Celebrity stockholders included Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Autry, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bing Crosby and Cecil B. DeMille.
Schallock recalls that his wife “loved the Hollywood Stars, rubbing elbows with movie stars and stuff,” although it didn’t seem to bother him, either.
During his three seasons with the Twinks, Schallock dominated his old, favorite team, the Seals. “All I had to do was throw my glove out on the mound, and I’d win the ballgame,” he recalls.
Walking from the mound back to the dugout one day, he crossed paths with O’Doul, the Seals skipper, who said, “You little son of a **** — I should’ve bought you when I had the chance.”
Schallock pitched a game against the Seattle Rainiers in 1951. Unbeknownst to him, Yankees scout Joe Devine was in the stands. Halfway through the game, Stars manager Fred Haney called Dona down from the stands. He had news.
“I just sold Arthur to the New York Yankees.”
“Who the hell are the New York Yankees?” she replied.
The pinnacle
They were a team in transition. True, the Yankees had won three of the past four World Series. But stars like Tommy Henrich and DiMaggio had departed, or would soon retire. Filling that void were Mantle, pitchers Whitey Ford and Allie Reynolds, and the koan-spouting catcher, Yogi Berra, still relatively young in ’51. Powered by that nucleus, managed by crusty Casey Stengel, the Yankees would win the next three World Series, as well.
The newest Yankee roomed with Berra on the road that season. “He knew all the hitters on each team, so he went over them with me,” said Schallock, who performed a service for Berra in return. He would buy comic books for the catcher.
The players who weren’t stars, Dona recalled, stayed at the Berkshire Hotel, near Yankee Stadium.
“I was the only one who knew how to cook,” recalled Dona. “So I would charge them for whatever the cost of the groceries were. That’s all I would charge.”
Mantle’s wife, Merlyn, was “so nice. She was adorable,” Dona said.
Those were the days when they had a wives’ box” at the stadium. “So we all knew each other.”
Schallock spent his five seasons with the Yankees on the bubble of the roster, shuttling between the big club and Triple-A. In his six starts in 1951, he won three and lost one, with two no-decisions. His earned-run average was 3.88. Schallock did not see action in that World Series, or the 1952 Fall Classic.
Working mainly as a reliever in ’53, Schallock’s ERA was 2.95. He pitched the final two innings in Game four of the World Series, giving up two hits and a run in a 7-3 loss to Brooklyn.
The Yankees won the next two games, clinching the series and earning Schallock his third World Series ring.
Early in the 1955 season he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles, winning six games and losing 8. Plagued with an injured throwing shoulder, he retired from baseball the following year.
After baseball
Schallock spent the next three decades working with title companies, in public relations and business development.
People still send memorabilia to him in the mail, asking for his autograph. Sometimes they include some cash, to compensate him.
“I sign the thing, put the money back in the envelope and send it right back to ‘em. What the hell. I don’t need it.”
He remembers that the highest paid person on those dynastic Yankee clubs was the general manager, George Weiss. “He was getting more than Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle.”
In Schallock’s day, the players’ minimum salary was $5,000. It’s now $700,000.
“I cry a lot about that,” he says. But he’s smiling as he says it.
He has always floated on the surface of things, never letting anything get him too down.
“I try to treat everybody fairly,” said Schallock, who then revealed a glimpse of the philosophy that has kept him around for so long:
“I never get mad or upset over anything. It’s not worth it.”
How about on the mound? “Nahhh,” he replied. “If somebody hit a home run” — like the tape measure shot Mantle hit off Schallock when the pitcher was an Oriole — “well, so what? Move on.”
Speaking of moving on, after his next birthday, he’ll be staring at 100.
“Tell me about it,” he says. “I walk from here to the mailbox, I’m all tuckered out.”
Would he like to hit the century mark?
“I think that ‘d be great,” he says.
Don’t bet against Schallock. His luck’s held out this far.
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.
