Latest / Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History / 2006 • Baseball Clip • Ernie Harwell • Part 3 of 8 - Brooklyn Dodgers - Radio Interview

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2006 • Baseball Clip • Ernie Harwell • Part 3 of 8 - Brooklyn Dodgers - Radio Interview · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

• 0:00
  This is Retro Sports Radio.
• 0:03
  Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
• 0:06
  Okay, you get to Brooklyn, you're replacing Red Barber, a legend as well there with the
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  Dodgers.
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  And what about your first broadcast?
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  Well, the first broadcast was postponed by rain.
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  I got up there and they put me up at the Bosset Hotel on Montague Street in Brooklyn.
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  And I didn't know anybody in town, so I've got to wait for the game that night.
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  And doggone if it didn't rain it out, and I don't have anything to do until the next
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  night.
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  You know, I'm going bananas in this hotel room where I don't know anybody.
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  Well finally, the next day comes and in the late afternoon I get a subway out to Abbot's
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  Field.
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  I really didn't know how to get there, but I got there and I wandered into the ballpark.
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  I don't know anybody really and I haven't had spring training or anything.
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  I'm coming in absolutely cold.
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  The first people I saw were a couple of players from the Southern League, Paul Minner and
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  Russ Meyer.
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  They said hello, you know, and that made me feel a little bit better.
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  And then the Dodger players were very, very warm and cordial and friendly to me because
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  they knew I was coming into an unusual kind of a situation, replacing Red and just coming
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  in absolutely cold.
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  And they couldn't have been more hospitable.
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  They were great.
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  And I went up to the booth and worked with Connie Desmond, who was a terrific announcer.
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  He'd been Red's partner for several years, had a great voice and just a great guy.
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  And he was very warm and cordial to me too.
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  And in the first inning, Jackie Robinson steals home on a pitch by Muck Meyer.
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  And it's a very close play at the plate and he's called safe.
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  And Muck Meyer is sort of a very eccentric guy, probably best known for the fact that
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  some girl in the bar bit off his nose one time, the end of his nose.
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  But Muck goes bananas, you know, when Jackie Robinson's called safe at the plate and he
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  gets profane.
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  He gets obscene.
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  He begins to shout and rage and his words go over our broadcast.
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  The very first game I'm on and they're all over the broadcast and Meyer gets tossed out
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  of the game, which is very unusual for starting pitcher in the first inning to get ejected.
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  But the umpire tosses him out of the game.
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  He's fired and suspended.
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  And Jackie Robinson steals home.
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  The Dodgers finally win the game.
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  And that was my debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
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  That is almost.
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  I mean, the fact that your microphones would pick up a player on the field.
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  Well, what they did then they had what they call the parabolic microphones.
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  They'd have these mics that would have a little cone around them, you know, a little circle
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  around them and they direct them right to home plate.
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  So they could hear the crack of the bat and the pop of the mitt and so forth.
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  And it just happened they were on and I guess they should have cut them off at that time,
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  but nobody thought about that.
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  And there was no five second delay.
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  No, no delays in those days.
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  All right.
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  This stat with Brooklyn, you're there for a couple of weeks replacing Red.
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  What happens when he comes back?
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  He came back a little sooner than most people anticipated.
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  He was still very weak when he came back.
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  In fact, all the rest of the time I worked with him, his voice was weak and the engineers
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  had to put up again so he could project over the microphone.
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  But Red came back on a game at the Polo grounds.
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  The Dodgers were in to face their hated rivals.
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  The New York Giants, it was sort of a murky halfway rainy day.
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  It was a night game and it was Red's first time back.
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  So Connie Desmond and I both worked with Red that first game back.
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  And the Giants get a man on first and third with one out in the first inning.
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  It looks like Rex Barney is going to have a hard time.
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  You know, he was a very wild pitcher.
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  Dick Young once said Rex Barney would be in the Hall of Fame if the plate was high and
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  outside.
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  That's how wild he was.
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  He couldn't get the ball over.
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  He had a great arm.
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  And they were warming up a guy in the bullpen.
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  Well, the upshot is that Rex Barney pitches a no hitter.
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  So it was pretty much of a big occasion for me.
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  Absolutely.
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  Now, you mentioned Jackie Robinson.
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  Everybody has an opinion when that name is brought up.
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  What's the first thing you think of when I say Jackie Robinson?
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  The first thing I think of is a great player who broke the color line in the major leagues,
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  the most important event that's ever happened in sports history.
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  I think about a guy who had a wonderful personality, who was very intelligent ahead of everybody
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  else and made the very most of the ability that he had.
