60 Years Ago (1955): The Yankees Win . . . With 2 Games to Spare

For the 1955 Yankees, it came down to game 152, on September 23, with just two left on the schedule. Taking on the Red Sox in the second game of a doubleheader, they claimed a 3-2 victory after losing the opener to officially win the American League pennant for the sixth time in Casey Stengel's now seven years as their manager. Except for their 1953 pennant, which they won by 8 games, all of their pennants so far in the Stengel era had come down to the final few games.

(1955): The Yankees Win . . . With 2 Games to Spare

When last we left the American League pennant race, on September 13, the Yankees despite Bob Turley's 5-hit shutout of the Detroit Tigers trailed the Cleveland Indians by two games. They had 11 games remaining, and the Indians were left with nine. Cleveland was on a mission to become the first team not named the New York Yankees to win back-to-back AL pennants since the 1934-35 Tigers of Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, Mickey Cochrane, Tommy Bridges, and Schoolboy Rowe. 

The Yankees had won 103 games in 1954, more than in any of their five straight pennants under Stengel from 1949 to 1953, but that was eight fewer than the Indians, and so, no six in a row. They were determined to get back to their expected, assumed, even presumed rightful place in the baseball universe—the best team, period.

But there were no more head-to-head match-ups between the two contenders, so the Yankees were going to have to focus on winning their own games and hope that the Indians would stumble in their few remaining games. They might have considered whether their fate would be the same as Cleveland's back in 1952. In that year, the Indians entered the final month of September trailing the Yankees by just two games, but with only one chance to take on the Yankees face-to-face—in the middle of the month. That Indians team preceded to have their best month of season, with a 19-5 record. Despite that, however, they ended the final month of the 1952 season exactly where they were at the beginning of September, two games behind the Yankees, because the New Yorkers matched the Clevelanders win-for-win and had the same 19-5 September record. (FYI: The Yankees won their lone match-up in September.)

The Yankees' two-game deficit at the end of the day on the 13th was their largest in four months, since they were 2½ down back on May 15. They so far had spent the entire month of September in second place, keeping pace with the Indians They began each of the first nine days of the month just half-a-game behind. But Turley's 6-0 shutout of the Tigers was the first of eight straight wins—their longest winning streak of the year—that put them in a position to take the pennant with just one victory in their final season series, four games in Boston.

While the Yankees were winning eight in a row—two against Detroit, a three-game sweep of Boston in New York, and a three-game sweep of the Senators in Washington—the Indians had lost five of six to be suddenly on the brink of elimination at the start of play on the 23rd. Now trailing by 3½, with only three games left against the Tigers in Detroit and the Yankees with four in Fenway Park, Cleveland needed to win out and hope the New Yorkers lost all four of theirs just to end the 154-game schedule with identical 94-60 records and force a playoff for the pennant.

The Red Sox were not a team from which much was expected in 1955. After their disastrous end to the 1949 season—when they went into Yankee Stadium for two games on the last weekend of the schedule with a one-game lead, needing to win just win to go to the World Series, and lost both games (and the pennant)—and inability to make up for a poor start to the 1950 season, ending up just four games behind the Yankees, Boston had become mostly irrelevant in the American League. It surely didn't help that their star shortstop Vern Stephens hurt his knee in 1951 and was never the same again; that their star second baseman Bobby Doerr retired after the 1951 season; that their star third baseman Johnny Pesky was traded away in 1952; that their star center fielder Dom DiMaggio retired in 1953; and that their star of stars, Ted Williams, was flying combat missions in Korea in 1952 and 1953.

Although the Red Sox were technically a first-division ball club in 1954 by virtue of their fourth-place ending, they finished a whopping 42 games out of first place with a losing 69-85 record. Williams, who had threatened to retire after the 1954 season, was a no-show for spring training in '55 and did not join the club until late May, after his very contentious divorce was settled. Without their Splendid Splinter in the line-up, the Red Sox started poorly, but soon after his return, they began winning at a league-best torrid pace. A 41-17 record in June and July brought the Red Sox into contention, and on August 7 they were within a game-and-a-half of first, although still in fourth place. 

As late as September 7, the Red Sox were still ostensibly in the pennant chase, in fourth place but only three out. Then reality caught up with Boston. Twelve losses in the next 14 games, including three in a row at Yankee Stadium, revealed the true Red Sox of 1955, and when the Yankees came into Boston for the final four games, the Bosox were a distant 12 games out. They were, however, a team with a winning record . . . and a chance to play the role of spoiler—if they could beat the Yankees in all four games, set up as a Friday doubleheader, an off-day Saturday, and a Sunday doubleheader.

The Indians were off on Friday and could only hope that when they took the field again on Saturday for the first of their final three games, that the Yankees had lost their Friday doubleheader. After Boston won the opening game, 8-4, the Yankees scored twice in the first inning of the second game to take a lead they would not relinquish on their way to a 3-2 win. Stengel called on Whitey Ford in relief when starter Don Larsen gave up a run in the seventh, and Jackie Jensen took Ford deep in the eighth, but the Yankee southpaw retired the Red Sox in order in the ninth to put an end to the 1955 American League pennant race.

