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Marty Appel, in his latest book. Pinstripe Empire, explains why the New York Yankees fell on hard times following the 1964 season.

The Yankees won five consecutive pennants from 1960-64, but unlike the well-remembered first streak of five when they also won the World Series after each pennant (1949-53), this time the Yankees won only two world championships.

Appel explains that a major reason was that elite athletes were no longer choosing baseball as they had in the past. Other sports, especially football, were attracting them.

Despite the fact that some “experts” later concluded that owners Dan Topping and Del Webb knew that they were about to sell the team and decided to let the heralded farm system deteriorate, the Yankees did sign young players.

In 1960, the Yankees signed pitcher Howie Kitt, who had gone 18-0 at Columbia, for $100,000. Kitt was born in Brooklyn, was left-handed and was Jewish. He was sent to Class A Binghamton, but had control problems, which resulted in his demotion to Class C Modesto.

Vern Rapp, the Modesto manager was not impressed with his new pitcher.

“He throws hard,” said Rapp. “He’s coming down here to get experience and we’ll correct that wildness.”

It never happened. Kitt spent five seasons trying to develop control. In 607 innings, he walked 501 batters.

Appel thinks that the Yankees might not have been aggressive enough after Kitt because they had been burned many times before signing him.

Paul Hinrichs ($40,000 in 1948), Ed Cereghino ($80,000 in 1950) and Bob Riesener, who was 20-0 in the minors, never became major leaguers.

In addition, the Yankees gave infielder Tommy Carroll and first baseman Frank Leja large bonuses. The two were forced onto to the team by the bonus rule in effect at the time.

By the middle to late 1960s, Appel posits that the only superstars to select baseball were Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench and, of course, Reggie Jackson. Yankees’ scouting direction Johnny Johnson supported Appel’s contention.

“We don’t have the quality of player we used to have, but neither does anyone else, because it just isn’t there anymore.”

The amateur draft, started in 1965, hurt the Yankees more than most team because it temporarily negated the Yankees willingness to spend.

The Kansas City Athletics drafted Rick Monday with the first choice. The Yankees, forced to select 19th, took right-hander Bill Burbach. Monday became a fine player while Burbach didn’t have much of a career.

The Yankees no longer had an edge in signing players and it would take years before Mr. George Steinbrenner helped them regain some of their former glory.

Reference:

Appel, Marty. Pinstripe Empire. New York: Bloomsbury USA. May, 2012. pp. 358-59.

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“Whatever the Yankees bring up as far as having success, you can easily knock it out by saying we knocked you out after being 0-and-3. The one the Boston Red Sox were able to get from the Yankees was probably the most painful ever, I think, in any sport to the Yankees fans.” 

Pedro Martinez, the Boston Red Sox management, Red Sox players and Red Sox fans just don’t get it.

Listen carefully. The loss to the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS is the 14th-worst in New York Yankees history. Nothing is worse than losing the World Series. No, getting there and losing is not better than not getting there at all.

The Yankees have lost the World Series 13 times. It is not easy to rank the pain created by those defeats, but some hurt worse than others.

Until 2001, the most agonizing was the 1960 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. What the Arizona Diamondbacks did in 2001 was worse. When the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and only world championship in 1955, it was one of the worst moments in Yankees history.

The fact that the Red Sox came back from a three-game deficit is commendable, but it must never be forgotten that it was in the playoffs, not in the World Series.

Losing after leading three games to none is a disgrace, but it doesn’t compare, despite having occurred only once, to losing the World Series.  Several teams have come back to win the Series after trailing three games to one.

Younger fans might not realize it, but until recently, thanks in part to inter-league play, fans rooted for their league in the World Series. In 1967, I took the Red Sox loss to the St. Louis Cardinals almost as hard as I would have if it had been the Yankees that lost.

One of the worst losses for me, a Yankees fan since 1951, was the Red Sox loss to the New York Mets in 1986.

Once inter-league play started and free-agency became part of the game, the leagues have slowly but steadily lost their separateness. In 2013, when the Houston Astros move to the American League, there will be an inter-league game every day.

The Yankees have won the World Series 27 times. Most fans know that fact. Fewer fans know about their 13 losses.

Tell me, what is the Yankees’ ALDS record? How about their ALCS record?

You get the point.

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In 1987, Tony Gwynn led the league with a .370 batting average. He scored 119 runs, drove in 54 runs, stole 56 bases and won a Gold Glove. He finished ninth in the MVP voting.

