1957 Yankee of the Past: Joe McCarthy

THEY CALLED HIM A BUSHER

How Quickly Can You Recognize This Man?

"They called him a 'busher' when he was announced as manager of a major league team.

He was almost 40. His baseball background was minor league. Half his life had been spent on dusty, clay-ribbed diamonds down in the sticks.

When he wasn't bouncing in buses, he was riding a day coach. He ate at greasy-spoon cafes in the tank towns. A night to remember was when a fan invited him and other players to a home-cooked meal.

He was a bush league player who kept waiting for the call to be brought up to the big time for the chance that seemed to come to everyone else but him.

He was recognized as just a good busher, one of thousands who had what it took for the sticks but not enough of it for the majors where Pullmans replaced buses, where steaks substituted for stew, where paychecks contained four digits and sometimes five instead of only two or three.

But he stuck it out as a cocky, determined little guy who was Irish in more ways than just his name. The big leagues finally noticed him. They made him a manager down on the farm.

He bounced around still more. He played for a while and managed at the same time. Then he stopped playing and just managed. Years went by and he still was minor league.

They weren't looking for his type in the majors. They wanted the boys with the big names and the fancy big league backgrounds for their big-time managers to go along with all the other ones with years of major league experience.

Finally he was given his chance. The man he succeeded had been one of the big-name managers with a long career, both as a player and a pilot.

His team had finished in the second division. The owners wanted a better ending for the new year. So they dipped down and picked up a man who never had played a major league game in his life.

His name rang no responsive chord when he was unveiled in the big time. Newspapers had to pick up the threads of his background and weave them into a story to let the fans know who he was.

It hadn't been necessary with the man who preceded him. Everybody knew of him, but not this new manager. He wasn't a complete unknown. But he was the next thing to it.

When he was brought in, he was told by his owners that he was to put some spark and hustle into a team that had shown flashes of greatness the previous year but had sagged when it counted.

He was hired under a 'get tough' policy. He put in new rules during spring training. He cracked down on some of the playboys. He rode herd on a couple of players who were front office favorites but hadn't produced.

He had jibes poked at him from training-camp dugouts when he popped out to argue with umpires. 'What's YOUR name,' they would holler. 'How are things down in the sticks?'

Some of the fans looked over their noses at him when the team had a poor exhibition season record and then lost the first game of the regular season.

'That's what we get for hiring a guy with no big league experience,' they grumbled. 'He's strictly bush ...'

But the little Irishman proved them wrong. He stuck around and proved that a 'busher' could be big league even though he was nearly forty when he hit the big time.

In fact, Joe McCarthy, who won nine championships and seven World Series, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this summer."

-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, August 1957)

1957 Yankee of the Past: Carl Mays

MY PITCH THAT KILLED CHAPMAN WAS A STRIKE!

"Baseball fans of every generation seem to delight in having at least one player to heckle. In 1920 the target of their jeers was Carl Mays.

And, just as they chose certain players to taunt, they have others for whom they show a special affection. In 1920 the object of their cheers was Ray Chapman, peppery little shortstop of the Cleveland Indians.

Mays was cut out to be a villain. He pitched underhand, which was strange and somewhat suspect to begin with, and pitched a 'bean ball' that he was wont to pitch close by the skulls of batsmen and make them step back from the plate a little. Now, he was a pitcher for the New York Yankees, but he had come to them in an unorthodox manner which won him no friends.

Carl had been a member of the Boston Red Sox in 1918. He didn't like it and demanded that he be traded. The Red Sox refused to peddle him. Carl quit. Helplessly, the Boston club traded him to New York. The deal promised to set a bad precedent, and Byron Bancroft Johnson, president of the American League, placed a restraining order on him. Mays went ahead and worked every city in the league. That was Carl Mays.

Ray Chapman, on the other hand, was a popular little guy who had been with the Indians since 1912. This, his ninth season with the club, was going to be his last. He had planned to retire from the game at the end of the preceding season, following his marriage, but he had yielded to the wishes of the Cleveland fans.