The Yankees proved once again in the Stengel era that they were at their best in games they had to win. Until they completed their three-game sweep of Boston at Yankee Stadium on September 18, the Yankees had played 12 games since the beginning of the month with first place directly at stake—meaning they began the day's game either tied for first (once, on September 16), no more than a game ahead (they had last been in first place on August 28), or no more than a game behind (nine times they started half-a-game out of first, and twice they were one game out). They were 9-3 in those games to keep the heat on Cleveland. In their first four pennant races under Stengel, all of which went down to the wire, the Yankees were 30-15 in September games with first place up for grabs.

The World Series was now set. The New York Yankees would take on the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had been waiting patiently to see who would win out in the American League since clinching the National League way back on September 8. 

The two teams had a history. Not one that the Dodgers wanted to be reminded of. 

But. . . 

Maybe this would be . . .

. . . Next Year. 

60 Years Ago (1955): Indians in Weak Command

When the Indians swept the Senators in a doubleheader on September 13, 1955, they took a two-game lead in the American League over the Yankees. With their record now at 90-55, they had played 145 games and had just 9 to go. The Yankees had 11 games remaining. The two teams would face off no more in the 1955 season, meaning Stengel's boys were going to have to play very well for their part and count on the Senators (who the Indians would play once more), the Tigers (six games remaining against the Indians), and White Sox (two left against the Indians) to derail Cleveland.

Indians Look to be in Command

The two-game advantage Cleveland held after defeating the Senators 3-1 and 8-2 in the Sept. 13 doubleheader at Griffith Stadium was their biggest lead of the season since they were three up way back on May 11, their 26th game of the season. For most of the summer, the Indians ran third. They were as far back as 8 games on July 2, hardly looking like the team that set the American League record for wins with 111 the previous year. By the end of July, Cleveland was back in the thick of things.

They began their stretch drive by taking two of three from the Yankees in late August and three of four from the White Sox at the beginning of September, all of those games played in Cleveland. Their three wins against Chicago, one each by their trio of aces—Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, and Mike Garcia—knocked the White Sox out of first place into third, and put Cleveland at the top of the standings, by half-a-game over the Yankees on September 4. Including their doubleheader sweep, the Indians since then had won 8 of 10, including splitting a vital two-game set against the Yankee played as a Sunday doubleheader in New York on September 11. 

Chicago, meanwhile, had gone into a bit of a tailspin beginning when they lost the last three of their four-game series in Cleveland from September 2 to 4. That was the start of 8 losses in 13 games that now had the White Sox 4½ games out of first. Although not officially done, they had realistically faded from contention. Like the nearby Milwaukee Braves in the other league, the White Sox were an up-and-coming club that had been expected to contend but who were not quite ready for prime time.

The Yankees had not been in first place since August 28, but refused to go away. This had been a remarkable characteristic of the pinstripers ever since Stengel took over as their manager in 1949, testifying to both their resilience and relentlessness. With the exception of 1953, when the Yankees won the pennant by a blowout margin, and 1954, when the Indians returned the favor, the Yankees were in a dogfight for the pennant in every September since 1949, and their record in each of those Septembers was better than their winning percentage for the season. The same would be true in 1955.

As the season was now headed into its final 12 days, the Indians with a two-game lead controlled their own destiny. Although they had just one game remaining against a losing team—the Senators, whose record now stood at 50-91, the second-worst record in the big leagues—and the Yankees had three left against Washington, it was arguable which contender faced the more formidable opposition the rest of the way.

The Indians would return home for three against the fifth-place Tigers, who were 72-72 as of the 13th, followed by two in Chicago and their final three games in Detroit. The White Sox, of course, had been a true contender for most of the summer and had a formidable 85-59 record, and while faded from contention, they were still a dangerous team. In their series so far in 1955, Cleveland had done well against both teams, winning 10 of 16 against Detroit and 11 of 20 against Chicago.

The Yankees had one remaining with Detroit before taking on the Red Sox for three at Yankee Stadium, going to Washington for three, and finishing the season with four games at Fenway Park in Boston. With an 82-61 record as of September 13, the Red Sox had played much better than expected for a team that won just 69 games in 1954. In their series so far in 1955, the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox in 9 of 15 games and the Senators in 13 of 19. 

Trailing by two, with 143 games down and only 11 to go, the Yankees were surely regretting that they had lost 13 of the 22 times they had played Cleveland. It was the first time in the Stengel era, beginning in 1949, that the Yankees had lost a season-series to a pennant-race rival. Coming into the season, they had faced off against 9 teams in six years that won at least 90 games in the American League, winning six of those series and splitting three—including against Cleveland in both ’53 and ’54. 

60 Years Ago (1955): Whitey Ford's Back to Back One-Hitters

Whitey Ford won his 17th game of the 1955 season on September 7, allowing just one hit in beating the Kansas City Athletics, 2-1. It was his second consecutive start pitching a complete-game one-hitter. Five days before, Ford had defeated the Washington Senators, 4-2, giving up just one hit. In between, he pitched an inning-and-a-third against the Senators to pick up a save, retiring all four batters he faced. Every win was important because both the Indians and White Sox were keeping pace with the Yankees, all three teams maneuvering within two games of the top.

Whitey Ford's Back-to-Back One-Hitters

Neither of Ford's one-hitters, both pitched in Yankee Stadium, came against one of the better teams in the American League. Only one of the 16 major league teams had a worse record than the 46-81 Washington Senators when Ford took the mound against them. Their most dangerous hitter was Roy Sievers, who had been red-hot in the month of August, batting .363 and hitting 6 of the 25 home runs he had at the end of the season. The Kansas City Athletics, who stood at 56-79 on the day they faced Ford, had the fourth-worst record in the big leagues. Gus Zernial, whose 30 home runs for the year would be second in the league, was KC's most potent power threat, but Vic Power, who finished with a .319 batting average and 19 home runs, probably their most dangerous hitter.

