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Mel Allen

Continued from preceding page

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nouncer. Secure in his new
job, he moved his parents to
New York and took care of
them until they died.
For their 49th anniversary,
Allen remembered, he took
them to Israel and, on the
way back, they stopped in
_ Rome to see the pope. "Car-
dinal Spellman — he really
loved baseball — arranged
seats for us at St. Peters, right
in the area where they
brought in Pope John," he
said. "Afterwards my mother
said to the Cardinal, 'Your
Excellency, I want to thank
you for those wonderful seats.
They were right behind home
plate.' "

Allen wanted to talk
baseball again. He had more
stories and oh, how he loves
to tell them. "Bill Dickey, the
big rock of the Yankees from
1929-43, once told me about
Ty Cobb playing an Old-
timers Game when he was
70-years-old," he continued.
"A reporter came over to Cobb
and asked, 'What do you
think you'd hit if you were
playing these days?' Cobb, a
lifetime .367 hitter said,
`About .290, maybe .300: The
reporter said, 'That's because
of the travel, the night games,
the artificial turf and all the
new pitches like the slider,
right?' No,' said Cobb, 'it's
because I'm 70! "
"Jimmy crickets," said
Allen, interrupting himself.
"I forgot my cardiac rehab ap-
pointment." (He's recovering
from recent heart bypass
surgery.) But the guilt soon
subsided as he swung back in-
to the anecdotal rhythm. "If
you try to rate the three top
players of their time, I'd have
to go with Joe DiMaggio, Stan
Musial and Ted Williams.
"Williams was the last guy
to hit .400 in the majors. I like
to remember him for driving
his bullet shots to the far cor-
ners of the outfield and for
saying things like: 'I don't
know what I keep playing
this game for, I'd rather be a
fireman.' "
One of his favorite Yankees,
of course, is Casey Stengel.
"Nobody stayed up later than
Casey, nobody talked more
baseball than Casey, nobody
was funnier or made more
sense or hammed it up better
than Casey," said Mel, pro-
ceeding to give some
examples:
" 'I'm not tired: a. pitcher
told him when Casey came
out to the mound, and
Stengel said: 'Well, I'm tired
of you.'
"Watching second baseman
Jerry Lumpe hit rope after
rope in batting practice,
Stengel said, 'He looks like
the greatest hitter in the
world until you play him.'

"Of slumping pitcher Bob
Turley, he once said: 'Look at
him. He don't smoke, he don't
drink, he don't chase women
and he don't win.'
"He came and sat down on
the bench next to big out-
fielder Bob Cery before one
game and said, 'Nobody
knows this but one of us has
just been traded to Kansas
City.'
"Someone once asked
Stengel why he didn't have so
and so bunt in the eighth, and
Casey said, 'Because he can't
bunt.' "
Right off the bat, as soon as
Casey took over as manager,
the Yankees won five straight
pennants and five consecutive
World Series. "He was a
leader whose style of manag-
ing was telling one guy one
thing but for the benefit of the
guy sitting next to him," said
Allen. Casey used psychology

"If you rate top
players of their
time, I'd go with
Joe DiMaggio, Stan
Musial and Ted
Williams."

too, Allen claimed, pointing
to a Chicago-Yankees double-
header, back in the days when
they didn't have night games.
"For the second game, the
Yankees were losing and a
game could be called because
of darkness before four and
one-half innings. So Casey
comes out of the dugout with
a flashlight and makes sure
the umpires see it. He made
his point.
"Elston Howard was the
first black player to join the
Yankees," Mel continued,
"and Casey soon found out
that the hard-hitting catcher
was slow afoot. Stengel wail-
ed one day, 'He couldn't beat
his grandmother down to
first.'
"The story goes that rookie
Howard once made a slide in-
to first base trying to beat a
force play and shouted, 'I
made it! I made it!' The um-
pire, his thumb majestically
hoisted in the air, looks down
and says gently, 'Yeah, you
sure did, kid, but what took
you so long?' "
Still active in baseball, Mel
Allen has hosted the syn-
dicated show "This Week in
Baseball," since 1976, and on
occasion fills in as play-by-
play announcer whenever the
league needs him. This past
season he teamed up with
Reggie Jackson for a three-
game series in Baltimore.
"There's not as much fun in
the game today," said Allen,
recalling bygone times where
announcers and players hob-
nobbed at the hotel bar the

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