Jerry Schwab (Polo Grounds 1946-1957)

Jerry Schwab is my guest on this months Lost Ballparks podcast. From 1946-1957, Jerry and his family lived in an apartment underneath the LF grandstands at the Polo Grounds. His Dad, Matty was the head groundskeeper for the New York Giants. His story is a rare glimpse into a world that few have ever seen; personal relationships with legends of the game, hidden passages, tunnels beneath the stands and the dugouts and clubhouses where history was written.

Chapters

• 0:09 Home Under the Grandstands
• 2:22 A Century of Schwabs and Sacred Grass
• 3:31 Moving from Ebbets Field to the Polo Grounds
• 4:08 Opening Day: A Ballpark Becomes a House
• 5:50 the secret pathways beneath the Polo Grounds
• 7:05 Inside our home at the Polo Grounds
• 8:10 Sleepovers in left field
• 9:04 Shagging flies
• 9:40 Catch with Willie Mays
• 10:57 Tents Under the Stars of the Polo Grounds
• 11:24 When Rainfall Meant a Midnight Wake-Up Call
• 12:39 Dark passageways, concession tunnels
• 14:28 Watching the Giants from the Clubhouse Windows
• 15:33 The Shot Heard ’Round the World (and Almost on Our Roof)
• 16:26 Hoyt Wilhelm’s Gift: A Knuckleball for Life
• 17:42 Willie’s Catch in My Backyard
• 18:57 Life at Seals Stadium: New Beginnings in the Bay
• 19:44 Candlestick Rises
• 20:26 Stopping Maury Wills: The Midnight Dirt Job
• 23:54 A glove given and a home (plate) saved

Transcript

Mike Koser 0:10

Hi, I'm Mike Koser, and welcome to the Lost Ballparks Podcast. This is a remarkable tale of a family who lived at the polo grounds, year-round caretakers of a horseshoe-shaped cathedral dedicated to America's pastime. Their story is one of deep connection to a place that, for many, was just a ballpark, a place to cheer the beloved New York Giants. But for the Schwab family, it was home. Imagine the life they led, waking up each morning to the quiet expanse of an empty field, the echoes of yesterday's game still lingering in the air. For the Schwabs, the Polo Grounds wasn't just a job or a backdrop. It was the rhythm of their daily life, a place where they witnessed legends in the making. Their story is a rare glimpse into a world that few have ever seen. The hidden passages, the tunnels beneath the stands, and the forgotten rooms where memorabilia from another era gather dust. In this month's episode of the Lost Ball parks Podcast, we will walk in their footsteps and feel the heartbeat of a place where history was written.

Announcer 2:07

Podcast open

Mike Koser 2:23

Jerry Schwab, who's now 82 years young, is my guest on this month's Lost Ball parks podcast. From 1946 to 1957, Jerry and his family lived in an apartment underneath the left field grandstands at the Polo grounds. Jerry's dad, Matthew, was the groundskeeper for the New York Giants. Now, for context, the name Schwab was part of baseball history for more than 100 years. In the 1880s, John Schwab, who was Jerry's great-grandfather, was the groundskeeper at Cincinnati's League Park. His son, Matty, was the groundskeeper at Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans until 1911, and then at Crosley Field until 1963. Matty's son, Matthew Jr., was the groundskeeper at Ebbet's Field. Then, in the mid-1940s, he was hired by the Giants to run the grounds crew at the Polo Grounds. A move that would take he, his wife Rose, and three-year-old son Jerry, who is our guest today on the Lost Ballparks podcast, across town to the banks of the Harlem River. And that's where our story begins.

Jerry Schwab 3:26

Yeah, I was that was in uh 1945, I think.

Mike Koser 3:31

You, your dad, and your mom Rose lived in a nice apartment in Brooklyn, and the commute to the polo grounds to 155th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan would have been awful. Right. But your dad had a solution.

Jerry Schwab 3:44

Yes. Well, he went to Horace Stonham and found a spot over in the left field behind the thing that was open that was just for storage and stuff like that, and asked about putting an apartment in there. That he could live there and he'd be on the field, he could be, you know, move the sprinklers at night, do whatever he had to do, and be on near all the time. And Stonham agreed with it.

