Seniors like to count the days until their graduation, beginning with the first day of school. Knowing before my senior year began that I would be signing a professional baseball contract the next summer, my senior year seemed to crawl by. It felt as if graduation day were never going to get there.
The decision to sign for the Yankees was an easy one. For all intents and purposes, that decision had been made that day I watched The Pride of the Yankees at age fourteen. There was no financial confusion to cloud the process either. Baseball had instituted a rule regarding signing bonuses. Any prospect who signed for more than a four-thousand-dollar bonus would be required to spend the next two years on the major league club’s roster. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds like me weren’t ready to play at the major league level. Because of that rule, I had the same signing bonus offer from all twelve clubs: exactly four thousand dollars.
Of the eleven teams other than the Yankees that offered me contracts, the Brooklyn Dodgers had expressed the most interest. The Dodgers had come to Sumter and really gone out of their way to spend time with me. One of their scouts had stressed that I would have a chance to play and work my way up the organizational ladder. So the Yankees and Dodgers were clearly my top two choices, but because of The Pride of the Yankees, there was no doubt the Yankees were my number one.
On June 12, 1953, my graduation from Edmunds High School was only the second-biggest event of the day. My dreams—and my dad’s—came true when, with my parents, my sisters, and Yankees scout Bill Harris looking on in my living room, I signed my first professional baseball contract.
I belonged to the New York Yankees!
Chapter 3
Timely Reminder
It didn’t take long for me to receive my introduction to New York City. A week after signing my contract, I made my first visit to Yankee Stadium to work out with the team.
Fred Heath, a local businessman, was part owner of a baseball team in Sumter that played in a Class-B independent league. The Yankees often loaned minor league players to Mr. Heath, so he had connections with the team. Mr. Heath offered to fly me in his private plane to New York City, but I had never flown and wasn’t too sold on allowing my feet to leave the ground. So Mr. Heath took me to New York City on a train instead.
When we stepped off the train in the big city, I sure was glad to have Mr. Heath with me. You can imagine how overwhelming New York City was to a not-quite-eighteen-year-old from a tiny Southern town.
The cab ride through the city was about as nerve-racking a ride as I’ve ever had in my life. I was stunned by the number and height of the buildings we drove past. But my eyes kept getting pulled back to ground level every time I heard a horn honk or our cab driver made a sudden switch from one lane to another. I wanted out of that cab as soon as possible, but I was also grateful I was only a passenger. I couldn’t imagine attempting to drive in that traffic. What a mess!
After we checked in to our hotel, Mr. Heath arranged for a cab to take me over to Yankee Stadium. I lost interest in the skyscrapers and traffic as the driver approached the Bronx and Yankee Stadium first came into view. This was the “House That Ruth Built,” one of the most famous stadiums in the world. In fact, it was one of the first baseball venues to have stadium in its name. Most teams played in a “park” or a “field.” But the Yankees had “the Stadium,” as it was called for short.
When I first caught sight of the Stadium, it loomed large, even among the bigger buildings of the Bronx. As we got closer, I began to soak in the enormity of its exterior. Yankee Stadium was the first sports facility in the United States to have three decks, extending from the left field corner of the Stadium around behind home plate and to the right field corner.
Back home in Sumter, I had played in front of what I’d thought were huge crowds at our Riley Park. The P-15s might attract a couple of thousand fans for our big games. But Yankee Stadium, at that time, had a capacity of 67,000. As we drove up to the Stadium, I tried to imagine what it would be like shortly before game time, with that many people converging on the ballpark, buying their tickets, and working their way through the outside gates to the Stadium’s interior. One day soon, I hoped, another sold-out crowd would find their seats to watch the Yankees—with Robert Richardson starting in the infield.
Among the first people I met at the Stadium were equipment manager Pete Sheehy, known as Big Pete, and his assistant Pete Previte—Little Pete. Big Pete had been in charge of the Yankees’ locker room since Babe Ruth was a player and would work with the Yankees until his death in 1985, by which time he had become known as the “Keeper of the Pinstripes.” Little Pete was his assistant for about thirty of those years.
Big Pete gave me a warm welcome and made me feel about as at home as a seventeen-year-old could feel in the New York clubhouse. He began introducing me around to various members of the Yankees organization, including the manager, Casey Stengel, who had led New York to four consecutive World Series championships and was on his way to a fifth.
Mr. Stengel was busy but stopped what he was doing long enough to give me a handshake and a cordial greeting. The Yankees had a deep farm system at that time that required signing a large number of prospects to fill, so I doubted the manager knew who I was. But I hoped it wouldn’t be long before Mr. Stengel was writing my name onto his lineup card every day.
After the introductions, Big Pete pointed me to a locker where I could dress and brought me a uniform to change into.
“Do you have any baseball shoes with you?” Big Pete asked.
“I have the ones that I played in high school with,” I answered.
Big Pete nodded and left me to put on my pinstripes.
I couldn’t help but notice how spacious the Yankees’ locker room seemed compared to the smaller, cramped locker rooms of my high school and American Legion days. The floor was carpeted, too. I was used to plain, concrete floors that created a loud clickety-clack sound whenever someone dared walk on the concrete in their spikes.
