Opening Day, and a long love affair renewed

         Let's go, Yankees.

     Life -- well, sporting life -- begins again today. This should be a national holiday.

Aaron Judge, the captain (photos from Pinstripes Nation)

     It is Opening Day for major-league baseball, and this begins my 68th season as a Yankees fan. Yes, almost a lifetime.

     Who's counting? So, since the start of the 1956 season -- when a small kid from a foreign country found out that baseball could be a second sports love -- this covers 10,581 regular-season games, 307 postseason games. Lots of glory, lots of agony.

     A friend, a fellow Yankees fan for life, noted that "[today] we get to start our daily suffering." 

     True. There is nothing better for a sports fan than to follow the adventures -- day by day -- of a favorite team. 

      Here, that could be LSU football or Dutch soccer or the woebegone Dallas Cowboys ... but, truly, nothing beats Yankees baseball. Not in this apartment.

     Love the team, love the franchise, love the tradition ... the best tradition in American sports. It is, humbly said, the premier franchise in the world.

     (OK, you could say the Green Bay Packers, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Montreal Canadiens, Manchester United, Brazil soccer, Alabama football, and -- concession here -- Boston Red Sox or New England Patriots. Also, the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles/Brooklyn Dodgers and the San Francisco/New York Giants. You choose; you are entitled to your favorite.)  

      But we have had the Babe and Lou, Combs, Lazerri, Red, Waite, (where have you gone?) Joe D., Marse Joe, Casey (the Ol' Professor), Cro, the Milkman, Snuffy, Spud, the Major, Billy the Kid, Joe G. (two of them), Atley, Heinrich, King Kong, Super Chief, Vic and Eddie, Joe Page, Scooter, Gil, Mickey and Roger (the M&M boys), Yogi, Whitey, a perfect Don, Bullet Bob, Ryne, Ellie, Hank, Moose, Tony and Bobby, Clete, Hector, Mel, Pepi, Murcer, Sparky, Goose, Puff, Thurman, Reg-gie, Sweet Lou, Roy, Willie, Bucky, Mick the Quick, Louisiana Lightning, the great Mo, Derek Jeter, Bernie, The Warrior, Tino, Jorge, Andy P., Robby, Straw, Knobby, Gardy, Dr. Brown, Bob Sheppard, Mel Allen, Geno, etc., etc., a cast of thousands ... and now a guy who hit 62 regular-season home runs last season, the Judge ("All Rise.")

      Tradition, pride, and the Big Stadium in the Bronx (third version), part of the greatest city in the world (thank you, Hamilton).   

      The opinion here: It is the best day of the year, topped only by your team winning the World Series (congratulations, Astros fans).

     We know that feeling -- 27 times. I've been around for 11 of those (and for eight second-best disappointments). But we have not had that championship feeling in the past 13 seasons. Nuts. 

     So we're not the Houston Astros, defending champions, the team that four times in the past eight seasons has ended the Yankees' season in the playoffs. Hard to believe, hard to take.

      We have become what the 1940s/1950s Brooklyn Dodgers used to be for the Yankees: their postseason foils.

      But not surprising. The Astros were -- are -- that good.

     Gosh, the Astros were our favorite National League team for years, especially in the early 1960s when we listened to many of their games on radio -- Gene Elston, Loel Passe and, for a brief, a young Harry Kalas -- and saw a few of their games on Shreveport television. The teams weren't all that good, but they were fun.

     But now that the Astros are in the American League, not so much fun for us Yankees. 

     Wish I could say that this is going to be the year the Yankees displace them. But not so confident about our chances. Darned near forgotten what it's like to win an American League pennant or a World Series; hasn't happened since 2009. 

      The 13-season Series-winning drought is the Yankees' longest since I was a young man (14 seasons, 1963-76, which included three AL pennants and Series losses).

       And think of these numbers: In my first 18 years (1947-64), the Yankees won 15 AL pennants and 10 World Series. Oh, joy. Which is why one of my favorite books is titled Dynasty.  

     Last season was one of the weirdest for the Yankees that I can recall. They looked unstoppable, unbeatable, potential Series champions for three-plus months: On July 8, they were 38 games above .500 (61-23) with a 15 1/2-game lead in the AL East.

     After that -- when injuries and old age and mediocrity set in -- they were mostly terrible, a .500 team in July, 10-18 in August, and the division lead crept down to 3 1/2 games before a small surge at the end. But they were no match (no offense) for the pitching-strong Astros in the AL Championship Series ... out in 1-2-3-4 games. 

     As my old friend, the late Jerry Byrd, would have said: No guts.       

     Going into this season, the Yankees' pitching looks shaky, questionable. Even Gerrit Cole, the supposed staff "ace" who is making a zillion dollars per season, wasn't all that great last year, but was among the MLB leaders in giving up home runs.

      Injuries already have dented a potential starting rotation and the bullpen, plus a defensive whiz in center field. 

       The regular lineup has the usual potential, but so many of the guys need to improve on last season when they particulary faded away in a miserable second half. Too many strikeouts, too many empty at-bats.

      It is a big ask to produce a traditional Yankees-like offense over the course of a full season. Lots to prove.

      Judge likely won't come close to 62 home runs again -- Roger Maris hit 33 in 1962 after his 61 in '61 -- but he can be a force again, and now -- starting on the field today -- he's the Yankees' captain. 

