Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty
and the Say Hey Kid:
The Year that Changed Baseball Forever
Sourcebooks, 2008
trade paperback, $16.95
nonfiction, 312 pages
Buy the book--click
here.
1973. The U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. The Watergate hearings transfixed
a record television audience. President Nixon tried to explain an
18-minute silence on the White House tapes. And the national pastime
underwent an extreme makeover.
The summer of ‘73 served up a highly entertaining baseball season
populated by some of the game’s greatest stars. It also marked a number
of endings and beginnings that changed baseball forever.
George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, beginning his influential, big
money reign as king of America’s team. The American League introduced
the designated hitter, adding offense to games and extending the careers
of aging stars such as Orlando Cepeda. Hank Aaron chased Babe Ruth’s
landmark 714 record in the face of racist threats. The Mets performed
another near miracle, rising from last place in the National League East
on August 30 to win the division and take the A’s to seven games in the
World Series. The A’s established themselves as a dynasty with their
second straight world championship. The Mets’ Willie Mays, arguably the
best player of the ‘50s and ‘60s, hit the final home run of his career
and retired, no longer able to keep pace with the younger players of the
next generation, most notably Reggie Jackson, the World Series MVP, who
began his tenure as Mr. October.
Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid weaves together the
stories of five men—Aaron, Steinbrenner, Mays, Cepeda, and Jackson—to
animate the 1973 season and show how that watershed year forever changed
the national pastime.
•
Media Interviews
•
Readings and Events
•
Author interview
•
Reviews & Articles
•
Readers Say
•
Table of Contents
•
Excerpts
•
Web links
RADIO
KNDD-FM
Seattle, WA
WYFM-FM
Youngstown, OH
Alan Cutler
Show
Cincinnati, OH
WOC-AM
Davenport, Iowa
KHTK-AM
Sacramento, CA
KTGR-AM
Columbia, MO
WCBQ-WHNC-AM
Oxford, NC
Point of View
/ USA Radio Network
Carrollton, TX
WSGE
Lincolnton, NC
KXYL-FM
Brownwood, TX
WHTK
Rochester, NY
"David
Smith's Exchange"
New York, NY
KRLD-AM
Dallas, TX
WBNR-AM
Beacon, NY
WKCT-AM
Bowling Green, KY
CRN Digital
SUNLAND, CA
WDWS
Champaign, IL
KTGR-AM
Columbia, MO
KEX-AM
Portland, OR
WHBQ
Memphis, TN
WCCO-AM
Minneapolis, MN
TELEVISION
“Primetime”
Fox 9
Minneapolis, MN
“11 Questions
with Tim McNiff”
KARE-11
Minneapolis, MN
Watch the video here
“Twins
Pregame Show”
FSN North
Minneapolis, MN
June 11, 2008
Book Signing
Noon to 1:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble, 801 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55402
Call (612) 338-2937
June 26, 2008
7:00 to 8:15 p.m.
"Summer of '73: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever"
Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, the Pohlad Auditorium
A People's University lecture on the dawn of the modern era of baseball
that preceded today's steroid era. Click
here for
more info.
July 22, 2008,
6:30 p.m.
Book Signing and Discussion
The Bookcase, 607 East Lake Street, Wayzata, Minnesota
John will discuss and sign copies of Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and
the Say Hey Kid: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever in his hometown.
The event is free and open to the public. Call (952) 473-8341 for more
info.
July 23, 2008
"Summer of 73: The Year that Changed Baseball Forever"
7:00 p.m. at the Dakota County Heritage Library, 20085 Heritage Drive,
Lakeville, Minnesota
John will discuss the dawn of the modern era of baseball that preceded
today's steroid era. Click
here for
more info.
July 25-27, 2008
Book Signing
Induction Weekend for the National Baseball Hall of Fame
Augur's Corner Book Store
73 Main Street, Cooperstown, New York
Check back for exact times
Back to Top
Author interview
Q. What was the inspiration for Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty and the
Say Hey Kid?
