Remembering Harvey
By C. Philip Francis
Part 1
Prologue: Harvey Riebe has left us. Unless you are a regular reader of Chatter from the Dugout, you may not be familiar with that name. He signed with the Detroit Tigers, played his first professional baseball game in 1939, and hit the big time in August of 1942 as a reserve catcher. After appearing in eleven games that season, Harvey exchanged his flannels for khaki, and did not play again until 1947. In the meantime he was torpedoed in the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944, and was awarded two Purple Hearts. Riebe was in 50 games over the next three years, and retired from the game with a batting average of .212.
Although five of his prime playing years were given to his country, I was never aware of any complaints or what might have been in our five years of contact. He had a modest but proud baseball career, and was certainly a Hall of Fame tale teller. I always told Harv that he was my all time favorite Detroit Tiger player. I don’t think he ever believed it, but it was true. Sure there were such Tiger notables such as Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline, Charlie Gehringer, and Mickey Cochrane, and I remember them well. But Harv is and always will be my own special Tiger hero.
Five years ago I wrote to Harv asking for his autograph, and not only did I get his own baseball card (autographed, of course) but a long personal letter. We have corresponded regularly until his death this past April, and I often asked his opinions and thoughts on players, stadiums, managers, and any other baseball items I could think of. He may have left us, but his delightful baseball anecdotes did not. I would like to share them with you as we take a stroll down baseball lane.
*
Harvey Donald Riebe was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 10, 1921 into a sports family. Harv and his three brothers all starred in high school basketball, and brother Mel had one year with the Boston Celtics. When the first Riebe child was about to arrive the boys wanted their own family basketball team, but it did not happen that way and today Nadine is the last living member of the five Riebe siblings.
Harvey began playing baseball when he was able to pick up a bat and ball. He remembers sneaking away from his Saturday chores, and running down to the ball diamond. When he returned back home near dark, “My mom would beat the daylights out of me, and I would tell her that I would never get to the big leagues if she didn’t let me play.”
The young athlete played baseball in high school and some sandlot ball before being signed by a Detroit Tiger scout for $250, “Just about all the money in the world, I thought.” He started his pro career with Alexandria (Louisiana) in the Evangeline League for $75 per month of which $40 was sent home for the family. Harv’s father never played a sport, but “was a genius on statistics.”
Shortly before Harvey signed his Tiger contract he attended a game at the old Cleveland League Park on a high school ticket. The Tigers were in town, and he was in the bleachers with a friend watching Detroit’s Rudy York shagging fly balls just below them. When the boys yelled to York for a ball, the Tiger happily obliged. The following spring Harv was at spring training in Lakeland, Florida WITH Rudy York and other Tiger greats such as Tommy Bridges, Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, and Bobo Newsom. “Talk about a dream coming true,” Harvey said. “York was a catcher, first sacker, and outfielder, and that spring training he gave me his catcher’s mitt and said, ‘Here, son. I don’t like catching.’”
One of Harv’s minor league stops was Winston-Salem where he remembers winning very few games. His manager, Jake Atz, was one of the real characters of the game. Jake had four years in the majors in the early 1900’s with the Senators and White Sox as Atz, but his last name was actually Zimmerman when he played in the bush leagues. One of his ballclubs paid the players by lining up alphabetically in front of the pay window. If the team had trouble meeting the payroll as it often did, those with names at the end of the alphabet would walk away with empty pockets. So the next time Jake moved to another ballclub, he changed his name to Jake Atz. We may only assume that Jake’s financial shortcomings were overcome by his new name.
Harvey continues, “Jake Atz walked with a cane and never wore a uniform. He would probe everyone with the cane in the dugout whenever you goofed or made an error, and his mouth was filthy. I wore my mask in the dugout after we retired our opposition, and he asked me why I didn’t remove it. I told him that I might be ignorant behind the plate, but here in the dugout, I got smarter when I see what you’re doing with that cane. Then he said, ‘Well, I knew you had some brains.’”
Next week: Part 2 with more of Harvey’s baseball stories
Remembering Harvey
By C. Philip Francis
Part 2
We continue with the reminiscences of former Major Leaguer Harvey Riebe.
