My Father, Moses Mach, was born in a place that no longer exists: Jewish Harlem, a place that had 175,000 Jewish residents by 1917, when my Father was three years old. By the time he was 7, in 1921, he was attending games at the Polo Grounds with his Father and older brother. The three Machs rooted for both teams that played there: the Yankees and the Giants. When Yankee Stadium opened on 1923, they had to chose their primary allegiance, since the two teams played each other in the World Series in 1921, 1922, and 1923. They eventually chose to be Yankees fans after they moved to the Bronx a few years later, but continued to root for the Giants in the National League.
Thus, Mach family members have been Yankees fans for more than 100 years. We’d probably root for the Giants in the National League, had they not moved to San Francisco before the 1958 season.
My earliest baseball memories are a mix of family legends, things I might or might not have seen, and things I saw in person or on TV.
Probably a legend. My Father claimed that he cut school, and was at Yankee Stadium when it opened on April 18, 1923. It’s possible that he was one of the 74,200 fans in attendance that day; but I suspect that hundreds of thousands of people later claimed to have been these. Would an 8-year-old really have gone into such a huge crowd, even with his older brother?
Possibly truth, possibly legend. I was told, when I was a teenager, that my first baseball game was in 1948, when I was 3 years old. The game was held at Scheib Park, later known as Connie Mack Stadium, in Philadelphia, between the Yankees and the Philadelphia Athletics. What makes this believable was that we had a baseball, now sadly gone, that had the signatures of many members of the 1948 Yankees and Athletics, and even one umpire. So, I probably was at the game – or, at least, someone in my family was.
What’s legend is how we got the ball. When I was growing up, I knew that my Father’s Uncle George was a gambler and a bookie – a bad combination. According to the legend, we were on the field because Uncle George was the Athletics’ bookie – betting on horses, not baseball – and that he got the signatures while he was taking bets.
(Editor’s note: The accounting side of the family and the entrepreneurial side of the family are often at odds about the wisdom of certain actions. The entrepreneurial side is going to take the loss on this one.)
Truth unclear. I think I became aware of baseball in 1951, when the Yankees’ outfield included Joe DiMaggio, in his last year, in Center Field and a rookie, Mickey Mantle, in right field. What makes this memory a possible false memory is that I have absolutely no memory of the 1951 National League pennant race, in which the Giants came from 13 ½ games behind the Dodgers to tie them for the pennant, then won in a three-game playoff on a famous home run by Bobby Thompson. Was I so focused on the American League that I didn’t notice the National League?
Definitely true. When I was small, NYC seemed to feel safer than when I lived there (for the 2nd time, since I was born there) from 1969 to 1974. My family used to park near Yankee Stadium for Giants games and near the Polo Grounds for Yankee games, then walk across the river to the games. My guess is that, by the time the Giants and Dodgers left NYC after the 1957 season, I had been to 50+ games at Yankee Stadium, 15 to 20 Giants games at the Polo Grounds, and zero games at Ebbots Field. (Also, some Athletics and Phillies games in Philly.) So, I saw National League stars as well as those in the American League. I saw Willie Mays lots of times, Jackie Robinson 3 or 4 times, and Hank Aaron and Stan Musial once or twice. My probably inaccurate memory of a Giants-Dodgers game was that the game went to extra innings, the Dodgers scored perhaps 5 runs in the top of the 11th or 12th, and then the Giants won the game. That would have been around 1953 or 1954.
Definitely true. In the 1950s, World Series games were played in the afternoon; so, through 6th grade (more on that later), I was able to watch the ends of World Series games, even if I didn’t see the beginnings. One play from the 1952 World Series, when I was 7, is crystal clear in my mind, as if it had happened yesterday, and not 72 years ago. It’s late in the game, with the Yankees ahead, but with several Dodgers on the bases. A Dodger hits what appears to be a routine pop-up; but the ball gets caught in the wind, and starts to drift. The Yankee second baseman, Billy Martin, keeps running after the ball, and finally catches the ball just before it hits the ground. Ballgame and World Series saved!
(Good grief, what a catch! – ed.)
Just before the start of this year’s World Series, the New York Times published a special section that included highlights of the 11 previous World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers. And there it is in black and white: “Martin Saves the Day.” In the seventh inning of game 7 of the World Series, which the Yankees won 4 to 2 to win the series 4 games to 3, Jackie Robinson did, indeed, hit a wind-blown pop-up with two out and the bases loaded which, if not caught, would have scored 2 or three Dodgers, radically changing the nature of the game and the series. As reported by the Times:
“It looked simple enough as Billy Martin, the Yank second sacker, stalked in for it. But the ball seemed to get caught in a wind-eddy that sent it back toward the plate, and Martin, now racing at top speed, since no one else could interfere in such a ticklish spot, just about made it with a headlong dive.”
Phew! Small wonder I still remember that play!
