Sturdivant: A memorable day with an ex-Yankee
Tom Sturdivant died Saturday, and the passing of the New York Yankee pitching hero from the 1950s reminded me of a great day a couple of years ago.
We brought in five former major leaguers to our office. Sturdivant, Don Demeter, Bobby Morgan, Cal McLish and Jim Gentile. The first four grew up in Oklahoma City, and Gentile has lived in Edmond for 30 years, though he grew up in San Francisco.
We talked about baseball in the innocent days of the ’50s and ’60s. Sturdivant was the only one of the five I really hadn’t talked to much before that. He was a delightful guy, full of laughter and still full of wonder at his major-league days. He seemed just as interested as I was in in hearing the stories about baseball legends, his eyes wide and sparkling.
Sturdivant, of course, had as many stories as anyone. His teammates were among the greatest names in baseball. Mickey Mantle. Yogi Berra. Whitey Ford. Sturdivant twice won 16 games, 1956 and 1957, for the greatest franchise in American sport, in that franchise’s greatest decade. His manager was Casey Stengel.
Sturdivant had a lot of tragedy in his life. He was in a car crash years ago that made his health deteriorate. This decade alone, both of his sons died. But Demeter, who also lost a son (former Yankee first-round draft pick Todd Demeter), is Sturdivant’s pastor, and friends say Demeter was a great counselor for Sturdivant.
Sturdivant died at the age of 78. He lived a full life, with great memories. I was blessed that he shared some of those memories with me.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
I drank coffee with Tom and the Capitol Hill crew at Gerald’s Donuts the last several years. This is not the place for the thin-skinned and although we did a lot of kidding, Tom was always delightful to be around. We enjoyed his Yankee stories and him recounting his experiences as a major league baseballer. What a lot of people didn’t know was that in his latter years he represented a South Oklahoma City district on the Metro Tech Technology Center’s Board of Education. A good man who will certainly be missed by the group at Gerald’s.
Thats a Who’s Who of Baseball, when Baseball was king. I had some of those
guys on cards I won at the Arcade at SpringLake. Great Story about Great,
Love for the Game, players. Just think, they live in our back-yard.
Thank you for writing such a great story on Tom. He was truly a great man and I appreciate you writing about the time you got to spend with him. My son is Tom Sturdivant IV and loved his grandpa very much. They spent so much time together and I am so thankful that Tom II was able to see Tom IV get married in May 08.
He will truly be missed.