Impact Player

by Bobby Richardson

  When Al Worthington stepped down as athletic director in December 1989, I moved up to that job and coached one more season before handing over the program to my assistant coach, Johnny Hunton. When I left South Carolina, Johnny had remained there as an assistant coach, but I’d been able to persuade him to join me at Liberty before what turned out to be my final season. Johnny would be named the top Division I coach in Virginia after his first season as head coach and would serve in that capacity for seven seasons before becoming the assistant athletic director for spiritual life and an assistant to the chancellor.

  My five years at Liberty were a wonderful experience. The atmosphere around the school was positive and productive, and its broad appeal helped me recruit Christian ballplayers from all over the country. There were boys who came across the country from California to play at Liberty. Even though our record wasn’t what we wanted, I thought we had a pretty good program building, and I was excited about the direction of the team.

  A big plus to me at Liberty was the Christian focus on campus. I enjoyed the chapel messages and Sunday sermons and had occasional opportunities to speak in chapel services. Dr. Falwell also allowed me to accompany him on various trips for his speaking engagements.

  For me, Liberty’s biggest drawback was that it wasn’t in Sumter. Betsy and I had kept our home in Sumter throughout the time I was working at Ben Lippen School, then in Florida for the Aurora Foundation, at Coastal Carolina, and at Liberty. Even when we weren’t living there, Sumter was home, and we knew it always would be.

  I was feeling the tug to go home. In 1990, after much prayer, Betsy and I felt it was time to return home to Sumter and basically retire to a life of hunting and traveling around the country to share my faith and my Yankees stories.

  Chapter 17

  Family, Faith, and Fun

  When I tell people I feel blessed to have the opportunity to travel and speak, I do mean both words: blessed and opportunity.

  I’ve always viewed my speaking engagements as opportunities to give my testimony and share how my faith has sustained me. They also offer me the chance to share my experience of big league baseball. I find both deeply fulfilling—true blessings in my life.

  When I meet baseball fans, the most common topic of conversation is my catch of Willie McCovey’s line drive in Game 7 of the 1962 Series. But the most asked-about season is 1961, with the M&M boys’ home run chase. I’m afraid I’ve disappointed my fair share of fans when asked for details about certain games or moments, though. I played in 1,412 major league games, and my recollection of many of them has faded through the years. The memories that have stuck the best are those involving my teammates, because as much as I loved the game of baseball when I was playing it, I loved even more the relationships I built through the sport.

  Supporting One Another

  The Yankees teams I played on were tightly knit. We were a varied group of individuals from varied backgrounds and with varied off-field interests, and we couldn’t all be best friends. Perhaps in a different setting, some of us wouldn’t have become friends at all. But we were teammates, and in that era of baseball, being a teammate meant you shared a special bond.

  Because of my conservative lifestyle, I guess I could be considered one of the most “different” players on those teams, but I always had a good rapport with my teammates. And I never doubted that they had my back.

  I’ve shared that Frank Robinson was the only player ever to spike me at second base, and he did it twice. When he got me during the ’61 World Series, some of my teammates got angry. They talked about that play on our bench during the game, and in the spike-for-a-spike justice system of major league baseball, they thought Frank had one coming for bloodying my ankle. I told the guys that the spike was my fault, that I hadn’t moved my foot after fielding the low throw, and that Frank’s slide was good and the play clean. But it still felt good to have teammates ready to come to my defense.

  In 1962 I experienced that solidarity again when Eli Grba of the Los Angeles Angels hit me with a pitch. Eli had pitched for us in ’59 and ’60, before being selected off our team in the expansion draft. But he hadn’t pitched at all in the ’60 World Series, outside of being assigned by Casey Stengel to throw batting practice to us, and it was common knowledge that he wasn’t thrilled with being left out. So when Eli hit me with a pitch, my immediate thought was that he’d done it on purpose, out of a grudge against the Yankees.

