Sport: Out In Center-Field

It was a bitter afternoon for the New York Giants’ Leo (“The Lip”) Durocher. His old ball club, the Brooklyn Dodgers, was spraying Giant pitches into the far reaches of the Polo Grounds. Each time Durocher crossed to his third-base coaching box, visiting Brooklyn fans yowled and booed.

Most raucous needier was a zoot-suited, jobless young Puerto Rican named Fred Boysen, who had somehow wangled a $2.50 box seat. Boysen’s view, as he expressed it later, is that “the fun of baseball” is kibitzing; a big-league manager should be able to take it. He dished it out. He spat in Durocher’s direction and said: “Here, Leo, this is for you.” As five hapless Giant pitchers were mauled, he cried at the Giant boss: “Why don’t you go in and pitch yourself, you monkey?” Leo also said he heard Fan Boysen reviling his wife, Cinemactress Laraine Day. In the ninth inning, Leo stepped out of the dugout, stared at his heckler and ducked back.

The Pitch. That was about as far as hot-tempered, brawling Leo Durocher dared to go, whatever the provocation. Baseball’s $50,000-a-year Commissioner “Happy” Chandler already had two strikes on The Lip for past crimes and misdemeanors; another brawl would be strike three and out. In 1947, Chandler had suspended Durocher for the season for “conduct detrimental to baseball.” Twice recently he had disciplined Lippy for minor offenses: for hiring Coach Fred Fitzsimmons when Fred’s old club wasn’t looking, and for a pre-season row with an umpire.

When the game ended with his Giants on the losing end of a 15-2 rout, Durocher left his coaching box and started the long, crossfield trek to the clubhouse in centerfield. At the same time, fans poured onto the field, heading for the outfield exit. Out in Texas-league country, Leo and Fred Boysen crossed paths. A few seconds later, Boysen was picking himself up from the turf and Durocher was walking away flanked by Second Baseman Bill Rigney, No. 18, and Fred Fitzsimmons, No. 6 (see cut). Leo Durocher was off the sport pages and on Page One again.

A Hit? No two accounts of the short, sharp encounter seemed to tally. Most of the 24,069 fans didn’t even see it. Sportwriters, radio announcers and TV took a quick look, dismissed it casually as another cap-snatching caper of the kind that is a common occurrence at the Polo Grounds. But not Fred Boysen. He cried out for a doctor, was taxied to a hospital. There, according to an attendant, he achieved “a couple of really impressive faints.” In less time than it takes to beat out a bunt, a lawyer was at his bedside, making talk of a damage suit, and helping Boysen tell his story to reporters.

Said Boysen: “I went on the field to pat Jackie Robinson on the back. Suddenly I got hit from behind. I fell down . . . I saw Durocher kick me in the stomach . . . Then the fans took me outside near a hot-dog stand when I passed out . . .”

Cried Durocher: “I did not punch anybody. I did not jump or step on Fred Boysen … If I had done any of those things … I would have walked right up to Horace Stoneham and [resigned] . . . because I know that I would be through with ‘baseball.” Leo said he had merely given a shove to somebody who came up behind him and who, he thought, was trying to grab his cap.

Change of Pace. Although the first newspaper pitches were a little wild, Happy Chandler decided to take a swing. Without waiting for an official report, he announced that Durocher was suspended “indefinitely,” ordered him to Cincinnati for a hearing this week. Durocher got the news on a Boston-bound train, turned the team over to Frankie Frisch and hopped a plane back to New York.

A surprising reception—and some good news—awaited The Lip at La Guardia Airport. Fred Boysen had been discharged from the hospital without even a bruise to back up his story. The press, scampering to the defense of Lippy, whom it ordinarily loves to ride, had found that Boysen had a police record as a street brawler. His first lawyer had withdrawn from the case. Morris Golding, the spectator who had helped to take Boysen to the hospital and called the lawyer, had revised his opinion: “I should have minded my own business. Boysen obviously wasn’t hurt, but Durocher might be. I hope they patch this thing up.”

An Inning. Giant offices were besieged with callers eager to testify in Durocher’s behalf, some of them Dodger fans who said they had no love for Leo but felt that every man deserved a fairer deal than feckless Happy Chandler had dished out. Among the 100 affidavits collected for the defense of The Lip was one from George Cronk, a railroad fireman who swore that he, not Durocher, had accidentally tripped over Boysen and kicked him.

Overnight, Durocher the tartar became Durocher the martyr. Leo permitted himself a wan smile for photographers, spoke a sentiment for the press that he had seldom been able to utter before: “It’s swell to know that some people are behind me.”

The way things had turned out, hasty Happy Chandler seemed to be as much on the hook as Lippy Leo had appeared to be when Heckler Boysen caught up with him in short centerfield.