The feeling was strong that the Indians could win their first pennant in 1920 if Chapman would stay with the team, and he agreed to play just this one, final year.

In mid-August, the Indians were engaged in a three-way fight for the pennant with the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox.

On the afternoon of Monday, August 16, the Clevelanders were at the Polo Grounds, which the Yankees shared with the Giants. Carl Mays was pitching for the Yanks; Chapman was batting second for the Indians.

Cleveland was winning, 3-0, when Chapman, a right-handed hitter, came to bat to open the fifth inning. Mays threw him a strike, then a ball. On the second pitch, Mays says today, Chapman shifted his feet to push the ball down the first-base line.

The third pitch was a little high. Mays says he thew it to prevent a poke down the base path. There was a resounding crack. The ball rolled toward Mays and the pitcher picked it up and started to throw to first before he noticed that Chapman had sunk to the ground.

Umpire Tommy Connolly called for a doctor. Several in the stands responded and, after several minutes, several of Chapman's teammates started to help him to the clubhouse in center field. Then Ray collapsed again.

Harry Lunte went to first to run for Chapman and scored to put the Indians ahead, 4-0. Mays pitched until the eighth. The Yankees scored three in the ninth but lost, 4-3.

After the game, Chapman was taken from the clubhouse rubbing table to the hospital. Regaining consciousness as he was being lifted into the ambulance, he asked that someone put on his finger a diamond ring he had been given by his young bride, Kate. 'Tell Kate I'm all right,' he said.

At 5 A.M. he died under ether at the hospital- the first and only ball player ever to lose his life in a major league game. His skull had been split for an inch and a half on the left side by Mays' pitch, and the brain was shoved against the bone on the other side.

Mays became the object of a whispering campaign. A petition was circulated to have him expelled. The district attorney exonerated him of all blame and eventually the furor died down, but until he wound up his baseball career with the Toledo Mud Hens 12 years later his name brought a bitter expression to the faces of most baseball fans.

Today, at 65, Carl Mays is working at public relations, visiting with his grandchildren, and building a home in the calm of a small town of 11,400, Bend, Oregon.

'I have never thought for one minute,' he says, 'of Chapman's death being other than a regrettable accident. He was very fast and would push the ball toward first base. No pitcher could throw him out if he pushed the ball fair. The only way you could break up the play was to keep the ball high and inside so he would either miss it or pop it up.

'In his hurry to get the jump on the pitcher, he ran into a pitch that would have been a strike if had stayed in the batter's box.'

Carl won 215 games and lost 127 during his major league career.

Three years after his diamond career ended, in the early '30's, Carl began a baseball school in Portland, Oregon, which he ran until 1947. Then, for five years, he was a scout for the San Francisco club of the Pacific Coast League. He began ranching in East Oregon in 1952.

Last June, he suffered a heart attack. On doctor's orders, he has given up ranching and is building his home on the Deschutes River in Bend. He and his second wife, Esther, whom he married in 1939, plan to see Mays' children and grandchildren often.

His son, Carl Jr., is personnel manager of the U.S. National Bank in Portland. His daughter, Mrs. Betty Jane Barker, is a rancher's wife in Dayville, Oregon. Carl Jr. has two boys, and Betty Jane has two girls.

The former pitcher and Esther hope to continue to help young men get college educations. Mays says they have helped send about ten boys to college.

Much of Mays' time is given to hunting and fishing and to advising boys about baseball."

-Phyllis Propert, Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, July 1957)

Editor's Note: Carl Mays wasn't sure he wanted his story told. He thought it "might rekindle the old fire" of public emotion. We are sure it won't. Such a blaze always is extinguished by a special compound- time and reason.

