Chasing Ruth and Berger and the Giants (60 Years Ago, August 31, 1956)

On the last day of August sixty years ago, the Cincinnati Reds belted two homers to run their major league-team-leading total to 191, which included the 35th of the year hit by rookie sensation Frank Robinson, and Mickey Mantle hit his major league-leading 47th home run. This meant that as the 1956 season turned to its final month, three single-season home run records were under assault—the 1947 New York Giants' team record off 221; Wally Berger's rookie record of 38 set in 1930; and Babe Ruth's famous 60 set in 1927. The first two were little remarked on, but Mantle's run at the Babe's record was a BIG deal.  

Chasing Ruth and Berger and the Giants
(60 Years Ago, August 31, 1956)

The score was tied at 4-4 at Washington's Griffith Stadium when Mickey Mantle came to bat with one out in the 7th inning against Camilo Pascual on the last day of August in 1956. He was batting left-handed against the Senators' 22-year-old Cuban-born right-hander, who was 6-13 so far in the 1956 season—his third year in the majors. Mantle proceeded to knock out his 47th home run of the year, giving the Yankees a 5-4 lead they would not relinquish.

Another day, another game, another Yankee victory. That was even though Washington outfielder Jim Lemon outdid Mantle by hitting three home runs in the same game . . . off Whitey Ford, no less. Jim Lemon hit 164 homers in his 12-year major league career, 7 of them off Whitey Ford. In all his years of pitching, no other batter touched Ford for more home runs than Lemon, and Lemon is the only player to have hit three in one game against the Hall of Fame master lefty. It was also the only time in the 1,010 games he played that he hit three homers in a single game. (Too bad it was in a losing cause.)

The New York Yankees entered the final month with an 83-46 record, 8½ games ahead of second-place Cleveland. It was 129 games down and just 25 to go for the Yankees. It would take a monumental collapse for the Yankees not to win the American League pennant for the seventh time in eight years, especially with the Indians having just two games left to challenge them head-to-head, the only circumstance under which they could assure a victory by them would mean a gain on the Yankees, since the Yankees could otherwise negate a Cleveland win against anybody else with one of their own.

Instead, the September drama for the Yankees would be whether Mickey Mantle would win the Triple Crown, and even more pertinent, whether he could break the record of 60 home runs belted by Babe Ruth in 1927. So far, the odds looked good for both quests. In addition to his 47 homers, Mantle was well ahead in batting average (.366) and runs batted in (118) for the Triple Crown crown. 

As for chasing the Babe? In 1927, Ruth had 43 home runs at the end of August in the 127 games the Yankees had played. In 1956, Mantle had 47 in 129. The Babe reached 60 by hitting 17 in September; Mantle would need 14 to break his record.

Meanwhile, at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, the Reds' Frank Robinson toed in at right side of the plate to lead off the bottom of the 9th against Cubs righty Bob Rush, his team down 3-2. Rush was the ace of the Cubs' staff and working towards his 13th victory of the year. That came to an end when Robinson crashed his 35 home run of the year to tie the score. The Reds went on to score another run that inning for a walk-off win that left them in third place, 3½ games behind the Braves and 1 behind the Dodgers, going into the final month.

Unlike for the Yankees, the September drama in Cincinnati would actually be a pennant race. With 128 games down and their record at 75-53, the Reds still had 26 games to go—more than enough for them to leapfrog both teams ahead of them, especially since they still had five games left against first-place Milwaukee, the first four of which would be their very next series beginning on September 3, and two against Brooklyn.

Paling in comparison, and quite likely little thought about, was the fact that Frank Robinson was comfortably ahead of Wally Berger's pace when he hit 38 home runs as a rookie outfielder for the Boston Braves in 1930. Both of their teams had played 128 games through the end of August. Berger entered September 1930 with 31 homers, and 26 years later, Robinson now had 35 and would need to hit just 4 more in September to set a new major league rookie record.

Hitting a home run earlier in the game for Cincinnati was catcher Ed Bailey, his 24th of the year. Big Klu—slugging first baseman Ted Kluszewski—had 33 and was aiming for a fourth consecutive 40-homer season. Outfielders Wally Post and Gus Bell had 27 and 25, respectively. Including Robinson, five of the Reds' eight core position players had at least 24 home runs. This was a club with long ball power, and it was that power that had them contending with the Braves and Dodgers for the National League pennant.

Cincinnati's 191 home runs going into September was ahead of the 182 the New York Giants had hit when they set the major league team record of 221 nine years earlier in 1947. The '47 Giants had played 127 games through August, compared to the '56 Reds' 128. The 1947 Giants ended up with four players hitting more than 20—Johnny Mize, who tied with the Pirates' Ralph Kiner to lead the league with 51, followed by Willard Marshall (36), Walker Cooper (35), and Bobby Thomson (29), who were the next three players on the 1947 NL home run leader board.

So heading into the home stretch of the 1956 season, Mickey Mantle—who was leading the league by healthy margins in all three Triple Crown categories—Frank Robinson, having a sensational rookie year, and the Cincinnati Reds as a team were all poised to challenge major league home run records. 

The only home run chase anyone was really paying attention to, however, was whether the Mick could catch and pass the Babe. The kind of year Mantle was having, as of September 1, 1956, it would have been foolish to bet against him.

'56 Yankees Going For 7-and-6-in-8 (August 25, 60 Years Ago)

When last we left Phil Rizzuto, he was jogging back to the dugout after being forced out at second base as a pinch runner in the 9th inning of a game at Yankee Stadium on August 16, 1956. That turned out to be the last time he appeared on the diamond as a player, because on August 25, he was unceremoniously released—no grand farewell tour of American League ballparks or a fond send-off before the home-town fans for the Scooter—so the Yankees could bring on board the former Cardinals' star, Enos Slaughter. It didn't seem like a necessary move since they held a safe-and-secure 8-game lead at the time, but Casey Stengel and the Yankees had bigger ambitions. They were out to match the 1936-43 Yankees' mark of seven pennants and six World Series championships in eight years. No other team in history had done that.

