by Hap Rocketto
Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Me
As both a pilot and Boston Red Sox fan the New York Yankees draw my attention.
From an aviator’s point of view Red Sox left fielder and the “Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” Ted Williams and Yankee second baseman Jerry Coleman stand out. Both served in World War II and Korea as Marine aviators. Coleman, the only pro baseball player to see combat in both wars, flew 120 combat missions earning two Distinguished Flying Crosses. Williams served as a flight instructor during World War II and flew combat missions in Korea. Both men are members of the Marine Corps Athletic Hall of Fame.
Unfortunately wearing the Pinstripes has not proven to be a talisman against aviation misfortune. A trio of Yankees met their fates at the controls of civil aircraft. First to go was catcher Thurman Munson. Practicing takeoffs and landings in his Cessna Citation at the Akron-Canton, Ohio Regional Airport on August 2, 1979 he failed,”… to recognize the need for, and to take action to maintain, sufficient airspeed to prevent a stall into the ground during an attempted landing” according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report.
Pitchers and catchers are often referred to as a battery so it seems eerily fitting that the next aviation accident to take a Yankee involved a pitcher. Jim Hardin died on March 9, 1991 when the propeller on his Beech 35-C33A disintegrated from metal fatigue on takeoff from Key West, Florida International Airport.
Fifteen years later, on October 11, 2006, the Yankee bullpen suffered another loss when Cory Lidell and his instructor Tyler Stanger flew into an apartment building in New York City. The NTSB determined that the,“…probable cause of this accident was the pilots’ inadequate planning, judgment, and airmanship in the performance of a 180º turn maneuver inside of a limited turning space.
Years earlier my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers had decamped from “The Borough of Churches” and headed westward. I was in the middle of my Great Baseball Hiatus when my boyhood chum Mickey Moss, a fanatical Yankee rooter, sucked me into the 1961 vortex of the Yankees’ M&M Boys pursuit of Babe Ruth’s 1927 homerun record.
Ruth hit third and Lou Gehrig hit fourth for the Yanks in 1927. Pitchers could not pitch around the Bambino because they had to face the Iron Horse. With this advantage Ruth was able to hit 60 homeruns in 154 games. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were the reincarnation of Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the usual 1961 batting order having Maris hitting third and Mantle fourth. By the way the Yankees introduced uniform numbers in 1929 and they were assigned by batting order but Gehrig’s number four was the first player number ever retired and Ruth’s three the second.
Expansion ruled baseball in 1961. New teams brought with them a season of 162 games. Maris and Mantle started with hot bats and a month into the season Mantle had 14 homeruns and Maris 12. July saw Maris in the lead with 40 to Mantle’s 39.
At the end of August Maris had 51 home runs and Mantle had 48. Mantle dropped out of contention when an old leg injury flared up causing him to miss a few weeks of play. Maris hit his 59th home run in the season’s 154th game. On September 26, Maris connected on a pitch from Baltimore’s Jack Fisher to tie Ruth.
With Maris holding at 60 homeruns the Yankees faced the Red Sox on October 1st in the final game of the season at The Stadium. Sox pitcher Tracy Stallard served up a wicked fast ball to Maris in the fourth inning which was caught ten rows back in the right field stands by Sal Durante, a 19-year-old truck driver from Coney Island. The Yankees won the game 1-0 and Maris, the new homerun king had hit, as Mickey Moss jubilantly put it, 61 in ‘61.
Fifty one years later I was hunched over in the damp cool of the Smithfield Sportsman’s Club range. Earlier I had shot a 200X200 in the sitting stage of the 2012 NRA Four Position Sectional and was starting a continuation of fire to try to establish a new senior category record. I had held the record for a short time and lost it. I thought I’d like to get it back as I also held the senior 50 yard indoor iron and open anysight sitting records. Regaining the 50 foot anysight senior record would make for a neat sitting hat trick. The great humorist Robert Benchley once said of both of us, “I do most of my work sitting down; that’s where I shine.”
My old All Guard team mate Ed Jensen holds the open record with a mind boggling 200 with 500 additional tens. I once asked him why 500 and he replied that he stopped there because he just didn’t think that anyone was thick headed enough to try to break it.
With Ed’s comment in the back of my mind I started on my quest. I had a good position and steadily knocked off 19 tens to secure my obscure place in the record book. I doggedly continued on. I wanted to make sure that anyone who sought to best me to would have to work hard to do so. Soon the chill, damp, and my advanced age started to get the better of me. My back had tightened up and my legs ached. Running out of enthusiasm I began desperately thinking of any way to get out of the mess with grace, panache, and without shooting a nine.
I had just turned 65 and Mickey’s rallying cry, “61 in 61!” suddenly flashed into my head. Reeling out a single target I settled in and concentrated. After a few sighters I carefully went for record, shot five tens, and stopped with a sigh of relief. I had done it. Like Maris, who had hit 61 in ’61, I had shot 65 at 65.
