Pinstripe Empire (43 page)

In May, MacPhail leveled a hundred-dollar fine on DiMaggio for missing a film shoot with Army Signal Corps newsreel photographers. Other players were fined lesser amounts for missing club-mandated dinners. It was another case of MacPhail upstaging the manager. DiMaggio, fined? Publicly embarrassed? Under McCarthy, who never went public with discipline and who always handled such matters without front-office interference, it would have been unimaginable.

“I needed batting practice badly and did not want to give up that time to anything else,” said Joe.

“When Larry told me what he planned to do, I told him to forget it,” said Harris. “Don’t fine them. Let me talk to the boys.”

But MacPhail fined them anyway. To some, it was an outrage. DiMaggio didn’t bite back. But it was a most undignified act against this towering figure.

ON SEPTEMBER 28, the final game of the season, the Yankees held their “second annual” Old-Timers’ Day.

This one featured Ruth (the only one who didn’t suit up), Cobb (thrown out on a bunt at age sixty-one), Speaker, Young, Sisler, Simmons, Mack, Cochrane, Foxx, Lajoie, Grove, and a host of former Yankees going back to Peckinpaugh and Pipp. Dickey, now managing his hometown team in Little Rock, did not attend. The proceeds went to the Babe Ruth Foundation. Ruth thanked the crowd “in a husky voice that could scarcely be heard,” said the
Times.

BROOKLYN WON THE National League pennant, so Rickey and MacPhail would be in a Subway Series, the first to be televised. Gillette was the principal sponsor, and their brassy opening theme—“To LOOK sharp!… .”—became almost an anthem of big-time sports coverage for the next decade and a half.

In game one, the Yankees started their own rookie standout, Connecticut’s Frank “Spec” Shea, “the Naugatuck Nugget,” who burst onto the scene with a 14–5 record. The twenty-six-year-old right-hander was 15–5 in 1946 for Stengel’s Oakland Oaks and made the jump to the majors with ease. His nickname had nothing to do with wearing glasses, which he didn’t. His father had freckles and was nicknamed “Speckle,” which was eventually shortened.

Shea, with four innings of relief from Page, won the opener 5–3. Reynolds won game two, and the Dodgers won game three at Ebbets Field, although Berra hit the first pinch-hit home run in Series history, in this, the forty-fourth World Series.

In game four, the unlikely Bill Bevens stood on the verge of baseball history. Despite a 7–13 regular season, and despite a sloppy outing that would see him walk 10 batters, the big thirty-year-old righty led 2–1 with two out
in the ninth and a no-hitter on the line. Not everyone realized it was a no-hitter, given all the baserunners in the game.

But he was nevertheless on the verge of immortality as he worked from the stretch with pinch runners Al Gionfriddo and Eddie Miksis on base, facing pinch hitter Cookie Lavagetto. Gionfriddo’s steal of second helped set up the inning, and some blamed the inexperienced Berra for allowing the steal. Dickey would help eliminate that problem in a hurry the following year.

Harris added to the controversy by having Bevens intentionally walk the next batter, defying the conventional wisdom to never put the winning run on base.

With a 1-and-1 count, “I pitched him high and away,” said Bevens. “It looked like a lazy fly ball to right. I thought Tommy [Henrich] would catch it. But it stayed up in the air. I saw Tommy jump and the ball land about four feet over his glove.”

On the radio, Red Barber screamed, “And here comes the tying run, and here comes the winning run … ,” as the Dodgers won the game 3–2.

So much for the first no-hitter in World Series history.

Wrote Dick Young in the
Daily News
, “That’s when God’s Little Green Acre became a bedlam. The clock read 3:51, Brooklyn Standard Time—the most emotional minute in the lives of thousands of Faithful. There was Lavagetto being mobbed—and off to the side, there was Bevens, head bowed low, walking dejectedly through the swarming crowd, and completely ignored by it. Just a few seconds earlier, he was the one who everybody was planning to pat on the back. He was the one who would have been carried off the field—the only pitcher ever to toss a no-hitter in a series. Now he was just another loser.”

“Look,” reflected Bevens, years later. “Every kid has a dream, right? Mine was to meet Babe Ruth, be a Yankee, and pitch in a World Series. Well, I reached all three, so how can I complain? Of course, it would have been nice to know all those years ago that Lavagetto couldn’t hit a low inside pitch. But what the hell.”

