1956 World Series

After finally dropping a Fall Classic to Brooklyn, the Yankees didn't have to wait long to get a shot at revenge. The Yankees took the AL by nine games in 1956, their most comfortable margin of victory since 1947. The Dodgers meanwhile, entered the season's final weekend hosting lowly Pittsburgh and trailing Milwaukee by a half game. Brooklyn swept a Saturday doubleheader while the Braves lost, putting the Dodgers up a game. Brooklyn completed the sweep on Sunday, clinching their fourth pennant in five years and setting up another World Series rematch with the Yankees.

-1956-

A year removed from their last meeting, both teams carried essentially the same rosters as the previous fall. Phil Rizzuto was unceremoniously released late in the season, but overall the position players for both teams were virtually the same as the year before, with the occasional variation depending upon how platoon masters Casey Stengel and Walter Alston tweaked the line up. The biggest change came on the pitching front. The respective staffs were still fronted by Whitey Ford and Don Newcombe, but Johnny Kucks had supplanted Tommy Byrne as the Yankees' number two man, while longtime Giant Sal "The Barber" Maglie joined Brooklyn early in the season and became their number two starter.

The Yankees featured their typical balanced attack, ranking at or near the top of the AL in most major batting and pitching categories. The Dodgers meanwhile, had changed the nature of their team. Long an offensive juggernaut with average pitching, the '56 club had an offense just slightly better than the NL average. Their pitching staff though, led by Newcombe, Maglie, and sophomore Roger Craig, and featuring two seldom used youngsters named Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, was the class of the NL.

The Series opened at Ebbets Field on Wednesday October 3rd. It was five years to the day since the Giants won a three game playoff against the Dodgers, courtesy of Bobby Thompson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World". Maglie started for the Giants that day, and on the five year anniversary it was him, not his 1951 opponent Don Newcombe, who took the ball for Brooklyn. For the Yankees, Ford predictably got the Game One nod.

The Yankees defeated Maglie in Game Four of the '51 Series, and Game One started out looking like much the same. They took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on the strength of a two run homer from Mickey Mantle, who had destroyed AL pitching that summer, posting a career best OPS+ of 210, winning the Triple Crown, and leading the league in runs, slugging, OPS, OPS+, and total bases as well. He finished second in OBP and walks, fourth in hits, and seventh in stolen bases. He would later call it his Favorite Summer, and his 12.9 WAR remains baseball's fourth best total since the Dead Ball Era.

Maglie settled in during the second inning though, retiring the side in order to make it five straight outs for him. His offense evened the score in the bottom half. Jackie Robinson led off with a home run; Gil Hodges then singled and was doubled home by Carl Furillo. Maglie worked around two singles in the third, then the Dodgers plated three more on a Hodges homer in the bottom half. Billy Martin started the top of the fourth with a solo shot to cut it to 5-4, but with Ford chased from the game in bottom of the inning, the Dodgers added a run off reliever Johnny Kucks. The teams stayed scoreless for the remainder of the day, and Maglie's complete game gave the Dodgers a 6-4 victory and one game lead in the Series.

After a rainout on Thursday, Game Two matched Don Newcombe against Don Larsen. Both turned in poor performances in their only starts in the '55 Series, and things didn't get any better for them in Game Two. Joe Collins singled Enos Slaughter home in the first to give the Yankees an early lead for the second straight day. The Yankees broke out the heavy lumber in the second. Martin led off with a single and was bunted second. Larsen, a fairly good hitting pitcher, singled him home and turned the lineup over. Gil McDougald reached on an infield single, and after Slaughter made the second out, Mantle drew a walk to load the bases. Yogi Berra then unloaded them, blasting a grand slam to right and ending Newcombe's day.

Larsen took the hill in the bottom of the second with a 6-0 lead, but he, his defense, and his relief promptly gave it all back. Hodges led off with a single and an error by Moose Skowron allowed Sandy Amoros to reach. Furillo walked to load the bases. Roy Campanella hit a sacrifice fly to put Brooklyn on the board, and then pinch hitter Dale Mitchell popped up for the second out. Larsen couldn't close the door though, walking Junior Gilliam to reload the bases and end his afternoon. Kucks replaced him and immediately surrendered a two run single to Pee Wee Reese. Stengel then lifted Kucks for Tommy Byrne, who served up a three run bomb to Duke Snider, knotting the score at six. All six Brooklyn runs were unearned, but it didn't change the fact that the Yankees had just squandered a six run lead.

