Impact Player
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Impact Player: Leaving a Lasting Legacy On and Off the Field
Copyright © 2012 by Bobby Richardson. All rights reserved.
Cover photograph provided by the author.
Major League Baseball trademarks and copyrights are used with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. Visit MLB.com.
All other photographs, unless noted, provided by the Richardson family and used with permission. All copyrights are the property of their respective owners, and all rights are reserved.
Bobby holding his young boys copyright © AP Photo.
Bobby’s improved swing copyright © Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images.
Bobby spiked by Robinson copyright © Marvin E. Newman/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images.
Bobby, Mickey, and Whitey copyright © Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images.
Bobby holding his bat copyright © Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images.
Bobby and Yogi copyright © New York Daily News/Getty Images.
Bobby as coach used with the permission of the University of South Carolina Athletics Department.
Designed by Daniel Farrell
Edited by Anne Christian Buchanan
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
Scripture verses marked Phillips are taken from The New Testament in Modern English by J. B. Phillips, copyright © J. B. Phillips, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1972. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Richardson, Bobby.
Impact player : leaving a lasting legacy on and off the field / Bobby Richardson with David Thomas.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4143-7273-0 (hc)
1. Richardson, Bobby. 2. Baseball players—United States—Biography. 3. New York Yankees (Baseball team) I. Thomas, David, 1968 June 21- II. Title.
GV865.R4279I66 2012
796.357092—dc23
[B] 2012018899
Build: 2012-08-01 16:17:44
To my wife, Betsy.
I can’t find the words to express my love and appreciation for you and your faithful companionship and support. I’m so thankful for your love for our Savior and for His mercy and grace, which have kept us going these fifty-six-plus years.
Contents
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1: Sharing a Dream
Chapter 2: Becoming a Yankee
Chapter 3: Timely Reminder
Chapter 4: Climbing the Ladder
Chapter 5: Wedding Bells and Baseball
Chapter 6: Mixed Emotions
Chapter 7: Stay or Go Home?
Chapter 8: .300
Chapter 9: A Series to Remember
Chapter 10: Sixty-One in ’61
Chapter 11: The Truth about the Catch
Chapter 12: Too Much Koufax
Chapter 13: Rallying under Yogi
Chapter 14: Headed for Home
Chapter 15: No Regrets
Chapter 16: A Different Type of Run
Chapter 17: Family, Faith, and Fun
Chapter 18: Teammates and Lifelong Friends
Chapter 19: Mickey
Chapter 20: The Decision
Chapter 21: Protecting the Home Field
Chapter 22: God’s Hall of Fame
Acknowledgments
Photo Insert
Foreword
I remember the first time I walked out of the clubhouse at the old Yankee Stadium. All I could think was, Wow—this is the same tunnel that guys like Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Bobby Richardson, and Whitey Ford walked through. I’ve really made it. I’m playing in New York for the New York Yankees. It was a really special feeling—and one I’ll never forget.
That great dynasty of ’55–’64 is one every Yankee player looks up to. I had the privilege of winning three championships with the Yankees in ’96, ’98, and ’99, but these guys were doing it almost every single year. They taught us that you should never be satisfied with winning one, two, or even three championships, but that you need to go out there and play your very best every day, every game, every series, and try to earn another one. They set the bar the rest of us strive to meet. There’s a tremendous sense of pride that comes from being a New York Yankee, and those guys played a huge role in creating that.
There have been a lot of great Yankee players over the years and a lot of guys who have won championships. But I think the greatest players are the ones who strive to make the people around them great. That’s what Bobby Richardson did. He was a real impact player—and I don’t just mean on the field.
On the field, an impact player is someone who can change the game at any time. One play—be it on offense or defense—can change the course of an entire game. An impact player is a guy who makes that play on a consistent basis. But in my mind, a real impact player is one who also makes a huge contribution to the clubhouse.
You go through so much as a team during the course of a season. When I think back to the four years I played with the Yankees, I remember how many of the guys I played with lost their fathers during the season, how many of them went through cancer battles, how many of them were dealing with rough patches in their marriages. As a manager, I can tell you that it’s not just about keeping a team together on the field; it’s also about dealing with everything that’s going on off the field.
Every club has to have that guy players feel they can turn to when things are not going well—someone they can talk to, someone who can provide comfort during difficult times. Bobby Richardson was one of those guys—the kind who got along with everybody, who helped bring everyone in the clubhouse together, and who genuinely cared about the people around him. A true leader.
With Bobby, it all came down to his values and his Christian faith. I’m sure he had his struggles like everyone else, but you can just tell when you look at his face and see his smile that there’s a peace there—peace, humility, and a lot of love. And I think other people feed off of being around a guy like that.
