Three More Days

And thus concludes another mundane pre-season day Fackers. But take heart: we're getting close. The rain has stopped, the flood waters are receding, and the ark has landed somewhere atop Mount Ararat. It was a beautiful spring day today, and that's what we have in sight for several days more. We're one day closer to baseball.

In fact, we're just three days from Opening Night. Three. More. Days. See you in the morning.

Spring Training Countdown Epilogue & Table Of Contents

As Matt conveyed in both his Bobby Murcer piece yesterday and Oddibe McDowell post this morning, our Spring Training Countdown has reached it's conclusion and it's time for baseball, however informal it may be when camp begins. If you we were reading this blog a year ago, you might remember our first crack at the Countdown. Matt wasn't yet on board but we had other contributors like Joe (who came up with the idea for it), Boston Bren (who is responsible for the layout of the blog), and Cliff (who helps out with behind the scenes stuff here) all chipping in. The idea was to infuse the doldrums of the offseason with some history.

This year we left a few behind (Roger Clemens, Jorge Posada) but brought forward a lot of those posts and made significant additions and edits. With Matt now in the fold, he was able to draw on his vast reservoir of Yankee knowledge and add depth to many of the pieces, even those that have my byline on them.

I originally thought that resurrecting the Countdown would be a time saver. We could pull the posts forward, make some minor changes and have some easy content. But it turns out that every time I got to editing one of them, it would seem woefully incomplete or clumsily arranged. It ended up being a lot more work than I had anticipated, but the end result is 34 pretty interesting pieces, most of which we can build upon when next year rolls around.

Hopefully you the reader got something out of them too. Maybe some knowledge about Joe DiMaggio's time with the San Francisco Seals or some background on a player you didn't know much about like Gil McDougald or Spud Chandler. Perhaps some sympathy for Dave Righetti being thrust into the closer's role or a newfound respect for Roy White's career. Something interesting about the outlook for Mark Teixeira or Robinson Cano's upcoming season. Or were just reminded of some fond memories of Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Murcer or Thurman Munson.

25- Mark Teixiera

24- Robinson Cano

23- Don Mattingly

22- Allie Reynolds

21- Spud Chandler

21- Paul O'Neill

20- Kevin Youkilis

19- Dave Righetti

18- Johnny Damon

17- Gene Michael

17- Oscar Gamble

16- Dwight Gooden

16- Whitey Ford

15- Tom Tresh

15- Thurman Munson

14- Lou Pinella

13- Mike Pagliarulo

13- Alex Rodriguez

12- Gil McDougald

11- Buck Showalter

11- Lefty Gomez

10- Chris Chambliss

10- Phil Rizzuto

9- Graig Nettles

9- Roger Maris

8- Billy Dickey

8- Yogi Berra

7- Mickey Mantle

6- Roy White

5- Joe DiMaggio

4 & 3- Lou Gehrig & Babe Ruth

2- Derek Jeter

1- Billy Martin

1- Bobby Murcer

I know I learned a lot by putting together the ones I did, and even more by reading Matt's work. Hopefully when next year rolls around, though, we'll look at this series with fresh eyes, dust off these pieces and make them more complete. Perhaps we'll decide that we need to pay homage to Moose Skowron, Jimmy Key, Bobby Richardson and Vic Raschi. Maybe we'll start with #32, Elston Howard.

1 Day Until Spring Training: Billy Martin

There are 741 billion different ways to arrange a 25 man roster into a 9 slot line-up. Once you select the 9 best players that number drops to 362,880. Surprisingly, at least according to countless computer simulations, the way a manager chooses to arrange those 9 players from there doesn't have that much of an impact on the amount of runs the line up produces.

There are only so many ways a manager can impact the outcome of a game. Most of the decisions a manager has to make, like removing a starting pitcher, pinch hitting, or intentionally walking a hitter are technically possible at all times. However, no reasonable observer would advocate going to the bullpen in the first inning unless there was an injury or a complete melt down by the pitcher. No one would suggest intentionally walking a batter to lead off the 7th in a tie game. Like batting order, once you narrow the moves a manager can make down to a fairly reasonable set of options, the decision amongst them isn't statistically likely to make much of a difference.

So how is it that Billy Martin is universally remembered as "a genius who could turn almost any kind of team into a winner"? How could he have been so influential when even the best decisions could only have a limited impact on the field?

Martin spent 11 seasons as a player in the major leagues, six and a half with the Yankees. A second baseman by trade, Billy put in some time at third and short, allowing Casey Stengel some of the flexibility that he so cherished. In his playing days, Martin was scrappy and gritty and all of those terms that people use to describe players that appeared to be trying hard but weren't particularly good. He could play defense but couldn't really hit for average. Or power. Or get on-base. Or steal bases once he got on. But Stengel was Martin's most fervent advocate, so the Yanks kept him around.

During his time with the Bombers, he was part of four World Series winning teams (1951, 1952, 1953 & 1956). It was more a matter of great timing than his production. He played alongside Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Gil McDougald, Moose Skowron, and Elston Howard and behind Whitey Ford, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat.

In 1953 - one of his finer seasons with the Yanks - he was the only person on the team to appear in more than 60 games and have an OPS+ of less than 100. However, over the 28 World Series games in which he appeared, he hit .333, well above his career mark of .257.

It might have been this success in the World Series that endeared him to superstar teammates Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. The trio were legendary for their after hours gallivanting throughout New York City and on the road. The fact that he involved Mantle and Ford in his partying was what got him traded in the middle of the 1957 season following the legendary brawl at the Copacabana.

Yankees General Manager George Weiss viewed Martin as a bad influence on the team's stars and dealt him to the Kansas City Athletics in a seven player deal shortly after the fight. After the '57 season, he was traded from KC to Detroit, then to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Minnesota, never spending more than a season with any organization as a player. He did stay with Minnesota after his hung up his cleats, however.

After Billy retired, he worked as a scout in the Twins' organization for three years, then was asked to serve as third base coach under his former manager, Sam Mele. Martin enjoyed his time as a scout and had no real aspirations to ascend the coaching ladder but agreed to come on board because he respected Mele. During that time, he mentored a left handed Rod Carew and was one of the few voices that insisted Carew was ready for the Major Leagues in 1967 when he took home Rookie of the Year honors.

