DALE LONG
THE LONG WAY HOME
Pirates' Record-Setter Finally Rewarded For 12 Years' Struggling
"You probably recall the old gag about the taxi driver's theme song being 'The Longest Way 'Round Is the Shortest Way Home.'
Well, for one fabulous stretch this season, the longest way 'round- the Dale Long-est way, that is- WAS the shortest way home.
The way to home runs. SHORT- and sweet. For in a run of eight consecutive games, the Pirates' big (six-four, 212), likeable lefty from the Northern Berkshires did what no other of the 9,000 big league players before him ever did- knocked a homer a game in each of the eight straight games.
Sure, there have been other tremendous displays of home run power compressed into small packages of time. An earlier Pittsburgh Pirates home run hero, Ralph Kiner, once (1947) sent eight big homers resounding in four consecutive games. Tony Lazzeri (1936) and Gus Zernial (1951) hit seven in four games. Babe Ruth, Vic Wertz and Jim Bottomley hit seven homers in five games. Only two years ago Stan Musial hit five in a double-header. But for sustained consistency, never before was there anything like Long's surge.
It extended over a period of ten days and was accomplished against eight different pitchers of five different teams and in Philadelphia as well as Pittsburgh. It started at Pittsburgh when Long sent one of Jim Davis' knucklers roaring high into the second deck of the right field stands in the eighth inning to help beat the Cubs, 7-4.
The next day, in a double-header with Milwaukee, Long hit another into the same upper stands off Ray Crone in the first game, and in the opening inning of the second game repeated off Spahn, again to the same deck. After an open date, the Cardinals showed up at Forbes Field. Once again the upper right field stands were dented, with Herman Wehmeier the victim.
The fifth homer in the skein was a low liner that said goodbye to Forbes Field just above the 436-foot sign on the right-center field wall. The Cards' Lindy McDaniel thus had the dubious distinction of throwing what was said to be the first home run ever hit over that distant spot in the nearly half a century of the park's existence.
Two nights later the scene transferred to Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium. Curt Simmons was the pitcher. The score was 3-2 against Pittsburgh when Simmons walked Frank Thomas. Though it was obvious he was fooled by the pitch- Long said later that he was looking for a fast ball when Simmons crossed him with a curve- Long hit the ball one-handed as he fell away from the plate and the surprising result was a homer- number six- over the 350-foot right field fence.
Next day Long broke the major league record for hitting homers in consecutive games with his number seven, also at Philadelphia. In the very first inning he knocked at the door of the record with a drive that came within a half foot of clearing the right field wall, rebounding for a double. After two more futile tries, he connected off Ben Flowers in the eighth frame, with the right field wall the departure point.
Fate took a hand in raining out the last game at Philadelphia, returning the Pirates to Pittsburgh to give the home fans- 32,000 of them were there and will be talking about if for years to come- a chance to see number eight. It came in the fourth inning off Brooklyn's Carl Erskine and tied the score.
The deserved ovation accorded Long was what many veteran observers believe to be the greatest ever given a player in the history of the game. The deafening cacophony of fans' huzzahing him until they were hoarse, hand-clapping until their palms stung, didn't let up until Long emerged from the dugout and took a 'curtain call.'
That night, for 34 games, the big first baseman was hitting a stratospheric .414, with a total of 14 homers and 39 runs batted in.
Though stopped by the Dodgers' Don Newcombe the next day, he went on to 17 homers before pulling an ill-fated handicap. A pulled leg muscle, compounded by a badly bruised right shin, crippled him and while he gamely continued to play, his hitting was obviously affected.
Though it took him a little more than a week to capture the nation's headlines and the fans' imagination, it was, literally, a long way around for Dale. At 30 (he was born Feb.6, 1926, at Springfield, Mo.), he endured the despair of perennial frustration almost since he first started in pro ball with Milwaukee in 1944.
His itinerary in baseball sounds like something a beserk train caller would call out. Milwaukee, Middleton, Lima, Columbia, Ogden, Providence, Muncie, Oneonta, Lynn, Williamsport, Binghamton, Pittsburgh (for ten games in 1951), the St. Louis Browns (for 34 games in 1951), San Francisco, New Orleans and Hollywood before finally, at long last, becoming the Pirates' regular first baseman (.291 and 16 homers in 131 games) in 1955. That's at a total of 16 teams in 13 years.