Ford had already beaten the Senators twice in two starts, winning blowout games by 19-1 (on opening day) and 7-2 , and was 3-0 in his three starts against the Athletics, winning 6-1, 7-3, and 3-2.

And neither of his one-hitters was a work of art, especially not for a pitcher whose reputation already was, or would soon become, that of a sublime left-hander—at only 5-10 and 178 pounds, hardly an imposing figure on the mound—who was an artist in the craft of pitching. Ford walked four batters in his September 2 start against the Senators, although one was intentional, and he walked six in his September 7 start against the Athletics, two intentionally. In both games, the only hit Ford allowed came in the seventh inning—late enough in the game for the fans in the Stadium to take notice that a no-hit possibility was in the offing, building drama, but not so late in the game that the drama built to compelling anticipation. 

And, as the final scores indicate, neither game was a shutout.

On September 2, Ford held the Senators hitless through six innings, allowing just two base runners on walks in the first (so much for the perfect game) and fourth. But after Ford's party-hearty running-mate Mickey Mantle had just hit a three-run home run off Bob Porterfield to break-up a scoreless pitching duel, the top of the seventh was uncharacteristically sloppy for Ford and the Yankees. Ford walked Mickey Vernon for the second time to start the inning, got the dangerous clean-up hitter Sievers to foul out, and then witnessed not only Carlos Paula break up his no-hitter after 6.1 innings with a single to left, but left fielder Irv Noren throw the ball away to allow Vernon to score and Paula to reach third. He scored on a Tommy Umphlett grounder to short. Ford allowed another walk, then retired the final seven batters he faced.

With both Cleveland and Chicago winning, Ford's one-hitter kept the Yankees tied with the Indians in second place, a mere half-game behind the White Sox. It was an important victory, if for no other reason than the Yankees had been playing somewhat raggedly since winning 13 of 16 to take a 1½-game lead on August 25. Since then they had lost four of six, including two of three in Cleveland that left the two teams tied for first.

Two days after the one-hitter, manager Casey Stengel called on Ford to relieve Bob Turley in the eighth inning with two outs and the Yankees leading, 7-3, but with two runners on. Switch-hitter Ernie Oravetz, in his first of only two years in the majors, was at the plate. No problem. Ford retired him, and all three Washington batters in the ninth to preserve the victory. The Yankees were still half-a-game behind. 

On September 7, Ford again had a no-hitter going when he took the mound in the 7th inning, the Yankees with a 1-0 lead on a fifth-inning single by Billy Martin, another of Ford's (and Mantle's) party-heart running-mates. The seventh once again proved messy for Ford and the Yankees. Ford, who had already walked three, made that four with four pitches the umpire called balls to Hector Lopez. This was after retiring the first two batters in the inning. Jim Finigan rapped a ground-rule double to break up the no-hitter, after which Stengel chose discretion as the better part of valor with pinch hitter Enos Slaughter at the plate, batting .312, by having Ford intentionally walk him to load the bases. Sadly for the shutout bid, Ford unleashed a wild pitch with pinch-hitter Elmer Valo at the plate, on which Lopez scored and the two other runners moved up. Valo was intentionally walked to load 'em up, but as in his previous start, Ford again retired the last seven batters he faced. 

Perhaps ironically, because the Athletics had six runners reach base on walks against Ford, the Yankees won this game on a walk-off walk. The Yankees had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the ninth for Irv Noren, whose plate discipline led to a walk down to first for him, and to home for the runner on third to secure a 2-1 triumph for the Bronx "Bombers," whose only two extra-base hits were doubles.

The victory gave the Yankees an 83-54 record in the 137 games they had played so far as the September stretch loomed ahead. With both Cleveland and Chicago again winning, Ford's second consecutive one-hitter kept the Yankees half-a-game back of the Indians. The White Sox were now a game behind the Yankees in third. (And for Red Sox Nation, Boston was still in the race, three games out of first.) Just 17 games remained for the New Yorkers.

60 Years Ago (1955)--Frank Lary: Yankee Killjoy

On August 23, 1955, the Yankees' lost their half-game lead in the standings when they were beaten in Detroit by the score of 7-2. They were now tied for first with the White Sox, and the Indians were only a game behind. The winning pitcher for the Tigers was 25-year-old rookie right-hander Frank Lary. He had now beaten the Yankees twice in four starts, which included a loss and a no-decision in a game Detroit lost after he left the mound. It was the beginning of Frank Lary's career as . . . "The Yankee Killer."

Frank Lary—Yankee Killjoy

Frank Lary, who relieved in three games at the very end of the 1954 season, was not even mentioned by Robert Creamer in his preseason American League preview for SI. The Tigers, according to Creamer, did have "three or four reasonably dependable starting pitchers," although he named only veterans Ned Garver—whose career has been unappreciated in part because he pitched for bad teams—and Steve Gromek. Beyond that, Detroit manager Bucky Harris's challenge was to "find starters and relievers from an unholy mess of rookies and proven undependables." (Nice turn of phrase, that.)

The Tigers opened the 1955 season with Garver, Gromek, Billy Hoeft, and the rookie Frank Lary as their four principal starting pitchers. Lary stayed in the rotation all season long, ending his rookie year with a 14-15 record, a 3.10 earned run average, 16 complete games in 31 starts, and a team-high 235 innings pitched.

