60 Years Ago, When the Wait for "Next Year" Finally Ended (First in a Series): 1955 Pre-Season Pennant Race Handicaps

"Wait Till Next Year." Sixty years ago, that was the mantra at Ebbets Field because the Dodgers had lost every World Series they had been in—1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953—not to mention having lost the first two playoffs ever for the National League pennant, in 1946 and 1951, and not being counted down and out for good until the final game of the 1950 season. Wait till Next Year. Well, sixty years ago, "next year" finally came when the Dodgers won their first—and, it turned out, only—World Series championship in Brooklyn. This is the first in a series throughout this season on the National League and American League pennant races sixty years ago, beginning with the first ever preseason forecasts by a new publication whose first issue was just the previous August, Sports Illustrated.

1955 Pre-Season Handicaps

The baseball world must have felt a bit off by what transpired in 1954. Surely it was strange that the New York Yankees did not play in the World Series. After all, they had won each of the five previous American League pennants, and each of the five previous World Series—an unprecedented achievement. Not only that, the 1954 Yankees won more games than any of the five-and-five-in-five championship teams between 1949 and 1953. Their 103 victories, however, were good for only second place, and not even a close second. The Cleveland Indians won 111 games, wound up eight games in front of the Yankees, and were the favorites to win the World Series until Willie Mays robbed Vic Wertz, Dusty Rhodes hit home runs coming off the bench to win Games 1 and 2, and the New York Giants swept the Indians four straight.

And surely it was equally strange in 1954 that for the first time since 1948 the Brooklyn Dodgers were not either the National League pennant-winner or still competing for the honor down to the very last game they played. Indeed, two dramatic, heart-rending losses were all that stood between the Dodgers and their matching the Yankees with five straight World Series appearances between 1949 and 1953. In 1950, the Dodgers had a chance to make history with a stirring comeback from 9 games down with only 16 left to play to force a playoff with the Phillies, whom the scheduling gods set them up to meet at home in the final game of the season, only to see the would-be game-winning run thrown out at the plate in the last of the ninth and the Phillies win the game and secure the pennant on a three-run home run in the tenth. And in 1951, well, you know... Ralph Branca... Bobby Thomson... enough said.

The Dodgers had finished second in 1954. They were last in first place, tied with the Giants, on June 13. Thereafter, although they stayed in second and were never far behind the Giants, the Dodgers never really made a serious play for first place either. They pulled to within half-a-game after sweeping the Giants at Ebbets Field in mid-August, but six days later were four games behind. The Dodgers basically spent all summer treading water. They ended up five games out.

Robert Creamer, previewing the 1955 season for Sports Illustrated, summed up the Dodgers as smooth and seasoned, but aging and with "notoriously undependable" pitching. He wrote that "young replacements" had yet to prove themselves, although this was an uncharitable assessment with regard to one young 'un he named—Jim Gilliam, entering his third year as the Dodgers' second baseman with a .280 batting average and .372 on base percentage in 297 big league games. Creamer did not count Brooklyn out, however. Noting that Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe all played below their established standards for excellence in 1954, Creamer predicted that if they returned to their past level of performance, "these three could bring the championship back to Flatbush."

One thing was obvious, wrote Creamer, and that was that the defending-champion Giants and the up-and-coming Milwaukee Braves were the "best-balanced" teams in the National League. "They are beautifully matched, these two teams," he wrote, concluding that "the Giants should win the pennant." "The difference between the clubs is spelled W-i-l-l-i-e- M-a-y-s-." 

Creamer's assessment of the American League ultimately came down to "how close the Indians come to winning 111 games again," indicating a slight nod to the Yankees, without coming out and saying so explicitly. The Yankees had depth, the best catcher in baseball (Yogi Berra), Mickey Mantle ("who threatens to grow from good to great"), and good pitching led by Whitey Ford. Their big question marks were how much "the once-great Yankee shortstop" Phil Rizzuto had left and who would replace Allie Reynolds, who had just retired. He did mention that the Yankees now had Bob Turley, who in 1954 was 14-15 for the seventh-place, 100-loss Orioles.

The Indians, on the other hand, had probably "the worst-fielding infield to ever win a major league pennant," were slow and unimaginative on the bases, and despite "one of the most impressive pitching staffs in major league history," also an aging pitching staff. In fact, advanced fielding metrics that did not exist at the time indicate that Cleveland's infield defense was the second-best in the league (after the White Sox) up the middle, but quite problematic at the corners, including the worst in the league at third base, Al Rosen's position. As for the pitching, Bob Lemon and Early Wynn, who both won 23 for the '54 Indians, were in their mid-30s, Bob Feller was 36 (although he had made only 19 starts in 1954), and Creamer might also have mentioned that Mike Garcia, who was 19-8 with a league-leading 2.64 ERA in 1954, was 31. Joining the Cleveland staff, however, would be Herb Score, said to be "so good you can't believe it."

With the Yankees and Indians having split their season series in 1954, the difference in outcome for 1955 could well be the same as it was the previous year—whichever team had the better record against the rest of the American League.

Opening day would be April 11, 1955. More to come.