1957 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez

CURSED WITH A FOUR-HITTER

"Lefty Gomez, famed southpaw of another Yankee championship era, was heir to the general run of baseball superstitions. One of his pets, to ward off disaster, was to place his glove in a certain spot and position after he came off the mound. His teammate, George Selkirk, once made Gomez frantic by kicking the mitt every time Gomez dropped it. Lefty pitched a four-hit shutout and the iconoclastic Selkirk pointed out the fallacy of Gomez's beliefs. 'See,' he said. 'In spite of what I did to your glove and your superstition, you still shut them out.' 'Yeah,' replied Lefty, 'but before you started I had a no-hitter going.' "

-Max Kase, New York Journal-American (Baseball Digest, July 1957)

1957 Yankee of the Past: Joe DiMaggio

WHEN THE BODY TALKS BACK

"Joe DiMaggio, one of the few athletes who when to quit, tells how a ball player knows his youth is speedily leaving him.

'It's like this,' Joe said, 'you're chasing a ball and a brain sends out commands to your body.

''Run forward,' your brain says.

'Then, 'Bend!' ... 'Scoop up the ball!' ... 'Peg it to the infield!' ... '

'Yes and then what?' asked one of DiMaggio's listeners.

'Then,' replied Joe, 'your body says, 'Who me?' And you know you haven't got it anymore.' "

-Al Abrams, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, November-December 1956)

SPIKE'S PIQUE

"It was over at St. Petersburg, where the Yankees trained, and a fellow still in baseball said: 'Don't use stories about me until I retire, but let me give you one about Joe DiMaggio. Now, Joe could be rough when he wanted.

'Like in the World Series, the first year the Yanks saw Jackie Robinson. Jackie was running into second- he was a great competitor and Phil Rizzuto was covering. They met head-on and Rizzuto was knocked out. Well, they were taking news photos and developing 'em right in the park. Pretty soon a photographer sent DiMaggio a picture of the play- it showed Robinson's fist right in Rizzuto's stomach.

'Well, Robinson was playing first base in those days, and he made the mistake of trying to cover the next time DiMaggio was running. DiMaggio crunched squarely on Robinson's foot, and everywhere Joe's shoe had a spike, Robinson had a spike wound. I'll say this about Robinson; he never beefed. Jackie knew why he'd gotten it.' "

-David Condon, Chicago Tribune (Baseball Digest, May 1957)

1957 Yankee of the Past: Babe Ruth

THE LOWDOWN ON RUTH

"Casey Stengel tells about a World Series game before which John McGraw, the old Giants manager, told his pitchers they would be fined $100 if they threw a ball above Babe Ruth's knees.

'They didn't,' Casey says, 'and he hit three home runs that day.'

Casey said that the American Leaguers who played against Ruth in closed parks were lucky. He played against him in a Baltimore fairgrounds in an exhibition game and spent the afternoon chasing the long ones over the open spaces.

'In a World Series game in the Polo Grounds,' Casey says, 'I played near Grant's monument and managed to catch one. When I came back McGraw congratulated me on playing Ruth right. He didn't know about that afternoon in Baltimore.' "

-Baseball Digest, September 1957

WE'LL NEVER BREAK RUTH'S RECORD

The Hitter Mickey Mantle Says Is Most Likely To Do It Tells Why He's Convinced No One, Not Even Mickey, Will Ever Hit 61

by Duke Snider as Told to Milton Richman, Reprinted from This Week Magazine

"There's a cool million dollars waiting for the fellow who breaks Babe Ruth's all-time home run record, but I'm convinced the money is going to go begging.

Ruth set his record of 60 homers in a season during 1927 and although some of the greatest sluggers in baseball have been shooting at that mark since, not one of them has been able to match it. Frankly, I don't believe anyone ever will because the odds have skyrocketed tremendously against breaking that record since the Babe's day.

Take it from me, there isn't a big leaguer around today who wouldn't give his eye teeth to break that record.

Any player who could would find himself up to his neck in fabulous offers. TV programs would want personal appearances at fancy fees, movie companies would be standing in lines for rights to his life story and magazines would pay him plenty for a series of articles on how he did it.

