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.

Reprise: Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

The 2014 All-Star Game was a great tribute to Derek Jeter, who went 2-for-2 in what might be his last at bats on a national stage (depending on whether the Yankees can make it to the post-season). When he retires at the end of this season, Derek Jeter will do so as the most respected player in the last twenty years, not to mention the model of baseball professionalism and a proven winner. Pending the Yankees' outcome in 2014, Jeter has played in the post-season every year of his major league career but two.  Perhaps more to the point, few doubt that his legacy is as the indispensable Yankee (with due respect to Mariano Rivera) who "led" his team into the post-season year after year through commitment without excuses, an unrivaled work ethic, and unflagging consistency.  He is what Joe DiMaggio was to the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and like DiMaggio is retiring on his terms--before the inevitable decline of age overshadows the grace and athleticism and all-around excellence on the diamond that defined the entirety of his career. This article, with minor revisions, was first posted on Baseball Historical Insight on February 17.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure, Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of baseball's greatest players. Ironically, greatness is an attribute not necessarily dependent on also being one of the very best players in terms of measurable on-the-field performance alone. Derek Jeter was not that, even dismissing as irrelevant the fact that he never won an MVP award. In seventeen full seasons with the Yankees, not including 1995, when he appeared in 15 games as a replacement shortstop during his final year of full-time minor league preparation, last season when persistent injuries kept him sidelined for all but 17 games and this year (which is still being played out), Jeter's player value based on the WAR metric exceeded the 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star level quality of performance only five times in his career, three of them in his first six seasons.

Jeter's best consecutive years were in fact from 1997 to 2001 when he was 23 to 27 years old. His 7.5 WAR in 1998 and 8.0 WAR the year after were the highest player values of his career. It was during those five years that Jeter made his reputation as a team leader, a clutch player, and a winning player by being at the center of the action as the Yankees went to four straight World Series (1998 to 2001), winning three. But Jeter was not even one of baseball's two best shortstops in terms of player value alone based on WAR during those years, because he was a direct contemporary of both Seattle's Alex Rodriguez and Boston's Nomar Garciaparra.

By the year 2000, even though he had been a full-time regular for only as long as Jeter (since 1996), there were already advocates for A-Rod staking a claim to being perhaps the best player ever once the final chapter of his career was written. Little did anyone know then that so many chapters in A-Rod's epic saga would be sordid and career-diminishing. And Nomar was the model of consistency at better than an All-Star level of performance from 1997 to 2003, averaging between 6.1 and 7.4 wins above replacement every year, not including an injury-ravaged 2001 season that limited him to 21 games. Thereafter, of course, Garciaparra's Hall of Fame trajectory nose-dived with injury after injury, making him a virtually forgotten afterthought in the once-vivid debate over who was the best shortstop in the game--A-Rod, Nomar or Derek? Both Rodriguez and Garciaparra were not only better all-around shortstops based on performance, but their presence on an otherwise average major league team for an entire season would have made more difference to that team's winning percentage than Jeter (see the 162W/L% column under "Player Value" on their player pages in Baseball-reference.com). Maybe so, but Jeter is the one with all the championship rings . . . five of them.  A-Rod has one (which he earned with Derek as a teammate).  Nomar has none.

Going back to more recent Hall of Fame shortstops, the Brewers' Robin Yount (from 1980-84), the Cardinals' Ozzie Smith (1985-89), the Orioles' Cal Ripken, Jr., and the Reds' Barry Larkin (both from 1988-92) all had better five-best consecutive years than Jeter based on the WAR metric for player value. All four also had more seasons in their career than Jeter where their player value exceeded an All-Star level of performance on the field--Smith 10 times, including eight times in nine years between 1984 and 1992; Ripken eight times in nine years between 1983 and 1991, with MVP awards at both bookends; Larkin eight times; and Yount seven times, although two of his were after he switched to the outfield. All four were much better defensive shortstops than Jeter. And three of the four were elected into the Hall of Fame their first time on the ballot; Larkin had to wait until his third year of eligibility to break the 75 % vote barrier.

None of the four, however, has more than one World Series ring, and only the Wizard Oz (with three appearances) played in more than one World Series. Jeter, meanwhile, has five World Series rings in seven trips to the Fall Classic--and is working towards six in eight in this, his final season--and the "Captain" hit .353 or better in four of those five Yankee triumphs. His batting average in 38 World Series games is .323, brought that low only because of the .148 he hit in the 2001 Series, which the Yankees lost on a pop fly single just beyond Jeter's reach over a drawn-in infield.

