G.R.S.S.
$4.50
GRANTLAND
RICE AWARD
PRIZE SPORTS
STORIES
The 25 most memorable true sports
stories written since the death of
Grantland Rice
Edited by Robert Smith
Jury selecting the three prize-winning
stories: Red Barber, John Kieran, and
Red Smith
Chosen on the basis of dramatic ex-
citement and human interest, these
stories recall great moments and great
personalities in many sports. The Four
Days That Rocked Baseball relives
the 1951 playoff games between the
Brooklyn Dodgers and Durocher's
New York Giants. Hockeys Masked
Marvel tells the heroic story of all-star
goalie Jacques Plante, The 229th Pay-
day of Mr, Papaleo dramatically tells
how Willy Pep took it on the chin,
Nothinj*~to-Nothing is the powerful
story of the three scoreless football
games played by Pitt, the unstoppable
force, and Fordham, the immovable
object.
There are stories about Bronko
Nagurski, the pulverizing football
great, and Gene Lipscomb, the giant
tackier of the Baltimore Colts-stories
(Continued on back flap)
KANSAS CITY, MO. PI
796 S65g 62-22609 $^50
Smith , Robert Miller, 1905-
The Grantland Rice award
prize sports stories,
796 S65g 62-22609 $^50
Smith, Robert Miller, 1905-
ed*
The Grantland Rice award
prize sports stories,
Doubleday, 1962* ^.
The Grantland Rice Award
Prize Sports Stories
-i c~ 1?
The Grantland Rice Award
Prize Sports Stories
The twenty-five most memorable true stories
written since the death of Grantland Rice
ROBERT SMITH, editor
Jury selecting the three prize-winning stones:
Red Barber, John Kieran, and Red Smith
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
1962
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 62-15934
Copyright 1962 by Doubleday & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
A NOTE ON THE PRIZEWINNERS
The compiler of this collection of true sports stories, Robert
Smith, chose the twenty-five that he ranked as the best stories
written since the time of Grantland Rice. A jury of three
honorary panelists, who were close friends of Rice and wished
to participate in honoring his memory, read the stories and
made their choices for the first, second, and third cash prizes
to be awarded by the publisher. Two additional stories crossed
the finish line so close to the first three that it was decided to
list them for honorable mention.
The three panelists were Red Barber, John Kieran, and Red
Smith. The publisher and editor join in extending their grati-
tude to the jurors for their constructive interest and wise
choices, which were close to unanimous.
These are the winners:
First prize, "Mr. Rickey and the Game" by Gerald Hol-
land, printed in Sports Illustrated magazine for March 7,
1955.
Second prize, "The Curious Career of the Primeval Pugilist'*
by W. C. Heinz, printed in True magazine for August 1960.
Third prize, " *The Haig*; Rowdy Rebel of the Fairways'* by
John Lardner, printed in True magazine for February 1959.
Honorable mention goes to "Anatomy of a Pool Hustler" by
Dale Shaw, printed in Saga magazine for November 1961,
and 'The Ordeal of Roger Maris" by Roger Kahn, printed
in Sports Illustrated magazine for October 1961.
But there are twenty more stories, every one of them deserving
special salutation.
THE PUBLISHERS
eiw cio.)
6222*509
PREFACE
Because sports writing does not take itself seriously except
in its maudlin moments it has seldom been seriously dealt
with, and is almost never included in an assessment of the
nation's literary history. Even now some readers may wince
at the suggestion that anything in this volume might be classed
as literature. But literature, despite what we may have been
cowed into believing, is not necessarily self-important, con-
sciously significant, over-embellished, weighted with symbols
and wonderfully obscure. It can and Samuel Taylor Cole-
ridge said it should tread the highroad of life. It often pro-
vides a clear mirror to the times in which it was written. But
how can it do either of these if it studiously, even self-
righteously, ignores the diverse human endeavors that go by
the name of Sport and which constitute the major preoccupa-
tion of so many of the world's people?
This is not to suggest that any of the stories in this book
warrants being cut up into verse form and read out loud. It
is merely a reminder that no grown-up American need be
ashamed of enjoying what he may read here. All these stories
here presented are, in the editor's eye, adult, alive, literate,
lucid, and interesting and that is more than can be said for
much of today's self-consciously "serious" writing.
It may seem an anomaly that an award offered in the name
of one of the nation's greatest and surely its best-loved
yiii PREFACE
newspaper writers should hold so little material from news-
papers. But this was inevitable. When a sports writer writes
for a magazine, or for his own Sunday edition, he has time to
take his hat off, to size up his own phraseology, to probe
deeply into his subject, to sift the clinkers out of his copy in
short, to work more thoughtfully and so to write more in-
terestingly.
Working against a pressing deadline, no matter what the
teachers tell you, places a severe handicap on a writer. It
would not be fair to ask a newspaper writer to submit his
topical pieces to judgment by the same standards as those
applied to magazine stories. Yet, to select stories for the book
on the basis of what they might have been, had they been
written at leisure, would hardly be fair to the reader.
The stories offered here have all been chosen because they
make good reading. They are written honestly, without theat-
rics, without rancor, and without sentimentality, as Grantland
Rice would have liked to see them written.
Obviously, no one man can read and judge all the sports
stories published everywhere in eight years, and I have had to
rely on editors and writers to guide me to stories I might
otherwise have missed. Even so, I am sure there were many
excellent stories that failed to come to my notice. But the
stories included in this volume were, to my mind, the best of
the hundreds I read. (Because they have served as judges in
selecting these stories, the work of two of America's finest
sports writers, John Kieran and Red Smith, has not been
deemed eligible. Red Smith is no kin to the editor, )
ROBERT SMITH
Lenox, Massachusetts
Summer, 1962
CONTENTS
Mr. Rickey and the Game, BY GERALD HOLLAND, 1
The Curious Career of the Primeval Pugilist, BY W. C.
HEINZ, 22
"The Haig": Rowdy Rebel of the Fairways, BY JOHN
LARDNER, 38
Anatomy of a Pool Hustler, BY DALE SHAW, 54
Pursuit of No, 60; The Ordeal of Roger Maris, BY ROGER
KAHN, 69
The 49er Who Eats Raw Meat, BY ARNOLD HANO, 83
A Race Driver's Long Good-bye, BY ANGELO ANGELOPOL-
ous, 96
A Scholarship for Jackie, BY FURMAN BISHER, 111
The Four Days That Rocked Baseball, BY HAROLD ROSEN-
THAL, 125
Duel of the Four-Minute Men, BY PAUL O'NEiL, 141
This IS Cricket!, BY ROY TERRELL, 148
Heavyweight Champion 1962: Where Did the Glory Go?,
BY BILL FXJRLONG, 164
Hockey's Masked Marvel, BY DAVE ANDERSON, 1 87
Jack, the Giant Killer, BY HERBERT WARREN WIND, 201
Big Daddy, the Colts* Top Tackier, BY JOHN C, SCHMIDT,
209
The Wonderful Bunion Derby, BY WILLIAM UPJOHN, 214
A Giant Fan's Lament: My Heart Is a Yo-Yo, BY RALPH
SCHOENSTEIN, 236
Nothing~to~Nothing: Fordham vs, Pitt Was Football's Finest
Hour> BY JACK NEWCOMBE, 246
What Makes Willie Hartack Burn?, BY ED LINN, 266
Wonderful Johnny Weissmuller, BY AL STUMP, 280
Valeri's High, Hi^h Jump, BY WALTER BINGHAM, 295
X CONTENTS
12 Days Before the Mast, BY GILBERT ROGIN, 301
"Fuller Fight Co.," BY HOWARD M. TUCKNER, 310
The Incredible Bronko, BY STANLEY FRANK, 3 1 6
The 229th Payday of Mr. Papaleo, BY AL SILVERMAN, 334
The Grantiand Rice Award
Prize Sports Stories
Mr. Rickey and the Game
BY GERALD HOLLAND
"I am asked to speak of the game," said Branch Rickey, restat-
ing a question that had been put to him, "I am asked to reflect
upon my own part in it. At the age of 73, on the eve of a new
baseball season, I am importuned to muse aloud, to touch
upon those things that come first to mind."
Seated in his office at Forbes Field, the home of the Pitts-
burgh Pirates, Branch Rickey nibbled at an unlighted cigarette
and sniffed the proposition like a man suddenly come upon
a beef stew simmering on a kitchen stove.
Abruptly he threw himself back in his chair and clasped
Ms hands over his head and stared up at the ceiling. He looked
10 years younger than his actual age. Thanks to a high-
protein, hamburger-for-breakfast diet, he was 30 pounds
lighter than he had been three months before. His complexion
was ruddy and his thick brown hair showed only a little gray
at the temples. Now his great bushy eyebrows shot up and he
prayed aloud:
"Lord make me humble, make me grateful . . . make me
tolerant!"
Slowly he came down from the ceiling and put his elbows
on the desk. Unconsciously, perhaps, a hand strayed across
the desk to a copy of Bartletfs Familiar Quotations. The hand
was that of an old-time catcher, big, strong and gnarled. He
Copyright 1955 by Sports Illustrated magazine.
2 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
turned slowly in Ms chair and swept his eyes over the little
gallery of framed photographs on the wall Among them were
George Sisler, Rickey's first great discovery, one of the great-
est of the left-handed hitters, now at work down the hall as
chief of Pittsburgh scouts; Rogers Hornsby, the game's great-
est right-handed hitter, a betting man for whom Rickey once
dared the wrath of baseball's high commissioner, Kenesaw
Mountain Landis; Jackie Robinson, chosen by Rickey as the
man to break down baseball's color line; Honus Wagner, the
immortal Pittsburgh shortstop, now past 80, at this moment
growing weaker by the day at his sister's house across town;
Charley Barrett, the old Cardinal scout, Rickey's right arm in
the days when St. Louis was too poor to make a Southern
training trip.
Turning back to his desk, Rickey grimaced and then spoke
rapidly, almost harshly:
"Of my career in baseball, let us say first of all that there
have been the appearances of hypocrisy. Here we have the
Sunday school mollycoddle, apparently professing a sort of
public virtue in refraining from playing or watching a game
of baseball on Sunday. And yet at the same time he is not
above accepting money from a till replenished by Sunday base-
ball"
He paused and bit the unlighted cigarette in two. He
dropped his voice:
"A deeply personal thing. Something not to be exploited,
not to be put forward protestingly at every whisper of criti-
cism. No, a deeply personal thing, A man's promise, a prom-
ise to his mother. Not involving a condemnation of baseball
on Sunday, nor of others who might desire to play it or watch
it on Sunday. Simply one man's promise and it might as well
have been a promise not to attend the theater or band concerts
in the park."
His eyes went around the room and were held for a moment
by the blackboard that lists the players on the 15 ball clubs
in the Pittsburgh farm system. His Mps moved and the words
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 3
sounded like, "But is the boy ready for New Orleans?" Then,
with a quick movement, he leaned across the desk and waggled
an accusing finger.
"Hell's fire!" he exploded. "The Sunday school mollycoddle,
the bluenose, the prohibitionist has been a liberal! No, no, no
-this has nothing to do with Jackie Robinson, I contend that
there was no element of liberalism there. I will say something
about that perhaps, but now the plain everyday thingsthe
gambling, the drinking, the ... other things. I submit that I
have been a liberal about them!"
He was silent. He did not mention or even hint at the names
of managers who won major league pennants after everyone
but Branch Rickey had quit on them; nor the men who gladly
acknowledge that they are still in baseball because of the con-
fidence Rickey placed in them.
The telephone with the private number rang. Branch Rickey
picked it up and traded Southpaw Paul La Palme to the St.
Louis Cardinals for Ben Wade, a relief pitcher. "You an-
nounce it," he said into the phone, "and just say La Palme
for Wade and an unannounced amount of cash. We'll talk
about a Class A ballplayer later. Anybody but a catcher. I
don't need a catcher at that level" He put down the phone and
Ms eyes twinkled. "Later in the day I may make a deal with
Brooklyn," he said, "if I can get up the nerve." As things
turned out, either he did not get up the nerve or he was un-
able to interest the Flatbush authorities.
He whirled around in his chair and stared out the window.
He could see, if he was noticing, the end of a little street that
runs down from Hotel Schenley to the ball park. It is called
Pennant Place, a reminder of happier days for the Pittsburgh
fans, now so ashamed of their eighth-place Pirates that only
a few of them show up at the ball park even for double-
headers.
Rickey ran both hands furiously through his thick hair.
"A man trained for the law/' he said, "devotes his entire
4 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
life and all Ms energies to something so cosmically unimpor-
tant as a game."
He examined minutely what was left of Ms cigarette. Care-
fully, he extracted a single strand of tobacco and looked at
it closely before letting it fall to the floor. Usually he chews
unlighted cigars, but this day it was a cigarette.
He began to laugh.
"The law," he chuckled, 1 might have stayed in the law. I
do not laugh at the great profession itself. I am laughing at a
case I had one time-the only case I ever had as a full-time
practicing attorney. I had gone to Boise, Idaho, from Saranac
to try to gain back my strength after recovering from tubercu-
losis, I got an office and hung out a shingle and waited for the
clients. None came. Finally, I was in court one day and the
judge appointed me attorney for a man who was being held
on a charge the newspapers used to describe as white slavery.
"I was apprehensive, but at last I summoned enough cour-
age to go over to the jail and see my client Oh, he was a
horrible creature. I can see him now, walking slowly up to
the bars and looking me up and down with contempt. He
terrified me. I began to shake like a leal After a minute he
said, 'Who the hell are you?*
"I tried to draw myself up a little and then 1 said, 'Sir, my
name is Branch Rickey. The court has appointed me your
attorney and I would like to talk to you.' He looked me up and
down again and then spat at my feet. Then he delivered what
turned out to be the final words of our association. He said,
'Get the hell out of here!* "
Rickey threw back his head,
"I not only got out of there," he said, "I got out of the state
of Idaho and went to St. Louis and took a job with the St. Louis
Browns. I intended to stay in baseball for just one year. But
when the year was up, Mr, Robert Lee Hedges, the owner,
offered me a raise. There was a new baby at our house. And
not much money, new or old. So I was a moral coward. I
chose to stay with the game."
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 5
Rickey thought a moment.
"I might have gone into politics," he said. "As recently as
14 years ago, there was the offer of a nomination for a political
office. A governorship. The governorship, in fact, of Missouri.
I was tempted, flattered. But, then as I ventured a little into
the political arena, I was appalled by my own ignorance of
politics. But the party leaders were persuasive. They pledged
me the full support of the regular party organization. They
said they could not prevent any Billy Jumpup from filing,
but no Billy Jumpup would have the organization's backing.
It is an overwhelming thing to be offered such prospects of
reaching high office. I thought it over carefully and then ten-
tatively agreed to run, on condition that another man a
seasoned campaignerrun on the ticket with me. He said that
was utterly impossible. He invited me to go with him to New
York and talk to Mr. Herbert Hoover about the situation in
Missouri. But afterward I still was unable to persuade my
friend to run. He was Arthur Hyde, Secretary of Agriculture
under Mr, Hoover. Later I learned to my sorrow the reason
for Mr, Hyde's decision. He was even then mortally ill. So,
regretfully, I asked that my name be withdrawn. The man who
ran in my place was elected and then went on to the United
States Senate.
"So, conceivably, I might have been a governor. Instead, I
chose to stay with the game."
Rickey made elaborate gestures of straightening the papers
on his desk.
"A life of public service," he said, peering over his glasses,
"versus a life devoted to a game that boys play with a ball and
bat"
He turned and picked up a baseball from a bookcase shelf.
"This ball," he said, holding it up. "This symbol. Is it worth
a man's whole life?"
There was just time for another mussing of the hair before
the phone rang again.
6 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
"Pooh," said Rickey Into the phone after a moment "Three
poohs. Pooh-bah." He hung up.
"I was listening last night to one of the television interview
programs," he said. "Senator Knowland was being inter-
rogated. It was a discussion on a high level and the questions
involved matters affecting all of us and all the world. I was
listening intently and then I heard the senator say, Well, 1
think the Administration has a pretty good batting average.' *
Rickey blew out Ms cheeks and plucked a shred of tobacco
from his lips.
"It must have been a full minute later/' he went on, "and
the questions had gone on to other things when I sat straight
up. Suddenly I realized that to answer a somewhat difficult
question this United States senator had turned naturally to the
language of the game. And this language, this phrase *a pretty
good batting average,* had said exactly what he wanted to say.
He had not intended to be frivolous. The reporters did not
smile as though he had made a joke. They accepted the an-
swer in the language of the game as perfectly proper. It was
instantly recognizable to them. I dare say it was recognizable
even in London."
He frowned, thinking hard. Then his face lit up again.
"The game invades our language!" he exclaimed. "Now, the
editorial page of the New York Times is a serious forum, not
ordinarily given to levity. Yet at the height of the controversy
between the Army and Senator McCarthy, there was the line
on this dignified editorial page, 'Senator McCarthy a good
fast ball, but no control" *
Rickey slapped his thigh and leaned over the desk*
"Now, didn't that tell the whole story in a sentence?"
He waved an arm, granting himself the point.
He cherished his remnant of a cigarette,
"A man was telling me the other day," he went on, "he said
he was walking through Times Square in New York one blis-
tering day last summer. The temperature stood at 100 and
the humidity made it almost unbearable. This man happened
MIL RICKEY AND THE GAME 7
to fall in behind three postmen walking together. Their shirts
were wringing wet and their mailbags were heavily laden. It
struck this man that these postmen might well be irritable on
such a day and, since he saw that they were talking ani-
matedly, he drew closer so that he might hear what they were
saying. He expected, of course, that they would be complain-
ing bitterly of their dull drab jobs on this abominable day.
But when he had come close enough to hear them, what were
they talking about with such spirit and relish?"
He paused for effect, then with a toss of his head, he ex-
ploded:
"Leo Durocher and the New York Giants!"
Carefully, he put down his cigarette butt. Then he leaned
back and rubbed his eyes with the back of his fists. He tore
furiously at his hair and half swallowed a yawn.
"Mrs. Rickey and I," he said, "sat up until 2 o'clock this
morning playing hearts."
He straightened the papers on his desk and said as an aside:
"I contend it is the most scientific card game in the world."
He searched the ceiling for the point he was developing,
found it and came down again.
"The three postmen, heavily laden on a hot, miserable day,
yet able to find a happy, common ground in their discussion
of this game of baseball. And in their free time, in their hours
of leisure, if they had no other interest to turn to, still there
was the game to bring color and excitement and good whole-
some interest into their lives."
He took up the fragment of paper and tobacco that was
left of the cigarette as though it were a precious jewel.
"Leisure," he said, sending his eyebrows aloft, "is a haz-
ardous thing. Here in America we do not yet have a leisure
class that knows what to do with it. Leisure can produce
something fine. It may also produce something evil Hell's
fire! Leisure can produce a great symphony, a great painting,
a great book/'
He whirled around to the window and peered out at Pen-
8 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
nant Place. Then, turning back like a pitcher who has just
cased the situation at second base, he let go hard.
"Gee!" he cried. "Leisure can also produce a great dissipa-
tion! Leisure can be idleness and idleness can drive a man to
his lowest!"
He recoiled, as from a low man standing at the side of
his desk,
"Idleness is the worst thing in this world. Idleness is doing
nothing and thinking of wrong things to do. Idleness is the
evil that lies behind the juvenile delinquency that alarms us
all. If s the most damnable thing that can happen to a kid-
to have nothing to do."
He put the tattered cigarette butt in his mouth and spoke
around it.
"The game that gives challenge to our youth points the way
to our salvation. The competitive spirit, that's the all-important
thing. The stultifying thing in this country is the down-pressure
on competition, the something-for-nothing philosophy, the do-
as-little-as~you-can creed these are the most devastating in-
fluences today. This thinking is the kind that undermines a
man's character and can undermine the national character as
well."
He studied his shreds of cigarette with the deliberation of a
diamond cutter.
"Labor and toil," he intoned, "by the sweat of thy brow
shalt thou earn thy bread. Labor and toiland something else.
A joy in work, a zest. Zest, that is the word. Who are the
great ballplayers of all time? The ones with zest. Ty Cobb.
Willie Mays. The man down the hall, one of the very great-
est, George Sisler. Dizzy Dean. Pepper Martin, We have one
coming back to us this year here at Pittsburgh. Dick Groat.
He has it. Highly intelligent, another Lou Boudreau, the same
kind of hitter. He has it. Zest/*
Rickey smiled. "Dick Groat will be one of the great ones.
There will be others this year. We have 110 boys coming out
of service, 475 players under contract on all our clubs. A
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 9
total of $496,000 invested in player bonuses. There will be
other good prospects for the Pirates among these boys. This
ball club of ours will come in time. No promises for this year,
but in 9 56, 1 think, yes."
He turned to look down the street to Pennant Place, then
added: "A contending team in "56 at least that."
(At the barbershop in Hotel Schenley it is related that
Rickey's defense of his eighth-place ball club is considerably
less detailed. "Patience!" he cries, anticipating the hecklers as
he enters the shop.)
The door opened and Harold Roettger, Rickey's assistant,
entered the room. A round-faced, studious-looking man,
Roettger has been with Rickey since the old St. Louis Car-
dinal days. He was in the grip of a heavy cold.
"Do you remember a boy named Febbraro?" he asked,
sniffling, "in the Provincial League?"
"Febbraro, Febbraro," said Rickey, frowning. "A pitcher.
I saw him work in a night game,"
"That's the boy," said Roettger, wiping his eyes. "He's been
released,"
"Aha," said Rickey, "yes, I remember the boy well. Shall
we sign him?"
"We ought to talk about it," said Roettger, %hting a
sneeze.
"Harold," said Rickey, "Richardson [Tommy Richardson,
president of the Eastern League] is coming down for a meet-
ing tomorrow, I wish you could be there. I devoutly wish you
were not ill."
"I, too, devoutly wish I were not ill," said Roettger. "I'll go
home now and maybe I'll be ready for the meeting."
"Please try not to be ill tomorrow," said Rickey, "I des-
perately need you at the meeting."
"I will try very hard," said Roettger, "and will you think
about Febbraro?"
"I will," said Rickey. "Go home now, Harold, and take care
of yourself/'
10 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
(Later, Roettger recovered from his cold and signed Feb-
braro for Williamsport in the Eastern League. )
As Roettger left, Rickey searched for the thread of Ms
soliloquy.
"Hornsby," he said suddenly, "Rogers Horasby, a man with
zest for the game. And Leo, of course.
"Leo Durocher has come a long way, off the field as well
as on. A quick mind, a brilliant mind, an indomitable spirit.
A rugged ballplayer-and I like rugged ballplayers. But when
he came to St Louis, Leo was in trouble. No fewer than 32
creditors were breathing down Ms neck, suing or threatening
to sue. An impossible situation. I proposed that I go to his
creditors and arrange for weekly payments on his debts. This
meant a modest allowance of spending money for Leo him-
self. But he agreed,
"There were other matters to be straightened out. Leo's as-
sociates at the time were hardly desirable ones. But he was
not the kind of man to take kindly to any criticism of his
friends. I thought a lot about Leo's associations, but I didn't
see what I could do about them,
"Then one day during the winter I received a call from
the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. The Academy
needed a baseball coach and they asked if I could recommend
a man. I said I thought I could and would let them know.
"I knew my man. But I didn't dare tell him right away.
Instead, I called Ms wife [Durocher was then married to
Grace Dozier, a St. Louis fashion designer] and asked her to
drop in at the office. When she arrived, I told her that I in-
tended to recommend Leo as baseball coach at the Naval
Academy.
"She looked at me a moment. Then she said, Would they
take Leo?' I said they would if I recommended him. Then 1
told her I proposed to get a copy of the Naval Academy
manual I said I knew that if I handed it to Leo myself, he
was quite likely to throw it back in my face* But if she were
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 11
to put it in Ms hands, he might agree to look it over. Mrs.
Durocher thought again. Then she said, 'Get the manual. 9 "
(Rickey has a habit of presenting ballplayers with what he
considers to be worth-while reading. When Pee Wee Reese
was made captain of the Dodgers, Rickey sent him Eisen-
hower's Crusade in Europe.)
"When I told Leo," Rickey continued, "he was stunned and
unbelieving, then enormously but quietly pleased. I told him
that I would arrange for him to report late for spring training.
I made it clear that he was to decline any payment for his
services. Treading softly, I mentioned that the boys he would
be coaching were the finest our country had to offer. I sug-
gested gently that any leader of such boys would, of course,
have to be letter perfect in his conduct. Leo didn't blow up.
He just nodded his head.
"When he reported to spring training camp, he was bursting
with pride. He showed me a wrist watch the midshipmen had
given him. He said, Mr. Rickey, I did it, I did it!'
"I said, 'You did half of it, Leo.'
* 'What do you mean, half!* he demanded.
"To be a complete success in this undertaking, Leo, you
must be invited back. If they ask you back for next season,
then you may be sure you have done the job well."
Rickey smiled.
"They did invite him back," he said. "And this time the
midshipmen gave him a silver service. He had done the job
the whole joband I rather think that this experience was a
big turning point for Leo. It lifted him into associations he
had never known before and he came away with increased
confidence and self-assurance and, I am quite sure, a greater
measure of self-respect,"
(Years later, just before Leo Durocher was suspended from
baseball for a year by Commissioner A. B. Chandler,
Rickey called his staff together in the Brooklyn Dodgers*
offices to say of his manager: "Leo is down. But we are going
to stick by Leo. We are going to stick by Leo until heU freezes
12 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
over!" Now, in a manner of speaking, it was Rickey who was
down in eighth place and Leo who was up, riding high as
manager of the world champions, )
Rickey straightened his tie. He was wearing a four-in-hand.
Ordinarily, he wears a bow tie, but once a month he puts on a
four-in-hand as a gesture of neckwear independence.
"More than a half-century spent in the game," Rickey
mused, "and now it is suggested that I give thought to some
of the ideas and innovations with which I have been associ-
ated. The question arises, 'Which of these can be said to have
contributed most to making baseball truly our national game? 9
"First, I should say, there was the mass production of ball-
players. The Cardinals were three years ahead of all the other
clubs in establishing tryout camps. We looked at 4,000 boys
a year. Then, of course, we had to have teams on which to
place boys with varying degrees of ability and experience,
That brought into being the farm system.
"There were other ideas not ordinarily remembered. With
the St. Louis Browns, under Mr. Hedges, we originated the
idea of Ladies Day, a very important step forward. Probably
no other innovation did so much to give baseball respect-
ability, as well as thousands of new fans.
"With the Cardinals, we developed the idea of the Knot
Hole Gang. We were the first major league team to admit boys
free to the ball park and again the idea was soon copied/*
(In the beginning, boys joining the Cardinal Knot Hole
Gang were required to sign a pledge to refrain from smoking
and profanityclearly the hand of Rickey. )
"These were ideas/' Rickey went on, "and baseball was a
vehicle in which such ideas might comfortably ride/*
Rickey's eyes strayed to a framed motto hanging on the
wall. It read; "He that will not reason is a bigot; he that can-
not reason is a fool and he that dares not reason is a slave/*
Rickey bent down and went rummaging through the lower
drawers of his desk. In a moment he came up holding a
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 13
slender book. The jacket read: "Slave and Citizen: the Negro
in the Americas. By Frank Tannenbaum."
"This book," said Rickey, "is by a Columbia University
professor. Let me read now just the concluding paragraph.
It says, 'Physical proximity, slow cultural intertwining, the
growth of a middle group that stands in experience and
equipment between the lower and upper class; and the slow
process of moral identification work their way against all
seemingly absolute systems of values and prejudices. Society
is essentially dynamic, and while the mills of God grind slow,
they grind exceeding sure. Time will draw a veil over the
white and black in this hemisphere, and future generations
will look back upon the record of strife as it stands revealed
in the history of the people of this New World of ours with
wonder and incredulity. For they will not understand the is-
sues that the quarrel was about/ "
Rickey reached for a pencil, wrote on the flyleaf of the
book and pushed it across the desk. He leaned back in his
chair and thought a moment. Then he sat straight up.
"Some honors have been tendered," he said, "some honorary
degrees offered because of my part in bringing Jackie Rob-
inson into the major leagues."
He frowned and shook his head vigorously.
"No, no, no. I have declined them all To accept honors,
public applause for signing a superlative ballplayer to a con-
tract? I would be ashamed!"
He turned to look out the window and turned back.
"Suppose," he demanded, "I hear that Billy Jones down the
street has attained the age of 21, Suppose I go to Billy and
say, *You come with me to the polling place,' And then at the
polling place I take Billy by the arm and march up to the
clerks and say, This is Billy Jones, native American, 21 years
of age,' and I demand that he be given the right to cast a
ballot!"
Rickey leaned over the desk, his eyes flashing.
14 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
"Would anyone but a lunatic expect to be applauded for
that?"
It immediately became clear that although Rickey depre-
cated his right to applause, he had never minimized the diffi-
culties of bringing the first Negro into organized baseball
"I talked to sociologists," he said, "and to Negro leaders.
With their counsel, I worked out what I considered to be the
six essential points to be considered."
He started to count on his fingers,
"Number one/' he said, "the man we finally chose had to
be right off the field. Off the field.
"Number two, he had to be right on the field. If he turned
out to be a lemon, our efforts would fail for that reason alone.
"Number three, the reaction of his own race had to be right,
"Number four, the reaction of press and public had to be
right.
"Number five, we had to have a place to put him,
"Number six, the reaction of his fellow players had to be
right,
"In Jackie Robinson, we found the man to take care of
points one and two. He was eminently right off and on the
field. We did not settle on Robinson until after we had in-
vested $25,000 in scouting for a man whose name we did not
then know.
"Having found Robinson, we proceeded to point five. We
had to have a place to put him. Luckily, in the Brooklyn or-
ganization, we had exactly the spot at Montreal where the
racial issue would not be given undue emphasis.
"To take care of point three, the reaction of Robinson's
own race, I went again to the Negro leaders. I explained that
in order to give this boy his chance, there must be no dem-
onstrations in his behalf, no excursions from one city to an-
other, no presentations or testimonials. He was to be left alone
to do this thing without any more hazards than were already
present. For two years the men I talked to respected the rea-
soning behind my requests. My admiration for these men is
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 15
limitless. In the best possible way, they saw to it that Jackie
Robinson had Ms chance to make it on his own.
"Point four, the reaction of press and public, resolved itself
in the course of things, and point six, the reaction of his
fellow players, finally if painfully worked itself out. M
Rickey reached across the desk and tapped the Tannen-
baum book.
"Time," he said, "time,"
He despaired of his cigarette now and tossed it into the
wastebasket. His eyes moved around the room and he mur-
mured half to himself: "We are not going to let anything
spoil sports in this country. Some of the things I read about
boxing worry me, but things that are wrong will be made
right ... in time."
He laughed.
"I don't think anyone is worried about wrestling. Isn't it a
rather good-natured sort of entertainment?"
He chuckled a little more, then frowned again,
"I am asked about the minor leagues. The cry is heard,
The minors are dying!' I don't think so. The minors are in
trouble but new ways will be found to meet new situations
and new problems. Up to now, I confess, the major leagues
have been unable to implement any effort to protect the minor
leagues from the encroachment of major league broadcasts."
(A baseball man once said that Branch Rickey is con-
stitutionally unable to tell a falsehood. "However," this man
said, "sometimes he pours over the facts of a given case such a
torrent of eloquence that the truth is all but drowned/')
The door opened and Rickey jumped to his feet. His eyes
lit up as he cried: "Mother!"
In the doorway stood Mrs. Rickey, carrying a box of paints
the size of a brief case.
"Well, Mother!" cried Rickey, coming around from behind
the desk. "How did it go? Did you get good marks?"
Mrs. Rickey, a small, smiling woman, stood looking at her
16 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
husband. Childhood sweethearts in Ohio, they have been mar-
ried for 49 years,
Rickey pointed dramatically to the paintbox.
"Mother has joined a painting class!" he exclaimed. "At 73
years of age, Mother has gone back to school! Well, Mother?
Did you recite or what? Do they give marks? What is the
teacher like?"
Mrs. Rickey walked to a chair and sat down. It was plain
that she was accustomed to pursuing a policy of containment
toward her husband.
"They don't give marks/' she said quietly. "The teacher is
very nice. He was telling us that painting opens up a whole
new world. You see things and colors you never saw before."
Rickey was aghast.
"Wonderful!" he cried. "Isn't that just wonderful! Mother,
we must celebrate. I'll take you to lunch!"
"All right," said Mrs. Rickey. "Where will we go?"
'"The Duquesne Club," said Rickey.
"That'll be fine," said Mrs, Rickey.
(In sharply stratified Pittsburgh society, there are two
standards by which to measure a man who stands at the very
top: one is membership in the Duquesne Club, the other is a
residence at Fox Chapel, the ultraexclusive Pittsburgh suburb,
Rickey has both; the residence is an 18-room house set down
on 100 acres,)
Rickey was the first to reach the sidewalk. He paced up and
down waiting for Mrs. Rickey, flapping his arms against the
cold, for he had forgotten to wear an overcoat that morning,
Guido Roman, a tall, handsome Cuban who is Rickey's
chauffeur, opened the car door.
"You want to get inside, Mr. Rickey?" he asked.
"No, Guido," said Rickey, blowing on his fingers, Tm not
cold,"
A car drew up and stopped across the street, A tall, mus-
cular young man got out.
Rickey peered sharply and ducked Ms head* "A thousand
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 17
dollars this lad is a ballplayer/' he muttered out of the side
of his mouth. "But who is he, who is he?*
The young man came directly to Rickey*
"Mr. Rickey, you don't remember me/' he said. "My name
is George!"
"Sure, I remember you, George!" Rickey exploded, thrust-
ing out his hand. "You're a first baseman, right?"
"Yes, sir," said George, blushing with pleasure.
"Go right in the office and make yourself at home, George,*
Rickey said, beaming. "There's another first baseman in there
named George George Sisler. Say hello to him!"
"Say, thanks, Mr. Rickey/* George said, hurrying to the
office door.
In a moment Mrs. Rickey came out and the ride downtown
in Rickey's Lincoln began. As the car pulled away from the
curb, Rickey, a notorious back-seat driver, began a series of
barked directions: "Right here, Guido! Left at the next corner,
Guido! Red light, GuidoP
Guido, smiling and unperturbed, drove smoothly along. As
the car reached the downtown business district, Rickey, peer-
ing this way and that, shouted, "Slow down, Guido!"
Guido slowed down and then Rickey whispered hoarsely:
"There it is, Mother! Look!"
"What?" smiled Mrs, Rickey.
"The largest lamp store in the world! Right there! I in-
quired about the best place to buy a lamp and I was told
that this place is the largest in the whole wide world! Right
there!"
"We only want a two-way bed lamp," said Mrs. Rickey.
"I know," said Rickey. "But there's the place to get it. You
could go all over the world and not find a bigger lamp store.
Right turn here, Guido!"
"One way, Mr. Rickey," said Guido, cheerfully.
That was the signal for a whole comedy of errors, with
Rickey directing and traffic cops vetoing a series of attempts
to penetrate one-way streets and to execute left turns. Rickey
18 MR, RICKEY AND THE GAME
grew more excited, Mrs. Rickey more calm, Guido more des-
perate as the Duquesne Club loomed and faded as a seem-
ingly unattainable goal,
"Judas Priest!" Rickey finally exclaimed. "It's a perfectly
simple problem! We want to go to the Duquesne Club!"
"I know how!" Guido protested, "I know the way!"
"Then turn, man, turn!"
"Get out of here!" yelled a traffic cop,
"For crying out loud!" roared Rickey. "Let's get out and
walk."
Tm not going to walk," said Mrs. Rickey, mildly. "We
have a car. Let Guido go his way."
"Oh, all right," Rickey pouted. "But you'd think I'd never
been downtown before!"
In a moment the car pulled up at the Duquesne Club and
Rickey, serene again, jumped out and helped Mrs. Rickey
from the car.
"Take the car home, Guido," he said pleasantly. "We'll call
you later/*
"Yes, Mr, Rickey," said Guido, mopping his brow.
A group of women came out of the Duquesne Club as the
Rickeys entered. The women nodded and smiled at Mrs,
Rickey. Raising his hat, Rickey bowed low, then crouched
to whisper hoarsely behind his hand:
"Classmates of yours, Mother?"
He stamped his foot and slapped Ms tMgh, choking with
laughter.
"One of them is in the painting class/' said Mrs. Rickey
placidly. "The others are in the garden club,"
At the luncheon table on the second floor, Rickey ordered
whitefish for Mrs. Rickey and roast beef for himself. There
were no cocktails, of course; Rickey is a teetotaler,
("I shudder to think what might have happened if Branch
had taken up drinking," a former associate has said. "He does
nothing in moderation and I can see him facing a bottle of
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 19
whiskey and shouting: "Men, we're going to hit that bottle
and Ut it hard!'")
The luncheon order given, Rickey excused himself and
made a brief telephone call at the headwaiter's desk. Re-
turning to the table, he sat down and began to speak of
pitchers.
"The greatest pitchers I have ever seen/* he said, "were
Christy Mathewson and Jerome Dean/'
(Rickey likes to address a man by his proper given name.
He is especially fond of referring to Dizzy Dean as "Jerome.")
"Mathewson," Rickey continued, "could throw every pitch
in the book. But he was economical. If he saw that he could
win a game with three kinds of pitches, he would use only
three. Jerome, on the other hand, had a tendency to run in
the direction of experimentation. Murry Dickson has a fine
assortment of pitches, but he feels an obligation to run through
his entire repertory in every game."
The food had arrived and Rickey picked up knife and fork
and, eying Mrs, Rickey closely, began to speak more rapidly.
"Yes," he said loudly, "Murry is the sort of pitcher who will
go along splendidly until the eighth inning and then apparently
say to himself: *Oh, dear me, I have forgotten to throw my
half-speed ball!* And then and there he will throw it/*
Abruptly, Rickey made a lightning thrust with his fork in
the direction of a pan-browned potato on the platter. Mrs.
Rickey, alert for just such a stratagem, met the thrust with her
own fork and they fenced for a few seconds in mid-air.
"Jane!" pleaded Rickey, abandoning the duel
Mrs. Rickey deposited the potato on her own plate and
passed over a small dish of broccoli.
"This will be better for you," she said quietly. "You know
you're not to have potatoes."
Rickey grumbled: "I am weary of this diet. It is a cruel and
inhuman thing/'
"Eat the broccoli," Mrs. Rickey said.
"Jane," said Rickey, "there are times in a man's life when
20 MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME
he wants above everything else in the world to have a potato."
"You get plenty to eat/' said Mrs. Rickey. "Didn't you en-
joy the meat patty at breakfast?"
Rickey shrugged his shoulders, conceding the point, and
attacked his roast beef and broccoli with gusto.
"The subject of my retirement comes up from time to time/*
he said. "And to the direct question, 'When will you retire
from baseball?' my answer is, 'Never!' But I qualify that. Now,
I do foresee the day, likely next year, when I shall spend less
time at my desk, at my office. I shall spend more time in the
field, scouting, looking at prospects, and leave the arduous
responsibilities of the general manager's position to other
hands."
He looked admiringly at the baked apple before him. He
put his hand on the pitcher of rich cream beside it and glanced
inquiringly across the table. This time the veto was not in-
voked and, happily, Rickey drained the pitcher over his
dessert.
After he had dropped a saccharin tablet in his coffee, he
leaned back and smiled at Mrs. Rickey, Then he leaned for-
ward again and rubbed his chin, seeming to debate something
with himself. He grasped the sides of the table and spoke with
the air of a conspirator.
"Here is something I intend to do," he said. "My next thing.
A completely new idea in spring training."
He arranged the silverware to illustrate the story.
"A permanent training camp, designed and built for that
purpose. Twin motels not hotels, motels with four playing
fields in between as a sort of quadrangle. A public address
system. Especially designed press accommodations. Now. One
motel would be occupied by the Pittsburgh club, the other by
an American League club. They would play a series of ex-
hibition games and would draw better than two teams from
the same league. Everything that went into the camp would
be the result of our experience with training camps all
through the years. It would be foolproof. And it would pay
MR. RICKEY AND THE GAME 21
for itself because it would be operated for tourists after spring
training. I have the land. At Fort Myers, Florida, the finest
training site in the country for my money. I have an American
League Club ready to go along with me. I have two thirds of
the financial backing necessary/*
Rickey leaned back in triumph, then came forward quickly
again.
"Everybody concerned is ready to put up the cash now/* he
whispered, "except me!"
He paused for effect, then suddenly realized he had not said
exactly what he intended. He burst into laughter.
"Sh-h-h," said Mrs. Rickey.
"What I mean/' he said, sobering, "is that I can't go along
with the plan until we have a contending ball club. But we'll
get there. We'll put over this thing. It will revolutionize spring
training/*
It was time to get back to the office. Rickey was for sprint-
ing down the stairs to the first floor, but Mrs. Rickey reminded
him of his trick knee.
"Ah, yes, Mother," he said. "We will take the elevator."
On the street outside* Rickey remembered he had sent his
car home.
"We'll get a cab down at the comer/* he said. "I've got a
meeting at the office. Where can I drop you, Mother?"
"Well/* said Mrs. Rickey, "I thought I'd go look at some
lamps/*
"Oh> yes>* Rickey exclaimed. "Go to that store I showed you.
Mother, I understand they have the largest selection of
lamps in town/*
Mrs. Rickey looked at him and shook her head and smiled.
Rickey, already thinking of something else, studied the side-
walk. He raised his head and spoke firmly over the traffic,
"The game of baseball," he said, "has given me a life of joy.
I would not have exchanged it for any other."
He took Mrs. Rickey by the arm. They turned and walked
down the street together and vanished into the crowd.
The Curious Career of the Primeval Pugilist
BY W. C. HEINZ
You remember Tony Galento. How about the afternoon they
bet him ten bucks he couldn't eat 50 hot dogs and that night,
before he could get into the ring with Arthur DeKuh, he'd
swelled up so much that they had to slit the waist of his box-
ing trunks?
"Tony knew he could do it," Willie Gilzenberg explained
to me once, "or he wouldn't have taken the bet. No rolls. Just
hot dogs. He ate fifty-two/'
"DeKuh was a pretty good fighter, too/' Babe Culnan said.
"He stood six feet, three inches/ 1
"With all them hot dogs in him," Willie said, "Tony couldn't
move for three rounds. In the fourth round he reached up and
hit that big guy a left hook and knocked him out with, one
punch."
We were sitting in the office Babe and Willie used to share
on Market Street in Newark, New Jersey. Babe had been in
the boxing business for 44 years and Willie had been at it for
40. He was the eighth and last of Tony's managers.
"Tony was a great one-punch hitter/' Willie said,
"I know/' I said. "Once Grantland Rice asked him: Tony,
how do you explain your ability to punch up?' Tony said:
*Punch up, punch down. What the hell's the difference?* "
Copyright 1960 by Fawcett Publications* Inc. Reprinted by permission of
True, The Man's Magazine.
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 23
"He used to close that bar of Ms in Orange at 2 o'clock in
the morning," Willie said "Then he'd go over to the Orange
Mountains and do his roadwork. Once I said to him: 'Why
do you ran at night?* He said; 1 fight at night. 5 "
'That/' Babe said, "is Tony Galento."
What is Tony Galento? That question will get you a lot of
answers, all different. Now he's a 53-year-old part time actor
thinking of returning to the saloon business. He has been liv-
ing with his wife and their 25-year-old son in an immaculate,
six-room, red-brick home in a quiet, upper middle-class sub-
urban neighborhood in Orange, New Jersey. He has been
called the dirtiest fighter of our time. Once he entered the ring
so drank that he literally saw two fighters in front of him. He
could eat six chickens, with a heaping bowl of spaghetti as
a side dish, the whole washed down with a half gallon of wine
or a half case of beer.
Some people liked him, some didn't. "Tony Galento," for-
mer heavyweight champion Max Baer once said, "is the only
fighter I ever hated."
His wife says: "He's really a good-hearted slob."
In September, 1938, Tony Galento and Lou Nova were the
participants in what may have been the bloodiest and the
foulest fight since the days of bare-knuckle bruising. Once
Tony boxed a kangaroo, and once he wrestled an octopus. He
toured the U.S. and Canada boxing a Russian bear. In Penn-
sylvania he was arrested for belting a wrestling promoter. In
New Jersey they pinned an assault and battery rap on him for
taking the nightstick off a police sergeant.
He is the only fighter who ever told me that, after a fight,
he wanted to lure his opponent into a street brawl and kill
him. Now, in his contemplative middle years, he is saddened
by two regrets; that he did not foul Joe Louis, and that his
son, Tony, Jr., does not want to enroll in a college.
"People don't understand Tony," his wife, Mary, said to me
once. "Just don't cross him up, because then he's like an ani-
24 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
mal, but I wish we had today what he loaned people without
any notes."
She shook her head. "Strangers would walk into our bar and
put a touch on him," she said. "I used to say: Tush them over
to me. How can you be so foolish? How can you give a person
$1,000 without a note?' Tony wouldn't answer me."
In Ms 14 years as a pro, Galento had 112 fights. He won
81 of them, lost 25 and drew in six. He was never a great
heavyweight, but 21 years after he put Louis on the deck they
still shudder at the thought that, if Joe hadn't got up, Tony
would have put boxing back a hundred years. That's the way
he was and that's the way he is, and he sure gave the spectators
something unusual to talk and to write about.
"One day," WMe Gilzenberg said, "there was a story in
the papers that Tony owed some money on his income tax.
I said to him: 'What about this?' He said: It's good publicity.' "
"Tony likes publicity," Babe said.
"That's how we come to wrestle the octopus," Willie said.
"We're in Seattle and there's a guy there got a big restaurant
and he had what you call an aquarium. He had a sign outside
that said: 'Live Octopus.' It cost twelve cents to see it. Two
cents was tax.
"So there's a sports writer there and he says: 'Why not let
Galento wrestle the octopus? It'll make good publicity.' So
they built a big tank outside and there was a fire department
right next door so they could fill the tank.
"They had newsreels there and cameramen and everything,
and Galento gets in the tank with the octopus. Now an oc-
topus is all slimy, but Galento don't care. He's pushin' it
around and all of a sudden the damn thing spits and ink
comes out. Galento comes flyin* out of that tank, hollerin':
'What the hell is that?' I said: 'How the hell do I know?' he
says: 'It's poison!' I said: 'No. It's ink. Go back in,' So he
goes back and they get their pictures, and two days later the
octopus dies. It was such a good story that the sports writer
got a $10 a week raise."
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 25
"What did the owner of the octopus say?" I said. "Was he
sore?"
"What could he say?" Willie said. "He had the octopus
stuffed, and he hung it on the wall. Where the sign said: 'Live
Octopus' he took the 'Live' off. It just said: 'Octopus.' "
"How did you happen to match Tony with the Russian
bear?"
"A guy walks in on me here one day," Willie said, "and he's
got a bear. The guy's name is Willi Waldorf and his brother's
name is Gus and they're Germans and they got the only boxin'
bear. There's a lot of wresflin' bears, but this thing weighs
550 pounds, and it boxes. They got him out in Oak Ridge,
New Jersey, so we go out there. They got this aluminum cage
and the bear is tied to a tree. Galento says: I ain't goin' in
there with that thing.' I said: 'The guy says he's trained.'
Galento says: 'You go in.' So I go in, and when Galento sees
I don't get hurt, he goes in."
"It was the only time," Babe Culnan said, "that I ever saw
Tony scared of anything. The second day, the bear put the
hug on Galento and Galento hollered: 'What are you tryin'
to do, get me killed?' **
"We must have done fifty shows with that bear," Willie said.
"They boxed three two-minute rounds, but they didn't draw.
The people were afraid of the bear. All we got was good
notices."
Once I asked Tony if he ever levelled on the bear, to see if
he could flatten him.
"Hell, no," Tony said. "That bear was a bad sonovabitch.
Them Germans wouldn't tell me what they were sayin' to
him. If you belted him good he'd liable to eat you. I used to
take a fake count, and one night I looked up and I said: This
bear ain't right.' I rolled over quick and he made a lunge
forme.'"
"How about the kangaroo you boxed in Atlantic City?" I
said,
"It was a small one, about 190 pounds," Tony said. "They
26 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
jump up and kick you and they slime from their mouth all
over you. We got a thousand bucks for three or four shows,
Then I quit"
"Didn't you ride a bronco in a rodeo once?" I said.
"Yeah," Tony said. "We took a date in Albany. We were
supposed to get a thousand, but we got seven-fifty. You can't
trust them carnival people. They don't tell you the truth. It
was supposed to be a tame horse, but it was a wild horse. I
got on frjm and I went over the fence and he went the other
way."
"Had you ever ridden a horse before?"
"When I was a kid I had that ice business, I had my own
horse, pulled the wagon. When I'd come home with him at
night I'd ride him across the road to a place where he could
eat the grass/*
When the horse died, Tony built a small monument to his
memory in the back yard. You figure out what that means.
You've got to figure out Tony Galento* All I can do is tell you
what I know.
Tony's people came from near Naples, Italy, where Tony's
old man was a quarry worker. In this country he got a job in
the Edison factory in Orange, and Tony was the second of
four kids, two of them boys.
""Nobody remembered what year I was bom/' Tony said
once. "When I was about 22 1 went to the City Hall and I said:
'Look in 1908, look in 1909, look in 1910.' They found it.
March 12, 1910. Dominick Anthony Galento. That's my
name."
"How far did you go in school?" I said.
"To the advanced fifth or sixth grade/* Tony said.
"What happened?"
"I hit a guy with a pick handle. We're playin' a game, what
we called the chain game, and I went to pick up the chain
and he kicked me in the stomach. He was about 16 and I was
12. The main part of the pick is the iron, but my old man
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 27
used to make his own handles, and I went home and grabbed
one and hit the guy.
"It was at the Park Avenue school. This was a bad guy. One
day he bit a Chinaman's veins out right on the street. He really
did. I hid behind a cement wall at school, and I hit him on
the head and busted his head and busted his shoulder. Then
there was a guy named Moe. I picked up a house brick and
broke his ribs/*
"So they kicked you out of school?*'
"I put tacks and chewing gum on seats. I'd put a blotter
in ink and drop it down some kid's back. The kids used to call
me to lick other kids, and if I couldn't beat 'em I'd use a club.
The kids would bring me apples and oranges."
Tony talks in a flat, hard voice, with almost no inflection.
His mouth hardly moves, and no expression shows on his face.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I got to be where nobody
wanted to be around me."
"Did your parents try to straighten you out?"
"Yeah," he said. "My old man had a temper, too. I used to
get two beatin's a day. At night and in the mornin'. Where
we lived the bathroom was outside. About 9 o'clock, before
I'd go to bed I'd say: 'I gotta go to the toilet.' Then I'd go out.
Twelve o'clock I'd come home and I'd get my lickin'.
"My father'd hit me with a chair, a baseball bat. Not like
with kids today, that get a spankin'. I never got a beatin'
from a prize fighter like I got from my father. I'd run around
the table and he couldn't catch me. Then the pots and pans
would come. Then he'd take the table and corner me, and turn
it over on me.
"Then in the mornin', before he went to work, my father'd
come in and start talkin' while I was still in bed. The first
thing you know the covers would come off and he'd start slug-
gin' me again."
He stopped to think about what he had said,
"He wanted me to get an education," he went on, "What
could he do with a kid like I was? I was always in trouble. No
28 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
stealin*, I never stole nothin'. Just breakin' windows and
fightinV*
"So what did you do when you quit school?" I said.
"I went to work for Mike Cinillo, the ice man. I carried
fifty pounds of ice like nothin*. I shined shoes on Sunday
morain'. I always brought the money home. When I was 151
had my own ice wagon and horse. My father used to make
home brew, when they had prohibition. One time forty-two
cases went flat, and he told me to throw it out and wash the
bottles. I took the stuff around to some customers and got
two-forty a case. They said: Tony, this is a little flat/ I said:
Tut salt in it.' I showed 'em that the salt made it fizz. I was
about 15. When I was 20 I got a speakeasy with another guy.
This was in the depression. That's why, when I became a
fighter, I fought hard because if you lost you couldn't get
work."
He stopped to think about it again.
"You don't know the way I lived/' he said. "You had to
fight your way. My mother used to send me to the store, and
every time I'd go around the corner this guy he was about
18 and I was 13 he'd kick me. A couple of years later I come
into the lunch wagon one night and I heard Mm call his uncle
an old sonovabitch. I said: 'Apologize to the old man.' So we
went out on the street
"This was in the winter, and where the cars made ruts in
the snow it was frozen. I hit him a hook and he went through
the air and he hit one of them ruts and he just skidded along.
He didn't move. For an hour they tried to bring him to. They
figured he was dead. I went home and waited for the cops to
come. The next day a fella I knew came to my house. He said:
*I hear you killed a guy last night,' I said: 4 Yeah. I'm waitin'
for the cops to come. 9 "
Tony paused to think again.
"That shows you how stupid I was," he said. "If I killed
him the cops woulda been there already. I was just a kid. M
One afternoon several of us were sitting in the living room
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 29
of Tony's home. Tony was sitting on a straight-backed chair
with his back to a flat-topped desk, and that's when he told
about the guy who spit in his face in a ring in Jersey one night.
"So after the fight/* he said, "I wanted to get him up into
the handball court some night, but I couldn't get him. I wanted
to get him with nobody there. I'da flattened him, and when he
was down I'da jumped on his head/ 1
He stood up and held his hands out to us to make Ms point.
"With all my weight," he said, "I'da have to smash his skull
in. I'd have to kill Mm. Wouldn't I?"
We all nodded, and Tony sat down. He turned to the desk
and took a piece of note paper and found a pen and wrote on
the paper. He handed the paper to me. On it, in an almost
perfect, rounded, even hand he had written:
Dominick Galento
Penmanship
"I write good, don't I?" he said.
"Yes," I said. "You do."
Tony had so many street fights as a kid that he was a natural
to go into the ring. When he was 16 Ms pal, Jimmy Frain,
who later trained Mm as a pro, took Mm to the Orange YMCA
and turned him over to Elmer Flynn, who managed Tony in
the amateurs and in Ms first pro fights.
In Tony's first amateur fight they put Mm in with a guy who
weighed 225 pounds. Tony weighed 159. Tony rushed out of
Ms corner, threw a right hand, missed and almost fell on Ms
face. The other guy missed two left hands and Tony rushed in
again and let that long, wide hook go. The other guy went
down on Ms back, and that was it. It lasted 30 seconds.
How many fights Tony had as an amateur no one knows.
He fought all over New Jersey for a year, sometimes three
times a week. The sluggers had no chance with Mm, but two
or three of the boxers beat him by cutting Mm up. On his
eighteenth birthday, Tony turned pro and made $150 for
flattening Babe Farmer in three rounds at the Laurel Garden
30 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
in Newark. His purse was $50, but he got 3 to 1 betting it
on himself between the second and third rounds.
When Tony began to move up as a professional fighter the
sports writers, of course, had never seen anyone like Mm. He
was five feet nine and weighed 235 pounds and he had a 38
inch waist. When he came out of Ms comer he walked wide-
legged, with Ms hands down and Ms chin out. The referee
never counted him out, though, in those 112 professional
fights, and he stopped or stiffened 55 guys with that hook or
with Ms head or the thumb or whatever he could get away
with.