But that's only part of the story. They tried him in the outfield, on the mound (one victory at Lima in 1945, a defeat for Ogden in 1946), at first- and Branch Rickey, in one of his wilder moments, even envisioned him as that rara avis, a left-handed catcher.
What sort of fellow is this Long? Well, let's look around the Northern Berkshires, where he is proudly claimed by three communities, North Adams, Mass., where he now makes his home with his attractive wife, Dorothy Robak Long, his high school sweetheart, and their two children, Dale, Jr., eight, and Johnny, one; Adams, where he gained his first athletic fame as an outstanding high school athlete climaxed by being named All-New England center in basketball in the 1944-45 season, and finally, Cheshire, where he spent his boyhood.
Determination, so often expressed by the slugging first baseman in the winter months where he worked first for a department store as a truck driver and then in the public relations department of the Sprague Electric Company, the world's largest manufacturer of electronics and North Adams' biggest industry, was foremost in his mind when he reported for spring training this year.
And through all his latest success, the TV and radio appearances, the unprecedented ovations at the Pittsburgh ball park, the interviews by top sports writers, Dale has remained the hometown guy everybody likes.
He is still the same chap who during the winter, at the end of the day's work, would dally over a cup of coffee at Liggett's drug store or Nassif's drug store and bat the breeze with the fellows.
The same fellow who, when he returned home at the end of the 1955 season would walk to the high school football practice field and show the kids how to boot the ball high and far down the field and who never tired of trying to help some youngster get more distance in his punts.
A typical example of Dale as a thoughtful neighbor is seen in the case of Mrs. Andrew Flagg, his next door neighbor on Blackinton Street before the Longs moved to their pleasant, modest dwelling on Corinth Street.
Mrs. Flagg met with a serious injury this past winter and for a long time was unable to walk and was alone during the daytime hours while her husband was at his teaching duties. Every morning, before going to work, Dale would go to the Flagg home next door and carry Mrs. Flagg to the Long home where she would spend the day visiting with Mrs. Long and the children.
Dale's wife did not see her husband break the homer record. Little Dale was making his first communion in St. Francis Church the day after Dale broke the record by hitting home run number seven.
Did Dorothy listen to the radio that night when Dale hit number seven? No, she was too busy getting Little Dale ready for his big event and putting Johnny to bed. She did not know about it until Bucky Bullett, North Adams sportscaster and a close family friend, called her.
'We have had our ups and downs,' Dorothy told this writer, who has known her since she was a little girl in Adams.
'But through it all,' she went on, 'Dale has never whimpered, never complained, never blamed any one person for the tough breaks he got, but always saying, 'Our day will come; don't worry, honey, we'll get there yet.'
'Naturally, I am thrilled and happy, not so much because Dale has broken the home run mark, but for Dale himself and the fact that he is finally being recognized for all that he is,' she asserted.
'The biggest thrill of all,' Dorothy declared, 'was the night in Pittsburgh when Dale was called from the dugout by the fans for that great big ovation. And when I look back on the days of the boos and the jeers, instead of the cheers, I am so thrilled I can hardly think. Yes, he has been booed, not cheered. And believe me, it is hard, real hard, to sit in the stands and hear your husband get the catcalls when you know deep in your heart that he is giving everything he has.
'The darkest days in Dale's baseball life,' Mrs. Long said, 'came when he was with Hollywood and couldn't get out of a slump. He knew that he had to make good or go back to a lower league. He wasn't hitting, wasn't eating and was just plain discouraged. I suggested that he have a talk with Bobby Bragan, who was manager of Hollywood at the time. Dale did and started off by saying, 'What's going to happen to me, Bobby?' 'What do you mean, Dale?' Bobby replied. 'You're staying with Hollywood. Now go out and hit a few.'
'His confidence restored, his mind resting better, Dale did go out and hit a few. It changed his whole career. I believe that was the turning point. Do you wonder why Dale has such confidence in and such respect for Bragan, now his manager with the Pirates?'
