The Victory Season Page 42

  The song about Dom DiMaggio was a parody of Les Brown’s “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio.” The full lyrics:

  Who hits the ball and makes it go?

  Dominic DiMaggio.

  Who runs the bases fast, not slow?

  Dominic DiMaggio.

  Who’s better than his brother Joe?

  Dominic DiMaggio.

  But when it comes to gettin’ dough,

  They give it all to brother Joe.

  Of the ballplaying DiMaggios, it was said that Joe had the best bat, Dom had the best arm, and Vince had the best voice (he was an aspiring opera singer).

  The most interesting inter-DiMaggio on-field drama probably came in 1949, when Dom embarked on a thirty-four-game hitting streak. He was still nearly a month away from his brother’s record, but Joe decisively eliminated the threat by making a diving grab to end Dommie’s streak.

  Joe Cronin hit pinch home runs in both ends of a doubleheader on June 17, 1943, one of only two players in history to do so.

  The closest equivalent to Tex Hughson’s oddball vernacular might be Boomhauer from the Fox television show King of the Hill.

  The 1945 Red Sox finished 71–83–3, 17½ games back in a distant seventh place.

  Boston trained in several places during the war, including the Tufts University campus in Medford, Massachusetts; Baltimore, Maryland; and Pleasantville, New Jersey.

  The Malmedy Massacre took place on December 17, 1944. The Sixth Panzer SS Army was being spearheaded by tank units under Obersturmbannführer (roughly equivalent to Lt. Colonel) Joachim Peiper. After seizing a small fuel depot near the larger Stavelot fuel dump, Peiper ordered one hundred twenty captured soldiers to be marched into a field. SS machine guns opened up. Eighty-four men were killed, as the rest ran into the nearby forest. There remains much controversy and confusion over the event—Peiper denied ordering the massacre, although his unit went on to kill many more POWs during the desperate attempt to break out of the Ardennes Forest (a congressional inquiry put the number at 362). Peiper was tried in Dachau in May and June of 1946. He was originally given a death sentence but that was commuted. He was released in 1956 and assassinated in 1974 by what was thought to be former French Resistance fighters earning some long payback.

  Clem Dreisewerd actually has a unique place in baseball history. After a decade of being shuffled around the minor league system of the New York Giants, he wrote to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis complaining about his treatment by the big club. Convinced that Clem had suffered enough, Judge Landis granted him free agency on New Year’s Day, 1938.

  Chapter 2: The Fallen

  On August 7–9, 1944, several months after Elmer Gedeon lost his life, the 394th Bomb Group took part in a series of missions over St.-Lô, France, destroying all four rail bridges into the city and several other heavily defended targets. For its work, the group won the Distinguished Unit Citation. One pilot, Captain Darrell Lindsay, won the Medal of Honor for pressing home an attack and safely ejecting his crew despite the fact his right engine was on fire. The medal was awarded posthumously—Lindsay went down with his Marauder.

  The V-1 rocket was also known as the “Doodlebug.” They killed some twenty-three thousand civilians in Britain before the launch sites were overrun.

  The B-25 bomber that Gedeon crashed was known as the “Mitchell,” in honor of Billy Mitchell, the champion of air power in the 1920s.

  Gedeon was an excellent football player for the Michigan Wolverines, in addition to being a terrific baseball player, but it was in track that he truly excelled. His specialty was the high hurdles, which at the time had events encompassing 120 and 70 yards. Gedeon was the Big Ten champ at both distances.

  The famous photo of the marines hoisting the flag over Mount Suribachi was taken by Joe Rosenthal of the AP on February 23, 1945. It was actually the second flag raising of the day. The first involved a smaller flag, and the camera that snapped its raising was destroyed in a firefight. Rosenthal took his Pulitzer Prize–winning shot later that day, when a group of six marines hoisted a larger flag. Only three of the six left the island alive. Later, a controversy erupted over Rosenthal’s supposed staging of the shot. In reality, he had posed a group shot of the men, and when he asked if he had posed it, answered, “Sure.” This was later confused into Rosenthal admitting he had posed the flag-raising shot, which he adamantly denied doing, and there is no proof that he did.

