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From Dey to DeRosha to DeMaggio, it's double play with DeRosha and Dey.
With our guest Joe DeMaggio, here's another chapter of double play with DeRosha and Dey.
Welcome to another visit with baseball's most exciting and controversial couple,
Lorraine Dey and Leo DeRosha. With our guest for today, Joe DeMaggio.
So many of you have written to us asking us to have Joe DeMaggio as our guest on the show.
And we're going to have Joe DeMaggio, but you know, he's retired now.
But we'll have him as our guest just as soon as I can wake him up.
Joe. Hey. Joe. Joe.
Lorraine, I know if Joe joins our audience in listening to this message, he'll be wide awake.
And now back to Leo and Lorraine and that very famous retired Yankee, Jolton Joe DeMaggio.
Hi there baseball fans. Welcome to another chapter of double play.
Lorraine. Well you're really taking this retirement seriously aren't you?
Oh I certainly am. You know I've been laying in that apartment and I don't have to go to the ballpark anymore.
I feel wonderful. No more aches and pains.
I'll bet you there's one fellow who's glad you're retired and that's your brother Dom.
Well why do you say that Lorraine?
Well I would just sort of imagine Joe that it's pretty tough to be a ball player and grow up in,
I mean play ball in the shadow of such a famous brother.
Nobody ever really notices you because your brother's so famous and such a great center fielder.
Well he certainly is famous but I...
I'm talking about you!
This is a very strange thing because Dom did tell me two years ago, he said,
why don't you quit this game? He said I'd like to get my name and all the columnists writing about me for a change.
He certainly has done that because he's leading the league now I see and I only hope that he continues to do that.
I was talking to Mrs. McCarthy and I said, when Joe was managing didn't you ever second guess him the way I second guessed Leo?
She says, well it seems that every time he came in the house the thing I said to him was,
why didn't you walk to Maggio?
Well she asked me that too Joe. She asked me that in the last word, you know, how come you didn't walk to Maggio?
I said, why was I going to put him? I said, he just, you know, after all you just rip one of the seats for us, that was all.
Well Leo, you know up there in Boston, my gosh, that left field wall up there,
I'd hate to be a pitcher out there or I'd hate to be managing the club and find you at the plate at that short left field wall and ball.
I don't know how much you'd have hit if you'd have had a park like that to play in Joe.
Well I don't know about that Leo, all I can say is in 1951 there during our World Series with you, I went 0 for 11 if you recall.
If you went 1 for 90 it wouldn't make any difference. I know that when you walk up to that plate that the pitcher has to be very careful.
If he made a mistake we knew we were gone. You're the one that worried my staff the most, I'll tell you that.
Well your staff is no exception, but let's get to these letters that we have.
That's pretty fresh.
I'm sorry but we have to answer letters on this show. We get so many asking questions and when we do have a guest like Joe,
why we have to ask these questions that only Joe can answer.
Go ahead.
For instance I have a couple of letters here. One is from John Robb in Wall Lake, Michigan and he says,
I've read so many sports writers who insist that Casey Stengel's style of managing is unorthodox.
If it is, it certainly seems to work, but I want to know if this is true. Is his style of managing unorthodox?
Well I would say so. His style is very unorthodox. He's a type of fellow of the manager.
You know when he has 25 men which is the limit that you have on the bench or the roster, he uses every one of them.
Is he funny on the bench by the way?
Well he certainly is.
He's so much off the bench.
I could recall one of the days over there sitting on the bench just recently and he was walking up and down the bench
and a play happened out there on left field and it was one of those appeal plays and he was walking around
talking to all the umpires and they couldn't get anything or he couldn't get anything out of them.
So he comes storming into the bench and he came over to me. I was minding my own business,
smoking a cigarette way off by the stairs and he says, Joe, what about that play?
And I says, well I don't know. I haven't ever read a real book in my life.
Maybe he wants you to go out there and see if you can straight the umpires out.
Well speaking of managers, do you think we could manage to let our sponsor get a word in right here?
And now back to Double Play with Leo DeRosha and Lorraine Day and their guest for today, Joe DiMaggio.
Here's a question you might like to answer, Joe.
It says, what do you think the famous players of maybe just a few years ago think of the bonus system?
And that is asked by John Welch of Akron, Ohio.
The best way I could answer that, Lorraine, is that I don't really approve of the bonus.
Of course I'd like to see the boys get as much money as possible.
But on the other hand, I don't think it helps their playing any now.
I could think back about Antonelli when he was signed with Boston for something like $75,000
and he had to stay with the team. In other words, they couldn't send him down back to the minor leagues.
I think not only it hurt him because he couldn't pitch, he was a green boy,
but it also hurt the ball club.
So I'd like to have the boy that starts off picking him out of the sandlot and playing minor league ball,
get his two or three years experience, then bring him up to the major leagues.
And I think he's just about ready.
Have there been many very famous bonus players who have succeeded and become big stars?
Well, there's been a few. I mean, Roberts of the Philadelphia Club and Simmons,
I think those are the two best bonus players that have been in baseball in quite some time.
And they have very little experience, both of them.
But I think that before they were signed as bonus players, they played with strong semi-pro clubs.
But the kids that this gentleman is referring to, the kids that come out of school,
Joe is so right about it, you put them on a major league ball club,
you give them a fantastic figure of $65,000 or $75,000 or whatever the amount may be for signing.
Now you've got to keep them a year on your club.
Hasn't that rule been changed?
It has been changed, but you handicapped the manager in the past,
you've handicapped the manager that he's now got this kid.
He can't pitch him, he can't play him.
