The First Major League Game I Ever Saw
I saw Joe DiMaggio play; yes, I did, it was the first major league game that I ever saw, and I shall never forget it. It was during the War; DiMaggio wasn’t supposed to be with the team, but he was in Washington on leave or something, or else he was playing on that service team and the service team was in town the same time’s the Yankees were, and the rumor started about 11 o’clock in the morning that DiMaggio would play that day for the Yankees. Washington was a smaller city then, and if you were connected—my Dad was connected, because he worked for the Washington Post selling advertising—if you were in the loop, as they say, by 3 o’clock you knew it was true. The game was supposed to start at 5:00; they hadn’t started this nonsense of starting games at 5:05 or 5:07 then; it was a five o’clock start. Dad called home from work and told Mama to get me dressed warmly and ready to go to the ballgame, and then he cut out of work about 3:30, took the train home, picked me up and we got right back on the train headed back downtown.
DiMaggio couldn’t wear his own uniform, of course; he wasn’t on the active roster and he was supposed to be with the Army, so he wore the uniform number 9, which belonged to an outfielder named Hersh Martin, who was about DiMaggio’s size. He was pretending to be Hersh Martin, just for the day; course I wouldn’t have known one way or the other, but my Dad had seen DiMaggio play many times, and he knew for sure it was him; everybody did, and Hersh Martin couldn’t take a step forward or backward or sideways that night without the stadium just roaring with excitement. One time the Public Address announcer said, "Now batting for the New York Yankees, JOE . . . .uh, uh, I’m sorry, Hersh Martin."
Well, it started to rain about 5:30; of course in those days the weathermen didn’t have any more idea when it was going to rain or when it was going to stop raining than they did when a monkey would take a piss, so that held up the game all of a sudden for about 20 minutes, and then they cleared the field and poured sand on the base paths, and 20-30 minutes they were ready to play. They played another inning; it rained again, held up the game another hour, better part of an hour, then they played a couple of innings and it rained again, but nobody went home. Crowd of 30,000 people there, maybe more. Every time the game restarted everybody was anxious that maybe DiMaggio had cut out and gone home, since he wasn’t supposed to be there anyway, but here he’d come, popping out of the dugout and running to center field like there was snakes on every step. That was the way my Uncle Fred described the way DiMaggio ran, like there was snakes on every step but as long as he didn’t look down at them he would be alright. He always ran with his head high, looking straight ahead. He probably didn’t even know that the infield was just mud and sand. I remember Hersh Martin had hit a double in that game and a tremendous hard drive to left field, and the first thing you know it was close to midnight and the game was in the fifth inning, and that was when all the trouble started.
In those days you didn’t have replay, of course, but what the Senators would do is, they’d hire a team of little people to rush on to the field and re-enact the play for you. ‘Course they didn’t call them little people at that time, and you wouldn’t do that for entertainment now, but. . . .so there’d be a close play at first, and the first baseman and the first base coach would be yelling at the first base umpire, and while that was going on these little guys, 3-foot-5 and such, would all run out, and one of them would slide into the base and another one would tag the base and another one would play the umpire and would give this exaggerated "safe" sign, and then they’d hop up and run off the field, and the crowd would just yell and scream and carry on like the war was over. With all the rain delays we had seen a lot of the little people that night; they’d been re-enacting scenes from the game in center field during the rain delays, and one of them had a number 9 uniform and he would prance around like he was DiMaggio, and carry this monstrous big bat; it was probably the same size as DiMaggio’s bat, only it looked like a telephone pole when this guy had it. Why in the hell DiMaggio didn’t go home, I don’t know, but I guess he was there to play a baseball game, and by God, he was going to play a baseball game.