At Madame Bey's, in Summit, New Jersey, where he trained
for a few of Ms biggest fights, they watched him punch the
light bag while smoking a cigar. After Ms workout they
watched Mm cool out with a half dozen bottles of beer, and
they called Mm Two-Ton, The Newark Nightstick, The Beer-
Barrel Poker, and The Water Buffalo.
"He has been compared to John L. Sullivan," Jack Singer,
the late New York sports writer, once wrote about Tony, "be-
cause Ms breath smells the same."
"How many cigars would you smoke a day in training?" I
asked Tony once.
"Ah, maybe fifteen or twenty. When a fighf s comin' up
you're on edge, and you smoke more. That's what keeps you
in miscMef, bein' on edge."
"How much beer would you drink?"
"That was a lot of oil about the beer," he said. "I'd drink a
few bottles and then Fd go to whisky. I'd get in condition, but
I'd get thirsty. I'd drink milk, or beer, or whisky or Italian
wine."
"How much would you drink?"
"Five or six beers and five or six shots of whisky. Maybe a
bottle of wMsky, but the day of the fight I wouldn't drink.
For the Louis fight I didn't drink for two days."
He paused again and seemed to be thinking about it.
"Once I drank the day of the fight," he said. "I was fightin*
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 31
Armando De Carlos in Newark, and that day I celebrated a
guy got out of the can. I kept drinkin' steady. It was in a
speakeasy on Mechanic Street. Finally I had to go to Laurel
Garden, I couldn't see him. I seen doubles. I knocked him
out with a left hook in the eighth round."
The fight of Tony's that Whitey Bimstein remembers,
though, is the one with Max Baer, Whitey has worked with
more fighters than any other living man, and although Jimmy
Frain trained Tony, Whitey was called in for this one and a
couple of others.
"The day before the fight/' Whitey was telling me one day
at a bar just north of what used to be Lou Stillman's gymna-
sium in New York, "Tony wants to drive in to Orange and
check on that bar he owned. So we go in there and he sits
down and his wife brings him meat balls and spaghetti and
a half case of beer. I looked at Jimmy Frain and Jimmy looked
at me and he said: 'What can I do?'
"So Tony finishes that, and then he's hangin' around and
he gets in an argument about tickets with Ms brother. He
throws beer in his brother's face and his brother lets his own
beer go at Tony, glass and all. Now Tony's got a cut under
his lip and the blood is gusMn' out.
"We take him to a doctor and get him sewed. Then, for the
weigh-in, we camouflage it. We cover it over, but somebody
musta told Baer, The first punch out he hit Galento a right
hand on the mouth and opened it."
It went eight rounds. By the time the referee stopped it he
looked like he had spent the day working in a slaughter house.
"I was tryin' to hook my arm around his neck and butt
him," Tony said then, "111 fight Mm again and beat the bum."
One night Bimstein worked against Tony, That was the
night Tony fought Arturo Godoy on the Jimmy Braddock-Joe
Louis card in Comiskey Park in CMcago, and WMtey sec-
onded Godoy.
"In the first round," Whitey said, "Galento tried to butt
Godoy, but Godoy grabbed him and let him have it with the
32 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
head himself, I'll never forget It. Tony was so surprised he
looked at the referee and Godoy let Mm have the laces, right
up across the face.
"Godoy cut him up and beat Mm and then, when we get
back to lie dressing room, Galento looks at Godoy and says;
'You're the dirtiest fighter I ever fought/ Godoy says: 'Me?'
The first thing I know they're gonf at it again, and I had to
run out and get a cop. I didn't have time to stop 'em myself.
I had to get down to the ring and work with Braddock."
In the eighth round Louis knocked Braddock out. When
the first of the reporters got into Braddock's dressing room
they found Tony there. There were metal clips closing the
cuts over Ms eyes and he was trying to talk to Braddock and
he was crying.
"Don* t worry, Jim," he was saying, "He won't get away with
doin* that to you. I'll go right into Ms dressing room and drag
him on the floor and knock his brains out."
The fight of Tony's that they all remember was the classic
of its kind. On September 15, 1939, in the Municipal Stadium
in PhiladelpMa he fought Lou Nova. No one remembers who
started the dirty fighting, but a couple of Lou's punches went
low and then Tony butted Lou and then the thumbs and el-
bows were going in and the laces were coming up and across.
Nova was down five times, and a couple of times Tony went
down with Mm and gave Mm the knee on the floor.
Tony had cuts inside and under Ms mouth and around his
eyes. Lou had a gash over his left eye that you could hide a
finger in and, as the blood spurted from both of them, it ran
down their chests and backs and even trickled down among
the hairs on the backs of their legs. By the eighth round the
sponge water in the pail in Tony's corner was red with it, and
Jimmy Frain gave three kids selling cold soda a buck apiece
for the water in their pails. In the 14th round the referee finally
stopped it to keep Nova, he said, from going blind.
"That was a good referee/' Tony was saying that day, sitting
in his living room, "He let me fight my fight You know what
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 33
I did? Instead of me hookin' with a punch I hooked with the
thumb.'*
He got up to show us. He showed us how he had thrown
the hooks, with the thumb aimed at the eye, as Nova had
dropped Ms head in close,
"Every time I hooked him I put stairs on the right side of
Ms face/' he said.
"They both went to the hospital with detached retinas,"
Jimmy Frain said. "Tony was in the hospital for three weeks/*
"Yeah," Tony said. "I gave him a detached retina."
He sat down again. "I tried to make up with Nova a few
times, 7 * he said, "but he dislikes me."
In Tony's mind, I suppose, that was Ms greatest hour. No
other referee ever let Tony express Mmself so completely in
a ring, but I prefer two other fights, one that he never fought
and the one with Louis.
Tony never fought Primo Camera. The mob was setting
up opponents for Primo then, and they sent their man over
to Orange to talk to Tony. He was a little guy and he never
raised Ms voice, but he carried a knife. He didn't kill with it
He carved. He's dead now, but I won't tell you his name be-
cause maybe he had a sister who is still living and maybe she's
a school teacher or a nurse. That happens sometimes.
"You know Camera is a good fighter, sonny," tie said to
Tony.
If you were younger than he was he always called you
sonny. He once called me sonny.
Til flatten the big bum," Tony said.
"No, you won't," the little guy said. "You'll get your chance
later, but right now Camera's getting Ms chance. Camera will
flatten you. Do you understand?"
Tony didn't understand. He went to Willie Gilzenberg and
repeated the conversation and asked him what he made of it,
"They want you to take a dive," Willie said.
"I don't take no dive for nobody," Tony said. "What should
I do?"
34 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
"You can tell him you'll go in the water," Willie said, "and
then you can flatten the guy. Then tell them you got excited
or you forgot,"
"I don't want the fight," Tony said.
When Tony fought Louis in Yankee Stadium on June 28,
1939, Joe was 1 to 8 in the betting. Louis walked out slowly
in the first round, jabbing and looking Tony over, and then
Tony threw that hook from the hip and Joe staggered. The
crowd let out one big roar and they kept it up for the four
rounds of the fight.
In the second round Tony kept throwing those roundhouse
swings and now Joe began to punch on a straight line and
inside them. He opened a cut in Tony's mouth and, with a
right hand, he dumped Tony, the first time he was ever down.
In the third round he was lining Tony up again when that
left hook and a swinging right landed and Joe hit the deck.
He rolled over and was up at a count of one and fell into a
clinch. The fourth round was all Joe, with the blood spurting
out of Tony's mouth and nose and Tony draped over the
ropes when the referee stopped it,
"Like the condemned man who, when dropped through the
trap door, doggedly refused to die," Bob Considine wrote at
the time, "Tony Galento last night won a full pardon. So long
as he lives and engages in this screwiest of all sports endeav-
ors, no one is going to laugh at him again as one laughs at a
clown. For, with those two washer-woman fists, he gave Joe
Louis one of the most miserable nights of his life. And he
gave the crowd that had come to hoot at him the greatest thrill
a fight mob has had since Jack Dempsey came up out of the
press row to 'murder* Luis Angel Firpo."
"Not since Jack Dempsey and Luis Angel Firpo staged their
masterpiece," Caswell Adams wrote in the New York Herald
Tribune, "has there been anything to equal that vicious heavy-
weight battle at the Yankee Stadium last night It was terrific,"
"Tony Galento was more glorious in defeat," Hype Igoe
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 35
wrote in the New York Journal- American, "than he ever was
in victory."
I don't know if Tony ever read those words but, if he did, I
doubt that he remembers them. He wasn't going for newspaper
space then. He was going for the heavyweight championship
of the world, and after the fight he went home, instead of to
Ms bar.
"I was ashamed," he said.
He had really believed that he could lick Louis, and when
he didn't something went out of him. He fought that blood
bath with Nova and the next year he had only that one fight
with Max Baer. In his only fight in 1941 Buddy Baer stopped
him in seven. He didn't fight in 1942, and in 1943 they fed
him a half dozen patsies. None of them got beyond the fourth
round, but it wasn't any good. Tony knew he could never get
Louis again, and he quit fighting and turned wrestler.
"When Tony decided to wrestle," Babe Culnan told me
once, "Kola Kwariani came over to Laurel Garden every after-
noon for seven or eight weeks to school him. Kwariani had
been in with all the good ones Strangler Lewis, Jim Londos,
Ray Steele, Gus Sonnenberg, Joe Stecker, Mike Romano,
Dean Detton, Zbyszko and the rest of them. One afternoon he
came out of that ring with Tony and he said: That's the
strongest man I've ever been in with. He nearly broke every
bone in my body.' "
Tony wrestled for 10 years, but he never made it big. He
never really belonged to the group. For one thing, the wrestlers
don't care much for ex-fighters and, for another, Tony didn't
like to take the bumps if he couldn't give them back.
After he quit wrestling he ran that bar in Orange, which he
sold a few years ago. He played the part of a thug in the movie
On The Waterfront A few summers ago he did a week in
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, as Big Julie in Guys And Dolls.
He had the role of an escaped murderer in a Budd Schulberg
movie, Across The Everglades, but he's thinking of buying
another bar and he keeps going back to that Louis fight.
36 THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST
"If I had the right manager," he told me, Td have licked
Louis."
"You would?" I said
"The boxing commission scared me/' he said. "They told me
if I fought a foul fight they'd give my purse to charity. If I
had the right manager he woulda said: 'Go out and hit him
low.' I woulda butted him and thumbed Mm. I coulda been
champion of the world."
What I like about Tony is that he doesn't take back on any
of it. He doesn't try to cover up the stories about the guy he
wanted to kill and how he should have fouled Louis and about
all the crude, gross and vicious things he did. It is the way he
is, and he admits it
I talked about this once with Tony's wife. I told her that
the other foul fighters I have known tried to deny their in-
stincts and their actions, but that Tony seems to draw satisfac-
tion from just the dream of what his fouling of Louis might
have brought him. ,
"Tony's right," she said. "You couldn't make a clean fighter
out of Tony, He went in and fought a clean fight with Louis.
If he fought a dirty fight he'd have been champ,"
Mary and Tony were married in 1935 after a ten months 5
courtship that was not the kind they write about in the women's
magazines. Her people were against Tony, and so were her
friends.
"They used to say: 'How can you get married to a rough
and tumble man like that?' " she said. "We had to go off and
get married. We got married in City Hall, and then, when we
told my family, we were married again in Mount Carmel
Church. Then my friends got to know Tony, and they said:
"He's the softest guy in the world.' My father's dead, but my
mother thinks the world of Tony now. You have to know him.
He's really a good-hearted slob. That's the only way to explain
Tony."
Their son was born three years after Mary and Tony were
married, with the mob from Tony's bar standing around the
THE CURIOUS CAREER OF THE PRIMEVAL PUGILIST 37
lobby of Orange Memorial Hospital from 11 o'clock on a
Saturday night until noon on Sunday making bets on time of
arrival and whether it would be a boy or a girl and what it
would weigh. He is now a good-looking, soft-spoken, polite
young man and for a while he worked in the maintenance
department of one of the airlines at Newark Airport Now he
drives a beer truck and is studying to be an artist
"Knowing Tony's temper," I said to his wife, Tve wondered
what kind of a father he is/'
"You know, he never spanked young Tony?" she said.
"Once y " she said. "When young Tony was little, Tony
smacked him. For weeks Tony couldn't get over it. He was
sick. He said: Til never hit that child again." He always left
the discipline to me. Then, when young Tony'd do something
he shouldn't, Tony would say to me: 'You should be harder
* on him/ He'd never do it.
"You should know how he worries about young Tony.
When we gave him a bicycle, Tony would cut little stories
out of the newspapers, telling where some kid on a bike got
hit by a car, HeM make young Tony read it and then pin it up
in his room. When young Tony got bigger and there'd be
stories about some kids in a gang getting into trouble, Tony'd
cut those out and make young Tony read those, too."
"Considering Tony's reputation," I said, "there must have
been times when young Tony was hurt by what the other kids
might have said or by what he read about his father in some
of the newspapers."
"One time he came home from school with a black eye/'
she said. "Some kid had said: 'You're not as tough as your
Daddy.' Many times he came home and said: The other kids
say my Daddy is no good.' I'd say: 'Some people like your
Daddy and some don't. Don't pay any attention to them,' "
"The Haig": Rowdy Rebel of the Fairways
BY JOHN LARDNER
Once, a man named Walter Hagen had a date to play a morn-
ing round of golf in Tokyo with Prince Konoye, of the royal
blood of Japan. Hagen appeared at the clubhouse at noon,
"The Prince has been waiting since ten o'clock," he was told.
"Well," said Hagen, "he wasn't going anywhere, was he?"
There you hear the voice of one who succeeded, as few
members of our meekly desperate species have done, in ad-
justing the shape, speed and social laws of the world to his
own tastes. Hagen was especially fearless of time; and, maybe
for that reason, time has been respectful to Hagen. It's now
more than a dozen years since the Haig quit playing even
friendly goll (It was no fun any more; the finest putting
touch in the history of the game had been fatally marred by,
he said, a "whisky jerk.")
That's a long while to be out of action, out of the hot news,
and still to be constantly remembered. But Hagen, rusticating
in a house on a hill by a lake in Michigan where the water is
cold enough to chase Scotch without ice, remains a living
force in sport. They still talk about him with an awe and
wonder as fresh as in the days when he had the golf world in
a bottle, as the old song goes, and the stopper in his hand.
"Golf never had a showman like him," Gene Sarazen said
Copyright 1959 by Mrs, John Lardner. Reprinted by permission of True,
The Man's Magazine.
"THE HAIG" 39
two or three years ago, "All the professionals who have a
chance to go after the big money today should say a silent
thanks to Walter Hagen each time they stretch a check be-
tween their fingers* It was Hagen who made professional golf
what it is."
By land and sea, in airplanes and in Wall Street, the age of
Walter Hagen was the age of gorgeous individualism and
golden soloists. In sports, the champions were Ruth, Dempsey,
Tilden, Jones, Grange and this fellow with sleek black hair, a
full-moon face, and hooded, oddly oriental eyes, who dressed
himself to shine like the Milky Way on a clear night, and who
used to say, by way of explaining how life should be lived:
"Don't hurry. Don't worry. You're only here on a short visit,
so be sure you get a smell of the flowers."
Seemingly, Hagen lived by that rule. In earning more than
a million dollars at golf 5 he spent money as fast as he made it
and often a little faster. Once, after winning the Canadian
Open, he wired ahead to a Montreal hotel, as the first step in a
victory party: "Fill one bathtub with champagne." The cost of
the party eventually came to $200 more than the prize money
he'd won in the tournament.
But, like other things about Hagen, the gay, hedonistic code
was deceptive. If he had the philosophy of a butterfly and the
appetites of a Pasha, he had a brain like a pair of barber's
shears.
In fact, he was full of contradictions:
1. "In swinging," said Mike King Brady, the old pro who
first took him on the road in 1914, "Hagen sways like a rock-
ing horse/'
But, says Ben Hogan, in speaking of golf technique, there
is a fundamental kind of rhythm which "could also be de-
scribed as the order of procedure. Walter Hagen was prob-
ably the greatest exponent of this kind of rhythm ever to play
golf."
2. Hagen was prodigal with cash, a high spender and
40 "THE HAIG"
tipper, a compulsive check-grabber, a plunger on long, bright
motor cars and soft, bright clothing.
But he took care years ago to fix things so that he lives
in perfect security today, on royalties and commissions from
golf equipment*
3. Hagen was a loner and an egotist at golf, a pitiless
competitor. He used every trick in the book of psychology
to trim his friends and fellow pros.
But he raised the living standards and promoted the in-
dependence of all professional athletes as did no one else,
even Babe Ruth. By sheer force of his own love of comfort
and freedom, he carried his profession onward and upward
on his back. He revolutionized the status of the golf pro-
from janitor to social hero.
Hagen's first job as a club pro, in 1912, paid him $1,200
for eight months, and this was not unusual. For several years
after that, few pros averaged better than $50 a week. Socially,
club members treated them in a friendly but patronizing way,
like a chauffeur or a valuable cook. In 1914, $75 was a pro's
standard charge for an exhibition match. By 1915, Hagen was
asking and getting $200 and $300 for an exhibition, and he
was mixing freely with millionaires and needling them into
$500 nassaus in private games. They took it and loved it.
By the time he had planted his full, democratic, do-it-my-way-
or-to-hell-with-you brand on golf and on society, the Ameri-
can pro was a big shot, with a limitless earning capacityand
the European pro had come out of the servants' entrance and
knew himself to be a man, as good as his talent could make
him.
4. Hagen was a party guy, a night-bird, a wrecker of train-
ing rules.
But he was also a sure-handed, clear-eyed all-around
athlete, a winner at the top level for 30 years. (He won the
croquet championship of Florida in his first try at the game.
And once he out-shot the whole field at a national live-bird
shooting tournament.) Hagen didn't smoke or drink till he
41
was 26. Then he became a chain-smoker, and went on winning.
And when he discovered prohibition liquor, his luck stayed
with him. It turned out that the man had a head like an old
oaken bucket.
Take a look at him early on a hot summer morning in 1929.
A golf fan stood in front of the Garden City Hotel on Long
Island, admiring the dawn and thinking what a fine day it
would be for the final round of the national PGA champion-
ship, when he noticed a dapper figure in a tuxedo approaching
the hotel from out of the sunrise. It was Hagenscheduled
that afternoon to play Leo Diegel for the highest prize in pro-
fessional golf. He had been training for the match by making
a tour of Manhattan speakeasies. "Good morning/* said
Hagen, civilly.
"Good morning," said the startled fan. "Do you know that
Diegel has been in bed since 10 o'clock?"
"No doubt he has, no doubt he has/' said Hagen, as he
walked on into the hotel "But he hasn't been sleeping."
That was an accurate analysis not only of Diegel, but of
all Hagen opponents. A few hours later, Hagen won the cham-
pionship by a score of 5 and 3.
The game with Diegel was one of a string of 29 PGA
matches in a row that Hagen won, over a period of five years,
from the best and smartest golfers in the world. In his time,
he captured 11 national American and British titles, includ-
ing the British Open four times and the U.S. Open twice.
When he gave up the game at the age of 50, he had, in fact,
proved everything.
Was he the greatest? His fellow pros said so in 1938, when
they voted for him by two to one over Bobby Jones as the
greatest tournament golfer they had ever seen. But "great" and
"greatest" have become loose, flabby words in the sporting
vocabulary. There were some who tried to describe Hagen
more exactly, by calling him "the world's best bad golfer."
Bob Jones himself once expressed the special, mortifying es-
42 "THE HAIG"
sence of Hagen even better, in something he said a few years
ago, during the heyday of Ben Hogan.
In a way, Jones observed, a steady, consistent, mechanized
player Hke Hogan makes an "easy" opponent at golf. Nothing
he does surprises you; you can focus your mind on your own
work. "But,* Jones said, "when the other fellow misses Ms
drive, and then misses his second shot, and then beats you
out of the hole with a birdie, it gets your goat!"
He was speaking of Hagen and Hagen had an answer to
every criticism of this kind in one of his maxims: "The object
of the game is to get the ball into the hole/*
"Get your goat" is a gentle way of stating what Hagen did
to Jones in a 72-hole match they played in Florida in 1926
for "the championship of the world" (and also, as will be
noted again later, for the purpose of selling real estate) . Hagen
went from stump to bush to sand, and, in the end, beat Jones
by the whopping margin of 12 and 11. His purse, the big-
gest ever paid a golfer for one match, was $7,600. Off the
top of this sum, he peeled $800, and bought Jones a pair of
diamond-and-platinum cufflinks.
"We must encourage the breed of amateur," Hagen ex-
plained sweetly. "They draw their share of the customers, and
we take their share of the gravy."
So saying, he leaped aboard his Madame X Cadillac (a
deluxe model of the period, of which Hagen owned the first
specimen ever produced), and rode to his office to see how
things were doing in the business (Florida golf promotion)
which at that time paid him $30,000 a year and included,
among other things, a blonde secretary who played the uku-
lele. The automobile was the latest in a line of flamboyant,
Hagen-bearing vehicles that went well back into motor car
history: a Chalmers, a Stephens-Duryea, a Chandler with an
orange-and-black check, a red Lozier, a Pierce- Arrow, and
in England, chartered Rolls-Royces and Austin-Daimlers.
This was the good life the life toward which the Haig had
begun to move a long time before, on the spring day when
"THE HAIG" 43
he climbed out the window of his seventh-grade classroom in
Rochester, never to return to the field of formal education;
at least, not regularly.
The schoolroom window commanded an irresistible view of
the country club of Rochester. There, Hagen had first broken
80 in the year 1904, at the age of 1 1. As a caddie at the coun-
try club, he made 10 cents an hour, plus tips. His father,
William Hagen, as a blacksmith in the railroad-car shops, made
$18 a week. Once the younger Hagen had put the distractions
of school behind him, he passed his father economically. A
little later, he passed Andy Christy, the club pro, artistically.
It cannot be said that Christy enjoyed this. In 1912, Andy
went to the National Open in Buffalo with another pro, and
took Hagen, who had become his assistant, along. In a prac-
tice round, Hagen shot the course in 73.
"I'm thinking," said Christy, who was shooting much higher,
"that someone should be home minding the shop. You can
catch a train at 5:45."
The quick trip to Buffalo was not, however, a complete
blank for Hagen: a whole new world was unfolded to him
there. He was struck half blind with inspiration by the sight
of a golfer named Tom Anderson, who wore a white silk shirt
with blue, red, black and yellow stripes, white flannel pants, a
red bandanna around his neck, a loud plaid cap, and white
buckskin shoes with wide laces and red soles.
By the time of the 1913 Open, at Brookline, Massachusetts,
Hagen had reproduced the entire costume for his own use,
except that he replaced the bandanna with an Ascot tie im-
ported from London. This conservative touch was to be typical
of his own evolving taste in clothes-horsemanship. He became
a rainbow, but a smooth, sophisticated rainbow.
The 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline, which Hagen played in
candy-striped shirt and red-soled shoes, was his first big
tournament. It is famous today for the playoff in which a young
American named Francis Ouimet beat out the British masters
Vardon and Ray; few remember that Hagen finished fourth
44
behind those three, narrowly missing the playoff. The next
year, at 21, he took the title, tying the tournament record with
290.
The win was crucial it saved Hagen from becoming a
Philadelphia Phillie. The Phils had tried him out both as a
right-handed pitcher and as a left-hand-hitting outfielder.
Having tasted top money in golf, Hagen evaded their snares*
The signs of ambidexterity, however, stayed with Mm for life.
There was no right-hander in golf who could play the rare
and occasionally vital left-handed shot better, from a tree or a
wall or a water bank. Sometimes Hagen played it with a putter
or the heel of a right-handed iron, sometimes with a left-
handed club he carried for emergencies.
He had 85 other ways of beating you, as the pros of the old
balloon-ball era discovered. The pros were, in the main, a
dour, cautious, Scotsmanly lot. Once, in Florida, on the morn-
ing of a one-day $500 tournament, a group of them agreed
to eliminate cabfare by accepting Hagen's invitation to drive
them to the course in his new open-top car, Hagen appeared
at the rendezvous a half hour late. "We must go like hell,
men!" he cried, with a look at his watch. They did. It was
several months before they recovered fully from the ride.
Hagen won the $500.
The Al Jolson musical show "Sinbad" was playing Boston
in 1919 at the time Hagen acquired his second U.S. Open
title, at the Brae Burn course near there, Hagen had recently
learned how to oil his metabolism with occasional "hoots."
("Hoot" was one of his favorite words for a drink of whisky.
Another was "hyposonica.") He saw a good deal of the Jolson
troupe, after showtime, during the tournament. A gala geta-
way party was arranged for the night following the last round
of the Open. As things turned out, the last round left Hagen
tied for first place with Mike Brady, This called for a playoff
next day, but Hagen did not see his way clear to passing up
the party.
In the dawn that followed the revels, he left the flower and
45
the chivalry of "Sinbad/* took a shower at his hotel, proceeded
to the course by Pierce- Arrow, had two quick double Scotches
in the clubhouse bar, and joined Brady at the first tee. Hagen,
who did not feel entirely in the pink, decided that a dose of
strategy was in order. Brady, prepared to do a man's work,
had his shirt sleeves rolled well up toward the shoulders.
"Listen, Mike/* said Hagen, as they reached the second tee,
"hadn't you better roll down those sleeves?" "What for?" Brady
asked, "The gallery can see your muscles twitching/' Hagen
said. Brady hooked his tee shot violently, and lost the hole
by two strokes. Hagen's margin at the end, as he won the
championship again, was one stroke.
This, it should be noted, was medal play. Hagen's favorite
style was match play, in which he could bring all the resources
of his erratic long game, his murderous pitching and putting,
his aggressive coolness, his concentration, and his sharp per-
sonal tactics to bear against one man. In the medal style of
the open game, he was never happier than when he could
reduce a tournament to maiHo-man combat. The record
shows and it shows it of no one else in history that in 30
years of big-league golf, Hagen never lost a playoff.
In private golf, in exhibitions, he tried always to introduce
the personal element, the head-on gambling touch, that brought
out his best. After the First World War, Hagen became the
first important professional golfer to cut loose completely from
the normal pro's life, a shop-and-lessons contract with a single
country club. This led to endless exhibition tours. On tour,
he always reached for the extra gamble,
At one strange club, he heard that the course record was
67, and offered to bet he would tie it. A member of the recep-
tion committee was willing to stake $50 against him. "Well,"
Hagen said, "the sun is high, and we have lots of time. Maybe
we can do better than fifty/' Eventually, a pool of $3,000 was
raised among members, which Hagen faded,
The membership then followed Hagen around the course
in a body* On the last green, he needed to sink a 12-foot putt
46 "THE HAIG"
to tie the record. He tapped the ball, and yelled, "Pay me,
suckers!" before it dropped. It dropped.
A time was to arrive, and soon, when Hagen came to con-
sider the British Open especially on the seaside courses,
lashed by wind and rain, with their shaggy rough and bony
greens as the truest test in golf, and a nagging challenge to
himself personally. He was the first American-bom golfer to
win the British championship, at Deal in 1922. Before that,
before he learned to throw away the effete book of American
golf, with its high driving, pitching, and exploding, and its
controllable greens, and to master the British technique of the
low shot and the pitch-and-run, he was tossed back violently
on the seat of his pants. On his first trip abroad, in 1920,
British golf overpowered Hagen.
His playing partner on the last round was a civil old gentle-
man of 62, who became the only player Hagen beat in the
tournament. The old gentleman finished 54th, Hagen 53rd.
The American champion's golf gave the British many a dry
chuckle. But Hagen startled the press by obtaining a printed
retraction of one slightly nasty piece by the simple but un-
precedented method of telephoning the paper's owner, Lord
Northcliffe. Hagen followed this step by carrying the social
revolution to France a traditional spot for revolutions.
He traveled to the French Open at La Boulie, near Paris,
with the British stars George Duncan and Abe Mitchell. The
dressing room for pros was a stable, with nails for the players*
clothes and stalls for the livestock. "If they don't let us use the
clubhouse," Hagen told Duncan and Mitchell, appointing him-
self chairman of a committee of three, "we will pull out."
The British pros, limp with class consciousness, followed
Mm into the president's office. The president finally yielded
the pointthough the three foreigners were the only ones to
get into the clubhouse, Hagen won the tournament in a playoff
with the French champion Eugene Lafitte.
Within the next few years, as the Haig made Europe and
England his playground and the British Open title almost his
"THE HAIG** 47
private property, the force of Ms golf and Ms brash and gaudy
independence knocked over the remaining social barriers one
by one. Britain was shaken by a habit Hagen had of using
first-prize money in the Open (it ran to about $300) to tip
Ms caddy with.
The Prince of Wales, later the Duke of Windsor, followed
Hagen around when he played, and automatically picked locks
for him socially. (There's a story that on a green in Bermuda
Hagen once said to the duke, "Hold the pin, Eddie." This is
apocryphal, according to Hagen. "What I told Mm was, 'Hold
the pin, caddie.* ")
And while he removed the shackles from Ms fellow trades-
men, the Haig went on stealing their shirts and watches on the
field of play. At La Boulie in 1920, striking a blow for liberty
in France, he also ran Lafitte, Ms playoff opponent, dizzy.
Hagen had heard that Lafitte hated to hurry his game. Hagen
practically galloped around the course. At one hole, he
climbed an upMll tee and drove before Lafitte had reached the
top. Lafitte, panting after Mm, hurried his shot, and drove
into the rough. The Frenchman lost the playoff by four strokes.
On the way to the playoff, Hagen used one of Ms favorite
dodges, the wrong-club feint, to shake off Abe Mitchell. On
a long hole, with Ms drive slightly ahead of Mitchell's, Hagen
took Ms brassie from the bag as though to use it on the next
shot. Big Abe went for the brassie too, and banged Ms ball
into a row of trees that crossed the fairway. The Haig at once
switched to his 2-iron, and hooked around the trees to a point
just short of the green. The stroke he gained on tMs hole shut
the Englishman out of the playoff.
The same ruse tricked Al Watrous out of a vital hole one
day in the PGA. Hagen's tee shot fetched up against the foot
of a tree. He saw where it went, but Watrous didn't. "You're
away, Al;* Hagen said, nonchalantly hefting his brassie. Wat-
rous could see Hagen's club, if not Hagen's ball. He grabbed
Ms own brassie, though what he needed was a control club
for a deliberate slice. His ball bounced off a tree and into a
48
brook. Hagen swiftly replaced the wood with a niblick, back-
handed his own ball out of trouble, and won the hole and
match.
It was a finesse, too, that started Bobby Jones off to disaster
in their great "world championship" match in Florida in 1926.
The first hole was a par 4. All its nastiness lay just beyond
the green. Hagen, for his second shot, ostentatiously chose a
4-iron, and hit the ball a little softly on purpose, critics have
said. He landed short of the green. Jones, noting the shortness,
used a 2-iron, overshot the carpet, had to struggle back, and
lost the hole. From there on, Hagen never looked back as he
marched to glory and a bag of gold and rubbed the great
amateur's nose in the dirt.
It was heavily inflated dirt. The Florida land boom was on,
and both Jones and Hagen had an interest in it. Hagen was
president of the Pasadena Golf Club at St. Petersburg at $30,-
000 a year (plus a bonus of a couple of "hot lots"). Friends
of the Jones family were anxious to glorify the real estate at
Sarasota, down the line. The match consisted of 36 holes of
golf at Jones's course, Sarasota, and 36 more a week later at
Hagen's course. The region was crawling with butter-and-egg
men, promoters, suckers, and other golf fans, and the air was
charged with the rich flavor of gambling and excitement that
Hagen loved.
The two players were clearly the world's best: Jones was
American amateur and past Open champion, Hagen held the
PGA and British Open titles.
Hagen took only 53 putts for the first 36 holes, and was 8
up at the end of them. On one green, after their second shots,
Jones lay 40 feet from the cup and Hagen 20. Jones, using
painstaking care, sank the ball his finest putt of the match.
"Whaddya know," shouted Hagen gaily, "he gets a half!" And
while the meaning of these words was just coming home to
his victim, he holed his own 20-footer with a quick slap.
It was a gesture that Jones never forgot.
In the second half of their Florida "world series," the Hagen-
49
Jones match went downhill in a rout. It ended at the 25th
green. In one history-making stretch of 9 holes, Hagen needed
only 7 putts he got by on 7 long ones and 2 chip-ins. If the
feat has ever been equalled, it was not done in the glare of
the spotlight that bathed Hagen that day. The Haig agreed
with other experts, as a general thing, that he always played
his best golf with the 7- and 8-irons and the putter the quick-
death shots that can wipe out all past sins and break an op-
ponent's heart. "I expect to make seven mistakes a round,"
Hagen used to say. "I always do. Why worry when I make
them?" The short game always bailed him out.
He had an artist's passion for putting, and an engineer's
skill at judging the roll and grain of a green. There was a putt
in the PGA in 1925 that stopped Leo Diegel as though he had
been shot with a gun. Diegel had Hagen 2 down with 2 to go
in their quarter-final match, A 40-foot putt gave Diegel a 4
for the seventeenth hole; Hagen's second shot had left him 15
feet to the left of the cup on a fast downhill green with a
double roll. Hagen plotted the putt with the help of a small leaf
that lay uphill from the hole to the right. The ball had to stop
at the leaf, catch the momentum of the green there, and roll
downhill at an angle to find the cup. It did all of that. As it
dropped, Diegel fell flat on his face on the green. Hagen won
the next hole easily, squaring the match, and ended it on the
fourth extra hole. Or, it might be said, he won it on the third
extra hole. There, an intricate putt put Hagen down in 4.
Diegel had a curving 30-inch putt to tie. It was a tricky one,
as both men knew in their hearts. Suddenly, Hagen knocked
Diegel's ball aside, "I'll give you that one, Leo," he said. "Let's
play another hole." The surprise of the gesture wrecked what
was left of DiegePs nerves. Overwrought, he blooped his next
drive into a hayfield, and Hagen marched grandly on to the
title.
Though he gave up normal pro-shop duties when he was
26, Hagen was a master club-maker and club-valet. Back in
his early days, to earn a few extra dollars, he had worked
50
as a mandolin-maker, and as a wood finisher in a piano fac-
tory. However, he had never made mandolins or finished
pianos in the deep south, where conditions are a little different*
In Florida, in the 1920's, the Haig launched a golf club fac-
tory that he figured would make him rich for life. In a round-
about way, it did. The clubs he produced were like poems by
Keats-in Florida. When they were shipped north, however,
the colder weather warped and shrank their shafts till they
rattled like a spoon in a cup of coffee.
Hagein was in the red for $200,000 at the point where
another rich friend, L. A. Young, Detroit's leading auto spring
tycoon, put up his bail. The plant was shifted to Michigan,
Under Young's management, and later under the Wilson
Co.'s, it has provided the royalties that have kept Hagen in
comfort, bright plumage, fast cars, and "hoots" for the rest of
his life.
The adventure proved what every golf pro in the world
came to be convinced of in time: that you cannot top a man
who has God and the angels on his side. At the Inwood course,
where he won Ms first PGA title in 1921, Hagen liked to play
the seventeenth hole by driving down the eighteenth fairway
it gave Mm a more open shot at the green. During the night
after the first round of the PGA, Jock Mackie, the home pro,
with the backing of a group of local comedians, set up a big
willow tree between the two fairways in such a position as to
block Hagen's drive. The sudden sight of the tree, as he teed up
Ms ball, gave the Haig a start. At almost the same moment, a
gust of wind shook loose the tree's wiring and knocked the
willow over on its side. "Excellent timing," said Hagen smugly,
and made Ms usual drive.
Even the spectators, as time went on, became infected by a
sense of the fellow's omnipotence. There was a one-day tour-
nament at Catalina Island, in the 1920*s, for which Hagen
showed up late he had been shooting goats in the mountains
all morning with William Wrigley, the island's owner. Hagen
raced around the course to finish before dark. With three
51
holes to go, he learned of a low score by Horton Smith which
led the field at the moment, with everyone in but Hagen. Seeing
Smith in the gallery, Hagen called out genially, "Well, kid, I
can tie you with a 3-2-1!" He got the 3, then got the 2, and
then announced to the crowd, winking one inscrutable eye,
"Now for the hole-in-one!" The hole was 190 yards. Hagen's
tee shot hit the flag gently and stopped a foot from the cup.
Few mortal men can call a hole-in-one. And yet, Hagen
once bet $10 even money at a short hole, in an exhibition
match, that he would sink his tee shot, and then sank it. "The
idea, when betting even money on a 100,000-to-l shot," Hagen
said mysteriously, as he pocketed the sawbuck, "is to recog-
nize the one time when it comes along. It is done by clean
living."
As noted, the U.S. PGA tournament was Hagen's special
oyster for five straight years. It had to be. A cup went to the
winner and Hagen, unknown to everyone, had mislaid the
cup. The name of this object was the Rodman Wanamaker
Trophy, valued at $1,500. One day in 1925, Hagen, the tem-
porary owner, left it in a taxicab in New York. He was always
careless with silver. In 1926, he won the championship again,
"You already have the Cup, Walter/' the officials told Mm,
"so keep it"
The same thing happened in 1927. In 1928, however, the
patient Leo Diegel broke through and won the title. Hagen
was asked to turn over the cup, "Well, I would like to," he
said, "but I haven't got the slightest idea where it is." The
pros themselves saved the situation by chipping in for another
cup for Diegel.
Hazy or not as to certain kinds of detail, the old brain con-
tinued to perform like a shears, in one way, and like an oaken
bucket, in another, as the Haig's golfing years drew to an end.
They tell of a day in BeUeair, Florida, in the West Coast
Open, which followed a long, hard night. Hagen groped his
way to the course, and took three practice shots. He topped
a spoon shot, which traveled 40 feet. He topped a 2-iron shot,
52
which traveled 20 feet. He topped a 54ron shot 5 which traveled
6 feet. "Okay, I'm ready to play," Hagen said. He toured the
course in 62.
And the Haig himself tells in his breezy book, The Walter
Hagen Story, of another morning-after when his practice shots
did the same kind of tricks, and the bright sun cut into his
eyeballs like a knife. It was in Tampa, in 1935, when Hagen
was 42. With a final hooker of corn liquor in him, he moved
out from the soothing shadows of the locker room into the
shimmering heat of the morning. Near the first tee, he saw
three old friends from the Philadelphia Athletics ball club,
Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Cy Perkins, waiting with
the gallery to watch Mm tee off in the tournament. Hagen
tottered over to them and shook their hands with loving en-
thusiasm. "Hiya, Jimmy. Hiya, Mike. Hiya, Cy," he said,
"Haven't seen you in a hell of a long time." "Good luck, Haig,"
said Mr. Foxx, Mr. Cochrane and Mr. Perkins,
Hagen played the first nine holes more or less by instinct
and on the ninth green found himself needing a short putt for
a 30. Looking up at the gallery, he noted with surprise and
pleasure the presence of three old friends, Jimmy Foxx,
Mickey Cochrane, and Cy Perkins. The Haig beamed, and
walked over to shake hands. "Hiya, Jimmy. Hiya, Mike. Hiya,
Cy," he yelled. "Haven't seen you in a hell of a long time."
The three Athletics were convulsed by this second cere-
mony. Their laughter faded into awe when they heard Hagen's
score. He sank the putt, took a 64 for the day, and won the
tournament with 280. It was to be Hagen's last win in any big
tournament.
But once in a while, in the few golfing years that were left
to him, the magic of his bold, sudden-death touch came back
again. Hagen was in his forties when he broke the course
record at Inverness, Scotland, with a 64. In 1943, at the age
of 50 he captained a pickup team against the American Ryder
Cup team, and shot a 71 in his first match. Thus, his career
overlapped to a degree those of the stars of the next genera-
"THE EAIG" 53
tion. He saw them all-and, with the cheerful arrogance of a
giant of the days when men were men, he gave them nothing.
If they were brought together in their respective primes, he
says, he, Jones and Sarazen could beat Snead, Hogan and
Middlecoff, match or medal, for money, chalk or marbles.
Modem equipment and golf-course engineering have lowered
scores. But the fewer, cruder clubs of the old days increased
the skill of the players. And by playing in all weathers, dirty
and clean, they acquired a strength and wisdom, down to the
marrows of their bones, that the new men cannot equal.
Until he settled in the house he lives in today on Long
Lake, near Traverse City, Michigan, with big fish to the right
of him and tall highballs to the left and a sleek paunch like a
Mongol chieftain's the Haig never had a permanent home.
The need of crowds, new crowds, with new faces and tastes
(and new money), kept him tramping about the world for
years, to England, Ireland, France, Scotland, Germany,
Africa, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, China, the Philip-
pines, Japan.
Even when he wasn't playing, the crowds still came to him.
Johnny Farrell, himself a U.S. Open champion of the 1920's,
was playing a major tournament one day, and burning up the
course. Al Watrous walked over from a nearby tee to pass the
time of day. "How's it going, Johnny?" he asked. "Terrific!"
Farrell said. "I can't miss. Looks like I may break the course
record."
"That's fine/ 1 Watrous said. He looked around. "Where's
your gallery?" Farrell smiled philosophically. "Over behind the
caddie house," he said, "watching Hagen play mumblety-peg."
The new men cannot hope to equal Hagen as a showman
but they play for big money today chiefly because Hagen
boosted the price scale, by his showmanship. The Haig used to
say: "Make the hard ones look easy, and the easy ones look
hard." He did, and for 30 years, hard and easy, he made
them all.
Anatomy of a Pool Hustler
BY DALE SHAW
He leaned nonchalantly over the green-covered table, his 6-2,
190 pounds neatly balanced on one foot, and tapped in a
two-ball combination shot for the winning money. He laughed
uproariously*
"Where do you want this guy's body sent?" he said.
"You know you are so good, soooo good!" came a cooing
taunt from the ranks of drowsy watchers and backers sur-
rounding the only table still lighted in the long pool hall
"I do know it,* grinned the hustler, pocketing two tens with-
out exposing his roll. "I know it forever. There is no one, no
one pockets the way I do, evah! No~where! I pocket impossible
shots, nevah-heard-of shots, I run balls forever. I start running
balls now, if I want, I don't stop next year or the year aftah. I
just don't stop/*
The loser had been tired-looking, morose. Now he clutched
his sides, laughing, "Oh, Jersey, cut it out. Cut it out, Red!"
"Leave 'em broke, leave 'em happy," Jersey Red grinned,
running practice balls joyously. "I leave 'em the brokest and
the happiest ever heard of coast to coast and shore to shore.
Seein* me run balls the way I do makes 'em appreciate livin',
broke or not. They love life and laugh, Man, watch this shot*
Copyright 1961 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Saga magazine.
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 55
watch it, here it goes, here it goes, fantastic . . /' His gimlet
green eyes focused down the cue.
He snapped a ball banking off a cushion toward an op-
posite pocket and missed narrowly and intentionally, for he
had put no concentration in the shot. He threw his arms wide
in mock protest,
"Owner! Owner! I gotta report a crooked table. This one is
a stealer, I been robbed." The crowd shouted insults at him.
The loser had been cleaned down $80. Now he dredged up
a wrinkled ten. "I got a ten left says you ain't so good, Red,
you ain't as goddam good as you think."
"Oh, now, nice, nice, nice," chortled the shark. "Same game,
same sweet game." Jersey Red puckered his small mouth in
determination.
"I want a better spot," the loser said.
"You had the best of it. I just run lucky. Fifteen points,
I give no more, you like it or you don't like it,"
The gamemaking haggle went on and on. The hall had
closed at 3 A.M. and reopened at 5 A.M. The same money
match continued. Then at 6 A.M, the victim had ten bucks
left which he also felt compelled to lose. A game was made, and
the money swiftly taken.
The softly crooning music of the Honeymoon Lane Ball-
room on the floor below was long since stilled. The great yellow
marquee of the Latin Quarter across the street was blacked
out. On the adjacent corner of 48th Street in Times Square and
Seventh Avenue, two streetwalkers passed in the dull grey
melancholy of the winter's dawn. You looked out and saw it
all, out of the unwashed window of Paddy's Billiards, past
the bright red neon sign that has been a welcoming flag to
suckers and sharks for many decades.
Now the clipper with a cue has the loser off in a corner.
He is giving him $20, "for carfare. Being broke, I know it,
know it well. Hell, take it"
The loser takes it.
The action sags, there is little play this Sunday morning
56 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
at 7. Then strangely, as it always does, the money starts com-
ing in, at 8, 9, 10 A.M., as the bigger operators move in, escap-
ing from the tensions of their illegitimate business. Most of
the craps and blackjack games have closed. The brothels are
shut. The Sunday morning breakfasts of eggs and fried ham
and three coffees have been eaten, and Paddy's brims with
optimistic backers. Tens and 20s become nickels and dimes
and Jersey Red is laughing in the center ring.
His name is Jack Breitkopf and he bunks in Newark, New
Jersey. His home roost is Broad and Hill Billiards, corner of
Broad and Hill. At 28, his thick curly hair is no longer red.
They say it looks slightly auburn in the sunlight: few have
ever seen sun strike it.
The big backers cluster around the brass-barred cashier's
cage in which little Abie Rosen lurks timeclocking the table
cards of incoming players. Abe is semi-retired, was once one
of the best shooters in the country. Jersey Red lounges be-
tween the cage and the lunch counter, nursing a coffee. He is
dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and trousers badly in need of
pressing. The roll in Ms pocket bulges.
One of the halfs part owners jostles him.
"You bum, Fll pay you 14 bucks a day to brush tables and
sweep floors," he tells him affectionately,
"Why should I be the celebrity to make your joint famous?*'
"All right, you get ten bucks a day, for your big mouth."
"For nothing I'll glamorize this dump. Lemme play Abie.
Hey, Abie, even up 111 give you, 125 points on the five by ten
tablefor a yard."
"I want 30 points."
"Yer out of yer mind!"
"I got my pride, Red. Should I look like I got a bad game?
Bad as I shoot, I'll take 30, ain't that right?" He looks around
for nods of approval For 15 minutes they dicker about the
game. Nine-tenths of pool hustling is making the right game
when you are known, and Jersey is known.
There have been heated arguments as to who is the finest
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 57
cueman in the nation among the money players. This category
neatly eliminates the unstoppable Willie Mosconi; he is not a
bettin* man, at least not for the record. The kind of record
Willie thrives on is such as Ms big-table (5 X 10) high ran of
over 300 balls clicked off in exhibition play.
"Play against yourself, what does that prove?" says Jersey
Red. "Play him some one-pocket, one-pocket any day, game
takes some brains. Played Mosconi once, just a kid, was
getting steamed up to run out, then he run out. Beat me hun-
dred to nearly a hundred. Just a kid, a kid I was then. That's
all."
Jersey Red has been described by his pool hall fans as the
only hustler you can wake up out of a straight-back chair,
give him a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and he will run a
hundred balls.
"That ain't true," says Red. "I drink my coffee out of a
glass."
The tables at Paddy's on 7th Avenue where Red spends a
lot of his time are tight-pocketed and well leveled. The pockets
on some of them are so narrow you can't get two balls in
side by side, and the side-pocket rubbers are right-angled. On
the 4V2 by 9s, Red has ran 60 and out, 70 and out and as
high as 80 and out for pots ranging from 100 dollars to 500
dollars for 100-point games. On a looser table he can ran 100
to 200 balls any time he really concentrates: that's what he
calls a "bucket table."
On the tougher five by ten foot tables-20 percent larger
in area he can make a tight-pocket ran of 50 or 60 balls
whenever he's pressed. There are very few players who can
do these things when the big money is showing in the light
of the overhead lamps.
Red's secrets are his knack for upsetting the opposition,
and his ability to stay relaxed plus his cueing ability, which
is no secret. Jersey Red belts his opponents' emotions and
relaxes himself by one method talking. As a friend put
it, "if Red's mouth isn't going, call a doctor. He's ready to
58 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
drop dead any second/* Breitkopfs jabbering, in a husky,
humorous, drawling voice, is really a hard-conning spiel that
sets up his man for the kill.
Sometimes he will stop in the midst of shooting, square off
at an opponent and grin: "Say, Mack, you know who you're
playing, you got any idea at all? Why don't you just hand me
the money, son, and we'll save on the rent of the table?"
One of his favorite lines is, "Charlie, you got such bad luck,
if / died, they'd bury you." And when he is tapping them off
in a winning run he is likely to chortle, "Where do you want
this guy's blood sent?"
Jersey Red is a lefty, but he shoots right-handed well enough
and likes it when he is hustling into a small-town hall where
his left-handed smoothness might give him away as a shark.
One day a raincoated, staggering individual shuffled into a
parlor in a West Virginia city, wiped the rain off his sun-
glasses, took up a cue and challenged everybody in the place.
They lined up at five a game to clean this bum.
Sunglasses still glued to Ms head, Jersey Red stumbled
around the table lucking balls in. Stakes mounted as the local
sharps boosted the bets, sure his luck was about to run out
It never did, and he departed with several hundred dollars.
In his wanderings around the country, Red is usually unable
to disguise himself against the fine players of other big cities.
In the big-money matches, he'll have to play dead-even or give
away balls. Despite this fact, he has tromped on some fast cue
artists: Southern sharks such as Squirrel, Sleepy, Puckett and
Weenie-Beanie, Okeechobee Slim and Phenomenal Benny. Up
north, a host of others that are generally too cautious to give
him a game in any form.
The pickings became much slimmer as his reputation grew.
In desperation, Jersey Red had to improvise. He played one
game where he was forbidden to chalk his cue, so the tip
went bouncing off the cue ball every other shot. "When he
wasn't looking," Jersey confesses, "I would sneak another cue
out of the rack. I won it on my seventh cue!"
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 59
This kind of wised-up competition, forcing him into tougher
and tougher games, is a far cry from the lush days of his
youth when, unknown and unfeared, all that was needed was
his pure talent to drain the funds of the unwary.
"Back then/' says Red, nostalgia soaking his voice, "I didn't
have to shoot one-handed, or right-handed, or behind my
back, (I shoot behind my back pretty good) or sunglasses on
or none of that crap. I just shoot, I shoot, and man, look out
I was a kid, 16, you know, with two, three hundred in my
pocket all the time, you know. Packin* it. That is how good I
shot. And I thank them, every one of them down there, in the
New YMCA. That is where I got my start. I hustled for Cokes
and change and if they had some that folded and some nerve,
I would unfold it for them. I started in there when I was 13
and when I was 14, I got my stroke. I got my stroke and
learned to count. I beat every kid in the Y and then I started
lookin* around. I just kept looking."
Jersey Red remembers Ms first big-money game very well.
He was just 16, He walked into a two-table joint in Newark
with ten cents in his pocket, "You 18?" said the owner. "You
got to be 18 to play in here."
Tm 18," said Red, throwing the sweet puckish grin that
has clipped the incautious all his life. "Sure I am!" The owner
waved Mm in.
"Shoot some pool?" His innocence had drawn a challenge.
Red held the play to five cents a game, a nickel soda on the
side, loser pays the time. They played quick 8-ball, where one
man sinks 1-7 the other sinks 9-15, and maker of the 8 wins
the money. Jersey won games, just slopping them in, until he
had 50 cents. Then he moved over into a four-handed nine-
ball game at 50 cents a game. The breaker in tMs game sees
balls 1-9 set to the spot in a diamond shape, with the 1-ball
leading and the 9 buried in the center of the diamond. Nine-
ball is one of the big hustling and gambling games, and in it the
balls must be sunk in sequence. The man taking the 9-ball
60 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
wins. The object is to make a shot, keep shooting and run out,
which requires an adroit position player.
"Young as I was/' says Red, "I could move that cue ball
without touching another ball unless I wanted to. I moved it
from shot to shot and I knew three, four, five ahead what I
would shoot next"
When Jersey had $5 in that game, they all quit him but one
player, and the young hustler took Mm for $15. He had $20
in Ms pocket when the owner came over and offered him ten a
game.
Even at that age, Red Breitkopf had a gentle and kindly
touch; he would win but not make you look bad. He beat the
owner of that tiny hall for $50, but took some time doing it,
not making him look too incompetent. When he eased out
into the darkness of the street, Red had $70 in his pocket
and knew in his heart there was no place to go but up with a
stroke like he had.
He was in Steel's in Newark the first time Larry Kelly saw
him run them off and rack and run and rack like a man with
20 years on the cloth behind him instead of the boy's actual
three,
Kelly, whose business is unpublishable here, became Red's
first backer, and that put him up in the bigger games in Jersey
where a sharp hustler might have to lose a few hundred grace-
fully, fertilizing the ground, before he showed them that real
stroke. Kelly traveled in Red's company, showing him finer
points of the game, giving Mm gambling sense and teaching
him to be a better bluff in setting up the big games,
At 16, Red spotted Steve Meserak the 8 and 9 in 9-ball
and beat him for $400 for his first fat takedown. Playing at
Steel's, in his 17th year, Jersey Red Breitkopf ran 88 balls
and out on the big table for the money in 100 points of straight
pool.
But his love became and has remained the game of "one~
pocket" or "pocket-apiece" as it is sometimes called,
A game is a rack, 15 balls, and the breaker has the ad-
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 61
vantage. Each player may pocket for score only in one chosen
corner pocket behind the rack. You alternate left and right
pocket from game to game. Now, running balls into a single
pocket well enough to run straight through and out requires
extreme control of the cue ball, for the game is played on the
big 5x10 table only,
Playing one mark, Red gave him 11 to 4. The fellow made
three and had the game ball hanging on the lip of the hole,
so close it couldn't be bounced out (a smart move otherwise).
So Jersey simply ran 1 1 balls and out for the money.
One-pocket is a game of supreme strategy.
"It is like chess and World War II tossed in together/* says
Red modestly, "and I am the best one-pocket player that ever
lived. I say that without qualification/* (There are pros who
say that New York's Joe Procita or Chicago's Lefty, brilliant
Negro player, are just as good. They are certainly quieter.)
The trouble with getting to be the best one-pocket player
in the world is that you start getting games like 12 to 2 and
14 to 1, and then on top of that they hand you a back corner
pocket instead of one up front near the pack. They offer you
that and if you don't take it, they don't bet. But they kept
betting Red.
As one long-time fan of the all-night games put it, "Jersey
makes you love to lose to him. You get a thrill just getting
into that sideshow he puts on/*
And it has been true for a long time. As soon as the young
hustler, barely 20 then, became well known and lost the ad-
vantage of anonymity, he gained the advantage of stardom in
the smoke-filled halls of the East.
It became standard for a player, stymied by the lay of the
balls and unsure of his next shot, to look around at the as-
semblage and ask, "Now what the hell would Jersey Red do?"
Obviously the best way to find out was to play him. His
services came in for large demand. "I lost ten to Jersey," a
bettor would brag. "You did? I lost 30 and he beat me every
game in the 1-hole" (beat me by one ball) .
62 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
Gradually the odds you got from Red and the game you
played to lose became the way of measuring players. For Red
played anybody and everybody.
