Perfect: Don Larsen's Miraculous World Series Game (31 page)

The new sophistication of the Yankee catcher did not affect his performance on the field. Although he endured a slump in the last two weeks of the 1951 season, he was able to lead the Yankees with twenty-seven home runs and eighty-eight runs batted in—enough to earn him the league’s MVP award. Yogi was relaxing at his New Jersey home with a comic book when a horde of reporters converged on his house to advise him of the decision. Like many sportswriters, Yogi had assumed that the award would have gone to Allie Reynolds, who had won seventeen games and pitched five shutouts in addition to the two no-hitters. “It is conceivable,” said one sportswriter, “that nobody was more astonished than Mr. Berra himself.”

It was the first of three MVP awards that Berra would earn over the course of five seasons between 1951 and 1955. In each year during that period, he would hit at least twenty-two home runs (including thirty in 1952, a new American League season record for catchers that he would duplicate in 1956) and drive in at least ninety-eight runs (with a career high of 125 in 1954, when he won his second MVP award). Not surprisingly, the press began to speculate whether Berra or Roy Campanella was the best catcher in baseball. “Yogi Berra was the greatest catcher in the major leagues in 1954,” Dan Daniel wrote in
The Sporting News
on June 15, 1955. “I have seen this Yogi man, year after year, day after day. I have seen the Bombers react to his strong impetus. I have seen them react to his absence, and I know exactly what he can do and what he means to his club and—yes, to the entire American League as well.”
The Washington Post
’s Shirley Povich agreed. “There aren’t any better catchers than Yogi in the American League now,” Povich said. “I think, like Yankee fans,” Povich added, “that Campanella could be outhitting Yogi by 40 points and Yogi still would be the more productive hitter. He just seems to get that big one.” One record seemed to confirm Povich’s judgment: between 1949 and 1955—a seven-year period during which the Yankees won six pennants and five World Series championships—Yogi was the team’s leading run producer.

Berra’s growing stature in baseball circles did not have any impact on his personality. From his first days with the Yankees, he displayed a humility that spoke volumes about his own self-esteem and his sensitivity to others. (There was the time when Yogi went with a local sportswriter to a father-son dinner sponsored by a church in St. Louis. While he was at the head table signing the bats and balls given to each son, Yogi noticed a corner table that included a group of orphans from a church-supported home. “Ain’t they getting anything?” Yogi asked one of the church representatives. Oh, no, said the representative. “We think it’s enough of a thrill for them just to be here.” Yogi did not agree. “For what he did next,” said the sportswriter, “I’ll always love him.” Berra rose from his seat and went to the orphans’ table, where he began talking with the youngsters and signing programs and anything else they handed to him. In due course, one of the church representatives at the head table called out to the Yankee catcher, saying, “We’d like you to come back here and say a few words.” Yogi was not interested. “Go on with the program,” he snapped. “I’m busy. I’m talking to some friends.”)

Compassion was not the only quality that attracted fans to Yogi (who, unlike Mickey Mantle, was never booed as a player). He could still make people laugh. There was the time when the Yankee catcher was invited to appear on a sports radio program to talk about life in the big leagues. “I’m going to throw out a few names,” the host explained before the broadcast, “and you just say the first thing that pops into your mind.” When the show began, the host explained to the listening audience that he was going to play a “word association” game with the famous Yankee catcher. “All right, then,” the host continued with excitement, “here we go.” And then the host threw out the first name: “Mickey Mantle.” “What about him?” said Yogi.

The characteristics that endeared Berra to the press and the fans were also appreciated by other players. No longer did he have to endure jokes about his homely looks (although he continued to receive friendly barbs about his malapropisms). Instead, he found that teammates and opposing players alike had an affinity for this intense competitor who kept matters in perspective.

