61Yanks vs 76Reds (162 games!)

61Yanks vs 76Reds
(162 games!)
I am using an online simulator called Sim League Baseball by What If Sports. I am trying to be fair as far as 'running' the season. I am using the starters, for example, in rotation. The computer makes all the pitching changes, pinch-hitters, etc. As the season progresses, I will try to 'bench' players to make it realistic... I will probably only do this with the Yanks, but I might do it for the Reds too, also to try and be fair. Because Bill James is correct... at least on paper, the Reds DO have a far superior bench... Dan Driessen, Ed Bailey, Terry Crowley... rugged! But the Yanks DO have Johnny Blanchard. He was an ANIMAL. Maybe he wasn't Johnny Bench behind the plate (maybe? MAYBE?)... Or Griffey in RF (MAYBE?), or even George Foster in LF (MAYBE?)... But he matched Bench nearly homer for homer in only 249 ABs, and slugged over .600! He was in that salty line-up for a reason, and it wasn't just to spell Ellie, Roger, or Yogi. I have not started Blanchard yet... I think he pinch hit a few times (again, the computer handles all that). I WILL try to be fair. I am not trying to 'manage' either team. I am trying to let Ralph and Sparky do that. And guess what? They are! Sparky, so far, is Captain Hook, just like in real 1976 life! He uses his bullpen like he gets a travel allowance for mound trips! And Ralph Houk... it's basically 'starter-Arroyo'... or occasionally 'starter-Reniff-Arroyo'... the only time he deviates is if his starter gets rocked early... which as I said, has happened a few times with this raw, rugged Red lineup!And of course, the two teams travel back and forth between their respective stadiums. Maybe I will throw in a few neutral spots like the old Polo Grounds and the old Baker Bowl just for fun... but if I do that I will tell you.

After 16 games... The 61Yanks are 8-8. Oddly, so are the 76Reds. Two games have gone extra innings. And Bobby Richardson has won each with a game winning RBI hit (a walk off, but they did not use that term in 1961).With ten percent of the season gone, Maris, Mantle and Bill Skowron have 4 home runs each. Yogi and Ellie each have five doubles. I have not compiled any Cincy stats as yet, but they have shown a propensity in their wins to get away quickly with big first innings... they have chased even the great Whitey Ford, even in the Bronx, where they won on opening day, 14-7. I am not keeping batting averages, because it is too hard thus far... but it does seem like Ellie is getting lots of hits. He did bat .348! And he did finally win the MVP a couple years later.The most ridiculous thing I can say about this whole exercise, besides the fact that there is exactly no exercise whatsoever involved for me, is that I am finding myself FERVENTLY rooting the Yankees on! A fan forever!

61 Yanks vs 76 Reds (after 24 games)
Okay now... 15% of the season is in the books. Let’s see how we stand! Crap! The Yanks are 11-13! One thing I'm seeing... both teams are very streaky. The Yanks won five straight. Cincy answered back with four in a row and five out of six. Home field advantage? Forget it! The Yanks swept the Reds in Riverfront (so far we are playing three game series back-and-forth). I said to myself, "Oh, Goody! Now we are going back to the Bronx...” where the Reds returned the favor, sweeping NY... cuffing the great Whitey around in the process. Remember how I said Griffey wouldn't like YS so much? He must have read that. He knocked in four in one game to help the Reds win 10-5. The most galling Yankee loss came in Cincy, though. The Bombers had a 5-0 lead after two innings, but coughed it up late. Jim Coates got the BS (Amen!). In all fairness, he was victimized when Maris started the rally, dropping a lazy fly ball for a two-base error. All three runs Jim yielded were unearned. But this is where official scoring plays tricks on you. Yeah, Roger did drop the ball. But then... Coates walked the next guy, the tying run. And then George Foster hit a 3-Run bomb to win it for the Reds. So in my mind, Coates indeed owns and wears that loss, and yes, it was BS (Blown Save).As it happens, that was game number 24, at Riverfront. If Roger catches that ball or maybe if Coates doesn't walk that batter... the Yanks could be 12-12, instead of 11-13! If! IF! IF!Speaking of Roger... he is now leading the Yanks with 6 HRs. Mick hasn't hit any in eight games, but still is tied for second with Moose Skowron (4). Elston now has three, to go with his 6 doubles, tying him with that 36-year-old left-fielder, Yogi! Howard also seems to have a lot of ribbies, but I have not counted them up yet. Go Elston! C'mon Yanks! Wake up! Tighten up that 'D'! Represent the Sixties! Represent the Bronx! Maybe it's time to let Blanchard have a start. By the way, the 61Yanks do have a left-handed kid in the BP... Some kid named Al Downing. Throws hot left-handed smoke. But he's as wild as Koufax was back in Brooklyn... pitched only 9 innings all year, with twelve strikeouts AND twelve walks... what in the name of Rex Barney is going on here?!? Predictably, his ERA is/was 8.00. Maybe Larry Sherry could have a talk with this kid Downing... or maybe our own Bill Dickey... he still drops by once in a while, and look what he did for Berra AND Howard!