But unlike the original 7-and-6-in-8 Yankees who relied almost exclusively on their deep farm system to fill whatever their needs happened to be, the Stengel-era Yankees frequently dealt with other teams—including in August waiver deals—to acquire the players they felt were necessary to fly another World Series banner over the Stadium. Did they really need Enos Slaughter? Probably not. But they had visions of Johnny Mize dancing in their head. 

'56 Yanks Going For 7-and-6-in-8
(60 Years Ago, August 25, 1956)

Casey Stengel biographer Robert Creamer describes a poignant scene about Rizzuto's last day wearing No. 10 for the Yankees in Stengel: His Life and Times (Simon & Schuster, 1984). General Manager George Weiss and Stengel called Rizzuto into the manager's office, told them they had a chance to sign Slaughter off waivers, that a Yankee player would have to be cut to make room for him, and asked who he—the Scooter—thought that player should be. Rizzuto pondered the roster, suggested some names, presumably including hardly-ever used third-string catcher Charlie Silvera (he could not name seldom-used infielder Tommy Carroll, because he was a bonus baby required to stay on the major league roster for being paid the big up-front bonus money), and was told by Stengel why each of the players he named the manager needed.

Until, perhaps not considering at first what Weiss's presence in the meeting actually meant, it finally occurred to him . . . he was supposed to suggest . . . himself. We're not sure if Rizzuto thought it ironic that Enos Slaughter, whose rookie season was three years before his, was a year and a half older than he was. 

Phil Rizzuto was the Yankees' last link to the great Joe DiMaggio Yankees managed by Joe McCarthy, unless we also count Frankie Crosetti, who Rizzuto displaced as the Yankees' shortstop 15 years earlier but was now one of Stengel's coaches. 

When he made the team as a rookie in 1941, the Yankees were coming off the one year since DiMaggio's rookie season in 1936 that they did not go to the World Series. Before that, they had been to four in four years and won all four. When they assembled for spring training in 1941, McCarthy had already come to the conclusion that had the Yankees called up Rizzuto from their American Association farm club in Kansas City in the summer of '40, they would have won five in a row and would be working on six straight. That's because Crosetti, their long-time shortstop, had an abysmal year in 1940, hitting just .199 with a .299 on-base percentage. And he was McCarthy's lead-off batter for most of the year.

The Yankees won pennants in each of Rizzuto's first two years with the club, the World Series in 1941 but not/not in 1942, and then won both another pennant and Series without him and DiMaggio and Tommy Henrich in 1943 while that trio of Yankee stars were already serving their country in World War II. That gave the Yankees 7 pennants and 6 World Series in 8 years.

Now, here were Stengel's Yankees trying to match that. They had won five pennants and World Series in Stengel's first five years as manager (1949-53), with Rizzuto a major reason why in several close-fought pennant races; they did not/not win the pennant in 1954; and won the pennant again in 1955—but lost/lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. So they were at 6-and-5-in-7 and counting.

With their 8-game lead on August 25, and 123 games down with just 31 left to go, winning their 7th pennant in 8 years was not the issue. Winning the World Series, going for their 6th championship of the baseball world in those 8 years, well . . . that was.

When McCarthy's Yankees won 7-and-6-in-8 they did so with virtually an entirely home-grown ball club besides core veterans whose acquisitions were from before McCarthy won his first pennant in 1932. That was because it was not until 1932 that the Yankees had their own network of minor league affiliates. With the exception of DiMaggio, whose contract they purchased from San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League, every new regular on the DiMaggio Yankees who made the team after 1936 came up through their farm system. 

The Newark Bears were the crown jewel of the Yankee system. Their best prospects were sent to Newark in the top-tier International League to prove their major league worth before being promoted to New York. Aggressive and excellent scouting backed up by Yankee dollars helped make the Bears such a formidable club it was said they were better than most major league teams with losing records, and even some with winning records. And in 1937 they had two top-tier minor league affiliates, including Kansas City, where Rizzuto mastered his craft.

The Stengel-era Yankees were still able to call up high-quality players from their minor league affiliates, but were also much more aggressive in the trade market for the players they believed could fill specific needs that would mean the difference between winning another World Series, or not. 

Most famously, on August 22, 1949, they purchased veteran power-hitting first baseman Johnny Mize from the New York Giants to bolster their bench. Mize had led the NL in homers four times, including the previous year, but was in his mid-30s and nearing the end of his career. He became a terrific role-player for the Yankees in each of the next five years, when the Yankees went 5-and-5-in-5. He platooned at first base and was a valuable bat off the bench. And he was a star of both the 1949 and 1952 World Series.

Other such acquisitions by the Yankees were in August 1951 for Johnny Sain—he of Boston Braves' Spahn-and-Sain-then-pray-for-rain fame—who would be their relief ace the next three years; Jim Konstanty, baseball first reliever to win the MVP Award with the Phillies in 1950, who they picked up in August 1954; and Bob Turley and Don Larsen, both of whom the Yankees acquired in a block-buster trade with the Orioles in 1955. All were significant contributors to Yankee pennants.

And now the Yankees wanted Enos Slaughter, who had played for them for one year in 1954 but was traded to the Kansas City Athletics early in the '55 season. Sure, he was old—older than Rizzuto—and no longer the outstanding player he had been in his 13 Cardinals years, but he was a professional hitter and the Yankees coveted his bat. Of course, that meant somebody had to go.

So, good-bye, Phil.