While it's hard to go against Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop of all time, there will be significant temptation to proclaim Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in American League history. Putting aside what to make of A-Rod's self-sabotaged career--including his admitting in 2009 to using steroids back when he played shortstop for the Texas Rangers, not to mention his current year-long suspension for the assist he was given by Biogenesis--Cal Ripken, Jr., at least based on player performance, is the best-ever to play the position in the American League. Ripken was sent to Cooperstown with 98.5 % of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2007.  None of the players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since then have matched that total, including not Greg Maddux this year. Like Ripken--an ambassador for the game, universally liked even by those who hate his team (of whom there are legions when it comes to the Yankees)--Derek Jeter stands an excellent chance of not only reaching but surpassing the Ripken plateau in percentage of votes.

The final two players I would like to bring into this discussion are Pete Rose and Craig Biggio. Derek Jeter for me is today's Pete Rose, who I idolized when I first became baseball-conscious because, while he was not the best player in the game, he played with abandon, he never short-changed effort, he probably played above his ability and he was a leader, a winner--playing in six World Series--and a role model for the love of the game. Love or hate the Big Red Machine, you had to admire and respect Pete Rose. If not for his gambling addiction finding its way into his baseball profession, Rose would have been a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer. Even had Jeter not busted his ankle, it would have been a long shot for him to break Rose's all-time hit record, but it's worth noting that over the course of his career, Jeter has averaged 206 hits per 162 games compared to 194 for Rose, which helps explain Jeter's .311 lifetime average (as of the All-Star break) to Rose's .303. Even acknowledging that Rose played in a tougher era for offense, this difference is not nothing.

Craig Biggio, with 3,060 hits to call his own, was a Jeter-type player who did not make the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility, perhaps because he happened to play in Houston and played in only one World Series where his team was unceremoniously swept. Had Jeter been Jeter with his now-3,408 hits (and counting) but played for anyone else but the Yankees, he certainly would wind up in the Hall of Fame--but like Biggio, he might be having to wait a year, two or three to get in.

There will be no waiting for Derek Jeter . . . because he was the indisputable leader of a team that made it to the post-season in all but one season he was their shortstop (not counting 2013, when he missed virtually the entire year--and, who knows, the Yankees might have made it then had he been healthy) . . . and because of those five rings he was so instrumental in winning not just for himself, and not just for his teammates, but for the New York Yankees.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

When Derek Jeter retires at the end of the 2014 season, he will do so as the most respected player in the last twenty years, not to mention the model of baseball professionalism and a proven winner. Pending the Yankees' outcome in 2014, Jeter has played in the post-season every year of his major league career but two.  Perhaps more to the point, few doubt that his legacy is as the indispensable Yankee (with due respect to Mariano Rivera) who "led" his team into the post-season year after year through commitment without excuses, an unrivaled work ethic, and unflagging consistency.  He is what Joe DiMaggio was to the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and like DiMaggio is retiring on his terms--before the inevitable decline of age overshadows the grace and athleticism and all-around excellence on the diamond that defined the entirety of his career.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure, Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of baseball's greatest players.  Ironically, greatness is an attribute not necessarily dependent on also being one of the very best players in terms of measurable on-the-field performance alone.  Derek Jeter was not that, even dismissing as irrelevant the fact that he never won an MVP award.  In seventeen full seasons with the Yankees, not including 1995, when he appeared in 15 games as a replacement shortstop during his final year of full-time minor league preparation, and last season when persistent injuries kept him sidelined for all but 17 games, Jeter's player value based on the WAR metric exceeded the 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star level quality of performance only five times in his career, three of them in his first six seasons.

Jeter's best consecutive years were in fact from 1997 to 2001 when he was 23 to 27 years old.  His 7.5 WAR in 1998 and 8.0 WAR the year after were the highest player values of his career.  It was during those five years that Jeter made his reputation as a team leader, a clutch player, and a winning player by being at the center of the action as the Yankees went to four straight World Series (1998 to 2001), winning three. But Jeter was not even one of baseball's two best shortstops in terms of player value based on WAR during those years, because he was a direct contemporary of both Seattle's Alex Rodriguez and Boston's Nomar Garciaparra.