Louis “Bobo” Newsom was the quintessence of baseball eccentrics, and one of the two pitchers who won at least 200 games while losing more (Jake Powell was the other.). Bobo, a chunky 6’3” 200 pounder, never used the truth when an exeraggeration or enhancement might better entertain the listener. In his 20-year career, the boastful and bombastic Bobo never stayed more than two season with the same team and changed clubs a total of seventeen times. Bobo wore a Washington Senator uniform on five separate occasions, maybe because he was owner Clark Griffith’s favorite pinochle player.
Harvey tells this story about Bobo. “It was spring training in February, 1941 when Bobo drove up in his new Cadillac with gold script letters ‘Bobo Newsom’ on his dashboard. Very impressive indeed. Bobo began to relate this incident in his deep southern drawl (Bobo was from South Carolina). Enroute to the ballpark after leaving the Lakeland Terrace Hotel, he stopped and picked up a 10-year old boy who was hitchhiking. The boy was quite talkative, and after a while got around to the name on the dash. He told Bobo that he has a magazine at home that shows the names of ALL of the automobiles made, but ‘I don’t have that one in my magazine’ as he put his finger on the name of Newsom.
“Bobo remarked that HIS name was Newsom, and NOT the name of an automobile. Bobo kept muttering after that saying, ‘I pick up a kid that has no knowledge of baseball and has no idea who Bobo is.’ Everyone kidded him after that saying, ‘Bobo, you’re old enough to know better – don’t pick up hitchhikers. “Actually, he was better known as ‘Buck’, and got the name Bobo because that’s how he addressed everyone such as ‘Hey Bobo’!” Harvey added, “I rode in his Caddy in ’41, and believe me, I KNEW WHO HE WAS! Bobo Newsom passed away in Florida in December, 1962.”
I once asked Harv if he recalled one-time Tiger pitcher, Boots Poffenberger, another Tiger who marched down his own street. “He played a couple years before me, and Diz Trout (another former Detroit pitcher) would tell me stories about him. I roomed with Trout one year, and he told me stories about Boots that made me gasp. Of course, Trout was no angel by any means. I sure know about his wild activities and some of his antics you wouldn’t believe.
“He (Trout) was the first person that I knew who wore contact lenses. Back in the ‘40’s they were huge cups that fit over the entire eyeball. When we roomed together on one road trip I had to assist him with these contacts each day - applying the solution and he spreading the eyelid, etc. We had to end up with no bubbles in the lens, almost impossible and so frustrating. Many times I told Diz to wear his regular glasses. He’d say, ‘but they make me look old.’ My response to that was Diz, you are just as old and ugly no matter which you wear. I told him not to wear the contacts when he pitched. So what happens? I’m catching him in Yankee Stadium and he pulls out his big red kerchief, railroad style, and wipes his eye and out flew the lens. I walked out to the mound while he ‘s scouting around for it and I raised hell with him, telling him he was just as ugly and to put that damn outer specs on.”
Continuing on the subject of eyes, Harvey said, “Ted Williams without a doubt had the greatest eye in baseball. Sure, we all talked to him when we were catching. Tebbetts (Birdie Tebbetts, a catcher for the Tigers in the 1930’s and ‘40’s) taught me that in hopes it would distract Ted. Not one could rattle Ted. One time at Fenway Park, I mentioned to him while he’s batting that our pitcher, Lou Kretlow, had a terrific sinker. All Ted said was, ‘You better pray that it sinks.’”
When I brought up the subject of players’ wives Harvey responded with, “My wife went through all the thrills of victory and agony of defeat. She would sit with the other wives behind third base, up about 25 rows. She, of course, heard all the remarks, good and bad. But fans after a while knew they were wives and were very careful of remarks. Now and then there would some that were unaware of the wives, and out came a yell, ‘GET THAT RIEBE OUT OF THERE!’ But I would tell her (my wife) that this guy is most likely a ‘loser’ at home, and has to be an authority at the ballpark, so he thinks.
“When I went 0 for 4 my wife would mention it, of course. We called that the ‘horse collar’, ‘cause that’s what it looked like in the newspaper box score. But the Detroit fans were very good, I thought.”
Next week: Part 3 with more of Harvey’s comments and stories.