       And he has been a class act off the field, too, saying the right things and showing leadership. 

       This club might need some surprise elements, and the hope is that young shortstop Anthony Volpe -- after a strong spring-training showing -- is one. Will he be 1996 Jeter-like? Maybe some young pitchers will emerge as stars. That would be a boost.

       We like the way the Yankees go about their business, like that they always wear the pinstripes at home and the gray-with-blue trim on the road. No colored tops as an alternative, unless MLB has special across-the-board uniform demands.

      They almost always play the game the right way, they don't make excuses, they meet the media -- win or lose -- and they look business-like. OK, maybe the clean-shaven bit is a bit overdone for these days, but the ghost of George M. Steinbrenner (born on the Fourth of July) prevails.

      But there is this: The Yankees often have players that we don't like much. Uh, Roger Clemens, A-Rod, Aroldis Chapman ...  

      As for the game itself, we love the speed-up rules for pitchers and batters. Been saying for years that batters stepping out after each  pitch, to adjust batting gloves or dig in the dirt or to pick their nose, was a waste of time. 

      Don't like 3, 3 1/2, 4-hour games. Of course, if MLB really wanted to speed up things, cut the between-half-innings time from 2 1/2 minutes to one. But, hey, those breaks for TV/radio advertising, that's m-o-n-e-y. Gotta make millions to pay the poor players.

      Oh, glad that the infield shifts have been somewhat banned. Probably teams will find a way to adjust their defenses to take away what used to be sure base hits. 

       Bigger bases? That will mean more stolen base -- or at least attempts -- but the Yankees seldom have a base-running team worth a darn.

      Can't stand the runner-at-second-base-to-start extra innings rule. Cheap tactic. 

      A note about the local team, the Texas Rangers. They have many fans here in our facility, and I will watch some of their games on TV, provided cable access is available. And we might make a rare trip to the new barn-like ballpark with a roof ... (if someone gives us tickets). 

      The Rangers have spent plenty of free-agent money -- Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jacob deGrom and others -- and they have a Hall of Fame, three-time World Series champion manager (Bruce Bochy). Can't do better than him.

       They should be improved. Good luck to them ... but not too much luck. They are in the American League, so ...

      Personally, we have watched less baseball on TV in recent years ... or other sports. Don't watch anywhere as much as my friends might think. Other priorities, and less stress watching the teams I care about. Easier just to follow games via Gamecast on computer or the phone.

      And -- this is old school, old man talking -- just don't like the way today's athletes celebrate every good moment, the arm-waving, signaling to teammates, high fives, low fives, chest-beating, trash-talking, Gatorade-pouring. It is so much crap. 

      We were taught not to show up the opponent, the other team, or the refs (umps). 

      But we are relics, we are dinosaurs. People in my age range don't identify with today's athletes. Coaches, managers, management could control some of those antics, but they won't. Too much money involved.

       End of rant.

       It is baseball season. Glory be. Time to suffer some, time to relish the victories.

       ... And there it goes! See ya! 

       ... How about that!

       Let's go Yankees.

One October day in 1962, Ralph Terry stood tall

     Ralph Terry died this week, another of our 1960s baseball heroes gone. Their days, and their ranks, are dwindling.

     There was a special personal affinity for Ralph Terry, for several reasons. Primarily because he was the hero of the 1962 New York Yankees' season and World Series championship team.       

     If you've watched the '62 World Series film -- and it's played on this computer about, oh, 62 times -- you know that Ralph threw the last pitch of Game 7, and that the San Francisco Giants' big man, Willie McCovey, knocked the heck out of that pitch ... a screaming line drive right to -- thank goodness -- Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson.

     Sweet redemption for Ralph (and the Yankees).

     Because two years earlier, he also threw the last pitch of the World Series. That ball ended up sailing off the bat of the Pittsburgh Pirates' Bill Mazeroski and over the wall in left field at Forbes Field. So ... 10-9, Pirates, and an immortal baseball moment.

     Another reason Ralph Terry was one of our guys: (roll your eyes) He once pitched, at age 17, for the Minden Redbirds in the summer semipro Big Eight League, based in North Louisiana. (Yes, we are partial to that area.)

     He was an Oklahoma kid, tall and rangy, a pro prospect looking for good competition. A year later he had signed with the Yankees and was pitching for their Class A farm team. Two years later, he made his major-league debut.

     But he never had a winning season in "the bigs" until 1960, and -- see above -- that season didn't end well (no thanks to Mr. Mazeroski).

 However, when my top  personal memory of
Ralph Terry goes to 1962, specifically Tuesday, October 16, Game 7, and the victory ride his teammates gave No. 23 off the field at Candlestick Park.

      That was, as happens so often, a tense, dramatic, memorable Game 7.

      And my memory takes me to the football practice field at Woodlawn High School, a few minutes -- if I recall -- past 2:30 p.m.

---

     Sophomore year, football manager (equipment dispenser, tower picker-upper, etc.). Innocent (naive) 15-year-old, a sports maniac. Really, the only interest in life, and baseball (Yankees) was the No. 1 concern (Woodlawn was 1-A).  

     But on that Tuesday afternoon, at  practice, my mind wasn't on football. It was on the baseball game on my transitor radio -- brown case -- that I had to my ear.

     Practice? Who cares? There were other managers around.