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  He was probably a lot better football, basketball, track star than he was a baseball player,
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  but he applied himself so much.
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  He had terrific drive, terrific ambition, and he was the most exciting player that I
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  think ever saw.
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  Speed, yes, but blinding speed, no.
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  But he had that certain knack.
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  He had the moves.
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  He knew when things were going to happen.
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  He did have that sense.
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  And he danced off the base and he would force the opposition into some kind of error.
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  They'd get him in a rundown and he'd generally be able to get out of it most of the time
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  because in the haste, the second baseman would shut up and throw the ball away and he'd go
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  onto the next base and be safe.
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  And he was a great exponent of the steel of home.
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  He could do that.
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  He had sort of an awkward swing.
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  He looked like he was tied up in his shoulders when he swung, but he could hit with power.
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  And he made some great clutch plays in the field.
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  He wasn't a great fielder, but he always came up with a big play.
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  So much has been written and recorded about Jackie and his trials and tribulations being
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  accepted number one by the Brooklyn Dodgers as a team.
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  And that wasn't the most popular move that Branch Rickey ever made.
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  How did the team react to Jackie as you saw it?
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  Well, the team reacted with mixed feelings at the beginning, but I think Jackie won just
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  about everybody over.
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  I went there in his second year of his breaking the color line and it was still a problem.
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  He was still getting abused by the fans, getting abused by the opposing players.
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  I think most of the players on his own team had come around by then.
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  In the early going, some of the players had said that they didn't want to play for the
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  Dodgers.
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  They wanted to be traded.
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  Branch Rickey traded several of them, mostly the Pittsburgh.
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  But by the time Jackie had proved that he was a great team man and a great team leader,
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  I think everybody had come around to support his cause.
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  There might've been a few recalcitrant players, but if they were, they kept their mouth shut
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  and I didn't know about it.
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  Well, Robinson was subjected to a lot of insults and a lot of other things during his entire
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  career, but it was especially bad in the early going.
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  And there was one incident in 1949, right after spring training, the Dodgers are headed
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  back north to start the season and they stop in Atlanta for a three game exhibition set
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  with the Atlanta Crackers.
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  And there was a very ugly scene involving the Ku Klux Klan there, wasn't there?
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  That's right, Bob.
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  It was quite intimidating.
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  The grand dragon of the KKK, Dr. Green, had called Earl Mann, the owner of the Atlanta
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  Crackers and said, I'm sending you a letter about this subject, but I want you to know
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  that if Jackie Robinson plays at Ponce de Leon Park during this series, he'll be shot
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  by the KKK.
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  And Earl Mann said, go to hell.
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  And then he called the police chief, Herbert Jenkins, and reported to him.
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  And they decided to go on with a three game series.
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  Well, the Dodgers got to Atlanta for the first game and Bert Schotten is the manager and
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  he reads the letter to his players and he says, you're going to take the field and you're
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  going to play.
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  After the threat, they needed a little comic relief.
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  Gene Hermansky, the good-humored outfielder said, why don't we all wear number 42, Jackie's
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  number and then they won't know which guy to shoot.
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  And when they got on the field, Pee Wee Reese, his Keystone partner told her, Jackie said,
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  move over a little to your right, Jackie.
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  This guy might be a bad shot and I don't want to get hit.
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  But it was a big cause, so never there in Atlanta.
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  And it made an impact on me because I was going back to my hometown and broadcasting
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  for the Brooklyn Dodgers and I was sort of in the middle of it.
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  But it went off without any untoward incident at all.
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  And they had a capacity crowd every one of the games.
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  And on the final game, they had a record crowd of 25,221.
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  Jackie Robinson played and he was not shot by the KKK.
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  I can still remember seeing that picture of Jackie crossing home plate after hitting a
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  home run.
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  And there is the captain of the Dodgers with his hand outstretched, shaking Jackie's hand
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  and slapping him on the back.
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  Was that the defining moment for Jackie that the white players on the team had accepted
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  because Pee Wee Reese was their captain?
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  I think so.
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  I think Pee Wee was admired by everybody and really loved by everybody.
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  He knew that he was going to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson.
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  He came around and was most cordial and warm to Jackie and they became good friends.
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  And of course, they were pretty much a Keystone combination there, although Jackie started
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  out at the first baseman in his first few days with the Dodgers.
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  But I think the friendship that he made with Pee Wee was sort of a defining moment for
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  Jackie.
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  Pee Wee wasn't just called the captain.
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  He was the captain of the Dodgers.
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  It was his team, wasn't it?
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  It was.
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  He was great.
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  He was a fine fielder, good clutch hitter, great base runner.