In addition to getting rich, though, the man who broke the Babe's record automatically would become an international hero. With his name inscribed in gold letters in all the record books, they'd start dusting off a special pedestal for him in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.

It sure makes a great picture. And don't think a great many big leaguers, myself included, haven't thought about it ever since Ruth turned the trick 30 years ago.

But I'm afraid that thinking about it is all we're ever going to be able to do. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons.

Take the case of Mickey Mantle of the Yankees. Here's a young fellow who's an exceptionally fine hitter. He set the baseball world on its ear last season when he clouted 17 homers in his first 35 games. Ruth didn't hit his 17th homer in 1927 until he had played in 47 games, so the newspapers immediately headlined the fact that Mantle was 12 games ahead of the Babe's record pace.

But here's a fact the fans didn't take into consideration: the longer a ball player has a chance at Ruth's record, the more time there is for pressure to mount. It's only normal that such a hitter starts to press a bit at the plate, swinging at bad pitches he ordinarily would let go by.

By the end of August, Mantle had a total of 47 homers and needed 14 in September to break the record. Everywhere he went, people would buttonhole him and ask, 'Do you think you'll do it?' Constant reminders like that don't help. They only serve to make a hitter more conscious of the strain.

The Babe hit 17 home runs in September, 1927, more homers than he hit in any other month that year. They call Ruth's 17 homers in September 'the pace that kills off all challengers' and that's exactly what it has done since 1927. Mantle hit only five homers last September and wound up with 52.

Here's another reason why September is tough going. At the end of the season, pitchers are going to bear down on a man ahead of Ruth's record twice as hard. Furthermore, September has a few more off-days in the current schedules than there were in the Babe's time. You can't hit home runs on days you don't play.

Then, again, Ruth never had to contend with the combination of day and night games we have now. How can a ball player, trying for a home run record or anything else, get his proper rest when he has to play a game tonight, then get up fresh and early for a game tomorrow? You tell me the answer to that one.

That's why I can't get overly excited when I pick up a paper during the season and read that 'So-and-so is umpteen games ahead of Ruth.' In the long one, the Babe catches up with them all.

Remember back in 1955 when Willie Mays of the Giants was really belting the ball out of the park. He was running 'on time' with Ruth's record 'timetable' when he connected for his thirty-fourth homer on August 1 that year, but in the end he finished short with 51.

If it were possible to beat the record- and let me say again I don't think it is- I guess Mantle and Mays, a couple of center field colleagues, would have the best chance of doing it.

Mickey and Willie are both extraordinary hitters but, unfortunately for them, their home ball parks are not conducive to hitting 61 homers- even for a switch hitter such as Mantle.

At Yankee Stadium, where Mantle has to play 77 games, it's hard to get so-called 'cheap' home runs. If Mickey played all year in a park like Cincinnati's Crosley Field or like Brooklyn's Ebbets Field (where I've played the last ten years), he'd have a better chance to break the record. The fences in these parks make more inviting targets. But you know Mickey's not likely to play any home games anywhere except Yankee Stadium!

Mays also may have a better crack at the record when he doesn't play his home games at the Polo Grounds. The right and left field fences there are less than 300 feet from home plate but a fellow can hit a ball 480 feet in straightaway center and still wind up with a loud out. A lot of Willie's hits out that way would be home runs in other ball parks.

There are other capable home run hitters in the big leagues nowadays but not one looks as if he can break Ruth's record.

Ted Kluszewski, the Cincinnati muscleman, has hit as many as 49 home runs in one year and for a time, there were those who saw him as the logical candidate for Ruth's title. But he's a low line-drive hitter and doesn't connect for the high ones often enough.

For consistency since entering the majors, no one rates ahead of Milwaukee's Eddie Mathews in the home run department. He has averaged 38 homers a year since breaking in with the Braves in 1952. That's a long way from the Babe's record, though. Mathews has terrific power, but the Milwaukee park presents a tough barrier for a left-handed hitter like him.

