Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty

by Phil Pepe

  Hank Bauer was a rugged, rough and tumble ex-Marine who someone once said, “has a face like a clenched fist.” The comment, Bauer’s looks, his gravelly voice, and his reputation belie the docile nature of a gentle soul. But on the playing field, he was hardly that. A tough, hell-for-leather, win-at-all-costs, fierce competitor, he would often confront lackadaisical rookies with the admonition, “You’re messing with my money.” A four-year veteran of the Marines and a war hero who won 11 campaign ribbons, including two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts in the Pacific Theater during World War II, Bauer was signed by the Yankees in 1946. Two years later he reached the major leagues. Like Yogi Berra and other Yankees of that era, Bauer was all about winning. In his 12 seasons with them, the Yankees won nine pennants and seven World Series. He set a record by hitting safely in 17 consecutive World Series games. When his playing career ended, Bauer managed the Athletics in both Kansas City and Oakland, and the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he won the 1966 World Series in a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

  The ’60s

  Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, Bobby Richardson

  Years as Yankees Teammates—7 (1960–66)

  Pennants Won as Teammates—5

  World Series Won as Teammates—3

  By the 1960s, Mickey Mantle, having reached veteran, exalted, legendary status, was the leader of the Yankees not only on the field, but in the clubhouse as well. He was adored by fans, respected by opponents, and revered by teammates. While his age and the frequency of his physical ailments indicated that he would soon begin his decline, there were still some good years remaining for Mantle. In 1960, he led the league with 40 home runs. In 1961, he made a bid to break Babe Ruth’s record of 60 homers, ending up with 54 and 128 RBI. Injuries reduced him over the next two seasons to a combined 188 games, 45 homers, and 124 RBI, numbers he used to ring up in a 154-game season. He rebounded with 35 homers and 111 RBI in 1964, but again injuries hampered him in 1965 and ’66, when he hit 42 homers and drove in 102 runs in 230 games. It was clear the end was in sight. He played the 1967–68 seasons as a shell of his former self, 144 games each season with un-Mantle-like batting averages of .245 and .237, 22 and 18 home runs, and 55 and 54 RBI. He could have played another year for the same $100,000 salary, but his pride wouldn’t allow it and he retired to Yankees superstar emeritus status.

  The Yankees targeted Roger Maris when he came up with the Cleveland Indians as a 22-year-old and hit 42 home runs in his first two seasons. They liked his left-handed stroke and saw him as a dead-pull hitter capable of doing severe damage in Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch. Unable to pry him away from Indians general manager Frank Lane, the Yanks waited two years, when Maris was with their frequent trading partner the Kansas City Athletics, and landed him on December 11, 1959, in a seven-player trade. Maris paid immediate dividends in New York, belting 39 homers, driving in a league-leading 112 runs, and was voted American League Most Valuable Player in 1960. A year later, Maris hit the jackpot in a magical 1961 baseball season, the first year of American League expansion, which lengthened the season schedule to 162 games. He teamed up with Mickey Mantle (the M&M boys) for an assault on Babe Ruth’s illustrious single-season home run record of 60. M&M battled homer- for-homer through June, July, and August, but in September Mantle was felled by a leg injury and Maris was alone in the home run chase. Plagued by critics, besieged by the media, beset with stress, burdened by Major League Baseball’s mandate that to be considered to have broken Ruth’s record, a hitter must do it within 154 games (the number of games in a season in Ruth’s day), Maris saw patches of his hair fall out. But he finally triumphed and finished with 61 homers (Mantle hit 54). Unfortunately all’s well-that-ends-well wasn’t true for Maris. He was excoriated in the press, charged with being uncooperative and surly, and later accused of exaggerating a hand injury. When his production fell off dramatically (13 home runs in 1966), Maris was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Charley Smith, a third baseman who played for the Yankees for two seasons and who, in his 10 major league seasons, hit 69 home runs, or eight more than Maris hit in that one special season.