Lary took the mound against the Yankees on August 23 having lost his previous start five days before against Cleveland. He entered the game with an 11-12 record and 3.38 ERA. This was the fourth time he would be facing the Yankees. Apparently not intimidated by the Yankees' lore, Lary beat them in a 3-1 complete game the first time he faced them on June 8 and the next time, on June 16, took a 2-0 lead at Yankee Stadium into the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, Yogi Berra's two-run home run to tie the game and Elston Howard's walk-off pinch-hit single with the bases loaded did him in. In Lary's 24.1 innings against them, the Bronx Bombers had scored just 6 runs on 21 hits.

Opposing him was hard-throwing right-hander Bob Turley, who the Yankees had acquired over the winter to be one of their aces. He came into the game at 13-11, probably a disappointment given the Yankees' expectations. This day, Turley failed to escape the second inning. After giving up a run on two walks and a single in the first, Turley hit the first batter he faced in the second, walked the next two (the second of who was his pitching opponent, Lary) to load the bases with nobody out, and then took a walk himself to the showers when Stengel brought in Johnny Kucks to try to control the situation. Two of Turley's base runners scored. 

Lary did fine protecting Detroit's lead on his way to a complete game victory. He walked just two, while the four Yankee pitchers Casey Stengel used that day were definitely not in control, walking a total of 11 Detroit Tigers in addition to the 8 hits they surrendered.

Every now and again a pitcher for a noncompetitive club emerges who seems unbeatable against an elite team. In his rookie season of 1908, the fourth-place Phillies' Harry Coveleski beat the New York Giants three times in five days to earn his enduring nickname as the "Giant Killer." Coveleski won only four games that year and by the end of the season had appeared in only 10 major league games. But while the chaos that ensued in the Fred Merkle game may have cost the Giants the 1908 pennant, Coveleski's three takedowns of McGraw's team in the final week of the season is what really denied them the top prize.

There would be nothing so dramatic about Frank Lary's ritual takedowns of the New York Yankees. There were no pennants denied the Bronx Bombers because they couldn't solve the mystery of Frank Lary. Lary's reputation as the "Yankee Killer" was nonetheless well-deserved, particularly because the Yankees were such a dominant club at the time he pitched for the Detroit Tigers: 

·        Lary pitched nine complete seasons in Detroit, from 1955 to 1963, and the Yankees won the pennant in eight of them.

·        Lary won 123 games with the Tigers, 28 of them against the Yankees. His highest victory total against any other team was 18 at the expense of the Senators-Twins franchise, who were one of the worst teams in baseball in the first six of Lary's years in Detroit, when they were in Washington before their move to Minnesota.

·        Lary’s 28-13 career record against the Yankees gave him by far his highest winning percentage (.683) against any team, and was very substantially higher than his career winning percentage of .528 (123-110) in a Tigers uniform. His career mark against the Senators-Twins was 18-15 (.545).

·        Indeed, the Yankees and the Senators-Twins were the only non-expansion franchises that Frank Lary had a winning record against. He was 14-14 in his career against both the Red Sox and White Sox, and had a 3-1 mark against the expansion Los Angeles Angels. Against the four other pre-expansion-era AL franchises and the new expansion team in Washington (also called the Senators), Lary had a losing record.

The Yankees had been riding a hot hand when they were beaten by Frank Lary. They had won 10 of their previous 11 games. But their winning ways had meant just one game in the standings, from a game behind the the White Sox on August 9 to tied with the White Sox on August 23, and Cleveland was just a game back. 

For the Yankees at 75-48, it was now 123 games down with 31 left on the schedule in a tight race in which all the contenders were playing well. There might well have been relief in the Yankee clubhouse that they had just one two-game series remaining with the Tigers, meaning they would have to see Frank Lary starting against them only one more time at most.   

The Tigers at 63-60 had also played 123 games, but they were 12 games back and playing out the string. Perhaps mercifully for the Yankees, since they trailed by a game-and-a-half when they next played the Tigers in mid-September, Lary had started against the Senators the game before that series began, and so the Yankees did not see him again until next year.

60 Years Ago (1955)--The Scooter's Comeback

Casey taketh away and Casey giveth back. On August 10, 1955, Stengel wrote Phil Rizzuto back into the Yankees' line-up as the starting shortstop in the midst of a tight four-team race. It was 111 games down and 43 to go for the third-place Yankees who were one game behind the White Sox, half-a-game behind the Indians, and just half-a-game ahead of the Red Sox (who were still close but not really a contender). This was almost exactly a year after Stengel had taken Rizzuto out of the Yankees' line-up as the starting shortstop, when they were in what was still a fight for the pennant with the 1954 Indians. Between August 15, 1954, and August 10, 1955, Rizzuto had started in only 17 of the 147 games the Yankees played. 

Scooter's Comeback

It hadn't always been thus. Casey Stengel wrote only a handful of names onto his starting line-up card on a daily basis when the Yankees won five consecutive pennants and five straight World Series from 1949 to 1953—Yogi Berra behind the plate, Joe DiMaggio and then Mickey Mantle (their playing-health permitting) in the outfield, Gil McDougald somewhere in the infield after he was called up in 1951, and Phil Rizzuto at shortstop. With the Yankee Clipper at the end of his great career, and Mantle at the beginning of his, Berra and Rizzuto were the cornerstone players on those teams. They each won an MVP Award, Rizzuto in 1950 and Berra the year after.