As a Christian athlete, you want people to look at you and think, What’s different about that guy? I want what he’s got. Of course, then you’ve got to be able to walk the walk. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges of being a Christian athlete. You have to live up to a lot more, and that can be extremely difficult at times. But it also takes the pressure off, because you know that God’s always going to put you exactly where He wants you—not where you want to go, but where He wants you to be. That’s God’s plan.
Bobby knew that God had a plan for his life, both during and after baseball. And I believe that’s what gave him that sense of inner peace, contentment, and humility that drew others to him and made them want to be better players, teammates, and human beings.
As a fellow Christian, I admire Bobby for never shying away from the opportunity to share his faith in Jesus with those around him. He understood that he was given a great gift and a great platform, and throughout his life he has used both to make a positive impact on those around him.
When I look at Bobby Richardson, I see someone I strive to be more like—not because of his stats, the records he holds, his World Series rings, or his place in baseball history, but because of his character, his values, his humility, and his beliefs.
There’s no question: Bobby Richardson is a true impact player in every sense of the word.
Prologue
The majestic melody from the organ resounded throughout the packed sanctuary. The accompanying voices of the mourners were thick with emotion as they sang:
Just a closer walk with thee.
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea.
On the platform, I sang along in my head, though not mouthing the words. I alternated between looking down at my one page of notes and looking out over the crowd. I could see former New York Yankees players . . . Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Moose Skowron, Johnny Blanchard, Bobby Murcer, and Tony Kubek. Texas governor George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, were near the front, close to my own wife, Betsy, and Randy Maris, son of Roger. Comedian Billy Crystal stood to the right. I spotted Bobby Cox, the manager of the Atlanta Braves and a former Yankee, and took note of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and broadcaster Pat Summerall.
My heart was moved when I looked to the family. Some dabbed tears. Others stood arm-in-arm with the loved one next to them as they lifted their voices along with the rest.
When my feeble life is o’er,
Time for me will be no more. . . .
I had been privileged to speak many times at the funerals of friends and teammates, and often to crowds much larger than this one that had gathered to bid farewell to a husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend, teammate, and baseball hero. Yet I was more nervous than usual that day. I was very nervous, actually.
Mickey Mantle’s home-going had set off a dizzying two days. There had been so much to do, so much to plan, a message to prepare. But, as had happened many times during the previous week, I sensed a peace coming over me from the prayers of hundreds.
In just moments, I would be recounting the life of my friend of four decades, not only to a church crammed full with more than two thousand people, but also to a live, nationwide television audience that had to number in the tens of thousands.
I looked back to the keywords jotted on my notes and once again asked the Lord to give me the strength and ability to say the words He would have me say. I would be sharing old stories about Mickey that I had told many times before: about his fake mongoose in the locker room, about the rubber snake he hid in a teammate’s pants, about his high-interest loans from Yogi, about our basketball game at West Point. But there at the bottom of my notes was a story from my final days with Mickey.
It had already become my favorite, and I couldn’t wait to share it.
Chapter 1
Sharing a Dream
“Someday he’ll be in the major leagues,” my dad declared the day I was born. The date was August 19, 1935—not just during baseball season, but at the point in a season when pennant races begin to heat up.
I don’t know whether Dad was predicting or hoping, but his words came true. I was privileged to play twelve seasons in the major leagues. And because I spent my entire career with outstanding teammates in the pinstripes of the New York Yankees, I was able to take part in more pennant races than most ballplayers could hope to experience.
Blessed with good health, I played 1,412 games in the majors, but only one with my dad in the stands. At least that one was a World Series game. Health issues and other circumstances prevented Dad from seeing me play more. He didn’t even get to see all of my career. My family suffered a great loss when he passed away in 1963, three years before I retired.
My dad loved coming to my games when I was growing up. Unless it was one of our out-of-town games too far to travel to, or one scheduled during the day, before he could slip out of work, Dad was in the bleachers. He wasn’t my loudest fan, but he was my biggest.
I was Robert Clinton Richardson’s only son. He gave me his name—he went by Clint; I was Robert—and he passed on to me his passion for baseball. In return, I lived out his dream of playing in the majors.
I wish Dad could have been at Yankee Stadium for Bobby Richardson Day in the final weeks of the 1966 season, my last year in the majors. I know he would have been proud when my career accomplishments were listed that day: playing in seven World Series, winning three, and being chosen Most Valuable Player of one; earning five Gold Glove awards; being selected to seven All-Star teams. But what I think would have made Dad most proud was when and why I was walking away from baseball.
Age wasn’t an issue, because I was only thirty-one at the time. Skills weren’t a concern either, because I had just made my fifth consecutive All-Star team. Injuries, thank goodness, had never been a problem during my career. The only reason I had missed thirteen games in my final season—the most I had missed since 1959—was a request by manager Ralph Houk. He had asked if I would mind sitting out games late in the season so the Yankees could give playing time to my expected replacement at second base.
