Wednesday, July 6, 1927: New York City

July 4th. And The Center Of The Universe.

Myles Thomas

Published in

The Diary of Myles Thomas

8 min readNov 11, 2016

We sent the Washington Senators packing yesterday, stripped naked of any delusions of grandeur they might have had that 1927 could be anything like 1924 or 1925, the two years they shocked the baseball world to twice win the pennant and one World Series.

The Senators — who on Sunday were 9 1/2 games back and closing — are now 12 1/2 games back and falling.

Over three games at the Stadium, we beat them mercilessly. We outscored them 40–8 on 47 base hits, including 12 doubles, six triples and six home runs — with one of those homers coming off of the bat of little Julie Wera, his first career round-tripper.

Monday’s July 4th doubleheader may turn out to be the highlight of the regular season. Washington had won ten in a row, and according to the newspapers they actually thought they had a chance to catch us. As much as we respect the individual players on their team — Sam Rice, Goose Goslin, Bucky Harris, Tris Speaker, and of course Walter Johnson, who’s announced that this is his last season — those Yankees who’ve been on our team since 1924 hold a serious grudge against Washington for beating them out for the pennant by two games that year, in no small part because they feel they blew that season, as much as Washington thinks they won it.

The July 4th doubleheader crowd was the largest in baseball history: 74,000. Many were lined up to get their tickets for hours before the first game, and thousands more, as many as 10,000, I’m told, were turned away. It’s one thing to see an old ballpark like Shibe in Philly with people filling the aisles and hanging from the rafters, but it’s something else to see The House That Ruth Built overflowing, well before the first pitch.

**Right Field and beyond (Yankee Stadium)**

As we stand in the outfield warming up between games of the July 4th doubleheader — after we’ve just whupped Washington 12–1 in the first — Schoolboy Hoyt says to me, “You know, the Roman Coliseum held 50,000. There’s over 20,000 more inside here, today.”

We both look around at the Stadium in all its human glory.

“You know,” I say laughing at the enormity of it all. “It’s hard not to think about Ben-Hur when you look at this crowd.” It’s one of our favorite films.

“I doubt even 100,000 of Nero’s Romans could be more bloodthirsty than this mob of New Yorkers this weekend,” says Schoolboy.

The combination of the size of the crowd, their hatred of the Senators on a hot streak, and the July 4th holiday brings the energy of the Stadium to an even higher pitch than last year’s World Series. It is utter insanity, with fireworks being set off in the grandstands.

Steven, Bill Powers, Texas Guinan and Stanwyck are at the game and sit in a box on the third base side, where we can see each other. Like the rest of the 74,000, they stay all the way till the end of the second game, even though we win it 21–1.

After the game, I shower quickly and hop into Steven’s car with Billy P., Texas and Stanwyck for a ride back to Manhattan.

On our way home we get caught in a traffic jam trying to get over the Macombs Dam Bridge, which, just before we were able to cross it, swung open to let a barge float by. With the top of Steven’s convertible down, we can see Manhattan in front of us and the Stadium behind us as dusk arrives.

“Helluva beating you boys gave them,” says Billy P.

“Yeah, almost makes me feel sorry for them.”

“Do you feel sorry for them, Tommy, at all?” asks Texas.

“Me? No. I mean, I’m friendly with a couple of guys on the Senators, especially General Crowder, and I root for those guys — individually, that is, when they play against other teams — but, hell no, I don’t feel sorry for them, not one bit. I’d like to beat them 21–1 every game.”

“I’d want to beat them 21 to nothing,” says Stanwyck.

Back at Steven’s townhouse we have a small party in his backyard. Just the five of us, on Steven’s “Alice In Wonderland” croquet lawn, surrounded by his plastic pink flamingos, caterpillars, white rabbits, the two live peacocks and the giant flashing Cheshire Cat. After three gin martinis apiece, we are as well lit as the Cheshire Cat. Stanwyck and I are sprawled on the croquet lawn while Billy P. and Texas play around us.

“What did it feel like to be in the middle of it all today?” asks Texas.

“Well, I wasn’t on the mound — but even when you’re just on the field before the game, and between games, when you’re wearing that uniform, it feels like you’re in the center of the universe. It’s like the world’s standing still and everything around you, including the sky, the planets and the stars are all circling. 74,000 people feel like — I know this sounds crazy, but it’s like they’re all one being, and through them, somehow, the gods are watching you.”

I don’t tell them how surprised I am that I still feel this way, as badly as I’ve been pitching. I’ve pretty much fallen about as far from Huggins’s rotation as a pitcher can fall without being sent down to the minors or traded. But I don’t want the focus of this conversation turning anywhere close to me. I want to forget about me. And the gin is definitely helping that.

“There’s magic on stage,” says Texas, “but it’s so much smaller compared to that.”

“It’s smaller,” Stanwyck says, while attempting to sit up. She manages pretty well, and then she looks back down at me. “But lately I feel like the center of the universe, too. And when I’m onstage, it’s like I’m the god — or the goddess.”

She’s right.

“Well, sweetheart,” says Texas, “they are all looking at you.”

“No, it’s more than that. That’s how it felt when I was just a hoofer. Now it feels like they’re not just looking at me, it somehow feels like they’re looking for something. It feels like they want me to give them something more than just entertainment. Lately it feels like they’re asking me to somehow give them some meaning to their life.”

“Isn’t that the writer’s job, honey?” says Texas, as she knocks a ball across the lawn and sends the peacocks scattering. “I love you to pieces, kid, but you ain’t Shakespeare or Gershwin. Those ain’t your words you’re singing.”

“I know they’re not,” Stanwyck says, still looking down at me, as she answers Texas. “I’ve had this feeling since I finally got that real good role on Broadway last year — and now I even feel it when I’m playing the gin joints. And it comes from everybody — both men and women — they all go out at night to be entertained, to have a good time, to get laid, to forget whatever it is they need to forget, but deep down what they really seem to want is to feel that all this craziness adds up to something, that their lives have meaning.

“When the spotlight is on me, I feel like I can give that to them — not the meaning, I know I can’t give them that — but I can give them the feeling, the feeling that, at least for an hour or two, life makes sense.”

She’s just a kid, but it’s moments like this when I more than like Stanwyck.

Before we all head out for the night, Steven shows me more than 20 New York ethnic newspapers — four or five each of Irish, German, Italian, Slavic, Pole, Jewish, and Chinese papers — each with his July 4th advertisement for his new company, 20th Century Investments. Just like he showed me in his office last month, all of the ads are printed against a background of the American flag. And they all say the same thing:

Once again, the ads are printed twice in each paper, once in English and once in the native tongue of the readers, and they’re printed on opposite pages, facing one another. The only difference since Steven first showed them to me is now the ads are all full-pagers.

“We were going to run these in 50 papers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, but we ended up running them in close to a hundred papers, and we added Detroit, St. Louis and San Francisco.”

“What did that cost?”

“Just over $100,000.”

“Rothstein?” I ask.

“Rothstein,” he says.