JR. I really enjoyed reading David Halberstam’s “Summer of ‘49” and Tom
Adelman’s “Long Ball” about the 1975 season. Those two books set me
looking for a similar season of dramatic events that transformed the
game. I found it in the ‘73 season.
Q. What’s the back story on writing this book?
JR. The research was so enjoyable. I spent hours at the downtown
Minneapolis central library--which in itself is a pleasant
experience--poring over Sports Illustrated, Sport magazine and The
Sporting News. I used to subscribe to Sports Illustrated and Sport and
remembered some of the specific articles and photos, not just about
baseball but all of them. I was easily sidetracked by stories about
Larry Csonka, Muhammad Ali, Bobby Orr, etc. It was a wonderful walk walk
down Memory Lane.
Q. How’d you develop your love of baseball?
JR. My dad used to take me to games at the old Met Stadium. One wasn’t
enough for us, so we would go to doubleheaders back in the day when they
scheduled those. As often happens with fathers and sons, we bonded over
baseball. When I hit my teens and my discussions with my dad about
politics and society became more contentious, we could always agree on
baseball. That became a safe neutral ground and mutual love for us. It
kept us together.
Q. What has been the lasting impact of the ‘73 season?
JR. You’ll have to read the book for the full answer. In short,
Steinbrenner infused big money into a team’s operating budget, the
designated hitter rule extended the careers of many older stars and
brought more offense to the American League, Hank Aaron infused the home
run with an added measure of drawing power, and Reggie Jackson invented
the modern superstar.
Q. Are you for or against the DH?
JR. I’m for whatever gives the game its intricate strategy. With all due
respect to Jim Leyland, I don’t think the DH does that. The DH rule has
also contributed to the emphasis on power, which has all but eliminated
bunting from the game. I miss that. I admired bunting artists like Rod
Carew. You could also say that the emphasis on power is the underpinning
of the steroid era. Bunting specialists weren’t injecting
performance-enhancing drugs.
Q. Anything you weren’t able to put in the book that happened that year?
JR. Lots. My boyhood hero, Rod Carew, won the batting title in 1973--the
third of his seven--but he did not figure in the five major storylines.
I wasn’t able to write about him other than a brief mention of racial
taunts hurled at him after he stole home in a game in Arlington to
illustrate the racially-charged atmosphere during that season. A catcher
myself, I had a poster of Johnny Bench on my bedroom wall, but I was
able to write about him only in limited ways that contributed to the
story in the All-Star game and the National League playoffs. I could
fill another book with stories about the players I admired from that
year.
Back to Top
Reviews & Articles
A memorable book for a memorable season By Shawn Fury
The
research that obviously went into this book would earn the
admiration of any historian, but it's the vivid, engaging writing that
makes "Hammerin Hank..." such an appealing read. For fans who remember
the 1973 season, and those who weren't even born yet, this book paints a
picture with details and a story that live up to the title's hype. The
effects of many of the events from that season are still being felt
today.
This was the year that George Steinbrenner took over the Yankees, and 35 years later the Boss, and now his son, continue to loom over the game. In the book, we read the type of Steinbrenner tale - him demanding that three Yankees get haircuts - that made him such an easy target, yet Rosengren also shows the lengths he'd go to to make the Yankees a winner, no matter the cost.
The DH went into effect in '73, and years before chicks dug the long ball, Rosengren shows how Oakland owner Charlie Finley pushed for more offense in the game, believing it would bring fans back. The DH rule led Carl Yazstremski to say, "It's legalized manslaughter," because pitchers no longer had to worry about suffering the consequences if they beaned an opposing hitter.
1973 was Willie Mays's final season. Today, whenever an older athlete struggles, it's almost become cliche to say that he should retire because we don't want to see him "stumbling around like Willie Mays." Rosengren details exactly what happened to the baseball legend, and how he struggled through his final days on the field.
