A Bookmaker’s Son: A Tale of the 1946 World Series

Every fan I ever met had a defining, first memory about baseball and when it became more than just a game. Since I was seven years old, baseball has been my passion. After Game 4 of the 1941 World Series, my heart and soul had been given to the New York Yankees. That primordial moment came when I heard radio announcer Bob Elson describe Tommy Henrich’s dash to first base after Mickey Owen muffed the third strike for what should have been the final out. Brooklyn closer Hugh Casey then went on to blow it for the Dodgers. From then on, I knew every uniform number, even closely followed the careers of now-forgotten first basemen Johnny Sturm, Buddy Hassett, Nick Etten, and George McQuinn, all temporary occupants of Lou Gehrig’s shoes. I cried when the Cardinals won in five games in 1942, rebounded joyfully when the Yankees beat them in five games in 1943, suffered through 1944 and 1945—the shock of the midseason trade of Hank Borowy to the Chicago Cubs. It was a pain relieved only by Snuffy Stirnweiss beating out Tony Cuccinello for the AL batting crown, .3085 to .3077 on the last day of the season. I studied rosters, plate appearances, batting averages, bases on balls, ERAs, and acquired more information than most twelve-year-old kids had a right to. As the ’46 season moved along, my buddies and I talked baseball day and night: What had the war years done to Joe DiMaggio and Joe Gordon? Was Stan Musial really that good? Hal Newhouser certainly was not just a wartime wonder; he and Feller looked unstoppable. Then, there was Ted Williams, who everyone called the perfect hitter—except me. He walked too much for my taste. He would not swing at a pitch just outside the strike zone, even if his team needed a hit, not a walk.

The 1946 season was a bitter disappointment, but the Newark Bears, the Yankees top AAA International League farm team, gave me great hope for 1947 with three terrific September call-ups. Yogi Berra, built like a fire plug, didn’t look like a catcher but maybe could make it in the outfield, hit everything thrown near him; Bobby Brown, also a lefthanded batter, smooth, stylish, like Berra always making contact; and Vic Raschi, a horse of a pitcher who won his two late season starts. We hoped that DiMaggio wasn’t washed up.

My only other distraction was horses. My father had been a bookmaker—a bookie—and there hangs a family tale . . . and my one never-to-be-repeated venture into gambling. Now for some brief family history.

Although my father had made his living from illegal off-track betting, he was not a gambler. At least, not like my mother. My father made money from people like my mother. She loved to go to the racetrack and would pick horses, because she liked the color of the silks worn by the jockey, or the color of the horse; or if the horse’s name reminded her of a friend or family. She was the classic hunch player: a lovely woman, a great mother, and a lousy gambler.

My mother gambled since childhood; she always needed “action.” My father met her at a card game when they were both recently arrived immigrant teenagers from Eastern Europe. She was playing for money—already nickels and dimes—with her sisters and their friends. He left her a year later, at the same card game. He came back after another year, found her at the same card game, and married her.

My mother never went to any school, had no education, but her brain could scan the regular sixteen Bingo cards she bought in about the same time that the priest from Our Lady of Grace or St. Peter and Paul’s in Hoboken, NJ, could say, “Ladies, whose got B 11 on their cards?!” She would come home from Bingo once a year with a big smile and a fresh $5.00 bill: her rare winnings, believing...