ball as well. He joined the Bushwicks and a club called the Brooklyn Pirates. In brief, he was taking this game of baseball with real seriousness. But he was no burden to his parents during this period. His father, who had been in the plumbing trade, gave it up for the coal business and Sid spent his summers driving a coal truck for his father. This saved his father the expense of adding a driver's wages to his costs and it helped Sid develop his muscles. A good deal, all around.

In 1936, Sid was graduated from high school and received an opportunity to try out for the Brooklyn Dodgers, then managed by Casey Stengel. Gordon's ability attracted the eye of the veteran manager, who proved in later years that he was an expert at handling diamond talent. But Stengel, while encouraging, was unwilling to commit himself to offering Sid a contract. "Casey was real nice," Gordon said years later. "He told me I had good possibilities and that he'd let me know as soon as an opening came in the Brooklyn system." But Stengel was soon fired by the Dodgers and so Gordon never heard from Brooklyn again!

A year later, in 1937, Sid played ball with the Queens Alliance League, where he caught the eye of a New York Giant scout. The Giants thereupon made Gordon a peculiar offer. They asked him to pay his own way for a tryout with the Giant farm in Milford, Delaware in the Class D Eastern Shore League. If he could make the team, they would refund him his money. If not, he would have to get home as best he could. In his eagerness to play ball, Gordon agreed to these terms. All winter long, he worked from nine to five-thirty selling pajamas in a New York department store. He managed to play ball, too, for the