The Iowa Review
Volume 25
Issue 1 Winter
1995
August 7, 1921
Steven Hayward
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Hayward, Steven. "August 7, 1921." The Iowa Review 25.1 (1995): 29-38. Web.
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Article 3
7, 1921
August
NOW:
They
the New
have won
York
twice
Steven Hay ward
Yankees
are the greatest team in baseball history.
as any other
Series Championships
as many World
team, and the greatest player in the history
a Yankee uniform for most of his career.
of the game, Babe Ruth, wore
have not always been a great team. In the early
than an occasional
contender,
part of this century, they were never more
as
as
were
1920 they
still in search of their first pennant.
and
late
But
the mighty
a baseball
Whenever
about
Yankees
attendance,
team
and it was
is not winning,
its owners begin to worry
this worry
that led to the creation of what
from 1918-1929)
called "Give-Away
(Yankee Manager
Huggins
Day was on June 3, 1918 (when 6,500 Yankee
Days." The first Give-Away
were
and
last was on September
the
17, 1927 (when over
caps
given away),
80,000 pretzels shaped like Yankee
logos were distributed).
to dole
the Yankees
After ten years of Give-Away
had managed
Days,
Merle
out a greater variety of baseball paraphernalia
than any other team in the
history of baseball. There had been Cap Day, Bottle Opener Day, Pennant
Sock Day, Mug Day, Pretzel Day, Jersey
Day, Cigar Day, Pillow Day,
Card Day, Camera Day,
Sneaker Day, Baseball
Day,
Tobacco Day, Cracker Jack Day,
Tobacco Day, Chewing
Hot
Dog Day,
and Peanut Day,
a few.
to name
7, 1921 was Bat Day.
to The Completely Complete Book of Baseball Statistics by Dr.
According
in Yankee
Venus Guzman,
there were 21,106 paying customers
Stadium
August
that day, and 15,000 of them had been given complimentary
story is concerned with
they entered the stadium. This
are Mary
and Lyman Labrow.
people. The first two
I know
about
the Labrows
bats as
baseball
seven
of
those
on
to an article
September
published
after Bat Day)
that I found in the archives of
thanks
21, 1923 (roughly two years
a now-defunct
called
newspaper
described
the circumstances
the New
York Reflector. The
article
that led to both of the Labrows being in Yankee
a
accompanied
by photo of the couple. The photo
that day and was
In it, Mary
and Lyman are out-of-focus,
taken on their honeymoon.
in 1921. The
clothes which were already unfashionable
smiling and wearing
Stadium
was
Grand
Canyon
is visible
in the background.
Lyman
Labrow
was
an
29
University of Iowa
is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
The Iowa Review
®
www.jstor.org
and Mary
Labrow was a seamstress.
lived in Bergen
They
optometrist
no children.
New
and
had
Jersey,
County,
On August
7, 1921, Mary Labrow was sitting one row ahead of me in
Yankee
Stadium. She was a small, birdlike woman
and, that day, she was
a
brown dress. Mary Labrow did not look at the field
wearing
nondescript
once during the game. Instead, she was looking at two
people sitting three
rows ahead of her, at a man and a woman.
The man she was looking atwas her husband, Lyman Labr?w. Mary had
come to the game
to spy on him, and she could see him
specifically
perfectly
she was
did not see her until it was
sitting. Lyman, however,
same
too late; until after she had noticed
the
thing I had noticed during the
first inning, when Lyman had first sat down in his seat: that he was not
from where
alone.
to the game that
day with his secretary,
woman
named Jackie Hubbs.
She was wearing
twenty-three-year-old
a
small white purse that had amedium-sized
bright yellow dress and carried
Lyman
Labrow
had
come
a
a
bulge in it. She was exactly the kind of girl you look at during baseball
there is no one at bat.
games when
For the first three innings, no one
could
have
guessed
that Lyman
the fact they
and Jackie Hubbs were romantically
involved, despite
one
to
next
another.
the game and their hands
watched
They
sitting
did not even touch. Jackie Hubbs's white purse sat chastely on her lap and
it became
her white fingers were folded chastely on top of it. However,
Labrow
were
reached into her purse
during the fourth inning, when Jackie Hubbs
that
and
and removed
the medium-sized
she
Lyman Labrow were
bulge,
an affair.