Over in the American League, Ted Williams of the Red Sox is a great overall hitter but he doesn't concentrate on homers. And that right field fence in Boston doesn't exactly beckon to a left-handed hitter like Williams, either.

During the past off-season, Mickey Mantle said he thought I was the ball player most likely to break Ruth's record. That was a nice gesture on his part but you have to face facts.

My speed seems to be between 40 and 45 homers a year. I'm too erratic to break any home run records. One week I might hit four or five and the next week none. And too many homerless weeks mean no new record.

It's interesting to note that 30 years ago on July 21, Ruth had hit exactly half his 60 home runs. Yet that isn't the midpoint of the season- only about 60 games were left to play after that day.

Thus any player hoping to top Ruth's record should either be well ahead of it by that date- with perhaps 40 homers already- or else should be prepared for a pretty uphill battle from there on in. One of Ruth's stiffest challengers, Jimmie Foxx of the Athletics, had 39 homers by July 21 of 1932. But he only hit 19 the rest of the way, to finish with 58. Note the figures for some other sluggers who were ahead or close to Ruth's July 21 total.

Hack Wilson, Cubs, 1930: July 21, 31; Finish 56

Mickey Mantle, Yankees, 1956: July 21, 31; Finish, 52

Hank Greenberg, Tigers, 1938: July 21, 28; Finish, 58  

Willie Mays, Giants, 1955: July 21, 28; Finish, 51

Eddie Mathews, Braves, 1953: July 21, 28; Finish, 47

Johnny Mize, Giants, 1947: July 21, 27; Finish, 51 

There are simply too many obstacles to overcome for anyone who has designs on the Babe's all-time record.  A player would need a terrific start and an even more spectacular finish. He'd have to be oblivious to all that pressure, quirks in the modern schedule and the fences in the different parks.

One day, perhaps, some baseball superman may come along who has all the necessary qualifications. But I don't see anyone around now who fits that description.

And I don't advise you to hold your breath waiting."

-Baseball Digest, October 1957

1956 Yankees of the Past Alumni Team

Former Yankees on 1956 Spring Training Rosters

MGR - Bucky Harris (Detroit Tigers)

CH - Chuck Dressen (Washington Senators)

CH - Tom Ferrick (Cincinnati Reds)

CH - Mayo Smith (Philadelphia Phillies)

C - Sherm Lollar (Chicago White Sox)

C - Clint Courtney (Washington Nationals)

C - Hal W. Smith (Baltimore Orioles)

1B - Vic Power (Kansas City Athletics) (3B)

1B - Gus Triandos (Baltimore Orioles)

2B - Jim Finigan (Kansas City Athletics) (3B)

3B - Jim Dyck (Baltimore Orioles)

SS - Jerry Snyder (Washington Senators) (2B)

SS - Willy Miranda (Baltimore Orioles)

LF - Gene Woodling (Cleveland Indians)  

CF - Bill Virdon (St. Louis Cardinals)

RF - Jackie Jensen (Boston Red Sox)

OF - Jim Greengrass (Philadelphia Phillies)

OF - Hank Sauer (Chicago Cubs) (retroactive designated hitter)

OF - Jim Delsing (Detroit Tigers) 

PH - Dale Long (Pittsburgh Pirates) (1B)

P - Lew Burdette (Milwaukee Braves)

P - Ruben Gomez (New York Giants)

P - Bob Porterfield (Boston Red Sox)

P - Johnny Schmidtz (Boston Red Sox)

P - Bill Wight (Baltimore Orioles)

P - Bob Keegan (Chicago White Sox)

RP - Ellis Kinder (St. Louis Cardinals)

RP - Tom Gorman (Kansas City Athletics)

RP - Dave Jolly (Milwaukee Braves)

1956 Yankee of the Past: Gene Woodling

"Hard hitting Gene came to the Indians during the 1955 season. He has played five World Series with a .318 batting mark. A fine fielder, Gene tied for American League defensive honors last year."

-1956 Topps No. 163