Jerry Coleman has been the voice of the San Diego Padres for thirty two years, and just won baseball's highest honor for a broadcaster: the Ford C. Frick Award. But he was a Yankee from 1949 to 1957, a great time to play in pinstripes. He called me during the offseason from his home, on a day when carpet installers were tearing up the place, and he was happy to get away from them for a while, and talk to me about the great games he played in. Several of them are in my book, 50 Greatest Yankee Games.

Cecilia Tan: Let's start with that pennant race with the Red Sox in 1949. They came in to the Stadium one game up, needing to win only one of the final two games of the season to clinch it. That first game, it didn't look too good for the Yankees for a while there.

Jerry Coleman: [who played 2B that day] We were behind 4-0 in that game and Allie Reynolds was the starter. Reynolds had the bases loaded and nobody out, and so we brought in Joe Page. Joe Page had a great year in '49; he was our absolute stopper. And Page proceeded to walk two guys in a row to make it 4-0! I was about to shoot him right there and then. I could have taken a hammer and hit him over the head with it.

CT: Tell me some more about Joe Page.

JC: Joe Page had a great year in the bullpen, but he wasn't a closer as they have today, where they just pitch the ninth. He would come in any time he was needed, and in this case he came in the third inning! They'd bring him in whenever they needed him, if he was rested enough to pitch. Now today a relief pitcher just has to get 1-2-or-3 outs to get the save. He was much stronger than today's relief pitchers. It was a tremendous effort. He was kind of a crazy guy. He would come in over the fence from the bullpen, he'd get to the mound, and immediately he's say "Did you check out that blonde behind third base?" I suppose he was trying to lighten the tension a little bit. He wasn't afraid to throw strikes, except for that one time he walked the two guys... but after that he stopped them cold. It was Joe Page, literally, against one of the best hitting baseball lineups of all time.

CT: That was the Red Sox of Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams, batting 1-2-3.

JC: They had a lot of hitters on that ballclub. What we had that they didn't have was pitching and defense. Rizzuto was far better than Stephens.

CT: So what was wrong with Reynolds that day? Tell me more about him.

JC: Allie Reynolds should be in the Hall of Fame. He's a starting pitcher with nearly 50 saves. When things got tight and you needed an out, clutch games, World Series, whenever, he was your man. But he was erratic. We had Washington beat 3-0 in the ninth inning one time, and he decided to experiment with some screwball or something and suddenly the game is tied. He loved the big crowds. We used to get 70,000 at the old Yankee Stadium and he just loved pitching in front of those big crowds.

CT: What about Vic Raschi, who was in the rotation with him?

JC: Raschi was more of a determined pitcher. The Springfield Rifle. Reynolds, Raschi and Byrne were my best friends. I don't know why I liked the pitchers better than the hitters. Great dogged determination. Didn't have as good stuff as Reynolds, but he won more games. He won 20 four years in a row. Maybe that DP combination put him over the top. This guy was 35-36 when he got his college degree--he never gave up. From a standpoint of quality, nobody was better as a person. This guy gave you everything he had all the time. He had a bad leg so you could bunt on him. Raschi's curve ball was more of a floater. He had a good slider but not a very good curve ball. That year Tommy Byrne had more stuff than all of them, and Eddie Lopat had the canny ability to really pitch, too.

CT: What about Byrne?

JC: Tommy Byrne was born in 1919. I roomed with him in the minors some. All the guys I knew are retired. I'm the only one still working, am I nuts? But I have a daughter to put through college.

CT: It's not often you see a club with "four aces."

JC: People forget that if they are all good, Schilling, Martinez, Lowe, and Foulke, they could win it all. [Yes, you heard it here first folks--this interview was done prior to the 2004 season. -ed] Pitching gives you the edge. Last year, they [the Red Sox] had that power-hitting lineup and it got them to the final game of the championship series, but this year they might go all the way.

CT: So, back to the game... You were in the on deck circle when Lindell came up.

JC: Lindell hit a home run. I was leaning, because it went right down the line at Yankee Stadium and was almost foul--when it went off the bat it looked like it might hook foul. And I was standing there on deck staying "stay fair stay fair" and leaning. Not as wild as Fisk that time at Fenway Park. It was a monumental hit, given that we started at four-nothing. We could get Parnell, but Kinder just killed us.