having
evident
I suppose that today she and Lyman Labrow
sexual intercourse in the stands behind third base,
could
have
complicated
and no one would
think,
or say,
were different times. On August 7, 1921, Jackie
anything. But those
in Yankee
Stadium by eating a medium-sized
Hubbs
caused a sensation
Granny Smith apple.
and energeti
by shining the apple, by rubbing it extensively
cally against her bright yellow dress. But instead of biting into it, she licked
it three times, extraordinarily
slowly, and handed it to Lyman Labrow. He
looked at the apple, took a bite, and gave it back to her. Jackie Hubbs
She began
stroked
Labrow's
30
the white
part of the apple with
lips, softly.
her finger
and then touched Lyman
sat perfectly still, three rows behind them, watching.
in this story.
three people who matter
And Mary Labrow
Those are the first
The
fourth
matters
who
in this
story
is a drunken
off-duty
named John Seidl, and the fifth person
Indiana,
policeman
in this story is a sober Yiddish
who matters
typewriter salesman from New
Flax. John Seidl was sitting in the seat to my
York City named Norman
me.
was
Flax
sitting directly in front of
right and Norman
person
from Evansville,
that Norman
I know
York
City
introduced
because
himself
Flax was
he stood
aYiddish
typewriter salesman
in the bottom of the second
inning and
me. Norman's mother
sitting behind
she who pointed out the rabbi to her son.
up
to a rabbi who was
was
sitting beside him, and it
was the sort of salesman who
Flax
Norman
Clearly
was
lookout
from New
was
always
on
the
for rabbis.
Flax," he said, reaching over my head to shake the rabbi's
to call."
hand. "If you need a Yiddish
you know who
typewriter,
said the rabbi. "What should I need
"I've already got a typewriter,"
"I'm Norman
another
one for?"
one now,"
Flax. "But you never
said Norman
"Maybe you don't need
and
ask for Flax."
this
number
call
do
need
know. When you
one,
from
that John Seidl was a drunken off-duty
policeman
most
of the game talking loudly to
Indiana, because he spent
Evansville,
from Evansville,
another drunken off-duty policeman
Indiana, whose name
And
I never
I know
found
out.
inning
take a leak," announced John Seidl in the bottom
was reaching for the medium-sized
(just as Jackie Hubbs
purse).
"And when
"I gotta
John
of the fourth
bulge in her
Seidl has to take a leak, John Seidl has to take a
leak."
was the sort of man who habitually
refers to himself
John Seidl
I happen to know his name.
third person, and that is why
me to do?" asked the other off-duty
policeman
"Whattya want
Indiana.
Evansville,
in the
from
as he was standing up. "You're hilarious."
replied John Seidl,
Now: John Seidl was a big man, and when he stood up to make his way
out into the aisle, he steadied himself by putting his hand on the shoulder of
Itwas not a shoulder
the person sitting next to him, and almost fell down.
"Ahh,"
that provided
much
support,
because
it was
the shoulder
of a ten-year-old
31
boy. Itwas my shoulder. That was me. Iwas sitting beside the sixth person
in this story.
who matters
Unlike
the majority
of people in the stands behind third base that day, the
matters
on the game. His
sixth person who
in this story was concentrating
real name was Giovanni
him
Samson
Spadafina, but everyone?even
He was my father.
Spadafina.
at the Heinzman
father worked
my mother?called
Factory where he was one of
of the tiny hammers
that
twenty-three men responsible for the manufacture
come
strike the strings inside Heinzman
to New York from
pianos. He had
My
Piano
Italy in 1911with my mother.
"The name
of the ship," he used to tell me, "was the Santa Maria."
that he said repeatedly. Like Christopher
Columbus,
something
father was from Genoa,
and the fact that he landed at Ellis Island in a
This was
my
to him. It
ship called the Santa Maria was of great symbolic
importance
allowed him to claim, only half-ironically,
that he had arrived in the New
as
same
in
am
aware this is an
World
the
I
vessel
Columbus.
extremely
if not dangerous,
claim to make in this age of political correctness,
but it is one that my father?were
he still alive today?would
continue to
man
a
make. To my father, Columbus
should be: he
represented everything
was
self
resourceful,
brave,
industrious,
intelligent,
strong,
physically
and
rich.
sufficient,
very, very
"The Italians," my father used to say, "civilized
the world."
dubious,
he was
not working
at the Heinzman
Piano Factory he supple
mented his income by gambling,
and won almost every bet he ever placed.
