Sport: Big Man from Nicetown

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For running around St. Albans, the Campanella family is happy to use a Willys jeep station wagon. For trips to the ballpark or the Harlem liquor store, there is a brand-new, copper-colored Cadillac. "When they see that car outside the store," says Campy, "they go around saying, 'Campy's here.' " Sales skyrocket as admirers flock in to shoot the breeze. "So long as they walk out of the store with a package, that's all I care." To Campy, the most fun of all is peddling "Campy's Old Peg,"a house-branded bourbon named by Mrs. Campanella for her husband's famous throw to second.

"It's Nice Up Here." Near his liquor store is a Y.M.C.A. where Campy spends almost every winter afternoon coaching youngsters in basketball and other sports.

"You have to be a man to be a big-league ballplayer," he says, "but you have to have a lot of little boy in you, too." In his wide-eyed, grinning way, Campy shows a lot of the boy. When he steams into second base, say, on a long double, he invariably hoists up his pants to his bulging waistline and stands on the base looking pleased as Punch. In almost every movement he seems to convey the idea that the world is treating him right. He never stops kidding with his roommate, Pitcher Newcombe. "Can I play the television tonight, big man?" Campy will ask, and Newk will snap back: "Maybe, Meat, if I say so." He hums to himself as he works his cap on the hat-stretcher in the dressing room (the gadget expands caps drawn tight by sweat). With a great gold World Series ring on his finger, and wearing a snazzy blue suit with plaid socks, he looks as sharp as he feels.

Unlike Jackie Robinson, Campy, a gradualist by instinct, does not feel that he has to crusade for the rights of his race—except by living right and always playing the best ball he can. Once, when Robinson was spoiling to get into an argument with an umpire, Campy quickly calmed him down with: "Come on, Jackie, don't be like that. Let's not take any chances.

It's nice up here." Baseball, and all it has brought to Campy, is a wonderful way of life. "I love this baseball," says Roy Campanella.

"When you're a kid you play it and it starts going down into you when you're a child. Once that feeling leaves you, your will to play is gone. I saw a movie once showing Ted Williams running those bases, jumping like a kid. I don't care how old you are, you have to have that spirit. I know I've got it and I don't think I'll ever lose it. Baseball doesn't owe me anything, but I owe it plenty. Everything it's done for me has been good and nothin's been bad. The day they take that uniform off me, they'll have to rip it off. And when they do, they can bury me."