Among the authors that took their Pulitzer Prize-winning skills to baseball writing was David Halberstam, who died yesterday in a vehicle accident while on his way to interview football great Y.A. Tittle.
Among his sports books, his best-known was "The Summer of '49," the recounting of the season that began the New York Yankees' epic run of 14 American League pennants in 16 years.
He also wrote "October 1964," the story of the last season of that stretch, the end of the Mantle-Berra-Ford dynasty and the beginning of a very enjoyable decade for non-Yankee fans. Part of the book focuses on how New York failed to sign and develop minority players, mostly at the behest of general manager George Weiss, while other teams -- including the St. Louis Cardinals, which beat the Yankees in the '64 World Series -- became fully integrated. Cardinal stars Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Curt Flood and Bill White also are featured prominently in the book.
"October 1964" contains one of my favorite baseball anecdotes. Ralph Terry, best known as the pitcher who surrendered Bill Mazeroski's Series-winning blast in 1960, was one of the better pitchers on the Yankees' staff in the early '60s. When Terry first signed with the Yankees, he was assigned to the farm team in Binghamton, N.Y., which is not very far from Cooperstown. Terry received permission from his manager to watch the Yankees play in the annual Hall of Fame Game. As Halberstam wrote:
"Jim Turner, the Yankee pitching coach, recognized (Terry) and, because it was not a league game, told him it was all right to sit down at the end of the Yankee dugout. Terry walked down to the end of the bench, where he found three very old men sitting together. Very full of himself, and sure that the big leagues were just around the corner, Terry introduced himself to the nearest of the men. 'Hi, I'm Ralph Terry, and I'm pitching for the Binghamton Yankees,' he said, and the tone of his voice, he later decided, was more than a little cocky, implying that within a year or two he would be with the big-league club.
"The older man, one of the most courteous people Ralph Terry had ever met, said, 'Well, Ralph, it certainly is a pleasure to meet you. Now, my name is Cy Young. And these fellas over here next to me and Zack Wheat and Ty Cobb.' Just as Terry decided that he was the youngest and biggest fool in professional baseball, Cy Young moved a little closer, to sit next to him, and he talked pitching with him for the rest of the day."
Isn't that a great story? David Halberstam's books are full of them.
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