All language subtitles for Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E07 (Baseball A Film By Ken Burns S01E07) (ENGLISH)

The first game I went to, May
30th, 1956, Yankee Stadium.

We drove from Long Beach,
Long Island to the Bronx.

It almost took two hours.

It was the kind of car we had.

And as we came up into the Bronx and
Jerome Avenue, my dad said, there it is.

And, you know, I'd seen games
before, but on TV and at Dumont.

And there it was, and
it like ate up the Bronx.

It was the biggest thing I
had ever seen in my life.

And it had that great roof,
that green copper roof.

And the breeze was just blowing all
those pennants in the roof, you know,

just going like that, telling you
which way the wind was blowing.

And I had my glove
and everything.

And we had Louis
Armstrong seats that day.

My dad was in the music
business, and we'd gotten his seats.

And I sat like in between third
base and home plate, like real close.

And my older brother
had a bad back.

He was my old brother, Joel.

He was 14.

So somebody from the Yankees, they
had arranged this, to take us down into the

clubhouse, so this Gus Monch, the
Yankee trainer, could work on Joel's back.

So there I am, I'm in the little alleyway,
right in front of what became known as P.

Cheese Clubhouse.

And Casey Stengel comes out.

You know, doesn't this happen
to everybody, I'm thinking?

And I looked at him
and went, hi, Casey.

Because I had a
big mouth even then.

And he goes, hey, kid,
you want to play today?

I said, yeah, I thought you could,
you know, because it was suit up.

I'll take Mantle and
Bauer and the kid.

I thought, that's how
you do it, you know.

And then we go
out to the ballpark.

You can't imagine
what it's like.

And it was the green, this
grass that just went on forever.

And the clay, the infield, the
dirt of the infield was so brown.

And the bases were so white.

And the scoreboard
with all of that news.

You know, Ballantine beer and
what was happening in Detroit.

And all the news, it
was the news center.

It was this big, gigantic place.

And it was 461 feet to
the center field fence then.

They had monuments.

And I thought Babe
Ruth was buried out there.

They were like
these big tombstones.

There was a great deal of respect in that
building for the past and for the game.

Between 1950 and
1960, Joseph Stalin died.

Ho Chi Minh drove the
French from Vietnam.

And in Cuba, Fidel
Castro seized power.

He had once been rejected
by the Washington Senators.

...because he did not
have a big-league arm.

Rosa Parks refused to sit in the
back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

And the former street hustler Malcolm
Little changed his name to Malcolm X.

During the anti-communist hysteria
of the Cold War, the Cincinnati Reds,

the oldest professional
team in America,

officially changed its
name to the Red Legs.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Honus
Wagner and Joe Jackson died.

George Brett and Wade Boggs
and Ricky Henderson were born.

In the 1950s, a new way of
watching the game would destroy

forever the network of small-town
teams all across the country.

Fewer and fewer fans now followed the
fortunes of the Aberdeen Pheasants and

Rockford Peaches, Missoula
Timberjacks and Catahoula Dirt Movers.

Americans were on the move.

And Major League
Baseball, for the first time

in half a century,
would finally move, too.

The now-dying Negro Leagues sent
their greatest players to the majors in

ever-increasing numbers,
changing the game, giving baseball

one of the greatest decades
anyone could ever remember.

There were many good
teams and stars, but the city of

New York came to dominate
the game as never before.

In New York, fans
witnessed the most

talked-about home run
in the history of baseball.

In New York, an improbable hero
pitched a perfect game in the World Series.

And in New York, a young man
whose legs were so badly injured

that he played in constant
pain won the Triple-Double.

In Boston, the last man to
hit .400 almost did it again 16

years later, and then left the
game in spectacular fashion.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the
absolutely unthinkable happened.

8th inning, Giants win.

The pitcher, Larry
Jensen, throws.

Pinch hitter, Cal Abrams,
hits the ground to the third.

Thompson's throw
to Irvin is wild.

Cal streaks for second while Irvin
races after the ball, slings to second.

Zacharetti, snaggy.

The throw's in time.

He's out.

Injured most of the year is not
expected to be much of a factor.

But suddenly, he is
perched on third base.

Whitey Ford, the Yankee
pitcher, ignores him.

Robinson's speed
is but a memory.

But his desire burns
as fiercely as ever.

Suddenly, Robinson
is roaring down the line.

Yankee catcher Yogi Berra roars in protest,
but Jackie Robinson has stolen home.

I love the game because I grew up in
New York City in the late 1940s and 50s,

which was the greatest intersection
of baseball and place in history.

We had three major league teams.

All of them were good.

They were great
between 1947 and 1957.

In 1986, a New York team was in
the World Series every year and won.

Roy Campanella comes
to bat in the fourth inning

against Tommy Byrne
in this scoreless struggle.

And the Dodger catcher lines
a hit into the left field corner.

Campanella is going for
two bases and makes it easily.

Baseball was almost a private
possession of New York City.

...a single to left to
score Campanella.

Brooklyn leads one to nothing.

And you'd walk around through
the city in October, and the

sounds of baseball were
everywhere, from cab radios, taverns.

People would come out of
taverns during the season.

Some men would come out of a
tavern and say, Campy just hit one.

You were aware of the ribbon
of baseball going on around you.

I remember a cab driver would pull up,
and there'd be another guy sitting behind

the wheel of his cab, or a parked
car, a guy asleep, the radio on.

And the cab driver would call
over and say, They score yet?

And they'd say, Nah.

Now it's the tenth inning.

Pitcher Bob Lemon works
hard on what he made.

This time, though, he walks you.

You want to steal second, and
you ask for the sign from Leo.

It's on.

You're safe.

And that does it.

Game number four, and
more heroics to fan Dodger

hopes for a World
Series victory at long last.

Duke Snyder, Dodger's center
fielder, is the hero of this game.

Snyder's double to right
in the first inning drove

in two runs, and the
Brooks were off and running.

Boom, another double for Snyder.

Hail the Duke of Flatbush.

Watching it on TV in New
York with Willie, Mickey, and

the Duke, and the arguments
on the corner, you know?

Willie's unbelievable.

Willie's the greatest.

He can do anything.

You're nuts, the Duke.

The Duke is the classic.

You see how he runs
with his elbows up like that?

You guys are nuts.

It's Mickey, and that's it.

He's strong, he's blonde, he's blue-eyed,
and he hears from both sides with power.

I think you should reconsider.

And that was it.

All tied up in the eighth, Mickey
Mantle facing Preacher Rowe.

The Oklahoma Giants.

The Oklahoma kid parked
it in the left field seats,

and the score was tied at
3-3, but you know the rest.

The Yanks had Bauer on second,
Martin up in the bottom half of the ninth,

and Martin laced one
right up the middle.

His 12th hit of the series,
making him the hero of heroes.

Bauer scored, and the Yanks
won the game and the series.

Yes, sir, the
Bombers did it again.

Five World Series in a row for Casey
Stengel and his American League whiz-bangs.

They made baseball history.

What a team.

The 1950s belonged to
the New York Yankees.

Between 1949 and 1959, they won
nine pennants and seven World Series.

They won with old stars,
and they won with rookies.

They won with the superb
pitching of the junkman Eddie Logan.

Super chief Allie Reynolds.

And Whitey Ford, the
chairman of the board.

They won with the
clutch hitting, steady

fielding, and fiery
temperament of Billy Martin.

And the speedy shortstop Phil
Rizzuto, who was called the Scooter.

And they won with the old
professor, Casey Stengel.

I think Stengel is the
most interesting man,

except for Ruth, who
ever appeared in baseball.

Unfortunately, his myth
has become that of the

clown, the man who talked
Stengelese double talk.

He knew more about the game
than anyone I ever talked to.

He was the smartest man.

I think he had tremendous
basic intelligence.

Not much education.

He barely got
through high school.

And he went to dental
school for a couple of

years, studying the
mechanical skills of a dentist.

And he would have been a
dentist if he hadn't played baseball.

But he had this
intuitive intelligence.

He would look at things, and he would
see things, and he would sense things.

And when he talked, if he didn't want
you to understand him, he would say,

well, there's this and that, and the other
thing, and talk this way and that way.

He also sometimes panicked.

He couldn't stand dead air.

And if somebody asked him something,
he just wouldn't stand there and say, um.

He would start to talk and
say, well, yeah, this fellow,

you're talking about that
fellow there, he's pretty good.

Now you take the other
one out in left field, and

I can bring him in and
use this fellow back there.

And he just jumbled it that way.

But he knew what he was saying.

And sometimes the things came out,
he's a man who said, There's a time in

every man's life, and
I've had plenty of them.

And that's a marvelous
expression, says it.

He had been in baseball
since 1910 and seemed to recall

every play of every game
that had taken place since.

As a player, he was best
remembered for a game-winning,

inside-the-park home
run in the 1923 series.

And for his inveterate clowning.

Once playing before a raucous,
booing crowd, he put a live sparrow under

his cap, walked to the plate, lifted
his cap, and gave his audience the bird.

Later, as a manager, he
developed what he thought was

a foolproof way of protesting
an umpire's decision.

He fainted.

He met his match in the veteran
umpire Bean's rear defense.

When I peeked out of one
eye and saw Reardon on the

ground too, Casey
remembered, I knew I was licked.

And his distinctive way with
language gave rise to a new word.

Stengalese.

All right, he once said, everybody line
up alphabetically according to your height.

I made up my mind, but
I made it up both ways.

Most people my age are
dead at the present time.

Local.

I had a really good
time with those guys.

It's like a reputation.

One of my friends went to the game,
I shot a little and I was held at the

back, and for the first time in
my life I was without a guard.

I got an order from contractors to
get a big, huge, big round of boards.

And we all walked in.

The guy was a great
pitcher, People thought he

was perfect, and he
was perfect at just that.

He was great.

The other guy who was really great,
he was one of the newfoundlings.

Casey Stengel had had only one
winning season as a big-league manager,

and when he took over the Yankees in
1949, few gave him much of a chance.

If Stengel was worried,
he kept it to himself.

I've been hired to win, he
told the press, and I think I will.

There is less wrong with the Yankees
than with any club I've ever had.

To make good on his promise to win,
Stengel used a system he had learned long

before while playing for
John McGraw, platooning.

Left-handed hitters would often be
benched against left-handed pitchers.