  The “Turkey Knob” was a bizarrely shaped rock formation near Iwo’s highest point. Beyond it lay a natural bowl known as the “Amphitheater.” The fight to capture this area of the island was so determined and deadly it was called the “Meat Grinder” by the marines.

  Sixty-eight hundred Americans died in the invasion of Iwo Jima, with roughly twenty-six thousand overall casualties. Of the twenty-two thousand Japanese on the island when the first Yank waded ashore, all but 216 were killed or reported as missing and presumed dead.

  Chapter 3: Kidnapping the Kaiser and Other Adventures

  Thanks to Hitler’s monstrosity, the hatred engendered by Kaiser Wilhelm in the United States during the First World War is largely forgotten. But he was regularly referred to as “The World’s Greatest Criminal” in cartoons and editorials, and crowds chanted “Down with the Kaiser” at games and other gatherings. In Britain, he was even more despised. David Lloyd George won the Prime Ministry based on a “Hang the Kaiser” campaign.

  MacPhail kept the Kaiser’s ashtray in his office for his entire career.

  MacPhail served under Colonel Luke Lea in France, in an artillery regiment that fought with noted valor in Saint-Mihiel and the Argonne. Lea was the ranking officer in charge of the irregulars who stormed the kaiser’s billet, a one-term senator from Tennessee, and the founder of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

  It was MacPhail who insisted Redland Park be renamed Crosley Field in honor of its new owner.

  The first night game in baseball history was played on May 24, 1935. It was a gala affair. There were bands, fireworks, speeches, and then a countdown to the flipping of the switch that would turn on the lights. Via a special conduit, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did the honors from the White House. After twenty minutes or so, the field was illuminated enough to play ball, and the Reds beat the Phillies 2–1.

  Branch Rickey Jr. would later tell his father that his job under MacPhail was all title and no power.

  Durocher would estimate conservatively that MacPhail fired him twenty-seven times between 1939 and 1942. A typical exchange came after the Dodgers won the 1941 pennant while on the road. Mac rushed to the 125th Street platform to climb aboard the returning train and celebrate with the team. But Leo had ordered the train not to stop, lest some players get off to party in Harlem. So MacPhail stood there as the train roared past him, mussing his red hair. He fired Durocher for the offense in the midst of the victory party that evening but then reconsidered in time for the World Series.

  A cynic would note that MacPhail’s urge to join the service at such an advanced age came on the heels of Brooklyn blowing a 10½ game lead and the pennant to St. Louis in 1942.

  While the $3 million sale price for the Yankees was considered a steal for a franchise Fortune called “as much of a national institution as the Metropolitan Opera or the Emporia Gazette,” it was also the highest bid received, by a considerable margin, and in addition the only bid with any actual money put down at the time of the sale.

  DiMaggio reportedly demanded combat duty in 1943, embarrassed by the ease of his wartime lifestyle. But that could well be the imagination of a worshipful press.

  DiMaggio didn’t always homer while playing in Hawaii. The great baseball writer Arnold Hano remembers seeing DiMag strike out while Hano was on his way to combat duty in the Pacific.

  The Yankees trained in New Jersey during the war, first in Asbury Park in 1943, then in Atlantic City the next two seasons.

  It would be hard for baseball fans of the 1930s and 1940s to believe that soon another man named Joe McC
arthy would come along and eclipse the fame of the manager, but…

  Chapter 4: Reunited Redbirds

  The Cardinals trained in Cairo, Illinois, from 1943–45.

  Both the Cardinals and Yankees used Waterfront Park for spring training. The Yankees also drilled extensively at nearby Crescent Lake Park.

  Slaughter’s hemorrhoid operation wasn’t talked about in the press as such, as contemporary mores prevented discussion of such a delicate region. It was a far cry from the 1980 World Series, when George Brett’s hemorrhoid condition dominated the media coverage.

  Beazley was part of an ugly incident in 1942. He argued with a black train porter, who cursed the pitcher. Beazley hurled his travel bag at the porter, who pulled a knife and slashed Beazley’s right thumb. He pitched the next day regardless.

