From the Vault of Art Shay: Baseball

In 1956, \<em\>Sports Illustrated\<\/em\> sent me to Devils Lake, ND (population 5000) to ride on a baseball train of DL fans all the way down to Minneapolis, where they would see the very first Minnesota Twins game, and in many cases, the first big league game of any time. They\'d packed a lot of beer and many fishing nets to retrieve foul, not to say fish balls. \<em\>Sports Illustrated\<\/em\> used this picture over two pages, recognizing a super fan.\r\n

By 1960-61 my repute at a sports photographer had grown and Post Cereal hired me to shoot the pictures on the back of their cereal boxes. (I\'ll bet some of you collected them!) My five kids went to myriad birthday parties, usually with a two-buck present. When Florence or I couldn\'t shop with them I let them pull one of the uncut Post cereal boxes from the pile the company sent me every month or so ... made a great boy present.\r\nAfter a couple of years collectors began to pay $500 each for the \"page.\" Mine by now were all given away in lieu of two-buck presents. Would have been cheaper to stock peanut whistles. They paid me $60 a player and payed the players $240 for posing. When nutty Jim Piersall howled that he wanted the money up front, catcher Elston Howard cooled him off, saying \"If they use your picture without your permission, you can get twice as much.\" It was a time before the big time had arrived. I remember sitting on the Cincinnati bench during practice,where some of players used binoculars to scan the right field stand for lady spectators not wearing panties. When this happened, it was the first time I ever saw athletes do high fives marking their achievement. And throwing a buck into the kitty these athletes raised: all the dollars going to the first player who discovered a lady fan without underpants. Their manager was Birdie Tebbets, and I was at hand when he told the \<em\>Time\<\/em\> cover writer that \"baseball is a game of inches.\" An eighth of an inch difference in where you strike the ball is the difference between a home run and a World Series, or just a pop up. He also told how he varied Grimm\'s fairy tales for his granddaughters, substituting players for witches.\r\n

Maris and Mantle at Comiskey Park the week before Maris broke the Babe\'s home run record. In 1951 I was assigned by \<em\>Time\<\/em\> to shoot the visiting Yankees\' surging Mantle for a cover - that is, a portrait their hand artist could copy. In the lockerroom little Phil Rizzuto came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his middle. \"Hey kid,\" he said. \"You\'re a photographer with a darkoom, right?\" \"Yeah,\" I said shyly, still uncomfortable talking to the mighty. Rizzuto dropped the towel and held out his tiny penis with two fingers.\"How about having this enlarged?\" Even DiMaggio laughed as I blushed.

A rare view of Casey Stengel, out of his Yankee suit at last, and in his first year as the Mets\' manager. His advice to a would-be hitter? \"Hit em where they ain\'t.\"

One of my most collectible poster - Yaz homering in Cleveland. A fan I know, now in his sixties, broke down in tears when I was able to get his wife a print of this picture as a birthday present for her husband.

Bill Veeck had begun shooting off fireworks when Sox - such as Minnie Minoso on this scoreboard - homered. Two \<em\>SI\<\/em\> fotogs from New York had failed to get this cover because of no homers. I did it on spec with a 4x5 Linhoff. I had the lens open for a little puff of fireworks in the third inning when Minnie homered. BUT I had asked Bill Veeck to shoot whatever he had left at the END of the game. I opened, shot the early homer, then opened the lens at game\'s end when Veeck\'s man fired about $500 worth - a good investment, Veeck said afterward. That\'s how SI got its 4th of July cover- and how I got to afford a new Nikon. I would eventually do more than 1100 covers- magazines, books, ads, annual reports, etc.My archivist Erica has been trying to get these covers together for a paste-up art object- but we\'ve only gathered 700 or so so far.Should give me something to do when I hit 90 next year.