A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (8 page)

“I was lucky to be a Yankee.”

- Joe DiMaggio

Manhattan Island was, at least according to the
legend, purchased from local Indian tribes for a few beads. The
Dutch developed it into a trading colony. It was a strategic city
during the American Revolution. The young U.S. economy, our
earliest government, and American culture were formed in New York
City. It was the most important of all American cities from its
earliest inception. As the United States grew, it became the new
Athens, Rome, Byzantium, Paris, and London . . . all in one. Art,
literature, theatre,
academe
, finance, trade, even film and
political power, were given New York imprimatur.

Sports were practically
invented
there. Notre
Dame football coach Knute Rockne built a dynasty not in South Bend,
Indiana, but in New York City. In the 1920s, a Christian revival
movement swept America, particularly the South and the Midwest. It
had dark overtones of white supremacy, giving rise to the
long-dormant Ku Klux Klan and strong anti-Catholic sentiments,
which Rockne and his team faced on the road. Rockne determined to
play a schedule in large metropolitan stadiums, where he knew a
“subway alumni” fan base of Irish, Italian and Polish Catholics
rooted for Notre Dame.

An invitation to play Stanford in the Rose Bowl was
accepted, followed by Southern California in the Los Angeles
Memorial Coliseum and at Soldier Field in Chicago. But among the
most memorable “barnstorming” Notre Dame games were those played in
New York; first and foremost the 1924 battle with national
powerhouse Army.

Led by the wondrous backfield of Elmer Layden, Harry
Stuhldreher, Don Miller and Jim Crowley, Notre Dame defeated Army,
13-7 on October 18, 1924. The next day,
New York
Herald-Tribune
sportswriter Grantland Rice’s column said,
“Under a blue, gray October sky, the Four of Horsemen of Notre
Dame” rode on the “green plains” of the Polo Grounds. He compared
them to the Biblical “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” as described
in The Revelation. The legend was made.

Four years later in 1928, this time at Yankee
Stadium, Notre Dame was a considerable underdog against Army.
Trailing at halftime, Rockne told his team that eight years earlier
All-American back George Gipp, dying of strep throat, told him that
some day when “the boys are up against it” to go out there one last
time to “win one for the Gipper.” It was blarney; Rockne made up
the story, but when the Irish rallied to beat Army it made the
newspaper accounts and was embellished into pure legend.

In 1944 and 1945, Army under coach Earl “Red” Blaik
featured some of the greatest National Championship teams in
history. A “teammate Heisman Trophy” duo of Doc Blanchard and Glenn
Davis (“Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside”) led Army to two straight
blowouts of the Irish by the combined score of 107-0. On November
9, 1946, with World War II won and unbeaten Army symbolizing
American superiority, underdog Notre Dame held them to a 0-0 tie.
Future Irish Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack tackled Blanchard
in the open field to save the day, and the Irish were rewarded with
the National title.

Great broadcasters described astounding sports
action to a sports-crazed nation in the 1920s and 1930s. Ted Husing
and Graham McNamee’s staccato deliveries characterized the early
style. The
New York Times
, the
Herald-Tribune
and
numerous other major dailies provided vivid sports descriptions,
making legends out of such talented scribes as Grantland Rice, Ring
Lardner, Red Smith, Jimmy Cannon and Jimmy Breslin.

Under the ownership of the Mara family, the New York
Giants became one of the leading franchises in professional
football. In the 1950s, assistant coach Vince Lombardi and
defensive back/captain Tom Landry orchestrated the simply named
"New York Giants Defense". In December of 1958 the Giants squared
off against the Baltimore Colts in a game some still call the best
in pro football history. It is certainly credited with making the
National Football League popular at a time in which baseball
dominated.

The Giants and Colts battled it out at Yankee
Stadium in front of a national television audience. Baltimore’s
legendary quarterback, Johnny Unitas, led the Colts on a comeback
drive forcing the game into overtime, then propelled them to the
World Championship in the extra period.

The open-air Madison Square Garden saw great boxing
matches in the 1920s and 1930s. Such stalwarts as Gene Tunney, Jack
Dempsey, the
Cinderella Man
(Jim Braddock), Joe Louis, Max
Schmelling, “Sugar Ray” Robinson, Rocky Marciano, and Jake LaMotta
were part of the colorful fight scene in New York.

