Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 13, 1993 TAG: 9311130193
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK. LENGTH: Medium
Dickey batted .313 with 202 home runs in 1,712 games from 1928 to 1946, all with the Yankees and all at catcher. The Yankees reached eight World Series with Dickey and won the championship seven times.
Dickey began playing during the glory days of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and his career overlapped the start of Joe DiMaggio's rise to fame. Dickey was a top player in his own right, making the All-Star team 11 times and later having his No. 8 retired - along with Yogi Berra, who wore the same number after replacing him behind the plate.
In May 1946, Dickey replaced Hall of Famer Joe McCarthy as the Yankees manager. After the season ended, he became a coach with the Yankees under Casey Stengel and remained in that job until 1957.
Dickey died at Rose Care Nursing Center in Little Rock. A cause of death wasn't available, a funeral home spokesman said.
Dickey's path to the Yankees began when he was purchased from Little Rock for $12,000 in 1927 while out on option with Jackson in the Cotton States League. The next year, Yankees manager Miller Huggins sent him to two minor league teams before he joined New York for 10 games.
In 1929, Dickey became the full-time catcher, playing in 130 games and batting .324. From then through 1939, he hit over .300 in every season except 1935.
Dickey had his greatest seasons in 1936-37. In 1936, he hit 22 homers, drove in 107 runs and batted .362. The following year he hit 29 homers with 133 RBI and had a .332 average. The left-handed hitting Dickey finished his career with 1,209 RBI.
Dickey caught 38 games in the World Series, a record later broken by Berra. Dickey hit .255 with five home runs in World Series play.
He also was a part of All-Star history in 1934. It was Dickey's single that broke Carl Hubbell's record streak of striking out five straight eventual Hall of Famers.
While playing for the Yankees, Dickey's roommate on the road was Gehrig. Like Gehrig, Dickey was a model of consistency, setting a major league record by catching 100 or more games for 13 straight years.
Like Gehrig, too, Dickey was quiet and reserved away from baseball. On the field, however, Dickey was fiercely competitive, once drawing a 30-day suspension and $1,000 fine in 1932 for breaking the jaw of Washington's Carl Reynolds with one punch after a collision at home plate.
Dickey and Gehrig were close friends, and Dickey was the first teammate to know that Gehrig was ill. Later, Dickey was the only active player to play himself in "Pride of the Yankees," a movie about Gehrig that starred Gary Cooper.
Dickey played a total of just 167 games and hit only six home runs from 1942-43. He hit the winning home run that clinched the World Series victory over St. Louis in 1943 and, at the end of the season joined the Navy at age 36. Dickey spent two years as a lieutenant and helped organize sports and athletics for the service.
In the spring of 1946, Dickey turned down a chance to manage the Yankees' farm team in Newark, N.J. Instead, he returned to the Yankees as an active player, batting .261 in 54 games.
On May 24, 1946, Dickey replaced McCarthy as the Yankees manager. McCarthy had guided the team since 1931, and left when an old gall-bladder ailment flared up.
Yankees president Larry MacPhail said he talked with McCarthy about a successor, and that McCarthy - before Dickey's name even was mentioned - said: "There is only one man for this job, in my opinion, and that is Bill Dickey."
At the time, Dickey signed a two-year contract and said he planned to keep playing.
"I will continue to catch regularly just as long as I feel I can help the club. I know I am an old guy, but so far I am doing all right," Dickey said. "When I cannot do it anymore, I will become a bench manager."
The Yankees went 57-48 under Dickey to close out the 1946 season, and finished third in the AL, 17 games behind Boston. At the end of the year, Dickey resigned.
Berra began his career as the Yankees catcher late in the 1946 season. Dickey became a Yankees coach in 1949 when Stengel became the manager, and spent several years working with Berra, Elston Howard and others who caught for the Yankees.
In February 1958, Dickey announced that he would not return as a coach. He instead became a scout working out of his home in Little Rock.
Dickey had his number retired by the Yankees in 1972. On Aug. 21, 1988, a plaque honoring him, along with one of Berra, was placed in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium that recognized Dickey as "First In Line of Great Yankee Catchers. The Epitome of Yankee Pride."
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.