Mike Koser 4:03

And so this was the underneath the left field grandstands.

Opening Day: A Ballpark Becomes a House

Jerry Schwab 4:07

Exactly, yeah. Where the if you see pictures of the polo grounds where the canvas that they covered the field up with in case of rain, it was right behind that.

Mike Koser 4:18

And the Giants call in carpenters, electricians, plumbers, other contractors, and literally built your family a two-bedroom apartment underneath the Left Field Grandstands. Opening day 1946, there is a now a a two-bedroom apartment underneath the polo grounds that your family calls home.

Jerry Schwab 4:56

It actually wasn't two bedrooms, but it sounded like two bedrooms because we used the living room kind of as a bedroom too. A little room in the back, part of it attached together. And that that was we had bunk beds in there. That's where my mom and dad slept on a fold-out bed in the living room.

Mike Koser 5:12

Three windows in the apartment, correct?

Jerry Schwab 5:14

Right.

Mike Koser 5:15

There were two that faced the subway repair yards.

Jerry Schwab 5:18

Well, yeah, there was two there. Of course, you couldn't see anything out the windows, they were up pretty high and stuff like that. So they weren't really windows that you could sit there and look out at.

Mike Koser 5:27

And your dad asked if he could build a fourth window on the outfield wall facing the inside of the ballpark, but that did not happen.

the secret pathways beneath the Polo Grounds

Jerry Schwab 5:36

It never it never happened. The little room, the little bedroom in the back that was that was very small and it had bunk beds in it, that was the one that was closest to the to the field. That's where probably where he was talking about putting a window in, but uh that never happened.

Mike Koser 5:51

Uh Jerry, how would you get to your apartment? I mean, let's say you left for school, you come back in the afternoon.

Jerry Schwab 5:58

Okay, on on the outside of that there was an alleyway that ran down alongside the which was a subway repair back then. And then it later on it became not too far after that, it became uh condominiums like. It became uh the they tore all that down and put uh apartments in there.

Mike Koser 6:17

Right.

Jerry Schwab 6:18

So there was an alleyway that came down there and there was a big roll-up door right beside us. And then if you went down another few hundred yards, I guess there was a there was a roll-up door. Drive in and we'd drive right right there. The car would sit right there. We had a jeep back then My dad drove that we had well sometimes my mom and I would drive back and forth to Florida because dad would have to see football and stuff like that. When I got a little older and I'd start at school, I part of first grade in New York and then uh they pulled me out of there and we came here to South Florida and went to school down here. And my mom and I would drive back and forth. You know, we drive down there in in the fall and come back in the spring.

Inside our home at the Polo Grounds

Mike Koser 7:03

Any other details about the apartment itself?

Jerry Schwab 7:05

Yeah, well when you went through the front door faced down the alleyway. There was an alley underneath we called it the tunnel that went all the way underneath the park. There was a tunnel that went all the way underneath the park. And uh what we would do is if we were going out, we didn't use a big roll of door, we would drive all the way around the tunnel to the other side and go out and go out that way out there. Which puts you right out on uh I guess that was eighth Avenue. As you the front door faced the alley. And we would go to the front door, then we had a kitchen and at the dining room table in the next room, next to that was the living room, which had the roll-up bed that was closed up during the day. We had a couple chairs, there, you know, couches in there or whatever, TV and stuff like that. And then there was a little little bitty hallway, you know, maybe five five feet that was all.

Mike Koser 7:58

Yeah.

Sleepovers in left field

Jerry Schwab 7:58

Right at the right at the end of that there was a sink. And to the left was the bathroom that had a shower, small shower and a toilet. To the right was that other small room, which was really my room as I was growing up.

Mike Koser 8:11

Your situation was really the stuff of a kid's dream. Um by the early 1950s, the New York Giants were the talk of the town with players like Bobby Thompson, Monte Irvin, Sal Maglie, and a young five-tool firecracker named Willie Mays. And their field was your backyard. And I'm sure like any other nine, 10-year-old kid, you would have sleepovers.

