www.HistoryOfTheYankees.com

*Dr. Harvey Frommer, baseball historian and writer, has passed away. I had the opportunity to meet Harvey on one occasion when he was working on one of his books about the New York Yankees. He had reached out to me and wanted to include me in his book. I was so excited to be included in one of his books about my favorite team, the Yankees. I have been published in books before, but it was a great honor to be in one of Harvey's. My family and I traveled to Huntington, NY to meet Harvey. We got to speak for about 30 minutes together and of course, I had him autograph the book I purchased of his. In fact, over time, I got to a part of several of them and more importantly, helped him put several of his books together. Harvey would send me chapters and pieces for my review. It was a honor and pleasure to read these pieces and give him my input, and yes, even sometimes make corrections! I have to always credit Mr. Paul Doherty though as always having the final say. No one beats Paul when it comes to Yankees history! Harvey was always on top of his game and kept article after article coming. Besides his books, Harvey was always working on pieces that highlighted his books. He would also send out the occasional Yankees quizzes as well. I always tried my best to post his pieces on my website and blog ASAP, but I knew sometimes I was not fast enough. I will always remember well the follow up emails from Harvey asking when his articles would get posted. I will miss those greatly. Harvey's contributions to sports writing are huge in many aspects. In all, Harvey wrote 45 books and had 28 paperbacks published as well. Harvey covered topics such as baseball, football, basketball, the Olympics, soccer, sailing, Broadway, and even wrote books on Jewish Heritage. In reality, he covered it all. Harvey wrote about some great sports heroes including Tony Dorsett, Nolan Ryan, Red Holzman, Shoeless Joe, Jackie Robinson, Nancy Leiberman, and many others. He really could do it all and write it all. Harvey's contributions to sports and culture cannot be underestimated. Through his great storytelling and insight, he has shared his expertise with millions and did it for many decades. Dr. Frommer will be missed greatly and thankfully his publications will help educate future generations forever. I miss you much Harvey but know you are enjoying a hotdog and watching a ballgame somewhere with a great big smile, all while keeping score. Thank you for the opportunity to meet you and making me a better fan of sports and in some ways, even a better person.

Harvey Frommer, prolific chronicler of baseball’s ‘golden age’ in New York, dies at 83

When he was growing up in Brooklyn, Harvey Frommer played third base on sandlot teams and often took the trolley to Ebbets Field to watch the Dodgers. He once met the team’s biggest star, Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became baseball’s first African American player of the 20th century.

He may not have had the talent to make the Dodgers as a player, but Dr. Frommer went on to chronicle the team’s history, as well as the fortunes of other New York teams, in dozens of books, many of which were about baseball.

Like the Dodgers themselves, who left Brooklyn for Los Angeles after the 1957 season, Dr. Frommer moved away from his native borough. He eventually became an Ivy League professor, teaching courses on sports journalism and oral history at Dartmouth College.

He was 83 when he died Aug. 1 at his home in Lyme, N.H. The cause was lung cancer, said his son Frederic J. Frommer.

Something of an iconoclast, Dr. Frommer grew up as a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, but in Brooklyn, no one — not even Cardinals fans — could escape the pull of the Dodgers during the “Boys of Summer” era of the 1940s and ’50s.

“I guess the biggest influence on me was Red Barber,” the Dodgers’ radio broadcaster, Dr. Frommer told the New York Times in 1980. “As a kid living in a fairly lousy neighborhood and listening to the radio on these kind of hot, steamy summer nights without air conditioning — to get this very articulate Southern voice describing the doings of the Dodgers and telling these wonderful stories — I think he got me interested in speech, in literature and also baseball.”

Dr. Frommer wrote several books about the Dodgers, including a 1984 biography of Robinson and another about how Brooklyn’s team president, Branch Rickey, engineered Robinson’s rise to the major leagues.

“Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier” was praised in a 1982 review by Washington Post sportswriter William Gildea as “a vivid account of the two as principled, determined men — genuine American heroes.”

In 1980, Dr. Frommer published “New York City Baseball: The Last Golden Age, 1947-1957,” a history of the final decade in which the city had three teams: the Dodgers, the New York Giants and the New York Yankees.

During those years, New York teams won 17 of 22 major league pennants and nine of 11 World Series championships. In 1955, less than a week before Dr. Frommer’s 20th birthday, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and only World Series title, beating the Yankees.

“The victory of the Dodgers of Brooklyn over the Yankees of New York was the triumph of the underdog over the fat cat, the people over the corporation, Brooklyn over the rest of the world,” Dr. Frommer wrote in “New York City Baseball.” “In Flatbush, Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Greenpoint, the citizens of Brooklyn were triggered into wild tribal jubilation: bonfires in the streets, prideful speeches from the top of stoops. . . . Thousands were content just to gather on sidewalks and porches and bang spoons against pots and pans. It was the happiest time in the long history of Brooklyn.”

Harvey Frommer was born on Oct. 10, 1935, in Brooklyn. His father drove a taxicab, and his mother was a homemaker.

Dr. Frommer graduated in 1957 from New York University, then worked briefly as a sportswriter in Chicago. After Army service, he received a master’s degree in English from New York University in 1961.

He spent a decade as a high school English teacher in New York, then taught at the City University of New York for about 25 years. He received a doctorate in media and communications from NYU in 1974, writing his dissertation on the intersection of sports and television.

Dr. Frommer’s first book, a history of baseball, appeared in 1976. He quickly began publishing books — often several in a single year — on baseball, the Olympics and other sports. He was the co-author of autobiographies by baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan, basketball Hall of Famers Nancy Lieberman and Red Holzman, and football players Tony Dorsett and Don Strock.

Despite his Brooklyn upbringing, Dr. Frommer became perhaps the leading authority on the history of the Yankees, publishing “The New York Yankee Encyclopedia” (1997), “Five O’Clock Lightning,” about the 1927 New York Yankees (2007), “Remembering Yankee Stadium” (2008) and “The Ultimate Yankee Book” (2017).

At Dartmouth, where Dr. Frommer joined the faculty in 1996, he often taught graduate-level courses in oral history with his wife, Myrna Katz Frommer. They wrote several oral history books together, including “It Happened in Brooklyn” (1993), “Growing Up Jewish in America” (1995), “It Happened on Broadway” (1998) and “It Happened in Manhattan” (2001). Dr. Frommer also published several books with his son Frederic J. Frommer, a Washington-based author and sports publicist.

In addition to his wife, of Lyme, and son, of the District, Dr. Frommer’s survivors include two other children, Jennifer Frommer of New York and Ian Frommer of New London, Conn.; and six grandchildren.

Dr. Frommer wrote about the storied rivalry between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox and, in 2011, published a lavishly illustrated coffee table book about Boston’s Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark in the major leagues.

In an interview with Bloomberg News broadcaster Tom Keene in 2011, Dr. Frommer noted that Fenway seemed alive with the “ghosts of Ted Williams and Cy Young and Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr,” and other Red Sox legends. “All these people are still there. So I think it’s a place of mysticism, magic and memory.”

His exploration of the history of Fenway Park led to an unlikely conversion for a New Yorker who had spent so much of his life chronicling baseball in his hometown.

“I have a confession to make to you and to everybody else,” Dr. Frommer told Keene. “I was a New York Yankees fan until I wrote this book. I changed. People change religion. I have changed my rooting interest, and now I’m joined with you as part of Red Sox nation.”

Dr. Harvey Frommer received his Ph.D. from New York University. Professor Emeritus, Distinguished Professor nominee, and recipient of the "Salute to Scholars Award" at CUNY where he taught writing for many years, he was cited in the Congressional Record and by the New York State Legislature as a sports historian and journalist.

His many sports books include: Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, New York City Baseball: 1947-1957, the New York Yankee Encyclopedia, and autobiographies of sports legends Nolan Ryan, Red Holzman and Tony Dorsett. The prolific Frommer is also the author of A Yankee Century, Red Sox vs Yankees: The Great Rivalry (with Frederic J. Frommer), and Five O'Clock Lightning: The 1927 Yankees. His REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (2008) and REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK (2011) were published to critical acclaim.

Written by acclaimed sports author and oral historian Harvey Frommer, with an intro by pro football Hall of Famer Frank Gifford, When It Was Just a Game tells the fascinating story of the ground-breaking AFL–NFL World Championship Football game played on January 15, 1967: Packers vs. Chiefs. Filled with new insights, containing commentary from the unpublished memoir of Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram, featuring oral history from many who were at the game—media, players, coaches, fans—the book is mainly in the words of those who lived it and saw it go on to become the Super Bowl, the greatest sports attraction the world has ever known. Archival photographs and drawings help bring the event to life. Dr. Harvey Frommer is in his 39th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 42 sports books including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball, 1947-1957″ and best-selling Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium was published in 2008 and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park was published to acclaim in 2011.

With the Yankees out of the excitement and drama of post-season play this year, and with fans of so many other teams feeling the blues, here is a bunch of hot stove league brain-teasers to keep all of you in the game.

2. Whose number (and what was it) was retired by both the New York Mets and Yankees?

6. Name the player Derek Jeter replaced in 1996 to become the regular shortstop.

7. What former Yankee was the first pitching coach for the New York Mets in 1962?

8. Elston Howard was the first black player on the Yankees in 1955. Who was second?

11. Name the National Football League coaching legend who played briefly for the Yankees.

12. First baseman Wally Pipp has gone down in history for being the player Lou Gehrig replaced. What other distinction belongs to Pipp?

A. He was a baseball manager. B. He came from the same neighborhood Gehrig grew up in. C. He was a home run champ. D. He made money endorsing aspirin.

13. Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers—each off a different pitcher. What pitcher gave up Jackson's third home run?

A. Oakland A's B. Baltimore Orioles C. New York Yankees D. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

16. In defeating the Oakland A's in the 2001 American League Division playoffs, what did the Yankees accomplish that no team ever had done before in a three-of-five-game series?

17. What Yankees MVP appeared in the fewest games in the year in which he won the award?

19 . What uniform number was retired by the Yankees to honor a player who never was on the team?

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1. Fourteen other Yankees wore the number in their career, the last two being Bob Cerv and Cliff Mapes, who wore the number at times during Mantle's rookie season.

2. Casey Stengel's No. 37 was retired by both the Mets (1965) and Yankees (1966).

10. Sorry about that. We said it was a trick question—all of the choices were nicknames for the Babe.

17. Pitcher Spud Chandler appeared in 30 games when he won the American League award in 1943.

Remembering Yogi Berra With the passing of Lawrence Peter Berra at age 90 after a life well lived, all kinds of tributes, memories, flashbacks about the man continue to surface. I actually met up with him in the Astrodome, in Shea Stadium, at Yankee Stadium. Three times. I wore the laundry tag media identification that set me apart from the regular working press. Nevertheless, Yogi was pleasant, interested and respectful – curious about my writing project that day. It was unusual for a star of his magnitude to be that way. I always remembered it. I am sure he remembered “the Harmonica Incident” of August 20, 1964.

Despite a string of four straight pennants, the Bronx Bombers were a bust throughout much of the 1964 season. Yogi Berra had succeeded Ralph Houk as skipper; there were reports that he got more laughs than lauds from his players. It was getting to be late August; the Yankees were in third place behind Baltimore and Chicago. The Yankees were on the team bus heading to O'Hare Airport, losers of four straight to the White Sox, winless in 10 of their last 15 games. A 5-0 shutout at the hands of Chicago's John Buzhardt had totally demoralized them.

Phil Linz, #34, reserve infielder, a career .235 hitter was a tough, aggressive player who loved being a Yankee. But he was regarded by some to be un-Yankeelike along with teammates Joe Pepitone and Jim Bouton. "I sat in the back of the bus," Linz recalled. The bus was stuck in heavy traffic. It was a sticky humid Chicago summer day. "I was bored,” Linz said. “I pulled out my harmonica. I had the Learner's Sheet for Mary Had a Little Lamb so I started fiddling. You blow in. You blow out." An angry Berra snapped from the front of the bus: "Knock it off!" But Linz barely heard him. When asked what their manager had said, Mickey Mantle said, "Play it louder." Linz played louder. Berra stormed to the back of the bus and told Linz to "shove that thing." "I told Yogi that I didn't lose that game," Linz related." Berra smacked the harmonica out of Linz's hands.

The harmonica flew into Joe Peptone’s knee and Pepitone jokingly winced in pain. Soon the entire bus -- except for Berra -- was enjoying the comic relief. Another version has it that Linz flipped the harmonica at the angered Berra and screamed: "What are you getting on me for? I give a hundred per cent. Why don't you get on some of the guys who don't hustle?" Linz was fined $200 -- but as the story goes received $20,000 for an endorsement from a harmonica company. "The next day," Linz gave his version, "the Hohner Company called and I got a contract for $5,000 to endorse their harmonica. The whole thing became a big joke." Actually, the whole thing changed things around for the Yankees. The summer of 1964 was Linz's most productive season. Injuries to Tony Kubek made the "supersub" a regular: Linz started the majority of the games down the stretch, and every World Series game at short. New respect for Yogi propelled the Yanks to a 22-6 record in September and a win in a close pennant race over the White Sox. A loss in the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games cost Berra his job But there were those who said he was on his way out the day of the "Harmonica Incident."

A DOZEN THINGS I LEARNED RESEARCHING, INTERVIEWING, WRITING WHEN IT WAS JUST A GAME

1. Pete Rozelle hung out in a Miami Hotel men’s room for a couple of hours and adjusted his tie, looked away, washed his hands whenever anyone entered. He later guessed that he had washed his hands 35 times while waiting before he got the news– at 33 he was the new NFL Commissioner.

2. At American Football League NY Titan games in the Polo Grounds, owner Harry Wismer would count the number of legs sitting in the park, and then multiply by four instead of dividing it by four to get an estimate of the attendance.

3. The “whammy” Super Ball was the inspiration for the name SUPER BOWL. Pete Rozelle and other powers thought up and suggested AFL-NFL Championship Game, the Pro Bowl, the Ultimate Game, the Big One….

4. VINCE LOMBARDI out of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, an altar boy at his local parish, had never held a head coaching position beyond the high school level when he showed up On February 2, 1959 as a tough talking and determined 45-year-for a meeting with the Green Bay Packer Executive Committee. They were interviewing him for the head coaching job. He wound up hired as head coach and general manager.

5. Elevated on the blocking sled, Lombardi was fond of exhorting his players to do nutcracker drills. Blood flowed freely. The Packers worked out with cracked ribs, broken bones and torn cartilage. Dehydrated players were sometimes sent off to the hospital.

7. BILL CURRY: Coach detested racism or any other prejudice. He wouldn’t tolerate it. He had experienced it because of his Italian-American background. Other teams had quotas; they would only have 1 or 2 African-American players. And Coach Lombardi didn’t believe in that stuff. We had 10 guys on the team at times that were African-American. He didn’t care what your pigmentation was if you could play, and that was a great lesson for a southern kid coming up. I had never been in a huddle with an African-American until I got to Green Bay.

8. Hank Stram of the Kansas City Chiefs was Lombardi’s opposing coach in the big game. Coach Stram’s attention to detail was evident in everything like having Dial yellow soap in the showers. He thought it reduced infections. Like practicing over and over again the right way for a punter to give up a safety in his own end zone, to how the team would run out on the field to warm up, to replacing every shoe lace in every shoe prior to every game, to all kinds of rituals and beliefs.

9. Both Stram and Lombardi were very religious, had one or more priests traveling with them and on the sidelines during games. Both coaches quoted scriptures.

10. That first AFL-NFL Championship Game was played on January 15, 1967. It was the only “Super Bowl” game to be telecast by two television networks, the only Super Bowl to fail to sell out. Tickets at $15, $12, $10 were thought to be over-priced and no one knew exactly what the new game was all about especially with two Midwestern teams in it.

11. The Chiefs under Stram and the Packers under Lombardi had no quotas of any kind and they did so much for diversity in pro football. It was estimated that there were more African American athletes on the field that first Super Bowl day - - than at any other time in the previous history of a sport that saw the NFL draft start in 1939 with no franchise selecting an African-American player until 1949. Even during World War II, when the NFL was so shorthanded, no blacks needed to apply. They knew bigotry barred the door for them.

12. With that first game history - The Super Bowl has evolved into the grandest, grossest, gaudiest annual one-day spectacle in the annals of American sports and culture. All of this incredibly spun off the game that was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, a game that for a time lacked a name, a game that lacked a venue, a game that lacked an identity, a game that didn’t even sell out.

This is a well-executed retelling of the game and its surroundings from all points of view: officials, coaches, players, the media, and even fans. Among the narrative’s best parts are the late Stram’s detailed recollections from an unpublished manuscript made available to the author from Stram’s son. Verdict: Consistently fascinating, this book will appeal to all football fans.—Library Journal

One of Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s suggestions for the name of the new game was "The Big One." That name never caught on. “Pro Bowl,” was another Rozelle idea. Had the name been adopted there would have been confusion for that was the name used for the NFL’s All Star game. Another name was floated “World Series of Football.” That died quickly. It was deemed too imitative of baseball’s Fall Classic.

There was no Super Bowl Committee. That some said was part of the problem. There was also a game that had no location that had no name. That, too, was part of the problem.

It was Rozelle’s idea to call the contest, The AFL-NFL World Championship Game. (Los Angeles Times February 03, 2007)

That name for the game was official; however, it never took off. It was too cumbersome, a mouthful, no good for newspaper headlines.

BOYD DOWLER: We thought it was kind of funny they called it the Super Bowl; that was a feature of the media more than anybody else. But the AFL-NFL Championship Bowl Game, yeah, that’s a lot more words than necessary. Super Bowl is a lot more practical.

SHARON HUNT: The name AFL-NFL championship game was too unwieldy, hard to get straight.

Two days after all the hullabaloo over the merger, New York Times sports columnist Arthur Daley wrote about what the future held in store: the “new super duper football game for what amounts to the championship of the world."

The Los Angeles Times reported on September 4, 1966 that the game was being "referred to by some as the Super Bowl."

The New York Times sports section’s lead story that same day headlined: "NFL Set to Open Season That Will End in Super Bowl."

The Washington Post a week later reported: "The brash upstarts who will tackle Goliath in professional football's ultimate production, a highly appealing 'Super Bowl' that promises extra pizzazz at seasons’ end."

LAMAR HUNT, JR: My parents got divorced, and my dad who was the head of the American Football League would come over and pick us up. And I remember showing him the Super Ball, the “whammy” super ball and saying, “Hey look, this will bounce over the house, this ball.”

You know my dad was not going to be preoccupied with toys that were given to children. You know, he might have bounced the ball. We just remember demonstrating it.

But then what happened going forward is my dad was in an owner’s meeting. They were trying to figure out what to call the last game, the championship game. I don’t know if he had the ball with him as some reports suggest.

My dad said, “Well, we need to come up with a name, something like the “Super Bowl.”

And then he said, “Actually, that’s not a very good name. We can come up with something better.”

It kind of came out of my dad’s mouth. What do you want to call it? Power of suggestion or just an idea or whatever, it stuck. And the inspiration was that Super Ball. I feel blessed to be the son of a guy who really came up with the name.

BILL MCNUTT, III: I became very close friends with the Hunt children. We would go over to Dallas and I would play with that ball with them. We were just amazed at this ball. It was the most popular toy of its day.

The Wham-O Super Ball was introduced in 1965. Invented by Norm Stingley, a chemical engineer at the Bettis Rubber Company in Whittier, California, the ball was made of Zectron. The “Super Ball” could bounce 6 times higher than any regular rubber ball. Millions of the balls were sold and it remained a craze through the 1960s.

PAUL ZIMMERMAN: The National Football League hierarchy frowned on the term “Super Bowl.” But the fans and the media like it and used it and Super Bowl would become the name to represent professional football’s championship game.

SHARON HUNT: It was something else that a toy a child was playing with could have inspired the name

JERRY IZENBERG: The afternoon of the merger the switchboard rang at the NFL offices, and the guy said, “I want 20 tickets for the title game.”

The championship game was not an afterthought to the merger. They were trying to get games played. Even in the merger they negotiated things like, “When will we play exhibition games against each other?”

By October with the 1966 pro football season at full throttle, a site for the staging of the AFL-NFL Championship Game scheduled for January 8, 1967 still had not been selected. There was agreement by all the members of the NFL site selection Committee that the game be played in a warm weather location.

Growing up in Southern California, Pete Rozelle knew January weather there was what could generally be counted on. He also knew that comfort for the crowd and a game that could televised well were crucial. The native Californian also knew that a field where players had solid footing would better showcase the talents of all who played in the game. His reasoning was that a Southern California venue would be fair to all on a field that was not frozen, not impacted by weather.

Arthur Daley of the New York Times agreed: "Under no conditions should this classic-to-be ever be entrusted to the whims of the weatherman. By mid-January, it's possible that snow in Green Bay or Buffalo might be piled higher than the goalposts."

Initial prospective sites for the game to be played at included: the Rose Bowl, the Coliseum, the Astrodome, Rice Stadium in Houston, the Sugar Bowl in

New Orleans. A few other sites in Texas, Miami and New Orleans also came under consideration.

The Committee representing the Rose Bowl objected to its use for a professional football game. Their argument was that to do that would lessen the prestige of their long running enterprise. However, as time for the playing of that first world championship football game drew closer, Pasadena’s City Council tried to re-enter negotiations with the NFL. It was too late in the game. Anaheim Stadium came on the scene - -also too late.

