Walker & Company, 176 p
Hardcover $19.95
“Glory was mine”
One has to be of a certain age to remember Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Maine author Phillip Hoose, who lives in Portland and still plays ball on Sundays, was nine years old at the time and the event transformed his life. As we are told early in the book, Phil Hoose is Don Larsen’s first cousin, once removed. The remainder of this short, delightfully candid and amusing book is an account of the author’s lifelong love affair with baseball and his reminiscences about Larsen’s perfect game.
“I found out about my famous cousin almost by accident,” Hoose writes. In 1956 he had discovered the joys (and frustrations) of playing baseball. Driving home from church one Sunday, Hoose recalls complaining to his parents about how hard it was to “learn this dumb” game. His mother turned around saying, “why don’t you ask your cousin about it?”
” `What cousin?’ I said.
” `Don Larsen, your Dad’s cousin. Ask him about baseball,’ she replied.
” `He plays for the Yankees,’ my father added.”
Hoose sat in the back seat wondering whether his parents were pulling his leg. Once he found Larsen’s name in the Baseball Encyclopaedia, however, he realized they were on the level. His next step was to write Larsen a letter:
“Dear Don Larsen, My Dad Darwin Hoose says you’re his cousin. That makes you my cousin too. I’ve just started playing baseball. I’m having a horrible time learning. Do you have any advice?”
Larsen’s reply was succinct but encouraging. “Here’s luck on your baseball. I’m rooting for you and maybe I’ll get a chance to see you soon.”
To a nine-year-old, having a cousin on the Yankees was exciting enough, but when Larsen sent him a N.Y. Yankees cap on his birthday, his enthusiasm knew no bounds, especially when he showed it off to his classmates at school.
Larsen was no boy scout and Hoose admits taking some kidding when his hero ran his car into a telephone pole at 5 a.m. during spring training. Admittedly a wise guy, the author remembers replying to his friends, “you got a cousin on the Yankees?” He also appreciated manager Casey Stengel’s comment to the press, “If Larsen can find something to do around here at that hour, more power to him”.
Hoose spent that summer of 1956 learning to play baseball and following the fortunes of the Yankees. Highlights included receiving a baseball autographed by every member of the Yankees when he got hit in the head by an errant bat during a Little League game. Another big event occurred in July, when Larsen got the Hoose family tickets for a series with the White Sox. Phil met his famous cousin for the first time, as well as other famous Yankees including manager Casey Stengel.
Naturally the climax of the book is Hoose’s account of Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, pitting the Yankees against the Dodgers. We see it through the eyes of a frustrated 9-year-old who is only allowed to see part of the game before his school lunch period is over. In the afternoon, Hoose recalls, “the door to the classroom flew open and the principal breathlessly announced to the class, `Phil’s cousin has pitched the first perfect game in World Series history’….My classmates began to applaud, they left their desks and clustered around me pounding my back and pumping my hand. Even a few girls came over….In the days that followed, glory was mine,” the author modestly added.
In 2005 Hoose met the 76-year-old Larsen for the first time since he was a child. He found that the old ball-player still thought about the game “once or twice a day.” Ever the fan at heart, Hoose writes about his cousin, “he had met the challenge of standing up to the Perfect Game, not denying it, but not by being owned by it either”. q
Retired from teaching, Harry Gratwick roots for the Phillies and writes about many things in Philadelphia in the winter, on Vinalhaven in the summer.