Remembering Harvey
By C. Philip Francis
Part 3
We continue with the reminiscences of former Major Leaguer Harvey Riebe who had a modest big league career as backup catcher for the Detroit Tigers in the 1940’s, but a Hall of Fame storyteller.
*
One of the first things many of us do each morning is to pour a hot steaming cup of coffee to start us moving. In baseball lexicon, however, a “cup of coffee” means a promotion to the big leagues usually followed by a quick trip back to the minors, and often happens during the last few months of the season. Harvey had his “cup of coffee” on August 26, 1942 in the second game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia with Connie Mack’s A’s. Years later the former Tiger backstop remembered it well. After Tiger Virgil Trucks tossed a 1-0 shutout in the twilight game, Detroit manager Del Baker called Harvey over and said, “Son, you are our catcher in the second game. You’ll catch Hal White, don’t be nervous, just act like you are still in the Texas League with Beaumont”
When Harv walked up to the plate in the first inning for his first ML at-bat the bases were loaded, and ALMOST hit a GRAND SLAM on his ML swing. Harvey explains, “I was informed a couple days later that I almost set a record. Shibe Park had a three-foot facing separating the upper and lower deck in left field and part of center field. The ball was fair by about three feet, and came within inches of going into the lower or upper deck. I only wish it could have been a 4-bagger. Instead it was a two-base hit.
“…I had two doubles in that game. Johnny Lipon and I broke in together on the Tigers’ Eastern swing. Hal White was the pitcher, and his control was outstanding. I could have had a rocking chair back of the plate. The time of the game was one hour and 48 minutes. (Note: The first game was played in one hour and 45 minutes.) Today the games are three hours long, and pitchers seldom finish. …On Labor Day, a short time later, I went four for four against St. Louis.” Harvey’s first day in the bigs was mentioned in the New York Times the next day.
In an unbelievable twist this writer bought an actual 1942 Philadelphia A’s scorecard shortly after Harv told me of that first ML game. I mentioned that the card had been scored and that he was in the lineup, had a double the first two times at bat, and Hal White was the Tiger pitcher. Harv delightfully responded, “BELIEVE IT! BELIEVE IT! IT IS! IT IS!”
Riebe appeared in eleven games that season hitting .314, and would not again wear a Tiger uniform until 1947. Hal White had his first “cup of coffee” in 1941, and then saw his best year in ’42 with 12 wins and 12 losses. The New York State native retired with twelve years in the majors, and finished his career with a record of 46-54. Ironically, White died four days after Harvey left us. Lipon then gave four years to his country, came back to become the regular Detroit shortstop from 1948 through 1951, and was the interim manager for the Cleveland Indians near the end of the 1971 season. .
A year or so later the Tiger catcher did enter the Tiger dressing room, but this time not with the Big English D on his uniform. “I was in army duds and stationed at Camp Rucker in Alabama, and was to go north to Fort Meade in Maryland to pick up a soldier that had went AWOL twice before and took a gun and handcuffs figuring I would sure have to use them. So I had to treat this guy a bit different because he had escaped during the previous two trips back to Camp Rucker. Lo, luck was with me as the Tigers were in town (Washington) against the Senators, and Fort. Meade wasn’t too far away.
“This AWOL guy is a real baseball fan, so I figured now is the time to use my psychology on him. First, I told him I was with the Tigers in ’42 before entering the service. Then I said, ‘How would you like to see a ball game?’ So when we entered the Tiger clubhouse and he saw that I knew all the guys he just about kissed me. I believe I had just become his favorite ballplayer.
“I introduced him to all the players as my army buddy, and that suited him fine. I never had to use the handcuffs or the .45 weapon that I had put in my bag. After the war he came to Detroit to look me up. He couldn’t thank me enough for such nice treatment and advice. But believe me I brainwashed him with baseball all the way back to Alabama.”
Unfortunately Riebe never mentioned the name of that AWOL soldier, and today we can only wonder if Harvey’s “nice treatment” might have changed a life for the better.
Next week: Part 4 with more on Harvey’s baseball stories.
Remembering Harvey
By C. Philip Francis
Part 4
We continue with the reminiscences of former Major League Harvey Riebe who had a modest big league career as backup catcher for the Detroit Tigers in the 1940’s, but a Hall of Fame storyteller.
