’t been supplied; his Kennedy-Mueller battery had kept the speedy Robinson out of scoring position in the eighth, but had allowed the slow-footed Edwards to get into scoring position in the ninth. In the Dodgers’ dugout, Burt Shotton wasn’t making any moves, and they were all working. Palica was due to bat, and Leo waited to see which one of Shotton’s right handed pinch-hitters--Olmo or Brown or McCormick-- would be popping out of the dugout before he decided whether or not to change

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pitchers. When Palica headed for the plate holding a bat, the Lip was so surprised that he almost forgot to pull his infield in.

Jake Pitler, Shotton’s kosher coach, was not sure whether his boss was cagey, eccentric, or sound asleep. Palica was a poor hitter and not much of a bunter. The winning run was ninety feet away with one out in a game that the Dodgers had to win in order to keep pace with the Cardinals--and the old man was letting Palica hit for himself. Pitler had been in professional baseball since 1913, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing anything quite like it.

Like most pitchers, Palica loved to swing the bat. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he didn’t think he was that bad at it. Newcombe, Oakland Joe, Banta and

Barney had all compiled better averages than Palica’s .111, although Newk alone had surpassed the .200 mark, the barrier which separated the merely terrible from the truly wretched; but Palica had proved himself a better batsman than Roe,

Erskine, or Branca. Babe Ruth and had been slabmen who swung the stick so well that they became position players; Palica had been an infielder who swung it so poorly that he became a pitcher.

The Old Sourdough’s zen-like strategy of doing something by not doing anything had placed Durocher in a quandary. With runners at second and third,

Leo’s normal response would have been to issue the intentional walk to the pinch- hitter, setting up the force at the plate; now, he had to go after Palica--he wasn’t going to pass a pitcher who had struck out in twenty-nine percent of his plate appearances in order to get at a legitimate batter in Reese.

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Palica knew he was going to see fastballs. The Giants weren’t going to get cute on a man with a flyweight’s average. All Palica had to worry about was making contact. Kennedy’s first pitch whistled toward the plate. Palica had about a quarter of a second to judge speed and location and start his swing; he was 20 milleseconds too late. The ball slammed untouched into Iron Man Mueller’s mitt. Strike one.

Kennedy and Mueller needed the strikeout desperately. The easiest way to get it was by challenging Palica, just rear back and throw the ball right by him. Two problems. First, Kennedy was not really a strikeout pitcher. Second, the fastball was the easiest pitch for a batter to hit if he knew that was all he was going to see.

Mitigating circumstance: Palica was not really a hitter.

The Giants infielders were in on the grass. The do-or-die play was at the plate, and Edwards would be running on contact, although the Dodgers could choose to hold him, in which case the play would be at first. At any event, the drawn-in infield would increase Palica’s batting average by a hundred points if he could hit the ball on the ground. Kennedy’s second pitch was high. Ball one.

Behind the plate, Mueller was confident that Palica was swinging too late to catch up with Kennedy’s fastball. If he made contact at all, he would hit the ball weakly to the right side. Mueller waved Thompson a step closer to first. Kennedy looked in for his sign, although he already knew what it would be. Mueller wanted the fastball outside. If Palica couldn’t catch up to it middle-in, he had no chance away. Kennedy nodded his assent and went into his windup.

Palica had moved his hands up on the bat handle a quarter inch. He had to speed his swing up a notch. He concentrated on where he expected Kennedy’s release

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point to be. When the pitch came, he was late with his swing again, but not as late.

This time he nicked the ball with the bottom half of his bat, and chopped it just fair down the first base line.

Everyone except Mueller was on the move. Lafata charged the slow bouncer as

Palica thundered up the basepath and Edwards galloped for the plate. One motion-- scoop and throw home, Lafata told himself. Not the easiest play in the world, but one he’d made dozens of times, and Edwards was as slow as sludge. He reached for a baseball that wasn’t there. It had stopped bouncing, and had rolled gently under his mitt and on down the line. Well, I’ll be damned, thought Jake Pitler as

Palica crossed first and Edwards scored the winning run. Lafata retrieved the offending horsehide and fired it into the upper deck behind third base.

The 5-4 win kept the Dodgers on pace with the Cardinals, and Robinson’s two infield hits comfortably preserved his lead over Slaughter in the batting race, .346 to

.339; but the magic number, that hissing fuse that would spell the end of the season for the Bums, was down to 18.

Furillo’s grand slam boosted the Brooks to a 10-5 win in Sunday’s error-laden get-away game. The win was important, since Musial’s three homers in Cincinnati had helped the Cardinals to a double victory, increasing their lead to a game and a half and reducing the magic number to 16; but more injurious to the Dodgers’ pennant hopes was the damage done when a 91 mile-per-hour Larry Jansen fastball slammed into Pee Wee Reese’s left elbow during the Brooks’ seventh inning rally.

Trainer Doc Wendler packed Pee Wee’s wounded wing in ice and carted the infielder off to the local aid station for x-rays. The photographs revealed no bone

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fracture, but the tissue surrounding the elbow was severely contused and swollen, and Shotton was going to have to begin the most critical road trip of the season with

Eddie Miksis at shortstop.

“At this time of year, the shadows of Ebbets Field are tricky in the late innings,”

Reese said. “I didn’t exactly lose sight of the ball, but I threw up my arm to protect my head.”

Pee Wee’s misadventure had left his limb in a sling; his ribcage remained discomfited from past exertions, and even the groin injury he had suffered in training camp had recurred. “It’s hung on for two weeks now,” he reported. “I’ve gone to a couple of doctors, but it’s getting no better rapidly.”

Burt Shotton’s able-bodies were dwindling. Hermanski and Cox were still unavailable, Snider was hobbled, and Branca and Oakland Joe--lifted in each of his last seven outings--were sporting suspect arms. On the bright side, Hoosier Carl

Erskine was throwing well out of the bullpen. His second win of the Giant series on

Sunday had been his seventh straight. The skipper planned to keep Pee Wee lockboxed until the big series in St. Louis starting on the 21st, but when the

Dodgers entrained for Cincinnati on Monday evening, the captain of the Bums was happily stowed aboard the player’s car.

“I hope I’ll be able to help the boys get into the World’s Series,” grinned Reese.

“There’s no thrill in baseball to compare with going out on the field for the first game.”

The Rhinelanders were 32 games from the top with plenty of time remaining in which to snatch possession of the basement from its current tenants, the woebegone

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Cubs. The Reds had been mathematically eliminated from pennant contention since before Labor Day, and the status of sophomore manager William Henry “Bucky”

Walters was uncertain.

“I don’t start thinking about my Monday breakfast on Friday or Saturday,” said

Reds’ President Warren Giles. “Managing a second division team is a difficult job.

Bucky has been showing more skill as a manager with the passing of the days. He undoubtedly is a more capable manager than at any previous time.”

Herman Wehmeier was Bucky’s choice to open the series against the Dodgers.

Wehmeier, at 11-8, was the most effective pitcher on the Cincinnati staff, having overcome an early-season propensity for being knocked out by the sixth inning, and he had defeated the Dodgers the last two times he had faced them. The Old

Sourdough countered with sinistral Joe Hatten. Tuesday’s weather was wet and cold. Both Hatten and Wehmeier pitched well until the same-side hitting, same- surnamed third baseman Grady Hatton stung Oakland Joe for a two-run homer in the seventh that put the Reds ahead 3-2. By the ninth, the Brooks were in another must-win situation. Red Munger and the Cardinals had edged Durocher and the

Giants 1-0 in St. Louis, Munger facing only one batter over the minimum; and the

Dodgers--blindfolded, standing with their backs against a bullet-pocked wall and the smell of blood in the air--were down to their last strike. Hodges took two close outside pitches for balls, then whacked a third into right field for a two-base hit.

Furillo, hitting .403 with 7 homers and 26 RBI since mid-August, followed with a clutch two-bagger of his own to right center, and the Flock had stayed their execution once more.

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The Old Sourdough displayed his penchant for riding the hot bull in his pen until it dropped when he ordered Erskine into the fracas after lifting Hatten for a pinch- hitter in the eighth. Oisk ran into bases loaded trouble in the ninth, pitched out of it, then earned his eighth consecutive victory in the tenth when Wehmeier wilted.

Herman recorded two outs, then Rackley walked, Jorgensen and Snider singled, and

Robinson’s looper got past right fielder Johnny Wyrostek for a two-run triple. The

6-3 win ensured that the Brooks stayed abreast of St. Louis, but Munger’s masterpiece had reduced the magic number to 15. The pressure on the Dodgers to win each day was relentless. They were 11-3 since September 1st, but the Redbirds were 10-2-1. Neither club showed sign of releasing their grip on the other’s throat.

On Wednesday, both the Dodgers and the Cardinals received permission from the Commissioner’s Office to begin printing World’s Series tickets. The Fall

Classic was scheduled to start on October 5th on the home field of the American

League champion. As if on cue, the indomitable Reese returned to the Brooklyn lineup: “If Tommy Henrich can play after breaking his back, I shouldn’t stop because of an elbow bruise.”

With the visiting Mahatma watching from the stands, the one-armed shortstop lashed a double and a single, swiped a base, and scored two runs. Snider collected three hits, and Preacher Roe, despite Cincinnati complaints over suspicious dips in his deliveries at opportune times, went the route for his thirteenth victory. But the accursed Cardinals won again, Musial’s four RBI helping Harry Brecheen to a 9-3 decision. Stanley was on another of his swing sprees, having batted safely in 24 of his last 25 games, his season’s average up to .333, only 14 points behind

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Robinson’s league leading .347. Old Number 6 had reduced his team’s magic number to 14.

Thursday was an off day for all the National League clubs. Reese, Edwards,

McCormick and Whitman hit the links where they played nine holes in the rain before calling it quits. In Pittsburgh, where the Brooks would next appear, pitcher

Ernie Bonham, recovering from an appendectomy in Presbyterian Hospital, died suddenly of cardiac arrest. Pirate radio announcer and on-air rooter Albert “Rosey”

Rowswell eulogized the departed moundsman from home plate at Forbes Field prior to Friday’s series opener; a bugler blew taps, then the game began and the Dodgers rolled over and played dead. Campanella was hit on the head and knocked unconscious by a Bill Werle fastball in the second inning, a barrage of line drives chased Newcombe off the mound in the fifth, and the Brooks wound up losing 9-2.

In St. Louis, the collapsing Braves committed four errors and yielded to the

Redbirds 7-5. The Dodgers were 2½ back, three behind in the loss column, and the

Cardinal’s magic number had dipped to an even dozen. There were 13 games left in the regular season.

***

1946. Peace had broken out. The citizen-soldiers of the United States armed forces were streaming home from overseas, and their womenfolk were preparing to repopulate the country. The moguls of major league baseball were expecting an attendance bonanza, and were busily expanding the seating capacities in their ballparks to meet the increased demand. The Dodgers were adding 1000 box seats to already cramped Ebbets Field. There was a new thing coming called television

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that promised to revolutionize the entertainment industry, and it perplexed the

Mahatma because its ramifications for his business were so unpredictable.

The Brooklyn chieftain began his year at Peck Memorial Hospital, where he was being treated for what they called the “grippe”, fancy French nomenclature for the contagious influenza that killed thousands of Americans annually. Rickey detested idleness even when bedridden. He was ill but not terminal, and no sawbones was going to prevent him from conducting the affairs of the Brooklyn Baseball Club from his sickbay. One of the Mahatma’s first transactions was to obtain Leo

Durocher’s commitment to return for an eighth hitch as skipper of the Dodgers.

“He’s my boy, and I like him,” wheezed the congestive magnate.

“My first ambition now is to win a pennant for Mr. Rickey,” said Leo before departing on his annual hiatus to the dog tracks and jai alai parlors of South

Florida, where he planned to stay until his activities were curtailed by his criminal trial, scheduled to begin in Flatbush before the end of the month.

Leo’s legal problems did not particularly worry him. He knew a good deal about odds-making, and if the D.A. could seat a jury in Brooklyn that would vote to convict the manager of the Dodgers of assault on an Ebbets Field heckler, then he was not only a prosecutor, he was a magician.

Rickey’s reorganization of his baseball franchise was progressing according to plan. The 1946 Dodgers would have the second largest farm system in the major leagues, trailing only the Cardinals, and just ahead of the Yankees; and the

Mahatma was stocking up on Negro League talent. Besides Robinson, he had signed right-handed pitcher John Wright to a Montreal contract, and he had

329 Bob Mack

acquired 22-year old pitcher Don Newcombe and 25-year old catcher Roy

Campanella for his Nashua club in the .

“I did not sign these boys because of any political pressure,” Rickey said. “I signed them because of my interest in winning a pennant. If an elephant could play center field better than any man I have, I would play the elephant.”

By the end of February, the Mahatma had kicked the croup, and was off to

Florida to pave the way for the arrival of Robinson and Wright.

“You boys have behaved like gentlemen ever since you reported here,” he informed his assemblage of minor league ballplayers, managers, and coaches. “I expect you to continue to behave like gentlemen. I might remind you that Clay

Hopper, who comes from Mississippi, will be the manager of these two boys.”

Hopper’s support for the Mahatma’s Great Experiment, however, was questionable: “Mr. Rickey, do you really think a nigger’s a human being?”

Robinson arrived in camp on the 4th, having suited up in an old flannel uniform at the home of local realtor David Brock where he and Wright were billeted. Under

Florida segregation law, the two recruits could not dress with the white players in the Montreal clubhouse.

“Well, this is it,” Jackie said, as he walked onto the field.

Besieged by reporters and photographers eager for pictures, Robinson posed patiently and answered questions. “I don’t know whether I can make it,” he admitted. “I just hope I can. But I’ve seen only about five major league games in my life, and I’ve never seen these fellows play. So I don’t know what the competition is.”

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“There are 48 players on my squad,” said Clay Hopper, “and Robinson and

Wright are only two of them. They will get the same chance to make good as the rest of ‘em. No favoritism will be shown to anybody.”

“Robinson is like a man in a goldfish bowl,” wrote , sports editor of the Baltimore Afro-American. “Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why I felt a lump in my throat every time a ball was hit in his direction those first few days; why I experienced a sort of emptiness in the bottom of my stomach whenever he took a swing in batting practice. I was constantly in fear of his muffing an easy roller under the stress of things. And I uttered a silent prayer of thanks as, with closed eyes, I heard the solid whack of Robinson’s bat against the ball.”

In Brooklyn, a new date had been set for the Durocher trial. Presiding Judge

Louis Goldstein was running out of patience. “It is time this case was tried,” he fumed. “It has been kicked around long enough--so long, in fact, that it is bordering on a public scandal. I am setting this date peremptorily against the defendants, and they must be here to proceed.”

Robinson’s first game action came in a seven-inning scrimmage against the

Brooklyn lanigans on the 6th. Jackie played short and second, went hitless in two tries, and handled seven chances flawlessly in the field.

“He hasn’t got a great arm, but he gets the ball away very fast,” observed Clay

Hopper. “He covers a lot of ground, and has a good pair of hands.”

“I’ve been told how to play the different hitters,” Jackie said. “Everyone has been very helpful.”

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Everything Robinson did was newsworthy. He went oh for three in a St.

Patrick’s Day exhibition against the Dodgers and made headlines for being the first

Negro to participate with white men in a game in Florida for which admission was charged.

The city fathers of Jacksonville decided to prohibit further history from being made--at least at their expense. They prohibited Jackie from appearing with the

Royals at Durkee Field in a Sunday game against the Jersey City Giants.

“It is part of the rules and regulations that Negroes and whites cannot compete against each other on a city-owned playground,” stated George Robinson, the executive secretary of the Playground and Recreational Commission.

“We have no intention of attempting to go counter to any city government’s laws or regulations,” responded the Mahatma. “If we are notified that Robinson cannot play in Jacksonville, of course he will not play. But, we will not take the onus for this thing. Let there be no misunderstanding about that.”

Rickey had his hands full. Besides hidebound Southern bigots, he was on the lookout for agents of the renegade Mexican League, who were skulking the fringes of the training camps waving tempting wads of cash at the ballplayers. One of the

Yucatan smoothies offered Robinson $6,000 plus transportation and expenses to relocate south of the border. Jackie declined.

“I wouldn’t go if you offered me the $300,000 you offered Ted Williams,” he said; but the Mahatma was still nettled enough over the incessant tampering to threaten the Mexican operative with his big, liver-spotted fists when he confronted him beneath the stands at City Island Park.

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The clubs began to play their way north. The Royals cancelled scheduled games in Savannah and Richmond when those cities refused to allow Robinson and Wright to appear on the diamond with the white boys.

Jackie’s official debut in Organized Baseball came before a capacity Opening

Day crowd in on April 18. By the end of the game, Mayor

Frank Hague and the partisans of the little Giants were wishing they’d not permitted

Robinson to appear in Jersey City either. Jackie had bagged four hits in five tries, including a three-run third inning homer, had chased home four runs, scored four, stolen two bases, and forced pitcher Phil Oates into a balk as the Royals began the defense of their 1945 International League title with a 14-1 drubbing of Horace

Stoneham’s top farm club.

“The one thing I cared about,” Robinson said in the jubilant Montreal clubhouse after the game, “was the way these fellows backed me up. There wasn’t any

‘riding’ out there, but if there was, I wouldn’t have minded as long as my team was behind me. They have been swell.”

Leo’s tribunal began on the 22nd when the prosecution dismissed the first prospective juror. “I’ve been a baseball fan for years,” said Lawrence Nelsen. “I’m a great admirer of Leo Durocher, and I’m not sure I would not be biased in my judgement.”

After six hours of sifting through a pool of Flatbush sectarians, most of who agreed with Nelsen that “a Brooklyn Dodger can do no wrong”, a panel of Leo’s peers was selected, and his trial began anon. The Lip took the stand in his own defense on Wednesday.

333 Bob Mack

“I never at any time struck [Mr. Christian] or touched him,” Leo affirmed,

“either with my left or right hand, or with a blackjack or anything.”

On Thursday, the jury deliberated for thirty-eight minutes, and acquitted the skipper on the first ballot.

“Gentlemen,” said Judge Goldstein, “I’m glad for the sake of the Brooklyn baseball team that their manager has been vindicated, and that no discredit has been placed on the great American game of baseball. I want to congratulate you on the result. It’s further proof that justice can be expected from our American juries.”

In Philadelphia, Coach piloted the Brooks to their seventh straight victory, an 11-3 destruction of the Phillies. The Dodgers and the Cardinals were tied for first place with identical 7-1 records.

His legal problems behind him, Leo began to concentrate on the pennant race.

The pre-season prognosticators had generally considered the Dodgers to be no better than a third place entry.

“It’s a ballclub in the rebuilding stage,” reported Harold Burr in the Brooklyn

Eagle, “and anything can happen to it.”

By the All-Star break, what had happened was that Durocher had the Dodgers in first place by five games, and pennant fever was once again infecting the Borough.

Leo was in fine fettle. His latest escapade had been a dust-up with Umpire Al

Barlick that had cost him a fine and a five-game suspension, but had also resulted in

Ford Frick’s chastisement of the arbiters regarding their use of malediction when conversing with managers, players, or coaches. On August 11, Leo was involved in a Stanky-inspired row with Umpire George Magekurth that lightened his wallet by

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another $150, and earned Magekurth an official reprimand after the man in blue had cleared the entire Brooklyn bench of players; but there was more in the Lip’s bag of tricks than simple umpire-baiting.

“Durocher,” wrote columnist Dan Daniel, “relies not only on rhubarbs and helter-skelter commotion, but on speed. He has the slickest runner in the majors in

Pete Reiser, who has set a big league all-time record this year by stealing home six times in eight efforts. Ty Cobb never did that more than four times in one year.

The Durocher-managed Superbas will bunt when you expect them to hit and run.

They will pull when you think they will hit straightaway. They will bunt with two strikes. They will squeeze when it looks like suicide. You can’t figure out what these Superbas are likely to do. Sure, a lot of that stuff goes wrong, very wrong.

But the percentage of successes must be tremendously high. For what other reason have the Dodgers set the pace for so many days through the season?”

The venerable old Connie Mack thought that Durocher was the greatest manager in baseball. Another Philadelphian, Phillies’ manager , said, “The way Durocher maneuvers them, Brooklyn’s pitching units make the toughest jig- saw puzzle in our circuit.”

Leo’s pitchers were not above engaging in a bit of intimidation. Reds’ manager

Bill McKechnie complained to Frick about Brooklyn tactics following an August

22nd night game in Cincinnati during which Dodger hurler Rube Melton allegedly threw at rookie Grady Hatton.

“Throwing at a batter may be okay with some folks in the daytime,” explained

Reds’ coach , “but when it’s done at night, it’s downright

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reprehensible. At night, the player is full of tensions. It’s difficult to see. He doesn’t like to think that his life is in jeopardy because of tendencies by the opposition.”

“Melton told Hatton he was going to throw at him,” said catcher Ray Mueller.

“Why? What has Hatton ever done to Melton?”

“What’s all the yammer about?” wondered the Lip. “Since when has it become illegal to sit a hitter down on his basic principles? I don’t believe in throwing at a batter’s head, but I do think that knocking the batter down once in awhile, in an innocent sort of way, is part of the game. I never order my pitcher to bean anybody.

But he knows he is expected to win by every means that is legal and fair. And the duster is not unfair. The Dodgers did not get to the top by being nice to the opposition.”

Cardinals’ manager Eddie Dyer was another worthy who believed that Leo had instructed his hurlers to target the skulls of opposing batsmen, although the Redbird skipper preferred to handle the situation in-house instead of involving the authorities. Dodgers’ hitters had heads too.

“We have a dogged, determined foe,” said Dyer, sounding a good deal like

General Eisenhower, “one that you don’t beat by wishful thinking. They say

Brooklyn doesn’t look like so much on paper, but they’re mighty tough on the field.

Durocher has done a masterful job of handling the club.”

By the middle of September, Robinson had claimed the International League batting title with a .349 mark. He had stolen 40 bases and scored 113 runs. At

Nashua, Roy Campanella was batting .302 with 12 homers.

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“Roy is much too good for that league,” said the Mahatma.

Clay Hopper denied rumors that Robinson would be called up to Brooklyn to bolster the Dodgers’ pennant run. “Much as we would like to see Jack get the chance to play in Brooklyn,” he said, “I cannot let him go at this time and hurt our chances to win the playoff of the International League. Mr. Rickey has discussed the matter with Mel Jones, Royals’ secretary, and myself, and we were all agreed that it would be unfair to us and that 1947 would be soon enough for the boy.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the rumor,” said Jackie. “Whenever it comes, I’ll try and be ready.”

Robinson’s play and demeanor had won over his Southern-born skipper. Hopper apologized to Rickey for his earlier remarks: “I want to take back what I said to you last spring. I’m ashamed of it. Now, if you don’t have plans to have Robinson on your Brooklyn club [in 1947], I would like to have him back in Montreal. He’s a great ballplayer and a fine gentleman.”

Another fine gentleman, Stanley Musial, was in Brooklyn with his Cardinals to battle the Dodgers for the National League lead. The Redbirds had retaken first place on the strength of a 22-9 August while the Bums had posted a 16-13 month.

The three game set at Ebbets Field beginning September 12 was crucial. Musial, as was his custom, hammered Dodger pitching in the first two tilts, batting .500 with three doubles and a triple, but St. Louis could only split the two games. In the third contest, Leo sent twenty-year old right-hander Ralph Branca to the mound as a decoy pitcher, intending to trick Dyer into starting his lefthanded lineup. Branca would pitch to one batter, at which point Durocher would switch to lefty Little Vic

337 Bob Mack

Lombardi, thereby destroying Dyer’s platoon strategy. Branca’s pitching, however, made the maneuvering moot. Leo kept leaving him in there for just one more batter, and the kid worked the entire game, finishing with a three-hit shutout and a

5-0 win. Durocher was adaptable: “I’m only interested in today. If I have to use nine pitchers to win today’s game, I’m going to do it, and to hell with tomorrow.

I’m not thinking about tomorrow, next week, or the next series. I’m thinking of the game we play today.”

Branca had been brilliant, but the youngster had nonetheless invoked Durocher’s ire by refusing to follow the manager’s instructions after catcher Bruce Edwards had been dusted by Cardinal pitcher Harry Brecheen: “Get that Musial in the ear!”

Prior to the game against the Phillies at Ebbets Field on the 25th, the Mahatma gave each of his players an automobile, the uncharacteristic generosity infuriating the new Dodger vice-president Walter O’Malley. O’Malley was a bean counter.

He hadn’t gotten rich by giving cars or anything else away; beside these boys hadn’t won anything yet.

With just three days left in the season, the Cardinals held a one-game lead, and humble Flatbushers thought it time to seek the aid of the Lord.

“We ask You not to give the Anheusers out there in St. Louis any better break than You give us,” prayed Reverend Benny Benson, of the Brooklyn Dutch

Reformed Church. “And we ask this in all sincerity.”

At Sportsman’s Park on Friday, the power of prayer and the Chicago Cubs beat the Cardinals 7-2. The race was dead even with two games to go.

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“I am not surprised,” said the Mahatma. “I have had the feeling that we were going to win the championship for the past few weeks. I expected the Cubs to take at least one and perhaps two of the three games from the Cards. We have two games to go, and we won’t lose any more. So the least we can get is a tie. This perhaps is the best time to announce that Leo Durocher, who has done such a grand job of leading the Dodgers, is the manager of the year in my book--on page one and all the way through. No matter what you may hear to the contrary, Leo will be with us for a long time.”

