“He might as well be giving it all away,” she frequently said. And in some ways she was right. Whenever Hymie was flush he gave his money to show biz and racing buddies, and to the down-and-outers and hangers-on who regularly tapped him for cash. But once when I pressed her on the issue, she admitted that most of the luxuries she enjoyed came from money he’d won at the track.
Hymie was so fond of my mother, his eldest daughter, that for her eighteenth birthday he bought her a canary yellow Ford roadster and then enrolled her in an exclusive women’s teaching college. And her younger sister, my aunt Ruthie, claims that she would have enjoyed the same privileges had it not been for the stock market crash of ‘29. My mother’s version, though, was that Hymie lost the pharmacies not on account of the crash, but because he ran up so many debts with the bookies.
Whatever the case, Hymie characteristically took the loss in stride. He moved the family to Rockaway Beach, a resort community on the south shore of Queens, where he bought a small pharmacy in partnership with his three nephews, Mickey, Sam, and Abe Neiman. Together they began to rebuild what he had lost.
By the time I was born, in the early 1940s, Hymie was earning what my mother called “a decent living;” and he and my grandmother Tessie were living in my mother’s and father’s house on Beach 132nd.
My father was on the road so frequently that for a time Hymie became a permissive surrogate father to me. On racing nights Hymie would have me meet him at five o’clock at Neiman’s Pharmacy. The ritual went like this: first he’d slip me a twenty and we’d go up the street to Sam Cahmi’s deli, where he’d sit me down at the counter and order me a lemon coke and a hot pastrami sand-wich, then he and Sam would duck into the back room to wait for Willie and Ralph—from the butcher shop—to arrive with the racing programs.
Those two guys were right out of a Damon Runyon novel. During the day, Willie and Ralph cut meat and wore bloodstained aprons and baggy brown wool pants. But at night, when we went to the track, they were decked out in three-cornered hats, shiny black suits with diamond stickpins and vests, and pointy shoes with white spats.
I used to love to hang around and listen to them handicap.
“Doc Robbins says to put the long green on Adios Harry in the third,” Willie would boast. And Ralph would counter with something like, “I have also got an inside tip. From Shermie. He says number three’s got the post. And mark this down, Will, the horse is runnin’ on greenies.”
When the four of them disappeared into the back room, I wasn’t supposed to know what they were up to. But it didn’t take a lot of smarts to figure it out. Guys with wallets bulging like egg rolls paraded in and out of that room as if it had a revolving door.
Once at the track, Ralph, Willie, Sam, and my grandfather would go back to the stables to get inside tips from the trainers and stable boys. They always had the lowdown on which horses were running on Bute, who was lame, and who was the heavy favorite. They also studied the drivers’ records, each horses’ winning times, the track conditions, the horses’ blood lines, even the wind velocity and direction. They bickered over which horses were the “mudders” and which ones were “rabbits.” They always knew who you could count on to “crap out in the stretch.”
Hymie was their leader—always the taciturn, dignified patriarch. When he walked through the admissions gate at Roosevelt, Hymie headed straight for Doc Robbins’s office under the grandstand. Doc was an old racing crony, a fellow pharmacist who’d retired in his mid fifties to pursue his real passion. He owned the track’s program concessions, and when Hymie and the guys showed up, Doc gave them box seats right at the finish line. More than once I heard my grandfather telling Willie, Ralph, and Sam that he wished he could do exactly what Doc Robbins had done. It was something I never forgot.
Hymie also kept company with the top drivers, and he traded tips with the Mafia types—the big-time shooters in sharkskin suits, black silk shirts, and white ties. Everyone looked up to my grandfather—the bookies, the touts, the trainers. They took his marker, came to him for advice, asked him for handouts. And he acknowledged them all. He’d give money to Jimmy Sparrow, the retarded kid, and to old Shep, the shell-shocked local “village idiot.” He even bankrolled Hilda Bells, who was a bag lady long before bag ladies became part of the landscape.