On December 1, 1966, after much wrangling, false starts, and all kinds of jockeying about -- the awarding of the game to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was announced. Two weeks later news broke that NBC and CBS had each signed a four year deal, a $9.5 million package to telecast the Super Bowl.

On November 7th, the Chiefs defeated the Chargers 24-14 giving them the fast lane to the AFL West crown. What made the game unique was that Pete Rozelle attended his first ever American Football League game.

The clinching of a deal to merge was not official until the NFL received a special antitrust exemption from Congress. Rozelle, driven and charming at the same time, pushed a bill through Congress making legal single-network contracts for pro sports leagues. There would now be a league-wide agreement replacing the individual TV packages of 12 NFL teams.

Some Washington, DC legislators had claimed merger would make for an NFL monopoly. There was much lobbying, promises made, and promises broken. Finally, helped by a critical vote by Louisiana Senator Russell, the NFL was given antitrust exemption. What clinched the deal was a promise by the NFL that its next expansion franchise would be located in Louisiana. That’s how the Saints came marching in.

All the scrambling and shuffling resulted in the creation of never-before-staged TV doubleheader on New Year’s Day. The AFL Championship Game from Buffalo was scheduled for 1 P.M, ET. The NFL Championship was slotted in to start at 4 P.M., ET, from Dallas.

It was not until the end of December that the league formally announced that the AFL-NFL World Championship game would be played at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The date of the game was changed from January 8th to January 15th.

HANK STRAM: The AFL had been lobbying for a championship game from the beginning since we had nothing to lose. The NFL had resisted that idea because they had everything to lose. But by 1966 the difference in quality of the two leagues had narrowed to the point where a playoff game became inevitable.

The name “Super Bowl” was not officially used until the third championship game. The first game in 1967 was officially known as “The NFL-AFL Championship Game.”

However, fans, media, players referred to the first and second games in 1967 and 1968 as the “Super Bowl.” And that it became.

“Baseball Immortal: Derek Jeter: A Career in Quotes” - And Other Sporting Reads - By Harvey Frommer

For the loyal legion of fans of one of the greatest players in the history of the New York Yankees, – this book is for you. “Baseball Immortal: Derek Jeter: A Career in Quotes” by Danny Peary (Page Street Publishing,

$19.99, 368 pages) is sort of an oral history of the singular shortstop told in his words and those of others who knew and know him.

The result is a marvelously entertaining, insightful, evocative, a montage of anecdotes, observations, one-liners, punch lines, slogans and more. This terrific tome is for browsing, for keeping on the coffee table, for occupying a prime place in your sports library. Peary has hit a home run.

“The Pine Tar Game” by Flip Bondy (Scribner, $25.00, 256 pages) continues in a Yankee vein flashing back to July 24, 1983, Bronx Bombers versus Kansas City Chiefs. The whole book and the whole incident written about many times (not in the way Bondy has) involved a vast cast of characters that included Billy Martin, George Brett, Goose Gossage, Willie Randoph and especially umpire Tim McClelland. Riotous, frenzied, full of fury, bizarre, the book goes into deep depth about one of the most absurd and also entertaining controversies in baseball history.

“Don’t Choke” by Gary Player (Skyhorse Publishing, $22.99, 196 pages) is a life lessons tome from one of the great champions in any sport, in any time. “When it comes down to it,” Player notes, “remember, the harder you practice, the luckier you get.”

“Numbers Don’t Lie” By Russ Cohen and Adam Raider (Triumph Books $16.95' 224 pages is a must for fans of the Metropoitans offering up all kinds of inside baseball and all the numerology about the team in Flushing, New York --. 2 world championships, 4 pennants and 7 playoffs appearances. The book’s sub title proclaims it is about the biggest numbers in Mets history. That it is. INVALUABLE . “The Rugby World Cup” by Brendan Gallagher (Bloomsbury, $45.00, 224 oversized pages) is billed the definitive photographic history and that it surely is. The work is much more than images, containing as it does anecdotes, charts, marker moments, the entire progression of the Cup that had its start as a limited summer event into what is now a global feast for sports fans everywhere. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

“The Oval World” by Tony Collins (Bloomsbury, $40.00, 551 pages) is an impressive work that focuses on a sport spanning centuries and the world. It is truly the definitive work on the game by one of the great experts on the topic. Readable, exhaustive, grand in scope, carefully crafted, it's a mother lode of material in a book long overdue project. NOTABLE

IN THE WORKS FOR FALL 2015: Written by acclaimed sports author and oral historian Harvey Frommer, with an intro by pro football Hall of Famer Frank Gifford, When It Was Just a Game tells the fascinating story of the ground-breaking AFL–NFL World Championship Football game played on January 15, 1967: Packers vs. Chiefs. Filled with new insights, containing commentary from the unpublished memoir of Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram, featuring oral history from many who were at the game—media, players, coaches, fans—the book is mainly in the words of those who lived it and saw it go on to become the Super Bowl, the greatest sports attraction the world has ever known. Archival photographs and drawings help bring the event to life.

Dr. Harvey Frommer is in his 39th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 42 sports books including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball, 1947-1957″ and best-selling “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium was published in 2008 and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park was published to acclaim in 2011.

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

The recent good news that Nancy Lieberman was hired by the Sacramento Kings as the National Basketball Association’s second Female Assistant coach, joining Becky Hammon of the San Antonio Spurs, was long overdue.

Long ago and far away I spent a great deal of time with Nancy Lieberman, interviewing her, socializing with her, gathering all the material for BASKETBALL MY WAY, a book about her life and times and basketball insights.

The hardcover work was published in 1982 by Scribners. Since then, much has happened to Nancy and to me.

Dubbed “Lady Magic,” by her adoring fans, Nancy was big in Far Rockaway where she hailed from, in the Five Towns of Long Island, where I lived, and all over the place.

And why not? She already had a superstar resume and a flair. She played for Team USA in Montreal at the 1976 Summer Games, the first year the Olympics included women’s basketball. At Old Dominion University, she set records and pushed the Lady Monarchs to two back- to-back national titles. Nancy was a three time three-time All-American, two-time winner of the Wade Trophy as the top women’s player.

Working with her on BASKETBALL MY WAY gave me some prestige in the neighborhood. It was also a pleasure and a kind of family affair. My mother-in-law of blessed memory became enamored with Nancy, made her little delicious treats to keep her energy up as we spent long hours interviewing for the book in progress. My wife Myrna also got into the act and earned her credit as co-author. I spent time with Nancy’s mom who was so proud of what her talented daughter had accomplished.

Basketball My Way, a hardcover book priced at $12.95, began in Nancy’s voice: “I was born on the first day of July in 1958. Contrary to some stories you may have heard, I wasn’t born with a basketball in my hand, and I didn’t take my first few steps while dribbling a ball.”

Since Nancy’s time, I have written other sports celebrities books with Red Holzman, Nolan Ryan, Tony Dorsett, Don Strock. But that first one back in a simpler time for me and for Nancy, still stays with me and has a kind of poignancy for the purity of the experience.

I still have my signed copy of the book from “Lady Magic.” The inscription reads: “Harvey, I look forward to working on another book with you. Thanks for everything. Love, Nancy”

For those Yankee lovers and Yankee haters and all those in between who have responded to my first two pieces on Charles Dillon Stengel, for you to enjoy and write to me about is another in the series.

Sparing no one including himself, Casey Stengel was equally at ease using the back of his hand or the glad hand. Not unduly concerned about hurting a player's (or anyone else’s feelings) by a sarcastic or sharp criticism even in front of others, Stengel picked his times.

When the club was losing, he was muted. He even praised players when they were not doing well. When the Yankees were winning, he became almost intolerably edgy, riding his players, trying to prevent a let-down.

“They know when they're losin' and feel bad enough. But they'd better not fall asleep on me when they think everything is going la-de-dah,” he’d say. He was hardest on the top talent like Mickey Mantle. Tolerance was reserved for those with lesser ability. He did not hesitate to replace these players as soon as he could. But he also would not denigrate them when they were on the scene, not much.

“Look at him,” Stengel said of Bobby Richardson. “He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't chew, he doesn't stay out late, and he still can't hit .250. They say some of my stars drink whiskey, but I have found that ones who drink milkshakes don't win many ball games.”

He sat down next to Bob Cerv in the Yankee dugout: "Nobody knows this, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City."

Charley Murdock, an announcer for Radio Station WRVA in Richmond, Virginia came in with a tape recorder. "Mr. Stengel, "I'd like to tape an interview with you and Mantle and a couple of other players for a sports show. Fifty thousand watts, sir."

"Ask the players," barked Casey, "Don't ask me. I got no time for broadcasting. I'm managing a ball club here."

A Boston writer asked him: "What was the idea of firing Rizzuto on Old Timer's day? There's been a lot of editorial comment about that here in Boston."

Stengel gave him the full response treatment. “You're entitled to your opinion, But I'll tell you this. I needed an outfielder which when I saw the chance to get Slaughter I took it. It was his first time around on waivers and you don't think I'd have got him the second time around, do you? Also, I got four outfielders hurt, Cerv, Collins, Siebern, and Noren. If anything happens to Mantle, what happens to me then? Also you got to remember Hunter comes through pretty good at short so I don't need Rizzuto. Now wait a minute, wait a minute here.”

The legendary Roger Kahn covered the Yankees for a time and got a close look at Casey in action. “We flew back from Milwaukee after the Braves had taken games four and five of the 1957 World Series,” the noted author said. ” I was with Stengel at the Stadium and a guy from WPIX-TV put a microphone in his face and asked: ‘Did your guys choke up out there?’

“And then he turned around, dropped his pants, scratched his buttocks and kept talking. Later Stengel explained to me: ‘We've gotta put a stop to them terrible questions. When I said ‘Fuck' I ruined his audio and when I scratched my ass I ruined his video."

Players had mixed feelings about Stengel. Clubhouse meetings could last an hour or more with Casey motor-mouthing it non-stop.

“He confused a lot of players,” Rizzuto said. “He had two tempers, one for the public and writers, and one for the players under him. The players were frequently dressed down in the dugout and clubhouse. He could charm the shoes off you, if he wanted to, but he could also be rough.”

REMEMBERING CASEY STENGEL: YOU COULD LOOK HIM UP - Part II - By Harvey Frommer

There have been many inside baseball with a gift for gab; however, in my book no one ever beat Charles Dillon Stengel for his way with words. I was early on in my writing career going around interviewing for one of my baseball books with a letter from a publisher asking that “all professional courtesies be extended to Dr. Harvey Frommer.”

Luckily and unplanned, I came across old Case sitting (or sleeping) in the dugout. I introduced myself. He was taken by the “Dr.” in the letter.

The “ol’ perfessor,” (he once taught) and the new one hit it off. He gave me time and memories and shooed away his regulars press guys for a bit:

From that long ago time, I have always had a fascination with the man of many words. What fellows is just a brief batch of his bon mots and also what others said about him.

"I came in here and a fella asked me to have a drink. I said I don't drink. Then another fella said hear you and Joe DiMaggio aren't speaking and I said I'll take that drink."

"Look at him (Bobby Richardson) - he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't chew, he doesn't stay out late, and he still can't hit .250."

"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."

"They're been a lot of fast men but none as big and strong as (Mickey) Mantle. He's gonna be around a long time, if he can stay well, that fella of mine."

"Son, we'd like to keep you around this season, but we're trying to win the pennant." -- to a Yankee rookie

"These old timer's games, they’re like airplane landings, if you can walk away from them, they're successful."

"About the autograph business - once somebody sent up a picture to me and I write: 'Do good in school.' I look up to see who was gettin' the picture. This guy is 78 years old."

"What I learned from McGraw, (whom he played for in the 1920s) I used with all of them. They are still using a round ball, a round bat and nine guys on a side."

"The best thing to do is to have players who can hit right-handed and left-handed and hit farther one way and farther sometimes the other way and run like the wind."

"They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again."

"There were things that would irritate Casey, but trying too hard or getting mad at sitting on the bench weren't among them." - Mickey Mantle

"Watch the old man. Watch how the old man keeps the guys who aren't playing happy." (Billy Martin to Mantle on Casey Stengel)

“After a play in the field Casey would turn (to the players on the bench) and say 'What did he do wrong?' or 'You're better than that guy.' Either way, he'd keep them from getting stale." – Billy Martin

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Mid season for the national pastime means another All Star Game. All of them have special unique features to showcase. This year in Cincinnati – the ghost of Pete Rose will be one of the talking points.

One of the more memorable of All Star Games took place at Fenway Park July 13, 1999 at the 70th All-Star Game. On hand were the candidates for the All-Century Team as well as the 1999 All Stars. And since it was staged on Boston’s home turf – the center of attraction was Theodore Francis Williams.

Four dollars ($3.80 plus 20 cents tax) was the charge at the All-Star Game for a Footlong Dog with fixings like onions, peppers, diced tomatoes and giardineira. CHRIS ELIAS: A lot of the National League stars got their first look at the manual scoreboard. Many came inside for a closer view; some signed the walls. ART DAVIDSON: Pre- game, the 50 greatest players and current All Stars were lined up on the baselines. CHARLIE PATTERSON: PA announcer Sherm Feller said: " And now ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please direct your attention to the doors in center field and welcome the greatest hitter of all time, THE KID, THE THUMPER, THE SPLENDID SPLINTER, TEDDY BALLGAME ------------ THEODORE SAMUEL WILLIAMS!!!!!!!" ART DAVIDSON: As Ted came out in a golf cart from center field to the Fenway Park infield. Spontaneously, players rushed to embrace Ted. The 80-year-old legend of legends, clad in a blue shirt and tan pants, was visibly moved. He brushed away tears as he spoke to the players surrounding him. Then Williams got set for the ceremonial pitch to Carlton Fisk. With San Diego’s Tony Gwynn steadying him, he waved at Fisk and lofted the ball 40 feet into the glove of the Hall of Fame catcher to cheers, shouts, and applause.

Wasn't it great!" a visibly moved Williams said afterwards. “It didn't surprise me all that much because I know how these fans are here in Boston. They love this game as much as any players and Boston's lucky to have the faithful Red Sox fans. They're the best." LOU GORMAN: Ceremonies over, we escorted Ted to a luxury box. Through my Navy contacts I had arranged for a Navy fighter squad flyover over the top of the ballpark. He wanted to meet the pilots. “Look," I told them, just shake his hand. He’s getting very tired." But Ted invited them to sit down, and they talked for about ten minutes. A Marine Corps contingent had been down on the field. The very young captain who was in charge asked if some of his guys could meet Ted. “Just meet him and shake his hand and be brief,” I told the Captain. He made them sit down and talked for another ten minutes. Ted said being a Major League player was a great honor and being a Hall of Famer was an even greater honor. But the greatest honor of his life was to have the privilege of wearing a Marine uniform. The American League won the All Star Game, 4-1. Pedro Martinez thrilled the home town fans and everyone else – striking out the first three batters he faced and a total of five in two innings. He was the game MVP.

JOE CASTIGLIONE: Pedro is my favorite all-time pitcher, the best pitcher I’ve ever seen. When Pedro pitched, it was an event with Dominican flags flying and all the excitement in the ballpark. TOM CARRON: The entire All-Star Game experience from the homerun derby to Landsdowne Street -- throbbing with people trying to get home runs balls as they came over the Monster, to Ted Williams being at the heart of it all, to Pedro’s performance, to the Sox taking over a parking lot for the media hospitality, using every nook and cranny, having something going on everywhere you would turn. . . it was special. (Frommer archives)

With the All Star Game on the horizon and mid-summer approaching, a triple play of top baseball reads is there for the taking and the reading. From Triumph Publishers comes STRANGERS IN THE BRONX and RED SOX NATION. From Flatiron Books comes BIG DATA BASEBALL. All belong on your sports bookshelf.

STRANGERS IN THE BRONX by Andrew O’Toole ($28.95, 277 pages) could have been even better with much tighter editing, an index and an inclusion of a Harvey Frommer Yankee book or two in the bibliography.

But seriously and despite those flaws, the book is a diamond mine of data (lots re-cycled) about that long ago time of the 1951 season, Yankees, Joe DiMaggio leaving and Mickey Mantle coming. The real strength of the book is the time machine nature of a different world of baseball and sports writing. Yankees. TOP DRAWER

RED SOX NATION is the third act of the prolific and talented Peter Golenbock’s first act of the same name with added material – an oral history. Originally published in 1992 as Fenway then again in 2005 as Red Sox Nation, third terrific tome tantalizes the reader with its depth and breadth of BoSox lore, legend and language. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ESPECIALLY FOR SOX FANS

Big data Baseball by Travis Sawchik (Flatiron Books, $26.99, 242 pages) is more than a fascinating book about baseball and numbers. It is an inside look at how the Pirates of Pittsburgh were transformed from a small markets franchise into big time player. Sub-tiled, “Math, Miracles and the End of a 20-year Losing Streak, “The book is Moneyball plus. A KEEPER

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

REMEMBERING CASEY STENGEL: YOU COULD LOOK HIM UP - Part I - By Harvey Frommer

Time flies in life and especially in baseball. There is always the “next big thing.”

Lest we forget, there was once Charles Dillon Stengel, a piece of work, bigger than life, bigger than baseball.

In the dozen years he managed the Yankees, when the team was at home, Stengel lived with his wife Edna at the swanky Essex House in Manhattan. The love of his life, Edna was a former silent screen star, a high-fashion dresser who picked out all her husband’s clothes, and a sophisticated woman who kept the accounts for the Stengel bank (her family owned a bank in Glendale) and the oil profits.

The tips Stengel gave at the Essex House were over the top because as Casey said:”I got so much money I don’t know what to do with it.”

Off season, the big house in Glendale, California was the site of happening times for Edna’s nieces and nephews and -- since Casey and Edna had no children of their own -- for Yankee players and their wives and children. At times there were 50 to 75 children

“It was real Yankee family back then,” Yogi Berra said. “Casey and Edna were like a father and mother to us all.”

The big house had a Chinese room and a Japanese room and was stocked with antiques from trips all over the world.

“C’mon, Edna,” Casey would scream out in his gravelly voice.” You tell them all about the time you played with Hoot Gibson” (silent-screen star). And Edna would reminisce patiently about her times as an actress and also about the trips she and Casey had gone on.

“When we won the World Series in 1949 and came to spring training the next year,” Eddie Lopat told me, “Stengel told us: ‘Last year is past history. We never look back we gotta go back and beat ’em again this year.’”

Stengel came to the Yankees in 1949 and was the inheritor of a team many thought of as a powerhouse. Within three years he had re-tooled it creating a totally different type of club. Instead of featuring superstars at most positions, Casey structured his team around the trio of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford. The rest of the team was mainly role-players. Stengel pitted them against each other for playing time; this provided the

spur that drove them to perform at their highest level whenever they were in the game.

“The fella I got on third is hitting pretty good,” Stengel explained, “ and I know he can make that throw, and if he don't make it that other fella I got coming up has shown me a lot, and if he can't, I have my guy and I know what he can do.”

“We had guys on the bench who could play as good as the starters,” said Eddie Lopat. ”They hated to get on the bench because they knew they might not get back for three or four weeks. Snuffy Sternweiss was a regular in 1948. The next year he slipped a little, and he got hurt. In came Jerry Coleman. Sternweiss never came back. He played seven games in 1950 and they traded him off.

“When we played the other teams,” Lopat continued,”we never under-estimated them or ourselves. We played the Giants in the 1951 World Series. We were told by the newspapermen that the Giants would run us off the field, that they were hot and they had won all those games down the stretch. Casey’s attitude was our attitude. They would have to run us off the field, but not in the newspapers.

“In 1949, we played the Dodgers in the Series. We knew they were young fellows without that much experience and we could beat them. In 1952, however, we knew they were now a tough club, but we were prepared. We were taught to never underestimate an opponent no matter what anybody ever said about them.”

“Case,” former slugger Bill Skowron explained to me, “would leave us alone to get in shape in spring training. But when those last ten days of spring training came around you knew you had to be better ready to play.”

The talent just gushed to the Yankees in those Stengel years from the farm system or through trades: Jerry Coleman and Gene Woodling in 1949, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin in 1950, Tom Morgan, Gil McDougald, Bob Cerv and Mickey Mantle in 1951, Andy Carey and Ewell Blackwell in 1952, Bill Skowron, Enos Slaughter and Bob Grim in 1954, Johnny Kucks, Elston Howard. Don Larsen, Bob Turley, Bobby Richardson, Elston Howard and Tom Sturdivant in 1955. Ralph Terry came in 1956 and Tony Kubek came along in 1957. In 1958, Ryne Duren, 1959, Clete Boyer and Roger Maris in 1960.

“There was always a personal responsibility to new players coming up,” Eddie Lopat explained. “If there was some technique, some trick in hitting, fielding pitching, we could teach the young players to improve, we did it and they learned it, and if they didn’t they were gone.”

“I was astonished at the atmosphere on the team when I joined the Yankees in 1957 along with Bobby Richardson,” affable Tony Kubek said. “Jerry Coleman and Gil McDougald went out of their way to help us and we were to ultimately take their jobs. It was typical of the pinstripe loyalty, the atmosphere of everyone helping the helping the team, the atmosphere that Casey Stengel put in place.”

There is always the debate among baseball aficionados, experts, fans - -what was the greatest baseball team of all time?

Perhaps after reading this new edition of Five O’Clock Lighting, you will have the definitive answer, the 1927 New York Yankees.

