Summer of '49: The Yankees and the Red Sox in Postwar America Read online

  On Opening Day, Lou Boudreau, the Cleveland shortstop, once said, the world is all future, and there is no past. The Yankee season opener was against Washington. There were 40,000 spectators. Thomas E. Dewey, still a governor and not the president after his defeat by Harry Truman the previous fall, was there, but he did not throw out the first ball. Joe DiMaggio was there, but in civilian clothes. He had gone out by cab. Nearing the Stadium, he looked up to check the flag. He always liked to see which way the wind was blowing, and on that day it was blowing out. A hitter’s wind, he thought. Opening Day and a hitter’s wind and I’m not playing. He had been on crutches the day before.

  The Washington pitcher was Sid Hudson, a good pitcher who had the misfortune to play for one of the worst teams in the league. He had lost 16 games the year before while winning only 4. Henrich liked Hudson and often teased him about a game the two had played in a few years earlier. Hudson had been pitching in the ninth inning of a tie game. The Yankees were up. There were two outs and a man on third. Bill Dickey, one of the slowest men on the team, was the batter. The third baseman, Bobby Estalella, was back on the grass when Dickey dropped down a beautiful bunt—a dead fish as the players then called it—along the third baseline. Estalella charged from third, but, even as slow as Dickey was, there was no way he could throw him out. The only hope was for the ball to roll foul. Unfortunately, Estalella, a Cuban and one of the first Hispanic players in the majors, spoke little English. Hudson yelled, “Let it roll.” Estalella charged. “Let it roll!” he shouted again. Dickey touched first base. Estalella scooped up the ball. The game was over. After that Henrich always teased Hudson about his Spanish. Hudson loses 15 or 16 or 17 games a year, Henrich thought, but if he pitched for the Yankees, he would win that many.

  On this day Hudson was making it close. He was pitching very well, especially against Henrich. In his first four trips to the plate Henrich struck out once and altogether had stranded six runners. He was a fastball hitter who wasn’t seeing any fastballs. In the ninth inning, with the score tied 2-2, Phil Rizzuto tried a bunt and was thrown out. Then Gene Woodling popped up. That brought up Henrich, and for the first time Hudson fell behind in the count. With 3 balls and 2 strikes, Henrich stepped out and looked at Hudson. All he could think was fastball. This time, he thought, I’ll see one. In it came, and Henrich hit it into the right-field seats. The Yankees won 3-2. The next day, with Vic Raschi pitching against Paul Calvert, Henrich hit a ball deep into the right center-field bleachers to give Raschi the only run he needed. The Yankees won again.

  Thanks to Henrich, the Yankees had gotten off to a quick start. It soon became obvious that another major asset was their veteran starting pitchers: Raschi, Reynolds, and Lopat. If the Yankee lineup was in transition that year, with an aging outfield built around a crippled DiMaggio, then the pitching staff had finally stabilized. It was a great starting rotation and it had to be, because Cleveland, with Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, and Mike Garcia, was every bit as good. With Boston the matchup was power hitter against power hitter, but with Cleveland it was pitcher against pitcher. In those games no one gave anyone an edge; both sides pitched tight and hard. Once Allie Reynolds came in too tight against several Cleveland hitters. Early Wynn, who was on the mound, sent the word back through Yogi Berra that he was going to deck Reynolds. “You tell Early go right ahead,” Berra told Jim Hegan, the Cleveland catcher, “but tell him to remember that The Chief throws a hell of a lot harder than he does.”

  On another occasion Frank Shea was pitching for the Yankees against Bob Feller. That day someone on the Cleveland bench was riding Shea unusually hard. Without showing that it bothered him, Shea called over Billy Johnson, the third baseman. “Billy,” he said, “find out who it is who’s busting my ass.” A couple of minutes later Johnson walked over to the mound. “Spec, it’s Al Rosen,” he said. So when Rosen came up to bat, Shea knocked him down. Rosen picked himself up and Shea knocked him down again. Two innings later, Shea came to bat. “Spec, I wouldn’t dig in too much if I were you,” Hegan said. “Feller’s pitching, Spec.” In came the first pitch and it knocked Shea down. He picked himself up and started digging in. “Spec,” said Hegan, “I think you ought to listen to me, and like I say I wouldn’t dig in.” “What do you mean?” Shea asked. “Well, Spec, how many times did you throw at Rosen? Twice, right?” In came the next pitch and it knocked Shea down again. “You’re okay now, Spec, but just remember, we give back one for each one you throw.”