In addition to his defensive excellence, the Scooter was effective in getting things started for the Yankees batting first or second at the top of the order. He was extraordinarily proficient in moving runners into scoring position, leading the league in sacrifice bunts every year from 1949 to 1952. So outstanding were his bunting skills that Rizzuto frequently beat out bunts for hits. All things considered, including his contributions at the plate, Phil Rizzuto was the best at his position in the American League, rivaled for the best shortstop in baseball only by fellow New York shortstops Pee Wee Reese at Ebbets Field and Alvin Dark at the Polo Grounds.

After playing Rizzuto nearly every day and rarely taking him out of games in his first four years at the Yankee helm, Casey in 1953 determined it was time to take account of his shortstop's 35 years on planet Earth by relieving him of the burden of playing complete games. Although the Scooter had another very good year in 1953—batting .271, continuing to shine on defense, and finishing 6th in MVP voting—Rizzuto was still in the game for the final pitch in only 91 of the 132 games he started, almost always because Stengel chose to pinch hit for him, usually late in the game, in a bid for more runs. His thinking was clearly along the line of ARod's famous comment about another Yankee shortstop, nearly half-a-century later, not being someone opposing teams worried about when they assessed the Yankee line-up.

Not getting any younger, it was even more frustrating for Rizzuto in 1954. In mid-August, his batting average at .202 and the Yankees only three games behind the Indians while trying to capture their sixth pennant in a row, Stengel replaced the Scooter at shortstop with Willy Miranda. 

Willy Miranda is not a name anyone thinks about when thinking "1950s New York Yankees." His role had been as Rizzuto's defensive replacement after Stengel pinch hit for him, typically in the last third of the game. Now it was the Scooter's role to be Miranda's defensive replacement. He came into 19 games as a defensive replacement after Stengel had removed Miranda, himself a weak hitter, for a pinch hitter. 

Rizzuto started just three more games the rest of the year, all after Cleveland had wrapped up the American League pennant. All told Rizzuto appeared in 126 games at short, started 97 of them, and played a complete game only 50 times in '54.

In SI's preseason preview for 1955, Robert Creamer referred to Rizzuto as "the once-great Yankee shortstop" and mentioned Jerry Coleman as his likely replacement. In fact, however, it was Billy Hunter's turn to be the Yankee shortstop. 

Hunter had been acquired from Baltimore in a massive trade after the 1954 season ended that ultimately involved countless players—well, OK, 16 players—including those to be "named later." Bob Turley and Don Larsen were the most notable Yankee acquisitions in the deal, with all due respect to Mr. Hunter, who had been the Orioles' starting shortstop the two previous years, including his rookie season of 1953 when the Orioles were still the St. Louis Browns. He was considered to be much better defensively than he was at the plate, but in both disciplines . . . well he must better than Phil Rizzuto, now 37 years old.

Rizzuto started the first seven games of the season for the '55 Yankees, batting eighth in the order. His .294 batting average and on-base percentage close to .500 was not enough to persuade Stengel to keep him in the line-up, and Hunter took over as the starting shortstop. Although often removed for a pinch hitter with the Scooter replacing him defensively, Hunter started all but eight of the next 98 games. Rizzuto did not see his name in the starting line-up again until over a third-of-a-season in games and nearly two full months later—on June 16. After three consecutive starts, Rizzuto started at shortstop only once more until August 6.

By then, Billy Hunter had played his last game for the Yankees in 1955. His hitting deficiencies were just too many for Stengel to accept. The Yankees were now in a white-hot pennant race with both the Indians and White Sox. On August 4, the Yankees played host to Cleveland in the finale of a three-game series, the two teams tied for second but only a single game back of Chicago. Trailing 2-1 in the sixth with the tying run at third, only one out, and the imposing power-pitcher Herb Score on the mound, Stengel pinch hit for Hunter. For Stengel, the move itself was not unusual. But having gone hitless in what proved to be his last seven starts of the season, his average dropping from a season-high .244 to .227 (and his on-base percentage from .285 to .269), the next day it was off to the Yankees' Triple-A affiliate in Denver for Billy Hunter to work on his skills. 

Phil Rizzuto started at shortstop in 31 of the Yankees' remaining 48 games after Hunter's departure as the Yankees battled for AL bragging rights and a return to the World Series. In September he played much like the Rizzuto of days gone by, except batting at the bottom instead of the top of Stengel's line-up, often-times even ninth when the madcap Perfessor chose to bat the pitcher eighth. He batted .297 in September as the Yankees went 17-6 in the final month to beat out the Indians by 3 games. Rizzuto started all seven games in the World Series, in which he batted .267 but also drew five walks, and so was often on base.

It was the Scooter's last hurrah. Casey Stengel no doubt valued and was grateful for Phil Rizzuto's contributions to the five straight championships he won in his first five years as the Yankees' manager. But no sentimentalist was the Old Man. In stark contrast to how a future Yankee shortstop was handled, Rizzuto was called into Stengel's office in mid-August 1956 and unceremoniously dumped from the team. No final fond farewells even by Yankee opponents and a touching tribute at Yankee Stadium for Rizzuto, as there was for Derek Jeter.

