Maybe you know this story already. If you don’t, it’s a terrific reminder of the way things could be in sports, because this is the way things once were in sports.
Let’s go back to June 23, 1946. The Dodgers and the Cardinals were already engaged in a tight pennant race and were the two best teams in the National League. There were 27,538 folks on hand at Ebbets Field, a nice Sunday afternoon crowd in that first summer after World War II. Those in the stands who hadn’t been among the 64,000-plus who’d crammed the old yard the previous two days had no doubt followed along with Red Barber on the radio, or read Jimmy Cannon and Dick Young in the papers.
So they were aware that the Dodgers were being killed — absolutely murdered — by the Cardinals’ best player, a 25-year-old first baseman named Stanley Frank Musial. In the first two games of the series, Musial had gone 7-for-10 with two doubles, a triple and three RBIs. The Dodgers could not get him out.
And sure enough, that Sunday, Musial drew a first-inning walk against Brooklyn pitcher Joe Hatten. In the third, he ripped a single up the middle off Hatten. And in the fifth, Hatten walked him again. By the eighth, Hatten was guarding a 3-1 lead but had to face the teeth of the St. Louis order: Musial, Enos Slaughter and Whitey Kurowski — Hall of Famer, Hall of Famer, four-time All-Star. The crowd stirred. And then a few voices were heard chanting. And joined by a few more. And a few hundred more. And then a few thousand more.
Here! Comes!
That! Man! Again!
Up in the press box, Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch — who 33 years later would himself be honored in the writer’s wing of the Hall of Fame — heard the chants. And in his game story the next day — retelling an eventual 4-2 Dodgers win; Musial popped up to catcher that last at-bat — Broeg identified the Cardinals first baseman thusly:
Stan the Man.
It stuck, of course, and remains one of the most famous nicknames in baseball history. And to the everlasting credit of the great baseball fans of Brooklyn, N.Y., it was bestowed out of tribute and trepidation on an opponent, and one who would go on destroying them for the next 11 years and then again on the West Coast.
That’s not an isolated incident. Yankees fans gave Bob Feller a standing ovation earlier that year, on April 30, when he threw a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium. Mets fans cheered Pete Rose — of all people — when he broke Tommy Holmes’ NL-record hitting streak at Shea in the summer of 1978. They cheered Chipper Jones his last at-bat at Shea, a place in which he tortured them so often he named a child after it. Yankees fans did the same for Cal Ripken Jr.
So it’s not just a product of the Greatest Generation doing Great Generation things. Civility has been practiced at ballparks, and often. And even recently.
It’s just hard to remember that lately. The Bronx isn’t the only place where anger and misbehavior reign, it was just spotlighted this week. People at Billy’s cheered when Shohei Ohtani hurt his shoulder in Game 2. And then there were the two yahoos who interfered with Mookie Betts in Game 3.
I should point out that the overwhelming number of correspondence I received afterward from Yankees fans condemned those two guys, and if anything, they wondered why it took so long on Wednesday for them to be officially booted for Game 5. But there was also a significant amount of support for them in the moment and shortly thereafter.
And what’s most troublesome is this: They explained that this wasn’t just happenstance. They go into every game looking to “guard the wall.” As with Fireman Ed over at MetLife, they live under the absurd pretense that they’re somehow part of the team. Did Jeffrey Maier once upon a time gain lasting fame for reaching over the fence and interfering with a fly ball? He did.
He was also 12 years old at the time.
Maybe we’re just too far gone. But all this week, as I watched their 15 minutes of fame swell, I couldn’t help think about June 23, 1946, and how things used to be around here. Call me a crazy old romantic. I like those days better.
Vac’s whacks
It’s five games, so we’ll go easy on the hyperbole for now. But it sure is a lot of fun to watch Karl-Anthony Towns play basketball three times a week in Knicks colors.
I’m not sure that Jordi Fernandez -has gotten the “Lag for Flagg” memo yet about needing to tank the season, because so far the Nets team I’m watching is well coached and pretty damn fearless against everyone. Very impressive.
Good for the Jets: Thursday night they teamed with the Texans to run the MetLife stairs as part of the Knapp Stair Climb to raise money for distracted driving awareness. The program is named after the late, longtime NFL assistant coach Greg Knapp, who was killed by a distracted driver in 2021. The program has raised over $300,000 to date.
Whack back at Vac
Dan Salogub: Forget investing in Juan Soto; the Yankees need to invest in some Tom Emanski instructional videos this offseason.
Vac: This is the rare WhackBack that is both hilarious and 100 percent true.
Henry Conte: After watching those two knuckleheads rip the ball out of Mookie Betts’ glove, I found myself embarrassed to be a New York sports fan.
Vac: We love to congratulate ourselves on being “sophisticated” sports fans around here, and most of the time it applies. But not all.
@drschnip: I can imagine Jeff Ulbrich’s halftime speech was something like this: ”Sometime, when the team is up against it, and the breaks are beating you boys, go out there with all you’ve got and win just one for Ambassador Johnson.”
@MikeVacc: Can confirm.
Joe Nicoletti: No issues with the ghosts and goblins trick-or-treating at my front door, but I could not believe every kid dressed as a little Yankee fumbled the Snickers bars I tossed to them.
Vac: The one at my front door failed to move at all when I tossed him a bag of Reese’s Pieces.