It was during the 1967 that Sam Mele was fired by the Twins. The club had got off to a sluggish 25-25 start and rumors abounded that Martin would be Mele's successor. However, Billy had yet to actually manage a team and Twins' owner Calvin Griffith chose veteran skipper Cal Ermer instead. The following May, Martin took over as manager for Minnesota's AAA affiliate in Denver, an assignment he was afraid would be his "one way ticket to oblivion". In hindsight, it was just the opposite.

In his first season as manager of the Denver Bears, Martin took over a team that started 7-22 and led them to a winning season. Graig Nettles was one of the players on the Bears that year and although he didn't much care for Martin at first, he eventually came around:

When I saw the results, I stopped hating Billy Martin and began to see him for what he was: an extraordinary leader.

The two would later win a World Series together with the Yankees.

Twins ownership eventually saw Martin for what he was as well. After one more year in Denver, Martin was promoted to Major League Skipper, replacing Ermer. In his first season at the helm, he guided the team to 97 wins and a Division Championship. Griffith was no doubt impressed with the 14 win improvement from the previous year, but fired Martin in part because he beat up pitcher Dave Boswell and left him unconscious in an alleyway behind a bar called A.C. Lindell's in Detroit.

Martin had always been combative. He grew up in one the poorer areas near Berkley, California - East Bay City and was surrounded by gangs and street violence for much of his early life. His mother sent his philandering father packing before he was even born. Martin didn't lay eyes on him until he was 15, at which point Billy told him he never wanted to see him again.

Despite Martin's violent episode with the Twins, he landed another managerial gig in Detroit just a year later (where the fight with Boswell occurred, of all places). In his first season in Motown, the Tigers won 91 games, an 11 game increase from the year before, but finished second to Baltimore in the AL East. The following year they won only 86 games but edged the Red Sox by one game to win the division and went on to lose to the A's in the ALCS.

Martin was fired 134 games into the '73 season, this time for ordering his pitchers to retaliate for the spitballs Gaylord Perry was throwing on August 30th.

Despite his building reputation as a loose cannon, he landed on his feet in Texas before the season was over. In 1974, Martin presided over a 23 game advance, taking a Rangers team that had won just 57 games the year before up to 84 victories and a second place finish in the AL West. Martin was fired once again by Texas in 1975, after the team started to fade midway through the season. Within a week, he was hired by the Yankees and finished out the last 56 games of the season with them.

Amazingly, in his first full year in the Bronx, Martin again steered a team to a double digit rise in wins, from 84 to 97. The Yankees won the AL East that season and advanced to the World Series but were swept by the Reds.

During the subsequent offseason, despite the fact the team just won their first pennant in 12 years, George Steinbrenner, fresh off his suspension for illegal campaign contributions, started making moves. Chief among those was the acquisition of Reggie Jackson. Martin wasn't in favor of acquiring the Orioles' slugger. With the team in need of shortstop, Martin instead lobbied for signing the Orioles' Bobby Grich, one of the best second basemen in the game, who had experience at shortstop as well. Per usual, Steinbrenner got his way. Reggie came to the Bronx, the Yankees used their other free agent spot to sign pitcher Don Gullett, and Grich went to the Angels. Jackson made Oscar Gamble expendable, and he was flipped to the White Sox for shortstop Bucky Dent.

Martin wasn't fond of Jackson, and when Reggie's infamous "straw that stirs the drink" story published in Sport Magazine in May, it only increased divisions in an already fractured clubhouse. Tensions came to a head during the '77 season when Billy pulled Jackson from a nationally televised game at Fenway Park on June 18th for failing to hustle out a fly ball in right field in the bottom of the 6th. When Reggie got back to the dugout, tempers flared and they both had to be restrained. Despite the drama swirling around in the clubhouse (the Bronx Zoo), the Yankees won 100 games that year, topped the Royals in the ALCS, and beat the Dodgers in 6 games in the World Series. It was the only World Series victory of Martin's managing career.

The madness didn't subside in 1978. Midway through the season Jackson ignored signs from Martin and bunted when it wasn't called for. This sent Martin over the edge. He told the press later that day about Jackson and Steinbrenner, respectively, "The two of them deserve each other - one's a born liar, the other's convicted."

It would prove to be his undoing as Yankee Manager (for the time being) and he resigned a few days later. Less than a week after resigning, Martin was the final player introduced at Old Timers Day. There, it was announced that Martin would return as manager for the 1980 season, with his replacement, Bob Lemon, moving to the front office. Steinbrenner couldn't wait that long, firing Lemon less than halfway through the 1979 season, with Martin taking over for the final 95 games. The team had a winning record under his guidance, but finished 4th. That tenure ended after Martin bloodied a marshmallow salesman by the name of Joseph Cooper in a barroom fight in a Minnesota hotel.

But back to the original question. What made Billy Martin so good as a manager?

He once explained:

Out of 25 guys, there should be fifteen who would run through a wall for you, two or three who don't like you at all, five who are indifferent and maybe three undecided. My job is to keep the last two groups from going the wrong way.

He also employed daring tactics that may not have agreed with conventional wisdom, but seemed to work out for him. One of the things he taught Rod Carew was how to steal home, and as a result 7 of Carew's 20 stolen bases in 1969 were of home plate.

He also used some odd tactics, like asking pitchers to hit and play other defensive positions. He had pitcher Fergie Jenkins DH in the 6th inning in a game in 1974, breaking up a no-hitter with a single to center, and later tried the same tactic with pitcher Rick Rhoden in 1988. He had Ron Guidry in center field and Don Mattingly at second when the Pine Tar Game was resumed in 1983. He had lefty swinging Mike Pagliarulo bat right handed in 1985. He literally drew the Yankees line-up out of a hat on April 21st, 1977 against the Blue Jays, a game which they won 8-6. In Oakland from 1980-1982 he employed "Billy Ball" - a combination of hit and runs, squeeze plays and stolen bases - despite the fact that his teams lead the AL in HRs.

Could his strategies alone possibly be the only reason that every team he managed got significantly better as soom as he got there? Some of those things, like DH'ing Rhoden or Jenkins, while creative, couldn't have possibly created a positive win expectancy. But sometimes you can make a low percentage play and have it still work out. He seemed to go all-in with a straight draw and hit it on the turn more than his fair share of times.