If he does, he may lose an important ball game that may cost him the pennant,
and the kid sits idle all summer long.
Whereas if he, as Joe says, comes right out of the sandlot,
a rough, tough kid that wants to play ball and is interested in making a great career out of it,
he wants to play in a minor league club and make a record for himself and be brought up slowly.
Maybe Mr. Welch means how does the established star say who is getting a salary of $50,000 and who is a star?
And it is so important to his club, how does he feel about a young kid coming in
and getting $75,000 or $100,000 just to sign and is of no help?
We've had players in every spring, they've always referred to so-and-so that you gave $30,000 to,
and now I'm looking for a $3,000 raise and I played 140 games and hit 340 or hit 310,
and I can't get it, you're quivering about it, and you're willing to give this kid,
well there has been arguments like that, and I can see where you do have controversy about it
from a manager's standpoint and an owner's standpoint.
Maybe Joe has a different answer for it.
No, I go along with that, Leo, because I remember, of course, I recall some of the boys
being around the clubhouse and talking about it, and they had great years,
and they had a tough time getting a $2,000 to $5,000 raise when they hadn't given a kid
who hadn't proven himself something like $60,000 to $100,000.
Well, just think how the Pittsburgh ball club may feel, how the players must feel, rather,
to get a kid like this Pettit who got $100,000, and you take a player on the club who,
we'll say, had a mediocre year that's playing for maybe $6,000 or $7,000,
there's a lot of talk around the clubhouse about that,
and that can cause a lot of dissension on your ball club, I believe.
Well, I know that Joe, when Joe started out, did you know this, Leo,
that Joe started out as a shortstop?
Yes, I did.
Did you, Leo?
No, I didn't know that. I was amazed. I really am sorry.
You did?
I did. I played with San Francisco the first three ball games that I had played with them.
It was the last three games of the 1932 season, and I have, I think, an all-time record, Leo.
I've handled 11 chances, but not cleanly. All errors.
Oh, no. So that makes you not feel there immediately.
Well, you know, Joe, that's a funny thing. It's a funny thing how great players go into one position.
I can recall with the St. Louis Cardinals when Frankie Frisch was the manager,
you know, he never played shortstop. Oh, he was a great second baseman,
and he'd come right out of college, in fact, into Major League Baseball.
And I remember one day in Cincinnati, oh, this is a number of years ago,
we had him beaten, I don't know what the score was, by 10 or 11 runs in the last inning,
of a doubleheader who was tremendously hot, well over 100,
and I said to Frank, you know, he wasn't playing the second game, I said,
finish up for me, William, all in.
And I think the first five balls hit the first year shortstop, went right through his legs,
he never picked up a one-up. And he came in the clubhouse, and he just jumped up and down,
he said, don't you ever ask to be taken out of the ball game again.
So that ended his career as a shortstop, too.
Well, it's lucky you could pick him up, because, boy, if they had to depend on that bat of yours,
you would still be on it.
Now, I cry all the time when you get the people on the show that you criticize, my hitting.
Oh, honey, let's face it, 220.
Listen, fine guy, I'm going to ask you, what's the fine guy to have on the show?
I didn't say 220.
Well, it makes me feel good.
Joe, let me ask one question, Joe. My lifetime average, I think, is 238.
I'm not sure, what is your lifetime average, Joe?
My lifetime average is just half the ceiling record book the other day, 325.
Let's forget, that'll go on.
I don't know anything more about that show.
You do this to me every show.
Well, you know, Joe, I think one of the most memorable quotes to make a tribute to you
is in 1949 when the fans gave you a day when you said, thank God for making me a Yankee.
Well, I kind of felt that way at the time, and it was really a nice tribute
because of the people that were out there and the Yankee organization asking my mother and family
to come to make the trip just for that one occasion.
And of course, that's during the time that I was sick, and I was of course pent up with emotion myself,
so something like that came out of me.
I quite didn't understand it, but I actually felt that way,
and I really felt what I said were really my feelings.
There wasn't a dry eye in the Yankee Stadium, I understand, when you said that.
And we asked a question on one of our shows that when the fans give a player a day,
it seems that they usually have an off day, that they can't seem to do anything very well on that particular day.
Was that true in your case?
No, I got a base hit that day with the Maron 1st and 2nd, and kept the rally going.
It had gone over to a drop, and just came into relief.
They were leading 4-0, and I hit the first pitch right through the mound for a base hit,
because he knocked it down, and we did load up the bases and went on to get four runs that inning.
But the rest of the day, of course, I could say the next day, I hit a ball the right field.
They were all playing me in left field because I had lost 18 pounds.
So I had pneumonia and various pneumonia, and they were all playing me in left field,
and I dropped a couple in the right field.
I know one thing, Joe, you've come back after being sick, and there's just something about it, Joe.
I don't know what it is.
A great player just takes a club and brings it along.
I don't know, Joe, maybe this is a funny thing to say, but how about coming out of retirement?
You know, I can use a center fielder, and you know, isn't there some way we can work this around
so we could just play a little bit?
Well, it's nice of you to say that, Leo, but you know, I'm still obligated to the Yankees for some reason.
Oh, the Yankees could get along without you for one year.
Joe, let us have you one year.
Yes, I'd like to look at the man you're going to the plate for me.
Besides, who's going to carry me out the outfield? Who's going to bring me in?
I'll be your caddie, Joe. I'll be your caddie. I'll get you out and get you back.
Well, with that, we'll let you go right back into retirement, Joe.
Okay, Lorraine. See you, Leo.
There he goes.
Oh, right on. Back to rest.
Sorry, we have to go to a salon.