The New York Times Book of New York

by The New York Times

  Yanks Buy Babe Ruth For $125,000

  January 6, 1920

  BABE RUTH OF THE BOSTON RED SOX, BASE-ball’s super-slugger, was purchased by the Yankees for the largest cash sum ever paid for a player. The New York club paid Harry Frazen of Boston $123,030 for the sensational batsman who last season caused such a furor in the national game by hitting 29 home runs, a new record in long-distance clouting.

  Colonel Ruppert, president of the Yanks, said that he had taken over Ruth’s Boston contract, which has two years more to run. This contract calls for a salary of $10,000 a year. Ruth recently announced that he would refuse to play for $10,000 next season, although the Boston Club has received no request for a raise in salary.

  Manager Miller Huggins is now in Los Angeles negotiating with Ruth. It is believed that the Yankee manager will offer him a new contract which will be satisfactory to the Colossus of the bat.

  President Ruppert said yesterday that Ruth would probably play right field for the Yankees. He played to left field for the Red Sox last season, and had the highest fielding average among the outfielders, making only two errors during the season. While he is on the Pacific Coast Manager Huggins will also endeavor to sign Duffy Lewis, who will be one of Ruth’s companions in the outfield at the Polo Grounds next season.

  Ruth was such a sensation last season that he supplanted the great Ty Cobb as baseball’s greatest attraction. He scored the greatest number of runs in the American League last season, crossing the plate 103 times. Cobb scored only 97 runs last year. Ruth was so dangerous that the American League pitchers were generous with their passes and the superlative hitter walked 101 times, many of these passes being intentional. Ruth also struck out more than any other batsman in the league, fanning 59 times. He also made three sacrifice hits and he stole seven bases.

  Yanks Sweep Series, Wild Pitch Beating Pirates in Ninth

  By JAMES R. HARRISON | October 9, 1927

  THERE WERE THREE ON AND TWO WERE OUT, the score was tied and it was the ninth inning of the big game. Now, in such a setting Ralph Henry Barbour would have had the modest hero step up and slam one over the fence while 60,000 roared their acclaim of the great man.

  But reality is not always as glamorous as fiction and sometimes falls short. No resounding slap over the fence and far away. Just a wild pitch and a rolling ball—and curtains for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

  The Yankees won by 4 to 2—the fourth team in 24 world’s series to take the championship with four straight victories. Let it be recorded, to the eternal credit of the Pirates, that they went down fighting like men.

  It would have made a prettier story if the home run that George Herman Ruth hit into the right-field stand in the fifth had won the game. It would have been nicer if Gehrig or Meusel or Lazzeri could have produced a ringing blow with the bases full and nobody out in the throbbing ninth.

  Here was the big moment of the series, with G. Herman Ruth at bat, two on base and the world’s championship hanging in the balance. Would the Pirates pitch to Ruth or not? If they did, would he bunt or swing?

  They walked him and took a chance on an infield grounder and a play at the plate. But with the bases full and nobody out the Pirates’ hopes looked as bleak as the October sky above.

  Gehrig was at bat—the great Gehrig, who drove more runs across the plate this season than any other batter in baseball history. He had sent 179 runs whizzing over the white disk, and at this moment he would have gladly exchanged any 10 of them for even a long sacrifice fly.

  Miljus’s first delivery was a curve inside, which Red Ormsby called a strike. Ball one was low: strike two, a half-slow ball, ball two, outside the plate. And then Miljus wound up again in his slow, deliberate way and broke a resplendent curve across the inside edge. Gehrig’s bludgeon swished through the air—and “mighty Casey had struck out.”

  61,808 Fans Roar Tribute to Gehrig

  By JOHN DREBINGER | July 5, 1939

  IN PERHAPS AS COLORFUL AND DRAMATIC A pageant as ever was enacted on a baseball field, 61,808 fans thundered a hail and farewell to Henry Lou Gehrig at the Yankee Stadium.

