Bob's Books - Bums No More by Stewart Wolpin

Bums No More, by Stewart Wolpin, is about THAT season. In the first forty World Series’, the Brooklyn Dodgers were 0-2.  And they were bad for a lot of those seasons, usually finishing in the second division. Larry MacPhail moved into the front office and righted the ship, with the team losing the 1941 World Series. A fellow named Jackie Robinson joined the team in 1947 and the Glory Years of Brooklyn baseball were underway. Between 1947 and 1956, the Dodgers appeared in six World Series. All were against the cross-town Yankees, and all were losses. Except for one. As the beloved once-Bums annually came up short in the Fall Classic, Brooklynites cried out, “Wait ‘til next year!” 1955 was finally Next Year.

Johnny Podres won 136 games for Brooklyn and Los
Angeles, including game two on his birthday. But none
were bigger than his complete game outing in the finale.

Subtitled The Championship Season of 1955, this book recounts the year that Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Johnny Podres, Robinson and the other Boys of Summer won that elusive World Series. The first chapter gives a primer on the Dodgers. The stage is set for spring training in Vero Beach and the magical season is under way. First and foremost, this relatively slim book (130 pages, counting the index) is jam packed with photographs. The surfeit of pictures alone makes this book worthwhile for the Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

Ebbets Field, Jackie Robinson watching the Giants celebration of Bobby Thomson’s ‘Shot Heard Round the World’ as Ralph Branca walks away, head hanging, Duke Snider leaping in center field, lots of clubhouse shots, Sandy Amaros’ catch, fans in line for tickets, parades, celebrations: there are over 100 illustrations (all black and white, of course). It is a treasure trove of Brooklyn and the Dodgers in their lone season as World Series champs. If you believe in the magical aura of baseball in the ‘old days’ before overpriced superstars, and you have a feeling for the bond between fans and their home town teams back then, the picture of Ebbets Field on Pee Wee Reese night will give you goose bumps.

After a LONG run, Sandy Amoros grabs what might be the most important
catch in World Series history. Manager Walter Alston had just inserted
Amoros into the game as a defensive replacement that inning.

The writing does not come up short, either. You get a look at Walter Alston’s relationship with the team (he and Jackie Robinson were not friends). And you sense the looming storm as the Dodgers receive permission to play seven games in Jersey City. Only two seasons after Johnny Podres records the last out in game seven, the team would be the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The book contains many comments and remembrances from Brooklyn fans, most notably, Larry King. You get a sense of what the Dodgers meant to community and how Brooklyn lived and died with ‘Dem Bums.’ It ends with borough president John Cashmore talking about a new stadium and saying, “The Dodgers must never leave Brooklyn.” Well, they did.
As a fan of Dodgers history, I really liked this look at the 1955 season.  It’s an easy read and doesn’t take very long. But it captures the relationship between Brooklyn and the Dodgers and gives a look at the year the heartbreak ended: For a little while, at least. And you absolutely cannot beat the photo library.

Here’s a link to the New York Times story on game seven. The first sentence sums it up well.

Quite possibly, there has never been a more joyous
moment on the baseball field

Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey

On June 13, 1973, Steve Garvey, Dave Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey  took what would become their familiar positions across the Dodgers' infield. They would play together for eight and a half years; the longest of any infield in major league history.

Second baseman Lopes would be traded to the A’s before the 1982 season, with first baseman Garvey (free agent to the Padres) and third baseman  Cey (traded to the Cubs) heading out of town for 1983. Shortstop Russell played in LA for all eighteen seasons of his career and had a (short) stint as manager.

The Dodgers won four western division titles and national league pennants during this time, going 1-3 in the World Series, losing to the A's in 1974 and the Yankees in 1977 and 1978 (Reggie Jackson INTERFERED!). The unstoppable force that was Fernandomania resulted in a win over the hated Yankees in 1981.

Bob's Books - The Lords of Baseball by Harold Parrott

The Lords of Baseball is an insider’s look from Harold Parrott. Parrot was a sportswriter for the Brooklyn Eagle who became the travelling secretary for the Brooklyn Dodgers during Branch Rickey’s tenure. He moved to Los Angeles with the team and became the ticket manager: the same position he held with the San Diego Padres and Seattle Pilots, as well as promotions manager for the California Angels.

