Catch of a Lifetime

By MICHAEL OLLOVE
Baltimore Sun Staff

They're saying the ball hit for home run No. 62 could fetch as much as a million dollars. But the ball just might have value apart from the money. That's Salvatore Durante's view anyway, and he's the one guy who would know.

After all, it was into Sal's suddenly celebrated right hand, stretched as high as it could reach into a powder blue sky, that Roger Maris' record-breaking home run finally alighted on the First of October, 1961. Sal, a cigarette still clamped between his lips, was knocked back a row or two in the right field seats at Yankee Stadium. Then he had to withstand the curses and grasping hands of all the it-shoulda-been-me's surrounding him in the stands.

It was worth it, of course. Sal's catch that day yielded pleasures for a long time to come, for exactly as long as it takes a skinny 19-year-old kid from Coney Island to become a settled but content grandfather four times over.

Just as Maris seems destined now to be eclipsed, so, too, does Durante. But who would have expected that the accident of snaring a single baseball one afternoon could so enrich a life? "It gave me a little - what's the word? Notoriety," Durante said from his home on Staten Island. "It's given me part of history, part of Yankee Stadium, part of Roger Maris. I've enjoyed every minute of it."

Who knows what'll be in the mind of the fan who snags No. 62, but cashing in wasn't what Sal Durante, a driver for an auto parts store, was thinking when Maris' 61st came his way that long ago day. He knew right away what he wanted to do with the ball: to present it to its rightful owner.

Durante was there that Sunday afternoon on nothing but a whim. He and his fiancé, Rosemarie Calabrese, had taken off on an aimless drive only to find themselves parked outside Yankee Stadium.

Presenting themselves at the ticket window, they were surprised to be handed seats in right field, the most visited site of Maris' offerings that summer. The seats didn't cost much -- under $4 apiece is Sal's recollection -- but Rosemarie had to pay. Sal was broke.

Like everyone, Sal had followed Maris' pursuit of the record that season, but it was Mickey Mantle, New York's favorite ballplayer, and Sal's too, that he was really eager to see. He secretly hoped to catch a batting practice ball, but figured there was little chance.

Still, in the fourth inning, after switching seats with Rosemarie, Sal found himself in the historically perfect spot, right there in Section 33, Box 163D, seat 4, where Maris' ball was now rapidly descending.

Sal didn't stay seated for long. "When he hit that ball, I knew it was over my head, so I jumped up on my seat and reached as high as I could. And I got it. It hit me square in the palm, like in a baseball glove."

Bedlam erupted in Section 33. Sal got smacked in the face and punched in the stomach, and he was steamed about it until one of the security guards gave him a little perspective. "Relax, kid," the guard said. "You got the ball."

That's when Sal realized that a single thought, an imperative really, had materialized in his brain. "I want to give it to Roger," he told the guards.

He was whisked away, out of the stands, through the Yankee bullpen, into a great labyrinth underneath the stadium until suddenly he was ushered into the presence of a familiar figure with a bristle haircut and, characteristically mournful countenance. "Roger," someone said, "the kid wants to give you the ball."

Sal held the ball out to the new home-run king. Maris waved It off. "He said, 'Keep the baseball, and try to make some money with it.'"

Sal still marvels at that moment. "He was very thoughtful. He could have taken the baseball, but he thought of my end, which was very nice. He shook my hand. He was very humble, very shy. He

didn't look overly excited. He was just that way. "

Sal and Rosemarie stayed at the stadium late into the evening. They met some of the Yankees, had their pictures taken with Maris, and gave interviews to all comers. Sal initialed the ball, and it was taken away to a safe in the stadium. When Sal got home that night, a mob was waiting.

Only in America can such an event transform someone into a celebrity. Of all things, that's what Sal found he had become. He was on the "Today Show" and a mystery guest on the. TV game show "I've Got a Secret." He was interviewed by Harry Reasoner and by Hugh Downs.

At the end of that October, an overflowing crowd of strangers showed up at St. Finbar's Catholic Church in Brooklyn to watch him marry Rosemarie. The Associated Press put a photo from the wedding on its national wire showing Sal carrying Rosemarie down the aisle. The caption called the 17-year-old bride Sal's "latest catch." Later they received a silver bowl as a wedding gift. It was from Maris.

With the player's blessing, Sal did agree to sell the ball. A colorful Sacramento restaurateur named Sam Gordon had made a standing offer that he would pay $5,000 for the ball, which he would then turn over to Maris. But the offer was good only if Maris agreed to join Sal in Sacramento for the transaction. That November, he did.

"I think Roger did me a big favor because he went there," Sal said. "I really feel he made that trip just so's I could get the money."

In California, Sal and Rosemarie were guests of Gordon, who was an avid sports fan. He put them up in his Palm Springs home and then financed the rest of a honeymoon that included trips to San Francisco and Reno. Gordon, who is now 91 and in very poor health, also offered Sal a job in one of his restaurants. Rosemarie was all for it, but Sal passed, fearing homesickness.

Sal gave half the money to his parents to help them get out of debt. The rest he spent to furnish the Brooklyn apartment where he and Rosemarie would begin married life. The $5,000 represented a year and a half's salary to SaL

The months that followed were a joy to the couple. They met Louie Armstrong and actor George Raft. They were asked for their autographs at a party at Jane Wyman's. They appeared on stage with the singing Mills Brothers. They were treated like long lost relatives when they ate at Jack Dempsey's restaurant, and the old fighter insisted that Sal say hello to his wife on the phone.

The next year, Sal was invited to the Seattle World's Fair for a publicity stunt in which Tracy Stallard, the Red Sox Pitcher who gave up the Maris home run, dropped balls from a Ferris wheel for Sal to catch.

The attention eventually waned, of course, and life went on. When Sal and Rosemarie's first child, was born, for a few years Gordon sent a $100 bond on the boy's birthday. Two more sons followed. One became a star college pitcher. Eventually Sal settled into a job as a bus driver for the New York Board of Education. Next month, he and Rosemarie will celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary.

Through all that, the catch never stopped delivering its satisfactions. Even before the frenzy of the last few weeks, Sal could count on an occasional interview. He has been invited to George Steinbrenner's box, where he met Maris' family. (Maris died of cancer in 1985.) And, of course, he's in the baseball Hall of Fame. The ball with his initials, and the signatures of Roger Maris and Tracy Stallard, is on display at Cooperstown, N.Y.

Just as pleasing is the reaction of anyone he meets who learns of his brush with Maris' recordbreaker. "Their whole attitude changes, their faces, their voices. It's unbelievable. I love it. I never made much money, but I got everything else."

Part of the everything else is the special connection he feels to a certain man with a savage swing and a great heart. "I still have a part of Roger Maris with me, and that's why I hate to see the record broken. Because of Roger, not me."

He's resigned to Maris being supplanted in the record books, even though be knows it'll mean a dimming of his own special moment, too. "There's going to be another Sal Durante, too," says Sal, "only richer."

Maybe.

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Reprinted with permission from the Baltimore Sun.