They liked to compare him to Boston Shortie, often called
the best all-around money shooter in the country, and an ex-
cellent three-cushion billiard player which, strangely, Jersey
Red does not claim to be. In straight pool they would seesaw.
Red would give Shortie balls in one-pocket. The great dif-
ference in the two men lay in the action they got and the time
they spent on the table. Jersey would go from a 100-dollar
game to a game for coffee or just table time, just to play some-
body he knew from way back, or just to play. And if he had a
good crowd, he would keep shooting alone so he could keep
talking.
"I don't recall when Red started throwing the bull while he
played," an old player said, "I don't recall when he ever
stopped, either."
His devotion to the maple shaft and the clicking balls has
kept Red out of wedding ceremonies and barrooms: he is an
unmarried teetotaler who is reputed to have a girl in every
city with a pool hall in it. So great is his devotion to the game
that he has played many straight sessions of from 24 to 36
hours without leaving the table, until at last, bleary-eyed and
staggering, his opponent has called quits.
Although Red usually gets tough games with men who know
his merit, he tags enough suckers to keep his old hustler's
tricks oiled up. Most of this is missing intentionally as though
it were an accident, so as not to win the game by too much.
"The ball goes in," Red explains, "and then it pops out,
because you spin the cue balls and the spin is transferred, and
you hit it pretty hard. It pops out and you get mad and stomp
your feet."
The smart hustler knows how to scratch (sink the cue ball,
which loses you a turn and a point) intentionally without
seeming to do so. This is done by bouncing the cue ball off a
rail or two or off another ball and into the pocket. Another
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 63
way involves extreme top spin and a full stroke, carrying the
cue ball over the cushion and off the table.
Most commonly, the hustler leaves himself safe after mak-
ing a shot. He then cannot pocket another ball.
"Only on this table!" storms Red. "This table. I will take
my trade to some other Joint. I'm in a lock, a double lock"
(a bad game he can't possibly win) . Then he looks point-blank
at the other player: "You beat the great Jersey Red, that's
what you did! Now shoot! Do it. Do it to me, you lucky,
I'm so unlucky, if I bought a graveyard, people'd stop dyin'."
By then Ms opponent is unable to concentrate or coordinate.
He blows his next shot.
"Thank you, Lord," says Jersey Red, tilting Ms head up-
ward,,
He makes a shot, and another. "Thank you, Lord." plunk
"Thank you, Lord!" plunk "Lord, give me this one. (game
ball)" plunk "Lucked out, thafs what I did, ahhh deeeeeed!
Oh, Red you are the greatest" (TMs is followed by a chorus
of happy obscenities from the gallery.)
Through the years, Red's talent for keeping the losers happy
has mellowed and improved: "I took Ms life savings, I think
it was, it was that much, he loved me like a brother. Strange,
ain't it!"
Red Breitkopf s disarming good nature is apart from the
actual act of aiming and shooting, however. When he really
cues down, he is as sharp as a diamond-point drill and as ac-
curate as a scope-sighted rifle. His often shabby clothes and
gangly, lackadaisical movements poorly prepare the victim for
the precise trimming he is bound to get sooner or later.
Red holds his 20V2-ounce cue well out on the butt, one or
two fingers actually slopping over onto the rubber protector;
his bridges, formed with the right hand as he is a lefty, range
from fancy to downright careless depending on the impression
he wants to make. It is the expression of his eyes wMch is un-
changing: no matter how badly he decides to play, the greenish
64 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
gimlet orbs fairly leap out from under his ledge of a scowling
brow and converge on the tip of his long straight nose.
They sight greenly down the tapering maple cue, and if he
misses this Jersey Red will miss to the hundredth of an inch.
"I would take those eye tests in school and read the bottom
line, most of it, and the line over that, all of it, easy/' he says.
The real cueing concentration shows in the mouth, though.
Small to begin with, it shrinks down to a mere zero of de-
termination, as though he had a mouth full of alum and was
going to make you eat some next.
Knowing dedication to the game possessed by this superb
shot-maker, it seemed at first strange and then lamentable to
his fans that he should develop such an obsession about gin
rummy.
Through part of 1960 and into '61 Jersey Red spent most
of his time hidden away in smoky rooms watching dealers
flake off the pasteboards to the tune of his ever-optimistic
chatter.
Instead of banking on his incredible eyesight, Jersey was
counting on his memory: "Mathematically speaking, you
know, he is a wizard. What with an education, some engineer
he would be/' So they told it, meanwhile missing him in the
pool halls which had suddenly become quieter places.
"He would make enough noise in twenty minutes to make
this place sound prosperous for a week later!"
"Jersey won $150 at Ames, and blew it in at cards, you
hear 'bout that?"
"He can tell the last draw, the memory!"
" 'Members every card played, ev-uh-ry cahd! Man!"
"I heard he loses his shirt every time he plays."
Often it was true. But now the fascination had gripped him,
the fascination of hustling guys into profitable card games.
He'd play straight, honest; despite his slender, somewhat deli-
cate, pointing fingers, Red was no sleight-of-hand artist. He'd
win on his memory. He became master of another game.
Supremacy became elusive. He drew even or lost in 12- and
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 65
15-hour games. And like it or not, he was throwing Ms stroke
into the pot,
Time and again, Red Breitkopf had to return to the pool
tables of Manhattan and New Jersey to replenish his roll: do-
ing so became more and more difficult. Finally he disappeared
from the green arenas entirely.
Jersey Red had become a card player.
And he was winning enough, at last, to remain one, it
seemed,
Then "Boston Shortie" Johnson hit the streets of New York
again. Johnson was fresh off a tour of the South, New Orleans,
Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Twenty minutes after he
set foot in Paddy's, Jersey Red himself fingered the same door-
knob.
A great crowd gathered round the two men, one short one
long, black-eyed and green, both as sharp as new razors. But
the chatter remained idle, no talk of a game.
Joe Procita made the first game. He got Shortie onto the
billiard table and edged him out on score in a long session,
although they stood even on the money. Near 50, Procita is a
great tournament and match player, and Ms big-table high run
record for tournament pool of 182 still stands. Shortie's show-
ing that Bight proved the little man was in stroke.
Jersey held back, then disappeared.
Two nights later, he and Shortie made game. Straight pool,
125 points. Red shot like a blind man and lost Ms roll
A week later they made it the same and Red got cleaned
again.
That great golden stroke had flown.
He began hanging around Paddy's and Broad and Hill in
Newark, taking little games, practicing. His humor lost none
of its immodesty, however: "Them cards killed my stroke-
anybody know a good gin game tonight; anybody! Just any-
body! yet I am still the greatest, the greatest, mahn. Mahn,
look at that man pocket. Start runnin* balls now, nevah stop,
run forever . . "
66 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
The game ball trickles off and lodges bravely outside the
pocket.
"Oh! Look at the roll on that table! Off! Off! Off!" waving
his cue wildly in the air, yet laughing, laughing, unfolding
$30 lost money.
"Same game, Red?"
"Oh, you know it"
Until he is clean.
Poverty had been no stranger in Jersey Red Breitkopf s
life; he had known it as a small boy and as a hustler between
scores. On the road he had played bad games and been
cleaned, going two, three days between chewing anything be-
sides gum.
"I went in flat. I played this guy five a game couldn't cover
it you know and I lost. I went to the house man; I cried. I
got $10. 1 paid up, had five left. Played a game for ten! Some
stuff, huh? And I win. I win, I win, I come home $90 to the
good."
Those were the days. They seemed gone, like the infallible
stroke,
Abe Rosen, the night man at Paddy's, proposed a tourna-
ment for the real pros. "The best in tie East," he put it, "A
double round robin, hundred twenty-five pernts," he said, his
little bald head gleaming under the brilliance of the pool table
lanterns as he ran practice balls exquisitely.
"Who plays?" somebody asked,
"It's an invitation match," said Abie. "The house puts up
$100. The best plays. Jersey Red. Shortie from Boston. Danny
Gartner. Joe Procita. McCarthy. And me. We get 25 cents ad-
mission and that goes in the pot. Startin' May 22, on table
12."
Jersey Red was listening intently.
"Oh, ah know who wins," he yowled in the mock Southern
accent he uses so often. "Ah wins. Now just give me the money
now and save all that fuss." He let off a deep sigh. "Frozen-
Rosen, what you doin* playin* in that high class crowd?"
ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER 67
The sign went up: "Welcome one and all. The best in the
East." And the names were there, great names in the money
game.
Jersey Red began turning down offers of sure card games.
He began to practice in earnest, sliding the cue down the slight
notch at the tip of his chin for steadiness, stroking with oily
smoothness again, and winning a little.
Money began to show, big money, hundreds bet on favorites,
or against them, at odds.
Red said, "I got to get my repah-tation back. Fm going to
win so easy , . "
Red didn't win, but he did come in second. He was getting
his infallible stroke back again.
It was 6 in the morning. Spring, over-exercise or the strain
of his approaching 12th year in this weary business had
reached his bones. Red put his cue in the back room, drank a
soda, sagged into a wooden chair. His eyes shut as he dozed
off.
A grizzled poolroom veteran and a young cueist talked in a
corner.
"I had a sucker last night, I handled him the way Red would
of. I got $20 off him eeeezy, Eeeeezy."
"Sure," said the unshaven one.
"Sucker, sucker."
"Where's the sucker?" snapped the shaggy ex-operator.
"Them suckers, they don't miss the 40 winks or the three
square. If they're suckers, there must be 80 million of 'em.
Suckers, haw!"
Down below the unwashed windows of Paddy's an open
convertible pulls to the curb quickly and four punks encourage
a pair of streetwalkers inside.
"Sure, honey, we double the price."
You can't hear it, but you know it.
Jersey Red rouses* A tubby and boisterous individual
named Rooney is awakening him by rubbing a ten-dollar bill
under his nose. They say Rooney is a steerer for a big crap
68 ANATOMY OF A POOL HUSTLER
game, knocks down several yards a week. He is a big loser in
Paddy's although a good player.
"Shake it, Red, I am ready. Ready!"
"Oh, it is you, old Rooney! Bless you. Hand it over/*
"Fight for it, you bastard."
"House, house, coffee in a glass!" The call echoes down the
hall. Coffee in a glass.
"Anybody got a cigarette?" And six hands make offers. The
table is picked, the ring forms. Jersey Red is going to play.
"Oh, Rooney, if I had your skill I'd take up whist, one-
handed! At least you get satisfaction you lose to the best. The
best. Best. . ."
Razzing echoes of agreement.
Pursuit of No, 60:
The Ordeal of Roger Marts
BY ROGER KAHN
Someone has described Roger Maris as "the most typical ball-
player in the world/' Like aU capsulizations, the description
is incomplete, but it is a starter. Beyond anything else, Maris is
a professional baseball player* His speech, his mannerisms, his
attitudes, derive from the curious society that is a ball club.
But into this society he has brought an integrity that is entirely
Ms own, a fierce, combative kind of integrity that is unusual
in baseball as it would be unusual anywhere. It is the integrity,
and his desperate effort to retain it, that has made the ordeal
of Roger Maris a compelling and disturbing thing to behold.
Maris is handsome in an unconventional way. Perhaps the
most arresting feature of his face is the mouth. The points of
his upper lip curl toward his nose, creating the effect of a
cupid's bow. He smiles easily, on cue. When one of the blur of
photographers covering him orders, "Come on, a nice smile/'
the response is quick. Then as soon as the picture is taken,
the smile vanishes. This knack the forced unforced smile is
common enough among chorus girls, but not among ball-
players who, after all, are not in the smiling business. It is
the only public relations device that Maris has mastered com-
pletely.
Copyright 1961 by Roger Kahn. Reprinted by permission of Sports Illus-
trated magazine.
70 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
When Maris is angry or annoyed or upset, the mouth
changes into a grim slash in a hard face. His nose is some-
what pointed, his cheekbones rather high, and the face under
the crew-cut brown hair can become menacing. Since Maris'
speech is splattered with expletives common among ballplay-
ers, some observers form an unfortunate first impression. They
see a hard-looking, tough-talking man and assume that is all
there is to see.
Maris' build bespeaks sports. He was an outstanding right
halfback at Shanley High School in Fargo, N. Dak. and he
might have played football at Oklahoma "except during the
entrance exams I decided not to." He is a strong 6 footer of
197 pounds, with muscles that flow, rather than bulge. He
would be hard to stop on the two-yard line.
At bat he is unobtrusive, until he hits the ball. He walks to
the plate briskly, pumps his 33-ounce bat once or twice and is
ready. He has none of the idiosyncrasies MusiaTs hip wiggle,
Colavito's shoulder shake by which fans like to identify
famous sluggers. Nor does he, like Ruth and Mantle, hit home
runs of 500 feet. By his own estimate, "If I hit it just right, it
goes about 450 feet, but they don't give you two homers for
hitting one 800 feet, do they?" His swing is controlled and
compact. He uppercuts the ball slightly and his special talent
is pulling the ball. Maris can pull any pitch in the strike zone.
Only one of his homers has gone to the left of center field.
His personality is unfinished; it is easy to forget that he has
just turned 27 and only recently become a star. He may change
now, as his life changes, as his world grows larger than a
diamond, but at the moment he is impetuous, inclined to
gripe harmlessly and truthful to a fault.
Recently a reporter, preparing an article for high school
students, asked, "Who's your favorite male singer?"
"Frank Sinatra," Maris said.
"Female singer?"
"I don't have a favorite female singer."
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 71
"Well," the reporter said, "would it be all right if I wrote
Doris Day?"
"How could yon write Doris Day when I tell you I don't
have a favorite?" Maris said, mystified by the ways of some
journalists.
In Detroit after Maris hit his 57th home ran off the facade
of the roof in right center field, Al Kaline picked up the ball
and threw it toward the Yankee dugout.
"Wasn't that nice of Kaline?" a reporter asked.
"Anybody would have done it," Maris said. "It was nice of
Kaline, but any ballplayer would have done it."
In Chicago someone asked if he really wanted to break
Ruth's record. "Damn right," Maris said, neglecting to pay
the customary fealty to the Babe.
"What I mean is," the reporter said, "Ruth was a great man."
"Maybe Fm not a great man," Maris said, "but I damn well
want to break the record. 9 *
Later Rogers Hornsby suggested a pitching pattern to stop
Maris. "Throw the first two inside and make him foul them,"
Hornsby said, "then come outside so he can't pull. It would
be a shame if Ruth's record got broken by a .270 hitter,"
" Hornsby," Maris said. "They been trying that on me
all year and you see how it works."
This is an era of image makers and small lies, and such
candor is rare and apparently confusing. Newspapers have
been crowded with headlines beginning MARIS BLASTS which
is a bad phrase. He doesn't blast, he answers questions. Fans,
some rooting for Ruth's memory but others responding to the
headlines, have booed Maris repeatedly. "Hey, Maris," some-
one shouted in Chicago, "the only thing you got in common
with Ruth is a belly." In Baltimore, fans called, "You'll choke
up on your glove." It has been a difficult time for Maris and
a bad time for truth.
Every day Maris has been surrounded before and after
games by 10 or 15 newspapermen. Necessarily many ques-
72 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
tions are repeated endlessly. Inevitably some of Marls' an-
swers are misinterpreted. Occasionally taste vanishes.
"Do you play around on the road?" a magazine writer asked.
Tm a married man," Maris said.
Tm married myself," the writer said, "but I play around
on the road."
"Thaf s your business," Maris said.
A reporter from Texas asked if Maris would rather bat .300
or hit 60 home runs, and a reporter in Detroit wanted to
know if a right-hander' s curve broke in on him. ("I would
suppose so," Maris said with controlled sarcasm, "seeing that
I bat left.") But aside from such extremes, most of the ques-
tions have not been either very good or very bad. What they
have been is multitudinous.
Under this pressure, which is both the same as and distinct
from the actual pursuit of Ruth, Maris has made four mistakes.
A wire service carried a story in late August quoting Maris
as saying that he didn't care about the record, that all he
wanted was the money 61 homers meant. "I don't think I said
that," Maris says, "and I know I didn't say it like it came out."
Then, in the space of 10 September days, he criticized the
fans at Yankee Stadium, the calls of Umpire Hank Soar and,
finally, hurt and angry, refused to meet the press after a
double-header in Detroit.
"An unfortunate image," comments Hank Greenberg, who
as Cleveland general manager signed Maris for a $15,000
bonus in 1952. "I know him, and he's just a boy. They get him
talking and he says things maybe you don't say to reporters.
The year I hit 58 [1938] the fans got pretty rough. Drunks
called me Jew bastard and kike, and I'd come in and sound
off about the fans. Then the next day I'd meet a kid, all pop-
eyed to be shaking my hand, and I'd know I'd been wrong.
But the writers protected me then. Why aren't the writers pro-
tecting Maris now?"
Even if they chose to, reporters could not "protect" Maris
because Maris was covered more intensely than any other
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 73
figure in sports history. Not Ruth, or Dempsey, or Tilden, or
Jones was ever subjected to such interviewing and shadowing
for so sustained a period. No one can protect Maris; he must
protect himself. But to do this, he would have to duck ques-
tions, and tell half-truths, and both are contrary to his nature.
Such is his dilemma. Obscurity is the only cure.
Roger Maris talks softly and clearly, but he is not a phrase
maker. He is not profound. He is a physical man, trying to
adjust to a complex psychological situation. This day he is
wearing a tomato-colored polo shirt, and he is smoking one of
the cigarettes he is paid to endorse.
He is asked what word he would use to describe all the at-
tention he has received.
He thinks for a moment and says, "Irritating. I enjoy bull
sessions with the guys [reporters]. But this is different, the
questions day after day, the big story. I say a guy [Hank Soar]
missed a few. I've always said it. Now it's in the papers, and
it comes out like I'm asking for favors. I'm saying" a touch of
anger colors his voice "call a strike a strike and call a ball a
ball, but in the papers it appears like I'm looking for favors."
About the people he meets?
"Mostly they're inconsiderate. The fans, they really get on
me. Rip me, my family, everything. I like to eat in the Stage
[a Jewish delicatessen in New York] and it's got so bad I can't
eat there. I can't get a mouthful of food down without some-
one bothering me. They even ask for autographs at Mass."
Now he is talking more easily, going from topic to topic
at the drop of a word. Like this:
Babe Ruth: "Why can't they understand? I don't want to be
Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I'm not trying to re-
place him. The record is there and damn right I want to break
it, but that isn't replacing Babe Ruth."
Oldtimers, generally: "It gets me sore, they keep comparing
me to Ruth, running me down, and I'm not trying to be Ruth.
It gets me damn sore."
Money: "I want enough for me and my family but I don't
74 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
really care that much for money. I want security, but if I
really cared about money I'd move to New York this winter,
wouldn't I? That's where the real money is, isn't it? But I'm
not moving to New York."
Frank Scott, the agent, who declared that Maris could earn
$500,000 by hitting 60 homers in 154 games: "It's a business
relationship between Scott and me, that's all. He lines up
something good, and I say O.K."
Fame: "It's good and it's bad. It's good being famous,
but I can't do the things I like any more. Like bulling with
the writers. I like to go out in public and be recognized a
little. Hell, I'm proud to be a ballplayer. But I don't like
being busted in on all the time and now, when I go out, I'm
busted in on all the time."
Cheers: "I don't tip my cap. I'd be kind of embarrassed
to. I figure the fans who cheer me know I appreciate it."
His current plight: Tm on my own all the way and I'm
the same me I was, and Mickey is, too. Once in a while,
maybe, it makes me go into a shell, but most of the time"
pride stirs in his voice Tm exactly the same as I was."
Pressure: "I don't feel a damn thing once the game starts.
I honestly don't But before the game, and afterward, the
writers and the photographers and the questions. That's pres-
sure. That's hard. In the game it's the same as always. I been
taking my swings, I've had some good swings, but I've fouled
some good pitches back. I'm not losing any sleep, or any-
thing like that, but I'm damn tired and when the season ends,
I'm going right home and rest."
Ralph Houk, the manager of the Yankees, won a silver
star and a purple heart in Europe during World War II and
so is familiar with pressure. Of Maris he said, Td say it
really got bad for him in Minneapolis. I'd say it began, you
know, real bad, when we were out there." Houk paused.
"Some funny things happen," he said, "Remember at the Sta-
dium when the Indians knocked out Whitey Ford in the
second inning? I was worried. His leg was bothering him
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 75
and Ford is a hell of a Series pitcher. So when the game was
over I started figuring what I'd tell the writers when they
asked me what was wrong with Ford. You know something?
Nobody asked." Ford himself, a worldly young man, added,
"It's the damnedest thing. All my life I've been trying to
win 20. This year I win 24, and all anybody asks me about
is home runs." Ford's tone was pleasant, a trifle puzzled but
not angry.
When the Yankees arrived in Minneapolis on that trip
late in August, 1961, Maris had 51 homers and Mantle 46.
Both were comfortably ahead of Ruth's record pace, and
both had to share uncomfortable amounts of attention.
A chartered bus appeared in front of the Hotel Radisson
well in advance of each game to carry the Yankees to Me-
morial Stadium. The downtown area of Minneapolis is com-
pact and the bus served as a signal to hundreds of Min-
neapolitans. As soon as it appeared, they herded into the
hotel lobby. "Seen Rog?" they asked. "Where's Mick?" En-
terprising children posted a watch on the eighth floor, where
many of the Yankees were quartered. When Maris or Mantle
approached the elevator, a child scout would sprint down
eight flights and shout to the lobby, "Here they come." (For-
tunately for the child scout, the elevators were unhurried
relics of a more leisurely time. )
What followed in the lobby was the sort of surge one as-
sociates with lynchings. Maris and Mantle survived that first
day because they are powerful men, but the next, tipped off
by a friendly bellman, they began leaving the elevator on the
second floor and taking a back stairway to the street.
Nothing much happened the first night in Minneapolis, ex-
cept that Camilo Pascual of the Minnesota Twins became
the father of a son and pitched a four-hit shutout. But a
day later Mantle hit his 47th, lifting a slow curve over the
left-field fence.
Reporters gathered around him afterward, and Mantle han-
dled them easily. "I tell you that was the most surprised I've
76 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
been all season,* he said, "If I'da missed it, I woulda been
on first anyway. The catcher couldn'ta caught it." Later Man-
tle cut his cheek shaving, and Gus Mauch, the Yankee trainer,
had to be summoned to stop the bleeding,
"Gillette?" someone asked.
Mantle grinned.
On the third day, the mayor of Fargo appeared at the ball-
park to present Maris with a "certificate of appreciation for
your loyalty and devotion to your home town of Fargo/*
(Maris was born in Hibbing, Minn., and lives in Raytown,
^a suburb of Kansas City, Mo. But he did spend his boyhood
in Fargo, and played American Legion baseball there.) Man-
tle hit No. 48 in the fourth inning. Maris did nothing.
The Yankees flew to New York where they settled the
pennant race by sweeping a three-game series from Detroit.
They beat Don Mossi 1-0 in the first game on Bill Skowron's
single in the ninth inning. Maris and Mantle were hitless, but
still they attracted the largest crowds in the clubhouse.
"Mossi had good stuff," Mantle said of his own effort.
"When you're going lousy, you're lousy," Maris said of his.
The next day Maris hit two home runs, No. 52 and No. 53,
but Mantle pulled a muscle checking a swing. Til take you
out/' Houk told Mantle on the bench. Til help," Mantle
said. Til bunt. I'll field. I'll get on/' Mantle stayed in the
lineup, and a day later he hit two, his 49th and his 50th. The
Tigers never recovered and now, with the Yankees all but
certain to win the pennant, fans, reporters and photographers
turned all their attention to Maris and Mantle. Newspapers
started guessing games, with cash prizes for those who fore-
cast how many homers the two would hit. A stripper, playing
a minor burlesque circuit, adopted the name of Mickey Maris.
A Japanese sports editor sent a list of 18 questions to the
Associated Press in New York, requesting that Maris and
Mantle answer all of them.
After hearing five or six, Maris said to the A.P. reporter,
"This is driving me nuts/'
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 77
"That's my next question," the reporter shouted. "They
want to know how you're reacting to all this."
During the next week at Yankee Stadium, Mans hit No.
54, a fierce liner to right center off Tom Cheney of Wash-
ington, No. 55, a high drive into the bleachers off Dick
Stigman of Cleveland and No. 56, another drive into the
bleachers, off Mudcat Grant, another Indian. Mantle also hit
three, and this week, which ended on September 10, was the
last in which Mantle fully shared the pre- and postgame pres-
sures.
As a young ballplayer, Mantle had been almost mute in
the presence of interviewers. "Yup," was a long answer;
"maybe," was an oration. But over the years he has developed
a noncommittal glibness and a fair touch with a light line.
"When I hit 48," he told a group one day, "I said to Rog,
*I got my man. The pressure's off me.'" (The year Ruth
hit 60, Lou Gehrig hit 47.) Such comments kept Mantle's
press relations reasonably relaxed, but Maris, three years
younger than Mantle, 10 years younger a star, had to labor.
Maris insists that such laborings had no effect on Ms play,
but others close to him are not so sure. "Those daily press
conferences didn't do Mm any good," remarked one friend.
Two days before the Yankee home stand ended, a reporter
asked Maris about the fans behind Mm in right field. "Ter-
rible," Maris said. "Maybe the worst in the league." He re-
counted a few unprintable remarks that had been shouted at
Mm and, under consistent prodding, ran down the customers
for 10 or 15 minutes. The next day after reading the papers
he said to an acquaintance, "That's it. I been trying to be a
good guy to the writers, but I quit. You heard me talking.
Did I sound like the papers made it look?"
"No."
"Well, from now on 111 tell the writers what pitch I Mt,
but no more big spiels."
"Because one or two reporters roughed you, are you going
to take it out on everybody?"
78 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
Mans looked uncomfortable. "Listen," he said, "I like a
lot of the writers. But even so, they are No, 2. No, 1 is my-
self. I got to look out for myself. If it hurts someone else,
damn it, Fm sorry, but I got to look out for myself more
than I have/*
Maris hit no homers in the double-header that concluded
the home stand and afterward committed the only truly grace-
less act of his ordeal. "Well?" a reporter said to Maris, whose
locker adjoins Elston Howard's.
"He hit a homer, not me," Maris said, gesturing toward
Howard. "Mr. Howard, tell these gentlemen how you did it."
"If I had 55 homers, I'd be glad to tell the gentlemen,"
Howard said, pleasantly.
"Fifty-six," Maris corrected. "What are you trying to do?
Shortchange me?" Then he marched into the players' lounge
to watch television.
A fringe of Hurricane Carla arrived in Chicago on Tues-
day, the 12th, shortly after the Yankees. The game had to be
called in the bottom of the sixth, when a downpour hit
Comiskey Park. Maris had come to bat four times and gone
homerless. Reporters asked him if he'd had good pitches to
hit
"I didn't get too many strikes," Maris said. "But they were
called strikes. Soar had me swinging in self-defense."
The next day's newspapers headlined that casual, typical
ballplayer's gripe. Maris was shocked and horrified. Until that
moment he had not fully realized the impact his words now
carried. Until that moment he had not fully realized the price
one must pay for being a hero. He was disturbed, upset,
withdrawn. Tortured would be too strong a word, but only
slightly. He showed his hurt by saying little; his mouth ap-
peared permanently set in its hard line. He hit no home runs
in Chicago and when the Yankees moved on to Detroit he
hit none in a twi-night double-header.
That was the night he declined to meet the press. His
brother, Rudy, a mechanical engineer, had driven from his
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 79
home in Cincinnati to see the games, and later Roger and
Rudy sat in the trainer's room, from which reporters are
barred. "Get him out," a reporter told Bob Fishel, the Yan-
kees publicity director.
Fishel talked briefly to Maris. "He says he's not coming
out," Fishel announced. "He says he's been ripped in every
city he's been in, and he's not coming out/'
"Rog won't come out," a reporter told Houk.
"That's his business," Houk said.
"How come we can't go in and talk to him, and Ms brother
can?"
"Are you trying to tell me how to run my clubhouse?"
Houk said, flaring, "Is that what you're trying to do?"
"But his brother-"
"That's right, he's talking to his brother, and if he had
150 brothers they couldn't all come in, but he's only got
one. If that isn't the funniest thing all year, you telling me
a man has no right to talk to his brother."
When things calmed, someone said quietly to Houk, "The
important thing is for Mm to make an appearance."
"I know that," Houk said, "and I know Maris, and now
is not the time to talk to him. We'll all be more relaxed later
on."
Eventually Maris reconsidered, relaxed and emerged.
"Any complaints about the umpiring tonight?" a Detroit
newspaperman asked.
"Nope," Maris said, "and you got me wrong. I don't com-
plain about umpiring."
When the reporters left, Mantle walked over to Maris.
"Mick, it's driving me nuts, I'm telling you," Maris said.
"And I'm telling you, you got to get used to it," Mantle
said. Houk then joined Mantle, and the manager talked to
Maris for a long time.
The next night Maris hit No. 57, the one Al Kaline re-
trieved, and a day later, after missing a home run by a foot
when he tripled off the fence in right, he won the game for
80 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
the Yankees in the 12th inning with No. 58, a drive into the
upper deck in right center field.
As the ball carried high and far, the Yankee dugout
erupted in excitement. "Attaboy, Rog!" the most sophisticated
players in the major leagues shouted, and "Yea/* and "At-
tababy."
"It was one of the warmest things I've seen all year," said
Bob Cerv, the outfielder, "We all know how tough it's been
for Rog, and I guess we all decided right then, all at once,
that we wanted him to know how much we were for him."
The team went to Baltimore by train. Marts had hit and lost
a homer there on July 17, when rain stopped a game in the
fifth inning before it was official. He had hit no other homers
in the Orioles* large park. If he were going to catch Ruth in
154 games, he would have to hit two there in two days,
He hit none the first night, dragging through a double-
header. Now, in addition to hoots from the stands, he was
getting hoots by mail (two dozen letters) and wire (six tele-
grams)* "A lot of people in this country must think it's a
crime to have anyone break Ruth's record," he said.
The second night, in the Yankees' 154th game, Mantle,
who had long since left center stage, vanished into the wings
with a cold. Before the game Ms eyes were glazed and he
was coughing and spitting phlegm. He wasn't well enough to
play, and game 154 was left to Maris alone.
No one who saw game 154, who beheld Maris* response
to the challenge, is likely soon to forget it. His play was as
brave and as moving and as thrilling as a baseball player's
can be. There were more reporters and photographers around
him now than ever before. Newsmen swelled the Yankee
party, which normally numbers 45, to 71. And this was the
town where Babe Ruth was born, and the crowd had not
come to cheer Maris.
The first time up, Maris shot a line drive to Earl Robinson
in right field. He had overpowered Milt Pappas* pitch, but
he had not gotten under the ball quite enough. Perhaps an
PURSUIT OF NO. 60 81
eighth of an inch on the bat was all that kept the drive from
sailing higher and farther.
In the third inning Maris took a ball, a breaking pitch
inside, swung and missed, took another ball and then hit No.
59, a 390-foot line drive that all but broke a seat in the
bleachers. Three more at bats and one home run to tie.
When he came up again, Dick Hall was pitching. Maris
took two strikes, and cracked a liner, deep but foul, to right.
Then he struck out. When Maris came to bat again in the
seventh inning the players in the Yankee bullpen, behind the
fence in right center, rose and walked to the fence. "Come on,
Roger, baby, hit it to me," shouted Jim Coates. "If I have
to go 15 rows into the stands, Til catch that No. 60 for you."
"You know," said Whitey Ford, Tm really nervous."
Maris took a strike, then whaled a tremendous drive to
right field. Again he had overpowered the ball and again he
had hit a foul. Then he lifted a long fly to right center, and
there was that eighth of an inch again. An eighth of an inch
lower on the bat and the long fly might have been a home run
the home ran.
Hoyt Wilhelm was pitching in the ninth. He threw Maris
a low knuckle ball, and Maris, checking his swing, fouled it
back. Wilhelm threw another knuckler, and Maris moved his
body but not his bat. The knuckler, veering abruptly, hit
the bat and the ball rolled back to Wilhelm, who tagged
Maris near first base.
Tm just sorry I didn't go out with a real good swing,"
Maris said. "But that Wilhelm." He shook his head. He had
overpowered pitches in four of his five times at bat and had
gotten only one home run. "Like they say," he said, "you
got to be lucky."
Robert Reitz, an unemployed Baltimorean, retrieved No.
59 and announced that the ball was worth $2,500.
"I'd like to have it," said Maris, blunt to the end, "but I'm
not looking to get rid of that kind of money for it."
The Yankees won the 154th game, 4-2, and with it
82 PURSUIT OF NO. 60
clinched the American League pennant. Maris wore a gray
sweater at the victory party, and someone remarked that in
gray and with his crew-cut, he looked like a West Point foot-
ball player. One remembered then how young he is, and how
he believes in honesty as youth does.
"The big thing with you," a Mend said to him, "is you tell
the truth and dotft go phony."
"That's all I know," Roger Maris said. "That's the only
way I know how to be. That* s the way I'm gonna stay/'
The 49er Who Eats Raw Meat
BY ARNOLD HANO
Robert Brace St. Clair-'The Geek" to his San Francisco 49er
teammates stands six feet, nine inches tall,, eats raw meat,
wrestled a tornado, has toes bigger than his wife's fingers, and
is so strong that he has graduated out of normal conversa-
tion and into a special frame of reverence.
When Sam Huff generally conceded the toughest and best
defensive linebacker in the business speaks of professional
football, he cites with hushed awe the one time in his career
an opposing ballplayer ever really racked him up. The man
was Bob St. Clair.
In his freshman year with the New York Giants, Huff was
standing idly by a pHeup, counting bodies, when St. Clair
spotted him. Bob remembers the incident quite well, too. Like
most pros, St. Clair gets a huge kick out of belting another
man, especially one as good as Huff.
"Standing by a pileup is a typical rookie trick," St. Clair says
with scorn. "You learn that in college. You know, never pile
on, and all the rest of the Queensberry twaddle. So you stop
short, say, "Oops, sorry,* and there you are, all off balance, a
fat target." St. Clair relishes the memory. "I saw Huff standing
like that. Man, you can hit them so hard when they're off
Copyright 1962 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Arnold Hano, c/o The Sterling Lord Agency.
84 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
balance, they'll think their head was on a swivel You can
really pick 'em off that way."
Huff agrees. "Bob blindsided me and like to cut me in half/'
It was a sobering lesson for Huff, He no longer stands by while
football players pile on. He jumps on, like the rest.
Bob St. dak is the owner of a liquor store, the head of a
family, the mayor of Daly City (a suburb of nearly 50,000,
just outside San Francisco), but most of all, a professional
football player. He is not mean or dirty. St. Glair's joy out of
belting another man loose of his intelligence stems simply from
the fact he can win recognition no other way. He is an offen-
sive lineman, in an era where the cheers are for the quarter-
backs, the halfbacks, the ends, and the whole defensive squad.
Nobody loves the five men over the ball, from tackle to tackle,
"The fans will jump up and carry a guy on their shoulders
because he's run 40 yards," St. Clair points out. "Meanwhile
nobody comes out to the three or four linemen who knocked
themselves out to spring the back loose to help them out of
the mud."
St. Clair says this without rancor. It is a fact of his life, just
as it is another fact that unless the defense is held off, the
quarterback who makes twice as much money as the average
offensive lineman will suddenly be playing up in Canada or
selling insurance.
It is St. Glair's job to make the offense go, and he is a
proud man who insists on doing his job as well as he can. He
does it well enough, apparently. Four times voted to the Pro
Bowl, and three times an All-Pro offensive tackle, there is a
large body of footballers who think the 30-year-old St. Clair
the very finest of all offensive tackles, a breed that includes,
among others, the Colts' 275-pound Jim Parker and the
Giants' Rosey Brown.
There is something about St. Clair that epitomizes profes-
sional football. This is the game Los Angeles Rams* line coach
Don Paul says "is played for pay by huge, finely trained ani-
mals." It is the game of which San Francisco running back
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 85
J. D. Smith once said: "I love to hit them. I like to see their
faces when they get up." And the game St. Clair says "is built
around roughness. There is a personal thrill out of knocking
a man down, really hitting him. It is the only satisfaction a
lineman has. It gets you up, hitting a man, it gives you a jolt
of that old adrenalin."
It is a sport where power is still the touchstone. For all your
wraithlike halfbacks, and all your dainty passing attacks,
power makes them go. A passer is nothing, except dead, if
nobody puts the blocks to Gino Marchetti, barreling in. A
runner is nothing, except maimed, unless Joe Schmidt is swept
out of the play by some mountainous tackle swinging into the
secondary. Violence. Strength. Power. Bob St. Glair's trade-
marks.
A San Francisco writer suggested in 1960 that Bob St.
Clair was "probably stronger" than any player in the NFL.
Nobody called Mm on it. And St. Clair, today, swears he's
stronger now than he was then.
He is shy three inches of seven feet the tallest man in the
NFL, and at a playing weight that varies from 255 to 260, one
of the big boys.
Just to get his size down on record where mortals can
comprehend it, all the doorways in St. Glair's house in Daly
City have been made seven feet high. His bed, custom-built,
is seven feet long and six and a half feet wide. On the road,
St. Clair simply throws the hotel mattress on the floor, adds a
couple of pillows to its length, and sleeps that way, saving a
grateful hotel management sudden obsolescence on box
springs. He wears a size 15 shoe, and when he made his only
appearance in a boxing ring in a Golden Gloves contest in
Oklahoma, he had to go in barefoot, because there were no
shoes to fit him. He is so tall that in 1956 he blocked ten field-
goal attempts, surely a record in a category nobody bothers
keeping statistics On. All Bob had to do was take two steps
past the defense and stand his full height, and catch footballs
in his mouth.
86 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
A few years back Bob blocked a Ram punt with his face,
and in the process shattered a few teeth. He had the bloody
shards extracted, and the next week in a game with the Giants,
St. Clair demonstrated that he is more than just strong and
big. He can run. The combination is terrifying. In an exhibi-
tion at Seattle before 49,000, Giant defensive back Em Tun-
nell picked off a Y. A. Tittle pass on his own 20 and headed
upfield. The speedy Tunnell outran all defenders by midfield,
and was on the 49er 30 when he decided to look behind him.
There was St. Clair, bearing down.
"Tunnell looked kind of funny," St. Clair recalls. "I guess he
couldn't figure why I was gaining on him."
Funny, or a bit shaken. St. Clair caught Tunnell and rode
him down on the 20. Catching Tunnell from behind remains
the biggest personal thrill of St. Glair's pro career. It surely
remains a nightmare in Tunnell's mind, a moving skyscraper
getting ready to fall on him.
The reason St. Clair was gaining is that he is very fast for
a man his size, blinding fast. St. Clair ran the relays in high
school, and with legs the length of redwoods, he eats up the
ground. At the University of San Francisco, St. Clair was for
a spell an offensive end, and one of the best on the West
Coast. He is a graceful man, with a light, almost feathery
touch. At high school, St. Clair once entered a ten-event agility
test situps, pushups, dashes and the rest and won the con-
test, even though such courses are usually meat for wiry scat-
back types, not Cro-Magnon tackles.
But no matter how you try, you can't get around his
strength. It is the key to St. Clair. On August 5, 1961, at
the beginning of the practice season, coach Red Hickey asked
St. Clair to show the rookie hopefuls at the 49er camp at Red-
wood City how to hit a tackling dummy. St. Clair obliged. (I
know you've heard this before, but this time it's true.) He
charged, snarling, and slammed into the mammoth dangling
dummy they call Big Bertha. There was a sound like a thou-
sand blownup paper sacks bursting. Down came Bertha, saw-
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 87
dust and all. It wasn't a case of breaking an old chain or
rotting cable, mind you; the dummy itself split apart and broke
in two. It was St. Clair hitting, and something having to give.
That's the way it's been for nine pro years now.
It began that way. On a muggy July day in 1953 that
marked the 49ers* first intra-squad scrimmage, St. Clair was
just one of 13 rookies hoping to make the team. He took Ms
place on the offensive line opposite Leo Nomellini. The ball
was snapped, the men charged, and strong men blanched.
"It was," a Bay area poet later said, "like a couple of bull
elephants trying to get out of a phone booth," More exactly,
it was a quarter-ton of professional football tackles pasting
each other, one a rangy broth of a lad, the other a whole bowl
of minestrone.
What made the first contact so memorable is that St. Clair
had never played a minute of offensive tackle since high
school. This was Ms maiden outing with the pros. And Leo
Nomellini was not only an All-Pro tackle, at 265 pounds,
he was on his way to the greatest show of durability in any
sport, 205 consecutive football games, through the opening
of the '61 season.
They call Nomellini, naturally enough, Leo the Lion. It was
against this beast that they threw young Bob St. Clair, a fresMy
handsome boy who was merely big and strong and growing,
at 6-7 and 235 pounds, and greener than St. Patrick's Day.
With the odds stacked so Mgh they resembled Pisa, Bob
St. Clair held his own against the Lion on the 49er practice
field. The divots that My day in 1953 were big enough to
serve as family-sized bomb shelters. St. Clair made the team.
If there is a simple explanation for Bob St. Glair's strength,
it is that he eats his meat raw. Literally. A conversation at a
San Francisco restaurant dining table goes sometMng like tMs.
A waitress flounces up.
"WhatTl it be?"
"Steak."
"How?"
88 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
"Raw/*
Pause. "You mean blood rare?"
Longer pause. "Sir, we we're not allowed to. If s against
the law, or something,"
"Raw,"
"Not-on the fire?"
"Take it out of the icebox and put it on a plate."
Later, while St. Clair is eating his raw filet, the cook will
peep from behind his swinging door, and the management
will try to keep nearby patrons from looking at St. Clair. For
fear they'll get sick.
But raw it is, and raw it's been ever since Bob's grand-
mother gave the boy a dish of salted blood gravy from a roast.
Whenever he can, St. Clair eats his meat completely uncooked:
steak, unroast beef, hamburger. When St. Clair joined the
49ers, veteran guard Bruno Banducci tagged on the name
"The Geek," and Bob's been "The Geek" ever since.
St. Clair also eats raw liver, the idea of which has been
known to frighten Russians. He is not, by the way, a big eater,
for all his heft. It is the high-protein, energy-producing con-
tent that interests St. Clair, plus his insistence that raw meat is
tastier than cooked. His diet also includes raw eggs, lots of
salad, and little or no potatoes. He is addicted to wheat germ
oil (which he does not consider tasty) , gobbling it by the table-
spoon with orange juice every morning because, he says, it is
good for the heart. And he is especially fond of honey: "The
only food that goes straight to the bloodstream without being
digested through the stomach. It's a great energy food, a shot
of pure glucose to the veins."
Honey and wheat-germ oil are not the only juices in St.
Clair's life. He drinks good-sized amounts of beer, and after a
ball game will stay up quite late with the boys and their wives
at a San Francisco eatery, quaffing brew and later switching to
vodka screwdrivers (which, with their orange juice, provide a
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 89
pleasant path to vitamin sufficiency). St. Clair also chews to-
bacco during practice sessions, and smokes cigars.
At Ms Daly City home, where he lives with his wife Ann
(who weighs in at a nifty 112 pounds) and their four kids,
the obvious has transpired. Ann St. Clair one supper said to the
children: "Come on, let's eat. Don't you want to be big like
Daddy?" Now all four kids swear by raw meat. They don't,
however, drink as yet, or chew, or smoke. Gary, the St. Glairs'
older boy at nine, is shrewdly proud of his father. Tm real
glad Dad is a football player," he says. And adds: "Because
he makes lots of money!" To which the older St. Clair, who
earns around $13,000 in salary, says softly: "But not as much
as a quarterback, son. Polish up that throwing arm."
St. Clair does not come from a family of outsized speci-
mens. His mother is 5-3, and Ms father 5-10. Nor was St.
Clair always bigger than average when he was a kid.
In Ms youth on the streets of the Mission district in San
Francisco St. Clair is the only native San Franciscan on the
49er rosterthe boy ran with a gang of chain-wielding, knife-
flashing, trouble-making no-goods who spent their more
sociable moments in mass war with other gangs. The rest of
their activity was worse. Some of the boys ended up in jail.
Straight-faced, St. Clair says Ms mates were picked up for
"petty things. You know, like armed robbery. Or a little
trouble with the interstate commerce commission taking a
stolen car across the state lines."
But all this time, Bob wasn't a big boy. One day while pre-
sumably a sophomore at Mgh school, he stopped by and saw
some boys belting each other with helmets and shoulder pads,
and tossing an oval-shaped spheroid downfield. The 15-year-
old St. Clair watched, fascinated, especially when the boys
ran into each other, and bodies disintegrated under churning
legs and swinging arms. The hope someday of being a fully-
developed delinquent gave way before tMs new form of may-
hem. He tried out for the football team. Coach Joe Verducci
turned the boy away kindly, "You're too small," Verducci
90 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
murmured. And St. Clair was, at 5-9 and 150 pounds. Sadly,
he rejoined Ms rock-throwing pals. But he also redoubled his
health-food kick, poured the blood juices and honey into his
veins, ate his steaks right out of the freezer, and by the time
the 1947 football season rolled around, the boy was on his
way: he reported to a bug-eyed Verducci at 6-4 and 210
pounds!
At Polytech High, where Bob became a big man, literally
and figuratively, he met a pretty blonde, Ann Wickstrom, and
the two went on a first date to Seals Stadium, to see a Pacific
Coast League baseball game. Holding his girl's hand, St. Clair
suddenly remarked that he thought his toes were longer than
her fingers. Ann laughed, and told him not to be silly, and St.
Clair promptly took off his shoes and socks and proved it on
the spot. The two were married before high-school graduation.
St. Clair won a scholarship to the University of San Fran-
cisco where in his junior year in 1951 he played under Joe
Kuharich. His teammates included Gino Marchetti and Ollie
Matson and their USF squad was, as they say, undefeated,
untied and uninvited. The team was so good that the uni-
versity hastily dropped football after that 1951 season in a
furor over athletic emphasis. So St. Clair accepted a scholar-
ship to Tulsa for Ms 1952 season, and once again played with
a big-time team, good enough to go into (and lose) the Gator
Bowl,
It was at Tulsa that St. Clair met and defeated a Golden
Glove boxer and a tornado.
The fight was by far the easier. The heavyweight division of
a Golden Gloves tournament in northeastern Oklahoma was
short of entrants, and the captain of Tulsa's football team
suggested that St. Clair make an appearance. Bob agreed. They
threw him into the ring with an amateur who'd won several
Gloves matches. St Clair had never even boxed oranges.
Despite his inexperience the sight of all those bare muscles
rippling from a thin-aired altitude down to Ms huge bare feet
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 91
set the crowd against St. Clair, and they began cheerfully to
root for his smaller foe to take him apart.
With the beH, Bob moved out and tried a tentative left jab,
because he'd read about such things. He stepped back, expect-
ing Ms more knowing foe to unloose a barrage of punches.
"Then I saw he'd stepped back, too, and it dawned on me.
Maybe the fellow was scared of me because of my size."
So Bob waded in, throwing punches, and in a red haze of
sudden fury, the boy in front of him went down, and the next
thing St. Clair knew the referee was trying to pull him off his
unconscious foe. Bob shoved the referee to the canvas, and
the crowd was in bedlam. The time was 20 seconds.
"I hated it," St. Clair has said since, "I hated what it did to
me. I hated what the fans called me. And I knew that no
matter how experienced the other man might be, just because
of my size, the crowd would always root against me, I never
fought again/*
He has never faced a tornado more than that one time
either. On a misty spring day in 1953, Bob and a friend drove
off to a spot on the Grand River, a tributary of the Arkansas,
where white bass are thick and hungry.
"We were having great luck, catching 'em like flies, when
I looked downriver and saw a big black cloud on the
ground, headed toward me. It looked like a black wall. My
friend started to scream we were a hundred yards apart
and began to wave at me. It was drizzling a little, and the wind
had started to whip. Finally I realized he was saying:
Tornado!'"
St. Clair raced up the river bank, and the two boys piled
in the car for protection just as the tornado struck full force.
"The car was bouncing up and down. All four wheels were
off the ground at times. Finally the wind picked up the car
and hurled it against some cement bulkheads. The car stood
like that, leaning against the bulkheads, the wind banging it.
The bulkheads probably saved our lives. Finally the wind
passed on." St. Clair had lived through a tornado, and when
92 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
you tell the anecdote to his 49er mates, they scoff. It had to
be a pretty damn-fool tornado to tangle with St Clair, even up,
Not that St. Clair can't be hurt. He takes his beating, and it
is an awesome beating at times. After the opening game of
the 1961 season (49ers 35, Redskins 3), St Clair changed
slowly into a blue shirt with a businessman's narrow blue tie
and dark suit, and then casually asked trainer Henry Schmidt
for a couple of codeine tablets. On a blocking play in the
third quarter, St. Clair had badly bruised his left side, just
below his rib cage and above the hip. "It was a stupid play,"
St. Clair says. "I tried to get fancy. I threw the block with
the side of my body instead of running right up and over the
guy, straight on/' St. Clair played the whole game on offense,
and nobody knew he'd been hurt until he asked for the pain
killers.
Schmidt, the trainer, has ministered to football bodies for
over 30 years, and he is still awed by St. Clair.
"It is remarkable the way Bob shakes off injuries. The only
way you can get him out of the lineup is to hogtie him. During
practice he had a bad kneecap, so swollen he couldn't close
the knee. He kept playing. I fixed Mm a pad; he wouldn't
wear the pad/'
Schmidt adds one note that is typical of St. Clair. "Funny
thing, whenever I'm working on Bob on the table, and I hit
a tender spot, instead of crying out or whimpering the way
everybody else does, he laughs. That's the only way I know
it hurts."
It isn't quite true you can't get St. Clair out of the lineup.
In a game with the Rams in 1957, the 49ers missed a field-goal
try, and the Rams ran out the ball. St. Clair made the tackle,
and, in the ensuing pileup, felt a numbing twinge in his right
shoulder. Despite the pain which grew so great he no longer
could put his right hand to the ground on his charge, St. Clair
played eight more minutes, or until a Ram plowed into his
right shoulder. Bob nearly fainted, and he came out of the
game. He had suffered a severe shoulder separation, and was
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 93
operated on a few days later. Today he bears a three-inch scar
across the top of his shoulder where it was opened up to in-
sert a silver screw, and a second smaller scar where the screw
was removed.
St Clair missed seven weeks, and did not return until the
49ers were at Bear Mountain, New York, preparing to play
the Giants. The 49ers had lost three in a row and were badly
dispirited when the door to the lobby of the Bear Mountain
Inn suddenly was flung open, and St. Clair strode into the
room. Never one to miss a dramatic moment, St. Clak an-
nounced in round, rich dark tones: "I am Moses, come to
lead the 49ers out of the wilderness." The following Sunday,
with snow on the ground, San Francisco upset the Giants,
27-17. St. Clair was back, his obliterating blocking once
again providing running room and time to pass, and the 49ers
closed out the season with wins over the Colts and the Packers,
for an 8-4 record,
At the job upon which an offensive lineman's job pivots-
blocking for the passer he is the original immovable force,
Monty Stickles says: "Bob's pass-blocking is invincible." It is
only when St, Clair faces Gino Marchetti, Ms old buddy from
USF, that the odds come down to dead-even, and in a game
where head-on duels are becomMg more than just spectacular
sideshows, the St Clair-Marchetti war is every bit as earth-
shaking as the Huff- Jim Brown love match.
St. Clair cannot stand up and let Marchetti close in on
him. The defensive man, of course, is allowed to use his hands.
"If Marchetti gets his hands on me in that first burst, he can
control me. So I have to give ground slowly, chop at Mm,
hold him off as long as I can." Sometimes it works; sometimes
Marchetti pours through and smears the passer. Each time
the duel is bone-crushing, a little frightening, and quite a bit
majestic. St. Clair actually looks forward to games with the
Colts, because, as he says with no trace of conceit: "Gino
brings out the best in me, just as I bring out the best in him."
Someplace along the line these duels and the rest of batter-
94 THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT
ing contact will take some toll on St. Glair's seemingly limit-
less reservoir of strength. St Clair was 31 years old February
18. On the 49er roster, only the ageless Nomellini, at 37, is
older. But the big tackle has set no retirement date. He in-
tends to play as long as he can.
"Hell," he said recently, "I couldn't quit now if I wanted
to. I'm not playing football just to make money. My liquor
store is real good. It's a matter of pride, of desire. I like the
game. It has not become more painful. If anything, it is less
painful. I am stronger now than I have ever been. I try to
learn something every game. I play as well as I can because
I don't want to look like a yokel out there, in front of 60,000
people."
So it seems that Bob St. Clair will step out as soon as he
knows he is no longer enjoying the game. When he does quit,
there is little doubt that St. Clair will always have it made.
His liquor store, at 24th and Sanchez in the Twin Peaks sec-
tion of 'Frisco, opened in January of 1961, and was swiftly a
money-maker. Then there is St. Glair's political ambitions.
Bob was elected in 1958 to the City Council of Daly City,
where the St. Clairs have lived since 1954. The Council in
turn recently selected St. Clair as Mayor. St. Clair intends to
run for re-election to the Council in April of 1962, and he
thinks, again without conceit, that he will be returned to office.
"I think the people here like what I've done so far," he says.
"I helped push through a big new library. Other things, too."
Perhaps the flossiest addition to the town during St. Glair's
term occurred when the city decided to rip out some old trolley
tracks. It was St. Clair who suggested the planting of palm
trees along a two-mile stretch of the new street divider. It
dresses up an older section of town, and St. Clair often drives
his Pontiac station wagon, or his Ford convertible along this
stretch of palm, obviously proud of the new look.
St. Clair experienced just one touchy moment in his Coun-
cil work. After John Kennedy's election in 1960, St. Clair
also a Democrat decided to put up a large picture of the
THE 49ER WHO EATS RAW MEAT 95
new president in the Council chambers at City HalL In-
stantly there rose up a loud outcry; the Council is a non-
partisan body, and Californians take their non-partisan
politics even more seriously than partisan elections,
So St. Clair went ahead and tacked up the photograph any-
way, turned to Ms fellow Councilmen and townspeople, and
said: "He's president of all the people, isn't he?" and every-
body quickly shut up.
The fact is, St. Clair has one tremendous advantage over
other Mayors. Nobody but nobody ever dreams of fighting
his City HalL
A Race Driver's Long Good-bye
BY ANGELO ANGELOPOLOUS
There is, in every blood sport, a lonely time between the pre-
paring for battle and the doing which clutches hard at the
stomach and won't let go. The bullfighter knows his hour
while the tight suit is helped on and when prayers are whis-
pered in the flickering light of candles before the Virgin's
shrine. The boxer, nearly alone in the shabbiness of a bulb-
lighted dressing room, hears the sounds of the crowd filter
down through the stadium and knows that another fighter is
waiting for him. The mountain climber, pitons jangling from
his belt, squints upward toward his summit, a fragile human
about to assault a rock face that may shrug him off to death,
At Indianapolis, Indiana, a 500-mile automobile race is
held each year on May 30. Since its beginning in 1911, 47
men have been killed questing victory on the 2^-mile oval
track. At 170 miles an hour, death rides with every decision,
with every twist of the wheel The people who promote the
great race don't talk about this; the companies that put up
prize money pay off whether the driver lives or dies; and 175 r
000 spectators all deny they come to see blood. But it is there
as it is in the bull plaza or the fight ring or on the frozen
pinnacles of an alp.
