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. 

INTRODUCING YOUR 1956 AMERICAN LEAGUE ALL-STARS

The American League went down to a 7-3 defeat in the 1956 All-Star Game, played on July 10th in Washington's Griffith Stadium. All of their runs came on a pair of 6th-inning home runs by Ted Williams (with a runner on) and Mickey Mantle off Braves' ace Warren Spahn. For Williams, his 4th—and last—All-Star home run hardly was as dramatic as any of his first three, in part because his league was already trailing by five runs. For Mantle, it was his 2nd All-Star home run, after a 3-run blast he hit the previous year. Although he played in 12 more All-Star Games, it also turned out to be the last for Mickey Mantle, All Star, as well as his last All-Star run batted in.

Introducing Your 1956 American League All-Stars (60 Years Ago)

Given they had a 6½ -game lead over both the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians and had won exactly two-thirds of their games, it was no surprise that the New York Yankees had the most players on the 1956 AL All-Star squad—six. Batting fourth and fifth in manager Casey Stengel's All-Star starting line-up, although they hit third and fourth in Stengel's Yankee line-up, were Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Mantle was having an epic year, leading the universe—well, the majors, anyway—in runs (70), homers (29), RBIs (71), and batting (.371).

The other Yankee All-Stars were second baseman Billy Martin, making the All-Star team for the first and only time in his playing career; their Mr. Versatility, infielder Gil McDougald, whose only previous All-Star selection was in his second big league season in 1952; and pitchers Whitey Ford and Johnny Kucks. 

In just his second year, Kucks was 11-4 and had become an unexpectedly important contributor to the Yankee cause because both Bob Turley, who was 17-13 with a 3.06 ERA in 247 innings the previous season, and southpaw Tommy Byrne, whose 16-5 record was the AL's best winning percentage in 1955, were pitching poorly so far this year. Ford, 10-4, had thrown 3 scoreless innings starting the 1954 All-Star Game and also pitched in the 1955 Game, giving up 5 runs in 1⅔ innings.

Neither Yankee pitcher started for the 1956 American League All-Stars. That honor went to White Sox ace Billy Pierce, who had won 13 of 16 decisions. Pierce had also been the starting pitcher for the American League in the 1955 All-Star Game.

The fifth-place Red Sox had five players make the All-Star team, including left fielder Ted Williams and first baseman Mickey Vernon in the starting line-up. Williams was voted in despite not starting any games between April 18 (the 2nd game of the year) and May 29 (34 games later) because of a foot injury when he slipped in the showers, which limited him in the games between to coming off the bench as a pinch hitter. 

Indicative of the difference in the two leagues when it came to integration, in this the 10th year since Jackie Robinson's 1947 debut, the National League All-Star team included seven black players from five different teams—Frank Robinson and Brooks Lawrence from the Reds; Hank Aaron from the Braves; Roy Campanella and Jim Gilliam from the Dodgers; Ernie Banks from the Cubs; and Willie Mays from the Giants. The American League All-Stars, by contrast, included just two black players, both from the same team. 

They were Kansas City Athletics first baseman Vic Power and outfielder Harry Simpson. Power had also made the 1955 AL All-Star team, getting into the game as a pinch hitter. Simpson, who broke in with Cleveland in 1951 but had spent all of 1954 back in the minors, was having an extraordinary year. His 60 RBIs at the break were second to Mantle.

Neither of the American League's outstanding and most prominent black players since integration made the 1956 All-Star squad. Larry Doby, who made seven straight All-Star teams from 1949 to 1955 playing for the Indians, was not selected in his first year with the White Sox. The 32-year-old Doby got off to a sluggish start with his new club and was injured for part of May, but had a strong June with 8 homers, 27 RBIs, and a .290 batting average in 30 games that month. Not enough to be named an All-Star. Doby's teammate, Minnie Minoso, a four-time previous All-Star, also did not make the 1956 AL team despite 45 run scored, 37 RBIs, and .311 batting average, as well as having hit .348 in the month of June. 

For all their excellence, both players had started All-Star games just once—Doby in 1950 and Minoso in 1954—and remained, as of 1956, the only two black players to ever start for the American League team. As of 1956, Doby, Minoso, Satchel Paige in 1953, and now Simpson were the only black players to be American League All-Stars. 

Of course, that was not so much about snubbing black players for the AL All-Star team, whether by the fans voting or the managers selecting, as it was there were so few blacks on the rosters of American League teams.


The following is the list of the American League's starting position players, reserves, and pitchers for the 1956 All-Star Game with their key stats up to the All-Star break:

AL STARTING LINE-UP	RUNS	Power	BA
Kuenn, DET, SS	38 R	42 RBI	.354
Fox, CHI, 2B	54 R	28 RBI	.286
Williams, BOS, LF	21 R 39 GS	5 HR      30 RBI	.368
Mantle, NYY, CF	70 R	29 HR   71 RBI	.371
Berra, NYY, C	44 R	18 HR  51 RBI	.281
Kaline, DET, RF	48 R	12 HR  54 RBI	.283
Vernon, BOS, 1B	31 R	8 HR   41 RBI	.324
Kell, BAL, 3B	23 R	27 RBI	.320

AL POSITION RESERVES	RUNS	Power	BA
McDougald, NYY, SS	54	30 RBI	.310
Martin, NYY, 2B	42	23 RBI	.270
Lollar, CHI, C	30	44 RBI	.313
Boone, DET, 3B	37	12 HR  33 RBI	.252
Maxwell, DET, OF	49	17 HR  39 RBI	.361
Piersall, BOS, OF	51	35 RBI	.301
Sievers, WAS, OF	61	17 HR  54 RBI	.267
Power, KC, 1B	31   52 GS	25 RBI	.294
Simpson, KC, OF	42	12 HR  60 RBI	.304

AL PITCHERS	Record	G	ERA
Pierce, CHI * ( SP / ASG )	13-3	17 GS	3.11
Brewer, BOS	11-3	16 GS	3.02
Kucks, NYY	11-4	15 GS	3.26
Jim Wilson, CHI	11-5	15 GS	3.56
Ford, NYY *	10-4	16 GS	2.43
Wynn, CLE	10-4	17 GS	3.00
Sullivan, BOS	8-3	17 GS	3.26
Score, CLE *	8-6	15 GS	2.96
Narleski, CLE	3-2          4 SV	25 G relief	1.62
*  Left-handed pitcher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But. . . 

Maybe this would be . . .

. . . Next Year.