A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (10 page)

The schedule ended in a flat-footed tie so a
play-off had to be held at the Polo Grounds. Cubs Hall of Famer
Mordecai “Three-Fingered” Brown defeated Mathewson and Chicago went
on to win
the last World Series in their history!
Fred
Merkle’s failure to touch second remains the legendary “Merkle
boner.”

In 1912, the Giants battled the Boston Red Sox in
the World Series. It was the first year the Sox played in Fenway
Park. Their “boy wonder” ace, “Smoky Joe” Wood won 34 games. John
F. Kennedy’s grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald (known colloquially as
“Honey Fitz”) was the Mayor of Boston, popular in large measure
because he jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon (when not handing out
“walking around money” as bribes to Irish voters).

The Series went to the seventh game, with Matty
battling Wood in a classic for the ages. The Red Sox won when New
York center fielder Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly ball. It has
forever been known as the “Snodgrass muff.”

The Stoneham family bought the Giants in 1919.
Horace Stoneham was bequeathed the team when his father passed away
in 1936. He was 32. On June 3, 1932, Lou Gehrig of the New York
Yankees hit four home runs. He was forever being overshadowed,
first by Babe Ruth, and on that day by John McGraw, who chose it to
announce his retirement after three decades managing the Giants.
Hall of Fame first baseman Bill Terry took over as skipper of the
Giants, and in 1933 they won the World Series. Hall of Fame
pitching sensation Carl Hubbell led New York throughout the decade.
In 1934, Hubbell struck out five straight future Hall of Famers
(Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Fox, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin) in the
All-Star Game. Outfielder Mel Ott was the home run sensation of the
National League.

To the extent that there had up until that time been
a rivalry between the proud Giants and the lowly Dodgers, it kicked
into gear in 1934. The Giants and St. Louis Cardinals were locked
in a tight struggle for the pennant when New York played Brooklyn
late in the season. Asked his concern about the Dodger series,
Terry replied with rhetorical sarcasm, “Are they still in the
league?” Brooklyn beat New York and St. Louis went on to win the
World Series. The rest of the 1930s were still dominated by the
Giants, although they found
themselves
at the mercy of the
Yankees in both the 1936 and 1937 World Series.

A power shift occurred in 1941. The Giants entered a
period of stagnation, in which they became a victim of their
ballpark; left-handed home run hitter-heavy, no speed, mediocre
pitching. Leo Durocher took over as the manager of the Dodgers. He
wanted nothing to do with the “Daffiness Boys” image, instead
urging pitchers to “stick it in his ear.” He famously stated, "Nice
guys finish last." Led by the fabulous Pete Reiser, the Dodgers won
the 1941 National League championship, but found themselves up
against the Yankees in the Fall Classic.

Yankee history includes no “Merkle Boners” or
“Snodgras Muffs.” Their highlight tapes feature no pinstriped Bill
Buckners letting easy grounders under his glove, or Yankee fans
interfering with key pop flies, as in the Steve Bartman incident at
Wrigley Field in 2003.

This being the 21
^st
Century, we now know
that after “waiting ‘til next year” for 14 years, in 1955 the
Brooklyn Dodgers finally won the World Series. But before the Red
Sox' “Curse of the Bambino,” before the White Sox finally got
there, before the century-old drought of the Cubs; before tales of
the long-suffering fandom of the Raiders, Cowboys, Rams, Lakers,
Angels and other sports teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the kings
of disappointment.

Herein we have the unique connection between the New
York Mets and the Brooklyn Dodgers. When the Dodgers and Giants
left New York in 1958, they ceded it to the Yankees. The Yanks won
a war of attrition. It was like terrorists who keep blowing
themselves up until one day there are not any more left to
detonate. The stronger unit, rich and powerful enough to withstand
the whole mess, “wins.”

But when the New York Mets came into existence, there
was an immediate connection not with the Giants (even though they
played at the Polo Grounds for the first few years), but with the
Dodgers. It was that Dodgers image; lovable losers, a little wacky,
a little “daffy,” colorful, eccentric; that they saw in the Mets.
The Mets reached into New York’s baseball past, and when they did
they went mostly for old Dodgers – Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Charlie
Neal, Don Zimmer, Roger Craig - not old Giants. There was little
connection between the Mets and the Yankees. The Casey Stengel who
managed the Mets from 1962 to 1965 bore more resemblance to the
Stengel who produced a sparrow from his cap, the “clown act” who
managed lowly Dodgers teams, than he did to the manager of the
lordly Yankees.

