Baseball Memories

The first week of October – World Series talk takes me back to the first World Series that I ever saw on television.  Another trigger for this memory was hearing the voice of Doris Kearns Goodwin on NPR.  I attended one of her lectures years ago when she spoke at length about how she became a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in 1949 at six.  I wasn't wild about baseball at that time.  I was a Detroit Tigers radio fan; no major-league teams had crossed the continental divide yet in 1949.  My family had moved from Detroit to San Jose in 1948.  For baseball, my father would take me to Seals Stadium in San Francisco.  The San Francisco Seals and the Oakland Acorns (Oaks) were the two best teams in the Pacific Coast League in the late forties.  Lefty O'Doul coached the Seals.  He was one of those pre-War Seals players who made it to the majors, like Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Frank Crossetti, and Joe DiMaggio, all of Yankee fame.  Casey Stengel, “the old man”, was the coach for the Oaks, who had a team of old-timers like Cookie Lavagetto.  But he also had a hot newcomer in Billy Martin at second base.

The 1952 World Series captured the public's interest as no other Series had ever done.  This was because of television.  Also because two great teams were playing yet again for the World's title.  Brooklyn had played in the World Series and lost to the Yankees in 1941, '47, and '49.  This period was Brooklyn's ascendancy; they hadn't been in a World Series, prior to '41, since 1920.  The names of just the players from this 1952 Series would make up its own Hall of Fame: Joe Black, Roy Campanella, Billy Cox, Carl Erskine, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, Billy Loes, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Preacher Roe, and Duke Snider on the Dodgers side; Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra, Ralph Houk, Ed Lopat, Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Gil McDougald, Johnny Mize, Allie Reynolds, Phil Rizzuto, and Gene Woodling for the Yankees.

I was in grade eighth that year.  School had just begun when the World Series started on October first, a Wednesday.  While television had been around for a few years and even though there was a "Subway Series" in 1949, there was a different mood in the country in 1952.  The Korean War was finished, not over, but stalemated with ongoing negotiations for an armistice.  The Post-WWII economy was booming and many people felt prosperous and millions now owned TVs.  So, people, even non-baseball fans, were riveted over that next weekend when Brooklyn went up three games to two with a potential Series victory on Monday.

Now these were the days, decades ago, when pitchers were everyday players.  Since there was no travel needed for a "Subway Series," they played seven games in seven straight days.  The Yankee's star pitcher, Allie Reynolds, pitched 20 innings over those seven days compiling a 1.77 ERA.  Joe Black for the Dodgers pitched 21 innings.

Baseball mania swept the Country, not unlike how Boston went crazy when they won their first Series since 1918.  So, when we went to school on Monday morning, the homeroom teachers announced that the school was showing the game on a television in the gymnasium from ten o'clock on.  If we didn't want to watch it, the library would be available for study.  The Principal had positioned a 13" TV set in the middle of the gym floor, just one, with several hundred kids watching.  What a game.  Each team had two home runs: Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle for the Yankees, and Duke Snider hit two for the Dodgers.  All this action came in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings.  But the Yankees won in the end and brought the Series even at three games apiece.

In for a dime, in for a dollar as the poker expression goes.  Our school had made a commitment and so we repeated our television watching the next day.  Allie Reynolds entered the game in relief in the fourth inning.  This after having pitched two full games (1) and (4).  He shut down the Dodgers and the Yankees coasted to yet another Series victory.

The school repeated the show the next year when, yet again, the Dodgers played the Yankees in the Series.  But no one cared much then.  We knew the Yankees would win, so why watch.