61 Yanks vs 76 Reds Update (60 games)
After 60 Games the Bronx Bombers (29-31) and The Big Red Machine (31-29) are virtually even! But it hasn't been that easy! Each team has gotten hot. Cincy has won 6 in a row. The Yanks have taken 5 straight. The Bombers split their first 20 games. Then the Reds won 14 of 20. It looked like the Yanks were going to be buried. Then the Yanks roared back, winning 13 of 20 to pull close again. Each team has swept in the other's park, as well as their own. Both teams have had trends. The Reds, early in the year, seemed to thrive on early knockouts... big first innings! They knocked out Whitey several times, even at the old stadium, where Death Valley does not seem to bother them. As the year went on, the Reds stopped winning early, and began winning late; pulling out several games in their last at bat... clutch hits... during their six game winning streak there were four straight games where no starter on either team figured in the decision! Sparky continued to be Captain Hook, but he even used Don Gullett in extra innings a couple times... and Don came away with victories! Conversely, the Yank bullpen went into a slump, where they coughed up several leads. Johnny Blanchard! Super Sub! Just like in 1961, Blanchard has been an animal. I've started him in LF, RF and behind the plate, to spell Yogi, Ellie and Mickey (Maris plays center, Blanch in right). I've played him three in a row at YS at one point, but only nine games all together; to keep things honest... he did have only 240 ABs in '61. Well, in my season, John has 4 HRs and 9 RBIs in 9 games! I had made a comment that Joe Morgan had a quick bat, and therefore would thrive in YS with the short porch, whereas Ken Griffey, for example, might not. I guess that pissed off Griff somehow, and he went into a Hack Wilson imitation mode. He did not hit a lot of homers (maybe I should say Tommy Davis 1962-63 mode). But Ken senior turned into an RBI machine, going on a tear Junior would be proud of. Try this: 32 RBI in his first 32 games... 39 ribbies in his first 40, and 45 RBI in 60 Games played so far. I don't know if this leads everybody because I am not tracking RBI for everybody. Foster, Bench, Maris and Mantle all seem to be getting their share... Morgan too, but I never thought of Ken Sr as an RBI man... a good hitter, of course. I find this kind of stuff interesting. I saw the Reds play, and thirty years later I have the "two" Reds teams of the '70s kind of merged in my mind. They were both dominant, but in different ways. But for example... I think of Griffey as a number two hitter, but I think he may have moved around as the Reds changed. I seem to remember the 70-71 Reds as Rose-Tolan-Bench... Tommy Helms in there somewhere. And I remember the 75-76 Reds as Rose-Griffey-Morgan-Foster-Bench. As I look at the actual stats of 1976, Griffey had 74 RBI... the same as Bench. Bench had an off year at the plate. I seem to remember Bench being banged up, but then tearing the actual 1976 NYY a new one in the World Series, which the Reds won four-zip. I also remember Sparky insulting the late Thurman Munson by telling a reporter not to compare him with Johnny Bench. No wonder Munson was 'mean'!

Okay, here comes my Munson rant! I am going to type from memory and fact check later, just to make a point. Yeah, I am a lifelong Yankee fan! But I am also a diehard Yankee fan! Listen youngsters... I know this is hard for you to conceptualize, but the Yanks have had some lean years. Between 1964 and 1976... That is, between Ellie Howard and Thurman, we had Jake Gibbs, Frank Fernandez and other forgettables behind the dish. No disrespect to these guys (Gibbs was a good QB at ol' Miss and helped develop some guy named Archie Manning... who in turn...), but when Thurman showed up, won the Rookie-of-the-Year, it was like the sun after a long, dark winter. I still have a memory, now distant, of the Yanks playing the Oakland A's on TV, and this kid Munson, who I had never heard of on TV. I remember Bert Campaneris, the great lead-off man for the A's, on first. Campy had over 400 lifetime stolen bases, and was always a threat at the top of that line-up. Well anyway, the pitch came, and suddenly Munson fired a snap-throw to first base...BANG! And just like that, Campaneris was dead... out from me to you... picked off, eating Yankee Stadium dirt and a first baseman's mitt full of baseball. I remember Bill James writing an article about Campaneris, saying that he was the first indication of daylight for the (then) Kansas City Athletics, of whom James was a childhood fan. Well, that day, watching that pick-off on WPIX-TV Channel 11 in NYC, I had the exact same feeling. It was electric. Who is this guy?Well, it turned out to be Thurman, who subsequently won the Rookie of the Year (one vote shy of unanimous), MVP, and two World Championships... and was selected as the first Yankee Captain since Lou Gehrig. And 1975 started a string of three consecutive .300-100 RBI years for Munson. He seemed to handle the pitching staff very well as I recall, won the MVP in 1976, and batted something like .529 in the '76 series... remember, I am doing this all from memory... maybe I'll check later. Anyway, Thurman finished his 10 year career (prematurely and tragically) with a .292 average and more than 700 RBI... mostly in a stadium that was death to right-handed hitters. Yes, Thurman's knees were shot by the time he was 30-32. But look at Johnny! He was 28 in 1976. I think his left shoulder was a mess (probably from blocking the plate). If his RIGHT shoulder had been a mess, I think the 76 Series would have been competitive. Sparky was right to praise his HOF catcher, who shut down Mickey Rivers and won games with clutch hitting and homers. But Sparky was dead wrong to run down Munson in the process. Thurman soon got two WS rings of his own though, while the Reds sat home and watched. Time marches on for all of us!I'll check the Thurman stats later.


