HY, ‘HY’ & REGGIE

On September 28, 1960 Hy Hurwitz a stalwart sportswriter for The Boston Globe filed a same-day story about Ted Williams’ last game and the glorious final at-bat of “The Splendid Splinter.” With a headline trumpeting, “Ted Williams Says Goodbye With a Bang,” it opened this way:

“Ted Williams, one of the most fabulous figures who ever swung a bat, ended

his brilliant, stormy and spectacular baseball career at Fenway Park yesterday

by blasting the 521st home run of his life into the center field bleachers.

The dramatic clout came in the eighth inning on Williams’ final fling at an American

League pitcher. The count was 1–1. Williams had looked at the first pitch for a ball.

The second pitch was a high, hard one on which Williams swung and missed.

Jack Fisher, trying to protect a two-run Baltimore lead and second place in the

American League, fired another fast one at Ted. This one took off. It had the power,

trajectory and majesty of a man landing on the moon.

The ball sailed out toward the bleacher[s] in center field. It landed on the canopy

of the sun-protected miniature bench in the Red Sox bullpen.

Who else but Williams could end a career in this fashion?”

Sidebar:

To Hurwitz’ credit, that the above was excerpted from a story written and filed within hours can not be minimized. The great John Updike had two weeks to craft his classic article on the same game, admittedly a legendary piece of work. But two weeks is nary a few hours.

Hy Hurwitz was as unlikely-seeming a hero as Williams was a mythical figure. A diminutive gentleman, he looked the part of a sometimes harried beat reporter in the ’30s — he joined The Boston Globe in 1933 — faced with meeting a deadline. Every day. And he did it with aplomb, a characteristic dating back to his teenage days in the 1920s as a Fenway Park bat-boy. His achievements in the baseball world were not limited to his stellar reporting which won him national recognition and acclaim. He was involved in the selection of the 1936 initial Baseball Hall of Fame class honoring Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Babe Ruth. He developed the idea of an annual winter gala known as the Boston Baseball Writers Dinner which debuted in 1938 and on January 17, 2019 will celebrate its 80th event. He assumed a leadership position in the Boston Baseball Writers Association (BBWA) spearheading efforts to establish insurance and pension programs for its members in 1958. From then until 1966 he supervised the voting processes and tabulations in the selection of those candidates nominated for any and all (BBWA) Awards. He was a founding father of the Globe-Red Sox Youth Clinics and played a pivotal role in its evolution and development. Perhaps most significant he actively and tirelessly promoted MLB opportunities for African-American ballplayers in the 1940s and 1950s and became a confidante of Jackie Robinson both during and following #42’s playing career.

No surprise for a man who enlisted in the U.S. Marines at the age of 31 after having already carved out his unmistakable and formidable niche in journalism. Hurwitz served as a national war correspondent and provided front-line reporting on the amphibious invasions of Saipan, Tarawa and Tinian while participating in many of the fiercest battles in the Pacific. He covered the capture of Tojo and the re-opening of the Japanese legislature. Selected to be one of the first Americans to enter Japan in 1945, a courtesy extended him by Chester W. Nimitz fleet admiral of the United States Navy, he met with former Japanese Premier Suzuki and reported on the failed peace negotiations in early ’45. He covered the resumption of the Chinese Civil War in 1946; he reported on post-WWII conditions in Korea and the potential for future conflict in the region; he weighed in on the role of code-breakers in the war effort; and true to his heritage he wrote numerous pieces cataloguing the experiences of New Englanders in the Pacific Theater. He later was selected to accompany the three surviving Iwo Jima flag raisers on a multi-city War Bond Tour. Pretty heady stuff but probably not to this self-effacing knight of the keyboard.

Back to baseball.

