1968 Profile: Dooley Womack

"Ever wonder what a relief pitcher thinks about when he's coming into a game? Tune in on Dooley Womack's thought processes.
'I have to try to keep it under the belt,' he tells himself. 'Anything above it is a mistake for me. Ralph (Houk) told me to forget everything else and just throw strikes. A guy like myself has got to depend on control, keeping the ball low.'
Perhaps his overall record does not reflect it, but Dooley, a trim righthander, gets the job done. He was the Yankees' most effective reliever last year, with a 5-6 record and an ERA of 2.41. He gave up 80 hits in 97 innings and appeared in 65 ballgames. Now 28, and in his third year with the Yanks, he had a 7-3 mark as a rookie in 1966."

-Jack Zanger, Major League Baseball 1968

"When Dooley Womack talks to school kids, as he often does during the off-season, he can tell them about the value of hanging in there a little longer. He had been laboring in the minors for eight years and felt like quitting when the Yankees sent him to Columbus.
'But I hung on a little longer when they promised me a chance to make Toledo.'
Dooley took it from there. A 2.17 ERA (lowest in the league) with Toledo earned him a place on the Yankee roster in '66 and he became the Yankees' top short relief pitcher. Last season Womack tied the club records of Luis Arroyo and Pete Ramos for most appearances in a season - 65. He led the club with 17 saves, and his ERA was 2.41, second only to Monbouquette's 2.36.
The South Carolina boy with the pleasant personality moved to Hackensack, New Jersey at the end of last season. Womack, who's married, took a job with CBS Records as a sales trainee and discovered that 'baseball isn't so tough, despite the odd hours and traveling.'
Dooley (a nickname he prefers to Horace) doesn't depend on a fastball, which is why he doesn't wear himself out and is seldom troubled with arm ailments. He's a control artist who discovered that when he made batters hit his pitches - a variety of tantalizing curves offered at many speeds - he won ball games.
Dooley's brothers Al and Larry are also ballplayers. Larry, who was a University of South Carolina basketball player, was signed by the Yankees as a pitcher for the '68 season.
Dooley enjoys baseball so much he hates to see the season end. He worked out all winter at the Stadium. To the sunny South Carolinian who came close to quitting before he made it, Yankee Stadium looks beautiful in any weather."

-The New York Yankees Official 1968 Yearbook

"Last year Womack continued the improvement shown in 1966 when he became the Yankees' top short relief man. In 1967 he tied a club record for the most appearances in a season, hurling in 65 games. It was the mark set by Luis Arroyo in 1961 and Pedro Ramos in 1965. Womack led the club in saves with 17 and had the second lowest ERA, 2.41; Bill Monbouquette had a 2.36 mark.
Dooley did not allow an earned run in his first 11 innings pitched nor in his last 12.2 innings of the season. He picked up eight saves in his last 15 appearances.
A control artist who throws curves at many different speeds, Dooley earned his big league shot the hard way, spending eight years in the minor leagues, all in the Yankee chain. He finally gained prominence in 1965 with Toledo when he was 10-4 and had the lowest ERA in the International League with a 2.17 mark.
His brother Larry, a former basketball player at the University of South Carolina, signed with the Yankees last September. He is also a pitcher. Dooley spent his first winter north of the Mason-Dixon Line this year and worked for CBS as a sales trainee, and also for the Yankees."

-1968 New York Yankees Press-Radio-TV Guide

A MINORS CAREER IS A MAJOR EXPERIENCE
"Reliever Dooley Womack played with seven different minor league clubs in eight seasons before getting to Yankee Stadium in 1966. But what he experienced during those eight years will last him a lifetime."