Running for Larsen, No. 10, Phil Rizzuto (60 Years Ago, August 16, 1956)

In his last game as a Yankee, and perhaps in his big league career, on Friday, August 12 of this year, Alex Rodriguez probably did not know that in another four days it would be the sixtieth anniversary of Phil Rizzuto's last game as both a Yankee and a major league ballplayer. A-Rod was treated with a farewell ceremony before the game at Yankee Stadium, being in the starting line-up, and knowing it would be his final farewell appearance—at least in pinstripes. For the Scooter, there was no farewell ceremony; he was not in the starting line-up; and he did not know it would be the final game of his career. Indeed, all Phil Rizzuto knew for certain was that he was still a New York Yankee when the game ended, although now a seldom-used reserve for Casey Stengel.

Running for Larsen, No. 10, Phil Rizzuto
(60 Years Ago, August 16, 1956)

Boston right-hander Willard Nixon took a 2-0 lead and a 1-hitter into the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium on August 16, 1956. Yankee hopes got a rise when shortstop Milt Bolling booted Gil McDougald's grounder and pinch hitter Mickey McDermott—a pitcher who frequently masqueraded as a pinch hitter for Stengel because he could hit—singled to put runners on first and second leading off the ninth. For McDermott, it was the 16th time his manager had sent him up to pinch hit and his fourth hit in 13 official at bats (he also walked twice and had a sacrifice bunt). Billy Hunter was sent in to run for McDermott, representing the tying run.

Yankee starter Don Larsen, himself a pretty good hitter for a pitcher, came to bat, presumably to bunt both runners over, and wound up reaching base himself on a fielding error by second baseman Billy Goodman. The bases were loaded with nobody out and Hank Bauer, Billy Martin, and Mickey Mantle were the next three Yankees due up. 

Perhaps Yankee Stadium was graced by the voice of the home team's long-time public address announcer Bob Sheppard, then in only the 6th of his eventual 57 years on the job, intoning . . . "Running for Larsen, Number 10, Phil Rizzuto." (I admit to presuming, since I don't know.)

Rizzuto, representing the could-be winning run, would be running on 38-year-old legs that would be 39 in a little over a month. Once the cornerstone shortstop of Casey Stengel's five pennants and five World Series championships in his first five years as Yankee manager from 1949 to 1953, which included the Scooter finishing second in the 1949 voting for AL Most Valuable Player, winning the Award in 1950, and finishing sixth in the 1953 MVP voting, Phil Rizzuto was now at the end of Casey Stengel's bench.

Hardly able to keep his average above .200 in the summer of '54, Rizzuto was often removed for a pinch hitter if he came to bat and the Yankees had a scoring opportunity. He was benched in favor of Willy Miranda as the starting shortstop in mid-August that year, although Stengel often sent him in as a late-inning defensive replacement. Billy Hunter had the shortstop job in 1955, but the Scooter won his job back in early August and started all seven games in the World Series. McDougald was Stengel's choice to play shortstop in 1956, and this time there was no winning back the job for the baseball-elderly Phil Rizzuto.

If Rizzuto was not exactly the 25th man in the dugout, it was only because the Yankees were obligated to keep 19-year-old infielder Tommy Carroll on their major league roster because he signed as a "bonus baby," and because Stengel chose to keep third-string catcher Charlie Silvera on the team. Carroll would appear in 36 games for the 1956 Yankees and get into the starting line-up just once, when Stengel started him at third base in the last game of the season. Silvera spent virtually the entire season warming up pitchers in the bullpen, appeared in just seven games all year, and also got just one start—his in the Yankees' 139th game on the schedule on September 12. 

When Stengel called on him to pinch run for Larsen with the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the 9th inning on August 16, 1956, it was only the 31st time Rizzuto had gotten into a game so far in the season. He had started just 15 games, including seven straight from June 24 to July 1, during which he had 5 hits in 19 at bats. The last game he started was on August 2 in Cleveland, where he went hitless in three at bats against Herb Score, who shutout the Yankees on 4 hits. Rizzuto had not played in any game since.

Faced with a bases loaded, no out jam, Red Sox pitcher Nixon fanned Bauer and got Martin to hit into a force out at second base, a run scoring on the play, but Mantle flied out to end the game. Forced at second by Martin for the second out of the inning was Phil Rizzuto. As he jogged back to the dugout, the Scooter could not imagine that that would be his last act as a major league player. 

There is no record of any appreciative applause by the Yankee Stadium fans for a terrific career by a player who had been instrumental in the Yankees winning nine American League pennants and seven World Series going back to his rookie year in 1941. Nobody knew it would be his last game.

For the 75-39 Yankees, whose lead was now 9½ games over Cleveland as a result of that loss, it was 114 games down and just 40 to go in the 1956 season. Phil Rizzuto surely figured he'd still be in pinstripes for those 40 games, even if hardly used, and would get into his tenth World Series with the Yankees, or at least get to watch from a prime seat in the dugout.

In fact, he had little over a week left as a New York Yankee.

Temporary Yankee Lethargy in the Summer of '56 (60 Years Ago, August 7, 1956)

With the game scoreless, the bases loaded with Red Sox, and nobody out in the bottom of the 11th inning on August 7, 1956, at Fenway Park, Yankee manager Casey Stengel brought in southpaw Tommy Byrne to pitch to the great Ted Williams. The Red Sox won on a walk-off walk to Mr. Williams. The Yankees had now lost 7 of their last 8 games. Their lead in the American League pennant race was down to 7 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians. It had been 10 games just eight days before. Was it time for the Yankees to panic? Nah.