  Dickson’s nonchalance about his time in combat may have stemmed from an experience in American Legion ball. In 1933, Dickson was pitching for the Leavenworth team at the Kansas State Prison in Lansing. A convict named Wilbur Underhill, the “Tri-State Terror,” led a gang that commandeered the game and took the teams and the warden hostage in an escape attempt. But a company of guards appeared with tommy guns and convinced the prisoners to surrender.

  Dickson was wise to refuse the job as General Patton’s driver. Shortly after the war, Patton was killed in a jeep accident. In fairness, some conspiracy theories hold that Patton was actually murdered and the accident was staged.

  Dickson was granted a furlough from the army to pitch in the 1943 World Series, thus becoming one of only two active members of the armed forces to ever appear in a Fall Classic. Fred Thomas of the 1918 Red Sox played in the Series while on leave from the navy.

  Dickson may have been small, but he was durable. He made more than forty starts in each season between 1946 and 1954, and pitched until 1959.

  Brecheen may have been “the Cat” to the baseball public, but to Eddie Dyer, he was “the Weasel,”a far less domesticated moniker.

  Chapter 5: From Hitler to Hardball

  It’s important to note that while US and British forces fought heroically, the Germans were truly defeated by the Russians on the eastern front. If the Allies were ranked hockey-style, the Red Army would be the number one star of the ETO.

  Ewell Blackwell’s best season was ’47, when he won sixteen straight decisions, led the NL in wins, strikeouts, and complete games, and came within two outs of back-to-back no-hitters. He no-hit the Braves on June 18, 1947, then went into the ninth against Brooklyn five days later without giving up a hit, until Eddie Stanky singled.

  Ewart Walker went 25–31 with a 3.52 ERA between 1909 and 1912 while pitching for the Senators.

  Walker was able to tug on his hat so often at the plate because batting helmets were yet to be used. Larry MacPhail was the man who invented the batting helmet while in Brooklyn after seeing Pee Wee Reese and Dixie Walker, Harry’s brother, get beaned. Still, it didn’t catch on right away, and both players took balls to their unprotected heads even after they had helmets designed for them.

  Nahem’s father, a well-to-do import-exporter, drowned when the Vestris, a British steamship, sank off Virginia in November 1928.

  Nahem’s Communist affiliations would plague him after he left baseball. The only job in New York he could find, despite his education and high profile, was unloading banana boats on the East River. He was forced to move to California, where after many years he found work with the oil company Chevron.

  Nahem’s nephew, an outfielder named Al Silvera, cracked the major leagues in the mid-1950s for a cup of coffee with Cincinnati.

  “Ducks” were so-called because they were designated as DUKW’s by General Motors, who built them. It is not an acronym—rather, the D designates a vehicle designed in 1942, the U stands for “Utility,” the K indicates front-wheel drive, and the W indicates powered rear axles.

  Leon Day pitched in a record seven Negro League All-Star Games (often referred to as East-West All-Star Games). He struck out fourteen men in one All-Star Game and once fanned nineteen in a game in Puerto Rico. Monte Irvin called Day the equal of Satchel Paige and Bob Gibson.

  The ETO World Series was merely a springboard for Day’s 1946 season with Newark. He pitched a no-hitter on opening day against the Philadelphia Stars, led the league in wins and strikeouts, batted .469, and helped pitch the Eagles to the Negro League World Series title over ETO World Series teammate Willard Brown and the Kansas City Monarchs.

  Day was one of the handful of Negro League stars to be inducted into the Hall of Fame while he was still alive, though he was in a hospital bed, stricken with complications from diabetes, when the call finally came in March 1995. Leon died five days later. “I think that’s what he was waiting for,” said his sister Ida May Bolden. Leon’s wife, Geraldine, tearfully spoke on his behalf at the induction ceremony in Cooperstown that summer.

  Willard Brown was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006. Brown played a couple of seasons in the early 1940s in Mexico, earning the nickname “Esa Hombre” (“That Man”), which makes him sort of the Stan Musial of the South.