A bank of lights went out on the third base side but almost behind home plate; they just went out all of a sudden, and the umpires called the managers out of their dugouts and there was a confab at home plate, and then they started playing again, but without those lights. It turned out, of course we didn’t know this at the time, it turned out that that bank of lights was pointed right at the White House and right at the window in the bedroom where Churchill was staying. FDR was dead by then; FDR and Hitler had both died a few weeks earlier, and Churchill was staying there, getting to know Truman, only he couldn’t sleep with those lights on, and if Churchill couldn’t sleep, nobody could sleep. So about 11:30, 11:45 Harry called Clark Griffith and told him to turn off those God Damned first base lights so that Churchill would go to bed and he could get some sleep, he had a God Damned country to run and a war to fight. So they turned off those lights, and you know, the lighting in old Griffith Park wasn’t that good to begin with, but what are you going to do?
So the next time Hersh Martin comes to the plate, he hits this pop up, highest pop up you’ve ever seen, I guess; well, we’ll never know for sure, because he hits this pop up a mile high to third base, looks like it might have been in fair territory, and the ball just disappears in the air. To this day nobody knows what happened to that pop up; it got to about 150 feet in the air, and it just vanished into the night. Harlond Clift was the third baseman for the Senators at that time, Clift is just standing there and waiting for the ball to come down, only it never does. DiMaggio gets to second base and holds up, looks like "what’s happening here?", and Clift is waving his arms like "Where’d the ball go?", and this little man in the Number 9 uniform comes dashing out of the stands, crosses home plate, runs to first, turns left, runs to second, swats DiMaggio on the butt like "Let’s go; what are we waiting for?", and runs to third. DiMaggio decides he might as well run, too, so he starts chasing the midget, pardon my language but that’s what we called ‘em then, he starts chasing the little guy to third, passes him and beats him home.
Well now, nobody has any idea what to do; everybody is yelling at everybody and the Senators Cuban shortstop, who was a real hothead, I forget his name, is chasing the little man with the Number 9 uniform and absolutely determined to kick his ass. Torres; that was his name. Torres is just in a rage; finally the little man reaches the safety of the stands and heads up a runway, and everybody in uniform is screaming at the umpires, who don’t really have any idea what they are supposed to do. Finally one of them points at home plate, which at first people think is supposed to mean that DiMaggio has to come back and hit the ball again, but eventually they figure out that he means to say that DiMaggio is entitled to home plate; it’s an inside-the-park home run, because he hit the ball and ran the bases and nobody ever put him out.
Now the Yankees are happy but the Senators are mad as hell, and they all start yelling at the umpires; the home plate umpire throws out one of the coaches, and the first base umpire throws out one guy, and then the third base umpire throws out one guy; by the time the dust settles there’s been seven Senators thrown out of the game, not counting a coach or two. Funny thing was that Torres wasn’t one of the guys who was thrown out at that time, and he was the craziest guy on the field, but anyway he didn’t get thrown out, which is how the later things came about. The Yankees keep scoring and scoring, and by the 7th inning or so it’s one o’clock in the morning and the Yankees are ahead 9 to 1, but nobody has gone home because DiMaggio is still playing, and everybody knows this is the only chance you’ve got this year to see DiMaggio play.
Top of the 7th inning, there’s runners on first and second, and there’s another high pop up to third base. Torres is going to catch this one, because Harlond Clift’s been thrown out of the game and there’s some rookie playing third base who is not even really an infielder, so Torres runs over to make the catch, and this ball comes down out of the sky like it is supposed to.
Only just about as Torres is going to catch it, he collides with the third base umpire, and the ball drops. In fair territory. Now it’s 10 to 1 and runners on second and third, and Torres just goes ballistic. I mean, he just totally loses it; screaming at that third base umpire so loud that he probably woke up Churchill, I don’t know. The third base umpire is a big guy, an old football player, way bigger than Torres, and he ain’t backing down, he’s got his face right in Torres’ face and he’s giving as good as he gets.
