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

  In 1946 he was called up to the Yankees for the final days of the season. In his first appearance in the majors he pitched against the Philadelphia Athletics in the Stadium, and in the fourth inning he found himself in trouble with two men on and a tough batter up. Suddenly he heard a voice coming from somewhere nearby saying, “He can’t hit a high fastball.” Raschi stepped off the rubber and turned around, wondering who had said that. In those days there were only three umpires and so one of them had to go between second and the pitcher’s mound with men on base. Bill Summers was bent over behind the mound. Raschi looked at him. Summers’s head never moved. But the disembodied voice spoke again. “Yeah, you heard me right—he can’t hit a high fastball.” Then there was a brief pause, and he heard the voice again: “We Massachusetts boys have to stick together.” So Raschi went to his high fastball and got the batter out.

  The three pitchers were each other’s friends, a team within a team. Reynolds and Lopat were particularly close: They roomed together for seven years, though oddly enough, they did not know everything about each other. When Reynolds became player representative, it was his job to hand out the paychecks. At the first meeting Lopat ambled up to him. “Allie, you got one there for Lopatynski?” he asked. Reynolds thumbed through the checks. “Yeah,” he said. “Who’s Lopatynski?” “Me,” said Eddie. The three reinforced and taught each other. They also shared a mutual concern for what they at times called “The Project,” known to the others as “Bringing Up Yogi.” As a rookie, Lawrence Peter Berra was subjected to unmerciful teasing because of his odd, chunky body to which arms and legs seemed to have been haphazardly attached. In 1946, when Berra came up at the end of the season, there was a Yankee-Red Sox game, and Charlie Keller started joking around with Red Sox pitcher Mike Ryba. Ryba, who was considered to be a less-than-handsome figure himself, had created what he called his All-Ugly team. Its playing captain, he had always claimed, was Charlie Keller, so powerful and hairy that his nickname (which he hated) was “King Kong.” Keller took the ribbing from Ryba because he believed Ryba even uglier than he. When their teams played they always argued about who was on the All-Ugly team. “I’ve got a new playing captain for you,” Keller told Ryba.

  “There’s no way, Keller,” Ryba said. “There’s no one uglier than you in baseball.”

  “Yes, there is,” Keller said. Just then Berra came out of the dugout and walked past the two players. Ryba stared at him.

  “I take it back, Keller,” he said, “it’s all over for you. You’re off my team. You’re no longer ugly enough.”

  He was the son of Pietro and Paulina Berra, Italian immigrants who lived on The Hill, which was the Italian section of St. Louis. The small houses there were well kept, and almost every one had a vegetable garden in back. The language spoken in his home was Italian, not English. His mother never learned to speak English. She called him Lawdie, which was her version of Lawrence. Pietro, who had come to this country as a bricklayer, had found work in a brick factory in St. Louis. Like many other immigrants, he hated the idea of his son playing baseball, which, as far as he was concerned, was a totally useless endeavor. He was convinced it was the cause of his son’s poor grades in school. Yogi played regardless, but he tried to keep his clothes clean—his father would slap him if his clothes were dirty; if he had gotten too grimy he would stop at a neighbor’s house and wash up, and, if necessary, change his clothes. His boyhood was an odd combination of life in the old world and life in the new world. One of his primary responsibilities as a boy was to have a fresh bucket of draft beer ready for Pietro when he got home from work. When he heard the factory whistle blow, he would race from his ball game to the kitchen, pick up his father’s can and fifteen cents, and dash over to the local tavern. Berra did poorly in school—he had almost no interest in it. His love was baseball. For a time he took a job on a Pepsi truck, making twenty-five dollars a week, all of which he turned over to his family and from which he was given back two dollars.

  People had always looked at him and had their doubts. He didn’t look right, didn’t look like a ballplayer. When he had wanted to turn pro as a boy, despite his success as a schoolboy and sandlot player, his looks had been held against him. He attended as many pro tryouts as possible, and though his physical power was considerable, it was well enough concealed by his odd physique that the scouts were not impressed. Branch Rickey, usually brilliant at spotting talent, took one look at him and said, “That boy is too clumsy and too slow.” A triple A ballplayer at best, Rickey decided.

