Red Patterson (writer)

Arthur E. Patterson
(Red)

• School New York University

• Born February 1, 1909 in Long Island City, NY USA
• Died February 10, 1992 in Fullerton, CA USA

Biographical Information

A longtime baseball public relations official with the New York Yankees, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels, Red Patterson is best known for having introducing the term 'tape measure home run' into the baseball lexicon when he paced off Mickey Mantle's legendary April 17, 1953 Griffith Stadium moonshot.

Prior to starting his PR career, Patterson spent 17 years writing for the New York Herald Tribune, initially while attending night school at New York University. Other innovations credited to Patterson – whose very hiring as publicity director by the Yankees in 1946 was a major league first in and of itself – included old-timers games, cap day and team yearbooks. Patterson also hired the late, lamented longtime Yankees public address announcer, Bob Sheppard. After his temporary retirement from the Angels in 1985 (stepping down as president but being promptly re-engaged as publicity consultant), Patterson made a partial return to his earliest profession, penning the occasional column for the Anaheim Bulletin.

Further Reading

• Joe Falls (The Detroit Free Press): "The Story of Mickey Mantle's Famous Tape Measure Homer", Baseball Digest, December 1978, pp. 30-32. [1]
• "Red Patterson Quits Yankees", The St. Joseph Gazette, July 28, 1954, p. 7 [2]

Related Sites

• Red Patterson page at UltimateYankees.com – including full text of Ross Newhan's Los Angeles Times obit