Jerry Schwab 8:35

I I had some friends, so we didn't have many that stayed because uh my friends were really uh, well, it was Dale Jansen, who was Larry Jansen's son.

Mike Koser 8:44

Right.

Jerry Schwab 8:45

There was uh Eddie Logan Jr., Eddie Logan Sr. was clubhouse manager.

Mike Koser 8:51

And Chris Dur ocher, Leo Durocher's son.

Jerry Schwab 8:54

Chris Durocher, yeah. He was there. He was he was a couple years younger than us.

Shagging flies

Mike Koser 8:57

I'm just picturing telling your friends where you live, them of course not believing you, and then coming through that door into your apartment.

Jerry Schwab 9:06

Yeah, yeah. I also had a uniform.

Mike Koser 9:09

Oh, right, yeah.

Jerry Schwab 9:10

Eddie Jr. had a uniform, Dale did too, and we would be out shagging flies during battin' practice when I was on the field all the time, you know. Sometimes they wanted us to stay in the dugout during a game. Of course it was exciting, but you have to remember this is what I grew up in. So for me, I thought that was normal.

Mike Koser 9:27

Right.

Catch with Willie Mays

Jerry Schwab 9:28

And uh all the players, most of the players called me little Matty. That was my father's first name. And uh I was just just a you know, a month or two ago Willie Mays just died at ninety-three.

Mike Koser 9:40

Right.

Jerry Schwab 9:40

And that that really that that bothered me a lot. I I knew Willie Mays real well. And uh I never thought anything. He was just uh, you know, one of the players, he's a nice guy. I didn't think anything about it knowing that how big baseball was and stuff like that. It's just uh that was my life.

Mike Koser 9:59

Did you ever play catch with Willie Mays or

Jerry Schwab 10:01

Oh lots of times, sure.

Mike Koser 10:02

Yeah

Jerry Schwab 10:02

Knew Willie Mays real well. He was Willie Mays, well, I one thing that always amazed me about Willie Mays when they had a double header. The clubhouse manager would put a big buffet on between the two games. And all the players would come and they'd they'd chow down on this buffet that he would put out to who knows what it what it was, you know, it would be a different thing every time. Yeah. Uh but Mays would never take part of it. He might grab a stick of gum or something like that. That's all he did. He stuck right to his diet that he had. He never cheated on anybody. He was a very nice man, really a really a gentleman. He was he was always very friendly to me. And a lot of times around the before uh battin' practice, we'd play pepper. Some of us kids would play with Mays and Lockhart and Jansen and those guys, Westrum.

Mike Koser 10:50

So when you're nine, ten years old, do you remember um putting a tent up in the outfield at the polo grounds?

Tents Under the Stars of the Polo Grounds

Jerry Schwab 10:56

Yes, we did that. Yeah, we would do that. We'd we'd put uh I think there was a picture of Life Magazine showing me sitting sleeping out under the stars with the kids right there in Left field.

Mike Koser 11:06

It doesn't occur to you then, but all these years later, you realize what a what a storied ballpark that was and all the history that happened there to think that that was your backyard.

Jerry Schwab 11:16

That was my backyard. I had to run of the entire park. I was uh I could go anywhere as I wanted when I was a kid growing up.

When Rainfall Meant a Midnight Wake-Up Call

Mike Koser 11:24

Yeah, in the middle of the night, if it began to rain, uh that was like a five alarm fire for you and your family, right?

Jerry Schwab 11:30

Oh, for sure. My dad, I remember dragging us all out there when it happened. It was a disaster if there was a game coming. At least to get the covers over the infield and stuff like that. And I remember being, you know, nine years old or something like that, pulling on them canvases and and my dad my dad yelled, Shake it up, guys, shake it up. You know

Mike Koser 11:48

two o'clock in the morning?