Right-handed hitters went for weeks
without facing a right-handed starter.

He also relied heavily
on relief pitching.

I'll tell you what Casey had that
a lot of people don't tell you about.

He had the knack of taking
that ball out of a pitcher's hand.

And that means a whitey forward.

That means anybody and
giving that ball to another.

Because I tell you about pitchers,
pitchers will talk you out of it.

You know, you go out to take that
ball, oh skip, let me pitch to this guy.

When Casey walked
to the mound, you gone.

In 1949, the Yankees'
chief rivals for the American

League pennant were
Joe McCarthy's Red Sox.

Whose stars included Ted Williams,
second baseman Bobby Doerr, and Joe

DiMaggio's younger brother, center fielder
Dominick, known as the Little Professor.

Stengel's Yankees started strong that
season, but fell back as an endless string

of injuries kept several stars,
including Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto,

out of action for
weeks at a time.

The Yankees' 12-game
lead dwindled away.

And in September, Boston surged
past New York with a three-game sweep.

Now, with just two games left in the
season, the Red Sox came to the Bronx.

The Yankees had to win
both games to win the pennant.

Well, that puts it up to us, Stengel
said, to show if we're a good ball club.

They were.

In the first game, an injured
Joe DiMaggio sparked two

rallies, and the Yankees came
from behind to win five to four.

Everything depended
on the final game.

The Yankees took a five-run
lead into the ninth inning.

But then Boston came
back with three runs.

Two of them scored when DiMaggio's aching
legs kept him from stopping a triple.

He limped from the game.

With a man on first, Boston
catcher Bertie Tebbets

came to the plate
representing the tying run.

Tommy Henrich called for it.

Casey Stengel had his pennant.

I won one, he
told an old friend.

I won one.

He would win a lot more.

He would win a lot more.

He would win a lot more.

In the 1950s, he basically
hated the Yankees.

This was Casey's
juggernaut, which won nine

pennants in 11 years,
five World Series in a row.

There's never been dominance like it at
any other time in the history of baseball.

Some people criticized Stengel and
said he was just a push-button manager.

But he knew which
buttons to push.

It's a wonderful
thing that he had.

In addition to the great stars like Mantle
and Ford and Vera, he had an ability to

pick up players who were
seemingly at the ends of their careers.

Spare parts.

Johnny Hop, Enos Slaughter.

Players who he knew could
perform one particular role,

who could fit into this
grand scheme that he had.

And God knows it worked.

Baseball and basketball
were the sports of the

streets and the lots in
the old neighborhoods.

We played in South
Jamaica, Queens on a field that

was literally hacked
out of an old parking lot.

That had mounds in it.

We had to build the back stock.

We had to build a mound.

We had to put down the line.

Actually, we had a saint of a
man by the name of Joe Austin.

A night manager in a brewery who
was single, who had played semi-pro ball.

And who was the godfather of
baseball for this black, ethnic community.

And he built the field.

The players helping him.

And we played there on weekends.

Had a very, very good team.

Even got uniforms after a while.

And passed the hat at the
double headers on Sunday.

And all the poor people put
in their nickels and pennies.

And if you were lucky,
dimes and quarters.

And that's where I
learned the game.

And it was wonderful.

I grew up in a leftist family.

And my father had always loved
both the Yankees and the Dodgers.

And traded the two
off against each other.

So for us, Robinson's
coming into baseball had

this immediate political
and social significance.

As well as the fact that he
was such a great ball player.

And showed such animation.

So for me, I always saw it as a combination
of social justice and damn good baseball.

Did you see Jackie
Robinson hit that ball?

Did he hit it?

Yes!

And that ain't all.

He stole the hole!

Yes, yes.

Jackie's real gone.

If

you see Jackie
Robinson hit that ball.

Yes, yes.

Jackie hit that ball.

In 1949, Dodger President Branch Rickey
had released Jackie Robinson from college.

On his three year pledge
to turn the other cheek.

In the face of racist abuse
from other players and fans.

They better be prepared
to be rough this year.

Robinson said as
that season began.

Because I'm going
to be rough with them.

He was.

Lashing out against
any perceived slight.

Arguing with umpires.

Getting involved in a series of
disputes with the baseball establishment.

And the press.

And when white
writers turned on him.

For his new found fierceness.

He had a ready answer.

As long as I appeared
to ignore insult and injury.

I was a martyred
hero to a lot of people.

But the minute I
began to sound off.

I became a swell head wise guy.

An uppity nigger.

I had too much stored up inside.

He later said.

Robinson had a
lot of anger in him.

And I don't think he ever
was able to release this anger.

Because it would never make
up for what he had gone through.

It would never.

It didn't matter how
much he may ran and rave.

At a white player or
an umpire or something.

The anger at what
he went through.

Never dissipated.

I think it stayed with
him his whole life.

And it's part of both his
profundity and humanity as a man.

But it's also part
of his tragedy.

Which in many ways symbolized
the anger that most black people feel.

Jackie Robinson was
probably the only player.

And perhaps the only
human being I know of.

Who was better
when he was angry.

Most of us lose something
when we're angry.

Not Jackie.

Jackie excelled
when he was angry.

And there was a lot of
anger in his earlier days.

Which was one reason
why he did so well.

He won the MVP in 1949.

Here comes the pitch.

And there goes Robinson.

But the years to come
will be his greatest.

For the next five
seasons he averaged .323.

Made the all-star
team every year.

Jackie Robinson has been
troubled by his teammates.

And propelled the Dodgers
to the top of the standings.

I met him one time in a
restaurant in New York.

And I said Casey.

And he was talking like normal.

Just a normal conversation.

I said Casey.

If there's one thing you can
tell me about what you're doing.

Tell me.

And he said.

I never play a game
without my man.

And I looked at him.

Now he's getting
into sting-a-lease.

And I didn't want to ask
him who his man was.

But when he left.

And when I began to think.

He never played a ball game
without Yogi Berra playing.

He put him on first base.

He put him in the outfield.

I never played a ball
game without my man.

I'll never forget that.

Stengel's man was
Lawrence Peter Berra.

An immigrant bricklayer's son from
the Dago Hill section of St. Louis.

He got his nickname from his friends
who said he just walked like a Yogi.

After flunking a
high school test.

Yogi was asked by his teachers.

Don't you know anything?

He replied.

I don't even suspect anything.

He was clumsy when he
joined the Yankees in 1946.

He played like the bottom man
on an unemployed acrobatic team.

One critic said.

And there were those who thought him
too odd looking for New York's elite team.

One coach called him the ape.

But Stengel saw the
greatness that was in him.

And brought back
former catcher Bill Dickey.

To teach him the finer points.

Of playing behind the plate.

And he quickly became one of
the best catchers in baseball history.

Berra once went
148 straight games.

And 950 chances
without a single error.

No one could call a
game like Yogi Berra.

He was three times the American
League's most valuable player.

And he played in an incredible
75 World Series games.

And hit a record 71 times.

During the course of...

I asked Casey this.

Who was the most
natural ball player?

And Casey said.

Well, he said.

Williams is the
most natural hitter.

He said.

But that guy is the
most natural ball player.

Pointing to Berra.

I was astonished.

This little stocky awkward man.

But I began to watch
him then all the time.

And Berra did everything well.

People thought he was slow.

He was a fast runner.

Great base runner.

He once made an unassisted
double play at home plate.

He had great instincts.

He was an extraordinarily graceful
athlete for all that awkwardness.

Like Stengel.

Berra became as well known
for what he said off the field.

As for what he did on it.

If fans don't want to
come out to the park.

Nobody is going to stop them.

He once said.

90% of hitting is mental.

The other half is physical.

When the wife of the mayor of New York said
he looked very cool in his new summer suit.

Yogi replied thanks.

You don't look so hot yourself.

When asked what he would
do if he found a million dollars.

He said.

If the guy was poor
I'd give it back to him.

And he also said.

It ain't over till it's over.

Critics questioned whether he ever really
said some of his most celebrated maxims.

But he had an
answer for them too.

I really didn't say half
the things I've said.

I would like to join the
retired actors baseball team.

Oh you would.

And I would like to know some
of the guys names on the team.

So if I want to play with them.

I'll know them and I'll meet them
on the street or in the home here.

I can say hello to them.

Oh sure.

But you know they give baseball
players nowadays very peculiar names.

A lot of funny names.

You know like Sticky Fields.

Sticky Fields.

Goofy Dan.

Boopy Barber.

Boopy Barber.

I know all of them.

Well let's see now.

We have on our team.

We have who's on first.

What's on second.

I don't know who's on third.

That's what I want to find out.

The guys names.

That's what I want to find out.

The guys names.

Now tell me.

Who's on first.

What's on second.

I don't know who's on third.

Now Happy.

You want to be the
manager of the baseball team.

Yes.

You know the guys names.

Oh I should.

Well you tell me the guys
names of the baseball team.

I say who's on first.

What's on second.

I don't know who's on third.

You ain't said
nothing to me yet.

Go ahead and tell me.

I'm telling him.

You ain't said nothing yet.

Go ahead and tell me.

Who's on first?

What's on second?

I don't know.

Who's on third?

You know the guy's name's
on the baseball team?

Yes.

Well, go ahead.

Who's on first?

Yes.

I mean the guy's name.

Who?

The guy playing first.

Who?

The guy on first base.

Who is on first?

What are you asking me for?

I don't know.

Now, wait a minute.

I've got a question.

I'm asking you who's on first.

That's his name.

Well, go ahead and tell me.

Who?

The guy on first.

That's it.

That's his name.

Well, you ain't said nothing.

I ain't ask you nothing.

You did.

You know the guy's
name on first base?

Sure.

For nearly

70 years, the Brooklyn Dodgers
and the New York Giants were

passionate cross-town
arch-rivals in the National League.

Each year, they played
each other 22 times.

11 games at Ebbets Field,
11 games at the Polo Grounds.

At New York's Polo Grounds,
threatening rain holds off

and up so the Dodgers can
meet the New York Giants.

Monte Irvin tags it out, out, high
into the upper stands for a home run.

Mueller comes
from second to score.

Second inning, Bobby Thompson
of the Giants slaps a single to left.

The Dodger-Giant rivalry in
Brooklyn was a very serious rivalry.

What made it so rich and
deep and harsh were that

the fans worked alongside
each other all year long.

You might be in the
postal service slotting mail.