“Ninth!” Gwynn said, via the New York Daily News in 1996. “It bugged the hell out of me for awhile. It really did. But I don’t worry about it anymore. You find your niche. I have fun with it now. I just do what I do: see the ball, and hit it.”

The San Diego Padres scored 668 runs, or about 4.12 runs a game, in 1987. National League teams scored about 731 runs or 4.52 runs a game.

Gwynn drove in 8.1 percent of the Padres’ runs and scored 17.8 percent of their runs in 1987.
 
Gwynn was not a home run hitter. He had an economical swing that allowed him to make contact. He never struck out more than 40 times in a season and averaged a mere 29 strikeouts over a 162-game season compared to an average of 52 walks.

The Padres’ Hall of Fame outfielder became used to those “experts” in the media responding to his seven batting titles by stating, “But he doesn’t hit home runs.”

As early as high school, Gwynn realized that he was not a home run hitter. He thought that if he went for the long ball, he would not be successful and his average would become pedestrian. He knew that he was a better hitter than any of his contemporaries, and that included Wade Boggs.

If Gwynn played today, his batting skills would be respected less, in part because the sabermetricians have told fans that batting average is not a good statistic, singles don’t win championships and a strikeout is just another out.

In 2009, Mark Reynolds hit 44 home runs. He struck out 223 times, which is the major league record. Reynolds averages 218 strikeouts a season with a career .237 batting average.

This is not an attempt to denigrate Reynolds. It is an illustration of how baseball owners have gone along with the “experts” and how differently a player’s value is measured today.

When Reynolds hit 44 home runs, he drove in 102 runs and scored 98 runs. The Arizona Diamondbacks scored 720 runs that season.  The league average was 718 runs or 4.43 runs a game.

Reynolds drove in 14.2 percent of the Diamondbacks’ runs. He scored 13.6 percent of his team’s runs.

In 1997, at the age of 37, Gwynn hit 17 home runs, drove in 119 runs and scored 97 runs. The San Diego Padres scored 795 runs that season. The league average was 746 runs or 4.60 runs a game.

Gwynn drove in 15.0 percent of the Padres’ runs and scored 12.2 percent of their runs.

This article’s premise is that two of a player’s most important statistics, despite depending on his teammates, are runs batted in and runs scored.

Team Runs: Gwynn Vs. Reynolds

In 1987, when he hit seven home runs, batted .370 and struck out 35 times, Gwynn drove in 8.1 percent of the Padres’ runs and scored 17.8 percent of their runs.

In 2009, when Reynolds hit 44 home runs, batted .260 or 110 points less than Gwynn and struck out 223 times, he drove in 14.2 percent of the Diamondbacks’ runs and scored 13.6 percent of their runs.

Much more research remains, but in the “old days,” comparing a player such as Mark Reynolds to Tony Gwynn would be considered idiotic. Today, it seems more reasonable, at least with respect to their offensive contributions.

Could it be that a player like Reynolds is as valuable to his team as a player like Gwynn is to his?

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It was the first inning of the first game of the season. The Tampa Bay Rays had runners on second and third with two outs. When the right-handed batting Sean Rodriguez stepped into the batter’s box, Joe Girardi ordered C. C. Sabathia to walk him.

It was the first inning of the first game of the season.

Girardi couldn’t have mistaken Sean Rodriguez for Alex Rodriguez or even Pudge Rodriguez. No, it was clearly Sean Rodriguez, the same Sean Rodriguez that batted .223/.323/.357 with eight home runs and 36 RBIs in 2011.

Girardi preferred that Sabathia face the left-handed hitting Carlos Pena instead of Rodriguez.

Last season, with the hapless Chicago Cubs, Pena batted only .225/.357/.462, but he hit 28 home runs. The fact that Pena had only one hit in his last 29 at-bats against Sabathia certainly came into play when Girardi made his decision.

Pena hit a grand slam home run on a 3-2 delivery.

Craig Calcaterra at HardballTalk referred to events as “Great Moments in over-managing: Joe Girardi Edition.”

Calcaterra wrote that just before Pena’s grand slam, the Rays’ radio announcer said that Girardi was competing with Buck Showalter for “the most over-managing Yankees manager of all time.”

There is no excuse, not even lefty against lefty, for Girardi’s over-managing in the first inning. Even if the right-handed batter were a good hitter, it would still be a questionable move in the first inning. It would be an acceptable strategy late in the game.

Many years ago, a manager whose record and baseball knowledge Girardi will never match, Casey Stengel made a similar move. But, Stengel’s over-managing occurred with the Yankees batting.

The New York Yankees trailed the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 in the second inning of Game 1 of the 1960 World Series.