Thinking About That "Dynasty" Word

As soon as they won their third World Series in five years, the word "dynasty" was bandied about when considering this San Francisco Giants team's place in history. But what does that even mean? This Insight, one of occasional articles intended to be provocative in thinking about how we think about baseball, frames the "dynasty" issue in the context of great teams, great franchises and whether the modern 21st century game changes how we should think about dynasties.

Thinking About That "Dynasty" Word

No sooner did Pablo Sandoval squeeze the last out than Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight site proclaimed, "The San Francisco Giants are now a Dynasty," and used an algorithm developed by Bill James to substantiate the point. (http://fivethirtyeight.com/liveblog/world-series-game-7-live-blog/?#livepress-update-19763487) A Reuters release called the Giants "a different kind of Major League Baseball dynasty," the "best at juggling budget and talent" in an age of parity." (http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/10/30/sports/baseball/30reuters-baseball-worldseries-dynasty.html?ref=baseball)   World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner said at the Giants' victory parade back home in San Francisco, "Like they've been saying, this is a dynasty." Even before Game 6, New York Times national baseball writer Tyler Kepner titled a column, "Unconventional Dynasty in the Making" and asked "Are they really a dynasty?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/sports/baseball/world-series-2014-sf-giants-have-the-trappings-of-a-dynasty.html). Kepner goes on to say, "The term connotes a higher level of team achievement, but is open to interpretation." Let's take it from there.

Until arguably the mid-1990s with the advent of three divisions in each league, the introduction of a "wild card" team for post-season playoffs and the resulting two rounds of playoffs in each league to determine a pennant winner, a particular team's winning accomplishments seems a suitable baseline standard for beginning a discussion about dynasties. These can be measured in the number of first-place finishes--whether in the unitary league format that prevailed until the second-wave expansion to twelve teams in each league in 1969 or division titles since then--pennants and World Series won over a period of at least five years. While acknowledging that very few teams not named the Yankees would win even as many as three championships in any five-year period, I would suggest that for any team to be considered a "dynasty" based on this standard, it should not have had a losing season in any year of its five-year dynasty-qualifying run and in fact have been competitive all five years.

On top of that, the extent to which a team dominates its era, not merely in championship achievements but in overpowering the competition, should be factored into the "dynasty" equation. Some combination of number of years with 100 or more victories, winning pennant races by large margins, being among the top two teams in scoring or fewest runs allowed can be important considerations when considering which teams are dynasties. The 1906-10 Chicago Cubs with four pennants in five years, three won by decisive margins of at least ten games, four times winning at least 100 games (including in 1909, the one year they did not win the pennant); the 1936-42 Yankees from Joe DiMaggio's rookie season until he went off to war, averaging over 100 wins a year, with six pennants in seven years all won by at least nine games, and leading the league in scoring six times and in fewest runs allowed six times; and the 1972-76 Cincinnati Reds, with four division titles--three by margins of at least 10 games--three pennants and two championship rings are three of the best examples of team dynasties.

Each of these teams was also identifiable with a core group of players for all or most of their run: Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance and Three-Finger Brown (the Cubs); DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Charlie Keller, Red Rolfe, Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez and Johnny Murphy (the Yankees); Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez (the Big Red Machine).

Aside from dynastic teams identifiable by a core group of players for a specific period of time, there are four franchises that were "dynasties" over a period of at least two decades by virtue of sustained success. Most obvious are the New York Yankees, beginning in 1921 (when they won the American League pennant for the first time) pretty much to the present day with really only two non-dynastic spells therein--from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s and from the early-1980s until the mid-1990s. The Yankee dynasty seamlessly transitioned from the Ruth and Gehrig, to the DiMaggio, to the Mantle eras famously winning 29 pennants and 20 World Series in 44 years between 1921 and 1964. The most recent iteration of the Yankee dynasty lasted from 1995 to at least 2007, bearing the names of Jeter, Posada, Pettitte and Rivera, with 13 consecutive postseason appearances. (The Yankees won nine consecutive AL East titles during these years.).

The three other franchise dynasties were the New York Giants with 10 pennants but only 3 World Series championships in 21 years from 1904 to 1924; the St. Louis Cardinals with 9 pennants and 6 World Series championships in 21 years between 1926 and 1946; and the Brooklyn-to-Los Angeles Dodgers with 13 pennants (6 in Brooklyn) but only 4 World Series triumphs (3 in L.A.) in 32 years between 1947 and 1978.

That 21-year Cardinal dynasty just mentioned is particularly interesting because they won with no team by itself worthy of being called a "dynasty" for any five-year period, with the possible exception of the 1942-46 Cards that won four pennants in five years, two of which however were when major league rosters were depleted because of ballplayers suiting up for Uncle Sam in the Second World War, which took a far greater toll on arch-rival Brooklyn than St. Louis. Even when St. Louis went to three World Series and won two in five years between 1930 and 1934, the Cardinals finished fifth and sixth in an eight-team league in the two years they did not win the pennant. Branch Rickey kept the Cardinals competitive with the vast number of minor league affiliates under St. Louis control and shrewd trading according to the principle of better to trade a star player approaching his career pivot point of decline a year too soon than a year too late.