-Fred Down, Sports All-Stars 1968 Baseball

"My life in the low minor leagues began, in 1958, with the St. Petersburg club of the Florida State League. Before I joined the New York Yankees in 1966 I played with Fargo-Moorhead in the Northern League, Greensboro in the Carolina League, Binghamton in the Eastern League, Augusta in the South Atlantic League, Columbus in the Southern League and Toledo in the International League.
And If I had to do it all over again, knowing in advance that I would never reach the majors, I would do it- and I believe that every man with whom I played would say the same thing.
We were a bunch of 18-year-olds when we gathered at St. Petersburg ten springs ago. We were a cross-section of the country sharing a common dream that we would someday be major league ball players. Tom Tresh was there and so were Pedro Gonzalez and George Banks. There were others, too, of whom you've never heard because they didn't make it to the top. But there was a common bond uniting us all, and when we get together we find ourselves talking about the old says at St. Pete ... Daytona ... Cocoa Beach ... and Palatka.
The dream we shared was a very grand dream. Most of the fellows who go into minor league ball have at least been to high school, and some have even been to college. They don't have to play baseball for a living. They can go into other lines of work and do pretty well. Some of the guys who dropped out along the way became salesmen, lawyers or small business owners. Ed Gary was one of them- but more about him later.
The minor leagues are a proving ground and, as in any proving ground, there are discomforts. The pay isn't good and when you get $1.50 to $2 meal money a day you find yourself eating a lot of hamburgers. It's a lonely life because there isn't much to do in the small towns. You go to a lot of movies, but you soon discover that the same picture is playing in all the towns you visit. You play pool or billiards and you walk the streets a lot. You don't go swimming much since you want to save all your energy for the game.
The hotels are pretty good. You room with a teammate and generally have a lot of laughs. Occasionally a guy has a couple of drinks too many, but there really aren't many rowdy incidents. It's more like being at college. One favorite gag is to fill a bucket with water, knock on another fellow's door, douse him and run. Another is to fill some one's bed with shaving cream, then pile the furniture on the bed. You get a lot of short-sheeting, too. All of this, though, helps to keep morale up. And that's important because the money is short and a lot of the guys are away from home for the first time in their life.
You call home a lot because the folks want to know how you're doing. Naturally, most everybody calls collect. Parents would rather foot the bill and know how their sons are doing than not hear from them. I think my phone bills cost my folks between $250 and $300 in one season.
Almost all the guys on the St. Petersburg club were single, but when you go into the high minors about half of the guys are married. The girls have to have a lot of heart. They have to accept the small salary and the travel. They have to understand how important it is that their husbands have the opportunity to get to be major league ball players. Most of the married couples live in nearby apartments. The girls cling together like a social club and get together for coffee in the evenings.
It's really a big event when a player gets called up to the parent club. At Toledo in 1965 I lost three roommates- Jake Gibbs, Jim Brenneman and Jack Cullen- within six weeks. The Yankees needed help and reached down into their farm system to get it.
Everybody is happy when a guy gets 'promoted' because they're all hoping it'll happen to them next. It is, after all, a dream coming true. Conversely, the saddest thing is when you learn you're being sent to a lower minor league than the one you're in.
I got that bad word with Binghamton in 1961. It was odd because I had been doing all right and was being used in a lot of games. But I knew something was wrong as soon as the manager stopped me going into the ballpark one night.
'Dooley,' he said, 'I've something to tell you.'
Then he asked me how many games I had been in ... how many innings I'd pitched ... and a few more things I thought he'd know without asking. He explained that I was to be sent back to Class B ball with Greensboro of the Carolina League.
My teammates didn't know what to say. They could see I was pretty dejected. A couple said, 'Keep your chin up, Dooley,' but most of them didn't volunteer anything because they were afraid it might come out wrong. This is where having a fairly good educational background intensifies the problem. You don't have to play baseball to make a living. You can call it quits, go back home and get a good job. You can kiss goodbye to the greasy spoons and long bus trips over bumpy roads. So you weigh all these factors against how much it really means to you to become a major league ball player. I was very dejected that night and thought seriously about quitting. But the next morning I decided it was worth it to keep trying and left for Greensboro.
There does come a point, however, when a man can no longer try or when there is no longer any point in his continuing to try. Often the man involved is the last to know. This is their dream ending. It's their admission that you have tried and failed. It may be that injuries- not a lack of ability or desire- have brought about that failure. It doesn't make any difference, though, for it is probably the worst moment of a ball player's life.
