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Authors: Roger Angell
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about, and their one true yell of the day, in the bottom of the ninth, was suddenly severed when Rudi, in pursuit of a very long drive by Denis Menke, plastered himself belly-first against the left-field wall like a pinned butterfly and somehow plucked down the ball. Later, in their clubhouse, the Reds variously attempted a statesmanlike situation report (“We’re a bit flat” … “Their offense doesn’t impress me” … “We’re embarrassed, you could say”), but their faces were a little stiff, a little shocked. Tony Perez used both hands to enact for Dave Concepcion a couple of Catfish Hunter’s half-speed pitches dipping gently over the corners of the plate. “Nada!” he cried bitterly. “Nada!”
There was another moment on that same bright Sunday—a moment before the game, which only took on meaning a few days later. In a brief ceremony at the mound, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn presented an award to Jackie Robinson, honoring him for his work in combating drug addiction, and celebrating his arrival, twenty-five years before, as the first black man in the major leagues. Robinson responded, his thin, high voice barely reaching us over the loudspeakers. He was glad to see some of his old Brooklyn friends there—Pee Wee Reese, Joe Black, Red Barber. He introduced his family. He ended by saying that it would be nice to see a black manager standing in the third-base coach’s box someday soon. There were handshakes and applause, the party walked away, the microphones were taken down. I had seen Jackie for a minute or two in the tunnel behind home plate—a frail, white-haired old man, with a black raincoat buttoned up to his chin. I remembered at that moment a baseball scene that I had witnessed more than twenty years earlier—a scene that came back to me the following week, when I read about Robinson’s sudden death. It was something that had happened during an insignificant weekday game between the Giants and the Dodgers back in the nineteen-fifties. Robinson, by then an established star, was playing third base that afternoon, and during the game something happened that drove him suddenly and totally mad. I was sitting close to him, just behind third, but I had no idea what brought on the outburst. It might have been a remark from the stands or from one of the dugouts; it was nothing that happened on the field. Without warning, Robinson began shouting imprecations, obscenities, curses. His voice was piercing, his face distorted with passion. The players on both teams looked at each other, uncomprehending. The Giants’ third-base coach walked over to murmur a question, and Robinson directed his screams at him. The umpire at third did the same thing, and then turned away with a puzzled, embarrassed shrug. In time, the outburst stopped and the game went on. It had been nothing, a moment’s aberration, but it seemed to suggest what can happen to a man who has been used, who has been made into a symbol and a public sacrifice. The moment became an event—something to remember along with the innumerable triumphs and the joys and the sense of pride and redress that Jackie Robinson brought to us all back then. After that moment, I knew that we had asked him to do too much for us. None of it—probably not a day of it—was ever easy for him.
A couple of hours before the beginning of the third game (which became a rainout), Charles O. Finley, resplendent in a Kelly-green double-knit blazer, got aboard a crowded elevator inside the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. When it reached the field level, he stood aside to let the rest of us out, and then turned to the young woman running the elevator. “Listen, dear,” he said urgently. “I want you to stop at two on the way back up and pick up the boys with the coffee urns. You got that?” Charlie Finley is a man who must do everything by himself, even when fifty thousand paying customers are at the gates. He is a self-made millionaire, in the insurance business. He
There was another moment on that same bright Sunday—a moment before the game, which only took on meaning a few days later. In a brief ceremony at the mound, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn presented an award to Jackie Robinson, honoring him for his work in combating drug addiction, and celebrating his arrival, twenty-five years before, as the first black man in the major leagues. Robinson responded, his thin, high voice barely reaching us over the loudspeakers. He was glad to see some of his old Brooklyn friends there—Pee Wee Reese, Joe Black, Red Barber. He introduced his family. He ended by saying that it would be nice to see a black manager standing in the third-base coach’s box someday soon. There were handshakes and applause, the party walked away, the microphones were taken down. I had seen Jackie for a minute or two in the tunnel behind home plate—a frail, white-haired old man, with a black raincoat buttoned up to his chin. I remembered at that moment a baseball scene that I had witnessed more than twenty years earlier—a scene that came back to me the following week, when I read about Robinson’s sudden death. It was something that had happened during an insignificant weekday game between the Giants and the Dodgers back in the nineteen-fifties. Robinson, by then an established star, was playing third base that afternoon, and during the game something happened that drove him suddenly and totally mad. I was sitting close to him, just behind third, but I had no idea what brought on the outburst. It might have been a remark from the stands or from one of the dugouts; it was nothing that happened on the field. Without warning, Robinson began shouting imprecations, obscenities, curses. His voice was piercing, his face distorted with passion. The players on both teams looked at each other, uncomprehending. The Giants’ third-base coach walked over to murmur a question, and Robinson directed his screams at him. The umpire at third did the same thing, and then turned away with a puzzled, embarrassed shrug. In time, the outburst stopped and the game went on. It had been nothing, a moment’s aberration, but it seemed to suggest what can happen to a man who has been used, who has been made into a symbol and a public sacrifice. The moment became an event—something to remember along with the innumerable triumphs and the joys and the sense of pride and redress that Jackie Robinson brought to us all back then. After that moment, I knew that we had asked him to do too much for us. None of it—probably not a day of it—was ever easy for him.
A couple of hours before the beginning of the third game (which became a rainout), Charles O. Finley, resplendent in a Kelly-green double-knit blazer, got aboard a crowded elevator inside the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. When it reached the field level, he stood aside to let the rest of us out, and then turned to the young woman running the elevator. “Listen, dear,” he said urgently. “I want you to stop at two on the way back up and pick up the boys with the coffee urns. You got that?” Charlie Finley is a man who must do everything by himself, even when fifty thousand paying customers are at the gates. He is a self-made millionaire, in the insurance business. He
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