If you are one of the men who will tomorrow sit four hours
Copyright 1959 by Fawcett Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of
True, The Man's Magazine.
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 97
in the cockpit of a 350-horsepower machine, who expects to
be roasted by heat, gassed with engine fumes, racked by vibra-
tion, burned raw by the whipping wind, then you think a lot,
and the 24 hours before your trial are a lonely and special
time.
James Ernest Bryan was a cigar-chewing, six-foot-one race
car driver who was national champion in 1954, 1956 and
1957. He had struck six times for the big money at Indian-
apolis, Once he finished second, once third, once sixth; three
times he was out of the money. In six tries, he had motored
a total of 2,645 competition miles around the track they call
the Brickyard. Enough to know all about the risks. Now, in
about 24 hours, he would be taking those risks again.
The day before the race is a quiet time at Indianapolis. Two
weeks of qualifying trials are over. Thirty-three cars and their
crews and drivers wait, each tense family hovering about its
own handmade automobile in a small private garage, the ga-
rages themselves arranged side by side in three rows of wooden
buildings that, as a group, are called Gasoline Alley.
In Bryan's garage three men puttered about the race car
while the man who would drive it two hundred times around
sat quietly puffing a cigar. A year before, with another driver
at the wheel, this same piece of racing machinery called the
Belond Special had won the race. Many people expected it to
win again.
George Salih, the young designer-builder, stood behind his
creation, sure hands filing the teeth of a gear. A mechanic
stooped low into the engine; another was mounting a new left
rear tire. Time ticked by in suspense, Bryan, big and blond,
stirred from his camp stool, gave one more long, thoughtful
look at the colorful, partly dismembered automobile, then
took his new, yellow race-day coveralls down from a hanger
on the wall and walked out the wide doors into the May sun-
shine.
A few yards down the line of garages he came to the track's
first-aid station. He passed drivers, mechanics, photographers
98 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
and track functionaries milling about. Bryan nodded greetings
and went directly to a big steel barrel marked FIRE REPEL-
LENT. Into this he dipped the new uniform, poking it down
into the liquid until it was soaked, then hoisting it aloft, drip-
ping. He walked back to his garage, hung the wet suit in the
sun by the door, then headed for the washroom to soap the
chemical solution off Ms hands before it got starchy. Near the
washroom door was a large bulletin board, Bryan stopped to
read notices.
"It is urged that all drivers, garage and pit crews use fire
repellent solution on their clothes AT ALL TIMES, particu-
larly the outside garments."
"Any driver involved in an accident on race day, please report
to the hospital* This is the quickest way to get word to your
friends and relatives that you are injured."
"Drivers must have helmets inspected and stamped. Minimum
coverage of shell, which must be made of fiberglass, should
cover floor of brain (bony projection at back of head) and be
high enough in front to cover forehead down to eyebrows."
"Use of seat belts with quick-opening clasp is mandatory. Use
of shoulder harness is optional If shoulder harness is used, it
must be equipped with quick-opening clasp."
No news here for Bryan. Just the same warnings, the same
conditions for survival that become standard procedures for a
racing driver. If you hit something and burn, the solution
will keep your suit from burning too for a minute, maybe.
If you go on your head and don't bounce too hard or too
often, the helmet may save your skull. If you kiss the wall
in a turn and have 10 or 15 seconds to get out of a mangled
race car, you need the quick-opening clasps. If s all elemen-
tary. Bryan walked back to his garage. It was 1 1 a.m. Twenty-
four hours from now, almost to the minute, he would be
sitting in the cockpit of his car, engine running, waiting for
the start , . .
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 99
Back in the garage, Bryan lit another cigar and quietly re-
turned to Ms seat, back to the wall, out of the way of the boys
still working on the car ... the never-finished job of pre-
paring a racing machine for its task. Bryan watched every
move they made. His eyes followed every nut as it was turned
tight, every electrical connection as it was made, every slight
change in tension or adjustment or fit. There was little talk,
but the faces in the room said much lines and dark spots
under the eyes marks of stress in men who were normally
kidders and jokers. They'd been thinking about something so
long that it was beginning to show.
11:15. At noon, Bryan's wife would fly in from Phoenix.
He thought about driving out to the airport to meet her. A
reporter wandered into the garage, asked Bryan if he could
have a few minutes.
"You're one of the favorites to win tomorrow, aren't you?"
he asked.
"I don't know about that/'
"Do you have any special plans for running the race?"
"All I know is that when the green flag drops, we're racing."
Bryan answered flatly, his face expressionless behind sun-
glasses. Tolerantly he explained technical aspects of the race,
but eventually he excused himself. He had to leave for the
airport. He asked a friend to come along.
As he jackrabbited out of the parking lot and down an
infield road, holding the car in the whining first gear, the
friend asked, "Getting the fever a little?"
"Yes."
He was quiet, mostly, looking straight ahead through the
windshield, his big, strong hands holding the wheel of the
station wagon as if it were a toy compared to the beast he
would drive tomorrow.
"What I don't like is talking to someone who doesn't know
much about racing. Any other time, okay. Not today. That's
one thing that's hard around here. And another is the parties."
He was unwinding a little now. There was no race car to worry
100 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
about, no strangers to avoid. The few hours that remained
were forgotten in the routine task of driving through Indian-
apolis city traffic.
"A lot of nice people here want to have you out to parties.
And when you go, you have to drink even if it's just a
sociable drink or two. I know; some of the drivers go. They
take a drink or two. But they're not thinking about winning.
Fm thinking about winning. That's the only reason Fm here."
Silence for several more minutes in traffic. On street-comers,
newsboys hawked pre-race headlines. Bryan, one of tomor-
row's gladiators, paid no attention.
"My wife starts getting the shakes when she gets here for
this race."
More wordless moments.
Tve been wondering what to do. I think it's going to be a
greasy race track out there tomorrow, so I want less weight.
It takes a little longer to get going, but if 11 be easier after
that" The enigmatic thoughts of a man who knows every angle,
every groove, every turn in Ms road.
Lu Bryan was the last passenger to emerge from the air-
liner. A tall, lean redhead with a quick smile, she spotted
her husband almost at once. They held hands briefly on the
way to the baggage counter and while they waited for the
luggage, Lu took the latest photos of their daughter out of
her handbag. Stephanie Lou would be 13 months old to-
morrowrace day. Bryan's face brightened as he shuffled
through the snapshots.
Back in the car, Lu made her first reference to the race,
"Everyone at home is praying for you to win, honey."
Bryan was silent.
"How fast was your pit stop?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
It was 12:30 now. The formal pre-race Drivers' Meeting
was only a few minutes off. Bryan left Ms wife off at the pri-
vate home they shared with friends in Indianapolis. On the
way back to the speedway for the meeting he wound the station
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 101
wagon up to 50 mph in low gear, skipped to high, then thought
out loud, "Better watch it! Til be getting arrested."
He overtook every car in front of him, but as soon as he
passed them, he backed off immediately. He was eager to race
now.
Back at the garage he exercised the driver's time-honored
last-day right to be tardy. He wasn't anxious to be on display
or to be confined. When he finally ambled over to the meeting,
the crowd was assembled. The 33 drivers sat in a section of
the now empty grandstands. Around about them were wives,
friends, representatives of oil, tire and spark plug companies,
pit crews, press, radio, guards, photographers and a young
actress who would kiss tomorrow's winner. She was sexy and
cute and somehow out of place.
The meeting was behind schedule now, but on this day,
track officials ignore the clock, abiding by the mood of the
drivers. In hours these men would be launched into their lonely
orbits of speed and noise and heat and danger. Today was
theirs; no outsider would cut short this social interlude for
them.
Awarding of trophies came first: one for the fastest lap in
qualifying, one for winning the pole position. Then the presi-
dent of the U.S. Auto Club made a speech. "We know you're
going to race hard ... I wish you Godspeed."
The club's racing director, once a driver himself, was
solicitous, "May we see you all at the Victory Dinner Satur-
day night. God bless you." The implication was there. Be-
tween now and Saturday night there was a job to be donea
four-hour test of men and machines. For 46 other men like
these there had been no Victory Dinner in other years.
It was sober now. Bryan rested his chin on a railing, un-
moving, the sunglasses and the shadow of his cap making his
thoughts unreadable.
Next, the head of the medical staff, who stared at the 33
men dolefully and spoke with candor. "I want to congratu-
late those drivers who have finally arrived at the conclusion
102 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
that their skulls and a few strips of corrugated paper are not
sufficient to withstand the pressure against the cement wall.
You now wear the safest helmets we've ever had. I want to
condemn you for driving a month without fire repellent in
your uniforms. Indiana weather in June and July makes band-
ages over burns very uncomfortable. May Mr. Big above take
care of all of us tomorrow/'
The drivers were outwardly unmoved, each holding Ms
pose inflexibly, but inwardly admitting the fear that haunts
them all.
The chief steward ended Ms discussion of the flag signals
with a warning. "If we have an accident out there and people
trying to clear it think you're driving by too fast, we'll tell
you about it. . .*
The moment had come to hear from the actress the "kissing
girl."
"Well, I could start off by telling you how racey I feel . . *
The drivers reacted with delight. Tm happy to be here with
the fastest crowd in the world . . ." More delight. The red-
head went tumbling on through her message.
In another moment it was over and the sunny, warm after-
noon was given back to 33 men. Now, more than ever, they
were men apart separated from their fellow mortals, left to
themselves and their thoughts.
Bryan made his way to the garage again. A new calm de-
scended with the late afternoon shadows. The people who
operated on the fringe of the race were gone now. Even the
newspaper and radio brigade faded. The speedway belonged
to the drivers and crews and the man friends closest to them.
A friend asked Bryan, "You got butterflies?"
Tm full of them."
He Md them well, but he also sought relief in movement.
He had hoped to steal a nap after the meeting, but time had
slipped away. He gave some visiting buddies from Phoenix a
ride to their motel, then returned to the garage. He said little
to car builder Salih. Conversation was unnecessary. The car was
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 103
ready. So was the man. Salili knew that at this hour, the driver
should be left to his own spiritual preparation. Salih, the man
who knew as much about the 500 as any otherbut who didn't
have to drive it held himself ready should his man want to
unburden himself about anything. But it wasn't necessary.
After a few more minutes of aimless activity, Bryan got back
into the station wagon to leave. There were now 18 hours
left
The Bryans took dinner out. The two couples from home-
town Phoenix who joined them kept the talk clear of the
race. The only reminder occurred when other diners in the
crowded restaurant recognized the broad-shouldered, crew-
cut race driver with the pocket full of cigars in his sport jacket.
He signed some autographs.
Bryan was deliberate with his steak, au gratin potatoes,
green beans, iced tea. When the service bogged down, Bryan's
friends filled the delay with mild griping and jokes. They
skipped dessert. Bryan was anxious now to visit the midget
auto racing track that's across the street from the big speed-
way and which operates full blast on the night before the main
attraction.
The men took the wives home and then arrived at the
midget track about 8:45 p.m. Bryan was in a contented mood.
In about 14 hours he'd be blasting Indy's hallowed bricks,
but now, tonight, the sounds of an excited crowd and the
snarling midget cars were therapy for him. He joined a cluster
of people at the edge of a turn. One of the speeding cars
skidded high toward the restraining rope and the people
around Bryan bolted backwards from the verge almost in-
voluntarily. Bryan was the last to budge, then only casually.
By 9: 15, friends began to kid Bryan. "Why aren't you home
in bed?"
Another supplied an answer, "You want him to wake up at
3 a.m. and start getting the shakes?"
Bryan went along with the gag. He simulated nervous
shakes, laughing.
104 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
By 9:40 Bryan wanted one more visit to Ms garage. He
found Salih and the crew still working. He looked across the
machine at Salih and asked, "Got a minute?"
They walked out of the soft yellow light into the silent dark-
ness outside the big doors. Bryan had a final thought about
spark plugs for tomorrow. The conference was short. A few
more minutes spent contemplating the car and Bryan said
goodnight
He passed other lighted garages, the illumination from each
swallowed up in blackness not far beyond the doors. Voices^
not tools, were heard at this hour, and the echoes of foot-
steps on the gravel were the loudest sounds to be heard in
Gasoline Alley. Across the silent track the cavernous grand-
stands stood mute and black. Bryan walked toward his parked
station wagon a lion tamer alone in the empty Big Top, By
10 p.m. he was driving out through the speedway's main gate.
He turned right for home* away from the carnival and four-
abreast traffic that was swirling around the fences, and away
from downtown Indianapolis where a quarter-million people
in a holiday spirit, many of them from the far reaches of the
hemisphere, were watching a three-hour parade honoring the
men who would race tomorrow.
Bryan's wife and the family friends were watching televi-
sion when he came through the door. Someone made drinks
then, but Bryan took only a large grape juice. A TV sports-
caster was talking about the race and the expected weather.
Fair and warm. It's always warm in the cockpit of a race car.
A little past 11, Bryan rose to go to bed. His wife asked,
"What time do you want breakfast?"
"I don't know. What time is the race?" Bryan grinned.
"Eleven o'clock." They all smiled at Bryan's posed ig-
norance.
"Oh, about nine, I guess. Goodnight/'
He slept soundly, but his wife woke several times through
the cool night to cover him.
Bryan was still asleep when his crew assembled at the ga-
rage, heavy-eyed, at 4 in the morning. Seven hours to race
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 105
time now. Dawn promised a fine day: like the man said, "fair/*
In another hour the speedway gates would open to let in the
first wave of 175,000 spectators.
A few minutes before 9, Bryan woke. He was unhurried
as he dressed in slacks and a short-sleeve sport shirt. What-
ever tenseness there was, he kept to himself.
Breakfast consisted of three eggs, bacon, orange juice, toast,
jelly. His wife joined him in the middle of the meal. She took
only coffee.
The family friends tried to hide their excitement from
Bryan. During the breakfast table chatter of "more toast?" and
"more coffee?" he and his wife speculated about what their
daughter Stephanie might be up to at this moment in Phoenix.
Bryan, alert, munched slowly. All of his mind was not on the
food.
Now he got up, went to the telephone, dialed the garage
number.
"I'm eating breakfast. Be right over,"
He turned to find two neighbor children in the living room.
They had come to wish him well. He shook their hands sol-
emnly. The 5-year-old boy, large brown eyes reflecting his
nervousness in the presence of one of today's superstars, came
forth with Ms rehearsed speech: "Good yuk today," His 3-
year-old sister, curly-haired, ruffled pants wiggling as she
walked, struggled to repeat the message. Bryan picked her up,
and patted her on the rump.
A chorus of "good luck" trailed him as he headed for the
door.
"So long," he waved, then, halfway across the room he
stopped, turned to his wife and, self-conscious, smacked his
lips in imitation of a kiss. One of the group lightened the
moment.
"Go on, Jim. Kiss her like you ought to. We know you're
married."
Bryan recrossed the room, kissed his wife genuinely. She
walked to the door with him.
"See you later," he said easily and was gone.
106 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
He picked up a friend for the drive to the speedway. He
drove silently except for a comment on the traffic and endured
all the delays without distress. He was already late. The crowd
had reached the ultimate crash stage now tens of thousands
of automobiles all trying to get to the same place at once. In
less than two hours this man who now bucked traffic at the
wheel of a station wagon would be inside the arena on stage-
screaming down the speedway straights at 170 mph.
He decided to come in a back way, via a private garage
gate. In the distance he could hear a band playing a college
fight song. The public address system filtering over the dis-
tance was a continuous gabble of announcements now. The
crowd was at full strength, primed to roar with one giant voice
within the hour.
He stopped at the private gate, parked the station wagon,
hurried to his garage and, as he stepped through the big doors,
asked jokingly, "Who won?"
The car was in the pits now. The garage floor had been
mopped, equipment put away, tools put in order. In five
hours, more or less, the car would be back here. They always
come back streaked with hot oil, coated with dirt. Sometimes
they are in one piece, sometimes not. In a corner of the garage,
covered with a newspaper, was the chart board with its stop
watches. On the bench the crew now wearing brand new,
yellow sports shirts and slackshad laid out their driver's
goggles, cigars, telegrams,
Bryan reached for the yellow driving suit. The fire repellent
had left wrinkles and traces of white. Then he changed his
mind and let the uniform hang, headed instead for the toilets.
A doctor's remark, made years ago, always came back to him
before a race: "Seventy-five percent of the internal injuries in
auto accidents are caused by a man's driving four or five hours
and he has a kidney full and it gets ruptured and the stuff goes
all over his insides."
The toilets were crowded with drivers Russo, Parsons,
Boyd, Ward, Cheesbourg, Bryan, Russo and Cheesbourg
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 107
were first into the stalls. Cheesbourg remarked, "If we finish
in the order we go to the toilet, we'll be all right"
When Bryan returned to the garage, one of his crew, hold-
ing a handful of yellow envelopes, asked, "Want these tele-
grams?"
Bryan shook his head. He picked up a choice of goggle
lenses a green one and a clear one. "Wonder which I should
use?" he asked no one in particular. Who else would know
but the man at the wheel?
The garage was strangely still now, a dramatic contrast
with the frenzy of the grandstands and pits only a few yards
away. Bryan put on his uniform. He stood at the bench and
debated what things to transfer from his wallet to the pockets
of his uniform . . . what tokens to take on a 500-mile trip.
He decided on a picture of his family, gave a last look at wife
and daughter, then slid the print into a trouser-leg pocket
to join a St. Christopher medal.
He was reaching into the garage refrigerator for a drink of
cold water when one of his mechanics walked in. Bryan de-
cided to stage an act,
"Boy, have I got a hangover!" Then, seeing the shock on
the man's face, he dropped the role. "It's not really a hang-
over. I'm just scared."
They all knew he wasn't scared. And they also knew he
was.
He asked another of his boys, "You been out there eye-
balling all the girls?"
They let him have the stage now, free to talk out his tight
insides as he felt. He handed Salih his wallet with the remark,
"I wish this race was over so I can see who won."
Once more he held the two goggle lenses in his hands,
walked to the door to peer through them at the sun. He made
the decision. Green. Then he put black masking tape across
the top of the lenses to cut glare.
Forty-five minutes to go now. He leaned against a work
108 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE
bench at Salih's elbow and inquired, almost casually, "Boss,
how about signals?"
Salih told Bryan to hold up one, two or three fingers to
indicate on which succeeding lap he would make a pit stop.
To tell Bryan Ms position in the race, Salih said, "Well give
you the figure in seconds in front or behind."
"Behind!" Bryan took mock ofiense.
He debated helmets. He tried on some new chamois gloves.
He fiddled with small things and the other men in the garage,
with nothing to do now themselves, tried not to let him see
they were watching.
This was the count-down. The gun was loaded.
In the pits, the car sat waiting in the sun. Its oil was al-
ready pre-heated to operating temperature. The nitrogen was
in the tires. The fuel tank was under pressure. The seat belt
and harness were ready. Fire extinguishers were poised. And
in the garage the driver and his seconds could hear the non-
stop p. a. system. The shrill, excited voice of the starlet was
filling time. "I wish I could tell everyone how excited I
am . . ."
There were only 35 minutes now and Bryan said, "Well,
think we better get out there?" Then, with a grin, "Got all
our good-luck charms?"
They walked together out of the garage and when they left
the sanctuary of the fences and parted their way through the
milling crowd that separated the garage area from the pits
there was a buzz that whispered "Bryan!" The national cham-
pion. The guy who's driving last year's winning car. "Luck,
Jimmy!" the voices came.
He slowed three times for youngsters, but kept underway
until he was again free in the pit area. When he got there and
stood near the car, photographers came as if called. "Pat the
steering wheel for a picture, Jim," they asked. Bryan said no.
He didn't mind pictures, but this was no time for phony poses.
Yesterday, yes. Tomorrow, maybe. Right now was too close to
truth.
A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYE 109
The crew worked around him, still with little missions to
accomplish for Ms comfort. Wet cloths for him to suck while
driving, for instance. The nitro-doctored fuel and fumes would
leave a film in his throat a burning sensation in his nostrils.
Chewing a wet rag would help.
Twelve minutes now before engine start.
The National Anthem brought the stands to attention and
halted momentarily the nervous maneuvering in the pits.
Overhead, circling airplanes intruded on the patriotic silence,
The running engines of emergency vehicles kept on, white-
coated ambulance men and asbestos-suited firefighters stand-
ing at attention. The gold sequins of the band's drum majorette
glinted in the sunlight, Tri-colored bunting and the flags of
many nations waved in the breeze.
The Anthem faded into the first sad notes of Taps, Score-
board lights flashed the date against the sky "5-30-58."
Memorial Day. The trumpet brought back melancholy mem-
ories, not so much of war dead as of race dead: Vukovich.
Roberts. Miller. Sweikert. Mays. McGratk Only a scar on a
wall, a repaired railing, or rubber scorched indelibly into as-
phalt represented them at race tracks now.
Bryan, standing at his car, was respectfully at attention.
Seven minutes. The bombs heavy aerial firecrackers came
once a minute now, like the slow cadence of a dirge, booming
out the moments remaining.
Salih made a last trip around the car, swinging a mallet,
tapping the wing nuts that hold wheels to axles. It was the last
token effort he could make to assure Ms man a safe ride.
Five minutes.
Throats were catching. The bombs, emotional, hammered
Bryan deeper within himself, drained color from his face. One
of the crew stepped close to the quiet driver, touched his fore-
arm. "Hurry back safe, boy." Softly.
Bryan picked up helmet and goggles from the cockpit seat
and stepped into the car. Man and machine were joined. Salih
110 A RACE DRIVER'S LONG GOOD-BYI
leaned over him. "We'll be waiting for you, dad." The tone was
gentle.
Another bomb and now a rainbow canopy of balloons re-
leased into the clear sky. Like kids have at birthday parties,
Bryan kept his eyes within the car. He looked past the dash-
board that had no instruments, adjusted his feet and legs on
the throttle and rest bars, fastened his seat belt and harness,
put on his helmet
The p.a. system was yammering, its voice rising and crack-
ling with excitement, "Here is the moment we've been waiting
for!
"Gentlemen. Start your engines!"
Bryan pulled his goggles down, jiggled his helmet into a
snug fit. It squeezed his face forward, puffing the cheeks,
changing his expression. He looked around at his crew, his
eyes sweeping them one by one. Over the mounting roar of
sound, his mouth barked a word to his men.
"Engine!"
Now he was in command. One of the crew snapped to
action, rammed the shaft of the portable electric starter into
the nose of the car, flipped a switch and wrenched 350 horse-
power into life.
They pushed him from the pit, on his way to take a posi-
tion in line. One crewman, running alongside, staying with
the car until he could no longer keep up. He was still trying to
communicate with his driver when the shattering exhaust roar
finally separated James Ernest Bryan from everyone else.
This is the way it was for Jimmy Bryan, race car driver,
in the hours and minutes before he won the Indianapolis race
in 1958. This is the way he lived the time before his triumph
a triumph that came only after a sickening first-lap crash that
snuffed out the life of one of his friends. Sixteen cars were
in the hideous inferno of grinding metal and shrieking rubber.
Somehow, Bryan drove through it, saddened, to win.-Ed.
A Scholarship for Jackie
BY FURMAN BlSHER
This is a story of athletic recraiting in college. The central
figure is a very tall boy named Jackie Moreland who lives
on a farm midway between Minden and Homer, in the north-
west corner of Louisiana, and who plays basketball.
Jackie high-jumped six feet and broad- jumped 21 feet, six
inches for the track team at Minden High, to which he com-
muted ten miles each day. He hit 319 for the local semi-pro
baseball team and played first base so skillfully that the Balti-
more Orioles were prepared to offer him a $45,000 bonus to
sign a professional contract
He was more than just an accomplished athlete at Minden
High, though. He was also a student who showed every pros-
pect of becoming a worthwhile citizen. He was president of
the senior class of 1955 and president of the student council,
staff member on the school paper, class favorite, "Mr. School
Spirit" and salutatorian. He missed being valedictorian of his
graduating class by less than one point.
Jackie didn't play football but the coach of the team at
Minden, George Doherty, a big, spirited fellow with a plump
face and a love for boys, said he was the best statistician
he'd ever had. "He fitted into everything that went on at the
Copyright 1957 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Sport magazine.
112 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
school/' Doherty said. "If Jackie Moreland had a fault, I
didn't know it."
But most of all, Jackie was a basketball player. He was
six feet, seven inches tall, going on eight. For three years
running he made the all-state class A team at Minden, a
never-never sort of thing in high school. College people who
watched them both through critical eyes said that Jackie had
class that Bob Pettit never had until he became an All-
American at Louisiana State. Jackie was more than just big.
He had finesse. He had a mind that functioned clearly, no
matter how raging the heat of battle. He was completely
ambidextrous and seemed to have a thousand different shots.
In three seasons he scored 1,965 points. When a recruiting
storm broke around Ms head and forced his name into the
sports headlines prematurely, one famous college coach was
asked why one boy should stir up such a furor.
"Simply," the coach said, "because he is the greatest basket-
ball prospect in the country today/'
Jackie Moreland's little world was about as orderly and as
brilliantly promising as it could be. His family life was simple,
for the Morelands are plain rural folk whose social life
centers around the church and to whom everything outside
the unbordered trade area called the Ark-La-Tex is foreign.
That was how it was before December 7, 1955, the date
on which senior high school athletes became eligible to sign
college scholarship grants. That was when the storm broke,
when Jackie's world became muddled and confused, when his
dreams were washed out and when the ideals he had lived
by at Minden High tarnished like a 49-cent bracelet.
Jackie eventually enrolled at North Carolina State College
in Raleigh, about 1,000 miles from home. Everett Case, a
driving Indianian devout in his dedication to the favorite sport
of his native state, has built a southern basketball empire at
State. It takes a steady stream of incoming talent to keep
the empire thriving and Case ranges from the Rocky Moun-
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE 113
tains to the sidewalks of New York on Ms hunt for the finest
of the breed.
The Moreland kid was a natural for Case's empire, but
Jackie will never play for N.C. State. Last November the
policy council of the National Collegiate Athletic Association
returned State to the probation list from which it had been
paroled only the year before. This time the sentence was
for four years, the harshest penalty of its kind ever inflicted
by the NCAA. The reason: State's conduct in its recruitment
of Moreland.
At the same time, the NCAA refused to grant Texas A&M
a shortened probation sentence it already was serving for a
football indiscretion until it had been dealt with on a More-
land charge. The Aggies, the NCAA said, had violated some
rules and regulations of recruitment in their headlong pursuit
of the young man from Minden.
A few weeks later, Commissioner Jim Weaver of the At-
lantic Coast Conference, of which N.C. State is a member,
declared Moreland ineligible at the school which had fought
a determined recruitment fight for him and won. Another
storm blew up. N.C State, with Chancellor Carey H. Bostian
as spokesman, rose up in righteous indignation. "It is our
belief," said Chancellor Bostian, "based on the evidence
known to us at this time, that State College is not guilty of
the violations as charged."
There is a clause in the athletic code of the Greater Uni-
versity of North Carolina, of which N.C. State is a member,
that any member of an athletic staff found guilty of willfully
violating recruiting regulations as set forth by the ACC shall
be dismissed from his job. This projected two members of the
State staff, assistant athletic director Willis Casey and assistant
basketball coach Vic Bubas, squarely onto the seat of jeop-
ardy, for they had been assigned to the Moreland recruit-
ment campaign.
For that matter, the whole basketball program at State
seemed in danger. Fifteen years ago, this program was noth-
114 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
ing. Case had only just arrived from Frankfort (Ind.) High
School, where he had been the scourge of the Hoosiers, and
State played its games in an antiquated gymnasium that could
seat only 3,000. Now State plays in Reynolds Coliseum, a
palace that accommodates 12,500 fans in comfortable theatre-
style seats. In late December an invitational tournament
called the Dixie Classic is played in the Coliseum and draws
close to 60,000 spectators. Because of State's initiative, bas-
ketball has taken a death grip on the Tobacco Belt. And
State has taken a death grip on ACC basketball trophies. In
seven of eight seasons, some covering the old Southern Con-
ference, Case's men won conference championships.
Ditch all this for one tall farm boy from Minden, La.?
What kind of a set of values is this? Is this the kind of judg-
ment that goes into college recruiting? Who says N.C. State
and Texas A&M are guilty of indiscretions? What kind of
evidence does it take to get put on ice for four years?
"I'll put it this way," said Walter Byers, executive director
of the NCAA, one of collegiate America's most unwanted
positions. "We must have enough concrete evidence to con-
vince a board of 18 men from all parts of the country. In
other words, our decisions aren't based on hearsay."
The NCAA detective on the case was A. J. (Dutch)
Bergstrom, former athletic director at Bradley University. A
mystery gumshoe artist turned up in Shreveport, 30 miles
from Minden, one day in September, 1956, and announced
that he had been assigned to the case. He was an elderly man
who identified himself as Billy Alston of Atlanta, Ga., but
who refused to identify his client. It was later learned that he
was working for the University of Kentucky. At any rate,
private eye Alston's report fell into the hands of the NCAA
and Commissioner Weaver of the ACC. It dealt both N.C.
State and Texas A&M a critical blow. It said that State had
offered Moreland an unrestricted (five-year) scholarship, a
seven-year medical scholarship for a girl friend from Minden,
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE 115
plus a $100 clothing allowance for the girl twice a year, and
$1,000 a year for Jackie.
The report said that Texas A&M representatives had of-
fered Moreland a four-year scholarship, a scholarship to a
friend of his choosing, a scholarship for his girl friend to a
college in Denton, Tex., $400 per month while in school, and
a new car on acceptance and another car on graduation.
The girl friend, a poised 18-year-old of statuesque build
who is now a freshman at Centenary College in Shreveport,
confirmed in an interview with this writer that a party rep-
resenting N.C. State's interest had offered her a seven-year
medical scholarship to a school of her choice, preferably
Duke University in Durham, N.C. There she could be closer
to Jackie.
"There was a lot of talk in my presence about money,**
said the girl, Betty Claire Rhea, a star witness for the NCAA.
"I haven't told everything yet."
Why didn't she accept the scholarship, since Moreland did
go to N.C State? Why not choose Duke rather than Cente-
nary, a little Methodist school of some 1,000 enrollment?
"If we had been married, or even engaged," Betty Claire
said, "it would have been different. But too much can happen
in four years at our age. I didn't want to be under any
obligation."
Texas A&M did accept a boy named Joel Smith on scholar-
ship, Joel and Jackie were close friends, farm neighbors and
once teammates at little Harris High School, where Jackie
played before transferring to Minden's golden frontier. The
Southwest Conference ruled Smith considerably below bas-
ketball standards for that level, and after this investigation
Jackie's friend transferred to Louisiana Tech in Ruston.
Thus, there was more than circumstantial evidence on
which the NCAA could build its case. Betty Claire was a
focal point of the preliminary investigation. Later, after Jackie
had enrolled at State, he was called before Byers and Weaver
in a Raleigh hotel, confronted with the evidence, and was said
116 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
to have signed a statement confirming all offers. Back on the
campus later, he denied making a confession.
Fate allowed State just one good look at the vast potential
of this Moreland boy. In a practice game against the varsity,
he scored 30 points. The next week he was declared ineligible
and, to pour salt into the wounds, the ACC fined State
$5,000, remissible if Moreland stayed in school on his
athletic scholarship terms and completed his non-athletic
education.
The tall farm boy from Minden stood at the crossroads
again. He could stay at State and be the greatest intramural
basketball player in the country, or he could transfer to an-
other school and play the kind of game he loves. Whatever
he did, there was nothing in it for N.C. State.
How did this all come about? How did N.C. State, Texas
A&M and Moreland get themselves hopelessly involved in
this thicket of recruitment? What came over Jackie Moreland
between December, 1955, and December, 1956? Where was
the boy in whom George Doherty had been unable to discover
a fault?
Jackie apparently had entered the danger zone of recruit-
ment with clear-eyed resolution. It began on December 7 with
a visit from Jack Heldman, an assistant coach from Vander-
bilt Next in line at the farmhouse on Highway 43, almost
before Heldman was out of sight, was Harry Lancaster, as-
sistant to Adolph Rupp at Kentucky.
Here, now, with Lancaster there, Jackie fulfilled a boy-
hood dream. He signed a standard Southeastern Conference
grant-in-aid with Kentucky. "He's always wanted to go to
Kentucky, since he was so big," said his father, Jimmie More-
land, holding his hand about four feet above the floor. "That
was his ambition/ 1
But the recruiters kept coming. The family guessed that
representatives of 43 schools hovered around their Jackie. His
Minden coach, Cleve Strong, a passive man with grey-tinged
hair and ulcers, said it was more, "It got so bad," Strong said,
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE 117
"that Mr. Williams (the principal) quit letting them see Jackie
at school."
Little Centenary, where basketball is the major sport, made
a good pitch for Jackie, Jimmie Moreland liked the Centenary
coach, a well-scrubbed, down-to-earth young man named
Harold Mooty. They fished together. They found companion-
ship in each other. Soon Jackie was saying he would go to
Centenary.
Around the square in Minden, where Centenary is not a
big favorite, cynics charged that the Shreveport school offered
Jackie more money than anybody. A Centenary official quite
frankly said: "We offered Jackie a good job in the summer,
a very good job. We offered him the prospect of a good future
when he was graduated. Somebody said that we offered him
$36,000. 1 suspect that in the long run it would have meant a
lot more to Jackie than that, should his future have panned
out the way it could. But Walter Byers knows all this."
Texas A&M made its sweetest overtures in the spring.
Jackie had assured Centenary he would be there when the
roll was called, but added, "I just want to look around a little
more." A Texas A&M alumnus flew him to the College Sta-
tion campus for some of this "looking around.** By this time,
it seems, Jackie had picked up some pretty worldly advice on
the matter of how to be recruited. "The first thing he said
when he got off the plane," said A&M coach Ken Loeffler,
once the builder of national champions (with the assistance
of Tom Gola) at LaSalle College in Philadelphia, "was,
'What's the offer?'
"'What do you mean, son?' I asked him,'* Loeffler reported.
"'You know,* he said. 'An automobile, or something like
that/
"I knew right then we had hold of a 'hot' one. He was too
big for A&M. He had indicated an interest in petroleum en-
gineering, though, and we thought we might get him on that."
When Moreland actually did sign a Southwest Conference
letter-of-intent with A&M, Loeffler was 1,000 miles away at
118 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
a boys 9 camp in Wyoming. The Moreland pursuit, however,
was being carried on by some active alumni in Shreveport,
with the surprising assistance of Paul (Bear) Bryant, A&M
athletic director and head football coach. Bryant and four
A&M alumni of influence showed up one day last summer
at the Moreland farm.
"Mr. Bryant seemed awful nice," said Mrs, Moreland, a
hardy woman of stout structure and the mother of sk other
children besides Jackie. "He did most of the talking. He of-
fered Jackie a scholarship. He said, 'If you want a car, your
daddy will have to buy it for you, or your granddaddy.* "
The NCAA investigators, however, charged that A&M
alumni in Shreveport had pursued Moreland with more finan-
cial ardor. One, a mining and gas company official named
Harmon Egger, became so incensed at whispered stories in-
volving him that he submitted to a lie detector test in self-
defense. He had been in Bryant's party the day of the visit
to the Moreland farm.
The summer passed with still no final, conclusive decision
by Jackie. Kentucky, Centenary and Texas A&M all had his
word that he was coming to their campus. N.C, State moved
in at the climactic moment, setting up on Jackie's actual day
of decision an almost fantastic series of concentrated uncer-
tainty, promises, fast changes, bewilderment and, finally, the
last emotional scene of an addled farm boy basketball player
staggering barefooted the last few feet into the arms of N.C,
State,
Jackie awoke that day, August 31, 1955, packed and pre-
pared to make a departure for N.C. State, whose basketball
administration had moved in an impressive task force to make
the catch. The register at the Washington- Youree Hotel in
Shreveport shows that Willis Casey, the athletic director's as-
sistant, Vic Bubas, the basketball assistant, Harry Stewart,
director of the Wolfpack Club, an alumni booster organiza-
tion, and Ron Shavlik, All- American center at State the previ-
ous season, and his wife had set up camp there for three days.
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
Together with a man named Dwight Laughlin, an ordnance
plant employee who lives across the Red River in Bossier
City, and who is a relative of Casey's wife, a State crew had
visited the Moreland home the day before. Jackie had prom-
ised that he would be ready to leave at 3 p.m. on the 31st.
First, though, he had to tell Betty Claire goodbye. Ac-
cording to the Moreland family, "she pitched a fir when
Jackie arrived in Minden that morning to say goodbye. Some-
how, Betty Claire swung him back to Centenary, and they
drove off to Shreveport to give athletic director Buzz Delaney
and Mooty the good news.
Here a blackout develops, but it seems that Jackie and
Betty Claire stopped at the Washington- Youree for one final
word with the State task force. Here, also, it seems, some of
the last desperate counter-offers took place, because it is
known that Jackie left the hotel with $80 which had been
handed him by Laughlin to pay for Ms plane fare to Raleigh.
It was this $80 that finally brought the ACC house down on
State.
The trail continued to Centenary, where Jackie happily
announced that he had made his decision. He would play for
the Gentlemen of Centenary. His picture was taken with mem-
bers of the athletic department and was splashed across the
sports section of the Shreveport Times the next day, with an
appropriately exuberant story of announcement. Times edi-
tions began rolling with a headline reading: "Moreland to
Become Gent."
By the next morning the line had been changed to read:
"Moreland to Become Gent?" For by that time he was on his
way to Raleigh,
Throwing the $80 on Delaney's desk and asking him to get
it back to the proper owners, Moreland and the girl friend
set out for Minden. Before he got out of Betty Claire's sight,
another change took place. "Mr. (Shorty) Long met him be-
fore he got around the corner, 1 * Betty Claire says. Long was
120 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
Kentucky's agent, not an alumnus, but a self-appointed re-
cruiter set on corralling Jackie for the Wildcats,
A hot reception was waiting for Jackie when he reached
the farm. The State group had made their three o'clock ap-
pointment and left empty-handed. Jimmie Moreland, driven
to his wit's end by the bewildering change of pace, charged
his tall son with these words: "Damnit, make up your mind
right now and let's get this mess settled once and for all. What
do you want to do?"
Jackie pondered. What he wanted to do was to go to
Kentucky. He said so. His father told him to caU Shorty Long
and tell him to come get the body. The Minden line was busy.
"That's how close Kentucky came to getting him," Jimmie
Moreland said.
Before Jackie could call again, the State troops rode in
again. In a few minutes Jackie said he was going to State
again, and he stalked out of the house, toward the guests'
station wagon, without his shoes. Someone reminded him of
his oversight. His trunks were placed in the station wagon
and he was rushed to the airport at Monroe, La., not to be
heard from by his family or the press for the next four days.
"It's a wonder he didn't have a nervous breakdown," his
father said. "You don't know what all of us have been
through the last year. It's been somebody on our doorsteps
or on our telephone all the time. We just took to lying. We'd
tell them Jack wasn't here. I never did think I'd want Mm
playing for that coach Rupp at Kentucky, but now I'm sorry
he didn't go on there, where he wanted to as a boy. That
Mr. Lancaster was a nice fellow, and Mr. Bubas was, too.
But I never saw a bunch of people who seemed to hate each
other so much."
The Morelands are unpretentious people of plain, humble,
rural Claiborne Parish stock. Jimmie Moreland, in his middle
fifties, works as a gauger in the oil fields near Homer. There
is steel in his grip, honesty in his eyes and the undisguised
trace of the out-of-doors life in Ms ruddy face. Two married
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE 121
daughters and a son no longer live at home. Another son is
at Louisiana Tech. Two more, twins Joe and Ed, are juniors
on the Minden High basketball team.
The Morelands are accustomed to a life without complexi-
ties. It is true that they had had a preview of this particular
kind of turbulence. When Jackie was transferred from little
Harris High School and its student body of some 60 students,
to Minden, the Louisiana High School Association declared
him ineligible until a thorough investigation could be made,
causing him to miss a few games as a sophomore.
"We left the farm and moved into town to make it all right
for him," Jimmie Moreland said. He and Mrs. Moreland and
a visiting daughter sat in the dimly lighted parlor of their
home. They had just finished decorating a little pine Christ-
mas tree on a table in the corner. Jackie would be home in a
few days.
"I drove 20 miles to work every day. We've made sacrifices
for him to be able to play, then all this . . ."
Jimmie broke into tears and rubbed his calloused hands to-
gether in a gesture of helplessness. Mrs, Moreland, tearful
herself, patted his knee sympathetically. This was a family
emotionally uprooted by recruiting grief. In some manner,
everybody concerned had contributed a fault to it. In the
course of events, Jackie had become the prize beef at a cattle
auction.
"We never gave him guidance," his father said. "We didn't
know about things like this. But nobody ever talked to us
about money. If he got any big offers, we don't know about
it. But nobody believes us. All they ever talked to us about
was education and how much Jack would like the school.
We never knew it would be like this. Now Jack's ashamed to
come home and face his friends."
Downtown in Minden, Jack Bridges' clothing store is the
sounding board for local sports opinion. "Nobody blames the
kid around here," Bridges said. "Everybody's for him. They
knew he made some mistakes. He shouldn't have told all those
122 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
people he was going to their schools, but he did that to get
them off his back. The kid's biggest mistake was that he didn't
mow how to say no. He would make up his mind he was
going to one school* then somebody else would come by and
be couldn't tell them he'd already made up his mind,"
"'But they've come from so far/ he would tell me/' Mrs*
Mforeland said.
Somewhere, somebody in the background was giving the
boy a good coaching job on how to be recruited. This is
borne out in Ms shopping around after he had first signed
with Kentucky, the pre-determined destiny of his ambition.
There are plain, unvarnished facts, however, that would have
eliminated this temptation to play the field, and they fall gen-
erally into the realm of the colleges' responsibility.
If no recruiter had offered more than the legal scholarship
allows, the Moreland case never would have become an affair
of notoriety.
If Kentucky's original grant-in-aid had been respected, the
so-called cattle auction would never have come off. This is an
argument for having the grant-in-aid, or letter-of-intent, be
administered by the NCAA on a nationally recognized basis.
While Kentucky drew a clean bill of recruiting health from
the investigators, some rival suitors for Moreland's hand view
this finding with a degree of misgiving. Why was A. B. Kirwan
of Kentucky allowed to occupy Ms committee chair in the hear-
ing when Ms school was a plaintiff party?
"The first thing Mr. Kirwan did," Walter Byers said, "was
to volunteer to disqualify himself. The NCAA has the great-
est of faith in Mr. Kirwan's integrity/'
This writer happened to be in Kentucky's basketball offices
when Adolph Rupp was presented the news of Moreland's
sudden affiliation with KG, State. Since an unmasked lack
sf affection exists between Rupp and Case, the report was
dewed with bitter scorn. It is known that Rupp telephoned
Commissioner Weaver of the ACC a short time later and
A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE 123
demanded that the conference take a closer look at the More-
land recruitment.
This may have set off the collegiate crime-busters. The
Atlanta detective's report was made for Kentucky, with the
knowledge of Jim Weaver and the NCAA. It is also known
that Centenary representatives visited the Moreland home a
few days after Jackie flew to N.C. State and told the family
the boy should be brought home to their school, that he would
never be able to play at State. It is also known that Dutch
Bergstrom had pre-warned the family in mid-summer of the
pitfalls ahead, an event that seeins to have set a precedent in
the functions of the NCAA.
A Raleigh newspaper also published a report that Jackie's
girl friend, Betty Claire Rhea, had sworn to "get even" with
Jackie for abandoning Centenary. Betty Claire greeted the re-
port with, "That's not Christian." The two youngsters don't
correspond any more and the courtship apparently is done.
Every additional report adds to the whirl of bewilderment
and the abysmal character of the case. Whatever Jackie's
course, he is marked for many years.
Several southern schools, through ex-officio representatives,
allowed the word to get out that they would be willing to take
the tall young man on as a student and basketball player. A
New York reporter revealed, via a conversation he overheard
accidentally, that Kansas was interested in enrolling Jackie.
Moreland and Wilt Chamberlain on the same team would
have been the all-time record haul in the annals of college
recruitment.
State still insists that it is innocent of any wrong-doing in
its acquisition of Moreland. "I'm getting damn tired of all
the charges," Coach Case has said. "They're splitting hairs,
grasping at technicalities." Case pleads innocent to all the
charges except onethat of the $80 given to Moreland and
even there he doesn't plead guilty. "A booster organization
did give the money," Case says. "And I think it was legal
since the boy was a prospective student,"
124 A SCHOLARSHIP FOR JACKIE
No matter how the tagging and pulling works out, there
will always be a mental asterisk after Jackie's name. He will
always be "that Moreland kid." It's an unjust destiny for the
boy, for he is a by-product of the harsh mill of college athletic
recruiting. He made his modest contribution to the shabby
picture, though, and apparently Ms enthusiasm was enlivened
when he discovered the attractive stakes involved. Somewhere
in this recruiting procedure there is a responsibility charge-
able to the boy being recruited, but the fact remains that
the athlete is a boy dealing with grownups. When the intrigue
thickens, he is just a babe in the bulrushes, and there is no
thicker recruiting intrigue than when a basketball giant, one
of established finesse, is the target.
Ever in the background, though, is the expression of de-
spair, the oil field worker with his faith shaken in man, the
portrait of Jiminie Moreland in the family parlor wringing his
calloused hands. And saying, 1 don't think 1*11 ever raise an-
other one of my boys to be an athlete."
The Four Days That Rocked Baseball
BY HAROLD ROSENTHAL
If you looked hard enough, you could have seen indications
of trouble ahead. But with Brooklyn holding a 13-game lead,
who would have given the remotest thought to trouble? Who
was going to beat the 1951 Dodgers, one of the greatest
Dodger teams ever put together?
The New York Giants, thaf s who. The New York Giants,
driven in savage fashion by Leo Durocher. The New York
Giants, who put together the amazing 16-game winning streak
spearheaded by the superhuman pitching efforts of such peer-
less 20-game winners as Larry Jansen and Sal Maglie.
It started with the sudden collapse of the lordly Brooklyn
club after what seemed a minor slide and was followed by
their frantic attempt to grab hold for a final effort. And finally,
for the first time since the season started, the Giants were
actually in front.
It was a Saturday night; the last Saturday night of the 1951
season. The Giants had won their game with the Boston
Braves and moved past the Dodgers into first place. The
Brooklyn club was in Philadelphia getting ready to play a
night game they had to win or lose a last-day chance at a
pennant everyone had conceded to them sk weeks earlier.
Leo Durocher was buying drinks for the newsmen covering
Copyright 1959 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Saga magazine*
126 THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
the Giant club, a rare occurrence. The reporters were singing
for their liquid nourishment by discussing the topic dearest
to Durocher's heart the utter collapse of a club boasting a
brilliant collection of diamond stars including Pee Wee Reese,
Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Roy Campanella,
Preacher Roe and Don Newcombe. There wasn't a team in
the majors with a line-up to match them.
Talking to Durocher were reporters who had traveled with
the Dodgers briefly that dismaying late August and September.
Now they could remember seemingly insignificant details
which suddenly assumed great importance. "There was that
eight-ran inning the humpty-dumpty Pirates got off New-
combe and Clyde King in Pittsburgh," one recalled. "That
scared them so bad they never recovered/'
Another had Ms own idea of what had started the Dodgers
downhill. "Remember that Saturday afternoon in the Polo
Grounds, when Pee Wee Reese hit into the triple playthe
one where Al Dark could have made it unassisted if he
wanted to? That started it. No other team hit into a triple play
all season."
A third newsman traced the Dodgers 5 plight to an injury
to Roy Campanella, Brooklyn's all-star catcher who had been
hit in the ear by a pitch in Chicago on the Dodgers* final
Western swing, Campanella had to be hospitalized and left be-
hind when the team went home. He was out for two weeks.
"You can't tell me that with Campanella in there they wouldn't
have won at least two of those games," the writer said.
Not two games but only one game would have meant the
difference. It would have meant that whatever the Giants did
and they did plenty by winning 36 of their last 43 games
nothing would have mattered.
But Brooklyn didn't win that one game. Years later, Allan
Roth, the Dodgers' team statistician of that time, boiled it
down simply: "We had to win five of our last ten games to
take the pennant. We won only four. That's all there was to
it."
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 127
Durocher, however, was not concerned with figures. As he
nursed the one drink he permitted himself when in the com-
pany of newspapermen, he said, "Where'd they lose it? I'll
tell you where. They lost it right in their own clubhouse, that's
where. They lost it by talking too goddam loud after they had
beaten us. Beaten us bad."
Leo's story was about a painful series of defeats and the
paper-thin walls which separated the Dodgers' locker room
from the visitors' in Ebbets Field. The Giants, beaten in an
August 9 night game for the 12th time in 15 meetings with
the Dodgers, were dressing very slowly, thinking that it was
going to be a long, long season the rest of the way.
It was pretty quiet in the losers' dressing room, quiet
enough to hear even normal-level conversations in the Dodg-
ers' locker room. And, as Durocher explained in his violently
colorful language, those weren't normal-level conversations
coming through the wall.
"You could hear that Dressen," snapped Leo. "You
could hear him yell, plain as day, 'Hey, Pee Wee, have a
beer. When we win, Dressen buys the beer. 5 Then a couple
of them got together just like a bunch of kids and started to
yell, 'Eat your heart out, Leo. So that's your kind of team/"
The last reference was to Durocher's ripping the Giants
apart after the '49 campaign, getting rid of his slow-footed
players for the brainy, hustling Al Dark-Eddie Stanky type.
The Dodgers were implying that Leo's master plan had back-
fired; that he was now covered from cap to spikes with the
results of his monumental mistake.
"Then," Durocher went on, "them started to sing
that goddam "Roll Out the Barrel' song. They sang it, 'We
got the Giants on the run'. They were lousy singers but we
got the idea. We were able to pick out guys like Robinson,
Reese, Newcombe and Furillo."
That had been the turning point, Durocher pointed out.
The Dodgers might win but from here on they would have
to do it over the Giants' dead bodies. Some of the Giant
128 THE FOUR BAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
players had been going along meekly, accepting thek fate,
conceding that they were up against one of the best teams
ever put together. Now they were conceding nothing. And
two days later they were off on thek 16-game winning streak.
It would have been far better for the Dodger management
if they had put the entire Brooklyn Club in a half-dozen
Cadillacs that night and hustled them over to the Copacabana
to celebrate ihek latest victory over the Giants, Costly as the
tab would have been, it was peanuts compared to the cost of
blowing a pennant. That was just what Brooklyn was facing
that September night, and Leo was making sure we remem-
bered it.
"Now we got "em/* Durocher announced, Ms face glowing
darkly in the half-light of the hotel cocktail room. "We got
9 em good. We win tomorrow and if s all over. They got to
play tonight and tomorrow and they can't win *em both. They
can go buy tickets to see us in die World Series with the
Yankees."
Durocher's timing was slightly off. Before the Dodgers were
requked to buy thek way into a World Series, instead of
playing in it, four hectic days and nights had to follow four
days and nights that shook the baseball world to its foun-
dations.
Reputations were made and wrecked in those four days.
The course of numerous lives was changed between Sunday
and Wednesday, Those people connected in any way with the
events that took place in Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and
finally the Polo Grounds, were destined never to forget the
vivid details.
There were events of greater importance for the nation's
front pages that fall of 1951-things like an uneasy truce in
Korea, the Army's decision to arm foot-soldiers with tactical
atomic weapons, Winston Churchill's return to power in Eng-
land, and the death of Susie, the 11 -year-old giant panda
in the Bronx Zoo, leaving only two other giant pandas sur-
viving in captivity.
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 129
Yet all this and virtually everything else, was elbowed to
Page Two by the second play-off in the 75-year history of the
National League, It was a play-off which demanded and got
the first nationwide telecast of a baseball game.
But to make that play-off possible, the Dodgers had to make
a bum out of Durocher as a forecaster. He had announced
they were done on that Saturday night. Actually there was
plenty of life in the Dodgers. Stung by a lot of things rang-
ing from League fines plastered on them for childishly kicking
the door of the umpires* dressing quarters to splinters in
Boston a couple of days earlier, to the realization that they
could be letting almost $9,000 a man slip through their fin-
gerstile Dodgers battered the Phillies while big Don New-
combe shut them out on a seven-hitter. It was Newk's 20th
victory of the year.
The next day Durocher was superbly unabashed by this
turn of events. At breakfast he announced, "Now we beat
'em (the Braves) today; Brooklyn's gotta lose their last one
and we have champagne on the train back to New York, eh,
Eddie?"
Eddie Brannick, long-time secretary of the Giants, was dis-
tinguished for having ordered champagne for the victory-
starred teams of the late John J. McGraw and Bill Terry. But
ever since Durocher had taken over in 1949, Brannick had
been torn by his personal dislike for the latest manager and
Ms loyalty to the team. Team loyalty prevailed and he set
about ordering champagne for the five o'clock train back to
New York.
They made the train with plenty of time to spare and took
with them that last victory which Durocher had predicted. The
players tore into thick steaks furnished in production-line
fashion, but the champagne was kept corked until the official
word was in. They laughed and joked, yes, but not too loud.
Those other guys were still playing that game in Philly.
Brooklyn had been trailing eight to five in the sixth when the
Giants had finished their game in Braves Field, but now a
130 THE FOUR BAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
suspense-filled news blackout had closed in. Baseball players
are portable-radio-happy but by some remarkable coincidence
there wasn't a single receiver on board. This was a dandy
way to start a victory trip.
Durocher grabbed the sleeve of the Pullman conductor who
was passing through the dining car. The train was rolling to-
ward Providence, about 30 minutes away. "How long will we
be in Providence?'* Leo asked.
"About four or five minutes/' It wouldn't be long enough
for anyone to hop off and put in a quick phone call.
So the Giants sat and gazed out the window as the train
made its brief stop in Providence. Now there was nothing be-
tween Providence and New Haven but finishing up dinner,
starting a desultory gin rummy game, or thumbing through
the Sunday sports sections with their day-old box scores. The
one score they were really interested in hadn't even reached
a newspaper composing room yet. Or had it? .
The ran to New Haven was over; the train was stopping
for ten or 15 minutes. "Would one of you newspaper guys
make a phone call to the local paper and find out?"
The Giants were famous for having a comet-tail array of
newspapermen along whenever there was any celebrating to
do. But another oddity was that this time there were only
two or three on the train. One of them got off to check.
Jammed into the vestibule, the players didn't have to ask
the returning newspaperman who had won. He was a Giant
rooter; Ms shoulders sagged just a little. "They won in the
fourteenth," he announced.
Durochefs hatchet-like features sharpened. "All right, ev-
eryone, we're working tomorrow. It'll be Hearn pitching for
us."