The book tells the big stories, as well as the memorable smaller ones - like Gaylord Perry's spitball-throwing antics, and the tale of the two pitchers who switched lives, including wives. The story of the champion A's, one of the game's great dynasties, is perfectly profiled, as is the rise of their superstar, Reggie Jackson. And, of course, throughout the book is the tale of Hank Aaron's pursuit of Babe Ruth's home run record. He'd finish one dinger short of Ruth, and we're there every step with Aaron - from the hate mail (275 letters a day at one point), to the remarkable fact that only 1,362 fans saw Aaron's 711th career homer.
For those who
might question whether 1973 really was the year that changed baseball
forever, all they have to do is read this book, and they'll be fully
convinced that it did.
--amazon.com
This well-written, insightful and intriguing tome relates how the events of the 1973 baseball season, and several events that unfolded around it, really did change the game, and perhaps the country, for all time. Think about it:
* You had Hank Aaron chasing babe Ruth, right down to the last day of the season, contending not only with his aging body and racist death threats, but also the ambivalence of the baseball establishment (read: Commissioner Bowie Kuhn) and the people of Atlanta, who mostly ignored him right to the end.
* Willie Mays, the once great Giants centerfielder, was limping along in his last year as a player with the Mets, who somehow managed to get to the World Series despite winning only 82 regular season games.
* Reggie Jackson was trying single-handedly to not just win the AL pennant again, but to become the superstar that we all now know him to be, and while he was at it, he was also trying to change the way players dealt with both management and the media. He succeeded at all three.
* Pete Rose (this was before he bet on baseball, we assume) collected his 2,000th career hit, won his third batting title and his only NL MVP award.
* Charlie Finley was an odd juxtaposition of both progressive and traditional baseball values. For example, he lobbied for the Designated Hitter rule, which was accepted, as a way to improve offense levels in the attendance-challenged American League. He also suggested orange baseballs for night games, though these were only used in exhibitions. At the same time, he was a world-class cheapskate, losing his players' loyalty (and in some cases their contracts) over comparatively trifling sums because he simply could not stand to give up a dollar if he didn't absolutely have to.
* George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees for a song from CBS, and despite promises to keep building ships for a living, it was not long before he started meddling...and winning.
At the same time, America was still trying to get out of the Vietnam War, and the Paris Peace Accords were signed, though it would not be the end. By the end of the year, both the President and the Vice President were forced from office over separate political scandals, though Nixon made significant inroads with both China and the Soviet Union, helped to start the DEA, the Alaska Pipeline, and signed the Endangered Species Act, before he was forced to leave.
To his credit, Rosengren doesn't try to cover all of that stuff in his book, but he does touch on some of the bigger issues (like Watergate) and how the baseball world could never be wholly insulated from the larger culture. Steinbrenner's illegal campaign contributions to Nixon in 1972 were given special attention in the book, as was the effect of the investigation, and his eventual conviction, on his business with the Yankees). Rosengren also discusses the ways in which Steinbrenner almost immediately renegs on his promise to practice "absentee ownership" and "stick to building ships", and apparently had no shame about the way he wanted to run things. When Mike Burke, the general Manager of the team under CBS's ownership, was forced out, George simply explained that, "[he] didn't agree with everything I wanted to do, so I fired him." (p. 82)
Speaking of contentious and controversial owners, the Oakland Athletics, despite their success in 1972, were a wild bunch, and hated their cheapskate owner. "They disregarded authority with exuberant contempt." (p. 29) Moreover, they nearly mutinied during the World Series when Finley's meddling forced second baseman Mike Andrews to agree to a false medical report in order to get someone else on the roster. Finley eventually forced out his manager, Dick Williams, lost his best pitcher, Catfish Hunter, and the AL MVP Reggie Jackson, once free agency took hold.
Finley's brainchild, the DH, was proposed essentially as a gimmick to improve attendance, which, it was though, would increase with increased offense. The American League in 1972 had averaged just 3.47 runs per game, 13% lower than the Senior Circuit, and almost exactly as low as the anemic 1968 season. Run scoring (and attendance) increased dramatically in 1973, and everyone was so pleased after only the first season of what was supposed to have been a three-year experiment, they decided to make the DH permanent. Hard to blame them.