  Brown’s inaugural major league homer is somewhat well known for what happened afterward. Brown had borrowed the bat he used from teammate Stan Heath. Heath then shattered the bat against the clubhouse wall rather than use it again, an act that has acquired a racist tinge over the years. However, there is little evidence backing this take. Heath was known to be very superstitious, and he didn’t like the idea that Brown had “used up one of the bat’s home runs,” according to team traveling secretary Charlie DeWitt. Indeed, Brown singled Heath out for going out of his way to make Brown and Negro teammate Hank Thompson feel welcome.

  The Fédération Française de Baseball was the brainchild of a Parisian sportswriter named Georges Bruni. He wrote a prospectus, which read in part, “It is very difficult to become a good player after the age of twenty because of our total ignorance of a rather important action known as ‘throwing the ball,’ an athletic gesture not practiced in other sports. Certain players may have an inclination to throw with both arms.”

  In the south of France, lefty batters were mistakenly taught to run to third after hits. After many mid-base collisions, the tutors called Bruni at Paris HQ for clarification of the rules.

  A reserve on the 71st Red Circlers was a player named Jim Gladd, who was a minor leaguer in the Giants system. He returned to the team’s top farm club in Jersey City and was there for Jackie Robinson’s professional debut in April 1946.

  Chapter 6: The Dodgers Take Daytona

  The Dodgers trained in Bear Mountain, New York, during the war. In 1943, one onlooker to their drills was Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, who was en route to the White House for secret meetings with President Roosevelt.

  Truman of course would defeat Dewey in the presidential election of 1948.

  Pee Wee Reese’s father, like Durocher’s, worked for the railroads. Reese’s père was a detective.

  George Raft was on the downslope as an actor in 1946. Part of his fall came from reportedly turning down roles in Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, and High Sierra, all gratefully accepted by Humphrey Bogart.

  Dick Young, it should be noted, didn’t exactly have a sterling reputation as a humanitarian himself, especially as he aged.

  The fictional Dick Whitman/Don Draper played high school football, not baseball, and certainly wasn’t a war hero, though he’s a helluva ad man.

  Carl Furillo’s career would end with a brush against the Reserve Clause. In 1960, the L.A. Dodgers wanted to send Furillo to the minors for what the team termed “temporary roster problems.” After fifteen seasons in the majors, Furillo refused a demotion to the bus leagues and was released. He sued the Dodgers, and gave testimony to a congressional committee formed to determine whether the Reserve Clause was legal. Furillo was successful in court, winning damages, but Congress didn’t touch the Reserve Clause, and Furillo found himself blackballed from baseball. Even the expansion 1962 Mets, desperate for any t
ies to the old Dodgers, refused to touch Furillo.

  Chapter 7: “The Right Man for This Test”

  The original Pacific Coast Conference included UCLA, USC, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Stanford, Cal, Montana, and Idaho.

  Jerry Robinson, Jackie’s father, ran off with another woman.

  The Robinson home at 121 Pepper Street in Pasadena no longer stands, but there is a bronze plaque on the sidewalk where it used to be.

  Jackie wasn’t the only great athlete in the family. Older brother Mack took silver in the 1936 Olympics 200-meter dash, just behind a pretty fair runner named Jesse Owens. Robinson returned to a Pasadena that cared little for his Olympic achievement (“The only time I was noticed was when somebody asked me during an assembly at school if I’d race against a horse,” he once said) and was reduced to sweeping the streets in his Team USA warm-up jacket. He had a remote connection to baseball, working as an usher at Dodger Stadium, and found his calling as a truant officer for Pasadena schools. A relief of his head stands next to one of his brother’s across the street from Pasadena City Hall, a belated recognition of the city’s most famous athletic offspring.

  Rickey hedged his bets in some quarters of the press after signing Robinson, telling reporters that Jackie was only being signed to Montreal because he was “too old for Class B.” This was make-believe, as the plan all along was for Robinson to play in Montreal.

  Dixie Walker would famously run afoul of Robinson in the spring of 1947, which ended up in the Dodgers trading away the “Peepul’s Cherce.” During Jackie’s first spring with the team, reporters were naturally curious to hear what the southerner thought about the Negro newcomer. But there was nothing to write about. Walker was secure in the knowledge that Robinson would be far away in Montreal when the season began. “As long as he’s not on the Dodgers, I’m not worried,” was Dixie’s lone comment on the matter.