It's probably difficult to accept for the most statistically-inclined, but the historical consensus is that Martin's true genius was in his personality. He was intense, cantankerous and blunt but also had an incredibly thorough knowledge of the game. Mike Pagliarulo said:

He was the kind of guy who wasn’t afraid to tell you what he thought of you. If I got one hit in a game and hit a couple other balls well, but they were caught, what he’d say to me was, “You dumb-ass dago, you can’t get more than one hit.” Billy was very honest.

But then added:

Billy could see the field so completely; he knew what everybody was doing.

Martin also had a penchant for riding his players, especially pitchers. He once sat down and explained his managing philosophy to Leonard Koppett:

A lot of the time, you have to make a player do something he doesn't want to do, for the good of the team, or to push him harder that he thinks he should be pushed. You can't do it if the player thinks "Why should I listen to him? He's not the boss. He may be gone next year. I'll do it my way" When that attitude takes hold, teams don't win.

Managing is teaching, first of all. That's even more important than winning itself. When you get a player whose potenital you can see, and show him things that can make him better, and show him the things that can make him win, and then you can see him later realizing those things - it's like a graduation. It makes you feel satisfied even if he's no longer your player.

For a team to win, a manager has to find ways to motivate different individuals. He has to judge correctly each man's abilities and weaknesses, and find the right ways and the right times to use them.

But the enjoyment comes from the things I put in.... The victory at the end is only proof that you succeded, and nobody can take that away from you once you've won. But the fun and the rewards are in what you do getting there.

This also lends some insight as to why Martin never lasted as manager for more than three full, consecutive seasons with any team. After managing near his hometown in Oakland from 1980-82, twice winning Manager of the Year and making the playoffs in '81, he returned to the Yankees in 1983 and won 91 games.

He was fired that offseason and re-hired in 1985 when he won 91 games again, except this time he replaced Yogi Berra after 16 games and accomplished the feat in only 145. That September, Martin got in a fight with Ed Whitson in a hotel bar. Having lost his legendary brawling skills, Billy suffered a broken arm and two fractured ribs in the fight. As they often do of drunken brawls, accounts of the night vary, but the New York Times cited an unnamed source that said an official investigation by the Yankees indicated Martin was the instigator.

The team retired his number and gave him a plaque in Monument Park in 1986. He spent the '86 and '87 doing occasional TV work on WPIX Yankee telecasts.

During his final stint with the Yankees in 1988, Billy was more unorthodox than ever. Dave Righetti was deployed for two and three innings at a time, resulting in five blown saves, four of which came in a row. He used a seven man rotation at one point, and had Rick Rhoden DH despite his ailing back. Billy started out 40-28 and had the team in the thick of the division race. But there was a three game suspension for throwing dirt at an umpire and yet another brawl, this one at a Dallas area strip club. It left Martin with bruises, forty stitches in his up ear, and for the fifth and final time, as the former manager of the New York Yankees. He was replaced by Lou Piniella.

All told, Martin only won two pennants and one World Series. His 1253 wins as a manager is good for 32nd on the all-time list, and his .553 winning percentage and 240 wins over .500 place him at 21st and 20th, respectively. But many see him as one of the greatest managers - at least over the short term - of all time. For what it's worth, if I had to pick a manager to win one game for me, it would be Martin.

In 1989, Billy was brought back to the Yankees as a special consultant. It was rumored he had been asked to manage the team in 1990 and had already assembled a coaching staff to come with him.

On Christmas day, he was riding in his longtime friend William Reedy's pick-up truck and both had been drinking but neither was wearing a seatbelt. They were approaching Billy's house in Fenton, NY, just outside of Binghamton, when the truck skidded off the icy road and down a 300 foot embankment, ending up at the foot of Martin's driveway. Reedy was left in serious condition, but Martin was not so lucky. He was taken to Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City. Attempts at reviving him were unsuccessful. He was 61.

Billy Martin was notoriously hard on his players but he was probably harder on himself. He was a heavy drinker throughout almost all of his adult life. He was a fixture in hotel bars when the Yankees were on the road - as evidenced by his many fights that took place in them - and would often be seated on a barstool soon after he left Yankee Stadium as well. Martin forged a lot of friendships because of his fondness for the drink, but also made a lot of enemies that way too. In the end it was directly responsible for his demise.

"I may not have been the greatest Yankee to put on the uniform,

but I was the proudest"

2 Days Until Spring Training: Derek Jeter

At this time last year, Derek Jeter was in a vastly different spot than he is in today. During the final season at the Old Yankee Stadium, Jeter had put up his worst wOBA in a full season since he became a regular Major Leaguer in 1996. Scouts and defensive metrics alike had identified him as one of the worst defensive shortstops in the league and with his offensive production slipping dangerously close to league average, his overall value looked to be in sharp decline. Ramiro Pena was supposedly right on his heels to take over at short.

When a 34 year old player has a down year, regardless of how skilled they are, it's tough not to interpret that as a sign of an imminent decline. As the years of an athlete's career add up, it becomes increasingly unlikely that they will rebound from a sub par campaign; even a player as good as Jeter was up until that point has to see their skills erode eventually. Foretelling his impending demise was the obvious conclusion to come to, but luckily, what seems obvious isn't always right.

At a point in his career when player's defensive abilities are only supposed to deteriorate, Jeter posted his best and only significantly positive UZR rating since 2002, which is as far back as the data goes. It might have been the finest season as a fielder of his career. Partly due to an offseason conditioning program that was designed to increase his lateral range and partly because of Mick Kelleher's assistance with Jeter's positioning, the Captain enjoyed a late career defensive renaissance that is all but unheard of in baseball.

Joe Girardi's decision to bat Jeter lead-off coincided with a resurgent offensive year as well. Jeter increased his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage by 34, 44 and 57 points, respectively. He hit 18 home runs, his highest total in 5 years. Granted he hit 11 of those over the short porch in right field at the New Yankee Stadium, but we can't really hold that against him since he'll be playing the same amount of regular season games there in 2010 as he did in 2009.

If we learn any lesson from Jeter's rebound in 2009, it should be that trying to divine a player's career trajectory on a season by season basis as they age is a fool's errand. Jeter's status as a historical outlier makes predicting what the future holds even more unreliable. So just as 2008 didn't foreshadow an imminent demise, nor does 2009 promise a run at Pete Rose's record.