This was not because my father was particularly
lucky, but because he
on the same
a routine that
always bet
thing: himself. He had developed
someone
in
to
would
result
bet
usually
agreeing
against him. First, he
When
would
walk
into a bar and order
a drink. Then
he would
begin
to talk. He
always said the same thing.
"In the Old Country,"
he would
say, "everyone was afraid of me."
Then he would
tell the story of his impossible
about the
strength,
that
in
shook
the
of
and
how
roof
of his
the
1887,
earthquake
Italy
spring
parents' house landed on his father's legs. He was only a child then, and said
he didn't
give much
thought
to what
he'd done until
after he'd done
it. He
just lifted the roof off his father.
"And
The
32
that," he would
routine
usually
say, "was when
they started calling me Samson."
worked.
After he finished
telling the story of his
men in the bar would begin to look at him,
strength, the other
impossible
to size him up.
was
The truth is that my father was not a physically
imposing man. He
less than five feet tall and did not look strong. There was almost always
someone willing
to wager he wasn't
strong at all.
a number
were
to demonstrate
his
perform
strength, and these stunts were usually the subject of the bets he
impossible
one-arm
would
place. He could pick up tables with his teeth, perform
man clinging to his back, arm wrestle
three people at
chin-ups with another
I saw him juggle a
once, rip telephone books in half, and on one occasion
a butcher's knife, and a small dog named Omar.
rusted cannonball,
There
of
stunts he
could
But my father had to be careful never to go into the same bar too many
that was
times, otherwise
challenge him to do something
people would
won the tickets
was what almost
really impossible. This
happened when he
to the Yankees
game.
I was with
Street,
stopped
talk.
him
that day. My
to the Columbus
Bakery,
mother
into a bar called O'Malley's
had
sent us down
to buy a loaf of bread. On
and ordered a drink. Then
to East
88th
the way he
he began to
he said, "everybody was afraid of me.
..."
Country,"
I suppose that if he had been paying closer attention, he would have seen
to another man behind
the look on the bartender's face, how he whispered
it
have known
the bar, and the way they both laughed. My father would
"In the Old
was
a
set-up.
"All right, Samson,"
right here that say you
said the bartender,
can't lift the man
"That's
all?" he asked.
"That's
all," said the bartender.
the tickets;
of here with
if not,
"I've got a pair of Yankee
tickets
sitting at the back of the bar."
"You just lift him up, and you walk out
then you pay me for the tickets and I keep
them."
both his hands. In Genoese
dialect this
"Adesso," said my father, waving
a
is an expression
It can be a confirmation,
that can mean almost anything.
a
a
a
a
a
shout
contradiction,
protest,
warning,
congratulation,
compliment,
to pass the pasta. In that
of dismay, or a way of asking someone
particular
context,
ready
itwas
the Genoese
to demonstrate
Everyone
followed
his
equivalent
impossible
the bartender
of my
father announcing
that he was
strength.
to the back of the bar.
33
Itwas
man my father was
impossible not to recognize the
required to lift.
of New
He was perhaps the most
easily identifiable person in the whole
York. He had been interviewed
been photo
by every major newspaper,
graphed by the Guinness Book ofWorld Records, and had shaken Charlie
to catch a
hand. People came from all over the world
Chaplin's
glimpse of
on
or
to
taken while
his lap. However,
have their photograph
him,
sitting
a
declined
such
because
the man charged a
many people
photo opportunity
was
a
lot of money)
for the privilege. He had a
nickel (which in those days
at the foot of the Statue of Liberty and it was rumored that he
concession
a pretty fair living. His real name was Brian
Flanagan, but everyone
called him what the papers called him: The Fattest Man inNew York City.
made
He was
been
a
sitting at the back of the bar in reinforced steel chair which had
to
bear his weight.
He looked like he had been
specially constructed
born
in that chair.
When my father saw The FattestMan
He wiped
I knew
sweating.
worried.
inNew York City he looked
his hands on his pants. This meant
that his palms were
this was a bad sign. My
father had palms that never
sweated.
to me. "I have to try."
he whispered
as my father moved
"Good
luck," said the bartender,
in New York City. "You'll need it."