Two lockers down from mine was the locker of Frank Crosetti, one of the coaches. He was the shortstop my dad had told me to watch and learn from when I was a youngster at the Yankees-Reds exhibition game in Columbia. As I was changing, I noticed that Crosetti was watching me.
When I bent over to grab my beat-up spikes, Crosetti spoke to me. “What size shoe you wear?”
“Eight and a half,” I said.
“I got a pair the same size.”
He walked over and handed me a pair of shiny, black spikes. I tried them on, and they fit perfectly.
“You can have those,” he said. “Why don’t you work out with them today? See how they do.”
I thanked him, then took the spikes off and started walking across the locker room in my socks and leggings.
“Where are you going?” Crosetti called out to me.
“Out to the field.”
“Well, why don’t you have your shoes on?” he asked.
“In here?” I asked. “On this carpet?”
“Absolutely!” he said with a smile.
So I stopped, put my new spikes back on, then walked across the carpet—carefully, so as not to cause a snag—and out to the field.
Later that day, when I told Mr. Heath about Crosetti’s giving me a pair of his spikes, Mr. Heath handed me a twenty-dollar bill and insisted I give it to Crosetti in exchange for the shoes. Crosetti scoffed at the notion of accepting twenty dollars from a seventeen-year-old minor leaguer. “I didn’t sell you the shoes,” he said. “I gave them to you.” When I returned to Mr. Heath, he would not take back the twenty dollars, telling me to keep the money. So that day I wound up getting a new pair of spikes and twenty dollars.
Meeting Mickey Mantle
The tunnel from the clubhouse to the field was a straight shot. I walked through the back of the Yankees’ first base dugout and up the steps.
At the top step, I stopped.
The first thing I noticed was how green the grass was. It appeared so thick and plu
sh. Then I looked above the field to the thousands of empty seats. There were so many of them. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to step out onto the field with 67,000 fans cheering for my team. Above and beyond the seats rose the tall buildings of the Bronx that my cab had driven past, with the Bronx County courthouse standing prominent among them. Everything looked so big. But when I turned to my right to survey the Yankees’ dugout, I realized that even the smallest details said “major league”: the bench was cushioned.
On the field, I really wasn’t sure what I should do. Yankees players were in the middle of batting and fielding practice. I tried to walk out toward second base in a way that didn’t look too presumptuous, yet also didn’t reveal that I didn’t belong on a major league baseball field. Trying not to be too obvious, I looked around to take note that I was on the same field as the likes of Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, and—my favorite Yankee of that time—Phil Rizzuto as they prepared for a game.
Man, it’s good to be here, I thought. I hope I get back here soon.
As much as I enjoyed that moment and wanted to savor it, I realized it was a temporary experience. After a few days in New York, I’d go home to pack and then head out for the minor leagues, far from the hustle-and-bustle style of New York City and the major league feel of Yankee Stadium. I also realized that as much as I wanted to return someday soon to play in New York, and as much as I believed that was possible, there certainly were no guarantees. There were plenty of other players in the Yankees’ farm system who had both my level of ability and my dream, and some had been afforded the same workout with the big club that I was experiencing.
It felt so natural, though, to be standing there on the field in Yankee Stadium.
I heard my name called, looked to the side of the field, and traced the voice to Crosetti. He was holding a fungo bat.
“Get over to second,” he shouted out to me, “and I’ll hit you some ground balls.”
Crosetti started hitting me grounders. He hit some directly at me to start with, then some that made me move to my left, then some to my right. I did a good job of fielding the grounders. As smooth as that major league infield was, I didn’t see how I could miss one.
After Crosetti finished with the grounders, he motioned me in. “Come on in and take some swings.”
I took a spot next to the batting cage while the starters in that day’s lineup took their hits. As much as I wanted to hop in there and swing away, there was no way I was going to cut in front of one of those guys to enter the batting cage on my own. Can you imagine a seventeen-year-old kid telling Hank Bauer, “Excuse me, Mr. Bauer. I’m just going to step in front of you and take a few cuts”?
As I stood watching alongside the cage, I saw Mickey Mantle approaching. By 1953 Mickey Mantle had already become Mickey Mantle. It was his third season in the majors, and he was entrenched in the center field spot that Joe DiMaggio had owned for so long. The Yankees torch that once had been passed from Lou Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio was now in Mickey’s hands.
Mantle had already made one All-Star team and finished third in the American League Most Valuable Player voting the previous season. I didn’t know much about Mickey personally, other than that he was from Oklahoma, but I did know that he was a great home run hitter and that he was the famous Mickey Mantle.
I expected Mickey to walk past me and into the batter’s box, but he stopped and put his arm around me. “Come on, kid,” Mickey said. “Step in here and take some swings.”
As each player finished hitting, he would drop his bat outside the cage. I picked up a bat with Phil Rizzuto’s name on it and gripped it real good. It wasn’t to my liking, so I returned it to the ground, picked up Billy Martin’s bat, and stepped into the cage.