While it's true that few shortstops have ever maintained above average offensive production while playing shortstop in the mid-to-late 30's, it's also true that Jeter is fairly like to do so considering that he was historically elite at age 35. But at the same time, Jeter's closest comparable according to Baseball-Reference, Barry Larkin, had a bad year when he was 35, bounced back when he was 36 and was essentially washed up by age 37.

What happens this year will have tremendous implications on Jeter's impending contract negotiations as well. Tyler Kepner of the New York Times wondered if Jeter will aim for a contract that takes him through his age 42 season like the one the Yankees gave to Alex Rodriguez. Even if Jeter continues to produce at an excellent level, a six year deal seems ridiculous and unnecessary and it would be uncharacteristically petty and selfish of Jeter to make such demands.

If the Yankees are serious about having a budget going forward, they can't afford to commit huge amounts of money to Jeter over the long term, regardless of what they are paying Rodriguez. They should be more concerned with what other teams might be willing to give Jeter. Contracts signed in the past are sunk costs and although there are personalities and egos involved, the bottom line is that money spent on Jeter is money that can't be spent on talent to surround him.

Additionally, the market for aging free agents is changing and Brain Cashman seems well aware of that fact:

The industry the last two free agent markets seems to be going downward and the player's ages are going upward. It makes more sense to be patient. My attitude is if this is the place you want to be, you will make it happen. Johnny Damon professed his love for the Yankees, wanted to be here and was given every chance to be here. He's not here anymore and I don't feel that is the Yankees' fault. They have to reconcile why they are not here, not me.

The comment was aimed at Johnny Damon (and by extension, Scott Boras) but I think it tells you something about the tack he will take with Jeter. Cashman understands the free agent market as well as anyone and although the Yanks might give Jeter more than he's worth on the field, it won't be by much.

The media will surely take Jeter's side regardless of how much he wants from the Yankees but the reality is that he has the power to make the negotiations easy or make them difficult. Ask for 6 year deal and a raise in terms of annual value and it will get ugly. Take 3 years at $20M, the deal is done overnight and the Yanks have more money to use towards building a team that can win World Series, which has always been Jeter's singular focus. But let's not put the cart ahead of the horse. There will be plenty of time to watch this topic get senselessly beaten into the ground over the course of the season.

We've been incredibly lucky to watch Jeter's career unfold and we've been even luckier to watch him continue his excellent production into his mid-30's. Let's hope he goes the way of Honus Wagner or Luke Appling and plays shortstop into his 40's, but even if he doesn't, the Yanks have had their best stretch at the shortstop position in the history of the franchise and one of the very best in baseball. Although it will hurt terribly when Jeter is gone, the Yankees are essentially playing with house money at this point. With any luck, though, we'll be able to see this image a few more times before he goes.

3 & 4 Days Until Spring Training: Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig

Before the Babe came to the Bronx, the New York Yankees didn't have much of a history as a franchise. After he and Lou Gehirg had finished their playing days, the Yankees had become one of the finest organizations in baseball and would go on to become the best in all of American sports.

The franchise which would eventually become the Yankees spent their first two years in Baltimore known as the Orioles before moving to Washington Heights in 1903. The New York Baseball Giants were none too thrilled with the move, which was understandable because the incoming franchise built their new home, Hilltop Park, about 10 blocks from the Polo Grounds, where the Giants played. Before the move came to fruition, it was put to a vote and the 15 of the 16 Major League owners approved, the lone dissenter being none other than John T. Bush, owner of the Giants. That lone vote wasn't enough to keep the Orioles in Baltimore, so the club packed up it's things and relocated to Hilltop Park before the 1903 season begun, becoming the Highlanders.

The franchise wasn't any more successful at Hilltop than it was at Oriole Park. In the 12 seasons split between those two locations, the pre-Yankees failed to make the World Series in an 8 team American League even once and had a won-lost record 70 games below .500. During that same stretch, the Giants appeared in the World Series 4 times, winning one. The original New York club was content to ignore their neighboring franchise until the Polo Grounds were destroyed by a fire on April 14th, 1911. At that point, the Giants were forced to lease from and cohabitate Hilltop Field with the Yankees, neutralizing previous tensions between the two teams.

In 1913, the Polo Grounds were rebuilt and both teams moved into the new structure. Given that the Yankees were no longer playing in Hilltop Park, the nickname "the Highlanders" no longer applied. They jettisioned the moniker and officially became the Yankees. Unlike the old name and park, however, they couldn't leave their futility behind. The Yanks finished in the bottom half of the AL in each of the next six seasons.

Although he has become something of a historical footnote, Wally Pipp actually passed for one of the better Yankees of that era, putting up a 114 OPS+ from 1915-1919. Ray Fisher was probably their best hurler, but even he was no better than league average during his time with the team. Roger Peckinpaugh, who was the shortstop and briefly served a stint as player-manager in 1914, was one of the few constants over that time. But he wasn't much of a hitter.

In sum, the Yankees were a dismal franchise with middling talent who played their games in a ballpark that wasn't theirs. But all that began to change when the team was purchased by Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Captain Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston for $1.25M in 1915.

Ruppert was a former Congressman and had just finished serving a term as the President of the United States Brewers Association. He was a businessman at heart and brought his willingness to wheel and deal to his manage to the Yankees, not to mention the substantial fortune he and his father had accrued in the brewing business. Both of those were essential in bringing the Yankees their first legitimate star.

When Babe Ruth came up with Boston, he was primarily a pitcher, and quite a good one at that. In 1916 and 1917 Ruth threw 323 2/3 and 326 1/3 innings to 1.75 and 2.01 ERAs, respectively. In his limited plate appearances, however, his hitting prowess was already evident, posting numbers well above league average in each of those years.

In 1918, the Red Sox began to transition Ruth into a hitter. That year he appeared in 75 games exclusively to hit and led the league in home runs with 11, despite relatively few opportunities. The following year he pitched in only 17 games, throwing 133 1/3 innings, the last time he would throw over 9 in a season. The Babe's ERA was just about league average in 1919, but he coupled that with pounding a then unheard of 29 home runs and driving in 114.

In the proceeding offseason, Ruth demanded a 200% raise, and rather than retain the slugger or trade him to the White Sox for Shoeless Joe Jackson and $60,000 cash, Harry Frazee famously sold him to Ruppert and the Yankees for $125,000.