The Series returned to Yankee Stadium, the Yanks up 3–2, but the Dodgers tied it, helped by a remarkable catch by Gionfriddo at the left-field bullpen, robbing DiMaggio of a three-run homer. Red Barber called, “
Back, back, back, back, back, back … he makes a one-handed catch against the bullpen! Oh, Doctor!”
to his amazed audience.

In a rare display of emotion on the field, the Yankee Clipper kicked at the
dirt as the ball was caught, just as he was approaching second base. It was a body-language “shucks.” Death Valley had done him in again. He managed only 148 Yankee Stadium home runs in his thirteen-season career, none in the World Series.

Shea, on just one day’s rest after a complete-game win in game five, had nothing in game seven, but relief from Bevens (2
⅔
innings) and Page (five shutout innings) gave New York a 5–2 win, and the Yankees had their eleventh world championship. Bevens, Gionfriddo, and Lavagetto would never play another major league game.

And then came the fireworks.

MacPhail, listening with writers to the final half inning in the press room, drinking and anticipating the upcoming celebration, suddenly told the press, “That’s it. That does it. That’s my retirement,” as the game-ending double play was recorded. And with that, the writers suddenly couldn’t leave for the clubhouse. MacPhail was now the story.

“I’m through. I’ve got what I wanted and I’m through. I can’t take any more of this. My health won’t stand it.”

Writers who had been covering MacPhail for years couldn’t be sure if he meant it, knowing he was capable of outlandish statements, sometimes fueled by liquor. But all they saw was beer, tears, and emotion.

He went into the clubhouse, and the writers followed. The players were into their celebration, hugging, posing for photos, singing, drinking beer.

MacPhail found Weiss. “Here! You!” he said, and then he turned to the writers, who didn’t know for sure whether the world championship or MacPhail was the story. “I want you to say this in your story. I built the losing team out there, but he’s the guy who built the winners.”

Weiss smiled but was unsure what was going on as MacPhail worked the room, congratulating the players and telling them all that “I’m through.”

Topping and Webb didn’t know what to make of it. It was news to them. Red Patterson didn’t have a clue. They’d lived through so much with MacPhail. One night, it was said, Topping and Tom Yawkey got drunk at 21 and traded DiMaggio for Ted Williams. The next morning, sober, they called it off. It was a roller-coaster ride, to be sure, and not always Macphail’s doing.

Attention turned to the celebration. There was rookie Bobby Brown, the med student who had three pinch hits, celebrating with the handsome hero Joe Page. This was a first Series for many of them, and of course the first Yankee triumph for Harris.

Rickey went to the Dodgers’ clubhouse to thank his men for their effort.
As he left, he bumped into MacPhail. They’d never been on easy terms. But MacPhail wrapped his arm around Rickey and began talking about what a great Series it had been.

What Rickey said could be heard clearly by those within a few feet. “I am taking your hand,” he said, “only because people are watching us. Don’t you ever speak to me again.”

Now it was everybody downtown to the Biltmore Hotel for the official party, the celebration of the triumph. And there would be held the Battle of the Biltmore.

The stately Biltmore, a classic New York hotel near Grand Central, was often the site of baseball gatherings. League meetings, writers’ dinners, welcome-home dinners, and now a World Series celebration. When MacPhail arrived, he downed a few more beers. People were annoyed with his behavior. He had upstaged the players, upstaged Harris, upstaged everything.

At the party was John McDonald, MacPhail’s old aide in Cincinnati and Brooklyn. Now retired due to bad health, McDonald had written a story for the
Saturday Evening Post
about MacPhail, one that Larry took exception to. Spotting McDonald, to whom he had sent a telegram calling him a Judas, he berated him in person and then punched him in the eye. This wasn’t a first for MacPhail by any means. He was arrested during the ’45 World Series for assault and battery against the manager of the local telephone company near his estate in Maryland.

What was next? He spotted Weiss, there with his wife, Hazel. And he proceeded to give Weiss a stern lecture, may have socked him, and definitely fired him. On the spot. Weiss, the faithful Yankee since 1932, left the party in tears, no easy occurrence for the emotionless GM.

Then MacPhail got into an argument with Topping. Some felt blows were exchanged, but it was done in a room off to the side and no one was quite certain.

Not only was MacPhail resigning, now he was being pushed. Topping and Webb summoned their attorneys and gave MacPhail until 6:00 A.M. to accept a $2 million offer for his one-third share and get out of their lives.