The U.S. Open, played for years at Forest Hills in
Flushing Meadows, became the most exciting of the major tennis
tournaments. The New York Rangers were popular in hockey-savvy New
York. The New York Knickerbockers developed an enthusiastic,
knowledgeable fan base. High school basketball, and the strange
hybrid of playground hoops, permeated the New York sports
scene.

In 1919, eight members of the Chicago White Sox
“threw” the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds at the behest
of gambling interests. The first Commissioner of Baseball, Judge
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned the “Black Sox” from ever playing
baseball again.

In the first two decades of the American League, the
Boston Red Sox were the class of the junior circuit, winning the
1903, 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Series. Their greatest player
was George Herman “Babe” Ruth, a recalcitrant reform school dropout
from the streets of Baltimore. Ruth was the best left-handed
pitcher in baseball.

In the years in which the Red Sox dominated, the New
York Yankees were just another franchise. At first, they called
themselves the Highlanders. They did not have their own stadium. In
1919 they rented the Polo Grounds from the Giants.

After the 1919 season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee
needed money to finance a Broadway play called
No, No
Nanette
. He sold to the Yankees not merely Babe Ruth, but
future Hall of Fame pitchers Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt. Later, he
traded excellent catcher Wally Schang and stalwart third baseman
Joe Dugan to New York. Thus was born the “Curse of the
Bambino.”

After the “Black Sox scandal,” baseball needed
something to regain its popularity. The baseballs were tightened,
replaced with a livelier core, allowing for it to travel longer
distances. Umpires were instructed to use new, shiny white
baseballs instead of keeping old, scuffed-up balls in the game.
Spitballs were outlawed with the exception of a handful of known
“spitball specialists.” The results were revolutionary.

America suddenly became a major world power when
they helped the Allies win World War I. The American economy
exploded in the “Roaring ‘20s.” The new leisure class was
sports-crazed. The National Football League was born in 1920.
Harold “Red” Grange drew huge crowds at Illinois and with the Green
Bay Packers. Notre Dame and Southern California become idols of
collegiate football. New sports palaces emerged - the Los Angeles
Memorial Coliseum; Soldier Field in Chicago; the Rose Bowl in
Pasadena; “The Swamp” in Florida; the “Big House” in Michigan; the
“Horseshoe” in Ohio; Stanford Stadium and Memorial Stadium in
California; and Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend.

But Ruth dominated his game in the 1920s as no
athlete ever dominated his. To put it into perspective, it would
have been as if, when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001, the
next-highest total would have been 25 instead of Sammy Sosa, who
hit
more than Roger Maris’s old record
, finishing with 64!
When Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920, the next man in the American
League was George Sisler (19). In 1921 Ruth hit 59 followed by Ken
Williams and Bob Meusel (24).

In 1923, Yankee Stadium was built in the Bronx. It
was immediately dubbed the “House That Ruth Built.” That season,
the Yankees defeated the Giants for their first World Series title.
Shortly thereafter, Lou Gehrig joined the Yankees off of the campus
of Columbia University. The Ruth-Gehrig home run duo became the
greatest in history, the core of the famed “Murderers Row” line-up
that captured the 1927 and 1928 World Series. The 1927 Yankees
under manager Miller Huggins are still thought of as the best
baseball team of all time, at least in many circles.

Ruth retired with 714 lifetime home runs, a record
since broken by Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, both of whom took
season’s worth of at-bats more to do it. Many arguments have
ensued, and in 2000 ESPN even did a poll that said Michael Jordan
was the greatest athlete of the 20
^th
Century. Muhammad
Ali has his supporters, and there are other contenders.

Babe Ruth is not only the greatest baseball player
who ever lived, he is the greatest athlete of all time.

After Ruth retired Gehrig took over. He played in a
record 2,130 straight games, spearheading the Yankees’ World
Championship teams of 1936, 1937 and 1938. In 1939 the Yankees won
their fourth straight World Championship under manager Joe
McCarthy. Led by the great Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees won the World
Series again in 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950 and 1951.