  It took the Yankees eight years to break the color line, but when they did, they chose a gem: Elston Howard, a gentleman, a man of great character, a competitor, and an outstanding ballplayer. The Yanks purchased Howard’s contract from the famed Kansas Monarchs of the Negro American League when he was 21 years old. After two years in military service, Howard played a year for Kansas City in the Class AAA American Association and a year with Toronto in the Class AAA International League before coming to the Yankees to stay in 1955. With the Yankees, at first Howard was used mostly at first base and the outfield, but they tabbed him as heir apparent to Yogi Berra’s catching position. By 1960, he was catching more games than Berra, and by 1961 he had taken over as the team’s No. 1 catcher and hit a robust .348. In 1963, Howard was voted American League Most Valuable Player when he batted .287 with 28 home runs and 85 runs batted in. Berra and his successor Howard became the closest of friends and were practically inseparable on the road when they both served as Yankees coaches under manager Billy Martin.

  Bobby Richardson was the glue of the Yankees infield in the late ’50s and early ’60s, a magnificent defender who won five Gold Gloves and was an outstanding clutch hitter who excelled in the World Series. While his career batting average was .266 in the regular season, he batted .305 in seven World Series. Richardson’s best year was 1962, when he batted .302, led the American League in hits with 209, and had career highs in home runs with eight and RBI with 59. But Richardson is best known for two World Series moments: catching the final out of the 1963 series, a line drive off the bat of Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants, and setting a record with 12 RBI in the 1960 Series, for which he is the only player from a losing team to be voted World Series MVP. When his playing career of 12 seasons—all with the Yankees—ended, Richardson did some college coaching. He helped put the University of South Carolina baseball program on the map by leading the Gamecocks to the 1975 College World Series and later coached at Liberty College and Coastal Carolina. A national leader of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Richardson preached at the White House at the invitation of President Nixon and officiated at the funeral of his teammate and friend Mickey Mantle.

  The ’70s

  Thurman Munson, Roy White, Graig Nettles, Sparky Lyle

  Years as Yankees Teammates—6 (1973–78)

  Pennants Won as Teammates—3

  World Series Won as Teammates—2

  Picking fourth in baseball’s 1968 amateur draft, the Yankees, in a three-year funk that saw them finish sixth, 10th, and ninth, and in need of a quick fix, could have selected Bobby Valentine, a Connecticut kid projected as a future Hall of Famer, or sluggers Greg Luzinski, Gary Matthews, or Bill Buckner. Instead they went for a catcher from Kent State University with a squatty body and a sour disposition. His name was Thurman Munson and he would change the culture around the Yankees for years to come. Rookie of the Year in 1970 and Most Valuable Player in 1976, Munson was a worthy successor to the team’s long line of outstanding catchers (Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Elston Howard) that went back four decades. Munson was so respected by his teammates and so highly thought of by the team’s owner for his competitiveness and leadership that George Steinbrenner made him the first Yankees captain since Lou Gehrig. And Munson led—with three consecutive seasons (1975–77) in which he batted at least .300 and drove in at least 100 runs, and by guiding the Yankees to three consecutive American League pennants (1976–78) and two World Series titles (1977 and ’78)—until he died tragically when he crashed while practicing landing his Cessna Citation at Akron-Canton Airport on August 2, 1979. He was 32 years old.

  During the team’s down period in the early ’60s, Yankees fans had only Mel Stottlemyre, Bobby Murcer, and Roy White to cheer for. By 1976, when the bad days finally ended and the Yankees raised o
ne more pennant up the flag pole, Stottlemyre and Murcer were gone, but White remained. A dependable, steady, and durable (five times he played at least 155 games) switch-hitter for 15 major league seasons, all with the Yankees, White had a lifetime batting average of .271 with 160 home runs and 758 RBI and is on the Yankees’ top 20 career list in games played, hits, at-bats, doubles, stolen bases, and runs.