*
On December 24, 1944, Christmas Eve, a 501-foot 11,500-ton Belgian troopship S.S. Leopoldville was steaming across the English Channel with soldiers of the American 66th Division, The Black Panthers, aboard. One of those men was Harvey Riebe who had exchanged his Detroit Tiger uniform for one issued by the United States Army. The ship had left Southampton, England bound for Cherbourg, France, a trip of about nine hours, with reinforcements for the Battle of the Bulge.
Harvey was on the last boat in a three-ship convey about five miles off Cherbourg when the German submarine U-486 commanded by Lieutenant Gernard Meyer sent a salvo of torpedoes at the Leopoldville. Harvey’s ship was hit, and with the loudspeakers blaring “The ship is sinking. Every man for himself “, 2000 GI’s began to jump into the freezing, dark waters.
Riebe describes that horrible night, “Captain John Van Sickle and Sergeant Jim Nokes were both friends of mine, and all three of us shook hands prior to our exit from the ship. Captain was a great leader of men having been a schoolteacher that helped him in dealing with people. Sergeant Nokes was a career man in the army and a prince of a guy from Corsicia, Texas. After we shook hands and wished each other ‘good luck’, Nokes said, ‘Captain, it looks like we are going to get wet.’
“The Captain unstrapped his carbine, laid it down gently on the deck to the rear of us, and we all jumped into the water. Prior to our jump, Nokes and I just looked at each other when Captain John made that move. Jim’s thoughts were the same as mine, I’m sure. The Captain simply had to do things his way with that rifle.
“It was a frigid 48 degrees, and I often relive that night. I told my family that I had about five more minutes to survive in the icy waters before hypothermia would have sent in.”
Some 800 men died that night while many of the survivors were soon sent into battle as was Sergeant Harvey Riebe. He received two Purple Hearts, one for the sinking and one after being hit by shrapnel. Harv did play some baseball in Europe before leaving the army. Captain Van Sickle and Sgt. Nokes were also taken from the water alive, but Lt. Meyer and the entire crew on U-486 were later sent to the bottom by an English submarine. Wartime censorship kept the American public from learning of the disaster until a book regarding the incident was published in 1997.
Harvey restarted his career with the Dettroit club in 1947, but was in only eight games that year, and 42 more in the next two seasons. He retired from baseball 1949, and became a purchasing agent for a brass and copper company in the Cleveland area. Years later when his grandchildren asked why Grandpa left baseball the usual answer was, “If you really must know, I quit because they made the ball too small. Then they ask me about my golf playing where the ball is much smaller, my answer is that it’s simple: The golf ball is sitting there like a big watermelon, and I can murder that ball.”
It was one of those wonderful June days at the corner of Trumbull and Michigan in the Motor City during Harvey’s last season with the Tigers when he reached back over the wall and handed a baseball to a youngster whom was sitting nearby with his mother. Years later Harvey still recalls, “When I put that ball in the boy’s hand his eyes got as big as saucers.” A few days later the Tiger catcher received this letter, “Please accept my wholehearted thanks for your generosity at the game of 6-3-49…the baseball will be used strictly for exhibit purposes…not one member of our family will ever forget the thrill of being given a ball from a member of our own Detroit Tigers. I think you know who our favorite player is.” Also enclosed was a short note from the boy. “I want to thank you for the ball. I like it very much.” It was signed Kennie.
Harvey was a collector, and discarded few items regarding his baseball career. Over 50 years later he happened to notice those 1949 letters, and wondered if he could find that little boy with the “eyes as big as saucers.” Using the technology of today that “little boy” WAS found on the Internet. Riebe explained, “It was a sort of a wild shot, but it turned out to be the right person 50 years ago. I just decided out of the blue to write to him.”
One day Harvey received this letter, “Yes, I am the youngster you gave a ball to 50 years ago. I can not tell you how shocked I was when my wife told me that your letter came…The week I got your letter my mother passed away…I wish I could tell you I still have that ball, but it got played to death on an old sandlot in our old Detroit neighborhood. I was able to keep it for about three years before breaking our promise…It had a good life.”
Next Week: Part 5 with more on Harvey’s baseball commentary.