When Yankee owner Colonel Ruppert's "Rough Riders," as some called them, were not going head to head against their American League competition, they were playing exhibition games in Buffalo, Omaha, Rochester, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, all kinds of places. Everyone in the little cities and small towns wanted to catch a glimpse of the Babe, Lou and the others. Wherever the Yankees went, there were always packed ballparks and playing fields. The team was a magnet, a syncopated jazz band playing a baseball song with the Babe leading, striking up the band with his home run baton, his bat. Whole towns came out early and they stayed late studying the moves of "the Colossus of Baseball." How the Sultan of Swat walked, how he ran, how he swung a bat, how he caught and threw a baseball, how he joked and wrestled with kids in the fields of play, how many different kinds of home runs he hit. Demand for the Yankees came from all over. Murderers' Row even played exhibition games in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, National League cities. In Omaha, Nebraska, the King of Clouts, Ruth, and his protégé the "Prince of Pounders," Gehrig seemed genuinely happy to make the acquaintance of one "Lady Amco" who was known as the "Babe Ruth of chickens." She was a world champ at laying eggs. The morning the Babe and the Buster met her she produced on cue, laying an egg for the 171st straight day.

In Indianapolis, the Sultan of Swat failed to homer or even swat the ball out of the infield in his first three times at bats. Each time the smattering of boos and heckling became louder, all good natured, of course. According to reports, Ruth in his fourth at bat tagged the ball, and it leaped over the fence in right field into the street bouncing into box cars in a nearby freight yard. That was the story. And its punch line: "I guess I did show those people something, make fun of me, will they," the Big Bam boomed going into the dugout.

In a dilapidated park in Ft. Wayne, Indiana before 35,000 against the Lincoln Lifes, a semi-pro team, the scene was all too familiar. Hundreds of kids screamed, ached to ogle, to get an autograph or just to be close to George Herman Ruth, their idol. The Bambino, to save his legs, played first base, as was his custom many times during those exhibition games. Gehrig played right field. Going into the tenth inning, the score was tied, 3-3. Mike Gazella was on first base when Ruth stepped into the batter's box. Always the showman, signaling to the crowd that they might as well start going home, the Big Bam poked the ball over the right field fence giving the Yankees a 5-3 win. Hundreds of boys who had been relatively controlled and contained mobbed their idol as he crossed home plate. It took quite a while before Ruth and the Yankees could clear out of the park. Wherever the exhibition games were staged, overflow crowds sat in the outfield watching the action. Attendance records were broken. Mobs cheered. They roared and howled and jumped to their feet, marveling at the power and magic of the mighty Yankees and especially George Herman Ruth. "God, we liked that big son of a bitch. He was a constant source of joy, Waite Hoyt said. "I've seen them kids, men, women, worshipers all, hoping to get his name on a torn, dirty piece of paper, or hoping for a grunt of recognition when they said, 'Hi-ya, Babe.' He never let them down; not once. He was the greatest crowd pleaser of them all." In a game played at Sing-Sing, New York against the prison team, Ruth slugged a batting practice home run over the right field wall and then another over the center field wall. "I'd love to be riding out of here on those balls," one of the prisoners joked. During the game the Sultan of Swat turned to the crowd of cons in the stands and bellowed in that big booming baritone voice of his: "What time is it?" Many of the cons shouted back the answer.

"What difference does it make?" the showman Ruth yelled. "You guys ain't going anyplace, any time soon." The Yankees were going anyplace they could play baseball. On May 26 they were at West Point. Entering the Mess Hall at noon to dine with the Cadets for lunch, the team from the Bronx received a standing and enthusiastic ovation from the 1,200 West Pointers. Before the baseball exhibition game began at West Stadium, "Jidge" Ruth presented members of the Army nine with autographed baseballs and a specially autographed baseball to the leading ball player of each of the twelve companies. The Yankees used virtually their regular lineup except that Ruth and Gehrig switched places in the field. Earle Combs walked to start the game. Mark Koenig singled. Babe Ruth was struck out by Army pitcher Tim Timberlake and that got a mighty rise from the Cadets. James Harrison later described the scene in The New York Times: "'Aw, he didn't try to hit the ball,' said one of the cadets. 'He was just trying to make us feel good.' “However, the truth of the matter was that the Big Bam was so eager to hit a homer for the Hudson folks that he went after bad balls which he couldn't have reached on a stepladder. No matter. A good time was being had by all until lightning, thunder and a soaking rain brought the festivities to a quick conclusion after just two innings. The Yanks, as usual, won another, 2-0. It was said that the Babe got a big kick playing in exhibition games. It was said that he liked that time to show off his skills, play without pressure, and have fun. That was what was said. But there was also the unpublicized financial benefit. At the beginning of his participation in exhibitions gigs, Ruth received 10 percent of the gate receipts. That arrangement ballooned later to a guaranteed $2,500 against 15 percent of gate receipts. Just how many became fans of the Yankees after attending those exhibition games cannot be measured. Just how many heard about the dramatic doings of the team and became lifelong fans of the team that were calling "Murderers' Row" is also beyond calculation.

The ’27 New York Yanks were the greatest baseball team of all time. Read on in the book and find out why.

Jacob Ruppert always insisted "Yankee Stadium was a mistake, not mine, but the Giants.”

And in truth, had it not been for the Giants, there might never have been a Yankee Stadium.

Beginning life as the Baltimore Orioles in 1901, the franchise moved to Manhattan in 1903 at the prodding of league president Ban Johnson who was determined to have American League representation in New York City.

The relocated club, named the Highlanders, played at Hilltop Park in Washington Heights for a decade. In 1913, now known as the Yankees, the team became tenants of the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. It was a very unsatisfactory arrangement. The landlord Giants and the tenant Yankees never got along.

On January 11, 1915, Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Colonel Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston paid $460,000 to purchase the Yankees. They had wanted to acquire the Giants, but the Giants were not for sale. The Yankees, on the other hand, mismanaged for years by co-owners professional gambler Frank Farrell and ex-police commissioner Bill Devery, were on the block.

“It was an orphan club,” Ruppert said, “without a home of its own, without players of outstanding ability, without prestige.” In truth it was a team whose average annual attendance was 345,000 and whose dozen year record was a mediocre 861 wins and 937 defeats. But Jake Ruppert, the man they would later call “Master Builder in baseball,” would change all that.

On January 3, 1920, in a move that changed baseball history, Babe Ruth, 25, was purchased from the Red Sox. In his first season as an everyday player in 1919 with Boston he established a single-season home run record with 19. In 1920, he shattered that record, blasting 54 homers for the third place Yankees.

In 1921, the Yanks won their first American League pennant. In 1922, they would win it again.

Fans in Babe Ruth’s phrase were coming out in “droves.” Yankee manager Miller Huggins explained: "They all flock to Babe Ruth because the American fan likes the fellow who carries the wallop." Ruth's Yankees were a magnet drawing more than a million each season from 1920 to 1922. Never had the Giants drawn a million fans. Angered and annoyed at the gate success of Babe Ruth and Company, the Giants told the Yankees to look around for other baseball lodgings.

Ruppert and Huston suggested the Polo Grounds be demolished and replaced by a 100,000 seat stadium to be used by both teams as well as for other sporting events. Nothing came of the suggestion.

So the duo set about to create a new ballpark. Shaped along the lines of the Roman Coliseum, it would be the greatest and grandest edifice of its time. Many sites and schemes were considered. One idea was to build atop railroad tracks along the West Side near 32^nd Street. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, at Amsterdam Avenue and 137th Street, was a serious contender. Long Island City in Queens was also given some consideration.

Finally, on February 6, 1921, a little more than year after the Yankees had acquired Ruth from the Red Sox, a Yankee press release announced that ten acres in the west Bronx, City Plot 2106, Lot 100, land from the estate of William Waldorf Astor, had been acquired for $675,000 (just under $8 million in 2007 dollars). The site sat directly across the Harlem River, less than a mile from and within walking distance of the home of the New York Giants, at the mouth of a small body of water called Crowell's Creek.

Some noted the site was strewn with boulders and garbage. Others criticized the choice as being too far away from the center of New York City. Some dubbed the plan "Rupert's Folly," believing that fans would never venture to a Bronx-based ballpark.

“They are going up to Goatville,” snapped John J. McGraw, manager of the Giants. “And before long they will be lost sight of. A New York team should be based on Manhattan Island.”

Ruppert never publicly responded to McGraw’s criticism. But he did request newspapers to print the address of Yankee Stadium in all stories. And for the first game at his new baseball palace, he included on each ticket stub:

Design responsibilities for the new “yard” were handed over to the Osborn Engineering Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The White Construction Company of New York was awarded the construction job which Huston oversaw. Ever demanding and meticulous, Ruppert mandated that the massive project be completed "at a definite price" $2.5-million ( about $29-million in 2007 dollars) and by Opening Day 1923.

Ground was broken on May 5, 1922. Sixteen days later Ruppert bought out Huston's share of the Yankees for $1,500,000. "The Prince of Beer" was now sole owner, a driven and driving force behind the vision of the new home.

A millionaire many times over, Ruppert enjoyed giving orders and having them followed to the letter. He lived at 1120 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in a 15 room townhouse. He also had a castle on the Hudson.

Some thought his new baseball park should be named “Ruth Field.” Ruppert, however, was adamant that it be known as “Yankee Stadium.” It would be the first ballpark to be referred to as a stadium.

Original architectural plans called for a triple-decked park roofed all the way around. An early press release explained that the new ballpark would be shaped like the Yale Bowl, enclosed with towering embattlements making all events inside "impenetrable to all human eyes, save those of aviators." Those without tickets would be unable to catch even a glimpse of the action.

However, that initial lofty design was quickly scaled down. It was thought those plans would create too foreboding a sports facility, being too much a tower and not a place to play baseball, being a place where the sun would hardly ever shine. Instead the triple deck would stop at the foul poles.

And Jacob Ruppert notwithstanding, action on the field of play would be visible from the elevated trains that passed by the outfield, from the 161^st Street station platform as well as from roofs and higher floors of River Avenue apartment houses that would be built.

Fortunately, a purely decorative element survived the project's early downsizing. A 15-foot deep copper frieze would adorn the front of the roof which covered much of the Stadium's third deck. It would become the park's signature feature.

The new stadium, virtually double the size of any existing ball park, favored left-handed power; the right-field foul pole was only 295 feet from home plate (though it would shoot out to 368 by right center). The left- and right-field corners were only 281 feet and 295 feet, but left field sloped out dramatically to 460 feet. Center field was a monstrous 490 feet away.

A quarter-mile running track that doubled as a warning track for outfielders surrounded the field. Under second base, a 15-foot-deep brick-lined vault containing electrical, telephone, and telegraph connections was put in place for boxing events.

Three concrete decks extended from behind home plate to each corner. There was a single deck in left-center and wooden bleachers around the rest of the outfield. The new stadium had the feel of a gigantic horseshoe. The 10,712 upper-grandstand seats and 14,543 lower grandstand seats were fixed in place by 135,000 individual steel castings on which 400,000 pieces of maple lumber were fastened by more than a million screws. Total seating capacity was 58,000, enormous for that time. (to be continued)

The National Hockey League seasons come and go. There is always a lot of excitement due to various changes in rules, new players, etc. But the essential nature of the game itself is unchanged.

Many historians say the roots of hockey go back more than 500 years ago in northern Europe where field hockey was a popular summer sport. When the ponds and lakes froze in winter, many athletes took to the ice to engage in another version of their summer sport.

All kinds of romantic and fanciful stories exist about the early days of hockey. Back in the 17th century, an ice game known as "kolven" was popular. It spread to the English marshland community of Bury Fen in the 1820s.

The game there was called "bandy." Local players scrambled around the town's frozen meadowlands and swatted a wooden or cork ball, known as a "kit "or "cat," with sticks made from willow tree branches.

The earliest North American games were played in Canada in the 1870s. British soldiers stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, allegedly organized contests on frozen ponds. At about that time in Montreal students from McGill University began skating against each other in a downtown ice rink. North America's first hockey league, a four-team affair, was launched in Kingston, Ontario in 1885, and the hockey boom was on. Games soon were played on a regular basis among teams from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

A very interested onlooker was the English Governor General of Canada. In fact, Lord Stanley of Preston was so impressed that in 1892 he purchased a silver bowl with an interior gold finish and announced that it would be presented each year to the best amateur team in Canada. And that was how the Stanley Cup - awarded today to the franchise that wins the National Hockey League playoffs - came to be.

When hockey was first played in Canada, the teams had nine men per side. But by the time the Stanley Cup was introduced, it was a seven-man game. The change came about due to a late 1880s miscue. A club playing in the Montreal Winter Carnival showed up two men short. Its opponent was obliging enough to drop the same number of players on its team to even the match. In time, the smaller squad was preferred.

That number became the standard for the sport. Each team had a goaltender, three forwards, two defensemen, and a rover, who could move up ice on the attack or fall back to defend his goal. In the beginning, skates consisted of blades that were attached to shoes; sticks were made from tree branches. The first goalie shin and knee-pads were derived in design from cricket.

As the years moved on the primitive quality of gear improved to some degree. Players wore protective gloves. Shin guards were used but the early ones were not that effective in softening blows from a puck or stick. So some players stuffed newspapers or magazines behind them for extra protection.

For many years the blades on sticks were completely straight, but New York Rangers star Andy Bathgate began experimenting with a curve in the late 1950s. The idea caught on around the league. Players didn't begin wearing helmets with any sort of uniformity until the early 1970s. In the years before only players recovering from a head injury or those embarrassed about being bald wore helmets. A NHL rule passed prior to the start of the 1979-80 season mandated that anyone who came into the league from that point on had to wear a helmet. By the early 1990s there were only a few players left who went unprotected. The last one was Craig MacTavish, who retired after the 1996-97 season.

1. Some wanted the brand new Yankee Stadium in 1923 to be called "Ruth Stadium." They settled for the nick-name "the House That Ruth Built."

3. At the start, names of Yankee players were imprinted in white chalk near the top of their lockers.

4. The practice of selling more tickets than existing seats endured until a 1929 stampede in the right field bleachers left two dead, 62 injured.

5. Negro League teams who played at the Stadium when the Yanks were on the road were not allowed to use the Yankee dressing rooms. Instead they were obliged to use the visitors’ dressing room.

6. "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" was staged before 61,808 on July 4, 1939 and his uniform number 4 was the first in baseball history to be retired.

7. In 1941, Yankee president Ed Barrow offered Civil Defense the use of Yankee Stadium as a bomb shelter in case of attack. He thought the area under the stands could provide a safe haven.

8. On August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth died of throat cancer at age 53. His body lay in state at Yankee Stadium and was viewed by more than 100,000 fans.

9. The last home run at the original Yankee Stadium on September 30, 1973 was hit by Duke Sims in his seventh day as a Yankee. A coin toss that day tabbed him to play. It was not until much later that Sims realized the significance of his home run shot.

10. The film "61" was filmed in Detroit, not at Yankee Stadium. Billy Crystal explained the Motor City ballpark architecture was better able to be made to resemble that of the Yankee Stadium of 1961.

11. Sal Durante, the guy who caught the ball Roger Maris hit for his 61st homer, bought tickets the day of the game at a less-than-sold- out Yankee Stadium.

12. Mickey Mantle originally wore Number 6, but equipment manager Pete Sheehy switched him to Number 7 after Mantle was recalled from Kansas City.

13. Twenty thousand letters that Mickey Mantle never answered were not bid on in the old Yankee Stadium fire sale in 1974.

14. There was widespread and indiscriminate disposal of valuable items during demolition of much of the Stadium in the mid 1970s.

15. Among the items sold in the refurbishment "fire sale" at Yankee Stadium were player jockstraps which had names on them for identification when they came back from the laundry. The selling was stopped because of sanitary reasons.

16. In 1976, a homer by Chris Chambliss gave the Yankees the American League pennant. Such a mob crowded the plate that Chambliss was taken back a few minutes after hitting the homer, and he finally touched home plate.

17. All kinds of crazy things went on in the bullpens - some of them outlandish and some of them sexy and lots having to do with food.

18. In 1988, behind a wall that was closed off for decades, a scorecard, a program and what was supposedly the bases for the 1936 team were unearthed.

19. The 1990 Yankees had but one starting pitcher who won more than seven games, nine-game winner Tim Leary. But he also lost 19.

20. On September 11, 2001 within 90 minutes of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium was evacuated.

21. Ron Guidry, a good drummer, once kept a trap set at Yankee Stadium and also played in a post-game concert with the Beach Boys.

22. Joe Torre was witness to all three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history: He saw Don Larsen's beauty as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems spun by David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.

The 2014 baseball season belongs to history as do so many others. Now as we move into winter, it’s time for hot stove news and talk and reflection. Flashbacks are a way of life. So come, let us celebrate a special time in New York City Baseball history.

The World Series competition for the New York Yankees in 1951 was the Giants of New York. Leo Durocher’s team had a storybook season, chasing, catching and then conquering their hated rival Brooklyn Dodgers in a one-game play-off on Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World."

EDDIE LOPAT: All the reporters told us to watch out. "The Giants are hot," they said. "They beat the Dodgers coming out of nowhere." We didn't believe what anybody told us or what they printed in the newspapers. The other teams had to beat us on the field. That was where it counted.

MONTE IRVIN: We were still on a high after beating the Dodgers in 1951 in that playoff game when we went up against the Yankees in the World Series. Without a chance to rest, we reported to the Stadium the next day. I got four straight hits and also stole home in the first inning. My last time up, Yogi Berra said: "Monte, I don't know what to throw you. You have been hitting high balls and low balls and curve balls. I'm gonna have you get a fastball right down the middle." I really didn't believe Yogi. But sure enough Reynolds threw me a fastball right down the middle. I hit a line drive. The ball was caught. I really wanted that hit. No one had ever gone five for five in the World Series.

STEVE SWIRSKY: I was ten years old and a Yankee fan. My dad didn't have a lot of money but he came home one day with two tickets for the second '51 World Series game. I remember everything about that day - the smells, the walking around to the little shops, my dad digging deep to buy a cap and a hot dog for me. It almost glowed in my heart 'cause I used to listen to the Yankee games on the radio from all over the country even though there were times I could barely hear it. We sat down the left field line underneath the overhang - 20 rows back. In those days poles held up the overhang. My seat had an obstructed view. But you know how some women are about little boys. A woman switched seats with me so I could see. It was Willie Mays who hit the fly ball that Mantle, playing right field, chased. Mantle was not the superstar that he was going to be, but there was a big hush when he went down. It seemed like the world stopped.

As the seasons move from baseball into football and hockey and basketball so do the subject matters of books being published. All levels and varieties of writing from all kinds of publishers take center stage. There is something for everyone. Herewith, a sampling.

Derek Jeter #2, Thanks for the Memories by David Fischer (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 134 pages) is a glowing tribute in words and images all about the Yankee Captain of Captains. Now that Jeter has finally retired and entered the pantheon of Yankee heroes and legends, all sorts of publications have stepped up to the plate to capitalize on the moment. Derek Jeter #2, Thanks for the Memories is one of the best of those. Simple, focused and clear - -it emulates its storied subject. A MUST FOR JETER FANS.

The Sports Strategist by Irving Rein and others (Oxford University Press, $29.95, 296 pages) is geared to a specialized readership - -developing sports industry leaders for the high performance sector. The book does get to the heart of the matter - -sports as big business.

Wild Pitches by Jason Stark (Triumph, $25.95, 334 pages) is a self-indulgent look at a sort of lifer in the world of baseball looking at it from inside via ESPN. If you are of fan of Stark and his “rumblings, grumblings, reflections on the game he loves,” to paraphrase just a bit his book’s sub-title – this book is a winner for you.

Draw in the Dunes by Neil Sagebiel (Thomas Dunne Books, $26.99, 320 pages) is all about that long ago 1969 Ryder Cup at Royal Birkdale. The heavily favored USA golf team with legends lined up and at the ready seemed set to cop a victory as Americans had for the past 42 years of competition. It was not to be. And how that came to be is the charm and appeal and drama of as the book’s sub-title notes: “the finish that shocked the world.”

Why Football Matters by Mark Edmundson (Penguin Press, $26.95, 229 pages) is a slim volume that attempts in an academic manner to explain and make the reader understand the nuances and necessities of football.

Baseball’s Greatest Comeback by J. Brian Ross (Rowman & Littlefield, $38.00, 224 pages) is an up close and personal look at the Miracle Braves of 1914, timed to celebrate the 100^th anniversary. The book carefully and entertainingly details what many consider the greatest comeback in baseball history. A TOP HOT STOVE READ

American Pastime by Len Joy (Hark! New Era Publishing, paper, $15.00, 412 pages) is a baseball novel set against the background of the United States from the 50s to the 70s. Danser Stonemason is the main character and we are there with him through success and trouble in his game within a game within the national pastime. HIGHLY INTERESTING

Battle of the Bay by Gary Peterson (Triumph, a pricey $16.95 for this slim tome, 203 pages, paper) is all about the havoc and heroism that gripped the Bay area as the Athletics of Oakland and the Giants of San Francisco had their World Series matchup rent asunder. A season and a thundering exclamation point disaster.

Facing Wayne Gretzky edited by Brian Kennedy (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 232 pages) is an inside hockey book. Those who played with and against the great one offer up stories and perceptions of what it was like. In the same vein from the same publisher there is Facing Michael Jordan edited by Sean Deveney ($24.95, 212 pages). Players from Ray Allen to Dennis Rodman offer up stories and insights about MJ.

Legends of Oklahoma Sooners Football by Ray Dozier (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 172 pages is a must for fans of this franchise. All the great ones are here like Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer, the Selmon Brothers and more.