Rosengren manages to relate some of the social and historical implications of the DH, the ways it was perceived and who actually embraced the role and succeeded at it. Ron Blomberg may have gotten his name in the record books as the first player to serve in the role, But Orlando Cepeda was the one who made the DH look like a good idea. Cha Cha was basically washed up at 35, but got a second chance in Boston in 1973 due entirely to the DH rule, and probably owes his Hall of Fame induction to it. (Rosengren mentions that Cepeda won the inaugural Outstanding DH Award in '73, though he fails to include the fact that Frank Robinson had a much better season. Baby Bull only got the award because it was started by a newspaper in New Hampshire, which is obviously in Red Sox Nation.)
The book, in fact, is really quite good. The author seems to be one of those select few people who can look at an array of information from various and sundry sources and not only see the big picture, but relate it to others as well. It seems that a lot of things really did change in 1973, and Rosengren weaves all the intricate parts of that season together for you, presenting the tapestry and explaining how it all fits, and what it all means.
How he managed to do this is beyond me. His bibliography lists over 50 different books, plus numerous websites, periodicals, audio/video sources and more than a dozen personal interviews with players and other personalities who lived the events in the book. And talk about meticulous! After the brief first chapter, every chapter has at least 29 end notes, and most have at least 60! The man obviously paid enormous attention to detail, working his butt off to verify and cite his sources.
The result is an
interesting, well-researched, well-written and comprehensive work that
tells the tale of a season that really did change the world of baseball
forever.
--from Travis Nelson’s Baseball Blog
www.boyofsummer.blogspot.com/2008/04/book-review-hammerin-hank-george.html
Rosengren is no stranger to sports controversy. In 2003, he published
Blades of Glory, a critical look at the hypercompetitive Minnesota high
school hockey culture; three years later, he co-wrote Alone in the
Trenches, football player Esera Tuaolo's memoir about his struggle as a
closetted gay man in the NFL. Now Rosengren turns his keen journalistic
eye toward race, money, and baseball politics, giving us a comprehensive
account of the most tumultuous season in Major League Baseball history.
He documents the triumphs of Reggie Jackson and Hank Aaron over racism
and prejudice, the risse of billionaire Yankees owner George
Steinbrenner, and the rule changes that occurred between the American
League and the National League, concluding, "There will never be
baseball like it was played in 1973."
--Katie Koch, Bostonia
While many baseball fans likely
have a casual knowledge of the subjects Rosengren explores in his latest
effort, the depths to which the author travels gives new insight into
the 1973 baseball season. Rosengren follows the season chronologically
from opening day to the Oakland Athletics' dramatic victory in the World
Series, and while he discusses the issues that shaped the game, such as
the advent of the designated hitter, more time is given to the
personalities of the era. Plenty of fans can tell you that Willie Mays
hit 660 career home runs, but Rosengren portrays a different side of the
man whose arms and knees ached every time he set foot on the ball field.
Rosengren also analyzes the Athletics, notorious for superstar Reggie
Jackson but also Charlie Finley, an owner "famous for his megalomania."
And as for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Rosengren shows that the
more things change, the more they stay the same. The author's style is
overexplanatory at times, and excessively breezy at others. However, the
book is exhaustively researched, and for baseball fans not alive in
1973, an enjoyable history lesson.
--Publisher's Weekly
Other books (e.g., Phil Pepe's
Catfish, Yaz, and Hammerin' Hank: The Unforgettable Era That Transformed
Baseball) have noted the 1970s as a crucible for change in baseball.
Here, Rosengren narrows it down to 1973 with the vivid story of a young
Reggie Jackson on Charlie Finley's A's and the veteran Willie Mays on
Yogi's Mets, both destined for the '73 series. It was a season in which
Hank Aaron, who avoided showmanship, attracted racist hostility as he
busted the 700 mark in homers. There were many years that changed
baseball forever, and this was certainly one of them.