Rickey waved his cigar ebulliently: “Frankly, I did not expect to win this year-- that is, until the last few weeks. Our great showing surprised even Leo. We never believed he could mold these players, a mixture of veterans and raw youngsters, into a championship outfit in one year--a truly amazing job. Give Leo all the credit.”

Credited or not, the Lip was sweating bullets. The Dodgers beat the Braves 7-4 on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday evening, the Cardinals beat the Cubs 4-1. The season was down to its last day and the race was still dead even. On Sunday,

Boston’s Mort Cooper stuck a 4-0 knife into Durocher’s ribs, and the Cards went up by a half-game. The Cubs now held the Dodgers’ fate in their less than reliable paws. If they fell to St. Louis, all was lost.

Durocher’s office felt like AEF headquarters on the eve of the Normandy invasion. Leo paced and chain-smoked, waiting for word from Sportsman’s Park.

“I just wish I had a one-point lead over the Cards right now,” he muttered. “One point, that’s all--one lousy point. Then I wouldn’t care what happened today. I’da

339 Bob Mack

slept better last night too. I haven’t been sleeping so good of late.” Outside, a few hundred fans milled about the outfield grass, waiting for the numbers to change on the big scoreboard.

In St. Louis, a homer by Stan the Man and a double by Country Slaughter gave

Red Munger a 2-1 lead over Johnny Schmitz. The Cardinals were twelve outs away from the pennant. Suddenly, both the unflappable Musial and the sure-handed

Marty Marion botched plays, five runs scored for the Cubs, and the Cardinals lost the ballgame 8-3. The season was over, and the Cards and Dodgers were still tied for the lead. For the first time in history, there would be a playoff for the championship of the National League.

At Ebbets Field, spontaneous cheering erupted from the remaining diehards when the final results from St. Louis were posted. Inside his sanctum, Leo

Durocher felt as if he’d just recovered from a life threatening illness. He looked ten years younger. The Dodgers were in charge of their own destiny again.

“I’ll pitch either Ralph Branca or Kirby Higbe in the St. Louis game Tuesday,”

Leo said. “Then we’ll be coming back home, and we’ll see what we shall see.”

The Dodgers were opening the all-important three-game series in St. Louis because Cardinals’ owner Sam Breadon had called the coin flip wrong in Ford

Frick’s office on the 23rd. The location for the first game had been up to Leo. It was not an easy decision. The Brooks didn’t match up well against the Cardinals.

They had won only 3 of 11 in St. Louis during the regular season and just 5 of 11 at

Ebbets Field. If the Flock were going to win this thing, Leo needed an edge.

Playing the final two games at home might give it to him. The problem was that in

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a three-game series, your back was always against the wall. Even if you won the first game, you had to win the second or face elimination in game three. If you lost the first game, you had to win the second or you were done. The first game was key. A victory would provide a day’s worth of wiggle room, and shift most of the pressure to your opponent. Electing to play the opener at Sportsman’s Park where his winning percentage reckoned out to a 42-112 season, was risky, but Leo had been a gambler his entire life. Besides, he had to play it somewhere.

Howie Pollet, the 20-game winning lefty from the Big Easy, took the mound for the Cardinals. Leo played another hunch and chose Branca to open the series.

Branca had only started nine games during the regular season. He had pitched decently in limited action, but it was a tremendous amount of pressure to place on a

20-year old. Still, he had disposed of the Cardinals handily as Leo’s decoy pitcher on September 14, and he had beaten Pollet 3-2 in St. Louis on August 25th. Roll the dice.

The Cards nicked the kid for a run in the first on singles by Slaughter and Terry

Moore, and a two-out infield hit by catcher Joe Garagiola. A home run by

Brooklyn first baseman Howie Schultz, only his third of the season, tied the game in the third. In the home half, a walk to Musial, and singles by Slaughter,

Garagiola, and routed Branca, and made it 3-1, St. Louis. In the seventh, singles by Reese, Bruce Edwards, and Schultz cut the Cardinal lead to 3-2, but a Musial triple in the bottom half and Garagiola’s third single of the day put the

Brooks in a 4-2 hole in which Pollet buried them.

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So it was back to Brooklyn with the season on the line. Leo’s gambit had failed, and the Dodgers were faced with having to win two straight. The manager remained outwardly confident--“Stay with ‘em, fellas”--although he refused comment to the press. The Faithful, expecting the worst while hoping for the best, clamored for tickets, but their numbers had been reduced.

“Collective rooting,” advised Borough president John Cashmore, “will bring us victory and prepare us for the tremendous parade and celebration when the Dodgers win the pennant.”

On Thursday, collectivism failed again. The Brooks scored in the first inning, then St. Louis slabman Murray Dickson knuckled down and Musial, Slaughter, and

Company started work. The Redbirds plated a pair of runs in the second. In the fifth, Musial’s double off Oakland Joe Hatten began a three-run rally that essentially ended the baseball season in Flatbush.

“Dat Musical kin really powder dem hits,” observed a bleacher denizen sadly,

“dat bum.”

Augie Galan doubled off the right field wall to begin the bottom of the ninth, the first Dodger hit since the opening inning, and the Brooks initiated a rally that brought the tying run to the plate with only one out; but reliever Harry Brecheen fanned both Eddie Stanky and Howie Schultz to end the game.

“I’m proud of every one of my boys,” said a disappointed Durocher in the

Brooklyn clubhouse as the team packed for the winter. “They have hustled and given everything they had from the first day of the season until now. We did the best we could, and we couldn’t do any more, I guess.”

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While the Dodgers were losing to the Cardinals, Jackie Robinson was leading the Royals to a three games to two lead over the in the Little

World’s Series. Jackie’s double and triple boosted Montreal to a 4-3 lead, and a perfect bunt brought home shortstop with an insurance run in the eighth.

“I’ve been bunting pretty well this season,” said Robinson. “When I saw the third baseman move back, I knew he didn’t expect me to bunt with two outs. Sure enough, when I bunted, Campanis had no trouble scoring. He was right on his toes.”

The series had opened in Louisville, where the crowd greeted Jackie with catcalls and slurs and the Parkway Field public address system played recordings by the Ink Spots each time the Montreal batting champion stepped to the plate. The

Mahatma had been in town since Monday’s third game when he watched the

Colonels hand his number #1 farm team their heads, 15-6, to take a 2 games to 1 lead.

Held to just one hit in ten at-bats in Louisville, Robinson heated up back in snowy Montreal, and the Royals won two straight. In the final game, Jackie collected two safeties to raise his series average to .333, and initiated a pair of double plays that killed off budding Louisville rallies. The 2-0 win gave the Royals the International League championship, and sent the roaring crowd into frenzied

“We want Robinson!” chants.

“All season I have been under terrific pressure,” Jackie said in the clubhouse. “It required all my stamina and determination to justify the faith Mr. Rickey and others

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had in my ability. I knew that my every move was being watched, and everything I did required the deepest concentration. In a way, it was an ordeal, and I don’t know whether I would like to go through it again. But if I can make a place in the majors,

I know the reward will be well worth the try.”

“Brooklyn will have two or three good infielders next year,” said Durocher,

“but Jackie will get the job if he can outplay them.”

***

The Dodgers had bottled up Kiner, but uncorked Westlake. A bases loaded triple by the Pirate right fielder in the seventh inning on Saturday snapped a 2-2 tie and sent the Bums reeling off to Chicago on a two-game losing streak. Westlake’s

7 RBI for the series had damaged the Dodgers, but St. Louis had been defeated by

Boston, so the Brooklyn deficit remained 2½ games; the Cardinals’ magic number, however, was down to 11, and inching ominously closer to single digits.

Campy was out of the hospital, his head sore but intact following his beaning. “I never did see the ball. Preacher Roe says that it sailed, and that at first he thought it was going over the catcher’s head. I know it came down and hit me. I’ve got proof of that. But I feel all right.” That was good enough for Shotton, who put the dizzy slugger back behind the plate for the must-win set in Wrigley Field. It was too late in the season for caution.

Branca took the mound in game one, his first start in a month, and he pitched shutout ball for eight innings. The Old Sourdough, desperate for a win and uncertain of his starter, had started warming Newcombe at the midway point, but

Branca kept posting zeroes on the board. The Hawk finally surrendered a walk and

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two singles to start the ninth, and Shotton brought in the big guy. Newk had already tossed almost a game’s worth of pitches in the bullpen. He disposed of

Frisch’s two pinch-hitters, and retired ex-teammate Bob Ramazzotti on a foulout to

Hodges to close the show. The extra work didn’t seem to bother him: “I’ll pitch as much as they want me to.”

The Dodgers’ 10 hits had included Furillo’s 16th homer, but the 7-1 win only allowed them to keep pace with the Cardinals. The rampaging avians seemed to be getting stronger as the season wound down. Musial, Slaughter, and Northey had clubbed homers in an 18-hit barrage at Sportsman’s Park that savaged the Phils, 15-

3, and their magic number downticked to 10.

On Monday, Barney tossed a no-hitter for seven innings, Campanella cracked a double and a pair of singles, and the Flock took their second straight, 4-0. A leadoff single by Phil Cavarretta in the eighth spoiled the Wild Man’s pitching masterpiece.

It was the second time in his career that the Cubs’ first sacker had broken up a gem.

“I threw Phil a fastball,” said Barney. “My fast one had been taking off good all day, and I was afraid he’d pull a curve ball.”

Captain Reese added another ding to his growing collection of scar tissue when he was spiked in the thumb by Cubs’ third baseman Bill Serena. Doc Wendler wrapped the cut, and Pee Wee kept right on playing.

In St. Louis, Phillies’ outfielder Del Ennis smacked four hits and rookie lefthander Jocko Thompson beat the Cards 4-3, freezing the doomsday clock at 10 and cutting the Redbird lead to a game and a half.

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Tuesday’s finale in Chicago featured another great pitching performance by the suddenly awesome Dodgers’ staff. Banta tossed a 5-hit, 5-strikeout shutout,

Robinson stole home for the fifth time, and the Brooks won 5-0, sweeping the series and sending them to their showdown in St. Louis with the bullpen rested and their two best pitchers, Newcombe and Roe, scheduled to go in Wednesday’s doubleheader.

Leo the Lip, never a big booster of his Flatbush successor, said, “Brooklyn, instead of being in second place, should be far out in front. The Dodgers are top- heavy with talent. They have everything. Talk about great players, that Reese is the best. I’ll take him. He holds an infield together. He makes your ball club; and

Robinson--probably the best second baseman in either league. With those two on your infield, what else do you need? Still they have Hodges. Remember when they were going to send Pete Reiser to Vero Beach to learn to play first base? I told ‘em,

‘Give Hodges a glove, that kid can play the bag.’ Well, he’s playing it, isn’t he?”

The Dodgers were still a game and a half behind. They had been tougher against the Cardinals in St. Louis (4-4) than in Brooklyn (4-7), but the percentages gave Burt Shotton little solace. The disparity was due mainly to Musial’s stupendous batting at Ebbets Field, and Musial could hit stupendously anywhere; but the Old Sourdough remained outwardly sanguine regarding his club’s chances.

“All we’ve got to do,” he said, “is keep winning. Don’t forget that we’ve had our little slump against the Pirates. The Cards haven’t had theirs yet.”

Both teams had been roaring down the stretch, Brooklyn with a 15-5 September, and St. Louis with a 14-4 showing. It was a familiar scenario. From ‘41 through

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‘48, the Cardinals had won 780 games. They had finished first four times and second four times. The Dodgers had won 709 games over the same period, with two first place finishes, two second place finishes, three third place finishes, and the awful 1944 season that everyone wanted to forget. The Cards had been the superior club, but whenever they hadn’t won, the Dodgers usually had.

People traveled to St. Louis from as far away as Hawaii for the big showdown series. National League President Ford Frick and his entourage were in attendance from New York, and former heavyweight champion Joe Louis had a box seat ticket, courtesy of Jackie Robinson. A thicket of sportswriters and photographers from around the country crowded the playing field, and it was standing room only in the press box. The radio booths were as jammed as the rest of the park. Red Barber and were broadcasting back to Brooklyn, Waite Hoyt and Lee

Allen were relaying play-by-play to Cincinnati, and and Gabby Street were calling the action on the Cardinals’ network.

Professional baseball had been played at the intersection of Grand Avenue and

Dodier Street since the 1880’s. The current incarnation of Sportsman’s Park, constructed in 1909, was home to both the Browns and the Cardinals--the worst of the American League and the best of the National. The park’s salient feature was its right field pavilion, 310 feet from home plate, and bounded by an 11½ foot high wall topped by a 33-foot screen that gave the place, said writer Red Smith, “a garish, county fair sort of layout.”

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“The ball flies out there,” said Musial, “and the runner doesn’t know if it’s going to hit the screen, go over it, or how it’ll bounce. It’s hard to score on a single to right because outfielders play so shallow.”

The field was hot enough in the summer to blister a player’s feet. It was not uncommon for a man to sweat off eight or nine pounds during a doubleheader. By the end of the dog days, heat and high traffic had killed most of the grass on the infield. The dirt was so hard and rocky that infielders deserved pardons from the governor.

Don Newcombe was a certified Red Ass--a player who took the field with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. A glowering intimidator in the style of former

Brooklyn great Burleigh Grimes, Newk believed he owned the plate, and he did not kindly suffer trespassers--no white man was going to get very comfortable in front of a big, angry Negro who could throw ninety-five miles per hour.

“[Newcombe’s] got the best fastball in baseball,” observed Gabby Street, who had caught Walter Johnson’s. “He shouldn’t be allowed to throw anything else.”

Newk’s 32 consecutive scoreless innings in the heat of the pennant race had turned his manager into a believer as well: “I think he’s the best pitcher in the league,” said Burt Shotton.

The rookie was a big league oddity--a hard thrower with a rubber arm.

Newcombe wanted to pitch--he wanted to pitch a lot--and the Old Sourdough planned to let him. The Dodgers’ skipper intended to ride his big horse right into the World’s Series.

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Eddie Dyer’s starter was 34-year old lefthander Max Lanier, the Mexican

League jumper who had been suspended from Organized Baseball for three years until his reinstatement by Happy Chandler in July. Lanier had not fared well against the Dodgers since his return to action, having surrendered 10 runs over 12 innings in three starts. The chunky hurler threw from a full windup, coming over the top to right-handed hitters, and dropping down on lefties, slinging his deliveries at them from the side of the diamond closest to their heads. Like most southpaws,

Lanier employed a full repertoire of breaking pitches--drop balls and knucklers and such--and he sometimes pitched backwards, using his fastball to set up his offspeed stuff and throwing curves when he was behind in the count. From Denton, North

Carolina, Max was one of the Cardinals’ Confederate-born cadre, a group that included Country Slaughter (North Carolina), Marty Marion (South Carolina),

Terry Moore (Alabama), Howie Pollet and Lou Klein (Louisiana), Jim Hearn

(Georgia), Chuck Diering (Missouri), Red Munger (Texas), and semi-rebs Harry

Brecheen and (Oklahoma). The Redbirds were the team they rooted for in Dixie, and the showdown series with the Dodgers--a Yankee ballclub with coloreds on it--had sharpened the old Southern sectional animosity.

Both the Dodgers and Cardinals were coming into play bruised and battered.

Cox and Hermanski were still on the shelf, Reese was a walking bandage, Campy was concussed, Snider was playing on achy pins, Oakland Joe was battling an ear infection, and Robinson was running out of gas. Musial had pulled a groin muscle during Tuesday’s game with the Phillies and Dyer was shifting him to first base for the first time since 1947. Diering, who some thought was the best defensive center

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fielder in the league, was unavailable due to a twisted ankle--rookie would be starting in his place--and Country Slaughter was admittedly exhausted.

Robinson and Slaughter were battling for the National League batting crown.

Jackie had averaged a solid .296 over the last month, but the Country Boy, despite intermittent moaning about tired legs, had been on fire, collecting 50 hits in 125 at- bats, a blistering .400 pace, to pull within 4 points, .342 to .346. The last 30 days had also seen Robinson lose his RBI leadership. A late season power surge by

Ralph Kiner had upped the Pittsburgh slugger’s home run total to 50, and had enabled him to double Jackie’s recent run production. The two players were tied with 119 RBI each.

Cheers greeted the Dodgers as they batted in the top of the first--a surprising number of the 31,468 customers seemed to be rooting for the Bums. Dyer, Lanier, and catcher Joe Garagiola had gone over the Brooklyn lineup during the Cardinals’ pre-game meeting, mainly to give their fielders an idea of where to position themselves--most batteries preferred to work from a pitcher’s strength rather than to a hitter’s weakness; besides, the obvious tactics of pitching Reese fastballs inside where his sore ribs might constrict his swing, or feeding Campanella high curves, in case he was a bit gun-shy after his beaning, wouldn’t work anyway with the lefthanded Lanier on the mound.

Eddie Dyer was not particularly worried about Brooklyn’s vaunted basestealers.

Lanier had a fairly deceptive move to first, and Garagiola possessed a better than average arm behind the plate. The key to stopping the Dodgers’ running game, of course, was keeping their greyhounds from getting on base in the first place.

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Sportsman’s Park was a good place in which to hit. Though the late September day held a hint of an autumn chill, the heat and humidity in St. Louis normally wore pitchers down. Center field was deep, and there was a lot of ground to cover in left and left center. Batters didn’t hit as many home runs in Sportsman’s Park as in other venues, but they collected more singles, doubles, and triples.

With the lefthanded Lanier on the mound, Shotton dropped Snider to the eighth spot in the batting order and moved Furillo up. Weak-hitting Eddie Miksis (.198), playing the hot corner in place of Billy Cox, singled with one out for the first hit of the game. Miksis was a sprinter. Lanier caught him leaning the wrong way and picked him clean. Eddie’s mistake would prove costly. Furillo singled, and that brought up Robinson, but instead of having two on and one out, there were two out and one on. Jackie took a low curve for a ball then ripped a line drive to deep left.

Slaughter chased it down and made a leaping, backhanded catch.

Newcombe took the mound feeling as strong as black coffee. Switch-hitting Red

Schoendienst flailed away at a fastball, just got his bat on it, and hit a roller to

Hodges for the first out. Marty Marion couldn’t get around on Newk’s fast one either, but got lucky when Hodges couldn’t reach his grounder inside the first base bag and it skipped down the line for a double. Musial was up next, and he could get around on anything. Newk tried jamming him, got too much of the dish, and Stan cracked a high drive to right that caromed off the screen. Marion scampered around third. Furillo played the bounce perfectly and rifled the ball to the plate. The throw was straight as a gunshot, but off target on the first base side. Campanella went out to get it, then turned and dived, tagging the sliding Marion just before he touched

351 Bob Mack

home. Now there were two outs, but Newk still had problems. Eddie Dyer had stacked his lineup with lefthanders, five in a row including Musial. With first base open, Shotton ordered the intentional walk to Slaughter. Right fielder Northey hit next, and Newcombe flat-out overpowered him. Northey fouled out to Campanella, and the Dodgers were out of the inning. Both teams had blundered their way out of an early opportunity. They would not have many more.

Lanier and Newcombe settled into their grooves. Max was pitching better than he had since 1946. No score after three and a half. Country Boy opened the

Cardinals’ fourth with a base hit. Northey pulled a liner to the right side. Hodges speared it and stepped on first for an easy double play. Bill Howerton ripped a line drive toward right. Robinson made a leaping catch to retire the side.

Nobody was hitting Lanier but Miksis, who normally didn’t hit anybody. Eddie collected his second single in the sixth, moved to second on Furillo’s sacrifice, advanced to third on Robinson’s slow roller to Musial, then died on the vine when

Lanier disposed of Hodges. Slaughter cracked a two-out double off the right field screen in the bottom half, but Northey fouled out again. In the seventh, Howerton lined a ball off the screen, the fourth St. Louis double of the game, but Newcombe got Garagiola on a grounder to Hodges, Glaviano popped up to Robinson, and

Lanier bounced out, Miksis to Hodges.

The teams went into the ninth still tied at zero.

Little Bill Stewart, the home plate umpire, had been a referee and coach in the

National Hockey League. In 1938, he had guided the Chicago Blackhawks to the

Stanley Cup, and he had been the man behind the dish during Johnny Vander

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Meer’s second consecutive no-hit game. After Stewart had rendered a series of controversial decisions in the 1948 World’s Series, Umpire George Magerkurth said, “Only guys with guts get into jams--and Stewart has guts.” Others thought that the little umpire had been hit in the head by one puck too many.

During the season, some of the umpires--Jocko Conlon was one, Little Bill another--had been accused by the press of showboating for the sake of the television cameras. True or not, what mattered what was that seeds of doubt had been planted in the minds of suspicious ballplayers.

Robinson led off the ninth, hitless for the day--robbed by Slaughter in the first inning, walked by Lanier in the fourth, and retired by Musial in the seventh. Max threw three straight pitches out of the strike zone. A walk was as good as a hit with the bases empty, and in a game this important, the Old Sourdough wasn’t going to let anybody swing 3-0. Jackie took the cripple pitch for a strike. Now it was 3-1, the hitter’s count, but Lanier wasn’t giving in, and he missed outside with his next delivery. Stewart called it strike two. Instead of standing on first with the potential go-ahead run, the count was full, and Jackie had to shorten his swing to protect the plate. He chopped at the next pitch and fouled it back, then Lanier struck him out.

Robinson was furious. He returned to the Dodgers’ bench clutching his throat, baseball mime indicating that Stewart had choked. It was the worst insult one man could give another on a ball field. A choker was someone whose edges curled when he neared the heat. A player who choked couldn’t perform under pressure; an umpire who choked was a “homer”, scared of the crowd and inclined to give the host team the close calls.

353 Bob Mack

Country Slaughter led off the bottom of the ninth. Newcombe quickly jumped ahead of him, 0-2. The next pitch seemed to catch the plate as well, but Stewart called it a ball. At second base, Robinson grabbed his throat. Still in command at 1-

2, Newcombe went right after the Country Boy. Slaughter had to swing or sit, but he couldn’t quite get around on the fastball, and popped it down the left field line.

Luis Olmo, in the outfield because he was a better hitter than either McCormick or

Brown, was shaded to right. He made a desultory try for the fly, lost it in the sun, and pulled up short. The ball dropped on the chalk line. Slaughter cruised into second with his third hit of the game. Instead of being struck out, Country Boy was the potential winning run.

“I should’ve caught it!” Olmo moaned.

Slaughter was now the National League’s leading batter, and he had placed the

Dodgers within range of a killing blow. A loss would put the Brooks 2½ games behind with only eight to play. Shotton ordered Northey walked, and that brought up Howerton. The rookie was not a great bat handler, but if he could lay down a bunt, the winning run would move to third. Eddie Dyer gave the kid the sign.

Newcombe threw a sinking fastball, and Howerton deadened it perfectly. The ball slowly unzipped the third base line. Miksis had no chance to make a play--maybe it would roll foul. The ball stopped on the chalk. The bases were loaded with nobody out.

The Dodgers gathered at the mound to settle Newcombe down. Robinson was seething. Stewart was costing the Brooks their chance at the pennant. When the diminuitive arbiter approached to break up the conference, Jackie flashed the choke

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sign again. Little Bill had seen enough. “Nobody’s going to say I choked up,” he snapped. “I won’t take that from any man. I never choked up in my life.” Stewart pointed at Robinson and threw him out of the game.

“I was addressing Campanella,” protested the fuming Dodger as coaches

Sukeforth and Stock steered him back to the dugout. “I was telling him not to let

Newcombe choke up. That guy just wanted to pull a big shot pose because it’s an important ball game.”

Robinson was gone, but the bases were still loaded. The Old Sourdough shifted

Miksis to second, sent Jorgensen out to play third, and pulled his infield and outfield in. Garagiola bounced Newcombe’s first pitch off the glove of Miksis, and the game was over. Newk stalked off the diamond clutching his throat and glaring at Stewart.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” said Max Lanier in the jubilant St. Louis clubhouse. Across the way, the Brooks were as gloomy as they’d been all season.

The 1-0 loss had been like a kick in the stomach.

“It looks very much like the St. Louis Cardinals have salted away another championship,” reported . “Under the laws of pure science, it is still possible for the Brooklyn Dodgers to outstrip the Cardinals; but at this stage of the season, it seemed almost vitally necessary for them to take all three games of the series.”

It was all up to Preacher Roe now. The skinny Arkansas hillbilly identified by the Mahatma as the best pitcher in baseball had to win the nightcap or the Dodgers were done.

355 Bob Mack

***

Jackie Robinson had proved he could play in the minor leagues; now he had to prove he could play in the majors.

“He was the best ball player in the minors last year,” said one baseball man. “He has the four requisites that a big leaguer needs. Jackie can hit, run, throw, and hit with power. I don’t see how they can keep him out of a Brooklyn uniform.”

The problem was not talent--Robinson’s was abundant--but attitudes. Sixty percent of the players in the National League were southerners. The unreconstructed rebels on the Dodgers’ roster--Dixie Walker, , Kirby

Higbe, and Hugh Casey--were joined by northern redneck Carl Furillo in circulating a petition stating that they would not take the field with a black man.

“I’m not signing that,” said Kentuckian Pee Wee Reese, “no way.”

“You know what you can do with that petition? You can wipe your asses with it,” declared an angry Leo Durocher. “I don’t care if the guy is yellow or black or if he has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and if I say he plays, he plays.”