With an additional round of playoffs, the wild card era should change how we think about dynasties. Division winners now have to navigate a five-game series and then a seven-game series to get to the World Series. Short series can be fickle, making winning division titles in long 162-game seasons a more true test of how good a team really is than the number of championship rings.

The Atlanta Braves from 1991 to 2005 won an unprecedented 14 consecutive division titles that included six 100-win seasons, eight time finishing first by a blowout margin of at least 8 games, and nine times having the best record in the National League ... but those accomplishments seem somehow diminished because they went to only five World Series and won only one. It should be noted that two of their five pennants were before MLB's three-division / wild card structure came into being when they had only to survive a seven-game League Championship Series to compete in the World Series, and that they were eliminated in the five-game Division Series first round in five of their last six consecutive seasons as division champions. And this was a team that not only dominated the league, but included a significant number of historically great players--Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones--at the peak of their careers.

The New York Yankees from 1996 to 2001 are the only team in the current three divisions / wild card era that can claim a "dynasty" by the traditional dynastic standards of winning pennants and World Series. They survived two American League playoff rounds to make it to five World Series in six years (including four in a row from '98 to '01) and won four championships. Throw in 2003, and it's six pennants and four World Series triumphs in eight years. Since then, even the Jeter-Rivera variant of the Yankee dynasty, having been eliminated in the opening Division Series round in four of their last eight post-season appearances (although they did win it all in 2009), has been snakebit by the number of postseason series now required to be won for baseball's championship.

By winning their third Series in five years, the San Francisco Giants accomplished something not done by any team since the 1996-2001 Yankees. There is no question about that Yankee team being a dynasty, not to mention an extension in the nearing-a-century-long dynasty of the Yankee franchise. But the 2010-14 Giants won their division only twice in five years (remember, they were a wild card this year), only once by as many as eight games (in 2012); never won more than 94 games on the season; never had the best record in the league (they were second-best in 2010); followed their 2010 and 2012 championships with disappointing noncompetitive seasons; and have only the third best record in the National League (after the Cardinals and the Braves) over the last five years.

Whatever can and should be said about the Giants and their accomplishments, they have not dominated the National League in the way one would expect of a dynasty--not in any of the last five years. As has been noted by various experts, however, General Manager Brian Sabean's record in making high-impact trades (such as for Hunter Pence) and bringing in journeymen players to fill sudden holes has kept the Giants in the competitive mix, capable of recovering quickly from disappointing years. They maybe are not quite a dynasty given their actual record over the last five years--not yet, anyway, and certainly not by traditional definitions--but the way the game has evolved and the difficulty of sustaining a winning team, today's San Francisco Giants may be the team that redefines how we consider the concept of "dynasties."

'50s Face Off: Indians Trio vs. Yankees Troika

The Cleveland Indians in the first half of the 1950s had one of the best front-three of any starting rotation in baseball history, as noted in a  previous post, "Maddux. Glavine. And Smoltz" (http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/12/maddux-glavine-and-smoltz-incomparable.html).  From 1949, when they first pitched together off the same mound in Cleveland, through 1954 Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Lemon and Early Wynn together with Mike Garcia were three of the five best pitchers in the American League, based on their cumulative pitcher's wins above replacement. (Boston's Mel Parnell and Chicago's Billy Pierce were the two others.)  The Yankees, meanwhile, had their own starting troika of renown with Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat.  While not the measure of Lemon, Wynn and Garcia, Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat are better known as a Pitching Trio for the Ages because they were the heart on the mound for a New York Yankee team that won five straight World Series championships, whereas the Indians were near-perennial bridesmaids.  This Insight looks at the how the two staffs fared facing off against each other as they competed for the American League pennant.

'50s Face Off:  Indians Trio vs. Yankees Troika

Superior pitching was a hallmark of the rivalry between both teams going back to 1948, the first year Reynolds (acquired by the Yankees from the Indians in 1947), Raschi (called up to stay in 1947) and Lopat (acquired from the White Sox before the season) worked the mound at Yankee Stadium as teammates. Cleveland took the pennant in a one-game playoff against Boston in 1948, and New York finished a close third, but the Yankees were the only team to have a winning record (12-10) against the Indians.  Reynolds (4-1), Lopat (5-2) and Raschi (3-1) accounted for all twelve of the Yankees anti-Cleveland dia-Tribe.  In this year before Wynn (by trade) and Garcia (as a rookie) made it to Cleveland, the Indians' top two starters--Bob Feller (2-4), still the staff ace, and Lemon (1-3), in the first of his six 20-win seasons--managed only three victories between them against the Yankees, losing seven times, but not at the cost of a pennant.

New York again won the season series between the two teams in 1949 (12-10) and 1950 (14-8) on their way to the first two of five straight pennants.  The Yankees' troika won 20 of their 26 victories, while losing 9, with Lopat beating the Indians six times without a loss in 1950.  Lemon, Wynn and Garcia won 11 of the 18 games the Indians beat the Yankees and lost 13.  Feller, still a pillar of Cleveland's staff was 3-8 against the Yankees those two years.  Although the Indians led the league in both nominal ERA (that which appears in the record books) and adjusted ERA (which takes account of home park effects and the offensive level of the time) in 1949 and 1950, winning 89 and 92 games those seasons, they were not a significant threat to the Yankees going to the World Series either year.

