With the Blue Jays playing their final games in Yankee Stadium this year.  I thought that I would create an entry that captures the history and tradition of Yankee Stadium in its glory days.  The classic baseball novel, Summer of ’49 by David Halberstam, encapsulates an amazing year at Yankee Stadium.

Summber of ’49 is a baseball classic that I finally got around to reading this summer, and I’m glad I did.  1949 was 33 years before I born, but I wish I had lived in this age to experience baseball when it was more simple and pure.  ’49 was the year that the Yankees won their first of 4 straight World Series’ under manager Casey Stengall.  The book follows, both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, as they fight in a heated pennant race in 1949.  Halberstam goes so indepth with this pennant race, that he cateloges stories from young fans, players, restaurants owners and the media all throughout the book.

It was a time where heros were made by voices over the radio, where hard working war-vetern players gave it their all on the field and baseball, not football or any other sport, was truly America’s game.  Individual accomplishments took a backseats to team camaraderie at this time.  Long railway and bus trips would force players to build valuable team relationships and managers that layed discipline on players, forcing them to perform as a team.  

Then Red Sox manager, Joe McCarthy, was a good example.  He demanded that all his players play hard and take losing very lightly.  While coaching the Yankees in the ’30s, McCarthy overheard one of his players say, “You can’t win every game,” the next day that player was sent home.  The really irony about McCarthy, however, was that while discouraging his players to go out partying/drinking, he himself had terrible trouble with alcohol.  His players even had a code word for his benders, they would say he was, “riding the white horse.”

The alcoholism that existed in many of the players, during this era, is well documented in this book.  These players make David Wells look like a amateur, in the way they could throw them back.  Many players could not go on and play without drinking.  Ellis Kinder, pitcher for the Red Sox, would stay out all night and drink as much as he could to play better baseball.  This I would not recommend, but it is an interesting sidenote to a very good pitcher in those days.  Like I said, it was a different time, hard to imagine now though.    

Mel Allen was the radio voice for the Yankees in ’49.  He got the job because the previous assistant radio voice referred to Ivory Soap as Ovary Soap.  Allen’s voice captured fans from all over with a signature language that he developed.  “If there was a play that excited him he would intone, ‘How about that?’  A home run was not just a home run, it was a ball that he virtually rode-”Going, going … it is gone.” … And he was always selling beer.  No one did the transition from the game to commerical better.  “Little Phil (Rizzuto) made a great play on that last ball, and make a great play for yourself if you open up a Ballentine beer.”  Between innings would come the full commercial: ’If you’re listening in at your favorite tavern, don’t just say ‘one up,’ but be sure to ask the man for Ballentine.  Enjoy the two B’s, baseball and Ballantine.  As you linger over that sparkling glass of Ballantine beer, as you feel it trickle down your throat, you’ll say, ’Ah, man, this the life!’  Baseball and Ballentine beer.   And while we linger on this pleasant subject, folks, I’d like to remind you that it’s a smart idea to keep plenty of Ballantine on ice at home, to serve at mealtimes, to enjoy during leisure hours, so at your dealer’s be sure to look for the three rings.  Ask him for Ballantine beer.  Listening, one could always sense his pleasure in every aspect of what he did.”   A truly good broadcastor always has that quality, there are very few of them.  Allen would later say that he did not like broadcasting on television nearly as much.  He, and fans, could not use their imagination quite as much because the camera was doing all the work.  He felt that he had a less intimate-relationship with his viewers.  Tom Cheek and Jerry Halworth, Blue Jay’s radio announcers for years, had some of these qualities, and like Mel Allen, I can still hear Cheek and Halworth in my head as I watch any Blue Jay game .  I cherish baseball radio broadcasts for this imaginative quality, but it is sad that they have mostly become a thing of the past.  

Those were a few stories to give you a taste of what this book is all about.  Within the Summer of ’49, there are a lot of great stories and so much baseball history.  The careers and lives of Yogi Berra, Vic Raschi, Tommy Henrich, Ted Williams, Joe Dimaggio, Dominic Dimaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky among countless others are descripted very well and written beautifully in this book.  A very easy read if you are a baseball fan, the pages will just roll on by.       

I won’t ruin the ending, but the Red Sox blow it, badly, as they usually do, in a dramatic series against the Yankees at the end of the season.  Prior to that series, they also had the opporitunity to seal the pennant but they blow it again against the Washington Senators.  It is a great book about an amazing season, filled with ups and downs for both teams.