RIP Whitey Ford deserves his own thread.

[Beau Vine 55859]

JoePos:

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There’s something about the Casey Stengel Yankees that people miss. Those Yankees, you probably know, won seven World Series and two other pennants in 12 years. After Stengel left, they won another two World Series and two pennants before falling apart. It is the greatest period of winning in the history of baseball.

And here’s the thing: Those Yankees would change pitching rotations pretty much every year.

At first, the rotation revolved around Whitey Ford, Vic Raschi and Allie Reynolds.

Then, it was Whitey Ford, Bob Grim and Eddie Lopat.

Then, Whitey Ford, Bob Turley and Tommy Byrne.

Then, Whitey Ford, Johnny Kucks and Tom Sturdivant.

Then, Whitey Ford, Art Ditmar and Duke Maas.

Then, Whitey Ford, Bill Stafford and Ralph Terry.

Then, Whitey Ford, Jim Bouton and Al Downing.

You can see where this is going. The greatest team in the history of this sport would change pitchers about as often as Twitter changes trending topics. And they could do that and still keep winning because … they always had the Chairman of the Board at the top.

Elston Howard might have given him the nickname. That was how Ford remembered it. In the 1950s, people began calling Frank Sinatra the “Chairman of the Board,” and Howard thought that fit Ford perfectly. Ford was on the smaller side — listed at 5-foot-10, 175 pounds, but he may not have been even that big — but from the very beginning, he had this larger-than-life way about him on and off the pitcher’s mound. 

Former big leaguer Jack Burns used to tell the story of when he was managing in Scranton in ’49, and his team was rallying when Binghamton’s 20-year-old Ed Ford strutted in from the bullpen to close things out. That’s the word Burns used: “Strutted.”

So the Scranton players — and Burns himself — just laid into Ford. They called him every vile name they could up with. Ford struck out the first two batters he faced and got the third to pop out softly to end the game.

And then, Burns said, “He turned to third base where I was coaching and in as gentle and pleasant a voice as you’d want to hear, he said: ‘Was that all right, Mr. Burns?’”

Yes, the Chairman of the Board, right from the beginning. He grew up in New York, Queens to be exact, and he was a stickball hustler who dreamed only of becoming the next Joe DiMaggio. He was awed when he joined the Yankees and DiMaggio was still there. Ford was just 21 years old that year, 1950. He made 13 starts, if you include the one made in the World Series against Philadelphia. The Yankees won all 13 times. 

You could argue that no player — not even his great catcher Yogi Berra or his running partners Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin — loved the Yankees the way Whitey did. He was the truest of believers, and when he took the mound he just knew that they would win. Knew it. Felt it. There was a confidence that flowed through him, a certainty that more often than not his teammates would score a bunch of runs for him and he would close the door.

Get ready now for the most remarkable stat you will see today.

When the Yankees scored six or more runs, Whitey Ford’s record was 112-0.

Nobody else is even close. Even Pedro Martínez lost three times with six runs of support. Tom Seaver and Bob Gibson lost four times. Roger Clemens lost five times. But Ford, by mixing three different kinds of curveballs, a slider, a couple of different sinkers, an illegal pitch or two* and the occasional fastball — “the fastball isn’t generally a pitch you can get hitters out with,” he used to say — was never going to lose a game with that many runs behind him.

*”I never threw a spitter,” he famously said. “Well, maybe once or twice when I really needed to get a guy out real bad.”

Whitey Ford was a picture of pure dominance.

“Ford stands on the mound like a Fifth Avenue bank president,” the great Roger Angell wrote of him. “Tight-lipped, absolutely still between pitches, all business and concentration, he personifies the big-city, emotionless perfection of his team.”

The funny part is that, of course, off the mound, Whitey Ford couldn’t have been less of the emotionless bank president. That was the second part of the Chairman of the Board; like Sinatra, Whitey Ford was a creature of the night. He used to say that on the nights before he pitched, he could never go to bed before 5 a.m. That left those wee small hours of the morning for Ford, Mantle, Martin and numerous other special guest stars to live large and drink excessively and laugh until the sun came up.*

*Though Ford’s famous line on drinking was that you should never drink everything in the bottle. “Leave some for the next guy,” he said. 

Ford missed two years at the start of his career while serving in the military. And he retired at 38 after two years where he was not often healthy enough to pitch. In between, though, he won … and won … and won. From 1950 to 1965, Whitey Ford made 384 starts. The Yankees won 71 percent of them. In 1961, Ford made 39 starts — the Yankees won 34 of them. In the 1960 and ’61 World Series, he made four starts and didn’t give up a run in any of them.

And so on. 

“I don’t care what the situation was, how high the stakes were,” Mantle said of Ford. “The bases could be loaded and the pennant riding on every pitch. It never bothered Whitey. He pitched his game. Cool. Craft. Nerves of steel.”

This year has been unrelenting in so many ways. In the last few weeks, we have lost three of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Tom Seaver went first, on the last day of August. Tom Terrific. He was the perfect pitcher, perfect form — knee touching the ground on that follow-through — perfect style, perfect pitching repertoire.

Last week, it was Bob Gibson. The fierce one. Gibby told hitters that he owned one half of the plate, but he would never tell them which half. 

And on Friday, it was Whitey Ford. He was 91 years old and one of the most delightful men in the game. Sure, by WAR and other advanced metrics, Ford doesn’t necessarily fit in with the other two. Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs have him about 54 wins above replacement, right next to David Wells and Luis Tiant. But when you put Whitey Ford in pinstripes, he wouldn’t lose. And the Yankees were the greatest team in the world.

Get ready now for the most remarkable stat you will see today.

When the Yankees scored six or more runs, Whitey Ford’s record was 112-0.

Nobody else is even close. Even Pedro Martínez lost three times with six runs of support. Tom Seaver and Bob Gibson lost four times. Roger Clemens lost five times. But Ford, by mixing three different kinds of curveballs, a slider, a couple of different sinkers, an illegal pitch or two* and the occasional fastball — “the fastball isn’t generally a pitch you can get hitters out with,” he used to say — was never going to lose a game with that many runs behind him.

[WBT 20964]

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Rest in peace to the one and only Whitey Ford. A classic photo (via @ESPNImages and the Ozzie Sweet collection) of Whitey with @Yankees  teammates Mickey Mantle, Bob Grim and Billy Martin on a fishing trip in 1957.

Seaver, Gibson, and Whitey all within the last couple of months.

[Pato del Muerto 53440]

17 hours ago, WBT said:

Seaver, Gibson, and Whitey all within the last couple of months.

Name that stadium. 
 

RIP to another legend gone. 

[MC Fresh Breath 4075]

Somehow missed this one.  Damn.