  I was hit by a pitch only seven times in my twelve seasons. It was never fun. Plus, Eli was a big guy, so this one really hurt, and it made me mad to think he’d nailed me deliberately. I started down the first base line, then took one step toward him on the mound. “I ought to punch you in the nose!” I shouted at him.

  The umpire sided with me, adding, “His nose is big enough for the two of us. I should punch him too.”

  I saw fear on Eli’s face, and that baffled me. If he’d been afraid I’d make a visit to the mound to punch him, why would he hit me in the first place?

  Then I noticed that Eli wasn’t actually looking at me. He was looking past me. I turned around to see Elston Howard, Mickey Mantle, and Clete Boyer outside the dugout and on their way toward the mound too. If I was going after Eli, they were coming with me.

  It turned out that nobody actually punched anybody, and I took my place at first base without incident. But as I reached the bag, Eli turned to me, laughing. “Richardson,” he said, “I wasn’t trying to hit you.”

  I believed him. The ninety-foot walk to first base had provided the time I needed to settle down. I could tell from Eli’s words and the way he said them that he had not hit me on purpose. The pitch had simply gotten away from him. In the years since then, Eli and I have joked about him plunking me. It’s funny now, but I did appreciate knowing at the time that my teammates were eager to stick up for me.

  The Yankee way of showing support for one another helped lead to a change in baseball. It happened in 1954, a year before I started playing with the Yankees, and it involved the player who had been my favorite Yankee when I was a teenager: shortstop Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto.

  Before 1954, players used to leave their gloves on the field during games. That practice went back to the early days of baseball, when players from opposing teams shared their mitts with one another. When one team left the field to bat, the players would leave their gloves at their positions, and the opposing players would pick up the gloves and use them.

  When I was coming up in baseball, players still maintained that tradition, even though players no longer shared gloves. After the third out of an inning was made, the second baseman and shortstop would pitch their gloves onto the outfield grass behind their positions; the first baseman and third baseman would toss their gloves into foul territory; and the outfielders would drop their gloves where they were standing. Only the pitcher and catcher would take their gloves to the dugout.

  The interesting thing is that I can’t remember one time when I tripped over the other second baseman’s glove or a batted ball struck a glove on the ground, although I did always make mental note of where the glove sat for when I had to backpedal onto the outfield grass for a pop-up. Anyway, I never had to worry about that once I started in pro ball—thanks to Phil Rizzuto.

  Phil, you see, was deathly afraid of insects, and his fear was well known throughout the league. When he left his glove behind shortstop, there were opponents who would put a worm or a bug in the glove, right where he needed to slide in his hand, in order to scare him and break his concentration. To combat that, he started bringing his glove off the field with him to the dugout. As a show of support, the rest of the Yankees players brought in their gloves as well. Eventually a rule was invoked that prohibited fielders from leaving their gloves on the field during a game.

  Phil Rizzuto was released from the Yankees in 1956, so I got to play only parts of two seasons with him, and the change in the glove tradition happened before I played with the Yankees. But that story is still a favor
ite of mine, because it illustrates the Yankee way I was brought up under.

  When I was coaching at South Carolina, by the way, I got a firsthand look at just how seriously afraid of insects Phil was. It happened during the time that his son, Phil Jr., was playing for me. Phil and I had planned an overnight golfing trip to Hilton Head on the Carolina coast. During the night he spotted a cockroach in his hotel room, grabbed a drinking glass from next to the sink, and put the glass over the roach.

  The next morning Phil called me and asked me to come to his room. I walked in, looked to the floor, and saw the roach trapped in its cage.

  “Can you get rid of that for me?” Phil asked. “I didn’t sleep a wink all night because I was afraid that cockroach would turn that glass over and get loose.”