“I read that some of the boys had said some things about me,” Jackie admitted.

“I don’t know whether they really said them, but if they did, I understand how they feel, being from the South. That’s the way they were raised, and I understand it. If the Dodgers don’t want me, there would be no point in my forcing myself on them.

I am in the Dodger organization, and naturally I want to see them win. I wouldn’t want to feel that I was doing anything that would keep them from winning.”

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“Robinson will receive the fairest chance in the world,” said the Mahatma, “I want his promotion to come as a natural development. Above all else, I want the players on the Dodgers to desire his presence on the team. They will receive ample opportunity for judging him.”

Rickey had relocated the Dodgers’ training camp from Florida to Havana in order to remove stresses of the sort that the southern venues had placed on Jackie in

’46, and he was keeping him on the Montreal roster for the time being. Officially,

Rickey was leaving the decision on Jackie’s promotion up to the manager.

The Mahatma had re-hired Durocher in November, putting to rest rumors that the

Lip would reunite with Larry MacPhail as field boss of the New York Yankees.

MacPhail, back in baseball as president and part owner of the , was proving as prickly and intractable as ever. Three of his managers had quit on him during the 1946 season. He had poached Dodgers’ coaches Charley Dressen and

John Corriden, and had tried to lure announcer Red Barber into the Yankees’ broadcast booth.

“When I was in California,” Leo said, “I read that MacPhail said I had asked him for the [manager’s] job. I want to deny that. I had three telephone calls from Larry, and he told me at one time that he wouldn’t name a Yankee manager until he knew that I had concluded my business with the Brooklyn club. Previously, while in New

York, he asked me to meet him, which I did. He asked me if I had signed with Mr.

Rickey, and I told him no, but that signing a contract didn’t mean much as far as

Rickey and I were concerned. He offered me the Yankee job. I didn’t ask for it at

357 Bob Mack

any time. I want to make that clear. He offered me a longer contract and more money than I signed for here a while ago.”

The Mahatma had rewarded Leo handsomely for his work in 1946, but the Lip was still laboring under a short-term deal: “There are no bonuses, no clauses of any kind,” said Durocher. “Just a flat contract for one year. What difference does it make, one year or ten? If I don’t do a good job, Mr. Rickey won’t want me, and I won’t want to stay here. If I do a good job, I can stay as long as I want to. Mr.

Rickey has been like a father to me, and I want to manage the Dodgers the rest of my life.”

“He is the highest paid manager in baseball,” said Rickey. “Not by a little, but by a great deal, a very great deal.”

Dollars weren’t the only things making Leo happy--the Lip was in love, an unaccustomed emotion for a man whose previous idea of amore had been a fast dinner and a slow fornication. Cupid had attacked without warning during Leo’s trip to California; but even romance landed the Dodgers’ manager in hot water.

Actress Larraine Day, the object of Durocher’s desire, was inconveniently married to another. Nothing, however, was allowed to stand in the way of passion in

Hollywood, especially nothing as temporal as a previous marriage contract.

Larraine was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce in Los Angeles, obtained a

Mexican divorce in Juarez the following day, and wedded Leo in El Paso a few hours later. While the whirlwind romance spurred sales of the tabloids, the precipitate nuptials incurred the wrath of Superior Court Judge George Dockweiler, issuer of the initial divorce decree. Under California law, Larraine was still

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technically married. If she lived with Leo in California, the court advised, she could be prosecuted for bigamy.

Leo was initially contrite: “We did an impulsive thing. It was wrong. We just ask for mercy of the court. We took a chance.”

When the judge released the confidential transcript of his post-El Paso conference with the Durochers, Leo turned furious. “Dockweiler, in my opinion,” he told the press, “is a most unethical and publicity-conscious servant of the people.

It is a disgraceful situation when a supposedly holier-than-thou jurist can suggest-- as he did to my wife and myself--that we annul our marriage and her Juarez divorce, and that the court would overlook our living in sin until her interlocutory decree becomes final.”

Leo’s outburst, fumed Joseph Scott, dean of the Los Angeles bar and friend of the court, was the “most insufferable piece of effrontery I have ever encountered.”

Attorney Jerry Giesler said, “Durocher is an idol for youngsters, and if he can get away with disrespect for law and order, they may think they can too. Anyone who impugns the dignity of our courts should be given a lesson.”

“Leo Durocher,” sniped gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, “is being called ‘King

For A Day’ ‘cause he’s going to be crowned if he keeps talking back to Judge

Dockweiler.”

Leo’s antics, which now included possible contempt of court charges, had drawn the attention of Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler: “I’ll have another talk with Durocher,” he said. “I haven’t seen him since I called him into Oakland last

359 Bob Mack

fall. But I won’t move until Judge Dockweiler gives his decision. After all, I’m not the judge in a domestic relations court.”

In Brooklyn, the bluenoses began to call for Leo’s scalp. The Ridgewood

Council of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution that “deplores and condemns the conduct of Leo Durocher in the matter of his recent re-marriage as an extremely bad example to the people, and especially to the youth of our community.

The members of the council consider Leo Durocher unworthy of retaining his high and important position as manager of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball Club, and demand his removal.”

The Catholic Youth Organization of Brooklyn withdrew from Rickey’s

Knothole Club. “The present manager of the Brooklyn baseball team,” indicated

Reverend Vincent Powell, “is not the kind of leader we want for our youth to idealize and imitate.” Leo, he said, “represents a complete contradiction to our moral teachings.”

The Mahatma once again had to assure the press that Leo’s job was not in danger: “He’s the manager of the Dodgers, and is going to get the backing of the president of the Dodgers. Now that he’s in a spot, I’d go to hell and back for him.

I’d do the same for any other boy. Some people say I quote the Bible too much.

Well, I’ll quote it again: ‘Whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth.’ I don’t love Leo enough to chasen him.” Regarding Leo’s possible contempt of court and his matrimonial difficulties, Rickey remarked, “I wish he hadn’t said what he did, but I have always gone along on the idea that if two people love one another, somehow it’s going to come out all right. I want it to.”

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There was still a baseball season for which the Dodgers needed to prepare. On

February 19, Rickey and Durocher and 46 players arrived in Cuba to excited cries of “Los Dodgers estan aqui!” (The Dodgers are here!). The team was booked into the swanky Hotel Nacional de Cuba, the hub of Havana’s English speaking community. Soon, dirty gangs of flannel-wearing rowdies were trouping through the veranda, disrupting cocktail parties, and hurling profanities at each other.

Newcombe and Campanella had joined the Montreal Royals for workouts, and they were billeted with Robinson at the Hotel Boston in Old Havana. The rest of the Royals stayed in the dormitories of the Havana Military Academy.

Jackie’s status with the Dodgers was still unsettled. Leo had been non- committal on whether or even if Robinson would join the team. “I expect to see him work out with Montreal while we are here and play against the Dodgers,” the manager said, “but he isn’t on our list. He’s the property of Montreal. What if he measures up? I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“If I can’t make it with Brooklyn,” Jackie said, “it’s back to Montreal--or maybe the sticks. It’s up to me.”

The newly domesticated Durocher had forsworn junkets to the racetracks, billiard parlors, and gambling stews in which the old Leo had spent his free time, and he was vowing to follow the guidelines for clean living that Commissioner

Chandler had handed him in November.

“The commissioner told me I had done nothing wrong, nothing at all,” said Leo,

“but he said he didn’t want anything to go wrong, and suggested some of the people

I was associating with might cause something unfortunate to happen. So I’m

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staying away from everybody. It’s not so much certain fellows themselves, but you never can tell who they’re going to bring around with ‘em. So the first thing I, or some of the players, know, we’re thrown in with the kind of people that just aren’t going to do us any good. That’s why everybody--and I mean everybody--is going to be barred from the dugout, the field, and our clubhouse in Brooklyn.”

If it was a new Leo Durocher, it was the same old Larry MacPhail, and the mercurial redhead’s dander had been roused by a Durocher Says column that appeared in the March 3rd edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, in which Leo (or his ghostwriter, Harold Parrott) accused Charley Dressen of treachery and breach of contract, and said of MacPhail: “When [he] found I couldn’t be induced to manage his Yankees, he resolved to knock me, and to make life as hard as possible for me.

He added his blowhard voice to the criticism which I have been catching lately, trying to make it into a gale.”

An irate MacPhail told the press that he had made no such job offer to Durocher, and hinted that Leo had lied about it to Rickey in order to increase his leverage during his contract negotiations. The feud came to a head following the Yankees’ visit to Havana in early March. MacPhail accused the Dodgers of violating an agreement by failing to play the final game in what he contended was to have been a three-game exhibition series. Increasingly annoyed by the Yankee president’s bombast, the Mahatma charged MacPhail with hosting a pair of notorious gamblers in his box at Grand Stadium. Durocher had spotted the plungers, and said to writer

Dick Young, “Look at that. If I had those guys in my box, I’d be kicked out of baseball.”

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Asked if the two men were his guests, MacPhail responded characteristically:

“What are you, the goddamn F.B.I.?”

“I fired Charley Dressen once because of his association with one of these gamblers,” said Rickey. “If I saw these men in the Brooklyn ballpark, I would have them thrown out. Yet here they are as guests of the president of the Yankees.

Apparently, there are rules for Durocher and other rules for the rest of baseball.”

The ordure had hit the windmill. MacPhail blew his celebrated top.

“The two men referred to by Rickey may or may not have been gamblers,” he said. “It was the first time in my life I ever have seen either of them. Furthermore, they were not my guests. They were seated in the box next to mine.” He continued:

“I have reference to articles carrying Durocher’s byline and appearing in a New

York newspaper in which I am accused of threatening to run Leo out of baseball.

Neither of these statements is true in any respect. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to myself and to my colleagues to request the Commissioner to investigate the facts and determine the motives which caused such statements to be made.” As to the allegedly treacherous Charley Dressen, MacPhail said, “Both Rickey and Durocher know that he did not sign with us until I had fully discussed the matter with Rickey and found that he was free to do so.

“I have talked the matter over with President Will Harridge of the American

League. He agreed that I should take the matter up with the Commissioner. I will file formal charges as soon as I receive copies of New York newspaper columns in which [Durocher’s] charges were made. Some of [Durocher’s] charges are libelous.

If I am guilty, I deserve some punishment by the Commissioner. If Durocher and

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Rickey are guilty, they should be punished. I do not know what else our club could do. The charges are either true or false. If true, they should have been properly communicated to the Commissioner’s Office; if false, their utterance or publication constitutes slander and libel, and represents, in our opinion, conduct detrimental to baseball. We cannot allow the Brooklyn club to use us as a screen for the mess it has gotten itself into.”

Once again a controversy was disturbing the serenity of the Commissioner’s

Office, and once again, Durocher was smack in the middle of it.

“I told Larry to think it over,” said Commissioner Chandler, “and then, if he feels the same way, the matter can be taken up.”

MacPhail, who could hold a grudge as lovingly as a Sicilian, had no intention of thinking it over. He had already loaded his lupara. On the 15th, he announced that he had delivered a formal complaint to the Commissioner. Happy Chandler agreed to hold hearings, and said sourly, “Maybe it’s time Durocher decided whether he is a baseball manager or a columnist.”

Meanwhile, Leo had a ball club to put together. The latest plan was to try

Robinson out at first base.

“It’s the only infield spot we have for him,” said Durocher. “We’re all set at second with Ed Stanky--I wouldn’t bench that little guy for . Reese is a fixture at short, and we’re going with [Arky] Vaughan at third.”

“It was coincidental that Durocher had suggested a move that we in the organization already had planned, and I was glad he did,” said the Mahatma. “His idea at the time was that first base was his weak spot and that Robinson might be

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the answer.” At any event, said Rickey, “If Robinson is not brought up by midnight of the date preceding Montreal’s opening game April 17th, he will not be brought up this season.”

Jackie’s status was the subject of endless speculation, particularly in the Afro-

American press. Wendell Smith, of the Pittsburgh Courier, wrote, “One of the biggest problems confronting Robinson is becoming part of the inner faction of the

Brooklyn Dodgers. If we were compelled to take a poll to determine just how the present players feel, we would put it this way:

Eddie Stevens, First base: Definitely against Jackie, because he exists as a threat.

Eddie Stanky, Second Base: He appears to be prejudiced, but will play with him.

Pee Wee Reese, Shortstop: He will play. His attitude is not known, nor has been revealed in any way.

Arky Vaughan, Third Base: He will go along with the mob. If they want

Robinson, he will be for him. If they are against him, Vaughan will be also.

Bruce Edwards, Catcher: He is alright. Whatever Rickey says, he will do.

Gene Hermanski, Left Field: He will definitely play with a Negro.

Pete Reiser, Center Field: A great ballplayer. He will play with anyone.

Dixie Walker, Right Field: He is against Robinson, would rather have him elsewhere, but will tolerate him because he (Walker) is one of the highest paid players in the majors.

Leo Durocher, Manager: Seems to be all for Robinson. He does not care what color he is.”

365 Bob Mack

Jackie debuted at his new position in a game against the Dodgers at Panama City on St. Patrick’s Day, making 13 putouts and slashing a pair of singles in a 1-1 eight- inning tie attended by very few Irishmen.

“I’ve got a few things to learn,” Jackie said.

***

“I’d rather be commissioner of baseball than president!” Happy Chandler had once exclaimed. That was before he met Leo Durocher. Durocher had been a stone in the commissioner’s kidney ever since the ex-governor had assumed office following the death of the dictatorial Judge Landis. Leo was an overgrown juvenile delinquent who abused umpires, players, and spectators on the field, and consorted with undesirables off it. Happy had suspended him and fined him and talked to him like a big brother. Nothing had worked. Leo was incorrigible. This MacPhail thing, Happy thought, just might be the straw that snapped the dromedary’s spine.

“Somebody may wind up getting kicked out of baseball,” he told Lou Smith of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I’m taking off my kid gloves, and I intend making things tough for the baseball people who won’t toe the line and whose conduct I consider detrimental.”

The commissioner’s hearings started in Sarasota without the presence of Branch

Rickey, who was attending funeral services for his brother-in-law in Ohio. The

Mahatma had requested a postponement, but Happy was in no mood for delay. Leo presented him with one anyway, arriving an hour late on his flight from Havana.

MacPhail was first to testify, buttressing his charges with a multitude of documentary exhibits that he produced from a large folio. Then it was the debonair

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Durocher’s turn. Leo was questioned for forty-five minutes, after which he emerged into the reportorial crush with a genial, “No comment, boys, no comment.”

Dressen was next, followed by ghostwriter Harold Parrott and the witnesses: outfielder , scout Ted McGrew, Yankee owner and coach

John Corriden. A week later, the inquiry continued with the Mahatma in the dock and the feisty MacPhail demanding that the commissioner issue a statement to the press regarding what Larry considered to be the incontrovertible facts of the case, namely that he had done nothing wrong and that Leo and Rickey had.

When asked whether he had been satisfied with the hearing, Rickey said, “I didn’t go in to be satisfied or dissatisfied. Anyway, satisfied is not the word.”

Happy Chandler returned to Cincinnati to mull over the evidence. The speculation among the sporting scribes was that the commish would put the kibosh on Leo’s ghostwritten screeds in the Eagle and slap him with yet another fine.

Chandler, however, had other ideas. On April 9th, less than a week before Opening

Day, he issued his verdict:

“The incident in Havana, which brought considerable unfavorable comment to baseball generally, was one of a series of publicity-producing affairs in which

Manager Durocher has been involved in the last few months. Durocher has not measured up to the standards expected or required of managers of our baseball teams. As a result of the accumulation of unpleasant incidents in which he has been involved, which the commissioner construes as detrimental to baseball, Manager

Durocher is hereby suspended from participating in professional baseball for the

1947 season.”

367 Bob Mack

“For what?” asked a befuddled Lip, as his head bounced into the basket beneath the guillotine, “For what?”

Chandler’s decision had come as “quite a surprise” to the Mahatma. “All I can say,” he announced, “is that we will have a manager on the field when the season opens Tuesday. I have an idea who it will be, but I can’t tell you now.” Would the

Dodgers appeal the suspension? “To whom? There would be no one to take it to except the commissioner.”

In Flatbush, the Faithful were as stunned as Leo. “Moider,” said one, “dat’s what it is, moider.”

“With Lippy gone,” said another, “I think I’ll leave Brooklyn.”

“Mighty funny business,” opined a third. “MacPhail was the guy that got

Chandler his job.”

Wrote columnist in the Washington Post: “Commissioner

Chandler leaves Durocher in foul shape. He’s out of baseball for a year, he can’t write for the newspapers, and in California he can’t live with his wife.”

“Well,” said Phillies’ outfielder Del Ennis, “at least we can go to Brooklyn now without getting knocked down.”

Even MacPhail seemed surprised at the harshness of Leo’s sentence, although the gag order imposed by the commissioner made it hard to determine.

“I didn’t know there was any hearing on Durocher,” said the Yankee boss,

“except whether he wrote the column to which I objected. I may have some very strong and decided personal feelings in the matter. If so, I’m prevented from expressing them except through baseball channels.”

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With the Brooklyn chain of command in sudden disarray, the Mahatma appointed Clyde Sukeforth as interim manager, and began casting about for a replacement for Leo, who had already departed for the Left Coast to commiserate with his bride.

“I didn’t expect he would leave town so soon,” said the Mahatma with a touch of pique. “I left the picking of the team up to Leo more than in other years. We have a great squad, but no definite team. I’m very much puzzled where it should be cut.

We still have 19 pitchers around. I need someone to tell me the 12 who will pitch for us.”

On the 11th, the boys in the press box at Ebbets Field received a brief, typewritten announcement from the Dodgers’ president that remedied at least one of the roster problems in Flatbush: “The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson from the Montreal Royals.”

Jackie’s major league debut against the Boston Braves on April 15th was uneventful except for the fact that it happened at all. The hero of the day was Pete

Reiser, whose two-run double off Johnny Sain in the seventh inning won the game for the Dodgers, 5-3. Robinson had handled first base flawlessly (“He learns,” said

Stanky. “You don’t have to tell him twice.”), but had gone hitless in three trips to the plate. Robinson had already noted a difference in the pitching between

Brooklyn and Montreal. “Big league pitchers are smarter,” he said.

He had, he said, encountered “very little antagonism. I really expected a great deal more. The Brooklyn team has been wonderful, and I guess now it’s all up to me.”

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Robinson collected his first big league hit, a bunt single, in the Dodgers’ second game of the season, won by the Brooks, 12-6. Reluctant skipper Sukeforth, with a perfect 2-0 record, retired undefeated from the managerial ranks prior to game #3.

“Burton Edwin Shotton,” the Mahatma announced two hours before the start of the game at the Polo Grounds, “has accepted the management of the Brooklyn

Dodgers, and will take charge of the team today.”

“It was a complete surprise to me,” confessed the gray-haired old gentleman who, in topcoat and fedora, looked more like a country veterinarian visiting a horse than the field boss of a major league baseball team. “Mr. Rickey wired me at my home in Bartow, Florida last night and told me to fly to New York for a conference.

When I arrived this morning, I asked him, ‘What’s this all about?’ Then he offered me the Dodger job and I took it. ‘You know the way to the Polo Grounds,’ Branch said. ‘Take my car and drive over there. Good luck--I’ve got an appointment downtown.’ You just don’t resist Branch Rickey. Somehow, he manages to do all the talking.

“I haven’t any contract. I’m just here. I haven’t had a contract in all the years

I’ve held jobs with Mr. Rickey as a player, manager, or coach, so I didn’t think it necessary to bother about one now. I guess I’m the only one on the club that doesn’t know how much money he’s getting.

“I won’t put on a uniform. That’s part of the deal. I took it off for the last time several years ago.” Burt Shotton touched the brim of his pearl-gray hat as if to reassure himself. “As soon as I think I know something about the club and can help, I’ll start to work. Until then, I’ll just watch.”

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Commented sportswriter Tom Meany: “The Dodgers are now being managed by a guy in a topcoat. That’s only one step removed from the perfect costume, which is a straitjacket.”

The debut of Burt Shotton as Brooklyn manager ended the Dodgers’ brief two- game winning streak. Robinson lined his first major league home run into the short seats in left, but Brooklyn pitchers surrendered six round-trippers to the Giants in a

10-4 drubbing. The Dodgers lost again the next afternoon then won 8 of their next

9 games before dropping a pair to the Cardinals. Mr. and Mrs. Leo Durocher had attended the series opener against the Redbirds as guests of Branch Rickey. Before the game, the skipper-in-exile leaned across the dugout roof and shook hands with the caretaker manager. The Faithful roared their approval.

Rumors had been rampant that Cardinals’ players, instigated by Country

Slaughter, were planning to strike rather than appear on the playing field with

Robinson. The Cardinals’ rank and file denied that any job action had been discussed, but NL President Ford Frick had taken the chatter seriously enough to threaten to suspend all the strikers “if it wrecks the league for five years.”

“I didn’t have to talk to the players myself,” Frick said. “Mr. Breadon did the talking to them. From what Breadon told me afterward, the trouble was smoothed over. I don’t know what he said to them, who the ringleader was, or any other details.”

Singing Sam denied that there was any trouble at all. “They’re always starting something about us,” he said. “The Cardinals are a club that minds its own business.”

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“We don’t like Robinson,” admitted St. Louis shortstop Marty Marion, “but then we don’t like anyone on their team.”

By the end of May, the Dodgers were tied for third place with the Braves, two games behind the Giants, while the defending champion Cardinals had inexplicably slipped into the basement, 7 games back of the pack. Shotton and Robinson were holding their own. Neither man had set the league on fire. Jackie was hitting a pedestrian .264 with only 7 RBI and 4 steals, and the Brooks under the Old

Sourdough were 18-17, a game above the break-even point. Jackie was leading the league in one category--number of times hit by a pitch.

Robinson’s transition to the Big Show had gone neither as smoothly as the

Mahatma had hoped, nor as poorly as he had feared. The worst of the receptions had been in the City of Brotherly Love, where Alabama-born Phillies’ manager Ben

Chapman had instructed his players to greet the new Dodger with old style southern hospitality so virulent that Jimmy Cannon of the New York Post reported that

Robinson was “the loneliest man I have ever seen in sports.”

Phillies’ pitcher Ken Raffensberger said, “Chapman made the statement to us pitchers that any time we had two strikes on Robinson, if we didn't knock him down or get close to him it was a $50 fine. I told Chapman I never threw at a guy in my life and I'm not throwing at one now.”

“Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers,” the Mahatma said.

“When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united

30 men. He created in Robinson’s behalf a thing called sympathy--the most unifying word in the world. The word has a Greek origin. It means to suffer. To

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say, ‘I sympathize with you’ is to say ‘I suffer with you.’ That is what Chapman did. He caused men like Stanky to suffer with Robinson, and he made this Negro a real member of the Dodgers.”

Jackie did his best to ignore the taunts. He was, Del Ennis reported, humming and singing to himself at first base.

“What was he singing?” asked Chapman.

“Alabama Lullaby.”

In Cincinnati, both Robinson and Reese received anonymous death threats before the first series at Crosley Field--who knew, they might have even come from the Reds.

“I was warming up on the mound,” said Rex Barney, “and I could hear the

Cincinnati players screaming at Jackie, ‘You nigger, you shoeshine boy,’ and all the rest, and they started to get on Pee Wee. They were yelling at him, ‘How can you play with this nigger,’ and all this stuff. And while Jackie was standing by first base, Pee Wee went over to him and put his arm around him as if to say, ‘This is my boy. This is the guy. We’re gonna win with him.’ Well, it drove the Cincinnati players right through the ceiling, and you could hear the gasp from the crowd as he did it.”

“A lot of local blacks were rooting for us until Robinson came up,” recalled

Johnny Vander Meer, the Reds starting and winning pitcher. “When Robinson came up they rooted for Robinson.”

Rickey had already begun the process of trading away the Dodgers’ cadre of

Dixie malcontents. Kirby Higbe, the team’s leading pitcher in ’46 with a 17-8

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mark, was first to go, packaged with minor leaguers Homer Howell, ,

Cal McLish, and Hank Behrman, and shipped to the Pirates in mid-May for outfielder and a bundle of cash.

“I don’t believe that Kirby would have been better than a .500 pitcher for us this year,” explained the Mahatma.

“If I didn’t think it was a good deal,” agreed Burt Shotton, “it wouldn’t have been made. It was a good deal--but when did Rickey ever make a bad one?”

In June, Robinson started to hit, but Pete Reiser had run into another wall, and

Dixie Walker was hurting. The injuries forced the Old Sourdough into using some of his kids in the lineup. Young Duke Snider played center, Gene Hermanski and

Carl Furillo platooned in left, and newcomer Al Gionfriddo took over in right.

Behind the plate, Bruce Edwards had developed a sore arm, so 23-year old catcher

Gil Hodges donned the mislabeled “tools of ignorance”. The Mahatma had another backstop--Roy Campanella--in Montreal, but had decided to leave him there.

“Campanella definitely will not be brought up to the Dodgers this year,” Rickey said, “and maybe never.” He would reach the majors “only through established ability.”

By Independence Day, Jackie had raised his average to .312 and the Brooks, at

41-30, had taken over first place, a game ahead of the Braves. It was Burt Shotton’s team now, but most people still considered it Durocher’s--including Leo. The Old

Sourdough, said the Lip, was “a great guy, but I know for a fact that he doesn’t want to manage the Dodgers--he doesn’t want to wear the uniform.”

