NEW YORK, N.Y., December 30, 2004 — I experienced a poignant moment the other day when I heard that Yankee organist Eddie Layton had passed away. He was taken from us just one year after retiring to a life of leisure, one final contradiction in the life of a Renaissance man who played the soundtrack to several generations of Yankee fans. I had the good fortune to meet and spend an afternoon with Eddie back in 2001, and it remains one of the greatest thrills in the life of this Bronx-born fan.
Try to describe the life of a man who made a name for himself playing the organ in front of millions of people enjoying a sport he never took part in himself. Eddie Layton played the organ at Yankee Stadium for 36 years. He also played both Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, and recorded 23 albums. And he had a varied and active life away from the Stadium, including hours spent on the water. But this man who claimed to have never missed a day at work at the Stadium named his boat “Impulse.” It seems a strange moniker for a boat owned by such a hard-working guy. But that was how he described the way he felt when he first caught sight of a workboat hull and imagined a yard reworking it for him into a little tugboat. He bought his hull in Maine, and commissioned a naval architect to build it up from the “thousands of pages of notes” he had compiled.
When I was lucky enough to meet him in January 2001, his latest CD was “You Gotta Have Heart,” which he compiled largely in celebration of the New York Yankees’ recent string of victorious baseball seasons, culminating (at the time) in the five-game victory in the first New York Subway Series in 44 years. It wasn’t hard to get Eddie to look back fondly on his early years with the Yankees once we met at the office of his music publisher on a snowy, blustery, wintry day on Broadway in the fifties.
He invited me to lunch, which we had at a small Greek deli, munching sandwiches and drinking coffee. He told me that the late, legendary Mickey Mantle was one of the first star ballplayers he befriended. His other favorites, some of whom have joined him on his boat, included Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield and former National League President Bill White, who once served as a Yankee announcer. And speaking of announcers, it still brings a smile to fans of White’s sidekick in the booth to think how Phil Rizzuto always wanted to be out of the Stadium and across the Washington Bridge to Jersey before a thunderstorm would hit. Eddie enjoyed a hearty laugh while sharing the info that the storm-averse Scooter was just as terrified at the prospect of climbing on a small boat as he was at traversing the bridge in inclement weather.
A self-described “Gentleman Boater,” Eddie told me that he allowed no fishing from his boat, and no alcoholic beverages on board while under way. He enjoyed the camaraderie shared by the liveaboard community at his boat club, but it was peace and quiet that calmed his soul on the water, another contradiction in the life of a guy who thrilled to playing the Stadium organ with its “50,000 watts of power.” He compared himself to a rock star in that thrill of playing for a rapt audience of 56,000 strong.
“Why a tug?” I asked. “Only because its different from all the others,” he explained. Among the flourishes he added was a strictly decorative black smokestack inscribed with a big “E” (for Eddie). He delighted in the reaction of fellow boaters, who would give him a wide berth, thinking from a distance that they were in the pathway of a working tug. The boat’s top end was 8.5 knots, and it weighed 15,000 pounds, making it stable in the heavy seas he sometimes experienced on the Hudson River, which is three miles wide off Tarrytown, New York, where he had the craft moored. His home away from home had a sink, a stove and a refrigerator, and he used a TV on board to watch Yankee road games.
How much can you learn about a man like Eddie in one afternoon? He shared that he had many interests, and his apartment in Forest Hills, N.Y., featured a model train collection of some renown that he could lower from a “sunken ceiling” he had installed. He also had and used four telescopes, so put astronomy down along with his music, his boat, and his other hobbies.
National Public Radio shared one of his favorite stories the other day, as he said he lost himself in his music one night in 1982, only to look down and see Reggie Jackson impatiently waiting to lead off a Yankee inning. Eddie was broken form his reverie when the inspired Jackson began dancing to the music while he waited.
Layton accommodated my request for yet another story by relating what he called his worst day in the Stadium. Eddie had played in front of some great teams in the sixties, and again in the seventies, but during many of his years on the job the Yankees struggled. This came to an end once the club made it back to the playoffs in 1995. With Yankee stars of yesteryear tossing out the ceremonial first pitch before playoff games, the team and their fans met often the next several Octobers, until George Steinbrenner called Eddie into his office on October 13, 1998. With a 3-2 lead in games, the Yanks were to host the Cleveland Indians in Game Six of the ALCS that evening. And Layton, George said, would be throwing out the first pitch.
Despite Eddie’s repeated protestations, he relented once Mr. Steinbrenner insisted. Layton’s only baseball experience after all those years continued to be the games he saw from the Yankee control room. The Stadium throng only rarely saw Eddie’s visage on the Scoreboard, but now both teams, a national TV audience in the millions and 57,142 paying fans would be watching as Eddie made his debut baseball throw. First baseman Tino Martinez, a fellow offseason boater and friend, was recruited to take the novice’s throw. Layton feared the worst, and that’s exactly what he got, bouncing his throw several times before it finally reached Martinez crouched behind the plate.
But baseball-savvy or not, Eddie was a showman, and he trotted in to make the traditional hand shake with his catcher, when Tino handed him the ball. But as the crowd roared, Martinez looked up and called the Yankee organist’s name. Eddie leaned close as they prepared to trot to the dugout. Tino’s comment was a brief one: “Eddie,” Layton told me that Martinez called. Turning to the Yankee power hitter, he heard the following one-word review: “Boo!”
Eddie got a good laugh at that semi-whispered communication, but our meeting was about to end. Rising from the table, I asked Eddie what bothered him most. “Oh, rough water when I’m on the boat, I suppose,” came the reply. “The only thing I hate more is extra-inning ballgames. Or rain delays.”
That closed out our day, though I smiled often during my walk across Manhattan and my train ride home. Yankee fans have been very lucky at the great special days they experience in The House That Ruth Built, but we’ve made some painful good-byes of late as well. We lost Mickey Mantle in 1995, and the Greatest Living Ballplayer in Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio four years later. A few months ago in late October, Yankee fan and famed tenor Robert Merrill left a planet where the Boston Red Sox were still struggling in their failed attempt to capture a title. We still have the aforementioned Rizzuto and “deja vu” Yogi Berra to applaud on great days. Players such as Whitey Ford and Don Larsen follow in this parade, with Reggie Jackson, Ron Guidry, Graig Nettles, Roy White, Lou Piniella, and Don Mattingly bringing up the rear.
And now as septuagenarian Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, he of the open wallet and the unquenchable thirst to win, endeavors to lead his minions back to baseball nirvana in 2005, we turn to the ageless Yankee PA announcer Bob Sheppard. Eddie Layton never learned to drive a car, and good friend Sheppard drove him to the Stadium before games for years. The silver-tongued orator and teacher deserves the last word in this remembrance:
“And now, our National Anthem, played by the legendary Eddie Layton.”
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!