Fattest Man
"I've made
The
a bet,"
silent. All I could hear was
completely
in New York City's
and The Fattest Man
bar became
father breathing
"No one has ever
Iwill
lifted me,"
be the first,"
said The
Fattest Man
to The
closer
the sound of my
uneven wheeze.
in New
York
closer
City.
to him.
replied my father, moving
exactly what my father was thinking. He was thinking
about being first. I remember watching my father as he
about Columbus,
in New York City and?for
the first
paced circles around The Fattest Man
time in my life?I worried about him.
"Perhaps
I knew
Now:
sure exactly how it
happened.
called out my father, and in a split second, with one perfectly
itwas over. He had somehow
taken hold of
fluid clean-and-jerk movement,
man over his head. The Fattest
a foot and a shoulder and lifted the
huge
I'm not
"Adesso"
Man
My
walked
34
at the floor, and vomited.
looked worriedly
father quickly put him down, picked up the Yankee
tickets, and
out of the bar wiping
off one of his coat sleeves. "Don't tell your
in New
York
City
about this," he said when we were out on the street, "and I'll take
to
the game tomorrow."
you
father didn't
great seats. My
They were good seats, but they weren't
seem to mind. That was before television,
and he had never seen a baseball
mother
game before. He
"I understand
Iwas
about
had no
idea what
the strikes,"
to
was
going
he said to me,
the difference
explain
is the seventh
when
on.
"but what's
Babe Ruth
a ball?"
came up to bat.
in this story.
person who matters
in the bottom of the ninth inning only the core of Jackie Hubbs's
Smith apple remained. She held it between her lips and made a loud
Babe Ruth
Now:
Granny
sucking noise that drew the attention of everyone
sitting in the stands
behind third base. I think even Lyman Labrow was embarrassed,
although
Itwas then that Mary Labrow
he didn't look like he was about to complain.
found that she could not contain herself any longer. She stood up and spoke
to her husband.
This
she said: "Lyman, you snake, I'm going to kill you."
John Seidl and the other drunken off-duty
myself,
policeman
to the domestic
Evansville,
Indiana, paid no attention
dispute
is what
Unlike
from
two rows ahead of them. They were deep in conversation.
occurring
They
had already discussed
criminal
the
criminals
criminals,
mind,
specific
John
Seidl had arrested, the difference between
criminals in New York City and
criminals
in Evansville,
the trouble with
John Seidl's kids, the trouble with
all kids, the trouble with John Seidl's wife,
the trouble with having a wife
at all, and then, finally, in the bottom of the seventh inning, they
began to
discuss the 1919 World
for fixing it.
Series, and who was responsible
"It's them Jews that done it," said John Seidl loudly.
"I don't know,"
said the other drunken
off-duty
Indiana.
Evansville,
policeman
from
"John Seidl is here to tell ya," said John Seidl. "It's them Jews."
"Ain't none of the players that were Jews," pointed out the other man.
Norman
Flax turned around in his seat to see who was speaking, and then
went back to watching
the game.
John Seidl saw him turn around and kept talking.
"It don't matter
that none of them was Jews," he said, and sounded so
Flax's mother
turned to look at him. "It was them
ugly that even Norman
the ones with
the money."
Jews?they're
That was when Norman
Flax stood up.
35
"Which Jews exactly?" asked Norman
Flax. "Just tell me which of them
so that I can get them."
Jews it was,
"Siddown boy," said John Seidl. "You don't want no trouble from John
Seidl."
"I'll sit down,"
That was when
said Norman
Flax. "When you shut up."
stood
Seidl
up.
John
Babe Ruth stepped into the batter's box. The pitcher threw the first pitch,
and the umpire called a strike.
a strike?" asked my
"That's
swing?"
Babe Ruth
stepped back
and hit a high
were sitting.
stepped
in. The
father.
"How
out of the batter's
box,
can it be a strike if he doesn't
hit his cleats with
was
second pitch
thrown.
into the stands behind
foul ball
his bat, and
This time he took a swing
third base, right where we
Stadium nothing
any other day at Yankee
It would
have been a foul ball and the game
If it had been
happened.
continued.
But
it was August
would
have
would
have
7, 1921.
Bat Day.
swung at exactly the same time.
Everyone
to hit
Labrow
reached across two rows of seats and attempted
Mary
saw
Labrow
the
with
her
bat.
