Farewell to the Last Golden Era This page intentionally left blank Farewell to the Last Golden Era The Yankees, the Pirates and the 1960 Baseball Season BILL MORALES McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London All photographs are courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, New York LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Morales, Rubil. Farewell to the last golden era : the Yankees, the Pirates and the 1960 baseball season / Bill Morales. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-6327-5 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Baseball—United States—History—20th century. 2. New York Yankees (Baseball team)—History—20th century. 3. Pittsburgh Pirates (Baseball team)—History—20th century. 4. World Series (Baseball) (1960) I. Title. GV863.A1M626 2011 796.357'64097309046—dc23 2011021775 BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE © 2011 Rubil Morales. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. On the cover: Maris, Mazeroski and Mantle above a depiction of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com In Memoriam Tony La Perla (1917–1983) Sal La Perla (1929–1993) This page intentionally left blank Table of Contents Acknowledgments . ix Preface . 1 ONE. “As inevitable as tomorrow—but not as imminent” . 3 TWO. “The lowest form of cheesecake” . 17 THREE. “Don’t crowd the Hall” . 31 FOUR. “I don’t care for Florida” . 47 FIVE. “The biggest decoy job in baseball history” . 64 SIX. “We’re shooting for 1960” . 79 SEVEN. “As many as I can” . 96 EIGHT. “The more I see of them, the more I like them” . 113 NINE. “Kiss it goodbye” . 130 TEN. “The gateway to the rainbow” . 146 ELEVEN. “The Baseball fates decreed it that way” . 163 TWELVE. “Perhaps experience doesn’t count” . 181 Epilogue . 197 Notes . 205 Bibliography . 211 Index . 213 vii This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I’d like to thank the following people for their help with this book: Tim Wiles, Freddy Berowski, Larry Hogan, Sidney Birnback, Bob Wiater, Phil Dolce, Anita Verno, Amarjit Kaur, Mark Altschuler, Ann Wallenhorst, Karen Buonsignore, Karen Hayes, Sally D’ Aloisio, Mary Ann Wilkin, Thomas Wilkin, and John Horne. And my wife, Joann La Perla, with out whose encouragement, this book would never have been completed. ix This page intentionally left blank Preface The 1960 Major League Baseball season came to an abrupt end at precisely 3:36:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, October 13, with Yogi Berra watching forlornly as a ball off the bat of Bill Mazeroski disappeared over the left field wall at Forbes Field. The underdog Pitts- burgh Pirates had won in stunning fashion over the mighty New York Yan- kees, making Maz forever part of baseball lore. But with the hindsight of fifty years, it is clear that something more than another baseball season had come to a close. The 1960 season also marked the end of an era of the National Pastime. Major League Baseball as a sixteen-team configuration—its Golden Age—lasted between 1901 and 1960. This Golden Age can be divided into three eras. The first began with the formation of the American League as a rival to the long-established National League in 1901, was sparked by the brilliant play of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner, and ended with the infamous Black Sox scandal in 1919. The second, between 1920 and 1939, was brack- eted by the emergence of Babe Ruth as the game’s gate attraction par excel- lence and the retirement of fellow Yankee great Lou Gehrig. The third, between 1939 and 1960, began with the emergence of the Yankee Clipper, Joe DiMaggio, as the game’s predominant name, ran through World War II, witnessed Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier, and ended with the retirement of Boston’s Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams. In this book, I tell the story of the final year of that third, and last, golden era. History, it is said, is written from the point of view of the winners. This book is no exception. More than anything else, the following pages tell the story of the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the 1 2 Preface events that led to Bill Mazeroski’s famous World Series home run. But there was more to the 1960 season than Pittsburgh and New York. Going on the road with the Yankees and Pirates, we can readily see the changes, large and small, that would characterize the sport in the coming decades: surnames on the backs of uniforms, exploding scoreboards, the increasing impact of international players, and, foremost of all, expansion. The geography of Major League Baseball was a dominant topic of debate throughout 1960. As the Yankees and Pirates were battling their way toward their October clash, a third major league was struggling to be born. Branch Rickey’s Continental League didn’t survive, but out of this struggle came the first venture at expansion, and with it a new, albeit Gilded Age, of Major League Baseball. I say “Gilded” because by 1960 the ascendancy of professional football as the National Pastime was already underway. The past and future of American professional sports intersected in the year of Bill Mazeroski’s home run. In writing this book, I have tried to be as faithful to the period as possible. For example, the reader will notice that while I use the word “defense” and, occasionally, “offense,” I avoid the more modern usage of “the offense” and “the defense”—what is more telling of football’s hege- mony than its co-opting of baseball’s language with that of its own? I also refer to players of Hispanic descent as “Latins” and not “Latinos,” again in an attempt to remain faithful to the times. I admit to one deviation: blacks are referred to as African Americans rather than as Negroes. CHAPTER ONE “As inevitable as tomorrow— but not as imminent” When it opened on Miami Beach’s famed Gold Coast in December 1954, the $13 million Fontainebleau was the latest in modern luxury hotels. Designed by the architect Morris Lapidus and built on the site of the old Firestone estate on Collins Avenue, the Fontainebleau was a modernist marriage of form and function, its semi-circular bulk made to capture the cool breezes blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. Outside, on the four- teen-acre grounds, were other marvels: an Olympic size swimming pool, a smaller kids’ pool, and an ice rink. The inside of the 565-room hotel was done in a French motif, with the furniture French provincial. Luxury suites went for $175 a night and featured built-in ironing boards as well as bidets. A fake fireplace was installed in the Presidential suite. A staff of 900 people serviced a clientele that ranged from foreign dignitaries and their entourages to the gaggle of tourists taking advantage of package deals. The economic recession of 1958 had put a damper on things, but by Feb- ruary 1959 the Fontainebleau was once again in full swing. Cadillac con- vertibles were rolling up to the entrance and pampered women were modeling mink stoles in every pastel shade. The management, regretfully, was turning away guests for lack of room. The growing demand for space had inspired the Fontainebleau’s owner, Ben Novack, to begin building a fourteen-story addition, featuring an auditorium and hotel annex. The annex would increase the total number of rooms to 1000, almost doubling the current capacity. There had been one big stumbling block to these plans. Sunshine was Miami Beach’s most treasured commodity and the projected wing would have cast the Eden 3 4 Farewell to the Last Golden Era Roc Hotel, located next to the Fontainebleau on Collins Avenue, in shadow by the early afternoon. The Miami City Council came to the Eden Roc’s rescue, passing an ordinance requiring hotel wings to be set back so as to protect adjoining properties. The dispute eventually went all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, which overturned the Miami Beach ordinance. The Fontainebleau expansion continued forward. The question of expansion was also very much on the minds of Major League Baseball executives as they arrived at the Fontainebleau for their annual Winter Meetings in the first week of December 1959. Where and when expansion would occur, however, were questions that neither Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick nor league presidents Warren Giles and Joe Cronin were quite prepared to answer. But it was not a topic they had the luxury of ignoring. You see, like the Eden Roc Hotel, they also had a shadow looming over them. In 1960, Major League Baseball consisted of sixteen professional teams. The senior circuit, the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (established in 1876), had franchises in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Los Angles, and San Francisco. The junior circuit, the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs (established in 1901), operated in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washing- ton, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City. Each and every team was located near a major body of water: the Atlantic Coast (New York, Boston, and Baltimore); the Pacific Coast (San Francisco and Los Angeles); the Delaware and Potomac Rivers (Philadelphia and Washington); the Ohio River (Cincinnati and Pittsburgh); the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers (St. Louis and Kansas City); and the Great Lakes (Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee).