John Delach

You may notice TV commercials or advertisements on social media announcing a new spring professional football league known as the United States Football League or USFL. This venture is named after a previous attempt to compete with the NFL during the mid-1980s that died in the court room after a nasty lawsuit.

That USFL played two seasons in the spring. Although the league signed a TV contract with ABC, they lost nearly $200 million during this period. After welcoming Donald Trump into their midst as the owner of the NJ Generals, the other owners caved into his demand that they switch to a fall schedule and compete head on head against the NFL during the 1986 season. Unable to secure a network television contract, the league suspended activities then sued the NFL for monopolizing access to ABC, CBS and NBC. Depending on a successful outcome, the USFL anticipated playing a full season with all eight teams beginning on September 13.

The trial opened on May 12, 1986, in the Federal Courthouse on Foley Square in lower Manhattan, Judge Peter K. Leisure presiding. It was a marathon and a slugfest that lasted ten weeks thanks to the chief plaintiff’s attorney, Harvey Myerson, an associate of Roy Cohn and Trump’s own choice for lead counsel.

NFL Commissioner, Pete Rozelle, was the first witness to testify and his performance on Day 1 left much to be desired. Following that debacle, Rozelle was cajoled, coached and bullied that night by the NFL’s legal team. He returned to the stand. with his act together and made a good showing for the remainder of his time giving testimony.

Myerson called Al Davis, the recalcitrant owner of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders to testify in favor of the USFL Davis, who had an eternal blood-feud with Rozelle didn’t have a problem with sticking it to his fellow owners. Myerson also called an over-the-hill Howard Cosell who was somewhat inebriated and gave a rambling address against his old boss at ABC’s, Roone Arledge.   

Frank Rothman, the NFL’s lead attorney methodically examined Chet Simmons, the former USFL’s Commissioner who Trump had removed and, Harry Usher, the current Commissioner. Usher was inept and testified that the only reason that the USFL switched from a spring league to a fall league was to position itself for a merger with the NFL.

Rothman’s special victim and his best witness for the NFL was their chief protagonist, Donald Trump! Richard Hoffer of the Los Angeles Times wrote: “Rothman’s cross-examination was a breathtaking ode to knowing your subject and taking him apart, piece by piece.” 

By the time the testimony wrapped up and closing arguments were made, it became obvious that Rothman had successfully demonstrated that the NFL was innocent of all charges. Myerson’s attack strategy was to paint the NFL as Big Business and his USFL as the little guy shut out from a path to success.

The jury debated the case for five days deadlocked three to three. One faction favored the USFL and wanted a judgement of between $300 million and $500 million. With triple damages the judgement would have ranged from $900 million to $1.5 billion.

The other faction wanted to find in favor of the NFL without any damages. After seemingly endless and fruitless debate, it seemed that they finally reached a compromise based on the judge’s instructions to the jury that included a statement that they could award as little as $1.00 in damages if they could not distinguish the amount of the USFL’s losses that were due to its own poor management as opposed to the amount caused by the NFL’s monopolistic practices.

The jury reached a curious verdict in the pressure cooker of a packed jury room. They deemed that the NFL violated Section 2 if the Sherman Anti-trust Act by monopolizing the three television networks but found the NFL not guilty of the other eight charges.

The jury foreman handed Judge Leisure their verdict. After he absorbed it, he asked her how did the jury find on Count One? She replied: “Guilty.”

The court room erupted in joy and excitement for all supporting the USFL. After, order was restored, he asked the foreman how the jury found on the other eight counts and the foreman repeated, “Not Guilty” eight times.

Then Leisure asked the foreman the amount of the damages the jury had agreed upon and she replied, “One dollar.”

A quieter, but just as intensive reaction erupted from those supporting the NFL. The USFL legal team was devastated, the USFL as a league was done and Trump was an embarrassment to the public, the press and his fellow USFL owners.

Myerson was livid. He moved for a mistrial, a motion that Judge Leisure rejected. (The USFL’s subsequent appeal to higher courts were also rejected.) 

Ayoung John Mara, eldest son of the New York Football Giants President, Wellington Mara, and future president of the team, was in the courtroom  monitoring the proceedings. On hearing the words one dollar, he pulled a dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to The Donald. Trump’s sunken expression was worth the price.    

This Wednesday’s Blog will be delayed one week due to issues beyond my control. God willing and the Creek don’t rise, publication will resume on Wednesday, February 23.

Question: Why is Creek capitalized?

If you were a basketball or a hockey fan during the 1990’s, you’d understand that Madison Square Garden (MSG) was the place to be. This was particularly true for my son, Michael, who was fresh out of college, single, living at home and with money in his pocket thanks to a real job with an insurance company in Downtown Manhattan.

I was a Managing Director at Marsh & Mc Lennan, a premier insurance broker when times were good for the company, its officers and employees.  Frankly, I always considered my managing director title to be a bit of hyperbole where the more common, senior vice president, would have sufficed. But it did give me access to certain perks one being the corporate box at Madison Square Garden. Michael loved all sports, but it was the box at MSG that he found irresistible!

Curiously, the box went unused more times than not for the Knicks and Rangers. My only dilemma to securing tickets for my son was not to pester the gate keeper too often. The gate keeper was a senior executive assistant (aka secretary) to a high-ranking executive. I developed a good relationship with this gal and did favors for her whenever she asked, especially to protect her boss or by fending off unwanted interlopers. My being known as an avid sports fan didn’t hurt either.

Michael’s finest playoff era setched from 1993 until 1997 when he ceased to be a single guy. During this time frame, the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup and the Knicks lost the NBA Championship to the Houston Rockets in seven games. The Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup run was magical. Demand for tickets didn’t heat up for the quarterfinals against the Islanders nor for the semifinal series against the Capitals allowing me to get him tickets to every home game in each series.  It was only when the Rangers faced the NJ Devils in the Conference Final that I had to back off.

My success rate of securing playoff tickets for the Knicks was less successful, but Mike did go to a couple of their early playoff games.

 Michael’s magical run continued throughout the 1994-1995 seasons. The Knicks made it into the Eastern Division Semi-Finals against the Indiana Pacers.

On May 18^th, a Thursday night, Michael took me aside to ask if I could secure tickets for Game 7 scheduled for Sunday, May 21? “ Hold on there, cowboy,” I began my reply, “You and I both know that securing tickets to Game Seven’s is almost impossible.”

Then a bulb lit in my brain: “The Knicks are down two games to three., if they beat the Pacers on Friday night, Game Seven will be in MSG on Sunday night,”

“Son of a bitch! Our Managing Director’s meeting begins this coming Monday, and we are all preoccupied in getting there. Damn, you are good! Nobody can know if there will be a game on Sunday night until after Friday night’s game is over and the Knicks are victorious. That won’t happen until after 11 pm tomorrow night. Nobody will even think of requesting tickets for Sunday until it’s too late.

I waited until just after 3 pm on Friday afternoon to call Miss X, the gatekeeper, “Hey, Miss X,  I need tickets to the box for Sunday’s game. Are there any available?”

“John, actually, you are my first call asking for those tickets. How many do you want?”

Quickly, I blurted out: “Three.”

I let an ecstatic Michael know. That night, the Knicks beat the Pacers, 92 to 82 to force a Game Seven on Sunday night.

Three of my mates joined me to take Amtrak’s Cardinal to our meeting at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. We were still on the train around game time when I called our MSG box on my new cellular phone. When Mike answered: I asked him, “Mike, it’s me. What’s the crowd like?”

After he told me the Garden was full, he challenged me by asking how many people were in the Marsh box. I bit, “Okay, how many?”

“Noah, Anthony and me.”  

The boys witnessed an exciting game. With five seconds remaining in the game and the Pacers leading 97 – 95,  Patrick Ewing, the Knicks star player took an inbound pass and drove to the basket. Ewing had an open lane to the basket, but he began his jump a step too early.

He was too far away to dunk the ball and too close to float it into the basket, so he tried to finger roll the ball into the basket. His attempt was too long, and the ball bounced off the back iron as time expired.

Still, Mike, Anthony and Noah experienced an exciting playoff game in their own exclusive  corporate box. One for their memories.  

In 2011 I wrote the original version of “Van Lingle Mungo”, updating that edition after I discovered that Eddie Basinski had passed away.

It’s the musicality of his name that gives these lyrics legs. Say it slowly, let the syllables roll off your tongue: Van Lingle Mungo.

Van Lingle Mungo pitched in the major leagues from 1931 to 1945 mostly with the Brooklyn Dodgers. A talented hurler trapped on a lousy team; he had his day in the sun before fading into baseball history until his unique name enabled him to gain a peculiar recognition when his name was prominently featured in a song about baseball.  

Roger Angell, one of our American literature’s treasures and a  and devoted baseball fan and historian described Van Lingle Mungo in his quasi-memoir, Let Me Finish:

When I exchanged baseball celebrities with pals at school, we used last names, to show a suave familiarity, but no one ever just said “Mungo” or even “Van Mungo.” When he came up in conversation, it was obligatory to roll out the full

            name, as if it were a royal title, and everyone in the group would join

            in at the end of the chorus: Van Lin-gle MUN-go!

In 1969, the songwriter, David Frishberg wrote a jazz ballard, (at that time referred to as; “a bossa nova ballard.”) The lyrics consisted entirely of the names of baseball players except for “big” and “and”. The title is “Van Lingle Mungo.” And every chorus ends with his name.

Mr. Frishberg sang Van Lingle Mungo’s name exactly as Angell sets it out in his 2006 copyrighted book.

 In 2011 when I first wrote this piece, I noted the following information:: For the record, the experts who keep track of this kind of trivia report that six players named in the song remain alive, today: Max Lanier, 92, Eddie Joost and Phil Cavaretta, both 91, Johnny Pesky, 88, John Antonelli, 76 and Eddie Basinski, 84.

Van Lingle Mungo. was born in 1911, died in 1985. He won 120 games and lost 115, was most prolific from 1932 to 1936 when he won 81 and lost 71. He had several problems both on and off the field. On the field, he felt the need to strike out every batter giving him a high pitch count that limited his ability to complete games.

 Curiously, if Van Lingle Mungo pitched in today’s game, nobody would have cared about this weakness as almost every starting pitcher is only good for a maximum of six innings. He hurt his arm in 1937, an injury that should have ended his career. Curiously, he hung in there pitching junk for another seven years.

Off the field, he enthusiastically pursued wine, women and late-night adventures. On a spring training trip to Havana, he barely escaped a machete being wielded by the outraged husband of a nightclub singer and his latest conquest. He was wild and mean and had a terrible temper. Several sources quoted Casey Stengel who managed him on the Dodgers:

Mungo and I get along fine. I just tell him I won’t stand for no nonsense, and then I’d duck.

If you use Google or another internet search engine, you can find the complete lyrics, or actually hear Dave Frishberg sing his tune.

In January. Eddie Basinski’s obituary appeared in The New York Times. The headline read:

                  Eddie Basinski, 99, Infielder

                  And an Equally Elite Fiddler

Basinski had taken classical violin lessons since childhood and was a member of the University of Buffalo symphony orchestra when America declared war on Japan in 1941.

A marginal professional baseball player, his poor sight not only kept him out of the major leagues, it also prevented him from being drafted. But it did give him the opportunity to reach the major leagues as a replacement player for those starters who went to war. He played 39 games for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944 and 108 in 1945. Sent back to the minors in 1946, he played in 56 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1947.

He remained in the minor leagues until 1959 pitching for the Portland Beavers and five other teams including one in Venezuela. He told The Times about a violin recital that he performed between the two games of a doubleheader “I got a tremendous ovation and had a good doubleheader too.”

In January, in death, Eddie Basinski achieved a final milestone as he became the last baseball player named in Dave Frishberg;s salute to baseball  to pass away.

RIP Eddie Basinski.

This January is too long and too cold for my creative juices to keep flowing. Therefore, in an attempt to warm both your and my soul, I offer you an encore presentation of this piece that I first wrote in 2011 and revised in 2018. 

“Call me Buster.” I am a seven-year-old mixed breed part Chow / part Border Collie with brown and black hair. I have pointy ears that I can turn 180 degrees that would make me a lousy poker player as how I set my ears gives away my mood. Let me tell you about my first trip to Florida.

Before we left, I had my hair cut. This was not my idea as it was January during a cold, wet winter. When they did this to me. I thought that Mary Ann and John, the people I live with, were trying to kill me, but the next day we set out in their truck on a road trip that would take us to a special place, called Florida, where the weather is nice and warm in January.

I didn’t always live with them. A girl named Jodie, who I adored, adopted me from the North Shore Animal’s League’s shelter. She took me home to Connecticut. Later, she married their son, Michael. It was not a bad life until they had this kid. Didn’t like him, but food became more plentiful once he arrived. Then he became mobile and interested in me. A couple of bites later, it was goodbye Fairfield, and hello Port Washington, Long Island.

My life in this new home would have been much better if they didn’t already have Maggie living with them too. She arrived a year before I did, in 1999, another reject.

 She was thrown out of her home because she was a crazy ten-month-old Golden Retriever. Now five, she’s still nuts, and she’s a pain in my ass. Stupid Golden Retrievers think they are so special and this one thinks she is “The Supreme Being.” The fools I live with, especially, John, treat her that way.

You don’t believe me? She uses toys as props, rubber footballs, a rubber ring, a rope and especially tennis balls. She obsesses over her toys and God forbid, I borrow one, the bitch takes it away. Now toys are not a big deal for me, but fair is fair.

She also hogs the window in the back seat. She stands there waiting for them to open it, so she can put her stupid head out. And they do! God forbid, I go over to it. She growls and snarls. It got so bad on this trip that I said the hell with it and found a spot in the back of the truck. Mary Ann was nice enough to find a mat for me to lie on while “her majesty” had the entire soft seat to herself.

Spending eight hours in a truck every day for three days is not as bad as you think. It isn’t as though I had other things to do and we stopped often enough to stretch and relieve ourselves. Sleeping in those little boxy rooms was another matter altogether. There are too many strangers, each one a potential assassin. I was ready to stay up all night and let them know I was on alert, but John stupidly closed the curtains.

When we arrived at the house in Florida, I had to learn a few things the hard way. Glass sliding doors are not always open and what happens when I walk across the plastic cover on top of the swimming pool. My only pleasure was watching her majesty do the same thing.

Each morning we hopped in the truck for a short ride to the beach. As soon as we began to move, Maggie began to act up. Her ears flailed back making her look like a bolting horse. Her eyes blinked rapidly as her tongue moved in and out of her mouth at the same speed. She whimpered and cried. When she saw the water, the Loony Tune’s barking and crying became so high-pitched that it went right through me. It was all I could do not to bite her so she’d shut up. This cacophony ended only after John let her out of the truck. And this happened every morning!

The beach was great. Not many people, a few new dogs to meet and greet. Most of the time we ran free and I had a grand time cataloging new and different smells, rolling on dead creatures and playing in the surf. On the other hand, “nutsy Fagin” had to have something to chase and carry in her big mouth. Each morning, John found a different coconut that he would throw into the water. Maggie mindlessly chased them.

Her nuttiness gave me the idea that if I chased them too, that might drive her off the deep end. After I grabbed the coconut first a couple of times, she freaked out and started ripping it out of my mouth. After that I decided to back off and let her have it.

 John threw the coconut like a football, but its weight and the wind made some throws fall short. It was my fondest hope that sooner or later one would hit her on the head and kill her. (Imagine John having to call his kids to tell them what happened.)

Don’t get in an uproar, it didn’t happen. Actually, it was an excellent vacation with no mishaps after the first day. Neither of us went swimming in the bayou behind the house because the bottom was too muddy, and our instincts sensed danger. Good thing too because we found out alligators liked to swim there.

 We also avoided fleas and I had to smile because last year Maggie acquired fleas on the trip I missed.

So, you can put me down to recommending Florida as a good place to go to leave winter behind, but it would be much better to go there as an Only Dog.

Part Four

A barren spring devoid of National League baseball descended upon the Metropolitan area from Brooklyn to Fairfield, CT, to Garrison, NY, to Fair Haven, N J and to Port Washington, Long Island. Loyal Dodger and Giant fans could no longer live in denial by refusing to believe that the baseball loves of their lives had deserted them for California. The Dodgers and the Giants had sold out and were gone,  baby, gone; never to return.

Los Angeles and San Francisco celebrated the arrival of major league baseball with pride and joy, grand  parades down Sunset Boulevard and Market Street with their newly minted heroes and their families riding in the back of luxury convertibles to the cheers of the new faithful. Once their new heroes arrived in their temporary quarters, the air was filled by the sound of the umpires initiating West Coast Major League Baseball with shouts of:  “PLAY BALL!”

The Dodgers played their first three seasons in the LA Memorial Coliseum, a magnificent edifice constructed for the 1932 Olympics with a seating capacity of 101, 671 fans and not a good seat in the house. Because of its size, the baseball field had to be shoe-horned into a stadium with horrible sightlines for baseball. Still, these newbie and clueless aficionados flocked to opening day in unheard numbers. On April 4, 1958, 78,672 Dodgers fans filled this stadium to see their new hometown heroes defeat the rival Giants by a score of 6 to 5.  The Dodgers annual attendance for 1958 was 1,845,556.

It would be fair to write off this amazing attendance as a fluke, but in the summer of 1959, 93,105 fans came to honor retired Brooklyn Dodger great, Roy Campanella, who never played a game in LA.

When we add the attendance for the three World Series games of 90,000 each, in the Dodgers victory over the Chicago White Sox, we can imagine how happy this made Walter O’Malley. We had our joke, but he owned the baseball world.

O’Malley, always the trickster, set up Horace Stoneham and his Giants by convincing them to play their games in the Bay Area, a poor second to his Dodgers drawing power in LA with its vast metropolitan area connected by its infamous freeway system. Instead of having a capacity like vast seating area of  Coliseum, Stoneham’s only choice was Seal Stadium, the previous home of the SF Seals minor league ball club with a capacity of 22,900.

Despite this limited capacity the SF Giants inaugural opener on April 15 attracted 23,448 fans who delighted in watching their Giants trash their new, yet perpetual opponents, the LA Dodgers, 8-0.

The Giants finished the season in third place with a record of 80-74, but despite their so-so record and the limited confines of Seal Stadium, their total attendance for 1958 was !,272, 857. I doubt Stoneham regreted his move or gave a damn about O’Malley.

The Giants moved into their permanent home, Candlestick Stadium in 1960 and the Dodgers moved into O’Malley’s creation in 1962. Candlestick turned out to be a flawed ballpark. Designed for both baseball and football, it didn’t suit either and its location made it susceptible to dramatic wind and temperature changes on any given game day. The Giants solved their issues in 2000 when they moved to Pacific Bell, now ATT Stadium located right on the bay.

Dodger Stadium opened in 1962 and was an instant success and has always had the look and feel of a place to watch a baseball game. It is now the third oldest ballpark in MLB with only ancient Wrigley Field and Fenway Park  outliving it. Unlike these two senior citizens, Dodger Stadium has been modernized several times to include corporate boxes, club seating and electronic scoreboards and message boards. Yet, all these features were added without destroying its magnificent sight-lines.

Meanwhile back in Gotham City, once the weeping and gnashing of teeth  ran its course, the National League fans who also happened to be power brokers in a city of power brokers began to formulate their attack on MLB and the National League in particular. Early rabblerousers included Joan Whitney Payson, heir to the family fortune and a great baseball aficionado and her toady, M. Donald Grant, both minority partners in the Giants who refused  to endorse Stoneham’s move to the promised land.

Once it became obvious that the National League’s presence was gone, Mayor Robert Wagner turned to William (Bill) Shea, a well-respected and extraordinary deal maker to bring a team back to New York. After the league refused to consider placing an expansion team in the Big Apple, Plan B was to steal a marginal team. Shea concentrated on the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates. None were interested.

Shea didn’t become a brilliant fixer by being timid. Since neither an expansion team or moving an existing team were in the cards, why not blow-up baseball’s existing structure. Ladies, and gentlemen, may I present Plan C: The Continental League (CL). Shea started by naming a commissioner: seventy-eight-year-old Branch Rickey. He then signed on Mrs. Payson as owner of the New York franchise and between the two of them and other power brokers, they signed up five other owners:

Washington DC                              Edward Bennett Williams

Toronto                                           Jack Kent Cooke

Denver                                             Bob Howsam

Dallas / Fort Worth                        Amon Carter

Twin Cities                                       Wheelock Whitney

Shea announced that this new CL would commence playing ball in the spring of 1961. Note, other than New York and DC, the other franchises all would play in cities devoid of a Major League teams. Shea also let it be known that he had also lined up owners in nine other cities.

As Shea expected, MLB, the NL and the AL were ready to go to war to prevent the (CL) from getting off the ground. Shea used Wagner’s political clout to have Congress intervene. He enlisted the help of Senator Estes Kefauver, Chairman of the powerful Special Committee on Organized Crime. Simply called,  The Kefauver Committee, it was famous for grilling gangsters and union leaders on its open televised hearings.  Kefauver let it be known that he would consider opening these hearings to include MLB.

Wagner’s clout also prompted Brooklyn Congressman, Emmanuel Cellers to become involved. The 70-year-old Brooklyn Democratic Congressman was Chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee and he intimated that he may wish to have hearings to review changes to MLB’s anti-trust exemption.

MLB realized that they were in a fight that would only bring suffering and pain to the business of baseball. On June 18, 1960, the NL voted to approve expanding that league by two teams for  total of ten and the AL concurred on August 30. The AL in 1961 and NL in 1962.

The NL teams became the Houston Colt 45s (now the Astros) and the NY Metropolitans, aka the NY Mets , aka The Amazins.  Joan Payson headed up the syndicate that owned the Mets who played all of their 1962 and 1963 games in the ancient Polo Grounds  before moving to that ballpark Moses had proposed for the Dodgers in Flushing, Queens in 1964. Appropriately, it was named for the man who made this happen, Bill Shea.     

Part Three

And so it came to pass that winning the 1954 World Series turned out to be the New York Giants last hurrah. After winning the National League pennant and defeating the Cleveland Indians in four games to take the World Series, they went into a tailspin. In 1955, the Giants finished in third place and dropped to sixth place in 1956 and 1957. Consequently, attendance at the Polo Grounds dropped from 1.2 million fans in 1954 to 653,000 by 1957, the lowest in the National League. The Giants were in big trouble and their owner, Horace Stoneham, efforts to convince New York City officials to build a new stadium for his Giants in Manhattan over the New York Central’s West Side freight yards fell on deaf ears.

Stoneham began the process of moving his franchise to Minneapolis where he owned a Triple A minor league team. Why not, Major League Baseball was on the move in the 1950s. America’s post World War II identity was overwhelmed by a tsunami of change driven by consumerism and the growth in population thanks to the Baby Boomers. Traditional population centers could no longer accommodate this growth and Americans began migrating west in large numbers. Eventually, this movement expanded to include the south and southwest as A/C became reliable and readily available.

Baseball hadn’t expanded in decades, but these migrations convinced owners of second-rate teams in multi-team cities   to realize the opportunities available if they moved their franchises to baseball hungry cities. This movement began with the Boston Braves, who moved to Milwaukee in 1952. The Braves achieved attendance records that forced other owners to give pause when they examined their own financial models. The Braves couldn’t match the Red Sox popularity, so they successfully escaped Beantown for the town that Schlitz made famous.

Two other franchises took note of the same message, the St. Louis Browns and the Philadelphia Athletics. The Browns were up against the St. Louis Cardinals owned by the Anheuser-Bush family with their deep pockets. The Browns threw in their Missouri chips in 1954 and skedaddled to Baltimore where they re-invented themselves as the Baltimore Orioles.

The Philadelphia Athletics, once Connie Mack’s ship of state were in deep trouble, forced to play in a decrepit ballpark located in a lousy part of town. They lost the attendance battle to their National League rivals, the Phillies. Their owners  caved in after the 1954 season and sold the team to a Kansas City cabal who took the team to western Missouri for the 1955 season.

Stoneham wasn’t the only dissatisfied New York baseball owner. Walter O’Malley hated Ebbits Field, his small and obsolete ballpark in Crown Heights that opened way back in 1913 with a meager capacity of just under 32,000 fans. Granted, Dodger attendance remained at just over one million fans from 1954 though 1957, but O’Malley envied the Braves success in Milwaukee that averaged over two million fans during the same period.

I believe that despite O’Malley’s absolute dissatisfaction with Ebbits Field, his first instinct was to remain in Brooklyn. To this end, he proposed a spectacular state-of-the-art circular domed stadium with a capacity of 52,000 to be built above the Long Island Railroad yards at the junction of Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn.

One could say that Walter O’Malley was a visionary who could see into the future, but O’Malley’s vision didn’t materialize until almost sixty years later when the Barclay Center opened in 2012. This new home for the Brooklyn Nets basketball team has a capacity of 19,000 basketball fans. Barclay Stadium, named after the bank, otherwise known as The Bark, could only have become a reality after a lengthy process of gentrification that step-by-step rebuilt and renewed Brooklyn neighborhoods resurrecting them from being considered to be a collection of sub-standard slums into viable neighborhoods. 

The 1950s was a time of white flight from American cities to the suburbs and Brooklyn was no exception. Downtown Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Williamsburg and Crown Heights were hemorrhaging white middle-class residents who were fleeing tenements and apartment houses for new affordable developments rising on former potato fields in Nassau and Suffolk counties. These new suburbanites came to depend on their automobiles as the car culture changed their lives.

O’Malley’s domed stadium could have ruined him as a stadium in Downtown Brooklyn would have had to depend on the subways and the Long Island Railroad to transport Dodger fans to and from the games. This deteriorating urban neighborhood was devoid of major highways or any concept of adequate parking.

Overshadowing these issues, O’Malley’s proposal conflicted with the future plans for Downtown Brooklyn as envisioned by the city’s chief planner, construction tsar and all-around powerbroker, Robert Moses (RM). O’Malley was in a fight that he couldn’t win.

RM countered with a proposal for the Dodgers to move to a new city-owned stadium that he would build for the Dodgers in Flushing Meadows, Queens. (This eventually became  the  location of Shea Stadium and its successor, Citi Field.) O’Malley refused to consider RM’s proposal, famously saying, “We are the Brooklyn Dodgers, not the Queens Dodgers.”

I suspect, that by this point, O’Malley was already deep into his negotiations with the Los Angeles city fathers. and had come to realize the extent of the incentives and treasures these-baseball starved leaders were willing to grant him if he brought his Major League team to their city.

My suspicions are based on the fact that O’Malley approached Ford Frick, the baseball commissioner, sometime before the next owners’ meetings scheduled for Chicago in late May of 1957. On May 28, Commissioner Frick confirmed that the National League owners had agreed to allow the Dodgers and the Giants to move to Los Angeles and San Francisco respectfully so long as both teams made the move.

Two weeks prior to these owners’ meetings, O’Malley entered into a contract with the City of Los Angeles called “The Arnebergh Memorandum” whereby he committed to moving the Dodgers to LA for the 1958 season. In return the city agreed to acquire 350 acres of land in Chavez Ravine for the construction of the Dodgers new stadium. In addition, the city would help O’Malley arrange financing and construct the parking lots and all access roads needed to reach the stadium. It was only after O’Malley signed this agreement that he approached the commissioner and his fellow owners.

Stoneham had also been busy negotiating with the mayor of San Francisco, George  Christopher. Stoneham too, had been offered a package that included a new baseball stadium that became Candlestick Park and enough other incentives that convinced Stoneham to move west and trade in his team’s interlocking orange “NY” for and orange interlocking “SF.”

Stoneham confirmed the Giants were moving to San Francisco for the 1958 season on August 19, 1957. For reasons unknown only to himself, O’Malley let the story leak out starting with Stoneham’s announcement, but the Dodgers didn’t get around to a formal announcement until October 8, 1957.

O’Malley’s treacherous and disgraceful behavior made him the central villain of a sarcastic joke popular with all Brooklyn Dodger fans:

If you were stuck in a room with Hitler, Stalin and O’Malley and you had a gun with only two bullets who would shoot?

You’d shoot O’Malley twice in case the first bullet didn’t kill him.

(To be continued)   .  

January 2022

Part Two

1955

Nineteen Fifty-Five seemed different. After all the years of suffering, failure and regrets and those near misses in 1952 and 1953, confidence replaced the frustration that enveloped the psyche of the Dodgers organization, the team and their fans.

From the first pitch thrown and the first crack of the bat on opening day, the quality of the very air Dodger fans breathed was different. Every hunch and feeling confirmed that this was our year. Expectations were high. The newspaper beat reporters and the columnists caught on as did the Dodger fans I lived with. I was only eleven, but old enough to understand what was going on. When the Dodgers began the season by winning their first ten games, we all started believing that 1955 might be special. When the Brooklyn team extended that early streak to 22 and 2, we jumped on the band wagon.

Through my own experience, I have learned that if you are a devoted fan of a specific team, sometimes you develop insight to sense that those players were bound for glory. I knew that to be true for my 1986 Football Giants even before that season began. My premonition was fulfilled when they beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXI to finally became Super Bowl Champions.

The 1955 Dodgers were my first experience of rooting for a team of destiny. The Dodgers stars were at their best that year. Newcomers, Jim Gilliam and Sandy Amoros joined Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Carl Furillo and Roy Campanella. Brooklyn’s powerful pitching staff led by Don Newcombe, Johnny Podres, Carl Erskine and Clem Labine were aided and abetted by a very young Sandy Koufax and a another who would have a long career with this team, Tommy Lasorda.

The Dodgers overwhelmed the National League that year with a record of ninety-eight wins and fifty-five loses winning the pennant by 13 1/2 games over the second place Milwaukee Braves.

Who else but the Yankees would be opposition in the World Series? The first two games were played in Yankee Stadium. Whitey Ford outlasted Don Newcombe in Game One that the Bronx Bombers won 6 to 5.

The Yankees repeated their prowness the following day, winning Game Two, 4 to 2.

The venue shifted to Ebbets Field for the next three games. Johnny Podres led the Brooklyn nine to a comfortable 8 to 3 Victory in Game Three. Game Four was a home run marathon as Campanella hit two home runs while Snider and Hodges each went yard once tying the series at two games each. Roger Craig got the win and Labine the save. Snider hit two homers and Amoros, one as the Dodgers won Game Five  by a score of 5 to 3.

Up three games to two, the contest returned to Yankee Stadium for Game Six. Whitey Ford once again, stopped the Dodgers, this time by a score of 5 to 1 to even the series at three games each.

Brooklyn started Podres while the Yankees depended on Tommy Byrne who was one and one in the series. Byrne gave up two runs, one in the fourth and one in the sixth, both credited as RBIs to  Hodges.

The most dramatic moment came in the bottom of the sixth inning when Yagi Berra hit a shot to deep left field where Sandy Amoros made a remarkable catch that ended the inning when Pee Reese’s relay to Hodges tagged  out Gil McDougald before he could get back to first. Photos in the next morning tabloids revealed that Amoros eyes were closed when he caught the ball.       

At the end of Game 7, the scoreboard read: Brooklyn 2, New York: 0. Johnny Padres had shut out the Bombers and the Dodgers were World Series Champions for the first time ever. The headlines on the tabloids reflected this triumph and reality that the long wait was over:

The Daily News: THIS IS NEXT YEAR!

The Daily Mirror: DODGERS DOOO IT: BUMS AIN’T BUMS ANY MORE!

And all of Brooklyn and Dodger fans everywhere celebrated followed by the best sleep they’d ever would have with and without alcohol. Better yet, was waking up to  discover that sometimes dreams really do come true.

1956

The World Series turned out to be a rematch of 1955. The Yankees coasted to win the AL pennant by ten games over the second place Chicago White Sox. The Yankees began their assault on opening day, April16 against the Washington Senators in Griffith Park. President Dwight David Eisenhower witnessed Mickey Mantle parking two home runs into the bleachers as the Bombers won 10 to 4. By the close of business on the last regular season game, Mantle had won the triple crown by hitting fifty-two home runs, driving in 130 runs with a batting average of .353!

The Dodgers had a rougher road to the pennant with the Milwaukee Braves nipping at their heels. The Braves changed managers midway though the season and came within one game of tying the Dodgers. Close, but no cigar!

Once again, the World Series went a full seven games. Brooklyn won the first two games both played at Ebbets Field. Sal Maglie, once the Giants ace, now traded to the Dodgers outlasted Whitey Ford in Game One: Brooklyn 6, Yankees 3. In Game Two, Brooklyn poured on the firepower in a barnburner that finally by the Dodgers ending the contest by outlasting the Yankees by  a final score of 13 to 8.

The series shifted to Yankee Stadium for the next three games. Whitey Ford had a terrific outing in Game Three going the distance while Enos Slaughter’s three-run homer led the home team to a 5 to 3 victory.

The next day, homers by Hank Bauer and Mickey Mantle tied the series at two games each as the Yankees prevailed 6 -2.

Game Five was played at 2:05 PM on October 8, 1956, before a crowd of 64,519 fans. Mel Allen and Vin Scully shared the TV mics broadcasted on NBC. Bob Neal and Bob Wolff handled the radio broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Dodger’s manager, Walter Alston handed the ball to Sal Maglie while Casey Stengel put his into the hands of Don Larsen. Two hours and six minutes later, the Stadium crowd watched as, Yogi Berra, the Yankees catcher raced out from home plate and lept into his pitcher’s arms to begin the celebration of Larsen’s perfect game. Twenty-Seven Dodgers up and Twenty-Seven down  and not one batter ever reached first base.

Final score, 2-0. Maglie only gave up two runs, Mantle hit a solo homer in the fourth inning and Hank Bauer hit an RBI single in the sixth inning. “Larsen needed just 97 pitches to complete the game. In 1998, Larsen recalled, ‘I had great control. I never had that kind of control in my life.”

In the Dodgers ninth, Larsen retired Carl Furillo on a flyout to Bauer and Roy Campanella on a grounder to Billy Martin. Larsen faced Dale Mitchell, a .312 career hitter. For the final out. Larsen got ahead of the count  at 1-2 before striking Mitchell out.

Don Larsen became a celebrity after the series concluded making numerous appearances and enjoying an extended fifteen minutes of fame. But what he accomplished remains untarnished. Simply put, Don Larsen is the only player in Major League History to throw a perfect World Series game.

Despite the trauma the Brooklyn team had to endure as the losing team in a perfect game, Back home in Ebbits Field, they prevailed in a ten-inning marathon, 1-0. Clem Labine and Bob Turley both pitched complete games that ended when Jackie Robinson hit an RBI single allowing Jim Gilliam to score the winning run from third base.

Go figure, the Yankees blew Game Seven wide open from the get-go. They scored two runs in the first inning, two runs in the third inning, one in the fourth and seven in the seventh to win the 1956 World Series by a score of 9-0.

Jackie Robinson made the last out in what would be his last time at bat. His out also brought down the curtain on New York’s subway series. The Milwaukee Braves won the next two National League Pennants. The Yankees World Series streak would continue until 1964, but both the Giants  and the Dodgers would leave town at the end of the 1957 season.

I returned home on December 23 from an overnight stay in St. Francis Hospital where I received a clot preventer called, “The Watchman.” This device was implanted into a chamber in my heart to prevent blood clots from exiting that chamber and killing me. My Watchman is nothing more than an inanimate shield that blocks threatening clots from leaving their source. Delach:One, blood clots: Zero.

A device almost too good to be true, I still can’t abide by the name, Watchman. It sounds like something Sony introduced in the 1970s. So, I decided to name it Stevie.

I did experience a few delightful quirks on the way to my operation. The surgeon was late for the procedure. His crew covered for “MD God.” On arrival, he did give me a “We got this,” in the prep room cameo.  

When I arrived in the OR, I was wheeled into the room to the voice of John Fogarty and CCW from a speaker. They shaved my groin after which I was introduced to all the operating staff. My last recollection before everything went dark was a bit disconcerting. As I began to fade toward midnight, I heard two nurses observe: “You know, he has high blood pressure and a low heart rate at the same time?” followed by a sarcastic: “Perfect!!”

I desperately wanted to call a time out, but I was too far gone toward the other side to voice my objection.

My procedure went well, and after an overnight stay and a morning echo-cardiogram confirmed Stevie was in place and on guard, Tara, my supervising nurse said I was good to go.

Absolute and total relief was my reaction. Relief that Mary Ann, me, the doctors and the nurses had pulled this off during attacks by both the Delta variant and this new hyper- contagious, Omicron  COVID variant. The last thing I needed was to test positive for either one of these abominations, and I had avoided both.  

Mission accomplished. A stop at, Let There Be Bagels, our local bagel store for a lox and cream cheese sandwich on a plain bagel let me know I had made it home.

Meanwhile, the Omicron variant continued to go through America faster than the Metroliner went through Metuchen, New Jersey. Vaccinated or not, it seemed there is no place to hide and no place to run. Friends and family seem to be infected in the blink of an eye. 

Our daughter, Beth, and her family, chose to spend their Christmas vacation at Little House, our place in New Hampshire. Our Son, Michael, and his family decided to stay in Connecticut.

We cancelled all our plans and chose to weather the pandemic at home in Port Washington until we can  turn the page. We had to minimize our expectations. Unbelievable, almost two years removed from the first assault, and every one of us completely vaccinated, we remain trapped by this latest variant!

But life’s own matters do not always wait for better times. That same day, December 23, Ruby, the Connecticut Delach senior family dog experienced noticeable distress. Michael and Drew took her to the emergency veterinarian who determined Ruby had massive tumors blocking her digestive tract. Brave souls, both, father and son did right by their very best friend and put her to sleep.

In honor of Ruby and all our very best friends, I have included the piece I wrote about the day we met Ruby and her brother, Max, for the first time.

Max and Ruby’s’ Arrival

Max and Ruby were eight weeks old when they arrived by truck from Missouri on Thursday, November 11, 2010.

 Their litter was born on September 9, and they were transported to Long Island by a dog trucking company called PetEx Express as part of a shipment of eighty-two puppies destined for private owners and pet shops in Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

As disturbing as this sounds, think about the alternative; flying the baby Golden Retrievers to New York by a commercial airline. .

When Mary Ann and I were first presented with a plan to fly the puppies to New York, at first, it seemed to be fine.

 We had lost Maggie that summer and decided that we had one last Golden in us, but we would wait until November to welcome our new addition. In the interim Mary Ann decided to buy a second pup for our daughter-in-law, Jodie, as a birthday gift.

Jodie wanted a female, and we wanted a male. We picked the name Max and Jodie picked Ruby after the other principal characters in the comic / cartoon show: Max and Ruby.

When our flight back to JFK from Fort Myers, Florida turned into an awful rockem-sockem, rodeo ride. I dreaded what would happen to the puppies if they had a similar experience. “Mary Ann, I fear that we will find two traumatized pups covered in poop.”

That’s why we were relieved when the service we were using advised the puppies would be coming by truck. However, that had its own complications. Steve, the driver, a good fellow who gave me his cell number, was clueless when it came to delivering in the New York Metropolitan area.

He expected to arrive on November 10 and Jodie drove down with our three grandchildren, Drew (11), Matt (8) and Samantha (4). The idea was for them to be with us that evening when the dogs arrived so they could meet and greet their Ruby. By eight o’clock that night, the kids had had it and poor Steve was lost in Manhattan. Mary Ann took charge, called him and told him, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

 He told her they had a stop at a local Port Washington pet store called Barkingham Palace and would deliver our puppies after that stop. “We’ll sleep in their parking lot.”

Knowing that my oldest grandson, Drew, was an early riser, I found him in the kitchen watching TV when I slipped out of bed the following morning. “Hey, Drew, let’s take a ride to find the truck. Don’t bother to change, just throw something on to keep warm”

Drew’s eyes lit up. He threw on slippers and a coat and off we went only to find an empty parking lot. Right, I called Steve on my cell phone: “Where are you?”