And all day long, all fall, winter,
spring, you're slotting mail in the box.

And the fella next to you
is doing the same thing.

And he's a Giant fan
and you're a Dodger fan.

And all winter long, you're
chewing on each other.

And now the season unfolds.

In 1951, the Brooklyn
Dodgers seemed unbeatable.

By mid-August, they led the
Giants by 13 and a half games.

The pennant
seemed safely theirs.

But they had not counted on
the ferocity of Leo Derocher.

Once the driving force behind the
Dodgers, now the Giant manager.

And eager for revenge on
the club that had let him go.

He had a strong team.

Third baseman Bobby Thompson.

Left fielder Monte Irvin.

Two 23-game winners
Sal Magli and Larry Jansen.

And a rookie center
fielder named Willie Mays.

The Giants surged ahead in
the closing weeks of the season.

Winning 37 of
their last 44 games.

Sports writers called it the
miracle at Coogan's Bluff.

Boston, September 30, 1951.

The Giants have
done the impossible.

They've defeated Boston in
the last game of the season.

And have come from 13
and a half games back to take

a half-game lead over
Brooklyn for the pennant.

The heroes, Larry
Jansen, the winning pitcher.

Monte Irvin and
Derocher himself.

The Giants are
celebrating because over in

Philadelphia, the Phillies
are leading Brooklyn.

And if Brooklyn loses,
the Giants are in.

But the Dodgers have
fought back to an 8-8 tie.

Mostly on the back,
shoulders and heart of one man.

Jackie Robinson.

It was Jackie
Robinson's greatest day.

His hitting had kept
Brooklyn in the game.

And then in the 11th, he had held off
the Phillies with a desperate diving catch.

Now in the 14th inning,
two out, nobody on.

Again, Brooklyn
looked to Robinson.

And there it was.

A home run in the gathering
twilight to give Brooklyn a

9-8 victory and a tie for the
National League pennant.

The two teams would settle the
issue in a best-of-three-game playoff.

Derocher's Giants took the
first game at Ebbets Field thanks

to a two-run homer by Bobby
Thompson off Ralph Branca.

But rookie Clem Labine
shut out the Giants

in the second game at
the Polo Grounds, 10-0.

Four different Dodgers hit home runs
that afternoon, including Jackie Robinson.

Everything now
depended on game three.

It was October 3, 1951.

Work came to a halt in New York as
fans crowded around radios and stood in the

streets to watch television
sets in store windows.

Cabbies turned down fares.

The Dow Jones averages were
interrupted for the play-by-play.

Even prisoners at Rikers
Island were allowed to listen in.

Out of the subway into the Polo
Grounds for fans by the thousands for the

sudden-death game in
the playoff between the

faltering Dodgers and
the stretch-running Giants.

The sky over the Polo
Grounds that afternoon

was overcast and there
had been talk of rain.

New Yorkers baseballed
wild over a climactic,

pulse-tingling National
League pennant.

Leo Derocher's miracle team spotted the
Dodgers a 13-game advantage in mid-August.

And overtook them
at the finish line.

The rain day, Mrs. Derocher has
her fingers crossed because this is it.

Sal Magli pitched
for the Giants.

And in the first, Jackie
Robinson hit a single off him that

drove in Pee Wee Reese to put
Brooklyn ahead one to nothing.

With strong pitching by Don Newcomb,
the Dodgers held their lead for seven

innings before
Bobby Thompson hit a

sacrifice fly that tied
it up at one to one.

In the eighth inning, the
Dodgers surged ahead.

A wild pitch by Magli and a pair of
singles drove in Pee Wee Reese,

Duke Snyder, and
Jackie Robinson.

With a four to one lead going into the
ninth, Brooklyn seemed so sure of having

won the pennant they should have had
weeks earlier that the park announcer urged

sports writers to pick up
their World Series passes

in the Dodger clubhouse as
soon as the game was over.

Typesetters at the Brooklyn
Eagle made up the next

day's front page to
announce the Dodger victory.

But Don Newcomb had pitched 272
innings over the course of the long season,

and he was tired.

In the dugout during the
seventh inning, Newcomb had

confessed to Jackie Robinson
that he was through, spent.

Robinson replied, you keep pitching
out there until your arm falls off.

It worked for two innings.

But in the bottom of the
ninth, Alvin Dark got a single.

Don Mueller got another,
and Dark made it to third.

Ralph Branca and Carl Erskine
began warming up in the Dodger bullpen.

Monty Irvin popped up.

But Whitey Lockman hit a double.

Dark scored.

Mueller reached third.

Giant fans erupted.

The score was 4-2 Dodgers,
but two were on for New York.

Dodger manager Charlie
Dressen pulled Newcomb and sent

in Ralph Branca to pitch
with only one day's rest.

It

was Branca's job to save the
day and the pennant for Brooklyn.

Bobby Thompson was up next.

He had already hit four home
runs off Branca during the

season, plus the one that
had won the first playoff game.

He had later botched two plays in the
field and was eager to redeem himself.

You son of a bitch, he told
himself as he strode to the plate.

Get up here and give
yourself a chance to hit.

Wait and watch.

Give yourself a chance.

Do a good job.

Branca got one
fastball past him.

His next pitch
was a fastball, too.

October 3, 1951.

Hollywood's most imaginative
writers on an opium jag could not hit.

They have scripted a more improbable
windup of the season that started in April

and had its finish today in the triumph
of Bobby Thompson and the Giants.

Into the last blur of white that came
platewood out of the pitching fist of

Brooklyn's Ralph Branca was
compressed the destiny of the two

clubs that had battled for six
months to get to today's decision.

Before Thompson swung, it was
the Dodgers winning the pennant.

A split second later, the Dodgers
were dead and the Giants had it.

Shirley Poldich,
Washington Post.

Everybody remembers where he
was when Bobby hit the home run.

I was in Boston watching on
television at my mother-in-law's house.

And my wife walked
through the room.

I was watching.

It was all set up.

And Bobby Thompson
came out to bat.

And Branca had come in.

And my wife walked
through the room.

And I said, wait a minute.

You might see something.

You wouldn't want to miss.

And she walked out of the room.

And she missed it.

But I was a flat-out
Giants fan in those days.

And an extraordinary,
wonderful moment.

Wonderful moment.

Everybody who was a Giants fan was doing
the same kind of leaping in their living

rooms, wherever they
were, that was going on.

I was 10 years old.

We had just bought
our first television set.

I came home from school.

There was no one else home.

I was a rabid Giants fan.

I hated the Dodgers with that love
that only hatred can understand.

And I put on the
television set in despair.

I knew what was happening.

The Giants had been
13 and a half games out.

It had all been over.

I turn on the game.

It's all effectively over.

Thompson gets up.

He hits the home run.

Russ Hodges goes
absolutely bananas.

He was on the radio,
but I had that on.

I didn't know what to do.

I was jumping up and down.

There was no one at home.

I wanted to tell someone.

We lived in this apartment
building in Queens.

I leaned my head out the window.

There were two guys of the
buildings and grounds crew out there.

And they didn't have a radio.

And I told them what happened.

And they were both Giants fans.

And they were so happy.

And it was probably the greatest
moment of pure joy in my life.

I think when I remember back to 1951
and Bobby Thompson's home run, it is the

starkest memory in some
ways of my childhood.

In Long Island where I grew up, there
were Giants fans and Yankee fans and

Dodger fans all within
various blocks of one another.

And there was a grocery store that
was owned by a bunch of Giant fans.

And they used to call me Rag Mop
because my hair was very messy.

And they were terrific.

And that whole summer when the Giants
had made their remarkable surge and the

Dodgers kept falling behind, they had kept
the scores posted on their butcher shop.

So every day I'd go by there
and have to see this horrible thing.

Then comes the final
day of the final playoff.

And my sister, who was ten years older
than I was, predicted when Bobby Thompson

stood up and Ralph
Branca was going to give

that pitch to him, he's
going to hit a home run.

I was eight years old.

I was sure she'd made it happen.

She was tall and glamorous, and I
was probably jealous of her anyway.

And I was furious at her.

That was my first response.

And then I was so sad that I wouldn't
even go out of my house for several days.

And I certainly wouldn't go
back to that butcher shop.

Until finally they sent me flowers in the
mail and they said, come back, Rag Mop.

We love you.

So I had to go back
to the butcher shop.

But it was just that closing
of all hopes, that feeling

that we almost had it and
that it had died once again.

It was called the shot
heard around the world.

I mean, it was an
unbelievably emotional moment.

I remember hearing it in Cambridge, England
on an armed forces broadcast system.

I was playing
bridge at the time.

I can remember
being a Giant fan.

I can remember going
absolutely backwards in my

chair, foot coming up
and hitting the bridge table.

These English friends of
mine startled by the emotion.

Tremendous.

Well, think what
it did to Branca.

There's a very famous
photograph of him.

In fact, it won
a Pulitzer Prize.

He's lying absolutely as stiff as cordwood
on the steps that go up to the locker

rooms at the Polo Grounds
where this thing took place.

Just stiff in grief.

And he went out to the
parking lot hours after the game

was over to talk to a priest
about what had happened.

I mean, it really
was a traumatic blow.

And from that point on, actually,
his career really went to pieces.

Now it is done.

The story ends.

And there is no way to tell it.

The art of fiction is dead.

Reality is strangled invention.

Only the utterly
impossible, the inexpressibly

fantastic can ever
be plausible again.

Red Smith, New
York Herald Tribune.

Disbelieving Brooklyn fans again had to
content themselves with the brave slogan,

wait till next year.

In 1951, scouts for the Pittsburgh Pirates
approached a promising young center

fielder from St. John's
University in New York.

They offered him a $2,000
bonus if he would sign with them.

My mother and father
were from the other side.

They were people who got caught
up in the midst of the Depression.

They couldn't read,
they couldn't write.

My father was a ditch digger.

Lucky to be given a grocery store in South
Jamaica, Queens that had been abandoned.

And he was just so
busy trying to survive.

The idea that his son would do anything
but study and prepare for the hard life.

He didn't like baseball.

Truth is, a scout for the Pittsburgh
Pirates saw me playing against Whitey

Ford, believe it or not.

Whitey Ford was at Fort Monmouth in
those years, and on a weekend, pitched in

Bridgeport, Connecticut
against the Bridgeport

Bees, and I was playing
for the Bridgeport Bees.