  Family Friendly

  My oldest two children, Robby and Ronnie, practically grew up at the Yankees’ clubhouse. Elston Howard’s son, Elston Jr., spent a lot of time there too. And we always felt the boys were welcome there. The managers and other players seemed to understand the importance of family for those of us who had wives and kids living with us during the season, and they wanted us to enjoy time together.

  The boys knew to follow the unwritten rules of the clubhouse—never mess with anything in a player’s locker, don’t ask for autographs, never set foot in the trainer’s room, and only go into the players’ lounge when invited—so they were welcome to hang out. And anytime they were in the locker room, the players treated them great. They always seemed to have someone from the team joking around with them, pulling a prank on them, or even roughhousing a little in Big Pete’s clubhouse.

  I wish people could have been in there during the 1961 season, when Roger Maris was chasing Babe Ruth’s home run record. To avoid reporters, Roger often hid in the players’ lounge during that stressful season, and sometimes he came across in the press as arrogant and unfriendly. But he was never like that with Robby and Ronnie. Instead, he often joked around and played with my boys. That was such a different Roger from the one that has been commonly portrayed in the media.

  Roger—like Mickey—had sons my boys’ ages who did not live with him during the season. During the intense pressure of the home run race, I think Roger enjoyed having my boys as stand-ins, in a way, for his own sons. I know my boys still have fond memories of the attention Roger gave them during the last part of that season.

  My older son, Robby, especially, was a locker-room rat who couldn’t be in there enough as far as he was concerned. Ronnie had a good time around the guys too, but if Betsy wanted to ask one of the boys to go to the game later with her instead of going early with me, or to just stay home, Ronnie was the one to ask. If she asked Robby, he’d say, “Please not today, Mom. I really want to see today’s game.” Then Robby would tell her who we were playing and who was pitching against us and which players on the other team he wanted to see and why that day was the day he absolutely did not want to miss. The next day, of course, he would go through the same routine. He didn’t want to miss any game.

  Robby spent so much time in our clubhouse, in fact, that he picked up a nickname from Big Pete: Butterball. Years later, in 1987, a grown-up Robby returned to Yankee Stadium to speak at a chapel service. It was the last game of the regular season, so the cold weather had arrived in New York City. Robby had been given a credential for access to the clubhouse, but his credential was covered by his overcoat, so he started unbuttoning the coat as he approached the security guard.

  “You don’t need to do that—I know who you are,” the security guard said. “I’ve been here thirty years. You’re a little bigger than when I used to let you in back then, but you look the same. You’re still Butterball.”

  Robby still jokes that he never saw the ninth inning of any of our games. For most home games I would carpool to the Stadium, sometimes taking one of the boys with me, and Betsy would drive in later for the game and park in the players’ parking lot. We wanted to get home as soon as possible after a game, so we had a routine worked out. Because we won so often at home, we frequently didn’t bat in the bottom of the ninth. So when we made our final out of the eighth inning, Betsy and the kids knew to head to the family lounge near the clubhouse.

  After the game I would take a quick shower. Because our team had so many stars, there usually wasn’t anyone from the press waiting at my locker to talk to me. So I would dress, pick up Betsy and the kids at their lounge, and hurry to our car. Because the players’ parking lot was close, we could pull out of the Stadium and head across the George Washington Bridge, beating the after-game traffic.

  Yet another favorite memory for our boys concerns Frank Crosetti—and Bazooka bubble gum. In those days, a seemingly endless supply of Bazooka bubble gum was kept near the clubhouse door so the players could grab a handful for a game. Before Robby and Ron left the locker room to go up into the stands to watch the game with their mother, they would load up their jeans pockets with pieces of gum. But then they had to pass Crosetti, whose locker was closest to the door.

  Crosetti was in charge of the baseballs, and he guarded them almost militantly to keep them from disappearing. So when he saw Robby or Ronnie walking by with that round pocket bulge, he’d get suspicious. “Uh-uh-uh, Little Rich. Come over here. I see that baseball in your pocket.” Robby or Ronnie would then have to prove to Crosetti that he was smuggling gum, not one of Crosetti’s precious baseballs.