From 1951 to 1956, it was the Yankees and the Indians finishing first and second every year in the American League, except for 1954 when it was the other way around.  The Indians faced off against the Yankees in three close pennant races not decided till the final week of the season and lost them all. Cleveland's inability to beat out New York more than once was reflected in their season series with the Yankees.  In 1951, the Tribe was a game ahead of the Yankees with only ten remaining when they went into New York in mid-September for a two-game series. Reynolds and Lopat each threw complete game victories over Feller and Lemon, the Indians scoring only two runs in the two games. Cleveland left New York a game down but clearly defeated for the seasons, winning only three of its remaining eight games, while the Yankees won nine of their last twelve, deciding the pennant by five games in favor of New York. The 1951 Yankees overwhelmed the Indians in their season series, winning 15 of 22 games. Their trio of big-game starters—Reynolds (5-1 against Cleveland), Raschi (3-2), and Lopat (5-2)—won 13 of those 15 games, while losing five. For Cleveland, Feller—who led the league in wins with 22 in his last outstanding season—won only two of six decisions against New York, while Lemon (3-3), Wynn (1-4) and Garcia (1-3) accounted for the remainder of the Indians' seven triumphs over the Yankees, but also for ten losses. The Indians’ formidable pitching—they led the league in ERA, lowest batting average and on-base percentage against, and fewest home runs surrendered—held the Yankees to their second lowest run total against any team in the league, but the Bronx Bombers still outscored the Tribe by an average of one run per game, 99 runs (4.5 per game) to 78 (3.5 per game). 

In 1952, the Indians could get no closer than half-a-game out in the final three weeks, but never trailed by more than 2½ before being eliminated with only two games left to the season.  Cleveland was last in first place on August 22, when Garcia beat Reynolds to boost the Indians into a tie with the Yankees, but the next day a 1-0 shutout by Raschi over Wynn left New York atop the standings alone, and the Yankees never had to so much as share the lead again in a pennant they won by a mere two games. The Indians fared better head-to-head against the Yankees in 1952 but still lost the series, winning 10 and losing 12. As befitting the only other team in the American League to win 90 games, Cleveland held the Yankees to their worst record against AL teams and was the only team to batter New York pitchers, who led the league in ERA, for 100 runs. The Yankees, for their part, scored 105 runs against the Indians. This time the Yankees’ trio of starters had an 8-7 record against the Indians, while Lemon, Wynn and Garcia went 7-6, with Feller—at the beginning of the end of his great career (9-13 on the season)—winning one of four decisions against New York. 

The Yankees won their first run-away pennant under Stengel in 1953 and were never behind in the standings after only their seventh game of the season. Not that it did them any good, but this time the Indians split their season series, once again being the most difficult team for New York to beat. Reynolds pitched mostly in relief in 1953 and had no decisions against Cleveland; Raschi and Lopat won five and lost three.  All three of the Yankee starters, however, were in their mid-30s and none pitched 200 innings or started more than 26 games.  Lemon and Wynn, by now in their early 30s, and Garcia each started at least 34 games on the season and worked in excess of 250 innings.  Against the Yankees, they combined for an 11-9 record, accounting for all but two of the Indians’ decisions over New York. The two teams split their series again in 1954, this time with Cleveland winning the pennant decisively—by eight games—or as decisively as can be, considering the runner-up Yankees won 103 games of their own. Reynolds and Lopat won five and lost three against the Indians, and Raschi was denied any ability to contribute having been unceremoniously banished to the Cardinals in a pre-season trade. Lemon and Wynn went 8-5 against the Yankees, while Garcia failed to gain a victory in three decisions. This was the first time in the four years that the Indians outscored the Yankees in the season series, but just barely by 99 to 95. 

Finally, in 1955, the Indians beat the Yankees in their season series, taking 13 of 22 games, but lost the pennant by three games. This was the first time in the Stengel era that the Yankees lost a season series to any pennant race rival, of whom they faced off against eleven from 1949 to 1955. The Indians’ trio of aces had an 8-8 record against the Yankees, while New York’s vaunted trio was no longer there. But, of course, New York again came out on top of the AL standings.  And in 1956, the last year that the Indians were in any way competitive with the Yankees, Lemon, Wynn and Garcia went 6-10 against New York--who won the season series, 12 games to 10--and major league baseball's newest phenom, Herb Score, beat the Yankees three times in four decisions.