  The city of Boston’s greatest gifts to the New York Yankees, a half-century apart, were George Herman “Babe” Ruth and Albert Walter “Sparky” Lyle. The return of the Yankees fortunes after a malaise of more than a decade can rightly be said to have started with the sale of the team to George Steinbrenner and the acquisition in a trade with the Red Sox of Lyle, the two events less than a year apart. Recognizing the changing nature of the game and the sudden prominence of the relief pitcher, it was manager Ralph Houk who pushed for the Yankees to get a relief specialist. Lyle was that man. In 1972, his first season as a Yankee, Lyle set the American League saves record with 35. Five years later, he won 13 games, saved 26, and became the first relief pitcher to win the Cy Young Award. In 16 seasons with five teams he would save 238 games (141 with the Yankees), pitching in an era when, at one time, the all-time saves leader was Hoyt Wilhelm, with 227. For all his success as a one-pitch pitcher (he threw only a slider), Lyle is perhaps best known for his whimsy (his favorite prank was sitting nude on birthday cakes sent to the Yankees’ clubhouse) and for authoring a best-seller, The Bronx Zoo.

  Obtaining Graig (his mother didn’t like the names Craig or Greg so she combined the two) Nettles was a case of déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra might say. A decade earlier, after seeing Roger Maris hit home runs for the Cleveland Indians, the Yankees coveted him for his left-handed batting stroke, which they believed would make him a threat in Yankee Stadium with its short right-field porch. Now, for the same reason, they had their eye on Nettles, the Indians third baseman. The trade was made on November 27, 1972, the Yankees getting Nettles in a six-player swap. In Nettles, the Yankees got everything they bargained for, and more. In 11 seasons with the Yanks, he hit 250 home runs, including a league-leading 32 in 1976 (he would hit 390 career home runs, finishing with 333 in the American League, a league record for third basemen) and he would play a brilliant third base. In addition, Nettles brought with him a rapier wit. When Sparky Lyle was traded to Texas, Nettles quipped, “Sparky went from Cy Young to Sayonara.” Discussing the chaotic state of the Yankees in the late ’70s, he remarked, “Some kids grow up dreaming of playing major league baseball. Some kids grow up dreaming of joining the circus. I’m lucky. I got to do both.”

  20. New Home

  Who moves into luxurious new digs and then neglects to fill it with expensive appointment pieces?

  Nobody!

  And so it was that in 2009 the New York Yankees took occupancy of their opulent new residence and spent lavishly to furnish it. On December 18, 2008, they announced that they had completed two “initial” purchases, doling out $161 million (a seven-year deal) and $82.5 million (a five-year investment) for two pitchers, left-hander CC Sabathia and right-hander A.J. Burnett. Eighteen days later, on January 6, 2009, they announced an expenditure of $180 million (for eight years) for free agent first baseman Mark Teixeira, making it an outlay of $423.5 million for three pieces in a three-week shopping binge.

  The official1 opening of the new Yankee Stadium (Yankee Stadium III if you consider the original in the Bronx that opened in 1923 as Yankee Stadium I and the renovated version of same that reopened in 1976 as Yankee Stadium II) came on Thursday afternoon, April 16, 2009, with the Yankees hosting the Cleveland Indians. After 83-year-old Yankees legend and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra threw out the ceremonial first ball, the Yankees took the field with three of the new pieces in the starting lineup. Sabathia drew the honor of starting the first game in the team’s new home. Teixeira played first base and batted third and Nick Swisher, who had been obtained in a trade with the Chicago White Sox on November 13, 2008, played right field and batted fourth.

  The newcomers joined second baseman Robinson Cano, shortstop Derek Jeter, third baseman Cody Ransom, catcher Jorge Posada, left fielder Johnny Damon, center fielder Brett Gardner, and designated hitter Hideki Matsui in the new stadium’s first starting lineup.