Temporary Yankee Lethargy in the Summer of '56 
(60 Years Ago, August 7, 1956)

Although there was no dramatic Ted Williams home run to win the game, the Red Sox' 1-0 victory over the Yankees was not without its Splendid Splinter drama. Taking umbrage at being booed by the hometown fans after dropping a routine fly ball to left hit by Mickey Mantle with two outs in the top of the 11th, Teddy Ballgame spit at the crowd behind the Boston dugout as he left the field at the end of the inning. Ironically, they were cheering him when he did so, for he had just robbed Yogi Berra of an extra-base hit that would have scored Mantle with a nifty over-the-head running catch in front of the Green Monster to end the Yankees' 11th.

He was also none too happy about walking-in the game-winning run, instead of driving it in, and tossed his bat high in the air in exasperation after receiving ball four. Then he took his frustrations out on a water cooler and generally behaved like a jackass in the clubhouse afterwards. It was, perhaps, Ted just being Ted, except worse than usual—and Ted being Ted never had the kind of eccentric charm of future Red Sox' left fielder "Manny being Manny."

Anyway, while the Red Sox had some public mending to do, some may have thought the Yankees were in need of some mending of their own. Every team, no matter how good, goes through hard times in a long season. And this was the Yankees' time for those hard times. 

They had lost four in a row at the beginning of June, and 6 of 8 at the start of that month, and also lost four in a row to the second-place White Sox in late June that cut their lead from five games to one, but each time they recovered their winning ways, decisively. After their four straight losses to the Chisox, the Yankees won 18 of their next 20 to take a commanding lead in the pennant race.

Of course, starting from a 10-game lead after winning their sixth in a row on July 30, it was the best of times for the '56 Yankees to have their worst of times. First they lost three straight in Cleveland (after Whitey Ford had won the opener of the four-game series). The Indians outscored them 14 to 1 in winning the next three games. Early Wynn shutout the Yankees on 3 hits on July 31, and Herb Score did the same on 4 hits two days later.

Then the Yankees went to Detroit, where they lost all three games and were outscored 23 to 13. They ended their six-game losing streak—which would be their longest of the season—with a 4-3 win in their first game at Fenway, only to fail to score any runs in 11 innings on August 7, despite Ted Williams dropping a routine fly ball that led to the latest (just mentioned) of his periodic epic spit-a-sodes.

During their eight-game hibernation from typical Yankee baseball, the Bronx Bombers scored just 18 runs and batted just .221 as a team. They not only weren't hitting, their on-base percentage was a woeful .293. They would hit .270 with an on-base percentage of .347 for the year. 

Mantle had the worst stretch of his season so far, with a .267 average, 8 hits in 30 at bats, and striking out 9 times in 35 plate appearances. He went hitless in five of the eight games, including the three losses to Cleveland. Only once before in the entire season—May 11 and 12 against the Orioles, when he was still batting over .400—did Mantle go consecutive games without a hit. Three of his hits, however, were home runs, giving him 37 in the Yankees' first 105 games. Mantle was still two home runs ahead of the Babe's pace when he knocked out 60 in 1927.

The Yankees gave up 41 runs in their eight-game slide, 10 of which were unearned, for an earned run average of 4.16. Cleveland, Detroit, and Boston hit a collective .262 against Yankee pitchers in that stretch. And Yankee pitchers had command and control problems, walking 37 batters in addition to the 66 hits they surrendered, while striking out just 26. For the year, the Yankees held opposing batters to a .249 average and had a team ERA of 3.63.

With their record at 68-37, it was 105 games down and 49 to go for the 1956 New York Yankees. Despite their recent lethargy in the summer heat, the Yankees still had a seven-game lead. It would never again in the 1956 season be that low. In direct opposition to their 7 losses in 8 games, the Yankees turned around to win 7 of their next 8 to bump their lead up to 10½ games half-way through August. 

1956 Yankees Wave Bye-Bye to Rest of League (July 20, Sixty Years Ago)

The first-place Yankees put away the last-place Kansas City Athletics on July 20th, sixty years ago, to extend their advantage over second-place Cleveland to 11 games. After beginning the month with only a 2-game lead over the White Sox, and the Indians 5½ behind, the Yankees' streak of 16 wins in their first 19 games in July had them now firmly in control of the American League pennant race. 

1956 Yankees Wave Bye-Bye to Rest of League

The Yankees began the month of July with three straight wins at home, two of them walk-offs. In the second game of a July 1st Sunday doubleheader against Washington, after Joe Collins's 2-run homer off Camilo Pascual in the 8th inning of the opener lifted the Yankees to a 3-2 win, Mantle blasted his 29th home run of the season with a runner on and the score tied 6-6 in the last of the 9th to end the game. The Mick had also homered in the 7th, that one erasing the Senators' 6-5 lead. 

Two days later, after an off day, Casey Stengel made the unconventional move of sending Mickey McDermott, a pitcher by profession—but a pitcher who could hit—up to bat for Gil McDougald with the bases loaded and one out in the last of the 12th in a 3-3 game against the Orioles. That seemed odd, given that McDougald was batting .295 and was 2-for-5 on the day. As so often was the case with Mr. Stengel, his instinct proved the correct one; McDermott singled home the winning run for another Yankee walk-off. For more on Mickey McDermott's prowess with the bat, see my post of May 14 in this series on the 1956 season, "Batting 8th for the New York Yankees, the Pitcher ..." (link at end of article.)

Then it was off to Boston for the Yankees, who were walked-off by a Jimmy Piersall run-scoring single in the bottom of the 11th in the first game of a July Fourth doubleheader, but easily won the second game. Game 2 was the first time all year that Mickey Mantle was given a game off. It wasn't a day off, because he played in the first game. 

In fact, Mantle not playing the second game was less a nice gesture by Stengel to give his best player a breather than concern that Mantle might have reinjured his ever-troublesome right knee charging Piersall's single into center field trying to cut down the winning run at the plate in the opener. Failing to do so, he hobbled off the field and ended up missing the next four games. Mantle returned to play in the final game before the All-Star break, went 1-for-3 before being removed in the 5th inning, then played all 9 innings in the All-Star Game two days later, hitting a home run.