The Dodgers had managed to stave off extermination in
that season's longest and most dramatic game to date. They
had won in the 14th inning on Jackie Robinson's clutch
homer after the cream of their pitching staff had paraded to
the mound in the four-and-one-half-hour contest.
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 131
There had been Preacher Roe, who achieved post-career
notoriety by admitting he threw a spitball all through Ms dis-
tinguished career with the Dodgers. Roe gave way to Ralph
Branca, who was followed by Clyde King, the quick-pitch
artist. Next had come Clem Labine, the rookie relief star; Carl
Erskine, then big Newcombe, who had worked the night be-
fore in a winning role; and finally Bud Podbielan, who pulled
it out after Newcombe had walked a couple with two out in
the 13th.
To win, Jackie Robinson had slammed his 18th homer into
the upper left field deck, a locale seldom reached by even the
big sluggers. It had been a crazy kind of day for Robby. He
hit into a double play his first time up. He tripled home a run
in the fifth. Then he was stopped cold in his next three trips.
Robinson's key performance, however, was a play in the
12th when, with the bases loaded, Eddie Waitkus lashed one
at Mm. Robby lunged for the ball, toppling over as Ms own
left elbow caught him in the ribs.
The winning run was already across the plate as the ball
was flipped out from under Robinson in the "that's that" ges-
ture of a man who had set out what he had to do. He lay on
the grass, unmoving.
The press box in Connie Mack Stadium, known then as
SMbe Park, is the Mghest lookout in the majors. A viewer
sees the infielders as a lot of baseball caps.
"Did he catch it, did he catch it?" demanded one news-
paperman of another.
There were two answers "Sure did," and "The hell he did."
It was a controversy that raged for the remainder of the
careers of those writers who had seen it and had to describe
it. Those who admired Robinson shouted he had caught it;
those who viewed him as sometMng less than a demi-god
shrilled that he had trapped it, that the goddam penny-
pinching lights in the ball park (on since the middle of the
game) had fooled those sap umpires.
If there was any question in the minds of the umpires about
132 THE FOUR BAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
whether the ball had bounced before Robinson caught It, that
get-rid-of-it gesture convinced them. In an umpire's mind it is
synonymous with "put out*"
After a few moments Robinson got up and trotted to the
Dodger dugout. The dugout was a bedlam of noise which man-
aged to make itself heard even over the roar of the fans. Carl
Furillo pounded Robinson on the back, Roy Campanella
screamed in excitement, and Don Newcombe, close to exhaus-
tion, repeated over and over, "meat," "meat/* "meat," his fa-
vorite expression of approval,
Manager Chuck Dressen poured out a stream of profanity
intermingled with "get *em> get 'em." Clyde Sukeforth, the
quiet bullpen coach who was to play a dramatically impor-
tant role a few days later, let go a stream of tobacco juice
that made a spot the size of a half dollar on the dugout step.
It was like driving the last nail in the Phillies 5 coffin.
Newcombe and Robin Roberts continued the duel through
the 13th. But in the top of the 14th, after Reese and Duke
Snider had fouled out meekly, Robby crashed Ms game-win-
ning homer.
When Bud Podbielan got Eddie Waitkus to end the game
with a fly ball, 31,755 angry customers filed out. Tempers
had grown short, and there were a half-dozen fights among
the fans. The Dodgers were never too popular in Philly, and
Robinson was perhaps the least popular of them all. The effects
of smuggled-in beer had worn off, and those who had cheered
the announcement that the Giants had won up in Boston were
feeling a little foolish and a fight with a Brooklyn rooter was a
good way to make things even.
Now the wheels began turning in Brooklyn, where the play-
off would open. Crews at Ebbets Field started to slap together
the World Series press section behind home plate. Western
Union men began to string the wires necessary to handle the
several hundred thousand words which would come bubbling
out of the ball park. The presses printing the play-off tickets,
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 133
both for the Brooklyn stadium and the Polo Grounds, growled
into action.
There was plenty of feverish activity for everyone connected
with Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds that year. Jack
Collins, the Ebbets Field ticket manager, had an unlisted
phone number. He managed to grab a few winks. But Harold
Parrott, the club's director of information, was listed plain as
day in the Queens County telephone book on the theory that
a ball club's press agent should be available to all. Was he
sorry!
His phone rang all night, the way phones did in many
other places. Friends were begging influential friends to get
them tickets; the Stevens brothers' supervisory men were try-
ing 4o round up their concessions people for the next day; the
New York City Police Department was hastily working out
park patrol details they thought they had moth-balled for an-
other year,
There would be more hot dogs to be sold, more customers
to be taxied out to the park in deep Flatbush, more hustlers
and operators to be chased from the gates by eagle-eyed
gendarmes.
The night drew to an end and the historic day dawned
warm and hazy. The Brooklyn players made their way to the
ball park the same way they had all year; the Giants came
over from Manhattan in cabs. By the time both teams reached
the park the bleacher customers had begun streaming through
the gates. The crowd had come in droves during the night,
lining up behind a solitary fan who had been there a full
week, wanting to be the first customer for the 1951 Dodger-
Yankee World Series,
Through the long, dark hours of the final night he held his
ground, trading abuse with the Giant fans around him. Fi-
nally, when the gates were opened, he drew himself up to his
fullest and announced, "To hell with this. I'm not going in
there. I hate the Giants!"
Inside, Leo Durocher was expressing his own brand of "to
134 THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
hell with It" sentiments. Sportswriters from all over the North
American continentthey were there early because no matter
who won, the World Series would be held in New York-
peppered him with questions about how it felt being called a
miracle-maker.
"To hell with that," Durocher told them. "It's a brand-new
season now, isn't it? It's a new game, and for cash money,"
this last a figure of speech familiar to big-money gamblers.
Here was Durocher at his best: in a tight spot but with his
opponent in the same narrow comer. One mistake, and bang!
he's got you. It was a Durocher who might not signal for a
duster at his grandmother's head, but he'd most certainly
brush her back a little from that plate. That was Durocher
throughout the first play-off game of the best-two-out-of-three
series.
It was an almost hysterical Durocher who greeted Bobby
Thomson in the fourth after the big Scot whacked a two-run
homer off Ralph Branca, the right-hander Charley Dressen
had picked to open after pitching to eight batters the day
before in Philadelphia. All the Dodgers were able to do for
Big Ralph was one run on a homer by Andy Pafko in the
second.
Branca hit Monte Irvin on the arm just before Thomson's
homer. In the sixth Irvin sent one rocketing into Duke Snider's
glove in center field, and in the eighth Irvin sent one into the
lower left field deck to wrap up the ball game. The Giants
took it, 3-1.
Jim Hearn, the good-looking Georgia right-hander, had
limited the Dodgers to five hits. Jackie Robinson, with a
reputation for coming through in situations like these, had
nothing more to offer than a pop-up to center field as his best
effort.
Roy Campanella, slated that season to win the first of three
Most Valuable Player awards, baseball's highest players honor,
never did get the ball out of the infield. There was a pretty
good reason for Campanella's ineffectiveness. The day before
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 135
he had pulled a thigh muscle while sliding in the 14th, But
nothing could keep him out of the first of the play-off con-
tests. He bounced out three times, once into a double play
which stifled a big Brooklyn threat in the fourth. It was
Campanella's only appearance in the play-offs. Rubdowns and
tape applied by the Dodgers 5 trainer, Harold Wendler, were
ineffective. The following day a drastic spraying with numbing
ethyl chloride didn't work and Al (Rube) Walker became
the Dodger receiver for the rest of the series.
Whatever was to happen now, it would end at the Polo
Grounds. It would end in a sweep for the Giants if Sheldon
(Available) Jones, a "gimme-the-ball" kind of right-hander,
could top young Clem Labine. If not, a sudden-death game
would be played at the oval-shaped park beneath Coogan's
Bluff.
Labine was in Ms rookie season. There had been need for a
relief pitcher in July and the Dodger farm organization had
brought Clem up from St Paul. He reported with a badly
sprained ankle which prevented Mm from pitching for two
weeks. But once Clem went to work, he proved to be the find
of the year. Charley Dressen proudly explained to everyone
who would listen that Clem's effectiveness stemmed from a
Mead finger," wMch enabled him to throw the best sinker in
the league. A couple of seasons later an irritated Dressen
was to accuse tMs same pitcher of having "no guts," and
offer an odd explanation of why he hadn't. "He was an in-
cubator baby, wasn't he?" Dressen demanded. "Did you ever
see an incubator baby who had any guts?"
Right now, however, the Dodger pilot was loud in Clem's
praise, practically taking credit for having broken Clem's all-
important "dead finger."
Actually it was a tendon weakness wMch traced to a Mgh
school football injury. When Clem gripped the ball, one finger
didn't exert as much pressure as the others, causing the odd
rotation wMch sent the ball swooping down and away from
right-handed Mtters.
136 THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
Before the game, Clem was just about the only hopeful
Dodger in the dugout. Reese, Robinson, Snider and the rest
sat there looking pretty glum after it was announced that
Campanella was out of the line-up. Labine went up and down
the bench saying, "For crying out loud, get your chin up off
your chest. What's everyone so down about? This thing isn't
over yet."
He must have had that dead finger planted on a ouija
board all morning. It certainly wasn't over yet. By the third
inning "Available" Jones was no longer available; in the sixth
there was a three-quarter-hour delay because of rain, but there
was also a three-run Dodger inning.
When Andy Pafko whacked a lead-off homer in the seventh,
the customers started to file out, stopping to pick up tickets
for the next day's finale. Labine wound up with a six-hit shut-
out, and the Dodgers had a 10-0 win. It was "another sea-
son" again, another "game for cash money" as Durocher had
observed the day before.
To hear them tell about the last game now, at least a half-
million people piled into the Polo Grounds, a ball park which
creaked when more than 50,000 customers were crammed in-
side. "I know all about it," is the story you get, "I was there,
wasn't I?" This from people who weren't within 2,000 miles
of the place that afternoon. Actually, box-office receipts
showed there were only 34,320 paying customers. Newspaper-
men, armed forces personnel, etc., might have brought it up
another 1,500.
The scene was set for the most exciting game in baseball
history. October 3 was an overcast day, requiring lights by
the third inning. It was a fast game, too, in view of what was
at stake, taking less than two hours and 30 minutes. It was
two and one-half hours of baseball, however, that win be re-
played as long as people watch and talk about the sport.
There had been talk that Preacher Roe, the Dodgers' star
left-hander who had a brilliant 22-3 record that season, would
be Dressen's choice. But Preacher couldn't come up for this
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 137
one. He had tired badly in the last two weeks of the campaign
and it was to be Newcombe or nothing. All of Brooklyn was
praying there was one big game left in Mm, and that the
Dodgers could get Mm enough runs early so he could hold
off the Giants.
Durocher met tramp with trump. He was ready with Ms
two tremendous right-handers, Sal Maglie and Larry Jansen,
both 23-game winners in *51. Maglie would start and Jansen
would relieve 9 if necessary.
Sal the Barber (whose nickname came from his ability and
willingness to pitch the opposition up around the wMskers in
a tight spot) was in good form. So was Newcombe.
Brooklyn was leading 1-0 until the Giants tied it in the
seventh. Then the Barber was pounded for three runs in the
eighth as Brooklyn fattened up on four hits, a wild pitch that
permitted Pee Wee Reese to score, and an intentional pass to
Robinson. That was more like those Dodgers of late July and
early August, See you at the Yankee-Dodger World Series,
pal!
The impression that this was the end grew stronger when
Henry Thompson rolled out as a pinch-Mtter for Maglie in
the eighth. With the Giants following strategy down the line,
Larry Jansen came in for the ninth to retire the Dodgers in
order.
So it was Dodgers, 4; Giants, 1 in the bottom of the ninth
just three outs separating the Bums from the World Series.
Then Alvin Dark opened with the fifth Mt of the game off
Newcombe. Don Mueller followed with a slap single to right,
sending Dark scampering to tMrd. Giant hopes soared as the
tying run stepped to the plate. But Monte Irvin lifted a pop
foul to Hodges. Only two more outs to go,
Newcombe lifted Ms cap and mopped Ms brow with the
back of Ms pitching hand. He had gone a long way but now
there were only two more batters left and he was facing an-
other lefty Mtter, Whitey Lockman. Newk stretched, threw and
there was a sharp crack as WMtey sliced a double into left.
138 THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
Dressen bounced off the Dodger bench as though someone
had applied a hot wire to Ms rear end. He strode to the
mound, his hand out for the ball.
That gesture sent a shock wave of seismographic proportions
quivering across the nation. In offices, bars, lonely farms,
and tiny apartments, listeners and viewers virtually stopped
breathing.
All chatter stopped around portable radios on college cam-
puses where classes had been cut, in gas stations where drivers
and attendants forgot there were gas tanks to be filled, IB air
terminals where departure and arrival announcements had
vied with the radio broadcast for the listeners' attention.
No one had to be told that this was one of the great mo-
ments in the history of sports.
"This is about as far as I go, Skip," Newcombe said, look-
ing down on the Dodger pilot, a good foot shorter.
Dressen said nothing. He had the ball gripped tightly and
was watching Ralph Branca come in slowly from the Dodger
bullpen. It was a long walk, long enough for a pitcher to mull
over the awesome consequences of making the wrong pitch.
It was long enough, too, for Dressen to wonder whether
Branca was the right choice for a stopper. He had called
Clyde Sukeforth, the Dodger bullpen coach, on the dugout
phone when Dark led off with the hit. Both Branca and Carl
Erskine were warming up. "Who's got better stuff?" Dressen
demanded.
"Branca," Sukeforth told him. So it had been Branca on
Sukeforth's say-so, as Dressen pointed out later but the com-
mand decision still had to be Dressen's.
Branca was a big, shy, former college man. He studiously
avoided Dressen's restless gaze as he took his place on the
mound. "You know what to do with this guy," Dressen said.
Branca nodded and there was the slap on the seat of the
pitcher's pants, the manager's automatic parting gesture of
confidence. Now it was Branca against Bobby Thomson, who
THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL 139
had already connected for two hits and a scoring fly in the
eighth*
Thomson was also on Ms way to being the goat of the game.
He had over-ran first base after singling in the second inning,
Scrambling back when he realized second base was occupied,
he had been thrown out easily.
Thomson had been waiting at home plate for a long time.
Normally, the longer a batter stands there doing nothing, the
more fidgety he becomes. On this particular occasion it worked
the other way with Thomson, and for an odd reason. There
had been a serious accident on the field that inning, Don
Mueller had broken his ankle sliding into third on Lockman^s
double. An attempt to put his weight on it had left Mm
writhing on the ground.
Meanwhile, there was Branca coming in, Newcombe taking
that long walk back to the clubhouse way out beyond center
field, and a couple of groundskeepers carrying Mueller off on
a stretcher. Through it all, Thomson stood watcMng the pro-
ceedings with an almost detached air. The nervousness and
tenseness wMch had gripped Ms arms and legs in the dugout
had disappeared magically. He knew the stakes, knew what
Branca would try to do, knew what he had to do, himself.
The first pitch to Bobby caught the outside comer for a
strike. It was Mgh, though, and Thomson blinked a little be-
cause that was Ms strength, a ball well up there. Had Branca
forgotten?
Branca got Rube Walker's return toss and stared hypnoti-
cally past Thomson crouched over the plate. Branca took a
final look at Clint Hartung, pinch-running for Mueller at tMrd,
then fired.
The next voice you will hear will be that of Russ Hodges,
the Giants* broadcaster, exactly as it was recorded on tape.
We pick Mm up with the count at one strike.
"Bobby's Mtting at two-ninety-two. He's had a single and
a double and he drove in the Giants' first run with a long fly
to center. Brooklyn leads, four-two. Hartung down the line at
140 THE FOUR DAYS THAT ROCKED BASEBALL
third, not taking any chances. Lockman, without too big a
lead at second, but he will be running like the wind if Thom-
son hits one. Branca throws. There's a long fly. It's gonna be
, . . I believe . . . the Giants win the pennant! The Giants
win the pennant! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!
THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!
"Bobby hit into the lower deck of the left field stands. The
Giants win the pennant and they're going crazy, they're going
crazy. I don't believe it, / don't believe it. I DON'T BELIEVE
IT! I will not believe it!
"Bobby Thomson hit a Kne drive into the lower deck of the
left field stands and the place is going crazy. The Giants . . .
Horace Stoneham's got a winner. The Giants win it by a score
of five to four. And they're picking up Bobby Thomson and
carrying him off the field. . , ."
Duel of the Pom-Minute Men
BY PAUL
The art of running the mile consists, in essence, of reaching
the threshold of unconsciousness at the instant of breasting
the tape. It is not an easy process, even in a setpiece race
against time, for the body rebels against such agonising usage
and must be disciplined by the spirit and the mind. It is in-
finitely more difficult in the amphitheater of competition, for
then the runner must remain alert and cunning despite the
fogs of fatigue and pain; Ms instinctive calculation of pace
must encompass maneuver for position, and he must harbor
strength to answer the moves of other men before expending
his last reserves in the war of the home stretch.
Few events in sport offer so ultimate a test of human courage
and human will and human ability to dare and endure for
the simple sake of struggle classically ran, it is a heart-stir-
ring, throat-tightening spectacle. But the world of track has
never seen anything quite to equal the "Mile of the Century"
which England's Dr. Roger Gilbert Bannister the tall, pale-
skinned explorer of human exhaustion who first crashed the
four-minute barrier-won at Vancouver, B.C., in August,
1954, from Australia's world-record holder, John Michael
Landy. It will probably not see the like again for a long, long
time.
Copyright 1954 by Sports Illustrated magazine.
142 DUEL OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN
The duel of history's first four-minute milers, high point of
the quadrennial British Empire & Commonwealth Games, was
the most widely heralded and universally contemplated match
footrace of all time. Thirty-two thousand people jostled and
screamed while it was run in Vancouver's new Empire Sta-
dium, millions followed it avidly by television. It was also the
most ferociously contested of all mile events. Despite the
necessity of jockeying on the early turns and of moving up
in a field of six other good men, Bannister ran a blazing
3:58.8 and Landy 3:59.6, Thus for the first time two men
broke four minutes in the same race. (Though far back in
the ruck, five other runners finished under 4:08 Canada's
Rich Ferguson in 4:04.6, Northern Ireland's Victor Milligan
in 4:05, and both New Zealand's Murray Halberg and Eng-
land's Ian Boyd in 4:07.2.)
Landy's world record of 3:58, set weeks before in cool,
still Nordic twilight at Turku, Finland, still stood when the
tape was broken. But runners are truly tested only in races
with thek peers. When the four-minute mile was taken out
of the laboratory and tried on the battlefield, Landy was
beaten, man to man, and Roger Bannister reigned again as
the giant of modern track.
Seldom has one event so completely overshadowed such a
big and colorful sports carnival as the 1954 Empire Games.
The Empire's miniature Olympics, for which Vancouver built
its $2,000,000 stadium, a bicycle velodrome and a magnificent
swimming pool, would have been notable if only for the
rugged, sea-girt, mountain-hung beauty amidst which they
were held. They were further enlivened by the sight of Van-
couver's kilted, scarlet-coated Seaforth Highland Regiment on
parade, by the presence of Britain's Field Marshal Earl Alex-
ander of Tunis, andmore exciting yet of Queen Elizabeth's
tall, handsome husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
During seven days of competition 20 of 27 games records
were cracked in track and field events alone, and England,
by virtue of her peerless distance runners, walked off with the
DUEL OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN 143
lion's share of glory (scoring by unofficial points: England
514-1/2, Australia 363-3/4, Canada 339, South Africa
260-3/4) and served notice on the world of tremendous
new strength, Canadians and U.S. tourists alike were startled
at the Elizabethan rudeness with which the Englishmen (Ox-
onians almost to a man, and thus held to be effete) ran their
opposition into the ground in races demanding stamina and
bottom. They placed one, two, three in the six mile (won by
Peter Driver) one, two, three in the three mile (won by
amiable, beer-quaffing Chris Chataway, who paced Bannister
in the Oxford mile) and one, two, three in the half mile (won
by Derek James Neville Johnson) .
There were also alarums and sensations. Australia's bicycle
team protested English tactics, were rebuffed, withdrew from
competition in a scandalous huff, cooled off, and duly re-
entered the lists. Vancouver's world champion weightlifter,
Doug Hepburn who stands 5'8", weighs 299 pounds, meas-
ures 22 inches around the biceps and wears the look of a
Terrible Turk lifted an aggregate of 1,040 pounds with con-
temptuous ease while Ms fellow citizens watched with unsur-
passed pride and gjee,
Canada's big, beautiful, blond woman shotputter, the To-
ronto schoolteacher Jackie MacDonald, was barred from com-
petition in mid-meet for publicly endorsing Orange Crush.
And the big closing-day crowd in the stadium was treated to
one of the most gruesome scenes in sports history after Eng-
land's marathon champion, Jim Peters, entered the track a
mile ahead of Ms field but almost completely unconscious
from strain and weariness. Peters fell as he came in sight of
the crowd, rose drunkenly, staggered a few steps and fell
again, until he was lifted to a stretcher and thus disqualified
short of victory.
But for all this, notMng in the games remotely approached
the tension and drama inherent in the mile. The race de-
veloped, in fact, amid an atmosphere much more reminiscent
of a heavyweight championsMp fight than a contest of ama-
144 DUEL OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN
teurs on the track. This was not unjustified; it was obvious
from the beginning that Bannister and Landy would be en-
gaged in a sort of gladiatorial combat, a duel of endurance
in which no two other men who ever lived could even have
engaged.
At first glance they seemed like an odd pair of gladiators.
Like most distance men both look frail and thin in street
clothes, Landy has a mop of dark, curly hair, the startled
brown eyes of a deer, a soft voice with little trace of the
Australian snarl, and a curious habit of bending forward and
clasping his hands before his chest when making a conversa-
tional point. As a student at Australia's Geelong Grammar
School ("A Church of England school," says his fatiher with
satisfaction, "where the prefects whack the boys, y'know")
John developed a passion for the collection of butterflies and
moths and an ambition to become an entomologist (which his
father cured by sending him to Melbourne University to study
agricultural science).
Roger Bannister is taller (6' W to Landy's 5' 11%"),
slightly heavier (156 pounds to Landy's 150) and one year
older but he too would be the last man in the world to be
singled out of a crowd as an athlete. He is stooped and neg-
ligent in carriage; he has lank blond hair, a high-cheeked,
peaked face, and a polite and noncommittal upper-class
British voice. The face is expressive and can flash with instant
animation and warmth. He can use words with precision and
humor, and at times, even with a sort of conversational elo-
quence. But scholarly is the word for Dr. Bannister. It is apt-
he is a scholar and a brilliant one. Perhaps five percent of
London medical students go through their courses without
failing one exam and Bannister was among that small frac-
tion when he received Ms degree at London's St. Mary's Hos-
pital this year.
But men are seldom what they seem; Bannister, a complex
and many-sided person, is both repelled and fascinated by the
hurly-burly of big time sport, but for seven years, he had
DUEL OF THE FOUH-MINUTE MEN 145
driven himself, stoically as an Indian brave or a man climbing
Everest, toward the four-minute mile. So during the last five
years had John Michael Landy. Both men engaged in an end-
less and grueling effort to explore and push back the furthest
boundaries of their own endurance.
Neither has ever been coached in the casual British club
system of competition, unlike the more regimented U.S. college
team system, runners are presumed to be able to train them-
selves. Separately, half a world apart, both Bannister and
Landy arrived at curiously identical conclusions; both decided
that overtraining and staleness were simply myths and that
the more the body endures the more it will endure. Both
drove themselves to extremes of exertion (training sessions
of 10 to 14 58-second quarter miles with one lap walked
between) which would have staggered the average U.S.
athlete.
Bannister carried his preoccupation with the mysteries of
exhaustion into the world of science when he was a medical
student at Oxford in 1951. He ran to the point of total col-
lapse on a treadmill almost daily, with hollow needles thrust
into his fingers to measure lactic acid and with an oxygen
mask clapped over his face to give him extra fuel. Meanwhile
at Oxford, and all through his three years at St. Mary's (where
he ducked out to Paddington Recreation Ground and paid
three pence to use the cinder paths), he went on with his
massive burden of running.
The two four-minute milers developed into unique beings
men whose hearts have enormous capacity and power and
whose bodies can utilize oxygen with fantastic economy and
resist the inroads of fatigue with fantastic success. Bannister's
pulse rate, which was a normal 65 when he was 17, was now
45. Landy's was 50. But there their similarities end. In Van-
couver, as the remorseless pressure of the world's excitement
pressed down on them, and race day neared, their differences
of temperament became obvious. Landy seemed assured, re-
146 DUEL OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN
laxed, cocky. Bannister became quiet, remote, and fled daily
to a golf course to train.
But Bannister's teammates were not misled. "Roger hates
the idea of having to beat Landy of having thousands of peo-
ple expecting Mm to do it,* said one* "But he'll do it. Nobody
gets in such an emotional pitch before a race as he does. He's
got a cold now* you know, I suspect it is psychosomatic and
I suspect he suspects it he had one just like it before the Ox-
ford mile, Roger may tell you he has slept before a race, but
he hasn't When he goes out to ran he looks like a man going
to the electric chair. There are times the night before a race
when he actually makes involuntary sounds, like a man being
tortured. But Roger is a hard man to comfort if you try he'll
give you a look that goes right through you.*
Whatever their preliminary travail, both runners seemed
equally intent and equally oblivious of the ramble and roar of
applause as they warmed up on the infield grass in the mo-
ments before race time. Bright sunlight bathed the jampacked
stadium. The temperature stood at a pleasant 12, the relative
humidity at a pleasant 48, Only the faintest of breezes moved
on the track, as the field of miters was called to the mark,
Landy, to the green of Australia, stepped quietly into the pole
position. Bannister, in the red-barred white of England, had
lane 5 he drew one deep, shuddering breath and then leaned
forward for a standing start.
The gun puffed and popped and New Zealand's darkhorse
Murray Halberg burst into the lead with his teammate Wil-
liam David BaiUie at Ms heels, Landy let them go he wanted
speed, but he wanted top cover if he could get it and settled
into a docile fourth on the turn. He stayed there for less than
the lap. The pacesetters slowed, almost imperceptibly, and
Landy moved instantly and decisively into the lead. His strat-
egy was simple and savage-to ran the first seven furlongs at
so blazing a pace that Bannister would be robbed of his fa-
mous kick.
As Landy moved, Bannister moved too. They ran Landy
DUEL OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN 147
first. Bannister second at the end of the stretch and the duel
had begun, "Time for the first lap," the loud-speakers grated
as they entered the turn, "fifty-eight seconds/' Then bedlam
began too. It increased as Landy moved awayfive yards, ten
yards, fifteen yards in the backstretch of the second lap, and
Bannister let him go. "It was a frightening thing to do," said
the Englishman later, "but I believed he was running too fast.
I had to save for my final burst and hope I could catch him
in time,"
Landy's time was 1:58 at the half. The groundwork for a
four-minute mile had been laid. The field had faded far to the
rear. The duelists ran alone in front with Landy still making
the pace. But now, yard by yard, easily, almost imperceptibly
Bannister was regaining ground. He was within striking dis-
tance as they fled into the last, decisive quarter amid a hysteri-
cal uproar of applause. He stayed there on the turn. Two
hundred yards from home, Landy made his bid for decision
and victory. But Bannister refused to be shaken, and with
90 yards to go he lengthened Ms plunging stride. He came
up shoulder to shoulder, fought for momentum, pulled away
to a four-yard lead and ran steadily and stylishly through a
deafening clamor to the tape. He fell, arms flapping, legs
buckling, into the arms of the English team manager a split
second after the race was done.
"I tried to pull away from him in the backstretch of the last
lap," said Landy after he ceased to gasp for breath, "I had
hoped that the pace would be so fast that he would crack at
that point. He didn't. When you get a man in that sort of a
situation and he doesn't crack, you do. From then on I knew
it was only a question of time. I looked over my left shoulder
to see where he was on the turn, and when I looked back he
was ahead of me." He paused, grinned, shook his head and
added: Tve had it"
This IS Cricket!
BY ROY TERRELL
On a lovely winter day in 1958 on the island of Barbados, a
small Pakistani named Hanif Mohammad came to bat in a
cricket test match between Pakistan and the West Indies. Like
Luke Appling fouling off bad pitches, he protected his wicket
with monotonous diligence, blocking those balls he didn't
want to hit, choosing to ran only on a sure thing. Mohammad
remained at bat for 16 hours and 39 minutes and scored 337
runs. By the time he was retired, the better part of four days
had elapsed. So had most of the spectators.
On a gloomy summer day in 1930, at the famous cricket
ground in Leeds in England, an Australian named Donald
Bradman came to bat in a test match between Australia and
England. He attacked everything opposing bowlers put within
reach. He slashed drives through the defense, he angled place-
ments behind him to the boundary 225 feet away, he sent
cricket balls soaring into the crowd. He scored 100 runs be-
fore lunch, another 100 before tea and another 100 before
the stumps were pulled that evening, a triple century in one
day, The next morning, still swinging away, Bradman went
out quickly at 334.
Between the two performances and each was magnificent
in its way Mohammad and Bradman demonstrated what is
Copyright 1961 by Sports Illustrated magazine.
THIS is CRICKET! 149
worst and best about the game of cricket: the tedious hours
of tactical patience, the spectacular and sustained skill. It is
unfortunate that the dreary one has kept Americans from ap-
preciating the exciting other.
For cricket is a superb game. Its past stretches back into
England's history for more than 500 years, and it has been
played in virtually its present form since 1744. Nothing so
absurd as the game some Americans describe as cricket could
possibly have survived as long as cricket has or retained its
charm for so many thousands of people across the face of the
globe. It is not baseball and no one should expect it to be
baseball but cricket, too, is basically a duel between a man
with a bat and another man with a ball, and it is replete with
many of the same athletic skills. The trouble with cricket is
that it is a sport peculiar to the British and, like practically all
British peculiarities, it often is incomprehensible to others.
Cricket is a remnant of another day, another age, when
men had more time to play. It was born in the lovely, rolling
English countryside, among the great oak trees and the mead-
ows filled with browsing sheep; it grew to maturity on the
village green, where the squire would gather his people on a
weekend, after the work was done, and join them in this ritual
that became a game. Cricket grows no longerit is, in fact,
battling superhighways and television sets and yacht clubs for
survival and a great many Englishmen do not really like
cricket today. They prefer soccer. The demand for "brighter
cricket" fills the English newspapers, the music halls of Lon-
don and the Houses of Parliament. But the cricket fan man-
ages to ignore most of the complaints, England, to him, is
divided quite simply into two parts: those who love cricket
and those who do not count. Let the latter shout.
Unlike soccer, which appeals almost entirely to what the
English used to call the lower classes, cricket cuts across class
lines. It is played by Welsh coal miners and English factory
workers as well as graduates of Cambridge and Oxford; it is
played on school grounds and on the village green and at
150 THIS is CRICKET!
Lord's, where the Marylebone Cricket Club reigns as it has for
175 years, in dignity and splendor, while maintaining an un-
ceasing vigilance over everything that takes place.
In England today cricket is still everywhere. The immacu-
late white trousers and white shoes and white shirts and white
cable-stitched, knee-length sweaters appear on a summer day
by the hundreds of thousands upon every cricket ground in
the land. Cricket clubs dot London and Manchester and
Birmingham and the other bustling cities. There are the great
intercounty matches the big leagues of cricketat Lord's and
Leeds and Old Trafford and the Oval, all the hallowed sites.
And in summer the touring test side from Australia may be
on hand as well, contesting England for the Ashes. The
Commonwealth can crumble and the Common Market jolly
well go hang when the Aussies are in town.
To appreciate cricket, an American must first understand
it which should not be so impossible when one considers that
50 million English, 85 million Pakistanis, 15 million South
Africans, 10 million Australians, 3 million West Indians, 2
million New Zealanders and 400 million Indians seem to
know what the game is all about The first thing an American
should do is accept the fact that a great deal of what Ms
countrymen have written about cricket is true. In this way he
can subdue his mirth early and concentrate on technique.
So there really is something called a googly and a position
known as silly mid-off and another called forward short leg,
The game does appear sometimes to be played in slow motion,
and medical research has indeed established that a cricket
fielder expends more energy driving to his match than he does
once he gets there. Players and fans alike suspend all activity
abruptly at 4:15 p.m. to take tea; when a spectator misses
tea, it is usually because he is taking a nap instead. No one
argues with the umpires although occasionally a fan will get
so excited that he claps. And because the game is inevitably
bound up with strategy, it can go on for hours and days and,
as in the case of a test series, for weeks without arriving at
THIS is CRICKET!
any definite conclusion. This is all part of cricket. Those who
wish to see back-to-back home runs by Mantle and Maris, or
Willie Mays sliding across home plate on the seat of his pants,
should go elsewhere.
But if they do, they will miss some remarkable perform-
ances. For example, a good fast cricket bowler can deliver the
ball, which is slightly smaller and harder than a baseball, and
is painted red-probably so the blood won't show-at 90 miles
an hour, as fast as Don Drysdale, and he can make it do
strange and wondrous things by bouncing it off the ground.
The deliveries of a spin bowler, both for accuracy and the
gyrations produced, would earn the envy of Sal Maglie. The
batsman, in order to stay alive, let alone score 100 runs in
one time at bat, must possess the courage of a water buffalo,
something of a water buffalo's hide and the reactions of a cat.
Even the fielders, despite their sedentary appearance, some-
times make catches, barehanded, that would amaze Maury
Wills. And, the oft maligned strategy can be fascinating, too,
as soon as one learns where to look.
Cricket is played on a circular or oval field, roughly 150
yards in diameter (although a village cricket ground may be
of any size, like a baseball diamond in a vacant lot), between
two teams, each consisting of 11 men. An inni.ngs-4t is al-
ways plural in cricket, apparently to confuse things consists
of 10 outs; there are two innings for each side, and then
the match is over and the team that has scored the most runs
wins. This seems simple enough. But cricket is played to a
time limit, usually 6 p.m. of the third day for a county match
and 6 p.m. of the fifth day for a test match, and the game
may not be complete when the deadline is reached. In this
case, regardless of which team has the most runs, the match
is a draw. This arbitrary time limit is perhaps the most absurd
rule in cricket, but it governs the game so inflexibly that it
can become the primary consideration.
Suppose, for example, that Lancashire is playing Yorkshire
at Old Trafford. Lancashire wins the toss and bats first. Lan-
52 THIS is CRICKET!
ashire scores 125 runs and is retired on the afternoon of the
irst day. Yorkshire scores 200 runs and is retired just before
^a on the second day. Lancashire comes in for its second
rmings and gets hot; it scores at a frightful pace, reaches a
otal of 250 runs that evening and 325 by lunch of the third
lay, still not out. Suddenly the Lancashire captain screeches
3 a halt. "My goodness/' he says. "We might score 1,000
UBS, but that won't do us any good, Yorkshire will not get
Es second innings before the time limit is reached, and the
aatch will be a draw." So the Lancashire captain declares Ms
ide out.
If he has acted wisely, Lancashire will have time before 6
>.m. to retire 10 Yorkshiremen somewhere short of the neces-
ary 126 runs, and Lancashire will win. If he has declared too
oon, Yorkshire may outscore Lancashire in the time left,
a which case red roses will wilt all over England, Margaret of
yijou will flip in her grave and the Lancashire captain may
>e ran out of Manchester on a rail. If he has waited too long
o declare, Yorkshire may not be able to catch up, but simply
>y lasting until 6 p.m. without making 10 outs Yorkshire can
am a draw. To declare or not to declare, that is always the
[uestion in cricket
There is also the matter of weather, of which there is a great
leal in England. No cricket match is ever postponed, or
aoved back a day or two, because of rain. Rain may halt play
smporarily or even wash it out altogether, but it never changes
tie schedule. The match is over at 6 p.m. of the third day
ven if the players have spent all the time in the pavilion
matching Deborah Kerr on TV.
Rain also delights the bowler because it softens the bowling
rea, which is known as either the pitch or the wicket (sticky
/icket, you know), and the ball will behave even more errati-
ally than usual off such a surface. Upon winning the toss, a
sam normally chooses to bat first, before the pitch is scarred
nd worn from all the activity; faced with a sticky wicket, how-
ver, it may elect to send the other team in for first innings
rms is CRICKET! 153
and hope for clearing skies and a fast pitch by Saturday. This
zsn get extremely involved; the best thing to remember is sim-
ply that in cricket, more than in almost any other sport, the
weather is a great and constant consideration.
Most of the action in cricket takes place in the center of the
Seld where the two wickets, each consisting of three sticks
stuck into the ground, stand 22 yards apart, which is about six
feet more than the distance between a pitcher's mound and
iiome plate. From one wicket the bowler delivers the ball, tak-
ing a run first and then sending it toward the opposite wicket
tvith that sweeping, overhead, stiff-armed motion that is so un-
latural to Americans and English, too but which is a neces-
sity in this case. If a cricket bowler were allowed to run and
hen cock his arm and throw as a baseball pitcher does, he
yould knock holes in every batsman stupid enough to stand
ip there. He can do enough damage as it is. That is why
cricket batsmen wear gloves and pads.
At the other wicket stands the batsman, equipped with an
)bject resembling a sawed-off canoe paddle, and it is his duty
o protect his wicket from the ball and also to hit the ball far
mough to score runs. If the ball is bowled accurately and gets
>ast him, it will dislodge the stumps, or at least the small
)ieces of wood called bails that rest atop them, and the bats-
nan is bowled out
He may also be caught out, as in baseball, if he hits the ball
nto the air which cricket batsmen try hard not to do and he
nay be run out. This means that he hits the ball and chooses
o run for the other wicket, only to find that someone has
ielded the ball and thrown it there before he arrives. The
ielder may either hit the wicket with his own throw or he
nay throw the ball to a teammate at the wicket, who reaches
>ver and knocks off the bails.
Among several other ways in which a cricket batsman may
>e retired, two are particularly worth mentioning. He may be
aught out of Ms crease, the whitewash line just in front of
he wicket; while he is thus out of position the wicketkeeper
154 Tffls is CRICKET!
(the catcher, so to speak) can grab the ball and knock off the
bails* This is called being stumped. The most delightful way,
however, is Leg Before Wicket. It is always abbreviated Lb.w.
on scorecards and happens often enough to keep things from
getting too dull* If the bowler delivers a ball which, in the
judgment of the umpire, would have bit the wicket, and the
batsman stops it or deflects it, not with Ms bat but with Ms
leg or body, he is out, Leg Before Wicket TMs is the one
occasion when, if there is a questionable play, cricket players
scream at the umpire, "Howzat?" the bowler and Ms fielders
roar, leaping into the air. If the umpire, who wears a long
wMte coat and looks like the neighborhood butcher, rules in
their favor, they clap and smile. If he refuses their appeal,
they say nothing more.
We have been speaking of one batsman when, all along,
there are actually two on the field at the same time. While one
bats, the other stands idly at the opposite wicket. If the bats-
man Mts a ball and decides to ran, the other batsman runs,
too. They cross, and the batsman has scored a run if each
reaches the opposite crease safely. If the two batsmen can
cross twice, safely, the batsman scores two runs. Three cross-
ings, three runs. If the ball goes all the way to the boundary
on the ground, it is good for an automatic four runs and the
batsmen do not have to ran. TMs is called a boundary, and it
is considered the finest of all cricket Mts, If a batsman hits a
ball all the way over the boundary in the air, he gets six runs
and it is known as a six, though it looks like a home run.
However, since it is so easy to pop the ball into the air and be
caught out when trying for a six, there are relatively few of
them Mt in cricket, about as often as home runs were hit in
baseball before Babe Ruth.
Strangely enough, cricket fans do not get very excited about
a six, or any far-Mt ball In Wisden's Cricketers 9 Almanack,
wMch runs for more than 1,000 pages, only seven lines are
devoted to long Mts. One item describes a record Mt, delivered
by the Rev. W. Fellows while at practice on the Christ Church
THIS is CRICKET! 155
ground at Oxford in 1856. The ball traveled 525 feet, a tape-
measure job. The other occasion Wisden considers worth men-
tioning concerns the famous bowler A. E. Trott, who one day
in 1899 drove a ball atop the pavilion roof at Lord's, where it
knocked off a chimney pot and awakened several members.
They were probably putting a little rabbit in the ball that year.
In the beginning that is about all one needs to know about
cricket, except for the over. There are two batsmen; there are
also two bowlers. While one bowler bowls, the other fields,
which means he rests, more or less. One bowler delivers six
balls from his end, then the ball goes to the other bowler at
the other end for six throws. Each series of six is called an
over, and if used in baseball it would allow Whitey Ford and
Luis Arroyo to go through a game with each of them pitching
part of each innings sorry, inning. Perhaps it is just as well
for the Tigers that things remain as they are.
The best cricket is played by the international all-star teams
the test sides and by the county teams from whose ranks the
test players are named. But a test match is not necessarily the
best place to go to learn cricket. The best place is the country,
where cricket began.
The choice is unlimited, but maybe you have decided to
drive out from Manchester on a Saturday afternoon, down the
wrong side of the road, barely two Morris Minors wide, past
the fences with their climbing roses, to the little town of Styal.
You pass a few shops and a petrol station and an old man
walking his dog who directs you with his pipe to the cricket
ground. As a matter of fact, he is on the way there himself.
The cricket ground is surrounded by everyday, familiar
things: a road and a fence, a hedge, a meadow dotted with
trees, and a church and a tavern side by side. It is amazing
how many taverns adjoin cricket grounds in England. An an-
cient iron gate droops invitingly open and you walk through,
pleasantly aware that no ticket taker is standing there holding
out Ms hand. Suddenly you are in another world.
It is peaceful and quiet and very, very lovely. A bkd chirps
156 THIS is CRICKET!
in a tree. A dog sniffs. A child toddles onto the field and is
retrieved by Ms parents. A cyclist stops by to watch for a
moment The sun dances off the green grass, and the white-
clad figures move as if in a dream. The match is already under
way, but since nothing spectacular has happened and perhaps
never will this is not important Spectators come and go; only
the unemployed ever watch a cricket match in England from
beginning to end.
At one corner of the field there is a neat little clubhouse,
where the players sit awaiting their turn at bat, and nearby is
a Scoreboard that tells how many runs have been made and
how many wickets taken. The Scoreboard does not tell which
team is at bat, however, so you ask the nearest Styal fielder
who the opposition is that day.
He leaves Ms position, as if it didn't matter anyway, and
comes politely over. Tm not really sure," he says. "Whit-
church, I believe* I'll find out if you like/' You shake your
head. If he doesn't care, why should you? You are beginning
to learn something about cricket.
As the afternoon progresses, you learn more. Village cricket
may consist of only one innings apiece; or perhaps there will
be 20 overs bowled by each side, and the team that scores the
most runs wins. As a result there is little or no strategic stall-
ing and shuffling and waiting around. The village batsman is
up there to get Ms licks and have fun and if he makes out in
one minute or five, who cares? Because of this, the bowlers
are always ahead of the batsmen in the country, and the game
progresses quickly. For cricket.
Your informant is only 18 or 19, like half the players on
the team-the other half seem to be 45 (perhaps the 30-year-
olds are all away playing against Yorkshire) and you watch
him for a while. He makes one fine running stop; he drops a
pop fly; eventually the captain calls Mm in to bowl and he
takes two quick wickets to retire the side. "Well bowled," you
murmur.
Time out for tea. Styal comes in for its inning^ Your man
THIS is CRICKET! 157
bats third in the order. He blocks the first ball. He swings at
the second and dribbles it off to the left, too close to ran. The
next he deflects sharply, past gully to third man (you look in
your book to see what the fielders* positions are called) and
lights out for the other wicket. He scores, and you murmur,
"Well run." The other batsman is facing the bowler now, to
complete the six balls of the over, and you talk to your neigh-
bor, who is also sitting on the ground and chewing a blade of
grass. Yes, crops were good this year. That church? Oh, back
around 1284. In a few minutes your man is up again. He
swings mightily and hits the first ball to the boundary for a
four. A bit overconfident now, he attempts to deflect a wicked
spinner to Ms leg side, misses and Ms wicket goes down. He
grins and retires, through for the day.
"Well bowled," you wMsper, hoping that no one minds if
you give one little cheer for WMtchurch or whoever the other
side is that day. No one minds.
The game they play at Lord's is cricket, too, but the re-
semblance ends with that. Lord's, wMch was named after a
man who owned the property and has nothing to do with no-
bility, is in London, 20 minutes by taxicab from Piccadilly
Circus or Trafalgar Square. Home of the Marylebone (pro-
nounced Mrrbn) Cricket Club, Lord's is the cradle of the
game. They charge you four shillings, or 56^, to get in there.
The famous pavilion, accessible only to members and
never to women occupies one end. Grandstands and bleach-
ers encircle the other sides. The crowds can be huge at Lord's,
for a county or a test match, and there was a time when they
were just as mannerly as in the country. But in 1889, in-
censed at the extreme caution with wMch an Australian cap-
tain named Darling was batting, a section of the crowd forgot
itself and began to wMstle The Dead March from Saul "This
unseemly demonstration," reported a London newspaper,
"was happily without precedent at Lord's." No more. For one
thing, Lord's has its Hilda Chester, too, right out of Ebbets
Field. Her name is Yorkshire Annie, she weighs approximately
158 THIS is CRICKET!
20 stone, and she has a most stentorian voice. For another,
Lord's has a pub located right on the grounds, between two
sections of the grandstand, and in midafternoon, along about
teatime, the barracking can get very loud over there.
The cricket played at Lord's is vastly superior in skill to
that at Styal, though it loses something in the way of atmos-
phere. The batsmen and the bowlers, you begin to realize, are
artists.
Each of the duelists has advantages that soon become ap-
parent to the baseball-trained eye. The bowler can deliver the
ball at a number of different speeds. He can throw it very hard,
so that it skips quickly past any batsman who lacks a sharp
eye and quick wrists. Because the cricket ball has a high, raised
seam running around its middle, he can also make it bounce
off that seam and kick abruptly to either side.
He can make it curve through the air by wrist action, as
does a baseball pitcher in cricket this is called swerve bowl-
ingand he can make it jump in either direction off the ground
by imparting more of the same kind of spin.
Then there are yorkers, which hit the ground virtually at a
batsman's feet, and bumpers, which are the cricket version of
a bean ball. It was never considered necessary to legalize
against bumpers not cricket, you knowuntil in 1932 the
English test side on tour in Australia decided that the only
way to get rid of Don Bradman was to resort to what they
chose to call "the body-line attack." So they threw bumpers at
Bradman until even that heroic figure began to stand loose
up there. The Australians threatened to break off relations,
the English were insulted that anyone should accuse them of
unsportsmanlike conductand pointed out to the Aussies that
cricket would die down under without the Ashes but eventu-
ally it was all patched up. The bumper is illegal now which
doesn't mean that it isn't used.
The batsman has his defenses, too. For one thing, anything
he hits in a 360 circle is in play, as if every foul tip and
whistling foul line drive off Yogi Berra's bat had to be cap-
THIS is CRICKET! 159
tured by the other team. Because of the great area that the
nine cricket fielders exclusive of the bowler and wicket-
keepermust defend, there are a lot of holes in which an
adroit and skillful batsman may dump safe hits.
Since he does not have to run unless he wants to, he can
wait for the pitch, or rather the ball, he wants. The rest he
simply blocks or bunts onto the ground if they threaten his
wicket. There is too much of this in first-class play and it is the
primary cause of the long-drawn-out match. India and Paki-
stan, those bitter rivals, have played 12 successive draws in
test matches. For political reasons, neither side can bear the
thought of defeat. The batsmen simply block and punch their
shots and never move until a run is a sure thing.
But an outstanding batsman is nonetheless a marvel of style
and grace, a mixture of power and poise. There have been
hundreds of famous cricket bowlers, and they are well known,
just like the best American baseball pitchers, but, as in base-
ball, it is not the man who throws the ball but the big hitter
who becomes the national hero. Where would baseball be with-
out its Babe Ruths and Ty Cobbs lighting up the years of the
past? Cricket has its Ruths and Cobbs, too.
The name most familiar to Americans, aside from Brad-
man, of course, is Len Button, the Yorkshireman who be-
came the first professional cricketer ever to captain an English
test side, and who did more to break up the absurd practice
of separate dressing rooms for gentlemen (amateurs) and
players (professionals) than anyone else. Occasionally a
cricket scorecard in some hidebound bastion of the game, such
as Lord's, will still show the initials of the amateurs ahead of
their names and the initials of the pros after, but no longer do
the two have to enter the field from separate doors.
Hutton has the record for most runs in one innings of a test
match, 364, against Australia at the Oval in 1938. In his
career, which lasted from 1934 until 1960, he scored 129
centuries in first-class cricket, averaging 55 runs each time he
came to bat. One season he averaged 68 runs. Len Hutton was
160 THIS is CRICKET!
a stylist, a beautifully controlled batsman with all the strokes.
There are many others, of course: Jack Hobbs, whose 197
centuries and 61,237 runs have never been surpassed, and
Denis Compton, a daring, unorthodox player who once scored
300 runs in 181 minutes, an incredible pace; Compton had
122 centuries during his career and averaged 51 runs in test
play. There are not so many great players active todaythere
never arebut the English stylist Peter May, and his partner,
Colin Cowdrey, belong in this circle, as does the Australian
Neil Harvey, who is also his country's best baseball player.
The Australians have been hoping that young Norman O'Neill,,
who decided not to sign a baseball contract with the New
York Yankees in 1959, will become a new Bradman, but now
they are beginning to wonder.
No one should really expect another Bradman, the most
amazing run-scoring machine the game has known. Playing
once for New South Wales against Queensland in 1929, Brad-
man scored 452 runs, not out (a batsman is "not out" if his
side ends its innings for one reason or another before he him-
self has been put out). He scored over 300 runs sk times. Of
Ms 1 17 centuries, 29 came in test matches, far more than any-
one else has been able to produce, and his almost unbelieva-
ble average for test play is 99.94 runs an innings, almost 40
runs better than the next best figure.
They have called Bradman the Babe Ruth of cricket. He
was more like Ty Cobb, The Babe Ruth of cricket was Wil-
liam Gilbert Grace. W.G. and no one would think of calling
Mm anything else, even today was a giant of a man with a
huge black beard. He was born near Bristol in 1848 and
learned to play cricket in a peach orchard. By the time he was
18 he was an English hero; for 43 years thereafter he was Mr.
Cricket, and he remains so today. By the time he quit, his
beard was wMte and he looked more like Santa Glaus, with a
huge belly and a booming laugh, but the very name of Grace
was enough to strike terror into opponents' hearts.
Like Ruth, he injected personality into the game. He was
THIS is CRICKET! 161
cunning and loud and crowds came to see Mm play. Like
Ruth, he was magnificent with either ball or bat. Most of Ms
batting records have been eclipsed now but he was supreme in
his time and no one has ever surpassed his feat of scoring at
least 1,000 runs in 28 different seasons. He had 126 centuries
when such batting was unheard of. His 318, not out, in 1876
against Yorkshire is still a record for Gloucestershire, and in
1896, at the age of 48, he was able to score 301 runs against
Sussex. He once scored 344 runs for the Marylebone Cricket
Club against Kent, and at the M.C.C. they will always con-
sider W.G. next to God.
As a bowler Grace took 2,876 wickets, the seventh Mghest
of all time,, and among fielders he still ranks second, with 871
catches.
Strangely enough, Grace was a member of the first English
team to lose a test match to Australia on English soil. TMs
was in 1882, and it was a disastrous defeat. One spectator
dropped dead, another chewed the handle off Ms umbrella,
and the Sporting Times reflected the feelings of all English-
men by printing an obituary;
In affectionate remembrance
of
ENGLISH CRICKET
which died at the Oval on
29th August 1882,
deeply lamented by a large circle
of sorrowing friends and
acquaintances.
R.I.P.
N.B. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to
Australia.
There never were any ashes, really, although some Mel-
bourne ladies later burned a bail, collected the ashes in a
small urn and presented them to the next visiting English cap-
162 THIS is CRICKET!
tain. The um never travels back and forth between the two
countries, however; it rests in the museum at Lord's.
England and Australia play for the Ashes on an irregular
schedule that would be every fourth year in each country if it
weren't complicated by the Australian summer that occurs in
the middle of winter. So each nation ends up host once every
three or five years. In between, they play test matches with
India, Pakistan, South Africa, New Zealand and the West
Indies, and although the last named, in particular, is playing
tremendous cricket these days, somehow it never seems so
important. In the West Indies spectators sometimes fall out of
treeswhich is not at all like Lord's.
The 1961 test matches began in England in early June with
Australia f avored* The Aussies had no fast bowlers to compare
with the famed Brian Statham or Fiery Freddie Trueman, the
uninhibited Yorkshireman who can throw a cricket ball
through a battleship, and only Neil Harvey among the Austra-
lian batsmen seemed to be in the class of Peter May and
Cowdrey. But the Australians were a better team; they had
good strength right down the order, while England was lack-
ing, once past its top men.
England went out on the first day at Edgbaston, in Birming-
ham, after only 195 runs. Before Australia was retired, Harvey
had scored 114, his 20th test century. O'Neill had scored 82
and the side totaled 516 for nine wickets, declared. It was the
highest test score since 1934, and a London headline said:
NOW ENGLAND NEEDS A DUNKIRK. So the English came up
with another Dunkirk, aided by a day's rain, and earned a
draw. Raman Subba Row scored 112 and Ted Dexter 180,
and England had 401 runs in its second innings for a total of
596 and Australia never had a chance to bat.
The second test was at Lord's, and a terrible thing hap-
pened: a ridge developed in the pitch, right in front of one
wicket, and surveyors later discovered that the cricket ground
sloped two inches from north to south, "By gad, sir," said the
Daily Express, "Lord's is full of bumps/ 1 No one could buy a
THIS is CRICKET! 163
Mt (O'Neifl went out for one ran and then a duckno runs
in Ms two innings) except for one of the least considered
Aussies, Bill Lawry, who stayed in for 130 and gave the visi-
tors all the edge required.
In the third test, in Leeds, it appeared that England would
lose again. May was hurt and Cowdrey aching. But then Fred-
die Traeman took five Australian wickets for just 16 runs.
He had his stuff that day. Now the series was tied.
But Australia, which had won the Ashes in the last test,
down under in the winter of 1958-59, hung on grimly. The
first day of the fourth test, at Old Trafford, was all but rained
out (there have been a total of 100 test hours rained out in
Manchester since World War II) and the English always seem
to operate better on a sticky wicket which is hardly surprising
since it is their climate. Peter May showed his skill by scoring
95 runs, and England, after her first innings, was in a very
strong position. But things can change quickly perhaps sur-
prisingly is a better word in cricket. Alan Davidson, the hand-
some Australian all-rounder who has been better known for
his left-handed seam bowling than his bat, went on a rampage.
He slugged England's David Allen for two sixes and two fours
in just one over and scored 77 runs, not out. It was the spark
Australia needed; the run total climbed to 432 and the English
found themselves faced with the virtually impossible task of
scoring 256 runs after lunch on the fifth day to win. They
couldn't make it.
