Last Call: It Takes a Stadium, as told to Matthew Stevenson
LAST CALL as told to Matthew Stevenson It Takes a Stadium The fact is, I've always been a Yankee fan. —Hillary Rodham Clinton during a television interview. A MONG MY EARLY MEMORIES IS BILL...
...But I was radicalized when Bobby Richardson moved to his religious right and later ran as a Republican for Congress in South Carolina...
...Then they traded Bobby Murcer, which for me was worse than Watergate...
...Tony Kubek choked on that ground ball, and the next thing I remember is Maz stepping on home plate, in a sea of those awful Pirates uniforms...
...Et tu, Bobby...
...Billy Martin hated Reggie, who hated George, who eventually swapped Mr...
...Guidry came on to win 16, and Reggie hit three in a row in game six against the Dodgers...
...I was shocked when Ford pardoned Nixon, but Steinbrenner atoned by signing Catfish and Reggie, and my life finally had direction...
...At Yale, after I heard that George Steinbrenner had given money to Nixon, I decided to take a job with the House Judiciary Committee...
...I CRIED THE NIGHT THURMAN MUNSON CRASHED his jet in Ohio...
...ANYONE WHO HAS SEEN MY BILLING RECORDS knows how hard I worked during the 1980's...
...I went to the war rallies and the teach-ins, but all I could think was: You can't get back to the World Series with Gene Michael and Horace Clarke up the middle...
...First Whitey, then the Mick retired...
...But then in 1996 we put the chop to the team of the 9o's, Ted and Jane...
...Then Maris was traded to the Cardinals...
...I FELT SO OUT OF TOUCH AT WELLESLEY IN THE 1960's...
...No Channel no Phil Rizzuto...
...PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY I WAS devastated to learn there was another woman in my husband's life...
...Hey, Steve and Cindy Garvey, this Bud's for you...
...At first I thought: "What...
...George fired Billy a few more times, but Jill Martin taught me the lesson of standing by your man: "I don't care where he gets his appetite," she said, after Billy was pitched out of a night club, "I know where he comes for dinner...
...A MONG MY EARLY MEMORIES IS BILL Mazeroski's homer beating the Yankees in the 196o World Series...
...Sure I made a little money in commodities, but a lot less than Willie Mays earned in the casinos...
...Every summer in the Vineyard, all I hear about is Williams hitting .40o...
...FIRST CIIAMBLISS BEAT THE ROYALS IN 1976 WITH that homer in the 9th...
...But when Sam Donaldson asked me if I knew he was fooling around on the road, honestly, I thought he was talking about Wade Boggs...
...IT TOOK ME LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE TO switch from Buck Showalter to Joe Torre...
...When I told everyone "I think he should run," I was referring to Ricky Henderson, but by then Bill was in New Hampshire...
...The Yanks had Thurman Munson, but not much more...
...Bernie, Derek, and Cone were as good as the 1954 Indians, the equal of the 1927 Yankees...
...I REMEMBER TAKING AN INTEREST IN FOREIGN affairs, about the time that Clete Boyer went to play baseball in Japan...
...I was newly married and living in Arkansas...
...Why didn't the Warren Commission look into that...
...October for Mr...
...78 August /999 • The American Spectator...
...My Bobby, who shut down McCovey and the Giants in the 1962 World Series...
...But 1977 was our year...
...We went into Whitewater because it was the only place in Arkansas that got Mel Allen on cable...
...People say I never looked happier than in 1998 when my husband was impeached or under grand jury investigation...
...But the Sox haven't won the Series since we got the Babe...
...At least the Kennedys knew you had to win...
...Because of Doc Medich, I started thinking about health care reform...
...THIS IS PROBABLY THE PLACE TO CONFESS HOW much I hate the Red Sox...
...Up by 13 games in July, they folded in August, and then in the playoff Bucky Dent took Torres to the screen, and the Goose jammed Yaz, and that was it...
...Boston gives liberalism such a bad name...
...In 1978 we lost the first two in L.A., and Lasorda was talking dynasty...
...I was a woman in transition, but Paul O'Neill got me over Mattingly's early retirement, and the Straw's comeback with Dwight made me see a kinder, gentler Steinbrenner...
...But I knew we had them when Bill Russell called the New York fans "animals...
...Yogi got fired, and Johnny Keane, the Cardinals' manager, took his place...
...I missed most of the sexual revolution, at least until Fritz Petersen and Mike Kekich swapped wives...
...Another Cardinal...
...My husband was starting his political career or out jogging...
...But we won two Series in a row before losing to the Dodgers and then the Cardinals...
...Both of them were true Yankees...
...As Casey would have said, "You can look it up...
...May, Dave Winfield, who should have played in Boston...
...THE 197o'S WERE A DIFFICULT TIME FOR ME personally...
...By then Sparky was gone ("Cy Young to sayanara," as Nettles said), and Steinbrenner had just shipped out Mickey Rivers...
...Okay, we lost to the Reds in four straight...
...But I could not let them steal our place in history...
...Same old choke story in 1978...
Vol. 32 • August 1999 • No. 8