First off, there is some fascinating stuff. There are plenty of baseball books by players, managers and sports writers; even a few owners (hello, Bill Veek). Plus, the occasional tome from a baseball-side executive, like Parrot’s long time coworker, Buzzy Bavasi. But it’s rare to find an informative account from an operations person, like Parrott. Having said that, a caveat: Parrott is a bitter writer.

There is a caveat for this book: Parrot is a bitter man. His dislike of the owners, various and sundry individuals, and most certainly, Walter O’Malley, cannot be described as “thinly veiled.” It is palpable, jumping off of page after page. A description of O’Malley, when the owner was calling Parrot’s wife to try and get her to coax Parrott to take a promotion, sums it up well: “…he was the villain who had forced our dear Mr. Rickey to walk the plank.” It’s safe to say you’re not going to get a lot of unobjective commentary from the ex-reporter on that topic. Now, that’s not to say Parrott isn’t honest, accurate, etc… I subscribe to Bill Terry’s statement that “Baseball must be a great game to survive the fools who run it.” Major League Baseball succeeds in spite of itself. Richard Nixon famously said, “I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in and twisted it with relish.” This book is Parrott’s sword and he’s happily twisting it.

O'Malley (left) would drive
Branch Rickey out of Brooklyn

Parrott stories and insights into the behind the scenes stuff over three decades (the game has changed mightily) are attention worthy. Branch Rickey regularly outwitted Pirates owner John Galbraith on trades. When the Dodgers won a World Series, some employees were given rings. O’Malley required them to turn in a previous ring (if they had one before they could receive the new one. Apparently you weren’t allowed to have two rings.  And Parrott says that O’Malley was going to fire manager Walter Alston in 1974 and bring back Leo Durocher. But the Dodgers hit a winning streak, Alston was kept and the Dodgers went to the World Series. That’s a story I’ve only run across in this book.

A particularly great look inside is when Parrott tells the story of how he had to inform Leo Durocher in mid-season 1948 that The Lip was fired. Naturally, Parrott was worried. Durocher had been thrown out of the first game of a doubleheader and was in a foul mood, shaving in his office, razor in hand. And Parrot wants to hurry up and do the deed because…he was also afraid of Durocher’s fiery wife, movie star Larraine Day. He wanted to be done and gone before she made her regular visit to see her husband. Understandably, Durocher is pissed at Branch Rickey, who had given Parrott his instructions from a hospital bed. Which he apparently checked out of as soon as Parrot was gone: Rickey fled to his farm in Maryland. Durocher’s Dodgers kept winning and he wasn’t actually fired. Except that Rickey arranged for Horace Stoneham, owner of the Giants, to buy Durocher to be his manager. Afterwards, Parrott went into Durocher’s empty office. Day had taken everything personal, leaving behind just one thing. An autographed picture of Rickey, addressed to her. That was left in the toilet.

Durocher going from the Dodgers to the Giants in 1948 is on the record. But Parrott gives the reader so much more. The book is full of stories like that.

Rare photo of actual Seattle Pilots game play at
Sicks Stadium in 1969. Parrot gives the inside
story on how the owners set the franchise up
for certain failure through...

If you accept that the author has quite a bit of disdain for much of the subject matter, this is an excellent read and provides a great deal of information that you aren’t likely to find somewhere else. I would buy this just for the Durocher and Jackie Robinson stories alone. You also get a look at the old days of sports reporting and the newspaper business (the Brooklyn Eagle was printing FIVE editions a day: sometimes more when events warranted). Parrott had an adventurous life in baseball and it is fun to read about. I think this is the best ‘baseball insider’ book I’ve read yet.

...Dewey Soriano: the
original Frank McCourt

Bob's Books - Superstars and Screwballs by Richard Goldstein

Richard Goldstein’s Superstars and Screwballs is an outstanding look at, as the subtitle proclaims, 100 years of Brooklyn Baseball. You will be hard pressed to find a better start to finish history of the Brooklyn Dodgers that also goes back beyond that franchise’s nascent beginnings. Goldstein begins with the flourishing of the not-yet national pastime in the CITY (not borough) of Brooklyn.  The Atlantics, the Eckfords, the Excelsiors, the Mutuals and more competed in the city’s parks.