Yogi Berra led off with single against right-hander Vernon Law. Bill Skowron singled Berra to second base. Clete Boyer (.242/.285/.405 with 14 home runs) was the scheduled batter.

Stengel, in the second inning of the opening game of the World Series, sent up left-handed batting Dale Long to hit for Boyer.  All Long could manage was a fly ball to right-fielder Roberto Clemente. Bobby Richardson lined into a double play, and the Yankees failed to score.

Girardi has a well-deserved reputation for over-managing. He should, but of course will not, learn from Willie Mays.

When asked about his approach to the game, Mays responded simply “They throw the ball, I hit it. They hit the ball, I catch it.”

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According to Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News, early in March, YES president Tracy Dolgin proudly announced that YES is “a homer network.”

Dolgin explained that a “homer” is the antithesis of an objective announcer.

“When you’re watching a game (on YES),” Dolgin told Newsday (h/t New York Daily News), “I’m very proud to say we’re rooting for the home team on our air.”

If Dolgin had reflected just a little, he might have realized that if YES announcers always rooted for the home team, they would be pulling for the New York Yankees only one-half of the time. Of course, he meant, or at least he thought he meant that the Yankees are YES’ home team.

In the past, most YES announcers were infuriated when they were instructed how to tailor their broadcasts. Raissman indicates that he doesn’t know how they have reacted to Dolgin’s statement.

Other baseball announcers are incensed by Dolgin’s attempt to turn the YES announcers that respect the principles of good journalism into cheerleaders. A veteran broadcaster that asked for anonymity thought that the YES broadcasters were quite upset.

“How could they not be. The guy they work for doesn’t care about their reputations. He made them look like a bunch of subservient jackasses.”

Mel Allen was and always will be the “Voice of the Yankees.” He was a tremendous Yankees fan, but he never allowed his feeling to color his work. If anything, it sometimes seemed as if his announcing favored the opposition.

I remember one game in 1959 when the Yankees were playing the Detroit Tigers on a Sunday. Maxwell had a propensity for hitting home runs on Sundays. That year, he hit 31 home runs and 12 of them were hit on a Sunday.

Maxwell came to the plate and Allen told me and the other listeners how dangerous Maxwell was on Sundays. Now, Allen was on the radio and unlike some future Yankees’ announcers, he gave a real play-by-play, but not that time.

Without his usual “Turley gets the signal from the catcher, checks the runner on first and delivers,” all Allen said was “And there it is.”

I turned off the radio.

Red Barber and Frank Messer were probably the most objective, fair-minded of all the Yankees’ announcers, and while Phil Rizzuto was a “homer,” he was never offensive and always respected the opposition.

The YES network has some fine announcers that know baseball. Most have played for other teams. The YES web site calls them “personalities.” 

Individuals such as David Cone, Paul O’Neill, Al Leiter, John Flaherty, Ken Singleton and Lou Piniella won’t ever sell their credibility and, of greater importance, their integrity.

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“I watched every move Lou made on and off the field,” Joe DiMaggio said after he had been introduced by baseball commissioner Ford Frick at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

DiMaggio explained that he tried to pattern himself after Lou Gehrig. There is no question that he succeeded.

The New York Yankees have had many outstanding players, but none was a finer human being than Gehrig. DiMaggio was a close second. Fans appreciated DiMaggio, and they showed it.

There was polite applause when Frick introduced Frank “Home Run” Baker, Ray Shalk, Gabby Hartnett, Dazzy Vance and Ted Lyons. When the commissioner extended his hand to DiMaggio, the throng went wild with unrestrained cheering that would have made even Marilyn Monroe gratified.

“I’m proud indeed to be put alongside Lou, Bill Dickey, my other old teammates, and those other great players of my time and before.” DiMaggio was truly humbled

DiMaggio was returning to New York from Boston. As he slowed down just before entering the Bronx, a truck driver shouted something that DiMaggio later said sounded like “congratulations.” DiMaggio added that he thought that he also heard “Hall of Fame.”

“I didn’t know what to believe, so I turned on my car radio and sure enough, it was true.”

The tremendous love the fans showed DiMaggio at the induction might have been exceeded on Joe DiMaggio Day at the end of the 1949 season. DiMaggio, who was never ever nervous when facing Bob Feller or any other pitcher, admitted that this was different.

“Look,” he said, holding out his hands before the ceremonies at Yankee Stadium. His hands were trembling.

The Boston Red Sox were lined up near home plate during the ceremonies. They presented DiMaggio with a plaque that had the name of each Boston player inscribed on it. Even the team fighting the Yankees for the 1949 pennant appreciated DiMaggio as a person.