So finally Torres decides that he’s going to fight the umpire, only if it was a fair fight he didn’t have much of a chance. At that time the player’s uniforms had belts in them, leather belts, so Torres pulls out his belt and starts swinging it over his head like a calf roper in a rodeo. The umpire retreats, but Torres comes after him, the umpire moves away again, and finally the umpire is running top speed toward second base with Torres right behind him, snapping that belt on the umpire’s backside and screaming and hollering. When the umpire got to second base he stepped on the base and turned right, heading to first base. I always wonder why he did that, funny thing to wonder about under the circumstances, but it was like he had to stay in the base paths, even though he wasn’t really a ballplayer and he was running the bases backward and being chased by a crazy man swinging a belt, but I suppose it was just instinct; you touch the base, you turn and head to the next base.
So he gets to first base, he touches first, heads for home, touches home, heads back to third base, Gil Torres two steps behind him with the belt, all the way, and there’s a crowd of players all gathered along the third base line just trying to stay out of the way and looking on in some amazement, but just three or four feet away from the baseline, and out of this crowd of players here comes the little man in the number 9 uniform, that Torres had tried to beat up an inning or two earlier. He puts a rolling block on Torres, and Torres goes flying ass over tea kettle, and as he does his pants come off because he’s not wearing any belt; not all the way off, but all of a sudden they’re down around his ankles. Turns out Torres isn’t wearing any underwear; he’s got a jock strap on, but that’s all; I can still see it, been 70 years now.
The umpire gets away, but Torres gets to his feet, and he’s not giving it up. Of course he’s been thrown out of the game by now, but he won’t leave the field. At that time there wasn’t any security in the park, weren’t any cops on the field or anything like we have now, but fortunately there were a couple of paying customers who had brought handguns to the park, and they got out on the field and pointed their weapons at Torres and marched him off the field. His uniform was long enough that it covered his privates most of the time, but he’s still steaming so as he is being marched off the field at gunpoint he pulls up his uniform and shows the crowd his willie. Fortunately there wasn’t no women in the crowd by that hour.
End of the inning it was 14 to 1, Yankees, and the Senators had pitchers playing here and there, they’d run out of position players by now. The Senators had some good hitting pitchers that year, though; Sandy Ullrich hit .270 something, and Mickey Haefner hit close to .250. Dutch Leonard and Marino Pieretti hit over .200, and by this time several of these guys are playing in the field, and they start hitting. They score five runs in the bottom of the seventh, and then in the eighth they score a couple more. By the end of the eighth inning it is 14 to 8. Actually it’s 14 to 7, and Joe Kuhel, who was the Senators’ first baseman and maybe their best hitter, hits a nice drive to center field, probably would have been a triple except that Kuhel trips in the sand and mud between first and second and sprains an ankle, real badly. A run scores on the play, making it 14 to 8, but Kuhel can’t get to a base, so he’s tagged out as he lays there, and then he is carted off the field.
Well, the Senators manager looks around the dugout, and he realizes that he’s run out of players. He doesn’t have anybody to play first base. We’re sitting right behind the Senators dugout, and he looks over the dugout at us, and he says "Can any of you guys play baseball for an inning or two?" Ossie Bluege was the manager; it’s pronounced Blue-Gee, hard G. Of course all of the little people with the uniforms on are all waving their arms; they all want to go in and play, but Bluege isn’t going for that, so there are several guys in the first two or three rows waving their arms, too, and saying how much they’d like to get in there and play an inning, but for some reason, never know why, he picks my Dad, who was just sitting there minding his own business. He looks him over closely and he says "You’re a white guy, ain’t you? Hard to tell in this light." My Dad said usually if somebody asks you that you’re supposed to knock their teeth out, but under the circumstances he lets it go and assures Bluege that he’s a white guy, and they come up with the top half of a uniform and a glove and send him out to first base.
By this time it’s like three o’clock in the morning, but there’s still about 15,000 people there, although, as we were to learn later, all of the reporters had gone home; the lights were on in the press box but there wasn’t a soul up there other than the PA announcer, who by this time is only announcing about every third batter. First batter hits a line drive right at the first baseman, and my Dad sticks out his glove and catches it. Crowd goes wild; everybody’s excited to see the old man make a play like that. Second batter hits a ground ball to short; I think Sandy Ullrich is playing shortstop by then, he’s another Cuban. He fields the ball, throws it to first, Dad catches it, two away. Crowd applauds.