Now back to 1961 and 1976!
Home Runs: Roger... 19, Mickey... 14, Yogi... 10 and Ellie... 10.

Highlights: Mantle hit for the cycle in game 50. Elston Howard had 2 HRs and 5RBI in game 53. And in game 49, Moose Skowron hit 2 bombs and drove in six to help Whitey Ford whitewash the Reds 12-0. Whitey threw a four-hitter, which he needed, because he has taken his lumps this season... he is 3-6 with loses of 14-7, 15-3, and 12-7. Ford also had a no-decision where he was staked to a 5-0 lead early and the bullpen could not hold on! I'll check back with you at the All-Star break! What am I saying? THESE are all-star games!

61Yanks vs 76Reds (81games)
Halfway!NY Yankees 37-44! (8-13 last 21!) Cincinnati Reds 44-37! (13-8 last 21!)
Roger Maris 26 HRS 75 RBI
Mickey Mantle 18 HRS 58 RBI
Ken Griffey 57 RBI

Well gang, over the last 21 games, the Reds are making Mr. Bill James look pretty smart. Both these squads are streaky bunches, but the Reds right now are playing more solidly. Both teams display lots of punch and power. But the Reds bullpen is making most of the difference. The Yanks BP has coughed up several leads. And even the Reds starters... they tossed back-to-back shutouts in Games 74-75, one of them by a fellow named Alcala, whom I don't even remember. Don Gullett has picked up a couple of victories out of the pen between starts. Both teams have had laughers, of course. The Yanks tore into the Reds in G79, a 19-4 pasting with the Mick hitting two HRs and driving in eight (8!). Cincy beat the Yanks 15-8 in G73... Morgan and Griffey with 4 RBI apiece. But most of the games have been close. The biggest surprise continues to be the travails of Whitey Ford (4-9). In some games he's turned a lead over to the bullpen only to watch them blow it late. But Whitey has also been hit hard a few times. Of the Yankee relievers, Tex Clevenger has by far the coolest name. He should be a country singer with a handle like that!

61Yanks vs 76 Reds 120 games!
Three-quarters of the season in the books!
NY 57-63. Cincinnati 63-57.

Roger Maris: 41HR 111RBI
Mickey Mantle: 27HR 88RBI
Whitey Ford: 8-13
Joe Morgan: 32HR 79RBI
George Foster: 24HR 97RBI
Ken Griffey 72RBI
Pedro Borbon 7-4

The bullpens continue to be the biggest difference. Lots of one-run games. A few extra inning battles... with the Reds seemingly prevailing in most of them. I'll check at the end of the season, but it seems like the Red's bullpen has won a lot of games. Of course, that's as much a testament to the Reds' clutch hitting. Generally when the Yanks win, they win big. Bill James is absolutely correct about Cincy's superior bench, and the Yank pitching staff being less than historic. Both squads get hot. New York won four straight at Yankee Stadium, and the Reds answered right back with a four game sweep at Riverfront. Individually, Maris homered in five straight games. Mantle drove in all five Yankee runs in G90 to help Whitey win a 5-0 shutout. For the Reds, it seems like George Foster has come through with lots of late game winning hits. The Yankee Stadium Death Valley is not fazing him at all. And Joe Morgan does seem to like the Stadium... he's out-homering the Mick! As you can see above, Roger is outpacing everybody.

1961 Yankees vs 1976 Reds...162 Games!
It's Final! The 1976 Big Red Machine has beaten the 1961 Bronx Bombers over the course of an entire 162 game season! I will write a detailed narrative of the highlights and lowlights of the long season soon. I shall also discuss once more the article Bill James wrote that precipitated this flight of fantasy in the first place... comparing the results shown by the computer simulation with Mr. James expert commentary. Even though I died hard as a Yankees fan, I was also proud of the way my boys fought... and I also admired the class that the Cincinnati Reds once again displayed.

Here are the results:
162 Games
New York 77-85
Cincinnati 85-77
20 G... NY 10-10 (20 game stretches)
40 G... NY 16-24 (6-14)
60 G... NY 29-31 (13-7)
81 G... NY 37-44 (8-13)
100G... NY 47-53 (10-9)120G...
NY 57-63 (10-10)140G... NY 68-72 (11-9)
162G... NY 77-85 (9-13)

Final Stats for key hitters:
Roger Maris... 57hr 142rbi
Mickey Mantle... 41hr 129rbi
Elston Howard... 23hr 104rbi
Yogi Berra... 25hr 100rbi
Johnny Blanchard... 9hr 32rbi (in only 30 games!)

