Gene Woodling: A Stellar Career Playing For the Greats

Outfielder Gene Woodling was a key member of the New York Yankees’ five consecutive World Championships (1949-1953).

The career .284 left-hand batter played for six teams over 18 years (1943-1962) with two years in the Navy.

In the fall of 1989, we sat and talked at the dining room table in the farmhouse outside Medina where he had lived for almost forty-five years - by Norman L. Macht

Growing up in Akron, Ohio

I came out of a poor neighborhood in East Akron, Ohio. Rough neighborhood, every color and nationality. My people were from Germany.

They broke away from all the religious wrangling and came to Pennsylvania -- Pennsylvania Dutch. I had good parents, who taught me right from wrong, pay your bills.

My old man bought nothing unless he paid for it. He told me, “If you ever get in serious trouble, I’m not coming to help you.” 

I had fun when I was a boy, and wouldn’t trade my boyhood for all the money in the world. If you misbehaved in school, you had to beg your teacher and principal not to tell your parents.

They were strict and I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Those teachers were doing you the biggest favor of your life. We were a family of outstanding swimmers. My brother was a national champion at Ohio State.

After 20 years in the major leagues, I was put in my high school Hall of Fame – for swimming.

I was a good student in high school but had no money to go to college. If I couldn’t play ball, it would be the tire factory. We were Cleveland Indians fans – still are.

Cleveland scout Bill Bradley signed me. They sent me to Mansfield, Class D, about 60 miles south of here. Eighty dollars a month.

People in the rubber shop were making $12 a week and I was making $20 a week playing ball.

Cutting his teeth in pro baseball

Baseball can be cruel.

I was 17, never been away from home. Scared to go into a restaurant. Rough old-time player named Willy Stover was the manager, and scared me to death.

I’ll never forget him. I showed up and he said, “What position do you play?” I said, “In high school, I played in the outfield.” He said, “You’re playing third base.” I’d never played third base.

That lasted for about a week. I did everything wrong. But I led the league in hitting.

The next year I wound up at Flint, Michigan, played the outfield, third base, even pitched a few innings, and led the league in batting again.

In 1942 I broke my ankle in May in Wilkes-Barre in the Eastern League. Went back in ’43 and played for Tony Lazzeri, the old Yankees’ second baseman.

We were just kids, 19-20 years old. I couldn’t have played for a better guy than Lazzeri. Great handling young people.

You were family; that’s the best way I can put it. He and his wife were very good to us. You just couldn’t play for better people. Tony was an epileptic.

He had a winding stairway in his home in San Francisco.

One day he had a spell and fell on that stairway and that’s the way he died. His wife wrote me a letter and told me what happened. 

Playing for Casey Stengel

[September 30, 1948, Woodling was sold to the Yankees. Casey Stengel became the Yankees’ manager in 1949.]

Casey Stengel was a hell of a psychologist. Don’t you kid yourself. That guy made me successful. [Outfielder] Hank Bauer and I used to tell him we wanted to play.

And when we didn’t play it made us mad.  We told him to go to hell and everything else.

What’s wrong with that? I coulda killed the old man a lot of times. He loved it. He was thinking, “That pair of squareheads.

When I turn them loose, they’re gonna go out and beat somebody.”  When you take inventory of your career and come to him, you say, “This guy made me a good ballplayer.”

How can you hate him? There was no hate. I wanted to play and got mad when I didn’t get to play.

Baseball icon, Gene Woodling

After we won a World Series, I went into his office. I was going to say I was sorry I got mad at him during the season.

But he said, “Get the hell out of here. You ain’t coming in here telling me you’re sorry for making me look good all year.” That’s Casey. Simple as I can say it. 

He knew who to stir up and who to leave alone. I didn’t know this at the time. I found out later. He wound up being my best PR man when I left New York.

I told him, “Why didn’t you say those things when I was in New York? I’d have made more money.”

Stengel was the toughest manager you could play for. When you went to that ballpark, it was no-nonsense.

