A week to remember & forget for former Yankee

AT 91, EDDIE ROBINSON is a former Yankee and one of the oldest living former major leaguers. You could also say he is one of the most active former major leaguers in that he plays golf almost every day and d has been extremely involved with Major or League Baseball and the Players Association in securing money for fellow old-timers who were never vested in the MLB pension plan.

One of t hose player s , 100-year-old Connie Marrero — the oldest living former player, who has resided in his native Cuba since walking away from baseball in 1954 after a fiveyear pitching career with the old Washington Senators — recently received his $10,000 stipend, an “act of God” for which Robinson is justly proud. Marrero, it seemed, never signed up for the major league pension plan and didn’t know he was eligible for it. For years he’s been living in near poverty in a small apartment in Havana.

Through Robinson’s efforts, Marrero was included among the more than 900 players who played from 1947-1979 (the year before the pension rule was changed requiring only one d day in the majors to be vested) to rec receive a $10,000 annual payment. G Getting the money to him, however, was the hard part because of the U.s.-cuba embargo. But after relentless work with the State Department and Robinson’s congresswoman, Kay G Granger, from Fort Worth, Tex., the money m was reportedly delivered to Marrero last week. “For that I’m eternally grateful,” Robinson said by phone from Texas last week. “Connie was a teammate of mine and I knew how bad off he was. It was, I’m sure, an act of God for him.”

That was the good news for Robinson last week, tinged by bad news in the loss of two of his best friends from baseball and fellow nonagenarians: longtime outfielder and pinch hitter extraordinaire Dave Philley and legendary Atlanta Journal-constitution sports columnist Furman Bisher.

Philley, who hit .270 over 18 years in the majors with the White Sox, A’s, Orioles, Tigers, Indians and Phillies from 1946-1960, still holds the major league record for consecutive pinch hits — nine — in 1958-59, as well as the American League record for pinch hits in a season (24) in 1961. He and Robinson were both born and raised in Paris, Tex., and later became lifelong friends. Philley, who lived alone on his ranch in Paris, was found dead behind the wheel of his truck in his driveway on March 15, the apparent victim of a heart attack. He was 91.

“Dave was such a good friend,” Robinson said. “He had gone to church the previous Sunday, the last time anyone had seen or talked to him, and they found him a few days later, the keys still in the ignition and the truck out of gas. We weren’t that close as kids but then became real close friends after we were teammates with the White Sox in the ’50s. He was a great, natural hitter and a great guy who’s gonna be sorely missed down here.”

Four days later, Bisher, an institution in the sportswriting business who was very instrumental through his columns and connections in helping bring big league baseball to Atlanta with the transfer of the Braves from Milwaukee in 1965, died at home of a heart attack at 93. Bisher, who was still writing up until two years ago, was the author and reporter of one of the seminal pieces of baseball journalism with his exclusive interview with Shoeless Joe Jackson for Sport Magazine in 1949. It was the only interview Jackson ever did about the Chicago White Sox’s 1919 World Series fix and his role in it and he and Bisher each got $250 for it.

Robinson got to know Bisher when he was general manager of the Braves from 1972-77.

“Furman was a very powerful guy who you wanted on your side,” said Robinson. “Fortunately, we hit it off right away and became buddies.”