Joe Morgan... 42hr 111 rbi
George Foster... 32hr 129rbi
Ken Griffey... 105rbi

Key Pitching:
Whitey Ford... 10-19
Ralph Terry... 15-11
Pedro Borbon 12-5!

Why I'm a Yankee Fan

September 7, 1968 5:06PM, Yankee Stadium


Twi-night Doubleheader.

(First game)


Washington............. 2 13 3

Yanks....................16 19 0
Time of Game 2:44


(Second game)

Washington............. 0 2 0
Yanks.................... 10 8 0
Time of Game 1:53

Attendance 20,613

Yankees 72-70, 5th place, 17-1/2 GB


Price tickets:

$4.00 Boxed (up from $3.50 in 1967!)

$3.00 Reserved

$1-2 General Admission (roughly, can't remember)*

$.50-1.00 Bleachers (again, it's been a while)



*General Admission: Any seat in the house not reserved. In 1968 there were 67,000 seats in Yankee Stadium. That means there were 46,000+ empty seats to chose from on this particular date. Of course, on this particular day, most of them were temporarily empty, as everyone was standing, cheering, yelling, and watching the Senators chase the baseball around the outfield.

I know. Because I was one of them. My parents brought us in from Long Island, sixty-some-odd-miles, to watch the New York Yankees beat the stuffing out of the Washington Senators. I had no idea how bad the Senators were, or for that matter, how bad the Yankees were.


The Bronx Bombers were bombers no more. But in 1968 I was still too young to realize that. I did not watch the Yankees on TV... did not follow them in the papers. I spent my daylight hours playing baseball, not watching it. But I knew the names... knew the baseball cards... Mantle... Maris... Ford... Berra. I did not even appreciate that these guys were all gone, except for the Mick, who was literally on his last legs... legs that could no longer carry him to first base with any semblance of speed, nor across the vast expanses of the old YS center field. Mickey made the transition to first base rather smoothly. But he could no longer hit or run like he had. I had never seen Mantle at his best. I did not know until later, during the age of ESPN classic and YouTube, how blindingly fast he really was. The Mantle I saw could line a fastball off the right field wall, and get a single out of it, limping 90 feet to the bag he used to fly across just ten years before.


The Yankee management did a lot of things wrong during the 1960s... things that directly led to the Yankee decline. The Yankee ownership proved conclusively what I have been saying ever since: that the Yankees did not, and do not enjoy ANY advantage whatsoever, because they play in NYC, or any other so-called 'big-market' town. The Yankees had enjoyed an unprecedented forty year run because their management and ownership had been uncommonly, historically great... smart, savvy, and slick. The Ruppert Years, with Ed Barrow directing traffic... the Topping-Webb Years, with George Weiss... cold, calculating and correct always, and even Larry McPhail, eccentric but excellent, both as a Brooklyn Dodger exec AND a Yankee... the Yankees ALWAYS had the American league by the throat. They won because they were smarter, better prepared and more focused on the prize... winning.


But by 1968, that was all gone. CBS owned the Yankees. Remember the great Red Barber? He's the one Chris Berman pays tribute to with his 'back-back-back' HR call... from the 1947 World Series. Red also broke in Vin Scully as a Brooklyn Dodger announcer. Well, by the mid sixties, Mr. Barber was with the Yankees. During one telecast he stirred up a hornet's nest by having the camera crew pan the rows and rows of empty Yankee Stadium seats. With a 67,000 seat capacity, and a now perennial punching bag of a team on the field, 60,000 empty seats make for a lot of sad echoes. Red Barber was never a shill for the teams he broadcast for, and pretty soon, predictably, he was no longer a Yankee broadcaster. The Yankees were owned by CBS... a marriage one would think would be baseball heaven. I am here to tell you, it was completely the opposite. The Yanks were in free fall without a parachute. And that's the way it was. (Thanks Walter!)

As bad and boring the team had gotten, the Yankees were smart enough, or desperate enough, to still emphasize their storied history. They still had their Old Timers Day annually. Our family always went. That probably confused my young mind. I knew who Steady Eddie Lopat, Tommy Henrich, Goofy Lefty Gomez, Yogi Berra, and Billy Martin were... because they were still all there... as was I, every year. Of course, the great Joe DiMaggio showed, getting as big an ovation as Mantle got... sometimes five or six solid minutes of roaring and clapping. The Clipper was still young and spry enough to take center field. An he still occasionally hit a long one. Sitting besides the Yankee dugout, were Mrs. Claire Ruth and Mrs. Eleanor Gehrig, royalty in the Yankee family. I got to know these 'old timers' better than I knew most of the current 1968 Yankees, or the crosstown Mets.

Besides that, to get to the Stadium, you walked down Babe Ruth Plaza, near the Grand Concourse. You walked into the stadium, and somewhere nearby, there was this huge bank of phones. If you picked up one of the phones, you heard somebody talking on the other end... a recording. You heard the Babe, talking about his called shot in the 1932 WS, or Lou Gehrig, again telling you he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, or Joe D, thanking the Good Lord for making him a Yankee... and so on. There were dozens of phones, with big pictures... kind of like a telephonic Yankee Hall of Fame.