My Father Never Took Me to a Baseball Game by Stephen Costello (Patches Publishing, 131 pages, paper) is all about fads, fans, fathers, baseball, trivia, honest emotions. GO FOR IT.

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

A heavier, slower and older Babe Ruth had much more to prove in 1932. And prove he did! Batting .341, driving in 137 runs, slugging 41 homers, the Sultan of Swat pushed the New York Yankees to another pennant. The Cubs of Chicago were the opposition in the World Series.

There was bad recent history between the two teams. Joe McCarthy had been let go as Chicago manager in 1930. He wanted payback. Ruth's old buddy, Mark Koenig, now a Cub, had helped his new team win the pennant. His Chicago teammates voted Ruth's old buddy only a half World Series share. The Babe was not happy about that.

On October l in Chicago during batting practice Ruth shouted: "Hey, you damn bum Cubs, you won't be seeing Yankee Stadium again. This is going to be all over Sunday." The Babe was referring to the fact that the Yanks had won the first two games in New York. The game got underway before 49, 986. Lemons from the stands and curses from the Cubs were heaped upon the Yankees. Chicago fans showered Ruth with fruits and vegetables and other projectiles when he was on defense in the outfield. The Babe smiled, doffed his cap, felt the fire.

When he came to bat in the fifth inning, Ruth had already slugged a three run homer into the bleachers in right centerfield. He had more in store. Right-hander Charlie Root got a strike on Ruth, who as accounts go, raised up one big finger and yelled "strike one!"

Another fast ball strike. Ruth, as the story continues, raised two fingers and bellowed "strike two!"

Then as the story has been handed down, the 38-year-old Yankee legend stepped out of the batter's box and pointed. Some said he pointed at Root; others said the pointed at the Chicago bench, others said at the centerfield bleachers.

"To tell the truth," Joe McCarthy said, "I didn't see him point anywhere at all. But maybe I turned my head for a moment."

"The Babe pointed out to right field," said George Pipgras who pitched and won that game, "and that's where he hit the ball."

The count was 2-2 when Babe swung from his heels. Johnny Moore, the Chicago centerfielder started back, then stopped. The ball disappeared into the right field bleachers, 436 feet from home plate, the l5th and last World Series home run for Babe Ruth, the longest home run ever hit to that point in time in Wrigley Field.

"As I hit the ball," Ruth would say later, "every muscle in my system, every sense I had, told me that I had never hit a better one, that as long as I lived nothing would ever feel as good as this one."

Chicago fans cheered and applauded the Babe as he rounded the bases yelling out a different curse for each Cub infielder. When the "Sultan of Swat" reached third base, he paused. Then he bowed toward the Chicago dugout. Then he came across home plate.

Through the years the debate has continued. Did he or did he not call the home run?

Babe Ruth explained: "I didn't exactly point to any spot like the flagpole. I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough. All I wanted to do was give the thing a ride...outta the park...anywhere. "Every time I went to the bat the Cubs on the bench would yell ' Oogly googly.'It's all part of the game, but this particular inning when I went to bat there was a whole chorus of oogly googlies. The first pitch was a pretty good strike, and I didn't kick. But the second was outside and turned around to beef about it. As I said, Gabby Hartnett said 'Oogly googly.'That kinda burned me and I said 'All right, you bums, I'm gonna knock this one a mile.' I guess I pointed, too."

The joy and passion and full houses (breaking the 700-straight sellout mark and counting) and winning ways are more like memories now at Fenway Park. However, despite the doom and gloom at the little park in Boston, things are still in sharp contrast to the way things once were at the Fens most of the 1960s.

Sam Mele: "I came into Fenway a lot when I managed Minnesota from 1961 to 1967. My home was still in Quincy, Mass., so I slept in my own bed. It was funny. I was managing against the team that I loved.

In 1965, we beat Boston 17 out of 18 times, eight out of the nine at Fenway. It actually hurt me, to beat them. I felt sorry because in my heart I was a Red Sox fan. I had played for them, I had scouted for them. Tom Yawkey would come in my office. And we would talk a lot. Oh yeah, geez, he had me in his will."

The losing, the miserable attendance, the doom and gloom that pervaded Fenway was on parade big time on the 16th of September, 1965. The tiniest crowd of the season made its way into Fenway Park—just 1,247 paid and 1,123 in on passes. Dave Morehead opposed Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians.

Fenway was a ghost town of a ball park in 1965, when the team drew but 652,201—an average of 8,052 a game.

The worst came late in the season. On Sept. 28 against California, only 461 fans showed to watch the sad Sox. The next day was even worse against the same team—just 409 in the house. Finishing ninth in the 10-team American League, the Sox lost 100 games and won 62. The nadir had been breached.

Managers kept coming and going. Top prospects somehow never made it for one reason or another. Billy Herman was in place as the 1966 season started. Early on Dave Morehead, just 24 years old, regarded as a brilliant future star, suffered an injury to his arm and was never the same. Posting a 1-2 record in a dozen appearances, he symbolized the Red Sox of that era—promise but pathos.

In 1966, the Sox lost 90 games and finished ninth. Attendance at Fenway Park was 811,172, an average attendance per game of 10,095. It was pitiful.

Jim Lonborg: "The 1967 season started off as a typical Red Sox season. There were 8,324 fans on a cold and dreary April 12th Opening Day. We beat the White Sox 5-4. Petrocelli hit a three-run homer. And I got the win.

"The next day there were only 3,607 at the ballpark. And then we went on a road trip. We came back having won 10 straight games. And when our plane landed there were thousands of fans waiting at the airport. That moment was the start of the great relationship between the fans and the players."

Bob Sullivan: "I went to Dartmouth, and we used to road trip down to Fenway and get standing room without any trouble. It was eight dollars for grandstand seats. But so many seats were empty. You would flip an usher a quarter and you could move down into the seats. Then it changed. What happened was ’67."

With the advance in modern baseball of instant replay, all the technology at the ready, and a world of social media on board - the game today especially for umpires is vastly different than that in the primitive days of the national pastime. What follows is a glimpse into the lot of the men (not always) in blue.

Mother, may I slug the umpire, May I slug him right away? So he cannot be here, Mother, When the clubs begin to play? Let me clasp his throat, dear Mother, In a dear, delightful grip, With one hand and with the other Bat him several in the lip. Let me climb his frame, dear Mother, While the happy people shout: I'll not kill him, dearest Mother, I will only knock him out. Let me mop the ground up, Mother, With his person, dearest, do; If the ground can stand it, Mother, I don't see why you can't too.

Early umpires were selected from the assembled crowd or even from the ranks of players. They personified the amateur spirit of the game of baseball. And since it was an "honor" to be called to that task, the early umpires received no financial compensation for their duties. They wore whatever clothing they wished. Some of the more stylish early fellows showed up bedecked in Prince Albert coat, cane, top hat. They sat at a table or took up a stance or kneeled on a stool a brave distance from home plate along the first-base line.

The National League in 1878 revolutionized things by ruling that umpires would be paid five dollars a game and gave the arbiters the right to fine players up to twenty dollars for the use of foul language. Umps were also given the power to eject rowdy fans.

In 1879 the N.L. named twenty men whom it deemed fit to be a cadre of umpires. For the sake of logistical convenience, the umpires chosen all lived in or close to cities where National League franchises were located. Prior to 1879, rival captains of teams had mutually agreed on whom they preferred to umpire a game. Now the league ruled that umpires could be chosen only from the select list of twenty men.

The gradually increased duties and independence of umpires were reflected in an 1882 ruling that abolished the practice of arbiters appealing to fans and players for guidance on a disputed play. Now umps were on their own to "call them as they saw them." And from 1882 on, all players except for the team captains were theoretically banned from engaging in any kind of menacing or meaningless banter with the umpire.

That 1882 season the American Association put in place a salaried staff of three umpires to be paid $140 a month. It was also the American Association that innovated clothing umps in blue caps and coats-a uniform that was aimed at giving the arbiters an air of respectability. Those uniforms were to become part of the folklore of the game the dress code for the "men in blue."

In 1883 the National League copied the practice of the American Association, appointing four umpires for the season who drew salaries of $1,000 each. To ensure neutrality, to quell complaints that the new umps would not be political appointees, all the umpires were unknowns who came from cities that did not have National League franchises. The four men operated under trying conditions-serving without tenure, serving at the suffrage of the owners. Complaints by any four teams were grounds for the firing of any of the umpires, and not surprisingly just one of the four umpires made it through the entire season.

Changing rules, polemics in sports sections of newspapers criticizing umpires, the rugged nature of play-all of these made the work of the men in blue a tough task. Such terms as "daylight crime," "robbery," and "home umpire" were part of the lexicon of the times applied to the alleged foibles and flaws of arbiters.

In 1884 barbed wire was fastened around the field in Baltimore to contain the fans. That same season an umpire was beaten by an angry mob when he called a game a tie because of darkness. Police escorts were commonplace to move umpires out of ball parks and away from the menace of irate fans.

Dumping on the umpire was a practice encouraged by owners, who realized that fans howled in delight at the sight of authority being humiliated. "Fans who despise umpires," Albert Spalding noted, "are simply showing their democratic right to protest against tyranny." The protests pushed profits at the box office, and owners willingly paid fines meted out to players by umpires.

The system of two umpires working a game came into being in 1887 in postseason competition between the National League and the American Association. The first set of double officials was John Gaffney and John Kelley.

As a class those early arbiters were a colorful and tenacious group of men-they had to be, considering the not so genteel band of athletes they had to deal with. Umpire Billy McLean, who plied his trade in Boston and Providence, was a quick-triggered type. An ex-boxer, McLean kept himself in top physical condition; it was reported that he once arose at 4 A.M. and walked from his home in Boston to his umpiring job in Providence.

John Gaffney was called the king of umpires because of his longevity and resiliency. At one point, Gaffney was the highest-paid umpire, earning a salary of $2,500 plus expenses.

Bob Ferguson was another standout man in blue. "Umpiring always came as easy to me," he said, "as sleeping on a featherbed. Never change a decision, never stop to talk to a man. Make 'em play ball and keep their mouths shut, and never fear but the people will be on your side and you'll be called the king of umpires."

Tim Hurst, who coined the now-famous phrase about umpires, "The pay is good, and you can't beat the hours-three to five," was another of the fabled arbiters of nineteenth-century baseball. A rather smallish man who came out of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania, Hurst was quick-witted and quick-fisted.

In 1897 during the course of a game in Cincinnati, Hurst was struck in the face by a stein of beer that was hurled out of the stands. Hurst flung the stein back; it hit a spectator and knocked him out. A frenzied mob surged out onto the field heading for

Hurst. Policemen made contact with the umpire first. They charged him with assault and battery and arrested the irate Hurst, who was fined $100 and court costs by a judge.

Then there was the fracas in Washington in which Hurst mixed it up verbally with Pittsburgh's Pink Hawley, Jake Stenzel, and Denny Lyons. The quartet agreed to meet after the game to settle things once and for all.

Hurst went to work quickly. He punched Hawley in the face, smashed his foot into the shins of Lyons, and roughed up Stenzel.

"Timothy, what is all the excitement?" asked National League President Nick Young, who as it turned out just happened to be passing by.

"Somebody dropped a dollar bill, Uncle Nick," replied Hurst, "and I said it was mine."

"Oh, you're sure that's all?" asked Young. "It looked to me like there was some kind of a riot going on. Did the dollar bill really belong to you?"

"Not really. It belonged to Hawley, but these other two tried their best to take it away from him, and I wouldn't let them. It was just pink tea."

"Timothy, you did the right thing." Young smiled. "Now let's leave these follows alone. Come and take a walk with me."

Two umpires from that epoch went on to become National League presidents-John Heyder and Tom Lynch. Both men confessed to recurring nightmares of their time as umpires.

With all the pain and the abuse of the job of umpiring, there were some redeeming aspects. The early umpires loved the game of baseball. They earned an average salary of $1,500 for seven months of employment, and as umpire Tim Hurst noted, it was a job where "you can't beat the hours. "

In 1898 the Brush Resolution was passed, slightly improving the umpire's lot. John T. Brush, National League mogul, pushed owners into endorsing a twenty-one-point program to do away with the bullying of umpires. Expulsion for "villainously foul language" and umpire baiting were at the heart of the resolution.

The "purification plan" never worked and was ultimately given up as hopeless-no case ever reached the appointed discipline board, but it did raise the consciousness of the public, players, and writers about the plight of umpires forced to contend with the riotous behavior of scrappy and excitable players.

"Kill the Umpire" would be a phrase of symbolic import in the future and that was a large step forward, for in the not so genteel days of the gilded age, that phrase had a darker and more sinister meaning.

(Adapted from Old Time Baseball to be re-issued as part of Harvey Frommer Baseball Classics Spring 2015)

Mid-summer 2014 and the sports books of all kinds keep getting published for all kinds of tastes.

Below is a sampling of just a few of the worthies out for their for your sports bookshelf.

Brooks by Doug Wilson St. Martin’s Press, $26.99, 340 pages) is the biography of legendary Brooks Robinson. Many anecdotes and stats blend in this engaging account of one of the top third basemen of all time. Out of Little Rock, Arkansas, Robinson made his way to the majors in a hurry and once there stayed for a long time racking up 18 All Star selections and 16 Gold Glove awards. Author Wilson has dug deep and produced a winning bio.

Miracle at Fenway by Saul Wisnia (St. Martin’s Press, $26.99, 295 pages) is a celebration and flashback of the hard fought championship season of the 2004 Red Sox of Boston. New insights intermingle with old stories. This book is focused on how and why “the curse was broken” is recommended for BoSox boosters who want to read about a happier time than 2014 is for the team from Fenway.

Heading the list is Strike Four by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers, 231 pages of delightful, entertaining, perceptive and beautifully told accounts of 25 years of baseball memories from Crankshaft in words and pictures and cartoons. Aptly sub-titled “The Crankshaft Baseball Book,” Strike Four wondrously recounts the life and times of Ed Crankshaft. WORTH OWNING.

The Browns Bible by Jonathan Knight, a mother lode of 599 pages, comes the complete history Game-By- Game of the Browns of Cleveland. For reading, for reference, for argument settling, this is the book for fans of the team and sports fans in general. The territory covered is all about the franchise from 1946-2012. NOTABLE

Classic Steelers by David Finoli (Kent State U, 227 pages, paper) is a treat for all fans of this legendary team. Fifty Greatest Games are given the up close and personal look.

Unbeatable by Jerry Barca ($15.99, 310 pages) is focused on the 1988 championship season of Notre Dame's football team. All the excitement of that special time is played back.

A flashback to an earlier an earlier team --The '63 Steelers by Rudy Dicks (307 pages, paper) is also worthwhile reading especially for fans of that team. Fascinating research by Dicks into a team that was not supposed to be there at the end. However, a bunch of unsung players prevailed and pressed on to compete for a championship. Well written. ABSORBING

Harvey Frommer is in his 39th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 42 sports books including the classics: best-selling “New York City Baseball, 1947-1957″ and best-selling “Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball,” his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium was published in 2008 and best-selling Remembering Fenway Park was published to acclaim in 2011. The prolific Frommer is at work on WHEN IT WAS JUST A GAME, AN ORAL HISTORY OF SUPER BOWL ONE (2015)

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

The midsummer spectacle of Hall of Fame inductions is now past. There was lots of hype, lots of hoopla, lots of celebrating of one of the greatest induction classes in Cooperstown history. And that was what it should have been like.

Mention of “Shoeless Joe” was minimal. Pete Rose even got more of the spotlight in conversations. They are two of those 15 who received lifetime bans issued by the commissioners of baseball through the years. No person ever permanently banned has ever been reinstated.

Most sports fans know a lot about Pete Rose: however, their knowledge about Jackson is sketchy, sometimes inaccurate. So for the record - the facts.

Joseph Jefferson Wofford Jackson was born to a poor family on July 16, 1889 in Greenville, South Carolina. School was never a part of his life for at the age of six he was already working in the cotton mills as a cleanup boy.

By the time he was 13 he was laboring a dozen hours a day along with his father and brother. His sole escape from the back-breaking work, the din and dust of the mill, took place out in the grassy fields playing baseball. He was a natural right from the start, good enough to be noticed and recruited to play for the mill team organized by the company.

One hot summer day Jackson played the outfield wearing a new pair of shoes. They pinched his feet, so he took them off and played in his stocking feet. A sportswriter who saw what he did dubbed him "Shoeless Joe." The name stuck even though that was the only time Jackson is reported to have played 'shoeless.'

He despised the name for he felt it reinforced his country-bumpkin origins, the fact that he could not read nor write.

Perhaps that was why when he played for the Chicago White Sox after stints with the Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Indians, he wore alligator and patent leather shoes - the more expensive the better. It was if he was announcing to the world: "I am not a Shoeless Joe. I do wear shoes. And they cost a lot of money!"

He was the greatest ball player ever from South Carolina, one of the top players of all time. His lifetime batting average was .356, topped only by Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby.

Four times he batted over .370. Babe Ruth copied his swing claiming Jackson was the greatest hitter he ever saw. Ruth, Cobb, and Casey Stengel all placed him on their all-time, all star team. He was such a remarkable fielder that his glove was called "the place where triples go to die."

In the National Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown one can find Jackson's shoes. His life size photograph is there. But he is not there even though others with far less credentials and far more soiled reputations are. Shoeless Joe had to leave the game in disgrace, one of the members of the "Black Sox" accused of throwing the 1919 World Series.

He was asked under oath at trial:

"Did you do anything to throw those games?"

"No sir," was his response.

"Any game in the series?"

"Not a one," Jackson answered. "I didn't have an error or make no misplay."

In fact, Shoeless Joe was under-stating his accomplishments which included the only series home run, the highest batting average, the collecting of a record dozen hits, while committing no errors.

It took the jury a single ballot to acquit all eight accused players of the charges against them. But the very next day baseball's first commissioner - Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis - issued a verdict of his own. He banned all eight players from baseball for life.

Landis was brought into organized baseball in the fall of 1920 with a lifetime contract and a mandate to clean up the game using whatever methods he saw fit. He had the reputation of being a vindictive judge, a hanging judge - and he was all of that.

Every baseball commissioner since Landis has refused to act on "Shoeless Joe's behalf."

Commissioner Faye Vincent said: "I can't uncipher or decipher what took place back then. I have no intention of taking formal action."

Commissioner Bart Giammatti said: "I do not wish to play God with history. The Jackson case is best left to historical debate and analysis. I am not for re-instatement."

Commissioner Bud Selig has not touched the topic.

Public pressure keeps increasing year by year. But the ban still remains. It is a story that won't go away, like a riddle inside a jigsaw puzzle inside an enigma. It is a story about a great baseball injustice - - - a talented player caught at a crossroad in American history who became a victim, a scapegoat so that the sport of baseball could offer up a cleaner image.
(From the Vault)
(To read more check out my Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, to be published in a new edition spring 2015 as a Harvey Frommer Baseball Classic)

“The Wait Is Over,” “Don’t Let Us Win Tonight” and other Special Times

For summer reading, a host of assorted sports titles are there for the reading and browsing. They run the gamut in price, quality and subject matter so there is something for everyone.

With the New York Rangers in the news this spring in their Stanley Cup battles, a new book on an old time and fantastic Ranger team is now out there for your enjoyment. Written by the highly respected John Kreiser and put out by Sports Publishing ($24.95, 196 pages), this slim volume is a must for hockey fans of all persuasions and especially for Ranger fans. Titled The Wait Is Over, the focus of Kreiser’s terrific tome is on the Rangers ending of a wait of more than a half century and their winning of the 1994 Stanley Cup. Carefully crafted and using a medley of sources, the book brings back the time in words, stats and pictures. WORTH BUYING

Don’t Let Us Win Tonight by Allan Wood & Bill Nowlin (Triumph, $24.95, 320 pages) celebrates and re-creates the 2004 incredible playoff run of the Boston Red Sox. Carefully crafted, filled with succinct and insightful interviews, the terrific tome is just perfect for all Red Sox fans and for that matter all sports fans.

Another tie in to a remarkable anniversary is A Summer to Remember by Lew Freedman (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 300 pages). The book’s focus is on the 1948 Indians of Cleveland of Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Lou Boudreau and other worthies. Freedman, author of more than 60 sports books, has out-done himself here. A Summer to Remember is a championship book about a championship team.

March 1939 by Terri Frei (Taylor Trade, $24.95, 237 pages) is a remarkable piece of sports history telling as it does the story of the first NCAA basketball champions, Oregon’s “Tall Firs” in a world on the verge of war, in a basketball world dominated by the New York City game. The intermingling of the narrative of the Oregon team with story of what was going on in the culture at large sets this terrific tome apart. BUY IT NOW

Two interesting paperbacks from Taylor are The Outlaw League and the Rattle That Forged Modern Baseball by Daniel R. Levitt ($18.95, 314 pages) and Mudville Madness by Jonathan Weeks ($16.95, 221 pages).

The book by Levitt is an in depth look at the Federal League that in 1913 announced it was a Major League and went to war with the established leagues. A riveting recreation of time, place, characters. The book by Weeks is a compendium as its sub-title notes of "Fabulous Feats, Belligerent Behavior and Erratic Episodes on the Diamond. Organized by decades, the book even gives a shout out to me in the bibliography.

This Day in Philadelphia Sports History by Brian Startare & Kevin Reavy (Sports Publishing $19.95,312 pages) is a nifty idea showcasing as it does 365 days of the peaks and valleys in the team’s history. Some of the entries are reaches like January the first 1935 and the losing participation of the Temple Owls in the first Sugar Bowl. Overall, there is much to like about this cleverly crafted book.