  Still Berra was offered a contract and a bonus of $250 to sign. He turned it down, and eventually signed with the Yankees for $500. When he played in his early years at Norfolk he made $90 a week. He was still growing, and desperately hungry all the time. His mother sent him a small money order regularly so that he would have more money for food, but warned him never to let his father know, or he would make him come home.

  Even when he finally proved that he could hit through the minor leagues, his looks seemed to work against him. There was a constant cruelty to the way he was treated. Rud Rennie of the Herald Tribune once turned to Bucky Harris and said, “You’re not really thinking of keeping him, are you? He doesn’t even look like a Yankee.” Harris kept him but called him The Ape. He bore it all. He had heard the jokes before, and the one thing that had saved him was his ball playing. He was good at that, and because of his skill people had been forced to respect him.

  Fortunately for Berra, Stengel fell in love with his talents, and realized he had to protect him before the locker room baiting, which had a cruel edge, got out of hand. This was remarkable, for Stengel had a quick and sometimes cruel tongue himself. “My assistant manager Mr. Berra,” is what he often called him to writers and other players, and there was no sting to it. One time, writers surrounded Stengel and started talking to him of recent Yogiisms. “I wish I had gone to college because then I could have been a bonus player,” was one he had just told one of the writers. Normally Stengel encouraged banter of this kind. This time he cut it off. “He talks okay up there with a bat in his hands,” Stengel said. “A college education don’t do you no good up there.”

  Berra needed all the help he could get. He eventually became an All-Star catcher, and a Hall of Fame player, but in those days he was extremely unsure of himself. If he was batting and took a called strike, he would look over at the bench to see what Stengel thought. If he swung and missed, he would look over at Stengel as if to apologize.

  Of his usefulness as a hitter, a left-hander in Yankee Stadium, there was no doubt. The Yankees gradually broke him into the lineup, but they could not figure out what position he should play. In 1947 it appeared that his future would be as a catcher. But then in the World Series Jackie Robinson humiliated him by stealing, it seemed, at will, and he did not seem to want to catch anymore. In 1948 he alternated between the outfield and catching. He hit 14 home runs and drove in 98 runs. But in one game he went into right center on a ball that was clearly DiMaggio’s, and there had almost been a major collision. Since one of the unwritten laws on the team was that DiMaggio’s body was precious, a decision was made not to risk another such accident. Berra would be a catcher.

  Management brought Bill Dickey back to tutor him, for Dickey had been a masterful catcher. He worked long hours with Berra, particularly on his footwork. Sometimes from a distance they looked like two dancers at an Arthur Murray’s studio. Gradually Berra improved. The Yankee management was pressuring Dickey to give an answer, for if Berra could not do the job, they would probably have to engineer a major trade. “Can he do it, Bill?” George Weiss kept asking, and Dickey seemed to equivocate. Finally Dickey told Weiss, “Yes, he’ll make it, and he’ll be a pretty good catcher.”

  But there was so much to learn, and he was learning in the middle of a pennant race. In addition, the pitchers were uneasy with him. There were so many things he did wrong. For one thing, he did not know how to catch the ball. He tended to stab at the last minute, carryin
g the ball, in the eyes of Allie Reynolds at least, out of the strike zone. He was supposed to do the reverse—scoop the ball into the strike zone. “Don’t stab, Yogi,” Reynolds would say. “Reach out and bring it in.” It was as bad with low curves—Berra seemed to grind them into the dirt. The pitchers were sure they were losing calls because of Berra, and they were not happy.

  Then there was his throwing. To the dismay of the pitchers in situations where an opponent might steal, he called not the pitch that would work but rather the pitch that might help him throw out the runner—a high outside fastball against a right-handed hitter. Since opposing players were very much aware of this, it was like a death warrant to his own pitchers. Eventually the pitchers met among themselves and decided that they would call the pitches. One day he might be experienced and confident enough to call his own game, but for the moment they would teach him. They tipped off Yogi in different ways: Reynolds, for example, would go to his glove, or his belt, or his hat—changing signs regularly in a game. Yogi seemed agreeable. The only problem was that Casey Stengel, aware of Yogi’s insecurity, also wanted to call the pitches in tight situations. This meant that at critical moments, Yogi might start looking at the dugout. The pitchers did not want that. For one thing, Stengel had not been a pitcher, and he did not necessarily know the right pitch at the right moment. But even worse, it broke Yogi’s concentration. The pitchers wanted Yogi to see the game through their eyes, and to learn their reasons for each pitch. Reynolds told the others he would break Yogi of the habit.