  To be sure, it was a holiday and there would have been a big crowd and plenty of roaring in any event. For the Yankees, after getting nosed out, 3 to 2, in the opening game of the double-header, despite a ninth-inning home run by George Selkirk, came right back in typical fashion to crush the Senators, 11 to 1, in the nightcap. Twinkletoes Selkirk embellished this contest with another home run.

  But it was the spectacle staged between the games which doubtless never will be forgotten by those who saw it. For more than 40 minutes there paraded in review two mighty championship hosts—the Yankees of 1927 and the current edition of Yanks who definitely are winging their way to a fourth straight pennant and a chance for another world title.

  From far and wide the 1927 stalwarts came to reassemble for Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day and to pay their own tribute to their former comrade-in-arms who had carried on beyond all of them only to have his own brilliant career come to a tragic close when it was revealed that he had fallen victim to a form of infantile paralysis.

  In conclusion, the vast gathering, sitting in absolute silence for a longer period than perhaps any baseball crowd in history, heard Gehrig himself deliver as amazing a valedictory as ever came from a ball player.

  So shaken with emotion that at first it appeared he would not be able to talk at all, the mighty Iron Horse, with a rare display of that indomitable will power that had carried him through 2,130 consecutive games, moved to the microphone at home plate to express his own appreciation.

  Why They Cheer Joe DiMaggio

  By GILBERT MILLSTEIN | July 9, 1950

  Joe DiMaggio in 1937.

  JOSEPH PAUL DIMAGGIO, A MAN WHO HAS, without visible strain, acquired the rich patina of an institution, is currently afflicted with the most spectacular batting slump of his 12 years in the major leagues. He has become the object of a sort of kindly evasion on the part of sportswriters, who like to point out that anyway he has hit more home runs and batted in more runs so far this season than any other Yankee.

  Earlier in the season, in the course of a double-header against the Cleveland Indians at Yankee Stadium, he came to bat eight times but was unable, as the trade says, to buy a hit. Despite this painful consistency, the center fielder for the New York Yankees was applauded with more vigor and greater warmth the last time he took his turn than he had been the first.

  The public faith in his ultimate productivity was rewarded. Toward the end of last month, DiMaggio achieved another intimation of immortality: he became the 88th major-league baseball player since 1876 to make 2,000 hits. Next Tuesday, at Chicago, he will appear in his 11th All-Star game.

  There is little question in the minds of most people that DiMaggio is the finest player of his era. Casey Stengel, the manager of the Yankees, watched DiMaggio working out in the batting cage one morning recently, and then said: “He makes big-league baseball look simple. It isn’t that simple. He would make any manager look good. That’s about the best thing you can say about any ball player.”

  Some years ago a veteran player, intent on driving home the implications of DiMaggio’s greatness, took a rookie aside in the dressing room and pointed to DiMaggio. “See that?” the veteran said. “That’s class.” He paused for emphasis. “That guy,” he said, “changes his shirt every day.”

  The Boy Grew Older

  By ARTHUR DALEY | April 22, 1952

  MASTER MICKEY MANTLE SPRAWLED IN A corner of the Yankee Stadium dugout just before the home opening, the picture of lazy contentment. His hat was tilted over his eyes and he chewed his gum with methodical unconcern. This was just another ball game, and he was a full-fledged big leaguer.

  He knew he’d be a little nervous in his first time at bat because he always was. But he also knew that a great calm would immediately settle over him and he’d be at ease.

  One year later, Mantle is an old pro. Last season Gil McDougald and Mickey
were two kids trying to make good. At spring training, they practiced fielding and hitting at every chance they got and were despondent if not used in intrasquad games. At St. Pete this spring, however, neither acted as if he had a care in the world.

  The first thing Mickey did upon arriving at the Stadium this year was to go prowling about the outfield in right center, searching for the spot where he had come to grief in the World Series, injuring his knee. He thinks he tripped over the cover to a water pipe outlet.

  “All I can remember is racing after Willie Mays’ shot and hearing Joe DiMaggio call, ‘I got it,’ ” he said. “So I pulled up short and—boom!—I could feel my leg snap. I lay there, too scared to move. I really thought my leg had fallen off at the knee.” It was apparent that he had envisioned the end of a career which hardly had begun.

