A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (21 page)

On May 27 in a game with New York at Candlestick,
Mets pitcher Roger Craig buzzed Mays and beaned Cepeda. A
donnybrook was broken up. There were some rough plays; guys hit in
the head by thrown balls; some high-flying spikes; and bad blood
between Mays and Elio Chacon, who said Mays had spiked him the year
before. Craig tried to pick Mays off at second, but the effort was
really to try and hit him with the throw. Chacon spiked his leg and
applied a rough tag that became a series of punches. Chacon's spike
to Mays just missed cutting his Achilles tendon, a career-ending
injury especially in those days. Mays, who always avoided baseball
fights, was surprised. He picked Chacon up with his enormous
strength "as though he were a bag of cement," according to one
report, and deposited him to the ground before belting him like a
rag doll.

Afterward, Chacon claimed Mays had tried to "spike
me" on the play. Charles Einstein pointed out that Mays had dove
into second headfirst. Chacon's lie was exposed, but that was his
story and he was sticking to it. He realized later he was wrong,
and was mortified upon realizing that the game had been televised
back to New York. He would face booing fans in the Big Apple who
felt Willie Mays was a god. San Franciscans did not bow at his
altar.

In 1959, after Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev, one
of the most avowed enemies of America in the Cold War, toured the
United States, San Francisco newspaper editor Frank Conoff stated,
"It's the damndest city I ever saw in my life! They cheer Kruschev
and boo Willie Mays."

Mainly, The City embraced other players of color.
First on the list was Orlando Cepeda, a Puerto Rican slugger who
had all the makings of a Hall of Fame career and was clearly the
more popular player. "The Baby Bull" was
no Polo Grounds transplant," wrote Jack McDonald.

Then there was Juan Marichal, a Dominican pitcher.
San Franciscans seemed to like Latinos who were not from the U.S.
more than American blacks, a non-uncommon sentiment at one time.
Willie McCovey was like Mays an Alabama-bred black man. He had a
cadre of fierce supporters, but was embroiled in a controversy over
the first base spot with Cepeda. Neither adapted to the outfield,
but both needed to be in the line-up. While Cepeda was right-handed
and McCovey left-handed, both were equally effective against all
pitching and therefore beyond platooning. But both were more
popular than Mays. Why? They were San Francisco's players, not
former New York Giants. Mays belonged to the Big Apple. There was a
sense of sophistication and odd provincialism that disdained Mays's
stickball
persona
. Mainly, however, Mays suffered in
comparison with DiMaggio, which chafed his hide.

"The fundamental trouble Mays had out here was that
he took DiMaggio's place," said his biographer, Charles Einstein.
Mays was the "symbol of New York being thrown down San Francisco's
throat."

It was an odd assertion, but not untrue. It was odd
because DiMaggio had played in New York, too. His greatness was all
about the New York Yankees. True, he was from The City and had been
a star some 30 years earlier with the San Francisco Seals, but if
he had not made his legend in the Big Apple, Joe D. would have been
just another minor league legend on the West Coast, like Steve
Bilko and the "Mad Russian," Lou Novikoff.

Mays vented to Jack McDonald, acknowledging that it
was "Joe's hometown," but said that while DiMaggio was their idol,
"He was mine too . . . I didn't come to San Francisco to show Joe
up." Privately, he resented DiMaggio and probably blamed race. His
true feelings would manifest themselves some day, but not back
then.

His build-up had simply been too huge. He was the
"Say Hey Kid," a larger-than-life black baseball star, the greatest
of the great; unless he performed superhuman feats and the team won
the World Series, he would be a disappointment.

But Dark's hiring raised his morale. Dark sent him a
letter in which his ex-teammate said that managing the Mays was
"the greatest privilege any manager could ever hope to have."

"When we played together, we had a great
relationship," said Dark. "I loved Willie as a player and as a
friend. When I became his manager, I felt I had to build him up to
the public and with the writers to let them know the type of player
he really was. I was trying to give him the credit he deserved and
wake San Francisco up to the facts of life."