The Yankees embraced their tradition, because by 1968, that was all they had. To be a Yankee fan in 1968 was to be a history buff... which I was then and am now.


But the distinction between happy past and horrid present was still muddled in my mind in 1968. We were going to see the Yankees play! Twice! Two-for-one! And i knew enough that even the last place Washington Senators had somebody I wanted to see... big Frank Howard, who was by far the most enormous player anyone had seen up to that time.


We sat in the upper deck, reserved seats. They were good seats, behind first base... a bit down the right field line, but close enough to see and enjoy all of the action. Frank Howard, who batted in the top of the first, indeed was as big as I had heard... even from the upper deck. He was 6'7'' and 250-275, and waved a 40-ounce bat like it was a whiffle bat. The field seemed to tilt toward wherever he was at any given time.


But soon the field itself seemed to TILT like a pinball machine. The Yankees came to bat, and started pounding the ball like it was a Sunday afternoon beer league softball game. It was as if all the ghosts of the past returned. The innings seemed to go on forever... pinstripers circling the bases. Mel Stottlemyre started for the Yankees. I seemed to remember that he was in complete command, and that he also had a good day at the plate. Recently I discovered the box score of the game, and the evidence bears out my memory. Mel scattered 13 hits, as an ace with 16 runs to work with should. He went the distance, again, as an ace did in those days. And Mel went two for four with a double, driving in two of the sixteen, and scoring another himself. By the way, another guy who drove in two runs batted just ahead of Stottlemyre in the line-up... a light hitting third-sacker named Bobby Cox. Several Yanks homered. We all cheered heartily. Mel put down the side in the ninth, and everyone except the Senators cheered one final time, and then relaxed, hit the bathrooms, hit the hot dogs, and awaited game two.

After a brief respite, the Yanks and the Senators went at it again. Mantle did not play. But the Yankees throttled the Nats again, 10-0. Fritz Peterson also went the distance. I did remember that he had shut the Senators out. But I did not realize then that he yielded only two hits... two lonely singles away from immortality. The box score also reminds me that i saw another great player winding his career down as a Yankee... Rocky Colavito, who's demise was as sudden and in may ways, more puzzling than even the Mick's. Rocky had been a long bomber back in his Cleveland days, and I do remember that he still had a fantastic arm... he took the mound for the Yankees at least once that I can recall... and he threw hard!

So... after the second Senator-smashing performance of the day, 20,000 some-odd fans (some-very-odd) went home very happy... including yours truly. Somewhere in my young mind I must have thought that everything is just fine, Yankee-wise. This was easy! These guys could do this every day! Extra base hits all over the lot! Using two pitchers in a double header while the other guys emptied their whole bullpen twice... geez! This is easy! This is FUN! Let's do this again tomorrow!

The most remarkable thing to me, looking at the box score now, is the times of the games. The Yanks scored 26 runs, and played two games. But the game times were 2:44 and 1:53 respectively. That's 4:37 for two games. I've been to many single games that now pass the four hour mark! No wonder people leave in the seventh inning nowadays! No wonder there are no more two-fers! I love baseball, but to spend eight hours at the ballpark... sheesh! They'd have to pay ME time-and-a-half!

That day, the first game (according to the box score) started at 5:06pm. The second game started at 8:21pm. Even with the intermission, and even with the sixteen run, nineteen hit barrage... and remember, even the Senators collected thirteen hits... the Yankees managed to throw the first pitch of the second game only twenty minutes past their normal starting time of a single night game, 8:05. And Fritz Peterson, knowing everybody had to get up in the morning, still fired a shutout in under two hours.

My memories of that day are fading. When I first recalled that double header, I had thought the score of the first game was 18-2, not 16-2. But the euphoria of that double-dip of butt-stomping on the Yankees part cemented me as a Yankee fan forever. And fortunately, for me, the days ahead looked promising. The Yanks had a couple of prospects ready to take over, a couple of kids named Munson and Murcer. The Stadium was due for a badly needed face lift. And then there was this guy that nobody had ever heard of, who bought a piece of the franchise in 1973. He promised that the Yanks would never leave New York (there had been rumors). And he promised that the Yanks would return to their rightful former place of glory. He said that it would happen within five years, if not sooner.


Yeah. We had heard that before. But this guy, from Cleveland of all places, seemed serious. He meddled. He butted in. He brought in another one of those Cleveland people, Gabe Paul, who in turn brought in some more Clevelanders himself... guys named Nettles and Chambliss. He hired and fired managers, players and waitresses so fast the turnstiles smoked.

But five years after he wedged his way into the New York sports scene, the Yankees celebrated their third consecutive pennant and their second consecutive World Series under the meddling ownership of George M. Steinbrenner.

We were back!

And we're here to stay!