--Library Journal
Back to Top
Readers Say
"The baseball bookshelves have long been heavy with memoirs of the
1950s, when today's old boys were first taken out to the ball game. But
a new generation of fans recalls the 1970s with all the pleasure and
pathos that their fathers felt for the boys of summer. In this fine book
John Rosengren presents the 1973 season as the pinnacle of the period
between the expansion to divisional play and the revolution of free
agency. In his telling, the story seems strangely modern, yet if it
represents a new wave, it is that of "the new old." He will find ready
and willing readers."
--John Thorn, author of “Baseball in the Garden of Eden”
“A wonderfully informative book that proves once again baseball reflects
American culture more powerfully than any other sport. Indeed, John
Rosengren's book shows that sports are not an escape from political and
social reality but a magnification of it.”
--Gerald Early, baseball historian and author
This isn't just a book, it's a season-ticket to one of the greatest
years in baseball history. With a wonderful knack for capturing the
spirit of the seventies and a crackling writing style, John Rosengren
has given us one of the most enjoyable baseball books to come along in
years.
-- Jonathan Eig, author “Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig”
and “Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season”
“John Rosengren brings to life the personalities and events that made
the 1973 season a memorable one. From the star players to the
out-of-control owners, it’s all here in Hammerin’ Hank, George Almighty
and the Say Hey Kid.”
--Stew Thornley, author “Baseball in Minnesota: The Definitive History”
Back to Top
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: A Mr. October Afternoon
Chapter 2: The Money Game
Chapter 3: The Team of the Times
Chapter 4: The Designated Hitter Has His Day
Chapter 5: Chasing the Ghost
Chapter 6: The Cover-up Game
Chapter 7: One Up, One Down
Chapter 8: You’re So Vain
Chapter 9: Dear Nigger
Chapter 10: The Midsummer Classic
Chapter 11: Cheating
Chapter 12: Rah Rah for Cha Cha
Chapter 13: Love Atlanta Style
Chapter 14: Wrasslin’ Another Division Title
Chapter 15: Say Goodbye to America
Chapter 16: Pennant Fever
Chapter 17: A Classic Fall Classic
Chapter 18: Extra Innings
Back to Top
Excerpts
Hank Aaron
One could
hardly mention Hank Aaron’s name in 1973 without hearing Babe
Ruth’s. The prospect of Aaron passing Ruth’s monumental mark
inevitably led to comparisons and debates over whose 714 homers were
the greater accomplishment. The Ruthians contended that the Babe
reached 714 in 3,000 fewer at bats than Aaron, slugging a homer on
average once every twelve at bats to Aaron’s once every sixteen. In
Ruth’s prime, from 1920 through 1933, they noted, he hit 637 home
runs, an average of 45.5 per 154-game season; Aaron hit more than 45
home runs only once in the 162-game season.
The Babe dominated in a way Aaron didn’t. Ruth led the league in
on-base percentage ten times (his .474 career mark is second on the
all-time list); Aaron never did. Ruth led the league in slugging
percentage his first thirteen seasons (his .690 career mark remains
the best ever); Aaron led the league four times in slugging
percentage (his .555 ranks 27th all-time). Ruth’s .342 lifetime
batting average eclipsed Aaron’s .311 lifetime average. Babe Ruth,
his loyalists maintained, was the greatest hitter of all time, bar
none.
The Aaron camp countered that his soon-to-be 714 homers were hit
under more difficult conditions. Aaron faced bigger, harder-throwing
pitchers, many of them fresh relievers in late innings. He played
night games when the ball was harder to see. He crisscrossed the
country and multiple time zones on late-night flights and played day
games after night games. He may not have led the league as often,
but year after year--for twenty years straight--he performed
consistently, not having a bad season. ”Real baseball people
understand that the best thing you can have in a sport with a long
season is consistency,” the syndicated columnist and baseball fan
George Will noted. “Henry Aaron, by that measure, is the greatest
baseball player ever, period, end of discussion.”
