......Whitey Ford was a 19 year old rookie with the Yankees.
He remains one of the best we have ever had. " The Chairman of the Board."
Today, the lefty from Queens is 90.
Happy birthday !
From all of us at IIH, IIf, Iic ....in America, Austria, Holland, and Yemen.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
I Remember When....
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14 comments:
Happy birthday, Whitey. Though as nicknames go, that one has a lot of cultural baggage. Wasn't it involved in a Sly and the Family Stone ditty?
I put this up but it was a couple of posts ago and I doubt anyone will see it there now. Just want to make sure I'm on the record here:
A Yankees-Dodgers WS would have been classic, but we would've lost.
I don't give a hoot who wins now. Let the chips fall where they may, including Erik Estrada.
I repeat--a lonely, small voice in the wilderness--trade Hicks. His value will never be higher. We don't need a defensive center fielder who hits .240 or .250. Sign Harper. Get somebody else if need be. Promote Frazier and make him wear a crash helmet in the outfield. I don't care if he's right-handed of uses his feet like the gal in "Freaks," give him his shot.
Prediction: there will be no changes in the coaching staff unless Larry decides to retire. Boone will obviously return. Railing against all of those guys is just venting. Expect them all to be back.
Machado is and always was a bad idea. Anyone named Manny is a bad idea. A-Rod should have been our last expensive, entitled, dirty tricks player, forever.
We need pitching and there's none in sight. The bullpen will be tinkered with, the starting staff shored up as well as it can be, probably. Don't rule out the return of CC. Happ, too, with greater certainty. There's just noone out there. Severino will settle in to his Ace status as the hardest-throwing #4 in major league baseball.
As for Tanaka, well, this season showed us that everyone and everything hangs on a thread. That's no knock on him. He hangs better than a lot of other threaders did this year.
If Cash resigns Neil Walker, I'm gonna hurl, but I won't be surprised. 2019 will be Bird's last chance; he may be gone by midseason for a bag of Utz.
Miggy is going nowhere. That's an unfounded fear, imho. Unless he's part of a blockbuster trade that brings us an unforeseen killer moundsman, but I doubt it. Hicks should be part of that if it happens, along with whatever farmhands we've got left.
Whatever Cash does or doesn't do this offseason, one thing is for sure: we're not gonna like it.
Happy Birthday Whitey! The Madden write up in the Daily News is worth reading.
John M,
I always forget to trade Hicks in my head. That's an OK move. Like you, he does nothing for me.
I guess it depends on the return. Also the timing has to be tight because if you trade him and fail to sign Harper, or pay more for Harper because the team is vulnerable they we get screwed.
But, yeah I'd sign off on that.
I liked Manny Mota. So there's one. :)
Thinking about Frazier just makes me sad. If he plays full out he gets hurt. Possibly for life. If he doesn't then he's not the same guy.
I don't hate Walker. I hate his enablers.
The problem with Neal Walker isn't Neal Walker it is Aaron Boone. Walker didn't put himself in the line-up over AnDUjar. Walker didn't get up with the bases loaded and the season on the line while our best contact hitter rode the bench on his own. That's on Boone and was perhaps the dumbest non move I've ever seen a manager make.
Cashman needs to take that toy away. And if he's still on the team next year that's on Cashman.
Doug K.
And a happy birthday from Scotland as well Mr Ford
Lang may yer lum reek
Thanks, Alphonso, I did not know that!
So Mickey and Whitey, born one date apart, Oct. 20 and 21 (Billy Martin's birthday was May 16th, which should tell you something about which one of these things didn't belong.)
Happy birthday to the Chairman of the Board, who had the title before Sinatra did. Who once did a commercial with Salvador Dali, still owns the lowest lifetime ERA of any retired starter in the live ball era, was arrested after buying his parents a combination radio/record player with his bonus money (he was so small the cops didn't believe him and thought he stole it), and was nicknamed "Whiskey Slick" by Casey Stengel.
The greatest pitcher from the Borough of Queens, and probably the second greatest from New York City.
John M., the Yanks SHOULD have signed Manny Ramirez, beloved hometown boy, if only to keep him out of the clutches of the Boston Red Sox.
If we had signed just one of the two—Manny or Papi, both ours for the asking—the Red Sox would still not have won a World Series post-1918...and we probably would have won an additional 6-9 rings.
But I do agree about Machado.
As for Hicks...no, he's no great shakes. BUT, even if we sign Harper, we should keep him, to take up the Gardy role, if nothing else. I agree with you in theory, though: nobody on this Yankees team should be automatically beyond being traded.
And Doug K., I agree: I don't like to think of either Clint Frazier OR Neil Walker, for very different reasons.
Manny R...yuck. I'll go with Big Head Papi.
We don't need Hicks, and he's somebody we don't need who might actually fetch something in return. Not a lot of that lying around these days.