The Dodgers took a one run lead in the third, with pitcher Don Bessent driving in Hodges. The Yankees answered in the top of the fourth as a sac fly from Slaughter scored Yankee pitcher Tom Morgan. In the fifth, Hodges' two run double gave the Dodgers the lead for good, as Brooklyn went on to take a 13-8 final. Both Newcombe and Larsen pitched poorly. Both would have an opportunity to redeem himself before the Series ended; only one did.

The Yankees retreated to the Bronx in an 0-2 hole, having lost three in a row and six of seven to the team they had previously dominated. In desperate need of a win, the Thursday rainout allowed Stengel to bring back Ford on two days rest for Game Three. Brooklyn countered with Roger Craig. The clubs traded runs in the second, a sacrifice fly from Campanella scoring Robinson with the game's first run, and a solo homer from Billy Martin evening things up. It remained that way into the sixth, when a sac fly from Snider scored Pee Wee Reese. Once again the Yankees responded in the bottom half, as a three run home from Enos Slaughter gave the Yankees a 4-2 lead. Both teams scored an unearned over the final innings before Ford closed it out to bring the Yankees within a game.

Game Four was a match up of serviceable back of the rotation options. Carl Erskine had been one of the better pitchers for Brooklyn earlier in the decade, but now nearly thirty, he had slipped down the Dodger pecking order. For the Yankees, sophomore Tom Sturdivant was a valuable swingman on the club, logging the fourth most innings on the team while splitting his appearances between starts and the bullpen. Yogi Berra singled Joe Collins home in the first to spot the Yankees a lead. Hodges drove home Snider in the fourth to tie the score, but in the bottom half Martin singled Mantle in, then McDougald plated Slaughter with a sac fly to give the Yanks a 3-1 lead. Home runs from Mantle in the sixth and Hank Bauer in the eighth made it 6-1. The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out in the ninth, but Stengel stuck with Sturdivant. He surrendered and RBI single to Campanella, then retired the next two men to earn a complete game victory and pull the Series even at two apiece.

When Don Larsen entered the Yankee clubhouse on the morning of Monday October 8th, he found a baseball tucked in his spikes, Stengel's way of informing he was starting that afternoon. Six feet four inches tall, Larsen was nicknamed the Gooney Bird, not only for his height, but also for his sometimes aloof demeanor. He was known to have a drink from time to time, like many of his teammates. The Yankees had acquired Larsen following the '54 season, as part of a massive 17 player trade. He pitched rather well for the club over the two intervening seasons, but his two World Series starts had been disastrous to the tune of nine runs (five of them earned) over five and two thirds innings. As we've seen over recent years, small doses of post-season performance aren't always indicative of true talent level. Larsen wasn't nearly as bad as those two starts suggested. He was an above average pitcher at that point in his career, and while no one would ever confuse him with the best pitcher in the game, for one afternoon he managed to turn in a reasonable impersonation.

Nine years and five days earlier, Yankee starter Bill Bevens came within one out of no-hitting the Dodgers for the first World Series no-no in history. Larsen finished what Bevens couldn't, doing him one better by not issuing a single walk, nor hitting a batter, nor having his defense make an error behind him. Mickey Mantle staked the Yankees to a one run lead with a solo homer in the fourth, then made a running, lunging catch to track down a Gil Hodges liner in the left field gap during the fifth. Bauer added an RBI single in the sixth, but it was more offense than Larsen needed. Home plate umpire Babe Pinelli rang up pinch hitter Dale Mitchell on a called third strike to end the ninth. It was a borderline call at best, but nonetheless, marked Larsen's seventh K on the day and the twenty seventh consecutive batter he retired. Berra leapt into his arms along the first base line, the two having just completed just the fourth perfect game in the modern era, and what remains the only no-hitter in post-season history.


Not only had they just made history, but the Yankees took their third game in a row to push he Dodgers to the brink of elimination. The Series shifted back to Ebbets Field the next day, and while Game Six didn't quite match the drama of Game Five, it came awfully close. Clem Labine, usually the Dodgers relief ace, got the start. For the Yankees, Bob Turley, who had been knocked around in a Game Three start the previous year, took the ball. Since that start, Turley had made four World Series relief appearances, covering five and a third innings, ten strikeouts, and just a single run. He would pitch even better than that in Game Six, but the end result didn't improve at all.

