Arthur Lawrence Schallock was born on April 25, 1924, in Mill Valley, California, a small Marin County town about 14 miles north of San Francisco. During his child and adolescence, Schallock enjoyed tennis and golf, but the sport he excelled at most was baseball. After playing for his high school and junior college teams, Schallock enlisted in the Navy and bravely defended his country during World War II. Schallock saw combat in the Pacific theater, most harrowingly during the Battle of Makin in November 1943. While serving as a radio operator on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, the Japanese torpedoed and sank the Coral Sea’s neighboring carrier, the USS Liscome Bay, killing over 700 of its 916-man crew. Undeterred by his close call during the war, Schallock returned to the Bay Area with renewed determination to resume what had been a promising pitching career. But, as he would later recount, he found it difficult to return to his prewar form. Still, he persisted and latched on with a local semipro team. Most Pacific Coast League scouts thought that at only 5 feet, 9 inches tall, he lacked the size to be an effective professional pitcher. Fortunately for Schallock, though, MLB scouts disagreed. The Brooklyn Dodgers signed him in 1946, whereupon the talented young lefty quickly moved through the Dodgers’ minor league system. The crosstown Yankees had their eye on the gifted Dodgers prospect and acquired him in a trade in July 1951. Later that season, Schallock’s childhood dream would finally come true when the Yankees found themselves with an open roster spot and called up Schallock from Triple-A Kansas City to fill it. And whose spot on the roster would Schallock be taking? None other than that of a then-struggling 19-year-old rookie outfielder named Mickey Mantle, whom the Yankees had decided to send down to the minors for more seasoning. Schallock’s transition to the big leagues was smoothed by another Yankees legend: catcher Yogi Berra. The Yankees had Schallock room with Berra on road trips, which allowed Schallock to pick Berra’s baseball-filled brain and learn everything he’d need to know about effective pitch sequences and opposing hitters’ tendencies. While rooming with Berra, Schallock also gained an insight into some of the qualities that would make Berra as renowned for his wit and famous quips as he was for his clutch hitting and proficiency behind the plate. As Schallock later recalled, amid their preparations for that day’s game, “I had to run down to the lobby and get his funny books. Every morning.” (The lesson, apparently, is that there’s always room for humor, even at the highest levels of an industry. Or at least there is if you’re Yogi Berra.) Schallock scored a measure of revenge against the Dodgers when his Yankees defeated “Dem Bums” (as the Dodgers were sometimes called in that era) in the 1952 and 1953 World Series. Schallock’s star shone particularly bright in Game 4 of the 1953 World Series, when Schallock entered the game in relief of Yankees starter Whitey Ford. It was a testament to how much confidence Yankees manager Casey Stengel had in Schallock that Stengel brought him into a tied game to face four consecutive future Hall of Famers: Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella, and Duke Snider. SWEATING IT OUT WITH THE ORIOLES Unfortunately, after Schallock tore a muscle in his pitching arm the following season, his career would never be the same. Schallock would only pitch for one more season in the big leagues. All in all, in his five seasons in the MLB, Schallock compiled an eminently respectable record for a relief pitcher: six wins, 77 strikeouts, a 4.02 ERA, and, most importantly, three World Series rings. Schallock was honored by the Yankees last spring when he became a centenarian, receiving a jersey that was signed by the entire Yankees team. Even at the age of 100, Schallock could still recall exact details of games he had pitched in during his 20s and still had his sense of humor. When asked about the secret to reaching 100, Schallock replied, “Clean living,” which, as he went on to qualify, did not necessarily mean no drinking: “I used to have two drinks before dinner — two glasses of vodka on the rocks, mixed with water. My wife wouldn’t let me have any more than that.” Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington Examiner contributing writer and the author, most recently, of Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America.