HANK BOROWY

August 29, 2004

Even if you are a true Chicago Cubs fan, know every player in the last 20 years, and have memorized all their stats, you still might not know the name Henry Ludwig Borowy. He made headlines in 1945 when the New York Yankees sold their star pitcher to the Cubs for $100,000. He wound up 11-2 for the Cubs, and without him, they would NEVER have won their final pennant 59 years ago.

I remember 1945 as if it was yesterday. An older friend talked me into being a Cubs fan a year earlier, and I was off and running. Borowy, from Bloomfield, New Jersey, then appeared in 4 World Series games but he was so tired, he lost the final of a 7 game series to the Detroit Tigers.

What's so significant about this story, just being another Cubs fan? Here's what happened.

In the early '50's, when I was the player-manager of a baseball team in the Bronx Federation League, a 35 year old pitcher named Jay Bueller, wanted to join us. We were in our 20's. He did well for us. It just so happened that Jay was once the batboy for the St. Louis Cardinals, who were known as the "Gas House Gang" in the 30's. They were a wild team of champions who won 3 pennants, lead by their great base stealer, John "Pepper" Martin. He was a tough, outspoken, wild character on the field..........Off it, gentle as a lamb.

When Jay got married, Pepper was the best man at the wedding. Then, while Jay was still playing on my ball club, the Cubs came into town and guess who visited Jay in the Bronx? I was there when Pepper brought his banjo and played all night. By then, he was a Cubs coach!!!

Here I was, a young Cubs fan, and we were singing Western songs with their third base coach!!! I was working in Manhattan at the time, and the Cubs were staying at the old Commodore Hotel. I asked Pepper if we could have lunch together and I immediately offered to pick up the check. He reluctantly agreed.

That day, I met some Cubs players, one of them Harry "Peanuts" Lowrey who was instrumental in the Cubs winning that pennant. Here I was sitting at the same table with two Cubbies. Lowrey was a former roommate of Hank Borowy.

I asked Lowrey about Borowy, if he kept in touch. Peanuts commented, "He should be contacting me. He was never that friendly."

Shortly after that momentous lunch, I met Borowy at a baseball function in New Jersey where he signed my baseball. So, I asked him about Lowrey, and he simply said, "No. I never call him." End of conversation.

So ended my attempt to get the former roommates together again. Borowy was a quiet person. He never wanted to talk about how great he was in 1945....never wanted to even discuss his past as a fine right handed pitcher. To him, it was just a job, and he was known for that attitude. He was in the majors for 10 years, with a 108-82 record, having won a Series game for the Yankees and two for the Cubs. Borowy considered that as just about nothing. "Just a job...." as if he was laboring in a factory all his life.

On that same 1945 team was a shortstop named Len Merullo. While I was rooting for the Cubs at the Polo Grounds one day, he fouled one off into the left field seats where I caught it.

He signed the ball right after the game when I waited for him in the street.

Thirty years later we met at the annual New York Baseball Writers Dinner and he saw my scrapbook with the signatures of his teammates. From that time on, we became friends, meeting yearly at the same affair.

Len knew Borowy to be a quiet type of guy, never saying much of anything. Our conversations usually centered around Andy Pafko and Phil Cavarretta. They were his mates and they were my boyhood heroes. There are only 5 members of that championship team alive today......in their late 80's and in good health.

What does all this mean aside from acknowledging the passing of Hank Borowy? Isn't all this sort of living in the past, thinking about the Chicago Cubs who never won again since 1945? I have my own theory about "living in the past." How can that help when you can't bring it back? Well.......aside from family members and friends who have passed away.......there is a way of living in the past.

If you can take the PAST....bring it to the PRESENT........and go forward in the FUTURE.............Now, to me, that makes sense.

Len Merullo is part of my past, part of my present, and when we meet again, he'll still be part of my future.

As for Hank Borowy and the Chicago Cubs' last pennant.  That's over.  It was nice knowing you and thanks for those dreams.