CHAPTER 1
Good-bye, Hank
Hank Greenberg walked up the corner of Michigan and Trumbull one last time. He strode with his head down and a fedora pulled low above his eyes, a travel bag firmly clenched in one hand and the other pressed deep into the pocket of his overcoat. His wing tips skipped past torn ticket stubs, burnt cigars, and other trash on the cracked sidewalk until he passed beneath the overhang, reading BRIGGS STADIUM.
The empty ballpark slept in the morning, hours before fans arrived for the afternoon game. Hank walked up the ramp into the stadium, smelling scents of cooking grease and mowed grass. The ballpark was Hank's home, and he knew well her rhythm and moods, and though she was deserted in the early chill, Hank knew all that made her breathe.
He got to know her as a twenty-two-year-old kid in 1933, fresh up from the minors on a morning just like this. The old, blue pillars holding the double-deck stadium together framed her charms, the ghosts, and his memories. The wind blew in from above the left-field roof, pushing against Goose Goslin's shirt and stirring the infield dirt where Ty Cobb had left footprints. The breeze swirled near second base, where Charlie Gehringer spent the years methodically stealing singles when he wasn't quietly hitting them. The tobacco-stained pitching rubber on the mound, where Schoolboy Rowe, Tommy Bridges, and Elden Auker baited batters, led to the runway at home plate, where Babe Ruth once blasted a ball clear over the right-field wall. Day after day Hank ducked into the tiny, bomb shelter-like home dugout, which was clearly not built with the intention of housing a six-foot-four right-handed slugger who played first base and then left field, hitting home runs into the left-field wind, off the recently added right-field, upper-deck grandstand, even into the barren reaches of deep center field.
Every ballpark is a theater, and every theater has its star. Hank had become part of this place's soul. Hank smiled at the ballpark workers, who made pennies sweeping the stands while he made thousands hitting balls into them, with never a thought that he was somehow better than they were. He had seen them every day for the last seven years, and they knew each other by heart. Good-byes were never easy, and his walk through the stadium in the morning sun was only the first farewell of the day.
Hank pulled open the door to the home clubhouse. The overhead lamps were turned off, and the only light came through the big row of windows above the room. Across the room, a small lamp was burning inside the manager's office. Hank bypassed his locker and walked straight to the light.
Del Baker was sitting in a folding chair behind a small card table that he used as his desk. Baker was always smoking, and his ashtray was a cigarette graveyard. He liked his office to be Spartan, musty and stale. He was crusty and crabby, but as sharp as the nail where he hung his hat. The daily newspapers were scattered across his desk, but Baker had gone right to the sports pages and pulled out the commentaries from the Detroit Newsand the Detroit Free Press. Hank saw the blank lineup card and a fountain pen on top of the papers. Baker only had one question, but Hank answered before he could ask. Yes, he was playing on his last day before he left the Tigers to join the US Army.
Then Hank turned and walked away. He was usually the first one in the clubhouse, and today was no exception, especially since last night was his going-away party. He stepped up to his locker stall, the one in the front corner of the room always assigned to the team captain, the locker he inherited from Mickey Cochrane. Hank flipped the fedora off his head and put it on the rack. He eased out of his overcoat. He looked into his stall. The bright white jersey with the big number 5 on the back was staring at him, almost pleading with him to stay.
Hank slowly dressed in silence. A few minutes later, he wore his baseball pants with the belt unbuckled, slippers over his dark blue sanitary socks, and a long-sleeved T-shirt. He sat on his stool and contemplated his career. All ballplayers know their numbers, even if they don't admit it. Their production was directly linked to their value on the field and their self-worth as men. He had 247 career home runs over eight full seasons entering 1941. He hit 30 home runs or more in a season five times, including 58 home runs in 1938, when he fell just two shy of Babe Ruth's single-season record. But Hank's selflessness was larger than the silence in the room. He would never once draw attention to two simple facts that made his decision to leave the major leagues at the peak of his ability staggering in its significance: Hank was the reigning American League MVP, and he was the highest-paid player in the game, who was putting his annual $55,000 salary on hold to earn $21 a month working for the US Army.
Hank was a businessman who knew his value. He was never afraid to represent himself and negotiate with ownership over his salary when he was convinced he was right. He was never afraid to push back when he believed the owner was wrong. He knew his ability would never be so prized again. He was coming off a season in which he almost won the Triple Crown, hitting .340 and leading the American League with 41 home runs, 150 runs batted in, and 50 doubles. He was a hitting machine who scored well more than 100 runs a season, almost always flirted with 200 hits a season, and had even so effortlessly moved from first base to left field that he won two Most Valuable Player awards at different positions. He was the rock of the Detroit Tigers, but he never saw himself as much more than that kid from James Monroe High in the Bronx.