Long was voted the Most Valuable Player in the Pacific Coast League that year.
A little know trait concerning Long and which really brings out 'the boy in him' is the desire to be on hand when news stories are breaking, especially accidents and fires, and he has a standing order with Randy Trabold, staff photographer for the North Adams Transcript, to 'call me when you're going out to take a picture, no matter what the hour.' "
-Tommy McShane (Baseball Digest, August 1956)
1959
April 23: Hits home run and single in 6-1 win over Cardinals.
April 25: Hits home run and single in 5-3 victory over Giants.
May 17: Hits two-run homer in 7-6 win over Pirates.
June 5: Hits home run, double and single in 10-5 win over Pirates.
June 7: His single sets up 1-0 victory over Pirates.
July 2: Hits two-run homer and sacrifice fly in rout of Giants.
August 14: Hits two-run homer in 7-5 win over Giants.
Comment: "Long fell way off at bat. Perhaps he will perk up under the new regime."
-Joe Sheehan, Dell Sports Magazine Baseball, April 1960
BOB CERV
CERV-IS WITH A SMILE
KC Star's A Happy Fellow Now
"According to tradition, the happiest ball players in captivity are those who wear the uniform of the New York Yankees. 'It's great to be young and a Yankee,' Charlie Keller once said. 'It does something to you.'
Bob Cerv felt that way seven years ago when he first dressed for a game in the soundproof airy clubhouse of the perpetual American League champions. He was 24, going on 25. He had dominated the batters of the American Association the previous season in every department. He had every expectation of winning a regular spot for himself in the Yankee outer works. Of course, there'd be the usual problems of adjustment to big league surroundings, but within a season or two he'd be up there with Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra as a Big Town star.
It never happened.
A few weeks ago Bob made his first visit of 1958 to the Stadium. He was wearing the uniform of the Kansas City Athletics, a team that had been picked for no better than a sixth-place finish this season. On his first turn at bat, he drove a home run deep into the left field stands. It was his eighth homer of the young season. He was leading that department in the majors, as well as in RBI's, with 24. He was batting .404 and feeling great feeling like the most happy feller in baseball.
Seven years is one-half of a lifetime in big league ball and, looking back on his experience with the Yankees until the end of the 1956 season, when he was sold to the A's, Bob wishes he'd originally signed not with the Yankees but with the Pirates or A's, both of whom sought his services while he was knocking fences as a collegiate star at the University of Nebraska.
'I ran into Casey Stengel's two-platoon system,' he said, as he sat in a barber chair on Seventh Avenue, just off Times Square getting a Big Town haircut, two dollars a snip plus tip. 'In left field it was a three- and four-platoon. A hitter needs regular play to get into the groove, and I never got it as a Yankee except toward the end of the 1955 season when Mickey Mantle was injured and I played about 30 straight games in center field. That year I wound up with a .341 average but the next spring I was back on the shuttle system. I can't fault the Yankee theory that every game must be won- it's good for the Yanks, but not good for a player like me.'
It is a fact that Casey, although he won't admit it now, thought he had discovered a flaw in Bob's batting style. At morning practice in 1954, Casey expressed himself volubly while watching Bob work out in the cage, to the effect that he had a hitch, dropping his hands just before he swung. But Bob denies that anyone on the Yanks, coach of manager, called his attention personally to this fault.
'I haven't changed my style since I started to play baseball,' Bob says. 'My stance, grip and swing are the same. As for my early surge this year, it's due to two factors. First, I'm playing regularly; the left field job is mine. Second, I'm in perfect physical shape for a change. Last season, my first with the A's, I injured my leg in Chicago in June. During the layoff I let my weight run up to 235, and it showed up in my averages after I went back to work. But at the end of last season, I took myself in hand and began to diet.'
If any feminine readers of Baseball Digest want Bob's weight-moving prescription, it may be had free. 'Stop drinking liquids,' Bob volunteers. 'No beer, no hard liquors and only enough water to satisfy your thirst. No bread, potatoes or other starches but all the meat and green vegetables you want- ham and eggs for breakfast; steaks, chops and poultry for dinner. But- only two meals a day ... breakfast and dinner ... and don't snack in between.'
