A Yankee Turned Indian
April 18, 1923 was a beautiful, warm spring day in New York City and 74,000 baseball fans, the largest crowd to that date, were packed in Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees and Boston Red Sox open the season. The park was in fine shape, the grass smooth and green, the infield flat and without a mark, the stands freshly painted. Yankee Stadium looked as it has never looked since, for this was the day that "the house that Ruth built" was being dedicated. To pitch for the Yanks in that dedication game, the New York manager, Miller Huggins, named Bob Shawkey.
As the oldest and most seasoned veteran on the Yankee mound staff, Shawkey was a natural choice. He'd played baseball since he was a kid in Brookville, Pa. His first crack at the major leagues came when he was still a youth and Charlie "Pops" Kelchner saw him playing with the Bloomsburg (Pa.) baseball team. Kelchner, who today is still scouting, signed him up for Connie Mack's Athletics and in 1913 Shawkey took to the mound for the A's. During his first two seasons with Philadelphia, Shawkey played in two World Series, but when the Athletics lost the 1915 series, Connie Mack broke up his team and Shawkey along with Frank "Home Run" Baker was sent to the Yankees.
During his 15 years with the New York Yankees, Shawkey became one of their top hurlers. He was a 20-game winner for three seasons and hurled in five World Series as a Yankee. Small wonder that the honor of pitching the first game in Yankee Stadium fell to Bob Shawkey, who now, in the twilight of his career, is so successfully coaching the Dartmouth baseball team.
Shawkey and the Yankees won that day. As Bob recalls it, "We beat the Red Sox 3-1 that afternoon in a tight game. Howard Emhke was pitching for Boston, but the Babe hit a home run and that was all we needed. As a matter of fact, I got a two-base hit myself," Shawkey concluded with a grin of pleasure.
It's hard to get Bob to talk about those days. He much prefers to discuss his Dartmouth team and their chances this spring. However, he will admit that it's a different type of baseball now. "Night baseball has caused a lot of changes in the game," he thinks. "It's tough on the pitchers and tough on the hitters." Shawkey also thinks that the hitting was better in the '20S and '30S. "The pitcher would get a ball then," Shawkey recalls, "toss it to the infield and every man would squirt some tobacco juice on it and rub it up a little, so that by the time the ball was back to you, it was a dark brown color and roughened up enough so that you could do almost anything you wanted with it. Yet despite that, we had many more players hitting above .300 than today."
The greatest player in baseball? Bob has to think this one over a minute, then: "Ty Cobb. I played with him for about two and one-half years and I have never come across anyone before or since who I think is as good."
But the years rolled by. In 1930 Shawkey managed the Yankees when Miller Huggins died. Then he went across the river to New Jersey where he masterminded the Jersey City and Newark clubs for eight years. In 1938 he went into the mining business in Canada and remained away from the game until 1945 when he returned to serve as a scout and instructor for Pittsburgh and later Detroit.
With this type of background and with an interest in working with youngsters acquired at the Pittsburgh and Detroit farm clubs, Bob was a natural choice as head coach of baseball at Dartmouth in 1951. And although he enjoys teaching and coaching all aspects of baseball, it is very evident that Shawkey's real love lies in his pitchers. It's a pleasure to watch Bob working with his mound staff and the long hours of patient drill and explanation more than pay off at game time. Inheriting little in the way of material last spring, Shawkey piloted the Big Green to an 8-8 record including a 15-inning, 2-1 victory over a Holy Cross team which went on to win the national championship. This spring, prospects are brighter and although it's too early for any predictions, Bob feels that this season the Dartmouth baseball team will turn in a better record.
While baseball has always been the central theme in Bob's career, he still has had a normal and happy home life. His one daughter, Dorothy, is married to Jim Hitchcock, the former Ail-American football star at Auburn. Hitchcock is now Public Service Commissioner for the State of Alabama and during the off-seasons Bob takes every opportunity to visit with his daughter in the South. But it's during the spring, when the basketball floor comes up and the thud of ball in glove sounds in the gym, that Bob's life takes on new meaning. Those of us who know him hope that for many seasons more we'll be seeing him down in the cage and out on the Memorial Field diamond.
COACH BOB SHAWKEY