Turley and Labine matched zeros through nine innings. Only five men made it as far as second base, three for the Yankees and two for the Dodgers, and no one advanced as far as third. In the tenth, Labine retired the Yankees in order for the fourth time on the day. In the bottom half, Turley got Labine to pop up for the first out, then issued a walk to Junior Gilliam. Pee Wee Reese bunted Gilliam to second, and with two outs, the Yankees elected to walk Duke Snider and go after Jackie Robinson. The veteran was now 37 years old and in his tenth season. He wasn't the same player he had been in his prime, but had rebounded from a subpar 1955 to have a good '56. Facing the Yankees in the Fall Classic for the sixth time, he stepped in the box for his 156th World Series plate appearance, all of them against the Yankees. He singled Gilliam in to give the Dodgers the win and force a Game Seven. It would be the last of hit of Robinson's career.

For the second straight year, the third time in their last four meetings, and the fifth time overall, the Yankees and Dodgers faced a Game Seven. Stengel surprisingly chose Johnny Kucks over Whitey Ford. Alston, to the surprise of no one, went with Don Newcombe. It was the fifth start of Newk's World Series career. After taking a tough luck loss in Game One of the '49 Series, Newcombe got bounced early in Game Four. He missed the '52 and '53 Series while serving in the military, and was then torched in Game One in '55 and in Game Two in '56. Given a shot at redemption, Newcombe couldn't break the trend of poor peformances against the Yankees.

Yogi Berra hit a two run homer in the first to put the Yankees on the board, and he added a second two run shot in the third to double the lead. Elston Howard led off the fourth with a solo shot, making it 5-0 and chasing Newcombe from the mound. Moose Skowron added a grand slam in the seventh, but Berra's first inning blast was all the offense Kucks needed. The 23 year old Hoboken native was in his second Major League season, just four years removed from signing with the Yankees. The tall, lanky right hander absolutely baffled the Dodger batters, scattering three singles and three walks on the afternoon. He retired the side in order four different times, allowed multiple baserunners in just one inning, and just one runner made it as far as second base. Despite recording just one strikeout, Kucks tossed a brilliant complete game shutout, returning the Yankees to the top of the baseball world. It was their sixth championship in eight years under Stengel, their seventh over the last ten seasons, and their seventeenth overall.

No one knew it at the time, but the end of the 1956 World Series also marked the conclusion of the Golden Age of New York baseball.

1955 World Series

Without a vested rooting interest, there's a natural tendency to want to see the underdog win, or at the very least, to want to see the perpetually downtrodden catch a break. It's why we want to see Charlie Brown finally boot one through the uprights, and why we want Wile E Coyote to finally acquire a properly functioning contraption from ACME Inc.

So aside from non-Yankee fans wanting to see the Yankees lose just by virtue of their being the Yankees, the Dodgers likely had a groundswell of support when they faced the Yankees in the World Series for the sixth time in fifteen years. Not just because they were oh for the first five, but there was a certain endearing character to those Dodgers teams.

While the Yankees and Giants were the "New York" teams, both originally based in Manhattan and both having benefited from early successes, Brooklyn was a more provincial club, named after their borough rather than their whole city. They played in intimate little Ebbets Field rather than the vast Polo Ground or expansive Yankee Stadium. Until the 1940s, their history was marked mainly with poor play and colorful managers like "Uncle Robbie" Wilbert Robinson (who managed the franchise that would become the Yankees during their final season in Baltimore) and a pre-genius Casey Stengel. They were "Dem Bums" or "The Boys of Summer", while rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel. And despite Brooklyn's run of excellence since the early forties, and the future Hall of Famers populating their roster, the perception still existed that no matter how well they did they would never be in the Yankees class. It was always "wait 'til next year".

Either that or I've listened to Doris Kearns Goodwin wax poetic in Ken Burns' Baseball far too many times. Either way, even though it never pleases me to see the Yankees come out on the short end of things, there is a certain part of me that's happy to know that Brooklyn eventually got theirs - especially with the crimes that were about to be committed against their fanbase.

