| In 1940, baseball was known as America's | | | | Lefty Gomez, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto |
| Favorite Game and The National Pastime. There | | | | and Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio, in his first six years |
| were sixteen Major League teams, all in the | | | | had a batting average of .340, a slugging average |
| Northeast and Midwest, each at most an | | | | of over .600 and hit over 200 home runs. He was |
| overnight train-ride away from all the others. The | | | | paid $43,750 at the time and left the Yankees for |
| teams had been around for two generations; and | | | | three seasons to enlist in the Army Air Force. |
| each had its own traditions, legends, its own base | | | | After the Yankees, the Dodgers were next in |
| of loyal fans, its own pantheon of heroes, | | | | popularity and last came my New York Giants. |
| Admission prices were low and average people | | | | The Giants had the richest early history. My |
| could afford to go to games: bleacher seats were | | | | father had seen Amos Rusie who pitched over |
| fifty cents, grandstands a dollar, reserved seats | | | | 500 innings in three seasons and had four seasons |
| $1.75 and, as I recall, (I never sat in one) box | | | | in which he won over 30 games. My father |
| seats, $2.25. When the War started, they tacked | | | | remembered John McGraw as a player-manager |
| on a ten per cent amusement tax and I think I | | | | and Frank Bowerman, first catcher to wear shin |
| remember a special ticket booth at which | | | | guards and he'd watched Roger Bresnahan, 'Iron |
| uniformed servicemen paid thirty-five cents for | | | | Man' Joe McGinnity, 'Dummy' Taylor and Christy |
| grandstand seats. | | | | Mathewson. Mathewson, along with Walter |
| There weren't any corporate boxes or luxury | | | | Johnson, Babe Ruth, Hans Wagner and Ty Cobb |
| suites back then, and artificial turf had yet to be | | | | were considered the five greatest players in |
| invented. Games were played on old-fashioned | | | | baseball history and became the first five to be |
| grass by men in baggy flannel uniforms and if you | | | | voted into the Hall of Fame in 1936. |
| got hungry during a game you had a choice of | | | | The Giants lost the World Series to the Yankees |
| boiled Harry Stevens frankfurters (they got the | | | | in 1936 and '37, and after that went into a decline |
| name "hot dog" at the Polo Grounds) peanuts in | | | | that lasted until 1950. It was easy being a Yankee |
| shells, Crackerjacks and little bricks of vanilla, | | | | or Dodger fan in the 1940s, but being a Giant fan |
| chocolate and strawberry ice cream. If thirsty, it | | | | took strength of character, or maybe just sheer |
| was soda pop, beer and coffee. | | | | stubbornness. |
| There were three teams in New York City, the | | | | Baseball was America's secular religion back in |
| Giants and Dodgers in the National League, the | | | | those days and the ballparks, each different from |
| Yankees in the American League. Boston, | | | | every other, were its cathedrals. When you |
| Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis had teams in | | | | shuffled through the turnstile for the first time as |
| both leagues, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh had National | | | | a boy and they tore off half your ticket, you |
| League teams, Cleveland, Detroit and Washington, | | | | knew your grandfather had taken your father |
| teams in the American League. | | | | there before you were born and you felt |
| Most New York kids were Yankee fans. Babe | | | | something that bordered on the sacramental that |
| Ruth had made the Yankees the most popular | | | | now your father was taking you. |
| team in baseball even before they moved into | | | | Traditions had grown up around each of the |
| the Yankee Stadium in 1923. (John McGraw of the | | | | sixteen teams, around each of their ballparks and |
| Giants kicked them out of the Polo Grounds | | | | around the game itself. Each new season was |
| because, with Ruth in their lineup, they were | | | | unique, but at the same time, each was a link in |
| drawing bigger crowds than the Giants in the | | | | the chain of all that had come before and all that |
| Giants' own ballpark.) | | | | were yet to come as far as the mind could see. |
| From 1936 to 1943 the Yankees won the | | | | The ballplayers, the club-owners, the fans, the |
| American League pennant seven times, the World | | | | sportswriters and the radio broadcasters who |
| Series six times. Ten Yankees from those years | | | | described each game pitch by pitch, were all part |
| were inducted into the Hall of Fame: Manager Joe | | | | of that tradition and each felt a personal |
| McCarthy, General Manager Ed Barrow and | | | | responsibility to help carry it forward into the |
| players Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Red Ruffing, | | | | future. |