New York's trio had the edge over Cleveland's going head-to-head in the three years, 1951 to 1953, that both teams' top threesome were intact and the Yankees and Indians were the only teams directly competing for the American League pennant.   Allie Reynolds (7-5), Vic Raschi (10-4) and Ed Lopat (9-5) combined for 26 wins and 14 losses against the Indians--a .650 winning percentage, not far off their excellent collective .668  winning percentage (147-73) for those three seasons. Cleveland's top three starters combined for a 180-110 (.620) record from 1951 to 1953 and threw more than a third as many innings as New York's top three, but were only 23-25 against the Yankees, with Bob Lemon having a losing 8-9 record against the Bronx Bombers and Early Wynn a losing 6-9 record. Mike Garcia alone had a winning record against the pinstripers during those years at 9-7.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the Yankees won all three pennants.  

Parallelism: Torre and Stengel in Pinstripes

The managerial career of Joe Torre, one of three iconic managers who will be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame next summer whose careers crossed the millennial divide, has eerily remarkable parallels to that of Casey Stengel, Hall of Fame class of 1966.  As with Stengel in 1949, there were more than a few skeptics wondering, what are the Yankee owners thinking, when Torre was named manager of the storied New York Yankees for the 1996 season.  It certainly wasn’t a question in either case of, “who he?”  It was more a question of, “why him?” or perhaps more appropriately in both cases, what did he ever do as a manager to deserve the chance to restore the Yankees to their rightful place as the best team in the baseball universe?

Parallelism:  Torre and Stengel in Pinstripes

Like Stengel when he first surfaced as manager in pinstripes, Joe Torre had had an undistinguished career managing several teams in the National League. Okay, perhaps not quite as undistinguished a managerial career as Stengel's, whose pedigree was eight losing seasons in nine years, never finishing better than fifth.  Of course, he was managing the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves when both were bad teams, but his banter and irreverence made Stengel often appear like the clownish manager of teams not to be taken seriously, so why should he be taken seriously?  Torre, for his part, had only five winning seasons in fourteen years managing three different National League teams.  After five years managing that hapless '70s show otherwise known as the New York Mets, Torre did win a division title in his first year as manager of the Atlanta Braves in 1982, replacing Bobby Cox no less.  A division title notwithstanding, Torre was fired three years later and would not return to the managerial ranks until 1990 in St. Louis, where he lasted till 47 games into the 1995 season.  Therefore, like Stengel, who came to the Yankees with a career managerial winning percentage of only .439 (581-742), Torre—with a career record of 894-1,003 (.471) as manager—was hardly an obvious choice to take over the New York Yankees.   Both were controversial choices because they lacked a winning managerial resume, and if Casey had a personality that begged for being taken seriously by the serious-to-a-fault Yankees, Torre’s perceived lack of personality seemed hardly inspiring.

Just as Stengel took the reins when the Joe DiMaggio era at Yankee Stadium was coming to an end (although Joltin' Joe would play three seasons for Casey), the Yankees were at the end of the Don Mattingly era when Torre became manager, Donny Baseball having retired after the 1995 season.  In contrast to the DiMaggio era, however, which saw the Yankees win eight pennants and seven World Series from 1936 until Stengel became manager in 1949, including a world championship just two years before, the Mattingly era had been notably unsuccessful.  Mattingly’s time coincided with the longest drought of pennants and championships in Yankee history since they began winning regularly way back in 1921.  Unlike in the DiMaggio era, when Joe McCarthy was master of the Yankees’ universe until 1946, Mattingly lived through ten managerial changes in his thirteen years as their star first baseman, including Billy Martin three separate times.  (Martin was also on the Veteran's Committee ballot this year, but had virtually no chance with Torre, Bobby Cox, and Tony LaRussa being undeniable locks to be elected.)  The Yankees had not won a World Series since 1978 and had not been to the post-season since 1981, the year of their last pennant.

As when Stengel became manager, the Yankees faced an uncertain future when Joe Torre was given command of the ship.  The Yankees were reloading both times and future success was not guaranteed, particularly because the 1949 and 1996 Yankees each faced the prospect of competing against teams potentially better positioned for success in the immediate future:  the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians in Stengel’s time; the Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles in the AL East and the Indians in the AL Central in Torre’s time.  Both managers inherited a veteran at the peak of his career playing a critical position:  shortstop Phil Rizzuto for Stengel, center fielder Bernie Williams for Torre.  And both managers had a veteran even better known for being a resilient gamer than for his considerable skills on the field of play:  “Old Reliable” right fielder-first baseman Tommy Henrich on the Stengel Yankees, the perfectionist “Warrior” right fielder Paul O’Neill on the Torre Yankees.  Both managers also had a compelling but still unproven talent playing at a critical position at the start of his career:  Yogi Berra at catcher for Stengel, Derek Jeter at shortstop for Torre.    

Like Stengel, Joe Torre had little margin for error.  Just as Stengel might not have survived without quickly winning the Yankees another pennant, the same was almost certainly true for Torre—especially since Yankee Boss George Steinbrenner was famously volatile about losing, impatient about not winning, and quick to dispose of managers who did not have his team come out ahead, as he did with the well-respected Buck Showalter for failing to win the 1995 ALCS despite having returned the Yankees to competitiveness and their first post-season appearance in fourteen years, albeit by way of the wild card.  Moreover, public dismay in New York that the Yankees' most successful  manager since the 1970s was being replaced by Torre, who was widely perceived in the Big Apple as an ineffectual manager, notwithstanding his division title with Atlanta in 1982, caused Steinbrenner to try to reverse his decision.  Showalter was no fool and refused to come back as manager with his intended replacement already signed up and presumably in position to step in the next time Steinbrenner decided he had enough of Showalter.  So Torre became manager, knowing two things:  the New York fan base was not supportive of the decision to replace Showalter, and Steinbrenner would not hesitate to relieve him of his responsibilities quickly if the Yankees slipped from contention.

