Ranking Friedman’s baseball favorites

Stu Friedman of Port Ewen has been watching baseball since he was kneehigh to a grasshopper.

The 83-year-old retired dentist saw his first game in 1944 at the Polo Grounds — the New York Giants home in Harlem. At that time there were eight teams in each league and two of them happened to be the St. Louis Browns and Cardinals.

There still are plenty of chaps around our Catskill Country who’ve focused on the diamonds as much as Friedman, but none who I know have such an Argus eye for horsehide detail.

So when I got the brilliant idea to craft a list of “all-time favorite ball players” my man Stu got the nod. Granted that some of his choices are unconventional — Phil Cavarretta being one — but the following are his picks and why:

Phil Cavarretta

I had never even heard of Cavarretta until the 1944 season when he hit .321 for the Chicago Cubs which was fifth best in the NL. The following year, 1945, the Cubs got off to a very poor start but subsequently came on late to take the National League flag. Cavarretta had his career year that season, winning the batting tittle at .355.

But Phil was very closely pressed throughout the season by Tommy Holmes of the Boston Braves, One day that spring or summer, looking at the sports section of the New York Times I saw an article titled, “Holmes Rewarded Hit after Cavarretta Testimony.”

It turned out that during the game between the Braves and Cubs, Holmes hit an infield grounder and the throw to first was in the dirt. When Cavarretta couldn’t come up with the throw Holmes was called safe and the play was ruled an error on the throw. This meant that Holmes would be charged with a hitless at bat, which could be highly significant in a very close race for the batting title.

After the game however Cavarretta sought out the game’s official scorer and convinced him that Holmes had the throw beaten and he should be credited with a hit, which is how it turned out. That’s my idea of a class act on the diamond.

Joe Gordon

Joe, who became a Hall of Famer, actually beat out Ted Williams in the vote for the AL MVP award in 1942. Personally, I think Ted was robbed but that is a discussion for another day.

It was in Cleveland in 1947 that Gordon became one of my favorites. Not for anything he did on the field, although he had a pretty darn good year, but for the way he interacted with rookie Larry Doby, who happened to be the first African-American player to enter the American League.

Hearing Doby describe it, Gordon was the only one who would have a catch with him or offer any type of acceptance or encouragement. Even in 1948 when Cleveland won its last World Series and Doby hit .300, he was, according to Doby himself, treated like a wall-flower. So kudos to Joe Gordon for being ahead of the curve way back then.

Alvin Dark

After the 1949 season ended or maybe just before the 1950 season began, my New York Giants in a trade with the Boston Braves, received Eddie Stanky to play second and Alvin Dark to play shortstop.

In 1948, as a rookie, Dark hit .328 and played well enough at shortstop to help the Braves win the pennant. He might have beaten out Richie Ashburn of the Phillies for NL Rookie of the Year. Dark, an ex-Marine, was another one of those talented individuals, at least when it came to sports. In Louisiana he was a triple threat running back and had a guy named Steve Van Buren blocking for him.

Giants manager Leo Durocher — in a move that certainly surprised me — almost immediately named the quiet, unassuming Dark as Giants captain, Rather than the brash, tough as nails type Eddie Stanky.

Maybe he wanted to inspire confidence in Dark to make him more assertive. It worked. The Giants finished third that season, the best finish since I followed them. Then in 1951, they caught the Dodgers in a thrilling pennant race won on the Bobby Thomson homer. Was he the best shortstop I had ever seen? No way, but he was my favorite.

Bobby Thomson

Think about it. Pretend you are a rabid fan of a team that has been fighting all season for a pennant. That your team got off to a terrible start that included an 11-game losing streak. Your team finally righted itself and actually went on a 16-game winning streak and in late August came back from 13-games back to catch the rival you’ve been chasing by seasons end.

Hey! That’s pretty much what happen in the National League in 1951. The Dodgers and Giants were all tied up at the end of 154 games, creating a best two out of three series for the pennant. The teams split the first two games and in the deciding contest, Brooklyn was up by three runs when the Giants came to bat in the bottom of the ninth.

You know how it went. Single, single, out, double scoring a run and leaving men on second and third with one out. Pitching change for the Dodgers. Giants’ number six batter comes to the plate. He’s Thomson, the Flying Scot. Boom! Home run and the Giants win the pennant in almost un-real fashion.

Willie Mays

It was early in the 1951 season and I was oming home from school on the subway one afternoon. I noticed an abandoned copy of the New York Daily News on a seat on the other side of the subway car. It was folded in such a way that you could see the headline on the back page, which was always the sports headline. It read, “Giants to Get Phenom”.

Finally I found out the Giants were bringing up a 20-year old center fielder named Willie Mays, who had been hitting .477 at AAA Minneapolis and supposedly was a good fielder with a great arm. Willie showed from the-get go that he would have no problem defensively, but he went hit-less in his first dozen or so at bats. Manager Leo Durocher, who was very ferocious at times, was very patient with Mays and it paid off.

The Giants left on a road trip and Mays started hitting with consistency and power. By the time they came back to the Polo Grounds, Mays was hitting over .300 and was batting third. He managed to keep the power but he couldn’t stay at .300. He did however win the National League Rookie of the Year award. (If you haven’t guessed by now, Sir Stu was such an intense Giants fan that we do not see mention of Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Peewee Reese, Jackie Robinson or Gil Hodges.

Any one of them was better than any of Stu’s choices.

And the reason for that happens to be the best reason of all; I’m from Brooklyn and I rooted for the Dodgers! Call it logic — baseball-style!)