Saturday, June 30, 2018

Yankees by the Number - Part II - by Harvey Frommer

Yankees by the Number - Part II




The 2018 Yankees are putting up all kinds of fabulous numbers in their bid to get into the World Series,  For those of you who enjoyed Part I – here are more fabulous Yankee numbers. Enjoy

51
          Number worn by Bernie Williams for sixteen Yankee seasons.  He is one of 13 players to wear No. 51. His tenure was the longest, 1991-2006. Two future Hall of Famers who wore that number on other teams — Ichiro Suzuki and Randy Johnson — were given other numbers as Yankees. Williams was given No. 51 because an equipment manager thought he played like Willie McGee, the Cardinal great outfielder at the time who wore the number.
52
          The first Yankee to wear this number was Johnny Lucadello in 1947. C.C. Sabathia has worn the number since 2009.  
Doyle Alexander in 1976 played his only season with the Yankees and wore Number 52. 
53 
Don Mattingly, most doubles in a season by a Yankee, 1986
        Mariano Rivera saves in 2004, new team record, third-highest total in AL history. 
54                                                           
             Most road wins in a season, 1939                       
             Mickey Mantle, most home runs by switch hitter, 54 in 1961
             “Goose” Gossage and Aroldis Chapman, shared this number many years apart.                
55
             Number worn by Hideki Matsui in tribute to Japan’s legend Sadaharu Oh’s record 55 home runs in a season.


56
Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak included 56 singles and runs scored. 
             Number assigned to Jim Bouton in spring training 1962. When it was obvious that the rookie was going to make the team, he was given #27. But Bouton wanted to keep #56 to "remind me of how close I was to not making the team." 
          "You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time." - Jim Bouton
Dave Righetti's rookie number.
57
      The 1927 Yankees won 57 games at Yankee Stadium tying an American League record.
Joe DiMaggio allegedly lost out on $10,000 when his streak ended at 56 games; Heinz 57 ended pending endorsement deal.     
58
          Mariano Rivera's original number.
58.4%
          Stolen base percentage of the 1927 Yankees, fifth in the league. With their power, base stealing was not a priority.
59
          Juan Rivera was the last Yankee to wear this number, 2002-2003
60
          Babe Ruth’s record setting home run total produced 100 RBI’s.
“61”
          The film 61* was shot in Detroit, not Yankee Stadium. Filmmaker Billy Crystal explained that the look of the ballpark there resembled the 1961Yankee Stadium more closely than the current Yankee Stadium at the time of the film’s shooting in 2000.
62
          Number of strikeouts Allie Reynolds recorded in 15 World Series games.
63
                    During his 56 game hitting streak, Joe DiMaggio hit safely against 63 right-handed pitchers.
          On August 13, 1995, Mickey Mantle died of complications from liver cancer at the age of 63.
                    Original number given to Bernade Figueroa “Bernie” Williams, 1991
65
                    The number of games Mickey Mantle played in 12 World Series.
$65,000
                    Highest salary reportedly paid to Phil Rizzuto, 1951. That is $600,000 in today’s dollars.
66
                 Yankee players who wore number 66: Steve Baboni, Jim DeShales, Juan Miranda, and Andrew Brackman, J.R. Murphy

68
                    Dione Navarro and Dellin Batances wore this number for Yankees.
69               
Alan Mills in 1990 wore this number for the Yankees.
71
                    Yogi Berra, most career hits in World Series
72
                    Games won by Highlanders in their first season.
                    Babe Ruth set a major league record by homering twice in a game seventy-two times.
                    Mariano Rivera earned his first save on May 17, 1996 against the Angels at the Stadium. Andy Pettitte got the win. Rivera saved 72 of Pettitte’s wins, a record for any starter/closer combination.
73
                    Gary Sanchez wore this number in 2015.

74
Franchise record for stolen bases set by Fritz Maisel in 1914, broken by Rickey Henderson in 1985.
Derek Jeter wore No. 74 in his first spring training in 1994. The next year Yankees equipment manager Rob Cucuzza gave Jeter No. 2.
"Give him 2; he's going to be special."Buck Showalter
75                         
          Yogi Berra appeared in seventy-five World Series games, most in baseball history.

77
          Humberto Sanchez wore this number in 2008.
80
          A 10-5 triumph over Oakland on August 4, 1998 in the second game of a doubleheader gave the Yankees 80 wins in their 108th game, earliest in franchise history.
81
          No one ever wore this Yankee uniform number
82               
          Most times caught stealing in a season, 1920, a franchise record.
83
  Of 158 home runs hit by the 1927 Yankees, 83 were hit at Yankee Stadium
88
Number of pitches David Cone tossed in perfect game, July 19, 1999 - 68 strikes and 20 balls.
 89    
The Yankees and the Orioles played to a 1-1 tie September 30, 2001, in 15 innings, the 89th tie in franchise history. It was Cal Ripken's last game at Yankee Stadium.

