Tag Archives: New York Yankees

Marty Springstead Demonstrates How To Eject A Manager

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Marty Springstead, Former American League Umpire, Dies At 74 (January 17, 2012)

Major league baseball umpires are beloved by their families and friends, but are generally not appreciated by the fans. When longtime umpire Marty Springstead died after suffering a heart attack on January 17th in Sarasota Florida, I felt sad that one of the more memorable baseball names that I heard throughout my childhood was gone. As a fan, I appreciated Marty Springstead’s umpiring skills  and not just because he would consistently eject Orioles manager and longtime Yankee nemesis Earl Weaver from ballgames during the 1970’s and 1980’s, but because he was from the old school of umpiring and was not flamboyant.

Springstead umpired in the American League from 1966-1985. He went on to become an executive and supervisor of umpires from 1986-2009. He worked in three All-Star Games and three World Series. He also got to be behind the plate for two no-hitters, but missed the chance for a third. He would have been calling balls and strikes on June 1, 1975 when Nolan Ryan pitched his fourth no-hitter, but he took off to be with his wife who was having a baby.  People who knew Springstead said Marty was funny and a great storyteller.

But managers who got under his skin would not see that side of him while he was on the field. Springstead was a very good umpire who took his job seriously and didn’t take flak from players, coaches or managers.  Twice during his career Springstead led the league in manager ejections.

I was among the 10,670 long suffering Yankee fans who attended the ballgame shown in the photo below.

At Yankee Stadium on Saturday, August 26, 1972, the Kansas City Royals had already scored two unearned runs in the third inning, and were leading two to one. There were two outs and Yankees pitcher Rob Gardner had a 1-2 count on Kansas City Royals slugger John Mayberry with two men on base. It looked like Gardner would get out of the inning. Continue reading →

Classic Hollywood #10 – Gary Cooper & Babe Ruth

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Babe Ruth Shows Gary Cooper The Finer Points of Gripping A Baseball Bat

In the 1942 film The Pride of The Yankees which tells the life story of Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth took his role of playing himself very seriously.  He also wanted to make sure Gary Cooper got it right as well.

Babe shows Cooper where the trademark should be when holding a bat so it won’t shatter should he make contact. Continue reading →

The Agony of Defeat

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The Day After The Yankees Were Swept in a Late Season Doubleheader – 1954

The day of September 13, 1954 was not a happy one for Yankees fans as can be seen above. Reality sank in for eleven-year-old Walter Golle as he sat in front of Yankee Stadium. The dejection shown in Walter’s face reflected the fact that the Yankees would not be in the World Series for the first time since 1948 when Walter was five-years-old. The Yankees had won five consecutive World Series from 1949-1953.

The day before, on September 12, the Cleveland Indians had swept the Yankees in a doubleheader in Cleveland. The games were witnessed by 86,563 fans, the largest crowd to ever see a baseball game in the cavernous Municipal Stadium.

September 12, 1954 Municipal Stadium Filled

Bob Lemon won the first game 4-1 for his twenty-second win of the year and Early Wynn triumphed 3-2 in the second game for his twenty-first victory. The Yankees ended the day being 8 and a half games behind the Indians, reducing Cleveland’s magic number for clinching the pennant to three games.

The Indians would go on to win an American League record 111 games. They finished the season eight games ahead of the Yankees.  Miraculously the New York Giants defeated the heavily favored Indians four games to none in the World Series.

Walter eventually got over the Yankees 1954 failure. Maybe that is an assumption.

Here is what Walter looked like 46 years later in 2000 featured in The Norwood News Inquiring Photographer section.

Mickey Mantle After Retirement

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3 Photographs of Yankees First Base Coach – Mickey Mantle

 

 

 

 

And Bobby Murcer gets playfully pushed away after reaching first base

Mickey Mantle announced his retirement March 1, 1969. In 1970, Mickey Mantle was an announcer on the NBC Game of the Week, but left in late August and  joined Yankee manager Ralph Houk’s coaching staff for the remainder of the season.

Mantle’s first game coaching was on August 30 against the Minnesota Twins. Bobby Murcer walked to lead off the fourth inning. When Murcer came over to talk with Mantle, who would coach first base only for the middle three innings, Mantle kiddingly pushed Murcer back to first base. The Twins first baseman is Rich Reese. The Yankees won this game 5-2. Continue reading →

And Here’s The Batter’s Box…

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Gil McDougald Needs to Be Reminded Where He Can Stand

Photo © Bill Nehez

New York Yankee third baseman Gil McDougald had one of the most unorthodox batting stances of all time.  He would face the pitcher with both feet pointing towards the mound in an open stance.

At Municipal Stadium on June 12, 1953 the Cleveland Indians were upset with where McDougald was standing, claiming his right foot was over the line of the batter’s box. Continue reading →

Vintage Photos – Stealing Home

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Or Jackie Robinson Makes Stealing Home Look Easy

One of the most famous film highlights of a baseball game is from September 28, Game 1 of the 1955 World Series where the Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson stole home against the New York Yankees. The photograph above captures the bang-bang action. The play was incredibly close and you could look at the film 100 times and still not be sure of the outcome. Robinson was called safe by umpire Bill Summers. To this day, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra vehemently Continue reading →

Babe Ruth Catches A Baseball From An Airplane

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Babe Ruth, Out Standing In His Field, 1926

Yes, I know that is a terrible pun.