  Early in the season, late in a game against Philadelphia, there were runners on second and third. Reynolds could hear Stengel yelling from the bench, obviously wanting to give Berra a sign.

  “Yogi,” Reynolds yelled, “if you look over to the bench I’m going to cross you up.”

  That was no small threat: A fastball from Reynolds coming in to a catcher who was expecting a curve was a terrifying thought.

  “You listen to me, Yogi,” he yelled. “I’m dead serious.”

  In the background they could hear Stengel yelling even louder.

  “Don’t listen to him, Yogi,” Reynolds yelled.

  On the bench Raschi and Lopat were trying to keep from breaking up. But Yogi was paralyzed. It was as if he could give no sign, caught between these two powerful pulls. Everyone in the park, Reynolds thought, understood the test of wills going on. Stengel’s voice seemed louder.

  “Look at me, Yogi!” Reynolds shouted.

  They could all hear Stengel yelling now. “Yogi, if you don’t look over here I’m going to fine your ass.”

  What Yogi could not see, because he did not dare to turn, was that Stengel was holding up some dollar bills.

  “Don’t turn, Yogi,” Reynolds ordered. “Just keep looking at me.” Berra squatted down, seemed to take a final look at Reynolds, and nodded slightly. He did not turn to the dugout. All color was gone from his face. The fastball came in. The hitter struck out, the inning was over. The pitchers had won. It was, thought Raschi, a great moment of independence for the pitchers. The catcher was theirs, the rhythm of the game was theirs. It was also, thought Raschi, a major step in Berra’s coming-of-age, liberating him from the manager.

  Another source of tension was whether Yogi would be allowed to signal Stengel if he thought a pitcher was losing his stuff. He was supposed to pick up a small handful of dirt. Then Stengel would come out to the mound and eventually the pitcher would leave. But Reynolds and Raschi would have none of it. Reynolds told him, “Yogi, if I ever see you give that sign again—ever, even once—I’ll kill you. I mean it, Yogi, I’ll fight you in the clubhouse.” Raschi was just as tough: If Berra thought he was slipping a little and tried to go out to the mound, Raschi would come right at him. “I think you’re losing it, Vic ...” Berra would begin. “Yogi, you’ll lose your sorry ass right here if you don’t get behind the plate,” Raschi would answer.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE RED SOX STARTED slowly. They opened in Philadelphia and lost to the As when Lou Brissie beat Joe Dobson 3-2. The next day Ellis Kinder pitched against Joe Coleman. Both Kinder and Pesky made throwing errors, and the Athletics won again 3-2. Poor fielding had hurt Boston. It was an old story for the Red Sox: When their hitters hit, they won big, but if it was a close game, if the other team’s pitching was good, then Boston’s defense and its lack of bullpen were liabilities. They won the third game only because Mel Parnell pitched a shutout.

  McCarthy was still wrestling with his lineup. All spring he had vacillated between Billy Goodman, whom he loved because of his attitude, his versatility, and his ability to hit to all fields, and the giant rookie Walt Dropo. Dropo had gone north with the club from Florida, but McCarthy’s preference for Goodman was obvious to everyone. Dropo might be the power hitter of the future—some of his hits in the spring had been tape-measure jobs—but no one accused him of having soft hands. McCarthy was not sure whether Dropo was really ready for the majors, whether his power was an asset on an already powerful team, and whether his lack of defense skills would detract from an infield that was already weak. But in the end McCarthy’s decision was made easier: Goodman’s shoulder was hurting and so the manager went with Dropo.

  It was not an easy beginning; Dropo did not hit at the start. His strike zone was large and the veteran umpires did not seem eager to give him the benefit of the doubt. In the second game of the season he complained to Bill McGowan, the veteran umpire, about a called strike. “Get back up there, Busher,” McGowan said, “we haven’t even been formally introduced.” Warned by McCarthy that McGowan might make his life miserable for the rest of his career, Dropo apologized to McGowan the next time up. “That’s all right, kid, now we know each other,” McGowan said.