CT: So you won the game, and the Sox had to try again the next day. Kinder...

JC: Birdie Tebbets was kind of a cocky guy, the catcher, and he came down to second base and I said to him 'so I guess that rookie is going to pitch tomorrow,' one of their bonus babies. He had no major league experience, but if you paid a guy over $6000, you had to keep him for the whole year. [I think Coleman is mistaken here, since Kinder went 10-7 in 1948 in 2 starts... -ct]

CT: Was Tebbets very talkative?

JC: He used to drive you nuts. He'd say well, I think we'll throw you a curve ball. He'd start talking to you to irritate you, and then they'd throw you something else, or maybe it would be the curve. He would try to distract you. He was a great veteran catcher.

CT; So what happened when Kinder pitched?

JC: The next day my heart was in my throat and what can I say? It was my rookie year. We were all scared to death, you know. Raschi started that game against Ellis Kinder. Kinder won 26 games that year, he had a great, great year. The turning point of the game was the first batter. After that he just knocked us out, but the game turned on the first batter, Phil Rizzuto. He hit a shot down the line and Ted Williams botched the play, and it should have been a double, but it was a triple. MCCarthy played the infield back, Tommy Henrich hits a forty-two hopper and Rizzuto scores. That run was the difference in the game.

CT: But Kinder really held you down after that. Was Raschi just better?

JC: They took Kinder out of the game and brought in a relief pitcher. The Red Sox came back in the top of the 9th to get three more runs. Things were kind of sticky, and Heinrich went out to talk to Raschi, took the ball out there, and Raschi said "give me the goddamn ball!" and Heinrich marched back to his position and we won the game. I got a base hit that drove in three runs that made the score 5-0 in the 8th inning, and they came back and got 3 runs, but we won it 5-3. Ted was going on and on about the lousy cheap hit I got... I made a joke and told him, oh no Ted, all you saw was the cover of the ball fall in. The core is in orbit! He didn't laugh a bit, not one bit.

CT: What else do you want to tell me about 1949?

JC: Rizzuto should have gotten the MVP in 1949. They had Williams, but we won with Rizzuto. He hit .325 the next year and got the MVP in 1950, but with his defense and leadership we wouldn't have won without him.

[just remembering] One of the most amazing things I ever saw in baseball! June 25th or 26th of 1949. Prior to that time DiMag had left us and disappeared and we never saw him again. And on June the 25th or -6th we are playing the Boston Red Sox. And DiMaggio, with no games whatsoever in the season, didn't pick up a ball or doing anything for two or three months, and he hits four home runs in the three games and won all three games for us!

CT: And the World Series...

JC: Here's what I remember of the 1st game of the 49 world series. I got some dirt in my eye. I ran in to put some drops in my eye and I hear a huge roar--Heinrich had hit the home run to win the game!

CT: Okay, now about about OCTOBER 7 1952: World Series Game 7. This is the game where Billy Martin was at second and made that catch -- where were you?

JC: In 52-53 I was in the service. I'm the only major league ballplayer to see combat in two wars. In '55 I was never as good when I came back. In '57 they wanted Richardson to take over at second base.

CT: Let's talk about '55. This is when Tommy Byrne got his heart broken in Game Seven against the Dodgers, facing Johnny Podres.

JC: Podres beat us on changeups. He had a great changeup and a good enough fastball. We had a fastball hitting ballclub. But get a guy with an off speed pitch like Podres had that day and we didn't know what to do with him. He was a real pitcher that day. He wasn't a power pitcher, he just changed speeds and hit his spots. [And] Reese had a great play to get McDougald at first.

CT; The play everyone remembers is when Sandy Amoros made that catch in left.

JC: Sandy Amoros. When he made that catch he hadn't seen the ball yet. It would have bounced in for a double and kept us alive, but he made that catch without ever seeing it.

CT: I feel bad for Tommy Byrne, after having made that comeback like he did.

JC: Tommy Byrne hurt his arm and was traded to the Browns, and finally after a long rehab he came back as a control pitcher. Tommy Byrne, I played with him at KC in the minors. I think he struck out 14 and walked 11 and won the game 4-1. That's the way he was. Topping traded him to St. Louis because he couldn't stand to watch him pitch, always 3-2, walking guys. But when he came back he pitched exceedingly well. Some times control takes longer to learn than other things. Sandy Koufax: I faced him once in 1957. His curve ball would bounce on home plate and the fastball would be over your head. But then his catcher told him to back off on the speed a little and he became the best pitcher you'll ever see in your life.