All-Star Break 60 Years Ago: Yankees Poised to Put '55 Pennant Race Away

At the end of play on Sunday, July 10, 1955, when the major league baseball season adjourned for the annual All-Star Game, the pennant races in both leagues had a clear favorite to advance to the World Series. On the strength of their 22-2 start to take a 9½-game lead as early as May 10, the Dodgers were just biding time till October. They had been playing a bit ragged of late, having lost 7 of the 13 games they had played so far in July, but Brooklyn was very comfortably 11½ games out front of Milwaukee. The Yankees had a more modest five-game lead heading into the break, but also looked to be likely unstoppable. This is the 12th article in a series on the 1955 season—60 years ago.

All-Star Break 60 Years Ago: Yankees Poised to Put 1955 Pennant Race Away

Less than a month earlier, on June 18, it looked like the American League might witness a tight three-team race when the White Sox pulled into a first-place tie with the Yankees after winning the first two in a four-game set at the Baseball Cathedral in the Bronx otherwise known as the Yankee Stadium; Cleveland was just 2½ behind the New Yorkers and Chicagoans. But the Yankees swept the White Sox in their Sunday double-header—the start of a stretch in which they won 12 of 13 to assume a 6½-game lead over second-place Chicago on July 2. And at eight games off the pace in third place, the defending AL-champion Indians looked like they might not put up much of a fight in defense of their 1954 bragging rights.

Seven of those wins were against the teams with the three-worst records in the American League—three against Kansas City (in sixth place), two against Baltimore (in last place), and two against Washington (in seventh). But in addition to their two wins against Chicago to start that streak, the Yankees had also taken three at home from the Indians, against whom they also lost their only game between June 18 and July 3. Cleveland had come into Yankee Stadium four games behind; they left six games out.  

The Yankees won just three more games before the All-Star break, all against the Senators in Washington on the final weekend before the season was adjourned, but had lost just a game-and-a-half of their lead. At the break, their record stood at 55-29, and four Yankees made the All-Star team, with Mantle and Berra voted into the starting line-up. 

The two other Yankee All-Stars were their top two pitchers—lefty Whitey Ford, whose record was 10-4 with a 2.69 ERA at the break, notwithstanding having given up eight runs in eight innings in his last two starts, and Bob Turley, whose shutout of the Senators on July 9 gave him an 11-7 record and 3.06 ERA to take into the American League All-Star clubhouse. Ford's recent ineffectiveness wound up extending to the All-Star Game, played in Milwaukee, when he came on to pitch in the seventh inning with the AL leading 5-0 and surrendered the lead without surviving the eighth. The NL won the game, 6-5, in the 12th on a Stan Musial walk-off home run.

Although each had highlight moments vs. the Yankees' two principal rivals for the pennant, Ford and Turley both had losing records against the White Sox and Indians. Ford was 1-2 in four starts against Chicago, but his win was a 1-0 seven-hit shutout on May 17. He had also thrown a four-hit shutout against Cleveland on June 26. The Indians had otherwise roughed up the slick lefty, however, hammering Ford for 13 runs in 10.1 innings covering another start and two relief appearances; he was the losing pitcher in only one of those debacles, however.

And Turley was 1-2 in three starts vs. the White Sox and 0-2 in two starts vs. the Indians. His one win was a one-hitter on April 26 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Sherm Lollar got the only hit, a second-inning single. Turley was less than sharp in his one-hit shall we call it a masterpiece (?), walking nine (that's "9") batters, striking out 10, and throwing an uncounted but presumably outrageous number of pitches. He was helped out by three double plays turned by the Yankee infield.

The Indians and White Sox both had five players named to the AL All-Star team. Chicago second baseman Nellie Fox was voted into the starting line-up and Billy Pierce, with only a 5-6 record but an excellent 2.11 ERA, was selected to start. White Sox catcher Sherm Lollar, shortstop Chico Carrasquel, and pitcher Dick Donovan, who had an outstanding 10-2, 2.38 mark at the break, rounded out the Chicago contingent to the AL All-Stars. 

Cleveland had nobody starting in the game, but position players Bobby Avila (second base), Al Rosen (third base), and Larry Doby (center field) made the team, as did rookie phenom Herb Score—whose record was only 8-7 but was setting the league afire by striking out more than a batter an inning—and Early Wynn (11-4, 2.71) as pitchers. Wynn had beaten the Yankees in complete games in all three of his starts against the team that seemed poised to run away with the title. 

The Yankees' 6½-game lead on July 2nd and July 3rd, despite their 5-0 loss that day to the visiting Senators, would be their biggest of the season. Their loss to Washington began a stretch straddling the All-Star break in which they dropped 13 of 18 to lose the entirety of their All-Star-break lead by July 23. On that date, the White Sox had moved into a tie with them for first and the Indians had closed to within a game of the top. It was now 94 games down for the Yankees with a 57-37 record and 60 to go. Cleveland had the same number of games remaining on their schedule after July 23, and Chicago had 62 left.

60 Years Ago: Cleveland Gives the 1955 Yankees a Reality Check

When last we left the 1955 Yankees, they had just when 19 of 22 games beating up mostly on the second-tier teams in the American League; gone from four games under to three games up; and seemed poised to run away with the pennant the way the Dodgers were doing in the other league. They were embarking on a stretch of 19 consecutive games against the AL teams with winning records, including eight with the White Sox and four with the Indians—the two other teams expected to contend with the Yankees for the right to go to the World Series. If the Yankees were to be stopped from taking a commanding lead in the pennant race, this was the time. By June 12, their lead was down to 2½ games after losing three of four to the Indians.