Bennie Kauf (second from right) of the Brooklyn
Tip Tops was the Federal League's best player

Brooklyn teams were at the heart of the National Association of Base Ball Players (9 of 11 championships went to Brooklyn squads), the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (it wasn’t an amateur game anymore), the American Association, the one-year Player’s League (which resulted in construction of The Polo Grounds) and the Federal League. While ‘Dem Bums’ still cast their long shadow over baseball history, the sport was deeply enmeshed in Brooklyn culture and played by a myriad of teams.

But it is the Dodgers that are the enduring image of Brooklyn baseball and Goldstein gives us a great look at the franchise from their first season in 1883 (as a the minor league ‘Grays’) through the final 1957 pennant race. The Dodgers joined the American Association and then the National League, going through several name changes before settling on the Dodgers, abbreviated from ‘Trolley Dodgers.’ The first World Series was played in 1903, and in the days before divisions, the best team in each league played for the ultimate title: there were no playoffs. From 1903 to 1940, the Dodgers managed only two National League pennants, coming up short both times against their AL counterparts.

Three Hall of Famers: Manager Burleigh Grimes, coach
(and potential successor) Babe Ruth and short stop
(and actual sucessor as manager) Leo Durocher

There were a few  Hall of Famers like Zach Wheat, Dazzy Vance and Burleigh Grimes, and manager Wilbert Robinson. And some pretty good players, such as Babe Herman, Nap Rucker and Jeff Pfeffer, though they usually brought up the second division, finishing under .500 twenty-six times. But the team was interesting to read about, be it three runners standing on third base during a game, or Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Marquard being arrested for scalping tickets on the same day he was pitching in the World Series. Known as ‘The Daffiness Boys’ for most of this period of ineptness, Goldstein gives us a look at both the Dodgers and baseball at large during the period.

The legendary home of the Dodgers from 1913-1957 

Then, in the forties, front office exec Larry MacPhail transformed the Dodgers into winners, building a team that won a Brooklyn pennant for the first time in twenty-one years. Five years later, Branch Rickey brought in Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier and before long, Walter O’Malley took complete control and moved the team to Los Angeles. Goldstein covers it all, bringing you from the beginning of Brooklyn baseball, through the lean years of the Dodgers and onto the final glory years when the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers dominated the sport, coming to an end after 1957. And the stuff in the forties and fifties is great reading for a true baseball fan.

This is an excellent recounting of baseball in Brooklyn, dropping in details of fund raising efforts during the war years, behind the scenes ownership battles, the semi-plan to have Babe Ruth manage the Dodgers, and so much more that gives you a deep understanding of its subject. That includes black baseball, with a Brooklyn history of over eighty years during the game’s segregated era. Superstars and Screwballs remains the best book I’ve read on the history of the Dodgers franchise.

'Wait Til Next Year' was the Dodgers' fans' lament
after each World Series loss to the hated
Yankees. 1955 was finally 'Next Year'

STEELERS - Laying the Foundation (1960s)

The man whom Dan Rooney used to
get rid of head coach Buddy Parker

The hiring of Chuck Noll essentially began in 1965. The AFL was establishing itself as a real rival to the NFL, The Chief (Art Rooney) was in his sixties and slowing down and head coach Buddy Parker still believed an over-the-hill veteran was worth two draft picks or untested rookies. It was the Same Old Steelers in a changing environment. Dan Rooney, ever more active in team operations, told Parker that things needed to change. As you might imagine, that went over poorly with the old-school Parker, who had won a pair of NFL championships with the Lions.

After an exhibition game in 1965, Parker called Rooney with another of his impetuous trade demands, wanting to dump future pro bowler Ben McGee. Rooney said that he’d talk to Parker the next morning. Parker, used to going around Dan to the Chief, replied “You don’t understand. I’ve made up my mind – I’m gonna do it. And if you don’t like it, I’ll resign.” It was a power struggle that could only have one outcome. Parker continued on with, “I’m the coach, you can’t tell me what to do,” and “I can’t work like this. Maybe it’s better if I leave.” The next morning, two weeks before the start of the season, Parker resigned. You can picture Rooney patting him on the back as he accepts the resignation, a befuddled Parker being pushed out the door, wondering what just happened. Dan Rooney would begin instituting a new way of doing things in Pittsburgh, though the system would not change overnight.