It's easy to view this transaction in revisionist history and wonder what would have become of the Red Sox if they had held onto Ruth. The fact of the matter is at the time, he was still transitioning into a hitter and there was widespread doubt from respected people like Tris Speaker, who thought becoming a hitter would shorten Ruth's career.

To the Sox dismay, Ruth arrived in the Bronx and promptly launched 54 home runs, many over the short right field fence at the Polo Grounds, obliterating his own record of 29. He also worked 150 walks and sported a .533 on-base percentage. In fact, Ruth reached base in over half of his plate appearances in 5 of his first 7 seasons as a Yankee.

As the Bambino was taking the baseball world by storm, Ludwig Heinrich Gehrig was studying at and playing fullback for nearby Columbia University. He was born (at 14lbs!) on 94th and 2nd Ave and grew up first in Yorkville and later in Washington Heights. Gehrig, like Ruth, spent time as a pitcher early in his career. While on the mound for Columbia, Gehrig struck out a record 17 Williams College batters, but was noticed by Yankee scout Paul Krichell more for his left-handed power. He was signed by the Yankees two months later for a $1,500 bonus.

In 1923 & '24, the Iron Horse was used mostly in pinch hitting duty. He raked well above average in his 38 at-bats over the course of those two years and earned himself a more permanent place in the line up in 1926.

The '26 season was the 7th of Ruth's torrid stretch mentioned above. As would have been the case with anyone coming up through the ranks of the Yanks at the time, Gehrig stood squarely in the Babe's vast shadow:

"I'm not a headline guy. I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference."

The two lefty sluggers had always been quite different. Gehrig was college educated and smoked a pipe while Ruth was street-wise and puffed on stogies. Ruth was an ostentatious extrovert, Gehrig was a bit of an understated loner.

At first, Gehrig was "admittedly in awe" of Ruth. However, the initial reverence wore off as Ruth mentored Gehrig and taught him many of the tricks to lofting the massive home runs that separated the Bambino from the rest of the league by leaps and bounds. Babe actually took a liking to Gehrig and considered him "like a younger brother who was bashful and backwards".

Despite the humility, Gehrig was a hell of a hitter himself. After replacing Wally Pipp on June 2nd 1925, he batted over .300 with a .400+ on-base percentage for twelve consecutive years. He hit 40 or more home runs 5 times and drove in at least 100 runs in 13 straight seasons, including an AL Record 184 in 1931 (due in no small part to Babe Ruth's .495 OBP that year). He won the 1927 League Award (before the MVP came to be) over Ruth who hit 60 HRs and slugged .772. Lou finished his career with a .340 batting average.

Gehrig was invited to go barnstorming with Ruth in the offseason and the veteran also took him fishing on occasion. Appreciative of this, Gehrig invited Ruth to his mother's house in New Rochelle, who was more than happy to cook him huge dinners, something that the Sultan of Swat never enjoyed in the orphanage he grew up in.

Unfortunately, Lou's mother caused their friendship to come to an abrupt halt. Ruth had made one of his visits to New Rochelle and brought both of his daughters, Dorothy, a 12 year old tomboy, and Julia, an 18 year old proper young lady. Gehrig's mother made an off-hand remark about Dorothy being poorly dressed as opposed to Julia, causing Ruth to implore Lou that his mother "mind her own business". Neither man would budge and they refused to speak to each other, forming a rift between the two.

When the cameras rolled, they pretended to be chummy, but the mutual distaste was palpable to those with knowledge of the situation. It wasn't until Ruth left the team in 1935 that Gehrig was named Captain, but the unofficial crown was passed after the two went blast for blast and tied with 46 HRs in the 1931 season. Gehrig's career was still trending upwards, while the Babe's was on the decline.

At the age of 40, Ruth was sold to the Boston Braves where he played only 28 games. He batted .181, but had a .359 OBP and hit 6 HRs.

About halfway though the 1938 season, Gehrig began to feel weak and his performance declined. His statistics were respectable over the course of the season, (29HR, 132 OPS+) but well off his career norms. When he showed up for Spring Training the following year, he was visibly diminished and actually collapsed on the Al Lang Field while running the bases. He made an attempt to play out the season, but it was soon clear he wasn't physically up to the task and his 2,130 consecutive games played streak ended on April 30th. On his birthday, June 19th that year, he was diagnosed with ALS.

On July 4th, 1939, the Yankees held Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day. It wasn't until then that he and Babe Ruth finally ended their grudge against each other. He delivered his famous speech and became the first player in MLB history to have their number retired.

Gehirg's retirement marked the end of an era which saw the Yankees rise from the doldrums of the league and become one of it's preeminent powers. The Yankees won 8 World Series titles, losing just once in the fall Classic. They failed to finished in the top 2 of the AL just twice in 19 years.

Although there was a great supporting cast of players like Tony Lazzeri, Billy Dickey and Earle Combs, the Yankees engine was powered primarily by Ruth and Gehrig. Comfortably two of the top five players in the league for eight consecutive seasons, the Iron Horse and the Bambino were the cornerstones of the Yankee franchise. They had an interesting relationship, ranging from cordial to cold and back again, and both unfortunately found their way to an early grave. Gehrig passed away in his sleep at the age of 37 on June 2nd, 1941. Ruth lived until August 16th, 1948 when he succumbed to pneumonia. He was 53.

5 Days Until Spring Training: Joe DiMaggio

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Joe DiMaggio's given name was actually Guiseppe. He grew up in San Francisco where his father made a living as a fisherman, manning a boat that wasn't quite large enough for crabbing but was sufficiently sizable to make a living on during the 1920's in the rich waters of the San Francisco Bay. DiMaggio's father, also named Guiseppe, came from a long line of Sicilian fisherman as did the fathers of most of the boys Joe D. used to play baseball with on North Beach playground.

Naturally, the elder Guiseppe wanted all five of his sons to become fisherman, but he didn't understand that by immigrating to America, he had opened up their options far beyond anything they could have conceived back on Isola delle Femmine. They weren't consigned to the sea like he had been at their age. Only the two oldest DiMaggios became fisherman. The youngest three all went on to play Major League baseball.