Take Ed Gary, for instance. He was a big fellow from Jackson, Miss. who went about 6-3 and weighed 200 pounds. He ran well, had a strong arm, swung a good bat. He was okay in the outfield, too. His build reminded you of Tony Kubek and he had a heart like Mickey Mantle's.
This was in late 1964 at Columbus, Ga. Ed had been up as high as Triple-A at Richmond in the International League, but he now he was back in the Southern League. He had suffered a slipped disc and was finishing out the season in a lot of pain. We could all see that he was getting near the end of the line. Ed and I had been together at Augusta in 1962 and had been become quite good friends since that time.
He left us a few days before the season wound up. He packed his bags and piled them into a car parked in front of the ballpark. We all went outside to see him off and- one by one- shook his hand. He was smiling and saying he would see us next year, but we all knew it was over for him. We wished him luck. Then he drove off and that was that. About a week we learned he'd announced his retirement.
I saw Ed again before spring training in 1966. He and his father were running a ranch and were on a cattle-buying trip. We had a great reunion sitting around and talking about the old times.
The manager has a special role in the low minor leagues. He becomes a guidance counselor, a father, a mother and a teacher to each guy on the team. There are no coaches, so he's the man you see for just about everything. As I said before, some of the fellows are away from home for the first time when they start in the low minors. A lot of problems arise ... homesickness ... loneliness ... depression. Sometimes things come up that only the manager and the player know about.
The skipper is primarily a teacher, however. He may call a workout in the morning and get a couple of pitchers together on the side. He'll talk about how to follow through, how to bend back so you can get everything into a pitch, or how to be on the alert for someone laying down a bunt. The main thing he is trying to do is make you conscious of ways to improve yourself. Rube Walker was my manager at Columbus, and we worked together on a couple of pitches. He showed me how to throw them, but it was up to me to do the work afterwards.
I have always believed that being a minor league manager involves a great responsibility. I remember all my managers with respect. Fellows like Tom Hamilton, Frank Verdi and Rube Walker. You have to be quite a man to have the Yankees- or any major league club, for that matter- entrust their young ball players to you. And it's quite something to measure up to those standards.
The hotels are pretty good, but travel conditions and ballparks vary quite a bit as you move around the minors. In the Florida State League, we had our own station wagon and the longest trip between towns was two hours and 15 minutes, while at Fargo-Moorhead in the Northern League we had as many as 275 to 325 miles of travel between towns. Some clubs have their own bus and others charter buses for specific trips. When a club has its own bus, the manager usually designates one player to be the driver. It's a good deal because you can sometimes make an extra $25 a month that way.
With Greensboro in the Carolina League, we traveled in three van wagons. We dumped our equipment in the back seat and piled in, 21 players and a manager, and off we went down dusty roads. And then there was Columbus in the Southern League. We had a bus with nine sleeping berths and I can remember one trip, between Columbus and Lynchburg, Va., that took 16 hours. The eight regulars and the pitcher got the sleepers, and the other guys sat up and tried to sack out as best they could.
By the time you get to the International League, you run into an older group and travel by plane. You don't find many former major leaguers below Triple-A, but you can make a career at that level. The pay is pretty good and some guys play eight or ten years in Triple A. The clubs have more money than those in the lower leagues and they're willing to pay a salary that will keep you in the game. Traveling on planes makes it a lot easier, too. You couldn't play the International League schedule without them, because there are teams in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Columbus, Jacksonville, Richmond, Toledo and Toronto. Some players don't like the flying too much, but most of them think it's a lot better than buses.
You run into some odd things in the ballparks. The Florida State League was in Class D, but playing conditions were good because the major league clubs train in Florida in the spring. The lights were good, too, and the fields were kept in pretty fair shape. But then there are some places where the players have to dress in shifts in a room that's maybe 12 feet by 12 feet square. In one town there was even a dressing room in an old garage.
Those are days you don't forget. Some make it to the major leagues and some don't. I don't think I have to tell you how important that is. But there is something else, too, not so easy to put into words. It is a special relationship and it lasts a lifetime. It means that these special friends and I shared a lot of laughs and a few disappointments, but most important of all we shared a great experience. One that I wouldn't trade for anything."

-Dooley Womack, Sports All-Stars 1968 Baseball