Lyman
Lyman
complimentary
complimen
In fact, everyone
tary bat coming at him and ducked out of the way.
sitting
in that row ducked out of the way, with the conspicuous
exception of Jackie
Hubbs, who, with both of her eyes closed, was preoccupied with sucking
an
core.
apple
The
complimentary
There was
completely.
began to scream, when
And Norman
bat hit
her
in the face
a
silent moment
reached
for his complimentary
and flattened
her
nose
just before Jackie Hubbs
strangely
she reached up to her nose, and found it missing.
Flax reached for his complimentary
bat and took a swing
at John Seidl.
And
John Seidl
Norman
Flax.
And
forward
both men
bat and took a swing
at
were
unconscious.
knocked
fell
They
instantaneously
into the aisle, in each other's arms.
the same unreal fluidity with which he had
father moved with
and rolled out
And my
lifted The FattestMan in New York City over his head. The foul ball
36
he had
right toward us, and before I knew what was happening,
reached for his complimentary
bat and jumped onto his seat.
"Adesso" he told me and bent his knees slightly, and took a swing at the
headed
foul ball, and hit it right back at Babe Ruth.
last thing I remember
seeing as we walked
quickly out of Yankee
Stadium was Babe Ruth lying over home plate. No one knew what had
Babe Ruth was hitting his cleats with his bat, and
happened. One moment
The
he had collapsed into the dust.
We walked
straight home and my father did not
the next,
until we
noticed
got to our house, until he had opened
the bat was still in his hands.
It was not
say a word.
the front door, that he
"I think I killed Babe Ruth."
he told my mother,
What happened next happened very quickly.
decided that we had to do something.
So we neither waited
My mother
"Carmella,"
for the papers the next day (which said that Babe Ruth was still alive), nor
went
to the police station (which was already filling with
the casualties of
Bat Day).
Instead: we panicked. We packed our things and got on a train the
next morning. We
After
that, my
came
to Canada.
a
things. He became
stopped doing
impossible
earned a living building
and
carpenter who
quiet,
ordinary
porches
no
cabinets. People
and he
installing kitchen
longer called him Samson
was
never told anyone about August
1921.
He
died
when
he
7,
sixty-two
father
years old, of prostate cancer. They sent him home after the treatment
failed. His hair had fallen out and he was completely
blind.
had
The last picture of him was taken just before he died, at my daughter's
fifth birthday party. He had already been sent home by the hospital.
In the picture he is singing "Happy Birthday,"
but looking the wrong
way asmy daughter blows out the candles on her cake. On the table in front
of him there are some walnuts
that he has cracked open. The nuts are still
in them. My father never liked eating walnuts,
but loved cracking them
open. He would pick up a nut and squeeze it until the shell cracked. He was
the only one I ever knew who could do that with only one hand. I've tried
itmore times than I can count. I suppose that this is the picture that would
to go at the end of his story. Or maybe just a
close-up of the walnuts.
was
1921
in
and
Bat
the
first
last
the history of baseball.
7,
August
Day
One-hundred-eighty-seven
people, including Babe Ruth, were injured that
to
in the New
the
article
York Reflector,
the Labrows
day. According
have
37
and Jackie Hubbs had reconstructive
surgery on her face. In the
paper she was quoted as saying that she liked her new nose "better." I have
no idea what
to John Seidl and Norman
Flax. The last time I saw
happened
divorced
them, they were
of our aisle. We
lived happily
I still have
lying with their eyes closed, in each other's arms at the end
over them as we exited the stadium.
stepped
Perhaps they
ever after.
the complimentary
bat that my father got that day. Today
it
is a rotted piece of wood,
on
and the Yankee
its side has faded during
logo
the years it was kept in the damp basement of my house. The truth is that
if I could show it to you, you would be unimpressed.
It does not look at all
like a bat that might have changed the course of
history.
But I still have it. I am an old man now, with grandchildren
of my own,
but there are days when
I go into the basement just to touch it. The feel of
never
to bring back that day, the
day my father became
afraid. I close my eyes and I can see myself
standing beside him in Yankee
Stadium. The game is about to begin and both of us are singing "The Star
the wood
fails
Spangled Banner." His real name was Giovanni,
him Samson.
I smell the grass
mother?called
into sunshine.
crowd, the final note dissolving
38
but everyone?even
my
and hear the roar of the