Everyone saw Hank as the kind of guy one wanted to be as a ballplayer. He was talented, dignified, and intelligent, but he also worked incredibly hard, saw himself as a guy who could hit but had ordinary skills otherwise, and sought no attention. His modesty endeared him to the humble, hardworking fans of Detroit, who, in the lean Depression years, knew he was as predictable as the smokestacks and as reliable as the factory horn bellowing at nine and five.
His teammates loved and respected him as much as the fans did. One by one, the players sauntered into the clubhouse, hiding their hangovers. They all knew he was leaving for the Army, even if most of them couldn't understand why he had to go. Croucher and McCosky could have cried. York wanted to hug Hank, so he did, and the big Indian squeezed hard. Campbell and Higgins shook his hand. Tebbetts laughed off his sorrow, promising Hank that once Hitler found out Hank was in the Army, no enemies would ever dare mess with the Americans. Gorsica came last and promised Hank he would try to pitch him a farewell victory. The two kid pitchers, Trout and Newhouser, were usually cocky and obnoxious, but they were moved by the moment and too shy to say good-bye.
Then Hank buckled his belt, put on his spikes and tied the laces, picked up his outfielder's glove and first baseman's mitt he had specially designed a few years before, took two bats, and headed to the field. He was the first man on the field that day, as usual. Today he wanted to be the first so he could be alone, and his teammates knew why. Everyone was saying good-bye to him. Hank needed to say good-bye to himself.
The Army was getting a surefire future Hall of Fame slugger, while the Detroit Tigers were bound to get nowhere. Hank led them to the World Series in 1934, 1935, and 1940, three times in seven years. He prided himself on being one of the few players who could put a team on his shoulders and haul them past the Yankees. The only time the Tigers won, when they beat the Cubs in 1935, Hank broke his wrist and only had six at bats. That was just one of the regrets he had on his last day in 1941. Someday, he wanted to play in the World Series again, and he wanted to do it here at Briggs Stadium, in front of these fans, and he wanted to be healthy enough to play.
He stayed optimistic, hoping he could serve his time and be discharged in time for the 1942 season. He would still have a lot of career in front of him, as long as the war didn't get in the way. He was only thirty years old and he was the first star player of his magnitude to be drafted. The war had been going in Europe since 1939, and Americans wanted no part of it. That didn't mean war wasn't a possibility. Hank wasn't happy about leaving, but his desire to do what he felt was right outweighed his self-desires. Teammates were astonished that a man with so much talent could be so selfless.
But Hank knew his time had come. He had a low draft number from the time he registered with Selective Service in 1940, and when he took his first Army physical later in the year, he was disqualified because of flat feet. Hank was roundly criticized, and he resented that some newspaper guys put out a street rumor that he bribed the doctor to fail the physical. Hank smelled bullshit. He thought it was anti-Semitic. Hank never considered himself an overly religious Jew, nor did he see himself as someone carrying a mantle for the religion, but he vehemently opposed bigotry and oppression. His conscience always guided him. When he refused to play on Yom Kippur in 1934, he became a hero. He didn't do it for the headlines. It was a simple matter of principle: he wanted to honor the beliefs of his parents.
Oh, but there was an edge to Hank. He grew up in baseball hearing the nasty taunts from the rubes sitting in the stands. He'd get sheeny, Jew, and kike all the time. Hank knew it was because they feared the unknown of a huge six-foot-four kid with a Jewish last name who never seemed intimidated by intolerance and wouldn't put up with it. He remembered the time he had to explain to a Southern teammate named Jo-Jo White that a Jew was not a person with horns growing out of his head. Hank became guarded over the years, and he took great pride in his work. He pushed himself to be great because he knew when he was simply human, he'd hear names raining down from the stands, even from the fans that supposedly loved him.
He learned how to stand up for himself at an early age. He grew up in an immigrant neighborhood where English was the second language and most people spent their entire lives in the Bronx. When Hank signed with the Tigers in 1929, he quickly developed a thick skin when he went to the minor leagues, and he learned to fight back. A big brawl occurred during the Three-I League play-offs at Illinois in 1931, and again at Dallas when he was playing for Beaumont in 1932. Hank never forgot how, in a sort of comically dysfunctional way, "everything was focused on that dirty Jew on the field, you know?"