Dom and Vince both had pretty decent careers. Each player over a decade and both brothers retired with OPS+ around 110. Not bad, but Joe was clearly head and shoulders above his kin.

Vince was actually the one who got Joe back into baseball after he briefly lost interest in his mid teens. Vince asked his manager with the San Francisco Seals to let his kid brother to fill in at shortstop for three games at the end of the 1932 season while the incumbent Augie Galan was barnstorming in Hawaii. In 1933, Joe officially became part of the team.

During his rookie season, just 18 years old, DiMaggio started the season on the bench. Eventually he took the place of a slumping right fielder and began his inexorable march to superstardom. Starting on May 27th, DiMaggio recorded a hit in 61 straight games, shattering the previous Pacific Coast League record. It was then he truly became hooked on baseball:

Baseball didn't really get into my blood until I knocked off that hitting streak. Getting a daily hit became more important to me than eating, drinking or sleeping. Overnight I became a personality.

DiMaggio had a unique minor league baseball experience. Instead of being drafted by an franchise and assigned to one of their teams thousands of miles from where he grew up, he played all of his minor league ball for his hometown Seals. He later explained:

I had the good luck to spend my entire minor league career in the Pacific Coast League, in which all travel and accommodations were first-class, and with my hometown team, the San Francisco Seals, at that. Playing on my hometown team meant when the club played its home stands I could live with my parents, occupy my own room.

The Yankees originally wanted to purchase DiMaggio at the beginning of the 1935 season but Charley Graham, owner of the Seals, drove a hard bargain. He agreed to give up Joltin' Joe, but only after he completed the '35 season in San Francisco. Additionally, the Yankees had to send three players to the Seals before the '35 season began. This made the Seals a heavy favorite in the PCL that year, and they took full advantage.

DiMaggio hit .398 with 100 extra base hits and 173 RBIs. The Seals captured their first Pacific Coast League title in 4 years and Joe was named League MVP. After the season ended, the Yankees sent $75,000 and completed the deal. DiMaggio made the long trip from California to Spring Training in St. Petersburg with fellow Italians and Bay Area natives Tony Lazzeri and Frank Crosetti, the latter of whom was bought from the Seals in 1931.

DiMaggio's personality didn't seem fit for the Big Apple. The Daily News called him "timid" and referred to his as Dead Pan Joe when he first arrived. Later in his career Hank Greenberg noted that if DiMaggio said "hello" to you, that was a long conversation by his standards. He was hyped endlessly by the New York papers and billed as the "Babe Ruth's successor", but in terms of disposition, he was much more like Lou Gehrig than Ruth.

Joe hit .323/.352/.576 with 29 HRs and 125 RBIs in his first year in the Bronx, made the All-Star team and finished 8th in the MVP vote. Had there been a Rookie of the Year award then, he surely would have won it. His sophomore campaign was even better, with a line of .346/.412/.673 and a whopping 46 home runs despite hitting right handed in Yankee Stadium for half of his games.

Over the course of his career, DiMaggio his 148 homers in the Bronx compared to 213 on the road. Left-center field at Yankee Stadium was 460 feet away during his playing days and straight away center was 490. It was a short 281 feet down the line, but the 45 degrees directly ahead of DiMaggio ranged from 430 feed in left field to 406 in right. It suffices to say that the Yankee Clipper lost a fair amount of home runs to Death Valley.

If anything, the extra square footage in the Yankee outfield help Joltin' Joe hit for average. With more ground for the outfielders to cover, there were more places for DiMaggio's hits to fall. On May 14th, 1941, he began his legendary 56 game hitting streak which lasted until July 17th in Cleveland. That day, three great defensive plays - two by third baseman Ken Keltner and one by shortstop Lou Boudreau - kept Joltin' Joe hitless. Undeterred, DiMaggio hit safely in 16 straight games immediately, collecting a hit in 72 of 73.

That year, primarily on the strength of his hitting streak (and maybe aided by the fact that he only struck out 13 times in 621 PAs), the Yankee Clipper stole the MVP from Teddy Ballgame, who hit .406 and roundly trounced him in every other significant batting category, save for runs batted in.

From 1936-1942, DiMaggio hit .339/.403/.607 (159 OPS+), averaged 31 home runs and 133 RBIs and won two AL MVPs. He homered more often that he struck out and played excellent defense.

DiMaggio was known for his long strides that allowed him to cover wide swaths of Yankee Stadium's expansive center field. According to Tiger slugger Hank Greenberg, the only way to get a hit against the Yankees was "to hit 'em where Joe wasn't." He developed his nickname "The Yankee Clipper" because as he patrolled center field he looked as smooth and graceful as the popular 19th century clipper sailing ships known for their speed and ability to cut through wavy waters.

After 7 excellent seasons for the Yanks, DiMaggio went to war in 1943. Well, more correctly, the was drafted into the Army Air Force. He traded in his $43,750 salary from the Yanks for a $50/month wage from the Army, but he continued playing baseball. He became a part of the 7th AAF and was stationed in Santa Ana, California. Joe spent most of his time in the service as a physical education instructor and playing baseball on the Santa Ana team. By contrast, Ted Williams was a fighter pilot.

While his time in the Army was a relative walk in the park, his parents were not so lucky. Since they were Italian immigrants, they were classified as "enemy aliens" and forced to carry identification cards on them at all times. They were not allowed to go beyond five miles from their home with out a government-issued permit. DiMaggio's father was banned from fishing in San Francisco Bay, where he had made a living over the previous 30 years.

The Yankee Clipper lost three full seasons to WWII. When he returned to the Yankees, he was 31 years old and it took him a bit to regain him form, hitting only .290 in his first year back. He hit for a lower average and with less power in his final six seasons than he did in his first seven but still managed a 150 OPS+ over that span. He picked up his third and final MVP in 1947, nudging out Ted Williams by one point despite on-base and slugging percentages over 100 points lower than the Splendid Splinter's, not to mention significantly fewer homers, RBIs and runs scored. It probably helped that the Yanks made it to the World Series and the Sox finished 3rd in the AL.

Williams and DiMaggio were almost swapped for each other in 1949. Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey and Yankees GM Larry MacPhail verbally agreed to a trade, however it fell apart when McPhail balked at Yawkey asked for a young catcher by the name of Yogi Berra. It seemed at the time that the two principles of the trade were stuck in the wrong parks - the left handed Williams in Fenway and the righty DiMaggio in Yankee Stadium. However, they made out pretty well despite their inhospitable home parks. Berra, it turns out, would have been a much bigger loss for the Yanks because DiMaggio was done as a player only two seasons later.