The first time a pitcher walked around the mound, dilly-dallying like they do today for the TV camera, Casey would tell the pitching coach, “Go get him. He’s afraid to throw the ball.”

I never thought Casey was funny. Not until he went to the Mets. 

They said anybody could have won with that team. That’s not true. Some other guys didn’t win with players like us. Handling 25 temperamental guys, that’s hard.

Winning Championships

After we won the first one [in 1949], he said, “That was the easy one. Now everybody in the league is gonna be out to beat you.”

We won a second one, and a third – five in a row.

They talk about those Yankee teams with all those hitters and pitchers. But we were the biggest bunch of red asses; we got on each other.

If somebody made a mistake in the field, we got on him. When we went out there, we gave it everything we had to give. You’d see Vic Raschi off the field and think he’s just a perfect gentleman.

In a game, he’d cut your throat. They used to tell Yogi Berra to go out and talk to Raschi on the mound.

But Yogi said, “No way.”  Raschi would tell him, “Get outta here Dago.”

Bobby Brown was an agitator.

I’d be sitting down by the water cooler when I wasn’t playing and Brown would sit next to me and say, “The old man is going to be on your ass.” I’d say, “What the hell you talking about? You better go back to those medical books.” And he was right; Casey would get on me.

Frank Crosetti was the best coach you could have on any club. With him, a spade is a spade and there’s no deviation. No partygoer.

He said, “I’m hired to do a job,” and did it better than anybody else. I let anybody know where I stood. Stengel said I was the only one who didn’t talk behind his back. And Cro was that way.

Guys who were not red asses? Yogi, Jerry Coleman, Joe Collins. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t say anything or I wouldn’t get on them.

Don’t kid yourself. Only Joe DiMaggio didn’t have to say anything. He just had to look at you. Didn’t say ten words all season. 

But when we left the clubhouse we were the nicest guys. And 25, 30 years later, there were no closer bunch of old-timers than us Yankees.

Of Course, winning made it a lot easier.

When Casey was with the expansion Mets and he took me from Washington in the draft, they had a press conference in New York.

He told the writers, “”You guys said I didn’t like this fella and he didn’t like me and that’s a bunch of bull.” He turned to me. “Did you dislike me?”

I said, “Well, at times I’d like to kill you, but as far as saying I didn’t like you, that’s a bold statement.”

He said, “Hey, who’s the only guy I brought back here to the Mets? We ain’t going anywhere. I’ll tell you guys something else.

He wanted to play all the time on that other side [the Yankees]. He can play all he wants over here.”

I handled the press real well: write what you want. If I do it on the field you gotta print it.

If I got three hits that day and a writer knocks me, prove the guy wrong. I kept a lot of those articles knocking me. They’re amusing to me now.

I was traded to Baltimore in 1955. Paul Richards was the Orioles manager. On June 15 he traded me to Cleveland.

They said I left Baltimore because I didn’t want to play with a losing team. They knew I left there because I didn’t hit.

All about the right attitude

They said I didn’t care if I got a hit. Every guy who goes up to bat wants a hit. I had the opposite reputation from what they wrote. And that bothered me.

You talk about a mean guy. I could be mean. Threw a typewriter in the whirlpool one day.

I got booed out of the city my first time there cause I was getting one base hit a week.

When Paul Richards brought me back to Baltimore three years later and I did well, and proved them wrong, they gave me a day. I was 36.

Richards knew I came to play hard, booing or not. I prolonged my career because of that attitude. I had my best years 35 to 40 years of age.

The 1959 season was a magic year for me, won a lot of games in the eighth and ninth innings. I don’t know why.

I was blessed with good health, good eyesight. I didn’t cheat myself. If I didn’t play well that day, I didn’t have to make any excuses when that was the best my body would let me do.

 I didn’t give a damn for managers, owners or anybody else.

I’d go to the ballpark -- leave me alone, play hard, and when I left that ballpark I’d say stick baseball up your butt and they’d shake their heads, and you know the best way to describe that?

Richards would say, “Yeah, and who’s going to play better than him tomorrow? When he goes home he forgets it with his family. But when he comes here tomorrow, get out of his way.”

