Bird Hunting In Brooklyn Ebbets Field, The Dodgers & The 1949 National League 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 Inning. The Winter Of '48: Wherein The Mahatma Disposes Of Old Favorites And Konfronts The Klan 1 2nd Inning. Spring Training: Wherein Jackie Robinson Fails To Turn The Other Cheek, And The Grand Dragon Belches Smoke But No Fire 24 3rd Inning. The Season Opens: Wherein Gene Hermanski Turns A Trifecta, And The Lip Pummels A Dodgers' Fan 55 4th Inning. Early Returns: Wherein Don Newcombe 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 Chicago 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 Out, And the Grand Grenouille Croaks In Atlanta 233 8th Inning. The Stretch Run: 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 1 Bob Mack 1st Inning. The Winter Of ’48: Wherein The Mahatma Disposes Of Old Favorites And Konfronts The Klan “Never surrender opportunity for security.” --Branch Rickey The New York 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 manager Burt Shotton wore street clothes in the dugout in order to save his boss money on laundry bills. Another story had the Mahatma instructing the ushers at Ebbets Field to collect balls hit into the stands during batting practice so the club could reuse them. After signing his contract one year, infielder Eddie Stanky 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 right fielder. 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 George Sisler 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 umpire 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 Pete Reiser. Reiser had been one of Rickey's favorites. The Mahatma had admired the outfielder’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.