Sportswriter Ray Robinson predicted big things of
Mays since the league's pitching would be diluted by expansion.
Mays hit a home run off Warren Spahn on Opening Day. He wore the
great Braves left-hander out. He always had since hitting his first
homer off Spahn in 1951. He made $90,000 and, despite the celebrity
status of Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in the Big Apple, was
determined by fan polling to be the most recognized figure in
sports. This was still a golden age, in which Mays "beat out" the
likes of Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Bill Russell, and
Wilt Chamberlain, all giants of the American athletic landscape.
The only athlete who approached him in 1962, oddly, was Bo Belinsky
of the Angels, the playboy lefty whose Hollywood exploits were so
well publicized by columnists Walter Winchell and Bud Furillo that
summer.

Mays turned 32 in May of 1962. The pressures of the
pennant race, fan expectations, his divorce and finances combined
led to an episode in September. During a game in Cincinnati, he
collapsed from nervous exhaustion. "I play all out," he said.
"That's the only way I know."

"He was so intense," said Orlando Cepeda. "He played
so hard in every game that he just wore out."

"Mays had a comprehensive physical examination that
included all the routine tests," said Dr. Harold Rosenblum, chief
of medicine at San Francisco's Mt. Zion Hospital. "All yielded
normal findings. His condition is perfectly healthy. There is no
medical problem. His condition is superior to other men his age. He
is in prime physical condition."

"I thought the pressure was greater on Mays that
year than ever before in his career, even more than 1954 when we
won the pennant," said Dark. "I don't think he felt like he was
under as much pressure then." By 1962 he was "a more mature guy"
expected to carry the club, which Dark attributed to his getting so
tired.

Mays became more reclusive. Friends and teammates
tried to get closer to him, to help to him; all to no avail. "He
had very few close friends and he fought his own battles," said
teammate - and look-alike - Carl Boles.

Several strong sports organizations were built on the
strength of enlightened integration policies. The University of
Southern California had a black All-American football player as
early as 1925, and later coach John McKay turned the Trojans into a
juggernaut using superstar black athletes.

UCLA went from being a commuter school to a national
sports powerhouse because they took advantage of all the available
black talent, not just in Southern California high schools but in
the South, where all-white colleges were off-limits to them. John
Wooden's basketball dynasty is attributable in large measure to his
recruitment of black stars while Atlantic Coast Conference
competition, for instance, did not.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, long a laughing stock, became a
fabled franchise when they brought Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella,
Don Newcombe and others into the organization.

The Giants decided to follow a similar strategy.
While the New York Giants signed black stars such as Willie Mays
and Monte Irvin, they also recognized a new source of talent in
Latin America, placing great focus on the region. The early San
Francisco Giants were a team with a disproportionate amount of
Latino star power.

Latinos had never been banned from Major League
baseball. Cuba was a source of talent, producing the likes of
pitcher Dolf Luque, a 27-game winner with Cincinnati in 1923. This
posed quite the conundrum: black American citizens were denied
rights accorded to foreigners.

Long before Robinson's breakthrough, Giants manager
John McGraw had employed a black player "disguised" as a Cuban, but
the ruse was discovered. Jokes were made of blacks, particularly
light-skinned ones, that they were "Cubans" or "Puerto Ricans," but
no real breakthroughs occurred. Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and
Dominicans could play organized ball as long as they were more
Spanish than Negro.

Negro League barnstormers made baseball popular in
the Dominican Republican when the dictator Rafael Trujillo
recruited them in the 1930s, ostensibly to divert public attention
from his oppressive methods. Branch Rickey, the man responsible for
Robinson, also opened doors for dark-skinned Latinos in the early
1950s. Robinson had been kicked out the door by his nemesis, Walter
O'Malley, but took over the operations at Pittsburgh. The Dodgers
had the first shot at Roberto Clemente, a dark-skinned super
outfield prospect from Puerto Rico. No longer benefiting from
Rickey's leadership, they faltered on the issue of signing
Clemente, leaving the door open for Rickey and the Pirates.

The Giants had already taken steps towards fulfilling
the promise of Latin America, a place of great political turmoil
after World War II. Latin dictators strangely affiliated themselves
with Adolf Hitler, who would have considered these brown-skin types
to be worthy of the ovens once they had served his purposes.
Nevertheless, many Nazis found save haven in Argentina, Brazil and
other countries. Anti-American sentiment became popular in the
1950s, mainly as a reaction to U.S. business interests monopolizing
these "banana republics."

