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They were adults, some older and some
younger than I was, living the dream of being close to Mickey Mantle, the
only hero they had ever had.
That day
provided a slice of life that will remain with them. They witnessed Mantle's
final home run. It didn't win a World Series or add to his big-league
home run total, but it was his final one nonetheless.
"It was the Yankees against the campers," recalls jack Jackson, owner of a
Port Everglades restaurant, Burt and Jack's. "It was about the fourth
or fifth inning. He was managing our team because his hamstrings had
been bothering him all week."
The campers prodded Mantle into batting. The reasoning was simple,
said Lauderhill attorney Anthomy Titone. " I had our only hit, and they were
beating us to death."
Jackson, who grew up on Cape Cod as a yankees fan, was on deck when Mantle
came to the plate.
Mantle would be facing old friend and teammate Whitey Ford.
"The guy was an absolute God to me," Jackson said. "I was thinking,
'Please don't let hin embarrass him self. Just let him get wood on the
ball' Remember he was 53 then."
Ford''s first pitch was high and wide. Next. Jackson said, was one of
those special moments that brings the aged and aging to fantasy camps.
" He turned those Mantle shoulders and hammered a low line drive," Jackson
said. "It was the same height when it crossed the infield as it was when it
hooked around the (left-field) foul pole. The only park it wouldn't
have been out of was Fenway, and that's because it wold have hit the Green
Monster. The hair on the back on my neck stood straight up."
Mantle took a couple of steps from the batter's box. but then, Titone said,
We put in a substitute runner. There was no way for him to make it
around the bases. His legs just wouldn't let him."
Mike Ferraro, a former Yankees player and coach who organized the camps,
said it was the last time Mantle used a bat.
"I hit a home run that same day," Ferraro said, "and I imitated Mickey's
trot around the bases that I had learned as a rookie with the Yankees,
because he was my idol. The campers thought it was funny.
"The camps went on for several years. and Mickey enjoyed doing them, even
though he couldn't play and didn't bat again. I think he realized how
much the campers appreciated his accomplishments and just enjoyed being
around him.
About six months later, Mantle was in Jackson's restaurant, Jackson told him
that he had a videotape of the home run and wanted to title it Mickey
Mantles's Last Home Run.
Mantle turned around, a sparkle in his eye, and said, "I really hit the crap
out of it, didn't I?
© 1996-2009 STORMFAX, Inc.
(Marconi Company photo / 1896)
MARCONI Wireless
On Cape Cod
100th Anniversary of "WCC"
South Wellfleet 1903-2003
Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi was an electrical engineer and
inventor born in Bologna, Italy on April 25, 1874. At the age of 16, he
successfully transmitted wireless telegraph signals between tin plates
mounted on posts in his mother's garden. Marconi gradually increased the
distance between radio transmitter and receiver. At the age of 23, he
couldn't convince the Italian government of the worth of radio. He and his
mother traveled to England and demonstrated his invention by sending a
signal across the English Channel on March 27, 1899.
Marconi's dream was to send a signal across the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1900, Marconi set up a high-powered transmitting station at
Poldhu, on the English coast at Cornwall. In 1901, Marconi built a wireless
station at Signal Hill, Newfoundland and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Marconi selected Cape Cod since it had been described by Thoreau as
a place "where a man may stand and put all of America behind him." After
passing up a location in Barnstable and being denied permission to build his
wireless station near the Highland Light, Marconi settled for an eight-acre
site on a high bluff in South Wellfleet. Marconi set up headquarters at the
Holbrook House in Wellfleet.
The South Wellfleet station was similar to the Poldhu one with a
circular series of twenty 200-foot ship's masts set back 165 feet from the
edge of the bluff.
Storms blew down the aerials at Poldhu on September 17, 1901 and a
Nor'easter toppled the aerials on Cape Cod on November 25th. Nevertheless,
Marconi received the first transatlantic signal - the three-dot Morse code
letter "S" tapped out from Poldhu on December 12th at the Newfoundland
station. The aerial at Poldhu was held aloft by a canvas kite.
Fearing competition from Marconi's wireless, the Anglo American
Cable Company ordered Marconi to shut down operations in Newfoundland. On
December 22, 1901, the Canadian government offered him a location for a
station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. A year later, on December 17, 1902, the
Glace Bay station was sending and receiving transatlantic messages.
(National Park Service)
In February, 1902, a new aerial design at the South Wellfleet
station was erected with four 210-foot wooden towers in a 200-foot square
pattern. Each tower was 24-feet square at the base and 8-feet square at the
top. Twelve steel cables, one-inch in diameter, secured each tower against
high winds. The guy wires were anchored to 12-inch by 12-inch crossed
timbers buried nine feet in the sand. The cables were tightened by giant
turnbuckles. To insulate the towers, station engineers used ship's deadeyes
between rubber hoses and manila rope with melted sulphur connectors located
amid the guy wires. A square 4-foot-thick cement slab was used as a base
for each tower. The aerial rigging among the towers was a conical
arrangement of 200 wires converging in midair just above the transmitter
house and feeding in through a single wire. A similar tower configuration
was already in operation at Poldhu and Glace Bay.