The Yankees' triumph in the second game of their Fourth of July doubleheader in Boston was the first of 11 straight victories that broke open the American League pennant race. It surely helped that five of those wins came consecutively against the only two clubs anyone thought could actually, seriously, challenge the New York Yankees for the 1956 pennant.

The All-Star break ended with the tied-with-Chicago-for-second Cleveland Indians coming to Yankee Stadium for three games beginning July 12. For the Indians, trailing the Yankees by 6½ games, this was a pivotal series, and they went into it with their three best pitchers—Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, and Herb Score—lined up to face the Bronx Bombers. They got bombed, the Yankees won all three games, and the Indians left New York, New York down by 9½ games. The Yankees won the concluding game of the set, 5-4, in the last of the 10th when Billy Martin greeted relief pitcher Bob Feller, brought in specifically to face him, with a one-out bases-loaded single to drive in the winning run.

The 37-year-old Feller was by now worn out, pitching mostly in relief, and in his last major league season. This was his 10th appearance of the year, and he would pitch in just 9 more games before calling it a career. Feller's last two appearances were complete-game starts 15 days apart in September. He lost both games to go 0-4 for 1956, and 266-162 for his career. If not for missing three full seasons and most of a fourth serving his country during World War II, Bob Feller almost certainly would have been in the neighborhood of at least 340 wins.

The Yankees were the only team against which Feller had a losing record, winning just 30 of 67 decisions in 79 games (73 of them starts). One of those 30 wins was the second of his three no-hitters, a 1-0 masterpiece at Yankee Stadium on April 30, 1946, in which he fanned 11 but walked 5.

Anyway, back to 1956. 

Coming next to New York for a Sunday doubleheader on July 15 were the Chicago White Sox, tied with Cleveland for second, 9½ games back of the Yankees. This really was a make-or-break two games for the White Sox because they had lost 6 in a row. Whitey Ford outdueled Chicago ace Billy Pierce to win the opener, 2-1, and after the White Sox took a 5-4 lead in the top of the 10th of the nightcap, the Yankees won their fourth walk-off in their last 13 games when Hank Bauer lined a two-out bases-loaded single in the bottom of the inning to drive in the tying and winning runs. The White Sox had now lost 8 in a row on their way to a season-destroying 11-game losing streak before they were finally back in the win column.

After splitting their next four games with the Tigers, Kansas City came to New York for three games beginning on July 20. Whitey Ford's victory in the first of those games gave the Yankees their largest lead of the season. Their record at 60-28, the Yankees had won more than two-thirds of their games. 

With 88 games down and 66 to go, their lead over second-place Cleveland at 11 games and Chicago 13 games behind in fourth place, and with Mantle having a year for the ages, the Yankees had effectively said good-bye to the rest of the American League. Especially it being these were The New York Yankees, it was highly improbable they would not win their seventh pennant in the eight years of the Stengel regime, even with more than two months to go. The big question for the Yankees now was:

Might Mickey Mantle, with 31 home runs in the Yankees' first 88 games, keep up the pace to break Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a single season? It took the Babe 94 games into the season to get to 31 in 1927, so the Mick was ahead of the Bambino. Both players had missed just four of their team's games by the time they hit their 31st home run.

For more on Pitcher Mickey McDermott, the Batter, see:
 http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2016/05/batting-8th-for-new-york-yankees.html)

Headline: Mickey's in a Slump ! (60 Years Ago, 1956)

As the Yankees began play on June 9, 1956, their lead over the second-place Cleveland Indians—the team considered the most likely to compete with them for the American League pennant—was down to 3½ games. They were shutout by the visiting Indians the previous day, 9-0, behind the 5-hit pitching of their ace, Early Wynn. The first of those five hits was a double by Mickey Mantle, who went hitless in his next three at bats to bring his batting average down to an even .400. The Mick was in a slump.

Headline: Mickey's in a Slump ! (60 Years Ago, 1956)

 In singing Mantle's praises in its preview of the 1956 season, Sports Illustrated wrote: "Mantle is so good, they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." That was hyperbole, perhaps, but the point was well taken. After five big-league seasons, and having led the American League in home runs in 1955 with 37 to go along with 99 runs batted in and a .306 average, Mantle was poised for a tremendous year.

Except, maybe they were really serious about the .400 part. On May 9, after going 3-for-4 in a 6-5 Yankee loss to the Indians, Mantle was batting .446. It was 20 games into the season. Mantle had played in every game. He had gone hitless in just three and been on base in all but one. He had multi-hit games in twelve. And in addition to his .446 batting average, the Mick also had 10 home runs and 24 RBIs in the 20 games. Nobody could get the guy out.

Batting third in Casey Stengel's line-up, Mantle was certainly helped by the protection of Yogi Berra hitting behind him in the clean-up spot. Berra, having also played all 20 games, was batting .351 with 9 homers and 23 RBIs. Pitchers, pick your poison. Undoubtedly worried about the three-time MVP Berra coming up next, Mantle had walked just 12 times as of May 20, and none were intentional walks. 

One month and 29 games later, Mantle was batting a mere .400. Berra, a model of consistency, had seen his average dip to .330, but it was now back to .351. Opposing teams were now definitely pitching more carefully to Mantle. After going 1-for-4 against Wynn in the first game of the series on June 8, Mantle's average since May 9 was .373—certainly excellent for anyone else, but maybe not for the player who SI said would "have a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." (Hey, they were just kidding ! Kind of.)

Some slump, if we must call it that. He had failed to get a hit in only five of the Yankees' 29 games since May 9, and he had played in them all. Mantle had hit 11 more home runs, bringing his total to 21 in the Yankees' first 49 games, and he had driven in 28 runs, so now he had 52 RBIs.