Remembering Harvey
By C. Philip Francis
Part 5
We continue with the reminiscences of former ballplayer Harvey Riebe who had a modest big league career as backup catcher for the Detroit Tigers in the 1940’s, but was a Hall of Fame storyteller.
*
Harvey loved to write and talk baseball. In our five years of regular correspondence he discussed many players from his era including Charlie Gehringer, the Tiger Hall of Fame second baseman from 1926 to 1942. “I played with Charlie in 1942, and do remember him as the quietest man in baseball. He never said three words during a ball game, was a terrific fielder and not a bad hitter as well.”
Although the former Tiger catcher from Ohio came very close to hitting a home run on his first Major League swing, he never had one in a regular scheduled game. Harv did, however, bang one out in a spring training contest off Bob Feller!
Harv shared his thoughts on Mel Harder, the Cleveland Indian pitcher from 1928-1947. “Mel Harder lived about 16 miles from our town in Ohio, and I don’t know of anyone that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame more than he does. His record is as good as anyone.” (Note: Harder’s career stats are 223 wins with 186 losses.)
I once asked Harv if he ever met Babe Ruth. “I saw him one spring, and it was near his last days of life. (Note: Possibly 1948.) It was such a sad situation seeing him in terrible pain, something I can never erase from my mind. I came away from that meeting sort of wishing I had never seen him.” (Note: Ruth died on August 16, 1948 of cancer.)
When Riebe left the Detroit team to join the army after the 1942 season, all of the major league players were white. In 1947 when Harvey next wore his Tiger uniform Jackie Robinson had just opened up the game for black ballplayers. I asked if Harvey ever played against Jackie in any exhibition spring games? “No, I never played against Jackie. (Note: Robinson was with Brooklyn in the other league.) His club trained at Vero Beach, and we never went that far from Lakeland to play…Some of the southern players around the league made a few remarks about Robinson, but everyone was going to wait to see how he performed. He obviously played very well, but took a terrible beating in the process.”
Soon after Larry Doby was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998, Harvey had this to say regarding the first black big leaguer in the American League. “Same thing existed with Doby…He was certainly well liked in Cleveland, and mentioned the great Indian fans in a recent interview on television. He said that the rest of the league wasn’t too friendly toward him coming on the scene right after Jackie. I played against him, and have to say he was one sweet ballplayer. I chatted with him on one of his trips to the plate, and he was quite friendly.”
When Harvey came across the name of Chuck Connors, he came up with this anecdote…”I played against him with Memphis, and also in Mobile, a Dodger farm club. Great fielder, 1st baseman, but not too much with the ‘stick’. We had talked quite often, and he told everyone back then that he wanted to break into the movies. We kidded him saying, ‘Go for it because you’re not exactly leading the league here.’ He shot back, ‘You guys are just pulling my leg, wait and see because you all will be paying to see me on the screen.’ He was right, and I for one enjoyed his role as the Rifleman on television.”
Today sport memorabilia is popular but expensive, and so I asked Harv if he still had any baseball items that he might have collected throughout the years. “No, I have very little left, but I do still have one mitt. My dad paid $40 for a catcher’s mitt in 1939, but I never could us it and never told him that. It simply wasn’t my style of glove. It still hangs on my rec room wall, and I often wonder where he ever got the $40. That amount of money back then was hard to come by. It’s the only mitt I have left and whenever I go back in my mind I can still see my dad hand it to me.”
Harvey said that his wife was his biggest fan, and went to all home games and listened to the hecklers yelling behind her. “Don’t get upset”, Harv told her, “…it goes with the job, and so long as they keep yelling they know who I am.”
Harvey attended the final game at Tiger Stadium in September of 1999, and stopped to remember that special moment when he walked out on the field 57 years ago. “I knew it as Briggs Stadium back in September of 1942, and said to myself this is the dream that came true. How many thousands would love to be in my shoes? It was like yesterday when I first saw that sea of grass, the blue sky, and the flags flying atop the stadium. Picture all that for a kid who caught Trucks, Newhouser, and even played with the great Charlie Gehringer. Those memories will live with me forever...And no one can stop me from remembering the events of 50 plus years ago.”
Harvey Donald Riebe died on April 16, 2001 at the age of 79.