The “Daffiness Boys” image might have been replaced
by serious baseball when “Leo the Lip” took over, but the
succession of frustrations, disappointments, “close but no cigars”
and “wait ‘til next years” had the same comical,
we’re-Brooklyn-so-laugh-it-off flavor to it that inculcated early
Mets fandom.

“I am not superstitious, but I do think it is bad
luck to bet against the Yankees,” said writer Ring Lardner.

So it was in the 1941 World Series, with Brooklyn
trailing New York two games to one. Dodger's pitcher Hugh Casey
struck out the Yankees’ Tommy Henrich to win the game . . . except
that the ball got by catcher Mickey Owen. Owen went after the ball
“in a vivid imitation of a man changing a tire, grabbing monkey
wrenches, screwdrivers, inner tubes, and a jack, and he couldn’t
find any of them,” according to the
New York Herald-Tribune
.
Henrich made it to first, and from there “the roof fell in,”
according to sportswriter Tommy Holmes. Casey got two strikes on
Joe DiMaggio, who had hit in 56 straight games that year. Every
patron of Ebbets Field knew he would get a hit prior to his
accomplishing the act. The rest is quite desultory; a story of
Yankee efficiency and Brooklyn clumsiness, the result being a 7-4
New York win en route to a five-game Series championship.

In the 1940s, Brooklyn was in the pennant chase
almost every season, usually with the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston
Braves, and in1950 with the Philadelphia Phillies. They won some,
lost some. In 1946, Brooklyn general manager Branch Rickey took the
unprecedented step of signing the first black player, Jackie
Robinson.

Robinson had been a football star at UCLA. His Bruins
featured other black stars such as Kenny Washington and Woody
Strode (the black gladiator who dies so Kirk Douglas can live in
Spartacus
). Their battles against integrated USC teams in
front of packed L.A. Coliseum crowds already had a major social
effect on the West Coast. Like the California collegiate programs,
the East Coast had been the scene of integrated football as well.
Fritz Pollard of Brown and Paul Robeson of Rutgers were
All-Americans.

Robinson was an Army officer during World War II, a
Christian family man. After having won a war against the deranged,
racist ideology of Adolf Hitler, Rickey felt now was the time and
New York – specifically Brooklyn – was the place to break the
“color barrier.”

Robinson broke into the big leagues in 1947, earning
the Rookie of the Year award while leading his team to the pennant.
He developed into a major American hero for his courage under
racial fire, paving the way for so many minorities who followed.
Robinson and the social progress he represented came to symbolize
the Brooklyn Dodgers and the borough itself.

The Yankees were viewed as Wall Street “fat cats,”
but Brooklyn and the Dodgers were a true “people’s team.” Brooklyn
was a melting pot of Jews, Irish, Italians, Polish and blacks. It
was a place that always fought for its own identity, a place for
underdogs with an inferiority complex. Oddly, it was the success of
these underdogs that drove Brooklyn out of Brooklyn, at least in a
roundabout way. As more and more Brooklynites assimilated,
achieving the “American Dream,” they moved into the suburbs of Long
Island and New Jersey, leaving low attendance and a crime problem
in Brooklyn.

Robinson was the National League’s Most Valuable
Player in 1949. His black teammate, catcher Roy Campanella, was the
MVP in 1951, 1953 and 1955. Another black Dodger, pitcher Don
Newcombe, was the 1956 MVP (as well as Cy Young award winner).
Between 1947 and 1969, 16 National League MVPs were black
(including the Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente in 1966). No black
American Leaguer won the MVP award until Elston Howard of the
Yankees in 1963.

The term “National League baseball” came to
represent the aggressive style of the “Negro League ball player”
who stole bases, went for the extra bag, and made things happen.
Yankee money was enough to keep them dominant while “waiting for
the long ball,” but overall the American League was inferior for
decades. The real “Red Sox curse” really has nothing to do with
Babe Ruth. It stems from their failure to sign Willie Mays after a
try-out because he was black.