Cuba went Communist, thus ending the steady flow of
baseball talent that included the likes of Camilo Pasqual and Tony
Oliva of Minnesota. The rest of the region picked up the slack.
Excellent year-round weather made it a game played in the winter as
well as the summer. Soccer had always been popular, but basketball
and football did not take. Baseball did. Fans were gaga over the
game. Winter leagues were created in which numerous American stars
and prospects honed their off-season skills - sometimes in
harrowing political and criminal circumstances - beginning in the
1950s. Coups, revolutions, banditry and kidnappings were
commonplace happenings along with baseball.

The Giants did not land Clemente, but they saw more
where that came from in Puerto Rico, an American protectorate and
therefore friendlier to U.S. interests, not to mention easier to
obtain visas. Their man in charge was Allesandro "Alex" Pompez.
Pompez was more than a baseball scout; he was a cultural liaison.
The transition for Latino players was a shock to the system in the
1950s and 1960s. Most minor league and Spring Training towns were
in the South, with profound effect on these youngsters.

First, Pompez put a sales pitch on the families,
assuring them that he would oversee the development of their
children, handling contracts, explaining wages and work rights, not
to mention instructing them on haircuts, shoe shines, clothing
styles, and myriad aspects of American life. Pompez steered many a
Latino player away from other clubs and towards the Giants.

A dandy figure, well dressed and stylish, Pompez was
a "father figure" to the Latino players. A native of Key West,
Florida, he spoke fluent Spanish but was an American who could
cross racial, cultural and national lines. Pompez was a pioneering
black baseball executive with the New York Cubans of the old Negro
League. He also was involved in the bootlegging rackets of the
Prohibition era. His financially successful operation was partnered
with Arthur "Dutch" Schultz, known as "The Beer Baron of New York."
Pompez supervised Schultz's profitable numbers rackets.

Later, Schultz was murdered in a feud with the
notorious Charles "Lucky" Luciano. When New York special prosecutor
Thomas Dewey went after him, tying him to the Mob, Pompez escaped
to Mexico, but returned when he agreed to testify against organized
crime syndicates in return for immunity.

"He became the only guy who ever snitched on the Mob
and lived to tell about it," said Negro League pitching star Leon
Day.

Pompez regained control of his team, which played at
the Polo Grounds. He developed a cordial business relationship with
Giants owner Horace Stoneham. When Robinson signed with Brooklyn
Pompez was hired as the club's point man in an effort to keep the
Giants even with the Dodgers when it came to signing black
stars.

But Pompez's Latino background made him indispensable
in the Caribbean. He was involved in the scouting and signing of
Mays and of course other Negro Leaguers, but the Caribbean was
quickly developing as a hotbed of baseball talent. The Pirates and
Senators were the main early competition for Latino players, but
Pompez kept the New York Giants head and shoulders ahead of the
rest.

Many saw California as the future, a progressive
place where racial intolerance was not acceptable. The Giants
discovered that while it was different, in some ways their Harlem
digs had been more accessible to minority players than "liberal"
San Francisco. The early San Francisco teams were derided by
"poison pen" letters who complained about "Rig's Jigs" (manager
Bill Rigney), "Sheehan's Shines" (manager Tom Sheehan) and "Dark's
Darkies" (manager Alvin Dark). In their first season in the Bay
Area, the Giants' roster included minority players Leon Wagner,
Willie Kirkland, Bill White, Ruben Gomez, Sam Jones, Ray Monzant,
Andre Rogers, and Valmy Thomas. By 1962, one-quarter of the team
was black or Latino.

Yearly complaints about the club's ethnic make-up was
squelched most completely by Orlando Cepeda. Cepeda started the
first game in San Francisco, at the old Seals Stadium on April 15,
1958. It was his rookie debut. He had none of Mays's New York
baggage. He homered that day to power an 8-0 win over Los Angeles.
The 21-year old Cepeda won the 1958 National League Rookie of the
Year award when he hit .312 with 25 homers and 96 runs batted in.
In 1959 Cepeda batted .317 with 27 homers and 105 RBIs. In 1961 he
slammed 46 homers with 142 RBIs while batting .311. He appeared to
be a Hall of Famer, a superstar, and was not simply more popular
than Willie Mays from a personality standpoint, but statistically
as well. The nickname "Baby Bull" fit him like a glove.