Terrier Town: Summer of ’49

Goody Rosen

365 Goody Rosen W HEN ROSEN RETURNED THE NEXT SEASON AS THE PLAYING manager of the Terriers he was dismayed to see a new teammate by the name of Jim Bagby, the onetime Cleveland Indian reliever who helped end Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-sixgame hitting streak in 1941. The six-foot-two Bagby was an avowed racist from Georgia. The two didn’t get along, but it wasn’t any fault of Rosen. The only people Bagby hated more than Jews were blacks. He was openly contemptuous of Rosen. Oftentimes when Rosen, as manager, was explaining some point in the dressing room, Bagby would snort derisively and attempt to ridicule him. Shelton, too, was the object of Bagby’s contempt. But Rosen wasn’t the diplomat that Shelton was. It wasn’t in his nature. He had performed in ’49—people were still talking about his eighth inning grand slam which won a playoff game against Brantford the previous season—and Murray wanted him back. He was a name player who could perform, even if his best years were behind him. “He was a good solid ballplayer,” said Murray. “A good contact hitter.” “I could always hit,” he said. “I could have been a [major-league] manager too.” Murray didn’t doubt it. And besides, his name drew out fans. “He was tops,” Murray would say years later. “He had the smarts.” But 1950 turned out to be a bad year for everybody on the Galt team, including Shelton and Rosen. There was a lot of dissension that year. “Things never got off to a good start,” said Murray. Although Murray had signed someone else to manage the team early on, Rosen was eventually given the job. Galt didn’t win any pennant that summer. It was Rosen’s last year in the Intercounty. After his retirement he worked for Biltrite Industries in Toronto for more than three decades, played a lot of golf, and generally enjoyed life as one of Canada’s elder statesmen in baseball. He became known for his left-handed golf swing. “Honest,” he once told Dunnell, “with the ability I had, there’s no tellin’ how good I might have been if I hadn’t run into a wall in St. Louis [his second season]. Shoulder never was right after that.” His career had spanned several decades. He had played for the Dodgers the year before Jackie Robinson came up. One of his friends on the team that year, outfielder Dixie Walker, passed around a petition saying they didn’t want to play with a black. “You’ve got to understand,” said Rosen many years later, “those were different times and Dixie was from the south. He was wrong but he was a friend of mine.” Rosen’s best year was 1945, when he finished second in the NL with a .325 average, including 197 hits, 126 runs, 75 RBIs, and 12 homers. He was the last Canadian to hit .300 or over for a full season in the majors until Melville, Saskatchewan’s Terry Puhl hit .301 in sixty games with the Houston Astros in 1977. He was always sorry he didn’t win the NL batting title in ’45. “Shoulda won the battin’ championship that year the way I was hittin’ into September,” he said. “Tommy Holmes [Boston Braves] and I were neck and neck most of the season. But I’m playin’ centre field between Dixie Walker and Augie Galan. Neither of them had any speed. They wore me out.” In later years I remembered with clarity our day fishing on Mill Creek, and how we had talked and whiled away most of that hot summer day under the cool shade of those trees along the bank. He told me a lot that day about his background, about how he had played sandlot ball with the Toronto Lizzies before getting his first pro contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The year he joined Brooklyn, Babe Ruth was a first-base coach with the club. Ruth smoked cigars, like Rosen, and he would hide them, with Rosen’s tacit permission, in Goody’s suit jacket because he never liked to carry them around. Whenever he needed a cigar he would come over to Rosen. I was fascinated by his history. Most of the names he spoke of, like his nemesis Leo Durocher, were household names in our home. That 366 Terrier Town—Summer of ’49 [18.191.135.224] Project MUSE (2024...