Seeing Baseball With Ed Lucas
Apr 01, 2022Posted by james
This is the first baseball season in 82 years without Ed Lucas. The name might, as with a 100 mph fastball, whiz by you. But, if you have followed the New York teams the last handful of decades, you’ve heard about him, watched interviews with him, or read his articles. A close friend was Phil Rizzuto, who frequently mentioned Ed on Yankee broadcasts.
The New York Giants had just won the 1951 pennant when 12-year-old Ed ran from his Jersey City apartment to play baseball with his friends. He didn’t pitch often due to poor vision (he was legally blind), but he took the ball that day when several other boys had left the field. Without his thick glasses, Ed threw and the batter swung at the pitch. The ball struck Ed between the eyes.
The accident detached Ed’s retinas. His vision continued to deteriorate and he became fully blind on December 11, a day he always associated with the retirement of Joe DiMaggio. Surgery was unsuccessful to reattach Ed’s retinas, which had been weakened at birth due to insufficient oxygen. Mom Rosanna tried to raise her son’s spirits by writing letters to the Giants, Yankees and Dodgers with the hope that players, coaches and broadcasters from the game Ed loved would offer encouragement.
Giants’ manager Leo Durocher invited Ed to the Polo Grounds. When Rosanna learned that the Yankees shortstop worked during the off-season at a men’s clothing store in Newark, she and her husband took Ed to see him and to buy a suit. This started a five decades friendship.
To continue his education, Ed attended St. Joseph’s School for the Blind in Jersey City and then the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind in the Bronx. His love for the game remained strong though he no longer could see the field or the players. At the Bronx school, he formed a group of baseball fans who invited players to speak to the class. Jackie Robinson and Mickey Mantle were among several who visited the students.
Ed then attended Seton Hall University, earning a bachelor’s degree in communications and hosting a show on the school’s radio station that featured interviews with baseball personalities. He also wrote part-time about the game for several newspapers, including The Hudson Dispatch and The Journal. Unfortunately, a full-time professional job in the sports business following graduation did not develop for Ed. It’s not an easy profession to crack even for a cub reporter who could see the game.
To earn a living, Ed became an insurance salesman. He later became a public relations director at Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital in Secaucus and served as an ambassador, fund-raiser and board member of the St. Joseph’s School.
Then, during the 1980s, Ed decided to pursue baseball full-time. Assignments included a weekly radio show on WMCA-AM during the baseball seasons. His contributions to the Yankees’ YES Network website earned him a 2009 New York Emmy Award. The majority of his work was conducted at Yankee Stadium, surrounded by many players, coaches, managers and executives. One of them was Joe DiMaggio, who sat next to him in the press box on opening day of the 1976 season. Joe told Ed to turn off his transistor radio and remove the headset that he always used to follow the games. The Yankee Clipper delivered a personal play-by-play.
by james on Apr 01, 2022 |
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