In 1951, the pennant race between the Dodgers and
Giants was a thoroughly integrated affair. New York featured the
rookie Mays and the veteran black slugger Monte Irvin. Durocher,
fired (or let go, depending on the interpretation) by Branch Rickey
essentially because he was an amoral man (technically his gambling
associations, but it went well beyond that) had taken over the
Giants. Manager Charley Dressen’s Dodgers of Rickey, Campanella,
Newcombe, Carl Erskine, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges and
Pee Wee Reese, got out to a huge lead of 13 1/2 games by August
11.

"The Giants is dead," Dressen said.

The
rivalry
thereafter heated up and became
more like a
war
. Rickey had created the farm system with the
St. Louis Cardinals and perfected it with Brooklyn. By 1951, every
team in baseball had a minor league organization. Giants and
Dodgers farmhands who had competed against each other for years
before ascending to the Majors had learned to "hate" each
other.

The Giants of Mays, Irvin, Sal Maglie, and Bobby
Thomson made an amazing comeback, winning 37 of their last 44 games
to catch Brooklyn on the last day of the season. A play-off ensued.
In game three at the Polo Grounds, the Giants may or may not have
been aided by a “spy” giving them Dodger signals from the left
field scoreboard. Trailing 4-2 in the ninth, Thomson hit the “shot
heard ‘round the world” off Ralph Branca, breaking Brooklyn
hearts.

Brooklyn won pennants in 1952 and ‘53, losing the
Series to the Yankees both times. In 1954, Willie Mays returned
from the Army to power the Giants to the last World Championship in
that franchise’s history, a four-game sweep of Cleveland in the
Series. Finally, “next year” came in 1955 when Johnny Podres
pitched the Dodgers, led by manager Walt Alston, to a 2-0,
seventh-game victory over the Bronx Bombers.

“White flight” drained Brooklyn of much of its fan
base by 1957. The Harlem neighborhood where the Polo Grounds was
located had turned dangerous, too. The Dodgers and Giants chose to
move to California in 1958.

The cultural divide

“Eureka!”

–
The Greek word for “I have found
it!”

To understand the cultural divide between Los Angeles
and San Francisco, one needs to go back to the Civil War. The stark
differences between the two cities, and the two regions, are
embodied in the weather patterns, the geography, the coast lines,
the fresh water supply, the architecture, the freeway systems, the
roads, the restaurants, the nightlife, the stores, the politics,
the politicians, the women, the men, the gays, the straights, the
high schools, the churches, the colleges, the stadiums, the sports
teams, the newspapers, the televisions and radio stations, clothing
styles, beaches and musical tastes; just for starters.

It starts with the Civil War, or more precisely, the
immediate aftermath of the Civil War. California was a Union state,
not a Confederate one. California entered the national conscience
in 1849, when the “gold rush” became a force of nature, attracting
people from every corner of America and the world to its sunny
climes in search of riches. Many did not find wealth, but they did
find a new life in California. More importantly, they found a new
life
style
in California.

Back east, people succeeded or failed largely based
on family connections and education. If a man failed at business,
his failure was widely known within his community. He was
immediately branded a “failure," and thus reduced to second class
status for the remainder of his days. This may be a simplification
of things; it was less so in America than in
Europe, and as
Alexis De
Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
(1835)
rightly
pointed
out, hard work was the chief ingredient of success.
That said, the “old boys’ network” of money and connections played
a large role, especially in the aristocratic South and in the
moneyed enclaves of Bunker Hill Boston, Philadelphia’s Main Line,
and New York society.

But the losers and failures could come out to
California. Out there, they could fail over and over again in
splendid anonymity, reinventing themselves until some day
greatness, or a touch of greatness, came their way. It was a
glorious new approach.

This was the touchstone of all people who came to
California, regardless of whether their origins were Georgia or
Massachusetts. In the 1850s, construction of the Trans-Atlantic
railroad began. The railroad was a private venture, not a
government project. It was a competing effort between the Union
Pacific and the Central Pacific, with numerous government grants
due to the one who completed the ambitious project first. Its
leading advocate was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.
He received the majority of his financial and overall support from
the railroads.