Bill Austin (kneeling) with his Steelers coaching staff

Assistant coach Mike Nixon was a stop gap hire for the 1965 season, going 2-12. Nixon, who had previously coached the Washington Redskins, was one of the most unsuccessful coaches in NFL history. His career record was 6-30-2.

Bill Austin replaced him in 1966, coming with a strong recommendation from Vince Lombardi. After another 2-12 season in 1968 (his three year run yielded an 11-28-3 record), Dan Rooney was ready to make a move. The Steelers had experienced just eight winning seasons in thirty-six years of football and he wanted to do things differently.

Noll almost ruined his mentor's perfect season
with narrow 17-21 loss in the 1972 AFC
Championship Game

Among the interviewees was Joe Paterno, having just finished his third season as Penn State’s head coach. The Steelers had enjoyed success under a former college coach one time before: Pitt's Jock Sutherland. 

Noll, an assistant to Don Shula with the Baltimore Colts, had been on the losing side of Super Bowl III. The very next day, he knocked Dan Rooney’s socks off with a two hour interview. Two weeks later, he had the job. Noll had learned from Paul Brown, Sid Gillman and Shula: three legendary coaches. He had a very clear idea of how to build a championship team.

Noll took his first step on the road to success in the 1969 NFL draft. Hall of Famer OJ Simpson was taken first, followed by Notre Dame All American tackle George Kunz (an eight time pro bowler) and then Heisman runner-up Leroy Keyes of Purdue. Keyes, a running back and safety and possibly the greatest player in Purdue history, had a short, unsuccessful pro career.

Trivia Time out: A distant third in the Heisman voting was Terry Hanratty of Notre Dame. The Steelers would take him in the second round of the draft. Hanratty didn’t have much of a career, but he did replace Terry Bradshaw as the team’s starting quarterback at the end of the 1970 and 1973 seasons.

So, on January 12, 1969, Chuck Noll was coaching in the Super Bowl with the Baltimore Colts. On January 13, he interviewed with the Steelers. On January 27, he was introduced as the new head coach. And on January 29 with the fourth pick in the draft, Noll took Joe Greene, an All American defensive tackle at North Texas State University. After decades of futility, Steelers history was being rewritten week by week. Well, off the field, at least.

THAT's who Joe Greene is!

This draft pick was not received with universal acclaim. “Who Is Joe Greene?” was the lead story in the next day’s Pittsburgh Press. Greene later said that Pittsburgh was the last team in the league he wanted to play for, since they were always losers. LC Greenwood was picked in the tenth round, providing the team with the guts of what was to become The Steel Curtain.

At one of his first team meetings, Noll told the players most of them just weren’t good enough and would soon be gone. Ouch. From day one, Chuck Noll was going to re-teach the fundamentals and get his kind of driven, disciplined players. There would be no sugarcoating that Pittsburgh Steelers football was going to change: who played and how they played.

Bradshaw was a 'sure thing' who barely lasted
long enough to lead the Steelers to four
Super Bowls

Noll’s 1969 Steelers won their first game and dropped the remaining thirteen, which gave them the first pick in the draft: Almost. The Chicago Bears also went 1-13 and the Steelers won a coin flip for the top pick. Terry Bradshaw, a strong armed quarterback at Louisiana Tech, was the consensus number one and teams tried to trade for the pick. The Steelers held firm and the Bears were so disappointed that they traded out of the number two spot. So, with his first two number one picks, Noll grabbed a pair of Hall of Famers he could build his offense and defense around. Three Rivers Stadium opened in 1970, the Steelers won five games and the Noll Era was moving forward.

More Trivia: Only five players on the 1968 team would still be Steelers for the first Super Bowl: Andy Russell (LB), Ray Mansfield (C), Sam Davis (G), Bobby Walden (P), and Rocky Bleier. Chuck Noll got rid of almost every single player in five seasons.