Dark passageways, concession tunnels

Jerry Schwab 11:50

Oh, all the time, yeah. I'd help my dad move the sprinkler sometimes in the middle of the night. He would go out there all the time. And he'd uh I'd wake up and he'd say, Come on, boy, you want to move some sprinklers? Let's go, you know, and out we go. And uh a lot of the hose turn-ons were in the dugout or underneath the stands in the center field and stuff like that, and he'd say, Okay, go turn it on. Of course they had built-in sprinklers too, but there were spots that it didn't reach all the time, so he put his own sprinkler there or something, and uh and he would tell me to go down in the dugout and like the home dugout had a tunnel that went to all the way to the inside in there into the alleyway, so you could go to the concession stand or whatever, or there was uh uh Lorraine Day, which was uh Durocher's wife. She ran a she ran a show right right there. She had a TV show right there.

Mike Koser 12:39

At the polo grounds?

Jerry Schwab 12:40

At the polo grounds, underneath the stands, you know, right behind the dugout. But at any rate, Dad would send me down to turn it on, and I remember going down and it'd scare me to death going into the dark tunnels. I mean, they were black, you know, except here at

Mike Koser 12:52

two o'clock in the morning, yeah. Yeah.

Jerry Schwab 12:54

Like the creature of the black lagoon was gonna reach out and grab me.

Mike Koser 12:58

And like you said, when the Giants were on the road, you literally would have your roam of all parts of the stadium. And I'm curious, I mean, I know there were tunnels all throughout the polo grounds, and you guys would use those to get to where you wanted to go. You and uh Larry Jansen's son and Chris Du rocher, what were your favorite hangouts?

Jerry Schwab 13:13

The clubhouse.

Mike Koser 13:14

Yeah. in center field?

Jerry Schwab 13:15

Yeah, in center field. Most of the time we were in the clubhouse and we would play board games or something like that, or whatever. And then Chris and I'd go home sometimes, and in between innings I'd run around the around the track, the the dirt track around the outfield and run back to the house.

Mike Koser 13:32

The door between the two clubhouses was paper thin.

Watching the Giants from the Clubhouse Windows

Jerry Schwab 13:36

Just about, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was, if you see the picture on looking at the clubhouse, the Giants Clubhouse was on the right side of that. And there was, I guess, about the first I don't know, seven windows or so or something like that. That was all the Giants Clubhouse. Then there was a couple windows that was Leo Durocher's office, and then there was just a couple windows at the visiting clubhouse. But the visiting clubhouse, they didn't have any way that they could watch the game up there because there was like a big bulkhead built up there on the front part where the windows were, so nobody ever went up there. But we could watch the game from the Giants Clubhouse, and we had to sit back from the windows. We weren't allowed to sit next to the windows during the game because they thought that the uh you know it bother the pi the batter, whatever. Yeah, because that was in direct line of home plate. So you know that it would bother the hitters.

Mike Koser 14:28

So uh but you remember sitting up there in the center field clubhouses watching the game?

Jerry Schwab 14:32

Sure, yeah, yeah, all the time.

Mike Koser 14:35

In 1951, the Giants played the Dodgers in a best of three tiebreaker to determine who would win the pennant that year. The Giants won game one, the Dodgers took game two, the deciding game three would be played at the polo grounds. The giants trailed by two, but had two men on, and Bobby Thompson at the plate.

Announcer 15:32

Game audio.

Mike Koser 15:33

That home run ball lands in the left field grandstands on top of your family's apartment.

Jerry Schwab 16:00

That's what my dad always said, but actually it was a little further down, because actually my dad's apartment, the apartment would have been in foul territory. But he always said that you know, that that ball landed on my roof. But actually it didn't, but it was a good story.

Hoyt Wilhelm’s Gift: A Knuckleball for Life

Mike Koser 16:13

Uh Jerry, in 1952, famed knuckleball pitcher and future hall of famer Hoyt Wilhelm, yeah. Joins the Giants, and you didn't know it at the time, but the result of his call-up to the Giants would turn you into a pretty outstanding high school pitcher, right?

Jerry Schwab 16:26

Well, I was pretty good because Hoyt Wilhelm taught me to throw his knuckleball in in high school. Uh I was a pretty good ball player, but there's a a big difference between good and great.

Mike Koser 16:37

Where would he take you to teach you how to throw it?