When he broke into the big leagues, Hank made it a point to teach any ballplayer who gave him trouble a lesson he would never forget. Hank made it simple. You kept your mouth shut or he would come see you. The Chicago White Sox had a mouthy manager named Jimmy Dykes. One of the ballplayers on his bench howled, "YELLOW JEW BASTARD!" When the game was over, Hank tore off his spikes, put on his shower slippers, and marched to the visiting team's clubhouse in Briggs Stadium, pushing open the door clearly marked POSITIVELY NO VISITORS so violently that the door banged against the concrete wall. Hank stormed to the center of the room and stood in front of a bunch of half-naked men, demanding, "I want that guy who called me a 'yellow Jew bastard' to get on his feet!"
Nobody stood up.
So when his draft number came up again in 1941, Hank knew the only way to silence the critics was to stand up again, to do the unthinkable, and walk away from baseball. Besides, he didn't really have a choice, so doing it now was the closest to doing it on his own terms. He was ready to get his Army hitch out of the way, even if it cost him the season. Yes, it hurt, but he was doing so because it was his duty to serve his country as called, and because he wanted to quash the rumors that he had weaseled out of duty in 1940. You could take Hank's uniform and his bats away, you could take away his salary, you could transplant him from the batter's box to the barracks, you could make him march a hundred miles with his flat feet, but you could not take away his sense of dignity. He owed it to the country that he called home, that had allowed him as the son of Romanian immigrants to chase baseball instead of following his father into the textile business. Hank had a very real sense, shared by the sons of European immigrants, that America had given his family their lives. Now it was his turn to return the favor. It was as simple as that. Hank never made the Army a complicated decision. What is right is right.
His manager, Del Baker, respected that about him, but he was worried that it would do more damage to Hank's ability than he realized. Baker remembered World War I, when the war shortened the 1918 season, and he knew that even a short period of Army time away from baseball could hurt a career. He watched Hank take batting practice that morning, heard the balls exploding off his bat like gunshots, and prayed that the war wouldn't come any closer than it already was. Baker knew that the longer Hank didn't play, the harder it would be for him to be the player he was. Hank was aware of the risk, too, but he was a ballplayer living in the moment. Ballplayers in the moment can't think years ahead. Baker was flat-out terrified that the big man would never again be the same.
It was an otherwise mundane Tuesday-afternoon game, May 6, 1941, the nineteenth game of the season. The defending American League champion Tigers sported a dull 10-8 record, tied for fourth place. The Yankees were in town. The night before, the Tigers had thrown a farewell party for Hank, and it had been one hell of a blast. The club gathered at the Franklin Hills Country Club. The night was full of booze, cigar smoke, and probably some girls. It was more like a bachelor party, and you knew that because a lot of the guys from the Yankees were there, too, including Joe DiMaggio. Now, everybody knew Joe D didn't go anywhere unless some blondes were involved, but Hank Greenberg was his favorite brunette. "I do remember hearing about that going-away party," pitcher Virgil Trucks recalled. "All I'm going to tell you is everybody had a great time."
Before the game, Hank was presented with a gold watch by his teammates, inscribed with their names. Hank could look at his wrist in the Army and remember all the old buddies who were going to miss him when he was gone, and it read like the lineup card Del Baker filled out. With each name he wrote on the lineup card, he groused and bitched and moaned. 1. Croucher SS; 2. McCosky CF; 3. Gehringer 2B; 4. York 1B; then, when he wrote 5. Greenberg LF, he was whiskey numb and hoped for the best; 6. Campbell RF; 7. Higgins 3B; 8. Tebbetts C; 9. Gorsica, P.
Hank had played with so many of these guys for so many years-the position players, Charlie Gehringer, Rudy York, Birdie Tebbetts, and Barney McCosky, who taught him how to play left field when he moved from first base-and the veteran pitchers, Tommy Bridges and Al Benton, and the crazy young and cocky hurlers, Dizzy Trout and Harold Newhouser. He didn't know when he would see them again. Hank didn't anticipate how many of them would eventually follow him into military in the coming years, how the war would change them all.
Yet when Hank spoke to the press, all that came out of his mouth was red, white, and blue. He made it seem as if no worries had entered his mind, when in truth baseball was his living, his income, and his identity. He was making more than even DiMaggio. By this stage in Greenberg's career, a number of historically significant career milestones were within his reach. One in particular stood out: he wanted to become the third player in baseball history to hit 500 career home runs. Only Ruth and Jimmie Foxx had made it that far. He thought it would be nice if he could hit three more home runs in his final game and leave for the Army with the nice round number of 250. It wouldn't surprise anyone if the starting pitcher for the Yankees, a right-hander named Ernie "Tiny" Bonham, adhered to the old code of the honorable ballplayer and grooved a few farewell fastballs.