  There was one other change. Dissatisfied with his 2008 lineup that had Damon hitting first and Jeter second, manager Joe Girardi flip-flopped the two. Batting second, Damon got the first hit in the new Yankee Stadium, a single to center field in the bottom of the first. Posada, rebounding from shoulder surgery, would hit the first home run, off Cliff Lee with two outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the fifth. At the time, it tied the score 1–1.

  Sabathia left with two outs in the sixth with the score still at 1–1, but in the seventh the Indians punished the Yankees bullpen for nine runs and romped to a 10–2 victory that left an excited opening day crowd of 48,2711 disappointed.

  The newest members of the team would deliver big time all season for the Yankees and would blend seamlessly with the incumbent members of the squad. Sabathia led the pitching staff with 19 wins, tied for the league lead with Seattle’s “King” Felix Hernandez and Detroit’s Justin Verlander, and fourth in the Cy Young Award voting.

  Burnett won 13 games.

  Teixeira batted .292, led the league with 122 runs batted in, tied with Carlos Pena of Tampa Bay for the lead in home runs with 39, and was second to Minnesota’s Joe Mauer in the Most Valuable Player voting.

  Swisher contributed 29 homers and 82 RBI.

  Among the holdovers, Posada, who would turn 38 on August 17 but who was healthy again, played in 111 games, 100 of them behind the plate, and batted .285 with 22 homers and 81 RBI.

  Alex Rodriguez hit 30 homers and knocked in 100.

  And two members of the team’s Core Four reached milestones during the 2009 season.

  On June 28 in Citi Field, Mariano Rivera pitched an inning and a third in a 4–2 victory against the Mets to pick up his 18th save of the season and the 500th of his career, leaving him 71 behind Trevor Hoffman, the all-time saves leader and the only other reliever with 500 or more saves. But it wasn’t the 500 milestone that gave Rivera his biggest thrill of the day. He had been credited with an RBI when he walked with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth to force home the Yankees’ fourth run. It was, and remains, Rivera’s only major league RBI.

  Some 10 weeks later, on September 11 against the Baltimore Orioles in Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter led off the third inning with a single to right field off O’s starter Chris Tillman. It was the 2,722nd hit of his career, the most ever by a Yankee, passing the team record that Lou Gehrig had held for 72 years. (On August 16, he had passed Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio for the most hits from the shortstop position in major league history).

  Girardi’s switch at the top of his lineup paid huge dividends. Leading off, Jeter batted .334, third in the league to Joe Mauer and Ichiro Suzuki, and his highest average in three years (only the immortal Honus Wagner had a higher batting average for a shortstop past the age of 35); drew 72 walks, his most in four years; rapped out 212 hits, which placed him second in the league to Ichiro and boosted his career total to 2,747; scored 107 runs, tied with Damon for fourth in the league; hit 18 home runs; drove in 66 runs; had an on-base percentage of .406; and finished third in the American League Most Valuable Player voting.

  In addition to his 107 runs scored, Damon had 155 hits, 63 of them for extra bases, and 71 walks. So the Yankees’ top two batters were on base by walk or hit 510 times between them and combined to score 214 runs. At the age of 35, Jeter would play in 193 games, including spring training, the regular season, the postseason, the All-Star Game, and the World Baseball Classic, for which he was named captain of the United States squad by its manager, Davey Johnson.

  Expressing his gratitude for his participation with the U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic, baseball commissioner Bud Selig c
alled Jeter and followed up the telephone call with a letter in which he called the captain “Major League Baseball’s foremost champion and ambassador.”

  In his letter of March 30, 2009, Selig wrote:

  “You embody all the best of Major League Baseball. As I mentioned to you in our recent telephone conversation, you have represented the sport magnificently throughout your Hall of Fame career. On and off the field you are a man of great integrity, and you have my admiration.”

  Their enormous off-season investment paid off big time for the 2009 Yankees as they won 103 games, 14 more than the previous season, and moved up from third place to first, eight games ahead of the hated Red Sox, for their first division title in three years. They then made short work of the Minnesota Twins by sweeping the best-of-five Division Series three games to none.