Carl Erskine remembered the incident that cemented his view of the Yankee catcher. It was the third game of the 1953 World Series. Dodger manager Charlie Dressen called Erskine over for a conference before the game. “Yogi is digging in,” he told his pitcher. “Get a strike on him, and I want him on his back.” And so, after getting a strike on Berra during his first at bat, Erskine threw an inside pitch that hit the Yankee catcher in the ribs. When Yogi came to bat again a few innings later, Campanella gave Erskine the knockdown sign. And so there was another inside pitch—this one hitting Berra on the elbow, and Yogi stared at the Dodger pitcher as he trotted down to first base. Erskine was the leadoff hitter in the next inning, and he expected some angry words from the Yankee catcher as he stepped into the batter’s box. Instead, Yogi simply looked up at him through the mask and softly asked, “Carl, are you throwin’ at me?”

These and other episodes established Berra’s reputation as the friendliest of competitors. “Berra,” said sportswriter Dan Daniel in 1955, “unquestionably is the most social ballplayer in the business.”

 

Yogi Berra is not concerned with his reputation as Carl Furillo approaches the batter’s box as the first hitter in the bottom of the sixth inning of the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. The Yankees are winning, but the margin is slim. The Yankee catcher cannot lose his focus in giving signs to Don Larsen. One mistake and the tables could be turned.

Over in the press box, Bob Wolff tells his listening audience that there have been only eight balls hit to the outfield (including Mantle’s home run) and that the crowd “has certainly been treated to a magnificent display this afternoon of pitching and great defensive work.” No one has to tell that to the Dodgers. They are talking among themselves in the dugout, and someone says, “You know, we haven’t had a base runner yet.” Still, the Dodgers are not concerned about Larsen pitching a no-hitter. They have too much experience and too much skill with a bat (and, in fact, have been the victim of only one no-hitter in the post-World War II era—one thrown by Vern Bickford of the Boston Braves in 1950). But they do worry about winning the game—the Yankees have shown an uncanny ability to rise to the occasion when all seems lost in the World Series.

Furillo does not bring hope to his teammates. After fouling off one pitch, he lifts a pop-up to short right field just beyond the infield which Billy Martin corrals for the first out. Roy Campanella steps into the batter’s box, and Larsen remembers that Yogi had told him to pitch the Dodger catcher “low and away or in on the hands where he couldn’t get much of a swing.” For that reason, the Yankee pitcher is not surprised when Berra calls for a curve low and away. Larsen complies, and Campanella lifts a short fly ball just beyond the infield toward center field. Gil McDougald and Martin converge on the ball as it makes its descent, but Martin is the one who makes the catch, and the Yankees have their second out.

The sellout crowd gives Sal Maglie a rousing ovation as he steps into the batter’s box, and Wolff reminds his audience that the game represents “one of the greatest pitching duels to this point that has ever been recorded in a World Series game.” Ironically, the Dodger pitcher proves to be the most difficult out of the inning. After swinging at—and missing—the first two pitches, Maglie waits out two balls that miss the plate, fouls off two other pitches, and finally goes down swinging on what Larsen remembers as “a good, popping fastball.”

Berra takes off the mask and moves toward the Yankee dugout with the satisfaction that Larsen has now retired eighteen Dodgers in a row, but with the knowledge that the Yankees still have only a 1-0 lead.

12

Y
ears later, Andy Carey could remember that moment in the mid- 1950s as if it happened yesterday. He was in the batter’s box in Boston’s Fenway Park in the late innings, with the Yankees losing to the Red Sox and a runner on base. With its short left-field wall (called the “Green Monster” by local fans), Fenway is a park built for right-handed hitters like the Yankee third baseman. Standing almost six feet, one inch tall and weighing about two hundred pounds, the sandy-haired Carey had the tools to take advantage of that short left-field fence. Still, he was surprised when he heard someone yell, “Timeout.” He looked to his left to see Billy Martin leaving the on-deck circle on the third-base side of the field and asking him to come over for a conference. Carey stepped out of the batter’s box and huddled with the Yankee second baseman. Martin had a message from Casey Stengel. “The old man wants you to hit a home run and win the game,” Martin said within earshot of Red Sox catcher Sammy White. “What?” Carey responded in disbelief. “The old man wants you to hit a home run and win the game,” Martin repeated. “Get a good pitch and hit a home run.”