But he didn’t just hand them the money. In his way, he made them earn it. I remember once when old Hilda hit him up for a loan. Hymie pulled out his wallet, but before he handed over the cash he flipped open the plastic sleeves that contained his family photos.
“Look at my grandson,” he said. “Isn’t he a beautiful kid?” The gesture embarrassed me, but I enjoyed watching old Hilda grimace and nod her head in mock agreement.
Grandparents and grandchildren are natural allies. Both have a common adversary: the parents. Hymie wasn’t responsible for bringing me up, so he could afford to indulge us both. And what young kid wouldn’t enjoy that kind of permission?
The first time I went with him to Roosevelt Raceway, we sat in the grandstand high above the oval dirt track that circled the green infield. I took in the scene through Hymie’s old Zeiss binoculars. To my right, just beyond the lip of the grandstand roof, were the finish line and the tote board that flashed the odds every few minutes. Below, between the railing and box seats, were swarms of people: parents and kids sitting on blankets, eating out of wicker picnic baskets; dapper men and flouncy women who looked like they just stepped out of “Guys and Dolls”; faux aristocrats with porkpie hats and chauffeur’s caps who sat on folding chairs studying the racing form; and the touts and hangers-on who scurried around like worker ants. It was the most enchanting spectacle I’d ever seen. I felt as if I’d been transported to another dimension
Even though my grandfather was a gambler, the money that traded hands seemed less important than being part of the spectacle and milieu. Ten minutes before the first race, my grandfather sat me down and said, “Mikey, I want you to understand that there’s more to this than the money.” Then he walked me through the racing form, explaining the Byzantine symbols: the post position numbers, the horses’ best and worst times, their previous finishes, their breed, the trainers’ record, the jockeys’ track record, the racing conditions, and the stakes. Then there were the times when Hymie took me back to the stables and introduced me to the trainers and jockeys. He had them explain to me how the horses were bred, trained, and developed into trotters and pacers. It was the first time I had truly felt like an insider.
During the racing season Hymie couldn’t stay away from the track. Whenever he could get cousin Sam or Mickey to cover at the pharmacy Hymie would fill prescriptions from six A.M. till noon, and then he’d head for Belmont or The Big A. After a dinner break, he’d drive twenty-five miles to Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury in time for the nightly double. When the ninth race ended, he and his cronies went over to the Sunrise Highway Diner for a cup of coffee and the ritual post mortem. He’d get home after midnight and slip into bed, always remembering—win or lose—to leave a rose and a fifty dollar bill on the dining room table for Tessie and his two daughters. It was Hymie’s way of buying them off.
By eight the next morning he was back at the deli making book on the day’s races, before heading up the street to the pharmacy where he’d fill prescriptions and indulge his other passion: shmoozing the regular customers.
Though cousin Sam and Mickey were never easy with Hymie’s gambling, they had to keep quiet about it. Whatever reservations they harbored, they knew he was never negligent or irresponsible. He’d get up at three in the morning to deliver medicine to a sick friend or customer; he’d fill the paregoric scripts that no one else wanted to make; he’d work the counter, sell cosmetics to the women, order the supplies, keep the books, pay the bills, listen to salesmen’s stories, and place the weekly ads in the Rockaway Beach Wave.
But at home Hymie was restless and impatient. Sometimes he’d get up from dinner to call Sam or Ralph to check the latest racing information. Or h
e’d listen to the sports news on the radio to find out the results from the afternoon card at The Big A. Still, when my mother scolded him for not being around often enough, he neither argued nor defended himself. He’d acknowledge that she was right, and he’d apologize. Then a day or two later, he’d bring her flowers and take her out to dinner and the track—just as if she was his date.
When Hymie took me to the track, I loved watching how excited he and his cronies would become when a horse they’d spent days researching, studying, and inquiring about, won a race. It was as if they’d accomplished something significant. And given their otherwise mundane lives and jobs, who could begrudge them those brief moments of fulfillment? Isn’t that what we all yearn for?