-1955-

In 1954, the Yankees went 103-51, their best record yet under Casey Stengel. They finished eight games out of first, as Cleveland won a then record 111 games. The Yankees would not get a shot at a sixth consecutive championship. Over in the senior circuit, the Dodgers posted their fourth consecutive season of at least 92 wins, but finished five games back of the Giants. With the Yankees and Dodgers out of it, the Giants ensured NYC was represented in the World Series for the sixth straight year, and their surprising sweep of the Indians gave the city its sixth consecutive champion.

Normalcy was restored in 1955, as both the Yankees and Dodgers ascended to the top of their leagues for third time in four seasons. Brooklyn outpaced Milwaukee by 13.5 games while the Yankees held off Cleveland by three games.

Just two years removed from their last meeting, the Dodgers had essentially the same club as in '52 and '53, with Don Newcombe finally back in a Brooklyn uniform rather than an Army uniform. The biggest change was in the dugout, where Walter Alston replaced Chuck Dressen after the '53 Series. For the Yankees, the core of Mantle, Berra, and Ford remained, as did many of the complimentary parts, but things were changing.

Phil Rizzuto, the last link to the first Yankee-Dodger Series in '41, had lost his grip on the starting shortstop job. Gone were rotation stalwarts Allie Reynolds and Vic Raschi, and their partner in crime Ed Lopat had been reduced to just 12 starts in his age 37 season. Veteran Tommy Byrne and youngsters Bob Turley and Don Larsen rounded out the Yankee rotation behind Ford and the bullpen was essentially entirely overhauled. With Billy Martin serving in the Army until September, Gil McDougald had shifted from third to second, with Andy Carey taking over the hot corner. Reliable left fielder Gene Woodling had been traded away, replaced primarily by Irv Noren. Joe Collins was still on the roster, but Johnny Mize had retired and Moose Skowron had inherited the majority of the time that the tandem used to have at first base. Perhaps most noticeably, after years of facing the Dodgers with Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Newcombe, and Junior Gilliam, the Yankees finally had their first African-American player in Elston Howard.

As it had been in all but one of their previous meetings, Game One was at Yankee Stadium. Predictably, it was Ford against Newcombe. Perhaps less predictably, the game didn't prove to be the pitchers' duel one would expect with that match up. The Dodgers plated two in the second, on a Carl Furillo home run and a Don Zimmer RBI single. The Yankees responded in the bottom half. Elston Howard, playing in place of the injured Mantle, hit a two run homer in his first World Series at bat. The clubs traded single runs in the third to leave the game tied at three. Joe Collins led off the fourth with a homer to put the Yankees up a run, then added a two run shot two innings later to make it 6-3.

The Dodgers mounted a rally in the eighth. Furillo led off with a single. With one out, Robinson grounded to third, but an error by McDougald left runners on second and third. A sac fly from Zimmer scored Furillo and moved Robinson to third. With Frank Kellert at the plate, Robinson broke for home. In an extremely close play, home plate umpire Bill Summers ruled Robinson safe. Yogi Berra thought otherwise, and the perpetually affable backstop lost his head for one of the few times in his career. Fifty five years later Yogi still swears Robinson was out. It would be the final Brooklyn run on the afternoon. Bob Grim closed the Dodgers out in the ninth, giving the Yankees a 6-5 win and a one game lead.

Game Two pitted Tommy Byrne against Billy Loes. Byrne debuted with the Yankees in 1943, and after serving in the military, made four game cameos in both '46 and '47. He stuck for good the next year, spent the next three years as the Yankees' fourth starter, and started Game Three against Brooklyn in the '49 Series. Finally exasperated with his lack of control - back-to-back seasons of leading the League in walks and three straight in hit batsmen - the Yankees shipped Byrne to the Browns early in the '51 season. After stops with the White Sox, Senators, and in the Pacific Coast League, the Yankees reacquired Byrne as they chased Cleveland down the stretch in '54. Older and wiser, Byrne's second go-round in the Bronx was much smoother. He cut down on his walks and hit batsmen, and led the AL in winning percentage in '55. It was the best season of his career.