Refuting Bill James

"The Greatest Team Whatever Was... Part IV"


First of all I want to say, right up front... I respect the hell out of Bill James (the baseball guy, not William James the Poet... oh wait, I respect him too). I love his Historical Baseball Abstracts. I have owned both... the first one in the mid 1980s, and the revised one in 2000. He has heavily researched the history of baseball and its players, has come up with an interesting way to stack up the baseball deities of the distant past against today's heroes, and has done so with a sense of humor that makes the book an easy and delightful read. He seems to be open to arguments... indeed, he acknowledges many times that you will not convince most fans of anything they don't already believe in.


One of the many things i found interesting was Mr. James' take on the 1961 New York Yankees... namely that they were not amongst the greatest teams of all time. I did not see the 1961 World Champion Bombers in person, though I watched some of the remnants later on... Roger Maris winning another Championship with the Cardinals - against a 1967 Red Sox team that had and aging Elston Howard in his final year on the roster. Of course, I did see Mickey Mantle, a striking symbol of the crumbling dynasty... his legs and health giving out as the glory of the Stengel-Houk-Berra Yankees also faded fast. As quickly as the Mick was deteriorating (he was actually only in his mid-thirties), what was even more telling was the fear teams still had for him... he still walked a lot, because by 1966-7-8, there was little or no protection behind him. Nor for that matter, was there anybody on base in front of him most of the time.


I travelled to the Stadium in my youth, dropped $1.00 to get in and saw the Mick, first in center field, and later at first base. There were plenty of seats available near first base, because after the third inning the ushers would let anyone with a general admission ticket sit there, or anywhere, for that one buck!


We cracked peanuts (35 cents), and listened as the elders plied us with tales of the 1960-64 Yankees, as well as older teams. And of course, we also got a quick history lesson when the Mick came to bat in the first inning. Even though I was too young to realize exactly what was going on, I could not ignore the nice reception the Mick got... as he knelt in the on-deck circle... and how that reception slowly built into a warm, long, sometimes standing ovation as Number Seven approached the plate. The ovation sometimes obscured the classic announcement by the great Bob Sheppard, echoing throughout... as Billy Crystal would imitate brilliantly later on. By the way, like Billy, I also thought that Ruth, Gehrig and Huggins were buried underneath their respective monuments in center field, where you were permitted to roam as you exited the Stadium after the game in those days.


Anyway, I digress... and will many times hence.


About those 1961 Yankees. Mr. James makes some surprising, accurate points. The Yankees did not lead the league in scoring or fewest runs allowed that year. Even with a record 240 home runs. Even with three, count 'em, THREE catchers hitting 20 home runs. Even with the Chairman Of The Board, Whitey Ford, having his greatest season, 25-4, and breaking the Bambino's World Series record of 29 consecutive scoreless innings (Whitey got to 33). They say the Babe had a bad year, what with the 61 HRs from Roger and then this... but I say that just reminded everybody of who and what the Bambino really was. But as Mr. James points out, the Yankees were primarily a one-dimensional team in an expansion year. Their one dimension was home runs. And theoretically, if the Yankees had to take on, say, the 1975-76 Big Red Machine, in Riverfront Stadium, astroturf and all, that the Yanks would need good luck.


Perhaps.

I am not like most fans. I have my opinions. But I can listen to a good argument, take it in, and dispose of it as well as the next guy... just kidding. I DON'T know who would win in a dream series between the 1961 Yankees, the 1969-71 Orioles, the 1975-76 Reds, or for that matter, the 1998-2000 Yankees (my money would be on the Jeter Yankees to dominate a season against all of the above mentioned teams... and I would love to talk that over with ESPN broadcaster Joe Morgan).



But as to a few of Mr. James' points. He points out that Yogi Berra played a lot of left field that year... 36 year-old Yogi Berra. He asks if I would like to try that in Riverfront in 1975 on Astroturf.



Hell, yes!



Do you remember left field in Yankee Stadium in 1961? I do, because it was still left field in 1967-68. I never, EVER sat in the left-field bleachers. Hell, I might as well have sat in my apartment twenty blocks north. Elston Howard was one of the three Yankee catchers with twenty homers. If Ellie had seen the left-field fence at Riverfront, he would have demanded a trade... and he may well have been a 30-35-40 home run hitting catcher. A 375 foot power alley versus a 402 straight-away left-field, a 433 ft alley, and a 463 dead center with a humongous high wall? And since Yogi did patrol that left field, and since Mr. Houk did tell his pitchers to let the fielders do their jobs, and since the Yankees did win 109 games that year, and since so many pitchers had career years that year, I have to think that the Yanks did okay with Mr. Berra in left field. And about left-fielders... I did see George Foster play several times. As a hitter he was a monster. But he isn't going to hit 40-50 home runs playing half his games in YS. Neither is Johnny Bench. Even Joe Morgan, a lefty, would have a 407ft sign staring back at him in deep right, although as quick as Joe's bat was, he'd probably reap the benefits of the short RF porch a la Berra, Maris, and other quick-batted lefty hitters. But George Foster in the old YS left-field? Sometimes George was a pretty good left fielder. Sometimes he was indifferent... the Met fans saw that later on. Try being indifferent in the old YS left-field. Good luck. Berra was a lot faster on his feet than people today remember. Granted he was 36. Granted he had squatted several thousand times. But Whitey, a lefty, went 25-4 with his former battery-mate patrolling a huge left field! How bad could Yogi have been? I will concede this... not nearly as bad as Hector Lopez.