  Dropo was undergoing another kind of test, and that was trial by media. Every day, it seemed, he read in the newspapers that his stay as a major leaguer would be brief. Stories about his imminent return to Louisville had hounded him all spring. Now it was starting again. In the ninth inning of the second game of the season, Dropo headed up to the plate for his turn at bat. Suddenly he was called back. McCarthy was going to use Goodman as a pinch hitter. The next day there was a flurry of articles that Dropo was doomed. After eleven games, hitting .141, Dropo was sent back to the minors. A story in the Globe seemed to be right out of Ring Lardner: DROPO SAYS CURVE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH REMOVAL. In the last sentence Dropo addressed the fans: “Please tell them I can hit a curveball—honest I can.”

  Early in the season the Yankees went up to Fenway for a three-game series with the Red Sox. A series like this was always special, the two top contenders checking each other out. It was an article of faith that the Red Sox should win at least two out of three at Fenway, a park to which they had tailored their team.

  The wild card in this series was pitching. Both managers were still uncertain of it. For the Yankees, the basic rotation was Raschi, Reynolds, and Lopat. The question of who would be the fourth starter—Fred Sanford, who had been picked up over the winter from the Browns, Tommy Byrne, Bob Porterfield, or Frank Shea—was still unanswered.

  For the Red Sox the question of pitching was even more complicated. Mel Parnell, off his 1948 performance, was a sure bet. Jack Kramer, a pickup in the big Brown trade, looked like another. Joe Dobson was also a likely starter. But the qualities that made Joe McCarthy so effective with his everyday players—his traditionalism and his certitude—hampered him with pitchers, who were more complicated physically and emotionally. They were, by the nature of their jobs, more vulnerable. A career-ending injury was like a death threat to any player. But pitchers, even when they were young, lived closer to that threat than other ballplayers. Managers who understood that were more successful with their pitchers man those who didn’t.

  For the first game in Fenway, McCarthy had intended to start Jack Kramer but Kramer was not feeling well, so instead he chose Tex Hughson. Hughson was a calculated risk at that point. He was from Kyle, Texas, by his own description a simple country b
oy who had worked his way through the University of Texas at Austin (he later went on to become immensely successful in real estate, turning his ranchland into housing units as the town of San Marcos expanded). From 1942, when he was twenty-six, until 1946 he was one of the premier pitchers in the American League, with a fondness for throwing in tight on right-handed hitters. He was even willing to come inside to DiMaggio in Fenway—to keep this powerful man from extending his arms. It was a dangerous proposition, and it terrified most pitchers. If you missed the spot, even by a little, DiMaggio would kill the ball. In that brief four-year period, Hughson won 72 games and lost only 37, with an earned-run average of under 2.60. There seemed to be no limit to his future.

  In 1947 Hughson was enjoying another good season when his right arm began to give him terrible pain. He visited several doctors who diagnosed that the sympathetic nerve was not relaxing properly and was cutting off the circulation of blood to his arm. The pain soon became paralyzing. One doctor wanted to operate immediately. There was no guarantee that he would be able to pitch again after the operation, so Hughson held back. Another doctor said he could relax the nerve with a shot of Novocain. He took out the longest needle Hughson had ever seen, filled it with Novocain, and inserted it. The pain was almost unendurable; Hughson remembers trying to turn the wooden table to sawdust with his hands. As the Novocain ran through him, he felt lighter and lighter—like a balloon about to fly. But it did nothing for the pain in his arm. It became clear that an overdeveloped muscle was cutting off the circulation in his pitching arm. (About fifteen years later, Whitey Ford, nearing the end of his career, came up with a similar injury, and more recently, J. R. Richard, a talented young Houston pitcher, almost died from the same problem.) Hughson finally checked into the hospital for an operation to remove part of the muscle. A young nurse took his blood pressure. She looked at him and said, “Man, according to this you ain’t human—you’re dead.” “Young lady,” Hughson answered, “try my left arm—I think you’ll find I’m still alive.”