Cleveland Gives the 1955 Yankees a Reality Check

After their sweep in Kansas City ran their record to 33-13 on June 2, the Yankees split their four games in Chicago and split four in Detroit but had still upped their lead to five games when they pulled into Cleveland on June 10 for a four-game series with the team that was the defending AL champions, and hence the must-beat team for the pennant. When Tommy Byrne outdueled Mike Garcia, 3-2, to win the opening game of the series, the Yankees' lead was 5½ over the White Sox and 6½ over the Indians. So far on the season, the pinstripers were 6-6 against their presumed primary competition for the pennant. (They were also 5-3 against the fourth-place Tigers, but Detroit was never presumed to be more than a pretend-contender for the throne.)

They were certainly holding their own against the AL's other best teams, but given their recent past ... was that enough?

Beginning when Casey Stengel took charge in 1949, the Yankees had made a habit of beating up the teams they were competing with for the pennant on their way to top honors. Until their blowout pennant in 1953—their fifth in a row in the Casey Regime—that excellent habit was the foundation for winning four straight close pennant races, none of which were decided till the final week of the season.

In 1949 they won the pennant by a single game on the last day of the season, beating the Red Sox in 13 of their 22 meetings, including each of the last two games on their schedule. Then they won the World Series.

In 1950 the Yankees either won or split their season series with each of the three other American League teams that won 90 games that year. New York took the pennant by three games over second-place Detroit, against whom they split (11-11) but won two of three in mid-September to bump the Tigers from the top spot, then never themselves relinquished first place. They finished four over third-place Boston, against whom they were 13-9 including a two-game sweep later in September to essentially dash any Red Sox hopes still remaining. And they ended eight ahead of Cleveland, against whom they were 14-8 including a three-game sweep at the end of August that all but sealed the Indians' fate. Then they won the World Series.

In 1951 the Yankees took 15 of 22 against the Indians—a seven-game advantage that exceeded the five games by which New York beat them for the pennant. Then they won a third straight World Series.

And in 1952, the Yankees' final two-game margin of victory over the Indians precisely matched the two-game edge of their 12-10 record against Cleveland in their season series. Although the Indians were not eliminated until the next-to-last game of the season, it was the Yankees beating them three in a row in mid-June that sent them from being tied at the top of the standings to having to play catch-up forever thereafter in 1952. The Indians stayed close, caught up for one day in late August (another tie), and that was that—except for the Yankees winning the World Series part, which the New Yorkers had down pat by now.

The Yankees split their season series with the Indians in both of the blowout pennant races of the next two years, first when they outdistanced Cleveland by 8½ games in 1953 (after which, another Fall Classic triumph) and then when they lost by eight games to Cleveland in 1954. For good measure, they were 13-9 against 89-win, third-place Chicago in 1953 and 15-7 against 94-win third-place Chicago in 1954. (They split against the third-place, never-in-contention Red Sox in 1951 and were 14-8 against the third-place White Sox in 1952).

For the record, the Yankees did not lose a single season series against any American League team that finished second or third or won at least 90 games on their way to winning five-and-five-in-five from 1949 to 1953, nor did they when they didn't win the pennant in 1954.

In building their 5½-game lead this week sixty years ago, the Yankees up to now were 5-3 against the White Sox and, after Byrne's victory, 2-3 against the Indians. Had they taken two of the remaining three in Cleveland on Saturday and Sunday, the Yankees would have knocked the Indians 7½ back—a staggering blow from which the Clevelanders might not have recovered. But instead it was the Indians who made the statement, "not so fast, guys, we're still playing for keeps. There will be no embarrassing failure to put up a fight for American League bragging rights."

On Saturday, Cleveland overcame five first-inning Yankee runs to knock out Eddie Lopat in the fourth and won the game on a two-out, ninth-inning walk-off single by 1954 batting champion, Bobby Avila, who was off to a sluggish start batting just .273.

In Sunday's doubleheader, they hammered Bob Turley for four runs in the sixth and six in the seventh to win the first game, and in the second game, the Indians scored three in the first off starter Bob Grim and four in the seventh off Whitey Ford on their way to a 7-3 triumph. The Yankees were still first, but their 5½-game lead was now down to 2½ over the White Sox and 3½ over the Indians.

For the Yankees, now 38-20, it was 58 games gone and 96 to go in the 1955 schedule of games for the American League pennant. The pennant race was on!

(Over in the other league, meanwhile, the Dodgers' lead was an imposing 10½ games with 56 down and 98 to go.)

Note: This is the tenth post in a series on the 1955 season. See earlier posts on Baseball Historical Insight.

Sixty Years Ago: Fueled by Mantle, the 1955 Yankees Make Their Move

While the Dodgers were running away with the 1955 National League pennant, their lead at 7½ games on June 2, the New York Yankees were threatening to do the same in the American League. After being swept at home by the Indians in a two-game series on May 10 and 11, which put them four games back of Cleveland in third place with a 14-10 record, the Yankees won 19 of their next 22 games against mostly second-rate teams to put themselves up in the standings by three games over the Clevelanders. Mickey Mantle, the Yankees' emerging superstar, broke out of a two-week batting funk to fuel his team's drive into first place.