Then there were the aesthetics. I’d listen with rapt attention when my grandfather would describe to me how he loved watching a thoroughbred racing at full speed—muscles taut, tail whipping in the wind, outstretched legs seeming to float above the brown clay. Who but an aficionado would describe that scene in such passionate, reverent detail? It was as if he was talking about a work of art.
Another reason that Hymie was so driven to pursue his racing pleasures was, I believe, because of a midlife bout with tuberculosis. When he was in his early forties, the doctors removed a diseased lung and told him that if he wanted to live more than another five years, he would have to quit smoking and chasing the horses. To my grandfather, it was a worse punishment than the diagnosis. So he made the only compromises his temperament would allow: in place of the stogies he started smoking Tipperillos, and for six months he skipped the trotters and went only to the flats in the afternoon. But as soon as he could convince my grandmother he was healthy, Hymie was back at the pharmacy in the mornings and doing his usual double shift at the tracks.
Anyone looking for a cautionary tale here will be disappointed; my grandfather lived this way for the next thirty years. He died, appropriately enough, at Roosevelt Raceway. It was a sudden heart attack, and he went quickly. When the medics found him, he had four winning tickets in his shirt pocket.
2
If you grew up in New York City between 1947 and 1957, you were witness to a period that sportswriters and baseball historians still refer to as the golden age of New York baseball. That reign began with the Dodgers signing of Jackie Robinson, the first Negro ball player in the major leagues, and it ended with another first—the Dodgers’ and Giants’ migrations to Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1957.
What’s most remarkable about those years is that at least one, and most often two, of the three New York teams—the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants—appeared in the World Series. This streak was interrupted only by the Cleveland Indians—Boston Braves Series in 1948. Even more extraordinary is that from 1947 until 1957 the three New York teams won a total of nine world championships. The Yankees won seven of the eight World Series they appeared in, the Giants won one of their two appearances, and the Dodgers won a single championship along with six National League pennants. All of the city’s newspapers—and there were more than a half dozen dailies back then—routinely referred to the World Series as the Subway Series.
My parents, and it seemed most of the men and women of their generation, rooted for the Giants. On hot summer nights they’d sit with our neighbors out on the front stoop, swatting mosquitoes, sipping coffee or beer, and listening to Russ Hodges and Ernie Harwell broadcast the games. Every so often, something one of the announcers said would trip off a memory. Then my dad and Mr. Creelman, the police detective from down the street, would start reminiscing about the great Giant teams of the twenties and thirties. Mostly, they’d boast about their Hall of Famers: Frankie Frisch, Bill Terry, John McGraw, Carl Hubbell, Mel Ott. I was envious that they’d actually seen these players in person.
If my father’s friends were Giant rooters, most of the guys in the neighborhood clique and the rich kids from Neponsit were Yankee fans. When they weren’t playing ball at recess, they’d smugly invoke their team’s immortals—Babe Ruth, Lefty Gomez, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio—as if they’d actually grown up with those players. They’d lord it over everyone in the schoolyard that their Bronx Bombers, their Yankees were “becoming a dynasty.”
That kind of gamesmanship was de rigueur. Bragging rights were important currency in the schoolyard. One time, I heard Frank Pearlman ragging on poor Sherman Carlson for being a Brooklyn Dodger fan. Sherman was one of those guys who was always getting picked on. He was a math brain, a slight skinny kid with bad skin and horn-rimmed glasses. Every day, he wore rumpled brown corduroys with a slide rule attached to his belt. He was a walking target for mean-spirited jerks like Pearlman.
“Why do you root for such a loser team?” Frank taunted. “It makes you a loser too.”
“The Yankees are lucky,” Sherman shot back. “And, they have more money than the other teams.”
I was surprised by his comeback. And I was glad to see him fight back. Just when I thought the dispute was over, Sherman launched into a passionate monologue about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line, and Duke Snider being the best center fielder in the city—maybe even the whole universe. By the time he was done, Sherman was red in the face.
