The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A perfect gift from ‘Porky’
Frank “Porky” Vieira, the retired but still renowned baseball coach at the University of
New Haven, thought he was doing the kid a big favor when he sent him his unique collection of New
York Yankees memorabilia.
The collection included that historic photograph of Yankee pitcher Don Larsen delivering the final pitch in the fifth game of the 1956 World Series between the Yanks and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The scoreboard behind Larsen told the story: ninth inning, two outs, one ball and two strikes, no hits for the Dodgers. Larsen was on the verge of pitching a perfect game, which had never been done before, nor since, in a World Series.
The photograph has this inscription: “To Coach Vieira, best wishes, Don Larsen.”
Vieira’s bulging shipment to that distant relative of his, a kid in Georgia who is about 15 and probably has never heard of Larsen, also contained photos of Yankee world championship teams going back to 1923, as provided by the
Daily News to its readers; that newspaper’s color photos of Yankee players ranging from Babe Ruth and Yogi Berra to Derek Jeter; a copy of Lou Gehrig’s 1933 contract (he was paid $23,000); a New Haven Register front page from Sept. 14, 2009 (“Jeter passes Gehrig to become Yankees’ all-time hit leader”); and a New York Post souvenir tribute section to Yankee Stadium (April 6, 2008).
Here’s what Vieira wrote to the kid on the note he enclosed with this gift: “I know you’re going to enjoy this collection as much as I did.”
Well, no, the kid didn’t seem to enjoy it at all.
“He didn’t even thank me!” Vieira said when he called me out of the blue about a month ago. “I want to cry! He never said a word. He didn’t have a clue. So I told him to send it back.”
Vieira wasn’t calling me to complain about the kid. He was calling to make one of the most generous offers I have ever received.
“I told the kid, ‘If you’re not that juiced-up about it, I want to give my collection to somebody who will appreciate it,’” Vieira said. “’Randall will get it.’”
Vieira paused while my heart skipped a beat. And then he said, “I’m giving the whole thing to you.”
I was momentarily speechless. Vieira and I had never met. This was the first time we had even spoken to one another. But because he reads my column, he knows I’m a passionate Yankee fan, as is he.
Then Vieira made another beautiful offer. Since he also knows from my column that my brother Ben is a devoted fan of the Boston Red Sox, Vieira said, “You can give my photo of me and Ted Williams to your brother.”
After I recovered from my shock and awe, I did not repeat that’s kid’s mistake. I profusely thanked Vieira and said I would be honored to give the Larsen photo a prominent spot on my “Yankee shrine” and would treasure the other artifacts he was bequeathing to me. I also promised I would hand-deliver the Ted Williams photo to my brother.
And so when Vieira got his Yankee collection back from the kid, he called me again, inviting me to come on over and pick it up. With mounting excitement I drove out last Tuesday afternoon to his home in West Haven.
“The Coach” also has a shrine, and it extends through much of his cozy house. In addition to the Yankee material, he has many mementos from his UNH years, where he won 78 percent of the more than 1,450 games he coached during 44 seasons. No other coach at that level has ever won a higher percentage. When he retired in 2006, he had amassed 1,127 victories.
“I had an office at UNH for more than 25 years,” he said. “But last September, when I was getting ready to go on a trip to Italy, a colleague called and told me: ‘Coach, they want your office.’ It was like a little sanctuary for me. The next thing I knew, everything was being packed away. Now I’m trying to give most of it away.”
But he added, “The real good stuff I’ll hold onto.” (I wondered how an autograph inscribed to him by Don Larsen wasn’t “real good stuff,” but who was I to talk him out of being generous?)
“One of my friends is building a trophy room for me upstairs,” Vieira told me. “My wife (Laura) said: ‘Take a room and put all that stuff in it!’ So she gave me a room and I’ll fill it up, believe me!”
As he steered me toward his display of those Yankee artifacts, Vieira said, “I’ve been a Yankee fan since Joe DiMaggio. Once you’re a Yankee fan, that’s it!” (Amen, brother.)
But he also has souvenirs from other teams. Pointing to a framed photo, he said, “That’s me and (New York Mets manager) Bobby Valentine in his office at Shea Stadium, just before the Yankees-Mets ‘Subway Series.’” (The year was 2000.)
I asked him who’s getting that photo. “Anybody who wants it,” he replied. “The first caller!”
Vieira also has some commemorative Louisville Slugger bats recognizing his 1,000th and 1,100th wins. He is holding onto at least one pair of them but he gave another pair to his old baseball buddy John Carusone, the former mayor of Hamden. He also gave Carusone a 100-year-old baseball made by the Eddie Bauer company.
Carusone told me the bats are now hanging on the wall of his office. He called the donation “a tremendous honor for me.”
Carusone said in an email that when he was on the Southern Connecticut State College baseball team in the 1950s, he played against Vieira, who was on the Quinnipiac College team. Carusone later played against Vieira when Carusone was with the Hamden Townies and Vieira played for the Meriden Braves in the Connecticut State League.
Vieira, clearly thinking very carefully about who should get what, said, “All my coaching books, everything on techniques I’m giving to Joe Tonelli, the head baseball coach at the University of Bridgeport.” And he said some of his former UNH players will get Vieira’s scrapbooks from those glory days.
Vieira picked up a photo of a group of young ballplayers, including Vieira, with DiMaggio. “That’s when I played for the Kingston Braves. It had to be in the ’50s or early ’60s.”
Then he showed me the framed Williams photo. “We were at Yankee Stadium when he was managing the Washington Senators (which Williams did from 1969-71). He wanted me to sit in the dugout with him. I said, ‘Ted, I can’t do that!’ But he insisted.”
Vieira had helped Williams at his instructional camp in Lakeville, Mass., for three years in the 1960s. “He took a liking to me.”
When I asked Vieira whether he had gotten to know Williams, he said, “As well as you could get to know him. Oh, he was the best — except when the press came around. And what a good-looking guy! When he walked into a room, the women went ‘OOOHHH!’ Like John Wayne.”
And then — there it was, the Larsen gem. “He was at a card show at UNH. I met a lot of them: Whitey Ford, Stan Musial, Pete Rose.”
“I met a lot of beautiful people because of basesball,” Vieira said. “I’ve been fortunate. I made a living doing exactly what I wanted to do and enjoying every minute.”
Now 86, Vieira can’t help but compare his years in baseball with the state of the game today. Asked about the Houston Astros electronic signstealing scandal, he said, “Oh geez! It really hurts me. That’s the ultimate, to get the signs like that. That’s a major advantage. And they got hundreds of thousands of dollars for cheating!”
“Those Yankees, they were robbed!” he said. He was thinking back to the American League Championship Series of 2017, when the Astros beat the Yanks in seven games.
After I went home, carrying Vieira’s donated treasures, I reverently placed the Larsen photo in the center of my “shrine.” Across the hallway, in my elder daughter’s preserved bedroom, is displayed a photo capturing what happened moments after Larsen threw that final pitch: Yogi Berra jumping into his arms in a bear hug. Perfect.
Thanks, Coach! You’re the best.