And the scout saw me there
and said he wanted to sign

me and give me this immense
amount of money, $2,000.

And when I explained it to my father,
he said, when do they play baseball?

And I said, in the
spring and the summer.

He said, before school is over?

And I said, well,
yeah, it begins.

He said, well,
then you can't go.

We had to talk him into it.

He finally signed the
contract in the back of the

grocery store amidst the
hanging provolone and cabagola.

He signed it.

I got the $2,000, but
never could hit a curveball.

Mario Cuomo, center fielder.

He's an average
hitter with plus power.

He uppercuts and
needs instruction.

Potentially the best prospect on the club
and, in my opinion, could go all the way

if he improves his hitting at a point
of a respectable batting average.

He is aggressive and plays hard.

He's intelligent.

Not an easy chap to get
close to, but is very well liked

by those who succeed in
penetrating the exterior shell.

He is another who will run
over you if you get in his way.

The Pirates sent the new $2,000 prospect
to their Brunswick, Georgia farm team.

The house that Ruth built houses 65,000
fans for the World Series opener between

Casey Stengel's Bronx
Bombers and Lippy's Miracle Men.

In the Yank second,
Kozlo faces Jerry Coleman.

After Bobby Thompson's home
run, the New York Giants lost

to the 1951 World Series to
the Yankees, four games to two.

In the fifth inning of
the second game, Willie

Mays hit a fly ball deep
into the Yankee outfield.

A rookie playing right field raced for it
and strayed into Joe DiMaggio's territory.

DiMaggio waved him off.

In his haste to get out of the
way of the great man, the younger

player tripped over an exposed
drain pipe, tearing his knee.

The first of many injuries
that would plague his career.

The rookie's name
was Mickey Mantle.

Two months later, the Yankees
held a press conference.

Joe DiMaggio had
decided to leave the game.

Age and injuries had
caught up with him.

I no longer have it, he said.

A friend agreed.

DiMaggio was quitting, he said, because
he couldn't be Joe DiMaggio anymore.

I remember Joe DiMaggio's last
at bat in the World Series in 1951.

We knew it was going
to be his last at bat.

He hit a ball, doubled
to right center field, and

pulled up into second base
in that elegant way he did.

I think there were
tears in my eyes.

I was there that day, and I thought,
that's the last time I'll see him.

But he was complete to the end.

DiMaggio played his last
game in October of 1951.

I was born in March of 1952.

My father and every friend my father ever
brought to the house or every guy I ever

met from my father's
generation at a candy store in

Queens or in Brooklyn
would all say the same thing.

Willie Mays?

Terrific.

Mickey Mantle?

Hit the ball out of sight.

You never saw DiMaggio, kid.

You never saw the real thing.

By baseball dream, would have been
to play center field for the Yankees.

I had great plans to do so after DiMaggio
retired, but then there was this fella

named Mantle who took
over and I never had a chance.

Mickey hit a home run
that day off the facade

in right field, 18
inches from going out.

No one's ever hit one
out of Yankee Stadium.

This thing was up longer
than Alan Shepard was up.

It just kept going
and going and going.

And it hit the facade.

We have home movies on it.

Mickey coming up, and a guy
actually stands in front of us.

It was a priest.

And the screen gets
wiped with this big black suit.

Nobody could really figure
out what they were seeing.

It was high and majestic.

It actually went through clouds.

It didn't, but as the years have
gone by, it went through clouds.

And it just hit, boom, and people were
stunned that this unbelievably strong

young man with that run of his and those
aching knees had hit the ball this far.

Mickey Mantle, took Joe
DiMaggio's spot in center field

and his position as the
centerpiece of the Yankee attack.

Born in Spavanaugh, Oklahoma, and
brought up in the little town of Commerce,

he was in some ways a
throwback to an earlier era.

The son of a tenant farmer and sometime
lead miner who was such a baseball fan

that he named his first born for the great
Philadelphia catcher, Mickey Cochran.

In high school, Mickey Mantle was a
devastating power hitter, but he suffered

from osteomyelitis, a bone disease,
and nearly had his leg amputated.

Few scouts were interested.

Eventually, the Yankees took a chance,
signed him for only $1,100 and sent him to

the minors, where he
led the league in batting.

He arrived in New York, a teammate
remembered, with a straw suitcase,

two pairs of slacks, and one blue
sport jacket that probably cost about $8.

In the middle of his rookie season,
Mantle was sent back to the minors.

He wasn't hitting, but
his slump only deepened.

I was in Kansas City.

My dad was working in the
mines down in Oklahoma.

And I called him and I said, Dad, I
don't think I can play ball, you know.

I just, I ain't
doing it, you know.

He said, well, where are you at?

And I told him what hotel
I was in in Kansas City.

He said, well,
I'll be right there.

And he got in his car and
drove straight up there right then.

And I thought he was coming
up to pat me on the back

and say, hang in there,
kid, or something like that.

He opens the door.

He knocked on the door.

I opened the door.

He just walks in.

He grabs my suitcase and
started putting my clothes in it.

I said, what are you doing, Dad?

And he goes, taking you home.

I said, why?

He said, I thought
I raised a man.

He said, you ain't
nothing but a coward.

And that really,
really hit home.

After he left, I
started hitting again.

And then Casey brought
me back to the Yankees.

He was far clumsier in the
field than DiMaggio had been.

But he quickly became a superb
switch hitter, capable of hitting as far

left-handed as Babe Ruth had,
as far right-handed as Jimmy Fox.

He was a man in baseball.

On April 17, 1953, he
drove a home run out of

Griffith Park in Washington
that measured 565 feet.

I had a guy ask me one
time, Mickey, do you ever

go up to the plate just
trying to hit a home run?

And I said, every time.

I did.

I wanted to hit the
ball out of the park.

It kind of used to make
Casey mad, especially if

there was somebody on
second or something like that.

A hit would win the game.

And I'm up there striking out,
because I'm trying to hit it too hard.

But that's the way I felt.

I wanted to hit the ball as far as
I could every time I swung at it.

Over the years, he hit 536 home
runs, played on 16 All-Star teams.

Led his league in home runs and
hitting three times, batted 310 times,

and set a record of 18
World Series home runs.

Mickey was my
favorite player, yeah.

Mickey is the most exciting person
ever to step up to the plate, in my mind,

because of the unpredictableness
of what the savageness

of his stroke could do
from either side of the plate.

They would get close-ups
of Mantle's arms on WPIX.

They would talk about it.

And Red Barber and Mel
Allen, who were the great

announcers of our
day, would talk about it.

And Red was very much
the dignitary of the two.

Well, here's Mr. Mantle.

Here's Mickey.

Take a look at those arms, Mel.

Whoa, and then Mel
would... How about that?

How about that?

Look at that!

Yeah, he don't lift any weights.

You know, just...

He was just a big American hero.

Mickey Mantle, here come a
kid, that could hit the ball a mile.

The only thing that saddens me that you
didn't get to see Mickey on two good legs.

See, had you seen Mickey
on two good legs, Mickey

probably could have been
stealing 100 bases a year.

Mm-hmm.

Season after season,
everything seemed to betray him.

Knees, groin muscles, fingers,
hips, feet, shoulders, elbows.

Every time he misses, he grunts
with pain, an opposing catcher said.

If he had been physically sound for
even one full season, his teammate Elston

Howard remembered, he
would have hit 70 homers.

Mantle might have been
the greatest ball player

that ever lived had he
remained physically sound.

It was amazing that he
was able to do the things

he did in the physical
shape that he was in.

Ball players that had not seen Mantle
dress, such as at an All-Star game,

were just aghast at the amount of
bandaging that he had on his legs.

In 1952, Mantle's
father died at the age of

39 of Hodgkin's disease,
an inherited illness.

It was too much for the
country boy turned hero

who had been asked
to fill DiMaggio's shoes.

Now he began to drink and carouse with
his friends Billy Martin and Whitey Ford.

He lived his life as if
each day would be his last.

Staying out all night, spending
money as fast as he got it.

My father died
young, he once said.

I'm not going to be cheated.

Mantle was Casey Stengel's pride
and joy and great disappointment.

Stengel thought that Mantle was his boy,
the way Mel Ott was John McGraw's boy,

and that this man, who could run as
fast as Ty Cobb and hit with Babel's power,

would be the greatest
ball player of all time.

And Mickey disappointed
him because Mickey

didn't apply himself as
much as he should have.

He still was a great ball player,
triple crown winner, hall of famer,

but Stengel always felt
he should have been more.

When Casey picked his
all-time team, he picked

Berra and he picked Ford
and he didn't pick Mantle.

Mickey disappointed him.

Mickey was his son, and
Stengel was his father.

That's corny, but it's true.

And Mickey was sort
of the willful adolescent,

and he wouldn't
do what Casey said.

Maybe he bowed his head and
said, yes, sir, but he didn't do it.

Casey bragged on me so much, saying that I
was going to be the next Babe Ruth and Lou

Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio
all rolled into one.

It just didn't happen.

The livelihoods, the careers, the families
of 400 Negro ball players are in jeopardy.

Because four players were
successful in getting in the majors.

Effa Manley, Newark Eagles.

For 30 years, black baseball had been one
of the largest black businesses in America.

But after 1947, when Jackie Robinson and
a handful of other blacks arrived in the

majors, it was clear that the
Negro leagues were doomed.

The few teams still
operating survived not by gate

receipts, but by selling
their best talent to the majors.

By 1953, there were fewer African
Americans making their living in

professional baseball than
at any time in the century.

One black sports writer said, nothing
was killing Negro baseball but democracy.

I don't think it's so much
better at the end of the day.

I think it's better than
the end of the day.

and that's why I'm so proud.

Everybody is there is sweet.

Because time changes, okay.

We were making a few bucks.

But the recognition
is a big part of life.

You want to be recognized that I can
do something as well as anybody else.

And that's what
integration meant.

The good guys got a job.

Some of the guys were old.

They went to Canada.

They would go to the
Caribbean in the winter.

But time, it was worth it.

It was worth it for integration.

Why would you go to Canada?

I feel sorry for me.

I think we are the
cause of the changes.

Some of the changes that's
been made was because of us.

We did our duty.

We did the groundwork
for the Jackie Robinson,

the Willie Mazes, and
the guys that's playing now.

We did the groundwork
for these guys.

So why?