Casey Stengel took over and led them on a stretch
even more dominant than before: five straight World Championships
between 1949 and 1953, then two more in 1956 and 1958. Superstars
Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford were giants of the game. They were
corporate, Wall Street pinstripers, as unstoppable as the American
Army. Rooting for them was like “rooting for U.S. Steel.” The most
popular Broadway play of the era was
Damn Yankees
, the
premise being that the only way to beat them was to do a deal with
the devil. Ralph Houk became the Yankees’ manager in 1961, the year
right fielder Roger Maris broke Ruth’s single-season home run
record of 60, set in 1927.

When the Dodgers and Giants moved to the Golden
State, it highlighted the great rivalry between New York and
California. Hollywood had a large New York presence. San Francisco
modeled itself on the New York skyline and its fashions. Richard
Nixon’s ascension to national political status was an example of
the electoral power of California and the West. The two states
competed for attention and influence in politics, culture, society,
finance, entertainment, literature, and athletics. Both states have
large populations, but it went beyond. People come
to
New
York and California. Many also come
from
there.

California holds an enormous edge over the rest of
the world in sports. Population is partially to explain, along with
great weather year round. There have been theories that the hardy,
Darwinian genetic survival mechanism of settlers made for
physically gifted offspring. Others said that more physically
attractive men and women came to Hollywood for the movies, married
and produced children with greater sports gifts.

The New York-California rivalry is accentuated in
large measure by the fact that many of the greatest stars in the
great history of New York sports came
from
California, to
New York City, to test themselves. Stars of the great Southern
California high school leagues, the legendary California collegiate
programs, the Pacific Coast League; they yearned to be more than
regional stars, but rather, nationally recognized heroes.

The San Francisco Bay Area and the San Francisco
Seals were, for all practical purposes, breeding grounds for the
Yankees. The San Francisco-Yankee connection is quite
extraordinary. San Francisco and the Bay Area at one time was the
greatest producer of baseball, and all-around athletic talent, in
the United States. It began with the great “Prince Hal” Chase of
Los Gatos. Chase was said to be the greatest defensive first
baseman of his time. Then there was San Francisco’s Ping Bodie. Two
San Franciscans played on the “all-time greatest” 1927 Yankees:
excellent shortstop Mark Koenig and slugging second baseman Tony
Lazzeri. In addition, the ’27 Yankees featured power-hitting
outfielder
Bob Meusel (born in San Jose) and
capable pitcher
Dutch Ruether of Alameda (who previously
pitched for Brooklyn).

In the 1930s a new crop of San Franciscans came
along. The legendary Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio played at San
Francisco’s Galileo High School. He was born in a little fishing
town on the Carquinez Straits called Martinez, which is right next
to another tiny little town called Rodeo. That was the birthplace
of his Hall of Fame Yankee teammate, pitcher Lefty Gomez (who
played high school ball in the East Bay town of Richmond).

Shortstop Frank Crosetti, out of San Francisco’s
Sacred Heart High School, was a Yankee mainstay on those teams.
Babe Dahlgren (also of San Francisco) replaced Lou Gehrig when the
“Iron Horse” retired.

The Bay Area connection continued into the 1940s and
1950s with shortstop Joe DeMaestri of Marin County’s Tamalpais High
School and the feisty Billy Martin of Berkeley High. From San
Francisco: Charlie Silvera, Gil McDougald, Jerry Coleman (now the
San Diego Padres’ broadcaster) and Dr. Bobby Brown (who became
President of the American League). Casey Stengel was not from the
Bay Area, but the Yankees hired him after leading the Oakland Oaks
to the 1948 PCL title. His star second baseman was local hero Billy
Martin.

Don Larsen of Point Loma High School near San Diego
threw the only perfect game in World Series history, over Brooklyn
in 1956, when the Yankees captured the World title. In 1998, David
Wells tossed a perfect game there for the Yankees. New York went on
to win the second of four World Series victories in five years, and
are marked by history as one of if not the best single-season team
ever assembled. Wells also graduated from Pt. Loma High School. On
the May day in which Wells tossed his perfecto, Larsen was featured
in a pre-game ceremony and was in attendance. Larsen and Wells were
both considered unique California hybrids who loved to party, drink
beer, stay out late, chase women, and raise hell.