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The Mannings latest pair
of famous sports brothers
of TheColumnists.com
There’s an
old joke about the funeral of a Jewish man with the rabbi standing
over the deceased and demanding someone from the congregation
speak about him.
“We can’t continue with the service,” the rabbi
pleads, “until someone talks about the late Mr. Cohen.”
No one moves. Finally an elderly man makes his way from the back
of the congregation to the rostrum, clears his voice and announces,
“The brother was worse.”
Well, this time the brother was just as good or maybe, because
of the historic proportions for this game, even a little better.
Peyton Manning was the MVP in the 2007 Super Bowl and younger
brother Eli Manning was MVP in the 2008 Super Bowl with the Giants
17-14 victory keeping the Patriots from an undefeated 19-0 season.
Oldest brother, Cooper, first of NFL star Archie Manning’s
three sons, was injured early in his college playing career.
This all reminded me of the brother acts in sports.
The DiMaggios were around when I was a kid, Joe DiMaggio, of
course, the best of the bunch as the star centerfielder with
the Yankees and that 56-game hitting streak in 1941. Little brother
Dom DiMaggio was a pretty good centerfielder for the Boston Red
Sox and the guy teammate Ted Williams leaned on when the press
beat up on him.
Then, without much glory, was older brother Vince DiMaggio who
was a strikeout leader with the Pittsburgh Pirates until Ralph
Kiner came along.
There was a fourth brother, Tom DiMaggio, who ran the family
restaurant, DiMaggio’s, on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s
Wharf. It was a popular sports hangout with traditional bad food
and high prices for tourists.
When I was writing a book on Joe DiMaggio in 1975 I traveled
to San Francisco to interview brother Tom who was pretty forthcoming
about his famous baseball siblings.
“Joe always said I was the best player in the family,”
Tom quickly reminded me, “but I hurt my knee as a kid.”
I asked Tom why brother Joe quit baseball after the 1951 season
at such a relatively early age of 36 when Yankees owner Dan Topping
wanted to give him another couple of years at the then whopping
salary of $100,000 a year.
“Don’t you know? He wasn’t Joe DiMaggio anymore,”
he replied.
I was a kid in Brooklyn when my first baseball hero, Dixie Walker,
won the batting title in 1944. The sportswriters of the day demeaned
the feat because they said all the good hitters were in the service.
Dixie gained more fame in 1947 when he was supposed to be the
leader of the plot by Brooklyn Dodger players to keep Jackie
Robinson off the team. His brother, Harry Walker, won the batting
title that year playing for two teams, Philadelphia and St. Louis,
a feat never before or since equaled.
One of the players who kept Walker out of the Brooklyn lineup
for a while shortly after he joined the team was Paul Waner.
He and brother Lloyd, both future Hall of Famers, were wonderful
hitters. Paul Waner was also a recognized drunk.
Paul Waner hit .354 in 1937. His bosses figured he could do even
better if he quit the booze. He stopped drinking and hit .280
the next year. Then he was urged to resume his old habits and
hit .328.
“Sometimes I saw two balls,” he once explained, “and
I could always hit the bottom one.”
There was a dynamic battery of pitcher Mort Cooper and catcher
Walker Cooper with the Cardinals in the 1940s. They helped beat
the Brooklyn Dodgers out of a couple of pennants in 1942 and
1943.
The Cardinals had another brother act in pitchers Dizzy Dean
and Daffy Dean, supposedly named Jay Hanna and Paul. Paul Dean
once pitched a no-hitter in the second game of a double header
after Dizzy had pitched a one hitter in the first game.
“If I'd-a know’d he would pitch a no-hitter,”
Dizzy said, “I'd-a pitched one, too.”
The brothers I remembered seeing play for the San Francisco Giants
against the New York Mets in the old Polo Grounds were the three
Alou brothers, Felipe, Matty and Jesus.
In 1963. They were unimpressed with their feat because they had
done it so many times before in their native Dominican Republic.
With the DiMaggios, the Waners, the Walkers and the Alous, there
used to be an old baseball trivia question that got laughs.
“What team of brothers hit the most home runs in the game’s
history?”
The answer was the Aarons, 755 by Hank and 13 by Tommie. Barry
Bonds has passed Hank Aaron in homers, with or without the help
of steroids as only time will tell, but he is still behind the
brothers’ total of 768
In this scribe’s opinion, grammatical or not, the Aaron
brothers were better.
©2008 by Maury Allen. This column first posted Feb. 11,
2008.
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