American Valor Quarterly Issue 11 - Fall 2014 | Page 23

THE I MARINE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE, I MARINE HEADQUARTERS
GROUP COLORGUARD PREPARES TO TAKE THE FIELD AT A SPECIAL
CEREMONY IN SAN DIEGO HONORING THE MEMORY OF JERRY
COLEMAN, WHO PASSED AWAY ON JANUARY 14, 2014. NICKNAMED
“THE COLONEL,” THE BELOVED ICON SPENT MORE THAN FOUR
DECADES WITH THE SAN DIEGO PADRES ORGANIZATION
FOLLOWING HIS YANKEES PLAYING CAREER.

winning. It was a game. Individual
records meant little or nothing to most
of us in the Yankee ball club. The only
important thing was winning or losing.
And we won from 1949-1953. And
then in 1954, we had the best year with
Casey Stengel, but we lost. That’s how
we looked at it. We just lost, period.
There was no coming in second on the
Yankee ball club. You either won or you
lost.
People think we ran away with those
races, but in ’49 we played the Red Sox
in the last two games of the season, and
if they had won one of those games,
they would have gone to the World
Series instead of us. We beat them 5-4
and 5-3 in closely contested games. In
the first game, we got a run early, and
they got a run, but we came back and
won it on a home run in the 8th inning.
The next game it was 1-0 in the 8th
inning, and though I didn’t really think
about it, that does take a bit out of your
stomach. The pressure is intense, and in
those days Yankee Stadium held about
60-70,000 people. There is no baseball
FALL 2014

stadium even close to that now.
When I won the 1950 World Series
MVP award, I drove in the only run,
and we won 1-0 in the first game. I
scored a run on the second game then
drove in the winning run in the 8th
inning in the third game. And then I
rested. I never thought about that till
they announced it about two months
later. It was from the Baseball Writers
Association. I had a good
series, and I thought it was
nice.

wasn’t an intellectual. Bobby Brown
was an intellectual and became a heart
specialist. He was a great doctor and a
great hitter. And who was any better at
shortstop than Phil Rizzuto when you
needed it? He was outstanding. Then
we had Johnny Mize from the Giants
those years we won five in a row. He
could walk off the bench and get a
base hit with anyone. Basically, we had
defense, power and, above all else, great
pitching. The Yankees, Indians and
Tigers all had great staffs in the early
’50s. You knew when guys like that
went in it was going to be a complete
game.
In 1951, after a third World Series
title, beating the Giants, I got a call
from the major at the Alameda Naval
Air Station. He wanted to have lunch

I never thought about
awards being a prominent
part of my life. The people
I played with were my best
memories from playing in
the majors. Raschi was a
roommate of mine. Yogi
was a great, great catcher.
People always looked at
him as a dummy. He was
no dummy. He knew more
about baseball then a lot
of the umpires did. But he
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