MANIFEST DESTINY

When coal mining petered out in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania during the early 1950s, many of my relatives relocated to Detroit to work in the assembly lines of automobile factories – which were thriving at that time.

We visited our family out there quite often.

When we visited during the summer months, my dad, my Uncle Joe, and I made it a point to attend Tigers games.

JUNE 18, 1956

On June 18, 1956 – nearly 60 years ago – we went to old Briggs Stadium. I was 13 years old.

It was Paul Foytack for the Tigers and “Bullet Bob” Turley for the Yankees.

After a scoreless half-inning, Turley walked second-baseman Frank Bolling – leading off the inning – and then gave up a home run to first-baseman Wayne Belardi. Just like that, the Tigers jumped off to a 2-0 lead.

The Yankees answered with a run in the top of the second on a Jerry Coleman single to cut the lead in half. But Turley hit a wild streak in the bottom of the third:

Jim Brideweser

• With one out, he walked left-fielder Charley Maxwell and then surrendered a single to Ray Boone – who was an All-Star third-baseman and the father of future Phillies catcher Bob Boone. That put runners on first and second with one out.
• After getting catcher Frank House to fly out to left for the second out, he walked center-fielder Bill Tuttle to load the bases.
• With nowhere to put .125-hitting shortstop Jim Brideweser, he threw four straight balls to force in a run and tie the score.

That was Turley’s third walk of the inning – and fourth of the game. Enough for manager Casey Stengel to pull the plug on Turley and replace him with perfect-game-fame Don Larsen.

Larsen got pitcher Paul Foytack to pop out to end the inning.

MICKEY MANTLE

The score stood at 4-4 as the game reached the top of the eighth.

In the top of the inning, Gil McDougald and Norm Siebern led off for the Yankees with back-to-back singles.

That brought center-fielder Mickey Mantle to the plate with two on and nobody out.

Foytack tried to throw a two-an-oh fastball past Mantle.

Big mistake.

Mantle drove Foytack’s offering over the right-field roof to become one of a handful of hitters to ever drive a ball out of Briggs Stadium. Making the drive even more impressive was the fact that he was batting left-handed when he hit the ball into a stiff wind blowing in from right.

With the Yankees on top 7-4, Don Larsen completed the game to pick up the victory.

Aunt Agnes

This is where my Aunt Agnes enters the scene.

She worked at the Cadillac Sheraton Hotel in downtown Detroit, and that’s where the visiting teams stayed when they came to town. My Aunt Agnes was a cocktail waitress at the hotel bar. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the reputations of quite of few of the Yankees of that era, let’s just say that they liked to party. And that night, quite a few of them showed up at the hotel bar.

In fact, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, and Hank Bauer were her regular customers whenever the Yankees came to town – and that night was no exception.

My Aunt Agnes waited on her Yankee regulars.

BIG SURPRISE

I got a pleasant and unexpected surprise when I woke up the next morning.

Sitting on the nightstand next to my bed were several cocktail napkins from the Cadillac Sheraton – with handwritten names on each:

• Whitey Ford
• Yogi Berra
• Hank Bauer
• Billy Martin
• Mickey Mantle

I’d like to tell you that I still have those autographs – or that I sold them to memorabilia collectors for a nice windfall. But neither one of those things happened.

I remember pulling out those napkins a few times and showing them off to my childhood buddies. I kept them in the basement with my baseball cards. But somehow, sometime, they just disappeared. Most likely in one of those mother-imposed clean-up-your-mess rampages.

By the way, we went to Briggs Stadium the next day as well. We always went early so we could watch both batting practice and infield practice. In batting practice, Mickey Mantle got oohs and aahs from us early attendees when he duplicated the shot from the day before and drove another ball over the roof of Briggs Stadium.

In addition to being the official Eagles Outsider for BlameMyFather.com, Barry Bowe is also the author of:

• Born to Be Wild
• 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
• 12 Best Eagles QBs
• Birth of the Birds
• Soon-to-be-published sexy, police procedural Caribbean Queen
• Soon-to-be-published novel Stosh Wadzinski

Soon-to-be-published novel Polish Widow