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ball, and Stengel did do better. On another occasion he was playing the outfield when he spied a bird near him. He caught it, put it under his hat, and waited for the appropriate moment, which came when he made a good running catch. As the crowd cheered, he tipped his hat and the bird flew out. But his most memorable moment of all, perhaps, occurred during the 1923 World Series; playing for the Giants, he hit his second home run against the Yankees. That was astonishing since he was not known as a power hitter. As he trottedaround the bases he thumbed his nose at the Yankee bench, for the Yankees had never treated him with great respect. Then, as he rounded third, he blew them a kiss.
    The appointment of a man who was famous for his practical jokes was not popular with the staid Yankees. Joe DiMaggio told Arthur Daley of the Times, “I’ve never seen such a bewildered guy in my life. He doesn’t seem to know what it’s all about.” Curt Gowdy, a young broadcaster, found himself in the men’s room with the Yankees’ new manager, and he introduced himself. The manager, hearing that Gowdy was a broadcaster, immediately put in a pitch for a friend of his as an announcer. Gowdy answered that he was so new himself, he doubted he could help anyone else. “Hey,” said Stengel, then fifty-eight years old, “we’re both rookies.”
    After suffering through years of McCarthy’s disdain, the sportswriters saw Stengel as a blessing. He always wanted to talk. During spring training he played along with a gag on John Drebinger of the Times, one of the more senior writers. Drebby used a hearing aid. The writers held a special press conference with Stengel, at which the manager mouthed the words instead of saying them. The other writers dutifully took notes. Soon Drebinger was cursing his hearing aid, shaking his head, and saying, “And I just got new batteries.” It was something that would never have happened in the McCarthy era.
    If the veterans were having a hard time trying to feel their way around Stengel, then for the rookies in camp it was even worse. Jerry Coleman, a young second baseman, was a rookie that spring, and he lived in constant terror. He had been a marine dive-bomber pilot in World War II, flying fifty-seven missions in fighters in the Solomon Islands. But spring training was harder on his nerves. He was both married and broke. He and his wife, Louise, were desperately short of money. They had driven to Florida in the flashy yellow Buick convertible of Clarence Marshall, ateammate who was just as broke as Coleman. Coleman carried in his pocket a cashier’s check for three hundred dollars, which represented his entire savings from his winter job selling clothes in San Francisco. That was to last through six weeks of spring training, augmented by a weekly stipend of twenty-five dollars. By bringing his young wife to training camp, Coleman was violating tradition: Wives were family, families were pleasure, and a rookie at the Yankee camp was engaged in a life-and-death proposition—he was not yet a member of the team. Charlie Silvera, a young catcher who had played with Coleman in sandlot baseball in San Francisco, had been told not to bring his wife to spring training; not until 1950 would his family be welcome.
    Coleman found spring training both exciting and frightening. He was with the Yankees off a weak season at Newark, where he had hit only .251, and was trying to play second base, which was a new position. There were not many slots on the Yankees for those who hit .250 in the minors. He was constantly aware of the odds against him, and of how much he had invested in this moment. Here he was at the very edge of his dream. It was as if this were a favorite movie he knew by heart, and now instead of merely watching it he was acting in it as well. He was surrounded by his heroes. There was Tommy Henrich, the consummate professional, taking his time getting into shape, absolutely confident of his skills. At