“No comment,” said Shotton.

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Happy Chandler had given his blessing for Leo’s return in 1948: “When a man serves his time in the penitentiary, they set him free, don’t they?”

But no one knew whether the Mahatma was hiring ex-cons.

By mid-August, the National League race had devolved into another battle between the Dodgers and the Cardinals, Rickey’s new boys and his old. The

Redbirds had started the month by winning 11 of their first 12 to climb back into the race, but were still 4½ games behind as they arrived at Ebbets Field on the 18th.

St. Louis split the series. They had spent most of their time stomping on

Robinson’s feet. Ducky Joe Medwick, playing out the string with his old club, bruised Jackie’s right instep while running out a ground ball in the first game;

Crusty Country Slaughter spiked the same foot in the eleventh inning of the last.

The latter wound was not severe enough to cause Jackie to leave the game, but it drew blood, and the Dodgers thought that the southern-born Redbird had inflicted it intentionally.

“I always had the highest regard for Slaughter as a clean competitor,” said

Stanky, “ but I’ve lost all my respect for him.”

“All I know,” said Robinson, “is that I had my foot on the inside of the bag. I gave him plenty of room.”

“Slaughter never lets up, win, lose or draw,” commented his old manager Burt

Shotton. The Old Sourdough considered Country Boy to be the greatest player in the National League. “He is a fighter, a grand guy.”

The Cardinals denied any malice aforethought. Eddie Dyer claimed to have instructed his players to be careful while playing the Dodgers so there would be no

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chance of incidents. “Not once this year has Robinson even had to duck a ball thrown by one of my pitchers,” he said, “so you can be sure that it was an accident when Enos spiked him.”

Slaughter sourly pointed out that Robinson was a rookie at an unfamiliar position and his feet weren’t always where they were supposed to be. “Ah’ve nevah delibahtly spiked anyone in my life,” he drawled. “Anybody who does doesn’t belong in baseball. Ah hope it tisn’t serious.”

The next afternoon in Philadelphia, Country Boy cracked skulls with shortstop

Bernie Creger while chasing a pop fly, and finished the day in Temple Hospital with a cerebral concussion. In Brooklyn, the spikings continued, but the victims changed. Furillo, Stanky, and Reese were carved up on the basepaths by run-amuck

Reds in revenge for an earlier altercation between Pete Reiser and Cincinnati pitcher Ewell Blackwell. Pee Wee was helped from the field after being cut by Bert

Haas, his shoe filling with blood from a punctured artery in his foot. Baseball was war, and the Durocher men on the bench weren’t sure that Shotton had the stomach to win it.

“Haas went out of his way to get me!” fumed Reese. “I was on the other side of the bag!”

The Old Sourdough shrugged. “He went in to break up a double play. What more is there to say?”

The Dodgers, said ex-Bum and current Red Augie Galan, were “crybabies. If they can’t take it, they shouldn’t play that way.”

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Heading into the stretch, the Brooklyn lead was decent, but, as always, the pitching was skimpy. Branca, at 18-9, was the staff ace, and Oakland Joe had notched a dozen wins; but Generalissimo Rickey wanted additional weapons.

There were many arms dealers, but not many arms. After scouring the minors and coming up empty, the Mahatma thought he had finally found a live one throwing to the 12-bar Beale Street blues that wafted over Martin Park in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dan Bankhead, ace hurler for the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American

League, had compiled a .667 winning percentage in fifteen decisions before owner

Bee Bee Martin decided he would rather have Rickey’s $15,000 than Bankhead’s ten victories. Consequently, Shotton shook hands with his new moundsman on the

26th at Ebbets Field.

“I’m certainly glad to see a pitcher,” he said. “When did you last work in

Memphis?”

“Friday.”

“You’ll find that’s a long rest for a Dodger.”

Bankhead became the first Negro to pitch in the major leagues when Shotton tossed him into action after the Pirates shelled Brooklyn starter from the mound in the opening inning of Tuesday’s game. He also became only the 11th player in baseball history to homer in his first big league at-bat; but the right-hander was being paid to throw the ball, not hit it, and the quality of his pitching was more suitable for batting practice than game conditions. He lasted only 3 1/3 innings.

Jackie Robinson’s new roommate blamed his lackluster debut on overwork in

Memphis:

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“Why, for the last two weeks, I was pitching every day--starting three times a week and pitching relief the other days. Naturally, I’m disappointed by my start-- but I’m down to 170 pounds.”

Major league rosters expanded on the first of September. The Mahatma recalled

Duke Snider from St. Paul. The stresses of the pennant race seemed to unhinge a holiday mob of the Faithful, who were dispersed by riot police outside of Ebbets

Field before a morning/afternoon Labor Day doubleheader with the Phillies.

“Come right on out and see the morning game. There will be plenty of good seats,” Red Barber had cheerfully told his audience on Sunday. On Monday, the lines began to queue up in front of the marble rotunda at 5 a.m.

“We sold 27,000 tickets between 9 and 10 o’clock,” said Dodgers’ business manager Jack Collins in astonishment.

“It was an unprecedented turnout,” said the Mahatma, “and I deeply regret that we were unable to handle it properly.”

Almost 64,000 people had paid to watch the Brooks split the twinbill by identical 5-0 scores. Pennant fever had reached epidemic stage in Flatbush, and was spreading beyond the Borough. The Sporting News named Jackie Robinson the

Rookie of the Year for 1947. Wrote the editor of the self-proclaimed Bible of

Baseball: “Robinson was rated solely as a freshman player in the big leagues--on the basis of his hitting, his running, his defensive play, his team value. The sociological experiment that Robinson represented, the trail-blazing he did, the barriers he broke down, did not enter into the decision.”

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Jackie was deserving of the award, agreed Burt Shotton. Robinson, he said, was a “high class fellow--a great player. He has improved more than any player on the

Brooklyn club.”

During the season’s last set-to between the Dodgers and the Cardinals in St.

Louis, the Redbirds continued their habit of spiking the Rookie of the Year at every opportunity. Catcher Joe Garagiola clipped Robinson’s instep in the second inning of the opening game, leading to a heated exchange between the two during Jackie’s at-bat in the third. Home plate umpire separated the players and ran coach Clyde Sukeforth back into the dugout.

“I don’t think Garagiola did it intentionally,” Robinson said, “but this makes three times in two games with the Cardinals that it’s happened.”

Nursing a sore foot and a yen for payback, Jackie batted .462 for the series, collecting 6 hits in 13 at-bats, including a home run, a double, and his 26th stolen base. The Dodgers captured two of the three games, and effectively eliminated the

Cardinals from the race.

On the 14th, Oakland Joe won both ends of a doubleheader in Cincinnati to put the Dodgers 7 games up with 15 to play. The team returned home on the 19th to an unexpected reception at Pennsylvania Station by a few thousand of the Faithful.

Temporarily trapped in a telephone booth, Robinson required the assistance of a dozen members of the local constabulary to escape his admirers and bolt down a convenient subway entrance.

As the clock neared midnight on the 22nd, most of the idle Dodgers were relaxing in Hugh Casey’s Steak and Chop House on Flatbush Avenue when catcher

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Bobby Bragan catapulted from a kiosk, and shouted, “We’re in! It’s all over!” The

Cubs had beaten the Cardinals 6-3 in St. Louis, and Brooklyn had clinched the flag.

“It was a team victory by a hustling young ball club,” said Burt Shotton. “After my first week on the job, I called the boys together in the dressing room, and told

‘em they could win in spite of me. I didn’t want ‘em to get the notion that by my taking Durocher’s place, I’d fouled everything up for them. I wanted ‘em to think they could win without a manager, and they responded splendidly.”

“When I joined Brooklyn in 1943, I promised our followers that I would give them a winner within five years,” gushed the Mahatma. “I’m so pleased, I don’t know what to say. I like this ball club of Shotton’s. Everybody has done a great job. I’m pleased with my manager, I’m pleased with my coaches, and I’m pleased with my players. In fact, I’m pleased with everything in the world tonight. This has been a great victory. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed winning a flag as much as this one.”

So it was going to be the Dodgers against the Yankees in another , and the smart money was once again on the Bombers, as it usually always was, except in Brooklyn. In Los Angeles, the Once and Future manager and Mrs.

Durocher picked the Dodgers to win, then began their journey to the East to attend the tournament. In New York, the teams engaged in obligatory chest-beatings for the benefit of the press.

“You can say that we’re not worrying about the Dodgers,” said Yankee skipper

Bucky Harris, last sighted in the post-season during the presidency of Calvin

Coolidge. “Let them worry about us.”

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Shotton, who had never been sighted in the post-season at all, said, “Everybody picked the Cardinals to win the pennant, didn’t they? Well, who finished first?”

The Bombers professed to be unconcerned about the Old Sourdough’s larcenous, bunt–and-run offense. The Dodgers had recorded more singles and stolen bases than any team in the National League, but had been outhomered by every club except Chicago and Philadelphia.

“Nobody has ever won by bunting,” Harris pointed out, “especially against a team that can hit away like we do.”

“I know all about Robinson,” said freshman catcher Larry “Yogi” Berra. “We know when he’s going to run, and when he’s going to bunt. I played against him when I was with the Newark club in the International League. [He] never stole a base against me. He tried twice, but each time I nabbed him.”

“I wish [Berra] was catching in the National League,” retorted Jackie. “I’d steal sixty bases on him.”

The splendidly attired Durochers arrived in New York from Hollywood and were greeted by the usual gaggle of paparazzi. The Dodgers, according to Mr. and

Mrs. D, were a better team than the Bombers. “The Yankees may have an edge in power in the outfield,” said Leo, “but at all other positions, they’re even. Sure,

Spec Shea and are good pitchers--but so are Ralph Branca, Joe

Hatten, and Vic Lombardi.” Leo said he would not meet with his former players prior to the Series. “Shotton did all right without any speeches from me, didn’t he?”

381 Bob Mack

On the 26th, the Faithful turned out en masse to salute their heroes as they paraded down Flatbush Avenue. The National League pennant was hoisted in front of Borough Hall, where four years earlier, the Mahatma had dangled in effigy; and

President John Cashmore presented each of the players with an engraved watch.

Pee Wee Reese blew a kiss to the crowd, and Dixie Walker said, “We’ve won two pennants for you now, but never a World’s Series. However, I think we’re going to do that this time.”

Bucky Harris had named rookie Frank “Spec” Shea (14-5) as his Game One starter. Shotton was being as close-mouthed about his choice as a kid taking his sister to the prom, but everyone knew it was going to be 21-game winner Ralph

Branca.

“I don’t want to announce my opening game pitcher,” said the Dodgers’ skipper.

“Everybody will know who he is when he starts warming up.”

The Series opened in the cavernous Bronx ballyard where once the mighty Babe had reigned. Now, gray headed and frail, Ruth was watching from the stands, as was the cantankerous Tyrus Cobb, and sourpussed Rogers Hornsby. Enough people showed up for the first game to fill Ebbets Field twice over. Branca felt like he had seen a tombstone with his name on it. He was barely old enough to drink and there were 73,000 strangers howling for his scalp. The kid’s nervousness did not go unnoticed by the Yankees’ hitters, who studied pitchers the way vultures studied ailing rabbits. Branca wore number 13 on his jersey, in honor of the 13 members of his family, but for the first time in his career, he wished he were flashing a different set of digits.

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The word around the league was that Branca tended to implode with men on base. This was a malady not uncommon among the eccentric major league hurling society, particularly the younger members. Pitching from the stretch was like sleeping on an unfamiliar bed--some fellows just weren’t comfortable in it. They liked the power of the full windup, liked catapulting the ball to the plate off their levering back legs as if it was a bucket full of Greek Fire. They hated interruptions in the fluidity of their motion because of arbitrary rules designed to advantage their opponents.

Every player handled World’s Series’ pressure differently. It was easier if they had been there before, like Reiser and Reese and Dixie Walker and hard-luck Hugh

Casey.

“There is no substitute for experience,” noted the Mahatma, “just as there is no substitute for youth.”

Branca was pale and sweating. Reese was enjoying himself, the big crowd as exhilarating to him as salt air to a mariner. Stanky and Robinson were red-assed, hating the aristocratic Yankees and their condescending fans and the big triple- decked ballpark that made them feel like Christians awaiting a lion.

In the first inning with one out, Robinson walked on a 3-2 pitch. Berra had said he would know when Jackie was going to run, but knowing and throwing were two different affairs. Jackie jittered off the bag, still rankled by the catcher’s pre-game big mouth, and took off on Shea’s second pitch to Reiser. Yogi’s throw one-hopped second baseman George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss. Jackie had beaten Berra’s arm anyway, and the Dodgers had a man in scoring position. Reiser tapped a curve back

383 Bob Mack

to the mound. Shea alertly threw to shortstop , and the overly aggressive Robinson was trapped in no man’s land. Juking and dodging, Jackie stayed in the rundown until Reiser reached second. Two outs. Dixie Walker popped a clutch single to left, and Pistol Pete shot home with the first run of the

Series. Brooklyn 1, New York 0.

Nervous or not, Branca overpowered the Yankees in the first and second innings, six up and six down. Robinson walked again in the third. His antics were clearly rattling Shea. The Yankee pitcher threw to McQuinn at first four times, then dropped the ball on the fifth. Robinson went to second on the balk, the first Shea had ever committed.

“We’ve got to keep that guy off the bases,” muttered Bucky Harris.

It was easier to concentrate when Robinson was somewhere he couldn’t be seen, and Shea got Reiser on a fly to right that Henrich caught on the run near the foul line for the third out.

Branca was on a roll, blowing the Yankees away as if he was shooting skeet. He fanned Lindell and Shea in the third, and Stirnweiss and Berra in the fourth. Bucky

Harris counseled patience, aware of Branca’s fatal flaw. The Bombers hadn’t put a man aboard yet, but DiMaggio was coming up for the second time to open the fifth.

Joltin’ Joe, the Yankee Clipper, had played nine seasons in the big leagues, and had appeared in the post-season in seven of them. DiMag and the Yanks owned

October--other clubs only rented it. DiMaggio was so consistently good that the public thought him immune to the pressures and doubts that racked normal players.

Joe never let his fans see him chain-smoking Camels in the runway behind the

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dugout, his fingernails chewed to the quick, and his stomach clenching and unclenching like a teamster’s fist.

DiMaggio knew he was going to get fastballs from Branca. The kid had been throwing the heater past everybody so far; but these were the Yankees, not a bunch of humpty-dumpty National Leaguers--and a ballgame was nine innings long. The same stuff that had gotten DiMaggio out in the second was not going to get him out again. Joe took a pitch high then cracked one so hard to shortstop that it scared

Reese half to death. Pee Wee knocked the ball down in self-defense, but DiMag was on, and now Branca had to pitch from the stretch.

DiMaggio’s hit had opened a gap in Branca’s fragile confidence. The Clipper hadn’t even stepped into the pitch. He had swung flatfooted from his spread out stance, and had ripped the ball so viciously that Branca couldn’t believe it. 37-year old first baseman George McQuinn was up next, swinging from the left side.

McQuinn had batted .304 during the season, had whacked 13 homers, not an easy out. Nursing a one-run lead, Branca started to nibble. He lost McQuinn on four pitches. Third baseman stepped into the box. Branca’s first pitch hit him on the left wrist. Bases loaded and nobody out. Stanky and Robinson went over to try and settle down their skittish pitcher, but Branca was like a horse that smelled smoke in the stable. was up, a lifetime .273 hitter with middling power. Branca had struck him out in the third, but now he was throwing scared, aiming his pitches, and Lindell lined a nothing fastball into the left field corner for a double and a 2-1 New York lead. Little Phil Rizzuto’s turn, the number

8 batter, as pesky as a cloud of gnats. Phil was a singles hitter, had only struck 11

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home runs in four seasons, so Branca could go right after him, but he didn’t.

Rizzuto worked a five-pitch walk, and the bases were reloaded. Bucky Harris sent

“Doctor” , the Bombers’ off-season medical student, out to pinch-hit for Shea. Branca’s first two pitches were nowhere close to the zone. He had blown skyhigh, and the Old Sourdough had no choice but to send Sukeforth out to get him.

Henry Behrman, the Night Owl, returned to Brooklyn from the Pirates earlier in the season, strode in from the bullpen, and tossed two more balls to Brown. New York

3, Brooklyn 1. Stirnweiss bounced to Robinson, who got the force out at the plate, but “Old Reliable” Tommy Henrich hit an opposite field single, and two more New

York runs scored. New York 5, Brooklyn 1. Lefty , the high-living

Yankee relief specialist, came on for Shea, surrendered single tallies in the sixth and seventh, then stopped the Brooks for good in the eighth and ninth. The Yankees had won the opener.

“Branca made it easy for us,” said Bucky Harris. “That first victory is a big one.

You can’t minimize the edge it gives you. They have to win four now. We don’t.”

Game Two produced the kind of October breakdown familiar to the Faithful from 1941--seltzer bottle and funny nose ineptness that gave rise to whisperings that maybe the Dodgers don’t belong here; that maybe they just don’t have what it takes; that maybe they’re chokers.

Former flychaser deluxe Pete Reiser stumbled around the shadowy center field expanses of like a drunkard in search of a light switch, misplaying three easy chances into triples. Stanky dropped a throw and mistimed a leap;

Robinson had a bunt rattle off his shins; Hermanski, Reese, and Reiser allowed a

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popup to drop between them for a double; and Behrman and Barney tossed wild pitches. Everything the Dodgers didn’t drop or bungle seemed to fall in, except for

Henrich’s fly ball, which went over the fence. Yanks: 10 runs, 15 hits, 1 error;

Dodgers: 3 runs, 9 hits, 2 errors.

“I don’t feel good about this,” said the Old Sourdough.

Down two games to none, the Dodgers had put themselves in a must-win situation. They couldn’t afford to lose again--no team had ever rallied from an 0-3 deficit to win a World’s Series--but now they were back at Ebbets Field, where anything could happen.

The usual mob of zanies shoehorned into the Flatbush ballyard on Thursday, raucous rooters and raspy grandstand managers who chewed cigar butts, hollered at players, and recorded the day’s events in pencil on a ten cent scorecard--a mildly demented audience that bore little resemblance to the restrained commuter crowds that had attended the games in the Bronx.

Shorty Laurice’s Sym-Phoney Band tootled through the bleachers, wending their dissonant way to Durocher’s box, where they welcomed the ex-skipper with an off- key serenade. Yankees’ starting pitcher Bobo Newsome, making his first Ebbets

Field appearance since his antics had precipitated the players strike against Leo in

1943, was greeted with the usual round of catcalls and raspberries. Edwards,

Stanky, and Furillo chased him from the mound with second inning doubles sandwiched around singles by Reese, Hatten, and Robinson, keying a 6-run outburst that the Bombers could not overcome despite a two-run homer by DiMaggio and a solo shot by Berra, the latter blow the first pinch homer in Series’ history. Hugh

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Casey tossed two innings of shutout ball, and the Brooks hung on to win, 9-8. The victory renewed the flagging hopes of the Dodgers and their fans. They had proved that the Yankees were not invincible. It was possible to dream again. A win tomorrow would even the Series. After that, who knew?

Game Four was, as Red Barber said, a “doozy”.

“Don’t bother writing about it,” advised a nearly speechless pressbox denizen after the improbable climax, “because no one will believe you anyway.”

There had never been a Series’ game like the one pitched by Yankees’ hurler

Floyd “Bill” Bevens. Bevens’ 1947 campaign had been disappointing. He had compiled a 7-13 record for a Yankees’ team that had finished 97-57. With Bevens on the mound during the regular season, the Yankees’ winning percentage had been worse than that of the last place Browns. The big right-hander from the Pacific

Northwest was the last player anyone would have expected to enter the ninth inning of his first post-season game three outs away from a no-hitter.

Bevens had been wild from the outset, his hitless masterpiece marred by eight bases on balls. He had allowed a fifth inning run to score on a ground out by Reese following walks to Spider Jorgensen and pitcher Hal Gregg and a sacrifice bunt by

Stanky; still, a no-hit game, blemished or not, was something no other moundsman in the history of the Fall Classic had ever been able to accomplish.

“His curve ball breaks like a slider,” explained Gregg. “He keeps it outside, and he keeps his fast ball inside, way inside.”

Catcher Bruce Edwards was the first Dodger up in the bottom of the ninth. With the Yanks leading by only a single run, 2-1, Edwards was looking for a pitch he

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could drive. He got into one, a long fly ball that sent Lindell back to the left field fence before it dropped into his glove like a dead pigeon. Furillo was next, and he drew a walk, the ninth of the game by Wild Bill, tying a 39-year old Series’ mark set by of the old Philadelphia Athletics. Jorgensen, oh for one with a pair of free tickets, lifted an easy foul fly to first baseman McQuinn. Shotton sent

Reiser out to bat for Hugh Casey, and replaced Furillo at first with the speedier

Gionfriddo. Reiser, hobbled by an ankle sprain incurred while lurching after baseballs in Game Three, could not run, but he could still hit. Gionfriddo could always run, but he could never hit. Bevens ran the count on Reiser to two balls and a strike. Shotton flashed the steal sign. Gionfriddo stumbled, then took off at a gallop and flung himself headlong into the second base bag. Safe. The Dodgers had the tying run in scoring position.

“I slipped when I started my break,” said the diminuitive former Pirate. “I thought I was a dead duck with that lost step. I know I would have been out had

Berra’s throw not been high.”

The Dodgers had swiped 4 bases in 4 tries with Yogi behind the plate. The rookie was no longer bragging about his arm.

The count was 3-1 on Reiser. Bucky Harris decided to walk him. “I know it’s against baseball legend to put the winning run on base, but who would you rather pitch to--Reiser or Stanky? And remember, Brooklyn is out of lefthanded pinch- hitters.”

On the Dodgers’ bench, the Old Sourdough motioned to 34-year old Harry

Arthur “Cookie” Lavagetto as Reiser limped to first.

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“Want me to run for Pete?”

“No. I want you to hit.”

“What?”

Cookie had batted only 69 times during the season.

“I want you to hit for Stanky.”

The skipper turned to Eddie Miksis. “Run for Reiser,” he said.

Lavagetto shouldn’t even have been there. The Mahatma had urged him to retire after the ’46 season. Cookie had looked old, his legs had lost their bounce, and

Rickey needed a manager in Greenville. Lavagetto demurred.

“I think I still have some big league baseball in me,” he said. He hit a 3-run exhibition homer against the Yankees before the season opened, and made the club.

Bevens got ready to pitch. Lavagetto had averaged .261 during the year with a double and three home runs. He had a good eye, had walked 12 times, but this was no time to be selective. He was planning on swinging at anything close to the zone.

The first pitch was a fastball down the middle. Cookie missed it. Strike one.

Bevens threw another fastball, high and outside. Lavagetto went with the pitch, and belted it on a line to deep right. With two outs, Gionfriddo and Miksis were running on contact. Henrich turned and sprinted for the wall.

“There were two things Henrich could do,” explained Dixie Walker. “One was to go back to the fence, gamble on a jump, and try and save the no-hitter. If he lost on the gamble, he’d lost everything. The other was to go back, catch the bounce off the fence, and hold Miksis on third base and Lavagetto on first. That would lose the

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no-hitter and let in the tying run, but it would temporarily save the game and leave the score tied at 2-2.”

Henrich did neither. He got to within eight feet of the wall. The ball caromed off the concrete, hit him in the chest, and rolled to the ground. Gionfriddo scored and

Miksis was rounding third. Henrich picked the ball up and fired it to McQuinn.

The first baseman caught it, and turned just in time to see Miksis touch home. The

Dodgers’ only hit had beaten the Yankees.

Ebbets Field erupted. It was the greatest baseball game anybody had ever seen.

Bill Bevens trudged slowly off the field amidst the bedlam, two strikes short of immortality, a suddenly forgotten man.

“Ya know, I feel sorry for that guy,” said Pee Wee Reese.

“I suppose some of the boys will question my judgment in ordering that intentional pass,” mused Bucky Harris.

With the Series unexpectedly evened, the Old Sourdough gave Dodgers’ fans their own fodder for the second guess when he decided to send 22-year old Rex

Barney to the mound for the pivotal fifth game. Barney hadn’t started since the

Fourth of July, and had thrown only 78 innings all season, fashioning a 5-2 record in 28 outings; moreover, he had control issues, walking almost 7 batters per game.

It was a risky, some said foolhardy, selection, but Shotton was more audacious than he looked, had a penchant for the unexpected, and besides, Barney could throw the ball 100 miles an hour. Bucky Harris countered with Spec Shea, and replaced the defenseless Yogi Berra with the out of favor veteran Aaron Robinson. Before the

Series, Harris had said of Robinson, “he will never catch another game for me.”

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While organist Gladys Gooding honored yesterday’s hero by playing “I’m Just

Wild About Harry” at every opportunity, and public address announcer Tex Rickard admonished the Faithful to “Please remove all wearing apparel. From the box seat railings”, the Dodgers searched unsuccessfully for their mislaid batting strokes and

Barney rummaged about in vain for the strike zone. The Brooks were hitless for half the game. Barney walked nine Yankees, and tossed a wild pitch. Bruce

Edwards was charged with two passed balls on pitches that were only marginally catchable. The third time through the order, DiMaggio cracked one of Barney’s infrequent strikes for his second home run of the Series. Rex was routed before the end of the fifth, having tried unsuccessfully to equal the record for wildness that

Bevens had established only one day earlier. Shea buckled down and pitched out of trouble in the sixth and seventh, and , having used up his allotment of miracles, struck out with the tying run on second in the ninth inning.