With his future as a major league manager on the line in 1949, all Casey Stengel did was win an unprecedented five pennants in a row, and an unprecedented five straight World Series.  And in so doing, Casey's clownish persona transformed into that of an eccentric creative genius; he became sort of an Einstein in the art of managing.  Stengel's achievement in winning five and five in five was all the more remarkable because his team was not nearly as dominant as McCarthy's great Yankee teams of the 1930s and early 1940s.  After leading the Yankees to 103 wins in 1954--the only season Casey cracked the 100-win barrier--and not winning the pennant (because the Cleveland Indians won 111 and set an AL record that still stands for highest winning percentage), the Yankees won five more pennants and two more Fall Classics for Stengel.  In twelve seasons managing the Yankees before he "made the mistake of turning seventy," Stengel won ten pennants and seven World Series.  

And with his career as a big league manager at stake in 1996, all Joe Torre did was take the Yankees to five World Series in his first six years at the helm, winning four world championships.  And in so doing, Torre's unflappable, steady persona transformed into that of one of the country's most respected leaders; he had a subtle touch for managing up, managing down, and keeping his team from being distracted by Steinbrenner's bluster and intemperate actions.  Torre's achievement of five pennants and four World Series championships between 1996 and 2001 is all the more remarkable given that, in the wild card era, he had to navigate his team through two rounds of post-season series just to get to the Fall Classic.  

Same as Stengel, Torre managed the Yankees for twelve years, and his teams finished first in the AL East ten times, just as Casey's team finished on top of the unitary American League ten times.  And, like Stengel, who was unceremoniously dumped in an awkward “was he fired, or did he retire” press conference, Torre's departure from the Yankees was less than elegant; it can be argued that the Yankee front office maneuvered Torre into firing himself by offering a new contract whose foundation principles were degrading to a manager who had accomplished so much.  Torre's Yankees made the post-season every year he was their manager, twice as a wild card entry, winning six pennants and four World Series, all while enduring one Mr. George Steinbrenner (who was also on the Veteran's Committee ballot this year, but failed to pass muster).

For the record, Joe Torre won 1,173 games in his twelve years in charge of the pinstripers, just barely ahead of Casey Stengel's 1,149 victories as Yankee manager.  The Yankees had a .623 winning percentage under Stengel, the equal of a 101-61 season in today's schedule--(Stengel's Yankees were in the era when the baseball season was 154 games long)--and a .605 winning percentage under Torre, the equivalent of a 98-64 record.  Joe McCarthy, Hall of Fame class of 1957, is the Yankee manager with the most longevity (sixteen years in pinstripes), most wins (1,460 in 154-game seasons)) and highest winning percentage (.627, the same as a 102-60 record today).   

The Red Sox-Yankee Rivalry, 1946-50: Explaining Why Boston Underachieved

As the Yankees and Red Sox resume their storied rivalry this weekend, this Baseball Historical Insight goes back to the years 1946 to 1950--the first time the two teams' rivalry was actually about the pennant race--to examine why the Red Sox were not as successful as they perhaps should have been.

The Red Sox-Yankee Rivalry, 1946-50:  Explaining Why Boston Underachieved

When war time exigencies caught up with major league baseball in 1943--the first year big league rosters were badly decimated by players being called to the service of their country--the Yankees and Red Sox were the two best teams in the American League, finishing first and second in both 1941 and 1942, although Boston never seriously threatened New York's stranglehold on first place.  When their star players returned from the war in 1946--most prominently, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Tommy Henrich, and Phil Rizzuto for the Yankees and Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky for the Red Sox--it was Boston who dominated the American League and seemed to have the makings of baseball's next dynastic team.  With a 104-50 record, the Red Sox won the pennant by 12 games over the defending-AL champion Tigers, and the Yankees were never a factor, finishing third, 17 games out.  The two teams' fortunes were reversed in 1947, with the Yankees winning a blowout pennant by 12 games (The Tigers, again, caught in the middle) and the Red Sox coming home third, far behind at 14 games off pace.  The next three years, down to the wire, Boston and New York were fierce competitors for the pennant; Cleveland beat out both teams to win in 1948, and the Yankees won the 1949 and 1950 pennants.  The Yankees' triumph in 1949 was particularly bitter for Boston, since the Red Sox went into Yankee Stadium for the final two games of the season with a one-game lead needing only one victory to go to the World Series.  They lost both games, and thus did the Yankees win the first of an unprecedented five straight pennants and World Series.

