In April 1947 I was still fourteen. I would be fifteen in the fall. That month Columbia Records brought out Claude Thornhill’s “Snowfall.” RKO released The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, with Cary Grant and Shirley Temple. In South Africa, Zulus danced for the British royal family. In China, Communist insurgents withdrew from Yenan in the face of Nationalist advances. Deborah Kerr bought a house in Los Angeles. The Jewish underground burned a Shell oil dump in Haifa. And when the Dodgers played the Braves on Opening Day, Jackie Robinson played first base for Brooklyn.
April 15 was a Tuesday, and my mother let me stay home from school to listen. It was as if I saw the event. Burnished black face. Bright white uniform. Green grass. I remember Red Barber’s familiar southern voice saying, I believe, “Robinson is very definitely brunette.” I remember thinking how marvelously delicate that was. The event couldn’t be ignored. But it needed to be reported neutrally. Barber had his own signature way of speaking. A big rally meant that a team was “tearing up the pea patch.” An outfielder running down a long fly ball was “on his mule.”
An argument was a “rhubarb.” If the Dodgers had three men on, the bases were “F.O.B.” — full of Brooklyns. If a particularly good hitter was coming up in a particularly crucial spot, Barber would give it a proper introduction as in — “Two on, two out, and here comes Musial.” When he was excited, Barber would say, “Oh, doctor!” Such language seemed, at the time, the way one was supposed to describe a baseball game. Any other way would be inadequate.
In the newspapers, I read every box score. Not just the Dodgers, but every team. I felt that I ought to keep track of what was going on all over baseball. In Cincinnati, in Washington. I subscribed to The Sporting News and often read the box scores from the high minors. I could name the starting lineup for Montreal, in the International League, and St. Paul in the American Association. You can learn a lot from a box score.