The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead against Byrne in the fourth, as Pee Wee Reese doubled and Duke Snider singled to start the inning. In the Yankee half, they would get the run back and then some. With two outs the bases empty, Berra singled and Collins walked. Howard and Billy Martin followed with consecutive singles, both of which scored a run. Pinch hitter Eddie Robinson got plunked, then Byrne ripped a single of his own, scoring two more. The Dodgers got one back in the fifth, but that was all the scoring for the day. The Yanks won 4-2, taking a two games to none lead. Byrne was characteristically wild, walking five and plunking another, but he gave up just five hits in going the distance.

With the Series shifting to Ebbets Field, Bob Turley got the start for the Yankees. Acquired from Baltimore in a seventeen player trade the previous off-season, Bullet Bob had just turned 25 and was the best non-Whitey Ford pitcher on the '55 Yankees. He didn't have it Game Three though, as the Dodgers got him for two in the first and two more before he could record the second out of the second inning. The Yankees responded with a pair of their own in the second. Mickey Mantle, making his first start of the Series, homered and Phil Rizzuto had an RBI single. But the Dodgers put up pairs of runs again in the fourth and seventh. Roy Campanella had a big day with a single, double, homer, and three RBI, and Johnny Podres tossed a complete game as the Dodgers took an 8-3 win to capture their first game of the Series.

Don Larsen and Carl Erskine faced off in Game Four. Erskine had been the Dodgers de facto ace while Newcombe was in the service; Larsen came to the Yankees in the same mega trade that brought Turley. Neither Game Four starter would fare much better than Turley had in Game Three. Erskine gave up three runs in as many innings, Larsen five in four plus. Reduced to a battle of the bullpens, Brooklyn was able to hold it together better than the Yanks, taking an 8-5 win an evening the Series at two games apiece.

It had been four full days since Game One, but neither Newcombe nor Ford took the ball in Game Five. Walter Alston tabbed rookie Roger Craig to start, while Stengel gave the ball to sophomore Bob Grim, who had spent most of the season pitching in relief and had closed out Game One behind Ford. The Dodgers jumped up 3-0 on home runs by Sandy Amoros and Snider. The Yankees scratched a run in the fourth on an RBI single from Billy Martin, but Snider took it back in the fifth with his second homer of the game. Bob Cerv and Berra hit leadoff homers in the seventh and eighth to cut it to 4-3, but Robinson singled in an insurance run in the eighth, and the Yankees went in order against Clem Labine in the ninth. The Dodgers took all three games in their home park to push the Yankees to the brink.

Back at Yankee Stadium for Game Six, the home team was in an unfamiliar position, but not an unprecedented one. Three years earlier, the Yankees entered Game Six down 3-2, before winning the last two on the road to take the Series. They had to do it again, and this time they'd get to attempt it at home.

Ford returned to the bump for Game Six, but Alston went with fireballing lefty Karl Spooner rather than Newcombe. The Yankees got to him immediately. He walked leadoff batter Phil Rizzuto and number three hitter Gil McDougald. Berra and Bauer followed with singles to make it 2-0, then Moose Skowron homered to right to make it 5-0 and chase Spooner, who would never again appear in the Majors. It was all the offense the Yankees would have on the day, but it was more than enough for Ford. He tossed a complete game, scattering four hits and four walks while striking out seven and allowing just one run.

And so, just as they had in 1947 and 1952, the Yankees and Dodgers would play one last game for all the marbles. Stengel chose Tommy Byrne; Alston went with Johnny Podres. The game was scoreless through the first three stanzas. Roy Campanella hit a one out double in the fourth, moved to third on a groundout from Carl Furillo, and scored the game's first run when Gil Hodges singled him home. The Dodgers doubled their lead in the sixth. Reese led off with a single, and the Dodgers attempted a bunt with number three hitter Duke Snider. Yankee first baseman Moose Skowron botched the catch, and both runners were safe. Clean up hitter Campanella bunted both runners over, then Byrne intentionally walked Furillo to load the bases. Stengel summoned Grim, who yielded a sacrifice fly to Gil Hodges, plating an unearned run.

Meanwhile the Yankee bats had no answers for Podres. He had shut them down in Game Three and was shutting them out in Game Seven. The Yankees had the makings of a rally in the bottom of the sixth. Martin led off with a single, and McDougald followed with a bunt base hit to put the tying runs on base for Yogi Berra. Berra, a dead pull hitter, sliced one into the left field corner. Left fielder Sandy Amoros raced to the ball, improbably hauled it in on the fly, and fired back to Reese, who threw to Hodges to double up McDougald. The rally was snuffed out and the Dodgers maintained their two run lead.