Welcomed by none other than the Mick himself, I scratched the toes of my right shoe into the dirt of the batter’s box. I didn’t want to think about what might happen if I broke Billy Martin’s bat, so I told myself, Make sure you hit the ball on the good part of the bat.
I don’t remember ripping any line drives that turned the players’ heads that day, but I don’t think I swung and missed, either. On my way out of the cage, I passed by Mantle and said, “Thanks for letting me hit.” Then I went back out to second base and fielded more ground balls until batting practice ended.
The Yankees stayed on the field for infield practice, but I returned to the locker room, changed into my street clothes, and went up into the stands to watch that day’s game from the seat the Yankees had given me. The visiting St. Louis Browns defeated the first-place Yankees 3–1, with right fielder Vic Wertz hitting a two-run home run in the fifth inning off Whitey Ford. “We” Yankees would come back to win the next three games, though, and would go on to win the 1953 World Series.
After the game, Yankees television broadcaster Joe E. Brown interviewed me in a downstairs room in the Stadium that was set up for his postgame show. Brown was noted for walking into the room, removing his hat, and flipping it onto a hat rack that looked on TV like it was all the way across the room. Actually, they pulled that off by switching camera angles while another person closer to the hat rack flipped a matching hat onto the rack.
I had never been interviewed before that day, and I was nervous. To my relief, I was able to answer all Brown’s questions, although I’m certain he would have preferred longer answers. I remember one question in particular: “How long do you think it will be before you actually get up here and play in the major leagues?”
“Well,” I answered with a shrug, “I sure don’t know that, but I hope it won’t be too long.”
The more I thought about that question later, the more I began to anticipate that it might take me four or five seasons. I figured I would start at the bottom of the ladder and work my way up. It turned out to be two years before I made my debut with the Yankees and four years before I was in the big leagues to stay.
Big Send-Off, Big Struggles
After four days in New York City, Mr. Heath and I returned home to Sumter. I had one day to pack up and head out to join my first team.
It was a quiet ride as my family drove me to the bus station that evening. I had mixed emotions—obviously excited about embarking on my professional baseball career, yet sad to be leaving my family and my hometown for the first time. Plus, after waiting for what felt like an eternity to sign my contract on graduation day, I almost felt like things were suddenly going too fast.
A lot of people were at the bus station when we pulled in. I looked at the crowd and tried to guess what type of a group trip would cause so many people to gather. I saw a remote unit from a local radio station. Then I spotted Harry Stokes rushing toward me and what seemed like the entire crowd following him. I turned to see my parents wearing big smiles. Immediately I was surrounded by well-wishers who had come to the bus station to see me off.
My departure turned out to be quite an occasion. The announcer from the radio station interviewed me, and Harry made a short speech. Then I was presented with a parting gift: a pen-and-pencil set, plus eighty-five dollars in change! Collection cans had been set up in various spots around town to raise money for me.
I couldn’t believe it. Eighty-five dollars was a lot in 1953—still is, actually. Thanks to the good folks of Sumter, I was able to pay for needed items for a while out of a big pile of change. Fortunately, there were more quarters and half-dollars than pennies, nickels, and dimes.
When it came time to depart, I hugged my parents and sisters. Mom had so many tears flowing from her eyes that she needed a handkerchief to keep wiping them. All the well-wishers let out a big cheer when I stepped onto the Greyhound. I waved through the window as the bus pulled out of the station.
I didn’t cry, but I sure came close. To know I was carrying the support of so many people with me made for an emotional send-off. I really wanted to make the special people of my hometown proud.
Norfolk
Much to my surprise, the Yankees hadn’t assigned me to a Class-D team, or eve
n to a Class-C team. Instead, they were shipping me out to the same Norfolk Tars I had watched train in Sumter. The Yankees were starting me all the way up in Class B, right out of high school.
The minor league system at that time started at Class D and went up to A ball, then AA, AAA, and the major leagues. That year the Yankees had three Class-D teams, two Class-C teams, two Class-B teams, and one team each in A, Double-A, and Triple-A. Most first-year players began in D ball or perhaps with one of the Class-C teams, but I was starting out about halfway up the Yankees’ system. To compare it to today’s scaled-down minor league system, the Tars would have been similar to at least a High-A team.
Class B proved to be a bad place for me to start. I was overmatched there because of my inexperience, and it didn’t take long for me to find that out.
Mickey Owen was still the Tars’ manager, so I reported to him at the ballpark the next morning, and he began introducing me around to the arriving players. They were very friendly, and some offered to help set me up with a place to stay. Among those I met that first day was Dick Sanders. Dick was the Tars’ shortstop and the reason I had been assigned to Norfolk. Because he would soon be sent to Marine reserve training, I would be taking over his shortstop spot.
The Tars were a very good team—they had easily run away with the Piedmont League championship the previous season—and Dick was a star player for them. In addition to joining a championship-caliber team at midseason fresh out of high school, I had big shoes to fill right away because Mickey immediately wrote me into the lineup.
I never felt comfortable with my new team. It had nothing to do with my teammates; they treated me great. But the truth is that I was out of my league in Class B. Most of the Tars players were in their early to middle twenties. I believe I was one of only two players on the team under the age of twenty.
Impact Player Page 4