By the way... i just found an online game simulator where you can pit historical teams against one another... in any park you want! So I pitted the 61Yanks against the 76Reds. The 61Yanks won a seven game series, 4 games to 2. They played two at old YS, three at Riverfront, and the sixth game clincher in the Bronx. And yes, Yogi played left in Cincy and did fine. He hit a home run to left-center at Riverfront. You KNOW he never did that at the old YS!

But... I also have to report that the 61Yanks then took on the 71Orioles. Even though the Orioles were not champs that year, they had the four-ace staff that year (4 twenty game winners), so I wanted to see if the Yanks would get 'killed', as Mr. James said in his article, comparing the 61Yanks pitching staff against others. And in this case, Mr. James' prediction came true. The Orioles prevailed in six games. But the clincher was a humdinger... TWENTY INNINGS! Both teams emptied their bullpens and benches, and Baltimore won 2-1! If the Yanks had won the game... I wonder what they would have done for game seven? For that matter, what would Earl Weaver have done? Anyway, congrats to Baltimore and Mr. James.

I must also say that I know why Mr. James simulates games and seasons tens of thousands of times... because random chance in a short series is just too great. But that is also true in real life. The Yankees of 1960-1964 won five pennants but 'only' two World Series. BUT... they took two of their losing efforts intto the final inning of game seven! Bill Maz broke a 9-9 tie in the ninth in 1960. And Bob Gibson, pitching on guts and fumes, held down the Yanks 7-5 in the ninth in 1964... the Yanks hit two homers IN the ninth, but Gibby hung in there and closed his own game... the 169th game of his season, and he was still his own closer! But point is, the Yanks were THIS close to taking four out of five. In a short series, anything can happen. In the 1978 Series, no one was surprised when Mr. October came up big. But Brian Friggin Doyle? Are you kidding me? Just kidding Brian... and eternal thanks for your help!

Not to beat my last point to death (but I guess I am about to)... I read Duke Snider's autobiography years ago... I've read his, Mick's and Willie's (Mick and Willie had at least two each). ANYWAY... the Duke said that during the Yankees' five year World Championship run of 1949-1953, the Brooklyn Dodgers won exactly TWO less games over the same five year period! He was talking regular season and post-season. Two games! Five years! Brooklyn, as good as they were, remain a vastly underrated team in baseball history... simply because of all those near misses.

Back to the Yanks and Reds (Whoa! Cold War baseball!)

To illustrate, I re-simulated the first game of the 61Yanks-76Reds three times. Each time, Whitey Ford started against Gary Nolan in the Bronx. The starting line-ups were identical (the computer subs players as appropriate). Guess what? The Yanks won 13-1... then they won 6-4... then the Reds shellacked Whitey 8-1! It happens!

I do believe the 61Yanks were a very good team. Perhaps they were not great. But I do believe they could play the 76Reds even up. The Orioles, with their pitching... I dunno... Bill, you may have me there... EXCEPT that the real 71Orioles lost to the real 71Pirates... I watched that Series, and the Orioles, with that great rotation lost in seven. The Pirates, with their lumber company, and the great Roberto having a great series, prevailed in seven.

Bill James does make some excellent points about the Yankee bench. It was bad. He also makes some excellent points about their defense... particularly their infield. It was very, very good. Boyer, Kubek, Richardson and Skowron were air-tight outstanding. They had Ellie behind the plate, one of the most underrated catchers in baseball history in my opinion. They used to say he never broke a finger behind the plate. He had an amazing year... in the run for the batting title , 20+ home runs... as I said, he'd have hit 30-40 in most parks... not just because of the shorter fences, but because Ellie would KNOW he could reach a 375 ft alley regularly, and adjust his game accordingly.

That brings me to the expansion thing. I know the Yanks beat up on watered-down pitching staffs. But so did every body else. Expansion also cost the Yanks Gil McDougald, among others. As Bill said, playing away from YS would've helped Gil. Playing in Riverfront as a super utility guy would work too. But Gil was not part of the team, so that point is kind of moot. But the expansion point is not. The Yanks were the class of the AL for five years, which Mr. James acknowledges. Yes, the Yanks' attack was one-sided. Yes, their bench was weak. But sometimes, if your one-side is dominant enough, it IS enough. Let's look at the 1961 Series. Yes, the Reds (ironic, ain't it) were not the greatest league champions ever. Yes, the yanks did not sweep. But yes, the Yanks played most of that series without their best player. Some idiot doctor gave the Mick a 'flu shot', which turned into an infection so bad it had to be lanced. The Mick was sick as a dog from September on, and was sub par and finally sidelined.