     We had a helluva good team, a carryover from the "Cinderella" district champions the year before. We were 5-1, 4-0 in district, and that week was a tense one at Woodlawn because our opponent on that Thursday was Byrd High School, the arch-rival.

     Uh, we didn't like Byrd. 

     We had routed a good West Monroe team 26-0 the previous Thursday. Byrd was 2-0 (and had a big, bad team that -- spoiler alert -- would go on to play in the state-championship game). 

     We knew we'd have to play without our promising sophomore quarterback, our friend Trey Prather. He had been the backup QB the first six games, and against West Monroe had emerged as a star, 3-for-3 for passing with two touchdown connections to Edwards Walker (12 and 23 yards). Trey also ran four times for 28 yards. But on his last run, Trey was knocked out of bounds across the field at the West Monroe bench. He didn't get up. Result: broken left wrist.

     Trey easily was our best passer. But the starter, Joe Geter, came back in and found Walker for his third TD catch. (Our friend, Ed Walker, who passed away in Houston just a month ago.) 

     We digress. Sorry. Byrd High was on everyone's mind. Mine was on the Yankees-Giants Game 7.

     Great game, great Series. Rain-delayed for three days before Game 6 in San Francisco. Giants won that one to force Game 7.

     Ralph Terry had been the Game 2 loser at Candlestick and he'd never won a World Series game (his Series record was 0-4)... until a complete-game victory in Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, helped by rookie Tom Tresh's three-run home run to break a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the eighth.

     In Game 7, Ralph was the right guy on the mound in the right place. He had won 23 games in the regular season (23-12 record), pitched almost 300 innings, by far his greatest season. Also gave up 40 home runs, but so what?

     On this day, he stopped an outstanding Giants team -- the first San Francisco National League champion -- on four hits. Some defensive gems helped him.

     Tresh saved him in the seventh inning
with a running backhanded catch in left field on a drive hit by ... Willie Mays. McCovey followed with a long triple, but he was stranded at third. Thus, the Yankees' 1-0 lead was preserved.

      Classic ninth inning. Yankees failed to score after loading the bases with no outs -- forceout at home, double-play grounder (5-U, 5-3 if you're scoring, baseball fans). Bottom nine: Matty Alou pinch-hit, perfect drag bunt single. Terry struck out the next two batters. 

     Up comes the mighty Mays (oh, Lord, I'm shaking listening to this). Lines a hit to right field. Roger Maris, a terrific outfielder, rushes over to the corner, cuts the ball off before it can get to the fence and hurries his throw to the cutoff man -- Richardson, in short right, relays it home and Alou has to stop at third. Phew!

     Mays is at second, the potential winning run on a single. 

     McCovey, an awesome man, is up. First base is open; Orlando Cepeda is on deck. Yankees manager Ralph Houk goes to talk to Terry, and they decide to forgo the "percentage" move (walk McCovey, get a righty-on-righty matchup with Cepeda). Huge gamble.

     First pitch McCovey hits a long, long drive ... foul. I'm listening, and really shaking now. Second pitch: the line drive to Richardson.

     Game over, Series over ... the Yankees win! (World Series title No. 20, the 10th of my lifetime. Would have to wait 15 years for  another one. Damn.) 

     Radio goes flying in the air as high as I could throw it, but I didn't yell. Didn't want to disrupt football practice. Probably the coaches and the guys didn't notice. I didn't care. I loved Ralph Terry then, and I loved him forever.

---

     Another scene, two years earlier: Junior high eighth-grade math class, Maurice K. Nickels the excellent teacher, sometime before 2 p.m. We're taking a test, Game 7 of the '60 World Series is going on. I know the Yankees were ahead 7-4 in the eighth inning. Mr. Nickels leaves the room, comes back in after a while and announces to the class that the Pirates have won the Series on a home run by Bill Mazeroski.

     One kid, age 13, in Mr. Nickels' class sinks in his seat, feeling ill. Doesn't want to believe it. Doesn't know that Ralph Terry gave up that home run.

     Two years later, we forgive Ralph.

---

     Met him in the early 1990s when he was playing the Seniors PGA Tour and was in an event at the Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. He was that good a golfer, maybe the best-ever baseball player-turned-golfer. It was the day I followed Arnold Palmer's round, but sought out Terry afterward.

     Thanked him for 1962, mentioned Minden, which brought a laugh. He said it was a good memory.

     He was 86 when he left us this week. The only other Yankees who played in that Game 7 in 1962 still living also are 86 -- Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek. Giants players from that game still with us are the greatest player I've seen: Mr. Mays, and Felipe Alou and "The Baby Bull," Cepeda. 

     Heck, they're all legends. But on October 16, 1962, Ralph Terry was The Man.

--- 

      One postscript: Talk about tense, what we didn't know that day, but would learn by the following Monday ... This item taken from history.com, a "This Day in History" listing:

      "In a televised speech of extraordinary gravity, President John F. Kennedy announced on October 22, 1962, that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet  missile bases in Cuba."

       (The Soviets. The Russians. Troublemakers. Some things don't change.)

       Yikes. And we thought the World Series and Byrd-Woodlawn football were tense. Right.

Larsen was perfect for my scorebook

     My baseball travels -- limited but fun -- never put me in the same place as Don Larsen. But he was a big part of my early baseball days.

     Don Larsen and I were scorebook buddies, if you will.

     When he died (of cancer) on New Year's Day at age 90, my first thought was about my little blue-covered baseball scorebook, a birthday present in 1958 when I turned 11.

