Harvey Frommer / Players Yankees
Havrey's Podcast on CBS Radio Meet Harvey in Person! Fall 2008 Book Tour Reviews of "Remembering Yankee Stadium", published September 1, 2008 See Images and Learn More Buy the book
Sneak previews and extra content:
Remembering
Yankee Stadium: Opening Day 1923
Yankee
Stadium Firsts
Barnstorming
Around America with the 1927 New York Yankees
Remembering
Yankee Stadium: All-Star Games
Roll
out the Barrel: The 1927 Yankees
An
Oral and Narrative History of The House That Ruth Built
Yankee
Stadium Prisms and Sidebars (A Very Partial List)
Yankee
Stadium By The Numbers
Remembering
Yankee Stadium:
Twenties
/
Thirties
/
Forties
/
Fifties
/
Sixties
/
Seventies
/
Eighties
/
Nineties
/ 21st
Century
Harvey Frommer on Sports
*Remembering
Yankee Stadium: Fifties
(For your reading pleasure adapted from
REMEMBERING YANKE STADIUUM: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE HOUSE THAT
RUTH
BUILT)
The World Series competition
for the Yankees in 1951 was the Giants of New York.
They had a storybook season, chasing, catching and then conquering
their hated rival Brooklyn Dodgers in a one-game play-off on Bobby
Thomsons Shot Heard Round the
World.
EDDIE LOPAT: All the reporters told us to watch out. The Giants
are hot, they said. They beat the Dodgers coming out of
nowhere. We didnt believe what anybody told us or what they printed
in the newspapers. The other teams had to beat us on the field. That was
where it counted.
MONTE
IRVIN:
We were still on a high after beating
the Dodgers in 1951 in that playoff game when we went up against the Yankees
in the World Series. Without a chance to rest, we
reported to the Stadium the
next day. I got four straight hits and also stole home in the first inning.
My last time up, Yogi Berra said: Monte, I dont know what
to throw you. You have been hitting high balls and low balls and curve
balls. Im gonna have you
get a fastball right down the middle."
I really didnt
believe Yogi. But sure enough Reynolds threw me a fastball right down the
middle. I hit a line drive.
The ball was caught. I really wanted that hit. No one had ever gone five
for five in the World Series.
Fielding the first black
outfield in World Series history - Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin and Willie
Mays - the Giants defeated
Allie
Reynolds and the
Yankees
5-1 with
Dave
Koslo going the distance for the win.
STEVE
SWIRSKY:
I was ten years old and a Yankee
fan.
My dad didn't have
a lot of money but he came home one day with two tickets for the second 51
World Series game.
I remember everything about that day - the smells, the walking around
to the little shops, my dad digging deep to buy a cap and a hot dog for
me. It almost glowed in my heart
'cause I used to listen to the Yankee games on the radio from all over the
country even though there were times I could barely hear
it.
We sat down the left field line underneath the overhang - 20 rows
back. In those days poles held up the overhang. My seat had an obstructed
view. But you know how some
women are about little boys . A woman switched seats with me so I could
see. It was Willie Mays who hit the fly ball that Mantle, playing
right field, chased. Mantle was not the superstar that he was going to be,
but there was a big hush when he went down. It seemed like the world stopped.
The 19-year-old Mantle, attempting to avoid a collision
with Joe DiMaggio, twisted his ankle in the fifth inning on a sprinkler-head
cover protruding from the outfield grass. He lay there, motionless. His right
knee had snapped and was he was lost to the Yankees for the rest of the
series.
No matter the Yankees were loaded with talent and though the
Giants had momentum, it was another world championship for Stengels
guys on October 10, 1951 as Vic Raschi bested Dave Koslo, 4-3 before 61,711.
That was the last World Series game Joe DiMaggio ever played
in.
==
I am at work on my newest effort - - REMEMBERING
FENWAY PARK: AN ORAL AND NARRATIVE HISTORY, a companion book to REMEMBERING
YANKEE STADIUM (The Definitive Book) Fall 2008 (Abrams, STC).
If you or those you know have specific stories and memories of times (first
game, marker moments, oddity) at the Fens - please get in touch with me and
hopefully we can set up a date and time for me to interview you. I would
appreciate
that.
Harvey Frommer is his
33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 40 of them including
the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime
Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history
(Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) was published September 1, 2008
as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".
Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and
autographed.
FROMMER SPORTSNET (syndicated) reaches a readership in excess of one million
and appears on Internet search engines for extended periods of time.