In the seventh, Elston Howard struck a two out single. With the pitcher's spot due, Stengel pulled an ace from up his sleeve, tabbing Mickey Mantle to pinch hit. Hobbled by a torn leg muscle, Mantle missed Games One, Two, Five, and Six in their entirety. Yet he managed a home run in his Game Three start, and another one here would tie the game. Instead, he popped to short to end the inning.

The Yankees threatened again the eighth. Singles from Rizzuto and McDougald put the tying runs on base with one out for Yogi Berra and Hank Bauer. Berra flew out to right, too shallow for Rizzuto to tag, and Bauer struck out to end the threat. Once again, Podres wriggled out of a jam.

In the ninth, Skowron tapped back to Podres; Cerv flew to left, and Howard bounced out to Reese. Finally, in their eighth World Series, in their sixth against the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers had captured a championship. At long last, next year had come.

More On Yankee Numbers

A special Saturday good morning Fackers. After today we'll have just ten days left in our Countdown to Spring Training, meaning we'll be sixty percent of the way through the countdown that started back when there were twenty five days to go.

We'll have today's posts a little later on. But as we start off this morning I wanted to give a big tip of the hat to the awesome yankeenumbers.com. The site is a comprehensive source on the history of Yankee numbers, for players, coaches, and managers alike. It's a cool place to go to kill some time when you're bored and it's been a great resource for Jay and me as we go through the countdown.

One of the interesting things to note in looking through the site is that when uniform numbers were first introduced that weren't really utilized in the ways we're accustomed to now. These days, a player's number is part of his identity. For the bigger names in the game, their numbers can become synonymous with their names. But when the Yankees first introduced permanent numbers in 1929, they served a different purposes.

In the days when the game was brought to the public almost exclusively through print, in the infancy of radio, and long before the existence of TV, cable, internet, Extra Innings, and MLB.tv, the fans in the park knew far less about who was whom on the field, particularly for the visiting team. Adding numbers to the uniforms helped in identifying the players. As well all know, the Yankees issued their numbers based on the batting order: Earle Combs was number one, Mark Koenig two, Babe Ruth three, Lou Gehrig four and so on. While this worked well for the regulars, it was a bit more nebulous for pitchers and reserves.

As such, the concept of a number "belonging" to a player hadn't yet been established. If the batting order changed from year to year, or if players worked their way from the bench to the starting line up, the players' numbers changed. Later on, when players went off to World War II, in their absence their numbers were issued to new players. With the exception of the unique and tragic circumstances surrounding Lou Gehrig, the Yankees didn't retire anyone's number until Babe Ruth in 1948.

Thus, uniform numbers were very fungible until the 1950s. Top players like Tony Lazzeri and Herb Pennock switched numbers multiple times in the early thirties. Established veterans like Charlie Keller, Tommy Henrich, and several others wore multiple numbers over the course of their careers, compounded by their numbers being reissued during their service in the second World War. As a result, when we look at candidates for posts for a given day in the countdown, we often several deserving candidates, but find it difficult in some cases to determine which number best represents a given player.

Even the legends aren't immune to this. The great DiMaggio saw his number five reissued during his military service. Players like DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Billy Martin, and Mickey Mantle all broke in wearing one number, only to be immortalized in Monument Park wearing another. Eight different players wore Babe Ruth's number three between his release after the 1934 season and his number retirement in 1948.

One interesting thing I came across in researching the Gil McDougald post is that while he held number 12 for the entirety of his career, from 1951 through 1960, a player by the name of Woodie Held is also listed as wearing number 12 in 1957. At no point was McDougald out for more than a few games in '57, and he wasn't sent down at any point. So how could two players have had the same number? Checking Held's gamelog, he appeared in just one game before getting traded to Kansas City. The game was on May 8th, and while Held pinch hit in the ninth, McDougald played the whole game. Could two Yankees have worn the same number in the same game? I don't know, but these are the mysteries one can find when poking around yankeenumbers.com

12 Days Until Spring Training: Gil McDougald

In his twelve years as Yankee manager, Casey Stengel won ten AL pennants and seven World Series. While having all time greats like Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and White Ford at his disposal certainly helped, much of Stengel's success stemmed from his ability to coax worthwhile contributions from virtually his entire roster. Stengel was one the first managers to popularize a platoon system, and he was a master at it.