However, there's a gimmick in Bob's diet. 'I guess I'm an old-fashioned type. I like to hunt. Hunting makes you walk a lot, keeps you in the open air. That, and the diet, knocked off the poundage and I arrived in the A's camp this spring feeling great.'
Bob's enthusiasm for the A's is not just a passing fancy. Like Eddie Mathews, who played for the Milwaukee Brewers in the American Association and then returned to Milwaukee as a Brave, Bob began his baseball career as a Kansas City Blue in 1950 and returned there as an Athletic in 1957. Between times he shuttled back and forth between New York and Kansas City, while the Yankees still owned the Blues as a Triple-A farm club. 'I might still be shuttling to and fro if my options hadn't run out,' he says, which led Bob to express some opinions about the option system. 'A player like myself, arriving in the majors on a team which has no special need for him, suddenly finds himself bouncing back and forth until he's labeled as a might-have-been. He never gets a chance to show his real stuff in season-long competition. By the time the options have run out, he has wasted the potential he once had. It's no fun waking up at 32 and finding yourself playing regularly for the first time.'
Kansas City suits Bob better than New York. His home is in Lincoln, Nebraska, 200 miles away, which it makes it unnecessary for him to support two establishments, winter and summer, if he is to enjoy family life.
And Harry Craft suits him as a manager. 'I played for Harry when he managed the Blues,' he says. 'He knows what I can do, and I know what he expects. All he expects is that for two and a half hours each day, while you're playing ball, you are to play top ball. That means running out all hits and going after flies whether you think you can catch them as they start from the bat or not. That's all Harry wants, and it's getting results.'
Bob likes left field in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium better than the same area at Yankee Stadium. 'Gene Woodling said the other day the Stadium left field is the worst in the majors. It's a fact that the three tiers at the Stadium form a poor background for judging a fly ball- you don't really see it when the stands are crowded until it rises above the third tier and is against the sky. The situation of the Stadium in line with the setting sun creates shadows late in the afternoon, especially toward the end of the season. Perhaps that is why so many Yankee left fielders have failed to get a grip on themselves, and no one of them has held the job regularly in many seasons.'
Thus with happier playing conditions, happier relations with the management, and a chance to play regularly, Bob is hopeful of dominating American League batters this year as he did the American Association in 1951. He is a solidly built six-footer, dark-haired, blue-eyed, easy-smiling and well-spoken- and equipped with an above-average education for a professional baseball player, most of whom, if they've attended college, have majored in physical education.
'My parents are of Czech extraction,' he says. 'Although they were both born in this country. Dad is a truck driver- we lived in Weston, Nebraska, and my main sports interest used to be basketball, not baseball.
'I was playing basketball in high school when Tony Sharpe, our coach, who also coached the baseball team, asked me if I would catch for him, as he had no one for that position. I caught for a while but didn't hit the long ball until Tony shifted me to the outfield.
Then, when I was 17, the United States got into the war, and nothing could stop me from getting into a uniform at once. I didn't know what the war was about- I just wanted an adventure, and I got it. I enlisted and was assigned to the USS Claxton, a destroyer on radar duty in the Pacific, with a beat from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. I wanted action, and we got plenty of it- Japanese aircraft attacks and battle service off Leyte.
'I came out of the war with no illusions, no complexes. The GI Bill of Rights offered me an education and I decided to become a teacher. All my courses were to that end, and I was graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in education. If I hadn't been on the basketball and baseball teams I would have become a teacher at once, for I had a certificate and there were numerous openings in Nebraska.
'Instead, I was hitting around .500 in college baseball, and scouts were making tempting offers. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do. I knew the chances for quick success in the majors were better with a second-division team like the A's or the Pirates. But the Yankees came along with the proposition that I would be signed for immediate service with a Triple-A club, in this case, Kansas City. So I signed for a $6,000 check, and that was it.
'As I know now, my original hunch was correct. Whatever my faults in 1952, I would have had a better chance of overcoming them if I had been allowed to develop day by day in play- bench-warming does something to you, and going up and down, from the majors and back to the minors, isn't conducive to morale-building. I had the normal bad breaks with the Yankees. I jammed my knee one year; I missed many opportunities to do better. I liked the team, the players, and New York. But, except for 1955 when Mantle was hurt, I could never report with the certain knowledge that I was to play a complete game. Now, I can.'