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  He didn't steal a lot of bases because in those times the stolen base wasn't a big factor
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  in baseball, but they very seldom catch him on an attempted steal.
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  But he could do everything and I think everybody looked up to Pee Wee.
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  Baseball fans, when the name Jackie is mentioned, when the name Pee Wee is mentioned, they know
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  who you're talking about.
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  But there are others in those boys of summer.
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  The Duke, Oisk, Schoonge, Big Nuke.
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  They did have great players and they got along well.
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  Billy Cox at third base, a lot of people think that he was even better than Brooks Robinson.
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  He was a little skinny guy, but he'd catch everything, hit down there, had a great arm.
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  Then you had Reese and Robinson.
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  Gil Hodges was one of the sweetest guys you ever met.
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  Mile-mannered, but he had wrists as big as most guys' thighs, you know.
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  Caponella was a great catcher.
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  Could hit the long ball and he had Bruce Edwards behind him.
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  And then they had Hermanski and Snyder.
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  Carl Ferillo, the Redding rifle in right field, a guy that Ricky bought the whole ball club
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  at Redding, PA, so he could get Ferillo.
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  And in those days, a minor league franchise wasn't as expensive as it is today.
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  But the Brooklyn team had a lot of characters on it.
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  The fans were great.
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  And I was very fortunate to be able to break into the major leagues at Brooklyn.
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  I couldn't believe how nice they were to me, the fans and the listeners, because I had
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  come up under tough circumstances and I think they realized that and they were great to
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  me.
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  As you saw Robinson's perception, was it different from the media than it was from
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  the teammates and the Brooklyn fans?
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  I think the media was pretty good with Jackie.
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  I think they might have been hard on him every now and then in New York because the New York
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  writers more or less called it as it was.
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  But they were fair to Jackie, I think.
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  And in those days, you had more of a fraternal feeling between the media and the team.
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  Guys played cards together on the train and you ate together in the dining room and you
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  didn't have the gap that you have now between the media and the players where they're pretty
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  well separated all the time.
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  So it was more of a feeling of friendship in the traveling group than we have today.
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  Tell me about the train rides.
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  Train ride was great.
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  You know, they were a lot longer in a way.
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  It was better to go on the plane and get there right after the game.
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  But generally speaking, you'd have a day game in a certain city and go out and eat dinner
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  somewhere with some of the players and to get on the train around 10, 30, 11.
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  Most of the time we would have an overnight trip and get up the next day.
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  Sometimes have breakfast on the train, sometimes get off and go to the hotel immediately and
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  have breakfast there and then take a little rest and go to the ballpark.
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  And the long trips would be Boston to St. Louis.
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  That would take you a day and a half.
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  Generally the trips were fairly short and enjoyable and a lot of card playing, a lot
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  of sitting in the observation car and just talking about baseball and whatever came to
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  mind.
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  And the guys seemed to have a lot better feeling about the media, as I said, than they do now.
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  Who was the best hearts player on the team?
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  Peewee was really good.
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  I played with him a lot and I played with Jackie a lot.
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  And Cappy, I played with him a good bit too.
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  You sort of divided up as you play.
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  Different guys played with different people and it just happened that way.
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  The Greek ball club had sort of a different card game.
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  It was blackjack when I went to the Giants, but it was hearts when I was with the Dodgers.
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  But it was fun and we didn't play for much money.
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  You know, if you lost 10 or 15 dollars, you thought it was pretty much of a disaster.
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  What made the boys of summer special?
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  Well, I think the boys of summer were special.
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  Number one, they had great ability and number two, you had some wonderful personalities
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  on the team, plus the fact that they were the underdogs all the time and most of America
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  roots for the underdogs.
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  And either the Yankees or the Giants were their hated rivals.
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  And you had a situation in New York where there were three great baseball teams.
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  And I think for a span of 10 years, somebody pointed out that at least one of the teams
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  was in a World Series just about every year, except maybe one.
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  Usually it was the Yankees.
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  Sometimes the Giants would make it.
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  The Dodgers would make it more than Giants would.
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  But somebody would be there and the rivalry between the Giants and the Dodgers was so
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  intense that it spilled over from year to year, no matter what the personnel was.
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  And when you'd go to the polo grounds, that would be about the only time the Giants would
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  draw a crowd.
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  They'd draw six or seven hundred thousand for the year and about two thirds of that
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  would be when they played the Dodgers.
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  All right.
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  You had the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Giants.
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  What was that like to have three of the premier franchises in baseball all located in that
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  close proximity?
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  Well, it was fantastic for the fans.
