Tom Clavin, the co-author of Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, was in the area last Saturday for a booksigning at the Whittemore Library in Naugatuck.
I was offered a phone interview with Mr. Clavin earlier in the week, but decided that would be too constricting; instead I leapt at the chance to sit in on what turned out to be a great question-and-answer session, then a one-on-one chat with the engaging Clavin about his work, the latest in a compelling series of baseball biographies.
“The thing that amazed me most about researching the book,” said Clavin, “was that we talked to over 130 people and there was not one bit of dirt on Roger, no skeletons in his closet, which is amazing when you think about it.”
Clavin noted that Maris, who enjoyed relative calmness in Cleveland and Kansas City through his first three seasons, was anything but your normal major league ballplayer of the late 50’s.
“Roger was probably the only player who said ‘oh no’ upon hearing that he had been traded to the Yankees,” he said.
Once Maris donned the pinstripes, he “accepted the challenge and saw an opportunity to win,” Clavin said.
After all, Maris found himself in the middle of a stacked lineup which included Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, Bobby Richardson, Moose Skowron, Johnny Blanchard and a fellow named Mantle, who could have made Maris’ life difficult, Clavin pointed out.
“Mickey was a great teammate to Roger, as well as to the other players, who loved him,” said Clavin. “Roger and Mickey pushed each other, and Mickey, who could have made Roger the outsider, instead saw the many similarities they shared.
“As Mickey accepted Roger, so too did the rest of the team; they saw he fit a need for an additional power bat to protect Mantle.”
As for Maris hitting his still-legitimate single-season record of 61 home runs in 1961, Clavin was surprised that as the book was taking shape, there was not as much content on that season as he thought there might be.
“I expected beforehand that it would be more straight-forward on 1961,” admitted Clavin, whose co-author, Danny Peary will be appearing at the weekly “Silver Sluggers” meeting at the Derby Public Library today (Thursday) from 10 a.m. to noon, “but Roger had so many layers to his life, as short as it was, that we wanted to get to as much as we could about what preceded 1961 and what followed.”
What followed 1961 was embitterment on the part of Maris toward the Yankees, the fans, the media and baseball in general until after he agreed to a trade to the Cardinals in 1967.
“Roger enjoyed his last two years in St. Louis, where the fans and his teammated loved him,” said Clavin. “He also played in two more World Series, which gave him a total of seven for the decade, more than any other player, by far.”
Clavin was also thrilled to have gotten what he believed was one of, if not the last, interviews with George Steinbrenner.
“When word got to him that it was a book about Roger, he agreed to cooperate (which the Maris family did not),” Clavin said. “I was given 10 minutes and we talked for 40 minutes, and George, who loved Roger, recalled getting him back to Yankee Stadium in 1978 and eventually retiring his number 9 as one of the highlights of his ownership of the team.”
Space limits us here, but if you are a serious baseball fan, a Yankee historian, a Maris fan, you’ll love this 393-page book, because it’s the real Maris, and throughout his life, that’s what Maris was - uncompromisingly real.
A real good man who was a real good, perhaps a Hall of Fame quality ballplayer.
*****
While meaning to stick up for one of his best friends, Tim McCarver may have dashed any near-future hopes of détente between the Yankees and Joe Torre after his cringe-inducing remarks during last Saturday’s Yanks-Rays game on FOX.
While McCarver was spot-on about the Yankee organization’s petty treatment of Torre, he took his analogy way too far.
"The one they have bungled, in my opinion, is the handling of Joe Torre," McCarver said, before going on to the obvious.
"Twelve years in a row in postseason, four of those as world champions, and to me it's a case of corporate childishness on the part of the Yankees the way they've treated Torre since he left.”
So far, so good; try finding more than a (very) few scattered reminders that Torre ever existed in the new home address of baseball; you’ll be dehydrated by the time you’ve covered the ground to see them.
That said, McCarver, who has his own ax to grind with the Yanks, decided not to leave well-enough alone.
"You remember some of those despotic leaders in World War II, primarily in Russia and Germany, where they used to take those pictures that they had ... taken of former generals who were no longer alive, they had shot 'em."
Timmy Mac went on, while play-by-play man Kenny Albert continued to cringe, no doubt.
“They would airbrush the pictures, and airbrushed the generals out of the pictures. In a sense, that's what the Yankees have done with Joe Torre. They have airbrushed his legacy. I mean, there's no sign of Joe Torre at the stadium.
And, that's ridiculous. I don't understand it."
Again, fair enough on the petty treatment part, we get it; however to compare the erasure of a baseball manager to what the most murderous despots of 20th century did was way out-of-line, and if anything, since it came on the day of George Steinbrenner’s funeral, probably solidified the Yankee organizational hard-line towards a possible thawing of relations with Torre, which had seemed possible over the last few weeks.
For McCarver, one of baseball’s best-ever broadcast analysts, it was not one of his finest moments, although he did apologize on Monday, not about the point he was making, but the frame of reference he used to make it.
*****
All week long, TBS (channels 39/739), bless their hearts, has been saluting Steinbrenner by running classic “Seinfeld” episodes from the Costanza Era at 161st Street and River Ave.
This (Thursday) evening, they offer up two of the best, beginning at 7 p.m. with “The Calzone.” Michael Richards’ scene in which he tries to pay off the eatery owner in pennies is side-splitting.
Immediately following will be “The Nap,” the one in which Costanza’s napping place under his desk at the Stadium ‘alarms’ the Boss, expertly voiced by the great Larry David.
*****
Good news for viewers of Notre Dame football on NBC this fall.
No, the network isn’t going to an “Irish Classics” format, because they don’t have enough inventory - heck, we still haven’t popped in the tape of the 2005 “Bush Push” game I had made while overseas - it’s even better than that.
No longer will ND Nation have to put up with Pat Haden on Saturday afternoons this fall; the former USC quarterback is returning to where his heart really is; he is going to take over for the disgraced Mike Garrett as athletic director in L.A.
Please, Mr. Ebersol, can you find a former Notre Dame player to do the color commentary this time?
To LBJ, D-Wade and C-Bosh: The Lakers are still better.