Lee MacPhail, Larry’s son, was twenty-nine and earning his stripes at the minor league level. A possible irritant in the Larry MacPhail–Weiss relationship could have been an attempt to bring Lee to New York as general manager, with Weiss reporting to him. Both Dan Daniel in the
World-Telegram
and Milton Gross in the
Post
reported that to be so. That would not have gone over well.

Said Lee in his book,
My Nine Innings
, “As soon as I walked into the ballroom I knew that something had happened. But people were reluctant to tell me the sorry details—that my father had argued with and then hit both Weiss and Topping. Everyone was still there and I was soon thrust in the middle of it. Dad had told Weiss he was fired and I remember telling George to ignore it, that he didn’t mean it. However, the damage was already done … I wondered what would happen to me. I am sure that under the circumstances, Topping, Webb and Weiss would have welcomed my resignation. But I had a wife and two kids and needed the job and just waited to see if the ax would fall. George eventually talked to me and said I could stay but they would want me to return to Kansas City, rather than coming to New York.”

LARRY MACPHAIL LIVED thirty-one more years and never ventured into the baseball universe again. For a while his name would come up if a team was for sale, but in time he faded off the radar. Seldom was he seen at baseball events. One night in the early seventies, Bob Fishel tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to Lee MacPhail’s box. There as Lee’s guest was his father, in his first return to the stadium since the Battle of the Biltmore. No longer the Roaring Redhead, he sat quietly. There was, I thought, sadness to the picture. He’d been battling cancer and alcoholism for many years, and had what is now known to be Alzheimer’s disease. He had been raising cattle and breeding horses, but all of that was now gone; he lived in a VA nursing home.

He died in 1975 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978. His grandson Andy has carried on the MacPhail name in baseball as general manager of the Twins, Cubs, and Orioles.

THE FUTURE OF BUCKY HARRIS was tenuous at best after MacPhail’s departure. This was now George Weiss’s team, and Harris had been MacPhail’s selection. After the Battle of the Biltmore, Weiss, now fiftytwo, was immediately “rehired” as vice president–general manager of the club, with Topping assuming the presidency. Topping never had much of an interest in the day-to-day affairs of the team, even if he reported to his office on a fairly regular basis. He pretty much turned over the company checkbook to Weiss, putting him in charge of the roster, the minors, club policy, and the office staff. In other words, he was now Barrow. The farm system would be run by Lee MacPhail, Gene Martin, Paul Krichell, and Eddie Leishman.

Despite a dour disposition, Weiss was a hardworking company man. Though players saw him as cheap with salaries (“You’ll make up for it with your World Series share,” he’d tell them), he was nonetheless a respected figure in the game who had a keen eye for picking good scouts and following their direction.

(Yogi Berra used to sign his contracts early, “Before all the money was gone,” he said.)

Weiss did make mistakes, just not too many of them. In December of 1948, he picked up pitcher Fred Sanford from the Browns (with catcher Roy Partee) for three minor leaguers and $100,000, an enormous sum. Sanford was coming off a 21-loss season, and whatever Weiss had heard about his potential didn’t play out. He never could crack the Yankees’ starting rotation, and he was traded to Washington in midseason of 1951, having won only 12 games in two and a half years with New York.

Weiss was hardly a visionary. Player endorsement agent Frank Scott (who was Yankee road secretary in 1949) once presented Weiss with a plan for a Cap-Day promotion, in which all kids would receive a Yankee cap upon buying a ticket. It would serve as good advertising for the team long after they went home.

Weiss was said to have pounded a fist on his desk and said, “Do you think I want every kid in this town walking around in a Yankees cap?”

So much for the early days of marketing.

Yet Weiss was smart enough to acknowledge that MacPhail’s efforts had taken the team to over two million in attendance in both 1946 and ’47, even if fueled by baseball fans’ postwar hunger. He toned down MacPhail’s extensive spring training travel, but expanded things like Stadium Club dining membership. He added auxiliary scoreboards at field level outside the two bullpen gates, a touch that was restored in the 2009 stadium. He retained Old-Timers’ Day. He expressed admiration for MacPhail’s knack for using profits to improve Yankee Stadium. And he appreciated the Yankees’ first-class way of presenting themselves. “We always wore fresh uniforms in second games of doubleheaders,” said Berra. “Not every team did that. And if Weiss spotted a player in a torn uniform, he’d phone downstairs and make sure we changed between innings.”