Hyman Hurwitz lived to promote interest in the game he loved. Though the Globe and also The Sporting News were the most prominent vehicles he used to spread the word, simply standing by would never do. The mid-winter Baseball Writers Dinner offers a classic example of the intensity of the fire in the man’s belly. He created and organized what became an annual event to spark interest and engender “Hot Stove” dialogue during what was typically a moribund baseball time frame. By relying on his creativity and imagination in enticing legendary figures from the sports and entertainment scenes to attend, he poured the foundation for a lasting Boston baseball institution. With respect to the Globe-Red Sox Youth Clinics his vision was clear: take care of the kids and build a bridge to the local community. He was making great strides in his effort to more firmly and deeply embed baseball — and Red Sox baseball — in the hearts and minds of Americans and particularly New Englanders. The goal? To sustain the popularity of the game and the team he loved at a time when it was imprudent to take it for granted. Assuming then that this might happen organically was tantamount to a fool’s errand. And the name ‘Hy Hurwitz’ and the word ‘fool’ never did nor ever would appear in the same sentence.

An article Hurwitz wrote from Saipan in 1944 perhaps most poignantly captures his identification with the Red Sox. Celebrating the liberation of the island from the Japanese by his Second Marine Division he drafted an open letter to his friend, Red Sox manager Joe Cronin. In it he described to Cronin how he had convinced his fellow marines from around the land to abandon support for their local nines in favor of rooting for a Red Sox championship. His rationale was simple. Since the last Red Sox World Series title in 1918 had coincided with the end of WWI then perhaps another one would foreshadow the end of WWII. No feeble stab this, but rather an avenue for Hurwitz to display his love for the Red Sox while engaging his combat comrades in a little light-hearted banter about the end of the war, something to eagerly anticipate and heartily welcome.

Hy Hurwitz grew up in Boston’s West End, a vibrant enclave in a city known as ethnically and distinctly diverse which was razed in the late 1950s to further the thorny concept known as ‘Urban Renewal.’ Teeming with Italians, Irish and Jews the Old West End was a proud neighborhood and the Boys’ Club in the ’20s and beyond was a busy place. Hurwitz participated in many of the club’s programs and activities and as a youngster also attended the West End House Camp located in bucolic Parsonsfield, Maine. The club and the camp were founded by James Jackson Storrow conceived in large part to give the city’s youth a place to go, learn and actively assimilate in a healthy, positive environment. Hurwitz’ friendships were many and he often returned to visit the camp with his pals from the ’30s into the ’60s, accommodating the baseball schedule of course. Instrumental in corralling various sports celebrities of the day to attend WEH winter fundraising gatherings, it is clear that Hy Hurwitz — all 5’4” of him and described occasionally as “pugnacious” — took many lessons from his West End upbringing and applied them always for the greater good.

Ted Williams had a short list of those sportswriters whom he respected and Hy Hurwitz was at the top of that list. Partly because Hurwitz challenged Teddy when necessary; he didn’t take guff from Teddy Ballgame or anyone else. The mercurial Williams blew hot and cold. During a 1947 spring training game in Miami Ted hit a home run and as he crossed the plate it appeared that he doffed his cap. (Williams was famous for eschewing the time-honored tradition of saluting the fans with a mere tip of the cap when circumstances seemed to warrant the gesture). Hurwitz was on it and asked him if he had tipped his cap. As was his wont Williams made it abundantly clear in his inimitable booming fashion that he was simply mopping his brow on a very hot day. Hurwitz, in an effort to set the record straight attributed #9’s action with tongue firmly in cheek to a matter of heat and humility. Perturbed with the writer’s inquiry and reporting Williams angrily declared, “Why if you were a foot taller, and a hundred pounds heavier, I’d knock your block off.” Hurwitz quickly responded, “If I was, you wouldn’t dare.” Two former marines. And Hurwitz standing right up to Ted, no problem.

As Michael T. McGreevy, leader of the most vocal fans of the late-1800s Boston Americans (now the Boston Red Sox) known as the Royal Rooters and the owner of a Boston watering hole called the Third Base Saloon, no doubt uttered enough to assume the moniker for his own, “’Nuff Ced.”

’Nuff ced Ted in this case.

Arthur ‘Hy’ Diamond opened the Boston Garden in the late-1920s. Literally. It was Saturday night November 17, 1928 and the “New Boston Garden Complete Card” of Boxing, appearing in the daily edition of The Boston Globe looked like this:

TEN-ROUND BOUTS

Andre Routis, France (world’s featherweight champion), vs Dick Honeyboy Finnegan,

Dorchester.