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  And from an announcer standpoint, it was a great learning process because when you announced
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  for the Dodgers, the Giants fans would tune in and they hated the Dodgers and the Yankee
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  fans would tune in and they hated the Dodgers.
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  So you had to talk to one group that liked you and the other group that wanted you to
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  lose.
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  So you had to pretty much be down the middle, I'd say.
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  That's the way most of us played it.
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  You mentioned being down the middle.
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  When you were in Atlanta doing play by play, were you down the middle pretty much or were
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  you a cracker fan on the air?
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  I was down the middle even from the beginning.
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  I felt like I had to make up my mind one way or the other.
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  You can either root for the team on the air or you don't.
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  And it was my choice, whether right or wrong, to not root for the team.
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  I felt like that was a prerogative of the fan and let him have it and not say we or
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  we've got to go or come on guys, let's get some runs.
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  And I felt like I just wanted to be a reporter most of all and let the chips fall where they
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  may.
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  Jackie broke the color barrier, but very quickly there was an influx, especially on the Dodgers,
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  not only with Campanella, but with Don Newcomb, with Joe Black and later on Junior Gillian,
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  Sandy Amorus.
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  The list goes on.
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  Was it easier for those guys that followed Jackie?
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  Once Jackie had broken the color line, it was a much easier trip for everybody.
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  But Jackie was a pioneer and a lot of credit is due to him and of course Branch Rickey
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  who conceived the idea and along with Jackie made it happen.
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  The old story about Jackie going to Branch Rickey when they first signed is absolutely
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  true because Branch said you've got to be able to turn the other cheek to make this
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  experiment a success.
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  And Jackie said you mean you want a guy without guts enough to fight back?
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  And he said no, I want a guy with guts enough not to fight back.
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  You've got to swallow your pride a little bit and make it a success by holding off.
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  And for two years, Jackie followed that regimen.
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  He held his temper and he did have a tough temper.
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  And I remember when he finally broke loose, it was a game in Pittsburgh at Forbes Field.
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  He blew his stack about a call and from then on he was just a guy playing baseball.
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  He was carrying this load for 17 million people and that he had to come under, come to tall
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  we call it, act thus and so, turn the other cheek was the thing that we discussed at that
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  first meeting of length.
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  You mentioned Roy Campanella, a great talent whose career and ultimately life was cut way
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  too short.
• 16:58
  Well, Roy was a happy-go-lucky guy.
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  Jackie Robinson was pretty serious, you know.
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  Jackie had a cause and he stuck with it.
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  Roy was just sort of a laissez-faire, whatever happens, don't worry about it.
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  I'm going to go out there and do my best and get my base hit, throw a guy out at second.
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  Great guy to be around and always had a big smile.
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  He was a smart baseball man.
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  He'd grown up in the Negro leagues.
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  He'd caught when he was 14 or 15 years old, caught double-headers in those leagues and
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  he had a tragic end when he skidded on the freeway outside of New York City and was paralyzed.
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  Lived a very tough life from then on.
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  He was on our veterans committee later and it was so sad.
• 17:38
  He was in a wheelchair all the time and he could communicate, but it was tough for him
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  and he wasn't the same old Roy that we knew when he was catching.
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  I mentioned Don Newcomb, big, tall, strong, hard-thrower.
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  What was he like?
• 17:53
  I liked Don.
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  He was a good guy.
• 17:55
  He had an alcoholic problem later on, something I certainly didn't know about in my early
• 18:00
  days because he came up my second year.
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  They had a great year in 49 and pitched them to the pennant.
• 18:06
  He could throw the ball hard.
• 18:07
  He was a great fastball pitcher and he was such a big, strong-looking guy.
• 18:12
  He was intimidating on the mound.
• 18:13
  I think that was part of his success.
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  Guys didn't want to dig in at the plate against the old Newk and his caponella used to say
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  he could really throw that express at his fastball.
• 18:25
  One of the most special guys of that group is the Duke of Flatbush, Duke Snyder.
• 18:30
  The Duke was quite a player.
• 18:32
  When he first came up, he was a left-hand hitter, so he got to see a lot of right-handers
• 18:36
  at Ebbets Field, which was good.
• 18:38
  He struck out a lot at first, but he really found himself and made himself a great outfielder.
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  He was a terrific fielder and a good hitter.
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  He could hit the long ball.
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  He was a great clutch hitter, very personable, and a really top-notch person.
• 18:52
  Layler made quite a career out of broadcasting.
• 18:56
  I was very proud of the Duke, the way he adjusted to broadcasting after he got through a great
• 19:01
  baseball career.
• 19:02
  Why did the Dodgers win only one world championship in Brooklyn?
