Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain by Marty Appel

Author:Marty Appel [Appel, Marty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385529280
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2009-07-07T07:00:00+00:00

Canton, Sunday, July 22

While the Yankees were at home playing the Mariners, back home in Canton Bill Shearer was having a Sunday breakfast with Jack Dole at a farm just outside of town. Shearer had played third base in American Legion ball when Thurman had been a shortstop. “We were the most scouted Legion team in the country,” he says. “Four of our guys signed pro contracts. Gene Woodling used to watch us when he was scouting.”

Dole’s job was manager of the Akron-Canton Airport.

At one point, when the conversation turned to baseball, Dole looked at Shearer and said, “You know Thurman Munson pretty well, right?”

Told that he did, and that in fact Thurman often called him when he was in town, Dole looked him in the eye and said, “Please talk to him … this jet… he’s not getting it done.”

Shearer thought about his own conversations with Munson on the subject. They had been talking on Thurman’s driveway after he’d come home from the 1978 World Series. Munson already owned one of the fastest propeller planes available. Why did he need the jet?

“Bill, I can get home between twenty-five and thirty minutes quicker than with the propeller plane,” said Thurman.

“It was true,” says Don Armen, who hangared Thurman’s plane in Canton. “He bought the jet to save time. He could fly in all kinds of weather, high enough to get up over storms. And this way, he could start branching out, flying to the West Coast and taking his family and flying from almost anywhere after a game. It was for convenience.”

On Monday, July 23, Munson fell under the .300 mark for the season and into what would be a 2-for-24 slump. He was so banged up it was amazing that he was in the lineup at all. This season was getting away from the Yankees, and they knew it. They said the right things, but it was looking like a lost year.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.