The Old Perfessor had an ever rotating cast of good players that he moved in and out of the line up around his cornerstones. First basemen like Joe Collins, Tommy Henrich, Johnny Mize, and Moose Skowron. Billy Martin, Jerry Coleman, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Bobby Brown, Billy Johnson, Billy Hunter, and Andy Carey in the infield. Gene Woodling, Hank Bauer, Cliff Mapes, Jackie Jensen, Johnny Lindell, Bob Cerv, Irv Noren, Elston Howard, Enos Slaughter, Norm Siebern, and Hector Lopez in the outfield. And a seemingly limitless cast of pitchers shuffling between the bullpen and starting, without anything resembling a regular starting rotation. But perhaps no player was a better fit in the Stengel system than Gil McDougald.

The San Francisco born McDougald signed with the Yankees in early 1948. He spent three years in the minors, hitting .340 and slugging .510 through three different levels. In Spring Training in 1951, Stengel asked the career second baseman to learn each infield position. It would be a career altering decision. Despite never having played in AAA, McDougald broke camp with the big club. Mickey Mantle was far and away the most heralded rookie on the club, but come season's end it was the .306/.396/488 (142 OPS+) batting line of McDougald that earned Rookie of the Year honors and a ninth place finish in the MVP voting. He also became the first rookie to hit a grand slam in the World Series, as the Yankees captured the third of their record five consecutive championships.

In the field, McDougald split his time between second and third base. Through 1955 he would continue to split time between the two positions, spending two seasons as the team's primary third baseman, two as the primary second baseman, and making at least seventeen appearances at his secondary position each year. Throughout, McDougald continued to produce on offense, posting OPS+ ranging from 101 to 117 during these years.

1956 saw McDougald take up a new spot on the diamond. At 39 years old, Phil Rizzuto just couldn't cut it as the everyday shortstop any longer, with both his offense and defense slipping below acceptable standards. As such, Stengel shifted the trusty McDougald to the most important defensive spot on the field. Gil had a remarkable season as the shortstop, playing above average defense, posting his best offensive season since his rookie year, finishing seventh in the MVP voting, and still managing to see time at second and third.

McDougald remained at shortstop in 1957, when a horrific event nearly caused him to quit the game. In Cleveland on May 7th, the Tribe sent Herb Score to the mound. Score had been outstanding through his first two years in the league, winning Rookie of the Year and leading the AL in strikeouts both seasons, and in shutouts and ERA+ in 1956. With no one out in the top of the first and Hank Bauer on first, McDougald stepped to the plate. He lined Score's offering right back up the middle, striking the pitcher square in the eye. The ball caromed on the fly to third baseman Al Smith, who threw to first to double up Bauer. Score lay on the mound in a pool of his own blood. His season was over; his promising career would never be the same. McDougald vowed to retire if Score lost sight in the eye.

Score didn't lose sight, and McDougald stayed on through the 1960 season. Tony Kubek's arrival usurped McDougald as the everyday shortstop, but he continued to be a valuable member of the roster, playing well all over the infield and producing offensively. Just 32 at the end of the 1960 season, McDougald was to be left unprotected by the Yankees for the expansion draft that would fill the rosters of the Angels and Senators.

Projected to be a top pick, McDougald instead elected to retire, in order to remain close to his large family and their New Jersey home as well as to tend to his growing maintenance business. In his ten year career, McDougald played on eight pennant winners, five World Series winners, and five All-Star teams. He posted a career 111 OPS+, had three top ten MVP finishes, and won the Rookie of the Year, while making 284 appearances at shortstop, 508 at third base, and 599 at second base.

Unfortunately, an injury suffered during his playing days began to alter McDougald's life. In 1955, while picking up a ball during batting practice, McDougald was struck above the left ear by a line drive. Diagnosed with a concussion, he was back on the field in days. But the blow had fractured McDougald's skull and damaged his inner ear. He lost hearing in his left ear after some time, and then gradually in his right as well, causing to him to resign from his post as Fordham University baseball coach in 1976. He was left deaf until a cochlear implant restored his hearing in 1994. He's spent the past 15 years as an advocate for the hearing impaired.

(Photos from LIFE photo archive)