Gaston Charles, France, vs “Red” Chapman, Chelsea.

EIGHT ROUNDS

Maurice Holtzer, France, vs Jake Zeramby, Lynn.

SIX ROUNDS

Johnny Sheppard, Woburn, vs Eddie Curley, West End.

Georgie Flate, South End, vs Hy Diamond, West End.

Start at 7:30 pm.

The Globe described the Preliminary Card as “notable,” thanks to matchmaker nonpareil Eddie Mack.

The ten-rounders “will be preceded by a preliminary card on which Eddie Mack, the matchmaker, has exercised all his undoubted talents. To Hy Diamond of the West End and George Flate of the South End will go the honor of starting the program. Flate defeated Diamond in a sensational battle last year when both were amateurs, but Diamond has been coming along fast as a professional and will be a slight favorite to turn back his hard-hitting opponent…

The setting of the affair will raise the show far above the level of the ordinary boxing show. There will be the zoom of airplanes, the crackle of machine guns, the crash of anti-aircraft pieces, the beam of field lights and the blare of music.

The climax, of course, will come when the Legion pays its respects to those who gave their lives in the late war. The crowd will rise and face toward France. Trumpeters will play the soldiers’ requiem, “Taps” and Mme. Jessica Swartz Morse of the Chicago Civic Opera Company will sing the national anthem, accompanied by the massed bands.”

The West End’s Diamond, nicknamed “Doody” by those in his inner sanctum for God knows whatever reason(s) won the fight, making him the first ever to prevail in an athletic contest in the Garden’s rich and storied history. And he punched another notch in his belt when during a single month in 1929 he appeared in boxing matches held at both Fenway Park and Braves Field. He fought Frankie Moore at Fenway on June 13th. and ten days later squared off against Dominick Petrone at Braves Field. How many athletes can lay claim to having performed in these three historic venues, Boston institutions all?

[Thanks to Chet Hurwitz, Hy’s son, for unearthing these golden nuggets].

“What’s the word? Reggie Bird! Who’s all around? Twinkie Brown! Who rings the bell?

Owen Wells! Who’s our Baylor? Tommy Taylor! Where’s the action? Beanie Jackson!”

It was the late-60s in Boston and the greatest basketball era to date at one of the nation’s oldest public schools, Boston English High School was unfolding. Well before the creation of the state tournament English High was the first city school to win the Eastern Massachusetts Tournament, more fondly referred to as the Tech Tourney in 1968. Let the record reflect that English was led by Boston’s first famous basketball-playing Bird — Reggie, not Larry — a lightning quick senior guard, defensive wizard and team captain. In the Garden victory that year before a near-capacity 11,076 rabid fans, Bird took the game’s final two shots, the latter of which came after he collected his own rebound of a miss. It won the game and the title for English. Bird learned his basketball at the West End House Boys Club on Blossom Street and the summer camp in Maine and he learned it well. At 6’1” his size was unimposing but he could jump out of the gym and considered it a personal affront if the man he was guarding had enough time and space to breathe. Plus he had a bit of a mean streak which served him and his team quite well. He was a winner in the truest sense of the word. And remains so.

Bird went on to play at Princeton and make some of the nation’s premier guards of that time — Henry Bibby of UCLA and Bootsie White of Indiana immediately come to mind — look a little silly. He thrived in the low-possession offense and defense-first system that was a hallmark of coach Pete Carril and was drafted by both the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the Virginia Squires of the ABA in 1972. An unfortunate injury suffered when sliding into home plate during an intramural softball game in the spring of his senior year resulted in a severely damaged ankle which set Bird back enough to effectively abort his professional basketball career before it was to begin.

Hy Hurwitz, Hy Diamond and Reggie Bird were luminaries each in their own right. Although Hurwitz and Diamond are gone their legacies live on, burning bright as does Bird’s. One common thread among the three men was the West End House and all that the organization espoused and represented then and still today. The ‘Spirit of the House’ which never dies coursed through their veins and without question helped make them what they were.