• 19:06
  I don't know.
• 19:07
  A lot of guys in Brooklyn have asked that for years, and I sure don't know the answer.
• 19:11
  I think we could say one word, the Yankees, maybe.
• 19:16
  Brooklyn was a special place to live, to be a fan in, and to go to the ballpark at, because
• 19:24
  not only was it an unusual ballpark, but it had its cast of characters, shall we say,
• 19:30
  led by one Miss Hilda Chester?
• 19:32
  Oh, Hilda, yeah.
• 19:33
  Hilda was a great gal.
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  She worked for H.M. Stevens, which was a concessionaire.
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  She was a filler of peanut bags, but she was a great Dodger fan, and she loved Leo DeRosia.
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  Anything that Leo did was all right with her, and she had this cowbell.
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  That was her trademark.
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  When the Dodgers did something, even if they didn't, she'd be ringing the cowbell, and
• 19:56
  it almost killed her when Leo left the Dodgers and went across the river to the hated Giants
• 20:01
  and became the manager of the New York Giants.
• 20:04
  But we also had the Brooklyn Symphony, led by Shorty Larice, and the Symphony was three
• 20:11
  or four guys who thought they could play instruments.
• 20:13
  I think you had a drum and a trumpet and a couple other things.
• 20:17
  They were at every game.
• 20:18
  They made a lot of noise.
• 20:19
  It wasn't too musical most of the time, but when an opposing batter, for instance, would
• 20:24
  strike out, they would give him a little musical accompaniment back to the bench.
• 20:29
  Bump, da bump, bump, da bump, you know, that little tune.
• 20:32
  And when he sat down, they'd say, boom.
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  And the opposing player sometimes would try to fool him with a fake sit down, you know,
• 20:38
  where they'd play the music and he wouldn't sit down.
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  And it was a lot of fun for everybody.
• 20:43
  And they had a PA announcer named Tex Rickard, same name as the old boxing promoter.
• 20:48
  And Tex, on the hottest day in Brooklyn, he had this heavy white sweater with Brooklyn
• 20:54
  Dodgers in blue letters across it, the Brooklyn script.
• 20:58
  And every time a guy hit a home run, Tex would run out at home plate and shake his hand.
• 21:04
  And you'd see the back page of the Daily News in the mirror.
• 21:07
  They'd have Hodges crossing the plate and Tex Rickard is in every picture.
• 21:11
  And we had a deal at Ebbets Field.
• 21:13
  When a guy hit a home run, he got a carton of old goals.
• 21:17
  He did a home run and one of the announcers would put the carton of old goals on the screen
• 21:22
  back of the plate and roll it down.
• 21:24
  Tex Rickard would grab it, take it and give it to the hitter.
• 21:30
  Another old goal.
• 21:33
  You know, that was pretty minor league, but it went over in Brooklyn.
• 21:36
  It worked.
• 21:37
  As far as they would say in Brooklyn, it worked.
• 21:40
  Yeah, it worked.
• 21:42
  One target that the symphony really loved was during the World Series when Casey Stingle
• 21:47
  would head the mound to talk to a pitcher.
• 21:49
  Oh yeah, they loved Casey because he was such a character, you know.
• 21:53
  Casey should have been an actor really.
• 21:54
  He should have been on Broadway.
• 21:56
  He was just a natural and I guess whatever he did, the symphony would love it.
• 22:01
  You finished in Brooklyn.
• 22:03
  You go, as did Leo, across the river to the polo grounds.
• 22:08
  Why?
• 22:09
  I went to the Giants because, number one, they were going to pay me more money.
• 22:14
  And number two, instead of working with two other guys in the booth, I worked with only
• 22:18
  one.
• 22:19
  And the Giants had come to me the year before, even in 1948 after my first time with Brooklyn.
• 22:25
  They wanted me to come and I felt like I hadn't been there long enough.
• 22:28
  I didn't want to move.
• 22:29
  And this time I decided I'd go to the polo grounds and work for the New York Giants.
• 22:34
  Well, Ernie Hilda Chester was crushed when Leo DeRoscher left the Bums for the hated
• 22:40
  Giants and then at the end of the season she gets slammed again because Ernie crosses over
• 22:47
  to the polo grounds.
• 22:48
  Now, which hurt her the most, Ernie?
• 22:50
  You leaving or DeRoscher?
• 22:52
  I don't think there's any doubt about that.
• 22:54
  It was Leo the Lip that caused all the hurt.
• 22:57
  I don't think Hilda cared one way or the other whether I left or not.
• 23:01
  But anyway, I did leave and I went to the Giants.