It's starting to look more and more like 1922 was a bad year for somebody to be born, if they wanted to live to be 100. Especially if they made it to 99. First, Betty White. Now, Eddie Basinski.
Edwin Frank Basinski was born on November 4, 1922 in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from East High School in Buffalo, as did Al Cervi, head coach of the 1955 NBA Champion Syracuse Nationals, and jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. At the University of Buffalo, he earned a degree in mechanical engineering, and lettered in tennis and cross country -- but not baseball: The school didn't have a team.
He took his degree, and went to work for the Curtiss-Wright Company, an aircraft manufacturer, meaning he had an "essential job" and was exempt from the draft in World War II. This allowed him to also play professional baseball.
On May 20, 1944, he made his major league debut, as a 2nd baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, against the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Batting 8th and wearing Number 3, he went 1-for-4, hitting a 4th-inning triple off Bob Katz and being singled home by Frenchy Bordagaray, as the Dodgers won, 6-1.
He played 39 games for the Dodgers that season. One not counted in the record is "The Tri-Cornered Baseball Game." The War Loans Sports Committee came up with the idea as a method of selling war bonds. The idea was that New York City's 3 major league teams -- the Dodgers, the New York Giants, and the New York Yankees -- would play each other in a three-way exhibition game. Each team was to bat and field for 2 innings in a row, before taking a 1-inning break. By the end, each team would have played 6 innings of an otherwise standard 9-inning game. The game would only go 9 innings, regardless of who scored how many runs.
It would be played on June 26, 1944, at the Polo Grounds. The Giants used their usual home clubhouse and dugout, while the Yankees and Dodgers shared facilities. In spite of it being a hot and humid Monday night, the official paid attendance was 49,605, and 500 returned injured veterans were admitted for free.
Ticket sales raised $4.5 million. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a big Yankee Fan, pledged the City to buy $50 million worth of war bonds for the occasion. And, appropriately, Bond Clothing Stores contributed an additional $1 million. So the game was a roaring success before the umpire ever said, "Play ball!"
The teams came into the game with their rosters depleted: The Yankees were missing Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Tommy Henrich and Phil Rizzuto, among others, all in the service; the Giants were missing Johnny Mize; and the Dodgers were missing Pee Wee Reese. But there were some Hall-of-Famers playing, all near the end of the line: The Dodgers had Joe Medwick and Paul Waner, while the Giants had Mel Ott (also their manager) and Ernie Lombardi.
The teams came into the game with roughly equal records: The Dodgers were 33-30, the Giants 32-29, and the Yankees 31-29.
The game began at 8:45 PM. Why so late? Because, back then, that was the traditional time for raising the curtain on a Broadway show. (I grew up in the 1970s and '80s, and, for as long as I can remember, it's been 8:00.) The Dodgers scored a run on the Yankees in the 1st inning, and 2 on the Giants in the 2nd inning.
No additional runs were scored until the 8th, when the Dodgers got another off the Giants. That was the Dodgers' last inning. The Yankees scored a run off the Giants in the 9th. The final score: Dodgers 5, Yankees 1, Giants 0. Having the home-field advantage did the Giants no good. And the Dodgers weren't even on hand when the game ended: They left early, to catch a train for the next roadtrip, to Chicago.
Eddie Basinski went 1-for-2 in the game. He was the last surviving man who played in it.
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At the close of the 1944 season, Eddie had batted .247 with 9 RBIs. In 1945, playing 108 games, he batted .262 with 33 RBIs. With the players coming back from The War, he spent the 1946 season with the St. Paul Saints of the Class AAA American Association.
On December 6, 1946, the Dodgers traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher Al Gerheauser. This prevented him from being one of "The Boys of Summer" and a teammate of Jackie Robinson.
Once capable of going 10-19 with a respectable 3.60 ERA for a horrible Philadelphia Phillies team in 1943, Gerheauser was already washed up at age 29. The Dodgers never brought him up for 1947, and traded him to the St. Louis Browns in 1948, making his last 14 big-league appearances that season. The most interesting thing about him is that he was traded for Basinski.
Basinski played 56 games for the Pirates in 1947, a teammate of Hank Greenberg in his last season and Ralph Kiner in his 1st. Dividing his time between 2nd base and shortstop, and wearing the Number 8 that the Pirates would eventually retire for Willie Stargell, he batted just .199 with 17 RBIs, although, despite moving from hitter-friendly Ebbets Field to pitcher-friendly Forbes Field, he did hit the only 4 home runs of his career.
He went out to the Pacific Coast League, and played for the Portland Beavers from 1948 to 1957. Although he found a little power, topping out at 79 RBIs in 1949 and 16 home runs in 1951, he was unable to help the Beavers win a Pennant. He last played professional baseball in 1959, with the Vancouver Mounties of the PCL. He was elected to the PCL Hall of Fame and the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.
He was one of the few players to wear glasses on the field. Like Dom DiMaggio, Joe's brother and the center fielder for the Boston Red Sox, this earned him the nickname "The Professor." He was also known as "Bazooka," a play on his surname; and "The Fiddler," because, unlike most ballplayers, he was a good violinist.
In 1969, jazz pianist Dave Frishberg found himself looking through the newly-published 1st edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia, and seeing the names of players he grew up watching. He started writing names down, and found some that rhymed. He titled the song "Van Lingle Mungo," after a Dodger pitcher (before Basinski got there).
Some were genuine stars: Johnny Mize, Early Wynn, Roy Campanella, Lou Boudreau and Ernie Lombardi made the Baseball Hall of Fame. Some weren't quite at that level, but made names for themselves in baseball history: Eddie Joost, Johnny Pesky, Johnny Vander Meer, Hal Trosky, Stan Hack, Phil Cavarretta, John Antonelli, Ferris Fain, Frankie Crosetti, Johnny Sain and Harry Brecheen.
And some were there pretty much just to fill out the song and the rhymes: Bob Estalella, Augie Bergamo, and, well, Eddie Basinski. But Eddie turned out to be the last living player mentioned in this song.
(It's worth noting that Campanella was the only player mentioned in both Dave Frishberg's "Van Lingle Mungo" and Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire.")
Basinski stayed in the Portland area, marrying and becoming the father of 2 sons. He stayed in the transportation industry, as an account manager for Consolidated Freightways, retiring in 1991. He died in Gladstone, Oregon last Saturday, January 8, 2022, at the age of 99.
Behind George Elder, an outfielder who played for the Browns in 1949, and stands to turn 101 if he makes it to March 10 of this year, he was the 2nd-oldest living former Major League Baseball player. Now, the 2nd-oldest is Art Schallock, 97, the last surviving member of the 1953 World Champion Yankees, and the last living teammate of Joe DiMaggio.
Eddie Basinski was also the last living teammate of Hank Greenberg. With his death, there are now:
* 2 living men who played in Major League Baseball during World War II: Basinski's Dodger teammate Tommy Brown, and Chris Haughey, who played 1 game for the Dodgers the year before, 1943.
* 7 living men who played in Major League Baseball in the 1940s: Elder, Brown, Haughey, Curt Simmons, Carl Erskine, Larry Miggins and Bobby Shantz.
* And 10 living men who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers: Brown, Haughey, Erskine, Bobby Morgan, Jim Gentile, Joe Pignatano, Fred Kipp, Bob Aspromonte, Roger Craig and Sandy Koufax.
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