The victory insured Australia of at least a tie in the test
matches, no matter what England did in the fifth and final
match. It meant that Australia would continue in possession
of the Ashes, in spirit if not in fact, for another two years,
since the Ashes remain with the country that had them when-
ever there is a draw.
Windsor Castle will stand, of course, and there will always
be an England and all that. But England is not the same with-
out the Ashes. Even if she does keep them locked up at Lord's.
Heavyweight Champion 1962:
Where Did the Glory Go?
BY BILL FURLONG
After the weigh-in for the match with McNeeley, Floyd Pat-
terson went to room 548 of the King Edward Hotel in Toronto
to have lunch. He planned to take a leisurely walk, then nap
for three hours before defending Ms championship for the
seventh time. As he waited for lunch steak, salad, hash brown
potatoes, spinach, tea and a bottle of Coke he dropped a
record onto the stereo hi-fi set he carries with him wherever
he goes. It was Mantovanf s Songs To Remember. The first
song was With These Hands. The last was Tonight.
In his room on the 15th floor of the Westbury Hotel, chal-
lenger Tom McNeeley put aside a copy of the short stories of
Ernest Hemingway. ("A wonderful fight story in there Fifty
Grand" he said.) A steady rain seemed certain of disrupting
his plans for the afternoon a trip to the zoo. "I just like to see
the tigers," he said with a small, sly smile.
McNeeley was an enormously engaging, superbly condi-
tioned fighter. He'd boxed 400 rounds and done five miles of
roadwork every day for almost five months. He'd had 23
fights and won them all 18 by knockouts. He was a wild,
brawling fighter with great heart and few skills. He would go
down 10 times that night, two times by slipping, eight times
Copyright 1962 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of the author.
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 165
at the fists of Floyd Patterson. He would be knocked out in
the fourth round.
The afternoon of the fight, McNeeley was more than a chal-
lenger to Floyd Patterson. They were, together, a symbol of
what has happened to the heavyweight championship. It is a
time of faded glory, of exalted impostors, of talents polished
to a bright, quick tarnish. Once the heavyweight championship
was the summit of ambition, wrapped in a special radiance,
possessing a glowing sense of romance. For many persons
time was ticked oS not in the wretched cycles of war and
depression but in the storied feats of John L. Sullivan and
Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. Now the glory is gone. It is
almost a betrayal of the American dream,
In Toronto the mocking laughter of the past echoed down
the corridors of time* The heavyweight championship fight was
an added attraction. The city was caught up in the wild ecsta-
sies of a football game the Grey Cup, the championship game
of Canadian football. There were few who knew the heavy-
weight champion was among them, fewer who cared. On the
afternoon of the fight, some two-score sportswriters gathered
in rooms 502-503 of the Westbury Hotel to watch movies of
the championship fights of the past. The narrator was Jimmy
Jacobs, the national four-wall handball champion, a boxing
buff who has collected some 2,600 films of fights from the
past. From below in the street came the sounds of the cars
moving through the dour rain, their tires going slick slick slick,
like adhesive tape unwinding from an endless roll. Jimmy
Jacobs' voice cut through the air heavy with smoke:
"On this -film, gentlemen, you will see the birth of a punch
that has gone down in boxing history . . . It is March 17,
1897 , . , Carson City, Nevada the heavyweight champion-
ship fight between Gentleman Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsim-
mons . . . This was the first boxing match ever filmed for
motion pictures , . . The first time a heavyweight champion-
166 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
ship changed hands under the Marquis of Queensberry
rules . . .
"It is the 14th round, gentlemen, and you will see Fitz-
simmons drive a powerful left hand into the pit of Corbetfs
stomach . . . That was the famous 'solar plexus' punch . . .
You see Corbett being counted out . . . It was the only time
a middleweight ever won the heavyweight championship of
the world . . At the time Fitzsimmom weighed only 163
pounds . . .*
At the weigh-in a young woman had looked with surprise
on Floyd Patterson. "Why, he doesn't seem so big," she had
said. She'd imagined the heavyweight champion was an enor-
mous and powerfully muscled man much larger than, say, a
professional football player. Against McNeeley, Patterson
weighed in at 188Vi pounds. Only twice in his second and
third fights against Ingemar Johansson had he weighed more
for a fight
Physically, Patterson does not "project the image," He won
the heavyweight championship in 1956 by defeating the light-
heavyweight champion, Archie Moore. At the time Patterson
weighed 5Vz pounds less than Moore.
For a long while, fight fans looked upon Floyd as an "over-
grown middleweight." He'd won the Olympic middleweight
championship in 1952 when he was 17 years old and for
almost 2Y2 years after he'd turned pro, his manager, Cus
D'Amato, had kept him fighting as a middleweight.
At the Carman Club in Toronto, before the McNeeley fight,
Cus D'Amato talked of the time Patterson became more than
a middleweight, Cus reached for the garlic bread and frowned
as a waiter dumped sour cream-and-chives on his baked po-
tato. He is a simple man, direct in his tastes and his passions.
It was in Floyd's 19th professional fight. "He was fighting
Willie Troy in New York," said Cus. It was January 7, 1955,
just three days after Patterson's 21st birthday. Td guaranteed
that he'd come in at 165 pounds," said Cus. "But this was a
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 167
time when he grew,, he just became a bigger man in training.
Not with fat. With muscle." In a physical check-up the Mon-
day before the Friday-night Troy fight, Patterson weighed 175
pounds. "I was sick/' said Cus. Td promised that he'd come in
at 165." Floyd went back to training while Cos became im-
mersed in business details. He didn't see Patterson again until
the weigh-in on the day of the fight, "Then I was sicker than
ever/' Cus said. Patterson weighed 165 pounds. "He'd taken
off ten pounds not of fat, of new hard muscle/' said Cus.
"But he said he couldn't let me break a promise* so he'd come
in at 165." That night Patterson knocked out Troy in five
rounds. "But his punches didn't have any sting in them/* said
Cus, "He was throwing them and they were hurting, but not
like they'd been in his earlier fights. After the fight we talked
it over to find out why/*
"Well, Cus/* said Patterson to Ms manager, "I haven't eaten
since Monday/'
But the heavyweight champion has more than a physical
image. He possesses a special mystique, a subtle spirit that
expands beyond the physical. Jack Dempsey weighed only
slightly more than Floyd Patterson and sometimes fought for
the heavyweight championship at lighter weights than Floyd.
But Dempsey "projected the image" of a growling, brawling,
vicious battler without mercy or elegance. He made wild bru-
tality Ms cMef distinction in the ring. Floyd Patterson is a gen-
tle person. He graces the heavyweight championsMp with
decency and dignity. When he had Tom McNeeley helpless
in the third round of their fight in Toronto, he reached down
to help the challenger a moment after he'd knocked him down.
"Sometimes," he explained, "when you're in a fight, you forget
you're in a fight. You feel sorry for a man to a certain degree
when you've got him down." Jack Dempsey never exMbited
compassion in a ring; he never said he was sorry for Ms vic-
tims. It is difficult for Floyd Patterson to appreciate that Mc-
Neeley had been possessed of a wild and incalculable fury,
brawling every instant, looking like a man who wanted to kill.
168 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
"But I feel that if he'd had me in the shape I had him in,"
insisted Floyd in gentle innocence, "he would have helped me
up."
The heavyweight championship thrusts a burdensome re-
sponsibility upon a man and the more sensitive he is, the
heavier the burden. John L. Sullivan accepted the champion-
ship with a sense of regal destiny, Jim Corbett with a cocky
possessiveness. Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey saw it as a
weapon with which to lash back in their fights against the
world Johnson in Ms role as a bon voyageur through the
gay iniquities of life, Dempsey in Ms role as a black-browed
menace to a hostile world. Joe Louis saw it not so much as a
reward for and a recognition of Ms superb arts but simply as
a way of life as a career wMch would somehow extend be-
yond the bounds of aging muscles and tiring legs. Rocky
Marciano accepted it with a buoyant boyishness but also as a
method of achieving that stature in the world toward which
the lower and lower-middle classes have forever groped; he
quit it as soon as he was financially secure, for it was not Ms
Ultimate Goal but only a station-stop enroute to that goal.
All of them brought a certain style to the institution. Floyd
Patterson's style is solitude.
He is a shy man in a public world. For several years in Ms
childhood, he rarely uttered a spoken word. His toughest
fights have been within himself "He's had to fight against fear
all Ms life," says one of Ms greatest admirers. He is an ex-
tremely sensitive individual. "My feelings are still rather deli-
cate/* he has said. "You can Mt me and I won't tMnk much
about it, but you can say something and hurt me very much/'
He looks out upon the world not with a smile or a scowl but
with a quizzical patience. The emotions he arouses are not of
anger or admiration but of compassion. "I came to love the
gentleness in tMs man," says one friend.
The heavyweight championsMp takes on the lineaments of
the man who holds it. Floyd Patterson is a quietly human in-
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 169
dividual, not given to seeking personal glory for himself or
the institution he graces.
". . . The shortest heavyweight champion in history-
Tommy Burns stood only 5~7 l /2 inches tall" said Jimmy Jacobs
as the film whirred through the projector. "In this fight, on
May 8, 1907, in Los Angeles, California, you see him . . ."
In a year and a half as heavyweight champion, Tommy
Bums stopped eight opponents in nine fights all over the world
Dublin, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Sydney, and Mel-
bourne. But through it all endured the vague feeling that he
was never a "true champion" because "the talent isn't there to
challenge him."
Some 50 years later the cry of "no talent" again was heard
across the land. It was Floyd Patterson's fate that his arc was
rising as that of the heavyweight ranks and of boxing in gen-
eralwas declining. He became a champion without challeng-
ers. He was in much the same position of a Ford in a world
without gasoline or Steuben in a world short of glass. It is
difficult to be a great champion without great fights.
What has happened to boxing, to the heavyweight ranks, to
Floyd Patterson is involved in the enormous complex of his-
tory. Economically, the ranks of the severely underprivileged
were cut during the Roosevelt and post-FDR years. It was
then that the nation lifted itself from the mire of the Depres-
sion and began to relieve the plight of the working man with
minimum wages, decent working conditions, higher incomes,
security in the job. Young men preferred educating them-
selvesmany of them through athletic scholarships in other
sports or getting relatively well-paying jobs in industry to ac-
cepting the hardships and uncertainties of boxing.
There are sociological reasons, too. For generations, the
ring was the route through which those just awakening to the
unreason of prejudice struck back first the Irish, later the
Jews, the Italians, the Negroes, and the Latins. But prejudice
170 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
has tapered off just enough to cut the supply of angry young
men for the ring; it takes the unsalved rancor in a huge seg-
ment of the population to turn up the few who will reach ring
greatness.
In addition to the sociological and economic reasons, two
othersWorld War Two and television.
Out of World War One emerged a number of skilled fight-
ersGene Tunney and Jack Sharkey among the heavyweight
champions. But World War Two was no developing ground
for young talent. It was a harsher war that scooped up millions
more young men than had fought in the earlier war. And it
brutalized them. There was little glamour to World War Two.
Those who got back were not enchanted by the thought of
further fighting. And so the heavyweight ranks were nourished
largely by the pre-war fighters the Louis 5 , the Jersey Joe
Walcotts, the Archie Moores. When they were finished with
heavyweight fighting, there was a sharp break in the ranks*
There was no purring generator of discontent to replace them.
The world was filled with people simply happy to be alive.
They did not go seeking fights; they had had enough to fill a
lifetime.
Television's influence was more subtle and more iniqui-
tous. It was reflected in Jimmy Jacobs 5 films and the reaction
they stirred up:
"It is Los Angeles, 1910, gentlemen-Sam Langford, the
Boston Tar Baby, Fireman Jim Flynn . . . Seven years later,
Flynn was to knock out Jack Dempsey in one round . . .
And here you see Flynn fighting Jack Johnson for the heavy-
weight championship of the world on July 4, 1912, in Las
Vegas, New Mexico . . . Johnson was 21 pounds overweight.
. . . Notice in this round how he puts his left hand against
Flynn's head and seems to hold him off simply by propping
himself against it . . . Notice also Johnson laughing and jok-
ing with the crowd. He often seemed to pay more attention to
the people around the ring than to the man inside it . . . The
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 171
police stepped in and stopped this fight in the ninth round
. . . Whenever men saw that Johnson had won a fight, they'd
step in and stop it so he wouldn't get credit for a knock-
out . . ."
The grass at Woodbine race track was thick and matted.
In the bleak sunlight of early December, it was the color of
aged straw. Here is where Floyd Patterson set up a lonely
training camp in preparation for the McNeeley fight. One
morning, Cus D'Amato strolled with some Mends around the
track.
"They say those old-time fighters were better than the
fighters today,," said Cus. "I don't agree. I've looked at those
old films and there were only a couple of real fighters among
them. The others they kept their chins high and unprotected
and sometimes they'd go around the ring with their hands
down. They couldn't dare do that today."
Later one of boxing's veteran historians watched the films
and said, "There were only two really good fighters in those
old daysSam Langford and Jack Johnson. The others it's
just what you think you remember about them until you see
the films."
But in the old days, fighters were honed and sharpened in
the small fight clubs. They had 50 ... 60 ... 70 fights-
perhaps more before they even began thinking of a champion-
ship fight McNeeley got Ms chance after only 23 fights. Pete
Rademacher who also fought Patterson was only an amateur
with no club fighting behind him and no professional fighting.
It is the difference in the eras: no longer do the small fight
clubs smoky, crowded, filled with the acrid smell of liniment
exist. They perished at television's hands.
The seductive lures of television worked against the pa-
tience of the fighter. No longer was he willing to learn his
craft. He wanted the "big payday 9 '-$4,000-of a television
shot. So the best of the young fighters were thrown hurriedly
onto television before they were ready. They were methodi-
172 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
cally dispatched by the older fighters who'd learned the beau-
ties of high craft in the sweaty crucible of the small fight club.
At the same time, television stripped the small club of its
fans. On the one hand, it offered the fight fan one or two
weekly fight shows for free at home. No longer did he have to
face the inconvenience of going out and of paying for what
he saw. On the other hand, with a series of mind-numbing
substitutes the quiz shows, the "situation" or family comedies,
the vaudeville comedians television stripped him of the desire
simply to go out and take part in the turbulent, passionate
world of boxing.
And so the fight clubs quietly passed away.
And with them the heart of boxing.
"It was Tex Richard's first big promotion . . , 10,000 gold
dollars were brought to the ringside in a barrel . , , Joe Gans
and Battling Nelson for the lightweight championship of the
world . . .
It was to be two decades before Tex Rickard moved east-
ward from the mountains and the plains states to the gaudy
showplace of New York. His vehicle was Jack Dempsey. Rick-
ard was the first big-time promoter the man capable of build-
ing Dempsey to the point where three of Jack's fights would
gross a total of $5 million. Tex showed that it could be done;
others showed how to do it differently.
With every dominant heavyweight champion since World
War One, there has come a dynastic struggle among the men
who want to control him. Rickard rode to fame and riches
through Dempsey, who lasted as champion for seven years.
After Rickard, who died in 1929, and Dempsey there was a
period in which the championship changed hands five times
in five years and no promoters who could ride with the cham-
pion long enough to build through ballyhoo the notion that
these champions were great Then along came Joe Louis and
with him Ms promoter, Mike Jacobs. Louis lasted for almost
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 173
12 years as champion; Jacobs lasted almost as long as the
nation's top fight promoter.
In the late Forties the nature of fight promotion began to
change. Louis delivered as best he could the heavyweight
championship to the International Boxing Club through a
series of complex maneuvers. The IBC controlled the heavy-
weight championship from the time of Louis' retirement in
1949 to Patterson's victory over Moore in November, 1956.
Since Patterson became champion, there has been no dominant
promoter and that may be one of the reasons for the faded
glory of the heavyweight championship.
Patterson was caught in a period of dynamic changes within
fight promotion. Gradually the money raised at the gate-
heretofore the bulk of all revenue raised from heavyweight
fights became a minor item; the money raised through tele-
vision became the important item. It was the peculiar per-
ception of Truman Gibson, who was to steer the IBC through
most of the shoals and reefs of its existence and who was
subsequently to draw five years* probation and a $10,000 fine
for violation of various federal laws involving boxing who
perceived the change.
Gibson was a suave, tasteful, exceptionally well-educated
man with an appreciation for and ability to maneuver in
the Byzantine complexities of the fight game. He was a close
Mend of Joe Louis 5 and worked closely with him through much
of World War Two and its aftermath. Thus he was close to the
center of power in boxing the heavyweight championship
and he had the wit to focus that power as he wished it These
talents made frim the ideal man to ran the boxing aspect the
International Boxing Club of the multi-million dollar sports-
and-business empire of Jim Norris.
What Gibson saw was opportunity in an alliance between
boxing and television. Ultimately he negotiated two weekly
TV fight shows that paid the IBC at least $2,000,000 a year.
With that much income, the IBC didn't have to worry about
the gate at the weekly fights. Slowly the gates dwindled to
174 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
virtually nothing. In the mammoth Chicago Stadium, where
18,547 people once gathered for a middleweight fight, only a
few hundred huddled forlornly around ringside to watch the
televised fights. "But don't forget, the BBC was getting paid
for every empty seat in the stadium/* said one of the IBC old
hands who journeyed to Toronto.
At the same time, neither Gibson nor the IBC dropped the
promotion of championship matches. They gave them an
added dimension. They'd use television to build up a likely
contender for a crown. They'd slate the contender some of
them virtually hand-picked for fights that would go into
the homes through television. Then, when the contender was
ready for the championship fight, Gibson would take the
match off regular television and negotiate a special contract
for it. In that way he'd build up the gate at the fight and
wangle an extraordinary television contract for one fight alone.
In effect, television paid the IBC to build up a series of fight-
ersa la Hollywood's "star system" and then paid the IBC
again for the privilege of televising these "built-up" fighters in
a championship match. "We grossed about $5 million a year
from TV," Gibson said.
Ultimately, Gibson and the IBC overreached themselves.
The IBC was stymied in an anti-trust suit and Gibson was
found guilty in a conspiracy trial involving several under-
world figures Frankie Carbo, the notorious "Mr, Grey"
among them that led to his five-year-probation and Ms fine.
But even as these court actions were going on, boxing was
undergoing another metamorphosis,
In the mid-Fifties, Gibson had begun playing with the no-
tion of televising fights into theaters and fight arenas around
the country on a closed circuit that is, not on the circuits
that televise into the home. He felt that the income might be
significantly raised, particularly if the fights were not put on
home television. He was right but he had a chance to benefit
only from the first faint stirrings of the change. He worked
with an outfit called Theater Network Television for several
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 175
fights. Then in March, 1958, for the second Carmen Basilio-
Sugar Ray Robinson fight, he switched to TelePrompTer, Inc.
The reason: TelePrompTer offered the BBC a nickel a head
more than did TNT for every person who saw the fight on
television-and guaranteed the IBC $275,000, some $25,000
more than TNT had guaranteed.
That change brought into the fight game the man who will
be the next Mr. Big in boxing. He is Irving Berlin Kahn, presi-
dent of TelePrompTer, Inc. He is a dark-complexioned pleas-
antly corpulent man in his middle 40s, He is tireless, shrewd,
alert to Ms opportunities and inflexible in seizing them. For
the Robinson-Basilio fight, he put theater-TV equipment into
everything from a high school gymnasium in Salinas, Califor-
nia, to Toots Shor's bar in New York, from the Cow Palace in
San Francisco to a county fairgrounds in New York. He sold
363,680 tickets to the fight, some 66 percent of capacity.
And he quickly moved on to promotingnot just televising
a heavyweight championship fight: the Patterson-Harris match
in Los Angeles in August, 1958. From that he learned his fu-
ture course: "We are the electronic distributors of fights," he
insists. "We are not fight promoters." He will stand on the
sidelines while somebody else promotes the fights and rakes
in the meager harvest at the gate. He will televise the fights
over theater-television or home pay-television and Ms method
will gross ten times as much as the gate at the fight arena. (At
the Patterson-McNeeley fight, the gate gross was $106,000
while the closed-circuit television gross was well over $1,000,-
000.) And today, as ever, the Mr. Big in boxing is the man
who does the biggest business.
It is a trenchant signal of the changes in boxing that Mr.
Big might stand on the periphery while others occupy the
middle ground. It is a symptom of the focal power of the
heavyweight championship today that the Mr. Big should be
produced by the electronics industry, not the fight game. For
Irving Kahn had few ties with boxing before he became its
"electronic distributor/' He is the type of man that in the
176 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
earlier incarnation of the heavyweight championship would
never have been in the fight game.
Bulky, black-browed, Ms face alternately laced with the
glum heaviness of a John L. Lewis and the puckish whimsy of
a Lou Costello, Irving Kahn a nephew of composer Irving
Berlinis a onetime baton-twirling champion (he reportedly
won a scholarship to the University of Alabama for this "tal-
ent") who went on to become a press agent for a motion-
picture company. About ten years ago, he became involved
with TelePrompTer, Inc., which was then concerned with
manufacturing the electronic "idiot boards" that held the
scripts off camera for television performers who could not
remember their lines. From there TelePrompTer went into
closed-circuit telecasting, first for business and political meet-
ings, now for the "shoots" at many of the nation's missile bases.
Kahn suggests that the bulk of Ms business is not in boxing,
but in politics and missiles and that the nature of the business
insists he keep the corporation clean from the tainted influ-
ences that hang around boxing. "We go through a new security
check every 30 days," he says. "Do you think we want these
guys* the hoodlum influence "messing up that check?"
At the outset of his entry into boxing, Irving Kahn was
thinking primarily of the potential of theater-TV. "When we
took this, we did not anticipate doing 17 skillion dollars worth
of business," he says. At that time he was considered fortunate
to line up 400,000 seats in theaters around the country. "To-
day, for the proper attraction*' say, a Patterson-Liston fight
''we could easily put together IVz million seats," he says.
But the question never is how many seats are available but
how many are filled? "We've never done less than 40 percent
of capacity," said Kahn just before the Patterson-McNeeley
fight (In that fight he did about 33 percent of capacity.)
"This will be the seventh fight we've handled over a period of
2 l /2 years," said Kahn, "and we've never lost a dollar. Not
even a quarter." That included some pretty bleak attractions
Brian London against Patterson and Roy Harris against Pat-
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 177
terson among them. The truth is that the Patterson-McNeeley
fight brought Kahn closer to the break-even point than he
cared to admit but it stimulated Ms imagination in other ways.
It proved that we could put on two different fights in two
different cities on theater-television without any trouble/' he
says. Moments before Patterson bombed McNeeley in To-
ronto, Sonny Liston knocked out Albeit Westphal in a one-
round travesty in Philadelphia. "Technically, it was one of the
best jobs we've ever done/ 5 says Kahn. And yet the heavy-
weight championship fight itself could not carry the card; the
aura is so far gone from this most glorious of fistic institutions
that it took a "semi-windup' with Liston as the feature at-
tractionto carry it. Kahn is prepared for even more strenu-
ous moments, "I can see the time when we might have a Night
of Champions with four, five, maybe six or seven champion-
ship fights the same night/' he says. "The fights would be in
different cities with different promoters but they'd all be on
closed-circuit television in theaters all across the country. The
people who paid to see one of the championship fights live
would see all the rest on closed-circuit television screens
dropped down around the ring." It is a thought filled with
imagination and with the foreboding that the heavyweight
championship may yet decline further and need the support
of four or five other championship fights to remain a ring
attraction.
In the old days, the fight promoter was concerned about
the gate at one fight arena in one town. So he worked only in
that town. But now, with theater-TV, Kahn or whoever han-
dles the closed-circuit telecast must be concerned with the
promotion in every town where there's a telecast of the fight.
Beyond all this lies a grandeur which no fight figure short
of Irving Kahn has dared conceive. It embraces pay-TV on
home sets. Not only is Irving Kahn dreaming of this, he's work-
ing on it. "When we first started in boxing, we had 23,000
homes in eight communities wired for pay-TV/' he says. "On
this last fight, we had 150,000 homes in eight communities
178 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
prepared to take the fight," The people in those 150,000
homes were willing to pay $2 per home to see the fight, ac-
cording to Kahn which meant that an additional $300,000
was kicked into the gross gate. This was almost three times
the amount of money paid at the gate of Maple Leaf Gardens.
His pay-TV system one of three now competing for atten-
tionwould work through the normal free-TV set of the man
at home. One channel would simply be set aside for pay-TV.
Normally it would be filled with "snow" to keep the viewer
from watching it for free. But by turning a key and pressing
a buttonthe system Kahn is developing he will be able to
clear the screen and watch the pay-TV show. His key-turning,
button-pushing operation would be recorded electronically.
"And every month he'd get a bill for the shows he'd watched,"
says Kahn.
His plans would roam far beyond boxing, far beyond sports.
They would embrace the production of concerts or of musical
comedies still being shown on Broadway. But boxing offers an
illustration of what might happen if it ever approaches the
popularity of free television. Let us say that there are even-
tually 30 million homes with pay-TV channels in the U.S.
And let us say further that two-thirds of these homes 20
million of them had men enough in command of the situation
to demand seeing, say, a heavyweight championship fight in-
stead of something like free-TV's Father Knows Best. At $2 a
set, that would mean some $40 million in gross gate! And the
heavyweight champion glamorous or not could expect a cut
of about $10 million.
And that is why the man who stands astride the electronic
control of the fight game is boxing's Mr. Big.
". . . Jack Johnson against Frank Moran Paris, June 27,
1914," said Jimmy Jacobs at the Westbury Hotel "You will
notice, gentlemen, that Moron lands an overhand left and is
so delighted that he steps back to look over his work . . . No-
tice now that Johnson is applauding him . , . Here in another
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 179
round, gentlemen, you will see Moran retire to a neutral cor-
ner. He doesn't want to fight Johnson any more . . . But he
is persuaded to come out and fight by the referee, Georges
Carpentier, who later fought Jack Dempsey for the heavy-
weight championship . . ."
The names spanned the days when heavyweight boxing was
approaching its zenith Jack Johnson, Georges Carpentier,
Jack Dempsey and with him the man who helped him earn
and spend several million dollars. Jack Kearns,
The memory underscores the difference between the heavy-
weights of those days and these. Jack "Doc" Keams' motives
and approach to the fight game buoyant, cunning, care-
free, slightly larcenous were as different from those of Cus
D'Amato (or, for that matter, from Pete Fuller, the manager
of McNeeley) as Columbus' craft was different from a space
craft
Doc Kearns is a spry, slim individual adorned in a sweet,
ingenuous smile that is beguiling to those who don't know
him. His age is indeterminate; he appears to be in his late 50s
or 60s but he is old enough to have been knocked out by
Honey Mellody in 1901. He was always encountering fighters
Mellody, Mysterious Billy Smith who seemed to have been
named by poets, poets who didn't like them. "Billy Smith was
always doing something mysterious,'* Doc once told A. J.
Liebling. "Like he would step on your foot and when you
would look down, he would bite you in the ear. If I had a
fighter like that now, I could lick heavyweights. But we are
living in a bad period all around. The writers are always
crabbing about the fighters we got now, but look at the writers
you got now. All they think about is home to wife and chil-
dren, instead of laying around saloons soaking up informa-
tion."
Keams cruised through life with a variety of enchanting
habits. He never spoke of his fighters as being the working
half of the combination unless they lost. He spoke only of
180 HEAVYWEIGHT*- CHAMPION 1962
what he'd do. Furthermore, the old Doc showed an irrepres-
sible genius at spending money and he made a lot handling
such champions as Jack Dempsey and Mickey Walker.
At the other end of the managerial scale, in time as well as
temperament, stands Peter Fuller, the manager of Tom Mc-
Neeley. In Toronto, the sportswriters chronicled Fuller's lar-
gess with a wry invitation: "Let's all go up to Peter Fuller's
room for a party. He's opening a bottle of beer." Fuller's in-
come was also notably different from that of Kearns. Fuller
owned a Florida land-development company, the largest
Cadillac-Oldsmobile agency in the country, and a 65-thor-
oughbred stable.
But that was not the only difference between Fuller and
Kearns. Fuller is an intelligent, hard-muscled Harvard gradu-
ate, who wears three button suits. He was a onetime amateur
fighter who won 50 of 55 bouts. He still keeps in trim, some-
times by sparring with such fighters as McNeeley, sometimes
by strangling a hand-squeezerhe gets a new one every 30
days that he keeps on the seat of his car to exercise with
while at stoplights.
Where Fuller departs furthest from Kearns intellectually is
here: Where Kearns saw the ring as a place to avoid except
on visits in the line of duty Fuller sees it as the ultimate ex-
pression of personal ambition. He would like to be the heavy-
weight champion. Where Kearns saw the champion as his meal
ticket, Fuller saw Mm as his alter ego. Since he cannot person-
ally achieve the heavyweight championship, he seeks a vicari-
ous reward by managing some other fighter to the top.
Something must be said for his managerial skill, considering
he landed a shot at the heavyweight championship for Mc-
Neeley after only 23 fights. It may have charged Fuller more
with hope than insight but it did not leave him short of hind-
sight. "If he only has courage to recommend him in boxing,"
he said the morning after McNeeley lost to Patterson, "that
is not enough , . . It's too cruel an ordeal to expect a guy to
fight in the top 10 contenders with just courage."
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 181
PMlosopMcally the heavyweight champion's manager, Cus
D'Amato, is somewhat more than a few Eght-years removed
from managers of the Keams genre, "When I'm broke, I feel
better/* D'Amato said a few years ago. "When I've got money,
I'm bored/* With Keams the boredom was also simply in the
having; the exuberance was in the spending. With D'Amato,
the money is not important; it's the principle that money
distracts one from that's important.
Cos's stewardship of the heavyweight championwhich con-
tributed markedly to the stature of the institution today is
partially the product of D*Amato*s singular nature and par-
tially a product of the times. He sees the heavyweight cham-
pionship not as a way of making money but as an instrument
for cleaning up boxing. He appears quite willing to sacrifice
money in order to achieve the nobler aim an approach which
Kearns would regard as somewhat beyond heresy. D'Amato's
detractors claim it is all because of Cus*s peculiar personality
but it is quite apparent that Cus could not devote himself
to this crusade if boxing did not seriously need cleaning up.
D'Amato's basic instincts are the opposite of the long line
of boxing men of the last half-century. Now in Ms early 50s,
he is a self-educated, pink-skinned individual with no fear of
self-denial. In fact, Ms career has been based on this taste.
In the 20 years before Patterson won the heavyweight cham-
pionsMp, D'Amato guided hundreds, of amateursdozens of
whom won state and national titles without personally trying
to exploit them in professional boxing. He lived in his gym. To
support Patterson, he borrowed from Mends; at the time
Floyd won the championsMp, D'Amato reportedly was $15,-
000 in debt. Tve never married and Fve kept my life simple,
because then I can do something the way it should be done,"
he has said. "I figure that if a thing is done right, the money
wiE come, but if s not important."
In the fight game even a hypothetically honest fight game
he would have been a danger to the "system." The man who
is indifferent to money is liable to louse things up for every-
182 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
body. He could not be corrupted. So there was no place for
him in boxing as it was run by Frankie Carbo and Ms lenient
lieutenants of the middle 1950s, Cus insisted on doing things
bis way. So he came under attack in a variety of ways. One
was the "freeze-out" the attempt to keep Patterson from de-
fending the heavyweight championship by persuading all the
likely contenders to turn down chances to meet him. So
D'Amato accepted a bout with amateur Pete Rademacher.
That earned him ridicule in and out of the fight game. Not
only was he not contributing to The Institution, but, said his
critics, he was making a mockery of it.
D'Amato became an embattled man. Except for the loyal
Patterson, he was alone in his fight. Like many lonely cru-
saders, he became extremely suspicious. At the height of his
struggle with the IBC, he would not sleep for two consecutive
nights in the same bed for fear of what might take place. He
was loath to go out in public for fear that somebody might
drop marihuana in Ms pocket. He saw almost all New York
sportswriters and a few in other cities as being paid agents
or dupes of Ms enemies, the IBC. He lost that most vital of
powers: perspective. He did not seem to be able to discern the
rigorously honest men writing sports; he threw a blanket of
charges out that covered everybody, clean and unclean. The
honest men became impatient and began to see Cus in the
jaded extremes that he saw them. Both sides forgot that there
is always room for honest dissent among truly honest men
but Cus, it seems, lost it first It is in the nature of the crusader
to believe at first that he possesses virtue, then at last to be-
lieve that he possesses it exclusively.
At no time was it a pleasant experience for Cus D'Amato.
The embattled man is seldom a happy man. He saw Ms ene-
mies fade and disappear from boxing. But he himself suffered
accusations and suspensions and the darts of recurrent sus-
picion. Through it all, he was sustained by the absolute loyalty
of Ms fighter. In the past, when manager was bound to fighter
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 183
through a bond of money alone, the stress and strains of the
championship threatened to rupture that bond.
Keams and Dempsey who broke up in the three years when
Dempsey was holding but not defending the heavyweight title
is an example. But D'Amato and Patterson stayed together
under strains that were much greater than heavyweight cham-
pions had endured in the past. It is a touching symbol of
the vitality of the human virtues rather than the financial ones.
Still, Cus feels the classic pressures of the fight manager: to
make his fighter into a "great" fighter. The ambition rests not
only on the fighter's skills but the manager's skills in lining
up tough opponents. "How many champions do you know,"
asks Cus, "who fought the No. 1 contender four times in eight
heavyweight championship fights?" (Archie Moore was the
No. 1 contender when Patterson knocked Mm out to win the
heavyweight title for the first time. Hurricane Jackson was the
No. 1 contender in Patterson's first title defense, Ingernar
Johansson was the No. 1 contender in the first and third fights
of Ms series with Patterson.) It is ironic but inescapable that
fight fans will remember also that he fought an amateur for
the heavyweight championsMp and that he fought such near-
amateurs as Roy Harris and Tom McNeeley for the title. They
will remember that on several occasions he delayed or avoided
fighting the No. 1 contender I.e., Liston but they will neither
remember nor honor Ms motives. For Cus D'Amato and Floyd
Patterson are virtually alone in their vision of the heavyweight
championship as an imtrument for cleaning up boxing. The
fans see it merely as an instrument for cleaning up on boxers.
It is the fate of decent men for whom the times are awry
to be neither loved nor understood. To be, simply, alone*
". . , It is Havana, Cuba, gentlemen, April 5, 1915 Jack
Johnson versus Jess Willard for the heavyweight champion-
ship of the world . . . This film was not acquired and brought
to the United States until seven months ago ... In this fight,
Jack Johnson was 37 years old and Willard was 34 years old
184 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
. . Johnson won 16 of the first 25 rounds . . . You will
remember that this was the fight which Willard won by a
knockout in the 26th round and Johnson said he'd 'thrown'
the fight , . . There was one still picture of the knockout
which showed Johnson lying on his back, shielding his eyes
from the bright sun, while his knees were bent comfortably
. . . Johnson used this picture to claim that he was not
knocked out but only taking the count of ten as by prearrange-
ment . . . You will notice in this motion picture film, how-
ever, that his legs are straight upon the floor and that they do
not move. . .*
Nat Reischer saw that fight and believes that Jess Willard
won honestly. In late 1961 Nat sat in a hotel room in Toronto,
a veteran of four decades of watching prize fights, the non-
pareil of boxing authorities, and talked about the past "The
happiest time?" he said. "Back about the time that Dempsey
had the title and the years afterward/' He laughed as he re-
membered. He reeled off the jokes the champions played on
the people around them the raffish, buoyant, irrepressible
boys who for brief, flitting moments held the heavyweight
championship. He saw them in laughter whole humans, un-
affected by The Institution. He mirrored the difference be-
tween the champions of those days and of the present
Part of it is in the personalities of the individuals. The
champions of yore liked the throng and the bustle of their
station; they liked newsmen and the newsmen liked them.
Their prose reflected the liking. But Floyd Patterson likes soli-
tude* He tolerates newsmen though barely. He will accept
some into his inner circle and spurn the rest. And they react
like men spurned-angered, hurt, no longer filled with a joy
that spills over into the newspapers. And so the emotions spi-
ral downward and downward, carrying the fading glory of
the heavyweight championship. Patterson thinks it's all the
fault of the newspapermen; the newspapermen thinfr. if s the
fault of Patterson.
HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962 185
And there is another reason. "If s gotten away from us,"
said Al Buck in Toronto. Buck is a veteran boxing writer, a
man who has seen dozens of champions on all levels stride
momentarily upon the stage. "It's not the writer's sport any-
more/* he said. It's television's sport now and television of-
fers sport as much romance as a freshly born tarantula.
In the early days of heavyweight boxing, only a few hun-
dred, then later a few thousand fans, would see the match.
But the writers Jack London, Damon Runyon, Ring Lardner
would flash the word of what had happened to the world
outside the arena. Their reports were cloaked in the eloquence
of their own talents and somehow the heavyweight champion
always came out larger than life, graced in grandeur, en-
dowed with an infectious romance. Today the writers are as
good as ever, probably better, for the best of them have con-
trol of their talents and a higher sensitivity as to how they
must be used* But television has changed the nature of their
subjects.
In the past the heavyweight champion was, at first and
above all, a fellow human. Today in these egregious days of
TV he is first and above aU a "property." It is difficult for
even the best of writers to make a "property" seem romantic;
it is impossible for the cameras to do it. And so television-
coming, as it did, in a time when the champion wants solitude
could do nothing but strip the remaining romance from the
heavyweight championship.
It also stripped many of the writers of their deske. No
longer do they care about boxing. They invested their years,
their sweat, their visceral desires in boxing and were shunted
aside as soon as the fight game saw it stood to make money
from television. The writers gave boxing a romantic tie with
the imagination of the American people. They made it possible
for boxing to succeed then were rebuffed. Today they feel
like the faithful wife who spent 50 years helping to make her
husband into a powerful and admired man and then is turned
out of the house in favor of the teen-age floozy. They are
186 HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION 1962
hurt and they are embittered. They still hang around but
they do not care very much what happens.
And they have a memory. That Is the greatest danger that
boxing and sportfaces. For there may come a day after
free TV has finished with boxing in order to sell its bathroom
goods elsewherewhen theater television and home-pay tele-
vision will again want the writers to "hypo" the gate with
romantic tales of what might have been and what might yet
be. And they will not find the writers who care.
And as Patterson and McNeeley rested in Toronto before
getting into the ring to determine the heavyweight champion
of early 1962, the champion who would reign in boxing's most
dismal era, the voice of Jimmy Jacobs cut through the gloom
of late-afternoon:
*. * * Thafs ihe^ end of the reel, gentlemen. . . Thafs
the end of our story."
Hockey's Masked Marvel
BY DAVE ANDERSON
In front of Jacques Plante the brightly colored hockey uni-
forms blur with the swirl of the skaters, but the tense, crouch-
ing goalkeeper of the champion Montreal Canadiens never
notices this. His gaze is concentrated on the puck a black,
vulcanized-rubber disk one inch thick and three inches in di-
ameter. It is frozen rock hard to keep it from bouncing un-
necessarily as it slithers along the ice* At any moment it may
come whizzing at Plante at a speed up to a hundred miles an
hour. His Job is to keep the six-ounce puck from entering
the white-corded net behind him.
Balancing himself on two thin steel blades, Plante holds a
black-taped ash stick in his thickly padded right hand. On
his left hand is a first-baseman-type mitt. In all, he wears
thirty-seven pounds of protective pads and equipment His
most conspicuous piece of armor, though, is the new light-
weight item he recently pioneered an olive-green Fiberglas
mask which shields his face.
"My business is getting shot at/* Plante says in Ms clipped
French-Canadian accent 'When I stop the shots, business is
good. When I don't, business is bad. All the pressure is in
the winning and the losing. But with my mask, I have more
confidence in winning.
Copyright I960 by The Curtis Publishing Company.
188 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
"For stopping the puck, the mask doesn't help me. But I
am a better goalkeeper now because I can laugh at getting
hit in the face. You can't be a goalkeeper and be afraid to
get hit in the face. But you can't be a human being and not
think about it not when you've had one hundred and fifty
stitches in your face. It is nice to laugh and say, 'No more
stitches. 9 * So far the mask has saved Plante at least three nasty
facial injuries.
It is probable that nobody in sports undergoes such con-
stant strain as a goalkeeper during the National Hockey
League's seventy-game schedule and the even more wearing
Stanley Cup play-offs that follow. The cumulative pressure
has caused several of the league's goalies to have nervous
breakdowns and has affected nearly all of them to some ex-
tent Jacques Plante, who will be thirty-four on January seven-
teenth, is no exception. However, this six-foot, 172-pound
goalie seems to have won his war of nerves. He has done it
largely by being different.
Some goalkeepers get sick at their stomachs before games;
Plante eases his tension by telling jokes. Some lie awake all
night replaying defeats; Plante sleeps as much as fourteen
hours. Where others may indulge in a drink to relax them-
selves off duty, he paints oil landscapes. On the ice, others
perform like automatons, but Plante goes in for showboating.
Some goalkeepers stay glued to the net; he ventures far away
from it in clearing the puck.
The prize example of his nonconformity, however, was his
adoption of the face mask. Ice hockey originated in Canada
in the second half of the last century, but not until Plante
took the plunge last season did a goalkeeper's mask become
an accepted piece of game equipment.
Although old-school hockey men were horrified at the in-
novation, the fans in general were quick to endorse it as a
sensible move. Most of Plante's fellow goalies in the six-team
National Hockey League have since followed him, at least
part of the way. Don Simmons of the Boston Bruins, who
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 189
recently announced Ms retirement after being sent down to the
minors, occasionally wore a similar mask, Teny Sawchuk of
the Detroit Red Wings, Glenn Hall of the Chicago Black
Hawks, and Johnny Bower of the Toronto Maple Leafs some-
times wear masks in practice, although they use a welder's
Plexiglas type that is considered unsuitable for games.
The most stubborn holdout has been Lome (Gump)
Worsley of the New York Rangers. He refuses to try a mask,
even in practice* Worsley contends, "If you wear it in practice,
you get to depend on it, and then you have to wear it all the
time. I've tried *em on and you just can't see as well. Another
thing any guy who wears a mask is scared."
Worsley speaks for those who want no watering down of
the tough-guy traditions of the game. It is like the situation
that prevailed in baseball when the batting helmet was intro-
duced. Some veterans felt that to put on the helmet consti-
tuted a shameful admission of fear of getting beaned.
Similarly, not long after Plante began using Ms mask in
league competition, a questioner in Toronto demanded,
"Doesn't your mask prove that you're afraid?"
"If you jumped out of a plane without a parachute," Plante
replied, "would that make you brave?"
In 1960, when the Canadians got off to a rather slow start
for them the Montreal fans beseeched Plante to take off Ms
mask. They believed it was responsible for his unusually poor
goals-against record. Plante held firm. In mid-November, both
he and the team appeared to be getting back in their cham-
pionsMp stride.
Many of the teen-age goalkeepers in Canada and the
northern rim of the United States have copied Mm, utilizing
everything from baseball catchers* masks to the welders* type.
"Youll never get the masks off those kids," predicts Kenny
Reardon, a former all-star defenseman with Montreal and
now the club's vice president "Their mothers won't let them
take the masks off. Inside ten years all the pro goalkeepers
will have them, because they grew up wearing them/*
190 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
Jacques Plante grew up as a goalkeeper the hard way. He
did not get the idea of trying to protect Ms face from flying
pucks until after he had advanced to the major league with
the Canadiens. During his early years with the team he suf-
fered two of Ms worst injuries. Ironically, each occurred in a
routine workout, "In a game you are ready," Plante explains,
"but in practice you relax a bit."
In the first of these practice accidents, wMch took place in
1954, Ms right cheekbone was smashed. The next year Ms left
cheekbone and nose were fractured. Soon after this second
injury a Canadiens' fan sent Mm a welder's mask.
"I don't even remember his name," Plante says, "but I'll
always be thankful to Mm. I tried that mask in practice. Once
it was hot, and the mask was getting heavy. I was going to
take it off. Next thing I knew wham, a puck Mt the mask
right in front of my eyes. After that, I kept the mask on in
practice all the time, and I kept trying to figure out what kind
of a mask to get to wear in a game."
During the 1958 Stanley Cup play-offs a puck clipped
Plante on the forehead. Among the spectators was Bill Burch-
more, a tMrty-five-year-old sales-promotion man for Fiberglas
Canada Ltd. in Montreal. "I can still see the blood spurting,"
Burchmore recalls. "The next day I wrote Jacques a letter. I
told Mm that if he was interested in getting a game mask, I
thought we could help Mm."
Burchmore had a solid hockey background. Growing up in
Montreal, he had been a goalkeeper briefly, but later switched
to center. As the teen-age coach of an age eight-to-ten-year-
old team, he had helped develop Dickie Moore, now the
Canadiens* left-wing star, who holds the N.H.L. single-season
scoring record of ninety-six points. Burchmore later played
college hockey.
"Before I wrote Jacques," he says, "I had been thinking
about a goalkeeper's mask for about a year. We had to find
some way of making a light, unbreakable mask that would be
skin-tight."
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 191
One day Burchmore glanced across Ms office desk at a
sample Fiberglas mannequin. That's It/* he said aloud, star-
tling Ms co-workers. "Make a Fiberglas mask molded to the
face, just like that mamiequin's face***
Plante was skeptical at first. More than a year later, in
August, 1959, he finally agreed to have a facial plaster cast
taken at Montreal General Hospital under the supervision
of Dr. Ian Milne, one of the Canadians* club physicians, and
club physiotherapist Bill Head,
Then Burchmore went to work. "We made the mask out
of Fiberglas-woven roving saturated in polyester resin/* he
explains. "It was only one eighth of an inch tMck* but it had
tremendous impact resistance. We padded it with thin strips
of sponge rubber at the forehead, cheekbones and chin to
cusMon the impact But I didn't really like the mask. It was
too grotesque."
Despite the ghoulish appearance of the mask a fiesh-
colored affair with two eye holes and another for the nostrils
and mouth Plante was eager to test it during the Canadiens'
preseason training in September, 1959. He wore it in a few
exhibition games, but failed to impress coach Hector (Toe)
Blake.
Blake says now, "My original objection was that I thought
Jacques was losing sight of the puck when it was at his feet**
Others close to the situation, however, declare that Blake
privately feared Plante was coming down with "mbberitis'*
trade slang for the battle fatigue that often afflicts goalies.
At any rate, Blake tactfully persuaded Plante to forgo the
mask experiment. "Do me a favor, Jacques,* 9 he said. "Don't
wear the mask when the season starts. If you have a bad
game, the fans will blame the mask and they'll get on you."
Plante agreed, but continued to wear his made in pregame
practice, as well as during off-day practice sessions. Then
came a game in New York on November 1, 1959. Andy
Bathgate, a hard-shooting right wing, swooped in on Plante.
From fifteen feet, Bathgate swatted a quick, rising backhand
192 HOCKEY'S MASKED MAHVEL
shot. Caught with Ms hands down, Plante was hit on the left
side of the nose.
The impact momentarily stiffened Plante. Then he toppled
face down on the milk-white ice at the right side of the net.
He lay motionless for some fifteen seconds. With a blood-
smeared towel stuffed against Ms face, he was helped to Ms
feet and guided off the ice by teammates. Two Madison
Square Garden policemen led him to the emergency first-aid
room.
"When he came in," relates Dr. Kazuo Yanagisawa, the
Rangers* physician, "he went over to the mirror and said,
C I want to see how bad tMs is!' "
The sharp-edged puck had sliced a three-inch gash from
the left side of Plante's nose down to Ms upper lip. Doctor
Yanagisawa used seven stitches to close the wound. In hockey,
a game may be held up if a goalkeeper requires temporary
medical attention. It was twenty minutes before Plante was
ready to return to the ice. Coach Blake inspected Ms goal-
keeper's face, then told him, "You can wear your mask if
you want to."
"Good, because I'm not going back without it/' Plante said.
The accident had occurred at the 3:06 mark of the first
period in a scoreless game. On the official N.H.L. score sheet,
it went down simply as Plante's third save, Bathgate's shot
having bounced off the goalkeeper's face into the corner of
the rink when time was called. Plante made twenty-four more
saves after resuming play with Ms mask on, and the Canadiens
won, 3-1.
However, Ms coach was not convinced. After the game
he said only, "Jacques can keep wearing the mask until Ms
face heals, and maybe after thatif he's going good."
Plante's case was strengthened when the Canadiens went
unbeaten in his first eleven games with the mask. They won
ten and tied one as a total of only tMrteen goals were scored
on Plante. TMs was during an early-season streak wMch
helped the Canadiens skate away with first place for the fourth
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 193
time in five seasons they won the Stanley Cup play-offs all
five years.
Meanwhile, Burchmore was busy perfecting an improved
model. "We made the second mask out of five hundred and
forty ends of glass yarn," he says. "Instead of being a solid
piece of Fiberglas, it was constructed of Fiberglas bars. This
made it lighter only 10.3 ounces, compared to the original
fourteen-ounce mask. With the bars there was more air circu-
lation. And it looked more like a piece of sports equipment
something like a baseball catcher 5 s mask."
Plante began wearing the new protector in January, 1960.
Blake remained skeptical. Late in the season he asked Plante
to skip the mask for a game. "You're not sharp lately/* Blake
said. "Try it with the mask off. Maybe it will help you.'*
Plante complied, but, if anything, Ms performance was
worse. The Canadiens lost, 3-0, in Detroit. Nobody could ac-
cuse Plante of letting down on purpose, for he was involved
in a duel with Glenn Hall of Chicago for a goalkeeper's most
prized award the Georges Vezina Trophy.
Strictly speaking, this award is based on team performance.
It is given to the goalkeeper who has played the most games
for the team with the fewest goals scored against it. Neverthe-
less, the goalkeeper has his name engraved on the sterling-
silver trophy and printed on a league bonus check for $1000.
Plante had won the award the four previous seasons, match-
ing the record of Bill Durnan, a onetime Montreal goalie
who is rated by many experts as the best in hockey history.
"This time," Plante said, "it is not the money. It is the honor.
Five in a row will be a record."
Entering the final night of the regular season Plante and
Hall were tied, a total of 175 goals having been scored against
each of their teams. Plante allowed three more in a losing
game in New York, but the out-of-town results on the score-
board showed that Hall had fared even worse, with Chicago
playing a 5-5 tie with Boston. When Planters own game
194 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
ended, he sank to Ms padded knees on the ice. "I was saying
a prayer of thanks," he explained later.
Such extroverted behavior is typical of Plante. In celebrat-
ing other important occasions, such as winning the Stanley
Cup, he has kissed the ice. It is routine for Mm to throw
Ms arms Mgh above Ms head when the final buzzer-in Mont-
real, they use a siren-signals a victory for the Canadiens,
His home fans seem to resent these demonstrative displays
of emotion. So does the Montreal front office. "Most of our
French-Canadian players are the retiring, shy type/' says
Frank Selke> the shrewd sixty-seven-year-old managing di-
rector of the Canadiens. "But Jacques is Just the reverse. He
has changed goal-tending for the better, but I'm sure he
could be an even better goalkeeper himself if he didn't let
his showmansMp get the best of Mm."
Until Plante arrived on the KILL, scene, it was customary
for a goalkeeper never to leave Ms net. Plante created a sen-
sation by sometimes skating as far t as sixty feet to the blue
line-the average KILL, rink measures 195 feet by J5 feet
to smother a loose puck or pass it to one of Ms teammates. The
critics howled, but the late Dick Irvin, then the wise* wMte-
haked coach of the Canadiens, defended Plante. Irvin stated
prophetically, "Mark my words, this fellow is going to revolu-
tionize goalkeeping." Planters strategy since has been imitated
to some extent by nearly every professional goalkeeper.
Plante says he began wandering from the net when he was
playing for the Quebec City Citadels of the Quebec Junior
Hockey League. "One of our defensemen couldn't pass the
puck up to the blue line and another couldn't skate back-
wards," Plante relates. "The other two on the squad could
turn only one way. Somebody had to clear the puck, so I
started to do it myself. The defensemen liked it, and I've
been doing it ever since/'
Toe Blake, who succeeded Irvin as coach after Planters
first full season at Montreal, has never tampered with Ms
goalie's tactics. "Once in a while," Blake says, "if I think he's
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 195
going out of the net to an extreme, Til mention it to Mm,
Or 111 tell Mm to stay on Ms feet more. But usually I leave
him alone. Goalkeepers are different from other hockey
players/'
Goalkeeping is the rarest specialty in big-league sports.
Normally there are only six such jobs available in the entire
National Hockey League, although in recent years some
N.H.L. teams occasionally have used a two-man system. In
the modern Mstory of the league only one ex-goalkeeper has
ever served as a coach Hugh Lehman, who guided the CM-
cago Black Hawks for the final twelve games of the 1927-28
season. The reason, of course, is that a goalkeeper lacks the
over-all hockey knowledge necessary to direct a team. By the
same token, a coach who was a forward or defenseman knows
virtually nothing about the intricacies of goalkeeping,
"Nobody ever taught me to play goal/ says Jacques Plante.
"I learned by myself and from watching other goalkeepers."
Contributing to the boldness with wMch he plays the posi-
tion is the fact that he is perhaps the swiftest skater among
the N.H.L. goalkeepers. Two years ago, the Canadien players
had a speed-skating race while keeping the puck on their
sticks around the Montreal Forum ice. Henri Richard and
Tom Johnson each circled the rink in sixteen seconds flat.
The agile Plante, despite his thirty-seven pounds of clumsy
equipment, was timed in a surprising nineteen seconds.
One night early in the 1958-59 season Planters daring
backfired at the Forum. He skated out to the sideboards for
the puck, and then, as he attempted to pass it, Ms stick
handle caught in Ms loose-fitting uniform jersey. The puck
went out of control, eventually bouncing off the side bar of
the net onto the stick of Earl Balfour of the CMcago Black
Hawks. Balfour easily flicked it into the unprotected goal as
Plante thirty feet away watched helplessly.
TMs incident started a wave of catcalling that, after a
few games, had Plante on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
He recalls, It was so bad one night, I said to myself, Tm
196 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
going to skate off the ice and quit right now/ Then I thought
how they used to boo a great goalkeeper like Bill Duman,
and I stayed out there.
"It was my wife who really suffered. At the game, some
of the guys sitting near her would boo me so she would hear
it She heard them dare each other to boo me with her sitting
there/'
This hostile experience with the Montreal fans has left
psychological scars on Plante. "Some of the people/' he says
with a smirk, "they fhfak Fm lucky. They still don't admit
my style. I don't make as many saves as the other goalkeepers
because I get the puck first, away from the net After seven
years, all they see are my saves in the paper, not my work.
I play pro hockey. I know what it is like. But most of them,
they played school hockey. Some not even that What do
they know?"
Undeserved criticism is among the many pressures which
chip away at a goalkeeper's nervous system. One of Planters
antidotes is to get a great deal of sleep. When there is no
game, he goes to bed at eight P.M. "Maybe I watch television
for a while, maybe not," Jacques says, "but by ten I am always
asleep** He usually rises at eight in the morning, but in the
afternoon he'll put a stack of soft music on Ms hi-fi record
player and take a two-hour nap.