Aaron may have benefited from the lighter, thinner bats that players
could whip around faster, but the bat’s smaller sweet spot required
more precision in the swing. Some believed that Aaron also benefited
from a livelier ball, but, in fact, the opposite was true. Ruth
played almost his entire career in the “live-ball era,” which lasted
from 1920 to about 1934, when the manufacturers deadened the ball
somewhat. Changes to better stitching, binding and the core revived
the ball in the Fifties. “The ball is livelier now than in the late
Thirties and Forties but not as lively as in Ruth’s years,” baseball
historian Joe Reichler, a member of the commissioner’s staff, told
the Los Angeles Times in June 1973. Aaron himself pointed out that
Ruth never had to face the likes of Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal and
Ferguson Jenkins, because blacks were banned from Major League
Baseball in his day. “Ruth may have had it easier for that reason,”
Aaron wrote in I Had a Hammer.
In the end, nostalgia and legend seemed to tip most of the arguments
in the Babe’s favor. More than half of the letters Aaron received
still did not want to see him break Ruth’s record. “Of course, you
had the man Hank Aaron and the myth Babe Ruth, and then the
commercialized image of Babe Ruth,” Reverend Jesse Jackson opined.
“It was just amazing that the myth of Ruth and this home run number
was a kind of white supremacy symbol for many people.”
Certainly, Aaron faced pressure Ruth hadn’t in the form of hate
mail, shouted epithets and death threats. There was also the
invisible but palpable prejudice of apathy and indifference. Aaron
felt that as well. Crowds may have doubled in other cities around
the league where he played, but Atlanta fans ignored Hammerin’
Hank’s pursuit en masse. July 21, the day after Aaron hit No. 699,
the Braves sold only 16,236 tickets to a Saturday game against the
Phillies. Naturally Aaron wondered if people stayed away because he
was black.
Orlando Cepeda
Along came
Opening Day. That historic afternoon game at Fenway. Ron Blomberg
beat Orlando Cepeda into the record books, but both of their bats
were shipped to Cooperstown. Not that Cepeda had done much with his.
There, too, Blomberg showed him up. The Yankees DH added a single to
his walk, reaching base twice in four trips to the plate. The Red
Sox had won big, 15-5, but Cepeda’s bat had been silent. Listed
fifth in the Boston order, the Red Sox’s expensive designated hitter
had come to the plate six times and walked back to the dugout six
times without reaching base. He tried to beat out one ground
ball--laboring, straining, barely moving--but was easily thrown out.
It was painful just to watch. The 32,000-plus Fenway faithful shook
their heads. Cepeda finished the first day of the experiment
oh-for-six.
His second day did not go much better. In a replay of Opening Day,
the sun shone impotently, the cold winds whipped, the Sox routed the
Yankees and Cepeda went hitless. He did manage two sacrifice flies
and a base on balls, but Boston wasn’t paying him the big money to
hit long outs. After two games, the Red Sox had scored 25 runs on 33
hits, but the team’s designated hitter hadn’t contributed one hit.
Cepeda was oh-for-eight, and doubts about the DH experiment loomed
large as the triple zeros in his batting average. Boston fans
taunted him from the bleachers. Sportswriters tagged him the
designated out.
The mockery continued on day three. Once, twice, thrice, Cepeda
failed to hit. Kasko had stuck with Cepeda in the number five spot,
but he decided he would sit Cha Cha tomorrow and use Ben Oglivie.
Cepeda came to bat again in the ninth oh-for-eleven on the season.
His knees ached in the cold. He didn’t think he could run. He would
be lucky to beat the throw to first if he banged a ball off the
Green Monster.
Cepeda faced Sparky Lyle, on the mound in his first appearance at
Fenway since the Red Sox traded him to Yankees a year earlier. Lyle
had come into game three innings earlier, trailing 3-2, but the
Yankees had evened the score in the top of the ninth. He wanted to
give his team a chance to bat in the tenth and avoid being swept by
their hated foes. Even more, Lyle wanted to show the Red Sox what a
mistake they had made in letting him go.
Cepeda watched Lyle’s first pitch. Ball one. He watched the second.
