Baseball is forever about relationships. It ties the game, teams and players together. It’s what makes baseball go.
One of the greatest of all baseball friendships began in the most unique of places, a submarine base in Groton, Connecticut in 1945.
The manager of the team was Jimmy Gleeson, a switch-hitting outfielder who played five years in the majors and hit .313 for the 1940 Chicago Cubs. Gleeson was told by his commanding officer that two young Navy men, a boxer and a baseball player would be arriving on base.
Gleeson’s son Bill picks up the story from there.
“When my dad got to the submarine base, he was the lieutenant in charge of sports activities and he was also the manager for the baseball team,’’ Bill said.
The two sailors showed up and one was a squatty little man.
Turns out that was Yogi Berra.
Yogi, a gunner’s mate, participated in D-Day – 77 years ago today – in a 36-foot boat called a rocket boat because it shot a stream of rockets on the beach before the landing. He returned state side and in 1945 he convinced the brass he really was a baseball player, so he got sent to the submarine base to play baseball.
Jim Gleeson, who died in 1996 at the age of 84 in Kansas City, recalled that first meeting with Yogi years later, saying, “I was managing the baseball team. A ballplayer and a boxer were supposed to come to the office. I thought Yogi was the boxer.’’
Gleeson did not buy in right away on Yogi the ballplayer, after all, Gleeson was a major leaguer, he thought he knew what major leaguers looked like. Yogi didn’t get into the starting lineup right away but after a few successful pinch-hit appearances he showed Gleeson his Hall of Fame skills. Yogi was soon the starting left fielder and just as in the 1942 movie “Casablanca’’ this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Yogi Berra and Jim Gleeson.
“I DIDN’T KNOW THAT LITTLE GUY THAT WAS HITTING NEXT, BUT I KNEW GLEESON. THAT LITTLE SHORT GUY LOOKED ABOUT 18 OR 19 YEARS OLD AND IT TURNED OUT HE HIT A HOME RUN WITH THE BASES LOADED. HIS REAL NAME WAS LAWRENCE ‘YOGI’ BERRA.’’
You just never know who might be playing baseball on a submarine base in WWII.
Mel Ott’s Giants came through for an exhibition game and the sailors won. Gleeson, who knew Ott, gave him the inside scoop on just how good Berra was and soon the Giants offered the Yankees $50,000 in a trade for Berra.
At the time, the Yankees really had no clue about Berra’s talents. He was just another guy they signed. In his only minor league season, Class B ball, he hit .253. Then came the war.
But once the Yankees saw that Hall of Famer Mel Ott wanted Berra for his Giants, they took a fresh look at Berra and in 1946 he played at AAA Newark for the Yankees and did so well, hitting .314, Berra was promoted to the Bronx.
“The rest is history,’’ Bill Gleeson said.
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