WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Fastpitch Johnny. September 6, 2004: This afternoon there is a holiday doubleheader at the Big Ball Park. That's Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play two. There was a time when every national holiday during baseball season had scheduled doubleheaders -- a simpler time when the games were shorter, "you could come on out and catch the rest of the first game and all of the second game,"  and you did not have to take a mortgage out to buy a beer.

WRIGLEY FIELD, 1975. Photo by WPCNR Sports

Nowadays in major league baseball, the only doubleheaders are day night affairs, charging special admissions to each game so no gate receipts are lost.

But fifty years ago, the Sunday doubleheader was a tradition, as were Ladies Days on Saturdays at the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Ebbetts Field in New York.

What was great about the doubleheader was it was a true bargain: Two Games for the price of one. If your home team did not win the first game, known as "The Opener," there was always the chance they could win "the Nightcap."

Doubleheaders were made for beer.

When beer commercials were done live from the television booth or from the studio, the beer looked so good being poured on television. The bubbles ascending from the bottom of the glass, the creamy white head of a Ballantine beer being poured. The way condensation appeared on the beer bottle on television, made every preteen think that beer tasted great.

It did not of course, and when I got my first taste of the legendary Ballantine Ale ("Who is the Ale Man? Who Can he be?" was the slogan), I was literally and figuratively disappointed. THIS is Ballantine Ale, I thought?

So all you teens out there -- beer is a habit -- because it really does not taste that good -- unless of course it's 88 degrees in Yankee Stadium and you're in the upper deck. Man, the best slogan ever created was "Baseball and Ballantine, Baseball and Ballantine, what a combination, all across the nation, it's Baseball and Ballantine."

Baseball Forever on a Sunday

The ballpark upper deck had a great aroma to it on a steamy Sunday twin bill -- the manly allure of beer being poured, the sharp patina of cigar and cigarette smoke that hung in the upper deck under the Yankee Stadium roof, the nutty tang of peanuts being snapped up. The beefy siren of boiled hotdogs -- none of this sissy sausage stuff --and the bellow of the concession man yelling, "Beah hea" "Hot Dog hea.." 

Of course you cannot eat and drink like that today at the Stadium you would go bankrupt. However, there is more drinking in the stands today than there ever was when I was a kid in the upper deck. Fans came to watch the games then. And we'd watch two.

Premier Matchups and Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Pitchers

The openers of these affairs which started at 2 PM, always featured the premier starters, Whitey for the Yankees against Frank Lary of the Tigers, or Tom Sturdivant for the Bombers against Camilio Pasqual of the Senators. Or over in Brooklyn, Eoisk  or Newk against Spahnie or Robin. We knew the starters of every team 50 years ago.

In the second games, somehow you got the long, long games, the donnybrooks, because you saw the soft underbelly of pitching. You'd see the Gene Brabenders, the Joe Nuxhalls, the Warren Hackers of baseball. Sometimes you'd see a rookie pitch. I still remember Luis Tiant's shutout of the Yankees, 1-0, in the second game of a twin bill in 1958, when Luis was thin and young. I wasn't there, but I saw it on PIX.

Long Shadows

You also if you were watching at home or in the ballpark delighted in the way the shadows would cover the pitching mound along about 5 P.M., and every fly ball became a touch chance as sun dipped low on the rim of the old Stadium.

On particularly sloppy doubleheaders, papers and programs would be torn and scattered on the field as fans expressed their boredom. I recall one particular 5-4, 5-4 split the Yankees had with Minnesota in the 70s, when I was there,  where the fans really got into this.

Another punctuated phenomena during elongated "Nightcaps" were the "K-Pock" of soda cups being stomped by fans that punctuated the game being played in the shadows below.

Bench Favorites

Another feature of second games of holiday twin bills was the appearance of backup bench players in the Yankee lineup, the Jerry Lumpes, Hector Lopezes, Bob Cervs, who lent a bizarre flavor of the unexpected hero into the Bombers' lineup.

Long Games

Openers were usually crisp, efficient 3-2, or 2-1 affairs because the better pitchers were throwing, and they went 9 innings 50 years ago, friends. None of this crap that  6 innings was a quality start. If you did not go 9 50 years ago, you were not a pitcher.

In the second game -- that's when you often got those guys doomed to drift between Triple A and a cup of coffee -- and often shadows being what they were, and the fatigue of the players you'd get locked into extra inning games. The Mets 23-inning affair with the Giants in 1965, I believe was a second game of a doubleheader.

I miss the holiday doubleheader. So fans at the Stadium this afternoon should savor the experience. Though I daresay, you're not going to see Whitey Ford, Bob Turley on the mound.