Susan -- October 26, 1998

October 26, 1998

It was a plum assignment. Ok, it wasn't the Canyon of Heroes Parade following the Yankee World Series Victory in Midtown, but baseball legends nonetheless...

When I was a kid living in the suburbs of Chicago, St. Louis and New York, I played baseball with little leaguers, at the time the provenance only of boys. We girls were relegated to play in our backyards, or in school playgrounds. Our talent lay undiscovered on the infields of little league sandlots.

Ted Williams, in a rare pensive moment during the press conference for the dedication of the Yogi Berra Museum on campus of Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, October 23, 1998.

My mitt, to this day, laden with autographs of Bob Gibson, Ed Kranepool and Ron Swoboda, was as carefully tended as that of my childhood pals who were boys, who wore uniforms and marched in Memorial and Labor Day parades, while the girls stood on the sidelines and cheered.

In the summer of 1963, my friend Robin Hayworth and I decided we weren't getting any younger. At the tender age of 11, we each wrote letters to President Kennedy, asking him to do something about the dearth of women in the Majors.

Although his response was not what we had anticipated, each of us received, within a few weeks, an engraved letter on White House, stationery, personally signed by President Kennedy's secretary Evelyn Lincoln, saying that while he appreciated our letters, there wasn't much he could do as President to remedy the situation.

I can't deny my early feminist leanings. Some 35 years later, I take partial credit for girls playing in Little Leagues today! ...Well, ok, maybe not.

See how far we've come? Alas, there are still no women in the Majors.

My first visit to Yankee Stadium was back in 1975 with my soon- to-be husband, a die-hard Yankee fan, along with his brother John and two young cousins. I had Mets blood in me at the time and I'd brought along a cowbell to root AGAINST the Yankees. The House that Ruth Built had never seen such a rowdy un-fan. Luke and Alec, then 12 and 10, turned to Bob and said: "You mean, you're marrying HER???"

I soon became a Yankee convert, and so it was with great delight last Friday that I was sent out to cover what was assigned as the "continuing celebration" of the Yankee victory, with Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Ted Williams and Whitey Ford on the very day the Yanks were welcomed back to NY as World Series Champions. I think my husband wished he could have traded places with me that day.

Actually, the assignment turned out to be a dedication of the Yogi Berra Museum on the campus of Montclair State University. The first part of it was a bunch of talking heads. Although I was directly in the front of the dais, not 7 feet from Yogi and Ted, who sat elbow to elbow telling stories during a very long press conference, I couldn't move a mere 2 inches to the right or left, up or down or I'd have blocked someone's shot. It was a media frenzy. I knew there were going to be more opportunities later on to photograph them schmoozing, but I figured I might as well get as many good shots of them from where I was. You just never know.

After the press conference, Yogi did a ribbon cutting. If I thought the Press conference was bad, the cocktail party was worse. Thinking, 'piece of cake...' get a couple of these guys together and that's my shot....it simply wasn't happening like that.

Rizzuto didn't show up and Whitey Ford was late. But Ralph Branca was there though, and so were Larry Doby and Gil McDougald.

Yogi Berra and Ted Williams meandered throughout the new museum dedicated to Yogi Berra on the campus of Montclair State University, in Montclair, NJ on October 23, 1998.© 1998 Susan B. Markisz for the New York Times

The problem was, of the 6, only Yogi and Ted meandered together throughout the very circuitous and narrow aisles of the crowded museum, but so did many many photographers and reporters looking for their own angle. On more than one occasion, we media types were tripping over Ted Williams' wheelchair.

Adding to the crowd were the hundreds of "invited" guests, all of whom wanted to shake hands with these guys.

Compounding an already difficult situation, was the lighting; it was abysmal, dim. The ceiling was about 25 feet high, painted black, the walls a dark green, or maroon, or, oh I don't know, maybe it was pinstripe blue, the only lights were spotlights on the exhibits.

Even with fast film, I had to douse these guys with flash. It was like shooting in a coal mine.

I used so much film, though, that I was sure I had more than enough "take-home."

When I got back to the paper, I realized I'd way overshot. And I'd way overestimated the take. I won't tell you how many rolls I shot, but suffice it to say it was fewer than 9 but more than 5. If there had been a proportionate number of successes in those rolls, I'd have thought, hey, nice job Markisz. But what I saw was embarrassing...

I've been known to laugh out loud now and then when looking at my negatives on the light table, with an occasional squeal of delight when I feel I've nailed it. An editor once remarked to me during one of these outbursts, that it was good to hear someone laugh while looking through their negatives.

Yogi Berra during a press conference at the dedication of the new museum in his honor on the campus of Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, October 23, 1998. Yeah, the head shots are ok, but they certainly didn't depict much of a celebratory moment. © 1998 Susan B. Markisz for the New York Times

This was not one of those nights. I felt sorry for the editor who had to look at this stuff and imagined him saying: "Where'd SHE learn to shoot?"

So, I edited my film, marked a few frames that I thought were passable and folded the other sleeves, hopeful the editor wouldn't go past the couple of rolls I'd marked.

Compounding my feelings of inadequacy, I walked out of the building with an editor who'd asked me what I'd done that day. I told her the story and she said: "You shot HOW many rolls?"

Nothing ran the next day and I figured, oh well, there goes the ball game!

On Sunday morning, I ran into a neighbor while going on an assignment, and he said "Hey I saw your sports picture today...not bad, Yogi Berra and Ted Williams in the same shot. Pretty neat!" Sunday's Sports section ran probably the only decent shot I got that wasn't a head shot, or a group shot after the press conference. Sure, I got Yogi Berra shaking hands with some guests, but my guess was they were looking for a legendary, celebratory, and elusive group shot. It just didn't happen the way I'd envisioned it.

So maybe I'm not cut out for baseball after all. But I did have a comeuppance of sorts. Progress is slow, but steady. I think that there were two female photographers on the scene.

Ted Williams regaled the crowd with stories about how Yogi Berra had all these World Series rings. Every time he'd see Ted Williams, he'd have them on every finger, he'd raise his hand and say: "Hi there Ted, how ya doin'?" © 1998 Susan B. Markisz for the New York Times

Susan B. Markisz

October 28, 1998