Bob married Phyllis Pelton while both of the young folks were undergraduates at Nebraska. Sithay- "That's a family name of my wife's"- and Sandra were already born when Bob first joined the Yankees. Sithay is now ten, Sandra, nine, and the Cerv household in Lincoln is now noisy with Denise, seven, Karen, six; and then the boys, Bob, Jr., four, and Joe, two. In August there'll be a seventh little Cerv.
The family followed Bob to New York in his Yankee days, but now they stay in Lincoln, 'where we've got a big house because we need one,' he says.
As for the extracurricular activities that keep Yankees busy, Bob neither envies nor disdains them. 'I've never told this before, because I don't think it's important, but I do own a cafe and bar in a little mining town in Colorado- Gunnison. It's so small that you can't find it on a map. A friend of mine offered the cafe to me several years ago for a small investment. I kept a hand in it for two years, until it began to make money. Now it's being run for me, and doing well. But that's my only interest outside of baseball.
'The future? I don't worry about that. If it's ever necessary, I can go back to the University of Nebraska, take a few refresher courses and renew my teacher's certificate.'
In the meantime, Bob Cerv is manufacturing singles, doubles, triples, homers and RBI's on a wholesale scale- and is the most happy feller this reporter has met in baseball in quite some time."
-Charles Dexter (Baseball Digest, July 1958)
Bob, born in Weston, Nebraska, started with the Yankees in 1951. In fact, he has played with only two cities in his career- the Kansas City Blues (in the American Association), the Yankees and the A's. Bob starts his 10th year with a .281 lifetime mark."
-Don Schiffer, 1960 Mutual Baseball Annual
1959
April 16: Hits two-run homer in 6-0 win over White Sox.
April 24: Four RBIs with two singles in rout of Tigers.
April 26: Beats Tigers, 4-3, with three-run inside-the-park home run.
May 10: Hit on thumb by Paul Foytack; out awhile.
June 20: Hits two home runs in 6-2 win over Orioles.
July 3: Hits grand slam but Indians win, 8-4.
July 9: Leads 4-0 win over Tigers with homer and double.
July 15: Beats White Sox, 2-1, with two RBIs.
July 20: Hits three home runs, has six RBIs in 11-10 loss to Red Sox.
Comment: "Cerv is a heavy-handed thumper who has come through nobly the in clutch since getting a chance to play regularly with the A's."
-Joe Sheehan, Dell Sports Magazine Baseball, April 1960
"This is Big Bob Cerv's second time around with the Yankees. A product of the Yankee farm system, the graduate of the University of Nebraska served mostly as a utility outfielder with the Yankees before being sold to Kansas City after the 1956 season. Obtained this spring in a deal for Andy Carey, big Bob is seeing service as an outfielder, first baseman and right-handed pinch hitter.
He had several good years with the A's, his best being 1958, when he belted 38 homers, hit .305 and drove in 104 runs. He'll see plenty of action now that he's back with the Yanks, no matter how Manager Casey Stengel uses him.
Bob is the father of seven youngsters (and an eighth is expected this summer)."
-The New York Yankees Official 1960 Yearbook
Robert Henry Cerv (OF) #17
Born May 5, 1925, in Weston, Nebraska, resides in Kansas City, Missouri. Height: 6-0, weight: 225. Bats right, throws right.
Married and the father of four girls, Sithay (11), Sandra (10), Denise (9) and Karen (7) and three boys, Robert Jr. (6), Joe (2) and John (1).
-The New York Yankees Official 1960 Yearbook
"Bob Cerv is in his third Series as a Yankee, though he spent three of his best big league seasons at Kansas City. Acquired early this season as outfield protection and for right-handed pinch-hitting chores, big Bob has done his job well.
Cerv is the father of eight children and holds a BS degree in education from the University of Nebraska. He hit 38 homers and 104 RBIs in 1958 with the A's."
-1960 World Series Official Souvenir Program
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