Strike one. The pressure mounted. Lyle threw a slider, his money
pitch. Cepeda swung--and connected. The ball lifted into the wind
and muscled its way over the tall left-field wall. Home run! Boston
4, New York 3.
The Fenway crowd “erupted into a frenzy.” Cepeda’s teammates rushed
out of the dugout to congratulate him at home. Cha Cha stopped short
of the plate, then toed it with his right foot in a celebratory
dance step. His teammates mugged him happily.
George Steinbrenner
Bill Singer
wasn’t the only pitcher throwing spitballs that summer. George
Steinbrenner suspected Gaylord Perry was also illegally greasing the
ball. Singer and Perry weren’t the only suspects, but they were the
most visible and most successful, particularly Perry, who won the
1972 AL Cy Young Award with a 24-16 record. The thirty-four
right-hander had been accused countless times of doctoring the ball
with sweat, grease or spit but never been convicted. The Boss was
determined to catch the purported cheat when Perry and the Indians
came to Yankee Stadium in late June.
Perry had beaten the Yankees 4-2 in Cleveland on June 25 and ended
their wining streak. Convinced that Perry was loading the ball,
manager Ralph Houk impulsively rushed to the mound in the eighth
inning after Perry’s first pitch to centerfielder Bobby Murcer. Houk
tugged off Perry’s cap, threw it to the ground and kicked it.
Murcer bunted the next pitch foul down the third-base line. Third
base coach Dick Howser picked up the ball and rushed to show umpire
Lou DiMuro what he believed was grease smudged on the ball. DiMuro
was not convinced. He ejected Howser for his animated and impolite
argument.
Later, Houk summoned DiMuro to the mound to search the pitcher. This
time, Perry cooperatively removed his hat for inspection. They found
nothing.
After the game, Murcer criticized commissioner Bowie Kuhn and
American League president Joe Cronin for letting Perry get away with
throwing his spitball. "If the league president or commissioner had
any guts, they'd ban the pitch,” he said.
The team, it seemed, was starting to behave like its owner, whose
behavior The New York Times had characterized as “sometimes
questionable.” For his part, Steinbrenner told the press that he had
authorized the installation of two closed-circuit TV cameras to be
trained on Perry throughout the Friday, June 29, game at Yankee
Stadium. Yankee president Gabe Paul, recently of the Cleveland
Indians, had hatched the surveillance plan to catch Perry in the act
of doctoring the ball through the slow-motion and stop-action replay
of the film. The team invited the league to send an official to
watch the film with them.
Steinbrenner approved the plan. If the guy was cheating, The Boss
figured he deserved to be caught and punished. He would see to it
himself. The irony of Steinbrenner trying to catch a pitcher
greasing a baseball while he covered up his illegal contributions to
Nixon’s campaign was lost on George. Justice would have its day.
Willie Mays
On Saturday,
June 9, the Mets staged an old-timers game before they hosted the
Dodgers at Shea Stadium. A crowd of 47,800 turned out to watch past
Mets’ greats play legends from the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers, but
it was Willie Mays, older than a dozen of the old-timers, who put on
a show in the game that mattered. He started in center field for the
first time at home in over a month. In the top of the third inning,
with the scored tied 2-2, he made a tumbling circus catch. In the
Mets’ half of the inning, Willie homered to put his team ahead to
stay. As he had done so many times before, he won the game with his
glove and bat.
Yet, these days, his feats served more to measure how far the hero
had fallen. His spectacular catch would have been routine in the old
days, but he initially misjudged the straightaway fly to center.
Finally picking up the ball’s flight, he backpedaled in time to make
the catch over his head, then fell backward and rolled twice across
the dirt track at the wall. His home run was the 655th of his
career, but only his first since the previous August, a four-month
drought. Willie had become more memory than performing legend.