Since his death, there have been some pathetic attempts to denigrate DiMaggio. They merely reveal the lack of class of those individuals that seek to change the truth.

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The 1956 baseball season started for the New York Yankees on April 17. The pennant was conceded to them by almost everyone but one or two American League teams.

It appeared that the Yankees had no weaknesses. A 1956 Sports Illustrated spring baseball preview article wondered how any team could beat them.

Yogi Berra was the best catcher in the game. He finished the 1956 season batting .298 and tying his own record for the most home runs by an American League backstop with 30.

In a fascinating statement about Mickey Mantle, the article claims, in all seriousness, “Mantle is so good they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn’t hit .400.” Mantle went on to win the Triple Crown and batted .353.

The infield of Bill Skowron at first, Billy Martin at second, Andy Carey at third and Gil McDougald at shortstop ranked among the best in the league. Both Skowron (.308) and McDougald (.311) were .300 hitters.

According to scouting reports, Skowron had almost as much power as any first baseman in the league. Martin was the Yankees spark.

McDougald had played third base on the 1951 world champions, second base on the 1955 American League champions and now was the regular shortstop, while Carey was expected to provide solid defense and decent power.

The outfield—with Mantle in center field, Hank Bauer (.241 but with 26 home runs) in right field and Elston Howard, Bob Cerv, Norm Siebern and eventually Enos Slaughter in left field—provided power and great defense.

Whitey Ford, who tied for the most wins in the league in 1955 with 18, was expected to win at least that many. He finished at 19-6 with a 157 ERA+.

Bob Turley, Don Larsen, Tom Sturdivant and Johnny Kucks were the other starters. Tom Morgan and Tommy Byrne worked out of the bullpen.

Turley won only eight games due to arm problems, but Kucks stepped up to win 18 and Sturdivant won 16. Larsen won only 11 but we all know what he did on October 8 in the fifth game of the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Kucks capped off a great season by shutting out the Dodgers in the seventh game as the Yankees became world champions for the first time since 1953.

The 1956 Yankees were not close to being the greatest Yankees team, but they won the pennant by nine games over the Cleveland Indians.

Mantle led the league in almost every offensive category, Berra hit the most home runs any American League catcher ever hit in a season and Larsen pitched a perfect game.

It was a pretty good team. Another way of looking at it is that it makes on realize the greatness of the 1998, 1927, 1936 and 1939 Yankees.

Yes, the 1998 team was better than Babe Ruth’s 1927 Yankees.

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The New York Yankees were trailing the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0 in the top of the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 1964 World Series. It was time for me to leave the television and go to the bus stop. I had a five o’clock statistics class at NYU.

I took my books and, of course, my small, blue transistor radio. As I waited for the bus, I heard Harry Caray say that Pete Mikkelson was taking over for Hal Reniff with Cardinals’ runners on first and second and one out. The radio reception on the bus wasn’t good, but I managed to figure out that Reniff got out of the jam.

Bob Gibson retired the Yankees quickly in the bottom of the eighth inning and it took Mikkelson even less time to retire the Cards in the ninth.

I was feeling depressed because things weren’t going well when, with two outs and Mickey Mantle on second base, Caray’s voice made me feel happier than a fat kid whose mother had just given him a cookie and more tense than a father waiting the birth of his first baby.

Tommy Tresh had hit a home run to tie the game.

By the time I stepped off the bus and started walking to the subway, it was the Cardinals’ half of the 10th inning. I walked very slowly because there would be no radio reception once I walked down the stairs.

It was a nice sunny fall day, but that was irrelevant to me. I didn’t see people, I didn’t see the traffic and the only reason that I almost saw the Ridgewood Savings Bank was because I had seen it so often.

There really was a problem. I had to go into the subway but I had to listen to the game. I really didn’t care if I were late to the statistics class, but I knew that something would make me enter the subway and wait about 40 excruciating minutes before I found out what happened.

Mikkelson, whom I never trusted because he often lacked control, walked Bill White to lead off the 10th inning. White was fast and Mikkelson had trouble holding runners on.

Ken Boyer, the cleanup hitter, bunted. I’ll repeat that for younger fans who will never see a cleanup hitter bunt. Boyer pushed a bunt toward the right side and beat it out.

Now we were in trouble. I stopped just before the entrance to the subway. The Ridgewood Savings Bank was to my right and the roar of Queens Blvd. traffic, which interfered with the sound coming out of my cheap $2 “Boy’s Radio,” was on the left.