Why feel sorry for me?

As the push for integration spread to
other areas of American life, to schools,

buses, lunch counters,
public restrooms, other black

players followed in Jackie
Robinson's turbulent wake.

Larry Doby integrated the American League
and helped lead Cleveland to two pennants.

Jackie Robinson's teammate,
Rob Doby, Roy Campanella, was

once a third string catcher
for the Baltimore E-Lite Giants.

But in one five-year period
with the Dodgers, he was

named the league's most
valuable player three times.

Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, hit more home runs
between 1955 and 1960 than anyone in the

majors and was so fond of playing
that he liked to say, let's play too.

In the late 90s,
Cincinnati's star outfielder

hit a record 38 home
runs his rookie year.

And like Mantle, came
to dominate the game.

By the end of the decade,
blacks in the National League

would win the most valuable
player award nine of 11 years.

But all of them had to
face, all over again, many of

the same battles Jackie
Robinson had already fought.

Especially in the minor leagues, as
they struggled to make the majors.

In 1952, a young shortstop with the
Indianapolis Clowns was sold to the Boston

Braves for $7,500 and sent to their minor
league club in the South Atlantic League.

His name was Henry Aaron.

And when his club traveled throughout the
South, he watched as his white teammates

stayed in air conditioning conditioned
hotels while he struggled each night to

find a place to sleep in
the black section of town.

On April 23, 1954, he hit his
very first major league home run.

Two years later, Curtis Charles Flood,
an 18-year-old outfielder from Oakland,

California, was signed by the Cincinnati
Reds and sent to the Carolina League,

where he batted .340
and drove in 128 runs.

By 1957, my second year in the
South, I thought I was beyond crying.

And

after the end of the
first game, you take your

uniform off and you
throw it into a big pile.

The clubhouse manager, he comes in,
he gets your uniform, and he dries them

and he cleans them, and then you play
the second game with the same uniform.

I, like everybody else, I threw my uniform
right into the big pile with everybody

else's, and the clubhouse guy came by with
one of these long sticks with a nail on

it, and he very carefully picked my
uniform out from the white guy's uniforms,

my little sweatshirt and my little
jockstrap and everything, sent my uniform

to the colored cleaners, which
was probably 20 minutes away.

And there I sat while all the
other guys were on the field.

These people have really
been giving me hell all day long.

And now I'm sitting there stark naked,
waiting for my uniform to come back from

the cleaners, and the other
guys are out on the field.

So finally they get my uniform
back, and I walk out on the field, boy,

you'd think that I had just
burned the American flag.

They called me every
name but a child of God.

I am pleased God made my
skin black, Curt Flood later said.

I wish he had made it thicker.

I sat by him at an All-Star game one time,
and he started talking to me about hitting.

And he wanted to know if I use my
bottom hand when I'm hitting left-handed,

did I pull the bat with this
hand and guide it with this one?

And when I'm hitting left-handed,
did I pull it with this one and guide it?

Which is your strong hand?

And he was telling me
all this stuff about hitting.

And I went one of those, after I left
the All-Star game, I went like 0 for 30 or

something like that, because I was
trying to think of things that he told me,

In the spring of 1952, with the Korean War
raging, Captain Ted Williams left baseball

and returned to active
duty with the Marines.

He flew 37 combat missions,
survived a crash landing,

permanently damaged his hearing,
and won three medals for valor.

Captain Williams, I want
to give you these orders.

They relieve you from
active duty in the Marine

Corps Reserve and
assign you to your home.

Ted, I understand that your future
address is Fenway Park, is that correct?

Well, as of now, that's where
I'm scheduled to go, Colonel.

I plan on being
up there tomorrow.

And needless to say, I'm
anxious to see if I can still hit.

And with the young man, the
young club that the Red Sox

have, if I can swing a bat
at all, why, maybe I can help.

I certainly hope so.

The day he returned to baseball in
1953, he hit a home run at Fenway Park.

Ted Williams was
a classic player.

I met Ted Williams last year,
and it was like seeing John Wayne.

He's a gigantic man.

He has a very large, imposing head,
but he's very handsome, he's very

distinguished, and it's, you
know, if you said, well, that's Mr.

Baseball, that was his
name, you'd buy it, you know?

And I walked up to him and I said,
you know, I had a picture and he signed it

to me and all that stuff, and I said,
Ted, I have home movies of you striking

out against Bobby Shantz, 1957, Yankee
Stadium, second game of a doubleheader.

He says to me,
curveball low and away.

I'm asking you, what's the
guy's name on first base?

Oh, no, what's on second?

I'm not asking you
who's on second.

Who's on first?

One base at a time!

Don't mix up my... I'm
not mixing up anybody.

Now, what's the guy's
name on first base?

No, what is on second?

I'm not asking you
who's on second.

Who is on first?

I don't know.

He's on third.

We're not talking...

Wait a minute.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

How did I get on third base?

You mentioned his name.

I mentioned his name?

Yes.

I don't know anybody's
name on the team.

How could I mention
a guy's name?

You did.

You just mentioned it.

There's no continuity
in American life.

We seem to reinvent
ourselves every 20 years or so,

and what baseball does
is it gives us the illusion

In the

1950s, baseball may have
been the best it ever was.

But the country was changing.

And baseball seemed
unable to keep up.

Americans were on the move.

An interstate highway
system was starting.

Passenger jets
shortened distances.

And for the first time, television began
broadcasting baseball games coast to coast.

White fans were leaving the
cities and their decaying ballparks.

For the suburbs, the
Sunbelt, and the West Coast,

where there were as yet
no major league teams.

Attendance declined
drastically for every club.

Even in the capital of baseball,
the mighty Yankees struggled.

And the Giants and Dodgers
each lost nearly half of their fans.

All across the country, a
new generation of owners

scrambled to find new
ways to fill the seats.

The most imaginative
owner was Bill Gates.

Bill Gates, baseball's
greatest showman.

He is best remembered for his years at
the helm of the hapless St. Louis Browns,

where he staged Grandstand
Manager's Day, in which fans

voted on what the Browns
should do next on the field.

But his most memorable
stunt took place during

a game between the
Browns and the Tigers.

In the first inning, Vec
sent in a pinch hitter, Eddie

Goodell, a midget who stood
just three feet, seven inches tall.

His strike zone was said to
measure one and one half inches.

Vec told Goodell that a
man in the stands with a

high-powered rifle would
shoot him if he swung at a pitch.

Goodell obeyed.

The Tiger pitcher walked
him on four straight pitches.

All of them high.

I once ran into Eddie Goodell.

He batted once
and he got a walk.

Because the pitcher of the Tigers, Kane,
fell off the mound watching him laugh.

He was one of the
catcher, Bob Swift.

Eddie got a walk
on four pitches.

Eddie said, I'm disappointed in
Mr. Vec and his little piping voice.

He promised me I'd
keep on playing baseball.

I batted only once,
but I got on base.

Vec got the press he'd wanted.

All I have ever said, Vec told his
critics, is that you can draw more people

with a losing team, plus
bread and circuses, than

with a losing team
and a long, still silence.

But few cities could now
support two major league teams.

In 1953, the Braves left Boston
to the Red Sox and moved to

Milwaukee, where they drew
the biggest crowds in baseball.

Two years later, the Athletics
left Philadelphia for Kansas City.

Even Bill Vec conceded defeat.

The Browns abandoned St. Louis and moved to
Baltimore, where they became the Orioles.

What can you say?

He was great as there was.

He could run, he could
throw, he could hit with power.

If there was a guy born to
play baseball, it was Willie Mays.

He was born in Westfield,
Alabama, on May 6, 1931.

His father had been a legendary
semi-pro player, and he had

trained his boy for baseball
since before he could walk.

Willie Mays first made his mark as a
member of the Chattanooga Black Lookouts,

and later played with the
Birmingham Black Barons, and was

only 19 when he signed with
the New York Giants in 1951.

When Willie Mays first came up to the
major leagues, he was about 0 for 12,

0 for 13, hadn't got a
major league hit yet.

And he was facing Warren
Spahn on his way to becoming the

winningest left-handed
pitcher in the history of baseball.

Mays comes to the plate in the polo
grounds, Spahn's on the mound 60 feet,

6 inches away from him,
fires the ball to Mays, and

Mays crushes it, hits
it over the left field roof.

First hit, first home run.

After the game, the
sportswriters go up to Spahn

in the locker room and say,
Spahnie, what happened?

Spahn said, gentlemen, for the
first 60 feet, that was a hell of a pitch.

The home run cleared
the roof of the polo grounds.

If it's the only home run he ever hits,
Giants announcer Russ Hodges said,

they'll still talk about it.

The ball came down in
Utica, Lefty Gomez added.

I know, I was managing
there at the time.

He seemed able to do everything.

Hit, run, field.

If he could cook, Derosier
said, I'd marry him.

Go get it, Willie.

Say, hey, Willie, go get it.

What do you mean, go get it?

Man, that ball's
way in left field.

I don't care what field it's in.

Willie plays all fields.

Every time we come to the game, you're
talking about, Willie plays all fields.

That's right.

Let's call Willie and ask him.

Call him.

Okay, hey, Willie.

Yes.

Are you Willie Mays?

Yes.

Say who?

Say, Willie.

Say, hey.

Say who?

Swingin' at the plate.

Say, hey.

Say who?

Say, Willie.

Say, hey, Willie,
that giant kid is great.

He runs the bases
like a choo-choo train.

Swings around
like a harrow flame.

His cap flies off when it passes dirt
and he hits home like an eagle bird.

Say, hey.

Say who?

Say, Willie.

Say, hey.

In 1952, Mays went into the army, and the
next year the Giants sank to fifth place.

When Willie served his Uncle Sam He left
the Giants in an awful jam But now he's

back, and it's Leo's joy And
Willie's still a growing boy Say hey!

Say who?

Say Willie!

Say hey!

Say who?

Crankin' at the plate Say hey!

Say who?

Say Willie!

That Giants kid is great That
Giants kid is great Say Willie!

Whatcha gonna say?

Say hey!

When he returned the
next season, the Giants

won the pennant and
the World Championship.

He would go on to play 22 seasons,
bat 302 lifetime, drive in more than 100

runs eight years in a row, and slam
660 home runs, third on the all-time list.

In the outfield, he recorded 7,095
put-outs, the most in Major League history.