Carey stepped back into the batter’s box and on the next pitch drove a ball into the screen on top of the Green Monster for a home run. As he finished his trot around the bases and stepped on home plate, he saw that White was standing there and laughing. “Well, what are you going to say?” Carey quipped. “The old man says to do it, Sammy!”

The Yankee third baseman does not expect any similar exhortations from his manager as he steps into the batter’s box to start the bottom of the sixth inning of the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. With its vast expanse in left center field, hitting home runs in Yankee Stadium is a far greater challenge than blasting one in Fenway. Indeed, despite the earlier experience with Martin in Boston, Carey knows that his desire to hit home runs has proved to be one of the stumbling blocks in maintaining good relations with his manager. Stengel is, at heart, a conservative strategist who believes in getting runs the old-fashioned way—having a man get on first base through a hit or a walk, moving him to second on a sacrifice bunt or hit-and-run play, and then bringing him home with another hit. The Yankee manager had tried to get his third baseman to abandon his desire for the long ball and try instead for singles by spraying the ball to center or right field. But Carey felt more comfortable trying to pull the ball, and the different perspectives had been a constant source of friction. “Ohhh, nice going, Carey,” Stengel would invariably sneer when Carey returned to the dugout after hitting a long out to left field. “What happened, Carey?” “They got me.” “Well,” his manager would reply in a rising voice, “you got to go to all fields!”

It may have been clear in his manager’s mind, but that was not the way Andy Carey was brought up in Alameda, California. He was born Andrew Arthur Hexem on October 18, 1931—two days before Mickey Mantle’s birth—in nearby Oakland. With its trolley cars, small-town atmosphere, and proximity to San Francisco Bay, Alameda had considerable charm. But in those Depression days, young Andy had other priorities. His family, for one. Relations between his mother and father were not good, and by the time he was five, they were divorced.

His mother worked as a dental nurse in Oakland and never had much money in those early years, but no matter. “I always had a meal there,” Carey remembered. And in time, he also had a new stepfather— Ken Carey, the local attorney who had handled his mother’s divorce. It was a good relationship, especially because Ken, like his stepson, was an accomplished athlete. Looking back many years later, Carey would say that “my stepdad was a big influence.”

From the beginning, Andy’s focus was baseball, and his mother soon realized that her young son had a talent that distinguished him from his peers. “He could throw a ball harder and faster,” she remembered, “than any of his playmates.” (Years later, when he was playing third base for the Yankees, his teammates would also take notice of Andy’s unusually strong arm. “His throws seemed to tear my hands to pieces,” said Enos Slaughter, who used to warm up with Carey on the sidelines before games. “In some way, when he threw the ball, it seemed like a large rock hitting your hand.” Joe Collins, who caught many of Carey’s throws at first base, agreed, saying that Carey’s throws would “tear your glove apart.”)

With that strong arm, it was only natural that the high school coach would use him as a pitcher. But Andy could also hit with considerable power, and he grew frustrated sitting on the bench in between pitching starts. “Eventually,” he later recalled, “I stopped pitching because it didn’t give me enough action. I wanted to be in every game, all the way, and I started playing at third all the time.” By the time he was a senior, he made the all-county first team as a third baseman, but he had also pitched enough to make the second all-county team as a pitcher—the first time that anyone had made all-county teams in two different positions.

By the time Andy graduated high school in the spring of 1949, several major-league teams had expressed an interest. (One call came to the Carey home from singer Bing Crosby, then a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Ken Carey was skeptical about the caller’s identity and put him to the test. “Sing me a song,” the elder Carey demanded. Bing complied, and Ken was satisfied that the caller was indeed the famous crooner.) Despite the interest, Ken Carey was not sure that his stepson should sign a professional contract.

The problem was the major-league bonus rule. If a player received a bonus in excess of $6,000, he could not be placed on a minor-league team but would have to stay with the parent club. Club managers— eager to provide their new recruits with training in the minor leagues—were reluctant to offer anything in excess of that amount. Ken Carey was hopeful that the rule would be changed to allow larger bonuses and counseled patience. Andy therefore decided to accept a scholarship offer to play baseball at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California.