CT: Speaking of seeing the best pitching performances of your life, what about Don Larsen's perfect game?

LC: [jokingly] I was sitting on the bench helping Casey manage that day as I recall. Nobody was paying a lot of attention until the 6th inning. And suddenly it's the 8th inning. We knew it was a no-hitter but then in the 8th we realized, hey, it's a perfect game! And suddenly every guy on the bench became a manager. Everybody became excited and were anxious so we started saying hey, you ought to play this guy over here, shade this guy that way--we wanted everything to be perfect--and Casey turned around and said "Goddamn it, I'm the only manager here!"

CT: So here's a kind of obscure game, July 23, 1957. On this day Mickey Mantle hit for the cycle but you didn't do too badly either, with a walk, single, and double, and three runs scored. Not too shabby.

JC: Mantle was my roommate for two years. His drinking problem had really cut him down. He was very humble. In those days we always took our own bags up to the room. If he got there first, my bag would be up in the room. If he left first, he'd take it down for me. We would carpool in spring training, and he was supposed to pick me up at 9. I looked out the window at 8:30 and he's sitting here. I went out and said hey, why didn't you come in? He would say: I didn't want to bother you. I mean, this is the guy who was supposed to be the superstar, but he didn't want to impose. Just a humble, humble guy.

As for my nice hitting, that stuff doesn't mean anything to me--winning was everything. Having a good year was nice, but the amount of money you could make in bonus from winning the World Series really made a difference. The first year I made $5000 to start, and I got as much in the World Series as I got in salary. The whole point was that winning was the bottom line. Having a good year wasn't it. We'd do anything to win and that was why our cohesiveness was so strong through the years.

CT: You were also there for Allie Reynolds' two no-hitters.

JC: The first one was in Cleveland.

CT: The Yankees only run came when Gene Woodling hit a homer, and then Reynolds almost gave the run right back to Sam Chapman.

JC: The ball went over the wall and a strong wind blowing in off the lake blew it right back into Woodling's hands. Woodling was standing at the fence and literally the wind pushed it back. We saw that ball going and thought, oh, there goes the no hitter, but Woodling was standing there waiting for it. [Actually, the box scores show the out was made by Hank Bauer. -ct]

CT; What are you thinking in a situation like that?

JC: "Don't hit the ball to me! Hit it to somebody else!" [laughs] The game is always paramount. It precedes everything; the most important thing is winning and losing. Jim Lonborg was the Cy Young award winner, goes off and skis, and breaks his leg. And then he says "I'd do it again." That was the dumbest thing I ever heard a baseball player say.

CT: Feller, who pitched for Cleveland that day, had a no-hitter himself into the 6th, and had already pitched a no-no that season, too. Did he throw as hard as people said?

JC: [And] Feller pitched the complete nine innings [didn't he]? That happened a lot in the old days. Feller had lost a lot of the zip in his fastballs. He was into sliders and curve balls -- he had pinpoint control. Feller was not my favorite guy to hit. After he came back from the war, he wasn't quite the same. Garcia, Wynn, I could never touch them.

CT: So then Reynolds goes out and pitches a second no-hitter the same year, this one against the Red Sox.

JC: Who's up for the last at bat? Ted Williams. He pops up to Berra between first and third and Berra drops the ball. The next pitch was right in the same place, popped up again and this time he got it. I said to Scooter, if that were you or me, the next one would be over the right field wall. Only Berra could survive something like that. He was lucky. Listen, if wanted to invest in something, find out what Yogi was investing in. He was that lucky. He took stock in Yoo Hoo and he did okay. All of a sudden its there, he pops up Williams, and the identical next pitch in the same spot, and he caught it.

At that point the carpet men ran Jerry out of his office and we said goodbye. I wish him the heartiest congratulations on the Frick Award honor, but I'll always think of him as the infielder who played in six World Series (winning four), was voted MVP of the 1950 World Series and was given the1949 Rookie of the Year by the Associated Press.

Oh, and by the way, Coleman, like his double-play partner Phil Rizzuto, has something of a reputation for saying funny things during his play by play. A compilation of some of the best verbatim quotes can be found here: http://www.funny2.com/coleman.htm