  But the world didn’t end after all. He’s back in business, a far more poised and confident ball player, and there was talk that Stengel would let him gain experience in right field before shifting him to center. Did he have any preferences?

  “Nope,” he said. “As long as I play every day, I don’t care where I play.”

  The Homer Epidemic

  By ARTHUR DALEY | October 3, 1961

  Mickey Mantle slams a homer into the bleachers on July 1, 1961, gaining the 1,000th RBI of his career.

  THIS WILL BE KNOWN AS THE YEAR OF THE Home Run. Never before has one phase of the game so dominated the sport or so captured public interest. The man who provided the high drama was Roger Maris, of course. He kept ducking under deadlines and brushing against disaster like Pearl White in that ancient serial, “The Perils of Pauline.”

  On the final day of the 154-game segment of the season, he wrenched away from the grip of Jimmy Foxx and Hank Greenberg, both clouters of 58 homers, and slammed his 59th. Only the mighty Babe Ruth had done better over such a span. Then on the final day of the expanded 162-game season, he tagged his 61st. That was one more than even the Babe had hit.

  Maris wasn’t the only homer-hitter in the big league last season—although it may have seemed that way at the end. He was just part of an epidemic, a contagion that reached its most virulent form in the American League, which produced a record of 1,534 homers to go fantastically beyond the previous high of 1,091. Expansion had a lot to do with it. Now ball parks in Los Angeles and Minnesota were homer-havens. But the Yankees alone slashed out 240 homers.

  Some fans deeply resent the commissioner’s ruling that only the first 154 games be considered for the legitimization of the Maris record as a replacement for the Ruthian mark. They say: Why not the last 154 games? (Roger went without a homer in his first nine.) They say a lot of things.

  The Ruth idolators scorn Maris—which is grossly unfair. Roger is strictly top-drawer as an outfielder. They say he’s a Johnny-come-lately, which is true. Ruth was different, and he will not have a challenger until someone else approaches his lifetime total of 714 homers. At the moment Maris trails him by 556.

  Yankees Take Series As Jackson Hits Three Homers

  By JOSEPH DURSO | October 19, 1977

  WITH REGGIE JACKSON HITTING THREE home runs in his last three times at bat, the New York Yankees swept all those family feuds under the rug and overpowered the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-4, to win their first World Series in 15 years.

  They won it in the sixth game of a match that rocked Yankee Stadium last night as hundreds of fans poured through a reinforced army of 350 security guards and stormed onto the field after the final out. And it marked a dramatic comeback from the four-game sweep the Yankees suffered last October at the hands of the Cincinnati Reds.

  For Jackson, who led the team in money, power hitting and power rhetoric, this was a game that had perhaps no equal since the World Series was inaugurated in 1903. He hit his three home runs on the first pitches off three pitchers, and became the only player to hit three in a Series game since Babe Ruth did it for the Yankees twice, in 1926 and again in 1928. But nobody had ever before hit five in a World Series, a feat that Jackson accomplished during the last three games in California and New York.

  He also knocked in five runs, and later suggested: “Babe Ruth was great. I’m just lucky.”

  “This is very rewarding,” Manager Billy Martin said. “I’m proud of our players and what they accomplished this year. Reggie? He was sensational.”

  The Dodgers knew full well that only three teams in baseball history had lost three of the first four games in a World Series and then won three straight for the title. Inside one inning they rattled Torrez for two runs as they fought to force this Series into a winner-take-all finale.

  But inside of two innings, the Yankees retaliated on a home run by Chris Chambliss. Then, after Reggie Smith hit one for the Dodgers in the third inning, Reginald Martinez Jackson took charge on three swings of the bat: a home run off Hooton in the fourth inning, another off Elias Sosa in the fifth and another off Charlie Hough in the eighth.

  He also knocked in five runs, and later suggested: “Babe Ruth was great. I’m just lucky.”

