News Item: Aaron Hicks to Need "A Whole Spring Training"

...according to our TV booth.

By the spring of 1949, the heel that had been tormenting him since the war wouldn't wait any longer.  They shipped the Clipper off for an operation, but that didn't solve it.  Afterwards, the heel remained "hot," for weeks and weeks—probably some sort of infection.

The doctors told him it could go away all at once, just suddenly one day.  But as the season progressed, all it did was drive the big guy crazy.  He barely went out anymore, just ordered up room service from Toots Shor's.  Missing Opening Day, missing the first two months of the season, all told.

Then one day it happened.  He woke up and the heel was cool.  It didn't hurt anymore.  He could walk on it.  He could run.

He took a coach and the injured, backup catcher, Gus Niahros, up to the Stadium before the Yanks filed in for their game.  Had them throw a few into him, hit him a few flies.  Then a few more.  On and on it went, until his hands were bloody from swinging, his body covered in sweat from the unaccustomed jaunts in the field.

A couple days later, June 27th, the Yanks played an exhibition, the Mayor's Trophy game, against the Giants.  DiMaggio played.  His timing was off and he wanted 0-4, but he drew a walk, and he felt good.

Right afterwards, the Yanks headed up to Boston for a key series, up five games on the Sox.  DiMag wasn't going to go along, it was too quick.  But Toots kept working on him, kept telling him he might as well go on up to Boston, even striking out he'd look twice as good as those other crum bums...

DiMaggio allowed as maybe he'd go up there at least.  Suit up, see how he felt.  Maybe...

He caught a 3:15 flight to Boston, and went right to the clubhouse at Fenway.  Soon after, he gave Casey the nod.  He would play.  The Red Sox watched him limping as he warmed up on the sidelines and smiled to each other:  he wouldn't be running out any infield hits.

Leading off the second inning, his first at-bat of the season, he fouled off 6 straight pitches, then lined a single to left, touching off a three-run rally.  Next time up he hit a two-run homer, high over the Green Monster, for what would prove to be the winning run.

But he wasn't finished.  After a walk in the 8th, he clobbered Vern Stephens, the Boston shortstop, to not only break up a double-play, but also avenge the way the Sox had been trampling the Scooter.  In the bottom of the 9th, he tracked down a Ted Williams drive to the deepest part of Fenway, to secure a 5-4 Yankees win.

The next afternoon, he led a comeback from a 7-1 deficit, hitting a three-run homer in the 5th off ellis Kinder, then homering again in the 8th to put the Yanks up, 8-7, in what became a 9-7 win.

The day after that, a little biplane circled Fenway, trailing a banner that read, "THE GREAT DIMAGGIO." Mel Parnell hit him with a pitch his first time up.  But he hit another three-run homer in  the 7th, hit it off the light stanchion high above the wall, so hard that a metallic "clank" could be heard all around the ballpark, to make 3-2 game, 6-2, and secure a 6-3 win.

He'd finished with 9 ribbies in a series in which the Yanks score 19 runs, and gone 5-11, with 2 walks, that HBP, and 4 homers.

All in all, he played in 81 of the Yanks last 94 games, including the World Series—and despite a September flu that landed him in the hospital.  He hit .346 on the season, with a 1.055 OPS.  His team won the pennant by one game

Nobody said anything about him needing a whole spring training.