Mays, Mantle and Snider Remember New York’s Glory Days

It was a glorious time in New York’s baseball history. Late September thrived with pennant fever, and if there wasn’t one New York team involved, there were two. And in one dazzling finish, the Yankees had to wait on a three-game playoff between the Giants and Dodgers to see which one of those National League teams they would play in the World Series. The year was 1951, and Bobby Thomson hit the shot heard ‘round the world.

From 1949 through 1957 the three New York teams filled 15 of the 18 berths in the World Series. It started out as the time of the Duke and was soon to be the time of Willie and Mickey as well. The Yankees would win again in 1958, their seventh World Series victory in nine tries in 10 years, but it wasn’t quite the same; the Dodgers and Giants had started calling Los Angeles and San Francisco home that year.

New York managed to become a two-team town soon enough. But when the Bronx was up, the Mets were down. And vice versa. Then came this September, and the poignant memories of a time gone by were stirred. Could it happen again? Could a World Series belong to New York? Baseball junkies have palates too, and in this town they would savor a matchup between Dwight Gooden and Don Mattingly at a game-deciding juncture.

The Yankees seem to be telling us it’s not to be. Not this year anyway. Still, for a time this September, memories of a beautiful past were rekindled--the time of Willie, Mickey, the Duke and others. They remember it well, and when called upon to share their memories of baseball glory gone by and of the fans and the New York scene as they saw it in late September and early October, they were delighted to do so.

Things were a bit different then. Baseball didn’t offer its first night World Series game until 1971. And the seventh game was over by Oct. 10 or sooner, while the 1985 World Series won’t start until Oct. 19. Their playground was the bright clearness of an early autumn day. It was a beautiful time when New Yorkers almost came to count on a Subway Series.

“I had just turned 20 years old when the Giants called me up in 1951,” said Willie Mays. “I had been to New York before, when I was 15 and playing for the Birmingham Black Barons. Our bus burned up in the Lincoln Tunnel. That was my introduction to New York. We played the New York Cubans in the Polo Grounds and we had to use their extra uniforms the next day. I was just a wide-eyed kid then.

“I was still really young in 1951, but what a year for memories that was. I broke in going 0 for 12 in three games in Philadelphia, and when we got back to New York, I was in the clubhouse crying. Leo Durocher, the Giants manager, relaxed me by telling me I was his center fielder no matter what. I was able to relax even more when right after that, I hit my first big-league homer. It was off Warren Spahn in the Polo Grounds.

“I lived in a lady’s house, named Anne Goosby. That was a house the Giants arranged for me when I came up to make sure I was taken care of. The fans who lived near where I lived on 155th Street and St. Nicholas would make sure I was in bed by 10 o’clock at night. Every night about five or six would come by and make sure I was in or they would wait until I got home. They were that intent we should catch the Dodgers. The strain of that pennant race got so great I wouldn’t dare be out later than that.

“In New York they know about baseball. You can’t fool them. They knew when you were dogging it and they knew who could play and who couldn’t. You had your favorite team and you pulled only for those people. And you pulled for those people every year because the players didn’t jump around like they can now. So you knew what to expect when you played in Brooklyn or in Yankee Stadium where we played in the World Series my first year. Especially Brooklyn.

“I don’t think I was hated in Brooklyn. But when you played good ball against their team, I don’t think they liked it. I think my second series there, I hit two home runs in a game and when I came out of the park to the garage, all four of my tires were slashed. It wasn’t anything they had against me. It was just they were Dodger fans and that was it. I had to go home on the subway with Monte Irvin. I called Leo and said, ‘If you want me to come back, you better get my car back.’

“After the pennant race, you relax if you’re in the World Series. You know you’re there. The real pressure is getting to the World Series. And my rookie year it all came down to the final playoff game against the Dodgers in the Polo Grounds. Now that was pressure.

“I was in the on-deck circle when Bobby Thomson batted in the ninth inning. I thought Dressen (Charlie Dressen, the Dodgers manager) would walk Thomson, and I would come up and Leo would pinch hit for me. That was what was going through my mind. Leo said he wouldn’t have, but I’m still not convinced. But it doesn’t really matter.

“If you look back, those years with three outstanding center fielders in New York are very special. I don’t think you have another period that can come close to that type of environment. Each team’s fans would talk about their center fielder as if he was the greatest. I’m talking three teams, three center fielders, three Hall of Famers.”

Recalled Mickey Mantle: “It seemed like every World Series we played the Dodgers. Not always, but often enough. My first year in the big leagues we played the Giants in the ’51 Series. But I don’t have memories of that one, not good ones anyway. My Dad died and I got hurt. So I want to forget that year. But 1952 and the rest of the years the Dodgers were in Brooklyn were special. The fans helped make it that way and so did the players.

“Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, all those guys were like my heroes. And all of a sudden I’m playing against them. It was probably the most fun time I ever had in my life. I remember that first time against the Dodgers I broke up a double play, I hit Pee Wee and almost knocked him out into center field. I got a kick out of it because he says, ‘God damn, kid, take it easy. This ain’t the last game.’

“Casey had told me about throwing behind the runners at first base. I used to try that from time to time if they come around first too fast. He told me if you try that with Robinson, he’ll go to second on you. So I faked it to first, he went to second and I threw him out by about 10 feet. He kind of gave me one of those I’ll-get-you-next-time looks.

“I didn’t feel the same toward the Giants as I did toward the Dodgers. I didn’t even know Willie Mays then (in ‘51) with both of us being rookies. Whenever I played against the Dodgers, it was a big deal. I’m not kidding. It was like playing against my idols all of a sudden.

“I was a Cardinals fan growing up. We were able to get Harry Caray on the radio in Oklahoma. Stan Musial was my first idol. Then I came to New York and it was Joe DiMaggio. Then I saw Ted Williams hit and he became my idol. But the Dodgers, it was like the whole team was my idols. I knew every one of them from reading about them. And to play in Brooklyn was different. The ballpark was different, 379 to dead center compared to 461 in ours, and so were the fans.

“There was this post-game show on TV where they’d bring on a star of the game. But they didn’t have a TV room in the ballpark. So the star of the game had to go to a bar about a block or two away and go into the back of the bar. I did it one time and I said, ‘I’m never going to do that again.’ You had to go in there in your uniform. You had to walk by everybody and they’re cursing you up and down. I was scared to death.

“Pee Wee was special. He used to come by and holler into our clubhouse after we won the Series. He would have disappointed Billy Martin and me if he didn’t come by, and I think he knew that. They finally beat us the one time in 1955 and he comes by and hollers in: ‘Har, har!’

“You know what used to be fun. Get on the bus and ride to Brooklyn. People used to be waiting on you to come by. And they’d either love you or hate you. That was fun. I’d give anything to see another Subway Series. I think it would be great.”

Recalled Duke Snider: “Ever since I was a little kid I always dreamed of playing a World Series game in New York. I was playing against grown men since I was 14 years old. I saw the movie ‘Pride of the Yankees’ several times and cried more each time I saw it. I became a Lou Gehrig fan, not necessarily a Yankee fan. I was from Southern California. All the major league baseball we could connect with then was in the newsreels or the movie itself.

“When I eventually came up to the Dodgers, they offered me several selections of a uniform number. That was in 1947, and I asked if number four was available. That had been Gehrig’s number. It was available, and clubhouse man John Griffin said, ‘Well, you’re a power hitter. The last guy to wear this number was Dolph Camilli. Sure, you can have number four.’

“So I had my number and all of a sudden, in 1949, the World Series game I had dreamed about was there. I hadn’t been eligible in 1947. We opened in Yankee Stadium, Allie Reynolds to pitch against Don Newcombe. They announced the starting lineups. I was to bat third, and I went out to the third base foul line when I was introduced. My knees were shaking. I couldn’t swallow. And I looked around and thought to myself, ‘Well, here I am.’

“My first Series wasn’t all that good. I struck out eight times and tied a World Series record set by Rogers Hornsby. Reynolds got me three times that day. The harder he threw the ball, the harder I swung. I was a complete failure my first World Series. I was really down about that. But I managed to make up for it later on. In 1952 I hit a home run against Reynolds and I had four in that World Series.

“We had great fans. The stands were so close to home plate, it was like they were standing in the batter’s box with you. You made friends. Many of them have passed away or moved away. It’s amazing where some of them pop up.

“I went by Ebbets Field once maybe a year after the team moved away. I know it was prior to my coming to the Mets. A friend of mine drove me by. There were broken windows in the front. I just told him, ‘I don’t want to go by there again. I want to remember the way it was.’ Barney Stein, a photographer, sent me a picture of them knocking down the right field fence with a big steel ball. I never went back again until it was an apartment building. I guess I’ve been by about three times for ceremonies or whatever, but I don’t really care to go by there.

“Still, it doesn’t jar the memories of the team. We were a very special and talented team who became the sentimental favorite in the baseball world after all those World Series lost to the Yankees. When we finally did win it in Yankee Stadium in 1955, we got into two buses and headed back to Brooklyn with our wives, mothers, dads, what have you.

“It was like a ticker-tape parade. Everybody knew our route. I don’t know why or how. There were people hanging off light standards, out windows and off roofs. There were thousands and thousands. All the way across the Brooklyn Bridge and all the way to the Mobil station behind right field where we parked our cars. It was like everybody in the world was a Brooklyn Dodger fan.”