All kinds of tomes have surfaced in 2014 tapping into the 100^th anniversary of Wrigley Field. As a lot, they form a kind of mixed bag. Not the case for Before Wrigley Became Wrigley by Sean Devaney (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 268 pages). As the book’s sub-title announces - -“the inside story of the first years of the Cubs’ home field. And we are back then into Weegham Park on the north side of Chicago. Bold, bizarre, even bawdy at times, in the skilled hands of Devaney, Before Wrigley Became Wrigley is carefully researched, prime baseball history. HIGHLY NOTABLE

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and is housed on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

(Excerpt from Remembering Fenway Park: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Red Sox - - now available direct from the author)

The joy and passion and full houses and the glow of a Red Sox world championship is fading fast. The hundreds of games of solid straight sellouts also belong to memory. Carping critics, media mavens, surly fans all are part of a strange mix. Things get worse, but one day they will get better.

A flashback to Fenway Park of the 1960s shows what it was like when things were really bad around Red Sox from Boston. There are still those around who recall that time, some with mixed emotions.
SAM MELE: I came into Fenway a lot when I managed Minnesota from 1961 to 1967. My home was still in Quincy, Mass. So I slept in my own bed. It was funny. I was managing against the team that I loved.
In 1965, we beat Boston 17 out of 18 times, 8 out of the 9 at Fenway. It actually hurt me, to beat them. I felt sorry because in my heart I was a Red Sox fan. I had played for them, I had scouted for them. Tom Yawkey would come in my office. And we would talk a lot. Oh yeah, geez, he had me in his will.
The losing, the miserable attendance, the doom and gloom that pervaded Fenway was on parade big time on the 16th of September. The tiniest crowd of the season made its way into Fenway Park - - just 1,247 paid and 1,123 in on passes. Dave Morehead opposed Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians.
Fenway was a ghost town of a ball park in 1965 when the team drew but 652,201, an average of 8,052 a game . The worst came late in the season. On September 28th against California only 461 showed to watch the sad Sox. The next day was even worse against the same team just 409 in the house. Finishing 9th in the ten-team American League, the Sox lost 100 games and won 62. The nadir had been breached.
Managers kept coming and going. Top prospects somehow never made it for one reason or another. Billy Herman was in place as the 1966 season started.

Early on Dave Morehead, just 24, regarded as a brilliant future star, suffered an injury to his arm and was never the same. Posting a 1-2 record in a dozen appearances, he symbolized the Red Sox of that era - promise but pathos.
In 1966, the Sox lost 90 games and finished ninth. Attendance at Fenway Park was 811,172, an average attendance per game of 10, 095. It was pitiful.
JIM LONBORG: The 1967 season started off as a typical Red Sox season. There were 8,324 fans on a cold and dreary April 12th, Opening Day. We beat the White Sox 5-4. Petrocelli hit a three-run homer. And I got the win.
The next day there were only 3,607 at the ballpark. And then we went on a road trip. We came back having won 10 straight games. And when our plane landed there were thousands of fans waiting at the airport. That moment was the start of the great relationship between the fans and the players.
BOB SULLIVAN: I went to Dartmouth, and we used to road trip down to Fenway and get standing room without any trouble. It was eight dollars for grandstand seats. But so many seats were empty. You would flip an usher a quarter and you could move down into the seats. Then it changed. What happened was '67.

For all of you who enjoyed “All About “A” – here is “All About “B.”

With the season upon us and baseball in the air and on the tongue, herewith a primer for novices and super experts. Enjoy, and keeps those letters and suggestions coming.

THE BABE George Herman Ruth leads off the list and paces the list in most nick-names acquired. First called "Babe" by teammates on the Baltimore Orioles, his first professional team because of his youth, G.H.Ruth was also called "Jidge" by Yankee teammates, short for George. He called most players "Kid," because he couldn't remember names, even of his closest friends. Opponents called him "The Big Monk" and "Monkey."
Many of Babe Ruth's nick-names came from over-reaching sports writers who attempted to pay tribute to his slugging prowess:
"The Bambino", "the Wali of Wallop", "the Rajah of Rap", "the Caliph of Clout", "the Wazir of Wham", and "the Sultan of Swat", The Colossus of Clout, Maharajah of Mash, The Behemoth of Bust, "The King of Clout."
Other Yankee nick-names, expressions, bon mots of note for "Babe" and "Ruth." In spring training 1927, Babe Ruth bet pitcher Wilcy Moore $l00 that he would not get more than three hits all season. A notoriously weak hitter, Moore somehow managed to get six hits in 75 at bats. Ruth paid off his debt and Moore purchased two mules for his farm. He named them "Babe" and "Ruth."
BABE RUTH’S LEGS Sammy Byrd was used as a pinch runner for Ruth.
BAM-BAM Hensley Meulens could speak about five languages and had a difficult name to pronounce.
BANTY ROOSTER Casey Stengel's nickname for Whitey Ford because of his style and attitude.
BAT DAY In 1951, Bill Veeck ("as in wreck") owned the St. Louis Browns, a team that was not the greatest gate attraction in the world. (It's rumored that one day a fan called up Veeck and asked, "What time does the game start?" Veeck's alleged reply was, "What time can you get here?") Veeck was offered six thousand bats at a nominal fee by a company that was going bankrupt. He took the bats and announced that a free bat would be given to each youngster attending a game accompanied by an adult. That was the beginning of Bat Day. Veeck followed this promotion with Ball Day and Jacket Day and other giveaways. Bat Day, Ball Day, and Jacket Day have all become virtually standard major league baseball promotions.

BIG POISON and LITTLE POISON In the Pittsburgh lineup. Paul was 5'8l/2'' and weighed 153 pounds. Lloyd was 5'9" and weighed 150 pounds.
Paul was dubbed Big Poison even though he was smaller than Lloyd, who was called Little Poison. An older brother even then had privileges. But both players were pure poison for National League pitchers. Slashing left-handed line-drive hitters, the Waners collected 5,611 hits between them. Paul's lifetime batting average was .333, and he recorded three batting titles. Lloyd posted a career average of .316. They played a combined total of 38 years in the major leagues.
BILLYBALL the aggressive style of play utilized by Billy Martin
BLIND RYNE Ryne Duren because of his very poor vision, uncorrected -20/70 and 20/200.
BONEHEAD MERKLE The phrase "pulling a bonehead play," or "pulling a boner," is not only part of the language of baseball, but of all sports and in fact, of the language in general. Its most dramatic derivation goes back to September 9, 1908. Frederick Charles Merkle, a.k.a. George Merkle, was playing his first full game at first base for the New York Giants. It was his second season in the majors; the year before, he had appeared in 15 games. The Giants were in first place and the Cubs were challenging them. The two teams were tied, 1-1, in the bottom of the ninth inning. With two outs, the Giants' Moose McCormick was on third base and Merkle was on first. Al Bridwell slashed a single to center field, and McCormick crossed the plate with what was apparently the winning run. Merkle, eager to avoid the Polo Grounds crowd that surged onto the playing field, raced directly to the clubhouse instead of following through on the play and touching second base. Amid the pandemonium, Johnny Evers of the Cubs screamed for the baseball, obtained it somehow, stepped on second base, and claimed a force-out on Merkle. When things subsided, umpire Hank O'Day agreed with Evers. The National League upheld O'Day, Evers and the Cubs, so the run was nullified and the game not counted. Both teams played out their schedules and completed the season tied for first place with 98 wins and 55 losses. A replay of the game was scheduled, and Christy Mathewson, seeking his 38th victory of the season, lost, 4-2, to Three-Finger Brown (q.v.). The Cubs won the pennant. Although Merkle played 16 years in the majors and had a lifetime batting average of .273, he will forever be rooted in sports lore as the man who made the "bonehead" play that lost the 1908 pennant for the Giants, for had he touched second base there would have been no replayed game and the Giants would have won the pennant by one game.
BROOKLYN SCHOOLBOY was what they called Waite Hoyt for his time as a star pitcher at Erasmus High School.
BULLDOG Jim Bouton, for his tenacity.
BULLET BOB   Bob Turley, for the pop on his fastball.
BYE-BYE    Steve Balboni, the primary DH of the 1990 Yankees had 17 homers but hit just .192.

            Harvey Frommer is in his 38th year of writing books. A noted oral historian and sports journalist, the author of 42 sports books including the classics: "New York City Baseball, 1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his acclaimed Remembering Yankee Stadium was published in 2008 and his Remembering Fenway Park was published to acclaim in 2011. The prolific Frommer is at work on WHEN IT WAS JUST A GAME, AN ORAL HISTORY OF SUPER BOWL ONE.

Frommer mint condition collectible sports books autographed and discounted are available always from the author.

The roots of the rivalry extend all the way back to the first time the teams faced-off on May 7, 1903 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. They weren't the Yankees and Red Sox then but instead had more geographically correct names: the Highlanders -- they played on the hilly terrain of upper Manhattan; and the Pilgrims -- in tribute to their New England heritage.

Boston won that first game, 6-2 as well as baseball's inaugural World Series that year. New York finished fourth, 17 games off the pace. In 1904, Boston won another world championship, and through the first 19 years of its existence continued to be one of baseball’s most successful teams.

It was damp and chilly throughout New England for most of the spring of 1912. Boston fans hungered to break in their new ballpark against their rivals from New York in decent weather. It took a few tries before that happened.

On April 9th, the Red Sox and Harvard's baseball team faced off in an exhibition game in football weather “with a little snow on the side, "as one who was there said. Before but 3,000 braved the elements, Boston won,2-0.

The scheduled official Opening Day match on April 12^th,however, was rained out. Finally on April 20th, there was a bit better weather. Fenway's first major league game: the Sox versus the Yankees (then known as the Highlanders because they played on higher ground in the Bronx), was on tap. A crowd of 27,000 showed up. Soggy, sad looking grounds greeted them and infield grass transplanted from the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds, the team’s former home.

Boston Mayor John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, whose grandson would become the thirty-fifth president of the

United States

, threw out the ceremonial first ball. "Honey Fitz" did not like the Highlanders. He was an active and ardent member of the "Royal Rooters" - a group of Red Sox fans who staged pre-game parades most of the time singing "Tessie" and "Sweet Adeline."

The game (opening day at brand a brand new park, New York against Boston)would have been the stuff of front-page headlines in New England newspapers. But six days earlier the news of the sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage and the loss of 1,517 lives, was still eclipsing all other stories.

Owner General Charles Henry Taylor, a Civil War veteran and owner of the "Boston Globe," had decided back in 1910 to build a new ballpark in the Fenway section bordering Brookline Avenue, Jersey Street, Van Ness Street and Lansdowne Street. It cost $650,000 (approximately $14 million today), and seated 35,000.

An appealing red brick façade, the first electric baseball scoreboard, and 18 turnstiles, the most in the big leagues were all talked about. Concrete stands went from behind first base around to third while wooden bleachers were located in parts of left, right, and centerfield. Seats lined the field allowing for excellent views of the game but limiting the size of foul territory.

Elevation was 20 feet above sea level. Barriers and walls broke off at different angles. Centerfield was 488 feet from home plate; right field was 314 feet away. The 10-foot wooden fence in left field ran straight along Lansdowne Street and was but 320 ½ feet down the line from home plate with a high wall behind it. There was a ten foot embankment there to make viewing of games easier for overflow gatherings. A ten foot high slope in left field posed challenges for outfielders who had to play the entire territory running uphill.

The Sox nipped the Yankees, 7-6, in 11 innings. Tris Speaker drove in the winning run for the home team. Spitball pitcher Bucky O’Brien got the win in relief of Charles “Sea Lion” Hall. New York's Harry Wolter smacked the first hit in the new park.

Umpire Tommy Connolly kept the ball used in that historic game, writing “Opening of Fenway Park” and brief details of the game on it. And that was how the storied and stormy Red Sox Versus Yankees Great Rivalry started. It has never ended.

(Excerpted from the author’s Remembering Fenway Park, autographed copies-mint condition available)

It is Cardinals versus Red Sox one more time in the World Series. The last time they met in the Fall Classic the guys from Fenway swept the Midwesterners. They also had a showdown in October in 1967.

In 1966, the Sox lost 90 games and finished ninth. Attendance at Fenway Park was 811,172, an average attendance per game of 10, 095. It was pitiful.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: I was a sportswriter at the New Haven Journal Courier and convinced my boss to send me to Opening Day of the 1967 season. “Okay,” he said, “you can take the train but you have to come right back after the game is over. I don’t want you staying overnight.”

I had my matching sport coat and my tie and my new portable typewriter. I took the train up and got off at Back Bay. It was cold. I tell the cab driver, “Fenway Park.”

I had to get a story so I went in the locker room and talked to Dick Williams. I was terrified because I had read all this stuff about how gruff he was.

MIKE ANDREWS: Dick was a tough manager, very, very tough. He wasn't one who gave you a lot of accolades.

LEIGH MONTVILLE: I didn’t know they had a press room so I went across the street to a grille to type up my story while knocking back a couple of beers.

Rookie BoSox pilot Dick Williams realized he had a tough job ahead. Coming off a 90-loss season, the Red Sox were a 100-1 shot to win the American League pennant in 1967.

The young, crew-cutted disciplinarian promised that the team would win more than it lost in 1967. He vowed changes, and said that if blowing up the Country Club atmosphere was what was needed, he would do that, too.

"There had been tremendous teams at Boston,” Williams said, “but they had won just one pennant in twenty-one years. At home they were excellent, but they just could not win on the road because it was a team manufactured to play at Fenway Park."

Williams said he would not allow the dimensions of Fenway to influence his managing style and the play of his ball players. "I made it clear," he said, "the Green Monster was not going to be a factor. I had seen too many players ruining themselves taking shots at the wall. I made my pitchers concentrate on pitching to right-handed batters who always came up there looking for the ball away thinking we'd get them to avoid pulling. I knew that the way to pitch at Fenway is to get the ball inside and gradually back the batter up a little."

JIM LONBORG: It started off as a typical Red Sox season. There were 8,324 fans on a cold and dreary April 12^th, Opening Day, a cold and dreary one. We beat the White Sox 5-4. Petrocelli hit a three-run homer. And I got the win.

The next day there were only 3,607 at the ballpark. And then we went on a road trip. We came back having won 10 straight games. And when our plane landed there were thousands of fans waiting at the airport. That moment was the start of the great relationship between the fans and the players.

BOB SULLIVAN: I went to Dartmouth, and we used to road trip down to Fenway and get standing room without any trouble. It was eight dollars for grandstand seats. But so many seats were empty. You would flip an usher a quarter and you could move down into the seats. Then it changed. What happened was ’67.

A lot of the buzz in Boston was about rookie Billy Rohr who on April 14^th one-hit the Yankees and Whitey Ford at the Stadium.

ED MARKEY: Billy Rohr in the early part of that season became the symbol of our renaissance - the lefthander we so needed over all those years.

Markey and thousands of other Red Sox fans were at Rohr’s next start on April 21st.

ED MARKEY: Fenway Park was electric. This was our chance to vanquish the Yankees. He won that game, too, 6-1, subduing the Yankees a second time, beating Mel Stottlemyre, 6-1.

Despite his promise, Rohr never won another game for the Red Sox and finished the season in the minors. Although Rohr wasn’t in a Red Sox uniform for all of Boston’s “Impossible Dream,” he helped set the pace for it.

“Billy Rohr was 1967,” Peter Gammons wrote, “even if he only won two games and was out of town by June.”

MIKE ANDREWS: My 1967 salary was 11 thousand dollars. And in July Tom Yawkey called me into his office and gave me a four thousand dollar raise. I was told he was always doing things like that.

After the All-Star break, Boston took off on a 10-game winning streak. In July, crowds topped 25,000 a game.

BISHOP JOHN D’ARCY: There was a tradition that every rectory in the immediate Boston area would get a free pass to Fenway. It was indeed a wonderful perk. The rectory was the priests’ home, but if somebody worked there and was not a priest, he could probably use it as well. I think you had

to pay 50 cents or a dollar to get it. You would go in and find your own seat, but it was not hard to find a seat in those days. In 1967, when the crowds came back, that was the end of that.

A crowded Fenway Park in that era before ’67 was an anomaly. Weird weather conditions were not. Fans from the start of play in 1912 brought umbrellas, jackets, blankets with them – even in mid-summer. On April 25,1962 the ocean breeze dropped the temperature at Fenway from 78 to 58 degrees in 10 minutes. One August day in 1967 pea-soup fog caused a couple of stoppages of a game -- outfielders could not see.

But an even stranger sensation was at Fenway Park on the 18^th of August - - pennant fever. The Red Sox were in fourth place, were hosting the fifth place California Angels in a four game series.

Tony Conigliaro singled his first time up off Angels starter Jack Hamilton. In the fourth George Scott led off with a blooper to short left center field and was cut down trying to stretch the hit into a double. A fan in the leftfield grandstand tossed a smoke bomb onto the outfield grass delaying play.

When play resumed, Reggie Smith stroked a line drive single. Conigliaro batted next.

DAVE MOREHEAD: I was sitting on the top step of the dugout, charting pitches, right there by the corner closest to the on-deck circle. I was talking to Fitzie, the clubhouse man. I was watching Tony. Jack Hamilton threw the pitch.

An inside and high fastball hit Tony C. him flush on the cheek below the left eye. Dropping to the ground, his cheekbone crushed, his eye ball imploded, Conigliaro writhed in pain.

DAVE MOREHEAD: He had to have lost sight of the ball. It was frightening. His left eye was closed before our trainer, Buddy Leroux, got to him.

Coaches and players raced out to the unconscious young star. A silent and stunned crowd watched as one of their favorites was taken off the field on a stretcher.

More than a year and half later, Conigliaro would return to play baseball for the Sox. He had some small successes. But the injury left him with some brain damage and vision problems and ended what should have been a brilliant career.

Two days after the “beaning” there was a doubleheader against California. The Sox lost the first game 8-0. They won the second game, 9-8. Reggie Smith homered batting left and right-handed. Yaz popped two three-run homers‚ one in each game of the doubleheader.

BRUCE TUCKER: That 30th of September was my first time at Fenway, I was 18. I paid a dollar to an usher at the gate to get in. It was the end of the ‘67 season. Fenway was jammed with people. The “grown ups” in the stands. Guys wearing shirts and ties.

We had no seats. We just went from place to place, sat on the stairs until some usher would come over and tell us to get out of there, and then we’d sit on the stairs somewhere else until another usher told us to move. But we saw the game.

Senator Ted Kennedy, his father Joseph P. Kennedy, his brother New York Senator Robert Kennedy and Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey were at the game. Winning pitcher Jose Santiago gave Senator Kennedy the game ball.

JIM LONBORG: I was on the mound on October 1, the winning pitcher as we clinched the pennant. All of my teammates and thousands of Fenway fans seemed to run at me. It’s what you dream about in Little League. I was trying to get back into the dugout. Thank God for the Boston police – they were able to control the crowd.

The Red Sox beat the Twins, 5-3, but the “The Impossible Dream'' was still a dream until Detroit lost to California to finish half a game behind the Red Sox. Listening intently to the radio in their locker room, Boston players and officials reacted with glee as California nipped Detroit, 8-5. Inside Fenway Park loyal fans rejoiced.

BRUCE TUCKER: The Sox finished 20 games ahead of the 9th-place Yankees. Boston was going into the World Series. People started tearing apart the scoreboard, ripping the sod off of the field, just trashing the place.

The attendance at Fenway Park that “Impossible Dream” season jumped from 811, 172 in 1966 to 1, 727,832. Winning 20 more games than in ’1966, Boston was 49-32 at Fenway, 43-38 on the road.

BRUCE TUCKER: We went back for the World Series, all of us taking the day off from school, taking the bus into Boston, asking the usher to let us in.

One at a time, we gave him whatever we had in our pockets and he let us through the gate.

The Fall Classic match up was Boston versus St. Louis. Cardinals Ace Bob Gibson irritated Red Sox management, fans and players. Looking around Fenway Park prior to the series, the power pitcher asked: “Where's the upper deck? Where are all the seats?''

Gibby was disappointed that Detroit was not the competition. "Their bigger ballpark would have meant more fans, more money,” he said. “I don't know about you, but $1,500 is a lot of money to me.''

Game one, the fourth day of October, Lou Brock of the Cardinals collected four hits and Gibson fanned 10 Red Sox. Jose Santiago pitched a beauty for Boston and even homered. But St. Louis won, 2-1 scoring on two RBI ground balls from Roger Maris.

Two home runs by Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Lonborg’s masterful pitching (no-hit ball for 7 2/3 innings) and a one hit 5-0 gem evened the series for Boston. Sal Maglie, Boston pitching coach, said that Lonborg’s performance was “a better pitching effort than Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956” against him and the Dodgers.

The next three games, two of which were won by the Cardinals, were played at Busch Stadium. That set up games 6 and 7 at Fenway Park on October 11 and 12^th. The Sox won Game 6, 8-4. setting up the decisive seventh game.

Jim Lonborg, with a lot of mileage on him from a long season, started with two day’s rest. He was ineffective. Bob Gibson was most effective. Fanning ten, yielding but three hits, the Cardinal ace led his team to a 7-2 victory and the world championship.

(HARVEY FROMMER IS AT WORK ON A BOOK ON THE FIRST SUPER BOWL, 1967. ANYONE WITH CONTACTS, STORIES, SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH).

It is the time of the year when baseball is going down the home stretch, football is coming on the sporting scene with a vengeance and the subject matter of all other sports is still a part of the publishing mix. So here is a very interesting collection for your reading pleasure.