  In 1947, the Raschi-Reynolds-Lopat rotation had not existed. Reynolds had already come over to the Yankees and done well, but Lopat was still in Chicago, and Raschi had been a spot pitcher, a rookie brought up in mid-season, winning just 7 games. Then, in 1948, it had come together: Raschi had been 19-8 on 31 starts with 18 complete games; Lopat, 17-11 with 13 complete games and the lowest earned-run average of the three; and Reynolds, 17-6 with 11 complete games. They were a manager’s dream, the power of Reynolds and Raschi contrasting with the soft, tantalizing pitches of Lopat, already known as the Junkman.

  Reynolds was a formidable athlete, probably the best all-around natural athlete on the team. At college the track coach had tried to guide him to the track team and had spoken often of the Olympics; the football coach had fawned over him and he had even received a bid from a professional football team; and Hank Iba, the basketball coach, had tried to talk him into playing basketball. Sports always came easily to him—he was fast, strong, and agile. Once when he was a Yankee he drove out with Tommy Henrich for an evening of boccie ball at Yogi Berra’s house. Henrich asked him how he thought he would fare. “Quite well,” Reynolds said. Why was that, asked Henrich. “Because I’m good at all sports,” answered Reynolds without any affectation. He was part Indian, suffered from diabetes (“the classic Indian disease,” as he liked to point out), and had problems with his stamina. But his skills were so obvious, the only question was how best to use them.

  Some hitters thought he threw as fast as Feller, and others thought he threw a curve almost as good as Feller’s. Other pitchers were in awe. Johnny Sain, a wily pitcher short on pure power, came to the Yankees two years later. Once he sat in the dugout with Whitey Ford and discussed what he’d most want for a big game. “I’d like ten of Allie’s fastballs.” “How would you use them, Johnny?” Whitey Ford asked. “Whitey, I’d make them the first ten pitches I threw in the game,” Sain answered, “and then make them guess the rest of the game if I was going to throw any more.”

  Yet when Reynolds first joined the Yankees, the results were not remarkable. Chuck Dressen, then a Yankee coach, decided that Reynolds was too tense on the days that he pitched. He decided that for his first start he should be given one shot of brandy as he warmed up, another when the game started, and a third in the third inning. That would loosen him up. Reynolds, who did not like to drink, could barely stand up by the third inning. From then on Reynolds wanted nothing to do with Dressen.

  The Yankee management soon decided that his lack of stamina was not due to a bad attitude; if anything, Reynolds was too competitive and tried too hard in big games. Reynolds later reflected that he had arrived in New York as a thrower. But pitching and throwing were very different matters—throwers impress, pitchers win. Early on, Spud Chandler came over to him and told him that he was not putting out enough. Reynolds was annoyed by this and argued that he was. “No,” Chandler said, “you think you’re putting out, but you’re not. You’re not nearly mentally disciplined enough, and you’re not aggressive enough. You could be a lot tougher.” What Chandler was talking about, Reynolds soon figured out, was about knowing what to do at all times, so that he, rather than the hitter, set the tempo.

  Charlie Keller helped him too. “Allie,” Keller asked, “would you like to know the impression I have of you as a pitcher?” “Sure, Charlie,” Reynolds said. “Do you remember the triple I hit off you in Cleveland that went down the right-field line?” he said. Reynolds remembered it. “It was hit off a curveball, right?” Ke
ller said. Reynolds agreed. “Do you know I never saw another curveball from you,” Keller continued. Reynolds realized Keller was right, that he had never thrown him another curve and that Keller was saying he had to vary his pitches more. Slowly but surely he learned to think, to use his curve, and to set hitters up. Soon he became one of the foremost pitchers in the league.

  Eddie Lopat came over from the White Sox in a trade. Having him for a teammate, Reynolds thought, was like having an additional pitching coach. Many of his teammates thought Lopat was the smartest pitcher of his generation in the big leagues, a master at keeping hitters off-balance and using their power against them.

  He was a converted first baseman who had become a pitcher in the minor leagues during the war. His friend Reynolds thought, and he did not mean it pejoratively, that if not for the war years, Lopat would never have made it to the majors. He did not throw particularly hard, and in normal times he would have been weeded out for lack of a fastball. At one point, in 1942, after six years in the minor leagues, Lopat had thought of quitting; he had been sold to the Chicago Cubs but the deal had not gone through. His wife talked him into giving it one more year. By that time he had done it all, traveled on every bad train in the South, and been paid a pittance again and again—$275 a month in Oklahoma City, where he knew he would not last very long because the team was so poor, always selling its players just to keep afloat. Then in Little Rock he held out for $400 a month, finally got it, and won 19 games.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “That has never happened,” Weiss said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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