My memories of the Yankees after 1952 are mostly the same as for most Yankees fans: some wins, many losses, some triumphs, some tragedies, such as the deaths of Thurman Munson in 1979 and Cory Lidle in 2006, both in crashes of small planes they were piloting. Here are a few Yankees memories after 1952 that are personal to me.
- The Yankees have won the pennant every year in which I was a baseball fan. They won 103 games, and lost the pennant to the Indians? I didn’t realize that this was possible.
- Then the Yankees lost a World Series to the Dodgers? Couldn’t happen! And who the heck is Johnny Padres, the pitcher who won the World Series for the Dodgers?
October 8, 1956. Grades 7 to 12 are crammed into Teaneck High School, on double sessions, with grades 10 to 12 going in the morning and grades 7 to 9 going to school from before 1 pm to about 5 pm. The Yankees are in the World Series; but Principal Helen Hill has banned radios from the building. We have no hint as to what is going on in game 5 of the World Series.
(Here’s what you missed, Mr. Mach!)
Late in the afternoon, we hear happy yelling on Cranford Place, outside the school building. My teacher can’t ignore the noise, so she opens the window to find out the cause of the racket. We all hear that Don Larsen of the Yankees has pitched a perfect game, and we have missed it. My brother, an 11th-grader on the morning session, has seen every pitch!
September, 1960. I go to see Ted Williams of the Red Sox in his final game at Yankee Stadium. The scoreboard shows that he has 518 career home runs. He hits a massive home run, and the scoreboard changes from 518 to 519. He finishes his career with 521.
- I’m a college student in Philadelphia. The Yankees are firmly in control of the [American League] pennant race, and the local National league team, the Phillies, is in control of the National League pennant race. I am rooting for both teams, as I still do. Both Philly papers have boxes on page 1 showing the Phillies’ “magic number” : the number of Philles wins plus Cardinals losses, needed for the Phillies to clinch the pennant. They lead the league by 6 ½ games, then lose 10 games in a row. The Cardinals win the pennant; then, to make matters worse, beat the Yankees in the World Series. Bummer! The Yankees and Phillies do not meet in a World Series until 2009.
- I attend one of the last games in Yankee Stadium before it closes for 2 years of renovations. The stadium is virtually empty, and I snap pictures of the views all over the stadium. The Yankees are winning big, and there are Yankees on base in almost every picture.
- With the Yankees playing at Shea Stadium, I attend my only game there. What an awful place for a Yankee fan, with planes flying over every few minutes! Ugh! No more Yankee games for me until they are back in Yankee Stadium.
- After about 25 years of rooting for the Yankees, I finally have a ticket to a playoff game: the deciding game of the American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals. Sadly, I am ill, give the ticket away, and miss seeing Chris Chambliss hit a walk-off home run to win the pennant for the Yankees. This is the second of three times when I have missed a major Yankees triumph; but at least I saw the game on TV. The perfect game and the third miss in 2009 were complete misses.
Speaking of a certain Italian cream-cheese afficionado…
1994 to 2000. I and a few work buddies have partial season tickets – about 8 to 10 games a year – to see the Yankees. Each partial season ticket includes a ticket to each round of the playoffs. There are more people in the group than tickets, so tickets are something of a lottery, Still, I manage to go to my first 3 or 4 playoff games and 2 World Series games
- I’ve been to a playoff game with tickets from my new employer, and they give me a ticket to game 3 of the World Series against the Diamondbacks. Why give the ticket to me? Because there’s a rumor, which turns out to be true, that, in the wake of 9/11, President Bush will throw out the first ball. Security will be tight if he shows up; and my bosses would rather attend games 4 and 5, without the President.
Getting to and into the stadium is, indeed, a hassle, with much more security that we now have at airports. Once I’m in my seat, the game is exciting. Before the ceremonial first pitch by Pres. Bush, an eagle flies from the outfield to the infield; then there is a flyover of Air Force jets. The game is a tight one, and the Yankees win 2 to 1. Sadly, they lose the series, with the home team winning every game.
- The Yankees haven’t been in the World Series for 6 years, and my wife and I book a fabulous trip: a few nights in Istanbul, 3 nights to see the fairy towers of Cappadocia, and a cruise that will take us to many places in the Eastern Mediterranean, including our first trip to Israel. I’m glad we took this wonderful trip.
Having said that a wonderful trip is better than any baseball game, the fact is that the Yankees were good that year, and were a game or two away from being in the World Series when we left for the trip. There are few baseball fans in Turkey, and we did not own a laptop or a smart phone. Therefore, we didn’t find out that the Yankees were in the World Series until after the second game of the series. With a six- or 7-hour time difference, games began at around 4 am, and weren’t shown at our Turkish hotels or on the ship. After waiting 45 years for the Yankees-Phillies World Series that didn’t happen in 1964, I didn’t see a single minute. My third and final miss of a big Yankees moment.
That means that, until this year, I hadn’t seen the Yankees in the World Series since 2003, or winning the World Series since 2000. It’s too bad that the Phillies are not their opponents.
Go Yankees!