How closely competitive were these two teams?  From 1946 to 1950, the Yankees and Red Sox won exactly the same number of games--473; that Boston lost one more than New York (298 to 297) is only because they were forced to play a one-game playoff for the pennant with Cleveland in 1948 after finishing the scheduled season tied for first, which the Red Sox lost.  Not only that, but Boston and New York each won 55 games against each other in that time, with the Red Sox winning two of their season series by identical 14-8 records in 1946 and 1948, and the Yankees winning the other three by identical 13-9 records in 1947, 1949, and 1950.  Had a trifling few of those losses turned to wins, it could have easily been the Red Sox with three pennants (their 1946 blowout, 1948, and 1949), and the Yankees with no more than two (their 1947 blowout and 1950).  And even 1950 might have gone Boston's way had the Red Sox gotten off to a better start, since from August 1 to the end of the season, the Red Sox had the best record in the American League--three games better than the Yankees.

They could have been a dominant team, perhaps should have been a dominant team--particularly after adding power-hitting shortstop Vern Stephens in a trade from the Browns in 1948 (Pesky moving from short to third) and with southpaw Mel Parnell and righty Ellis Kinder emerging that year as two of the best pitchers in the league--but the Boston Red Sox from 1946 to 1950 won just the one pennant.  The New York Yankees, who had looked to be getting old kind of fast in 1946, wound up winning three pennants during that span after refashioning their team, particularly the pitching staff, following their disappointing performance in 1946.  Yet the Red Sox may have actually had the better team, including from 1948 to 1950, when you consider they had more outstanding core regulars (Williams, Doerr, Stephens, Pesky, their DiMaggio) during those years than the Yankees (the DiMaggio, Rizzuto, and possibly Yogi Berra, who did not hit his stride as a great player until 1950).

What margins of difference separated the two teams as their competitive rivalry first took shape?

• The Red Sox' roster may have been graced with more of the game's best players, but the Yankees had far superior depth.  After former great Yankee manager Joe McCarthy took over the Red Sox in 1948, he started his core regulars game after game and kept them in the whole game, not giving them a break.  Boston position players were in at the end of 97 percent of the games they started from 1948 to 1950.  Beginning with Bucky Harris, when he managed the Yankees in 1948, and certainly after Casey Stengel assumed the reins, the Yankees not only platooned at various positions, but substituted for position players far more often than most other teams.  From 1948 to 1950, the Yankees' starting position players played the complete game only 87 percent of the time. 
• Boston's more potent offense, leading the league in scoring four times those five years, was more than mitigated by New York's advantage in pitching and defense.  The Red Sox scored 6 percent more runs between 1946 and 1950 than the Yankees, but also gave up 14 percent more runs than their rivals in the Northeast Corridor.  Looked at another way, the Yankees scored 33 percent more runs than their game opponents--outscoring them by an average of 200 runs per year--while the Red Sox outscored theirs by a significantly smaller margin of 167 runs per year, 23 percent more than their opponents.
• Boston's two best pitchers when they won the 1946 pennant, Tex Hughson and Boo Ferris, never again approached their success of that year because of injuries. While it is true the Red Sox from 1948 to 1950 had two of the game's best pitchers in Parnell and Kinder, the remainder of their staff was suspect.  Defensively, the Red Sox were certainly competent--usually among the teams with the fewest errors--but their defensive efficiency ratio of making outs on balls put into play was mostly middle-of-the-pack, and three times below the league average.  This is certainly consistent with their historical reputation of not being especially good in the field.  The Yankees, with Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Eddie Lopat (who arrived by trade in 1948), had the best starting corps in the league from 1947 to 1950, and were first or second in defensive efficiency ratio all five years.
• Boston's most fundamental problem, however, was being behind the curve at a time when having a capable bullpen with a dedicated relief ace was coming into vogue.  The Yankees had Joe Page, who was instrumental in their winning the 1947 and 1949 pennants.  By virtue of finishing fourth in MVP voting in 1947, Page would likely have won the Cy Young Award that year, had the award existed back then.  The Red Sox lack of an ace reliever likely cost them the pennant in both 1948 and 1949.  That the Red Sox' bullpen was so inadequate seems somewhat surprising since McCarthy not only benefited from a strong relief corps when he managed the Yankee dynasty in the 1930s and early 1940s, but specifically cultivated Johnny Murphy to be his fireman in the bullpen (see earlier post http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013_03_01_archive.html).  It was not until after McCarthy resigned as manager early in the 1950 season that Ellis Kinder was specifically designated to be Boston's relief ace, a role at which he excelled into the mid-1950s.

It is hard to argue that  Boston did not have the superior team when considering its core players, but as to the competitive bottom line:  three pennants and three World Series championships for the Yankees between 1946 and 1950 are ... well, two pennants and three World Series championships more than the Red Sox won.  It is very hard to go against that.  After 1950, the Yankees kept winning, but the Red Sox had lost their edge and were on their way to spending the rest of that decade as, at best, a marginally-competitive team.

