The conversation about stickball with Paul Simon led to a challenge. Larry Merchant of the New York Post arranged a stickball game a short time later that included another celebrity player, Woody Allen. May 14: The Great Stickball Game Was a Gas It was the day of the Great Stickball Game-or something. The whole thing started when Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel threw out the first ball of the season at Yankee Stadium. Simon was there because he wrote the memorable Joe DiMaggio line in the song, "Mrs.Robinson." He explained that he used Joe DiMaggio in the song because he had been a Yankee fan when he was a kid growing up in Forest Hills. All the sentiments in Paul Simon lyrics wold have indicated they were written by anybody but a fatcat Yankee fan of those days, but the awful truth was that Simon had been a Yankee fan. A pugnacious Yankee fan, no less. He put down Dodgers fans and barely acknowledged that Giants fans existed or even were worthy of consideration. He said only one kid he knew had been a New York Giants fan, and he was stupid. Fine songwriter and poet, or not, his comments didn't sit well with this former New York Giants fan. When Simon went on to tell about his exploits as a child stickball hustler, well, one thing led to another, and a stickball challenge was laid down.
Larry Merchant of the New York Post and WNEW-who is a fine fellow to boot except for the fact that he, too, was a Yankee fan-suggested a grudge game. He even rounded up Woody Allen, another show business stickball great, and and it all came down to a stickball date this past weekend at a schoolyard on East 75th Street in Manhattan-Allen's home court. Allen brought along a friend named Mickey Rose, who works on the Johnny Carson show. A show business vs. sports columnist matchup might have seemed appropriate, but when it turned out that Allen had been a Giants fan and Rose had been a Boston Braves fan, we decided on a National League vs.American League match-up. An attempt was made to find another player for the Merchant-Simon Yankees, but things weren't what they used to be around schoolyards. A few idlers said they didn't want to play stickball because they were waiting to play handball Handball! Nor would a few others give up a three-man basketball game for stickball. So it was three against two; the Yankee fans, typically arrogant, said they would beat us the way the American League All Stars beat the National League All Stars in the days when the Yankees were the American LeagueAll Stars.
Simon wore his Yankee cap, the one he recently stole from Stan Bahnsen's locker at Yankee Stadium. He and Garfunkel had been up there to shoot a filmed sequence for their appearance on the Grammy Award show. They had filmed a sequence running about Yankee Stadium like little kids. I must say it was one of the best baseball pantomines I have ever seen in a show-business setting. Simon's knowledgeable mimicry of real ball players made it terrific. He and Garfunklel had all the moves of natural ball players (unlike Gary Cooper playing Lou Gehrig in "Pride of the Yankees"). Simon had said he once went the whole season without striking out in hardball. It so happens that I went a couple of seasons without striking out in stickball, so it was a source of satisfaction when Mickey Rose, our Boston Braves fan, struck out Simon his first time up. Simon mumbled something about not having his eye yet, which is about what I would have expected from an old Yankee fan-poet or no poet. The Yankees went down without a hit. We went out in order, too. I grounded out. The game might have settled down into an epic battle except that the schoolyard players intervened. Suddenly, the handball players offered a challenge. They wanted to play the interlopers a stickball game. It was a challenge. It had to be accepted. For 25 cents a man. The old juices started flowing. It was something of a new experience. For one thing, some of our opponents, young mod types, wore beards. I had never played stickball against a guy with a beard before. We didn't kid around. Expecially Woody Allen. I had always admired Allen's professional work, but I came to truly respect him as a stickball player. He didn't joke around and he didn't try to hog the good positions. When others suggested a seven-inning game, Allen insisted on a regulation nine-inning game. He also showed a little disgust at the kidding-around attitude of our opponents. "They're just a bunch of clowns," he said. We got off to a one-run lead in the second inning. Simon walked, I hit a weak pop fly that was dropped, Rose walked and Merchant lined a solid single. Then, in the second inning, Simon ran back from his third base position to make a sensational over-the-shoulder runningcatch of a pop fly. That seemed to heighten the tension over an impending no-hitter by Mickey Rose. Woody Allen, as I said, came to play. In the third inning he swung and missed and sent the stickball bat flying. It hit Simon in the groin and ricocheted off Merchant's cheek. Simon went to his knee. Gutty little guy that he is, though, he got up and said he would continue playing. Allen said, "That never happened to me before." He felt bad. People moved well to the side when Allen batted again. In the next inning he swung and missed and somehow the bat split in his hand. He got a long splinter in his left hand and it started bleeding. He said, "That never happened to me before." We agreed they just don't make stickball bats the way they used to. I gave Allen a Band-Aid that I always carry in my wallet. (The guys seemed surprised that I carried a Band-Aid in my wallet; they made jokes). Allen was shook up by the blood streaming out of his hand. He was so concerned, he played too far back in the infield and the opponents' only two hits came because he was playing too deep to catch grounders. Our opponents got only those hits and we went on to win, 5-0. I was pleased I went the whole game without striking out We collected the 25 cents a man. One of the opposing players said he owned a beauty parlor where they also cut men's hair, and he offered to cut Simon's hair. That really disgusted Allen. "We beat a bunch of hairdressers," he said.