Inside the transmitter building was a 20,000-volt condenser,
antenna tuning coil, and the rotary spark-gap, the buzz of which could be
heard three or four miles away. The transmitter was powered by a
45-horsepower kerosene engine generator supplying 2,200 volts of AC to a
transformer that stepped it up to 20,000 volts. A small DC generator
charged the batteries.
At the headquarters were a manager, two engineers, and three
operators who lived on the site.
Marconi convinced President Theodore Roosevelt to take part in a
wireless experiment where a message would be sent from Cape Cod to the King
of England.
On January 18, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt's message was
tapped out in Morse code from South Wellfleet to King Edward VII at the
Poldhu station. It was to be the first two-way transatlantic communication
and the first wireless telegram between America and Europe. The message
read:
His Majesty, Edward VII.
London, Eng.
In taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of scientific research
and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting a system of wireless
telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American People most cordial greetings
and good wishes to you and to all the people of the British Empire.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Wellfleet, Mass., Jan. 19, 1903
Expecting only to receive confirmation from Glace Bay that the message had
been relayed to England, Marconi got a direct response* from England:
Sandrinham, January 19, 1903
The President,
White House, Washington, America
I thank you most sincerely for the kind message which I have just
received from you, through Marconi's trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy. I
sincerely reciprocate in the name of the British Empire the cordial
greetings and friendly sentiment expressed by you on behalf of the American
Nation, I heartily wish you and your country every possible prosperity.
EDWARD R. and I.
* Despite newspaper accounts the next day, some historians speculate that
since there had been transmitting equipment problems at the Poldhu station,
the King's reply may have been sent via cable and relayed from the Wellfleet
Railroad Depot.
The South Wellfleet station proved to be less practical for
relaying transatlantic messages than the northern location of the Glace Bay
station. However, it served as Marconi's main North American "ship to
shore" wireless station. The station was the Cunard liner Lusitania's
direct link to America while out at sea. The passengers received daily news
reports and sent personal wireless messages called Marconi-grams.
(STORMFAX Archives)
During its 16 years in operation, the South Wellfleet station had
three sets of call letters: first CC for Cape Cod, then MCC
for Marconi Cape Cod, and finally WCC when eastern US stations all
took the "W" prefix.
WCC was shut down in 1917 along with most other American stations
for security reasons during World War I. The closing didn't come too soon.
The erosion of the outer bank of the cliff undermined the two tower bases
close to the edge in 1916, having lost 150 feet of the original 165-foot
setback since 1901.
Following WWI, the station was dismantled and the towers taken down
in 1920. New radio technology pioneered by Lee DeForest and his vacuum tube
doomed wireless telegraphy as commercially obsolete. The operation of WCC
was moved to Chatham, became part of RCA's Global Communication Network and
employed upgraded equipment as an important ship-to-shore radio station.
Marconi died in Rome on July 20, 1937.
The Wellfleet Historical Society placed a bronze plaque near the
original site commemorating the station in 1953. It reads:
SITE OF THE FIRST UNITED STATES
TRANSATLANTIC WIRELESS TELEGRAPH STATION
BUILT IN 1901-1902
MARCONI WIRELESS TELEGRAPH COMPANY OF AMERICA
PREDECESSOR OF RCA
TRANSMITTED JANUARY 19, 1903
THE FIRST U.S. TRANSATLANTIC WIRELESS TELEGRAM
ADDRESSED TO
EDWARD VII KING OF ENGLAND
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
The National Park Service, as part of the Cape Cod National
Seashore, took over administration of the area in 1961 and dedicated a
pavilion to the historical site on July 5, 1963.
In 1974, an exhibit shelter was built to house a scale model of the
wireless station and a bronze bust of Marconi, along with the commemorative
plaque dedicated in 1953.
SOUTH WELLFLEET
WIRELESS STATION HIGHLIGHTS
1901
- Marconi begins construction of a wireless station on eight acres of land
on a high bluff in South Wellfleet.
1901
- A storm blows down the station's towers (November 25).
1902
- A new aerial array is erected and supported by four 210-foot wooden towers
(February).
1902
- Station "CC" (Cape Cod) is operating on 1500 meters.
1903
- Transatlantic wireless message sent from the United States to England
(January 19).
1905
- The Italian square-rigged barque Castagna wrecks in a storm off the
beach below the station.
1906
- Marconi's engineers warn that cliff erosion is endangering the station.
1908
- Station's call letters become MCC signifying "Marconi (Station)
Cape Cod."
1911
- The call letters become WCC when the prefix "W" is assigned to all
Atlantic and Gulf coast stations.
1917
- United States Government closes the station during World War I for
security reasons.
1920
- Station is dismantled, towers are scrapped, equipment is salvaged, and the
buildings are abandoned.
1953
- Wellfleet Historical Society dedicates a
bronze plaque at the original site.
1961
- Site is acquired by National Park Service as part of Cape Cod National
Seashore.
1963
- Pavilion is erected at the wireless site and the area is named "Marconi
Beach."
1974
- An exhibit shelter is built to house a scale model of the wireless station
and a bronze bust of Marconi.
1978
- 75th Anniversary celebrated by the Barnstable Radio Club commemorative
station
KM1CC ham operators.
The
huge towers, the zapping sounds of the old rotary spark-gap and the
excitement of wireless contact with some distant listener are gone forever
from the dunes of South Wellfleet.
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