Jerry Schwab 16:39

We were just out there on the field. Yeah. You know, you say, Come on, kid, I'll show you how to throw this thing. Yeah, it was pretty easy. Two fair knuckleball. I threw the same pitch he did, and that that worked pretty good in high school. I did okay.

Willie’s Catch in My Backyard

Mike Koser 16:51

As I look back at the polo grounds history, Bobby Thompson's 1951 shot heard around the world was undoubtedly the great offensive moment in polo ground's history. Perhaps the greatest defensive play came three years later in the 1954 World Series between the Indians and the Giants. Game one, Vic Wartz hits a drive to center field, and Willie Mays makes his famous over-the-shoulder basket catch. And he's making that catch in your backyard.

Jerry Schwab 17:42

Yeah, that that's my home. Yeah. That's the way that I looked at it. That was my home. Same as uh, you know, or any one of us grew up. You know, that's my home, you know.

Mike Koser 17:51

Yeah. At the end of the 57th season, the Giants moved west to San Francisco. Do you remember packing up your apartment? Was it hard for you to say goodbye?

Jerry Schwab 17:59

Very hard. Very hard. I I was I why don't I want to go to San Francisco? What's what's with that?

Announcer 18:05

Gorgeous, gregarious, scenic San Francisco, a fun-loving, big league town where Giants come to play.

Jerry Schwab 18:13

I first thought they were going to go to Minneapolis, but uh that uh that changed finally to San Francisco, and we went to San Francisco in 1957.

Mike Koser 18:21

And at that point, you're 15, and you're probably beginning to think and understand uh how great your situation is.

Jerry Schwab 18:28

Well, sure, yeah. Yeah, I uh it was a strange thing growing up in that. I like I said, I grew up in a ballpark, but I just thought that's the way it was. You know, that uh you know, hey, this is my house, you know. The Giants play here, that's okay. But yeah, 57, we went there and played in SEALs Stadium, then I I worked in the stands and then uh Yeah, while candlestick is being built.

Life at Seals Stadium: New Beginnings in the Bay

Mike Koser 18:50

The Giants played at the former home of the San Francisco SEALs of the Pacific Coast League SEALs Stadium. What do you remember about SEALs Stadium?

Jerry Schwab 18:58

It was a small park. I think it only holds about 17 or 18,000 people, which wasn't many. I remember Willie, I was selling sodas in the stands when Willie M Willie McCovey came up, and I think he went like four for five that day with two home runs and everything like that. Everybody in San Francisco said that they were at the game.

Announcer 19:15

More home run power appeared in the person of the six foot four-inch Willie McCovey. Big stretch took the league by storm and established his own homer chasing army in back of the right field fence.

Mike Koser 19:27

There was a bakery nearby, too, right?

Jerry Schwab 19:29

Well, right behind it was the Hams Brewery, which you could smell all the time. Fergalmeister was right there.

Mike Koser 19:35

Okay.

Candlestick Rises

Jerry Schwab 19:36

They were right behind the the the scoreboard in the back there. Center field. Yeah, then we moved the candlestick.

Announcer 19:44

But a big league town needs a big league ballpark. And so quick as a wink, or maybe two, up went beautiful candlestick park.

Mike Koser 19:53

Late in the season in 1962. By this time, you're on the grounds crew with your dad, and the Giants are playing at candlestick, and they have, I think, a five and a half game lead on the Giants. The Dodgers are coming to town for a series of three games. The Giants knew that in order to win, they somehow had to contain Dodgers shortstop Maury Wills, who ended up stealing 104 bases that year. And that's when Giants manager Alvin Dark approaches your dad. And did you do you remember what happened?

Stopping Maury Wills: The Midnight Dirt Job

Jerry Schwab 20:25

Of course. Dad and I came in at three o'clock in the morning and we dug up between first and second base and put in a mixture of whatever his secret mixture was with Peat Moss or something like that, where you really couldn't get a good grip to run. And my job was to settle the dust on first base. So my dad says to me, he says, Jer I want you to make a lake between first and second base. Really pour the water on it. I went, What, dad? And then he said, I want you to make a lake between first and second base, just lay the water on it. Okay, so I we go out there, I'm a nervous wreck. So I start watering down the base path there, settled in the dust. I didn't put enough on first base, so I turned back to first base again, and I really laid it on, and the crowd went wild, just like Willie Mays hit a grand slam home run.