     I knew, I remembered, that one of the games I scored in that book -- my first efforts at scoring baseball games, something which would become a recurring theme in my sportswriting career -- was Larsen's Game 3 start in the 1958 World Series.

     Dug into the files downstairs for that scorebook and it reminded me of how often I saw him pitch in the late 1950s.

     He won that game 4-0, with seven dominant innings (and two more from fire-throwing, thick-glasses reliever Ryne Duren), both of them hard-drinking Yankees stars of the late 1950s.  

     It was arguably Larsen's second-biggest pitching victory of a 20-year pro career (14 in the big leagues). The Milwaukee Braves, defending World Series champions after their 1957 conquest of the Yankees, had won Games 1 and 2 of the '58 Series, too.

     So they really needed Larsen to come through that October 4 at Yankee Stadium. But, of course, they knew he was capable. He had proven that on October 8, 1956. 

     His perfect game that day -- the greatest game ever pitched in baseball history (and let's not argue about that) -- made him a forever Yankees and baseball legend.

     Legendary, too, is crusty New York baseball writer Dick Young's lead on the game: "The imperfect man pitched the perfect game."

     That fall, '56, we were new to this country; baseball was a new sport to us. But having seen the Yankees on TV a few times that summer, I liked the pinstriped uniforms, I liked the looks of the center fielder wearing No. 7 on his back, I liked the winners. It was the start of a lifelong love affair.

     I remember that the result of that game was the big headline in the Shreveport Journal -- the afternoon paper -- that day, by the time we got home from school. We had begun taking the newspaper not long after arriving in the U.S.; those sports pages helped me learn to read English much more quickly.

     Because World Series games, all in the afternoon, began at noon Eastern time, 11 a.m. Central, and the game  lasted only 2:06, it was over by 1:06, so the Journal got it into its city edition. They slipped Larsen's head shot in at the bottom of Page One.

     I hardly knew how significant it was, did not really understand what "perfect game" meant, but did realize that it gave the Yankees a 3-to-2 games lead in the Series over the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

     And Don Larsen came into my life.

     By 1958, I did know how important his Game 3 victory was. And I knew that just about every time the Yankees were on TV, and I recorded a game in my little scorebook, he was in the lineup one way or another.

     Scored a dozen games in that book, all Saturday afternoon "Game of the Week" television games -- the only baseball game each week on TV in those days, on CBS (Channel 12, KSLA, in Shreveport). Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner were the announcers. Simple days.

     What did I know? Had the home team on the left page  of the book (should have been on the right). Didn't have enough space for all the substitutes. Recorded walks with a simple "b" (should have been "bb"); recorded singles with an "h" (should have been 1B).

     Four of those games were Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox (so what's new?) -- and Boston won them all (but the Yankees, winning the American League for the fourth year in a row, finished 13 games ahead of the third-place Red Sox in the standings).          

     In the first game I ever scored, Don Larsen was the losing pitcher with five mediocre innings. 

     He also was the losing pitcher in a significant game I scored on September 20, 1958 -- a no-hitter by Hoyt Wilhelm of the Baltimore Orioles, the most-often-used relief pitcher in baseball history for years and years, the old knuckleball expert making a rare start. 

     (It would be another 45 years before the Yankees were no-hit again, by six Houston Astros pitchers on June 11, 2003.)

     Wilhelm's knuckler was at its dancing best, but Larsen was darned good, too -- a one-hitter for six innings. The Orioles won 1-0 on Gus Triandos' seventh-inning home run off little lefty Bobby Shantz. It's right there in my scorebook.

     In two other games I scored, Larsen did not pitch. But -- because he was one of baseball's best hitting pitchers of his day -- he pinch-hit. He walked and scored vs. the Red Sox in August '58; he struck out against the Cleveland Indians in a May 2, 1959, game.  

     I recall being so happy to have scored his 1958 World Series Game 3 victory. He wasn't perfect -- he gave up six hits -- but he was tough, and so was Hank Bauer at the plate -- a two-run single in the fifth, a two-run home run in the seventh. 

     Larsen was a big, rangy guy for his day, a talent whose reputation was as an often wild character away from the stadium. His nickname: "Gooney Bird." No secret he liked his nightlife and his drinks. 

     He could be luckless -- evidence was a 3-21 record for the  Orioles in 1954 and 1-10 for the Kansas City Athletics in 1960, both awful teams -- and could be lucky, the trade to the Yankees before the 1955 season as part of a historic 17-player deal with Baltimore that also sent fellow right-handed pitcher Bullet Bob Turley to New York.

     Larsen was most often a starter for most of his Yankees time with records of 9-2, 11-5, 10-4, 9-6 and 6-7. 

     He was good enough that manager Casey Stengel turned to him in big games. That start on the day of The Perfect Game was crucial because the Series was tied.

     And the next two seasons (1957, 1958), he started Game 7s for the Yankees vs. Lew Burdette and the Braves.  In '57, it was a 5-0 loss; in '58, it was a 6-2 Yankees victory, although Larsen lasted only 2 1/3 innings and Turley relieved, pitched out of a bases-full jam in the third with the Yankees leading 2-1 and was magnificent for the final 6 2/3).