“Football Nation” by Susan Reyburn (Abrams, $30.00, 256 pages) is sub-titled “Four Hundred Years of America’s Game.” The sub-title is an exaggeration. For many, baseball is still the nation pastime. And the book is a gloss over in words and marvelous images from the Library of Congress of not exactly 400 year’s worth of football. Nevertheless, for football fans, for sports fans, for those interested in history and culture - this is the book for you even though its grasp is survey-like not in depth prose. RECOMMENDED

“Their Life’s Work” by Gary M. Pomerantz (Simon & Schuster, $28.00, 480 pages) is an opposite kind of book from “Football Nation.” In depth, scrupulously researched, carefully edited, the work focuses on the Steelers of the 1970s and updates the now. Pomerantz truly was into his subject, conducting as he says more than 200 interviews and traveling about to various research locales to flesh out his terrific tome. “Their Life’s Work” is wonderful reading and should be required reading for all those who are part of Steeler Nation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

“Rising Tide” by Randy Roberts & Ed Krzemski (Twelve, $28.00,437 pages) is a detail loaded and academically tilted tome focused on Joe Namath, northerner and Bear Bryant, southerner and how their relationship forged at the University of Alabama culminated in creating something special for football, race relations and the two men. It probes how college football became big business, how early sports and TV partnered, how civil rights was an agenda item of both politics and football. MUST READ

Is a reprint of the raunchy weirdos, wacky villains, flat out football geeks. It is also prime time NFL narrative 1970s style. It features Roger Staubach, Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw, Ken Stabler and other “names” from that time who front and center in helping the world of pro football stake its claim as the true national pastime. WORTH A READ

“Relentless” by Tim S. Grover (Scribner, $26.00, 256 pages) is sub-titled “From Good to Great to Unstoppable” and focuses on the work of a legendary trainer who has worked with such as Jordan, Wade, Bryant and enabled them, in the author’s words, to become even greater than they thought they could be. Very interesting reading with applicable tips for all.

“Going the Distance” by Michael Joyce (SUNY Press, $24.95, 236 pages, paper) is a novel about baseball and those who love the game. It celebrates the sport, the New York landscape. It also gives us a winning new fictional character – John “Jack” Flynn, pitcher filled with promise who must re-invent himself after an injury. Read on . . .

“The World in the Curl” by Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul (Crown, $26.00, 416 pages) is a fascinating and unconventional historical narrative of the history of surfing. We are there from the Polynesian settlement of Hawaii all the way through the present time’s industry of global surfing. The book reveals the ins and outs, the magic and mystery of a fascinating sub-culture. (rrokicki@randomhouse.com)

Baseball in October in New York seemed like it never come to an end. That is why this October of 1913 it seems strange that the New York Yankees and the New York Mets are finished with baseball, not able to make the play-offs. And the old cry of the old Brooklyn Dodger fan “Wait ‘til next year” seems appropriate.

Also appropriate for me is the re-issue of my New York City Baseball 1947– 1957. Published In 1980,my seventh book at the time, remains one of my favorites.

It was written on a heavy IBM typewriter and the interviews were conducted with a big box cassette tape recorder. I transcribed the interviews by hand, slowly, painstakingly, with great respect for the memories and insights of so many people who were kind enough to pause, to think, to evoke, to bring back the time.

It was a time when there were three teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants and the New York Yankees. Each team was distinct. Each team boasted a fabled history. Each one had loyal and highly knowledgeable fans rooting for them. Except for 1948, each of the years from 1947 to 1957, a baseball team, sometimes two, from New York City was playing in the World Series.

I interviewed owner Walter O’Malley in his box at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He seemed so much less villainous than he had been painted.

“If they had only given me the downtown Brooklyn location I wanted near the Long Island Railroad, I would have stayed,” he said. If only he could have known all these years later about the Brooklyn Nets playing in the billion dollar Barclay Center close by where he would built a new home for the Dodgers.

I interviewed Rachel Robinson, widow of Jackie Robinson. She was gracious, generous in giving of her time and memories as was personable Monte Irvin who had the talent to be “the first” black major leaguer but it was not to be and he explained why.

One of the great voices in this book (who later appeared in several other books I wrote ) is that of the irrepressible Irving Rudd, a real New York City character who for a time was the public relations chief of the Dodgers. He told the tale of famed General Douglas MacArthur coming to Ebbets Field, of Branch Rickey planning the breaking of the color line no matter the personal cost, of talented players and fanatical fans, of special promo events, providing an over-the top enrichment to this work and incredible historical documentation.

In New York City Baseball Mel Allen and Red Barber in their southern voices provide perspective, explaining the art and craft of baseball.

One more time we hear Mel Allen’s home run call: ""Going. . . Going. . . Gone!"

One more time we hear about the “Subway Series,” “Wait ‘til Next Year,” “Dat Day” and “the Shot Heard ‘Round the “World.”

How wondrous it was to have those announcers, how much greater they seem when compared to the bulk of stat obsessed, non-stop talking, blowing their own horn, pretenders to the throne of big league broadcasters.

Phil Rizzuto, Hank Bauer, Eddie Lopat and Jerry Coleman, who gave me the idea for the book, and others talk Yankees with pride and detail and even wonder.

I did not know it then but I was working as the oral historian I would become, disguised even to myself. And the great strength of New York City Baseball and many of the other books I have created rests on the oral history, the multitude of voices and memories I was able to reach and record.

The Duke, the Yankee Clipper, Oisk and Campy, Preacher, Westy, the Barber and Mandrake the Magician, Blacky and Whitey, Skoonj, Pee Wee and Newk, Yogi, Ellie, Old Reliable, the Peepul’s Cherce, the Old Redhead and Old Reliable and the Ole Perfessor, the Chairman of the Board, Scooter, the Mick, Ellie, Slick and Yogi, the Rifle, the Voice of the Yankees, Dem Bums ... are all in these pages – talking and talked about.

That is why it so rewarding for me that that this book of mine has another new life. It deals with a special time in the history of New York City. It was a time when you could walk down the street and the sound of baseball in spring, summer and fall was always on, always alluring, always special. It was a time when one could go to a butcher shop, a candy store, a laundromat, moving from one to another virtually without missing a pitch, the sound of New York City Baseball was always on.

So come let us re-live one more time the golden age of New York City Baseball, 1947-1957.

In the heady days after World War II, the nation was ready for excitement and heroes, and a city—New York—was eager for entertainment. Baseball provided the heroes, and the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers—with their rivalries, their successes, their stars—provided the show.

New York City Baseball recaptures the extraordinary decade of 1947–1957, when the three New York teams were the uncrowned kings of the city. In those ten years, Casey Stengel’s Bronx Bombers went to the World Series seven times; “Joltin’” Joe DiMaggio stepped gracefully aside to make room for a young slugger named Mickey Mantle; Bobby Thomson hit “the shot heard ’round the world”; and the Brooklyn Dodgers achieved the impossible by beating the Yankees in the 1955 World Series. Over the decade, the teams averaged an astounding 90 wins against 63 losses a season, making it, according to The New York Times, “a helluva ten years.”

Including a new introduction to the 2013 edition and rare interviews with Monte Irvin, Rachel Robinson (Jackie's widow), Mel Allen, Duke Snider, Eddie Lopat, Phil Rizzuto, and many more, this book is a must-have for those who want to experience baseball’s golden age.

The Real Jake: Colonel Jacob Ruppert: the Man Who Built the Yankee Empire- (Part I) By Harvey Frommer - Posted 7/31/13

This past Hall of Fame weekend that sadly saw the induction of three deceased baseball treasures was a true commentary on how steroids and other assorted fixations have poisoned the national pastime.

Those who voted saw fit to vote in this trio who lived long before the age of enhancement. One of the inductees was long overdue for admittance - Colonel Jacob Ruppert: the Man Who Built the Yankee Empire

"It was an orphan club," Ruppert said, "without a home of its own, without players of outstanding ability, without prestige." It was a team whose average annual attendance was 345,000, and dozen year record was a mediocre 861 wins and 937 defeats. But Jake Ruppert, the man they would later call "Master Builder in Baseball," would change all that.

On January 11, 1915, Jake Ruppert teamed with a real Colonel, Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, and purchased the Yankees of New York for $460,000 from the original owners - -professional gambler Frank Farrell and ex-police commissioner William S. Devery. Huston impressed everyone by peeling off 230 thousand dollar bills – his share of the purchase price.

Players and sportswriters referred to Huston as "Cap." There were others who called him "the Man in the Iron Hat" because of the derby hat, generally crumpled, that he wore. The hat matched his suits, always crumpled and rumpled.

A friend of Ruppert, “Cap” was a big bodied, self-made man who began his working career as a civil engineer in Cincinnati. A captain during the Spanish-American War, He made a fortune bringing the sewerage system and harbor of Cuba into the modern age.

The Farrell-Devery duo had milked and mismanaged the franchise for years. So owning the Yankees, who had a 12 year record of 861-937 and average attendance of 345,000 a season, would be a challenge for the new owners.

Ruppert and Huston, however, were up to the challenge. They had deep pockets and a great deal of business acumen and did they have connections. Huston was a successful entrepreneur engineer, a rich contractor. Ruppert always knew his way around a buck. Baseball beguiled both men; making money did, too.

All kinds of intrigue surrounded the purchase of the Yankees involving Tammany Hall wheeler dealers, other owners, and the American League President. All of them were very anxious to put in place new Yankee ownership and a successful franchise in New York City. To close the deal, American League owners and the League kicked in the rest of the half million dollars that Farrell and Devery insisted on before they would sell out.

"I never saw such a mixed up business in my life,” Ruppert complained right off the bat. “Contracts, liabilities, notes, obligations of all sorts. There were times when it looked so bad no man would want to put a penny into it. It is an orphan ball club without a home of its own, without players of outstanding ability, without prestige."

All of that would change. The “Prince of Beer” wanted to re-name the Yankees to “Knickerbockers” after his best-selling beer, but the marketing ploy failed. Besides, it was said, the name was too long for newspaper headlines. Years later it would be short enough for basketball’s New York Knickerbockers.

Ruppert pressed on. As a beer baron, he was hands on for every aspect of his business. That same behavior pattern existed for him with the Yankees. He had a personal and deep interest in each player. He knew them all and was always up to date on their capabilities, shortcomings, foibles and performances.

In his early ownership years Ruppert lost almost as much money as was paid to purchase the Yankees. But on the field there was some progress. The team finished fifth in 1915, fourth in 1916, their first time out of the second division since 1910.

The Yankee owner rarely hung out with "with the boys," Rud Rennie wrote in the New York Herald-Tribune. "For the most part, he was aloof and brusque.... He never used profanity. 'By gad' was his only expletive."
A fixture at his Stadium, which he insisted on keeping so fanatically clean that sometimes he even swept it himself, Ruppert, had a private box to which he invited the celebrities of the day. He was not an owner, though, who came to the park to be seen. His interest was in seeing his tea, excel.

The Colonel’s idea of a wonderful day at the ball park was any time the Yankees scored 11 runs in the first inning, and then slowly pulled away. The Colonel was fond of saying, “There is no charity in baseball, I want to win every year.”

“Close games make me nervous.” he said. “A great day is when the Yankees score a lot of runs early and then just pull away.”

He created the “Ruppert effect.” Those who worked for him at the brewery or on the ball club knew he was around and about and very interested in all that was going on.

Members of his team received first class treatment. For the Yankees this showed itself in the sleeping accommodations he arranged on trains. Most other teams had players, dependent on seniority, given berths, upper or lower. The players on the New York Yankees all slept in upper births.
The whole traveling operation generally took up two cars at the end of the train. And there was many a summer day, that the players only wearing underwear (Babe Ruth, it was said, favored the silk kind), lolled about, had extended conversations, played cards, enjoyed each other’s company and the food, rest and recreation that made them perform better on the playing field.
While the Yankees were high flying, Ruppert’s other business – his brewery was hurting. Prohibition cut his brewery's annual production of 1.25 million barrels of real beer to 350,000 barrels of half-percent near-beer that nobody wanted to drink. In effect, the brewery treated water; producing, bottling, and selling "near beer". Elected President of the United States Brewers Association in 1925. Ruppert led the battle to repeal Prohibition. Later, he was in the forefront in attempts to disassociate beer from saloons and promote its consumption in the home.

The Real Jake: Colonel Jacob Ruppert: the Man Who Built the Yankee Empire - (Part II) By Harvey Frommer

***Harvey Frommer is at work on REMEMBERING SUPER BOWL ONE: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY.
He welcomes hearing from anyone with memories, perceptions, leads, memorabilia for his newest book. ****

A-Rod suspended but still playing. The “House That Ruppert Built” demolished and the new Yankee Stadium built. What would Ruppert think? Who knows?

The old Colonel was a dreamer but also a doer, always making the moves. In a move that would change the course of Yankee and Red Sox history, indeed, baseball history, Jake Ruppert on January 3, 1920 purchased George Herman “Babe” Ruth, 25, from Boston. The deal was a very smart business move – the young Ruth had talent and would become one of the greatest drawing cards in baseball history. In his first season as a Yankee , he blasted 54 homers.
Ruth bragged “They’re coming out to see me in droves.” From 1920 to 1922, the Yankees with G.H. Ruth on board drew more three million fans into the Polo Grounds. Never had the New York Giants drawn a million fans in a season.

The Colonel was the only one to conduct salary negotiations with the “Sultan of Swat,” sometimes in the “Price of Beer’s” brewery office, sometimes in Florida when the Babe decided to hold out. George Herman Ruth was a valuable commodity and the Yankee owner treated him as such. The pair disagreed at times privately and publicly about contracts; nevertheless, Ruppert and Ruth were personal friends. Their relationship, though, could be described as love-hate.
Frugal to a fault, Colonel gave orders that the Yankee front office should always keep an eye out for any out of line Ruthian expenses. Thus, a $3.80 train ticket for Mrs. Ruth and a $30 "uniform deposit" were not honored for the greatest single gate attraction of all time.
Angered and annoyed at the gate success of Babe Ruth & Company, the Giants told the Yankees to look around for other baseball lodgings. The Yankees had been playing in the shadow of the Giants at the Polo Grounds since 1913, tenants of the National League team. It was a very unsatisfactory arrangement; now with the Yankees outdrawing the Giants in their in their own ballpark, it was an embarrassment.

The forward looking Ruppert and Hutson suggested the Polo Grounds be demolished and replaced by a 100,000 seat stadium to be used by both teams and for other sporting events. The Giants were not interested. So the search was on to create a new ballpark, not just a new ballpark but the greatest and grandest edifice of its time, one shaped along the lines of the Roman Coliseum. The Colonel dreamed big dreams and had the power and money to back them up.

“The Yankee Stadium,” as it was called at the start, was envisioned as a structure that exuded a feeling of permanence. That was absent in earlier ballparks, like Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago, and Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Unlike the builders of older ballparks, Ruppert didn’t have to fit his park to the lines of city streets. Girth and height were there for the taking.

Public opinion in New York City was against the Yankees building a stadium. The government and the public claimed that there was a very severe housing shortage. It was felt that solving that problem was more important than building a new baseball park. “The Jake” did not care. He had his mind made up. He would find a place to build on.

Many sites and schemes were considered. One idea was to build a stadium or amphitheater over the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks along the West Side near 32nd Street. But the War Department nixed the idea. The space was reserved for anti-aircraft gun emplacements. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, at Amsterdam Avenue and 137th Street, was a serious contender. A contract was actually drawn up, but the deal fell through. A lot in Long Island City in Queens was also given some consideration.
         Finally, a site was selected, a former lumberyard in the west Bronx, City Plot 2106, Lot 100, a ten acre mess of boulders and garbage. The cost for the land obtained from William Waldorf Astor's estate and located directly across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds, was $675,000, big money back then. One of the reasons the site was chosen by Ruppert was to irritate his former landlord. Another reason was that the IRT Jerome Avenue subway line snaked its way virtually atop the Stadium's right-field wall and provided ease of transportation for fans.
         Ruppert was criticized for his choice. The site was strewn with boulders and garbage. It was far from the center of New York City. Some dubbed the plan "Rupert's Folly," claiming that fans would never venture to a Bronx-based ballpark.
       "They are going up to Goatville," snapped John J. McGraw, manager of the Giants. "And before long they will be lost sight of. A New York team should be based on Manhattan Island."

Ruppert never publicly responded to McGraw's criticism. But he did ask all newspapers to provide the address of Yankee Stadium in all stories.

A millionaire many times over, Ruppert enjoyed giving orders and having them followed to the letter. Osborn Engineering Company of Cleveland, Ohio was charged with the design responsibilities. The White Construction Company of New York was given the construction job. The Colonel, a demanding taskmaster, insisted the ambitious project be completed "at a definite price" $2.5-million, be built in just 185 working days and be up and running by Opening Day 1923.

The Yankee owners dreamed the dream of a new ballpark, one along the lines of the Roman Coliseum. Some 500 men turned 45,000 barrels of cement into 35,000 cubic yards of concrete. Building bleachers out of 950,000 board feet of Pacific Coast fir that came to New York by boat through the Panama Canal, the concrete structure, with its massive triple-deck stands the first in baseball history, featured 60,000 seats, about the same as the Roman Coliseum had once boasted.

Some said the new baseball park should be named "Ruth Field" since it was built by and for Ruth - - by his booming bat and iconic appeal. But Ruppert resisted. He wanted to have it named for his best-selling “Ruppert beer,” but that idea was resisted. So he insisted it be known as "The Yankee Stadium." It would be the first ballpark to be referred to as a stadium.

On May 5, 1922, ground was broken for what would be the greatest and grandest edifice of its time, a structure shaped along the lines of the Roman Coliseum, Sixteen days later Ruppert would buy out Huston's share of the Yankees for $1,500,000. “Cap” Huston had supervised all aspects of the building of Yankee Stadium from the selection of materials to quality and quantity of concrete used. Those talents, some said, were the reason Ruppert paired with him to buy the Yankees and build a ballpark.

On April 18, 1923, a massive crowd showed up for the proudest moment in the history of the South Bronx. It was Red Sox versus Yankees. Boston owner Harry Frazee walked on the field side-by-side with Yankee mogul Jake Ruppert. The teams followed the march beat of the Seventh Regiment Band, directed by John Phillip Sousa, to the centerfield flagpole, where the 1922 pennant and the American flag were hoisted.

Many in the huge assemblage wore heavy sweaters, coats and hats. Some sported dinner jackets. The announced attendance was 74,217, later changed to 60,000. More than 25,000 were turned away. They would linger outside in the cold listening to the sounds of music and the roar of the crowd inside the stadium.

“The Real Jake” Colonel Ruppert’s End Game with the Yankees (Part III) - By Harvey Frommer (Posted 8/25/13)

In the tenth year of the Great Depression, Colonel Jacob Ruppert, was one of the few who prospered big time while the economy of the nation collapsed.

Part of that prospering came from his business acumen - -the good sense to buy New York City property at depression prices like the former Bank of United States Building, at Fifth and Forty-fourth in 1931, the Commerce Building, at Third and Forty-fourth, in 1932, a competing brewery in an area bounded by Second and Third Avenues, and Ninety-second and Ninety-fourth Streets, just east of his own.

By 1935, all his property holdings had more than doubled in value. As the decade of the 30s neared its end , his real estate holdings were valued at $30 million, his total estate at double that amount.

Strangely and sadly, the normally vigorous Colonel attended just two games at Yankee Stadium during the 1938 season. He followed his beloved Yankees from a sickbed, listening to games on the radio for the first time. So impressed was he by the medium’s fit with baseball that he arranged for all Bronx Bomber home games to be broadcast on radio. That was his final official act.

On Friday morning January 13, 1939, the master builder of the New York Yankees empire passed away at his home from complication from phlebitis. He was 71 years old.

Aside from close relatives and medical attendants, the last person to see Ruppert alive was Babe Ruth. At 7 P.M. on January 12th, the Colonel was in an oxygen tent where he had been for several hours. After removal from the tent the first thing he said, according to his nurse, was: "I want to see the Babe."
The dying man opened his eyes, reached out his hand to the “Big Bam.” He murmured only one word, "Babe."

Ruth said: "It was the only time in his life he ever called me Babe to my face."
On Monday January 16, 1939, the procession that resembled a state funeral started out from the Ruppert apartment on 93^rd Street in Manhattan. More than 4,000 jammed inside the historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral including brewers, public dignitaries, the bosses of the Tammany and Bronx Democratic machines, more than 500 Ruppert employees, fans and family.

Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Yankee manager Joe McCarthy, general manager Ed Barrow, farm system director George Weiss, members of the 1939 team including Tommy Henrich and Johnny Murphy, chief scout Paul Krichell, Boston Red Sox manager Joe Cronin and Chicago White Sox manager Jimmie Dykes, star players like Honus Wagner and Eddie Collins all were in attendance.

More than 10,000 people were outside the Cathedral. The service ran for about an hour. The family was represented by one brother, two sisters, two nephews, and four nieces. They sat in the front left pew. Dignitaries Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia, United States Senator Robert E Wagner, former New York State governor Al Smith sat in the front right pew.

Honorary pallbearers included Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Yankee manager Joe McCarthy, Ed Barrow, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yankee farm system director George M. Weiss, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Al Smith, President of the American League William Harridge, and congressman "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, former mayor of Boston.

After the ceremony a fifty car cortege headed to Kensico Cemetery in Westchester County where Colonel Jacob Ruppert’s burial was in the family mausoleum.

