A Perfect Gift From "Porky"

The iconic photo is displayed on the door of my home office, just over my shoulder as I write this — a New York Yankee hurling the final pitch of the game, the scoreboard behind him showing nothing but goose eggs for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the ninth inning.

The photo is inscribed with a black pen bearing this message: “To Coach Vieira. Best wishes, Don Larsen.”

Yes, it’s a souvenir of Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees, Oct. 9, 1956. Never before, and never since then, has there been a perfect game — no hits, no errors, no walks — pitched in a World Series game. And it’ll probably never happen again.

How did that gem came to be displayed at my house? A good, kind man, Frank “Porky” Vieira, gave it to me. It was one of the most generous gifts I have ever received; it ranks up there with the three seats and a bleacher bench from the original Yankee Stadium, presented to me by my father one fine Christmas morning.

I was thinking about Coach Vieira’s generosity when I read his obituary recently in the sports pages of the New Haven Register.

Reporter Mike Anthony’s lead called Vieira “a towering figure at 5-foot-6 who was one of the most successful and colorful people in Connecticut sports history.”

Vieira started the baseball program at the University of New Haven in 1962 and coached there for 44 years. When he retired in 2006 he had amassed a record of 1,127 wins and just 324 losses. His teams had 42 consecutive winning seasons.

And he could play a mean game of basketball. He outscored Wilt Chamberlain in a high school all-star game! Anthony noted “he had the most distinctively coarse vocabulary but never used the ‘F’ word.”

When you’ve accomplished so much, you’re going to acquire a treasure trove of souvenirs. Vieira had rooms full of them at his home in West Haven. But in his later years he decided to share the wealth, not hoard it.

Five years ago I wrote a column for the New Haven Register describing Vieira’s good deeds, and how he got snubbed by somebody who just didn’t get what it meant. Vieira put together two large file folders containing photos of Yankee world championship teams going back to 1923, as provided by the New York Daily News; that newspaper’s color photos of Yankees ranging from Babe Ruth and Yogi Berra to Derek Jeter; a copy of Lou Gehrig’s 1933 contract (he was paid $23,000); Daily News coverage of Yankee wins going back to 1953; a New York Post tribute section for Yankee Stadium; and that historic photo autographed by Larsen.

Vieira shipped it all off to a distant relative of his, a kid in Georgia who was about 15. Vieira wrote this on one of the folders: “Tim, I know you’re going to enjoy this collection as much as I did.”

But apparently the kid didn’t appreciate it nor enjoy it at all.

“He didn’t even thank me!” Vieira told me when he called me out of the blue. “I want to cry! He never said a word. He didn’t have a clue. So I told him to send it back.”

Vieira added: “I told the kid, ‘If you’re not that juiced-up about it, I want to give my collection to somebody who will appreciate it. Randall will get it.’”

He paused, giving my heart a few seconds to skip a beat or two. And then he said, “I’m giving the whole thing to you.”

I had never met this man! We had never spoken to one another, as I didn’t cover sports. But because Vieira read my column, he knew that I, like him, was and am a passionate Yankee fan.

Then he made another beautiful offer. Since he also knew from my column that my brother Ben is a devoted fan of the Boston Red Sox, Vieira said, “You can give my photo of me and Ted Williams to your brother.”

After I recovered from my shock and awe, I was careful not to repeat that kid’s mistake; I thanked Vieira profusely. I told him I would be honored to add the souvenirs to my “Yankee shrine.” And I promised to hand-deliver the Ted Williams photo to my brother.

After that ingrate kid mailed back the artifacts, Vieira called me again and I drove over to his home to meet him and pick up the collection. He proudly showed me the many other items he had collected through the years and he explained how he had obtained the Larsen and Williams photos.

“I was visiting Yankee Stadium when Ted was managing the Washington Senators (1969-71). He wanted me to sit in the dugout with him. He had taken a liking to me when we were together at Ted’s instructional camp in Lakeville, Mass.”

Vieira met Larsen at a card show at the University of New Haven. Vieira wasn’t too shy to ask the great pitcher to sign that photo. “I met a lot of beautiful people because of baseball,” Vieira noted.

And I met a beautiful man because we shared a love of the Yankees and he decided to be incredibly generous to somebody he had never met.

Thanks, Coach.