I hung up my spikes in 1966 feeling I was still in my peak years as a baseball player. But at that time I was also in what I felt should be my peak years as a father. Betsy and I had four children. Our fifth, Rich, would join us two years later. My oldest son, Robby, was nine years old, and Ron was eight. Both were playing baseball, and I was missing too many of their games. Our daughter Christie was almost six and missing her daddy, and two-year-old Jeannie often would cry when I was away.
As much as my dad valued my time in the major leagues, and as much as he enjoyed keeping up with my games on television, radio, and in the newspapers, I know he would have approved of my early retirement. His constant presence in my life was the best gift he had ever given me, and now it was time for me to give the same gift to my children. I felt confident he would have agreed with that.
Dad had been a tombstone maker, spending his lifetime inscribing the names and dates and words of hundreds of people to be remembered. Every time I visit Dad’s grave, I read the words my sister Ann suggested be placed on his tombstone:
ONLY ONE LIFE,
IT WILL SOON BE PAST;
ONLY WHAT’S DONE FOR CHRIST
WILL LAST.
Those are the same words Betsy and I made “ours” at the beginning of our relationship. My dad had helped me inscribe those words on a small stone for us to share.
I was the second of three children born to Clint and Willie Richardson, the only boy, born between Inez and Ann. We were raised in Sumter, South Carolina, a small town about forty-five miles east of the state capital of Columbia. I still call Sumter home, and the folks who live here still call me Robert instead of Bobby. It was in Sumter that the foundation was laid for my baseball career and my spiritual journey.
In addition to my parents, three people stand out in my decision to accept Christ as Savior: Bill Ward, Pop Owens, and J. H. Simpson. The first two were my Sunday school teachers at Grace Baptist Church.
Mr. Ward was a farmer who loved to say, “Praise the Lord!” and made each of us boys in the class take turns teaching a lesson. I have had the honor of speaking to tens of thousands of people at Billy Graham Crusades, but I’ll tell you that it is an entirely different type of nervousness when you have to stand in front of a small Sunday school class of your peers and deliver a message.
Mr. Owens worked for the Carolina Power & Light Company, and I remember there would be Sunday mornings after a big storm had blown through when he would have to miss class to help restore power in the area. But when Mr. Owens wasn’t called away by work, he was faithful in bringing God’s Word to us every Sunday.
What those two teachers instilled in me as a young boy was that I needed to live my life for God and that the first step in doing so was to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Their lessons prepared the soil of my heart to the point that I knew I needed a Savior. J. H. Simpson, the pastor of our church, was the one who then came in and brought the salvation message home, so to speak.
When I was almost twelve, at the request of my mother—and, I believe, also at the urging of Mr. Ward and Mr. Owens—Rev. Simpson came by our house for a visit. To my surprise, instead of visiting with my parents, he started talking with Inez, Ann, and me. I didn’t know much about Rev. Simpson, other than
what I had observed of him at church. But I was impressed that he knew my name and my sisters’ names and also seemed to know a little about each of us. As he talked to us, it was obvious that he wasn’t just making small talk. He was sincerely interested in hearing about our lives and our activities.
At some point in that visit, Rev. Simpson shifted our conversation to God’s plan of salvation. I was quite familiar with it, having heard it many times from the pulpit and also from hearing it described by Mr. Ward and Mr. Owens in Sunday school. I’m sure that I had not completely understood all that was explained to me as a young boy, but I believed I needed a Savior and that Jesus loved me enough to suffer and die in my place. That day in our living room, though, I felt different than in times past as Rev. Simpson explained the plan once again.
Rev. Simpson recited a verse we knew well—John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Rev. Simpson told us that all of mankind had sinned and needed God’s gift of salvation; then he asked the three of us whether we each knew that we, too, had sinned.
I don’t recall being asked that question before. I know it had been posed by Rev. Simpson during his sermons and by Mr. Ward and Mr. Owens in Sunday school. But it definitely was the first time I remember someone looking directly at me and asking if I knew I had sinned. Because God was working in my heart, it caused me to confront the question personally in my life.
Of course, I knew my answer had to be yes. I knew I had done things wrong in my life. I was aware of thought patterns and actions the Lord was not pleased with. And I knew there was a consequence involved in sin and that it was separation from a holy and just God forever in a place Scripture calls hell.
I wasn’t what others would call a bad boy. The most trouble I got into was for talking back to my mother or sneaking out of the house to play baseball when I was supposed to be cleaning my bedroom. Of course, there were those “shady excuses” to avoid punishment, and my habit of annoying my sisters. That’s not bad considering what a young boy could have gotten into, but there are no degrees of sin. Sin is sin. I was disrespecting and disobeying my mother, and I knew that did not reflect the heart God wanted for me. He gave His commandments to reveal His righteous requirements. Lying and not honoring my mother were sins. I needed forgiveness and a new heart.