Kuzul

The New York Yankees were hosting the Chicago White Sox for a twi-night doubleheader on July 25, 1961. The second-place New Yorkers trailed the Detroit Tigers by one game. The fifth-place White Sox were 13 games behind despite having a respectable 50-47 record. Whitey Ford (17-2) faced Frank Baumann (7-7) in a battle of left-handers in the opener. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle each had 37 home runs going into the games. The teams traded zeroes until the bottom of the fourth inning. Bobby Richardson became the Yankees' first baserunner when he drew a leadoff walk. Tony Kubek moved him to second with a sacrifice bunt, bringing up Maris.The future single-season home run record holder promptly hit a drive that hit the right field foul pole. Mantle, batting right-handed, now trailed Maris by one home run. He swung at a Baumann fast ball and drove it down the left ...

William Rhoden of the New York Times presented some interesting ideas about Barry Bonds in a column a little more than one year ago. Rhoden posits that America, despite having a president whose father was black, is not comfortable with powerful, prominent black men that do not conform. Bonds, the greatest player of his era, plays by his own rules, which forced the media to resentfully follow those rules. Lawyer Allen Ruby told the jury at Bonds’ federal trial that one reason Bonds was being tried was because he was Barry Bonds. Bonds attitude has been compared to Bessie Smith’s legendary blues classic, “’Tain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do.” The following from the work easily applies to Bonds: “If I should get beat up by my poppa / That don't mean you should call no copper / Cause it ain't nobody's business if we do”It is significant, according to Ruby, that prosecutors ...

"Batting sixth and playing first base, No. 14, Bill Skowron, No. 14." Skowron stepped into the batter's box against the ace left-hander on the Yankee Stadium mound in the second inning of a scoreless game. There was a runner on second with one. The fans watched with eager anticipation. The pitcher peered in to get the signal from his catcher, nodded assent and delivered. The "Moose" lined a base hit  to center field as the crowd let out a groan.Skowron' base hit came at the expense of his good friend Whitey Ford. Mickey Mantle fielded the ball cleanly, but he had no chance of throwing out Frank Howard at the plate. The Los Angeles Dodgers led the New York Yankees 1-0 in the first game of the 1963 World Series. Following Skowron's single, weak-hitting Dick Tracewski singled and left-handed-hitting John Roseboro hit a three-run home run.In the third inning, Skowron batted ...

Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956, batting .353 with 52 home runs and 130 RBIs. My brother and I often heard some of our friends that didn't exactly root for Mantle or the New York Yankees claim that Mantle usually hit home runs when the Yankees were well ahead or far behind. Baseball-Reference has posted data that allow us to discover if that claim is true. The Yankees opened the 1956 season in Washington. In his first at-bat of the season, Mantle hit a two-out home run against Camilo Pascual to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. He put the game away with a three-run blast in the sixth inning for an 8-2 lead on the way to a 10-4 win. In 1956, Mantle hit 10 home runs with the score tied, seven home runs with the Yankees behind by one run and six home runs with the ...

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 ...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...