New York 2, Brooklyn 1. The Dodgers were one game short of extinction.

“I wanted to square what they did to Bev yesterday,” said Frank Shea.

So the Bums were heading back to the house of horrors in the Bronx where they faced the daunting task of winning two in a row. The bookmakers did not like their chances. The betting line was 3-1 in favor of the Yanks to take the Series, and 8-5 that they would do it in six games. The Bombers had outhit the Brooks .271 to

.212, outscored them 27-19, outhomered them 4-1, outpitched them 3.92 to 5.44, and outfielded them .989 to .963. The Dodgers had outswiped the Yanks 7 to 1, but baseball’s rules would not allow the theft of first base. The Old Sourdough was still

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smiling, but demurred when asked what he thought about his club’s prospects of winning.

“You ask the darnedest questions,” he said.

A short series can produce unlikely heroes, unexpected flarings of talent that people long remembered because there was no failure-filled season that followed to make them forget. The tragic Bevins and the gallant Lavagetto had etched their names into memory with their Game Four performances; now anonymous Al

Gionfriddo would join them, robbing baseball’s best player of a home run and saving the Dodgers with the unlikeliest catch in World’s Series history.

Trailing 5-4 in Game Six and fighting for their lives, the Brooks had staged a four-run rally in the top of the sixth inning to take an 8-5 lead. In the bottom half, with two Yankees on base and two outs, Joe DiMaggio stepped to the plate to face

Joe Hatten. Hatten was a good pitcher, but DiMaggio was a great hitter. Oakland

Joe tossed a fat one into DiMaggio’s wheelhouse, and the Yankee Clipper jumped on it.

“I tagged a fastball, and it was going,” said DiMaggio. “It was harder hit than either of those home runs in Brooklyn.”

Eddie Miksis had been playing left, but he had had problems in the sunfield, misplaying a ball an inning earlier; when the Dodgers regained the lead, Shotton placed a legitimate flychaser out there--Gionfriddo.

The impossibly distant left center field in Yankee Stadium was nicknamed

“Death Valley” because of the thousands of fly balls that had spent their last

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moments there. DiMaggio’s drive was headed far into the cavernous expanse. In the radio booth, Red Barber described what he saw:

"Swing--and belted to deep left-center! Back goes Gionfriddo! Back, back, back, back, back, back--he makes a one-handed catch against the bullpen! Whoaaahhhh, doctor!"

Rounding second, the normally imperturbable DiMaggio kicked the dirt in disgust.

“That’s the greatest catch I’ve ever seen,” said former Giant Bill Terry, the last man in the National League to have batted .400.

“When [DiMaggio] came up,” said Little Al, “I knew if he hit a homer, it would tie the game, so all I thought about was catching that ball. I ran back about a hundred feet, I guess. It was against the wall. The boys in the bullpen said it would have fallen in over the low gate out there. The ball hit my glove and a split second later I hit the gate. I knew I had it, but I certainly couldn’t have said I was going to get it--because how could any guy say he was on the ball all the way on one like that?”

Hugh Casey, the only player in baseball who lived above a saloon--though there were many who seemed to live in them--replaced Hatten in the ninth inning and snuffed out a last-ditch New York rally, preserving the 8-6 win. It was Hughie’s fifth appearance in six games, and the Yanks had yet to score on him.

In their respective locker rooms, the Bums were jubilant, the Bombers subdued.

The Dodgers had forced the Series to a deciding for only the eleventh

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time in baseball history. As was his post-season custom, Burt Shotton refused to name his starting pitcher for the finale.

“I have ten of ‘em,” he said, “and I’ll use ‘em all if I need to.”

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, a team could field only one pitcher at a time, and when the showdown began, it was Hal Gregg versus Spec Shea, the freshman

Yankee who was attempting to become the first rookie in 38 years to win three games in a single World’s Series.

Both managers stationed non-outfielders in the outfield, and exiled catcher Berra and utility infielder Miksis each demonstrated why they were usually seen elsewhere. Berra misplayed a second inning double by Hermanski into a triple, and

Miksis duplicated the feat in the seventh, nearly braining himself on Billy Johnson’s fly ball.

The Brooks jumped to an early lead on the Hermanski triple, singles by Edwards and Furillo, and a ground-rule double to right by Jorgensen. The Yanks scored a single run in the second, then went ahead 3-2 in the fourth on a walk to Billy

Johnson, a single by Phil Rizzuto, a pinch double by Doctor Brown, and a single by

Henrich. Bucky Harris, who had replaced Shea with Bevens, brought Joe Page in to start the fifth. The Dodgers had banged Page around in Game Six, but he was unhittable in Game Seven, and they could not muster another base runner until

Miksis singled with two outs in the ninth. By then, the New Yorkers had fashioned a 5-2 lead, and the Dodgers were out of heroes. Bruce Edwards bounced into a double play, and the game was over. The Bums had made it a closer Series than

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they had in 1941, but in the end, the results were the same--the Yankees were the

World’s Champions.

“I have no regrets,” said Shotton. Then, echoing a refrain all too familiar to the

Flatbush Faithful, he said: “The Dodgers are a great team, and they’ll be greater next year.”

Except that they weren’t.

***

Preacher Roe was a generous man until he was on the mound in a big game with a baseball in his hand and a stick of Beechnut in his cheek; then he wouldn’t give you the time of day or a decent pitch to hit. Roe was at his best when the chips were down, but nobody, including Preacher, had ever known it until the Pirates traded him to Brooklyn, because the Pirates never had any chips. In ’48, his first year with the Dodgers, the Preacher had finished 12-8, allowing fewer than three earned runs per game.

“Roe has learned how to pitch,” said the Mahatma.

Now, with the Dodgers’ season riding on his left arm, the bag of bones from Ash

Flat, Arkansas responded magnificently, allowing only a fifth inning single by

Slaughter and an infield hit by pinch-hitter Whitey Kurowski in the sixth. The 5-0 victory, punctuated by Luis Olmo’s 2-run triple and Snider’s 22nd home run, was

Roe’s 14th--his fourth in five outings against St. Louis--and it left the Brooks 1½ games behind, no worse than when they’d started the day.

On Thursday night, the rejuvenated Flock handed the Redbirds their most lopsided loss of the year, 19-6, clobbering six hog-wild St. Louis pitchers for 19 hits

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and 13 walks, and cutting the Cardinal lead to a half-game. Furillo bashed three straight doubles, knocking in 7 runs, Hodges drove in 5, Campanella’s 21st homer plated a pair, and Robinson regained the batting lead from Slaughter, .343 to .342, with a double and a single.

“The batting and runs-batted-in championship mean nothing to me,” Jackie said.

“The big thing to me is winning the pennant. I’d rather help the Dodgers get into the World’s Series than to win any individual title you can name.”

The Bums had six games left. The Cardinals’ magic number was 7.

All the Dodgers, except for infrequent flyers Billy Cox and Ol’ Preach, returned to New York on Friday aboard an American Airlines DC-6 that performed a salutary swing over Ebbets Field before landing at LaGuardia, where a happy throng of the Faithful awaited them.

“I feel pretty good,” said Burt Shotton. “I don’t care what the Cards do from here on in. All I know is we have to win.”

They threw a night for Newcombe at Ebbets Field on Saturday, presenting him with a new Buick, a new suit of clothes, a big check, a shiny plaque, and a bunch of orchids for the missus. Newk expressed his gratitude by trouncing the Phillies 8-1 for win number #16, allowing only four hits and striking out nine. Campanella and

Furillo belted homers, and Robinson’s single kept his average just above

Slaughter’s. Country Boy had gone oh for four during the Cardinals’ 3-2 victory in

St. Louis that had reduced their magic number to 6.

Sunday was “Pee Wee Reese Day”, the fete instigated by nine distaff members of Pee Wee’s fan club. The girls gave him a television set, an electric hair dryer,

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and some cash that they hoped would be enough so he could buy his own car. After the festivities, Branca, who hadn’t been given a night or a day or even a morning, took the mound against Ken Heintzelman. Heintzelman had beaten the Brooks five times without a loss, but was only 7-6 overall since the All Star game, and they jumped him for a 3-1 lead on a two-run single by Campanella and Hodges’ 23rd home run. The clout tied Hodges with for the most homers in a season by a right-handed Brooklyn batter.

Branca had been throwing bullets--he’d fanned 9 and allowed only 5 hits—-but when the Dodgers came in for the bottom of the seventh, Campy cornered the Old

Sourdough, and said: “He hasn’t got nuthin’. He’s been getting’ by on his fastball for two innings.”

Banta strolled out of the Dodger bullpen to start the eighth. Tex Rickard made the announcement to the befuddled Faithful: “The reason Branca is leaving the game--he has a blister on his hand, and it broke.”

If Branca had nothing, Banta had even less. Richie Ashburn beat out a bunt,

Granny Hamner, the kid shortstop from Richmond, cracked a two-bagger that

Snider couldn’t quite reach, Dick Sisler grounded a single to center, and Seminick slammed a home run into the left field seats. Suddenly, a game that had been wrapped up and ready to file in the win column had become a 5-3 defeat--and when

Harry Brecheen beat the Cubs 6-1 at Sportsman’s Park, it turned into a full blown disaster. The Cards had increased their lead to a game and a half. The Dodgers, two back in the loss column at 94-56, had four games left to play, the Redbirds, at

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95-54, had five. Any combination of St. Louis victories and Brooklyn defeats equalling four would send the Bums home for the winter.

Branca was furious.

“It was an old blister,” he said. “I got it pitching in Chicago after being out so long. It didn’t bother me. I struck out those two men in the seventh, didn’t I?”

“Roy told me that Branca had lost his stuff,” explained Burt Shotton. “I asked

Ralph in the dugout if he was all right and he nodded. Then he showed me a raw spot where a blister had broken on his hand, and I took him out.”

There were more than a few Dodger veterans who doubted the skipper. The Old

Sourdough had displayed a frequent lack of confidence in Branca ever since the

Hawk had come apart in the ’47 Series. On Monday, some of the press-box mudlarks began to circulate rumors that neither Shotton nor Branca would be back with the team in 1950. It was too late in the year for this kind of nonsense. The

Mahatma summoned the scriveners and announced his “100 per cent support” for his manager. Burt Shotton ordered Branca into his office for a closed-door conference then held a team meeting.

“Ralph Branca has at no time been in my doghouse,” he said. “A whole lot has been made out of nothing. Maybe Ralph is peeved, but I’m not. I’ll pitch him again this year if I think that he’s capable of winning. He’ll be pitching for the Dodgers next year, too.”

No one in Brooklyn was interested in next year when this year was about to end so unhappily. The Bums needed a miracle. The schedule was against them, and time had just about run out. Both the Cardinals and Dodgers would be on the road

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for their final games, but St. Louis had the easier match-ups--two meetings against the pathetic sixth place Pirates, and three against the even more atrocious cellar- dwelling Cubs, a club that they had already trampled 13 times. The Dodgers would play the fourth place Braves in Boston, and the third place Phillies in Philadelphia, teams against which they had fashioned only a .500 record during the season, and a

2-2 finish was not going to be good enough.

“We have a comfortable feeling,” said Eddie Dyer as his team prepared to depart

St. Louis. “But we’ve still got to clinch it, and that’s what we’re setting out to do.”

“I didn’t know I wanted to win a pennant so badly until that game Sunday,” said a subdued Branch Rickey Junior. “I know how Dad has been feeling. It’s been hard for him to watch a game during the last week or so.”

Robinson received a copy of a telegram that a group calling itself the “Young

Progressives of America” had forwarded to Ford Frick urging the National League president to conduct an “immediate and full investigation of the conduct of Umpire

Bill Stewart” regarding the arbiter’s banishment of Jackie from the previous week’s game in St. Louis. Calling Little Bill’s decision a “trigger-happy act against the outstanding colored player in baseball”, the communiqué claimed, “Only such an investigation can silence the indignation of baseball fans, regardless of team allegiance.”

“I recognized the Communistic touch at once,” Robinson said, thoroughly weary of the incessant attempts at exploitation by organized leftists. “I would much prefer that they let me handle my own affairs. It made me mad as hell. The moment I

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realized that they were trying to read something racial into the incident or trying to make Stewart out to be prejudiced, I tore up the telegram.”

On Tuesday, Red Munger lost to the Pirates 6-4 while the Dodgers were idle. A grand slam home run in the second inning by rookie outfielder Tom Saffell and a bagful of Cardinal errors combined to slice the St. Louis lead to a single game.

Rain on Wednesday washed out both clubs. The Brooks rescheduled their game as a double header on Thursday.

“We have to play two tomorrow,” said the Old Sourdough. “We can’t take any chance on not getting in all these games. We must play ‘em and win ‘em, and just hope for a little help from our enemies.”

On Thursday, the Dodgers got their aid.

Murray Dickson, the knuckleballing ex-Cardinal who had spent 7 seasons in St.

Louis before being dealt to Pittsburgh in the winter of ’48, held his former mates to six hits, and beat them 7-2. The Redbirds, certain pennant winners only two days previously, were giving the flag away. Debilitating defensive bungles, and the suddenly quiescent bats of Musial and Slaughter had destroyed the confidence with which the Cardinals had taken the road and replaced it with a growing sense of dread. They had become their own worst enemies.

Braves Field had been a bone yard for the Brooks. They had been outscored 46-

33 in the dank and windy mausoleum, losing 7 of 9 games. Runs did not reckon to come any easier during Thursday’s doubleheader with 20-game winner Warren

Spahn and his 10-game winning partner Johnny Sain pitching against them.

But they did.

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The Brooklyn onslaught started in the fourth inning of the first game. Snider, dropped to eighth in the order against the lefthanded Spahn, drilled a 3-run homer into the Jury Box after being hit on the hand his first time up. RBI singles by

Furillo and Robinson chased two more runners across the plate. Furillo blasted a

450-foot 3-run homer in the sixth, and Preacher Roe scored the team’s ninth run himself in the seventh, coming around from second when Del Crandall dropped

Furillo’s pop-up in front of the mound. The Old Sourdough had once again placed the Dodgers’ hopes in the wet hands of the hillbilly from Arkansas, and Ol’ Preach did not disappoint, scattering nine hits, and blanking the Braves until the ninth. The

9-2 victory, Roe’s 15th, vaulted the Brooks into an improbable tie for first. If they could take the nightcap, the Redbirds would suddenly be chasing them. But if they were going to win it, they would have to do it quickly. The sky above Braves Field was darkening, and it was beginning to rain.

Newcombe took the mound in a cold and persistent drizzle. Pitching with an extra day of rest, his fastball was unhittable in the gloom. The Dodgers jumped to a

5-0 lead in the first inning, knocked Sain out, and scored three more in the second.

By the time the Braves managed their first hit in the fourth, Boston’s only hope was that the game would be called before it became official. In the fifth, home plate umpire George Barr ejected jokester Connie Ryan for wearing a raincoat to the on- deck circle then stopped the proceedings at the end of the inning. Newcombe had his 17th win, and the Dodgers led the league by a half-game.

“A week ago, I would have settled for a play-off,” exulted Burt Shotton. “But now--but now! I won’t settle for that. We’ve gotta win!”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 402

Robinson’s 200th and 201st hits of the season put him in command of the batting race, .342 to the slumping Slaughter’s .336, and he trailed Kiner by two for the RBI leadership, 125-123. Newcombe’s six strikeouts tied him with Spahn for most in the league with 147.

On the last day of September, the 59-92 Cubs, holders of the worst record in

Bruins’ history, beat Max Lanier, handing the panicky and exhausted Cardinals their third consecutive defeat, and dropping the Redbirds a full game behind the

Dodgers. If the Bums could beat the Phillies on Saturday, the best St. Louis could hope for would be a tie.

“Ralph Branca will certainly pitch the first game,” said Burt Shotton as the

Dodgers prepared to depart for Philadelphia, “and Don Newcombe will go in the last one on Sunday--and if necessary, Don will pitch in the first one, too. That’s the one we have to win first.

“You know, if I didn’t pitch Newcombe Sunday and we lost, they’d say it was because I didn’t use him. And if he does pitch and we lose, they’re liable to say that I overworked him. But I don’t think you can overwork a big, strong boy like

Don. I know he’s going to pitch, and I’m sure he’s going to win, too.”

Displaying the same aversion to pressure that he had occasionally shown in the past, Branca coughed up a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning when Dick Sisler tripled and

Del Ennis slammed an upper deck home run. The Old Sourdough replaced the

Hawk with Carl Erskine. Andy Seminick pounded another upper deck homer, his

6th of the season off Brooklyn pitching. Preacher Roe surrendered a third four- bagger to Puddin’ Head Jones in the eighth, and the Dodgers lost 6-4. At Wrigley

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Field, the demoralized Cardinals dropped their fourth straight, 3-1. The Dodgers’ magic number was 1 with one game remaining.

Don Newcombe, unwanted in spring, indispensable in summer, took the mound on two days rest to try and clinch the title for Brooklyn while Howie Pollet attempted to save the season for the Cardinals in Chicago.

With 36,765 customers jammed into Shibe Park for the season’s finale, the

Dodgers continued their recent pattern of scoring early and scoring often, taking a

5-0 lead and chasing Phillies’ starter Monk Meyer in the third on singles by

Jorgensen, Robinson, Furillo, and Hodges, and walks to Hermanski and

Campanella. In the fourth, the Phils began to tee off on Newk. Puddin’ Head Jones slammed his 19th home run of the season into the upper deck in left with two aboard. roped a single to left, and pinch-hitter Stan Hollmig followed with a double to right center. The Old Sourdough, hampered by the not altogether unpleasant truth that he had to conserve his pitchers for either a pennant playoff or the World’s Series while Eddie Sawyer was able to employ his entire arsenal of arms, had to make a change. Newcombe had nothing left. Sukeforth ambled out of the dugout and made the wave to the pen for Rex Barney. Richie Ashburn lined the

Wild Man’s first pitch to Furillo in deep right, trimming the lead to 5-4. In the

Dodgers’ fifth, singles by Furillo and Hodges, and a double by Campanella plated another two runs. The Phillies chipped away, scoring one in the bottom half, then two in the sixth. Banta replaced Barney. The Phils had hammered Banta a week before, but now they had trouble touching him for even a loud foul. In Chicago,

Musial clubbed a pair of homers to power the Cardinals to a 13-5 victory, cutting

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the Brooklyn lead to a half-game. The Redbirds had done what they could, but their fate was out of their hands. The St. Louis players huddled around a clubhouse radio hoping for good news from Philadelphia.

The Dodgers went into the tenth tied 7-7. The Phils had used six pitchers. 17- game winner Ken Heintzelman had been on the mound since the seventh. The

Brooks had not beaten him all year.

Reese, hitless on the afternoon, started the inning with a flare to left that dropped for a hit. Miksis, who had replaced Jorgensen in the seventh, bunted him to second.

Snider batted, lefty against lefty, and Sawyer elected to pitch to him. The Duke slammed Heintzelman’s first delivery to center. Reese beat Ashburn’s throw to the plate, and the Dodgers had taken the lead. The Phillies issued an intentional walk to

Robinson. Luis Olmo ripped a single past Puddin’ Head Jones into left, Snider scored, and the Brooks were on top 9-7.

Banta took the mound for the most important half-inning of his career with a blistered pitching hand and a fingernail that was torn in half. Every curve he threw left blood on the baseball.

Goliat singled with one out, and Sawyer sent Ed Sanicki up to pinch-hit. Sanicki was a rookie who had blasted 33 homers and knocked in 104 runs in Toronto before joining the Phils. Banta struck him out on a borderline 3-2 breaking ball.

“Looks like the umps want the niggers to win,” spat Granny Hamner.

It was up to Richie Ashburn to keep the game alive. The speedy Cornhusker had little power, and Banta attacked him with fastballs. On the fourth pitch, Ashburn hit a fly ball to shallow left. Olmo gloved it.

405 Bob Mack

The Dodgers were going to the World’s Series.

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9th Inning: World’s Series: Wherein Casey Returns To Flatbush, And The Faithful Are Frustrated

"It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind" --Branch Rickey

The 1949 pennant was Brooklyn’s eighth since 1890. Burt Shotton had managed the Dodgers for less than three seasons, and had captured a quarter of their championships.

“We won it the hard way,” the skipper said. “It’s been hard all season.”

Jackie Robinson agreed. Robinson had finished the season with a .342 average.

He led the league in everything, quipped Dick Young, except hotel reservations.

“That game out there,” Robinson declared, “was tougher than the World’s

Series.”

Winning pitcher Jack Banta said: “It was the biggest thrill I’ve ever had.”

“Banta sure did have his fast one working,” said Roy Campanella. “I never saw him in better form.”

Don Newcombe was ecstatic: “Pinch me, and make sure I’m not dreaming!”

“I feel like crying,” said Pee Wee Reese.

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In the American League, Casey Stengel’s Yankees had captured the flag on the season’s last day with a 5-3 victory over the favored Red Sox. The Dodgers would face Joe DiMaggio and company in the World’s Series for the third time in nine years. The odds against them hit 8-5 before they’d stripped off their sanitary socks.

“The best team in the National League won the championship by the skin of its teeth--and in the tenth inning, too,” wrote New York Times columnist Arthur Daley.

“The best team in the American League lost the flag by the skin of its teeth.

Perhaps that’s why baseball is such a wonderful game.”

“Bring on those Yankees,” said Carl Furillo, who had spent the last week and a half of the regular season whacking the ball at a .576 clip. Furillo’s father was dying in Pennsylvania, and if the old man was ever going to see his dour son win a world’s championship, it had to be this one. “If I can’t do it again,” said Furillo,

“one of the other boys will.”

The team fought through another mob at Pennsylvania Station where 25,000 of the Faithful--plus the Section 8 club, the Sym-phoney band, and half of the local constabulary--had gathered to welcome the boys home from Philadelphia. On

Tuesday, 100,000 more cheered the new champs as they paraded down Flatbush

Avenue. Borough President Cashmore, hitless all season, had assigned himself and a few cronies to the lead car. Manager Shotton and Captain Reese rode behind, followed by the rest of the Dodgers.

Neither Shotton nor Stengel was willing to name a pitcher for Wednesday’s opener at Yankee Stadium. The writers thought that Stengel would start right- hander Allie Reynolds, while Shotton would counter with either Newcombe or Roe.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 408

“Roe is a pitcher who will bother the Yankees,” said Hugh Casey, signed by the

Bombers late in the year, but ineligible to play in the post-season. “The sort of stuff

Roe throws is not what they like. They’re fastball hitters. But the Ol’ Preach, when he’s right, is pretty tough.”

Charles Dillon Stengel was well known as a prankster and raconteur, but, before

1949, he had never been recognized as a baseball genius. Stengel was gnarled and bowlegged with a rubbery face as creased as oilcloth. He did not look like a baseball manager. He looked like an organ grinder in search of a monkey.

Casey had managed the Dodgers from 1934 through 1937 and the Braves until

1943, and the kindest thing that had been said of his stewardships had been penned by a scribe from the Hub: “The man who did the most for baseball in Boston was the motorist who ran down Stengel and kept him away from the Braves for two months.”

Despite a nine-year record of 581-742 as a major league manager, not everyone had considered Casey a liability. Cleveland owner Bill Veeck thought that the “Old

Perfesser” knew more about baseball and money than anybody he had ever met.

"Stengel managed Milwaukee for me,” said Veeck, “and he won with a bunch of humpty-dumptys. Not only that, he sold 13 of them."

Upon being hired by the Yankees for the 1949 season, Stengel said, “They don’t hand out jobs like this just because they like your company. I know I can make people laugh and some of you think I’m a damn fool, but I got the job because the people here think I can produce for them.”

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Stengel was another in the long list of major league pilots who had learned how to manage by observing John McGraw. The most important lesson he had learned from the master was the value of spare parts--as a player, Casey had often been one himself.

During a season in which his team had been decimated by 70 major injuries

(“I’m the only guy on the club who hasn’t had to call a doctor all year,” he said), the Yankee skipper had used his bench expertly, continually cobbling together lineups that were greater than the sum of their components. He hadn’t tinkered; he had repaired.

Stengel had become filthy rich through investments in oil fields and wonder drugs, but the pennant clinching victory over the Red Sox, he said, was “the greatest thing that ever happened to me since I was born.”

The surviving 18 members of Brooklyn’s 1916 National League pennant winners had been issued invitations by the Mahatma to be guests of the Dodgers where they would be honored prior to Saturday’s game. Stengel had been an integral part of that squad, besides being the joker everyone thought responsible for the grapefruit that had clobbered Wilbert Robinson. Despite Casey’s self- deprecating observations (“I was not successful as a ballplayer, as it was a game of skill.”), he had played in 127 games in 1916, batting .279 and slugging .424.

Among the telegrams Casey had received after winning the American League championship was a message from Branch Rickey:

“My invitation to you as a guest of the Brooklyn club for the World’s Series was certainly not out of order. I am happy that you are the manager of the opposing

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team. You have done a great job and surely more credit is due to you than to anyone else. Keep in mind the dinner to the 1916 team on Friday evening. Highest regards to you in every way.”

The collective inferiority complex that afflicted residents of the Borough was never more tangible than when the Dodgers played the high and mighty Yankees.