Only one other major league regular had been drafted and entered the Army, an unlucky Philadelphia Phillies right-handed pitcher named Hugh Mulcahy. He'd twice lost 20 games in a season, led the league both times, and earned the sobriquet Losing Pitcher. Hank was a different bird. He knew all eyes were on him. He knew he was being held up as an example to all future ballplayers who would be called to service. Ballplayers were glad it was Hank, not them. He was a big man with big shoulders, and they knew nobody else could handle the pressure or conceal the frustration like Hank.
War was dangerous business for a ballplayer. A ballplayer could never face a shot, never so much as hear a gun go off, and he could still be a casualty. He could spend his career peeling potatoes, scrubbing latrines, playing ball on the camp to entertain the troops, and still wind up a dead man as far as baseball was concerned. A farmer, a cabdriver, a doctor, a lawyer, a high school kid, a college boy-those guys could all resume their lives when it was over, if they survived. Not the ballplayer who needed time on his side. A ballplayer who spent any prolonged period in military service risked losing it all, and worse yet, he risked that the talents that made him special in life might never come back. He could be forgotten in the eyes of baseball, and for many, that possibility was just as awful as seeing their name carved into a white marble cross.
"I have been ordered to report May seventh and I will do so," Hank said. "I want no favors and I ask none." Thankfully, the Tigers planned no embarrassing ceremonies to honor him before the game, but the grounds crew gave him a special pen-and-pencil set. Hank genuinely appreciated that. He stopped his pregame routine and thanked the guys who raked the dirt and watered the grass. He graciously accepted the writing set and shook each man's hand. That was authentic, not some newsman sticking a camera in his face. The groundskeepers worked hard and didn't make a lot of money, but they chipped in to give a guy who was much wealthier than they were something he could have purchased a thousand times over. Hank was moved and made sure every one of the guys knew how much he appreciated their thoughtfulness.
The Tigers front office expected a nice kick in ticket sales from fans coming to say good-bye to Hank. It was reasonable to think a few more fans than usual would skip work on a Tuesday afternoon to see him play for the last time this season. Del Baker emerged from his office and concealed his foul mood as he posted his starting lineup, while a disappointingly small crowd meandered through the turnstiles. The front office was dismayed and concerned. Before television, ticket sales were the lifeblood of any club. Without fans putting down money at the box office, there were no concession sales, and that hurt business. Without Hank, there wasn't much incentive for Tigers fans to buy tickets. The theater was losing its star.
When he came to bat in the second inning, the crowd of 7,850 gave him a warm welcome. He gently tapped the brim of his navy-blue Tigers hat in acknowledgment, then stepped into the box as if it were any other game. The Yankees were fanned out in front of Hank, with Joe DiMaggio in center field resting his hands on his knees. Tiny Bonham was on the mound, as stocky as DiMaggio was slender. Bonham was six foot two and built like a bathtub. He threw high and hard fastballs to set up his sinking forkball. Hank liked it. He wanted his last game to be against a guy with a good arm.
Tiny rocked into his windup, drawing his hands back behind his head and kicking hard as he pushed down, his front foot pushing against the dirt as if his spurs were kicking a horse, and the good fastball came flying out of his hand. Hank watched the pitch rocket into catcher Bill Dickey's glove with a leathery snap. Hank was going to miss that sound. Strike one. Then Tiny cranked it up again, and Hank's muscles sparked into action. He took his fast, violent, and aggressive swing, as if funneling all his frustration into tormenting the baseball, and he heard the other sound he would miss so dearly, the crack of the bat, the gunshot echoing on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.
Hank knew when he got one good, and nothing else felt quite like it. Nobody could put backspin on a ball like him. As the ball carried into the blue seats of the left-field upper deck, he dropped his bat and began to trot as with any other home run, but he wasn't immune from emotion. Every step said good-bye. He passed Joe Gordon playing first base, Jerry Priddy playing second, and little Phil Rizzuto playing short. The crowd cheered for Hank as he headed to third, past Red Rolfe, as a few stray newspapers fluttered down from the upper deck. Hank crossed home plate. Like so many times before, his home run gave the Tigers the lead.
Hank came to bat in the third inning, again facing Tiny Bonham. Rudy York was on first base. The crowd cheered louder, sensing time slipping away. Hank always possessed the reflexes of a regular man; that is, until somebody was brave enough to throw him a fastball.