The game two days later, when San Francisco came to town on Monday
evening, June 11, showed how low he had slipped. Mays started in
center field for the third game in a row, “an endurance test he
hadn’t tried in six weeks,” the Times noted. The fourth inning
“exposed one of the Achilles heels that have [sic] bedeviled them
(the Mets) this season: Willie Mays can’t throw,” Joseph Durso, who
covered the Mets for the Times, observed. Mays chased a ball to the
wall in left-center, nearly 400 feet from the plate, but, rather
than heave it back to the infield, he lobbed the ball ten feet to
rookie left fielder, George Theodore, to relay in. Theodore was so
startled by Mays’ unusual move that he bobbled the ball, and the
runner advanced to third. Mays drew an error on the play. In the
bottom of the ninth inning, Mays came to the plate with the Mets
trailing 2-1 and the tying run on first. He grounded out to second
base to end the game and drop his batting average to .094. The man
who had batted over .300 ten times wasn’t hitting half his weight.
The June 11 game prompted Roger Angell to remark in the New Yorker,
“The horrible truth of the matter was that Mays was simply incapable
of making the play (in the field) . . . his failings are now so
cruel to watch that I am relieved he is not in the lineup every
day.”
Reggie Jackson
Reggie
scored his first hit of the national spotlight when he challenged
Roger Maris’ single-season home run mark in 1969. Reggie hit 37
homers by the All-Star break. By September 1, he had hit forty-five.
The media swarmed him, and everyone from the President to the team
owner fawned over him. In the two weeks before the All-Star game,
reporters demanded a hundred interviews. Sports Illustrated featured
him on its cover in July. President Nixon sent him a personal note
after Jackson hit two homers in a game Nixon attended in Washington.
Reggie’s teammates stood to cheer him when he walked into the
clubhouse after a Friday night game in Boston where he hit three
home runs, two singles and a double, driving in ten runs. On July 2,
in Seattle, after Reggie hit three homers in a game, Finley wrapped
him in a hug. The attention and adulation intoxicated Reggie.
But he overdosed on it. The pressure attendant to such attention
stalled his home run drive and landed him in the hospital with a
case of shingles in September. He hit only two more homers that
month and finished the season with forty-seven, third in the league.
No matter. In only his second season, his early hot streak had
catapulted his status from potential star to proven superstar. He
wanted more of the fame trip.
His style reflected his ego. Fans today have become accustomed to
players thumping their chests or watching their home run blasts like
little boys enamored by their own turds, but in 1973, fans expected
players to trot around the bases modestly with their heads down, the
way Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Hank Aaron, et al did. But
Reggie couldn’t contain himself that way. He shouted, pumped his
arms or otherwise hot-dogged it around the bases when his turn came.
Look at me!
Reggie worked the press to keep his name in the paper. “One of the
things Reggie figured out early on was that he was an entertainer,”
his teammate Joe Rudi said. “Playing in Oakland, he was playing in
relative obscurity. He was doing everything he could to build up a
national image.”
The media lapped up Reggie’s lip and lavished him with their
attention. In the cliché-addled world of professional sports, where
some athletes were dumber than a bag of laundry, here was a guy with
an IQ of 160 willing to speak his mind. They could count on Reggie
for good copy. Reggie had learned to work them and seemed to
approach every interview as a chance to add another plank to the
national platform he was building. These days, Sports Center,
YouTube and fan blogs can catapult a player to national celebrity
instantaneously, but in 1973, the opportunities were more limited. A
player could make a name for himself with a tremendous performance
on a nationally-broadcast “Game of the Week,” in the All-Star game
or in the World Series. Reggie did all that and served up a generous
portion of quotes. Bergman, the A’s beat reporter, tagged Reggie his
MVQ, or Most Valuable Quote. Reporters in other cities soon
discovered Reggie’s loquacious quotient and sought him out.
Even when he didn’t play, the reporters flocked to him, which
provided more fodder for his teammates’ jealousy and resentment. In
the 1972 World Series, the television cameras trained on the injured
Jackson sitting with his crutches on the bench, and sportswriters
asked his views of the games. When the A’s captured the Series
crown, Reggie spoke for the team in the clubhouse. He proclaimed the
start of a new dynasty.
Web Links
www.baseball-almanac.com
www.baseballlibrary.com
www.baseballreference.com
www.baseballhalloffame.org
Back to Top