Planters dining habits also are unusual. He eats five meals
on a nongame day. He begins with a breakfast of cheese,
toast and coffee "I hate eggs," he says. For lunch he'll have
ground steak, mashed potatoes and ice cream. Then comes a
sandwich at four and a steak dinner at sk-thirty. Before he
goes to bed he has another snack.
To be a good goalkeeper," Plante sums up, "you must
have your rest. Your eyes must be sharp. You must keep
your weight, because you can lose maybe ten pounds in a
game. But it is an easy job if you can stand the tension,"
Recent N.H.L. history is dotted with the names of goal-
keepers who cracked under the strain. There was the case of
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 197
Terry Sawchuk, for instance. Early in December of 1956,
when he was with the Boston Bruins, Sawchuk was hospi-
talized by infectious mononucleosis. Two weeks later he sud-
denly appeared back in uniform. A month after that he
disappearedjust as suddenly at the end of a practice session.
'My nerves are shot/' he announced the following week at
his Detroit home. Tm through with hockey.**
The next spring Jack Adams, general manager of the De-
troit Red Wings, discovered that Sawchuk would play again
but only for Detroit. Adams, who had swapped Sawchuk to
Boston in a nine-man deal in 1955, made a trade to get him
back. After that, Sawchuk, who will be thirty-two on Decem-
ber twenty-eighth, has performed brilliantly at times for the
Red Wings. He has, however, required occasional rest periods.
Usually when a goalkeeper suffers a nervous breakdown
there is no thought of a big-league comeback. It was that
way with Bill Durnan, a six-time league all-star goalie for
Montreal. In the midst of the 1950 Stanley Cup play-offs
Durnan retired. He was then thirty-five. His successor, Gerry
McNeil, starred for four seasons, then abruptly quit at twenty-
eight, saying, "I just decided to stop playing while I still
have my health."
Comments Plante, "Durnan was getting old, and he couldn't
see the puck clearly. He was seeing shadows. No wonder he
was nervous. I think McNeil quit because of the pressure
that conies when somebody is pushing you for your job"
Plante was pushing him. "He took a year off, and he's been
O.K. since."
McNeil returned not to Montreal but to the minor leagues.
"I played nine games for the Canadiens when Plante was
hurt a few years ago," says McNeil, now a masked goal-
keeper for Quebec City in the American Hockey League.
"But Yd only do it in an emergency. I'm happy in the minors.
You get more shots to block, but the pressure isn't as tough.
I can sleep nights."
Ever since a 1928 episode in which forty-four-year-old
198 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
Lester Patrick, the manager-coach of the New York Rangers,
had to substitute himself for an injured goalie in the middle
of a Stanley Cup game, all N.HJL clubs have been required
to have a spare goalkeeper available for the play-offs. During
the regular season, however, it is customary to carry only the
No, 1 goalkeeper to road games. In case of a disabling in-
jury, the visitors must use an emergency goalkeeper provided
by the home teamsometimes an out-of-shape amateur or
the club trainer.
To avoid this, the Canadiens carried their own stand-by
replacement for Plante on the road Jacques Beauchamp, a
former amateur goalkeeper who travels with the club any-
way, as a sportswriter for the French-language daily Montreal
Matin.
"When my eyes go in a few years," Plante says, "that will
be my ambition to be the sub goalkeeper. I bet I can do it
until forty-five. Then 111 be a twenty-year man, and my
league pension will be $300 a month/'
Planters financial future looks promising even without the
pension. His hockey salary, which is estimated at close to
$20,000, is "tops in the league for a goalkeeper," according
to managing director Selke. During the summer off season he
works as a good-will ambassador for the Molsotf s Brewery
in Montreal. In addition, he shares in the patent on his face
mask with inventor Bill Burchmore. The masks are now in
mass production, and Burchmore confidently predicts that
Plante's share of the royalties will bring Mm more than $100,-
000 over the next few years.
Jacques owns three four-unit apartment houses in Mont-
real. He and his family he has sons of nine and seven-
live in suburban Laval des Rapides. Their handsome six-
room, white-stone bungalow is quite a contrast to the wooden
farmhouse in Mont Carmel, Quebec, where Jacques Plante
was born on January 17, 1929.
Shortly after Ms birth, Xavier and Palma Plante moved
to Shawinigan Falls, now an industrial area of more than
HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL 199
50,000, where Jacques's father became a machinist for the
Aluminum Company of Canada, Ltd.
"There were five brothers and five sisters after me, 1 * Plante
recalls. "I washed and scrubbed the floors. I did some of the
cooking. I changed the diapers. My mother didn't have time
to knit for all of us, so she taught us how. I still knit the white
woolen T shirts I wear next to my skin under my equipment."
Plante believes he was about three when he started skating
on the St. Maurice River ice. At the age of five he fell off the
ladder of a playground slide and broke Ms left wrist. The
bone did not heal properly. As a result, he was unable to
turn his left palm outward.
Despite this handicap, he became a good enough prospect
as a goaltender to be signed by the Canadiens tea years later.
He advanced steadily in organized hockey, reaching the Mont-
real Royals of the Quebec Senior Hockey League at the age
of twenty-two.
*T knew Td never make the N.H.L. unless I had the wrist
fixed," Plante says. "I couldn't catch the puck with my left
hand. I couldn't even block it or knock it down. I had to
use my thigh to block it, and that meant a rebound. I asked
the Canadiens for an operation. One doctor told me that
ninety-nine chances out of a hundred the wrist would get
worse. Another doctor said it was fifty-fifty it would get better,
but it wouldn't be worse. I took the chance."
The operation, of course, was a success. In the 1952-53
season Plante got his first chance to fill in at the nets for the
Canadiens. By 1954 the job was his for keeps.
Going into the 1960 season Plante had the best career sta-
tistics of any active N.H.L. goalkeeperan average of only
2.11 goals allowed per regular-season game, compared with
234 for Terry Sawchuk of Detroit and 2.53 for Glenn Hall of
Chicago, his two closest rivals. In Stanley Cup competition
the previous five years he has done even better, with a 1.93
average for forty-nine games.
There is much debate over whether Plante's success has
200 HOCKEY'S MASKED MARVEL
been due primarily to Ms own ability or to the fact that he
has a great team playing in front of Mm, with stars such as
Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Bernie (Boom-Boom) Geof-
frion, Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson. In
the annual league all-star selections, the sportswriters and
broadcasters who cast the ballots have chosen Plante for the
first team only twice in the last five seasons. The other three
times CMcago's Glenn Hall was the top choice.
Tft* s ridiculous/' snaps Planters coach, Toe Blake. "The
goalkeeper has got to be the key man in the organization
when you win five straight Stanley Cups, He should be the
all-star every season. I guess nobody will realize how great he
is until he's through."
The respected Frank (King) Clancy, assistant general
manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, takes a similar view.
He says, "Plante is sixty-five percent of the Canadiens." How-
ever, many observers still feel that Hall or Sawchuk or almost
any other N.H.L. goalkeeper would do as weE with the pow-
erful Canadiens as Plante does, if not better.
A rival goalie, Lome Worsley of the Rangers, once cracked
sarcastically, "Plante doesn't have a job, he has a position."
To tMs, Jacques Plante retorted characteristically, "If I
play with any team, we win/*
Jack, the Giant Killer
BY HERBERT WARREN WIND
Who Is Jack Fleck? If you had been able to answer that
question in May, 1955 on a television quiz and had been
able to answer it correctly, there is no knowing how many
refrigerators and home freezers it would have won for you.
Next month it was different Everybody knew Jack Fleck.
He was the angular 32-year-old lowan who accomplished
two miracles two days hand running. On a Saturday at the
Olympic Club course in San Francisco, he tied Ben Hogan
for first place in the 55th National Open Championship with
a 67 on his last round. On Sunday, playing crisp, precise
shots from tee to green and putting like a man in a trance,
he stopped Ben's tremendous bid to become the first five-
time winner of the Open by outscoring him 69 to 72 in the
play-off. Jack Fleck was the new National Open champion.
Late on Saturday afternoon, just about an hour after Hogan
had finished his fourth and final round with a 70 and had
trudged up the hill to the locker-room to sweat out Fleck,
the only man on the course with a chance to tie his four-
round total of 287 strokes, a tall, spare, somber-faced young
man, his dark eyebrows edging from beneath his large gray
cap, walked calmly and easily down the fairway of the 18th
hole. This rather Lincolnesque figure was Fleck, a pro with
Copyright 1955 by Sports Illustrated magazine.
202 JACK, THE GIANT KILLER
just the suspicion of a reputation who operated two municipal
courses in Davenport, Iowa when he was not competing in
tournaments, who played with Hogan clubs, who never be-
fore had finished as high as fifth place in any circuit competi-
tion and who had had an 87 in a warm-up round. On the
337-yard 18th, Fleck walked to the edge of the rough where
Ms drive had ended a scant four inches off the left edge of
the fairway, about 110 yards from the small plateaued green
which lies in the U at the base of a steep-banked natural
amphitheater. As some 10,000 spectators peered down from
the hillside, Fleck undramatically prepared to play Ms pitch
a very big shot indeed. On it rode, to a very large extent,
the success or failure of the magnificent attempt to catch
Hogan this MgMy unregarded young man had been making
all afternoon after Hogan's pace (and their own errors) had
killed off all of Ms experienced competition.
At the time Hogan had holed out on the 72nd green, Fleck,
who had started the final round three shots behind him, had
been playing the 12th hole, the 66th of the tournament. He
had then stood two under par for the round. He had gotten
Ms par nicely on the 12th and had rescued his par on the
13th with an excellent trap shot, but when he had gone one
over par with a five on the 14th, Fleck's chances of catching
Hogan had seemed absolutely forlorn. To do so, he had had
to finish with two pars and two birdies on the last four holes,
and on the Olympic Club course tMs is a considerable feat
on a lazy non-tournament afternoon, let alone on the last
round of the world's most important championsMp,
Fleck immediately picked up one of the birdies he needed
on the 15th, a short par three, where he dumped Ms iron
about nine feet from the cup and holed Ms putt. On the 603-
yard 16th, after he had pulled Ms third in the rough beMnd
the apron, he all but holed Ms delicate cMp* Par. Playing
now like a man who has been "touched/* as golfers say, hit-
ting every shot superbly, he had laced two woods to the
back of the green on the 17th, a par four 461 yards long
JACK, THE GIANT KILLER 203
which swings uphill all the way. His try for Ms birdie from
40 feet had just slid by the cup. Par. So now it all depended
on whether or not he could birdie the home hole.
From Ms lie in the roughnot too difficult a lie since the
rough was not too heavy at that spot Fleck played a three-
quarter seven-iron and Mt a simply wonderful shot. Flying in
a low trajectory, the ball just cleared the bunker that guards
the front entrance to the green and sat down hole-high, seven
feet to the right of the cup. This home green tilts severely
from back to front and its surface is slippery. All the tourna-
ment long, the players, and with reason, had been babying
their putts here, hoping to catch just a comer of the cup.
There was nothing tentative about Fleck's putt, downhill with
a faint right-to-left borrow, as he read it correctly. He struck
the ball firmly and it rolled right in, right in the center. He
had gotten that birdie, he had tied Hogan, but for minutes
and minutes after they had seen him do it, no one in the
gallery could actually believe what they had witnessed.
Jack Fleck's fantastic finish and his equally incredible golf
in the play-off were the ultimate chunks of drama in a cham-
pionship which, even before Fleck came ghosting down the
stretch, had made its progress one of the most exciting ad-
ditions of the National Open. It had just about everything. To
begin with, after only one man had broken par (70) on the
opening round Tommy Bolt with a 67 there had been
the annual controversy as to whether or not the USGA and the
host club had made the course unfairly tough in their efforts
to provide a formidable test for the present brigade of pre-
cision golfers. Along the narrow fairwaysnarrower in "feel"
than their actual measurements since they are lined with dark
green cedars, eucalyptus and pine lurked rough that was
really rough. Mainly made up of a rye grass imported from
Italy 33 years ago, grass whose single stalks measure about
three-eighths of an inch in width, this rough, whether cut to
two inches adjacent to the fairways or allowed to grow first
to five inches and then to a foot in height farther from the
204 JACK:, THE GIANT KILLER
fairway, was extremely thick, matty and resistant* To play
more than a six-iron from the deeper strips was quite im-
possible. Moreover* the clumpy rough around the perimeter
of the greens was terribly potent. To get out of it, a golfer
had to strike the ball a pretty decisive blow, and it was quite
impossible to do this without the ball's picking up a terrific
overspin that sent it racing, sometimes, over the opposite
edge of the green. To cope with this rough, a sharp-edged
wedge was required equipment, and as Bob Drum of the
Pittsburgh Press remarked, this Open, among its other dis-
tinctions, could boast of "the sharpest wedges ever honed."
In any event, since scrambling was out of the question,
the major problem for anyone who hoped to score well was
to sacrifice distance and keep straight and meet this examina-
tion in tight target golf on its own terms* On his opening
round, Sam S&ead did just the reverse. After missing three
putts of under five feet which had taken the edge off his
concentration, Sam had begun spraying Ms tee shots, had
been unable to get home from the rough and had ended Ms
sad safari with 79 blows. Although it later turned out not to
be the case, it seemed at the time that Sam had shot himself
completely out of the tournament and, in Ms understandable
chagrin, had stomped from the clubhouse to Ms auto still
wearing Ms spikes. On tMs opening round, 82 of the 162
starters took 80 or more to get around. At the halfway mark,
a total of 155 strokes was low enough to qualify for the final
36 on Saturday, the Mghest figure for the "cut" in a good
many seasons.
By Saturday, the big day, when a mild San Francisco fog
rolled in (on little caddies* feet) and obscured most of the
wMte city in the distance, "the cream" had come to the top,
as it invariably does on a demanding course. Leading at 144
were Bolt and Harvie Ward. With a chance to run away
from the field if he added a fairly low second round, Bolt
had taken a 77, fading Ms irons chronically and stroking his
putts anytMng but like the golfer who had taken only 24
JACK, THE GIANT KILLER 205
putts in the process of Ms opening 67* A stroke behind at
145 stood Ben Megan (73-72) and Julius Bores (76-69)
along with Fleck (76-69) and another unknown. Walker
Inman, a youngster from Augusta who had been Fleck's play-
ing partner the first two days and who was his present trav-
eling partner on the tournament circuit Snead, relaxed again
and playing superlatively from tee to green, had leapt back
with a 69, and he stood at 148 along with Jack Burke, only
four strokes off the pace. It was an amazing dramatis per-
sonae for the final day, a storybook lineup if there ever was
one. Here was Harvie Ward, the local boy who lived across
the street from the club, with as good a chance as any amateur
had had in a long, long time to take the Open. Here was
Snead once again in a position, if he could muster all Ms
talent, to finally take the Open, the only major championship
he had never won though, heaven knows, he had had Ms
chances. And here, to be sure, was Hogan. On Ms first two
rounds, Betfs play had not been too impressive, not for any-
one who remembered the complete authority that had been
Ms in 1951 and in 1953, Ms peak year. The old sense of
attack was missing in Ms putting. His swing seemed somewhat
flatter and shorter than usual. He seldom opened up with Ms
full cut, and when he did, he had trouble getting through on
the shot. He was swinging faster too, sort of punching into
the short shots with Ms forearms forcing the blow. But Ben
was controlling the ball, Mtting the fairways, Mtting the greens,
retaining Ms composure and Ms keenness since the tiredness
that came into Ms legs as he climbed up and down the hills
was largely burned away by the inner drive that stayed with
him every second of the way as he strove to acMeve Ms ap-
pointed goal of becoming the first player ever to win the
Open five times.
By midafternoon it looked as if Ben had that fifth cham-
pionship, and with strokes to spare. One by one the other
contenders had faded away. Young Inman went out with a
76 in the morning, and Harvie had shot Ms wad on the third
206 JACK, THE GIANT KILLER
round also, with a 76. Bob Rosburg, who had rashed into the
contention with a 67 in the morning, played himself out of
it early in the fourth round. Boros' chances were finished
after he took a double bogey on the short 3rd (or 57th).
For all intents and purposes, the tournament had resolved
itself into another duel between those two ancient rivals, Ho-
gan and Snead.
Playing about three holes in front of Ben, Sam started
the final round one shot behind him. He quickly fell three
behind when he led off with 5-5 against Ben's 4-4. He re-
mained three behind when he turned in 37 and Ben in 35,
At this stage of the tournament, both of these great golfers
were playing great golf. You just can't hit a golf ball any
better than Sam was hitting it On the 12th, 13th and 14th,
for example, he played, in succession, an 8-kon approach
nine feet past the pin, a 4-iron five feet past and a 5-iron
approach about seven feet to the left. He made none of the
putts and, in truth, never looked for a moment as if he
would. The definitive comment on Snead's pathetic failures
on the greens came on the 13th (or 67th) hole, a 187-yarder,
where he all but holed Ms 4-iron. As the ball barely missed
the cup and slid five feet by, Sam's rooters almost conceded
on the spot that, having missed his one, he would now have
to settle for a three.
Some 40 minutes later, Hogan, pelting the short 13th, went
one over par, to cut his lead over Snead to two strokes. Im-
mediately on top of this, he faded his drive on the 14th, a
long par four, into the five-inch rough. The decisive action
in the Hogan-Snead duel then took place. After chilling his
rooters by taking a four-wood from his bag, Ben played his
finest shot of the round. Hitting the ball with a slight cut,
he swatted it out of the grass and on a dead line for the
center of the green some 210 yards away. The ball hit on
the upslope to this hilltop green, bounded up between the
two flanking bunkers and expired some 20 feet from the
hole. Almost simultaneously, the report came through that
JACK, THE GIANT KILLER 207
Snead had bogeyed both the 16th and the 17th. Hitting the
ball with a freer action and more juice as the adrenalin re-
leased by the prospect of winning raced through Ms system,
Ben finished with a birdie and three stalwart pars for a 70.
He walked off the 72nd green, the apparent victor, to one of
the greatest and most honestly earned acclamations in the
history of a game which will go a long time indeed before it
knows another champion of Ms stature.
And then along came Fleck.
The story of the play-off really began on the 6th hole.
One stroke ahead at this point, Fleck had not played a bad
shot. It is not unfair to say that everyone in the gallery won-
dered when he would make Ms first error and what effect
tMs would have on Mm. Well, he pulled Ms approach on the
6th, a par four measuring 437 yards, into die trap to the
left of the green. He followed this with a rather loose re-
covery 25 feet past the pin. He then proceeded to knock the
putt into the hole, and his errors had hurt him not at all.
On the short eighth, after Hogan had rolled in a 50 footer for
a deuce, the amazing Mr. Heck coolly rolled in his eight
footer for his deuce. The gallery had hardly digested tMs
when he holed another long one for a birdie on the 9th, this
one from about 25 feet. By tMs time everyone was almost
conditioned to the fact that Fleck might hole anything, and on
the very next green he holed still another. TMs one, however,
was a mere 18 footer.
After tMs, Fleck holed no long ones, but this staggering
putting spree had put him three under par and three strokes
up on Hogan. It proved to be a sufficient cusMon. Sum-
moning all Ms heart and skill, Hogan fought back to chop
one stroke off Fleck's lead with a birdie on the 14th, to chop
off another with a fine four on the 17th. Now, with the posi-
tions of the previous day reversed, as it was, with Hogan
needing to pick up one stroke on Fleck on the 18th, Ben
just couldn't make it. He had no chance, in fact, after his
drive. He hooked it into the foot-Mgh rough, into an ex-
208 JACK, THE GIANT KILLER
ceptionally healthy patch that all but obscured the ball. It
took Ben three strokes to reach the fairway, one to uncover
the ball, another to budge it three feet, a third to punch it
laterally to the fairway. Both men finished like champions.
Hogan holed a 25-foot downhiller. Fleck played a perfect
four.
All of us who saw this play-off could appreciate a bit bet-
ter how it felt to be at Brookline in 1913 when another
complete unknown the name was something like Ouimet
defeated the peerless Harry Vardon and that other contem-
porary giant, Ted Ray, in that historic Open play-off. This too,
some 42 years later, was quite an afternoon, and the new
champion, Jack Fleck, revealed himself to be quite a golfer.
Big Daddy, the Colts* Top Tackier
BY JOHN C. SCHMIDT
He's 6 feet 6 and weighs 290 pounds. He wears a 56 suit
and size 14 shoes. He came to Baltimore a problem child, but
found here the confidence he needed to grow up.
His name is Gene Lipscomb Big Daddy to the Baltimore
Colts and their fans, and for several seasons the team's
leading tackier. His old reputation as the meanest man in
professional football is slowly being smothered by Ms growing
popularity.
On the field, big No. 76 is like a living Buddha with its
sMrttail out. He has a wide, drooping mustache that team-
mates are always threatening to shave off, if they could hold
him down long enough. He is a kindly giant whose favorite
stunt is to help an opponent to his feet after swatting Mm
down. When he pursues the ball carrier, he shuffles the in-
terference like a pack of cards until he can pull out Ms man.
He is a showman first-class, who knows just the right moment
to dofi Ms helmet as he lumbers off the field to get an ovation.
Big Daddy says he's changed Ms ideas about roughness in
the game. "I dotft feel that brute force makes you any better a
ballplayer than playing good, hard, clean football. I like to
wrap my arms around the ball carrier and bear-hug him. I
grab them and pull them in with my arms so Fm sure I've got
them. I have a lot of strength in my arms."
Copyright 1959 by The Baltimore Sun.
210 BIG DADDY, THE COLTS* TOP TACKLEK.
Buddy Young, a former Colt star and Gene's close Mend,
remembers the first time he encountered Gene. "I was run-
ning the ball in a game in Dallas," says Buddy. "I avoided one
tackier and thought I was off for a good gain. Then I felt
somebody grab me by the ankle and a voice behind me said,
'Hold down there, Mr. Young. The Daddy's got you. You
ain't goin' nowhere.' "
The thing that makes Big Daddy great is his bigness, but it
has been a mixed blessing. As a child he was bigger than most
boys twice Ms age. At Miller High School in Detroit he was
6 feet 2 and weighed 235. He had to grow up fast, and it was
during the Depression years when few things happened easily.
His mother was killed when he was 9 and his father died
in a C.C.C camp. Through high school, Gene supported him-
self by working in a steel pickling plant from midnight to
8:30 A.M. All the while he was going out for basketball and
football
In his last year of high school he quit working and began
playing semi-professional basketball with the Joe Louis Brown
Bombers. That made him ineligible for high school sports but
brought in $10 to $20 a game. When the Korean war started
he was drafted into the Marines, and quickly found a place
on track, basketball and football teams.
He was stationed at Camp Pendleton near Oceanside,
CaL, where both the Rams and the 49ers scouted him. The
Rams got to him first and he was discharged just in time to
play the last two games of the 1953 season. The first pro game
he played was against the Colts, and the Rams won.
When the season was over Gene needed a job. He was in
the movie capital and tried for the films. He got a small part
and appears for about four minutes in the 1954 version of
"Kismet" as a litter bearer carrying a Chinese girl.
When he returned to the Rams in the fall, Gene had
troubles. The least of them was that he couldn't remember
the other players' names. He called everybody "Little Daddy,"
which came back to him as Big Daddy.
BIG DADDY, THE COLTS* TOP TACKLER 211
More serious troubles like a lack of confidence in himself
plagued Mm for a time. The game was not football as he had
known it. It was a lot tougher, for one thing. Nobody had ever
taught him how to fight the kind of pressure you meet in pro
ball, for another. Gene was the only man on the squad with-
out a college background. A quick temper added to Ms woes*
His first marriage, by wMch he had two children, foundered,
then ended in divorce.
He played the 1954 season under a cloud, but it was lifting.
"1 came to feel that I had learned a lot that year," he says, "and
that I could play as good a game as the next man. But I felt
the Rams were not using me enough. They take you out of
the game if you make one mistake. Nobody ever learned to
play football sitting on the bench."
The Rams put Big Daddy on waivers in 1954 and Baltimore
picked Mm up for $100. He says: "I was an outcast when I
came to Baltimore a problem child and some people said I
couldn't be coached. They thought I had the attitude that
I didn't care, but I did"
Being taken on by the Colts was in itself a lift to him.
Knowing that a team with two fine tackles like Art Donovan
and Tom Finnin had accepted him, meant a lot. Big Daddy
felt at home almost at once. He was among a group of men
his sizeor almost Ms size and he had good Mends on the
team in Buddy Young, Art Spinney and Jesse Thomas. In
Weeb Ewbank he found a coach who took enough personal
interest to help Mm with Ms problems.
"You knew if you made a mistake, nobody was going to
jump on you or try to belittle you. Also, I used to fly off a lot/*
he says, speaking of Ms temper. "Weeb was a big help getting
over that So were the fines."
The encouragement that he valued MgMy came also in little
things, like Ewbank's offer to buy him a hat every time he
knocked down an enemy conversion attempt. Hats are a
hobby of Gene's, especially the small ItaEan kind with a bright
feather. So far, he's earned three.
212 BIG DADDY, THE COLTS* TOP TACHLER
He gives a lot of credit to Gino Marchetti, Art Donovan,
Don Joyce and ex-Colt Joe Campanella for helping him im-
prove his game.
Daddy is known as quite a jokester among Ms teammates.
Much of his humor is directed at his friend, Art Donovan
claiming to share Donovan's Irish ancestry and "short-
sheeting" his bed regularly in training camp.
Often when the defensive platoon takes to the field for
practice Daddy will line them up in formation and lead them
in fancy marching steps.
Off the field, he is still the comedian. He stays with Buddy
Young, and Buddy's kids, as well as others in the neighbor-
hood, eat htm up. He takes them to the movies in Ms shiny
new Mercury two or three times a week and "scrimmages"
with them on the front lawn if there's enough light left when
he gets home. He plays Santa Claus at Christmas for the
Douglas Memorial Community Church.
"He likes people and likes to make them laugh," Raymond
Berry says. Buddy Young adds: "His heart is as big as he is.
He has a lot of guts and extreme loyalty."
One of the main reasons Big Daddy likes Ms two-nights-a-
week job for a local brewery is that he gets to meet a lot of
people. "I call on the accounts," he says; "just like goodwill,
I mean. I talk to the customers and ask them to try the
product."
Besides the movies, Daddy is a television and jazz fan. His
favorite musician is trumpet-player Miles Davis. On TV, he
is a late-show addict "As long as there's something on TV,
I'm up."
Before a game he eats a breakfast of two eggs and a steak
with honey on it. TMs, plus a vitamin pill two hours before
game time, gets Mm ready, but it may take two or three plays
before he gets over Ms pregame nervousness and finds him-
self. "A good hard bump will do it," he explains, "or a good
tackle." When a game is over, Daddy is "real tired." He sweats
off 10 to 12 pounds every time he plays.
BIG DAD0Y, THE COLTS' TOP TACKLER 213
He figures he will play a total of ten years, which he thinks
is enough for a man. He has no definite plans for the future,
but would like to go into some kind of business with Lenny
Moore, perhaps a bowling alley. One of his favorite jokes about
retirement concerns Ms buying a plantation and hiring some of
his Caucasian teammates as cotton pickers.
Somebody suggested he had the showmanship to be a suc-
cessful wrestler, and Buddy Young tells a story that backs
this up. A few years ago, when Billy Eckstein was married
in Baltimore, Buddy gave him a party at Ms home. Big Daddy
was there with Lenny Moore and several other Colts.
After a few beers the boys decided to wrestle Big Daddy,
who took up the challenge at once and bet them all they
couldn't pin him. "We got a man on each leg,** Buddy tells,
"one man on each arm and two around Ms middle. Six men in
all and we still couldn't pin him. Suddenly Big Daddy flipped
Ms body and everybody went sailing* Billy Eckstein wound up
with a sprained ankle. Big Daddy got up triumphant, beating
his chest and shouting, 'Still the Daddy! Still the Daddy.*"
The Wonderful Bunion Derby
BY WILLIAM UPJOHN
Late in the afternoon of May 26, 1928, a gaunt, sun-scorched
man in a threadbare track suit ran gasping into the ferry
terminal at Weehawken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson
River from New York City. He was greeted by a rousing cheer
from a large crowd. A few minutes later, a second man in a
track suit jogged into the terminal, then a third, and a fourth.
For the next two hours, they kept coming, many limping pain-
fully, until there were, in all, fifty-five men.
They were lean and sinewy; a few looked emaciated. Their
faces were seamed with strain, or contorted in pain. Several
had beards and long, unkempt hair. Some wore bandages on
their legs where they had been bitten by dogs. Among the
fifty-five were representatives of nearly every race, yet it was
difficult to tell one race from another, for the men were all
burned almost black by the sun.
When they reached the terminal, they stared with dazed
wonder at the soaring skyline of Manhattan across the river*
There was the goal for which they had crossed deserts,
climbed over mountain ranges, battled wind, rain, snow and
hail. There was the goal for which they had traversed thirteen
states, had run, walked, limped and staggered 3,400 miles
across the American continent.
Copyright 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of
Argosy magazine.
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 215
The fifty-five men were completing the eighty-fourth and
final lap in the great transcontinental foot race of 1928the
longest, toughest and zaniest foot race in history.
The "Bunion Derby/' as the race was called, was the crown-
ing expression of that hectic age known as the Roaring
Twenties. It was an age when men lived in terms of super-
latives; they sought to do things longer, faster, higher and
farther than had ever been done before, whether it was sitting
atop a flagpole,, flying a plane, driving a car, or just plain
running.
The Bunion Derby accounted for its share of superlatives.
Not only was it the longest, it was also the richest foot race
in history, offering cash prizes totalling $48,500. It was wit-
nessed by some 15,000,000 people, far surpassing the at-
tendance of any other spectator event before or since. And
it probably received greater newspaper coverage than any
other sports event in history.
The transcontinental foot race was the brain child of
Charles C (Cash and Carry) Pyle, the most daring, imagina-
tive and controversial sports promoter of the twenties. A native
of Ohio, Pyle was the prodigal son of a Methodist minister.
He had a checkered career as boxer, actor, theatrical manager
and salesman before acquiring a string of six small-town
nickelodeons in Illinois. In 1925, he vaulted from obscurity
by persuading Harold (Red) Grange, the most famous foot-
ball player in America, to turn professional. Under Pyle's
management, of course.
When he took Grange under Ms wing, Pyle was forty-four
years old. He was a tall, dapper man with sleek, gray hair,
a militant mustache and a bulldog jaw* His clothes were
custom-made by the most exclusive tailors. He usually wore a
derby, spats and a diamond stickpin in his tie. He also sported
a cane. Pyle had a mind like Vesuvius always in eruption.
And he had a charm and power of persuasion that could sell
an angel a corner lot in hell.
Pyle immediately signed Grange to a contract with the
216 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
Chicago Bears. That contract was a remarkable document,
testifying to Pyle's genius as a supersalesman. It gave half the
team's gate receipts to the Bears, the other half to Grange
and Pyle.
When Pyle came on the scene, professional football was
dying on the vine. But that was all changed as the Bears
made a whirlwind, eighteen-game tour of the country. With
Grange starring on the field and Pyle pulling the promotional
strings, the team set box-office records wherever it played.
Grange and Pyle each cleared more than $100,000 from
the tour, and the following spring, they hit the gold-dust trail
to Hollywood, where Grange made a movie and they both
made another bundle.
In the fall of 1926, Pyle offered Suzanne Lenglen, the
French glamor girl of amateur tennis, $50,000 to tour the
United States. Professional tennis tours were unheard of in
those days, and the press greeted this offer with loud guffaws.
But Pyle was in league with Midas, apparently. The tour was
enormously successful, and Pyle raked in another $100,000
or so.
In little more than a year, he had become the P. T. Barnum
of the sports world. He had breathed new life into a dying
sport, and had fathered a new one. But he was just getting
warmed up.
In the spring of 1927, Pyle and Grange returned to Holly-
wood to make another movie. While there, Pyle called a press
conference.
"Gentlemen," he told the assembled reporters, "I would like
to announce a little marathon which I'm going to promote next
year."
The reporters were not bowled over by this news. In the
twenties, marathons were about as common as chopsticks in
China. There were twenty-six-mile marathons, fifty-mile mara-
thons, hundred-mile marathons. There were running, walking,
swimming, rowing, dancing and even drinking marathons.
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 217
"This marathon/* Pyle continued, "will begin in Los Angeles
and end in New York City."
Now the reporters were bowled over. They began taking
notes furiously as Pyle outlined plans for Ms transcontinental
foot race, as he called it. The race, Pyle said, would start the
following March, It would cover more than 3,100 miles and
there were to be ten cash prizes, totalling $48,500, with the
winner getting $25,000.
He said he was sending agents to Europe and Asia to recruit
the world's best long-distance runners and walkers for the
race. There would be a small entry fee of twenty-five dollars,
but otherwise, he would foot all expenses, including the cost
of feeding and sleeping the contestants. In return for his in-
vestment, Pyle said he expected to net a modest $200,000.
The transcontinental foot race immediately became the talk
of the country. Many sportswriters were skeptical. The idea of
a 3,100-mile marathon was just too big for them to swallow.
They scoffed at "Corn and Callous" Pyle and his "Bunion
Derby." They predicted he wouldn't get enough paid entries
to fill a telephone booth. And where, they wanted to know,
was his $200,000 profit coming from? He could hardly charge
admission to the nation's thoroughfares.
Pyle had already asked himself the same question, and he
had come up with a remarkable answer. "We'll get a big field
of famous runners," he told John Kieran, who was writing for
the old "Life." "We'll ran through hundreds of towns, cities
and villages. Spectators by the thousands will be attracted to
these places to see the race pass through. That will mean
money for the local merchants and advertising for the towns.
It will help the sale of everything from mouse traps to grand
pianos. Each town will be assessed so much by me for adver-
tising, or we won't ran through it, but through a rival town.
Then we'll sell a million programs, easy. You can't tell the
runners without a program. I'll get a hundred thousand for
the advertising in that. I'll have a traveling amusement show
with the race. Admission will not be free. Fll make money on
218 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
that, too. In fact, if s about the easiest thing I've ever seen,"
Pyle sent agents over the proposed route to see how much
the cities and towns along the way were willing to pay in "as-
sessments/* The route favored by Pyle generally followed U. S.
Highway 66 to Chicago and various highways from there to
New York City. But this route could be changed by a suitable
offer. "If somebody had offered Pyle five thousand dollars, he
would have gone by way of St Johns, Newfoundland," Will
Rogers commented.
After getting in touch with the local Chambers of Com-
merce, the agents shot back a steady stream of telegrams to
Pyle at Ms headquarters in Los Angeles:
"Barstow belligerent. Better duck *em."
"Yuma offers $1,000. Shall I accept?"
"Kansas City tough. Better route to St, Louis."
A few days before the start of the race, Pyle announced
that he had raised $100,000 from cities and towns along the
route. Some of the larger cities had contracted to pay as high
as $7,500. The take from the smaller towns was $500 and up,
Meanwhile, the agents dispatched by Pyle to recruit en-
trants had also struck a bonanza. Nearly 500 entries poured
in, from all parts of the world. They came about equally from
first-rate athletes, untalented dreamers and plain crackpots.
On February 13, 1928, three weeks before the starting date,
Pyle opened a training camp for the entrants at Ascot Speed-
way, an automobile race track in Los Angeles. There they were
given a physical examination. If they passed, they were asked
to sign a document which placed them under Pyle's manage-
ment for two years following the race. During this time, they
would split fifty-fifty with him all money from movies, exhibi-
tions and racing appearances. This was another ace up Pyle's
financial sleeve.
Some 275 of the entrants finally qualified and went into
training at the speedway. They slept on iron cots in twenty
lar^e tents, and they ate in a huge mess tent christened "Pyle
Inn/'
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 219
Soon the Mils and roads around the speedway were crawling
with runners and walkers of every description. Most of them
averaged thirty to forty miles a day during the three-week
training period. This was sample enough for many, and they
dropped out before the race started.
As the entrants rounded into shape, Pyle was busy organ-
izing the caravan that would accompany them across the
country. This was a vast, complex undertaking in itself. An
unknown number of athletes had to be fed three times a day
and bedded down in a different town each night for nearly
three months. Side shows and concessions had to be lined up,
programs printed, officials hired and a hundred other im-
portant matters taken care of.
Pyle solved the problem of housing and feeding the runners
by arranging for cots, tents, portable showers and a mobile
kitchen, which would be transported from town to town by a
fleet of tracks. That left the question of where Pyle himself
would sleep. One accustomed to living at the best hotels, as
he was, would hardly relish the nightly prospect of sleeping on
a hard cot in a drafty tent. No, indeed. So Pyle ordered a big
double-decker bus specially built by the Fageol Motor Com-
pany at a cost of $25,000. The twelve-ton bus, christened The
America and called a 'land yacht" by the press, was luxuri-
ously fitted with every convenience of the modern home. It
slept twelve persons and would serve as headquarters for Pyle
and his officials during the race.
For his officials, the publicity-wise Pyle hired a number of
famous sports figures. Red Grange was named starter. Arthur
Duffy, the first sprinter to run 100 yards in nine and three-
fifths seconds, was appointed referee. Hugo Quist, former
trainer of Paavo Nurmi, was physical director. And a half-
dozen well-known professional football players, including
Steve Owen, later coach of the New York Giants, were hired
to check the runners in and out of towns and to see that they
didn't hitch any rides.
Pyle, ballyhoo artist that he was, also took steps to keep the
220 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
American public properly informed of the progress of the
race. He ordered a second Fageol bus, not quite so fancy as
Ms own, to carry newsmen, and he arranged to have a mobile,
radio-broadcasting station accompany the caravan.
Pyle handled all these preparations with the dispatch of a
general mustering Ms forces for a great campaign. And when
the day of the race Sunday, March 4, 1928roUed around,
the strangest, if not the greatest show on earth was ready to
roll, too.
The day dawned gray and somber. It had been raining for
several days in Los Angeles, and the infield at Ascot Speed-
way was ankle-deep in mud. By midmorning, the speedway
was swarming with curious onlookers.
At three p.m., the army of entrants, now reduced to 199,
formed into national groups. There were more than a dozen
countries represented, and each group carried its own flag.
The contestants paraded around the muddy track, flags rip-
pling in the breeze, bare arms and legs sMvering in the chill
air. The parade halted in front of the grandstand, where Pyle,
resplendent in a double-breasted overcoat with a fur collar,
and sporting Ms usual derby, spats and cane, stood at atten-
tion. Behind him sat several thousand paid spectators. Pyle
delivered some final words of instruction to the athletes. They
lined up, forming a solid block of humanity that stretched 100
yards along the track.
At three forty-six p.m., Red Grange touched off the starting
bomb. Never was there such a sight as followed that bomb
burst. Some of the contestants took off under full steam.
Others walked. In the traffic jam that followed, there was a
wild confusion of arms, legs and bodies. Many contestants
were bumped and jostled; a few sprawled face first onto the
muddy track.
That jumbled mass of starters included men of almost every
size, shape, color and description. They ranged in age from
sixteen to sixty-three. The oldest was gray-haired Charles W.
Hart of England, who had once held the world 100-mile run-
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 221
ning record. Several months before, Hart had outrun two
horses in England*
The contestants wore every sort of outfittrack suits, over-
alls, even long underwear. TTiey were shod in running shoes,
work shoes and moccasins. Some were barefoot. One man
plugged along in logger's boots.
Several entrants had long beards. Lucien (Jack) Frost, an
aging Hollywood actor who had once played Moses in the
movies, had whiskers down to his belt buckle and hair to
match. "Wildfire" Thompson of Berryville, Arkansas, was
known as the "Bearded Skeleton" because he was little more
than bone and beard.
The starters also included a Hindu philosopher, a youth
with one arm, and a man who leaned on a cane as he hobbled
along. A reporter asked Pyle how the man with the cane had
qualified for the race. "That fellow used to carry the mail in
Alaska,** Pyle said. "Both of his feet were frozen. That's the
reason for his peculiar stride. But he can fl mush' along all day."
The contestants were not all characters. They included some
of the world's best long-distance runners and walkers. Among
the runners were Arthur Newton of Southern Rhodesia, holder
of all world amateur running records from twenty-nine to 100
miles; Juri Lossman of Estonia, who had finished second in
the 1920 Olympic marathon; August Fager of Ohio, an
American Olympic runner, and Willie Kolehmainen of New
York, whose brother, Hannes, was regarded as the greatest
marathon runner in history. The walkers or heel and toers,
as they were called included Philip Granville, the Canadian
champion, and Guisto Umek, the Italian champion. Willie
Reinbold of New York, the world walking champion, had also
entered, but he was bitten by a mad dog during training and
was undergoing anti-rabies treatment when the race started.
While newsreel cameras ground away, the 199 contestants
slogged once around the muddy track at Ascot Speedway.
They then swarmed toward the main road leading to Puente,
the first night's stop, twenty miles away. Pyle, Grange and
222 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
newsmen, meanwhile, made a dash for the two big Fageol
buses. The buses reached the road just ahead of the runners.
Leading the pack was forty-year-old Willie Kolehmainen, a
gaunt little Finnish bricklayer from New York,
Valley Boulevard was lined almost solid with hundreds of
thousands of spectators all the way to Puente. In places, auto-
mobiles were parked three and four deep on both sides of the
road, and the buses and runners had to squeeze through. From
atop his land yacht, The America, Pyle noted with satisfaction
that many of the spectators had purchased programs at a quar-
ter apiece. But he was a little miffed that aU those hundreds
of thousands of people were watching the race free, while
only a few thousand had paid to see the start at Ascot Speed-
way,
At five twenty-four p.m., Kolehmainen breezed up to the
control point in Puente, winner of the first lap in an hour and
thirty-eight minutes. During the next few hours, the rest of
the runners and walkers straggled into town. Many limped in
pain; a few staggered from exhaustion. But, amazingly, all
199 starters completed that first short lap,
Earlier that day, the side-show and concession tents had
been erected on a vacant lot in Puente. Now, as darkness
settled over the city, arc lights flashed on the gaudy side-show
banners, and a bass dram began thumping out an invitation
to the town. Soon a large crowd had gathered in front of the
tents, and barkers started chanting their gravel-throated hymns
to the wonders inside. These wonders included the mummified
corpse of an Oklahoma outlaw, a five-legged pig, dancing
snakes, a wrestling bear and a chorus of hula girls with more
wiggles than a can of worms. The star attractions, though,
were Red Grange and the contestants in the Bunion Derby,
Pyle stood near the ticket booths, contentedly eyeing the
steady steam of quarters being planked down in exchange for
tickets. Soon the main tent was about full. Red Grange
climbed onto a platform inside and, acting as master of cere-
monies, described the race briefly and introduced some of the
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 223
contestants. They walked stiffly onto the platform and said
hello. A few performed for the crowd. One imitated a steam-
boat whistle, another sang and played the ukulele, others told
jokes.
Early the next morning, the runners were routed from their
cots, stiff and sore from the previous day's exertion. They ate
a hurried breakfast in Pyle Inn, then were herded to the start-
ing line for the second lap to Bloomington, thirty-five miles
away. This set the pattern they would follow for the next three
months: up at dawn, a quick breakfast and then the long,
weary miles to the next control point. According to the rules,
all contestants had to start together, and they had to check in
at the next control point by midnight or be disqualified. The
winner of the $25,000 first prize would be the man with the
shortest elapsed time between Los Angeles and New York
City.
It rained all the way to Bloomington. Some of the contest-
ants donned pants, raincoats and hats. Others splashed along
in their track suits. Wet shoes brought on a bumper crop of
blisters, and half a dozen runners quit Kolehmainen again
led the pack, establishing himself as the man to beat.
Despite the rain, the sale of programs continued brisk, and
the side shows played to full houses again that night. Pyle was
delighted with the progress thus far.
For the runners, though, the first two laps had been little
more than warming-up exercises. The third day's grind was
expected to separate the doers from the dreamers. The tor-
tuous trail climbed steeply up through Cajon Pass to an ele-
vation of 4,300 feet and then plunged down into the Mojave
Desert, stopping at Victorville, forty-five miles away.
The contestants began dropping out as soon as they hit the
twenty-mile climb through the pass. Some of them, heads hung
to one side, mouths gasping for air, faces twisted in agony,
stumbled on until they pitched unconscious onto the highway.
In all, the pass claimed more than a score of contestants.
One of these was Kolehmainen, the leader and favorite, who
224 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
pulled a groin muscle entering the pass and had to withdraw
soon after. His loss was a severe blow to Pyle, for the name
Kolehmainen was one of the most famous in the track world,
and worth money at the box office.
With Kolehmainen gone, it was expected that one of the
half-dozen Indians in the race would surge into the lead. The
flat desert country between Cajon Pass and New Mexico ap-
peared made to order for them. But it was a forty-four-year-
old Britisher from Southern Rhodesia who set the pace as the
caravan crawled, like a long, thin centipede, across the Mo-
jave. Arthur Newton, the world long-distance running cham-
pion, who had been brought up on the desert-like veldts of
South Africa, won lap after lap, and he quickly built up a
commanding lead.
The toll among the other runners was heavy crossing the
desert. Many wilted under the ninety-five-degree heat, or their
feet gave out on the rough gravel road. And a new menace
was making itself known. Two contestants were struck down
by hit-and-run cars and left lying unconscious on the desert
road. Before the race was through, nearly a dozen athletes
would be bowled over by cars, motorcycles and even a bicycle.
By the eighth day, when the caravan straggled into Needles,
California, the field had been trimmed to 120. In the first 300
miles, more than a third of the starters had quit. "A mathema-
tician has figured out that this sort of thing can't go on indefi-
nitely," one writer commented.
For Pyle, the trek across the Mojave had been a dishearten-
ing one. The cities had been few and far between. The caravan
had played mostly to Indians, lizards and jackrabbits, none of
whom seemed inclined to buy programs or side-show tickets.
Now, in Needles, Pyle was confronted by a major crisis. The
company which had the contract to feed the runners at two
dollars a day per man suddenly hiked its price to three dol-
lars. Pyle refused to pay, and the cooks departed without so
much as washing their pots and pans.
The runners were ravenous following the fifty-seven-mile
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 225
lap into Needles, so Pyle appointed Ralph Scott, one of Ms
professional football players, to do the cooking. Scott grabbed
what food he could find, tossed it into a big kettle and boiled
it all together. The stew tasted pretty good to the starved ath-
letes, and there were few complaints.
When Scott fed them the same thing the next day, and the
day after that, however, things got pretty explosive in Pyle
Inn. Some of the runners threatened to strike unless the food
improved. Pyle thereupon relieved Scott of Ms chefs hat.
After that, Pyle farmed out the meals to small restaurants and
greasy spoons along the way. The contestants were allowed
two tfairty-five-cent meals a day, along with a couple of sand-
wiches.
Even in the twenties, thirty-five cents wouldn't buy much
of a meal. This is attested by an Associated Press dispatch
out of Granite City, Illinois. It quotes the wife of Frank J.
Johnson, who quit the race after 900 miles. "You may think
he's healthy/ Mrs. Johnson said, "but that's just sunburn that
makes him look that way. He's hollow from head to heel. I
can't prepare enough food for him. You should have seen him
when he got home. His left ankle was swollen to twice its
normal size. His lips were cracked so badly they bled when
he tried to eat. His nose was blistered and he hobbled like a
cripple. 9 *
At Needles, the contestants boarded a ferry and crossed
the Colorado River to Arizona, where the Mghway coiled up-
ward to a series of Mgh, wind-swept plateaus. Crossing Ari-
zona, Arthur Newton, the slender Britisher, continued to set
a blistering pace. He won eight of the first thirteen laps, boost-
ing his lead to nine hours. He looked invincible if he could
hold up. Then, near Flagstaff, Newton twisted his ankle. For
two days, he stumped along on Ms swollen leg. Finally the
pain became unbearable, and he had to withdraw.
Nineteen-year-old Andy Payne, a part-Cherokee farm boy
from Claremore, Oklahoma, whose only foot-racing experi-
ence had been at a country Mgh school, suddenly found him-
226 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
self leading the world's longest and richest foot race. On the
very day he inherited the lead, however, Payne came down
with tonsiiitis. It looked as if he would have to withdraw, too.
But he refused to give up. Despite a high temperature and
badly swollen throat, he kept gamely on, walking now instead
of running. He soon lost tie lead and began falling back in
the standings.
Ame Souininen, a Finnish runner from Detroit, moved out
in front and stayed there doggedly as the caravan crossed the
Continental Divide.
Approaching Albuquerque, Pyle hurried ahead to collect
the $5,000 which the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce
had guaranteed him for having the race stop there overnight
Pyle was informed, much to Ms astonishment, that the Cham-
ber had changed its mind, that it didn't think the race was
worth the price and that the $5,000 would not be forthcoming.
Pinning with anger, Pyle hustled back to the caravan and
ordered the runners to detour through the desert around Al-
buquerque. Even so, the detour was lined with hundreds of
cheering spectators.
This was fast becoming the story of the race, so far as Pyle
was concerned. Wherever the caravan passed, thousands
flocked to see the curious sight But when the side shows were
ready for business, the prevailing attitude was: Why pay to see
something you've already seen for free? Pyle began calling the
Bunion Derby "the greatest free show ever offered the Ameri-
can public/
With Souminen still leading, the weary runners, averaging
some forty miles a day, plodded on across New Mexico and
into the Texas Panhandle. There they straggled through snow,
sleet, rain and hail. The snow proved a blessing near McLean,
Texas. The tracks carrying the tents and bedding got stuck,
and Pyle had to put the contestants up in hotels for the night.
It was the first time they had slept in a building in two months.
Souminen led the long parade for almost three weeks. Then,
nearing Oklahoma, he pulled a tendon in Ms leg and, like
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 227
Kolehmainen and Newton before Mm, had to withdraw. Once
again Andy Payne, the tousle-haired Oklahoma Indian boy,
now fully recovered from his bout with tonsilitis, found him-
self in front.
This proved a break for Pyle, for as Payne led the caravan
across his home state, the race drew its biggest crowds since
leaving Los Angeles. At one point, it was estimated that a
thousand automobiles, their horns all honking, followed Payne
down Highway 66, completely blocking the road. Payne was
a little perturbed by all this fuss. Tm just one of the bunch,"
he said, "I wish they would let me rest a bit."
As the caravan neared Oklahoma City, Pyle received an-
other jolt. Ralph Scott, the deposed chef, went to court and
tried to attach the $5,000 which the Oklahoma City Chamber
of Commerce had guaranteed Pyle for having the race halt
there. Scott claimed the money was due him for services as
player and coach on one of Pyle's pro football teams.
Pyle, desperate for cash, thought he saw a way out: He tore
up the Chamber's guarantee. This enabled a Chamber repre-
sentative to swear in court that no money was owed Pyle;
therefore it couldn't be attached. Quite pleased with this little
stratagem, Pyle then attempted to collect the $5,000. The
Chamber representative refused to pay. He said it would be
perjury for him to do so. Everyone thought this was a good
joke on Pyle. Everyone except Pyle, that is.
The promoter was reluctant to route the caravan around
the city, as he had done at Albuquerque, because Oklahoma
City promised to be one of the most lucrative stops thus far.
Instead, while 75,000 people lined the downtown streets to
get a free look at the runners, Pyle sent them scurrying across
fields and down back streets into the State Fairgrounds. Busi-
ness boomed that night.
The next morning, several runners went on strike. They
refused to start from Oklahoma City unless Pyle offered daily
lap prizes. The strikers were far down in the standings and
stood little chance of winning one of the ten grand prizes.
228 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
Pyle was really hurting financially, and he rejected their de-
mands. Whereupon the strikers, having already trudged half-
way across the country, wearily decided to trudge across the
other half, too, although it was unlikely they would receive
anything for it
As the caravan approached Claremore, Payne lost Ms lead
briefly, but regained it in time to enter his home town trium-
phantly. The home folks put on a gala celebration in Ms honor,
The town's other illustrious son, Will Rogers, awarded him
$250, and the Chamber of Commerce added $100. A few
miles past Claremore, the Bunion Derby passed its halfway
point, 1,700 miles and forty-six days out of Los Angeles.
Seventy-five of the 199 who had started still remained in the
race.
Leaving Oklahoma, the caravan sliced across the corner of
Kansas and moved into Missouri. In Carthage, Missouri,
Pyle's yacht, The America, was suddenly pelted by a barrage
of rotten eggs hurled by angry townfolk. They were unhappy
because Pyle had let Joplin outbid Carthage for the honor of
bedding down the caravan overnight,
A few days later, in Illinois, with the egg yolks barely dry
on her hood, The America was seized by sheriff's deputies.
The bus had been attached by the receivers of a defunct bank
in Champaign, Illinois, who claimed Pyle owed the bank $21,-
500. The loss of Ms palatial home on wheels was a mortifying
blow to Pyle. There appeared little for him to do, if he hoped
to reach New York City, except to get out and join the runners.
He was spared that fate, however, when it was testified in
court that he didn't own the bus after all, but was only renting
it. The America was promptly restored to him, and he forged
on to rejoin the caravan.
Some of the contestants, meanwhile, were having an easier
time than Pyle keeping wheels under them. In Missouri, Pat
De Marr of Los Angeles was ejected from the race for hitching
a ride in a passing car. In Illinois, Lucien (Jack) Frost, the
bearded Moses of the movies, was expelled after "somebody
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 229
spied about a yard of his whiskers sticking out of a charitable
lady's sedan/* as Will Rogers described it.
With Pyle once again leading the parade in his resurrected
bus, the seventy surviving runners trekked into Chicago some
sixty-three days and 2,400 miles out of Los Angeles. In Chi-
cago, Pyle was supposed to receive a payment of $60,000
from an association of towns along Highway 66. But the towns
reneged. They claimed Pyle had failed to keep his part of the
contract, so they felt no obligation to keep theirs*
To Pyle, this was the ultimate disaster. The $60,000 had
meant the difference between possibly breaking even and fi-
nancial ruin. Ruin it was, then. But tradition dictated that
the show must go on, and New York City was still 1,000
miles away. The next day, the caravan streamed on into In-
diana, beginning the last third of that curious migration that
made the covered wagon trains of old look like little more
than summer excursions by comparison.
Back in Missouri, Payne had lost his lead again, this time
to Peter Gavuzzi, a pint-sized, bristle-bearded Englishman of
twenty-two. Crossing Missouri and Illinois, Gavuzzi gradually
built up a margin of six hours over Payne, Then the English-
man shaved off Ms beard. Losing Ms wMskers had a Samson-
like effect on Gavuzzi. Almost immediately he came down
with an ulcerated tooth. For more than a week, he could take
nothing but liquids. Finally, in Indiana, after leading for two
weeks, he had to quit. Again Payne was in front. But this
time, the story was different. Now he had what appeared to be
an insurmountable lead of twenty-four hours over the second-
place man, John Salo, a husky thirty-four-year-old cop from
Passaic, New Jersey.
In Ohio, the field was cut to fifty-five men. From then on,
though 600 miles remained, not another man quit. The laps
lengthened to fifty, sixty, even seventy-five miles a day laps
requiring twelve to fifteen agonizing hours to finish but none
faltered. In Pennsylvania, they ran through a fierce lightning
230 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
storm; in New York, through torrents of rain, and, crossing
the Adirondacks, many incurred painful shin injuries. But
none quit. Crippled and nauseated, they plodded on, though
most of them stood no chance of winning one of the ten cash
prizes. Finishing this mad marathon had become a matter of
honor, a personal challenge that defied reason.