“We’re at Burger King having breakfast.”

“Don’t go back to the pet store. My house is between Burger King and that store. Use your GPS.”

I gave Drew my phone so he could call home to tell his mom and Mary Ann what was up while I headed for Burger King. “Grandpa, how will we know what truck to look for?”

“Simple, Drew, look for a truck with Missouri plates.”

We arrived to see a panel truck with “Show Me” state plates pull out of the lot. “See those plates, Drew, that’s our truck. Let’s follow it. Call home, tell them we’re on our way.”

Drew and I reached the driveway at the same time as the PetEx truck. Everybody poured out onto Roger Drive in eager anticipation. Steve’s helper emerged from the truck and presented these two beautiful babies into the loving hands of their new families.

Mary Ann and Jodie each hoisted a into the air to confirm who was Max and who was Ruby.

Shouts of joy, squeals of delight, pandemonium, we welcomed two very confused puppies who soon would come to realize, they were home. Once again, we had a big orange dog in our lives.

And so, it goes…Ruby has gone to that place where the spirits of all good dogs go.

We will intern her ashes in New Hampshire next summer under our baton rouge.

The period from 1947 until 1956 was identified by Ken Burns, the creator of an award-winning documentary about baseball as the era when New York was baseball and baseball was New York. It would be difficult to dispute that statement as during nine of those ten baseball seasons, one of the three New York baseball franchises participated in the World Series. In fact, in seven of those years, both opponents were New York teams. All involved the New York Yankees, and six, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and one, the 1951 series saw the Bronx Bombers play the New York Giants.

The Yankees won that series four games to two, but to reach the World Series, the Giants had to play the Dodgers in a best of three game playoff. Tied one-game apiece, Game 3 was played in the Polo Grounds. In the bottom of the nineth inning with two men on base, the Giants slugger, Bobby Thompson hit what became known as “The shot heard around the world” while Russ Hodges, the team’s radio voice screamed into his mic: “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant…”   

1948 was the only exception. That year, the Cleveland Indians outlasted the Boston Braves winning that series, four games to two. The Cleveland team’s superb pitching staff overwhelmed Boston since the Braves only had two aces of their own. Their only recourse was to chant the Braves mantra: “ Spahn  and Sain and pray for rain.” Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t cooperate and, despite the best efforts of Warren Spahn and Johnny Mize, that formular fell short of victory!

Arnold Hano, a lifetime Giants fan wrote a delightful book about the first game of the 1954 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Giants played in the Polo Grounds with the title: “A Day in the Bleachers.” In it he describes his take on the characteristics of Giant fans and their rival fans of the other two teams.

He explained that Giant fans were unique, but he could have added a bit peculiar, because of the strange layout of the dressing rooms at the Polo Grounds. Instead of being located under the infield stands behind the first base and third base dugouts, the locker rooms at the Polo Grounds were in a building behind the bleachers that towered over the fans. Teams, going onto the field had to take a passageway out of the building and on to the field in full view of the fans.. So too did unlucky pitchers who had to make the reverse journey after being taken out of the game.

Hano believed this forced Giants fans to have a unique perspective when greeting their opponents. “On the whole, it was a quiet, well-behaved crowd. It seemed that the Giant fan held no deep animosity for the Indians.”

Hano characterized Dodger fans to be…” a surly lot, riddled by secret fears and inferiority complexes. The sight of two Dodgers on one base is legend. It seems a Dodger trademark and the fans know it. To compensate they become rude, overbearing and superlative-addicted.”   

In contrast, he described Yankee fans as follows. A Yankee fan is a complacent ignorant fat cat. He knows nothing about baseball except that the Yankees will win the pennant and World Series more often than they won’t and that a home run is the only gesture of any worth in the entire game.”

The Yankees beat the Brooklyn Bums in the 1952 and 1953 series forcing their fans to again react in the manner that Hano described them with their vows of: “Wait until next year.”  

Next year, 1954 belonged to the Giants and Hano was one of their fans who waited on line to secure a bleacher ticket for Game One of their World Series against the Cleveland Indians. In the top of the ninth inning with the score tied at 2-2 and runners at second and first base, Vic Wertz, the Indians first baseman hit a long flyball into the deepest reaches of the Polo Grounds’ center field commonly known as Death Valley.

Willie Mays, the Giants center fielder took off at the crack of the bat. Mays blazed a run in the direction of the bleacher seats in center field. At a point, 385 feet from home plate, Mays and the ball came together, and the Giants superstar made and unbelievable catch over his left shoulder imitating a football receiver catching a long pass thrown by his quarterback.

But instead of continuing on, Mays came to a dead stop and used his momentum to pivot 180 degrees and as he made a sweeping turn to his left. He brought his right arm around his body extending it full length before releasing the ball in a laser throw that reached second base on a fly. Both runners were aware of Mays’ arm strength forcing them to remain on base in case he managed to catch Wertz’s blast. When he did, his throw to second guaranteed that they would remain there.

The Giants won that opening game 5-2 in extra innings and they won the 1954 World Series in four games. Most experts believe that Willie May’s sensational play that became known as, “The Catch,” was the turning point of that series.

What Mays did in the field, James Larmar (Dusty) Rhodes accomplished at the plate. He won Game 1 by breaking up the tie in Game One with a pitch hit home run in the tenth inning. In game two he battered in two runs for a 3-1 Giants victory and in Game Three he hit a two run single in the team’s 6-2 victory,

Said manager, Leo Durocher: “He thought he was the greatest hitter in the world, and for that one year, I never saw one better.  

(To be continued.)

On the Outside Looking In will not publish on December 21 but I expect to return on December 28. May each of us who celebrate Christmas have a warm and joyous Christmas.