     Another Larsen contribution to the Yankees, not of his doing: They traded him away before the 1960 season to the Kansas City Athletics, along with Hank Bauer -- a wonderful right fielder for the Yankees for a dozen years -- and others. The main piece the Yankees received in the deal: Their new right fielder, Roger Maris. 

     So Larsen helped bring in Maris. A very good trade.

     In 1962, Larsen pitched in another World Series -- against the Yankees. He worked briefly in relief in three Games (1, 3 and 4), and -- luckily -- was the winner in Game 4, although he pitched only one-third inning and faced only two batters (walked one).  

     After his Yankees career, Larsen pitched for six MLB teams over eight years, but only briefly for more than two years with any one team (Giants, 1962-63-six games in '64). He made only 14 starts after 1960; his last majors stop was with three games with the Cubs in 1967.

May 20, 1968

May 8, 1968, game
in Shreveport

     His final three seasons were mostly in the minors, including Texas League stops (Dallas-Fort Worth in 1967, San Antonio in 1968). A personal memory: Larsen pitching -- in relief -- for the San Antonio Missions against the Shreveport Braves in '68, the year our city returned to the TL. Larsen lost one game to the Braves in the ninth inning; he earned a save at our not-yet-faded old ballpark. 

     A few weeks later, he retired from the game, with an 0-4 record for the Missions. He was 39, a legend forever. 

 ---

     In recent years, our views of Don Larsen was at the Yankees' Oldtimers Day, on his introducting making his way onto the field using a walker. Almost every year, he was greeted by and sat next to Dr. Bobby Brown, the Yankees' third baseman of the late 1940s/early 1950s.

      Dr. Brown, at 95 now the oldest ex-Yankees star at the Oldtimers' Day festivities, resides in our seniors facility in Fort Worth. The gracious, story-telling Doctor was -- like Larsen -- a Yankees World Series star, with key game-tying and game-winning hits in 1947 and 1949.

     His MLB career, interrupted by two seasons in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict, ended in 1954, so he was never teammates with Larsen. (Dr. Brown then had a 25-year career as a cardiologist in Fort Worth, followed by 10 years back in baseball as American League president.)

     He and Larsen talked often at the Oldtimers' Day weekends, and had a connection. Larsen lived on a lake in North California where Dr. Brown's brother, a carpenter, built his own home.

     Dr. Brown was a high achiever all his life, in several phases, certainly considered a hero by many people. 

     Don't know that "hero" describes Don Larsen. I would say, was an underachiever for his baseball talent. But no question, he was the ultimate overachiever on one perfect day and he won't be forgotten.

      He was a big man in my scorebook.

San Antonio Express column after Don Larsen's baseball retirement, June 28, 1968

       

One of the most colorful all-time Yankees is ... Brown

     (Note: Wrote this for "Designated Writers," the web site of two longtime sportswriting types with Shreveport ties, Teddy Allen and John James Marshall. So I was a "Designated Contributor," and the intro was written by Teddy.)
---

     Nico Van Thyn (former boss and mentor of your DW co-founders) and his forever wife Bea live in a nice retirement spot in Fort Worth. One of his fellow retirement teammates is … a recognizable name. For a New York Yankees fan such as Nico is, it’s like living next door to a boyhood baseball card. He wrote this in July and I read it with joy then and … forgot to post it. Because I am selfish. Unlike former Yankees star infielder and American League President Bobby Brown. The picture is from 2016 at the 70th annual Yankees Old Timers Game; Dr. Brown is in the middle, flanked by Don “Perfect Game” Larsen on the left as you look at the picture and first baseman Eddie Robinson, still the oldest living Yankee at 97).
 --- 