But if switch-hitter Mick, bad knees and all, astroturf and all, played 81 games that year at Riverfront? Oh, my goodness... by the time he had gotten sick in September, Maris would have been chasing the Mick, not the Babe... this I am sure of. Mickey being able to turn around righty and aim for that 375ft alley... even the 400 foot center field his knees would have to patrol. Listen, with those shorter fences, you don't have to CHASE those tweeners nearly as far, either. Like I said, if George Foster got caught checking his wallet in the old YS... that would get ugly. Old Yogi would have himself an inside the parker. And like I keep saying, and people tend to forget, deep RIGHT field at Yankee Stadium was deeper than most center fields today (including Riverfront). To hit a home run at YS, even as a lefty, quickness with the bat meant MUCH more than pure power... that's why I said that Joe Morgan would have done well... Ken Griffey, not so much.

I am going to play a few more 'simulated games' with these teams... the Yanks, the Reds, the Orioles, and perhaps some other newer teams. I want to see who wins. i also want to see who homers... bear in mind that there will be no weak pitching staffs to feast upon!

I do concede that players overall get better... bigger, faster, stronger as time goes on. That, I submit,would be the newer teams' consistent edge. I have no idea if the game simulators take that into account.

I know most of the fans sitting on bar stools in sports bars and taverns across America don't! Argue on!

The Babe and Jimi

I can't say with relative certainty who the greatest baseball player of all time is. And I can't say who the greatest guitar player of all time is. I have my opinions. You have yours. But I am certain of two things. I would love to wake up one day and feel what it would be like to hit a baseball the way George Herman Ruth did. And I would love to wake up the same day and feel what it would be like to play a guitar like James Marshall Hendrix did.

I'd like to play a whole game like the Babe did. Feel what it would be like to clear the roof with a home run at the old Polo Grounds in right field, or blast one over the center field bleachers at Navin Field in Detroit, and circle the bases while the fans roared, and Ty Cobb fumed. Or knock out three bombs in the World Series, like the Babe did to the St. Louis Cardinals - twice.

Then... after the game was over, and it were time to celebrate, I'd like to head to the nearest blues club with some of my teammates. I'd be invited to sit in with the band up on the small stage. There I'd like to pick up a guitar... a Fender Stratocaster... sling it over my triumphant, home run hitting shoulders, and tune up. Being a southpaw like both Babe and Jimi, I'd sling the Strat over my shoulders backwards... upside down... lefty! And I'd play a set with the band... Little Wing, Hey Joe, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), a fourteen-minute blistering rendition of Red House, and of course, Purple Haze. I'd also play some old blues standards... maybe some Muddy Waters stuff, or John Lee Hooker, or even some Leadbelly. And I'd play it just like James Marshall Hendrix. People in the club might stop what they're doing and stare. Some might say, "What the hell is he doing?" And others would say, "He knows exactly what he's doing... and so do I."

Mind you, I wouldn't want to come back as either of these two gentlemen. I'm not a hero worshipper-wannabe-wish-I-was. I'd just like to know what it would feel like... to make that baseball bat whip around... make that audible 'crrrackkk!' when bat met ball... feeling the tingle up my arms (like Moonlight Graham says)... and making everyone else on the field jerk their heads around because my 'crrrackkk!' of the bat was distinctly louder and more powerful sounding... even in batting practice. Everyone has heard stories of all activity stopping when the Babe, Teddy Ballgame or the Mick stepped in the batting cage. I wouldn't care if they stopped when I stepped in, because it's not the attention I would care about. But when that BP pitcher threw one in there, and I stepped into his offering ('crrrackkk!' )... and everyone jerked their heads around to follow the flight of the soaring baseball as it headed for the furthest reaches of the upper right field grandstand... and then turned to look to the batting cage to see who hit that bomb... that I wouldn't mind, even as i reset myself and once again bore down, awaiting the BP pitcher's next offering.

And later that evening, I wouldn't care, as I slung that Fender Stratocaster over my shoulders and began to jam... if there were only 17 people in that blues club... including bartender, waitress, and my six teammates who tagged along. I wouldn't even mind if they lacked a non-smoking section. But I'd love to be able to feel the fingers of my right hand running up and down the frets, dancing nimbly, powerfully, lightning quick at times, deliberately, agonizingly slow at others, bending the notes... my left hand picking and strumming away... my hands making the guitar cry and sing and talk and say whatever the hell I wanted to say... making the 17 people shake their heads... nod their heads, and maybe smile because they know what I'm trying to say.

One thing that music and sports have in common. The joy that often manifests itself does not occur on the performing stage, but rather, in the informal playing around... the batting practice... the impromptu jam session... the limitless exploration and re-discovery of why you love this thing in the first place. You swing freely. You laugh as you foul one off, knowing that another one is coming, and you'll crush it! You play the guitar, or the sax, or bang that piano, playing loose as a goose and free... taking eight bars wherever the hell you want it to go, and if you miss it... don't quite get there... screw it... you take another eight bars... and you know you're gonna nail them! And you laugh and relax, because you got all night to express yourself... to let those pals jamming with you know just what it is you're trying to say.

Know what I'm trying to say?

"Shoot! I'd play this game for nothing!" (Bronx Bomber Mac..)
"Shoot! I'd play this gig for nothing!" (Jammin' Bronx Mac...)

Know what I'm trying to say?