There's a reason why .400 is such rarefied air. It's harder to do than to climb the highest Himalayan mountains (not to demean the difficulty and magnitude of that achievement). 

After walking in his first at bat against Cleveland starter Mike Garcia at Yankee Stadium on June 9, Mantle led off the bottom of the third off reliever Don Mossi with a single up the middle. The Yankees were already ahead, 4-0, and he soon came around to score on a 2-RBI single by Bob Cerv. That hit brought his batting average up to .403. The next inning, still facing Mossi, Mantle grounded into a fielder's choice. His average was now .401. 

That would be the last time in what was becoming—and would forever be—the epic Mickey Mantle season, that the Mick's batting average was over .400 for the season. While the Indians came roaring back to win the game, 15-8, starting with rookie Rocky Colavito's two-run homer in the fourth (the fifth of his career), Mantle flied out in the sixth with a runner on first and the Yankees' holding onto a now-slim 8-7 lead. He was now just a shade below .400 at .399. In the last of the 8th, the Mick popped out to the shortstop, making him 1-for-4 on the day and bringing his average down to .397.

The Yankees' loss reduced their lead over the Indians to 2½ games. Their record was now 31-19—a .620 winning percentage—with 50 games down and 104 to go. They played even better with a .635 winning percentage the rest of the way, 6½ games better than Cleveland. 

As for Mickey Mantle, he batted .327 the rest of the season with 31 more home runs and 78 RBIs. When all was said and done for 1956, Mickey Mantle had won the Triple Crown with a .353 average, 52 homers, and 130 runs batted in. 

But he didn't hit .400. 

Disappointing. 

Batting 8th for the New York Yankees, the Pitcher ... (60 Years Ago in 1956)

It's often said that the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. After having set the pace out front of everybody else since just the fourth game of the year, the Yankees awoke in Cleveland on May 16, 1956, preparing to play they 27th game of the season—the equivalent of 4.5 miles into a 26-mile marathon—to find that the Indians were now running beside them in the race. True, it was early, but the Yankees definitely preferred that their arch rival since the 1951 season be running behind them, rather than running even. Casey Stengel's starting line-up for the game was quite unorthodox; he had the pitcher bat eighth and his weak-hitting shortstop, Phil Rizzuto, ninth—not so unusual today, perhaps, but in the 1950s it certainly was.

60 Years Ago (1956): Batting 8th for the New York Yankees, the Pitcher . . .

The Indians pulled into a first-place tie with the Yankees in both teams' previous game when left fielder Al Smith led off the last of the ninth with a game-winning, walk-off home run off Johnny Kucks to break a 2-2 tie. Both Yankee runs came on home runs, back-to-back off Cleveland ace Bob Lemon in the fourth by Gil McDougald and Mickey Mantle. For Mantle, it was his 12th of the year, and he now had 26 RBIs in the Yankees' first 26 games. Many had predicted the Mick would have an unbelievable year. They were proving right on that one.

Anyway, Stengel had hard-throwing southpaw Mickey McDermott take the mound for the Yankees in their next game against the Indians. In 1949 McDermott had been a hot-shot prospect for the Red Sox. but he was hardly as disciplined at his craft as, say, his teammate Ted Williams was at his, and never lived up to expectations. He had become a journeyman pitcher. When the Yankees acquired McDermott before the start of the 1956 season, it was primarily to provide pitching depth should something happen to one of their core starting pitchers. He was making his fourth start of the year with a record of 1-2. He was the losing pitcher in his previous start six days before, giving up 4 runs in 5 innings when Cleveland was in New York.

What was unusual about this start was not that Stengel started him opposite Cleveland right-hander Mike Garcia, a very good pitcher in his own right, in a game against the club the Yankees considered to be their principal rival for the pennant, even though Whitey Ford, his ace, was sufficiently rested. No, what was unusual was that McDermott was batting eighth in the line-up and shortstop Phil Rizzuto ninth.

By now, eight years into the Stengel era, if there was any lesson learned about Casey as a manager, it was that he was nothing if not unconventional—from his incessant platooning of players, to his constant manipulation of who batted where in the line-up in any given game, to his frequent in-game position-player substitutions. But there was always a method to his madness that he never tired of explaining, although his explanations usually needed explanation.

In the 1950s, the pitcher always batted ninth. The pitcher was presumed to be the weakest hitter in the line-up, and that's just the way it was. It didn't matter, for example, that a pitcher like Brooklyn's Don Newcombe was a damn-good hitter who hit .271 in his career, had 15 career home runs, drove in 108 runs, and was frequently used as a pinch hitter; in the 294 games Big Newk was the starting pitcher in his major league career, not once did he ever bat anywhere but in the No. 9 spot. 

To the Ole Perfessor, that didn't necessarily make sense. Sometimes, which was rarely, his pitcher was not necessarily the weakest bat in the line-up. If the ninth spot was for the weakest hitter, and that hitter happened to be a position player, maybe the pitcher should bat eighth instead. Casey experimented extensively with that concept the previous year in 1955.

Of the 2,474 starting line-ups that were made out by the managers of the 16 major league teams in 1955, only 15 had the pitcher not bat last. All 15 of those line-ups were written out by Casey Stengel. Tommy Byrne batted eighth in 8 of the 22 games he started and seventh in 3 other starts in 1955, and Don Larsen eighth in 4 of his 13 starts. That was perfectly logical to Casey because the three position players who batted ninth in those 15 games—infielders Rizzuto, Billy Hunter, and Jerry Coleman—were all light-weight hitters in slumps, and both Byrne and Larsen were very good hitters for pitchers. Byrne finished his major league career with 14 home runs and a .238 average. Larsen also had 14 homers in his big league career, while batting .242. 