And one third of the estate was left to a former chorus girl Helen Winthrop Weyant, 37. Her name had never appeared in the press before. She lived on 55th Street in Manhattan with her mother. She was described in newspapers as a “ward,” as “formerly a chorus girl,” and by The Sporting News as "a former showgirl friend."

(HARVEY FROMMER IS AT WORK ON A BOOK ON THE FIRST SUPER BOWL, 1967. ANYONE WITH CONTACTS, STORIES, SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH).

“The Cracker Jack Collection Baseball’s Prized Players” and Other Sporting Reads

All types of sports books with all kinds of approaches are available for your mid-summer reading. Not all are all stars, but all have something for everyone going for them.

Leading off as an all star section is “The Cracker Jack Collection Baseball’s Prized Players” by Tom Zappala & Ellen Zappala with John Molori & Jim Davis (Peter E. Randall Publisher, $30.00, 177 pages). It is a lavish coffee table tome. From the fabulous art work through the vintage Cracker Jack baseball cards to the organization and lively essays - the book belongs on every baseball fan’s sports bookshelf. It will stay on mine. HIGHLY NOTABLE

From Dutton Publishers comes “Trading Bases” by Joe Peta ($27.95, 368 pages). The author was a Wall Street market maker and head trader for a long-short equity hedge fund. This book is an inside look at the almost $400 billion sports gambling industry. Funny, poignant, insightful, entertaining and educational, this is a work of baseball analysis and risk. WORTH READING

"18 in America" by Dylan Dethier (Scribner, $25.00, 258 pages) is all about the game of golf and the youthful author's drive across America and his playing a round of golf in every state side from Alaska and Hawaii.

"Growing Up Gronk" by Jeff Schober (HMH, $25.00, 201 pages) is as its sub-title proclaims about a family and its raising of champs. Three of the Gronks play in the NFL, another is an on the rise football player and another played pro football.

"Speak English" by Rafael Hermoso (Kent State University Press, paper $19.95, 187 pages) is a small book with a big topic and hefty price tag - -the rise of Latinos in baseball.

His many sports books include: Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball, New York City Baseball: 1947-1957, the New York Yankee Encyclopedia, and autobiographies of sports legends Nolan Ryan, Red Holzman and Tony Dorsett. The prolific Frommer is also the author of A Yankee Century, Red Sox vs Yankees: The Great Rivalry (with Frederic J. Frommer), and Five O'Clock Lightning: The 1927 Yankees. His REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM will be published in fall 2008 and his REMEMBERING FENWAY PARK is set for 2010 publication.

Along with his wife Myrna Katz Frommer, he also teaches in the MALS program at Dartmouth College the course Preserving the Past: Oral History in Theory and Practice. Harvey has also taught Sports Journalism in Theory and Practice at Dartmouth College.

The Frommers @ Dartmouth.edu - Myrna and Harvey are a wife and husband team who successfully bridge the worlds... more

Frommerluxurytravel-arts - They are travel writers who specialize in cultural history, dining, hotels and resorts, and Jewish history... More

As the days draw closer to a precious few for Yankee Stadium, herewith some oddities, factoids and singular information on the big ballpark in the Bronx that has been with us since 1923.

Ron Guidry was a good drummer and once kept a trap set at Yankee Stadium. He played in a post-game concert with the Beach Boys.

Outside the stadium is a 120-foot high baseball bat with Babe Ruth’s signature and the Louisville slugger logo. Its purpose is to cover a boiler vent.

A Letter to Don Larsen:
"Dear Mr. Larsen: It is a noteworthy event when anybody achieves perfection in anything. It has been so long since anyone pitched a perfect big league game that I have to go back to my generation of ballplayers to recall such a thing and that is truly a long time ago.
    "This note brings you my very sincere congratulations on a memorable feat, one that will inspire pitchers for a long time to come. With best wishes,
            Sincerely,
            Dwight D. Eisenhower
            President of the

United States

Chris Chambliss blasting a homer leading off the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS against Kansas City that gave the Yankees their first American League pennant in 12 years.

Reggie Jackson's three home runs against the Los Angeles Dodgers on three consecutive pitches in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series.

Babe Ruth never homered into the right field upper deck. The grandstand in right field ended at the foul pole and was not extended until 1937 three years after the Sultan of Swat was no longer a member of the Yankees.

The outfield wall at Yankee actually was always of uniform height. It was the ground beneath it that sloped. At the original Stadium, there was a sharp pitch to the outfield grass uphill to the fence , just three feet high.

First World Series home run at Yankee Stadium, Casey Stengel of the New York Giants hit an inside-the-park shot in Game 1 of the 1923 World Series.

First player to have his number retired, Lou Gehrig, #4, on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939.

First World Series pinch-hit home run, Yogi Berra against the Brooklyn Dodgers, Game 3 of the 1947 World Series.

First rookie to get two hits in one inning, Billy Martin, in a nine-run, eighth-inning rally at Fenway Park, April 18, 1950.

First Yankees game behind the microphone for Bob Sheppard, April 17, 1951, New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox.

First home game outside of Yankee Stadium since 1922, April 6, 1974, as the Yanks begin playing the first of two seasons at Shea Stadium.

First home run at refurbished Yankee Stadium, Dan Ford of Minnesota, April 15, 1976.

First Yankee winning pitcher at refurbished Yankee Stadium, Dick Tidrow, April 15, 1976.

First home run by a Yankee at refurbished stadium, Thurman Munson, April 17, 1976.

First championship series game at Yankee Stadium, October 12, 1976, a 5-3 win over Kansas City.

First night World Series game at Yankee Stadium, October 19, 1976, a 6-2 loss to Cincinnati.

REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT

Joe DiMaggio, only player to get at least one hit in All-Star Games at Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field.

1 ½ - Uniform number worn by opera star Robert Merrill, the man who for many years sang the national anthem at Yankee Stadium.

All three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history were seen by Joe Torre: Larsen's beauty as a 16-year-old fan, and the gems spun by David Wells and David Cone from the dugout as Yankee manager.

Don Zimmer was Torre's bench coach for the last two and he played in the first one as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956. The Yankees have the most perfect games pitched by one club, all at Yankee Stadium.

Lou Gehrig's number, retired on July 4, 1939, the first athlete in any sport. He is the only Yankee to have worn number 4.

Mickey Mantle reached the copper facade that hung from the old stadium's roof five times.

On June 6, 1934 - Yankee outfielder Myril Hoag tied an American League record with six singles in six at-bats at the Stadium.

The number of Yankee starters: Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Red Rolfe, Red Ruffing, and George Selkirk in the 1939 All-Star game at Yankee Stadium.

Mickey Mantle's rookie uniform number, changed by equipment manager Pete Sheehy to #7 after Mantle was recalled from Kansas City.

The only number to be retired twice by the same team is Number 8 of the Yankees. It was retired in 1972 for Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra, both catchers. Berra took number 8 in 1948 after Dickey retired but before he was a coach.

The Yanks used a record 10 pinch hitters on September 6, 1954 in a doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox. They won the opener 6-5, and the BO Sox took the second game, 8-7.

Mickey Mantle homered from both sides of the plate in the same game for a record 10th and final time on August 12, 1964. OR 1965

Home plate was moved 13 feet forward in 1924, to eliminate the "bloody angle" in the right field corner

Yogi Berra stayed away from Yankee Stadium for 14 years, unhappy with the treatment he had received from George Steinbrenner.

July 18, 1999 -- David Cone’s perfect game against the Montreal Expos was the 15th regular season perfect game.

Thurman Munson's Number 15 jersey and catching gear remains in his locker as it was the day he was killed in a 1979 airplane crash. His uniform number 15 is retired.

Whitey Ford's Number retired 1974. The slick southpaw wore number 19 in his rookie season. Returning from the army in 1953, he wore number 16 for the rest of his career.

Dallas Green becomes George Steinbrenner's 16th manager to be fired on August 16, 1989.

Joe DiMaggio's original uniform, number given to him by equipment manager Pete Sheehy and later changed to 5 for historical significance reasons, Ruth wore number 3 and Gehrig 4.

Paul O'Neill's number 21. Since O'Neill retired after the 2001 World Series, no Yankee has worn that number.

Uniform number selected by Jason Giambi upon his signing with New York. The significance: the digits add up to 7, the number worn by Giambi's dad's idol, Mickey Mantle.

Thirty World Series have been played at Yankee Stadium, with the Yankees winning 26.

Of the 60 record-setting home runs hit by Babe Ruth in 1927, 28 of them are hit at Yankee Stadium.

Of the 37 players who performed for the 1949 Yankees, only Yogi Berra still played for them in 1960.

Mariano Rivera, last player to wear No. 42, which has been retired from Major League Baseball in honor of Jackie Robinson.

On June 1, 1999 at Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter had reached base in all 50 Yankee games.

Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak included 56 singles and runs scored. It covered 53 day games 3 night games, 29 at Yankee Stadium, 27 road games.

Number of pitches David Cone tossed in perfect game, July 19, 1999 - 68 strikes and 20 balls.

The Yankees and the Orioles played to a 1-1 tie in 15 innings, the 89th tie in franchise history. It was Cal Ripken's last game at Yankee Stadium.

Don Larsen used this number of pitches to hurl his perfect game against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium in the 1956 World Series.

Babe Ruth on September 24, 1920 hits his 100th home run off Washington's Jim Shaw.

The number of games that Cal Ripken played at Yankee Stadium - more than any other opposing player (June 18, 1982 - September 30, 2001).

Roger Clemens becomes the 21st pitcher in Major League history to win his 300th game, June 13, 2003. He is first Yankee to win it in front of the home fans.

For the first time since 1903, two teams played two games in different stadiums on the same day, July 8, 2000. Game One was at Shea Stadium and the second game was at Yankee Stadium.

The number of backless seats spread over 27 rows behind the right-field fence in the bleachers.

The reward promised to the one who caught the 61st home run ball of Roger Maris.

The amount Don Larsen received for being on Bob Hope's TV show after he pitched his perfect game in 1956.

After Allie Reynolds pitched his second no-hitter for the Yankees in 1951, the Hotel Edison where he along with some teammates lived changed his room number from 2019 to 0002.

Letters that Mickey Mantle never answered were not bid on in the old Yankee Stadium fire sale in 1974.

Number of people in attendance at Yankee Stadium in 1956 when Don Larsen pitched the Perfect Game

The uniform Lou Gehrig wore during his Farewell speech in 1939 sold for this amount in 1999.

REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT (The Definitive Book, September 2008)

Yankees Versus Red Sox makes for always interesting reading. In the interests of full disclosure that was the subject of what many call the definitive book on the subject "RED SOX VS YANKEES: THE GREAT RIVALRY written by yours truly and his son Frederic Frommer.

So it was with great interest that I read "The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox and the Playoff of '78'" by Richard Bradley (Simon and Schuster, $25.00, 286 pages).

Even though the book is focused on one aspect of the "Rivalry," it does not disappoint. It is in fact riveting reading. Bradley interviewed so many to create this montage of wonderful memories. Even some of those who were actually on the field that fateful October 2, 1978,a warm day at Fenway when "Bucky hit the tin" are here telling the old stories with vivid recall: Bucky Dent, Fred Lynn, Lou Piniella, Goose Gossage, Carl Yastrzemski, et al.

"It's going to be Yaz, Goose Gossage thought. In the bottom on the ninth, it's going to be me against Yaz," that is how "The Greatest Game: The Yankees, the Red Sox and the Playoff of '78'" begins and it never lets up.

Still in a Yankee vein is "Rumor in Town" by Matt Dahlgren (Woodlyn Lane, California, $24.95, 300 pages). It is a grandson's paean and homage and keeping of a promise to his grandfather – former pinstriper Babe Dahlgren. Matt Dahlgren completed the book his grandfather who passed away in 1996 was working on. Rich in anecdote, filled with perceptions of players and long ago days of the national pastime, "Rumor in Town" is a winner.

"FAR FROM HOME" by Tim Wendell and Jose Luis Villegas (National Geographic, $28.00, 159 pages) is all about as its sub-title proclaims "Latino Baseball Players Chasing the American Dream." Fusing excellent narrative, interviews with top name former players like Orlando Cepeda, Minnie Minoso, Luis Tiant, Sammy Sosa and 100 full color and black and white photos – the book begins in 1878 when Cuba was the host to the first league in Caribbean.

In the same vein from the University of Illinois comes "Viva Baseball" by Samuel O. Regaldo (paper) all about Latin major leaguers and their special hunger in the words of the sub-title. The book does not shy away from controversy, from racism directed against Latino players even today.

For those into the history of the national pastime expounded by an expert "Baseball: A History of America's Game" third edition by Benjamin G. Rader (University of Illinois Press, paper) is the book for you.

"The Smart Girl's Guide to Sports" by Liz Hartman Musiker (Plume, $15.00, 332 pages) is as its sub-title cleverly declares "an essential handbook for women who don't know a slam dunk from a grand slam." Recommended.

MOST NOTABLE: "Netherland" by Joseph O' Neill (Pantheon, $23.95, 256 pages) is not exactly a sports book but a brilliant and lyrical and inventive novel set against the backdrop of post 9/11 New York City and the game of cricket. It is a joy to read and just a perfect treat for hazy and humid summer days evoking a time and a place so expertly.

WORTH OWNING: The 2008 Hank Greenberg 75th Anniversary Edition of Jewish Major Leaguers Baseball Cards. Contact info: JML,104 Greenlawn Avenue Newton, MA 02459, 617-969-6244, Martin_Abramowitz@yahoo.com

Harvey Frommer, now in his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books, is the author of 39 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Red Sox Vs Yankee: The Great Rivalry." Frommer's REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) an oral/narrative history will be published in September as well as a reprint version of his SHOELESS JOE AND RAGTIME BASEBALL.

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

"BOOK TOUR" for REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (as of July 11) *****************************************************************************

September 3 Wednesday/talk/signing 7:30 PM Barnes & Noble, 396 Ave. Americas NY (8th St.) (212) 674-8780

September 5th, 7pm Friday Book Revue 313 New York Avenue Huntington, NY 11743 Ph. 631-271-1442

Sept. 20, 2008 / 7 p.m. Northshire Bookstore 4869 Main Street Manchester Center, VT 05255 802-362-3565

September 26 afternoon Fall for the Book Festival George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030 Phone: (703) 993-3986 FftB@gmu.edu www.fallforthebook.org

October 11th. Dartmouth Bookstore, Hanover, NH (afternoon) bksdartmouth@bncollege.com

November 1 Saturday 11:30 AM Books & Greetings 271 Livingston St., Northvale,NJ 201-784-2665

BABE RUTH, LOU GEHRIG AND THE 1927 NEW YORK YANKEES, THE GREATEST BASEBALL TEAM EVER.

Comfortable among the high and mighty or the ordinary, friendly with the press, moving around all over without body guards, Babe Ruth basked in his superstar status in spring training. Getting a close shave in the downtown barber shop, telling a few jokes each morning, visiting hospitals and cheering up the sick especially children, patiently signing autographs at the dog track, posing for photos, followed by fans on the St. Petersburg streets, wending his way from bar to bar, boating and fishing for migrating king mackerel or chasing grouper in the Gulf of Mexico, prevailing upon a hotel cook to prepare the fish for supper, the Babe was having the time of his life. A Yankee bridge game began in spring training. And the Babe plunged himself into that, too. The extroverted Ruth and the shy Gehrig were pitted against Mike Gazella and Don Miller, a young hurler from the University of Michigan.

The Yankees were quartered at the Beaux Arts style Princess Martha Hotel, built in 1923. Babe Ruth was supposed to be registered there, too. But no one really saw much of him. The word was that he had meals in his rooms, leaving when he wanted to from a side door in the hotel.

Rising early before baseball practice, he would play golf at the two-year-old Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in downtown St. Petersburg. Catcher Benny Bengough, pitchers Waite Hoyt and Bob Shawkey were also good golfers and would play there, too. Ruth could drive the ball further than many pros and had scores in the mid-70s. However, the short game was not his forte. A lousy putter, the Babe would disgustedly toss his club when he hit the ball too hard causing it to roll past the cup.

Much was made of the time a man came around that spring of 1927 and said he was the uncle of Johnny Sylvester. He made a big deal about telling all about how well Johnny Sylvester was doing. The Bam graciously made a big deal out of sending regards.

But moments after the uncle departed, Ruth bellowed: "Who the hell is Johnny Sylvester?"

Johnny Sylvester had been the subject of much newspaper attention. He was a sick kid who the Yankee slugger had promised to hit a home run for during the 1926 World Series.

Babe Ruth just could not remember names, not even the names of teammates. Most people were called “kid,” by the Babe. Others had variations like “sister” for young women and “mom” and “pop” for those with seniority.

Others got nick-names, some logical, others totally illogical. The Babe called Waite Hoyt “Walter” and no one could explain why. Pitcher Urban Shocker was dubbed “Rubber Belly” and no one not even the Babe could explain why. Those who did claimed it had something to do with the flabbiness of Shocker’s mid section, but they wouldn’t swear to it. Catcher Benny Bengough, who coined the name “Jidge” (German for “George” ) for Ruth, was called “Googles," a kind of affectionate corruption of part of his surname. Catcher Pat Collins was “Horse Nose,” a derogatory reference to his most prominent facial feature. Railroad station redcaps were “Stinkweed.”

Beer baron Jake Ruppert could remember names but never addressed anyone by a first name. The Yankee owner was characterized in Ed Barrow's memoirs as an "imperious" man, one who "in all the years I knew him, always calling me ‘Barrows,’ adding an 's' where none belonged.

Ruppert “was a fastidious dresser," Barrow remembered, "who had his shoes made to order, changed his clothes several times a day, and had a valet."

Arriving in style with his secretary Al Brennan for spring training in St. Petersburg in his own private railroad car, it was said that the honorary Colonel savored the comforts of his own drawing room and sleeping in a silk brocade nightshirt. Ruppert was particularly interested in and impressed with the man he had sunk all that money into.

“Ruth looks great,” he announced. “Watch that boy. In fact, he may set another home run record. The team as a whole is in fine shape, shows real fighting spirit and looks like a winner, although I admit I'm not much of a prophet."

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 39 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT (Abrams/ Stewart, Tabori and Chang) will be published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of two million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Remembering Bobby Murcer

Bobby Murcer became a Yankee just after the glory times of the franchise, 1949-64, and I followed his baseball exploits along with millions of others. There was always a pleasing presence about the man.

It was a stunner when he was traded on October 21, 1974 to the San Francisco Giants for Bobby Bonds, Barry’s dad. That was where I entered the story.

The summer of 1975 I was traveling about with the Philadelphia Phillies (The Mets had informed the League Office that they could not host me) writing my first book - A Baseball Century: the First Hundred Years of the National league.

It was a very interesting experience going from city to city and interviewing players, managers, coaches, owners. I used a big boom box tape recorder and an even bigger briefcase to store my tapes, credentials, media guide and notes. I truly was a “beginning author.”

I arrived at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and interviewed the long-time owner of the Giants Horace Stoneham and his long-time publicist Garry Schumacher and other Giants.

Then I came upon Bobby Murcer. He was not a part of the National League story, not a part of the subject matter of the book I was writing and was so honed in on.

But I decided to talk to him anyway and get some of his thoughts. Affable, smiling, a bit out of uniform in the garb of the Giants, Murcer was a pleasure to be with.

I thanked him for his time and continued on in my relentless pace interviewing in the locker room and on the field. I must have stopped for a snack or something and came back to where I thought I had put my tape recorder and tapes.

They were not around. Weeks of work not around. I started to panic. I asked everyone no one had seen them. I re-traced my interview steps no luck.
I was out on the windy Candlestick Park field and spied Bobby Murcer and explained my plight. He said something about never letting things important to you out of your sight. He suggested we go back into the dressing room to look.

He reached up and into his locker. “Here they are,” he smiled “Someone must have put them there,” he continued in that distinctive Oklahoma drawl. “Let me autograph a baseball for you to make your day a little better.”

I always suspected that Bobby Murcer was the “someone.” He was always the practical joker. I’ll never forgot that day and that moment of panic and the lesson Bobby Murcer taught me.

=================================================================

Harvey Frommer, now in his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books, is the author of 39 of them including the classics: “New York City Baseball,1947-1957″ and “Red Sox Vs Yankee: The Great Rivalry.” Frommer’s REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) an oral/narrative history will be published in September as well as a reprint version of his SHOELESS JOE AND RAGTIME BASEBALL.
Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in the millions and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Remembering Yankee Stadium: EIGHTIES

(For your reading pleasure adapted from REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, on sale everywhere, buy it now)

The 1981 World Series was Yankees versus Dodgers, the third match-up between the two storied franchises in five years. A 9-2 win at Yankee Stadium in Game Six gave the world championship to Los Angeles.

KEITH JACKSON (GAME CALL, ABC-TV):
Watson hits it high in the air for the center fielder Ken Landreaux, this should do it...and the Dodgers are the 1981 champions of baseball.

PRESS RELEASE (BOX)
I want to sincerely apologize to the people of New York and to the fans of the New York Yankees everywhere for the performance of the Yankee team in the World Series. I also want to assure you that we will be at work immediately to prepare for 1982. –George Steinbrenner

FRED CLAIRE: Steinbrenner’s apology came in the form of a release which he passed out after we won the series. I though it was strange. The Yankees had given all they could to win. There was really no need to apologize for an all out effort by your team.