According to Joe DiMaggio, Mays had
the greatest throwing arm he had ever seen.

He should play in handcuffs to
even things up, a sports writer said.

To many, he was the
greatest player who ever lived.

Willie Mays is the
most exciting ball player.

Everybody who ever saw him play when
he was young always had that same reaction.

He played so well and he got more pleasure
out of playing than almost anybody.

Anything that happened,
his eyes were around

like this, looking at
the game, taking it all in.

He seemed to be more in
the game than any other player.

My image of him is always rounding
second base after he's hit the ball to the

outfield and the runners are
coming around to the plate.

And to watch him running the way he
did with his feet sort of just brushing the

ground and then skidding
around second base like a skier.

But as he ran, he always
looked around and you had

the sense that he had the
whole ball game in mind.

People who played with him said
he had a deeper understanding

of what was going on than
anybody else on the field.

Willie Mays was not
the first black ball player,

but he had his own
barrier to break through.

A kind of gentle, good-natured
racism, but racism nonetheless.

You remember when
he came up, people would

say, what an instinctive
ball player he is.

What a natural
ball player he is.

What childlike enthusiasm.

Well, 30 years later...

30 years on, we can hear with our
better trained ears the racism in that.

He was wonderfully gifted, yes.

Great natural gifts, yes.

But no one ever got to the major leagues,
no one got to the major leagues on natural

gifts without an awful
lot of refining work.

Sure, he was a great
instinctive ball player,

but he was also a
tremendously smart ball player.

As a rookie, he'd get to second base,
watch two batters come to the plate,

and he would go back to the dugout having
stolen the signs and decoded the sequence.

He'd know the indicator
sign from the other signs.

Willie Mays, natural ball player, sure,
hardest working ball player you ever saw.

Nearly at 53,000,
watch the opener of the

World Series of the Polar
Grounds in New York.

Of G-Man J.

Edgar Hoover joining
the fun, along with Lorraine

Day DeRocher, Spencer Tracy
and young Chris DeRocher.

Managers Al Lopez of Cleveland
and Giant Manager Leo DeRocher.

Jimmy Barbary, captain of the Little
League champs, opens the series.

On September 29, 1954, Willie Mays and the
New York Giants met the Cleveland Indians,

who had won a record 111 games that season
in the World Series at the Polar Grounds.

No one there would ever forget the
remarkable play they saw that afternoon.

The score is tied 2-2 in the
eighth, and Cleveland is up.

Don Little winds up.

Vic Wertz leans in.

Willie Mays waits
in center field.

It

was more than
just a great catch.

It was a catch no one
had ever seen before.

When that ball left Wertz's bat, and
this is one of the great things about

baseball, where you calculate
so many things simultaneously.

A ball is hit into the gap.

How good is the
outfielder's arm?

Where is the cutoff man?

A quick look and a glance.

The runners between
first and second.

How fast is that runner?

How many outs?

Should he try for third?

Is his history that he's daring?

Will he try for third?

What's the third
base coach doing?

And you take in all these
things, and with depth

perception, you try and
calculate in those fleeting seconds.

What are the possibilities?

Well, when the ball left Vic Wertz's bat in
the massive Polar Grounds, where it was

headed, where Mays was standing,
there was only one possibility.

Could he get to it before it was
an inside-the-park home run?

Could he hold it to a triple?

Catching it was
out of the question.

And he turned and ran to a place where
no one can go to get that ball, starting

where he started, with
the ball hit as it was hit.

So it was more than
just a great acrobatic play.

It was a play that,
until that point, was

outside the realm of
possibility in baseball.

There's a long shot.

It was far from the best
catch I've ever seen.

It happened to be on television.

It happened to
save the ball game.

It was a very good catch.

We knew Willie had
the ball all the way.

And Willie always
let his hat fall off.

He always wore a
hat too big or too small.

Willie's a great actor,
a great ball player.

You know, I didn't think that
he would ever get to the ball.

But he did.

And then he had the presence
of mind to wheel and throw

the ball to second base to
keep Larry Doby from scoring.

In fact, if he had tagged up, he
could have scored from second base.

That's how far the ball was hit.

Now, on the way in, after we got the
third out, I ran in with him, you know.

So I said to him, I said, I didn't
think you were going to get to that one.

He said, you kidding?

He said, I had that
one all the way.

And we later found, the more we watched
him play, that he had one little habit,

that when he went for a ball, if he hit his
glove, you knew he was going to catch it.

If he didn't hit his
glove, he wasn't sure.

But once he did that,
you knew you were out.

Wertz hit it off a
left-hander named Don Little.

Little had been brought
into the game to relieve

Sal Magli with trouble
brewing in the eighth.

Little was to pitch
to one batter, Wertz.

Mays makes the catch.

In comes a right-hander, Marv
Grissom, waved in by Leo DeRocher.

Little hands the ball to Grissom and says,
in a moment of great humor, looks at him

straight-faced and
says, Well, I got my man.

Later, when Mays tripled to the same
spot where he had caught Wertz's drive,

a teammate said, the only man
who could have caught it, hit it.

Say hey, say Willie,
that Giants kid is great.

That Giants kid is great.

I don't make history,
Willie Mays once said.

I catch fly balls.

Take me out to the
ball... Start again.

Take me out to the
ball... Why can't I get the...

That's the key.

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts
and cracker jacks.

I don't care if I
never get back.

I will root, root, root
for the home team.

If they don't win, it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes,
you're out at the old ball game.

Is it Mickey?

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out... Hell,
I ain't doing this.

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the game.

We'll have some
crackers and cracker jacks.

We won't come to the...

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts
and cracker jacks.

I don't care if I
never come back.

Root, root, root
for the home team.

I can't carry a tune.

For it's one, two...

Three strikes, you're
out at the old ball game.

That's pretty embarrassing.

I'm not too much of a singer.

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts
and cracker jacks.

I don't care if I ever get back.

We'll root, root, root
for the home team.

If they don't win, it's a shame.

One, two, three strikes,
you're out at the old ball game.

That's it.

Come on, everybody, sing.

Let's all sing.

Take me out to the ball game.

Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts
and cracker jacks.

I don't care if I
never get back.

Let me root, root,
root for the home team.

If they don't win, it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes,
you're out at the old ball game.

World Series meant you
had to wear a sweater.

It was always cool out and great,
and the leaves were already changing.

We used to call it
World Series weather.

And before the playoffs, and they added
all these other divisions and everything,

there were eight
teams in both leagues.

So it was less time,
so it came earlier.

So it meant there
was a difference.

It was a Jewish holiday, so there'd be
no school, or they were taking the census.

Now, the census was somebody would come
to the house and go, how many you got here?

Four?

Okay.

But you stayed home.

You had to stay home.

They were counting heads.

It was absolutely hysterical.

But you got to see
a couple of games.

The Yankees and the
Dodgers, there was nothing like it.

It's like...

It was like watching
Ali fight every day.

You know, it was
that excitement that...

that you could just remember
and sit there like this.

You took the phone off the hook.

You didn't do any errands.

You just sat there and you
screamed at people you loved.

And you ate things you
never would eat before.

But you made your
whole day around it.

It was the World Series.

You'd make us...

You'd either go to the deli
and get something, and it

sat there and you had it
all organized for the game.

Or you had to go to
practice in College.

I didn't have a train ticket.

I had nothing at home.

And so you er…

Iterest to banter.

In 1955, the Dodgers won the National
League pennant for the eighth time.

Seven times Brooklyn had played in the
World Series, and seven times they had

been defeated, forced
to wait till next year.

But the Dodgers were
a great team in 1955.

Center fielder Duke
Snyder, the Sporting News

Player of the Year,
led the league in RBIs.

Gil Hodges, the veteran first
baseman, had 27 home runs and hit .289.

Carl Furillo, the Redding
Rifle, batted .314.

But Jackie Robinson's age was beginning to
show, and his average had fallen to .256.

And pitcher Johnny Padres
had had a bad year, although

two of his most important
games were ahead of him.

Once again, they faced the
New York Yankees, who had

already beaten them in
the series five times in a row.

Brooklyn fans braced themselves for more
disappointment, as New York took the first

two games, despite the sparkling
base running of Jackie Robinson.

No team in history had ever come back from
so far behind to win a seven-game series.

When 1955's World Series
came around, there was that

awesome fear that it was
going to happen all over again.

And in fact, when the Dodgers lost
the first two games, it seemed like,

God, once again, the
Yankees are going to do it to us.

Ebbets Field for
game number three.

Dem Bum sniffed the good
air of Flatbush and came to life.

Eighth inning, score tied.

Roy Campanella stepped
in against Vic Rasche.

Can't be a two-three,
and they stayed there.

But the bat of Roy Campanella
and the pitching of Johnny

Padres won the third game
for Brooklyn, eight to three.

The Dodgers took the fourth game with
home runs by Campanella, Gil Hodges,

and Duke Snyder.

In game five, two more
home runs by Duke Snyder and

another by outfielder Sandy
Amoros gave Brooklyn the win.

The Dodgers were now
ahead three games to two.

They had come from behind.

But five Yankee runs
in the first inning of the

sixth game built New York
an insurmountable lead.

And the Dodgers lost.

The series stood
at three to three.

The seventh and deciding game
would be played in Yankee Stadium.

Enemy turf for Brooklyn fans.

It would be Johnny
Padres' second series start.

Bob Grimm delivers to Gil Hodges
who sends a fly ball into right center.

In the top of the sixth
inning, Gil Hodges drove

in his second run of the
game for the Dodgers.

Johnny Padres had held New
York scoreless through five innings.

But in the bottom of the sixth,
the Yankees threatened him.

He walked Billy Martin.

Gil McDougal reached
first base on a bunt.

The next batter was Yogi Berra.

Everybody is sitting
there trying to figure out

how fate will turn on
the Dodgers this time.

Sure, they're ahead 2-0.

Sure, the game is
more than half over.

But these are the Yankees,
and something is going to happen.

Playing left field
was Sandy Amores.

McDougal was thrown
out, trying to get back to first.

And the next batter,
Hank Bauer, grounded out.

It was the play of the series.

And I think the very fact
that that play stuffed the

cheers back down 60,000
Yankee fans' throats, it was...

it was the emotion of
that moment, the surprise

of that moment,
that elevates the play.

Berra never hit
the ball that way.

Amores was playing
way off the line.