Helped greatly by his hitting streak, DiMaggio became a central figure in American pop culture. Although he was an incredibly great player, his fame outpaced his talents. He was referenced in countless songs such as John Fogarty's Center Field, We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel and Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel. He was mentioned on I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Hemingway even mentioned him in The Old Man and the Sea.

The Yankee Clipper accomplished an awful lot despite playing in only 13 seasons in the Big Leauges. He was a 9-time World Champion, 3-time AL MVP, 2 time batting champion, and a 13-time All-Star (the only player to be selected for the All-Star Game in every season he played). His career line was .325/.398/.579 BA and he tallied 361 HRs, 1537 RBI.

Joltin' Joe was a private man. He never seemed to be interested in the trappings of fame despite being one of the most famous people in the country for much of his life. He married Marilyn Monroe in 1954, of course, but the marriage lasted less than a year, due in part to Joe's jealousy and public nature of her character. They reunited seven years later and Joe asked her to marry him just four days before she died on August 5th, 1962. Joe had roses delivered to her grave three times a week for twenty years after she passed away. He never married again.

DiMaggio lived a full and long life which ended when he was 84 years old. He spend the last 100 days of his life in a hospital battling lung cancer and passed away on March 8th, 1999. The Yankees wore a black #5 patch on their uniforms to commemorate his life that season which culminated with a World Series victory over the Braves.

Mostly due to the length of his career, it took 3 ballots for DiMaggio to enter the Hall of Fame but he gained admittance to Cooperstown in 1955 and lived more than half of his life as a member of the Hall of Fame. He was to Yankees fans what Ruth was before him and Mantle and Jeter have been after: larger than life legends both on and off the field.

6 Days Until Spring Training: Roy White

By the time the Yankees ended an eleven season pennant drought in 1976 the only connections they had to their most recent successes were coaches Yogi Berra and Elston Howard, and digging back even further in their history, manager Billy Martin. But there was one player on the club who had just missed out on the success of the teams of the early sixties.

Roy White was signed as an amateur free agent in the summer of 1961. He made his professional debut the next year, and worked his way through the minor league system over the next three years as the Yankees won their third, fourth, and fifth consecutive pennants. After a breakout season at AA in 1965, the switch hitting second baseman was called up in September as the Yankees wound out their first losing season in forty years.

The rookie made his debut on September 7th, singling as a pinch hitter in the front end of a double header and picking up two more hits as the second baseman in the second game. It would be White's only appearance at second base in '65, and one of only three in his Major League career. The day after White made his debut, another highly touted Yankee rookie made his debut at shortstop. Like White, Bobby Murcer soon would be moved from the middle infield to the outfield. After Murcer's return from military service in 1969, the pair would be two bright spots in a rather dismal period in Yankee history.

White took over as the regular left fielder in '66, patrolling the Yankee outfield with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Despite the lofty company he kept, the 22 year old White proved not quite ready for prime time. He began the '67 season loaned out to the Dodgers' AAA affiliate in Spokane, returned to the Bronx in July, and despite some lackluster numbers he earned himself a job for good.

White broke out in '68, batting .267/.350/.414, good for a 136 OPS+ in the year of the pitcher. He finished third in the American League in runs, fourth in times on base, seventh in triples, and tenth in stolen bases. It was the start of a five year stretch for White in which he posted an overall OPS+ of 138, never posting a season lower than 130.

Even as offense improved following the lowering of pitcher's mounds in 1969, power remained suppressed. While White had enough pop to rack up a decent amount of extra base hits, his keen batting eye was his greatest asset. It allowed him to far outpace the league in OBP. Seven times in his career he finished in the top ten in walks, including four of the five years during his peak and league leading 99 free passes in 1972.

After a down year in '73, White rebounded to post three more seasons with an OPS+ over 120. In the Yankees' pennant winning season of '76 White led the AL with 1o4 runs scored. He slipped a bit in the Yankees World Series winning seasons of '77 and '78, but remained a regular in the line up and a contributor offensively. Following a poor 1979, White departed for Japan and spent the final three seasons of his career playing for the Tokyo Giants - the Yankees of Japan.

White returned to the Yankees as a coach in 1983, '84, '86, '04, and '05. He ranks seventh on the team's all-time games played and plate appearance lists, sixth on the walks list, fifth on the stolen base list, and eighth in times on base.

Roy White doesn't rank with the Hall of Famers in Yankee history, but he was a very good player for a long time. His body of work has been underestimated due to his best years coming in an offensively suppressed era and during one of the worst stretches in Yankee history. Yet he was a very good Yankee for fifteen seasons, a quiet and dignified player who was a calming presence on what were often chaotic teams. In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked White as the 25th best left fielder of all time, ahead of more celebrated contemporaries Don Baylor, Greg Luzinski, George Foster, and even Hall of Famer Jim Rice.

7 Days Until Spring Training: Mickey Mantle

There's a reason Rodney Dangerfield changed his name from Jackie Roy, Kirk Douglas wasn't satisfied with Issur Danielovich, John Wayne didn't go by Marrion Marrison, and Cary Grant's real name wasn't Cary Grant; it was Archie Leach. Studies have shown that students are excellent at predicting which college professors they will enjoy having before they even hear them speak. But that probably says more about how much first impressions shape our interactions with other people than our powers to judge them based solely on their looks.

Of course, baseball is far more of a meritocracy than Hollywood and its players aren't judged based on the first time they play in front of someone, but there is a certain subjectivity involved in selecting those who are fit for higher levels of the game. There's even more bias involved in determining who becomes a superstar. A prospect must be noticed, scouted, signed and promoted through the ranks. To become a star, a player must be talked about and popularized through the media and by fans. Having a catchy name certainly doesn't hurt in either of those pursuits.

All of this is a long way of saying that Tom Greenwade, the scout who first saw him in Baxter Springs, Kansas in 1948, was probably more intrigued by the name "Mickey Mantle" more than his teammate Billy Johnson, the first time he saw the two listen in a game program.