Then things start to go bad. Ground ball right at Dad; he kicks it, runner reaches. DiMaggio hits a single, which is like his sixth hit of the game or something, and Dad gets to meet Joe DiMaggio face to face, which of course he would talk about until the day he died. Then there’s a ground ball to second. Second baseman throws it to first, but it nearly hits Dad in the face and he doesn’t catch it, so a run scores and now it’s 15 to 8. The crowd boos Dad, but it’s kind of a good-natured boo, and then the Senators get the third out somehow.
Well, by now the Yankees are pitching an outfielder; I think the guy who was pitching then was the actual Hersh Martin, wearing somebody else’s uniform because DiMaggio is in his. Martin can’t throw a strike; he walks the first guy, he walks the second guy, throws a couple of wild pitches, hits a guy with a pitch. You remember that Joe Kuhel made the last out of the 8th inning, and my Dad replaced Joe Kuhel, so he’s the 9th batter up in the 9th inning. By the time he gets to the plate it is 15 to 13, two runners on base, one out. There wasn’t any on base circle at that time, I don’t think; as he’s coming out of the dugout he talks to Bluege a minute, and Bluege says "He’s not throwing any strikes; just stand there and he’ll probably walk you." First pitch is a fastball, right over the heart of the plate. Strike one. Second pitch is the same thing, borderline, but strike two. Dad looks over at Bluege; Bluege nods and makes a little swinging motion with his hands.
Pitch comes in. Dad swings as hard as he can, and the pitch knocks the bat clean out of his hands. When the ball hits the bat the bat just goes flying over the catcher’s head, over the umpire’s head, halfway to the screen behind home plate. The ball rolls forward about 30 feet, and Dad stands there dumbfounded for a second, not sure what he should do, but he sees the Yankee catcher, Garbark, running out toward the mound to field the ball, and finally he takes off for first base.
Garbark has the play, but the outfielder who is pitching, Hersh Martin or whoever he was, tries to field the ball as well. In the mud the pitcher slides and wipes out the catcher, and nobody can make the play. It’s 15 to 15, and Dad’s on second base with the winning run. Next batter up is Hilly Layne. Layne hits a line drive into the right field gap, and Dad slides home with the winning run.
In those days they’d get stuff in the newspapers an hour after it happened; I don’t know how they did it, but they did. By this time all the trains had stopped running for the night, so we had to get a taxi cab home, and it wasn’t easy to get a cab; took us about an hour. By the time we’re riding home, I’m in the back seat with my Dad, and the sun is coming up.
"If Mom asks you how the game was," he says, "You just tell her it was exciting to see Joe DiMaggio, OK?"
"Do you think Gil Torres will be thrown out of baseball?" I asked.
"He might be," said Dad, "If the commissioner was alive. But the commissioner is dead."
"Lot of people dead," I said. "Hitler, Roosevelt, the Commissioner, Uncle Tony."
"Yeah," he said. "A lot of people dying lately."
As I walked to school a couple of hours later there was a big newspaper headline, says "OLD FAT GUY SAVES GAME FOR SENATORS". They didn’t get my Dad’s name, and Ossie Bluege told the reporters that that guy was an old friend of his who had played first base for the Senators years before and was now a Judge or something. He was an experienced major league player, and there was no way Bluege would put some total amateur on the field. He also said he didn’t know who the man was who had run onto the field naked, and he thanked the volunteer sheriff’s deputies for their help with crowd control. It may be that the reports the Senators and Yankees filed with the league offices were not totally accurate on every detail.
Well, that was the first major league game I ever saw. I am sure everybody remembers the first game they get to see, and I’m sure everybody’s game is as special to them as mine was to me, but this is my precious memory, and I thought I would share it with you, just to help you remember how great baseball used to be.