“The Boss” did much more than apologize. He kicked ass and rolled heads. He demeaned Dave Winfield, who had managed but one hit in 21 at-bats in the Series. Having signed him to a huge contract, Steinbrenner was furious at "Winny," dubbing him “Mr. May,” a sarcastic reference to Winfield’s peak performance in May and poor performance in the Fall Classic.
On January 22, 1982, Reggie Jackson irritated by Steinbrenner putdowns, signed as a Free Agent with the California Angels.

The commencement of the 1982 season at the Stadium was a hard time coming and as far as Yankee fans were concerned – largely not worth waiting for. Bob Lemon, who had managed the final 25 games in 1981 last only through 14 games in 1982.

On April 6th, almost a foot of snow cancelled Opening Day against Texas and the next game, too. It was April 11th before the ballpark was finally in shape for playing baseball. In recognition of how hard the grounds crew worked to make the field ready, crew chief Jimmy Esposito was given the honor of throwing out the first ball. The Yankees lost both games of an Easter Sunday doubleheader to Chicago. But at least their season was finally underway.
The roster had what Yogi Berra would call “deep depth” with a pitching staff featuring splendid southpaws Ron Guidry, Tommy John, and Dave Righetti. Goose Gossage was a flame-throwing stopper. Still, even with all that talent, the Yankees could not get it going. In June, they were 9 1 /2 games out.

On August 3rd, the White Sox took two from the Yankees at the Stadium and “the Boss” fired Gene Michael, who had replaced Bob Lemon, replacing him with Clyde King.
All season long Steinbrenner kept his circus jumping, seeking quick fixes. Beyond a trio of managers, he went through a merry-go-round of three hitting coaches, five pitching coaches, and 47 players. The chaos and the musical chairs did not make for an environment that suited a winning ball club.

The 1982 Yankees were not a winning club. They ended the season in fifth place, 16 games behind Milwaukee. They would not return to post-season play for the next 13 years. From that season until 1991, with George Steinbrenner having his say and having his way, the Stadium would become a mix and match of players and pilots. Highlighting the mayhem of the era were eleven managerial changes including the hiring and firing of Billy Martin six times. “They know what the bottom line is,” Steinbrenner said. . . .

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published September 1, 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.". Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed. FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Harvey Frommer "Dartmouth's own Mr. Baseball" Dartmouth Alumni Magazine//

REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (Definitive Book)
hear and see http://www.hnabooks.com/images/sites/9/redirects/yankees/

Harvey Frommer on Sports

*Remembering Yankee Stadium: NINETIES
(For your reading pleasure adapted from REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND
NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, on sale everywhere, buy it now)

Back when he assumed principal ownership of the New York Yankees on January 3, 1973, Steinbrenner had said, "We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned. I won't be active in the day-to-day operations of the club at all. I've got enough headaches with my shipping company.”

          As things turned out, however, he was anything but hands off. That is, until July 30, 1990, when he was forced to surrender control of the Yankees. He was banned from baseball for life by Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent for alleged payments he made to a gambler in New York City seeking to gain damaging info on outfielder Dave Winfield.

          When the news of the banning reached the fans that day in Yankee Stadium, they chanted: “No more George.”  They had had enough of “the Boss” for a while.

Denied access to his spacious office at Yankee Stadium where a favorite pillow proclaimed: “Give me a bastard with talent,” Steinbrenner in exile was “the Big Guy in the Sky,” the man who wasn’t there but who really was watching things play out through the 1990 season.

          His presence or absence seemed to make little difference to the 1990 team whose season was largely a disaster. There were some high points like the time during an August 2nd game when rookie first baseman Kevin Maas hammered his 10^th home run in just 77 at bats, the fastest  any player reached that mark. The Stadium’s short right-field porch seemed tailor-made for the southpaw swinger, and Maas finished 1990 with 21 home runs in only 254 at-bats. But he was the exception for that squad rather than the rule - -the team finished dead last in batting average, a pathetic .241.

The 1990 Yankees had but one starting pitcher who won more than seven games, nine-game winner Tim Leary. But he also lost 19 before Stump Merrill showed some pity and took him out of the rotation. When the season mercifully came to a close, the Yanks wound up 21 games behind Boston in the AL East, the first time during Steinbrenner’s time that his team finished in last place. One had to go back to 1913 to find a Yankee team with a lower winning percentage. Only the Yankees of 1908 and 1912 lost more games. Ironically, the Stadium box office registers just kept on ringing. The Bombers drew a healthy 2,006,436 to the big park in the Bronx.

A survivor, “Stump” Merrill lasted through 1991 as field boss of the Yankees. Among the dubious and memorable moments of the season was the 479 foot homer Seattle's Jay Buhner hammered over the left-field bullpen, the shelling of Oakland outfielder Jose Canseco by Yankee fans who pelted him with assorted objects like an inflatable doll‚ a cabbage head, and a transistor radio among other objects, and the honoring of Joe DiMaggio on the 50^th anniversary of his 56 game hitting streak.

RICH MARAZZI: During the pre game introductions players were brought out to the first and third base lines, and I, as one of the four umpires working the Old Timers’ game, was called out to the home plate area. I remained there through the introductions. When the national anthem ended, I walked over to DiMaggio.

“Joe, thanks for the memories,” I said.

Whenever DiMaggio saw me with a press tag around my neck, he was tentative. But whenever he saw me in my umpire’s uniform, he would put his hand out to me, like we were old buddies. And that's what he did this day.

I met my childhood heroes - Ned Garver, Mickey Mantle, Mike Garcia -- the former top pitcher. I always wanted to meet Mike. I found him in a locker stall, giving himself dialysis treatment. He was half the size he was when he pitched. I had a nice interview with him.

I umpired second base most of the time but did get to umpire the plate three times. I made sure my son would warm me up during the week so my arm would not turn on me when I had to throw the ball back to the pitcher.

The 1991 Yankees finished with a 71-91 record, 20 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays, in fifth place. The team results were less pathetic than the ’90 season, but still underwhelming. Attendance at the Stadium dropped to 1,863,733, placing the Yankees 11^th out of 14 American League teams. Average attendance per game was just 23,009.

By 1992, Stump Merrill was gone, replaced by 36-year-old Buck Showalter. He had progressed from “Eye in the Sky” to third base coach to hitting coach to manager. The losing ways continued for the fourth season in a row. Ten games below .500, the Yanks finished 20 games behind first place Toronto in the AL East, but there was some incremental progress - for the first time since 1987, they finished (tied) in fourth place. . . .

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published September 1, 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".
Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.
FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Harvey Frommer "Dartmouth's own Mr. Baseball" Dartmouth Alumni Magazine/ HARVEYFROMMERSPORTS.COM

REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM (Definitive Book) "New & Notable" Amazon.com http://www.hnabooks.com/images/sites/9/redirects/yankees/

"Outstanding performance" ROGER KAHN/"Spectacular "FOX SPORTS.COM/"Essential keepsake "TIMEOUT NY/ "Stunning oral history "NY ONE/"A must. Grand slammer."ESPN/ "Frommer delivers."NY DAILY NEWS/"One of the finest."BRONX BANTER/"Glorious oral history."WFAN/"Best one. Great book "XM RADIO/"Absolute classic "CBS RADIO/ "Beats any Yankee Book hands down "BEHIND.BOMBERS.COM/"Brilliantly, beautifully documents."BLOGRADIO "Dead solid perfect"/"Amazing details "SPORTSOLOGY/"Mother of all look backs."TBS SPORTS/"Marvelous "NJ JEWISHNEWS/"Definitive "ST.PAUL PIONEER PRESS/"Masterpiece."BOY OF SUMMER/"Must Have "PINSTRIPE PRESS/ "Rewarding, grounded prose "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED "Photopanorama "HISTORYWIRE.COM/"Most excellent."EYE ON SPORTSMEDIA/"Spectacular "MSN/

Harvey Frommer on Sports

Remembering Yankee Stadium: THIRTIES

(For your reading pleasure adapted from REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, on sale everywhere, buy it now)

The tradition of honoring their legends at Yankee Stadium started on Memorial Day of 1932 when a monument for Miller Huggins, the little manager who had passed away at age of 51 on September 25, 1929, was placed in deep center field, Its inscription reads "A splendid character who made priceless contributions to baseball.” Monuments would later be erected for Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Others would follow.

Located in straightaway centerfield, they were part of the playing field, standing near the flagpole about ten feet before the wall. There were times when long drives rolled behind the monuments, and retrieving the ball became an odd and “ghoulish” task for an outfielder jockeying around the “gravestones.”

On June 23, 1932 Gehrig had played in his 1,103rd straight game. Less than a year later the streak was at 1,249 straight when he and manager Joe McCarthy were tossed out of out of the game for arguing with the umpire. The Yankee manager was given a three game suspension. Gehrig played on. On August 17, 1933 Gehrig broke the record of playing in 1,308 straight games set by Everett Scott.

October 1, 1933 was the final game of the season. Attempting to draw fans for a meaningless contest in the depths of the Great Depression, the Yankees gave Ruth a pitching start. Babe’s appearance attracted 20,000 fans, more than doubling the attendance of the day before. The thirty-eight-year-old pitched a complete game, nipping his old Boston team, 6-5. He also batted cleanup, went 1-for-3 with a home run. It was the last game he pitched, his fifth since he joined the Yankees 13 years earlier.

During the 1934 season, Lou Gehrig’s failing health became evident to all. The problem was diagnosed as lumbago. On July 13, 1934, his pain became so severe in the first inning of a game against Detroit, he had to be assisted off the field. The next day, listed first in the Yankee batting order and penciled in to play shortstop, the "Iron Horse" singled in his first at bat but was then replaced by a pinch runner.

September 24, 1934 was the Babe’s last game as a player in “the “House That Ruth Built,“ a sad and poignant day for him and his many fans. Twenty-four thousand were there, including many youngsters in “Ruthville.” In three at bats, he went hitless. Disappointed and dejected that his fabulous career in pinstripes was over, he could never imagine how his name and legend would gain more and more luster as the years passed. Today a Google search for "Babe Ruth" results in millions of hits. A Sotheby's auction of his 1919 contract netted $996,000. . . .

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published in September 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Harvey Frommer on Sports

Remembering Yankee Stadium:

TWENTIES

(For your reading pleasure adapted from REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, on sale everywhere, buy it now)

BOB SHEPPARD: I went a bit in my early teens to Yankee Stadium with a group of fellows from my neighborhood in Queens. And believe it or not the one player who played first base for the St. Louis Browns caught my eye – his name was George Sisler. Left-handed, graceful and a phenomenal hitter. And since I was a first baseman myself, I thought 'That’s my idol: George Sisler.'

The man who would become the idol of Japanese baseball fans, Babe Ruth gave some of their navy officers a thrill in the spring of 1927. Their ships were docked in New York harbor and some of the officers were invited up to the Bronx as guests of the Yankees. Babe Ruth popped two homers, one a bases-loaded job. The officers were much taken with the huge slugger; they had never seen anyone before hit a baseball the way the Babe did.

Seven years later when in 1934, the Sultan of Swat tooled about in Japan, he was a super hero. Some called him “Father of Japanese baseball." Others called him “Baby Roos!” And it all started at Yankee Stadium.

It all started for Bill Werber at Yankee Stadium, too.

BILL WERBER: The great Yankee scout Paul Krichell gave me a good deal to become a member of the Yankees after my freshman year at Duke in 1927. I had a uniform and a locker by myself. I stayed downtown at the Colonial Hotel with a coach by the name of O'Leary. I took the train uptown and got off across from the Stadium at the 161st Street stop. It was maybe a half an hour ride.

Yankee Stadium was enormous. It was immaculate. I was somewhat awed. I was told by Paul Krichell to stay as close to the manager Miller Huggins as I could. Sometimes I was very close . He was really hands on. He didn’t miss a trick.

The clubhouse didn't have any food, and there wasn't anything to drink other than water. The secretary Mark Roth used to come in and place an envelope on the seat in front of every player's locker. One of the players would usually get Ruth's envelope, slit it open, and paste the check which was for about $7500 on the mirror where the fellows combed their hair. The Babe was usually the last player to arrive for a game, and he would take the check off the mirror and put it in his pocket and take it out onto the field with him.

I was a stranger in their territory. They were rough, a hard-nosed, tobacco-chewing crew. If I got in at shortstop to field a ball in batting practice they would run me out. Some player would say: "Get out of here kid." When I would go to the outfield, some player would yell: "Get out of here kid." And I never had a chance to get into the batting cage.

The whole experience in 1927 was not that much of a thrill for me. After I was there for about a month, I told Mr. Barrow, the general manager, that I had made a bad decision and I was leaving the Yankees. One that I felt bad about leaving was Pete Sheehy; he was a good fellow, not much older than me, maybe younger.

RON SWOBODA: Pete Sheehy had started in the clubhouse as a boy working with the 1927 Yankees. He told me how Babe Ruth would come in and say: “Petey, give me a bi (bicarbonate of soda)."

A Yankee culture created by manager Miller Huggins was always in place. The little pilot was like a school teacher, training each member of the team. Players had to report for games at 10:00 at the Stadium - - to sign in, not to practice, a move designed to reduce late night ribaldry. Blackslapping was frowned upon as were flamboyant displays, noisemaking, razzing of opponents.

The 1927 Yankees were a symbol of their time – power and dash. But a rival to their throne was Charles Lindbergh, the daring aviator who had flown solo round-trip across the Atlantic.

On June 16^th he was scheduled to be an honored guest at Yankee Stadium. Three field boxes were painted and primed for him and other dignitaries. Extra police patrolled the aisles all over the park. But game time approached, and there was no “Lucky Lindy.”

Fifteen thousand fans who'd come to see the game with St. Louis were antsy. Umpire George Hildebrand held up the first pitch for almost a half hour. Finally, at 3:55 P.M., he decided he could and would wait no more and yelled out: “Play ball!”

"I feel a homer coming on,” Babe Ruth said. “My left ear itches. That’s a sure sign. I had been saving that homer for Lindbergh and then he doesn't show up. I guess he thinks this is a twilight league."

First at bat of the game, the Babe hit his 22^nd homer, half way up in the bleachers in left centerfield. It came off 31-year-old southpaw Tom Zachary. The Bambino would hit a much more significant shot late in the season off that same Zachary.

The Yankees romped, 8-1, over the sad sack Browns

The next day’s headlines in The Times declared :

“LINDBERGH GOT TO PARIS ON TIME BUT WAS MORE THAN AN HOUR LATE TO SEE BABE RUTH HIT A HOME RUN YESTERDAY” ….

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published in September as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Harvey Frommer on Sports
Remembering Yankee Stadium: 90's
(For your reading pleasure adapted from REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM: AN ORAL AND
NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT, on sale everywhere, buy it now)

The greatest baseball team of the 20th century began the 21st century and their 77th season at Yankee Stadium with a tip of the cap to tradition and to history.

BOB SHEPPARD: The Yankees called me to give me the news that they were going to hold a “Bob Sheppard Day.” And frankly I was speechless. That rare honor, started in 1932, had been reserved for Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra and a select few others, not for the public address announcer.

The day arrived: May 7, 2000. The Stadium was packed. My family, including my wife Mary, was there. I delivered the lineups from out of doors for the first time since September 30, 1973.

That I should have a plaque out in Monument Park in centerfield . . . It was an incredible, memorable moment in my life.

I know every name and uniform number and work diligently to pronounce each name correctly. My favorite name to pronounce? Mickey Mantle. For many reasons. It is a great name for a baseball player and for a speech professor to say. “Mickey Mantle” -- it has alliteration. It has the good quality of “M” and “N” and “T” and “L” It runs very nicely.

BROOKS ROBINSON: Doing Baltimore’s games on television from ‘78 to ‘93, I made a lot of trips to Yankee Stadium and got to know Bob Sheppard. “Bro oks Rob in son” is how he said my name.

PAUL DOHERTY: Bob would pronounce it, "Brooks RobINson." However, if Frank Robinson was also in the lineup with Brooks (which he usually was from 1966 to71) Sheppard may have pronounced it, "BROOKS RobINson" to differentiate it from "Frank RobINson." That's the sort of careful attention Bob paid so the fans could differentiate between the players who shared the same last names.

ROLLIE FINGERS: He pronounced my name "RAW-lee Fin-gers." It was a great to hear your name on the loudspeaker there – that’s for sure.

BOB SHEPPARD: For years and years, nobody knew my face and I could walk around the stadium with 50,000 people and never be recognized. But after a few television shows and movies, such as Billy Crystal’s ‘61*,’ wherein my voice was heard, I became better known.

On July 8, 2000 , the Yankees and Mets met in an unusual day and night doubleheader. Game one was at Shea Stadium, and the second game was scheduled for Yankee Stadium.

In the second inning, Rogers Clemens beaned Mets’ catcher Mike Piazza in the head, sending him to the ground with a concussion and onto the disabled list. That turned up the heat in an already heated New York-New York baseball rivalry.

Clemens-Piazza was topic “A” for fans of both teams as the Yankees and Mets met for the first time ever in the World Series. It was the first Subway Series in New York City since 1956. Billy Joel sang the national anthem before Game One on October 21st at Shea Stadium, and Don Larsen threw out the first pitch. The Yankees won in 12 innings, 4-3. The next day, Robert Merrill sang the national anthem, and Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford threw out the first pitches.

Roger Clemens started Game two. With what happened earlier in the season between him and Piazza, the media buildup made the mood at Yankee Stadium electric with anticipation as to what would happen when they faced each other.

Clemens versus Piazza. Two quick inside strikes on the Mets’ catcher. The next pitch was also inside – backing Piazza off the plate. The noise level rose throughout the Stadium.

Clemens threw again and Piazza fouled off the ball, shattering his bat. The ball skipped into the Yankee dugout. Piazza, unaware of where the ball had gone, began to run down the first base line. Clemens picked up a piece of the shattered bat and threw it, it seemed, at Piazza. The wood almost made contact with an angered Piazza, who headed slowly toward Clemens.

Broken bat, foul ball off to the right side. And the barrel of the bat, came out to Clemens and he picked it up and threw it back at Piazza! I don't know what Clemens had in mind!!

RUSS COHEN: Met fans screamed that Clemens threw at Piazza. Yankee fans screamed that he didn’t. People were pretty charged up. There was a moment when I looked at my wife and thought I hope nothing happens here. Tempers were going in the bleachers. But nothing did happen.

The Yankee and Met benches cleared. There was some cursing, some milling about, some posturing. No fighting. Later, Piazza said he approached Clemens. “I kept asking him, ‘What’s your problem; what is your problem?' I didn’t get a response. I didn’t know what to think.”

Clemens later said he was "fielding" the broken bat, that he had mistaken for the baseball.

The umpires ruled that there was no intent on the part of Clemens to hit Piazza and the game continued. Piazza grounded out.

Clemens and the Yankees ruled that night. “The Rocket” wound up hurling eight scoreless innings. The Mets did rally for five runs in the ninth inning against the Yankee bullpen, but came up just short. The home team were 6-5 winners and moved on to win the Series in five. The Yankees joined the 1972-1974 Oakland Athletics as the first team to be World Series victors three straight years.

The burly Clemens would be one of the big Yankee stories throughout 2001. He was salaried at $10,300,000.00, the third highest on a Yankee payroll for the season of $109,791,893. On August 15^th he became the first hurler in 32 years to post a 16-1 record. Then on September 5^th the “Rocket” won his fifth straight, setting a Yankee record and becoming baseball's first 19-1 pitcher in 89 years.

New Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, who had enjoyed his time in the spotlight, was honored at the Stadium on August 18, 2001; however, his number was not retired.

In one of those ironies of baseball, Mike Mussina took the mound on September 2^nd against David Cone who had pitched a perfect game for the Yankees and now toiled for their hated rivals, the Red Sox. Through eight innings, the “Moose” was doing what Cone had done two years before -- pitch a perfect game. No hits, no walks. Just a lot of tension.

Top of the ninth, Mussina and the Yanks clung to a 1-0 lead. Troy O'Leary, hitting for Shea Hillenbrand, smacked a liner that Clay Bellinger, playing first base, dove for. The toss to Mussina. One out.

Later Mussina said, "I thought maybe this time it was going to happen considering that I thought that ball was through for sure."

Mussina then fanned Merloni. Carl Everett pinch hit for Joe Oliver. He was all that stood in the way of the perfect game. The moody vet fouled off the first serve. He swung and missed the second pitch. The third pitch was a ball. Everett lifted the fourth pitch, a high fastball, to left-center. Running at full speed Chuck Knoblauch and Bernie Williams did their best to try and catch it. But the ball dropped in – base hit.

Trot Nixon grounded out to end the game. And Mussina, with the one-hitter and the win, pumped his fist less than forcefully. His teammates ran out onto the field celebrating what he had done.

“I've never been part of a no-hitter before as an opponent,” Everett said. “It was very satisfying to get the hit. It was very satisfying to hit the high fastball.”

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published September 1, 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.

Harvey Frommer "Dartmouth's own Mr. Baseball" Dartmouth Alumni Magazine HarveyFrommerSports.com/ Remembering Yankee Stadium http://www.hnabooks.com/images/sites/9/redirects/yankees/

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Harry Hooper	RF
Steve Yerkes	2B
Tris Speaker	CF
Jake Stahl	1B
Larry Gardner	3B
Duffy Lewis	LF
Heinie Wagner	SS
Les Nunamaker	C
Smoky Joe Wood	P

New York City Baseball: The Golden Age, 1947-1957 Paperback – November 1, 2013

Remembering Bobby Murcer

Remembering Yankee Stadium: EIGHTIES