Mike Koser 21:16

Because at that point, by that point, people had been talking about uh what was happening.

Jerry Schwab 21:21

What are the Giants gonna do?

Mike Koser 21:21

Yeah, right. Because the Dodgers were upset that that had been done.

Jerry Schwab 21:24

Right. Well, Maury Wills, they had to hold him back in the dugout. He was coming out to kill me. I was just a 20-year-old kid. Right. And uh so, anyways, he beat up the water fountain with a baseball bat. So, but he they held him in because if he would have came out and came after me, you know, they would have thrown him out of the game, the umpires would have, and they didn't want that, so they held him back. So they called my dad, my dad came out with all the umpires, and they said, Matty, what are we gonna do? or whatever and whatever. And he said, Well, he says, I had a new man. You know, we can put a little uh we can put a little sand on it, that'll dry it up. You know, I said, Okay, we'll do it. So they had the wheelbarrows all loaded up back there already. So anyways, I was told to take off my little white jumpsuit that we wore that the ground crew all wore and go hide in the stands, get out of here, disappear, you go hide.

Mike Koser 22:11

That is so that is so great.

Jerry Schwab 22:14

Which I did. I went up in the stands, and here come the ground crew all with the wheelbarrows. Yeah, they spread the sand out there, and so

Mike Koser 22:20

it actually makes it worse.

Jerry Schwab 22:22

Yeah, it made it worse. So it was dried up anyways, but Wills couldn't get a footing to get that you know, that start to the to steal second base, so whatever, whatever. The Giants ended up winning the game and going to the World Series. And uh the next day when I came in to work after that, uh my dad called me and he says, Horace Stoneham wants to see you in his office. And I went, Oh, yeah. So I went in there and there's the secretary there, and she says, Oh, hi Jerry, how are you? And I'd never seen her in my life, you know. So I got on a little elevator they had and took it up to his floor, and I came out and said, Hi Jerry, come on in. You know, boy, they were all friendly. And he wrote me a check for a thousand dollars.

Mike Koser 23:00

No way.

Jerry Schwab 23:01

He did.

Mike Koser 23:02

Okay, so that and by the way, Horace Stonham's office at SEALs Stadium, that was down the right field line, right?

Jerry Schwab 23:08

Yeah, someplace down there. Yeah, yes, it was. Like a little tower. Yeah, I I was never there at SEAsL Stadium. In I was at SEALs Stadium, but I never was in Mr. Stoneham's office.

Mike Koser 23:19

I mean, there'd be no reason for there'd be no good reason for you to be, yeah.

Jerry Schwab 23:23

Right, yeah.

Mike Koser 23:24

And he gave you a thousand dollars. Yeah, which at the time that's a lot of money.

Jerry Schwab 23:27

It was a lot of money. It sure was. More money than I ever saw in my life. I was 20 years old. So I got back to the thing, and they say they want to see you in a clubhouse. I went in the clubhouse, and all the players were there, and they all gave me claps and hands, slaps on the back, and they voted me as the tenth player in that game.

Mike Koser 23:44

Wow. That is so great.

Jerry Schwab 23:47

Yeah, that was in a lot of magazines and stuff like that. But that that was the true story of it, of what happened, you know.

A glove given and a home (plate) saved

Mike Koser 23:53

Yeah. Out of all the things that you must have collected over the years, from the polo grounds to Seals Stadium to Candlestick Park, what are some of your favorite items that that um that you've hung on to?

Jerry Schwab 24:06

Well, I got a glove that Johnny Antonelli gave me and I used for years, I still have it. But I had stuff that my dad, but uh I got rid of it all over years, you know. That's 70 years ago, 60 years ago now. I mean well, a lot of stuff I wish I had like signed The baseball cards used to come into the polo grounds to to the clubhouse. They would get crook cases of them, you know, and it would had a one sheet of bubble gum and a player's card in it. So the players didn't want the cards, they only wanted the bubblegum. They would open it, take the bubblegum out, and throw the card on the table or something like that. So me and Dale would pick them up. And uh I had boxes of them, you know, and some of them were probably worth some money.