     One of the real treats for me here at Trinity Terrace is that Dr. Bobby Brown -- Yankees star third baseman from 1947-54 (with two years interrupted by the U.S. Army and the Korean War), American League president (1984-94) and well-known Fort Worth cardiologist for 25 years -- lives here.
     We see him at breakfast every morning, Bea more than me because don't go down for breakfast too often, but I speak to him in the dining room (he is there almost the same time every night, sitting in or near the same area, by himself).
     I have sat with him several mornings at breakfast, and here are some stories and opinions from Dr. Brown ...
     Dr. Brown mentioned that [the Rangers'] Joey Gallo has something like 200 strikeouts already. I told him that Aaron Judge has 132 and asked what he thought the difference was in today's game.
     He talked about the big swings and lack of sacrifice with two strikes, how emphasis used to be on just making contact. Said he struck out 88 times. I asked, “That was your season high?” His reply: “That was for my career.”
---
     He said players asked longtime Yankees third-base coach Frank Crosetti — “a great guy” — for advice. “ 'Until you get two strikes,' ” Cro told them, “'swing from your ass.' That was our hitting coach.” He was laughing. So was I.
---
     I was telling Dr. Brown about the YouTube video John W. Marshall had sent me about one of baseball’s best umpire-manager arguments: umpire Jerry Crawford and Cubs manager Don Zimmer. (Look it up; it was quite a scene).
     The mention of Zimmer brought a couple of Dr. Brown stories. They were friends -- Zimmer was a young player late in Dr. Brown’s career, and then they had the late Yankees’ connection when Zimmer was Joe Torre’s bench coach.
     When he was the Cubs’ manager, Zimmer lived on the 60th floor of Chicago's Sears Tower (then the tallest building in the U.S.). He was asked why so high.
     “If the ballclub is going bad, and I feel like I want to jump out the window,” he answered, “I don’t want to be merely wounded.”
---
     Zimmer’s daughter was an airline stewardess. When they asked Zim if she looked like him, he replied, “Good God, I hope not. If she does, she is in trouble.”
---
     Dr. Brown said Lefty Gomez, long one of the Yankees’ pitching aces and known for his humorous personality, had a ball hit back to him one day with runners on base, and he kind of froze, then threw the ball to second baseman Tony Lazzeri, who had no play anywhere. After the game, Gomez was asked why he threw the ball to Lazzeri. He replied: “He’s the smartest guy on our team, so I figured he would know what to do with it.”
---
     Gomez married an actress, June O’Dea, and the talk was that the marriage would not last 30 days. (I looked it up and early on, it was a quite contentious marriage). But when they reached their 55th wedding anniversary, Lefty observed that, “Well, I guess we beat that 30-day mark.”
---
     Dr. Brown said he invited Gomez to Fort Worth to speak one day at Shady Oaks CC (where Ben Hogan hung out). Picked him up at airport and they drove past the zoo. It was a very hot day and they heard a loud noise.
     “What was that?” Gomez asked. 
     “Those are the lions,” Dr. Brown told him.
     Another roar. “Must be too hot for them,” Gomez observed. 
     “You know,” Dr. Brown answered, “it gets pretty hot in Africa, too.”
---
     Dr. Brown loved Whitey Ford, said he is “a wonderful guy” and he told this story about Ford’s rookie season (1950) ...
     Said Ford came to the majors at the All-Star Game break and he immediately was sensational, something like 10-2 in mid-September when the Yankees were fighting Detroit for the American League pennant and barely had a lead. Three-game series, first two games were split, and Ford was the starter for the third game with first place on the line.
     “We were worried about it,” Dr. Brown said, “and we did not know what to expect from him in a big game.”
     Ford’s mound opponent was Dizzy Trout (I looked this up, and Dr. Brown was correct about most things in his recollection of the game).
     In the middle innings, the Yankees had the lead and Ford was cruising. When he was about to face the Tigers’ catcher — Bob Swift, Dr. Brown said — Ford signaled to Dr. Brown at third base and gave him a “come here” wave. Dr. Brown thought, “Oh, oh, he’s about to let the pressure get to him.”  
     Dr. Brown trotted to the mound. “What’s that guy’s name?” Whitey asked him. Dr. Brown gave him the name.
     “You know, he looks fatter than he did when he batted last time,” Whitey said.
     “I knew then that this kid was going to be all right, and so were we,” Dr. Brown said. “He was not going to get shook up.”
---
     He has lots of Yogi stories. Here are a couple of quick ones: 
     Yogi was being introduced as a Houston Astros’ coach in 1985, and at the same time, the Astros had signed a reserve outfielder. When the player was being introduced, his statistics were cited, and the year before he had something like 19 RBI.
     Afterward, Yogi said to this outfielder: “Did they say that you drove in 19 runs last season?” “Yes,” the young man replied. “I drove in 22 one day in Newark,” Yogi told him.
     “And that’s true,” Dr. Brown confirmed. “I was on that Newark team with him, and it was a doubleheader and every time Yogi came to the plate, there were men on base, and he drove them in, so … 22 RBIs in one day.”
     Yogi was at the New York Giants’ press conference when they announced the signing of Paul Giel, a terrific all-around athlete at the University of Minnesota who chose to play baseball as a pitcher (he later was the athletic director at Minnesota).
