(Fourth in a series of “Baseball’s
Greatest Myths”)
Enos Slaughter won the ’46 Series, dashing from first to home as
shortstop Johnny Pesky supposedly froze on the relay from
centerfield. It was a great and daring run, but if John froze, the
camera didn't see it. The official
MLB game film shows John taking the throw, whirling, and pegging it home
in one motion – too late.
When I wrote this in The Sporting News 25 years ago, I offered
to buy a steak dinner for any reader who viewed the film and still believed
that Pesky held the ball. No
one wrote in to claim his steak.
Gabe Schechter of the Hall of Fame says he detects a slight
pause.
“I think he held
the ball for right around one second,” Schechter
writes. “He caught the ball, turned, saw Slaughter heading
for the plate, and threw right away.
There was no delay between catching the ball and turning toward the
plate, and no delay between spotting Slaughter and throwing the
ball. [John says he had to refocus from the bright sun
to the deep shadows at home
plate.]
There was only that one second
it took for him to turn and see
Slaughter. Yes, the throw wasn't
that good (kind of loopy), but I think Slaughter would have scored
anyway.”
But I don’t detect any pause.
I checked 19 major baseball beat writers, and half left didn't see it either. They this angle completely out of their stories the next day.
My guess is that, while everyone was watching Slaughter, someone in the press box, probably the AP writer, cried, “Did you see that? Pesky held the ball!” No one else had – they were all watching the runner -- but they didn't want to admit it, so half of them stuck it in their stories, down near the middle or end, to protect themselves. Or, more likely, their editors inserted it after reading the AP lead.
The truth: Slaughter got
a good jump and scored from first on a double, a routine
play.
A few minutes earlier Dom DiMaggio, with perhaps the best arm in baseball,
had hobbled off the field with a charley horse after his two-run double had
tied the game. “I
never would have tried it,” Slaughter said, “if DiMaggio had been
out there.”
“I believe I'd have had a shot at him at third,” Dom
says.
The real goats were Boston reliever Bob Klinger, who didn't hold Enos
close; manager Joe Cronin, who didn't use his ace, Tex Hughson, in relief,
and substitute centerfielder Leon Culberson, who made a weak lob to
Pesky.
Another myth has possible racial
overtones. It says that the
Cardinals’ Cuban third base coach, Mike Gonzalez, was holding up his
arms and yelling “No! No.”
Thus the macho Anglo-Saxon over-rode the timid Latin and brought
victory to his team. Actually,
Mike was frantically waving his arms and yelling, “Go! Go!”
The myth that Johnny held the ball persists, kept alive by writers who
have never seen either the game or the
film. It’s a cruel albatross
that has been hung around Pesky’s
neck. Slaughter batted .300 lifetime, a modest figure for an
outfielder with little power.
Pesky hit .307, making him one of the best-hitting shortstops
ever. Yet that seven-second dash put Slaughter in the Hall of
Fame and has kept Pesky out while his New York contemporaries, Phil Rizzuto
(.273) and Pee Wee Reese (.269) are in.
And for Johnny, now 87, the sand in the hourglass is trickling steadily
away.