I held the radio close to my ear. Bill White stole third to put runners on first and third with no outs, but Dick Groat hit a ground ball to Pedro Gonzalez to force Boyer at second. White held third.

I no longer was concerned about being late to class. I no longer felt any tension. I no longer felt any joy. To this day, I will never forgive Tim McCarver or Pete Mikkelson.

McCarver hit a three-run home run, Gibson pitched a complete game six-hitter, striking out 13, not allowing an earned run.

I raised the hand carrying the radio and turned toward the wall of the bank. As I was about to smash it  to smithereens, I remembered that I would need it for the sixth game. It was not a happy subway ride.

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Ralph Terry, relying primarily on a fast ball and slider, had retired the first 17 San Francisco Giants batters. Visions of Don Larsen, who had pitched a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, danced in the minds of New York Yankees fans. But not for long.

Giants pitcher Jack Sanford, a right-handed batter who finished his career with a .158 batting average, stepped in to face Terry. He promptly lined a clean single into right-center field to end the dream.

The Yankees had scored a run in the top of the fifth inning. The way they scored is a prime example of why a strikeout is not just another out.

Bill Skowron and Clete Boyer each singled to put Yankees on first and third with no outs. Pitching carefully to Terry, Sanford walked his mound opponent to load the bases with Yankees, bringing up Tony Kubek, with Bobby Richardson on deck.

Sanford got out of the jam by retiring Kubek on a double-play ground-out and Richardson on a foul pop fly to first baseman Orlando Cepeda. Skowron scored on Kubek’s double play. He would not have scored on a strikeout.

Almost all fans know about Willie McCovey’s ninth inning line drive that second baseman Richardson caught to end the Series, but a much better and equally important play is rarely mentioned.

In the seventh inning, with one out and the bases empty, Willie Mays hit a line drive to left field that appeared to be a certain double, but Tommy Tresh made a great lunging catch for the second out. McCovey followed with a drive to center field that went for a triple. Without Tresh’s play, the Giants would have tied the game.

Terry was dominant, not walking a batter, allowing only four hits and never putting more than one Giant one base until the ninth inning.

Shutting out the Giants, a strong offensive team with hitters such as Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda removed the stigma, at least to some extent, that Terry couldn’t stand pressure from.

It was Terry that had given up Bill Mazeroski’s home run in 1960. In the 1961 World Series, Terry was the only pitcher the Cincinnati Reds beat. Staked to a 6-0 in Game 5, the Reds kayoed him in the third inning.

Jack Sanford beat him in the second game of the 1962 Series, although Terry pitched well. He finally won a World Series game when he beat Sanford in the fifth game, 5-3 on Tresh’s three-run eighth inning home run.

Then, in the most important game any team can play, he shut out the Giants.

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How many times have we been told that Andy Pettitte used Human Growth Hormone? 

How many times have we been told that when Andy Pettitte used Human Growth Hormone it was not on baseball’s list of banned substances?  That’s what I thought. The media are famous for telling part of the story.

“In 2002 I was injured. I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow,” Pettitte said. The year was 2002.  HGH wasn’t banned until 2005.

Pettitte’s use of a complex amino acid chain, produced by the pituitary gland and not a steroid, might but probably will not affect his chances of being elected to the Hall of Fame.

Get this straight. Pettitte did not cheat. He did not use a banned substance. He used it only to help heal an injury.

The powers that run our society require that an individual that has the temerity to violate any of their rules, whether those rules are legal or moral, must show remorse.

“If I have let down people that care about me, I am sorry…. I have tried to do things the right way my entire life, and, again, ask that you put those two days in the proper context,” Pettitte told reporters.

When Pettitte was with the Houston Astros in 2006, he had elbow problems. The day after he left a game in third inning caused by tendinitis, Pettitte received a cortisone injection to help alleviate the effects of the inflammation.

Cortisone is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It is a routine treatment received by players that suffer joint inflammation.

Side effects include the chance of infection, a spike in blood sugar if one has diabetes and a potential allergic reaction to betadine, which is used to sterilize the skin.

In some cases, a player might receive multiple injections or higher doses of the condoned steroid. Under such conditions, potential side effects include thinning of the skin, easy bruising, weight gain, puffiness of the face,  acne (steroid acne), elevation of blood pressure, cataract formation and thinning of the bones (osteoporosis).

Not to worry. It’s been approved.

Pettitte has always been a team player. He explained why he used HGH.

“I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone. Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped.”

Pettitte has more class and is a lot more perceptive than those that would denigrate him.

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