A Certain Ring

There it was on Clarence “Cuddles” Marshall’s left ring finger, a diamond-studded remembrance of a man’s crowning moment in baseball.

There it was, in all its beauty and splendor, the hardware worn only by champions, bestowed only on champions.

Is it like the original one? Marshall is asked.

“It’s exactly like the old one,” Marshall said, beaming.

For Marshall, 74, the replica ring from the 1949 New York Yankees’ World Series championship is more than handsome jewelry. It is a bridge to his past, a slice of his life.

And until October, when Marshall received a ring to replace the one that vanished two decades ago, it was nothing more than a memory.

“I thought [the ring] was gone for good,” he said.

*

Marshall was a 6-foot-3 right-handed relief pitcher with the Yankees in 1949 when they won the first of an unprecedented and still unmatched five consecutive World Series titles.

He didn’t pitch in the 4-1 Series victory over Brooklyn because he was hardly needed. The Yankee starters worked deep into almost every game before giving way mostly to closer Joe Page, who led the majors that season with 27 saves.

But Marshall, who was 3-0 with three saves in the regular season, wasn’t shattered. He was young, playing with the most feared club in baseball, and he would get a Series ring just the same.

“Putting on those pinstripes was a feeling hard to describe,” Marshall said.

The Yankees were presented the Series rings the following season and Marshall flashed his proudly, often silencing in later years those who doubted his claim to a piece of baseball history.

“We used to say all the time that my dad played with the Yankees,” said Margie Marshall, the oldest of two daughters. “People would just nod their heads and kind of dismiss it. . . . They would want to see the ring.”

Then, in 1978, the ring disappeared.

“I lived in Simi Valley then,” Marshall said. “I put the ring on a dresser to go take a shower. When I came out, the ring was gone. There was a guy working at my place and I suspect it was him.

“I never saw him or the ring again.”

*

Playing for the Yankees and earning a World Series ring was in Marshall’s mind since picking up baseball as a kid in Bellingham, Wash., his hometown.

“We used to play ball all the time,” Marshall said. “There were two vacant lots next to our house and we’d go and play. The kids would yell out who they were and almost everyone wanted to be Babe Ruth. I was Lou Gehrig. I just liked him.”

Marshall became a hard-throwing third baseman and pitcher at Bellingham High, where he was 9-1 with a 0.00 earned-run average in 1943, his senior season. His only loss was 1-0 on a one-hitter in his last game.

The minor-league Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League signed Marshall out of high school and sold his contract in 1945 to the Yankees, who sent him to Kansas City, their top farm club.

At Kansas City, Marshall played for Casey Stengel, who would launch his storied 12-season managerial run with the Yankees in 1949.

Marshall was invited to spring training with the Yankees in 1946 at St. Petersburg, Fla., instantly coming face to face with the club’s legendary figures.

“I go into the clubhouse and there’s my locker between Charlie Keller and Bill Dickey,” Marshall said. “I didn’t even dare turn around. All of a sudden, Charlie Keller shakes my hand with a big grin and says, ‘Hi, I’m Charlie Keller.’ I almost choked.”

The introduction to Yankee greats was just beginning.

“I go on the field and everybody is warming up,” Marshall said. “I’m just standing there and I hear a voice, ‘Hey, want to play catch?’ It was [Joe] DiMaggio. The first ball I threw went 20 feet over his head.”

Marshall impressed in spring training and, at 21, became the youngest Yankee that season, with a nickname to boot.

“We had played an exhibition game in Dallas,” Marshall said. “We were about ready to go to New York to start the season and one of the news guys says they have to give me a nickname. Page says, ‘I know. All the young girls come up to him and cuddle.’ ”

From then on, Clarence Westly Marshall was known as Cuddles.

*

The Yankees were coming off two substandard American League seasons under Joe McCarthy, and 1946 didn’t turn out much better.

McCarthy was fired 35 games into the season and replaced by Dickey, but the Yankees finished third, 17 games behind first-place Boston.

Marshall was 3-4 with a 5.33 ERA in 11 starts, not shabby for a kid three years removed from high school and at a time when the major leagues were not yet dilutedby marginal players because of expansion.

“The first time I walked out on that field [at old Yankee Stadium] and saw that facade, I said, ‘This is where Ruth and Gehrig played,’ ” Marshall said. “It was unbelievable.”

The Yankees tried to protect the rookie, pairing him on road trips with veterans.

“I roomed with Tommy Henrich and with DiMaggio,” Marshall said. “Henrich was a sweetheart of a man. He used to love barbershop quartets.

“They put me with Red Ruffing once in Detroit. In 1949, Page was my roommate all the time.”

Marshall didn’t have to wait long for his first memorable moment. The first batter he faced in the majors, in a relief stint against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, was Ted Williams with runners on first and second and one out.

He retired Williams, arguably the best hitter of all time, on a double-play grounder.

Later that season, on May 28, Marshall made headlines when he started in the first night game played at Yankee Stadium. He lost to the Washington Senators, 2-1, in front of 49,917.

“That game and being on a world championship team were the highlights I remember the most,” Marshall said.

*

The Yankees put Marshall on waivers in 1950 and he was claimed by the St. Louis Browns, where he was 1-3.

Marshall went into the Army for two years during the Korean War and was stationed in Austria.

He tried to resume his baseball career after the war but the Browns released him and, after breaking a leg and a hand in a car accident, he called it quits.

He had a 7-7 record with a 5.98 ERA and four saves in 73 games during his major league career.

Marshall and his wife, Margaret, settled in Los Angeles after he left baseball and moved to Simi Valley in the mid-1960s.

Marshall, who worked for Litton for 27 years, moved to Saugus in 1986, 10 years after his wife died.

“I had some friends in Saugus and I was spending a lot of time here,” Marshall said. “They were just building these condominiums and I moved here.”

He tried a few times to have the ring replaced, but never followed through. Then Duane Bowers, who works with Margie Marshall at Pardee Homes, became involved.

“He’s such a nice man, I decided to make the phone calls to find out how to get him a replacement ring,” Bowers said.

Pardee paid the $2,500 tab and Marshall received the ring on Oct. 23, the opening day of the World Series, won by the Yankees over Atlanta, 4-0. Fifty years after the fact, Marshall had his ring.

“We went to a USC [football] game recently and we were talking to Anthony Davis and Charles White, and they went crazy over my dad’s ring,” said Margie, who graduated from the school.

“It’s mind-boggling what that ring symbolizes to other athletes.”

Not to mention the owner.

“Two days before they gave it to me, I was thinking of writing to [Yankee owner George] Steinbrenner [about a replacement ring],” Marshall said. “I figured he’d be in a good mood with the Yankees being in the World Series.”