My kids weren’t raised in a baseball atmosphere. I never took the game home with me. I could go 0 for 4, they wouldn’t know. I could get 50 hits, they wouldn’t know.

In 1953 my daughter was in school. The kids were talking about the World Series between the Yankees and Brooklyn. She didn’t know.

A kid said he was rooting for Brooklyn. So she said she was for Brooklyn. I had to explain it to her.  But I’m proud of that.

In mid-September 1960, the Orioles were going into New York for our last series against them tied for first place.

I came home on that Thursday, sitting right at this table. Nothing was said. I said, “Can anybody at this table tell me what’s going on in New York this weekend?”

My wife, my children didn’t know I had a chance to be in the World Series.  Isn’t that nice?

Roger Maris: a great attitude

I played with Roger Maris in Cleveland before he went to New York. He became a lot better hitter and outfielder than I thought he would be. By nature, he was a quiet guy, didn’t want to smile.

He was a good person. The pressure he got from the New York writers – if you thought Roger was bad, I’d have been a hell of a lot worse. You can only do what your nature is.

If you were going to write a book about the way your attitude should be in baseball, at the ballpark, away from it, and living your life, I’d single out Roger as one of the best. Brooks Robinson too.

I’d like to have each of them for a son.

Bob Feller was our main AL player rep.

I was the rep for pension matters for seven years.  We were given a lot of hell for not picking up old-time players who made baseball. When we started we didn’t have the money.

As soon as we were able to go back moneywise, I was the first guy going back and picking up the old-timers who made the game.

I played in the older era and lasted long enough to play in the younger era. The guys playing today don’t remember that we started all this and the hardships we had.

The owners wanted to get me out of baseball but I kept hitting. I told them, “You guys keep getting me mad and not liking me and I’ll stay around and hit .300.” I got condemned for being honest.

You try to be honest and you’ll be in trouble.

I had no wish to be a coach, but when Hank Bauer became the Orioles manager, I could help him by seeing to the clubhouse, the players. If somebody was fooling around in practice, I’d go at him.

That was what Bauer hired me for -- to see that a situation was handled without it getting to him.

I was there when Frank Robinson came over from the Reds. In ’66 he had the most amazing year I ever saw: 49 home runs, two more in the World Series.

He played all out, looked mad all the time, and didn’t laugh much. Did it all on the field.

Wasn’t the fastest, but would steal a base when you needed it. Not the strongest arm, but throw out a guy when you needed it. Frank was a real leader.

It’s tough to put into words. He made center fielder Paul Blair a much better ballplayer. If Blair made a booboo in the outfield, Frank ate him up. 

I thought Frank would be a good manager. 

I didn’t enjoy coaching. I said to myself, “What am I doing away from my family, my beautiful farm?” When they fired me, I was the happiest guy in that clubhouse.

Loving life on the farm

I had plenty of calls from former teammates and managers to be a coach. I thanked them all and told them for some reason I love my farm better. 

My wife and I had grown up together, two poor kids. We were going to come back to Ohio after baseball and we’d always wanted a farm.

So when I got traded back to Cleveland in 1955 we started looking.  I couldn’t live in the city.  You can’t describe the life we’ve had here. It’s work but I love it.

At first, the neighbors laughed at me. I said, “I’ll raise the best hay around here,” and I did. We don’t farm or have any animals anymore, but I do all the maintenance.

I tell people I scrape five weeks, then paint six. But I enjoy it.

I was asked to run for congress from this district. I expressed interest but didn’t do it ‘cause my wife would divorce me.

 It’s changed now, but when we first came here we were among farmers whose families had been here for 150 years.

You don’t come in here as ballplayers and do anything but mind your own business. We’ve had a nice life. Very fortunate. Count our blessings.

I’m tickled to death every day that I was a ballplayer. I wasn’t the greatest ballplayer, wasn’t the nicest guy, didn’t have the greatest attitude.

But I had a winning attitude. I stayed honest, got in a lot of trouble, and I’m sitting here right now very proud of what I accomplished.