So you're thinking, will it bounce
high enough to be a ground rule double?

Or will it stay along that low wall
and maybe both runners can score?

And then out of nowhere, here comes
Amores, and he's got the glove on the

right hand instead of on the left,
which makes the play possible.

Bam, he's got it.

I knew at that moment
we were going to win.

There's always these omens in baseball,
and somehow when they strike out and they

don't do good in a
certain inning, you think

they're going to
lose even if they win.

I knew then they
were going to win.

The Yankees threatened again in
the eighth, but Padres snuffed them out.

It was still two to
nothing Brooklyn.

If Padres could stop
the Yankees in the ninth,

the Dodgers would win
their first World Series.

It's a tense struggle
into the last of the ninth.

Johnny Padres
pitching brilliant ball.

One out to go.

Elston Howard.

Moments have a tendency,
I think, to relate to your age.

I was more impressionable
when I first started.

Therefore, the wins and the
losses, the euphoria was great.

The depression was deeper.

I think now I take
things in stride.

I put them in
proper perspective.

Maybe a moment in time, a happy moment,
would be 1955, because I knew this team.

I knew their frustrations.

I had grown up with them, even
though I wasn't working with them.

The Brooklyn Dodgers had
lost to the Yankees in 1941.

They had lost to them in 1947.

They had lost to them in 1949.

They had lost to them in 1952.

They had lost to them in 1953.

And it was just, you know, gosh.

But in 1955, they
did the remarkable.

They won it.

And I was the one who was able to
say on television, ladies and gentlemen,

the Brooklyn Dodgers are
the champions of the world.

And that's all I said.

Not another word.

And all winter, people
said to me, how could you

have been so calm at
such a tremendous moment?

Well, I wasn't.

I could not have said another
word without breaking down in tears.

That boy was grand, boys.

He was just terrific.

That's all right.

I just feel wonderful.

I don't know what I should say.

I just feel great.

You ever feel nervous out there?

Oh, no.

I felt good all the way.

I was calm.

And I was like a prayer
out there today, real close.

Go, Johnny, go, go.

Go, Johnny, go, go.

Go, Johnny, go, go.

Johnny, be good.

Please don't interrupt, because
you haven't heard this one before.

The Brooklyn Dodgers,
champions of the baseball world.

Honest.

At precisely 4.44 p.m.

today, in Yankee Stadium,
off came the 52-year slur

on the ability of the Dodgers
to win a World Series.

For at that moment, the last straining
Yankee was out at first base, and the day,

the game, and the 1955
series belonged to Brooklyn.

Shirley Povich, Washington Post.

Go!

Johnny, be good.

The game was at Yankee Stadium,
and they were going to have a celebration

in Brooklyn, but there was a
couple of hours in between.

So many of us in the Dodger group went to
the Lexington Hotel to wash up and relax.

And by the time we got down to the
Lexington Hotel in New York, it was fall.

Football was in the air.

The streets were quiet.

They were going
about their business.

And we left the Lexington Hotel,
went through the Battery Tunnel,

came out on the other side,
and it was New Orleans chaos.

Telephone circuits in the
borough collapsed from overload.

Western Union sent and received the
greatest flood of telegrams since V.J.

did.

Caravans of honking cars blared up and
down Flatbush Avenue and Ocean Parkway.

The skies over Brooklyn
filled with fireworks.

And Joseph Satan, owner of Joe's
Delicatessen at 342 Utica Avenue,

set up a sidewalk stand
and handed out free hot dogs.

A gesture, one reporter
said, that for a Brooklyn

merchant, is but one
step from total numbness.

I can remember afterwards, my father
came home from work, and we celebrated that

night, and he gave me
even a little drink of wine,

which is the first one
I've ever had in my life.

And it was just that
feeling, we made it.

And then I remember the next day in the
newspapers, they had in the daily news,

um, we ain't bums or
something like that, or this is next

year, because we always
used to say, wait till next year.

My father cut it out, and we had it in
our kitchen for as long as I can remember.

You know, all of those years, the great,
dyed-in-the-wool Dodger fans hadn't had a

world series, and had
some good ball clubs.

And the Johns had,
the Yanks had, but...

they hadn't won.

So now they come
up, and they win it.

That was it.

That was New York City
when it was New York City.

When you pay off the first baseman
every month, who gets the money?

Every dollar of it.

Every dollar of it.

Who gets it?

He does.

Sometimes his wife
comes down and collects it.

Whose wife?

Yes.

Why not, Lou?

He's earned it.

Who did?

Yes.

Look, when you pay off
the first baseman every

month, do you get a
receipt from the guy?

Sure.

How does he sign his name?

Who?

The guy you give the money to.

Who?

The guy you give the money to.

Well, that's how
he signs it, Lou.

That's how who signs it?

Yes.

Who do I tell him?

That's it.

Who?

Look, you go to
the first baseman.

Yes.

And you say to him,
here's your money.

Sign the receipt.

How does he sign his name?

Who?

The guy you give the money to.

That's how he signs it.

That's how who signs it?

Yes.

Sure.

You've got to get a receipt
from the guy, don't you?

I'll get one, Lou.

How does the guy on
first base sign his name?

Who?

The guy on first.

That's how he signs it.

I'm asking you.

When you give the guy the money, what's
the guy's name that you give the money to?

Now, wait a minute.

Now, what signs his own?

Who signs his own?

No, who signs his?

The guy's name on first you
give the... What is on second?

I'm not asking you
who's on second.

Who's on first?

I don't know.

Third base.

It was before television.

It was in towns with a population
like Brunswick, Georgia.

It could be something
under 15,000.

And you could get 3,000 people
to come to the ballpark every night.

Now, if you're under 15,000 and you take
out those who are too young, those who are

too old, those who are working at the
gas stations and the all-night diners or

whatever, you got an immense percentage
of the population to come to the ballgame.

It was their
principal recreation.

And they tied themselves
emotionally to these

players in the most profound
and extraordinary ways.

And I loved it.

I was hit by a pitch...

and hospitalized.

I was hit on a 3-2 pitch.

Of course, I was dug in,
and you couldn't back away.

Turned my head, got hit in the back
of the head, and was out for a while.

I had trouble with my eyesight.

And that was near the
end of the season, and

that ended the season
effectively for me.

Went to the doctor in
the off season, and they

said, you should take
one more season off.

And by then, Matilda
and I had decided to get

married, and that was
the end of my career.

I like to say that the residual
effects of the hematoma,

the blood clot, eventually
drove me into politics.

But I was not a good prospect, really,
despite what the scouting report said.

Because I didn't feel
that it was right for me.

And therefore, there
was a little bit of reserve.

I didn't give it everything, I'm afraid,
because I didn't think I was good enough.

And we learn from
the rest of our lives, you

can't make it anywhere
unless you go all out.

And that's part
of baseball, too.

You've got to
give it everything.

The Yankees and Dodgers
faced off again in 1956.

And once again, the
series went to seven games.

Before New York beat Brooklyn
for the sixth time in 15 years.

But it was the fifth game
that made baseball history.

On October 8, 1956, Yankee Don Larson,
a mediocre pitcher, did something no other

man had ever done
before in a World Series.

There's a superstition in
baseball that when you're

pitching a no-hitter,
you don't talk about it.

Nobody does.

And he was going up and down the bench,
trying to get somebody to talk to him.

He said, hey, hey, Mick.

You know, he said, I'm
pitching a perfect game here.

What do you think about that?

I'm going, get out
of here, you know.

I'm trying to walk off
and leave him by himself.

And he's going around to
everybody talking about that.

And it's just something
you don't do, you know.

Well, all right.

Let's all take a deep breath.

Two strikes for one.

Here comes the pitch.

Strike three!

A no-series no-hitter.

A perfect performance
by Don Larson.

It was a perfect game.

27 batters up, 27 batters out.

No runs, no hits...

I was in school, in a tough
New York public school.

Every teacher
was letting us listen.

It was the seventh inning.

We got to our last class, the
French class, taught by an old, crusty,

old-fashioned teacher
who also didn't know

a baseball from a cum
quad or anything else.

I was appointed to plead.

I went up to her and I said, Mrs.
Gurin, you've got to let us listen.

This has never
happened in baseball.

She looked at me and said, young
man, this class is a French class.

Luckily, my friend Bob Hacker, who
was a Dodger fan, had a portable radio

with an earphone, so he snuck
it on and we sat in the back.

And halfway through, I
feel a sepulchral tap on

my shoulder and I look
around and he's ashen.

And he looks at me
and he says, he did it.

That bastard did it.

So I took my jacket and
I threw it up in the air.

Mrs. Gurin was teaching the declension
of the verb écrire at the sideboard.

She looked at me icily, knowing
perfectly well what had happened and said,

young man, I'm sure the
verb écrire can't be this.

It can't be that exciting.

It

would be the last World Series the
Brooklyn Dodgers would ever play in.

On August 19, 1957, in the
capital of baseball, the New

York Giants made an
announcement that stunned the city.

They were moving
to San Francisco.

The loss of the Giants was
absolutely heartbreaking.

Absolutely heartbreaking.

I went to the last game they
played with my young daughter.

And I just couldn't
believe this was happening.

It was as if baseball
itself was ending.

Their last game in the polo
grounds was September 29, 1957.

The Giants lost.

The Giants lost.

The Giants lost.

The move was going
to be made anyway.

At the time that San Francisco was
broached to us, Minneapolis was the city

that we were going to move to.

We had a farm
team in Minneapolis.

And that move was in the
works, because we hadn't

been drawing any
people in the polo grounds.

600,000 one year and
another 600,000 the next.

So the move was really
a necessity at that time.

And San Francisco came to us, and we
were delighted that we made that switch.

It ripped at the loyalties of people who
felt that the teams were loyal to them as

they were to the teams,
that it was a two-way street.

And it was probably the first
time in 20, 30 years that fans

were reminded that this was a
business as much as it was a game.

There was more
bad news in Flatbush.

Brooklyn.

A commitment.

A community of
over 3 million people.

Proud.

Hurt.

Jealous.

Seeking geographical,
social, emotional status

as a city apart and
alone and sufficient.

One could not live for eight years
in Brooklyn and not catch its spirit of

devotion to its baseball club, such
as no other city in America equaled.

Call it loyalty, and so it was.

It would be a crime against a community
of 3 million people to move the Dodgers.