And A Little More Trivia: The Cleveland Browns had the third pick in 1970. Like the Steelers, they took a highly rated quarterback: Mike Phipps. Phipps had a mediocre career and lost the starting job to Brian Sipe in 1976. Bradshaw won four Super Bowls and went into the Hall of Fame. The Browns had long been the better team, tallying eight championships in the pre-Super Bowl Era. They had played in what we would now call the NFC Championship Game in 1968 and 1969.

A few weeks after the draft - 'Gosh, coach, you mean play
in front of all those people?'

But you can point to the 1970 draft as the moment the franchises reversed course. By 1973 the Steelers were clearly superior and that has continued to this day.

THE FORMATTING WAS COMPLETELY SCREWY ON THIS. SORRY

STEELERS HISTORY - A Recap

My team history of the Steelers has been on quite a hiatus, but I have the next entry (the hiring of Chuck Noll) ready to go. Here are the links to the prior posts if you want a little refresher.

Obviously, we're getting into the good years now! And not to strain my elbow patting myself on the back, but for an informative yet not overly detailed look at the Steelers' history, I think this is some pretty good stuff. Especially the photos.

The Thirties
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/03/steelers-1930s-1933-1939.html

The Forties
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/03/steelers-1940s-1940-1949.html

The Iron Men (The Forties)
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/02/pittsburgh-iron-men.html

The Fifties
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/04/steelers-1950s-decades-winning.html

Gary Glick (The Fifties)
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/04/gary-glick-1950s.html

The Sixties
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2011/08/steelers-sixties-1960-1969.html

Laying the Foundation (The Sixties)
http://woodson26.blogspot.com/2012/06/steelers-laying-foundation-1960s.html

The Steelers played thirty-ish seaons at
Forbes Field, better known as home of the Pirates

Bob's Books - Temporary Insanity by Jay Johnstone and Rick Talley

Jay Johnstone was an interesting baseball player. He played twenty seasons in the major leagues as an outfielder, primarily being used as a pinch hitter for the last few years. For his 162 game average, he hit .267 with 9 homers and 5 stolen bases (and 5 caught stealing). Nothing spectacular, but good enough to keep him in the game for a long time.

But as you might guess from the book title, Temporary Insanity (not like the cover gives it away), Johnstone was a character. And while this book does convey that he worked hard to be a good hitter and fielder and that he played to win, he viewed keeping a team loose and laughing as a key part of his job. This book isn’t The Boys of Summer, or a Lou Gehrig biography, but it is one fun read.

Johnstone had over a thousand hits in his career; he may have had more pranks. His favorite target was Tommy Lasorda and the Dodger stuff alone is worth the price of the book. For example, Johnstone once used a rope and palm tree to lock Lasorda in his room at Dodgertown (formerly the team’s spring training complex in Vero Beach), causing the manager to miss breakfast before the day’s bus ride. Lasorda was not a man to miss meals. Once, during a real game, Lasorda looked up at the DodgerVision screen between innings to find Johnstone and teammate Jerry Reuss dressed up as groundskeepers, dragging the field. Teammates and managers alike received Johnstone’s attentions.

With AAA Seattle.
The Majors have no idea
what is coming

He also talks about other baseball oddballs he encountered or heard stories of. Moe Drawbowsky was a well-travelled relief pitcher from the fifties into the seventies. He once called Hong Kong from the bullpen phone and ordered Chinese takeout (they wouldn’t deliver). Having been traded from the A’s to the Orioles earlier in the season, when the two teams were playing, he called over to the A’s bullpen, imitated his former manager’s voice and instructed a coach to warm up a relief pitcher. There are plenty more.

Sometimes it was just a few words. Interviewed for NBC’s ‘Game of the Week’ (ballplayers were largely seen and not heard back then), he said, “I drove through Cleveland one day and it was closed.” The Mayor of Cleveland called NBC the next day and demanded an apology.

This is the first of three offbeat baseball books that Johnstone did with sportswriter Rick Talley. What comes through is a guy who took being on the field seriously, but who also knew that he was making a living at a boy’s game and wanted to make sure he enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, it’s fun. And that’s a good quality for a baseball book.

After the Dodgers beat the Yankees to win the 1981 World Series, Johnstone, Reuss, Rick Monday and Steve Yeager cut this record. They even sang it on Solid Gold. I consider this one of Johnstone's greatest pranks.

It's a put on, but it's still as bad as it looks