I’d always thought of this kid as somewhat of a loser. But I found myself admiring his passion and fierce defense of this much maligned baseball team. That’s when I asked my father if he’d take me along with him to one of his Sunday softball games.
In real life, most of my father’s teammates lived pretty ordinary lives. They had families and respectable jobs. Some were salesmen like my father, while others worked for banks, insurance agencies, and firms in the city. But when they put their uniforms on, they were transformed into ball players, guys who razzed each other and shouted obscenities at the opposing team, who yelled stuff like “attaway to go” and patted each other on the back and said “great play” or “good hit.”
I was captivated by how intense and animated those grown-ups were—my father included. It was only pickup ball, but they played with such determination. They argued with the umps when calls went against them, and they bickered with each other about strategy decisions and “what ifs.” But as soon as the games were over, they’d head for Johnny’s Bar and Grill on 129th where they’d replay the highlights and mistakes over a few beers.
I especially loved watching my father play. He seemed so alive, so vibrant when he was out on the field. It was the only time I’d ever seen that side of him. Sometimes he’d get so caught up in the game that he’d barely remember he’d brought me with him. I’d have to reach up and tug on his jersey just to remind him I was still there.
At first I felt privileged just to be on the fringe of this inner sanctum. It was like being at the track with my grandfather. Was there anything, I wondered, that could ever absorb me the way horse racing engaged my grandfather—and the way baseball excited my father?
Once I began to take an interest in the game, baseball became the common ground between the two of us. Whenever I rode with him to his Manhattan office, my father would tell me stories about his old ball playing days. I remember how exuberant he’d get when he reminisced about playing shortstop for George Washington High. One of his teammates, he said, was Lou Gehrig, the Yankee Hall of Famer. My father’s voice rose whenever he invoked Gehrig’s name. He’d talk about how badly he too wanted to go to Columbia and play ball, just like Gehrig did.
But college wasn’t an option. His family, first generation Polish immigrants, couldn’t afford it. Nor was it part of the family ethic. Instead, he worked in his father’s tailor shop and played semi-pro ball on weekends. That was before he became a traveling salesman, married my mother, and started a family.
My father’s biggest regrets, he once told me, were that he never got to fight in World War Two, never went to college, and didn’t get to pursue his dream of playing baseball.
To compensate for the loss of his baseball dreams, he began to educate me about the game. Sometimes on weekends, he’d take me up to the
Polo Grounds to watch the Giants play. He taught me how to keep score, and he kept pointing out nuances and strategies: how infielders and outfielders positioned themselves differently for left-and right-handed hitters, when a bunt or steal or a hit-and-run were imminent, what kinds of pitches would exploit a given hitter’s tendencies, and so on.
I caught on fast. The “inner game” appealed to me. And I was also impressed by my father’s insider’s knowledge of baseball. He was as much of an aficionado about this game as my grandfather was about the horses.
Once, he took me to see the Giants play their hated rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers—the same Dodgers that Sherman was so eloquently defending that day in the school yard. I was immediately drawn to them—especially to Jackie Robinson, their Negro second baseman. He was like a lightening rod. He played with such reckless abandon that it seemed to energize the entire ball club. The whole team, in fact, played with a kind of furious intensity—as if they had something urgent to prove.
I was beginning to understand why these scrappy, spirited Dodgers made the more businesslike Yankee fans and lordly Giant fans feel so uneasy. This was a team I wanted to learn more about.
My love affair with the Dodgers began in earnest in the spring of 1950, just before I turned ten. As soon as school let out, I started spending my days in the public library reading books about the Dodgers, biographies of Dodger greats, popular coffee table books like Big Time Baseball, and standard reference books like The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball.
As far back as the ‘20s, the Dodgers—whose nickname was “Dem Bums,” and whose slogan was “Wait till next year”—were characterized, even by their own fans, as perpetual also-rans. The most famous chapter in the team’s mythology would of course become the pennant race of 1951, when they blew a thirteen-and-a-half-game mid-August lead and lost the final playoff game to the Giants on Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ‘round the world.”
Still Pitching Page 2