Peanuts and Crackerjacks
The Bronx 1946
“Mom, the Yankees are playing the Cleveland Indians and Bobby Feller is pitching. Can I go?”
“Who doesn’t go school, but goes to a ballgame? It’s mishugeh. There will be a ballgame on the weekend. That’s when normal people go to a game.”
But this is Bobby Feller. He won’t be pitching on the weekend.”
”Feller, Shmeller, go to school. Ballgames they play every day.”
I didn’t go to school. Jack was waiting to go to the game. Before I left with my cream cheese on bialy sandwich and my schoolbooks, Ma called out,
Wait, with your bialy sandwich, I’ll give you Postom in a thermos.”
“Ma, Postum isn’t coffee. It’s brown and tastes brown.”
“Feh! What kind of talk is this? It doesn’t sound nice.”
I left our building and walked a long block towards Jack’s upscale apartment house next to the Dover Theater in the Bronx.
It was early in the morning. Jack’s mother was at work. I rang and he opened the door.
“Jack, my Mom doesn’t want me to go to the Stadium. She wants me in school. I have no money so I’ll go to Crotona Park later and listen to Mel Allen broadcast the game in Leo’s playground.”
“Take it easy. We have plenty of time. Did you hear Begin the Beguine by Artie Shaw? I could play it. I have the record.”
“I don’t give a shit about Artie Shaw. He doesn’t know me. How will we get to the game?”
“I’ll loan you the fifty-five cents, but we’ll have to walk to the Stadium. I always walked about three or four miles to the Stadium when the Yankee Juniors were let in free compliments of the Consolidated Gas Company. But, he did live in an elevator building, so I assumed he had no problem with the money.
We followed the trolley tracks along the cobble-stoned Boston Road, passed the McKinley Square Theater, and eventually dipped down to Third Ave. There was a bit of a chill in the shadows from the overhead Third Ave. subway tracks, but our sixteen-year-old legs brought us quickly into the sunlight.
We knew we were close to the Stadium when we saw the Concourse Plaza Hotel standing tall on the Grand Concourse to our right.
Tickets were fifty-five cents for a seat on a wooden plank in the bleachers. The ticket booth was in a dark hallway leading to the bleachers. No matter how many times I had passed through the entrance, the intense emerald green of the playing field always dazzled my pupils and increased my heartbeat.
The outfielders were shagging fly balls, while the infielders were practicing groundouts and double plays. Joe DiMaggio, directly in front of us, was shagging flies with the grace of a ballet dancer. All the pallid April faces gazed at his bronze summer tan highlighted by his white, pinstripe home uniform. It was obvious Joe was special when he stood alongside of left fielder Charley Keller, who wore the same uniform, but was built like a gorilla.
Before the cream cheese starts melting, I better eat my sandwich.
“Jack, do you want half of my cream cheese sandwich?” He didn’t want it. He was very intent on watching batting practice.
I better go to the bathroom before the game starts.
The urinal was a ceramic sink about twenty-feet long and twelve inches wide, with water continually cascading down its far wall. While we were urinating, four black attendants carrying towels and talcum sang,
Let’s all pee together and
Not on one another.
After washing my hands, I returned to my seat.
“Jack, You can’t miss this. There’s entertainment in the bathroom!”
Jack returned to tell me that all he saw was a long urinal and toilets. I guessed the recital was over.
Yankee pitcher, Bill Bevens was pitching for the Yankees. He pitched well but, three things I can recall about the game that took place on April 30, 1946:
a. Bobby Feller pitched a no-hitter.
b. Lou Boudreau, playing shortstop, made a great play on a ground ball hit to him.
c. I didn’t save my ticket stub.