Simon's comment that he liked the Mantle of his youth and woudn't let anything interfere with it reminds me of an incident that Bob Costas told me about. Costas and Mantle were staying at the Regency Hotel in New York. When Costas came back to the hotel after working an NBA telecast one night, he noticed Mantle and Billy Crystal sitting at a table in the corner of the bar. They beckoned to him. Both Costas and Crystal had grown up on Long Island as devoted Mantle fans. Now in the late hours the two of them related game details they remembered from their youth. Crystal would mention a grat catch by Roger Maris, Costas a key hit by Mantle. They went back and forth. Mantle laughed. In his Oklahoma accent he drawled, "You guys remember things that I don't and I played in those games." Costas believed that Mantle was impressed, that he and Crystal were able to put a face and name to how millions felt about Mantle. These weren't people at an airport yelling to Mantle the celebrity or people at a card show lusting for autographs, but real people he knew telling him what he meant to them. Throughout his career I had a like-dislike relationship with Mantle. I knew he was a charming guy in many respects. I knew his teammates adored him because he was a great team player, unpresumptuous, and with a rollicking, bawdy and frequently self-deprecating sense of humor. He showed none of that to the people covering the club. He was hostile and suspicious to reporters like me. I recall in particular one unhappy confrontation with Mantle. It was on a night at Yankee Stadium when, as I recall, he hit two homers, one of them winning the game in extra innings. When we came into the clubhouse to talk to the players after the game, Mantle, unexplicably, made himself unavailable in the trainer's room. Now, here he was the hero of the game and he was unavailable. Some of the other reporters waited a few moments and then left disgustedly. I had a later deadline than the others and decided I couldn't write a story without at least trying to talk to Mantle. He stayed in the trainer's room for some time. When he came out he made a big show of talking to some hanger-on friend of his, a lampshade salesman no less, and tried to avoid me. When I persisted, he laughed off my questions, playing to his sycophant friend. I went without any comments by Mantle about his home run. Late in his career and after he retired, a different character emerged. He displayed a nostalgia fueled often by liquor. But the bawdiness was always there. When a Yankee official marking the 50th anniversary of Yankee Stadium polled many Yankees for their most distinct memories of Yankee Stadium, Mantle replied in a note describing a time he indulged in a sexual act under the stands with a groupie. In retirement he told about two recurrent dreams he had. In the first, he hits a ball out of the park and when running out his home run, he rounds third and never reaches home plate. He runs and runs and can't get home. In the second, he goes to the ball park and finds it locked. He tries different entrances but can't gain access to the stadium. I consulted with psychologist Martin Bregman about how these dreams could be interpreted. He responded that "These dreams may have been the premonitions of the inevitable reality that faces us all, though more so for those who have risen higher, earlier. They express the anxiety, the stress of success, of a superhero for whom the entrances to Yankee Stadium were not only open but contained multitudes of welcoming worshippers. These tensions apparently were successfully repressed during his playing years and did not interfere with his achievements. Having these dreams in retirement could have been a healthy coming-to-terms with his decline if he had consciously recognized their significance. "The unfortunate second dream suggests that he never did come to terms with the end of his career. The necessary finality isn't there, because he stays in the game forever-a wish-fulfillment instead of a resolution. The paradox is that too much consciousness of one's inner conflicts (as during his successful batting career) can hurt one, and too little consciousness can get in the way of one's healthy retirement." I suspect that none of this would have made much sense to Mantle when he was with the Yankees or even when he was in therapy at an alcoholic rehabilitation clinic. I am not sure it makes sense to me.
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Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? 