The people of Brooklyn not only wanted to beat the Bombers; they needed to beat them. Victory on the diamond meant validation as a community. Psychology and the oddsmakers aside, this was their year. Everyone had the feeling, from the

Mahatma in the Cave of Winds on Montague Street to the hot dog vendors on

Empire Boulevard. The Yanks were vulnerable--Tommy Henrich had a broken back, Yogi Berra had a broken thumb, and DiMag was recovering from a viral infection that had cost him twenty pounds. Everyone had the feeling--everyone, that is, except the players who had faced the Bombers.

“The Yankees will beat them in the Series on pitching,” said Ted Williams. “We have the best hitting team in baseball--and we never could do anything with their pitching.”

Pitching was the key, and the Yankees were thought to have the better aggregation of arms. Yankee hurlers, however, worked in a park that favored pitchers, allowing .43 fewer runs per game at the Stadium than on the road, while the Dodgers’ moundsmen, operating in hitter-friendly Ebbets Field, surrendered an extra .24 in Flatbush. Away from home, the Bombers had been touched for 4.32 runs per outing, the Dodgers 4.05. New York pitchers were not quite as good as advertised, while the Dodgers’ chuckers were not quite as bad. Elsewhere on the

411 Bob Mack

diamond, Brooklyn appeared to have the edge. The Dodgers had committed 124 errors, the Yankees 137. The Dodgers had batted .274 with 152 home runs and a of .419; the Yankees .269 with 115 homers and a .400 slugging average. Even allowing for the effects of their home parks, Brooklyn’s batsmen were the stronger group; and, though both clubs had finished the season with identical 97-57 records for the first time in major league history, the Dodgers were perhaps a slightly better team. But the Yankees had eleven World’s Championship banners fluttering from their Stadium façade, and the smart money never bucked a proven winner.

It rained on Wednesday. The showers started at daybreak and continued until mid-morning. By game time, it had brightened and warmed. The haze that clung to

Yankee Stadium like smoke-stained gauze began to burn off. Burt Shotton had decided that Newcombe would pitch the opener, just three days after he had gassed out against the Phillies. Stengel was going with Allie Reynolds, the Cherokee chief from Oklahoma.

“Superchief” Reynolds was not really a chief, and only ¼ Cherokee, but his fastball was 100% pure. He was a preacher’s son who had never played baseball until he had entered college.

“My dad did not like baseball,” Reynolds said. “Playing ball meant being out

Sundays, and that was against his principles.”

Reynolds, like Newcombe, had won seventeen games in 1949. His only weakness was his control--he had walked an average of 5.2 hitters per game. He was 34 years old. He had been traded to the Yankees from Cleveland at the end of

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the 1946 season, and in his three seasons with New York, he had compiled a record of 52-21. The Chief was a tough customer.

Newcombe was the first freshman to start a Series’ game since Frank Shea in

’47, but if the Yanks were expecting a display of rookie jitters, they were sorely disappointed. Newk set them down in the first on two infield popups and a ground out, and struck out the side in the second. Reynolds walked Hermanski and Furillo in the second, but Hodges bounced into a double play. The game sped along like a day at Wimbledon, the two hurlers volleying scoreless innings, the crowd murmuring occasional oohs and aahs, and neither team able to break serve.

Newcombe punched out the side again in the fifth. By the end of the eighth, the

Dodgers had managed only two hits, the Yankees four, no one had scored a run, and

Newcombe and Reynolds were nearing the Series’ record for combined strikeouts.

“This ballgame is no place for small boys,” Red Barber told his radio audience.

Pitcher’s duels were not generally admired by the modern fan, who preferred hits and runs to pop ups and strikeouts, at least when the hits and runs were accruing to the benefit of the team he favored, and the popups and strikeouts belonged to the other guys. A pitcher’s duel was like an old fashioned courtship-- the suspense built slowly, most of the action took place in the mind, and the accumulated tensions were finally resolved by an unexpected climax that was over in a flash. It was one-run baseball of the kind played in the bad old days before the

Babe had showed everybody how much money there was in swatting balls out of the yard; it was museum nonsense recalled fondly only by paper-collared geezers in high button shoes, and “hit ‘em where they wasn’t” relics like ancient Ty Cobb.

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Still, even devotees of the lively ball could be seduced in the late innings by a tight, well-pitched game, where one mistake could provoke disaster, success and failure were only a hair’s breadth apart, and everything depended on the grit and gumption of fatigued and fallible human beings.

Reynolds disposed of the Dodgers easily in the top of the ninth. In the Yankees’ half, Tommy Henrich would be the first batter to face Newcombe. The 36-year old

Henrich (he claimed to be 33) had carried the Yanks during DiMaggio’s absence in the first half of the season; then he had fractured his second and third lumbar vertebrae crashing into the right field wall at Comiskey Park on August 28.

Henrich’s injuries were not completely healed, but--broken back or not--it was unwise to trifle with a man who had earned the sobriquet “Old Reliable”.

“I have been around many years,” said Stengel, stating the obvious-- sportswriters had been calling him “Old Casey” since 1923--“but I have never seen a gamer ball player than Tommy. He keeps telling me that he feels fine, but I can see the agony in his face from time to time.”

Newcombe still had his stuff. Despite striking out eleven Yankees, he had thrown only 111 pitches. He was locked in, invincible. Wherever Campy placed his glove, Newk hit it. He hadn’t walked a single batter, and the Bombers had gotten just seven balls past the infield.

“Newcombe is as fast as I’ve ever seen him,” said the Giants’ Sid Gordon.

Newk had retired the left-handed Henrich all three times he had faced him, feeding him mostly curves. The Yankee first baseman had not done much with them--a ground ball and a popup to Reese at short and a fly ball to Snider in center.

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The infield was in shadow now, and the wind had picked up slightly and was blowing out to right. The outfielders were deep, willing to surrender the single but not the double or triple. They played Henrich to pull, although he had not been able to do so all day. The infield was shallower on the left side than on the right. Spider

Jorgensen, at third base in place of the injured Billy Cox, edged a step closer to the bag as Henrich prepared to bat.

Newcombe looked in for his sign. Campanella wanted the curveball. It was not

Newcombe’s best pitch--Newk’s curve broke late and fast like a slider, but he tended to hang it over the plate--still, the Dodgers had been getting Henrich out with it all afternoon, no reason to change now. Newk went into his pumping motion and delivered the pitch outside for ball one. Yogi Berra waited on deck, then Joe DiMaggio. Newcombe threw another curve, low, about where he wanted it, but , the American League plate umpire, indicated ball two. The

Dodgers did not like the call, but Hubbard stood 6’4” and weighed 250 pounds. He had been a tackle for the Green Bay Packers for 10 years. He was the biggest man on the field--bigger, even, than Newcombe. No one squawked too loudly.

With the count 2-0, Henrich would probably be looking fastball, but Newk’s control had been immaculate all afternoon. Why give in? Campanella signed for another low curve. In the WOR radio booth, Red Barber paused his leisurely description of Newcombe’s distinctive windup to describe the play:

“The 2-0 pitch...drilled out toward right field, going way back...that’s...the ball game! A home run for Tommy Henrich! Look at him grin! Big as a slice of watermelon!”

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The denouement had come with shocking suddenness. Stengel bolted from the

New York dugout and danced a jig. The last time a home run had decided a 1-0

World’s Series’ game had been back in 1923 when Casey had hit one against the

Yanks. Henrich had homered in the first game of the season, the last game of the season, and the first game of the Series.

“Well,” marveled Barber, “they call him ‘Old Reliable’, an’ they’re not jokin’.”

In the shell-shocked Brooklyn clubhouse, Robinson groused about Hubbard’s officiating: “I’ve never seen such bad strikes called. He actually called a pitchout a strike.”

“Damned American League homers,” grumbled Ralph Branca, meaning the umpire and not the hit.

The disconsolate Don Newcombe murmured, “Reynolds pitched a helluva ball game. The second pitch to Henrich, I thought it was a strike but he called it a ball.”

“What kind of pitch did he hit?” somebody asked.

“I don’t know,” said Roy Campanella. “It never got close enough for me to tell.”

Robinson continued to grumble: “There’s a big difference pitching to a guy with the count one and one from two and zero. Newk wouldn’t have had to come over with his curve. But with the two-zero count, he’s got to be careful.”

“My only complaint,” said Burt Shotton, “is that we got no runs.”

Happy Chandler had grown annoyed by Robinson’s habit of blaming the umpires for tough losses that the Dodgers had inflicted on themselves. Arguing calls on the field was one thing, but constantly berating the men in blue to the press

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was something else. The Brooks were all first-rate carpers--they had learned from

Durocher--and Robinson was becoming the best of the bunch.

“Tell him to pipe down and act like a big leaguer,” the Commissioner instructed the Old Sourdough, “or else.”

***

Preacher Roe was no stranger to pressure--he’d once been a teacher in an

American high school. Roe was making his first World’s Series appearance in

Game Two, and he had to prevent the Dodgers from falling into an 0-2 hole, from which their chances of emerging to capture the championship would be about three in one hundred. Opposing him would be the Yankees’ 21-game winner, Vic

Raschi.

Raschi, the man broadcaster Mel Allen had dubbed the “Springfield Rifle”, was a stubble-chinned mound curmudgeon. Some of the Dodgers had faced him in the

‘47 series when he had allowed one run and two hits in two relief appearances. The

30-year old was much improved since then, well seasoned and tough as army beef.

He’d won 40 games for the Yankees over the past two seasons.

Both Shotton and Stengel had been forced to make changes. Furillo, who had popped a groin muscle during the Dodgers’ pennant clincher on Sunday, had become too hobbled to play, and Berra’s tender left thumb had taken such a beating from Allie Reynolds’ fastballs that it had swollen to twice its normal size. Marv

Rackley was enlisted to patrol left for the Brooks while Hermanski shifted to right.

Charlie Silvera took over behind the plate for New York. The only lefty in

Stengel’s lineup was Henrich.

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The weather was cool and the wind was blowing in as combat started on

Thursday. Preacher Roe, said Red Barber, was “as fidgety as a cat with a hot foot.”

In the second inning, Robinson doubled down the left field line, took third on

Hermanski’s foul out to second baseman Jerry Coleman in short right, and scored on a two-out line single to left by Hodges. It was the first run the Flock had managed against the Yanks in their last 17 innings of World’s Series play. It was the last run of the game. No one expected a repeat of Wednesday’s contest--there had only been nine 1-0 games in post-season history--but after 136 pitches, 87 strikes and 49 balls, Preacher and the Dodgers had put another into the books.

George “Nap” Rucker, the old Brooklyn ace from Crabapple, Georgia, had toiled for the Dodgers from 1907 until 1916, and thought it was the best pitched game he had ever seen.

“I threw a few ‘forkballs’,” Preacher confessed. “I never have thrown ‘em often.

One was in the fourth inning when I struck out Joe DiMaggio. I was having trouble getting my slow stuff over. Why, there were times when I was only getting an inch of the plate with my pitches.”

Roe had been hit on the glove hand by a Johnny Lindell line drive in the fourth inning, and had played the rest of the way in pain.

“My right index finger gave me almost as much trouble as the Yankees,” he said.

“It started to hurt so badly that the trainer had to drill a hole through my nail to let the blood flow out.”

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Branch Rickey, who had been battling a severe head cold and had swallowed

“enough pills to kill or cure me,” mingled with his players in the jubilant Brooklyn clubhouse.

“I had to give the Preacher a hug,” said the Mahatma. “That boy is an artist, a supreme artist.”

“My parents were here to see the game,” smiled Ol’ Preach. “I’m glad I didn’t let ‘em down.”

The Brooks were heading home having achieved exactly what their manager had wanted: a split in the Bronx. Now they would be performing in front of their own fans in the Empire of Eccentrics. Shotton wanted to win two of the three games at

Ebbets Field; then the Dodgers would need just one more victory at the Stadium to capture their first World’s Championship. The problem was that he had used his two reliable hurlers, and until Newcombe and Roe regained the use of their arms, the club’s fate was in the hands of Ralph Branca and a group of moundsmen whose pitching struck fear only in the hearts of Dodgers’ fans.

***

Baseball was the only professional sport in which every addle-brained amateur with a scorecard was absolutely and utterly convinced that he could do a better job of managing than the man who was being paid for it. In Brooklyn, where the second-guess had been refined into high art, Burt Shotton was being given an unexpected pass. The Dodgers’ defeat in the 1947 World’s Series had been disappointing--heartbreaking, even--and the Old Sourdough had fielded his share of criticism for his part in it, but in general, it was felt that “Boit done da best he

419 Bob Mack

cood.” A good deal of this uncharacteristic generosity was due to the specter of

Leo Durocher’s return to the helm. The Lip had been absent for a full season, and many of the Faithful had decided that they could live without him.

“With Shotton in charge,” said telephone worker Frederick Hart, “you can go out to Ebbets Field and see a baseball game without all those arguments and interruptions.”

“I think Durocher is all washed up,” said Brooklyn bartender Alan George.

Branch Rickey, the only man whose opinion mattered, was non-committal:

“There is nothing I can say on Durocher at the moment, and I don’t think I will have anything to say for some time to come.”

The long relationship between the Mahatma and the Lip was complex, more than a simple association between employer and employee. Sometimes, the Dodgers’ boss dealt with Leo as father to son, at others like a missionary to a reforming cannibal. Rickey was a character-builder, and there had been plenty of construction needed on Leo; but the Mahatma had supported the Lip through all of Leo’s self- inflicted travails because Leo possessed the one quality that was indispensable to

Rickey--an insatiable will to win.

“Wanting to do something--desire,” the Mahatma said, “is the greatest difference between a championship team and a team in the second division.”

In Durocher, Rickey had a man who not only wanted to win, lived to win, had to win; he had a man who would do whatever it took to win.

“Show me a good loser,” said Leo, “and I’ll show you an idiot.”

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Besides choosing a manager for the 1948 season, the Mahatma had two other pressing personnel matters to resolve. The aging Dixie Walker had accepted Jackie

Robinson’s presence in the clubhouse but he would never approve of it. He had requested to be traded, and--if Robinson was going to be shifted to second base-- something had to be done with the incumbent, Eddie Stanky.

“No deal for Dixie has been made as of now,” Rickey said in early December.

“As for Stanky, he’s a great player on this club, an aggressive, impulsive young man. If he now is calling me names, that’s all right with me. I’d be disappointed if he didn’t. Robinson is an artist at second base, of that I am sure. But we can’t play

Jackie at second base until we get somebody to play first base--and I’d say the latter man would have to be better than Stanky.”

Happy Chandler had given his approval, if not his blessing, for Leo’s return to the Dodgers, despite public declarations that Burt Shotton was “the type of manager that baseball needs.”

“That millstone is no longer around my neck,” said the Mahatma. “Now I can move as I have wanted to move for some time, but there are a lot of things to be done, and I’m doing them as rapidly as possible.”

On December 6, the Twig distributed a press release to writers gathered at the

Cave of Winds: “The 1947 contract of Leo Durocher has been renewed for 1948 by the Brooklyn Baseball Club--Branch Rickey.”

“I’m neither surprised nor hurt,” the deposed Burt Shotton told the scribes. “I’m right back where I was before. I’m going back to Bartow as soon as I can leave here. I didn’t expect to manage the team next year. I never expected to manage it

421 Bob Mack

in the first place. I knew when I took the job I wasn’t going to stay on it. I’ll never manage a ballclub again, here or any other place. Nobody should manage the

Dodgers except Leo Durocher. If he could have got the breaks I received, he would have won the pennant last year by July.”

“I put Leo back because it was the right thing to do,” said the Mahatma, “and because he is a good manager. He was a good manager when I hired him to start the season, and nothing has happened since to change my belief that he is a good manager now. When Mr. Chandler suspended Durocher, he imposed silence upon all concerned. I have kept that silence. I’m on friendly terms with the

Commissioner, and I want to remain on friendly terms with him; so I don’t wish to reopen a controversy which may be considered closed. But I think the

Commissioner knows I most deeply disagree with his decision regarding the penalty. The Commissioner knows that I felt Durocher had done no wrong.”

Despite his belief that Leo had been unjustly convicted, Rickey had seen fit to add a typewritten caveat to the standard clauses in Durocher’s contract: “This contract can be terminated on immediate notice by either of the contracting parties.”

“I am happy, “ said Leo. “I am back in baseball with the only club that means anything to me. I think I’m piloting the best baseball team in the business, and I’m going to manage them the same as I always have. What happened in 1947 is history. The Dodgers won the pennant, and Burt Shotton did a wonderful job. Now

I’m the manager, and I intend to battle every day to win another one.”

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 422

Two days later, the Mahatma solved the first of his personnel problems. Dixie

Walker was traded to the Pirates, along with pitchers Vic Lombardi and Hal Gregg, in exchange for shortstop Billy Cox, pitcher Elwin “Preacher” Roe, and infielder

Gene Mauch.

“I loved those Brooklyn people,” said Walker. “but I cannot say I am unhappy about going over to Pittsburgh.”

Dixie may have been pleased, but the Faithful were not. Walker was a fan favorite who had batted .306 and driven in 94 runs. Lombardi was a 12-11 pitcher with a 2.99 earned run average, and Gregg had compiled a 4-5 log as a reliever and spot starter. In return, the Dodgers were getting a .274 hitting shortstop that they didn’t need, a lefthanded pitcher with a 4-15 record, and a minor league utilityman who they had already traded away once. The deal made no sense.

“The Dodger team that goes to Santo Domingo this spring,” argued the

Mahatma, “will be the best team that I have ever taken south. Roe could be one of the greatest pitchers in the league.”

Stanky was gone shortly after the opening of training camp, shipped to the

Braves for first baseman Ray Sanders and an undisclosed amount of cash. He received the news that he was an ex-Dodger while languishing in a sickbed in

Ciudad Trujillo.

“When a fellow has been with a club and made as many friends as I have among writers, players, and the people in Brooklyn,” Stanky said, “it’s pretty tough to have this happen. I certainly never thought it would happen to me.”

423 Bob Mack

By the time he had recuperated enough to join the Braves in Miami, Stanky’s festering resentment had come to a head. “The Dodgers will not win the pennant this season without me,” he predicted bitterly. “They sold me out. Durocher put the skids under me. He stabbed me in the back.”

On the contrary, Leo had fought like a cornered rat to keep the Brat in Brooklyn.

It was not to be. The decision had been Rickey’s--Stanky could think whatever he liked. Leo had more important things to worry about than the rancor of a former player. The winter banquet circuit had not been kind to some of the National

League champions. When Pete Reiser waddled into camp, Durocher said, “If you crack your head against any of those fences, Reiser, I’ll fine you $5000 and ask for waivers on you. On second thought, I’m beginning to doubt that you could run fast enough to crash into a fence. Good grief, man, you’re hog fat!”

Jackie Robinson arrived two days late, packing 30 pounds of blubber in places that once had been lean.

“I’m about 15 pounds overweight,” Jackie protested.

Leo angrily stuffed his pudgy star into a rubber suit and made him chase ground balls for hours in the tropical sun, then sent him to the outfield to shag flies with the pitchers.

“Eddie Miksis is my second baseman,” Leo told the beat writers, ensuring that the comment was made where Robinson would hear it today and all of Brooklyn would hear it tomorrow.

The Lip was making all of the fat boys unhappy. Reiser volunteered to go to

Vero Beach, obstensibly to learn to play first base, but actually to escape from his

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caustic manager. Robinson had nowhere to go but back into the suet suit while Leo followed him around the diamond calling him “lard-ass”.

Billy Cox, the shortstop from Pittsburgh, was learning a new position under

Durocher’s merciless tutelage. “I think I’m going to like playing third base for the

Dodgers,” he said hopefully, “if I can beat out about four other guys.”

Skinny Preacher Roe watched the steam rising off poor Robinson, and chuckled.

Roe had gained eight pounds since arriving in camp: “I always gain weight after starting training.”

Rickey was transforming the club little by little. Trades were one avenue.

Another was the farm system that he had been assiduously developing since 1943.

Among the young players that had impressed were pitchers Rex Barney, Jack

Banta, Ervin Palica, and Carl Erskine. Catcher Gil Hodges and outfielder Duke

Snider were highly regarded, and the Mahatma purchased the contract of catcher

Roy Campanella from Montreal shortly before the team left Santo Domingo to embark upon its annual barnstorming tour through the south.

“Campanella,” Rickey said, “has the greatest arm of any man in the game today.”

The Dodgers roared through Dixie winning 26 of their first 27 exhibitions against a motley assortment of bush leaguers and stumblebums. Leo was not satisfied.

“We have the worst pitching staff in the league,” he griped.

425 Bob Mack

Robinson was nabbed by police in Hyattsville, Maryland before the final exhibition against the Baltimore Orioles for driving his new Cadillac 55 in a 25 mile-an-hour zone. It was the first time he had shown any speed all spring.

The Yankees snapped the Dodgers’ 25-game winning streak with an 8-6 victory at the Stadium on April 16th, but the Brooks rebounded to take the final two, Leo’s maligned pitchers holding the Yanks to just five hits over eighteen innings. Then it was across the river to the Polo Grounds for the season’s opener on April 20.

The Dodgers’ lineup was still somewhat unsettled. The Mahatma had returned

Ray Sanders to Boston, the former Brave’s injured shoulder having proved unresponsive to treatment, so Leo was starting 20-year old spring phenom Preston

“Vitamin” Ward at first base. A somewhat less corpulent Robinson was playing second, Pee Wee Reese was a fixture at short, Billy Cox had successfully transitioned to third, and Gil Hodges was catching in place of the ailing Bruce

Edwards. Reiser was banged up and not yet in condition, so the veteran Arky

Vaughan would play left field, with Furillo in center, and Dick Whitman in right.

Rex Barney drew the Opening Day mound assignment.

“All Barney has to do is get the ball over to be a big winner,” said Leo.

“How’s the control today, Rex?” asked reserve outfielder Gene Hermanski.

“Good--I hope. I’ve sure worked hard on it.”

The advertisements that had covered the outfield walls at the Polo Grounds for years were gone, replaced by a fresh coat of green paint. “Purty, ain’t it,” asked

Johnny Mize.

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Babe Ruth and his family sat behind the New York dugout. The Bambino looked frail and colorless. The exuberance that had always animated his famous moon face had vanished; instead there was uncertainty and pain in his eyes. He had been out of baseball for almost thirteen years. He was not at all well.

Barney walked five and allowed five hits in his six innings of work, but a two- run homer by Cox in the eighth provided the margin of victory when the Giants’ last ditch rally fell a run short. The Dodgers had launched their season favorably with a 7-6 win. In Florida, Burt Shotton launched his by going bass fishing with his wife after spending the morning scrutinizing minor league players and evaluating their managers at Vero Beach. It was a long way from New York and the daily grind and pressures of big league baseball.

The next day, Durocher set an all-time major league record by using 24 players in a regulation game that the Dodgers lost 9-5. Robinson was forced out with a sore shoulder, and missed the club’s 6-3 win in the rubber match on Thursday.

Customers attending the home opener on Friday were provided with an instructional primer entitled “Care And Protection Of Dodgers’ Fans”, prepared by the local chapter of the Red Cross. The guide, specifically tailored for the denizens of Ebbets Field, included the following helpful hints:

DISLOCATIONS: When a jaw is dislocated in mid-shout, place thumbs in victim’s

mouth, and press down and back. Tell fan to shut up in the future.

BITES: If excited fan bites his hand instead of his hot dog, apply clean cloth over

wound and press till bleeding stops. Remove mustard first.

427 Bob Mack

Miscellany: For FRACTURE due to jumping rail to fight umpire, keep victim off

feet.

For APOPLEXY due to Dodger fielding, apply ice bag to head.

For CHOKING ON SANDWICH due to dropped third strike, slap victim on back

hard to dislodge food.

What Durocher needed was a manual on the care and protection of the Dodgers.

Branca joined the convalescents after being hit on his pitching hand by a Joe Hatten line drive during batting practice. Bruce Edwards was out with a bruised finger on his already aching right arm. Robinson started the game, but could not play past the fifth inning. Reiser’s ankle was still balky and his stomach too big; and the 10-2 loss to the Phillies gave Leo a raging headache.

Despite an 11-4 win on Saturday, the Brooks looked flat, earning a barrage of early season catcalls from the Faithful. On Sunday, they were beaten 6-3.

Robinson sat out his second straight game. On Monday, they were blanked 5-0 by the Braves in Boston when Stanky tripled, singled, walked, scored a pair of runs, then refused to pose for a photograph with Leo.

“I need Stanky like I need a third nut,” snapped the Lip. “Sure he had a great day. But one ball game doesn’t make a season.”

On Tuesday, the Dodgers lost their third straight, 3-2, and Pee Wee Reese became one of the walking wounded, leaving the game in the eighth inning with a strained leg muscle. A four-game winning streak temporarily quieted the rumblings of discontent beginning to be heard at Ebbets Field. In the Cave of Winds, lard and

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its consequences was still the chief subject of concern. Neither Robinson nor

Reiser had stolen a base all season.

“Robinson was eighteen pounds overweight the other day,” the Mahatma pointed out. “Reiser is about a dozen pounds too heavy. Without doubt this detracts from the speed that is a prime asset of both players.”

Things were not going well for the Lip. “We want Shotton” chants echoed from the bleachers at Ebbets Field. Accounts critical of Durocher and the Dodgers appeared in the dailies, particularly in the New York Daily News, whose beat reporter, Dick Young, was barred from the Brooklyn clubhouse because of columns that, Leo said, had “created discontent” among the troops.