Here is an apocryphal story about Babe Ruth and this little known feat.

In this rare news photograph, Babe Ruth  has just caught a baseball dropped from an airplane on July 22, 1926 at Mitchel Field (an early New York airport) in Garden City, Long Island.  The New York Times reports Ruth donned an army uniform to drum up publicity for the Citizens Military Training Camps.

Six times, baseballs were dropped from the airplane and Ruth was sweating up a storm, Continue reading →

Baseball Theme Songs

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When Baseball Teams Had Their Own Unique Songs

Dodge Dart radioWhen my Dad and I would drive places at night in the 1970’s, my father would put on the Baltimore radio station, WBAL-AM to hear the Orioles games. At night the radio signals were stronger and you could pick up most of the bigger radio station’s broadcasts within a 400 mile range, so he would listen. I vividly remember the upbeat song that used to be played to start the O’s broadcast. I searched the internet and have had no luck finding “Orioles Baseball” which is what I believe the title was. But I have collected a number of baseball theme songs and thought I would share them.

For every baseball fan who can remember…

(click on link to hear the mp3 of the song)

Yankees Theme Song

In the 1970’s when I was listening to the radio, before the start of every ball game, the New York Yankees would have their theme played. The Yankees announcers, Phil Rizutto, Frank Messer and Bill White would eventually talk over the song and it would fade out. At the end of the game they would play the theme again. The Yankees still play a truncated version of the song at the beginning and conclusion of games on the radio, but they rarely play this version with the lyrics.

Mets Theme Song

Musically well constructed and simply the best song ever written for a team with its catchy lyrics. The “Meet The Mets” song still holds up nearly 50 years after the Mets introduction to New York. This version is the original version. (ed note: strangely enough I wrote this article on June 30 and originally scheduled it to be posted on July 5. I moved it up to July 3 after seeing that the writer of the Mets theme song Ruth Roberts passed away Friday, July 1 at age 84.)

Cubs Theme Song

If you grew up in Chicago you may remember “Hey, Hey Holy Mackarel” which was the Chicago Cubs song.

White Sox Theme Song

Now, if you were a Chicago White Sox fan, the song dear to your heart would be “Let’s Go, Go, Go White Sox.”

Tigers Theme Song

In the late 1960’s this is what the Detroit Tigers were playing – “Go Get ‘Um Tigers.” Continue reading →

The Original Yankee Stadium – Photographs and Memories

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A Reflection on The Late, Great Yankee Stadium With Vintage Photographs

I visited the new Yankee Stadium once in 2009 when it first opened. The feeling was a bit surreal. It was like being in Yankee Stadium, but it wasn’t. The main difference for me was the surrounding neighborhood and looking out past the right-center field bleachers and not seeing the apartment buildings and the Bronx County Court House.

The new Yankee Stadium is a glorified mall.

The old Yankee Stadium that existed from 1923 – 1973 was where the storied history of the Yankees took place. Even after the renovation of Yankee Stadium from 1974-1975 which included taking out the old wooden seats and the removal of the beams that could block your view from many of those seats, the stadium still retained some of the old charm, even though it lost a bit of its character. From 1976 -2008 the Yankees played in the same spot where Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Red Ruffing, Hank Bauer, Whitey Ford Joe DiMaggio and Bill Dickey saw action.

The Yankees of the last 35 years; Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, Ron Guidry, Mel Stottlemyre, Paul O’Neill, Don Mattingly and Derek Jeter could look around and seep in the history of this altered palace of baseball, even if there were heavy cosmetic changes to the outside and inside of the stadium itself.

There was no more “Death Valley” Continue reading →

The First Baseball Strike – May 18, 1912

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An Unlikely Catalyst Causes a Baseball Strike – Other Players Rally Around the Unpopular Ty Cobb

On Wednesday May 15, 1912 The Detroit Tigers were playing the New York Yankees at Hilltop Park in upper Manhattan when one of the most infamous incidents in baseball history occurred.

Ty Cobb, the star outfielder for the Tigers was incited by a fan to go into the stands and pummel him.

The fan, Claude Lucker (alternately spelled by contemporary papers as Lueker or Leuker) worked as a page in the office of Tammany boss “Big Tom” Foley.  From the onset of the game Lucker was being particularly obnoxious according to all accounts. Cobb and Lucker exchanged nasty barbs and Cobb warned Lucker to stop calling him names or he would come into the stands to take care of him personally. By the fourth inning Cobb had had enough and he jumped into the left field stands and started administering a beating and no one seemed to interfere.

Sticks and stones were probably not as harmful to Cobb as the names which could hurt him – especially when the racist outfielder was called a “half-nigger” by Lucker, which was what apparently drove him over the edge.

It should be noted that Lucker had a machine press  accident when he was younger and was missing one hand and had Continue reading →