  Murcer Drives in 5 As Yanks Win, 5-4

  By MURRAY CHASS | August 7, 1979

  COMPLETING A GRUELING, EMOTION-RACKED four days, the Yankees returned somberly from Thurman Munson’s funeral in Ohio and rallied for a 5-4 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Bobby Murcer, one of two Yankee players who eulogized Munson, drove in all five runs.

  Murcer lashed a three-run home run off Dennis Martinez in the seventh inning and rapped a two-run single off Tippy Martinez in the ninth, enabling the Yankees to overcome a 4-0 lead the Orioles had built against Ron Guidry.

  The players felt the way they did on Friday night in their first game after Munson was killed in a plane crash: no one really wanted to play this game.

  When Murcer stepped to the plate in the seventh inning with runners at second and third and two out, the Orioles already had scored four runs on Lee May’s homer and double and Ken Singleton’s two-run homer. Murcer lashed a fastball from Dennis Martinez into the right-field stands for his first Yankee home run since Sept. 22, 1974. Prior to that blow, the 33-year-old left-hander had batted only .214 and knocked in five runs in 31 games since the Yankees re-acquired him June 26 from the Chicago Cubs.

  When Murcer came to bat in the ninth, the same runners were in the same positions, second and third, but there were no outs. Bucky Dent had led off with a walk and raced to third when Tippy Martinez fielded Willie Rendolph’s bunt and fired it past first base into right field.

  Martinez got two strikes on Murcer but then threw a fastball closer to the plate than he wanted, and Murcer punched it to left field for a single that brought home both runners. An ecstatic Murcer was not too tired to leap into the air after he reached first base.

  “I think we were playing on the spirit of Thurman,” he said. “I think that’s what carried us through the game. I know it did me.”

  He’s Back, and He’s Still the Boss

  By DOUGLAS MARTIN | October 25, 1992

  GEORGE MICHAEL STEINBRENNER 3D learned early on that there are no free lunches, even for the scion of a shipbuilding empire. His father refused to give him an allowance, and presented him instead with a flock of chickens and a few turkeys so he could start his own egg and poultry company.

  Thus it was at the age of 9 he found himself chopping the heads off birds in the exurbs of Cleveland. “That chicken would run around with no head,” he said as if visualizing the whole grisly scene. “Suddenly he’d flop down and you had to pick the feathers.”

  This was one of the nascent Boss’s first business lessons: work hard and chop true. That came in handy when he fired—he prefers the word removed—18 New York Yankees managers in 19 years.

  Mr. Steinbrenner, now 62 years old, comes across as larger than life, or maybe that’s just what one expects. Rock-hard handshake. Diamond-studded 1978 World Series ring. Blue eyes sparkling at one of the memories. A hearty laugh perhaps issuing forth just a second too soon.

  Baseball’s most out
spoken owner—the only one who has ever hosted “Saturday Night Live”—is returning to his field of screams. Sometime before spring training the Boss will be allowed to take the helm of the Yankees, of which he is 55 percent owner.

  If you’re less than charmed by this cheery news, well, pay your money and boo the Boss at the park. This activity once seemed as common as hot dogs at Yankee Stadium.

  He suggests that distance from daily controversies may have heightened his previously uncelebrated sensitivity. He mentions a favorite painting by Monet, in which the gobs of paint gain resolution as the viewer steps back. “Perhaps I’ve had a chance to step back,” he said, sipping a glass of skim milk.

  But in an ensuing sentence, he would sound emphatically like the Steinbrenner of old.

  “Winning is everything,” he said. “I don’t care what they tell you.”

  A Team You Almost Had to Like

  By FRANK BRUNI | October 29, 1996

  FOR A WHILE, ALAN LEIDNER’S ROMANCE with the Yankees turned stormy.

  Although wedded to the team by geography and history, Leidner could not summon the same affection for the club that he had felt as a boy, when the players seemed genuinely heroic and his first trip to Yankee Stadium was rewarded with a home run by Mickey Mantle.

  Part of the problem, he said, was George Steinbrenner, who could be unbearably brash. Part of it was the team’s players, who could be impossibly temperamental.