Curt Gowdy, the legendary play-by-play sportscaster, who is now retired and living in Palm Beach, Fla., was telling Dave George of the Palm Beach Post, about his days with the Yankees.

Gowdy said when he joined the Bronx Bombers in 1949, the team always traveled by train. Chicago and St. Louis were the long hauls because there were no teams west of the Mississippi.

"It was sort of fun because you got very close to the players on those overnight trips, playing cards and everything," he said. "I love to play bridge and had a regular game with Tommy Henrich, Charlie Keller and Bill Dickey.

"Well, I'll never forget one night in the club car there was a little pause in the game and somebody mentioned Joe McCarthy, who managed the Yankees before I arrived, and I asked, 'wasn't he a drunk?' There was a dead silence and I knew I had said something wrong

"Nothing happened right away, but the game broke up in a few minutes and Keller asked Gowdy, then a rookie broadcaster, to step into a side room. Keller then jammed him against the wall and said, 'Kid, don't ever say that about McCarthy again. We all loved him and respected him. Everything's all right. Just don't say that again.'"

Keller's nickname, which he hated was "King Kong." He was listed at 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds during his playing days, an indication of how much smaller players were in the 1940s.

Tigers' home run star Hank Greenberg was considered a giant at 6-3 and 215. The Cardinals' Stan Musial hit 475 homers in his Hall of Fame career and weighed only 175. Stan the Man by the way was known as the "Donora Greyhound" when he broke in the National League in 1941, a reference to his rural Pennsylvania roots..

Everybody scrambled to keep their jobs in baseball because there were so few of them. With only 16 major league clubs, thousands of players were stuck for a decade in the minor leagues waiting for a break that might never come.

What's more, rookies got about $500 a month when they came up in 1941. The average salary throughout baseball was around $7,500 which was still twice as much as the average American household. Most payers took off-season jobs to support their big-league lifestyles.

Red Schoendienst, who played second base for the Cardinals for 15 seasons beginning in 1945, said, "players spent more time in the minors back then so they had a lot more experience. They were more fundamentally sound. There are good fundamental players today but they had to learn up here at the major league level."

Gowdy said, "the 1940s were when Joe DiMaggio became an icon. Ted Williams won two Triple Crowns during that decade and was not voted MVP either time."

Salaries became a national discussion, shortly after DiMaggio became the first player to get $100,000. Prior to that Ty Cobb had the biggest salary, making $85,000 in 1927. Babe Ruth never played for more than $80,000.

After DiMaggio received 100 grand, Boston owner Tom Yawkey bumped Williams salary to $125,000 saying, "Nobody should ever be paid more than Teddy Ballgame."