  There was only one instance in all my years with the Yankees that I had to step in and chastise a teammate for his behavior around my kids. When Robby was little, Hank Bauer called him over.

  “Hey, Rich—Little Rich!”

  Robby walked over to Hank.

  “Why don’t you have one of these beers here?” Hank asked him. “It’ll make you big like me and not little like your dad!”

  Hank handed Robby a can of beer, and I just about came unglued. That was one of the few times my teammates ever saw me openly angry.

  Hank quickly backtracked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  I know that was true, that Hank was just joking. But what he did was inappropriate, and I had to show my disapproval.

  About a year or two before Hank passed away, Robby saw him at the Fort Lauderdale airport and went over to talk to him. Hank pulled Robby over to where the two of them were alone and asked, “Are you the one I gave the beer to?”

  “Yes, sir, I was,” Robby answered.

  “I’m sorry,” Hank said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Bauer,” Robby told him. “It’s okay.”

  That was almost fifty years later, and Hank still felt bad about what he had done.

  Faith and Friendship

  I played baseball in a different era—not only in terms of the game, but also when it came to Christian witness. A Christian athlete was more alone in those days, and public displays of faith were rare.

  Nowadays it’s common to see an elite athlete such as Mariano Rivera or Tim Tebow speak publicly about his faith. Football players from both teams gather at midfield after a game to pray together. A baseball player will point heavenward when he crosses home plate after hitting a home run, or a football player will take a knee and pray in the end zone after scoring a touchdown.

  As someone who played when that sort of thing was just not done, I am happy that athletes now feel the freedom to give God credit from the platform He has provided for them—although I must add that when a football player catches a touchdown pass, does a dance in the end zone, throws the ball to the ground, and then gives credit to God, I’m not impressed with the order of his priorities.

  Athletes have such a tremendous platform, and when they use it to make a genuine expression of their faith, God can be glorified in a spectacular way. I still recall when Orel Hershiser appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson after the 1988 World Series and sang the Doxology. That was a powerful moment because it was evident that Hershiser’s faith was real.

  When I play
ed, though, most Christian athletes didn’t feel that freedom of expression. I’m not sure why. I know that we in that generation were less expressive with just about everything. We also didn’t have the kind of organizational support that players today have. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes was a very new program back then, and Baseball Chapel wasn’t around yet.

  Whatever the reasons, not many baseball players in my day seemed willing to take a stand concerning their testimonies. There was maybe one such player on each team. Al Worthington, Carl Erskine, Jerry Kindall, and Don Demeter stood out to me as baseball players who were most vocal about their faith. And because of my public speaking, particularly with Billy Graham, I became known as “the Christian on the Yankees.”

  I do think that my being a Yankee amped up this reputation. If I had played in Cleveland or Kansas City, for example, I don’t think my Christianity would have been noticed quite as much. Also contributing was the fact that I grew up in the Baptist church, an evangelical denomination that emphasizes the importance of sharing your faith with others.

  While the attention that went with playing in New York opened many doors that otherwise would not have been opened, it also put me in a position to be criticized. For instance, I received many, many letters from fans either questioning my faith or judging me as being out of God’s will because I played on Sundays.

  Coming up through baseball, I recognized that if I played in the majors, I would have to play on Sundays. Sundays were important days in our era of baseball because we played Sunday afternoon doubleheaders. I felt that the Lord had created an opportunity for me to be involved in baseball, and playing on Sundays was a part of the sport. I did go to church on Sundays whenever I could, even on road trips, and I often spoke in churches as well. I would go to church in the morning, then play in the afternoon. When Ralph Houk was our manager, he graciously allowed me to arrive late for batting practice on Sundays when I was speaking at or attending a church. Later we began holding Sunday team chapels, so there were opportunities throughout my baseball career for fellowship with other believers on Sundays.