“Durocher can’t differentiate between ‘creating discontent’ and the honest reporting of it when it already exists,” the Daily News fired back.

“Young is not to be blamed,” wrote Shirley Povich of the Washington Post. “He isn’t managing the Dodgers.”

On May 13th at sparsely populated Crosley Field, Preacher Roe won his first game in a Brooklyn uniform, downing the Reds 9-3. Robinson, still bothered by shoulder stiffness, injured his left leg when he collided with Cincinnati second baseman Benny Zientara. The team returned home, hoping to build some momentum in a setting where they had compiled a 108-47 record over the past two campaigns.

“I’ve got a better ball club than it has shown,” said Durocher. “We haven’t settled down yet.”

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The homestand was dismal. Warren Spahn outdueled Rex Barney 1-0 in the opener. The Dodgers lost the next seven games in a row by a combined score of

60-27. The eight-game losing streak dropped the club into last place with an 11-18 record. The formerly affectionate Faithful--those of them hardy enough to remain at the ballpark through a full nine innings of Dodger ineptitude--bayed for

Durocher’s blood each time the embattled skipper stuck his head out of the dugout.

“I’ve just got to take it,” Leo said through gritted teeth. “It isn’t anything that a few wins won’t stop. We’ve only played 30-odd games. Wait until we’ve played

60-odd and see how we look.”

“Durocher is a bully,” said one Dodger fan. “The players resent him after a year of Shotton. And I can’t understand why Rickey should have gotten rid of Walker and Stanky until they actually faded. Do you have to sell every ball player for profit after you get the best years out of them?”

“I think Rickey was more wrong on not bringing Shotton back than he was on trading Stanky--and that was plenty bad,” said another. “Shotton, he took the job right in the middle of everything and made good. You can’t tell me he wasn’t entitled to another year. But did he get it? No.”

“I’m not infallible,” admitted the Mahatma, adding ominously, “It doesn’t seem to make much difference what influences are around them. They succeed to lose with apparent glee and pleasure.”

Rickey shipped a quarter of the pitching staff to the minors shortly before roster cutdown day, leaving Leo to function with only eight arms until competent replacements could be located. Snider and Campanella were also farmed out,

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 430

Snider for more seasoning, Campanella because the Dodgers’ boss was unable to demote Gil Hodges without risking his loss.

“We can send Campanella out,” said the Mahatma, “but all of our options have been exhausted on Hodges--who’s going to be one of the great catchers of all time.

Some winter soon, he’s going to win the writer’s Most Valuable Player award.”

The Dodgers skulked out of Flatbush after dropping 9 of 11 games, glad for once to be leaving home. Injuries continued to plague them. Hugh Casey went on the

60-day disabled list after tumbling down the stairs at his saloon. Arky Vaughan had developed a leg infection. Bruce Edwards added inflamed tonsils to his medical chart. Jackie Robinson had x-rays taken of his swollen knee. Pete Reiser had bone spurs in his ankle. Spider Jorgensen’s arm was too lame to throw.

“I admire Leo’s guts,” said the Mahatma, quelling rumors of the Lip’s imminent demise. “What other manager could have done any better with the injuries to key men Durocher has suffered? I’m not trying to alibi for Leo either. I’ll take the blame for anything that’s happened.”

By the end of June, the Dodgers’ record was 27-33. They were in sixth place, eight games off the lead. They had won only 11 of 31 at Ebbets Field.

Surrendering to Leo’s entreaties, the Mahatma recalled Campanella from St. Paul, and George Shuba joined the team from Mobile. Two days later, a 6-4 loss to the

Giants dropped the Flock back into the basement. Reiser, returning to action after successful treatment of his chronically malfunctioning left ankle, sprained his right ankle in the first inning and went right back on the shelf. The team’s dispirited play alarmed Rickey, who fired off a missive to his manager:

431 Bob Mack

“Have you quit the Dodgers? We haven’t given up. If it’s your desire to quit, why not resign?”

When the results of the balloting for the 15th Annual All-Star game were announced on July 7th, the only Dodger to crack the lineup was Reese. Stanky had been elected as the starting second baseman for the National League, but on the 9th, he fractured his ankle in a collision with Bruce Edwards at Ebbets Field. Durocher chose Bill Rigney to replace him.

Leo had not wanted to manage the 1948 National League All-Star team. He had written to league president Ford Frick to say so.

“Leo explained that it was Burt Shotton who won the pennant, not he,” said

Frick, “and that Burt deserved the honor that has always gone to the manager of the pennant-winning team.” Despite Durocher’s unexpected sportsmanship in offering to step aside, Frick was adamant: “My recent decision that the incumbent manager of the championship team shall be the all-star team leader still stands.”

A mild hot-weather surge improved the Dodgers’ slate to 35-37 by the break.

They had moved into fifth place, but had fallen 8½ games behind the league-leading

Braves. Failed phenom Preston Ward had been shipped to the bushes, and Leo was experimenting with Gil Hodges at first base in an effort to put more punch into the lineup.

“Just like he’d been there all his life, that’s how he’s playing it,” Jackie

Robinson said. “He has a little trouble shifting his feet on bad throws and in picking balls out of the dirt. That’s to be expected. But that stretch--it’s the thing you need most at first. You either have it or you don’t. And he’s got it.”

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The injury bug had spread all the way to the Cave of Winds. The Mahatma was hospitalized with a respiratory infection. He dispatched the Twig to assure the world and Brooklyn that the club had not surrendered the season.

“We are out to win the pennant this year,” confirmed Branch Jr. “If the men we bring up and the veterans we keep do not start winning, we will clean out the whole bunch and get a group that will win.”

Experienced Dodger-watchers discerned a subtle change in the atmosphere around Montague Street, like the smell of ozone before a lightning strike.

“Durocher is all but out,” wrote Bill Corum in the New York Journal-American.

“When the final word of his firing comes, as it may any day--even any hour--the announcement may be signed by Rickey, but it will not be Rickey’s doing. In his career as a baseball executive, Rickey never has fired a manager in the course of a season. So if it isn’t the ailing Mahatma who is responsible for Leo’s teetering on the fence of dismissal, who is it? I don’t know. I only know that Rickey’s partners in the ownership of the Brooklyn club are John L. Smith and Walter F. O’Malley.

It is natural to assume, therefore, that the responsible party, or parties, is one or the other, or both of these gentlemen.”

The column brought swift denials from the previously silent partners. It was as if Corum had disturbed a nest of snakes.

“Mr. Rickey is not only president, but general manager as well, of the Brooklyn club,” hissed O’Malley. “Leo Durocher is the field manager. Mr. Smith and I do not second guess either of ‘em.”

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The Mahatma also denied that Durocher was on the verge of being dumped, but added, “When there’s an announcement to that effect, I’ll make it.”

“I don’t know nothin’ from nothin’,” said Leo.

Leo’s fortunes did not improve during the All-Star game in St. Louis. Burt

Shotton threw out the honorary first ball, Stan Musial cracked a two-run first inning homer, and the American League dominated play for the next eight innings, winning 5-2 on a single by Vic Raschi.

“We got beat,” snapped the Lip. “What more can I say?”

Bill Veeck had once quipped, “Horace Stoneham has two occupations. He owns the Giants and he drinks.” Stoneham, whose daughter was married to Freeman

Gosden, half of the Amos ‘n Andy comedy team, had hatched a plan worthy of both

Jack Daniels and the Kingfish. He was going to fire his manager, Mel Ott, whose southern amiability had inspired Leo’s famous remark about nice guys finishing last, and replace him with the man who had mocked him. Stoneham had originally been interested in acquiring Burt Shotton, until he had heard through the grapevine that Durocher was available. The Giants’ owner contacted Ford Frick to arrange for a meeting with Branch Rickey.

Rickey had known for some time of Stoneham’s desire to change pilots. He had, in fact, arranged for the Giants’ owner to be made aware that Leo could be had.

The Mahatma’s baited hook had reached Stoneham in St. Louis during the All-Star break, and afterwards the two schemers met in the National League office in New

York.

“I want Durocher,” Stoneham said.

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Rickey summoned the Lip to the Big Apple, informed him that the Giants were going to offer him the manager’s job, and that Leo was authorized to begin negotiations.

“And what if I don’t take it?”

“You’ll still be manager of the Dodgers,” said the Mahatma, “but there won’t be any future in Brooklyn for you.”

Durocher’s resignation flabbergasted the Faithful. They never imagined that their Leo would don the uniform of the hated Giants, or be replaced by the man that he had replaced. It could only happen in Flatbush.

“That Branch Rickey sure is a smart guy,” judged one Dodger fan. “He gets rid of a manager who is liked by only half the people and who costs him a big salary, and hires a new one that everyone likes for a lot less money.”

Kindly old Burt Shotton was back at the helm, tanned and rested. He had declared that he would never manage again, but Rickey needed him, and the Old

Sourdough never deserted his friends.

“It’s great to be back,” Shotton said. “It’s like coming home. I can’t say how long I’ll stay this time. That depends upon how long Rickey wants me.”

Opinions varied in the Brooklyn clubhouse, with most of the Dodgers firmly in the camp of the determinedly non-committal. Managers came and went. Players were forever.

“I love playing for Shotton,” said Jackie Robinson. “It’s going to be a lot different. When Shotton wants to bawl out a player, he takes him aside and does it

435 Bob Mack

in private. If Leo has something on his mind, you hear it right there--loud and in front of anyone who’s around.”

“I’ve always been a Durocher man,” countered Pee Wee Reese. “Leo didn’t want to lose at any game he played, and I liked that.”

“It makes no difference,” shrugged Ralph Branca. “You play as hard for one as the other.”

“Don’t make much difference to me,” agreed Gene Hermanski. “Who’s pitching against us? That’s more important.”

The Brooks had started to heat up shortly before the All-Star break, and they remained hot for the new skipper, capturing 8 of their first 10 games under Shotton.

Injuries and illnesses continued to bedevil everyone associated with the team. Carl

Furillo’s nose was broken by a batting practice line drive. Announcer Red Barber collapsed on a Pittsburgh golf course, and was hospitalized with gastro-intestinal bleeding. George Shuba was forced to the bench with a pulled leg muscle. Bruce

Edwards went out again with a twisted knee. Ralph Branca was feeling pain in his right shoulder. Preacher Roe was feeling pain in his left shoulder.

Leo made his Ebbets Field debut as manager of the Giants. 33,932 full-throated

Flatbushers turned out to provide him with a special welcome. The size and temper of the crowd alarmed Ford Frick and his minions.

“You know these Brooklyn fans,” , supervisor of umpires for the

National League, told the managers. “Mr. Frick doesn’t want any trouble tonight.”

Leo remained in the dugout for the entirety of the game, and the Faithful sat quietly through a 13-4 drubbing.

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Duke Snider rejoined the club. Church-going Carl Erskine arrived from Fort

Worth at Shotton’s urging, and won his first four games.

“He’s got the poise of a veteran, and pitches with his heart,” said the Old

Sourdough, who had scouted Oisk in Texas earlier in the season. “This boy is ready.”

Led by the slimmed down Robinson, the Dodgers started to run, registering 35 steals in Shotton’s first 34 games.

“We have an entire team that can fly,” said the Old Sourdough, “and I am letting them run.”

They had to run--no one hit homers with any regularity. Hodges and Hermanski were high with 10--three of Gene’s coming in one game--and the team had logged only 68 for the season, third lowest in the league.

Babe Ruth, the greatest long ball hitter of them all, died in New York at the age of 53.

“His was the American story,” said Commissioner Chandler, “the boy who came up from obscurity to learn the people’s game and go on to become a great national hero. His deeds will be an inspiration for the children of the world who will try to emulate him.”

“Babe needed every inch of that big chest of his to protect the world’s largest heart,” Ford Frick noted sadly.

“I am shocked at the news,” said the Bambino’s one-time roommate, Leo

Durocher. “Somehow I thought he would pull through.”

In Boston, the Dodgers and the Braves offered a minute of silent prayer.

437 Bob Mack

“Today’s players owe a debt of gratitude to Babe Ruth,” said Burt Shotton. “His spectacular feats widened interest in the game, drew record crowds, and enabled club owners to double and even treble the capacity of big league parks.”

Robinson’s play had sharpened, and so had his tongue. He was ejected from a game for the first time during a 9-1 loss in Pittsburgh. The exile came after plate umpire had banished Bruce Edwards, who protested to no avail that the wisecrack that had gotten him tossed had been uttered by a fan sitting behind the dugout. Henline’s action incensed the Dodgers. The caterwauling bench jockeys let the embattled arbiter have it.

“I’m trying to do a good job out here!” Henline shouted.

“Somebody ought to!” retorted Robinson.

By the end of August, the resurgent Dodgers had overtaken the league leading

Braves. No one in Flatbush cared whether the percentages had finally evened out, or whether Burt Shotton’s pony express style of baseball had ignited the boys.

Results were what mattered. Leo had taught them that.

Since the appointment of Shotton, the Dodgers had won 32 of 46. But the surge had rendered them bone-tired and beat-up. Durocher’s Giants took three of four at

Ebbets Field on Labor Day weekend. A week later, Rex Barney tossed a 2-0 no- hitter at the Polo Grounds. It was just two months after one of Barney’s more characteristic performances had sent Durocher storming into the Dodger clubhouse at Ebbets Field: “He just hasn’t got it! He’ll never pitch another game for me when anything’s at stake!”

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“I’m proud of you, kid,” Leo now said, as he left the third base coaching box and ran past the grinning Barney.

The Giants won the next three, dumping the Dodgers into fourth place, six games behind Boston.

“I’ve been reading in the paper about how we’ve quit,” said the Old Sourdough,

“that the team’s tired. Ball clubs don’t quit until they’re four games out of first place and they have three left to play. Why should the Dodgers be tired? It’s a young ball club.”

The Braves clinched the flag on the 26th, their first pennant since 1914. The

Brooks limped home a disappointing third, trailing the champions by 7½ games.

Many of the Faithful blamed the debacle on front office blundering. So did a number of the Dodger players. After all, Stanky was going to the World’s Series, and they weren’t. There was speculation about a new manager, but on October 8th, the Mahatma announced that Burt Shotton would return in 1949.

“Our team is good enough to win next year,” said the Old Sourdough. “I’ll be trying to prove it--at least I think I will. At my age, you never know.

***

Tommy Byrne, the Yankee pitcher for Game 3, was a left-handed version of Rex

Barney. He had led the American League in bases on balls and hit batsmen, but had allowed fewer than six hits per game. Byrne was an orphan from Baltimore, and he threw as if he was still chasing urchins away from his gruel.

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“I don’t mind if you’re wild,” said Stengel, “as long as you can pour that ball in there. But once you start to throw powder-puff stuff in order to get control, well, brother, out you come.”

Three Dodger pitchers had post-season experience--Branca, Hatten, and Barney.

Branca earned the assignment by default. He had not lost at Ebbets Field all season,

Shotton needed the left-handed Hatten in the bullpen, and one Barney a day was enough for anybody.

The Old Sourdough had studied Branca for the better part of three seasons, during which the right-hander had compiled a sparkling 48-26 record that should have made him the ace of the staff--but he was no better than third. It was almost as if he was afraid to be the pitcher the team relied upon. Branca could win.

Sometimes he could dominate. But he always had to be watched.

The weather was dreary, but the rain had stopped by game time. Happy

Chandler delivered the ceremonial first pitch, and Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto stepped into the batter’s box.

The great Detroit Tiger star, Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, was a notoriously difficult man to impress. Cobb had retired in 1929--coincidentally the same year he judged competent ball playing to have ended--but he still followed the game closely. It gave him something else to grumble about. Rizzuto and his Brooklyn counterpart had earned the plaudits of the old misanthrope.

“What a pair!” exclaimed Cobb. “Those two have about everything. They cover more ground than I’ve seen a shortstop cover in some time. And don’t forget they can hit! Bunting has almost become a lost art, but Rizzuto is keeping it alive.

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Reese is the longer hitter of the two. I would call them about even as batters. I’ll always remember this Series for one particular reason--I saw the best pair of shortstops it has ever been my privilege to watch!”

Rizzuto, the “Scooter”, was a Brooklyn boy who had grown up a Dodgers fan because, he said, “it was easier to sneak into Ebbets Field than Yankee Stadium.”

He had even tried out for the team. Dodger manager Casey Stengel, cruel as a whip at times, took a gander at the 5’6” shortstop, and advised him to get a job shining shoes.

The Scooter was a compact bundle of superstitions and phobias. One thing he wasn’t afraid of was the baseball.

“My best pitch,” said Vic Raschi, “is anything the batter grounds, lines, or pops in the direction of Rizzuto.”

Scooter fouled Branca’s first offering, then went out on a grounder to third baseman Miksis. Reliable Tommy Henrich, hitless since his game-winning homer in the opener, ripped one to Hodges, who smothered it with his big hands and outran him to the bag. Berra was next, a notorious bad-ball hitter who would swing at anything, usually with excellent results. Yogi was a natural in front of the plate, but not behind it.

“The fun of the game is hitting,” Yogi had commented upon his arrival in the big leagues. “Well, you got to play a little defense too. is learning me his experience.”

The Yankee catcher was as good at mangling the language as he was at punishing pitchers. “I don’t mean to do it,” he said, “it just comes out that way.”

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Berra had become a ball player because, he explained, “where could you go and work three hours and make that kind of money?”

Yogi was a native of St. Louis. His American Legion coach had brought him to the attention of Branch Rickey. The Mahatma had offered Yogi $250 to sign with the Cardinals.

“I said, ‘Nope, I won’t sign for that.’ I wanted $500. I didn’t care who gave it to me. He told me that I’d never be a ballplayer. When I signed with the Yankees,

I get a telegram from Branch Rickey: ‘Report at Bear Mountain for spring training with the Dodgers.’ He knew he was going to the Dodgers, so he didn’t want me to sign with the Cardinals. It was too late, though. I already signed with the

Yankees.”

Yogi fouled off four pitches, then struck out.

Byrne had hit 13 batters with pitches during the regular season. He added one more to his count when he nailed Reese on the ankle with a 1-2 fastball to begin the

Dodgers’ first inning. The Brooks had run at will on Berra in the ’47 Series. When

Miksis popped a foul near the Yankees’ dugout, Reese, sore ankle and all, decided to test him again. Yogi’s aim had improved. He gunned Pee Wee out at second.

Furillo, swaddled in ACE bandages, was back in the lineup, batting third against the southpaw. He lofted a fly ball that DiMaggio caught easily in right center field.

Giuseppe DiMaggio, the all-American Italian hero, led off the second. Joe’s recent illness had turned him into a recuperating shade of his former self, long on spirit but short of breath--but his team needed him, and so he was here. When asked, upon his reinstatement from the disabled list earlier in the season, whether he

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could have returned earlier, Joe had responded, “Young man, I am no ‘jake’.” He had managed only a single in seven at-bats. Branca struck him out on four pitches.

Physician-in-waiting Bobby Brown popped to Robinson just beyond the infield dirt.

Outfielder was one of Stengel’s valuable spares. The 1948

Player of the Year in the Pacific Coast League, Woodling had his best days against

Casey’s Oakland Oaks. “I think I hit about .900 against his club,” he said. “Casey got a good view of me.”

Woodling had spent much of the season platooning with right-handers Johnny

Lindell, Cliff Mapes, and , compiling a .270 average. He was philosophical about his hitting. “If the Man upstairs says you’re gonna hit, you’ll hit until you’re 100. If he doesn’t, you gotta go home and go to work.”

Woodling popped a foul to the left of third that Miksis hauled in near the seats.

Jackie Robinson had played in nine World’s Series games, and his composite average was .235, 77 points below his career mark. Robinson needed to hit if the

Dodgers were to win, and so far he hadn’t. Normally patient at the plate--he had drawn 86 bases on balls during the regular season--Jackie swung at Byrne’s first pitch and popped out to second baseman Jerry Coleman.

Ex-Marine Gil Hodges rarely argued with an umpire. He had learned discipline in the Pacific Theater during the war. He was the strongest man on the Brooklyn team, and the quietest.

“I put a first baseman’s glove on our rookie catcher Gil Hodges, and told him to have some fun,” Leo Durocher recalled, “Three days later, I was looking at the best first baseman I’d seen since Dolf Camilli.”

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Hodges got jammed on a fastball, and fouled out to Berra in front of the

Dodgers’ dugout.

30-year old Luis Francisco Rodriguez Olmo had first joined the Dodgers in

1943. He had finished the 1949 season with an average of .305. He was the first

Puerto Rican to play in a World’s Series. Olmo took a weak swing at a curve, and dribbled it down the third base line. Bobby Brown charged the ball and nipped

Olmo at first.

After two innings, the game was scoreless.

Outfielder Cliff Mapes opened the New York third. Mapes had worn Babe

Ruth’s uniform number # 3 until the Yankees had seen fit to take the shirt off his back and retire it. Mapes walked on a 3-2 pitch from Branca, the first base on balls allowed by a Brooklyn pitcher in the Series.

Rookie Jerry Coleman had led American League second basemen in fielding with a .981 percentage. He had committed only 12 errors all season, and had batted

.275. Coleman, like Stengel and Berra, had a flair for skewering the English language.

“I like to use big words,” he said, “so people will think I know what I’m talking about.”

Art Passarella, the first major league umpire to have been drafted in World War

II, called Coleman out on strikes while Mapes wandered off the first base bag.

Campanella rifled a throw to Hodges. Mapes was barely safe.

Tommy Byrne, like his fellow Baltimorean George Herman Ruth, could handle the bat. He had posted a career average of .228 with a slugging percentage of .336,

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high cotton for a hurler. In 149 at-bats, Byrne had 7 doubles, 3 triples, and a home run. He had knocked in 20 runs. The Dodgers were looking for the bunt. Byrne had struck out in 20 of his 86 plate appearances in 1949, but his lifetime rate was only 18%. Mapes had stolen six bases during the season without being caught.

Stengel, unpredictable and audacious, flashed his pitcher the hit-and-run sign. The success of the play depended on Byrne making contact, but even if he failed, Mapes might still swipe the sack. It was an acceptable risk. Byrne singled to center and

Mapes advanced to third. Rizzuto hit a fly ball to Furillo in right. Mapes tagged after the catch. Furillo’s throw to the plate was strong but wide, and the Yankees had scored the first run of the game. Branca walked Henrich on four pitches to put runners at first and second, then retired Berra on a humpbacked line drive to

Robinson. New York 1, Brooklyn 0.

Duke Snider, hitting seventh against the southpaw, had managed one single in the first two games, striking out three times. Laying for a fastball because Byrne had been missing with his curve, Snider rapped an outside pitch to left where

Woodling tracked it down. Campanella rolled one to Brown at third. The Doctor’s hard throw beat him to the bag. Branca struck out. Berra dropped the ball, and had to throw him out at first.

DiMaggio struck out again to start the fourth. It was rare for Joe to fan, even more unusual for him to do it twice in a row. It was all the proof anyone needed that the Yankee Clipper was not well. Bobby Brown fouled out to Miksis.

Woodling collected the first authoritative hit of the afternoon, a long, line drive double off the big scoreboard in right center field. Mapes hit a slow roller between

445 Bob Mack

second and first. Hodges missed it, but Robinson fielded it. Jackie’s flip to Branca covering was in time.

In the Dodgers’ half, Pee Wee took a strike, then clobbered Byrne’s next pitch into the lower left field seats. New York 1, Brooklyn 1. The Faithful finally had something to cheer about. Miksis ripped a liner to DiMaggio for the first out.

Furillo banged a single to left, wincing as he hobbled to first. Joe Page started to loosen up in the New York bullpen. Byrne threw four straight balls to Robinson.

Hodges walked on five pitches. Stengel jumped from the dugout, waving to the bullpen almost before his spikes hit the ground.

They called Joe Page the “Gay Reliever” because of the many happy hours he had spent enjoying the nightlife of New York. Page’s attitude had helped to drive his first manager, the hard-bitten and intense Joe McCarthy, into temporary retirement after 16 seasons in the Bronx.

“You have to be dumb to be a reliever,” said Page. “You have to have a rubber arm, you have to have no feelings whatever, and you must have resigned yourself to a career of that type. You are thrown into one crisis after another. Every time you are invited to join the boys, there is trouble. You have to slide down the brass pole and grab an axe and the fire hose. The fire bells are ringing and the engine is belching smoke. However, I like the work and the hours, and I like this guy

Stengel.”

Page had relied on an unhittable fastball and an occasional spitter to win 13 and save 27 of the Yankees’ 97 victories.

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“He goes in there in situations where another guy would choke up,” said Casey,

“and he just walks in and blows them down. That takes more than just an arm. It’s different when you give a guy a game to work. He can make a mistake, and you got nine innings to make it up. If Page makes a mistake, you go squat.”

Bases loaded, one out. The Faithful were howling for Yankee blood. Page took his warm-up tosses, popping Berra’s glove leather with each pitch. He was enjoying himself, like an old Apache medicine man that believed his arcane rituals had rendered him immune to the bullets of the bluecoats. Olmo stood in, got a piece of a rising fastball, and lofted a foul towards the first base side. Henrich reached into the seats and made the catch in a thicket of spectators. Snider hit a hard grounder to Coleman who threw to Henrich to retire the side. Fire out.