     It was the off-season and Yogi, who lived across the river, went to Toots Shor’s for the press conference … “he didn’t have anything else to do,” Dr. Brown said, laughing.
     Afterward, Yogi saw Giel and said, “Did they say you are a right-hander?” Yes, Giel confirmed.
     “I murder right-handers,” Yogi told him.
---
     I have asked him about various Yankees’ players — Gil McDougald (who platooned with him at third base a couple of years), Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, Billy Martin, Mantle.
     On Raschi: “If we got to the seventh inning and we had the lead with him on the mound, the game was over. Every pitch he threw from then on was faster than the one before. He was not going to get beat.”
     On Reynolds, like me, he thinks he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. “The biggest crime in baseball,” he said of his omission.
     “When that Big Indian came in late in game [he often was used as the closer], he did not mess around. It was bang, bang, bang … strike one, strike two, strike three. You’re in the clubhouse.”
     On Martin: “He was impossible. Crazy. You never knew what he was going to do off the field. If they could have put him in a cage right after a game ended and then let him out right before the game the next day, they would have been all right.”
     About Mantle: “Just a great talent. But his brain didn’t work that well.”
---
     On Casey Stengel: “I would watch him in the dugout and listen to him," Dr. Brown said. "A guy would go up and swing at the first pitch and Casey would say, “Why does he do that? Why doesn’t he wait and see what this guy is throwing?” Next guy up would take the first strike, “Why doesn’t he swing the bat? The pitch is right in there, that’s a good ball to hit.
     Dr. Brown: “You never knew what he was going to say.”
     I asked if he thought Stengel was a great manager. He was evasive, or diplomatic with his answer. “Well, he had great players,” he said, smiling. “Casey always said, ‘I couldn’t have done it without my players,’ and he was right.”
     I asked him how players felt about being platooned by Stengel. “Well, they didn’t mind,” he said. “We had such great teams, we always had 4-5 guys on the bench who were just as good as the guys on the field. … We had guys who really were better in big games — DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Yogi, Johnny Mize, Gene Woodling, me,” (and he didn’t even mention players such as Hank Bauer, McDougald, Martin and, obviously, Mantle.)
     I asked if he ever had contract battles with George Weiss, who was a penny-pinching general manager for the filthy rich Yankees. 
     “I did,” he said. “But they didn’t last long. I had an advantage. I was a medical student and they knew (in the early 1950s) that I eventually was going to have a career in medicine. So I would tell him [Weiss], ‘Look, I don’t need to be playing baseball. If I don’t play, the sooner I can get my medical studies done and go into practice.’ So he would raise the offer some and we would settle on a figure.”
---
     About Steinbrenner:
     “A total [bleep],” he said quickly, shaking his head at the thought. “Really, I did not have much to do with him, or him with me.”
     “If he was dealing with a baseball executive who had not been a player, he would say, ‘That guy never played. He doesn’t know anything about the game.’ If he was dealing with a former player or a manager or GM, he would say, “He doesn’t know anything about running a business.
     “He did not know what to do with me — I was a former player and I had my medical practice for all those years. So he left me alone.”
     But, “He loved my wife; she was a really good-looking woman. So we would see him in New York City, and he would acknowledge me, but he always gave her a big hug and he would pay a lot of attention to her. I would just be standing there watching him, thinking, ‘What a guy.’ ”
     He said when Buck Showalter was the Yankees’ manager, Steinbrenner would demand that Buck could not leave the ballpark without talking to him. "Sometimes it would be 2:30 in the morning, and Buck is still there," Dr. Brown recalled.
     “I told Buck -- who came here, Dallas-Fort Worth, often because he had a kid at SMU -- you can’t keep doing this. There are a lot of guys in hospitals with coronary problems because they worked too many hours.’
     "… And the first chance Buck got to leave the Yankees, he took it.”
---
     A final story: Dr. Brown's Rangers’ tickets are in row 12, seats 1-2-3-4, in the section just to the first-base side. He was offered tickets behind home plate, but he knows that the scouts like to sit there — they find seats that are empty — and he does not like to ask them to move.
     The man who has seats in the row in the front of Dr. Brown operates a business and they visit a couple of times a season. The man at times brings customers or friends. One night before a game, Dr. Brown was sitting in his seat and  one of the customers or friends noticed a scout sitting down the way wearing a huge ring. He speculated it was a World Series ring, and Dr. Brown confirmed that.
     “Think he’d let me see it,” the guy said. Dr. Brown told him he probably would.
     The scout was Gene “Stick” Michael of the Yankees.
     So Dr. Brown waved to Michael and indicated that the man wanted to see the ring. Michael came over and complied, and the man was oohing and aahing about the ring.
     “He’s got one, too,” Michael said, pointing to Dr. Brown.
     The man was incredulous, and asked Dr. Brown to see it. His 1949 ring — which I have seen him wearing — isn’t nearly as fancy as you can imagine Michael’s was. The man  looked at Dr. Brown and asked, “Who are you?”
     Dr. Brown's answer. "Babe ... Ruth."

