The Pecan Park Eagle

Sunday, April 8, 1951 was the date of the most memorable game I ever watched at old Buff Stadium – and it didn’t even count in the standings. It didn’t have to count, except in the heart of play we witnessed that day – and in the pictures it imprinted upon the minds of the record crowd of 13,963 fans who attended that hot and sunny spring afternoon exhbition game.

I was only 13 at the time, but I was already seriously interested in photography. Unfortunately, I never had the money needed to pay for film and development of my pictures down at Mading’s Drug Store. Had I been able to spring for those costs back then, I would be showing you the pictures I took with the family’s Kodak Brownie box camera – not just trying to tell you about the images that remain on my soul-mind’s eye to this day, some fifty-eight years later.

First let me offer some perspective on where these pictures were taken.

Because my dad felt we wouldn’t need to buy tickets in advance, he, my kid brother John, my best friend Billy Sanders, and I all ended up standing behind the section of left center field that had been roped off for all of the other SRO fans who thought like my dad, but that turned out to be way more than just OK. First of all, we caught space on a section that was directly on the rope in the front row. There were four or five rows of other fans standing behind us. My dad was only 5’6″ and the rest of us were kids. We’d have been lost any further back, but that’s not how it happened. Next, and most importantly, we were standing no more than about ninety feet away from Joe DiMaggio in center field, to our left – and Gene Woodling in left field, to our right. They were wearing their blousy gray road uniforms with the words “NEW YORK” arching in dark letters across the breast plates of their jerseys. I don’t have a physical picture of DiMaggio wearing his road uniform that day, but I’ll never forget the one that plays on forever in my mind. DiMaggio was as graceful as the writers always described him in The Sporting News.

I watched every single nuanced thing DiMaggio did in the field – and I loved it when he had to run over near us for a fly ball. He was close enough for us to hear the ball pop leather on the catch many times. I even thought we made eye contact once.

I watched the way Joe DiMaggio leaned in from center field prior to each pitch, getting some kind of instinctual/visual/baseball savvy gauge on which way he needed to lean in anticipation of a batted ball. Sometimes I would lean in with him and close my right eye. That closed eye blocked out my sight of Woodling and allowed me to pretend my way into the left field spot next to the great DiMaggio. And why not? There was a kid that was only five years older than me playing over in right field that day – an eighteen year old “phenom” from Oklahoma named Mickey Mantle. He was catching all the ink back then as the logical successor to Joe DiMaggio on the Yankee rosary chain of greatness.

Before the day was done, we would hear much more from both Mantle and DiMaggio. Mickey got the Yankees on the board for their first three runs by slamming a home run over our heads and over the double deck wall in left field in the fifth inning. Mantle nailed it off Buffs lefty starter Pete Mazar. Mantle’s blow almost swallowed the entire 4-0 Buff lead and with it, the player/fan delusion that the Buffs might actually defeat the World Champions that afternoon.

Not to be.

After Mantle’s reality blow landed, everybody else in the Yankees lineup began to hit Houston pitching awfully hard. We could have injured our necks watching balls fly over and into the walls that stood behind us that day. Joe DiMaggio also later homered with one on  in the ninth off  Buff reliever Lou Ciola.

Wierd! And I learned about this later from dear friend and former slugger Jerry Witte. – After Joe DiMaggio’s top of the 9th inning homer, he sent the same home run bat over to the Buffs’ Jerry Witte as delivery on a promised gift. – Jerry Witte then immediately used it to hit a three-run homer to left for Houston in the bottom of the ninth. This may have been the only time in history, at least, at this level of professional baseball competition, that players from different teams have used the same physical bat to homer in the same inning of the same game they were playing against each other.

Franks Shofner and Russell Rac also homered for the Buffs that day. Gil McDougald of the Yankees had three hits and teammates Johnny Mize, Yogi Berra, and Gene Woodling each had two bingles in the game. Mize’s hits included a double and Yogi’s production produced four runs batted in. The Buffs broke Yankee starter Tom Morgan’s streak of 27 innings pitched without giving up an earned run. The Yankees won the game, 15-9, and they out-hit the Buffs, 19-14.

I went home mildly disappointed that the Buffs had lost, but even at 13, I was proud of our boys for giving the fabled Yankees all they could handle. Wish I could say that I made a total return to reality by the time we got home, but I probably didn’t. You see, I’ll always remember that day as the game in which I sort of got to play left field next to DiMaggio in center – and Mantle in right. – In my most cherished baseball memory box, I even have the pictures to prove it.

Tags: Baseball, Houston, Houston Buffs, Personal

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