Salo tried valiantly to overtake Payne. He nibbled away at
the Oklahoma boy's lead until only fourteen hours separated
them. But there was too little time. Payne, remembering the
experience of Kolehmainen, Newton, Souminen and Gavuzzi
before him, was content to shuffle along in the middle of the
pack, keeping a watchful eye on Salo.
Going into Salo's home town of Passaic, the last stop before
New York City, it was rumored that an attempt would be
made to put Payne out of the race. Two motorcycle policemen
were dispatched to escort him into town. But the rumor proved
false.
Passaic went all out to welcome Salo, who was now assured
of the $10,000 second prize. A half-holiday was declared,
flags and banners flew everywhere and the streets were
jammed with people. In a ceremony witnessed by 3,000 paid
spectators, Salo received a special appointment to the Passaic
police force. Nobody could have been better qualified to walk
a beat.
On the following afternoon, the eighty-fourth day of the
race, the fifty-five survivors left Passaic on the final lap to
New York City. Thousands cheered them along the route to
Weehawken, where they boarded a ferry and crossed the
Hudson.
Their reception in New York was not enthusiastic, how-
ever. To the big city, the Bunion Derby had become some-
thing of a stale joke. Only a few small groups gathered along
Tenth Avenue to watch the runners on their way to Madison
Square Garden, where they would wind up the race with a
twenty-mile stint around a board track. Some 3,000 persons
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 231
finally showed up in the 15,000-seat Garden, and many of
these were in on passes.
The sparse crowd looked on apathetically while the runners
plodded just as apathetically around the small board track.
Pyle stood by the track urging them on. "Come on, you
fellows," he shouted* "Streak it. Show 'em what I've brought
to the Garden."
The runners stepped up their pace briefly, but soon re-
sumed their shambling gait. Several munched on bananas
and sandwiches, or sucked on pop bottles as they circled the
track. Wildfire Thompson, the Bearded Skeleton, navigated
a few laps backward, but even that display failed to stir the
crowd.
There was a brief flurry of excitement when Andy Payne,
only laps away from the $25,000 first prize, wandered into a
concrete pillar and knocked himself unconscious. But he was
revived in time to complete his 100 laps and to claim victory
in the longest and wackiest foot race in history. Payne's
elapsed time for the 3,422 miles was 573 hours, four minutes
and thirty-four seconds.
No sooner was the race finished than the runners had
something fresh to worry about. A rumor began flying around
New York City that Pyle was broke, that he couldn't pay the
winners. Pyle denied the rumor. He said he would pay the
following Friday night, when the fifty-five finishers were
scheduled to ran a twenty-six-hour team marathon in the Gar-
den. The runners retired to their rooms to rest their tired
bodies, to soak their aching feet and to wonder if they would
get paid, or if they had ran all this way for nothing.
Not Wildfire Thompson, however. The Bearded Skeleton
spent his days running up and down the streets of Manhattan*
"I believe in tapering off," he explained to a New York Times
reporter. "When you've been through torture like this, it's
dangerous to stop agony all at once. When all the misery's
gone you feel kind of lonesome and lost. A lot of the boys are
feeling terrible and don't know what's the matter with them.
232 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
I'll tell you what's the matter with them: the thing they are suf-
fering from is lack of pain."
Thirty-eight of the finishers were given complete physical
examinations to determine what effect the long grind had on
their bodies. Pyle scoffed at this concern for their health. "It's
done 'em a world of good/' he said. "All those boys are in
marvelous health-from the ankles up." Two doctors, however,
told Payne the race had taken ten years from his life.
He had $25,000 worth of consolation for those ten years,
though. When the following Friday night rolled around, Pyle,
true to Ms word, paid every cent of the $48,500 in prize money
before another slim crowd in the Garden. It was rumored that
Tex Rickard, the Garden fight promoter, had advanced Pyle
$40,000 so he could pay the winners.
Payne said he would use Ms prize money to lift the mortgage
on Ms father's farm back in Claremore. After the Bunion
Derby, he gave up foot racing and returned to Oklahoma,
where in 1934, he was elected clerk of the State Supreme
Court,
The $10,000 second prize went to Salo. Philip Granville of
Hamilton, Ontario, the Canadian walking champion, won the
$5,000 third prize, and Mike Joyce, an unemployed Cleve-
land bartender, took the $2,500 fourth prize. The next six fin-
ishers, each winning $1,000, were Guisto Umek, Trieste, Italy;
William Kerr, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Louis Perrella, Al-
bany, New York; Ed Gardner, Seattle, Washington; Frank
Von Flue, Kerman, California, and John Cronick, Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan.
Pyle's total loss on the Bunion Derby was generally fixed at
about $100,000. Although he was financially bloody, Pyle
was unbowed. To the New York Times he outlined Ms plan for
recouping Ms loss.
"The human foot is going to come into its own," Pyle said.
"I have made such a study of the ailments of the human walk-
ing mechanism as has never been equaled, and I claim to know
more about toe trouble, heel trouble, instep trouble and ankle
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 233
trouble than any man living. I can tell you exactly what to do
for anything that goes wrong from the knee down. I am going
to write a treatise on chiropody and give away one copy with
every purchase of C. C. Pyle's Patent Foot Box, which will
contain remedies for every one of the three thousand maladies
of the human foot. I will make a vast sum out of this, because
the country is going marathon mad. We are just entering the
golden age of the foot."
Pyle never did write his treatise on chiropody, nor did he
ever manufacture his Patent Foot Box. But he did astound
the sports world later that year when he announced that he
would promote Ms second annual transcontinental foot race
in 1929.
This time, Pyle reversed directions, starting the race in New
York City and ending it in Los Angeles. He also boosted the
prize money to $60,000. To cut his expenses, he raised the
entry fee to $300 and had the contestants pay for their meals
and lodgings en route. He also improved the entertainment,
lining up a variety show with an all-girl orchestra, chorus,
comedians and other vaudeville acts performing under a huge
circus tent.
Even so, the second Bunion Derby proved a bigger disaster
than the first one. Once again, Chambers of Commerce across
the country went back on their promises. A dozen automo-
biles which Pyle had purchased for the caravan were quickly
repossessed by sheriff's deputies; he had forgotten to pay for
them. In Maryland, the circus tent was blown to pieces in a
wind storm, and from then on, Pyle had to book the show in
theaters along the way. At one town, the receipts totalled three
dollars. In Ohio, Pyle lost his bus again. This time he didn't
get it back, and the whole caravan was on its feet.
The foot race itself turned out to be longer, faster and more
exciting than the first Bunion Derby. There were ninety-one
starters, most of whom had competed the year before, and
nineteen finishers. The race covered 3,685 miles in seventy-
eight days and featured a spectacular duel between John Salo,
234 THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY
the Passaic policeman, and Peter Gavuzzi of England. On the
last day, Salo overtook Gavuzzi and edged him by less than
three minutes to win the $25,000 first prize.
Salo thus boosted Ms winnings in the two races to $35,000,
But he was to meet a tragic end only two years later. In 1931,
while on duty as a policeman at a sand-lot baseball game in
Passaic, he was hit on the head by the ball and died.
Following the race, it was again rumored that Pyle couldn't
pay the winners. This time the rumor was true. The race had
cleaned him completely. He liquidated most of his personal
assets to pay his debts, but he still owed some $60,000. He
became the target for a long series of lawsuits, and it was
several years before he was finally able to square accounts
with his creditors.
Shortly after the second Bunion Derby, Pyle announced:
"No more for me. I'm cured. I'm all finished promoting
muscles."
For a while he toyed with the idea of promoting a trans-
oceanic dance marathon from the City Hall in New York to
the Arch of Triumph in Paris. But he couldn't raise the cash.
The stock market was plunging, and the nation was sledding
toward depression. The great binge of the twenties was end-
ing; now came the hangover of the thirties. The American
public, fighting for its daily bread, was no longer amused by
such madness as transcontinental foot races and transoceanic
dance marathons.
Pyle finally settled down in Hollywood, where he organized
a small company that made radio transcriptions. He soon sank
back into the obscurity from which he had flashed, like a
meteor, only five years before. He emerged briefly in 1933-34
to promote an exhibit for Robert L. Ripley of "Believe-It-or-
Not" fame at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.
The exhibit was one of the biggest money-makers at the fair.
Having proved he still had his golden touch, Pyle returned
to his thriving radio-transcription business in Hollywood, He
was well on his way to another fortune when, on February 3,
THE WONDERFUL BUNION DERBY 235
1939, at the age of fifty-seven, he died suddenly of a heart
attack at Ms North Hollywood home.
It is ironic that Pyle, who was deeply entrenched in the
radio industry, should have departed this world just when tele-
vision was coming in. If the two of them had ever gotten
together well, one shudders just to think of it.
A Giant Fan's Lament:
My Heart Is a Yo-Yo
BY RALPH SCHOENSTEIN
Every time I pass the Polo Grounds, I want to cry. Of course,
I often felt this way when baseball was there, for I am the Job
of sports. I am a Giant fan. Although my heroes now torture
San Francisco, I can't drop them with the disgust of a normal
man. If s surprising how sentimental you can be about 16 years
of bleeding.
I became involved in the pathos at Coogan's Bluff on a
spring day in 1945, when my grandfather took me to a game
that was won by a huge catcher who had the grace of a drugged
elephant, a nose that covered the strike zone and a uniform
that should have sheltered sleeping Arabs. "That's The
Schnozz," said Gramp, who had been laughing and crying at
the Giants even before Merkle forgot to touch second. Gramp
could remember back to the almost ancient days. He fre-
quently told me about the day the strong-armed pitcher, Iron
Man McGinnity, won both ends of a doubleheader. Gramp
was a greater Giant fan than even Mrs. John McGraw. Piti-
fully, I inherited his compulsive dedication.
Of course, no matter who your grandfather was, it wasn't
hard to love The Schnozz, Ernie Lombardi, an inert giant of
Copyright 1960 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permis-
sion of Sport magazine.
A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT 237
a Giant, whose bat lay glued to Ms shoulder as he stood
paralyzed at the plate waiting for a pitch. The Schnozz looked
like a man with a fishing pole waiting for a streetcar. But
suddenly his wrists his only moving parts would whip the
bat into a ball and send it flying so fast it could have killed
shortstop Marty Marion, even though Marty was playing left
field, as most shortstops did against The Schnozz, a slow, slow
runner. The first time I saw The Schnozz walk up to swing,
my grandfather said, "If it isn't a triple, he won't make first."
The Schnozz was able to circle the bases in just over four
minutesif the wind was right. Gramp and I had the luck to
see his first four-minute home run, which made up for his hav-
ing been thrown out at first on a double. The next day, The
Schnozz electrified baseball by beating out a bunt, a moment
of glory that made me a Giant fan forever,
The immortal bunter wasn't the only appeal on that team.
Another giant of a Giant was the first-baseman, "Big Jawn"
Mize, whose cheeks bulged tobacco as he stood poised to
pounce on anything hit directly at him. I liked the massive
muscles Big Jawn rippled at the plate, just as I liked to watch
Mel Ott, the little rightfielder, kick his foot in the air before
he swung for the wall. I knew why Mel Ott was our leader
the first time I saw him grab a carom off this wall like a hand-
ball player to hold Dixie Walker to a long single* I didn't
know it then, but I was seeing manager Mel make Ms last
kicks and caroms at Ms favorite fence.
That day both he and Big Jawn pulled soft flies down the
line. On each the Dodger first-baseman backed up hopefully,
but they eluded him for home runs. "That* s China," said
Gramp, pointing at the 257-foot sign. "And that's Siberia."
He pointed at the 483-foot sign beneath the center-field club-
house. This ball park was as much fun as the Giants them-
selves. Left-handed hitters would intentionally foul off a pitch
only to find that they'd dropped a homer into Shanghai, while
right-handers would drive a fastball 400 feet only to find the
centerfielder waiting for it. "To Mt well here," Gramp told me,
238 A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT
"your timing has to be off/' "Doesn't Ott have the best timing
of all?" I asked. "Oh, he's the King of China," said Gramp,
"but I'm afraid some of his shots wouldn't be homers in real
ball parks/*
If the right-field stands were China, those in left were
Korea, Although 22 feet deeper, they were sufficiently ac-
cessible to make poke-hitting Buddy Kerr feel like slugger
Hank Greenberg. They had a thick, jutting Scoreboard that
made homers of high flies which fell to the leftfielder after a
minor deflection. "Damn! Another brusher!" said Gramp after
an equally disgusted Giant had waited for a lazy fly that
brushed the Scoreboard while dropping to him. At the Polo
Grounds, you always knew the score because you had to keep
watching this board. You never knew when a soft fly would
nick it to break up the game in a thrilling climax. I remember
a year when Richie Ashburn had no homers until he came to
the Polo Grounds for a crucial game. (Sixth place was at
stake.) He hit two: a 257-foot clout to right and a lofty
brusher to left on a pitch he was trying to take.
After that spring day when I became their fan, the Giants
went on to win 25 of their first 32 games. Late in May, they
were in first by six and a half games. "I sure picked the right
team!" I told Gramp. "We'll bag the pennant by July Fourth!"
"Be careful/ 1 he said; "you still don't know what it means to
be a Giant fan/' His pessimism confused me. I was even more
confused a few weeks later. When our team collapsed, he
seemed relieved. "That's more like it," he said as the Giants
fell to fifth, where they finished, "I knew they had it in 'em/'
"But Gramp/ 1 1 said, "if you love the Giants, why haven't
you been rooting for 'em to stay on top?"
He smiled sadly. "You can love a sick cat and still not ex-
pect him to catch any mice. Now you know what it means to
be a Giant fan. Never forget: No matter how big our lead, we
can always find a way to blow it/' They were words I'd hear
often through the years that the Giants kept my hopes on a
yo-yo.
A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT 239
"What's wrong with us?" I muttered one Sunday as the
Giants teased me by losing two games in extra innings. Gramp
snapped the answer: "We forgot to replace Hubbell and
Schumacher." I soon understood his point. A few days later,
in the bottom of the ninth at St. Louis, Johnny Hopp, the
Cardinal outfielder, faced our pitcher, Bill Voisele, with the
winning run on base. Ahead 0-and-2 ? Voiselle tried for the
third strike. He would have had it if Hopp hadn't hit the ball
to the wall. This gift to the Cards cost Mm $500. "That's Ott's
basic rule for pitchers/' Gramp told me, "Never throw three
straight strikes. Of course, the boys don't have much trouble
obeying it these days. But once in a while, someone acciden-
tally gets to G-and-2. Then he has to waste one," Voiselle's
gift was ironic, for most Giant pitchers had been throwing a
considerable amount of waste.
The following year, the Giants hit their nadir when seven
of them not only left the team but the country. Sal Maglie
and six others fled to the Mexican League, where they knew
they'd play for a better team. The Giants had the distinction
of sending more men to Mexico than any team north of
Tijuana. This mass breakout brought shame to Coogatfs
Bluff, where those who hadn't escaped spent the rest of the
season hiding in eighth place. "Don't worry,'* said Gramp, no
stranger to the cellar, "they could have finished last even if
those guys hadn't gone to Mexico." He was right. The Giants
could have made it even with Maglie, Danny Gardella, Nap
Reyes, George Hausman, Adrian Zabala, Roy Zimmerman
and Ace Adams, the men who went to Mexico, In spite of
such logic, I was disgusted. In my second year as a fan, the
part of my team above the Rio Grande had sunk to the cellar.
Early the next year, a new hero came to our rescue. Dur-
ing spring training, Gramp and I read thrilling tales of a
magnificent Texan whose power hitting, people said, would
overshadow Babe Ruth's. His name was Clint Hartung, but
the awe-struck writers called him "The Hondo Hurricane."
Suddenly all the Giant fansthat small, pathetic cult were
240 A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT
savoring the fact that Hartung would be in the Hall of Fame
by the All-Star game. He not only could hit a ball 500 feet,
but he could also pitch. "That's the one thing we've needed,"
said Gramp* "A pitcher who can hit 500 feet/*
When The Hondo Hurricane finally blew into the Polo
Grounds, Ott was so anxious to make the best use of Hondo's
marvelous talents that he didn't know where to put him. But
it soon didn't matter. Hartung was equally rotten at several
positions. At bat The Hondo Hurricane made a big wind as
he zealously pursued the National League strikeout record.
He could produce 500-foot drives, but only if you let him
pitch.
But our mortal hitters made up for Hondo's silent bat. Big
Jawn, Sid Gordon, Walker Cooper, Willard Marshall and
Bobby Thomson zeroed in on the Orient for 221 homers, a
major-league record. Even more impressive was the fact that
the team that set this record rejected the pennant, a splendid
example of the Giants' genius for perversity that makes their
fans both mental and cardiac cases. It was a remarkable
achievement to hit 221 homers and still finish fourth.
What did the Giants need? The answer was obvious: a song.
Since they couldn't win with 221 homers, their missing in-
gredient had to be spirit. So mine became the only team in the
majors to have an anthem. How proudly I sang:
We're calling all fans.
All you Giant ball fans.
Come see the home team
Going places *round the bases.
Cheer for your fav'rites
Out at Coogan's Bluff.
You'll see those Polo Grounders do their stuff.
Spurred by this canned spirit, the Giants continued to do
their stuff. It was soon clear that they'd need more than
Chinese homers and an alma mater if they ever wanted to
A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT 241
leave the second division. They needed a sparkplug. So in
My of 1948, the Giants played a joke on Mel Ott They
left him in Pittsburgh while they returned to New York to put
their circus under the direction of Leo Durocher. To add extra
punch, Horace Stoneham took radio broadcaster Frankie
Frisch from behind the microphone and put him in the third-
base coaching box. There Frankie's rooting for the Giants no
longer offended those listeners who occasionally wanted to
know what the visiting team was doing. Frisch's broadcasts
of Giant games had been lively blends of nostalgia and hysteria
as he alternated between reminiscing ("Ah, the Old Flash re-
members the day , . /') and panic ("There's a smash down
to oh! a great but it's wild and oh, look at that! There's
the but the run's gonna what a play! Just like the Series of
>34-but lefs recap it first") While the Old Flash reminisced
about the recent action, adding such color as the names of
players, the Giant rivals scored five more runs, which made
him moan, "Oh, those bases on balls kill you every time."
As a coach, he was officially on our team, where pitchers
would have given more bases on balls if they hadn't been hit
so often. Because of such pitchers, even the Old Flash and
Leo the Lip couldn't ignite us out of fifth place. The following
year, we remained there, but with so much spirit that Leo
was suspended from baseball for hitting a fan.
After this humiliation of our manager, I felt things couldn't
get worse; but for the Giants, things always can. Leo was
pardoned, but just before Christmas, Sid Gordon, Willard
Marshall and Buddy Kerr were traded to the Braves for Alvin
Dark and Eddie Stanky. It was my blackest day, for I loved
Gordon and Marshall. "Don't forget," said Gramp, "that
Stanky walks a lot. We need a walker. And both of them can
pull to China. In fact, we're getting some real Polo Grounds
power." '
Suddenly our Messiah came. After one look at Willie Mays,
Giant fans took the razor blades off their wrists. We knew
he could be the greatest player in baseball. Now our work was
242 A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT
cut out. It would take skill not to win with this happy genius
who made the spectacular a routine. Tm afraid it looks
good/* said Grarap as Willie stole home an inning after spear-
ing a drive with his back to the plate. *1 wonder if we can still
blow it." With Willie doing everything, we couldn't. Instead
the Dodgers stole our style. Thirteen games behind them in
August, we made a miraculous dash to that playoff where
Thomson's homer became the most dramatic hit since Lom-
bardi's bunt. This incredible return from the brink of defeat
showed that the Giants don't always lose; but even in vic-
tory, their torture can crack the strongest heart. Needless to
say, once Thomson's ball had landed in Korea, we knew we'd
have little trouble losing the World Series.
The Giants didn't win the next two years, probably because
they never recovered from the Jim Hearn fastball that Joe
Adcock lost in the left-center-field bleachers. Thus we had to
bear the humiliation of seeing a Brave become the first man
to hit a ball into the bleachers of the Polo Grounds. We also
missed Willie who was in the Army. I decided I could take
no more. Leaving Gramp to bleed alone, I replaced Willie in
khaki, a sacrifice I deemed necessary, and was sent to Japan.
But a Giant fan can never leave his team, no matter how
far he or it goes. The following year, at 5:30 one morning in
a barracks at Camp Zama, I put on fatigues before a short-
wave radio in which an inconstant voice described Willie's
blind catch of a blow by Vic Wertz. On a dead ran toward
the clubhouse, Willie one-handedly collapsed Cleveland with
the most spectacular catch since Mize fielded a bunt at Cin-
cinnati. Willie's throw to hold the runners was equally in-
credible. As I double-timed from my barracks into the cold,
dark morning, I was the only soldier smiling. Could this be
my team sweeping four straight to win its first World Series
since the year I was born?
Of course not The sweep was a silly accident, a fluke that
happened because a pinch-hitter named Dusty Rhodes got hot
after Willie's catch had deflated the Indians, I returned from
A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT 243
Japan to find the same old Giants playing the same quasi-
baseball before crowds that were private audiences.
Now the Great Decline began as the Giants tumbled. Even
Willie's 51 homers couldn't keep his mates from eventually
sinking to third. As Bill Rigney replaced Durocher as man-
ager, ugly rumors began. "The Giants are gonna leave us!"
New Yorkers wailed before televised views of the cliques of
mourners that were paying their respects to Coogan's Bluff.
Suddenly it was true. The Giants were going to San Francisco.
Mexico wouldn't take them.
On September 29, 1957, my fallen idols presented their
last farce at the Polo Grounds. No Giant fan will ever forget
that final ignominious nightmare. We played a typical game,
losing 9-1 to a minor league team from Pittsburgh, Even
Willie couldn't reach Korea to sweeten the funeral. When it
was over, the mourners approached the body. The Giants had
to run for their lives as nostalgic friends tried to maul them
goodbye. Not fast enough to tear up the players, these senti-
mentalists had to settle for tearing up the Polo Grounds, a
renovation long overdue. They ripped up home plate, the
pitcher's rubber, two of the bases, patches of outfield grass,
the bullpen sun shelter and the foam rubber from the wall. It
was a touching display of affection. Thus the Giants went
west, amidst cries from scores of fans who wanted them to
stay and fight like men.
Come see the home team
Going places 'round the bases,
The next year at San Francisco, the team moved into a park
as fit for baseball as the Polo Grounds, Seals Stadium, where
a fly once fell on Joe DiMaggio's head, was the ideal place
to hide the Giants. There they would finally be able to see the
fog in which they'd always played. Lost in this shroud were
many new faces. But very soon the brand-new Giants became
the major-league masters at losing by one run in the ninth.
244 A OIANT FAN'S LAMENT
They were ready for 1959.
With two weeks to go in 1959 we were in first by two
games as overjoyed San Franciscans rushed to finish Candle-
stick Park for their first World Series. "The fools don't know
what it means to be Giant fans," I told Gramp with the sad
smile I'd learned from him. "My boy," he said, "you've come
a long way. We know what will happen. They won't disap-
point us." Gramp and I never lost faith. "There's still time
for us to blow it," we kept muttering as those last eight games
dropped us to third. No matter where they were, we could
still count on the Giants*
The reason we got the chance to blow that pennant so
dramatically was a tall rookie named Willie McCovey, who'd
come from Phoenix to hit .400 in the stretch. "McCovey really
packs us with power," I told Gramp after the season* "With
Mays, Kirkland and Cepeda, that gives us four long ball men.
I don't see how we can lose next year,*
Tm surprised at you," said Gramp, "Have you forgotten
The Hondo Hurricane?" As always, Gramp was right. Mc-
Covey was no Hartung, but he did find himself as a solid .250
hitter, revealing the form Gramp sensed but never saw; his
heart failed soon after the Giants had broken it for the last time.
I was almost glad that Gramp didn't see the debacle that
was 1960. The Giants again set their sights on fifth, where
they always had felt so comfortable. It was no easy goal to
achieve with so much talent, but I knew they could do it.
Early in the season, they lost nine games, an impressive record
for 1 1 days. Four were gifts to the Phillies, who'd always tried
not to beat anybody. We might have relieved the Phillies in
the cellar were it not for Willie Mays and a pitcher named
Sad Sam Jones, who worked so weU that Rigney gave him
every other day off. All baseball watched this fascinating ex-
periment: Was it possible to make a pitcher's arm fall off?
This arm nicely summed up the 1960 Giants: it was crooked,
too short, arthritic and chipped. But even Sad Sam and
Willie couldn't keep the Giants from realizing their potential.
A GIANT FAN'S LAMENT 245
The team soon gained the distinction of being the first in his-
tory to be left on its own. When Rigney was fired, no one
really replaced him. However, like the Symphony of the Air,
the Giants played the same without a leader. Near the sea-
son's end, it seemed that they'd also have to play without a
team. "Every man on this club wants to be traded," said
Johnny Antonelli, the Giants' pitching press agent. Giant fans
felt the same way.
NotMng-to-Nothing :
Fordham vs. Pitt Was Football's Finest Hour
BY JACK NEWCOMBE
Football games of the 1930s, like the wars of that decade,
were fierce struggles of youthful courage and strength waged
over small pieces of ground. Force drove headlong against
force. Gains came in feet and often just inches. Players were
trained to block on offense, tackle on defense and stand up
and take it all the time. It was a game that hurt, a game of
pads slapped against unguarded faces, of two men charging
point-blank into an opponent and driving him to the ground,
and thumping blocks as a wave of interference rolled a man
out of the play. Deception the fancy feints and decoyswas
only a small part of the design. The idea was to sock it to
them until they reeled back all the way across their own goal
line and beyond.
Compared with the present game of intricate pass plays and
quick, concealed ground strikes it was dull, unimaginative
sport. But it was a more perfect expression of footbalFs hard-
core elements, blocking and tackling; it was a tougher game
played by a hardier breed of players. Stripped down to the
raw business of 1 1 men throwing all of their speed and might
into a maneuver of great precision, the game had a basic ap-
Copyright 1960 by Macfadden Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission
of Saga magazine.
NOTHING-TO-NOTHING 247
peal that the complex modern version lacks. It was easier to
feel and understand the game, easier to see that it took guts to
play it well.
This hard-leather-helmet brand of football came to a re-
sounding climax in a series of games played by the University
of Pittsburgh and Fordham University in the mid- 1930s.
Three times, in 1935, 1936 and 1937, these powerful teams
met and fought to scoreless ties. Whether or not the results
are destined to rank forever as the most frustrating 180 min-
utes in football history, the games stand as three of the fiercest
and most intense every played by two college teams. They also
marked the end of an era in football. Soon after, the T-forma-
tion came into vogue, quarterbacks began tossing the ball
around like vaudeville jugglers, guards and tackles stood up
and played Doe-See-Doe across the line, and the solid whack
of shoulder pads was never again so loud on the campus.
The Pitt-Fordham series matched what was probably the
strongest running attack ever put together by a college team
(Pitt) and the best defensive line of that day (Fordham).
Pittsburgh shunned the pass as if it were a jerry-built weapon
that might explode in its hands. Instead the Panthers ran the
ball against defenses that massed on the line of scrimmage,
ramming ahead with onslaughts mounted as precisely as an
army division on the move. There was nothing crude or lum-
bering about Pitt on the attack. The quick slam off tackle or
the unwinding deep reverse were as beautifully conceived and
executed as any play in football. Such was the speed, coordi-
nation and viciousness of the blocking that no team except
Fordham could contain Pitt for long. And Fordham, as will
be seen, held on only by relentless fortitude and with the help
of a weird set of Pittsburgh misadventures.
Fordham, which ran its players from the Notre Dame box
formation, could not match Pitf s striking power. But it had
an amazingly mobile and instinctive defense that hit back with
more force than it took. The Fordham line could carry out its
offensive assignments in routine fashion but it played with the
248 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
pride and fury of United States Marines on defense. The goal-
line stands led to the famous nickname the "Seven Blocks of
Granite/* It wasn't just that they were hard to move. They
were deadly at heading off a play and merciless at finishing
off the ball-carrier. In 1937 the Blocks did not allow a touch-
down, although eight rivals managed to score 16 points against
Fordham by more devious methods than running with the ball.
Both Fordham and Pitt were striking reflections of the per-
sonalities of the men who coached them. Dr. John Bain Suth-
erland's Pitt teams were hard, conservative, sure. They
abstained totally from anything flashy or daredevil. On the
attack Pitt was as precise and methodical as an English butler
serving tea. Eddie Baker, who played for Jock Sutherland at
Pitt and later coached Carnegie Tech, once said, "Our half-
back took four steps parallel to the line and cut into the hole
on the fourth step off his outside foot" Sutherland was a dour,
unmarried Scotsman from Coupar Angus in the Strathmore
Valley, He coached Pitt for 15 years, during which he became
the recognized master of the single wing. He permitted no
frills and few mistakes. He gave no pep talks. "He was always
extremely considerate, kind and traditionally silent to me be-
fore a game/* says Marshall Goldberg, one of Jock's greatest
players. A supreme Sutherland compliment in the locker room
following a good performance was: "That's what wins football
games." He never bawled out his players in public. But he
drilled and worked (hem until the games on Saturday began
to seem like weekend gambols by comparison,
Dick Harlow said that Sutherland "had the greatest ground
attack against the strongest teams. He ran Notre Dame right
off the Pitt schedule (Pitt beat ND five out of six years after
1932). Pitt could pick off, check and destroy a shifting de-
fense better than any team I ever saw."
What made it so frustrating and frightening to face a Suth-
erland team was knowing what was coming and not being able
to do much about it. The cyclone formed in the huddle and
twisted toward the target in a predictable path. There was no
NOTHING-TO-NOTHING 249
safe, sure defense. Pitt appeared to mock opponents by hitting
their stiffest areas. Sutherland knew the balance of power was
in Ms hands. He once explained: "We get the odds in our
favor by having two linemen on the side away from the play
pull out and run interference. That gives us three men and the
ball-carrier. When the nearest two secondary defensive men
come into the picture, four to two means we're going to gain
ground."
Football was more than just a game of drill steps and thun-
dering blocks and tackles to Dr. Sutherland, He was not a
man of excesses or visible emotion but he cared deeply about
the sport and wanted it played well. Occasionally his feelings
toward his players poked through his dour appearance. After
Pittsburgh whipped Washington in the 1937 Rose Bowl game
he cashed all the travelers 9 checks Ms Scotch conscience had
allowed Mm to take to California and gave each of Ms play-
ers $8 to spend on the town.
Fordham and its coach Sleepy Jim Crowley pulled on their
uniform pants one leg at a time, just as Pittsburgh and Suth-
erland did, but that is about all they had in common. Fordham
believed that the best offense was a versatile one. The team
was tough, unpredictable, unawed by better opponents. Al-
though Crowley played more Poles and Italians than Irish Ms
teams had an unmistakable Celtic flair. When technique failed,
spirit took over and often saved the day. On occasion, Ford-
ham would flounder hopelessly on offense and then rise up
nobly on defense. Pitt never really understood what made
Fordham tick.
Compared with the stoical Sutherland, Crowley was an out-
landish buffoon. He was an expert at needling, coaxing and
inspiring individual players. He could be tough and he could
be funny. He had gained a reputation as a wit during his un-
dergraduate days at Notre Dame where he was one of Knute
Rockne's famous Four Horsemen. He still gets credit for a
famous squelch of Rockne. Crowley and the other Horsemen
were catching hell from Rockne in the locker room after a
250 NOTHING^TO-NOTHING
shoddy practice session one day. "Crowley," Rockne yelled, "is
there anything in the world dumber than a dumb Irishman?"
"No, sir" Crowley said, "unless if s a dumb Swede."
Once Jim was caught by a priest in an off-limits hangout
about three miles from the Notre Dame campus. The priest
said, "Mister Crowley, I'll give you exactly three minutes to
get back on the campus/*
Crowley looked out the window and shook his head. "I
don't think I can make it, Father. Not against this wind."
Crowley, who became a popular teller of Rockne tales on
the banquet circuit, occasionally tried the old Rockne tech-
nique of getting a good cry or an angry rise from his players
in the locker room. Before one of the Pitt games at the Polo
Grounds Crowley broke into the pre-game hush with the an-
nouncement that his aged Irish mother had come some dis-
tance to see Fordham play for the first time. He dragged the
story out to its dramatic conclusion: "I want her to go home
knowing one thing," he said. "I want her to know that her
fighting son has a fighting team."
Crowley had come to Fordham in 1933 from Michigan
State College where his teams had won 22 and lost eight in
four years. He brought with him an all-Notre Dame staff that
included Frank Leahy, Glen Carberry, Earl Walsh and Hugh
Devore. Leahy got a lot of credit for developing the Seven
Blocks of Granite. He was barely out of college but already a
tough, uncompromising teacher. Crowley gives Leahy Ms due
for polishing the linemen but points out that no one invented
the Blocks. "All the coaches had a hand in that line," he says.
"Leahy worked mostly with the centers and guards. Those boys
were great players to begin with. They didn't take much
building."
In 1935 most of the Fordham and Pitt players who became
responsible for the three historic games were freshmen and
sophomores. They had been recruited by two schools una-
shamedly involved in big-time football. Fordham drew heavily
from the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, raking in
NOTfflNG-TO-NOTHING 251
high school talent that Notre Dame overlooked or did not
want. The boys were mostly from lower middle class Catholic
homes. They were all getting a "ride" of some sortroom and
board, tuition, money or a small job to cover the incidental
costs. Because they were poor boys in poor times they were
more appreciative of their opportunities than the modern, free-
riding football player. "I remember them as a serious bunch,"
a former Fordham student said. "They were serious about
football and about college, too. They never seemed to have
time for horsing around." There was little of the old rackety-
rax about Fordham football. It was sophisticated big-city foot-
ball. The "campus stadium" was the Polo Grounds. Fordham
seldom played an away game.
The center Block and best player on the Fordham teams
from 1935 to 1937 was a light-baked Polish boy whose name
became famous before he did. Alexander Wojciechowicz was
the son of an immigrant tailor in South River, NJ. Wojie, as
he was and is still called, could defy any ball-carrier to run
by him and anybody to spell his name and win on each count
nine out of ten times. He was twice an All-America center.
After that he was one of the best pro linemen in the National
League for ten years. He took fierce pride in the way he played
football, in his name and in his nationality. When Fordham
first met Pittsburgh, Wojie singled out Nick Kliskey, the visi-
tors' center, with special interest. He thought he was a fellow
Pole. Kliskey turned out to be English but he and Wojie be-
came good friends anyway.
Along with most of the other Fordham players, Wojie
roomed in St. John's Hall on Fordham's sloping campus in the
Bronx. On the floor of his room was one of Wojie's proudest
possessions, a 7 X 7 rug with a big "F* in the center. Wojie
had made it himself. But the rug and the room came to a
sorry end. "One night I went out during the nine-thirty to ten
break," Wojie said, "and while I was having a Coke my pipe
fell off the desk. The rug burned, and then the whole room
burned."
252 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
Wojie's most prominent linemate was a stocky, effervescent
Italian from Jersey City named Edmund Franco. Crowley
called Franco the best college lineman he had ever seen.
Franco was relentless on the field and an energetic man-about-
the-campus. He was elected president of the freshman class in
1934 by his 450 classmates. The Pittsburgh players who faced
Fordham in the three deadlocked games most often mention
Wojie and Franco as the toughest opponents. An exception
is Fabian Hoffman, Pitt's right end, who said: "Franco played
such lousy ball against me I always wondered where he got
that All-America rating."
Because they spanned a couple of seasons the Seven Blocks
were really at least ten in number. In 1936 they included,
besides Wojie and Franco, guard Vince Lombardi, the pres-
ent coach of the Green Bay Packers; guard Nat Pierce; end
John Druze, who has coached at Marquette and Notre Dame;
end Leo Paquin and tackle Al Babartsky. In 1937, when no
one was able to score on the Blocks, Paul Berezney was at
one of the tackles, Mike Kochel was one of the guards and
Harry Jacunski, present assistant coach at Yale, was the start-
ing left end. All of these have clear credentials to membership
in the Seven Blocks,
Except for Wojciechowicz there was nothing distinctive or
unpronounceable about the names of the Seven Blocks, con-
trary to the legend that has grown up around them. They
lacked the clean nationality cleavage of the famous 1930 Ford-
ham line that numbered "three Poles, three Micks and Tony
Siano in the middle." On one side of Siano were Elecewicz,
Miskinis and Wisniewski On the other side were Conroy,
Foley and Tracey.
The 1935 team had one back who, when the spirit moved
him, could run with anyone in the game. He was Joe Maniaci,
a senior from Hasbrouck Heights, NJ, "Manucci," as he was
called, had the thick legs and chest of a fullback and the swift,
unpredictable gait of a halfback. As a sophomore he had
run wild, and Fordham was sure it had come up with a one-
NOTfflNG-TO-NOTBONG 253
man equivalent to the Four Horsemen. But Joe proved to be
a human and a lackadaisical one, too. In his senior year he
turned in a couple of drab games and the rumor got around
that Captain Joe wasn't starting because he no longer was
trying hard enough. The day before the next game Crowley
told the team that one of Ms players had been accused of
dogging it, Crowley said that to prove to everyone he had no
slackers he was going to start the boy in question. Maniaci
started and ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
He would have run right through the gates of Hell. Later
Maniaci was a good pro back with the Dodgers and Bears.
Right halfback Frank Mautte and left halfback Al Gurske
were hard-hitting runners for Fordham but, unfortunately,
the slick payoff runner did not come along until the Blocks
had graduated. He was Len Eshmont, a sophomore in 1938.
Pitt, on the other hand, had a set of great backs and a
couple of platoons of hard-nosed linemen who did the dirty
work for them. When Pitt appeared in New York in 1935,
Frank Patrick was the leading scorer in the East, although he
shared the job with Bill Stapulis, also a sophomore. The pair,
who could have played on any team, were interchangeable for
the next three years. At right halfback-the climax man in
Pitt's deadly deep reverse-was Bobby LaRue, probably the
neatest, most elusive runner Dr. Sutherland ever had. John
Michelosen, the present Pitt coach, did the heavy blocking at
quarterback. The next season he split the job with a hot soph-
omore, John Chickerneo. Marshall Goldberg and Harold
(Curly) Stebbins, who were to turn Pitfs ground game into
the best in football, joined the team in 1936.
The Sutherland organization was as thorough in recruiting
as it was in the midweek practice work. In the mid-Thirties
the staff rounded up the finest assortment of manpower to be
found anywhere. It resulted in Pitf s-and Sutherland's-super
team, the 1937 outfit that had uniform quality through the
first 22 men. Such was the team's numerical strength that Ben
Kish, who was a star for the Philadelphia Eagles for eight
254 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
years afterwards, was a third-stringer on it End Bill Daddio,
who made many All-Americas, shared the job with Frank
Souchak. Tony Matisi, Pitt* s other All- America lineman, was
considered one of the more erratic players on the squad. When
Tony was good he was very good but he had his off days.
Tony became the goat in the most famous and critical play
of the Fordham-Pitt series.
Most of the Pitt players, like Fordham's, were from de-
pression-ridden backgrounds. They came from mining towns
in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and the industrial cities
of Ohio, About a third of them lived in fraternities, the rest
in the dreary rooming houses scattered around the residential
streets below Pitt's giant hilltop stadium. Pitt's football stature,
its big-time intersectional schedule and the professional atti-
tude that Sutherland required, all contributed to the team's
feeling of superiority over Fordham. This overconfidence cost
them their first embarrassing draw at the Polo Grounds on
November 2, 1935.
Pitt went to New York a 9-5 favorite and there were few
loyal Rams among the 38,000 at the ball park brave enough
to bet on Fordham even at those odds. Pitt had more and
better players, more speed, more big-time experience more of
everything.
Pitt's well-being was badly shaken early in the game by Joe
Maniaci. The young Rams appeared helpless to move the ball
from their offensive formations, but then Maniaci would catch
a punt Pitt kicked nine timesboom up the field, and put
Fordham within striking distance of the Pitt goal line. "He
looked easy to catch," Don Hensley, Pitt's sophomore center
of that year, remembers. "He ran laterally and we were sure
we could rack him up on the sidelines. Once George Delich
and I thought we had him cornered. But just as George was
about to cream him, Maniaci seemed to relax. George relaxed,
too. The next thing we knew Maniaci had belted Mm in the
stomach and was driving for another five or six yards." Twice
Maniaci broke into the open and ran head-on into Bobby
NOTHING-TO-NOTHING 255
LaRue, knocking wind and half Ms consciousness out of Mm.
Pitt's irritation with Maniaci was inflamed by an incident that
occurred near their bench. LaRue was trying to head him off
when Maniaci shot out Ms arm and smacked Bobby in the face.
Pitt players leaped off the bench. The officials moved in. And
Joe shouted Ms innocence: "I never Mt him! I never Mt him!"
The game became a grueling, cold-hearted tug-of-war. Pitt
hammered away with its massive off-tackle slants plays 28
and 29 that were called over and over in the huddle. When
Stapulis, who stood only 5-7 and weighed 180, came through
on the fullback bread-and-butter play. No. 26, he was vi-
ciously handled by Franco or Wojie or Amerino Samo. Ford-
ham's bucks and reverses broke up in the arms of linebacker
Nick Kliskey or the big tackles Bill Glassford and Dante
Dalle-Tezze. There were moments when the frustration and
the force of the body collisions nearly loosened angry passion
on both sides. It was the roughest of the three games.
Late in the day Fordham started a drive that set the Polo
Grounds reverberating with excitement On its own 38 Ford-
ham lined up in right formation and Maniaci followed Franco
through a hole for 12 yards. Fordham shifted left and Warren
Mukey Mt for six more. Maniaci slammed nine yards off
tackle. Mulrey struggled for one. Maniaci carried twice and
Fordham had fourth down and two on Pitt's 33, Crowley
called on quarterback Andy Palau to try a field goal, Palau,
an indomitable little man of only 160 pounds, had been bat-
tling against giants all afternoon. Once when he and guard
Nat Pierce were supposed to ran interference on a reverse he
discovered that Nat had forgotten to pull out and he alone
was approaching the awesome Tony Matisi, who was standing
his ground at tackle. Matisi picked up Palau in Ms hands and
hurled Mm to the ground, then looked around for the ball-
carrier. Andy's fighting spirit proved truer than Ms foot. He
missed the long-distance kick and Fordham's last chance drib-
bled away with the ball,
Pitt suffered frustration and error all afternoon. Hub Ran-
256 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
dour zigzagged 80 yards with a punt only to learn he had
zigged out of bounds at mid-field. Pitf s second-string quarter-
back pulled a play that backfired and bounced him out of the
game. Pitt had a fourth down on Fordham's 35. In the huddle
Greene stunned his teammates by calling for a pass from punt
formation. A lineman asked for a check on the play and
Greene said, yes, he intended to throw the ball over the goal
line. Under the rules in force then, a last-down pass that fell
in the end zone was ruled a touchback and the ball was
brought out to the 20-yard line. Greene, who was proud of
his throwing arm, had once passed 75 yards in practice. From
deep behind the line Arnold wound up and let fly. The ball
dropped on the 10 and Fordham took over on the 35. Suth-
erland rushed John Michelosen into the game.
The nearest miss of Pitt's bungled game belonged to George
Delich. Pitt's All-America Ave Daniell blocked a punt that
rolled free on the Fordham 15. Delich raced in and fell on the
ball. The error of Ms choice still needles Ms memory. "I could
have waltzed over with the ball/' he says. "But two weeks be-
fore that I had missed a fumble in the Notre Dame game.
Shakespeare landed on it and they scored on the next play.
For ten days I practiced falling on fumbles. But if I'd picked
it up and scored with the loose ball there would have been no
scoreless tie, no famous series with Fordham."
A year later Pitt returned to New York with essentially the
same team, older and wiser and better steeped in the Suther-
land system. The most important change was at left halfback
where sophomore Marshall Goldberg took over as soon as he
drew Ms uniform. Goldberg was a standout as a personality
and a player. He was a dark, soft-spoken Jewish boy from
West Virginia. He was considered sometMng of an intellectual
because he enjoyed writing poetry for campus magazines. His
father, Sol Goldberg, operated a movie house in Elkins wMch
he called the Roosevelt out of an avid loyalty to the New Deal.
Sol gave up the movies each fall and traipsed around the coun-
try watching Pitt and Ms son play. He showed Ms enthusiasm
NOTHING-TO-NOTHING 257
for the game he did not understand very well and the boy he
was exceedingly proud of by giving parties to celebrate Pitt
victories. He was a popular addition to the Pitt football en-
tourage. For a year or more the rumor persisted that Sol had
promised to give Marshall a car when and if he scored against
Fordham. Marshall said it was just another story about his
father. Marshall did score against Fordham in 1938. But he
left the stadium on foot.
Goldberg's football ability, which brought him All- America
clippings for two years and led to a fine career as a pro with
the Chicago Cardinals, was not easy to assess. He was quick
and sure-handed. He was an excellent basketball player but
Sutherland would not let him waste time on the sport. He had
great straightaway power and he hit the line with splMtering
force. Wojciechowicz, whose friendship with Goldberg started
in the Polo Grounds and developed on pro fields* thinks Mar-
shall's starting speed made the difference. He was heavy-legged
but it took Mm only a step or two to break into top speed. He
had another strong quality a great pride in doing things weH.
He worked until he had mastered each move of the game. He
was quick to learn, as the poker-playing members of the team
found out in 1936. On the way to the Nebraska game the
card sharks took him for $30, a lot of money for a college
boy then, A few weeks later, when Pitt was on the road again,
Goldberg nearly cleaned the squad. He had taken a little time
to study the game.
Fordham had run up four victories before the 1936 Pitt
meeting two easy ones over Franklin & Marshall and Waynes-
burg, and close wins over Southern Methodist and St Mary's.
The Blocks had become firmer and tougher. But Maniaci was
gone and without hinn the attack lacked its old explosiveness.
Pitt had beaten Ohio Wesleyan, West Virginia, OMo State
and Notre Dame (26-0) but had been upset by its city rival,
Duquesne. Sutherland's addiction to the ground game, no mat-
ter how invitingly the situation called for a pass, was never
more apparent than against Ohio State, Facing a nine and
258 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
sometimes ten-man line, Pitt did not pass once. Later, in the
Fordham game, CMckemeo called a spot pass over center
against a nine-man line with backers wide and completed it.
He called it again and completed it. Sutherland pulled him
out. The coach was sure the next one would backfire. Pitt
stuck to its one-arm offense and by season's end was ranked
No. 1 in the country.
In the locker room before the Fordham game Sutherland
gave what was an impassioned oration for him. He said he
wanted the team "to look good in the big city/* He reminded
the players, "If you want to make All- America you can do it
against this team."
The game was played before a jammed crowd of 57,000
at the Polo Grounds three days before the Roosevelt-Landon
presidential election. President Roosevelt was in the city to
make a fighting New Deal speech at Madison Square Garden
that night. He would have been proud of underdog Fordham.
Pitt hammered away at the short-handed Rams, who substi-
tuted only nine times. Wojie still remembers the sight of the
white-jerseyed hordes bearing down on him. "We played a
loose six-two-two-one," he said. "I was the outside linebacker.
On those end runs and deep reverses they had five men com-
ing at you. I always knew where the play was going. I just fol-
lowed the quarterback. But I wondered how long we could
hold them back."
The Pitt backfield that had shredded Notre Dame the week
before Goldberg, Patrick and LaRue began to roll against
the Seven Blocks. In making four first downs, Pitt drove 52
yards. Fordham right tackle Al Babartsky was reeling from
punishment but he refused to leave the game. Pitt moved to
the Fordham 12 and the Polo Grounds fell silent as Referee
W. T. Halloran waved a first down. In three shots against the
furious Fordham line Goldberg and LaRue gained nine yards.
The crowd stood, dreading the inevitable and roaring encour-
agement to the defiant Rams standing at their own goal line.
When Pitt ran out of the huddle everyone in the ball park
NOTfflNG-TO-NOTHING 259
knew what was coming. LaRue stood deep in left formation.
He took the pass from center and knifed into the wedge at
tackle. Wojie was there. LaRue hit him, bounced and was
nailed to the ground at the line of scrimmage. That was as
close as Pitt was to come for another year.
Ball-carriers like LaRue and blockers, too, who ran head-on
into Wojie didn't easily forget the experience. Years later
Fabian Hoffman described the sensation: "He was hard to
block because he moved so well. But when I did get a crack at
him, throwing a shoulder into Ms leg was like hurling yourself
into a concrete wall. There was no give."
Pitt threatened once more when Goldberg took off on Pitt's
pet reverse, No. 112, and would have gone 70 yards to score
if he had not cut the wrong way behind Ms center, Don Hens-
ley. Instead he ran 35 yards. Marshall still regrets the mess he
made of the Hensley block. Fordham was handicapped by an
injury early in the game to Captain Frank Mautte. The Rams
made one strong drive, from their 19 to the Pitt 27. But full-
back Dulkie slipped and fell on fourth down with a yard to go.
Once more Pitt walked out of the Polo Grounds frustrated
and aggravated by scoring failures. And Fordham once again
had achieved more with less.
The Rams went through the rest of the 1936 season with
hope that they would be invited to the Rose BowL They prob-
ably would have been, too* if N.Y.U. had not upset them in
their final game. Pitt went to Pasadena instead and convinced
the Far West of the superiority of Sutherland-style football by
wMpping Washington, 21-0.
The Rose Bowl trip was followed by an unfortunate sequel
a year later. Pitfs 1937 team was the national champion and
belonged in the Bowl again. When the bid came to the Uni-
versity, the players were asked to vote yes or no in a secret
ballot. The athletic office considered it a mere formality. But
15 voted in favor and 16 against. Most of the 16 dissenters
had been to the Coast twice the year before, to play U.S.C.
and Washington. They weren't eager to give over the month
260 NOTHING-TO-NOTHING
of December to hard work again. Some of them may have
resented the fact that each Washington player had received
$200 expense money after the '37 Rose Bowl game. Their
only extra money had come out of Dr. Sutherland's pocket,
As soon as the balloting results were heard, the rumor, and
then a newspaper story, spread that the Pitt players had re-
fused to go to the Bowl because they weren't getting paid.
Those who had voted no realized they had made a mistake;
whatever their true reasons were, their decision was bound to
sound crassly commercial. Some of the players walked up to
the football office on the hill to talk with Coach Sutherland
about it.
Jock clearly was stunned. "What bowl bid?" he said.
The athletic office had never told him Ms team had been
invited back to the Rose BowL "Jock was not an emotional
man," said one of the players who was in the room. "But after
we told him about it he turned Ms chair toward the window
and I thought sure he was going to cry. We were so mad we
didn't know what to do." But it was too late to do anything.
Dr. Sutherland spent only one more year at Pitt. The gulf be-
tween Ms dedication to the game and the school administra-
tion's attitude toward it had grown too wide.
When the Pitt squad rode from New York City to the West-
chester Country Club on Friday, October 16, 1937, there was
not a doubt in the busload that they would score and win
against Fordham the next day. The futility and mistakes of
the previous two games were buried under their brimming
confidence. They were Rose Bowl champions. They now knew
what to expect of Fordham, Their new backfield, later called
the Dream Backfield, was the best that Pitt or any other team
had put together. John CMckerneo, a dark-haired Rumanian
boy from Warren, OMo, was the No. 1 quarterback. Goldberg
was still the heavy runner at left halfback. At right half was a
curly-haired, lazy-looking boy from Williamsport, Pa,, named
Harold Stebbins. He had a good voice and liked to croon
with jazz bands. On the field he was as high-strung and skittish
NOTBING-TO-NOTBttNG 261
as a race-horse and almost as fast. Dick Cassiano, son of an
Albany, N.Y., chef, was begi.nn,.iiig to work in as a halfback.
By season's end he had gained 620 yards, even though he was
only a second-stringer. For the third year Patrick and Stapulis
shared the fullback job. The Pitt linemenBin Daddio, Tony
Matisi, Don Hensley, Steve Petro, George Delich and Frank
Souchak were old hands at Sutherland's football ABC's.
On the Fordham campus that Friday night Crowley sent
his players back to their halls with the belief that they could
knock off Pitt and go on to the Rose Bowl after all. (Fordham
did stay unbeaten that year and also uninvited.) As part of
Ms careful defensive preparation he had switched Ed Franco
to right guard in the hopes of stalling Pitt's inside reverses.
Paul Berezney was assigned to start at Franco's left tackle
position. The other Blocks Jacunski, Kochel, Wojie, Babart-
sky and Druze were ready to stand in the trenches again.
Jock Sutherland wanted badly to win this game in "the big
city," as he always called New York. He asked Goldberg not
to dress or practice with the team on Friday, an extreme pre-
caution for Sutherland and the first time it had ever happened
to Goldberg. Actually Curly Stebbins probably deserved more
special care. Earlier in the week he had jammed Ms hand in
scrimmage when a sub smelled out a play and threw Mm for a
loss. As he ran signals on Friday center Don Hensley noticed
that Stebbins was still handling the ball gingerly. But the hand
swelling was gone and Stebbins insisted he was all right
Just before Fordham took the field for its pre-game squad
prayer, Jack Dempsey, the old heavyweight champion, walked
up to wish them luck. Dempsey told them to glory in the role
of the underdog. He said that with a helluva fight they could
catch Pitt this time. The sight of the champ and Ms sincere
words gave Fordham an extra emotional charge, wMch came
in handy right after the Mckoff .
Pitt started out by pouring it on Crowley's new left tackle.
Before Franco could be rushed back to the position and Ber-
nard sent in at guard, Goldberg-Stebbins-Patrick had covered
262 NOTHING-TONOTHING
37 yards. But there the old wall formed up and held. Early in
the second period Fordham had one of its few big surges.
Quarterback Angelo Fortunato faked a pass and cut for 13
yards. A classy sophomore, Don Principe, burst 20 yards but
it was lost by a penalty. Pitt took over and fumbled, the first
of six times, and Fordham tried a field goal from the 23.
Johnny Druze missed it.
Late in the second period the swift Stebbins of Pitt returned
a Woitkoski punt 35 yards and the Panthers were under way
again. A completed pass that nearly brought Sutherland to
Ms feet and Patrick's three darting runs put the ball on the
Fordham five. Here Pitt went for the touchdown on a play
specially rigged for this game. In the huddle it was called 318.
It was a halfback-to-halfback reverse instead of Pitt's conven-
tional fullback-to-halfback handoff. Stebbins took the pass
from center and slipped the ball to Goldberg, running left to
right The new reverse caught the Seven Blocks off balance
and Goldberg easily cut over the goal line for a score. The
tension that had been drawn taut through two and a half bitter
football games snapped with a roar from 50,000 voices. Like
the baseball crowd that sits in cold terror through a no-hit, no-
run game the Pitt-Fordham fans had squirmed and sweated,
anti 