So tech guys, I have a question. I turned on my desktop computer today and got a flash of blue sparks inside and a very bad electrical burning smell.
Is the pc done for? Or is this something worth fixing?
I can always take out my HD and attach it and the outboard drive to another, new computer. This one has always run hot and likely has plenty of dust in it, which pressured air only does so much to remedy.
Go ahead. Scuff one up for old time's sake.
My friend knew Whitey's son and stayed a couple of weeks down at his place in FL and said Whitey couldn't be a nicer guy. This was about 1980. My meeting was a bit different.
About a dozen years ago, my friend who was a high roller at Mohegan Sun casino in CT brought me along on an "All-Star MLB meet and greet". Top heavy with ex-Yankee and Red Sox players, there were also many other teams that were represented by former greats. At this event you had the chance to talk to these players and mingle a bit with them.
After the main event in the exhibition hall, they had Whitey upstairs on the 33rd floor at the high rollers lounge where there was an elaborate buffet and open bar. At first, Whitey mingled with the guests making small talk, signing autographs and taking pictures. I went up to Whitey when he first arrived and he was very pleasant and took a picture with me and was very polite when I told him I grew up as a kid idolizing him. Well, maybe an hour later, I went back to chat briefly with him and ask if he could take a picture with my friend and I. During that hour between my two picture requests, I occasionally observed Whitey chatting it up with other people and I noticed the big smile I originally saw had changed to somewhere between a pained look and contempt. He also appeared to stumble around a bit while mixing with the paid guests. I approached him for the second picture with my friend and it was quite obvious he was drunk. When Whitey agreed to take the picture, I motioned over to my friend that he was ready and available. While he walked the 10 feet to shake Ford's hand, Whitey muttered "hurry on up here pal, I aint no fucking dancing monkey"!
Thinking back on that day and remembering he was the only player up in the high roller lounge and and realizing that he was probably the oldest invitee, my assumption is that he probably need the money and was somewhat resentful of having to take the gig. And I remember seeing him in interviews lamenting the fact that he played 25 years too early and had he been a current player, he and his contemporaries wouldn't have had to take off-season jobs and personally would have set a salary record for a pitcher.
I remember watching the opening day in 1965 when Whitey had a hot water bottle in his pocket to counteract the cold day and Charlie Dressen going to the umpire to have it removed...at the time it was funny...
https://books.google.com/books?id=1Rz6iFaTeYwC&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=whitey+ford,+hot+water+bottle&source=bl&ots=39_wm1PA10&sig=-WV0Od_kDGaj_XWKDvcvY6t8xaE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifi4vHrZreAhXL4IMKHdzgBZsQ6AEwCXoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=whitey%20ford%2C%20hot%20water%20bottle&f=false
John, when electronic devices revolt like that, it's time to kick them to the curb. They are simply fed up with your computing and can't be trusted.
Carl, Whitey Ford probably just a pissed off drunk. I believe at one point Joe Dimaggio was the highest paid baseball players in the late 80s?/early 90s? by virtue of an exclusive contract to sign memorabilia. He made $7 million on that contract if memory is correct. The memorabilia market was a gold mine for retired players. The more fame, the bigger the payday. Whitey probably got paid thousands, maybe 5 figures, to get drunk at that party and piss on your idolatry.
And really, he isn't a dancing monkey. He was a Great. Gracious to his personal guests but perhaps otherwise to the paying public? I can see that from his point of view.
John M., I hope you took your computer to an expert.
As for Hicks, I too would love it if the Yanks had the sort of GM who could trade dross for gold. But the Steinbrenners spent 25 years driving such individuals away, so we could enjoy the Glorious Reign of Brian Cashman, Salary Cap Wizard.
For the very problems of his game that you cite, we would not get anything more than lottery picks or a Lance Lynn-type, very back of the rotation pitcher.
Hicks as is fills a need, the sort of Gardy-like fourth outfielder that we never let Gardy be. If indeed we sign Harper, especially, the lumbering giants of our outfield will go on pulling and chipping things on a regular basis. They will also need to be relieved late in games.
Hicks can do this, and do it well. This has always been another of Cashman's many failings: never having enough role players. This one has fallen into his lap, so good.
Yes, Win, Whitey was great and probably has a drinking problem that he rarely shows in public. I can understand his bitterness to an extent. Baseball talent is so diluted now as opposed to the 50's/early 60's when there were less teams and therefore several hundred less players that would have never had an MLB sniff back then. And those astronomical guaranteed salaries players today sign must have Whitey churning inside.
Reminds me of the commercial from circa 1967 that Mickey and Murcer made for the beginning of the season. Highlights the generation gap in the game.
Mickey: "Hey Bobby, how did you do last year"?
Murcer: "Mickey, I had a great year....hit 30 home runs!"
MIckey: " Oh, that's great, Bobby!......but what did you do in the second half of the season?"
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