A baseball club in any city in
America is a quasi-public institution.

And in Brooklyn, the Dodgers
were public without the quasi.

Branch Rickey.

Well, I can remember in the
summer of 56 when the rumors started.

I never, ever believed that
they were going to leave.

I remember talking to my father about
it and saying, it can't happen, can it?

And he told me, no.

He said, don't worry,
something will work out.

And there was all this talk
about a new stadium in Brooklyn.

And we used to get so angry when
they'd talk meanly about Ebbets Field.

It was like an aspersion
on us somehow.

They kept saying it's
so dilapidated, it's in a

rundown area, it's so small,
nobody wants to go there.

We wanted to go
there all the time.

So somehow when they
talked about leaving, it was

talking about leaving us
behind in a certain way.

Dodger owner Walter O'Malley,
had inherited a poorly run franchise,

worked hard to turn it into
a winner, and then watched

as attendance declined
steadily throughout the 50s.

Night baseball had once lifted the
fortunes of the Dodgers, but now white

fans were more and
more reluctant to travel

to the black neighborhood
Flatbush had become.

O'Malley loathed Branch Rickey,
whom he had maneuvered out of his job in

1950, took a dim view of the black
crowds that were coming to Ebbets Field,

and claimed he was losing
money, even though the

Dodgers were one of the
richest clubs in baseball.

When he saw how much the Braves were
making in Milwaukee, O'Malley demanded

that the city of New York
build him a brand new

stadium, or he would
take his team elsewhere.

Do you feel, Mr. Stark,
that a ball club owner

has a right to take his
club anywhere he wants to?

No, I do not feel that way.

I feel that a franchise belongs to
the city, regardless what city it is in.

It belongs to the
people of this city.

The people of Brooklyn
rallied to keep their team.

Dear Mr. Mayor, I cannot
impress upon you too much

how important it is to keep
the Dodgers in Brooklyn.

It keeps the children off
the streets during the day.

Instead of acting like tough guys,
they try to imitate Duke Snyder,

Pee Wee Reese, Roy
Campanella, and the Dodgers.

Being composed of Negroes, Spanish,
and whites are a good example of how good

you can get if everyone works
together regardless of race or color.

Respectfully yours, T.

Chiappina.

Dear Mayor Wagner,
I am a man of very few

words, so I will come
straight to the point.

I voted for you.

I pay your salary.

I want the Dodgers in Brooklyn.

I don't want any excuse from
you or any of your men at City Hall.

I want the Dodgers in Brooklyn.

And you can do it by
building the Sports Center.

You had better get it built or
you'll not get a vote from me.

Signed, R.

Cuccio.

The city refused to bow to O'Malley's
demands, and he announced he would move

the Dodgers 3,013 miles away to Los
Angeles, California, for the 1958 season.

It was, uh... Your uncle died.

It was a death in the family.

Um...

I wasn't really a Dodger fan,
but you'd love that they were

there because there was
tremendous talent on that team.

Jackie and Gil and Duke
and Pee-wee and Roy.

And even though I was a
Yankee fan, you know, we beat

them pretty much every
year with the exception of 55.

You acknowledge that
they were great teams.

It was...

It was really like a
death in the family.

And it was a great morning.

And then complicated by
the fact that the Giants left.

So two, you know, two great
spirits really left New York.

And, um...

I think it was a
really sad time.

I felt bad about it.

Uh... Because it was that if they could
leave, if baseball could leave, what about,

you know, what's next?

Then I remember in
October of 57 when the city

council in Los Angeles
finally okayed the deal.

And my father came
home that night.

And I remember just going
to the door when he came

home and putting my
arms around him and crying.

And I was then 14 years old.

I wasn't a little kid anymore.

But it was as if my
childhood was over.

And in fact, my mother died
a couple months after that.

And we moved from the house in
which I'd been born to an apartment.

And we lost the Dodgers.

My father never transferred his
allegiance to Los Angeles, nor did I.

And baseball was gone out
of both of our lives for many

years until he finally became
a Mets fan later in the 60s.

And I, of course,
became a Red Sox fan.

That was the great tragic
moment in the 50s of New York.

It was the beginning of the decline
we continue to observe today.

1958, both O'Malley and Stoneham
decided to pull their teams out.

Both were profitable.

There were just more profits
to be made in California.

It was a cynical, purely
commercially-oriented move, which was

immensely profitable in that narrow sense
and ripped out the soul of New York City.

On September 24, 1957, a
few thousand Dodger fans

turned out to see the
last game at Ebbets Field.

Gil Hodges drove in the
last run, but Brooklyn lost.

Things went from bad to worse.

Roy Campanella, their beloved
catcher, was permanently

paralyzed in a car
crash in January of 1958.

A deep, deep sadness.

You know, there's a theologian,
Michael Novak, who says that a community

is better off losing its opera house or
its symphony orchestra or its church,

here's a theologian
speaking, than its ball team.

Brooklyn has never been the same
since the Dodgers were taken away.

But Southern Californians
were delighted.

To them, Walter O'Malley
was a hero, the man

who had brought them
Major League Baseball.

At first, they played in the Los Angeles
Coliseum, while a brand-new stadium was

being built in a ravine
just north of City Hall.

Jackie Robinson did not
go west with the Dodgers.

He had retired at the
end of the 1956 season.

Weary and suffering from
ten years of injuries and

abuse, but still determined
to fully integrate the game.

When things look dark, void, and
altogether hopeless to the colored youth

of America, when they need an inspiring
thought that should urge them onward to

the road of achievement,
despite forbidding

obstacles, they will only
need to read and read.

And reflect upon the remarkable
career of Jackie Robinson.

Kansas City Call.

My father and I had
nothing in common.

Sad to say, nothing,
except baseball.

My father took me to
Yankee Stadium in 1959.

It was seven years old.

The Yankees lost
to the Orioles 7-2.

Mantle didn't play.

He was hurt.

And at that time, after the game was
over, you could leave by way of the field.

They would open up the bullpen gates,
and you could walk around the warning

track, take in the entire
majestic, enormous ballpark, and

then walk out the back of
the bullpens into the street.

Game was over, and my
father took me by the hand.

And walked me past the dugouts,
looked into those dugouts, and thought to

myself at age seven,
Mickey Mantle sat in there.

Whitey Ford sat in there.

And I was careful.

Careful not to disturb anything.

Looked down at the red
clay of the warning track, but

it wasn't my place to kick
it, and to move it around.

I was a visitor.

I was being allowed to see this.

And we got out to Dead
Center Field, where the

monuments, to Ruth and
Huggins and Gehrig were.

And I stood there, and seven
years old, I started to cry.

And part of it was
just the surroundings.

So impressive, the facade,
the enormity of the place.

A seven-year-old kid literally could not
see over the mound from that distance.

Home plate looked
like it was a mile away.

Place was so imposing.

But also, I really thought that
these guys were buried there.

I thought that this was a sacred Yankee
burial ground, and surely when DiMaggio

passed away, when Mantle passed
away, they'd be buried there too.

And my father tried to
explain to me, yes, these

men are dead, but they're
buried someplace else.

I would have none of it.

I was convinced that
that was their tombstone.

Now, if you asked me, what is
the happiest memory of your father?

To me, that day.

On Wednesday, September 28, 1960, at
Fenway Park in Boston, 42-year-old Ted

Williams, the last man to hit 400, came
to bat for the last time in his career.

Injuries the season
before had brought his

batting average below
300 for the first time.

And he had felt so bad about it that
he had volunteered for a cut in pay.

Despite steady pain, pain
from a pinched nerve in his neck,

he had brought his average
back up again to 316 in 1960.

And despite having missed four seasons in
the military, had a lifetime total of 520

home runs, and had
compiled the highest career

batting average since
Rogers Hornsby, 344.

Now, he had finally had enough.

10,454 loyal fans came
out to say goodbye.

Lousy day, damp, drizzly, heavy.

And I hit two balls that I think some
days would have gone out for sure.

But this day, they didn't.

Caught them up
against the fence.

But the last time up, I got to
count two and nothing on Fisher.

And I missed a ball.

I don't know yet how
I missed that ball.

And I know he thought he
threw it, but he threw it by me.

He thought he threw it by me.

And he couldn't wait it.

Now, there is an experience thought
there because I could just sense.

He said, gee, give me that ball.

I'll throw another one by him.

And I could just see all of
that developing in his own mind.

And sure enough, he come back
to the same pitch and I hit it a little.

I hit it good and it
went for a home run,

which, you know, is
kind of a storybook finish.

I'd like to hit one
out of here right now.

There's a drive to
deep right center.

Williams hit it into the Red Sox
bullpen, scattering his teammates.

Then he circled the
bases for the last time.

His long career of feuding with
the fans and the press was over.

Some hoped he
might finally tip his cap,

something he had not
done since his rookie year.

I just couldn't do it.

I even thought about it going around the
bases, knowing this was my last time there.

But it was...

80-20 of not doing it.

So there was just a little
thought of it, but that was it.

I had a really warm feeling, he said
later, but it just wouldn't have been me.

For my money, Ted Williams
is the greatest hitter of all time.

I take him over Ruth.

I take him over Cobb.

I take him over Cobb because of
the combination of power and average.

I take him over Ruth
because with Ruth you can only

speculate about what he would
have done in the modern era.

Ted Williams hit .388
at the age of 39 in 1957.

He was what few
of us ever become.

He was exactly
what he set out to be.

He said he wanted to be able to walk down
the street someday and have people say,

there goes the greatest
hitter who ever lived.

And if they don't say
that, it's only because

they don't know what
they're talking about.

Let me explain to you
how big $2,000 was.

Mickey Mantle signed the
year before with the New York

Yankees, I think Tom Greenway
signed him, for about $1,100.

I got $2,000 the next year.

We were together in Buffalo once and
had a drug rally and Mickey Mantle said to

somebody, the two dumbest scouts
in America signed me and Cuomo.

They signed me for only $1,100
and I went to the Hall of Fame.

They signed him for $2,000 and he
still couldn't hit a bond with a paddle.

The bonus money eventually
wound up on the hand

of Matilda Rafa, who
became Matilda Rafa Cuomo.

I bought a ring for Matilda, got married,
and it's wonderful in addition to all the

other magnificent things that I've
had out of that marriage with Matilda.

I have the permanent
recollection of a scout's mistake.