A great (and dumb) experience: first trip to Yankee Stadium

        This happened a long time ago -- 50 years -- and it was so embarrassing, so stupid, that I have never told the story in print.
       It has a happy ending; I did make it to Yankee Stadium -- the old, original, fabled Yankee Stadium, my field of dreams -- on August 18, 1967.
       And it has a sad ending. But you have to read this piece to get there.

Murray Pompeo

       It involves a neat, gentle kid -- Murray Pompeo -- from Paterson, N.J. (a key element to the story). He really is the hero of this adventure; he took me to the Big Stadium in the Bronx.
       But not before I messed up big-time. 
       Here is the confession, the major problem (and try not to think of me as a total idiot, just a partial one): I lost, or misplaced, and certainly did not have with me, Murray's contact information.
        Another key element: Murray and his mother lived with his stepfather, and I did not know his last name.
       So, no address, no phone number, no way to reach them. 
       But I knew Murray would pick me up at the airport -- Newark, close to where he lived -- and we would go to Yankee Stadium and then his parents' apartment in Paterson.
        Fine ... until my Delta flight from Atlanta was canceled. And then I had an issue. 
        I also had the makings of an adventure.
---
        I had been in Atlanta -- after my very first airplane trip, from Shreveport -- to spend a few days with my good friends, the Tuckers, who had moved there from Sunset Acres, our neighborhood, a few months earlier. 
        We had gone to some Atlanta Braves' games, and the second part of my vacation -- after a summer of covering American Legion baseball for The Times -- was the New York City area ... and Yankee Stadium. It was an awful Yankees team that season, but No. 7, Mickey Mantle, was still playing -- first base, on two bad legs. And I'd never seen him play in person.
        Murray Pompeo, his parents' only child, invited me to come up, stay with them, and go to Yankee Stadium.
        We had become friends in our second year at Louisiana Tech University, dormitory mates and he was going to be my roommate that fall. He was a big kid, built funny (big hips, big butt) because of glandular problems; he smoked constantly; and he was a late-night hanger-on in the dorm TV lounge area. That's where we began visiting. 
         I was there in a hopeless attempt to study -- I wasn't diligent, not with a TV and other people there -- and Murray, well, I never saw him study.
        He was likeable, and such a sports fan, a Tech fan (I was working in the sports information office) ... and a Yankees fan. Perfect.
         So I did have his address and phone number at one point, and we set up my trip. The schedule: an early Thursday flight from Atlanta to NYC, an afternoon game that day with the Baltimore Orioles and a Friday doubleheader with the Minnesota Twins.
          (Game tickets were easy, and free. Ballclubs then were very generous with "comp" tickets for sports newspaper departments, so I arranged them through The Times ... for the Braves' games and the Yankees' games.) 
          All set, and then the flight cancellation. I was re-booked on a United flight ... to JFK International. 
          I needed to let Murray know I wasn't going to be at Newark at the agreed time. Didn't have his contact info.
         Time to panic. I was 20, more naive than I am now, and dumb (d-u-m-b).
          Found a pay phone (this is three decades before cellphones), called home (collect, of course), and asked (told) Mom to find Murray's phone number or address.
          I had no idea where I had put it, nor had my parents thought to ask for it. I just assumed everything would work out well.
          Of course, Mom couldn't find the info. (I took that well.) Strike one.
          So, it was on to NYC/JFK on United, lots of time to think of what to do. 
          I knew the Thursday game at Yankee Stadium was a scratch, and I wondered what Murray must have been thinking when I didn't show up at Newark.
          Got to JFK, and got to a pay phone to call Louisiana Tech (because surely they had Murray's address and phone number). Charged the call to my parents' number (of course) and tried the admissions office where I knew Mrs. Patsy Lewis -- wife of Coach E.J. Lewis -- would help me.
          Patsy wasn't there. The girl who answered was not willing to help (likely couldn't give out that info anyway). So,  strike two.
           Asked for help at JFK. Someone suggested I go to Port Authority (by subway or bus) and then catch a bus for Paterson, N.J., and that's what I did. Port Authority was quite a trip; traffic and people everywhere, including one lonely, lost Louisiana kid.
           But not brainless; I did scramble well. Got to Paterson by early evening, found a hotel downtown and got a room, and had a plan.  
           In the morning, I would go to the Paterson newspaper office, where I knew -- this was from my experience at The Times -- they would have a city directory.
           Don't even remember the paper's name; only that it was downtown, not far from the hotel. So I went in, found people in the newsroom, told them my "problem," and they were very helpful. They were willing to dig into their files and/or call the authorities.
           I always have been lucky, so here was the best luck, as I remember it: Murray -- maybe because he was 21 -- was listed in the city directory as a student. Had his address and phone number.
           I called, and he was there in 10 minutes. Problem solved.
           It was midday; the Yankees' doubleheader was a twi-nighter, which meant -- I think -- about a 1 p.m. start for Game 1, about 4 p.m. for Game 2.  

           It was about a 30-minute drive to the stadium, and we arrived just after Game 1 had ended (a 1-0 Yankees victory in which Mantle had played first base and gone 1-for-2). 

This is about the angle we had during the first game
 I saw at the old Yankee Stadium.

           Quite a thrill walking up the tunnel to see the historic stadium for the first time. We had great seats, front row of the second level, just to the left of home plate, right behind the media area (which hung over the first deck). 

           (During Game 2, Joe Garagiola -- then one of the Yankees' broadcasters -- walked right in front of us, going to make a pit stop, probably. Someone behind us yelled, "Hey, Joe." Garagiola never looked up, kept walking and said, "Hey, guys, howya doing?")
           OK, Game 2 lineups went on the board, Yankees took the field. No Mantle.
           More luck. Tie game (2-2), bottom of the sixth inning, Yankees loaded the bases with one out. Ruben Amaro, a .227-hitting shortstop, due up. He went back in the dugout, and it was quiet for a moment ... and then the roar of the crowd (22,991 paid, plus us freebies) began to rise.
            They sensed what I did ... No. 7 was coming out of the dugout to pinch-hit.
            One of my great early life thrills. But not a good result. On the second pitch, batting right-handed against lefty Jim Merritt, Mickey hit a hard grounder to the third baseman, who stepped on the bag and easily threw to first for a double play.
            So much for the only time I was in a stadium -- the stadium -- when Mickey Mantle batted.
            The Twins won the game 4-3 when Rich Reese pinch-hit a ninth-inning, two-run homer. At the time it kept Minnesota -- with Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, the nucleus of the team that two years earlier had played in the World Series -- in first place of the American League. They were still first on the next-to-last day of the season.
           So ended my first Yankee Stadium visit (there have been three since, all to the renovated -- and now obsolete -- ballpark). 
           My trip wasn't a total disaster; the mistake really was harmless (I've made thousands that were more harmful to me and others). 
           It was an inconvenience, but it turned out to be a wonderful day, nonetheless, thanks mostly to my friend Murray. That night at his parents' apartment, they were so gracious and we had an Italian meal -- lasagna, which I think was a first for me. 
           Flew back to Shreveport the next day, no problems, and soon I was back at Louisiana Tech as fall football practice began.
           Now the sad part. Murray and I never roomed together at Tech. I cannot recall if he even came back to school (don't think he did). If he did, it wasn't for long.
           They found cancer -- leukemia I believe it was -- and he was gone in about six months. 
           I was grateful to have known him, and I never forgot how he helped me get to Yankee Stadium, although our visit was delayed a few hours.    
           It was a learning experience: If you are meeting someone, have their contact info -- always.