Mike Koser 24:47

Oh, I'm sure, yeah. And you think about I I remember looking at pictures of the polo grounds after it was being taken down and there were uh polo ground seats in in the outfield as part of the demolition, just waiting to be hauled off to the dump. And now, you know, a set of polo ground seats, uh, especially the ones that were on the aisle, the figural seats, could run as much as ten thousand dollars.

Jerry Schwab 25:07

I could have had ten of them. Easy.

Mike Koser 25:09

Yeah.

Jerry Schwab 25:11

You never think about that. I did get the home plate that was where Bobby Thompson hit the home run. I had that plate for 30 years and I finally sold it.

Mike Koser 25:21

How great. Did you have it hanging up somewhere?

Jerry Schwab 25:23

No, I had it stored in the in the garage, you know. I didn't have it hanging up or anything. I just had it stored in the garage. I just had it there. My dad had it after, of course, after he passed away.

Mike Koser 25:33

Yeah.

Jerry Schwab 25:33

Uh I I got it, you know, had a little note on it from him that this was the plate. He went out there and dug it up home plate and kept it all those years. So I had it for quite a while.

Mike Koser 25:47

What a great collection.

Jerry Schwab 25:49

Yeah, yeah. And I had some I had memorabilia from stuff that he had. I had his World Series ring from 54 and that got stolen, house got broken to in Fort Lauderdale, some stuff when we lived over there, stuff disappeared.

Mike Koser 26:03

Oh, that's terrible.

Jerry Schwab 26:04

Never got that back. Yeah. But then what are you gonna do?

Mike Koser 26:07

Out of all the memories that you had of the polo grounds, what was your what was your favorite? Favorite thing where you look back and go, yeah, that was a great moment.

Jerry Schwab 26:14

Oh gosh, there were so many of them. Playing in the outfield during battin' practice, that was a that was a real moment with all the players. Playing Pepper with um, you know, Bobby Thompson and Willie Mays and all them guys. Used to play that all the time. Being in a dugout during a game, I wasn't a bat boy. My dad wanted didn't want me to be a bat boy. He said, No, don't want you to be a bat boy. That's that's not a good job for you.

Mike Koser 26:38

Yeah, so much history with your family going back to your be your grandpa, right? John or great-grandpa?

Jerry Schwab 26:45

Uh that's my great-grandfather. My grandfather was Matty Schwab Sr. Right, who worked at Cincinnati at Crosley Field, right. Crosley Field. He was a superintendent there.

Mike Koser 26:55

Yeah.

Jerry Schwab 26:55

My dad worked for him. Then he went to went to the Dodgers in 1938 or something, I'm not sure. And then he was with the Dodgers when I was born in 42. And then uh he went to uh he he was a superintendent of the field, but he wanted just take care of the grounds. He was an expert on taking care of the ground, and it's always been said, didn't I that he had one of the greatest in fields and outfields in baseball and uh my dad'd be out there raking at the infield all the time. And uh he didn't trust this man for a lot of things, but uh John was his that was my great grandfather, he helped build the stadium.

Mike Koser 27:36

Because he was at League Park and then went to Redlamd.

Jerry Schwab 27:39

Right. Yeah, and then uh my grandfather, Matt y Schwab Sr., he took over from there at Crosley field, and he was there for 50, 60 years or something.

Mike Koser 27:49

Amazing family history, amazing. Hey, listen, I Jerry, I really appreciate the time. It's been so much fun uh getting a chance to talk to you and uh remember just some of the the details that nobody else would have any kind of understanding or grasp of like you. So thank you so much for taking us through all that.

Jerry Schwab 28:08

It was fun. It was fun. We're we're really at my age now, I'm 82, and brings back uh a lot of memories.

Mike Koser 28:18

Thank you so much, Jerry. I appreciate it, man. All the best to you and your wife.

Jerry Schwab 28:22

Thank you, Mike. I'll catch you later sometime.