For a more comprehensive analysis, see my chapter on these two teams in my online manuscript: http://www.thebestbaseballteams.com/pdf/al/1946-50_RedSox_and_Yankees.pdf

Introducing Baseball Historical Insight

More than any other sport, baseball's history informs the present.  Baseball honors its history with both import and reverence, which helps keeps alive its heroes of the past as totems against which the accomplishments of current players, teams, and even managers are invariably measured.  Unlike for statesmen, for whom it is said that to be unaware of history is to be condemned to repeat mistakes of the past, for baseball fans, to be unaware or unmindful of the game's history is to be missing out on what makes the game so special and endearing.  As we are about to be caught up in the drama of the 2013 season and follow the daily highlights, my purpose in Baseball Historical Insight is to remind baseball fans of the legacy implicitly carried by every player, every manager, and every team in the major leagues today.

The following is the first Historical Insight:

JOHNNY MURPHY TIME

As Mariano Rivera embarks on the final season of his Hall of Fame career,it is worth remembering that he follows in a New York Yankees' line of exceptional relief pitchers--typically the best in baseball, or at least the American League, during their time in pinstripes--dating back to Johnny Murphy, who pioneered the role in the mid-1930s.

Despite the success the Washington Senators had winning back-to-back pennants in 1924 and 1925 using hard-throwing right-hander Firpo Marberry nearly exclusively in relief--which was unprecedented for a pitcher with his talent--there was still no epiphany in major league baseball that "relief ace" deserved to be its own pitching discipline, that good pitchers might be developed and used for years specifically in that role.  In 91 relief appearances those two years, in which he finished 70 games, Marberry proved the value of his role by winning 15 games while saving 30 of Washington's 188 victories.  And thus was the relief ace born.

But the concept of a dedicated relief ace was slow to catch hold.  Major league teams were not especially warm to the idea of using talented young pitchers like Marberry in relief roles for very long before making them starters, and starting pitchers were expected to get complete game victories.  Consequently, most teams continued to use multi-role pitchers who both started and relieved to "save" close games, or auditioned pitchers in the relief role before either moving them after a season or two into the starting rotation or determining that they were unlikely to achieve starting-pitcher quality and letting them go.  And rather than use the designated relief pitchers in any given year to "save" victories, managers typically relied on some of their top starting pitchers for such an important task.  Lefty Grove and Dizzy Dean, for example, were both top-flight starting pitchers who, in their peak years, also routinely led their team in saves.  Most pitchers who worked primarily in relief spent much of their time replacing starting pitchers who were knocked out early, or working in games that were lost causes.  Obviously, no self-respecting pitcher with ambition wanted any part of "relief pitcher" as a career path.

It wasn't until the Yankees in 1935 that another team specifically groomed a young pitcher--in their case, Johnny Murphy--to be an ace reliever as a career calling.  The previous year, as a 25-year old rookie, Murphy had started 20 games and relieved in 20 games, and pitched well in both roles, but his manager, Joe McCarthy, did not see Murphy as a front-line starter--at least not on a staff that also included future Hall of Famers Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez.   Deciding to divide his pitching staff into exclusively-starters and exclusively-relievers, McCarthy persuaded Murphy to give up whatever dreams he may have had of being a starting pitcher to become his ace in the bullpen.  Unlike other managers of his day, McCarthy in all his years of winning success with the Yankees rarely used his top four starters out of the bullpen.  Instead, he routinely carried three (sometimes four) pitchers he used almost exclusively in relief, the best of whom--Johnny Murphy--was both his "fireman," coming in late in the game with runners on base to douse the flames of an opposition rally (and, indeed, one of Murphy's nicknames was "Fireman"), and his "closer" (although the term was not yet used in a Mariano Rivera context), coming in specifically to save games.

McCarthy used Murphy judiciously and efficiently.  From 1935 to his final season with the Yankees in 1946 (not counting the two years--1944 and 1945--he served in the military during World War II), Johnny Murphy appeared in as many as 38 games in relief only once (in 1939) and relieved in 35 games or more only four other times.  But his relief appearances were invariably productive.  Working about two innings per relief appearance, and leading the American League in saves four times, Murphy pitched 262 games in relief for the Yankees from 1936 to 1943, when they won seven pennants in eight years. His record in relief during those seasons was 60 wins and 34 losses with 88 saves, meaning that in 70 percent (182 games) of his total relief appearances, Johnny Murphy figured directly in the outcome of the game.  McCarthy was clearly using Murphy when it mattered the most.

Indicative of McCarthy's genius in handling his pitching staff during the Joe DiMaggio-era Yankee dynasty, the New York Yankees led the league in both complete games and saves in 1937, 1939, and 1942.  This had been done only once previously, by the 1926 St. Louis Cardinals, and would be done only once more in the twentieth century--by the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers.  The significance of this hardly needs to be said:  at least until the 1990s, when complete games plummeted to less than 10 percent, teams with starting pitching good enough to lead the league in complete games did not need to go to relief pitchers so often that their pitching staff also led the league in saves.  That happened only five times in the twentieth century,including three times in six years by a Yankee team that had excellent starting pitching and a strong bullpen led by Johnny Murphy.  Manager McCarthy was more than astute in how he employed his pitching staff.  He gave his starting pitchers every opportunity to complete a victory, but was intuitive enough to know when it was . . . Johnny Murphy time.