By the year 2000, even though he had been a full-time regular for only as long as Jeter (since 1996), there were already advocates for A-Rod staking a claim to being perhaps the best player ever once the final chapter of his career was written.  Little did anyone know then that so many chapters in A-Rod's epic saga would be sordid and career-diminishing.  And Nomar was the model of consistency at better than an All-Star level of performance from 1997 to 2003, averaging between 6.1 and 7.4 wins above replacement every year, not including an injury-ravaged 2001 season that limited him to 21 games.  Thereafter, of course, Garciaparra's Hall of Fame trajectory nose-dived with injury after injury, making him a virtually forgotten afterthought in the once-vivid debate over who was the best shortstop in the game--A-Rod, Nomar, or Derek?  Both Rodriguez and Garciaparra were not only better all-around shortstops based on performance, but their presence on an otherwise average major league team for an entire season would have made more difference to that team's winning percentage than Jeter (see the 162W/L% column under "Player Value" on their player pages in Baseball-reference.com).  Maybe so, but Jeter is the one with all the championship rings . . . five of them.  A-Rod has one.  Nomar has none.

Going back to more recent Hall of Fame shortstops, the Brewers' Robin Yount (from 1980-84), the Cardinals' Ozzie Smith (1985-89), the Orioles' Cal Ripken, Jr., and the Reds' Barry Larkin (both from 1988-92) all had better five-best consecutive years than Jeter based on the WAR metric for player value. All four also had more seasons in their career than Jeter where their player value exceeded an All-Star level of performance on the field--Smith 10 times, including eight times in nine years between 1984 and 1992; Ripken eight times in nine years between 1983 and 1991, with MVP awards at both bookends; Larkin eight times; and Yount seven times, although two of his were after he switched to the outfield.  All four were much better defensive shortstops than Jeter.  And three of the four were elected into the Hall of Fame their first time on the ballot; Larkin had to wait until his third year of eligibility to break the 75 % vote barrier.

None of the four, however, has more than one World Series ring, and only Ozzie (with three appearances) played in more than one World Series.  Jeter, meanwhile, has five World Series rings in seven trips to the Fall Classic--and is working towards six in eight in this, his final season--and the "Captain" hit .353 or better in four of those five Yankee triumphs.  His batting average in 38 World Series games is .323, brought that low only because of the .148 he hit in the 2001 Series, which the Yankees lost on a pop fly single just beyond Jeter's reach over a drawn-in infield.

While it's hard to go against Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop of all time, there will be significant temptation to proclaim Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in American League history.  Putting aside what to make of A-Rod's self-sabotaged career--including his admitting in 2009 to using steroids back when he played shortstop for the Texas Rangers--Cal Ripken, Jr., at least based on player performance, is the best-ever to play the position in the American League.  Ripken was sent to Cooperstown with 98.5 % of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2007.  None of the players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since then have matched that total, including not Greg Maddux this year.  Like Ripken--an ambassador for the game, universally liked even by those who hate his team (of whom there are legions when it comes to the Yankees)--Derek Jeter stands an excellent chance of reaching the Ripken plateau in percentage of votes.

The final two players I would like to bring into this discussion are Pete Rose and Craig Biggio.  Derek Jeter for me is today's Pete Rose, who I idolized when I first became baseball-conscious because, while he was not the best player in the game, he played with abandon, he never short-changed effort, he probably played above his ability, and he was a leader, a winner--playing in six World Series--and a role model for the love of the game.  Love or hate the Big Red Machine, you had to admire and respect Pete Rose.  If not for his gambling addiction finding its way into his baseball profession, Rose would have been a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer.  Even had Jeter not busted his ankle, it would have been a long shot for him to break Rose's all-time hit record, but it's worth noting that over the course of his career, Jeter has averaged 206 hits per 162 games compared to 194 for Rose, which helps explain Jeter's .312 lifetime average to Rose's .303. Even acknowledging that Rose played in a tougher era for offense, this difference is not nothing.

Craig Biggio, with 3,060 hits to call his own, was a Jeter-type player who did not make the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility, perhaps because he happened to play in Houston and played in only one World Series where his team was unceremoniously swept.  Had Jeter been Jeter with his 3,316 hits (and counting) but played for anyone else but the Yankees, he certainly would wind up in the Hall of Fame--but like Biggio, he might be having to wait a year, two, or three to get in.

There will be no waiting for Derek Jeter . . . because he was the indisputable leader of a team that made it to the post-season in all but one season he was their shortstop (not counting 2013, when he missed virtually the entire year--and, who knows, the Yankees might have made it had he been healthy) . . . and because of those five rings he was so instrumental in winning not just for himself, and not just for his teammates, but for the New York Yankees.