Free The Era, 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World by Roger Kahn Page B

with which he composed his stories rather than for their excellence. But the somewhat younger Rennie was a fine newspaperman.
    Rennie came to St. Louis with the Yankees early in May, and Hyland, in his cups, provided a version of the strike story. Rennie, not entirely sober himself, slipped away from the quartet and telephoned his sports editor, Stanley Woodward. ‘ can’t write this myself, Coach. It would trace back to Doc Hyland. Maybe you can do something with it.”
    Woodward telephoned Frick, who would not speak on the record. In fact, he did not want to talk at all.
    “In that case,” Woodward said, “I’m going with what I have What I have makes the National League look bad.”
    “Now, Stanley,” Frick said, in his accustomed conciliatory way.
    “Now nothing, Ford. What the hell happened?”
    Frick grudgingly began to re-create events. He didn’t care for this; he didn’t care for this at all. He was giving a major story exclusively to the
Herald Tribune
which, despite editorial excellence, was neither as powerful as the
Times
nor as popular as the
Daily News
.
    But if he held his tongue . . . Frick had been a newspaperman himself, rather an establishment character, a ghostwriter for Babe Ruth, and he was literate. He knew that a roused Stanley Woodward could write up a storm.
    Some details were garbled in the long telephone conversation between Frick and Woodward. But on May 9, 1947, the
Herald Tribune
published what remains the sports scoop of the century, the story that did not make page one.
    “A National League players’ strike,” Woodward began, under an eight-column headline,
    instigated by some of the St. Louis Cardinals against the presence in the league of Jackie Robinson, Negro first baseman, has been averted temporarily and perhaps permanently quashed. . . .
    In recent days Ford Frick, president of the National League, and Sam Breadon, president of the St. Louis club, have been conferring with St. Louis players. Mr. Breadon flew east when he heard of the projected strike. The story that he came to consult with Eddie Dyer, manager, about the lowly state of the St. Louis club was fictitious. He came on a much more serious errand.
    The strike, formulated by certain St. Louis players, was instigated by a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who has since recanted. . . .
    It is understood that the players involved — and the recalcitrants are not all Cardinals — will say that their objective is to gain the right to have a say on who shall be eligible to play in the major leagues. . . .
    This story is factually and thoroughly substantiated. The St. Louis players involved will unquestionably deny it. We doubt, however, Frick and Breadon, will go that far. A return of no comment from either or both will serve.
    Breadon, reported Bob Broeg in the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, “emphatically denied that there had been a movement to stage a protest strike.” Broeg quoted Breadon as saying, “The whole thing is ridiculous.”
    Over the years, careful disinformation has been developed. Breadon came to New York suddenly to see why his team was losing ballgames. He spoke to Terry Moore and Marty Marion about drinking on the ballclub and about possibly replacing the manager, Eddie Dyer. Broeg himself still claims that there was never a strike threat. He adds that Woodward, who scooped him, was “guilty of barnyard journalism.”
    One man who did not deny the story was Ford Frick. He never elaborated and seemed embarrassed to take credit for his own decisive action. A few days later he told a reporter for
The Sporting News:
“The National League stands firmly behind Jackie Robinson.”
    Was there a strike threat? the reporter asked.
    Frick said: “Any player who tries to strike will leave me no recourse but to suspend him indefinitely.”
    Stanley Woodward wrote in triumph:
    The blast of publicity which followed . . . the revelation that the Cardinals were promoting a players’ strike against the presence of