Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994 TAG: 9402140096
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I'm no phony," he said. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world."
At age 80, the ice-blue eyes shine and the laughs come easy. The skin still is taut on his face and the Arizona desert tan becomes him.
Ask him what he's doing these days and he tells you, "I'm gainfully unemployed."
Meaning he still knows how to pick up a few bucks when he takes a notion. As an outfielder for the New York Yankees during the glory years of the late 1930s and 40s, one of the great clutch hitters of his day, a teammate of Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig, a man who took his showers in the same clubhouse as Babe Ruth, Tony Lazzeri and Mickey Mantle, somebody always wants to hear about it.
"I'm a baseball nut, for Pete's sake," he said. "Card shows, whatever. Whenever I get a chance to talk baseball, I can't turn it down."
Nor did he when the Roanoke-Salem Baseball Hall of Fame called on him to regale the masses at its annual Hot Stove Banquet on Sunday night at the Salem Civic Center. Henrich was the keynote speaker as Pablo Cruz, Jack Dame, Charlie Maxwell, Bob Humphreys and Boyd "Hawkbill" Hall were inducted.
The only flaw in this merry evening was that Maxwell and Dame couldn't have been there. Maxwell, a former triple crown winner for the old Roanoke Red Sox, was detained by foul weather. Dame, the longtime impresario of the Salem Civic Center and a man who promoted baseball in the Roanoke Valley by word and deed, died in 1983 at age 61.
It sounds corny, but Henrich was one of the guys whose dreams came true.
"I was a Yankees fan since I was 7 years old, when Ruth joined the team in 1921," he said. "I'm playing softball until I'm 19 years old, play a year of hardball and the next thing I know I'm in Class D."
By 1937, he was summoned to the Yankees.
"I walked into that clubhouse the first time and everybody was very cordial to me. There was a lot of togetherness there," he said. "But that sounds like we were just a bunch of friends. After the greetings were over, I knew I was with a bunch of pros, guys who were going to go out on that field and win ball games."
Henrich played in four All-Star games and four World Series. The Yankee appeared in eight world championships while he was on the team.
"I never talk about what I did in the Series," he said. "The Yankees were in eight of them and I was a part of it and that's what's important to me."
The Yankees won all four of the Series he played in: 1938, 1941, 1947 and 1950. Among the most memorable was in '47 when New York edged the crosstown Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games. A couple of the most famous games, oddly enough, were defeats of the New Yorkers.
One was in the fourth game, when Yankees pitcher Bill Bevens lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning and lost the game 3-2.
Bevens had pitched a fine, if not a somewhat motley game, walking 10. But the Yankees led 2-1 with pinch runners Al Gionfriddo on second and Ed Miksis on first with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Up came 35-year-old pinch hitter Cookie Lavagetto, whom Henrich in right field had never seen in person.
Henrich and DiMaggio, in center, discussed how to play Lavagetto. They knew he liked to pull the ball, so Henrich shaded several steps to center. Earlier, he and DiMaggio had looked to the dugout for direction from coach Chuck Dressen, who had managed in the National League for Cincinnati. No help.
On an 0-1 pitch. Lavagetto ripped it to right field. Henrich, thinking that he might have a play and in fear that he'd be the goat in a lost World Series no-hitter, set sail. Too late, he realized the ball was over his head. When he threw on the brakes to play the carom, he was too close to the wall and the ball ate him up, bouncing off the heel of his glove.
In the several blinks of an eye that it took to gather the loose pill, Gionfriddo came in with the tying run and Miksis scooted all the way from first with the winner.
"It was a base hit all the way," Henrich said. "Nothing I could do. People still ask me about it. I tell them it's five seconds of my life I'd rather not relive."
Another indelible memory of that Series was in the sixth game, Gionfriddo's marvelous catch. It was the bottom of the sixth, the Dodgers were up 8-5 and Joe Hatten was pitching to DiMaggio with two on and two out. Gionfriddo was in left.
DiMaggio creamed one toward the gate of the visiting bullpen in Yankee Stadium. According to Gionfriddo's testimony to writer Roger Kahn, he didn't think he had a chance. Yet he made the play, some 415 feet from home, with a twisting, hard-to-believe catch.
Years later, DiMaggio compared it to Willie Mays' unforgettable over-the-shoulder snag at the Polo Grounds. DiMaggio told Kahn that Gionfriddo made the greater catch.
"Al made it harder than he had to," he said. "He should have gotten to the ball sooner but misjudged it. He made a great catch, no doubt about that. But he made a great catch on a ball he misplayed."
by CNB