91
                    The fewest errors in a season – 1996 Yankees
                    Number worn by Alfredo Aceves
93
          Most stolen bases by a Yankee in a season, Rickey Henderson, 1988
94
          Yankee World Series strikeout leader in 22 games, 146 innings

95
          Dave Righetti’s no-hitter on July 4th, was pitched on a day temperature at the Stadium reached 95 degrees.

95.1%
     Although part of the first Hall of Fame inductee class, Babe Ruth was strangely not voted in unanimously. He received 95.1% of the votes
96.88
Dan Topping, Larry MacPhail and Del Web Topping purchased this percentage of Yankees from Jacob Ruppert estate in January of 1945. 
97
    Don Larsen used this number of pitches to hurl his perfect game against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium in the 1956 World Series.
99
       The highest uniform number ever issued by the New York Yankees went to Charlie Keller (1952) and Brian Bruney (2009).

100

          Only two Yankee clubs have lost more than 100 games in a season: 1912, 50-102, 1908, 51-103  
          Babe Ruth on September 24, 1920 hit his 100th home run. It was off Washington's Jim Shaw.
          Derek Jeter became along with Earl Combs and Ted Williams, the only one to score a hundred runs in each their first seven seasons.
About Harvey Frommer        
One of the most prolific and respected sports journalists and oral historians in the United States, author of the autobiographies of legends Nolan Ryan, Tony Dorsett, and Red Holzman, Dr. Harvey Frommer is an expert on the New York Yankees and has arguably written more books, articles and reviews on the New York Yankees than anyone.
A professor for more than two decades in the MALS program at Dartmouth College, Frommer was dubbed “Dartmouth’s Mr. Baseball” by their alumni magazine. He’s also the founder of www.HarveyFrommerSports.com.
He is the author of the acclaimed The Ultimate Yankee Book  http://www.frommerbooks.com/ultimate-yankees.html

FENWAY PARK FLASHBACK by Harvey Frommer

FENWAY PARK FLASHBACK




The joy and passion and full houses  and winning ways now on parade at Fenway Park all are a sharp contrast to the way things once were at the little ballpark in most of the 1960s.
There are still those around who recall that time, some with mixed emotions.
Sam Mele: I came into Fenway a lot when I managed from 1961 to 1967. My home was still in Quincy, Mass., so I slept in my own bed. It was funny. I was managing against the team that I loved.
In 1965, we beat Boston 17 out of 18 times, eight out of the nine at Fenway. It actually hurt me, to beat them. I felt sorry because in my heart I was a Red Sox fan. I had played for them, I had scouted for them. Tom Yawkey would come in my office. And we would talk a lot. Oh yeah, geez, he had me in his will."
The losing, the miserable attendance, the doom and gloom that pervaded Fenway was on parade big time on the 16th of September, 1965. The tiniest crowd of the season made its way into Fenway Park—just 1,247 paid and 1,123 in on passes. Dave Morehead opposed Luis Tiant of the Cand Indians.
Fenway was a ghost town of a ball park in 1965, when the team drew but 652,201—an average of 8,052 a game.
The worst came late in the season. On Sept. 28 against California, only 461 fans showed to watch the sad Sox. The next day was even worse against the same team—just 409 in the house. Finishing ninth in the 10-team American League, the Sox lost 100 games and won 62. The nadir had been breached.
Managers kept coming and going. Top prospects somehow never made it for one reason or another. Billy Herman was in place as the 1966 season started. Early on Dave Morehead, just 24 years old, regarded as a brilliant future star, suffered an injury to his arm and was never the same. Posting a 1-2 record in a dozen appearances, he symbolized the Red Sox of that era—promise but pathos.
In 1966, the Sox lost 90 games and finished ninth. Attendance at Fenway Park was 811,172, an average attendance per game of 10,095. It was pitiful.
Jim Lonborg: The 1967 season started off as a typical Red Sox season. There were 8,324 fans on a cold and dreary April 12th Opening Day. We won, 5-4. Petrocelli hit a three-run homer. And I got the win.
The next day there were only 3,607 at the ballpark. And then we went on a road trip. We came back having won 10 straight games. And when our plane landed there were thousands of fans waiting at the airport. That moment was the start of the great relationship between the fans and the players.
            Bob Sullivan: I went to Dartmouth, and we used to road trip down to Fenway and get standing room without any trouble. It was eight dollars for grandstand seats. But so many seats were empty. You would flip an usher a quarter and you could move down into the seats. Then it changed. What happened was ’67.
.
One of the most prolific and respected sports journalists and oral historians in the United States, author of the autobiographies of legends Nolan Ryan, Tony Dorsett, and Red Holzman, Dr. Harvey Frommer is an expert on the New York Yankees and has arguably written more books, articles and reviews on the New York Yankees than anyone. In 2010, he was honored by the City of New York to serve as historical consultant for the re-imagined old Yankee Stadium site, Heritage Field.
 A professor for more than two decades in the MALS program at Dartmouth College, Frommer was dubbed “Dartmouth’s Mr. Baseball” by their alumni magazine. He’s also the founder of www.HarveyFrommerSports.com
 Adapted from Frommer Archives