The game in Cleveland on May 16 was the first time Stengel had his pitcher bat eighth in 1956. McDermott was a good hitter, and not just with the faint praise of "for a pitcher." He was a good hitter, who had hit .281 in his six years in Boston and who would retire with a lifetime .252 average, with 9 homers and 24 RBIs. He was 2-for-7 for a .286 average so far in the season, including 1-for-2 as a pinch hitter. Phil Rizzuto, meanwhile, was still looking for his first hit.

Rizzuto was no longer the Yankee shortstop. In the not too distant past he had been the shortstop cornerstone of the five (pennants)-and-five (World Championships)-in-five (years) Yankee teams from 1949 to 1953. Those years, the Scooter batted first or second in Stengel's line-up. But now he was 38 years old, at the end of his career, and the 25th guy on the club instead of a core regular. On this day, Rizzuto was starting for only the third time all year. He had also played in four games as a late-inning defensive replacement. He was hitless in six at bats.

As it happened, Rizzuto went 1-for-4 to bring his average up to .100 and drove in the Yankees' 3rd run of the game with a sacrifice squeeze bunt. McDermott lasted only 3.1 innings, giving up just one run even though he allowed four walks and three hits. He went hitless in his two at bats. Mantle had a 3-for-4 day to raise his average to exactly .400, including his 13th home run in the seventh to finish off the scoring in the Yankees' 4-1 win. Did I mention many predicted the Mick would have an unbelievable year?

The Yankees were now 17-10 and back in first place all alone, one game ahead of Cleveland and 1½ up on Chicago, their next stop for three games. It was 27 games down and 127 to go. The Yankees never again in 1956 had to look anywhere but down to see how any other team was doing.

As for the pitcher-batting-eighth gambit, of the 2,492 starting line-ups written by managers during the 1956 season (including 4 games that ended as ties because of weather), the pitcher batted 9th in 2,489 of them. On May 9, the White Sox batted pitcher Dick Donovan eighth and struggling rookie Luis Aparicio ninth; then came the game McDermott started against the Indians, and finally on June 3 against Detroit, Stengel batted starting pitcher Larsen eighth and third baseman Jerry Coleman ninth. Coleman had just 1 hit in 10 at bats at the time and was making just his second start of the season.  

BTW: Don Larsen was batting ninth on October 8, 1956, when he pitched his perfect game in the World Series. 

Fifth Game of the '56 Season (60 Years Ago): Yankees Move Into First For Good

It was a wild one at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, April 21, 1956. The Yankees blew an early 8-0 lead against the Red Sox, then had to come from behind, trailing 10-9, to snatch their fourth victory in five games. This early in the season, the standings didn't necessarily mean anything—certainly not with 149 games still to play—but their victory combined with the White Sox' loss put the Yankees into first place by half a game. Although there would be one day in May when they had to share top billing, the New York Yankees were never not first in the American League the remainder of the 1956 season.

FIFTH GAME OF THE '56 SEASON (SIXTY YEAR AGO):
YANKEES MOVE INTO FIRST FOR GOOD

The Yankees started the season by winning two of three in Washington and taking the first of a three-game set against the Boston Red Sox in their first home series of the year. The Chicago White Sox, along with the Milwaukee Braves in the National League, were the only undefeated teams going into just the fifth day of the schedule, both with 3-0 records, while the Yankees were 3-1. Whitey Ford had just pitched a five-hit complete game in the Yankees' first home game, with Mickey Mantle hitting his 3rd home run of the year and driving in four runs to pace the Bronx Bombers to a 7-1 victory over Boston.

Wasting no time in their determination to beat up on the Red Sox, the Yankees also made very clear to right-hander George Susce that he was not a "Yankee Killer" despite his success against them as a rookie the previous year. Susce pitched in five games against the Yankees in his first big-league season in 1955, all but the last in relief, giving up just 2 earned runs on 14 hits in 19.1 innings for an anti-Yankee ERA of 0.93. His one decision against the Yankees came in his only start against them, an 8-1 complete-game victory in the last game of the season. 

If Susce thought he might build on that making his first start in the 1956 campaign, the Yankees rudely reminded him why they were the Bronx Bombers. Yogi Berra doubled to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the last of the first, then scored on Joe Collins's single. In the second, Hank Bauer hit a 2-run home run, Mantle hit a 2-run home run, the Yankees now led 6-0, and Susce retired to the showers having pitched just one-and-a-third innings. The Yankees scored a pair of unearned runs in the third and Bob Turley, who was 17-13 in his first year in New York in 1955, had a comfortable, two-grand-slams-ahead 8-0 lead.

They were still coasting with an 8-0 lead in the fifth when Turley gave up a two-run homer to Faye Throneberry and a solo blast to Mickey Vernon. The Yankees made it 9-3 in the sixth, and then the Red Sox unloaded for 4 in the seventh and 3 in the eighth on home runs by Jimmy Piersall and backup catcher Pete Daley off reliever Jim Konstanty to improbably take a 10-9 lead.

That lasted … not at all. Berra immediately tied the score by leading off the Yankee eighth with a home run, and before the inning was over the Yankees henpecked the Red Sox for four more runs to make the final score, New York 14, Boston 10.

With the White Sox crushed by the Kansas City Athletics, 15-1, the Yankees were now in first place by half-a-game over both clubs. In their first five games, the Yankees had scored 43 runs. The Red Sox, with 31 runs, were the closest major league team in terms of offensive productivity. The Yankees had hit 8 home runs and were batting .303 as a team.

And as many were projecting, Mickey Mantle looked like he might have a truly outstanding season. He was batting .444 with a league-leading 4 home runs and 11 runs batted in—all in just five games. And Yogi Berra was pretty impressive, too, hitting .467 with 2 home runs and 9 RBIs.