Greenwade said he was the best Yankee prospect he could remember. Mantle was offered $400 for the rest of the season and a $1,100 signing bonus. Eventually, Joe DiMaggio agreed with Greenwade's assessment and Casey Stengel added, "He's got more natural power from both sides than anybody I ever saw".

Of course, they were right; Mantle's talent was undeniable. He tore through the minor leagues and made his Yankee debut on April 17th, 1951 as a lanky 19 year old, with just 20 games experience above C-ball. After a brief slump punctuated by a four strikeout effort against the Red Sox, Mantle was sent back down to Kansas City. He stayed in AAA for 5 weeks and hit .361 in 40 games before getting called back up to the Bigs.

Mantle spent the rest of the season with the team and was included on the roster when they faced the New York Giants in the Fall Classic. He and Willie Mays actually made their World Series debuts in the same game. Mays went 0-5 and Mantle 0-3. It would be 11 years before those two met in another World Series game and the Yankees would prevail in the 1962 Fall Classic as well.

In his first full season with the Yankees in 1952, Mantle replaced Joe DiMaggio in center field, hit .331/.394/.530, made the All-Star Team and finished 3rd in the AL MVP voting. It was his first of 14 straight All-Star berths and the first of 6 times he'd finish in the top 5 of the MVP voting without winning. He did, however, win three MVPs. They came in 1956, in 1957 when he hit .365/.512/.665 and barely edged Ted Williams in the voting, and in 1962 when he took home the only Gold Glove of his career (the first year they were awarded was '57).

The Mick was also a part of 7 World Series winners during his playing days. The Yanks were still obviously lucky to have him, but his postseason batting line of .257/.374/.535 was not nearly as good as his regular season line of .298/.421/.557.

Mantle had unprecedented power as a center fielder. He was legendary for not only the number, but the length of his home runs, as the term "tape measure home run" was coined for his one of his prodigious blasts.

That shot, perhaps his most famous, came at Griffiths Stadium in Washington D.C. on April 17th, 1953. It was said to have traveled 565 feet, a claim originally made Yankees PR man Arthur "Red" Patterson. There was a breeze blowing out to left field that day and Mantle crushed a pitch off of a middle reliever named Chuck Stobbs off the Natty Boh beer sign and out of the Stadium. Patterson set out to retrieve the ball.

He claimed to have found a ten year old boy at 434 Oakdale Lane by the name of Donald Dunaway in posession of the ball. He offered young Donny $1 and two signed balls in exchange for Mantle's souvenir and claimed to have take a tape measure from the stadium to the ball's landing spot. Peterson admitted later in life that his claim of measuring the home run was less than accurate but insisted the part about Donald Dunaway was true. However, numerous baseball historians have set out to find someone with that combination of age, name and address but come up empty. Still, the term "tape measure home run" was born.

The famous graphic to the right triangulates another legendary home run, with slightly more concrete mathematical calculations. Mantle drilled one off the facade of Yankee Stadium which was still 118 ft high 370 feet from home plate.

For all his swiftness and brawn, Mantle struggled mightily with injuries but usually played through them. He had both acute and chronic ailments in the bones and cartilage in both of his legs. In his World Series debut mentioned above, he and DiMaggio both sprinted towards a fly ball, but Joe called him off, causing Mickey to stop short. Mantle tore the cartilage in his right knee as his cleat got caught on a drainage cover hidden in the outfield grass. To mitigate the damage he might cause after that, he applied thick tape wraps around each knee before games.

In addition to injury, Mickey battled alcoholism. His father died when Mantle was 20 years old and he was nagged by the dread of his own mortality. As a result, he lived hard. He gave incredible effort on the field, but also partied recklessly away from the Stadium. Mick, Whitey Ford and Billy Martin frequented Toots Shor's and the Copacabana.

One infamous night at the Copa, a bunch of the Yankees were there with their wives and an especially unruly group of people fresh off of a bowling league victory came in and sat down. Sammy Davis Jr. was performing that night and the bowlers started heckling him. A few of the Yankees took umbrage to that and asked them to quiet down. Words were exchanged and led by Billy Martin and Hank Bauer the group of Yanks were soon involved in a full scale brawl out near the coat room.

While they walked away unscathed, Billy Martin was traded as a direct result of that incident for being a bad influence on Mantle as well as Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra - players who normally stayed out of trouble and meant far more to the team on the field than Martin. They had to go in from of a grand jury, but none of the Yanks were ever brought up on charges.

Eventually, all the partying and all the injuries caught up with Mantle. He was only 36 years old but could barely run when the 1968 season came to a close. His power had finally started to leave him and in his final two years his failing legs kept him exclusively at first base. His career batting average dipped below .300 in his final season and the Yankees finished 5th in the American League.

Years later his wife Merlyn recalled: "When Mick retired, a big chunk of his self-esteem went out the window. I question whether he ever had much to begin with".

Baseball followed, even haunted Mantle after he hung up his cleats:

For years after he stopped playing, Mickey Mantle said, he would dream he was in a taxi, in uniform, late. ''I could hear them saying, 'Now batting, No. 7, Mickey Mantle,' and I'd try to crawl through a hole into Yankee Stadium and I'd always get stuck. Looking through the hole, I could see Casey Stengel and Whitey Ford and all them out there and I couldn't get in. And I'd wake up and I'd be sweating like hell. I had that dream a long time.''

Alcoholism followed Mickey long after his playing career too, right up until he died at age 63 in 1995. He had checked into the Betty Ford Center in 1994, but by then, the damage had been done. Upon his examination, a doctor from the BFC told his that his liver was so damaged that "his next drink could be his last". Before he died, Mantle acknowledged his alcoholism and was able to reflect on the harm it had caused him and more importantly those around him.

While he was the hero of an entire generation of Yankees fans, Mantle certainly wasn't without his flaws. A character plucked from the cornfields and brought to the big city, the story of Mickey Mantle was something Hollywood might have dreamed up had it not actually happened. His self-perpetuating fight with his inner demons that led to his own demise seemed plucked from a Greek tragedy. Mantle may have appeared to be more of a legend than a man during his playing days. However, as the years wore on, his humanity and mortality became increasingly obvious.

Mantle's tale is both inspirational and cautionary. He got a lot out of his 63 years on this earth, but it' clear that if he had taken better care of himself, he would have got a whole lot more. Even still, he was one of the greatest Yankees of all time.