Thomas Wolfe had authored a tale in 1935 entitled “Only The Dead Know

Brooklyn”. With the third game of the 1949 World’s Series tied 1-1, the Dodger

Faithful were hoping the Yankees got to know them much better, and soon. Branca was doing his best to make it so. The right-hander was pitching as he had early in the year, before elbow miseries and a crisis of confidence--his own and his manager’s--had changed his season from the spectacular to the mundane. But Page was matching him, pitch for pitch and out for out. It was as if the long rivalry between the Island and the City had finally come to be embodied in just two men,

Branca representing the aspirations and dreams of the blue-collar immigrant community that had come to America when the century was young; the high-living

Page the symbol of the haughty patricians and monied aristocrats they had crossed an ocean to escape.

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Or maybe it was just a baseball game.

Page surrendered his first hit in the eighth inning, a one-out single to left by

Miksis following a walk to Reese; but Furillo hit a fly ball to Mapes, and

Robinson’s drive to center was caught by a back-pedaling DiMaggio.

Branca had gotten stronger as the game went deeper, retiring 13 consecutive batters. Robinson made it 14 in a row when he robbed Henrich of a hit to open the ninth. Berra walked, refusing for once to chase anything out of the strike zone. The

Great DiMag fouled to Miksis. Now there were two outs. Bobby Brown grounded a single past Hodges. Woodling walked, loading the bases. Clyde Sukeforth headed for the mound. Jack Banta and Joe Hatten had been throwing in the bullpen, awaiting the call that would send one or the other of them into action. Stepping from the Yankee dugout to bat for Mapes was as a player the Dodgers and their fans knew all too well--Johnny Mize, the “Big Cat”, for many years the premier home run hitter in the National League. The 36-year old Mize had been sold to the

Yankees by Durocher’s rebuilding Giants in August, and was playing in his first

World’s Series. He had batted once, singling off Preacher Roe as a pinch-hitter in

Game 2. Mize was dangerous, but he was not the threat he had once been. He had appeared in only 13 games for New York. Age and injury had taken their toll. Burt

Shotton decided to let Branca face the well-seasoned Big Cat. Mize’s ailing right shoulder was no secret. The Dodgers planned to bust the big left-hander inside, and

Branca threw harder than either Hatten or Banta.

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“His first pitch was in close,” said Mize, “and in the split second you get to think about it, I was planning to let it hit me and get on. That would have forced in a run.

But it was too close to my right elbow. That’s my sore shoulder side.”

On the mound, Branca took a deep breath. “One out to go,” he told himself. He looked in for Campanella’s sign, checked the runners, and threw.

“I looked at a strike,” said Mize, “because it wasn’t my kind of pitch. I was going to make him give me a good one or walk me. Either way it was all right.”

Mize took another strike. Now Branca had him in the hole at 1-2. The Big Cat could no longer be selective. He had to chase anything that was close. Branca got set to deliver the coup d’gras.

“It was the one I was waiting for,” said Mize, “a fastball about belt-high, or maybe lower.”

“It was a good pitch,” said Branca, “high and inside, which was where I intended to throw it.”

The ball arced off the bat, a big fly heading deep to right. Furillo backed up, but had no play. The ball hit the screen above the concrete wall. Berra and Brown scored, and Woodling went to third. Mize stopped at first with a long and damaging single. New York 3, Brooklyn 1.

Sukeforth returned to the mound to discharge Branca. Hank Bauer came off the bench to run for Mize.

As a child, poverty had forced Bauer’s parents to dress him in clothes sewn from old burlap feed sacks. As an adult, he had been one of six survivors from a 64-man

Marine company decimated during the battle for Okinawa. He had earned two

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Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. 1949 had been the 26-year old Bauer’s first full season with the Yankees. He had batted .272 with 10 home runs. Like most of the Yankees, he was as tough as the leather on his old combat boots. He would do what it took to earn a winner’s share of the World’s Series loot.

Banta took his allotted warm-up tosses as Jerry Coleman swung a pair of bats near the on-deck circle. Coleman stepped to the plate and singled to center.

Woodling scored. Bauer advanced to third. New York 4, Brooklyn 1. Page was due up. Stengel decided to let him bat. A three-run lead with Page pitching was better than a four-run lead with someone else. Page struck out.

Down to their last three outs, the Dodgers needed runners. Page had been in the game since the fourth.

“Everybody has the notion,” he said, “that I can’t go more than two or three innings. Everybody, that is, but me. I can go as long as I have to.”

Hodges bounced out, Coleman to Henrich. Olmo slammed a home run into the lower deck in left. New York 4, Brooklyn 2.

“Unsound baseball,” grumbled Ty Cobb. “Olmo swung on a ball he should have taken. The Dodgers were three runs behind and one man was out. Olmo swung on the first pitch. Under the circumstances, he should have made Page pitch.”

Page agreed. “I eased up,” he said. “I figured he’d be taking instead of swinging, but he fooled me.”

Campanella was next. He had driven Woodling to the wall to haul down his long fly in the seventh. Campy fouled off two pitches, took a ball, then sent another long fly to left. Woodling retreated, but this time it hit the railing and dropped over.

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The back-to-back homers had brought the Dodgers to within one. New York 4,

Brooklyn 3.

“A curve ball that hung,” observed Cobb. “A 1-2 pitch that Page may have tried to waste.”

Page was tired and vulnerable, but the Bums only had one out left in which to get to him. The Old Sourdough sent Bruce Edwards out to bat for Banta. The right-handed Edwards had long ball power that had increased each year even as his batting average and playing time had dropped. The Dodgers had started the inning needing singles and had gotten homers; now they needed a homer, the singles could wait for tomorrow. Edwards took strike one, then swung and missed. Page was feeding him nothing but speed. Edwards took a ball. 1-2, and the Bull had to swing at anything near the zone. Page fired a perfect fastball on the outside corner.

Edwards let it go by. It was strike three. The victorious Yanks repaired to their dressing room beneath the stands. Outside, it started to rain. “It never shoulda stopped,” muttered one of the Faithful.

“I wasn’t too worried about Page,” said Casey. “We were three runs ahead when they started hitting those homers. We were still in front when he finished them.”

“They got the hits when they counted,” mused Burt Shotton in the quiet

Dodgers’ clubhouse, “and we didn’t. That’s all there is to it. Branca got the ball where he wanted it and Mize still hit it.”

“We always did know how to pitch to him,” said Campanella, “but some days when you’re squatting behind the plate, Mr. Mize’s bat swells up.”

451 Bob Mack

“Mize came in at just the right time,” explained Casey. “Shotton had Joe Hatten warming up. That’s why I waited to see if he was going to change before I took out

Mapes. But Mize has been hitting left-handers and right-handers for ten years. I wouldn’t have changed again. He’s like DiMaggio and Henrich and Berra--they hit all kinds of pitching.”

That evening, both Shotton and Stengel attended the dinner at the Hotel St.

George that Rickey had arranged to honor the old time Dodgers.

“It’s wonderful,” said Casey, “to meet so many friends that I didn’t used to like.”

“Here are two men,” said the Mahatma, “who are 60 or thereabouts. They won the championships of their respective leagues after bitter, grueling fights, which were not decided until the last day of the season. In the first three games of the

World’s Series, one run was the deciding margin. These men managed before in the major leagues. I knew them and you knew them. We knew them for what they were, solid baseball men. They have managed well, and are finally receiving the recognition which is their due. Casey is here in a dual capacity, as a member of our first Brooklyn World’s Series team, and as our foe in this Series. He is free to speak without restraint. He is among friends. He knows his friends have never tried to restrain him and his enemies have never been able to.”

Well, someone was going to have to restrain the old coot. Game 4 was pivotal.

Another defeat would place the Dodgers in a virtually untenable position, down 3 games to 1. A victory, though, would even the Series, and Shotton would lead the

Brooks back to the Bronx with a chance to take the title. His choice of pitchers was crucial.

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“I won’t say until tomorrow after we talk it over with the boys,” said the Old

Sourdough.

***

Tex Rickard got the introduction right for a change: “Mr. Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.” The Faithful responded with a few polite boos.

“Today,” intoned the Mahatma, “the Brooklyn club is proud to have as its guests

16 of the 19 surviving members of the championship 1916 team. They will be introduced by Mr. Casey Stengel, one of the members of that club, now manager of the Yankees. They will walk from their seats in the dugout to the home plate.

Please reserve your applause until the finish.”

The antique Superbas emerged one by one, some with gray heads aching from the previous night’s revelries. They lined up around Casey, each man baffled as to how the fellow next to him had gotten so old.

“It is a matter of record,” wrote Red Smith, “that Branch Rickey resisted an impulse to decorate them with a ‘For Sale’ sign.”

Casey and his creaky colleagues were presented with wallets and baseballs autographed by the ’49 champs. They marched off the field to noisy accolades and an even noisier rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” by Gladys Gooding. Then it was time for the current crop of Dodgers to get down to business. Shotton had decided to start Don Newcombe on two days rest rather than entrust his fate to the erratic

Rex Barney. Left-hander Eddie Lopatynski, better known as Lopat (Ted Williams always called him “that fucking Lopat”), was loosening up for the Yanks.

453 Bob Mack

Lopat was a native New Yorker from the Lower East Side who had started his career with the White Sox in 1944, shortening his surname so it would fit onto a box score. His nickname, the “Junkman”, fittingly described his extensive repertoire of pitches--a tantalizing variety of breaking balls that frustrated hitters pounded regularly into the dirt. Lopat had been traded to the Big Apples prior to the 1948 season, finishing 17-11 in his first season in pinstripes. In 1949, the 31- year old had posted a 15-10 record.

It was obvious from the start that Newcombe didn’t have much of anything on the ball. As the last notes of the National Anthem faded, Rizzuto ripped a single up the middle. Henrich, after fouling off six pitches, delivered a hit to right that put runners on the corners. Berra hit a grounder to Miksis at third, but instead of going to second for the force and possible double play, as Rizzuto expected, Miksis threw home. Scooter was caught in a rundown, darted out of the basepath, and was called out by umpire Lou Jorda. The daydreaming Henrich, meanwhile, had trotted past second and stopped to admire the scenery. Campanella alertly rifled a throw to

Robinson, and Old Reliable was out. Henrich briefly argued the call, but it was all show business: “I was caught flat-footed, and was trying to make it look good.”

The uncharacteristically inept baserunning proved costly to the Bombers when

Newcombe walked DiMaggio and Brown, and Woodling’s sharp line drive to

Snider ended the inning instead of scoring a run.

Reese cracked a two-bagger off the left center field fence to start the Dodgers’ first, but Lopat induced ground balls from Miksis, Snider, and Robinson, none of which found a hole, and Pee Wee was stranded.

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Both hurlers settled down and retired the sides in order in the second and third.

In the Dodgers’ dugout, the Old Sourdough watched the field, wary as a grazing bighorn periodically sniffing the air for the scent of predators. In the top of the fourth, the wolves attacked. They’d been downwind all the time.

Newk had worked 255 innings, regular season and World’s Series, since joining the team in May. He had thrown a few thousand pitches, and two days rest between starts in October had not been enough to restock his right arm, especially when summer-like humidity had returned to the city. DiMaggio sent Snider back to the track to haul down his drive. Bobby Brown cracked a double off the left center field fence. Woodling drew the semi-intentional walk to set up the force, but the

Brooks had used up their luck. Mapes doubled into the corner. Both runners scored. Olmo made a running catch of Coleman’s foul fly, and Lopat, a .247 lifetime hitter, doubled off the fence. Mapes trotted home. Sukeforth went to the mound. Newcombe was done. Joe Hatten came in from the pen. Rizzuto smoked a single to left. Lopat tried to score, and was out by a country mile, Olmo to

Campanella. The Dodgers went meekly in the bottom half. New York 3, Brooklyn

0.

Doctor Brown cracked a bases-loaded triple in the fifth, further disgruntling the

Faithful, who had expected better from their Bums. New York 6, Brooklyn 0.

Hermanski collected the Dodgers’ second hit, a two-out single. Tommy Brown batted for Hatten and flied to Bauer in short right.

455 Bob Mack

Shotton brought Erskine in to pitch the sixth, a post-season debut marred only by a two-out drive off the right field wall by Henrich that Furillo played perfectly, holding Old Reliable to a single after which Berra popped up.

Reese led off for the Brooks in the sixth with a little fly to center. DiMaggio, playing the Series on unsteady legs stiffened by caffeine and adrenalin, fell while chasing it, and Reese was on with the third Dodgers’ hit. Billy Cox batted for

Miksis, and chopped an infield single to Lopat. There was a rustling in the stands.

A long ball would cut the New York lead in half, and Snider was up. Duke had slugged 23 during the season, but hadn’t hit much of anything in the Series yet, only a single in fourteen trips. He grounded one of Lopat’s junkers to Rizzuto near the bag. Scooter stepped on second and threw to Henrich for the easy double play. The

Faithful chorused a premature groan, premature because--with two outs--the

Dodgers exploded. Actually, they erupted in a series of loud bangs. Consecutive singles by Robinson, Hodges, Olmo, Campanella, and Hermanski plated four runs and sent Stengel bolting from the dugout to change pitchers. Lopat had wilted in the heat. The unpredictable Perfessor, instead of bugling for the cavalry, called on the Indians--one Superchief, to be exact.

“Reynolds was my pitcher for tomorrow,” said Casey, “but when I saw how things were going, I had to get Allie in there. I don’t believe in saving pitchers in such a spot. I want today’s game today. Let tomorrow take care of itself.”

Jorgensen batted for Erskine. Reynolds struck him out on three pitches. New

York 6, Brooklyn 4. The Dodgers’ seven singles in one inning had tied a World’s

Series record, but the uprising proved futile. The Chief retired the next nine batters

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in order, and the Yanks were one game away from winning the World’s

Championship.

“I’m bruised,” said Burt Shotton, “but I’m not dead.”

Most observers disagreed. Preacher Roe was unable to force a glove over his injured index finger. He couldn’t pitch. The Dodgers’ ship was sinking, and Rex

Barney held the only life preserver. Everyone knew he was going to throw it high and outside.

“The time to gamble with your pitchers in a World’s Series,” Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby said flatly, “is at the start when you have time to recover--not at the finish where it can kill you.”

Critics of the Brooklyn manager seemed to be everywhere--everywhere except in the Montague Street headquarters of the Dodgers.

“I keep no records of a manager’s mistakes,” said the Mahatma. “I’m strictly a front guesser.”

That was all right--the second-guessers kept records enough for everybody:

“Why’d you start Newcombe on two days rest?”

“Why’d you walk DiMaggio in the fifth when he was only hitting .095?”

“Why didn’t you pinch-hit for Snider against the lefty in the sixth?”

The only scribe who had not questioned the manager’s acumen, at least as far as anybody could tell, was Shojo Uno, of the Tokyo Yomiru: “The perfect newpaperman,” observed Shotton. “Can’t speak a word of English.”

Casey Stengel, the newly anointed genius of the Great White Way, was not planning on a return trip to the Bronx.

457 Bob Mack

“It will be Raschi--and Page--tomorrow,” Casey laughed. “I’m shortened up on pitchers, just as Shotton was when he came in with Newcombe. So I’m going in with Raschi. We’ve got them on the run. They must take three in a row, and I think Raschi will see that they don’t”

“Well,” sighed Gil Hodges, “it’s another day. We’re still in there until we’re counted out.”

***

To the Faithful, the worst part of the whole thing was that this year, unlike ’41 or

’47, they had a better team than the Bombers. It was, as Chester A. Riley would say, “a revoltin’ development.” Losing was bad enough, but losing to the Yankees again--it was as if the Borough had been grabbed by the scruff of the neck and had its nose rubbed on a wet spot in the carpet. The Old Sourdough, gone from toasted to roasted in one short week, was being blamed for everything from Snider’s slump to the traffic jams around Ebbets Field.

Baseball managers are by necessity a thick-skinned bunch. Stengel said the trick was keeping the players that hated you away from the ones who were undecided; but there was no way to keep the knights of the keyboard at bay--or the fans who paid good money to come out and bellow. All in all, the only person that had to be satisfied was the one who signed the checks. Still, even the gruffest baseball man wouldn’t be human if his ears didn’t burn sometimes, which was another reason why Burt Shotton hadn’t stuck his head out of the dugout since 1933. He had heard enough boos to last him a lifetime--he had managed the Phillies.

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 458

The innate, unwarranted, and ultimately insane optimism that sometimes suffused the Faithful was gone by the end of the first half of the first inning on

Sunday. Eight of Barney’s first nine pitches were balls, followed by a pick-off throw to second that he rifled into center field allowing Henrich and Rizzuto to advance to second and third. Berra would have walked too, except that he enjoyed striking at dreadful pitches. DiMaggio crushed a fastball to the center field fence.

Snider leaped at it like a python snatching at a rat. Scooter tagged on the catch and scored, and Old Reliable moved to third. Bobby Brown drilled a single up the middle plating Henrich. Woodling worked the count to 3-2 and walked, Barney’s third free pass of the inning. The Faithful howled for change, but Burt Shotton sat grimly on his liver spots. The count advanced to 3-2 on Mapes. The Wild Man finally got a curve ball over the dish, and Mapes struck out looking. New York 2,

Brooklyn 0.

Raschi, working on two days rest for the first time in the season, disposed of the

Dodgers easily, and Barney trudged back to the mound like a condemned man who was braiding his own noose. The Wild Man exited the second unscathed after walking the pitcher, but with two outs in the third, he issued his fifth and sixth bases on balls to Brown and Mapes and was tagged for singles by Woodling and

Coleman. New York 4, Brooklyn 0. The Old Sourdough had seen enough of

Barney for the season. Jack Banta trotted to the mound. Raschi singled home

Mapes. New York 5, Brooklyn 0.

Left fielder Marv Rackley had replaced the gimpy Furillo in the lineup, with

Hermanski moving to right. Rackley struck out to begin the Brooklyn attack.

459 Bob Mack

Campanella pulled a double down the line, the first hit surrendered by Raschi.

Shotton allowed Banta to hit for himself, causing heads to wag all over Flatbush.

The pitcher flailed away at a fastball, bouncing it to Henrich. Campanella advanced to third. Pee Wee banged a clutch single to right, scoring Campy. New York 5,

Brooklyn 1.

In the fourth, the Yankee Clipper belted a two-out homer just fair into the lower deck in left. New York 6, Brooklyn 1. The Brooks blew an opportunity to get back into it when Rackley fanned on a 3-2 pitch after Robinson and Hodges had singled.

Gene Woodling, finding Ebbets Field to his liking, doubled off the scoreboard in the fifth, moved to third on a sacrifice by Mapes, and scored when Hodges momentarily fumbled Coleman’s hard grounder. New York 7, Brooklyn 1.

Erskine supplanted Banta in the sixth as the disaster moved inexorably onward.

Rizzuto walked and went to third on Henrich’s hit-and-run single. Berra brought the Scooter in with a long fly ball to the wall in left. New York 8, Brooklyn 1.

Brown hit a line drive off the right field fence. The ball bounced past Hermanski, who could not play the concrete as deftly as Furillo. Henrich chugged past third.

Robinson took the relay, and threw wildly to the plate. Henrich scored. Brown scored. New York 10, Brooklyn 1. Oakland Joe relieved Oisk. Woodling doubled off the left field wall before Mapes flied out to end the carnage. The Sym-phoney

Band considered playing “Taps”, but it was too cheerful a tune.

A nine run lead in the sixth inning was as near a sure thing as there was in the big leagues. Raschi was wearing down, but he did not need to be precise with his pitches anymore. Throw it over the plate and let ‘em whale away. They’d hit it

Bird Hunting In Brooklyn 460

right at somebody seven times out of ten anyway. Snider doubled off the wall in left center. Robinson walked. Hermanski chopped a base hit past Henrich into right. Snider scored. New York 10, Brooklyn 2. With two outs, Campanella walked. A grand slam would put the Brooks back in the ball game. Billy Cox pinch-hit for Hatten and struck out.

Erv Palica finally emerged from Burt Shotton’s lockbox and retired the Yanks in order in the seventh. The Faithful stood for the stretch like mourners waiting to throw dirt on a grave, but the Brooks were not quite ready for interment. With one down, Jorgensen walked. Snider singled up the middle. Robinson skied out to

Woodling. Jorgensen scored. New York 10, Brooklyn 3. Hermanski looked at four consecutive balls. Hodges slammed a long home run into the lower deck in left. New York 10, Brooklyn 6. The Old Perfesser sprinted from the dugout and made the wave for Joe Page.

“I knew it was the end,” said Raschi. “You can’t take chances on a tired pitcher.”

Page had a bruised thumb. He couldn’t throw his curve. Olmo batted for

Rackley. He fanned on three straight fastballs. They turned on the lights in the ninth, but no amount of glow could dispel the gloom that had settled over Flatbush.

Miksis led off with a two-bagger down the line. Snider struck out.

“That,” came a doleful announcement from the press box, “was strikeout number eight for Snider, tying the record for five games established by Rogers Hornsby with the Chicago Cubs against the A’s in 1929.”

“Why’d they have to bring that up?” griped Hornsby.

461 Bob Mack

Robinson struck out. Hermanski walked. Hodges struck out. The Yankees were world champions for the twelfth time.

***

The City had triumphed over the Island again. The Dodgers’ only victory in the abbreviated Fall Classic had resulted in their eventual defeat when Preacher Roe had incurred the finger injury that prevented him from pitching again.

“Never, never before did I yearn to win a World’s Series as much as I craved this one,” admitted Branch Rickey. The Mahatma had become quite fond of the

Borough over the years, though his affection was not always reciprocated.

“I still don’t see how a team like ours could have been licked by a team like that,” lamented Jackie Robinson, who had batted .188 over the five games.

“The worst Yankee team I ever saw in the World’s Series,” muttered Hornsby, the crusty old National League stalwart.

Most observers blamed the Brooks for losing the Series more than they credited the Yankees for winning it. The Dodgers could have won, thought the experts, should have won; but they’d been confronted by two insurmountable obstacles---

Joe Page and Burt Shotton.

“Add ‘em all up,” wrote Arthur Daley in the Times, “Banta, Erskine, Palica,

Hatten, and Minner--and they don’t total one paragraph, much less a full Page.

Every time Casey Stengel put his eggs in one basket he never as much as cracked a shell. Every time Shotton put all his eggs in one basket, it came out an omelet.”

“The narrow squeeze for Branch Rickey’s ‘finest Brooklyn team’ in the National

League race,” wrote Al Wolf in the Los Angeles Times, “successful only because

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the St. Louis Cardinals beat themselves by collapsing completely in the stretch, and the abject whipping for Brookyn in the Series, might well result in Manager Burt

Shotton’s retiring--whether he wants to or not. But then, maybe a fellow who doesn’t even bother to don a uniform and hence cannot emerge from the dugout to counsel his players isn’t very interested anyhow.”

Shirley Povich of the Washington Post was equally unforgiving: “Shotton---the bungler. Got his pitchers all snarled up and was left with Rex Barney. Left him in there when the guy didn’t have a prayer. Refused to bench his hitting flop, Duke

Snider. You wonder how he got the Dodgers home in front in the National League.”

Harshest of all was Arch Murray of the New York Post, who had covered the

Brooks all season and still pined for the halcyon days of Durocher: “Shotton’s management was the worst in World’s Series history. His blunders will be the talk in Flatbush long after snow has blanketed Ebbets Field. On the bench, he is jittery, panicky, and indecisive--and his patience is thin. It’s time for him to step down.”

The Mahatma had heard enough. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that the

Old Ohio Sourdough had annexed pennants for Brooklyn in two of his three seasons at the helm. “I’ve known Barney for 40 years,” said Mr. Rickey. “Burt Shotton did not lose this series. I am more worried about my players than I am my manager.”

The Dodgers’ president jabbed the air with his well-chewed cigar, a finger in the chest of the future: “We must beat the American League in 1950! We will change all our thinking, all our slogans! I am making moves right now, today, this minute.

Whether they are the right moves remain to be seen.”

463 Bob Mack

“I only hope the Yankees are in the Series next year,” offered the belittled Burt

Shotton, “because we’ll beat ‘em then for sure.” Shotton had wanted this championship. He believed he had done his best to win it. But it had slipped away, and the post-mortem sniping stung him. He would be 65 years old in a few days.

He did not know if he wanted to return for another try.

“I’m sorry it had to be Brooklyn,” stated Casey Stengel, who didn’t look sorry at all. “I spent most of my playing days here. The fans have always been wonderful to me, giving their support all the time. I hope they’re glad we won.”

***

On the Lower East Side, a bevy of horn-blowing Bowery boys cruised along

Rivington Street in a shiny black hearse they’d borrowed from an inebriated

Yankees’ partisan. They were on their way to symbolically bury the Bums. In

Flatbush, the Faithful commiserated with one another, sharing the disappointment that they had somehow known all along would again be their lot. But the bartenders in Brooklyn’s baseball saloons were still working, the draft beer was still cold; and, after a while, after the long-suffering followers of the Flock had exhausted all the second-guesses and the alibis, after they had rehashed all the plays that were made and all the plays that weren’t, after they had emptied more than a few foamy schooners, someone in each smoky taproom remembered that there would soon be another season, and that next year, things would be different. Next year would be their year for sure--they could all feel it.

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So across Brooklyn they stood, these ever-loyal partisans of a lost cause, and everywhere they proposed the same toast:

“To the Dodgers of 1950!”

And they all drank.

The Bitter End