The bat started forward in a flash, and again, that good sound of bat on ball, the gunshot on the corner. The ball was gone in a blink, soaring almost into the same spot as before in the upper deck in left field, where kids sat on baby-blue bleachers on sunny days and dreamed of playing with Hank. Hitting home runs was the one thing Hank made look easy, the great physical intangible that could not be taught and was only given, the loose explosiveness of his strength. He wasn't nearly as pretty when he ran the bases, chugging and puttering around like an old Model T with smoke coming out the front, but he savored every sweet stride until he spiked the plate.
As Hank trotted home, the thought occurred to him that now he had 249 career home runs-and it was only the third inning! He had at least three more at bats left in the game to hit his third homer of the game and reach the magical 250 mark. It wouldn't be against Tiny Bonham, who was lifted from the game and replaced with Atley Donald, a soft-spoken, swampy Southern right-hander.
Hank could smell his third home run, but he got greedy and his swings got long. He admitted it would be a hell of a send-off to wind up with three home runs in the same game. But Donald got him the next two times he faced him, and in the eighth inning, Hank came up for the last time. He stopped to hear his name announced. He almost never did that, but he knew the meaning of the moment, in the memory of the fans, and in his own life.
The small crowd felt large and loud, standing on its feet cheering for him, as if sending him a long good-bye kiss. But now it wasn't just the fans, it was the Tigers, who all stood on the top step of that little bomb shelter of a blue dugout at Briggs Stadium to applaud Hank. Bill Dickey, the Yankee catcher, lifted his mask onto his baseball cap and extended his hand to Hank. Hank touched Bill's hand and doffed his hat to the crowd, some of whom were in tears. Del Baker, the manager, was on the top step of the dugout cheering with the rest of his players, crying and raging on the inside.
Atley Donald stood on the mound with the ball in his hand. He watched Hank soak in the moment and decided that the man who asked no favors deserved one anyhow. Donald wound up and threw Hank a first-pitch fastball. He took something off it, but he shouldn't have. Hank took an explosive and violent cut, missing enormously, corkscrewing his knee into the ground and nearly falling over. Strike one. The fans whooped it up, they loved it, and Hank gingerly got up with a big dirt splotch on his pants.
Hank dug back in. For this split second, everyone forgot Hank was joining the Army. There were no armies, no nations, no soldiers, no war, no nothing. There was just a right-hander with a baseball in his hand, and a batter wringing the bat tightly in his hands. Atley Donald rocked back and threw another fastball, the sharpest kind, where Hank could hear the seams hissing, and he swung as hard as he could.
The swing sounded like a guillotine swishing the air, but Hank hit nothing, trying as hard as he could. Strike two. The good-bye kiss had no tongue. Donald could be a mean bastard right here and waste a fastball in the dirt or even knock him down with two strikes.
But Donald had too much dignity for that. Bill Dickey, the catcher, wouldn't put down a sign. The Yankee manager, Joe McCarthy, had no orders. Donald decided to throw Hank a belt-high fastball. And somehow, Hank knew all along what was coming. Donald rocked into his windup and threw one more heater. Hank took his last swing and twisted himself into an empty knot. Strike three. Hank struck out and the Army had a new recruit. Now it really was official-World War II came early to Detroit.
Hank slowly walked off the field, but he was in no hurry to take off his uniform. After another round of good-byes, he was tired and wanted to leave. The entire day had been emotionally draining. He said, "I appreciate everyone's efforts in giving me a send-off, but it's a relief to get it over with." When he was finally dressed, someone snapped a photograph of him in street clothes mournfully hanging up his jersey in his locker for the last time, the big number 5 facing the camera. Hank looked huge, but his jersey looked small. Hank looked as if he were turning his back on an old friend.
He told the reporters that he was upset about how much publicity his enlistment had garnered. He didn't think being a ballplayer warranted special treatment. The Army had offered him a one-day grace period to participate in Detroit's pennant-flag-hoisting ceremony the following afternoon, but Hank had declined. He said good-bye to his manager, Del Baker, and the owner, Walter O. Briggs. He emptied out his corner locker and left his career book marked at 1,049 major league games.
As he put his fedora on and draped his overcoat over his shoulders, he lifted his travel bag and took a deep breath, muttering aloud to nobody in particular, "I wouldn't want to go through this again." Then he walked out of the home clubhouse for the last time, turning out the lights above him.
Copyright © 2015 by John Klima