But of course, it was still far too early in the season to draw any conclusions. The Yankees still had 149 games to go, including all 22 against both of their would-be competitors for the pennant—the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. Still, Casey Stengel ... he who had endless things to say ... sure wasn't complaining about how things so far were going.

LOOKING AHEAD 60 YEARS AGO: ASSESSING AL CONTENDERS

The Yankees won their sixth pennant in Casey Stengel's first seven years as their manager in 1955, beating out the Indians by three games and the White Sox by five. As close as that race was, and notwithstanding that the Yankees lost—yes, lost—the World Series to the Dodgers, Sports Illustrated's preseason scouting report on the Yankees' prospects in 1956 began with the simple question: "How are you going to beat them?"

LOOKING AHEAD 60 YEARS AGO: WHO SHOULD CONTEND IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE?

If Sports Illustrated underestimated the Yankees in their preview of the 1955 season—they picked them second, in part because the Indians had beaten them out the previous year by a blowout 8-game margin—they were not about to do so again.

The Yankees, of course, had Mickey Mantle. If there were any questions about his talent and ability—and there really weren't—1955 put them to rest. It was by far the best of his five major league seasons. He led the league in home runs for the first time with 37, and also in triples with 11. He drove in 99 runs and batted .306. His .431 on-base percentage and .611 slugging percentage were the best in the league. Advanced metrics weren't then in vogue, but Mantle's 9.5 wins above replacement made him the best player in both major leagues—just ahead of Willie Mays's 9.0 WAR. And Mantle had been consistent all year, having only one "bad" month, in June when he batted just .248 in 30 games, but still hit 7 home runs with 17 runs batted in. Every other month, Mantle was over .300. His best months were May, when his "Triple Crown" home run /RBI /batting average splits were 8/26/.340, and August, when they were 12/22/.333.  

"Mickey Mantle is so good," according to Sports Illustrated's scouting report on the Yankees in its preview of the 1956 season, "they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." They got that right. It turned out he didn't hit .400, so big disappointment, but Mantle did hit .353 with 52 home runs and 130 runs batted in to win the Triple Crown.

But the Yankees were more than just Mantle. They had Yogi Berra, who had just won his third MVP Award in 1955, after having also won the award in 1954. (Mantle, incidentally, came in fifth—can you believe it? fifth—in the MVP voting in 1955, and failed to get a single first place vote.) And if the other Yankee position regulars were not "star" players, they were all solid. SI made a point of observing that while other teams' managers had to worry about finding a single player to fill a certain position, "canny old Casey Stengel worries only about which one or two—or three or four—of almost equal ability is going to play that day."

Of the other Yankee position players besides Mantle and Berra, who would you suppose was the only one to get a specific shoutout by SI in its list of "Mainstays"? Versatile infielder Gil McDougald, "who does everything well" and was slated to play shortstop in 1956? Nope. How about Hank Bauer, "a fixture in right field"? Not him either. Maybe Bill Skowron and Joe Collins, who were expected to platoon at first base? Not them. They just got mentions. 'Twas second baseman Billy Martin got the shoutout as "the peppery spark of the Yankee infield . . . who seems to improve each year." And SI singled him out even though he missed the entire 1954 season and nearly all of 1955 serving in the US Army. Martin played in just 20 games for the 1955 Yankees, hitting exactly .300. The only year he had been a regular on Casey's club was 1953, when he hit .257 in 149 games. And then he got drafted.

SI senior baseball writer Robert Creamer concluded that the Yankees would be in trouble "only if the pitching falters," which raised the rhetorical question in SI's scouting report: "The pitching staff is weak?" Not with Whitey Ford, who led the league with 18 wins in 1955, lost just 7, and had a 2.63 earned run average. Bob Turley won 17, Tommy Byrne won 16, and they were back. The Yankees' pitching was the best in baseball in 1955, with a major-league low ERA of 3.23.

As for the Yankees' competition, SI figured the Cleveland Indians to finish second again. Other than 1954, when the Indians interrupted the Yankees' string of five straight pennants only by virtue of 111 victories, second place seemed to be Cleveland's lot in American League life during the Yankees' Casey Stengel era. They were second to the Yankees in 1951, and 1952, and 1953, and again in 1955. One big thing changed over the winter. That was that the Indians traded their star center fielder Larry Doby (whose "only weakness in Cleveland was his temperament") to the White Sox for shortstop Chico Carrasquel and outfielder Jim Busby. The Indians may have lost a little something on offense, but they shored up their infield.

Either way, however, the Indians with Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, Herb Score, and Mike Garcia still had "the best pitching staff in baseball," SI wrote. Creamer, however, made the astute observation that that had been true for years, and only once had they overtaken the Yankees. Their excellent pitching just would not be enough. He had that right: Wynn, Lemon, and Score would each win 20, and it turned out in the end not to be nearly enough.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox, who went into September 1955 with the slimmest of leads only to fade out and finish third—their fourth consecutive year with third as their final resting place. Third was where they were projected to end up once again in 1956, even though SI's scouting report was very high on them. Chicago's line-up, according to SI, was "one of the most impressive in baseball. They can hit (well), run (very well), and field (beautifully)." Their offense was bolstered by the addition of Doby, and they were counting on highly-regarded Venezuelan rookie prospect Luis Aparicio to be successful at shortstop. He was why Carrasquel was expendable, especially to get Doby in return.

Creamer thought the White Sox had "the best chance of anyone" to beat out the Yankees, but made that contingent on outfielder Minnie Minoso returning to form. After batting .309 in his first four years with the White Sox, Minoso had slumped to .288 in 1955 and was not hitting well in spring training.

SI's bottom line looking ahead to the American League pennant race in 1956: the Yankees? "How are you going to beat them?"