Fueled by Mantle, the 1955 Yankees Make Their Move

So far in 1955, the Yankees' season pretty much tracked with both Mickey Mantle's batting average and the quality of teams that they played. They won 7 of their first 10 games, all against teams with losing records in 1954—the Senators, Orioles, and Red Sox—in which their burgeoning young superstar center fielder hit .353. Over the next thirteen games, the Yankees had a pedestrian 7-6 record while Mantle hit only .167 with 8 hits in 48 at bats, although half of his hits were home runs. Three of his four long balls helped the Yankees to victory as they struggled to get untracked but fell behind both the Indians and White Sox. 

Against the three other American League teams that had winning records as of May 10—the Indians, White Sox, and Tigers—New York had lost four of seven. Chicago, meanwhile, had won seven of eleven against the Indians, Tigers, and Yankees and Cleveland had won seven of twelve against the White Sox, Tigers, and Yankees.

When the Yankees took the field in their home stadium on May 11 for the second of their two-game set with the Indians, they trailed Cleveland by three and Mickey Mantle's slump had diminished his batting average to .244 with six home runs and 14 RBIs through the first 23 games of the season. Early Wynn ran his record to 3-0 while handing Yankee flamethrower Bob Turley his first loss of the year against five victories, but Mantle came out his his slump in a losing cause, driving in a run with a first-inning single and tagging Wynn for a home run in the eighth. 

The Detroit Tigers, whose 15-11 record on May 11 put them in a virtual tie with the Yankees in third place, came next to Yankee Stadium. And Mickey Mantle reached deep to recover his inner superstar. Suggesting his batting slump was an anomaly, in the first game of the series the Mick went 4-for-4 with three home runs. It was the first and only time in his career Mantle hit as many as three home runs in a single game. Right-handed Detroit starter Steve Gromek was the victim for two and southpaw reliever Bob Miller for one.

The next day, the Yankees went into the bottom of the ninth trailing the Tigers, 6-4, with Detroit starter southpaw Billy Hoeft still on the mound. Down to their last out with two runners on, Mickey Mantle singled to score one, and right-hander Al Aber was brought in to face to the right-handed-batting Elston Howard, who already had one hit for the day. Howard lashed a triple to win the game, Mantle crossing the plate with the winning run.

After the Tigers left town, essentially having been eliminated from the pennant race (although they didn't know it yet), the Yankees had the privilege of playing 18 of their next 20 games against losing teams that were not expected to be remotely competitive.

Robert Creamer wrote in his 1955 forecast for the American League in Sports Illustrated's first-ever preview of a major league season that the key to which of the three most-likely contenders—the defending champion Cleveland Indians, the New York Yankees, whose bid for six championships in a row was derailed by the Indians' 111 wins in 1954, and the up-and-coming Chicago White Sox—would win the pennant was likely to come down to which team had the best record "against the other five teams." In 1954, for example, the Indians' final eight-game margin over the 103-win Yankees was more than accounted for by their 89 wins against "the weak clubs," twelve more than the Yankees managed against those same teams. The Yankees and Indians had played each other to a draw in their 22 meetings during the 1954 season.

The Yankees lost the first game in their window of scheduling-opportunity to the Athletics, but then won seven straight—one against Kansas City, both games against the visiting White Sox, and a four-game sweep of the Orioles. Mantle was instrumental in both Yankee wins against pennant-race rival Chicago: on May 17, Mantle (who also had a single) walked in the sixth inning, advanced to second on a walk to Yogi Berra, stole third, and scored the only run of the game as Yankees ace Whitey Ford (now 5-1) outdueled White Sox ace Billy Pierce (now 2-2); and the next day, with the Yankees ahead 7-6, Mantle hit a seventh-inning grand slam to break open the game.

Up by three over Cleveland after sweeping the Orioles, the Yankees lost to the Senators before winning the next three against them, then went on the road where they took three straight in Baltimore, split two in Washington, and trounced the Athletics three times in Kansas City. 

The Yankees won all four games they played against winning teams during their 19-3 stretch from May 12 to June 2—two against the Tigers and two against the White Sox—but, just as important and in a long-established Yankee tradition, beat up on losing teams. They were 4-2 against the Senators, 4-1 against the Athletics, and 7-0 against the Orioles—the teams that were sixth, seventh, and eighth all with winning percentages below .400 by the time the Yankees were through with them. They did what Creamer said they must.

Mantle got a hit in sixteen straight games beginning in the second game of the Indians series at Yankee Stadium, during which he batted nearly .500 with 26 hits in 53 at bats, boosting his average up to .341 on May 27. His .340 batting average for the month of May was his best for the 1955 season. 

Mickey Mantle ended the year with a .306 average, but got on base in 43 percent of his plate appearances, leading the league. The Mick also led the league in home runs for the first time with 37 and in triples with 11, and in slugging (.671) and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.042). His 9.5 wins above replacement was the best in all of major league baseball—better even than Willie Mays who had a 9.0 WAR and was Mantle's rival for the apple of The Big Apple's eye. Next year, Mantle would win the Triple Crown.

With 46 down and 108 games to go, the Yankees record stood at 33-13, largely the result of having beaten up on second-tier competition in the American League. The Yankees, however, still had 18 to left to play against the team that had dethroned them in 1954. They had played arch-rival Cleveland just four times in having completed nearly 30 percent of their 1955 schedule, and had lost three of those games. 

Tougher competition was just ahead, beginning the next day, June 3, with the first of four games against the 27-16 White Sox (4½ games behind in third), followed by four games against the 24-20 Tigers, followed by four games against the defending AL-champion Indians, then three more against the Tigers and four more against the White Sox.

If anyone was going to catch the Yankees, the beginning of June would be the time.