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Friday, April 13, 2018

Epic Yankees Flameout Seasons, Chapter Three!

Judging by the results in Beantown, it seems clear that ODUMODU does not yet believe that I have made sufficient obeisance to the JuJu gods. Therefore, I offer up yet another past example of pinstriped catastrophe.

Season number three: 1946.

Yankees 87-67, 3rd in an 8-team league.

Much like 1940, this wasn't so bad a season. The Yankees started strong (32-17) and hung around into July, before deflating and finishing 17 games behind the Red Sox juggernaut. It's just that so much more was expected...

Background:

The Yanks had been the dominant team in baseball before the boys went off to war, and everyone thought that would resume. Besides that, baseball had been threatened with lawsuits into expanding the rosters for one year, so that returning veterans could get their jobs back just like in every other profession—something that seemed to favor teams like the Yankees with deep farm systems.

What happened:

Rust, mostly, and age, and insanity in the owners' box.

A lot of the guys just didn't have it—or at least didn't have it yet—after spending years playing countless base games or even, in some instances, fighting. Flash Gordon had far and away the worst season of his HOF career, hitting just .210. Nick Etten at first, on the other, proved he really was only a wartime replacement.

The great DiMaggio got off to a hot start, then faded due to the foot and leg ailments that would increasingly hinder the last years of his career. He would complain bitterly about how many ball he'd had to chase down playing behind inferior pitchers during his service—seemingly unaware that there were other returning veterans who would have loved to have any legs or feet at all.

The pitching was not deep, as might have been survived by the fact that the Yanks actually started someone named Cuddles Marshall. Marius Russo couldn't come back, Tiny Bonham looked washed-up, and the great Red Ruffing got off to a great start, pitching two shutouts and four complete games, before realizing he was 41, and never throwing another pitch as a Yankee.

Most of all, though, the season was constantly disrupted by its lead owner, Larry MacPhail, invariably described in baseball chronicles as a mercurial genius, but someone who sounds more like a drunken boor.

MacPhail tormented Manager Joe McCarthy until Marse Joe, who had his own, considerable alcohol addiction, jumped the team to go "ride the White Horse," as they called it, then quit out of shame and disgust—a sad end to a great Yankees career.

Bill Dickey, who replaced him, didn't want to manage for MacPhail, either, and finally managed to get himself canned with two weeks left in the season.

Worst of all, MacPhail actually tried to peddle DiMag to the Washington Senators for Mickey Vernon, who won the batting title in 1946 and hit 8 home runs.

The Senators...said no, which was why they would always be the Senators.

But by the end of the season, all the writers agreed that the Yankees were done, and that a new dynasty had dawned up in Boston, where the Sox figured to dominate for years to come.

Bright spots:

At 38, Spud Chandler won 20 games, with a 2.10 ERA. Floyd "Bill" Bevens also had a great year on the mound, as did new acquisition Randy Gumpert. Catcher Aaron Robinson excelled, and King Kong Keller had another fine year in what looked to be a HOF career before injuries curtailed it the next year.

Plus, thanks to the expanded rosters, all sorts of promising kids got a cup of coffee: Bobby Brown, Vic Raschi, Tommy Byrne, and a funny-looking kid from St. Louis called Yogi Berra.

Despite their slow fade, the Yanks also set a new, major-league attendance record with 2,265,512 fans—the first time any team cleared over two million at the gate.

What happened next:

Joe D.—despite MacPhail nearly trading him to the Sox for Ted Williams—won his third and final MVP award in 1947, as the Yanks romped to the pennant by 12 games. It was the start of the most sustained skein of excellence in a major American sport, as the Yanks won 15 pennants and 10 World Series over 18 years.

While celebrating their thrilling Series triumph over the Dodgers that fall, MacPhail predictably got drunk and ran amok, firing GM George Weiss, insulting everyone, and belting a sportswriter to the ground.

Dan Topping, one of his co-owners, finally dragged MacPhail into a hotel kitchen and punched him out. The next day, Weiss was rehired, and MacPhail forced to sell out to Topping and Del Webb.

Ah, those were the days! Fist fights between Yankees owners!




15 comments:

JM said...

Is it possible for us to arrange a fistfight between Hal and Cashman, where they both lose and are forced out?

Just an idea.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Love it!

Anonymous said...

HolyCrap66--Do you really spend entire days typing up glosses from histories of the Yankees? Why not at least append a footnote from the book or books from which you are lifting wholesale?

Which do you aspire to--a career as a stenographer or plagiarist?

Anonymous said...

Annals of HC66 grammatical/semantic/mechanical ineptitude, Part I:

"The great DiMaggio got off to a hot start, then faded due to the foot and leg ailments that would increasingly hinder the last years of his career."

Should be: "The great DiMaggio got off to a hot start, then faded BECAUSE OF the foot and leg ailments that would increasingly hinder the last years of his career." "due to" should be used only when "due" is a predicate adjective, as in "his ailment was due to. . . ."

"Tiny Bonham looked washed-up. . . ." Should be "washed up"--no hyphen needed unless preceding a noun.

"MacPhail tormented Manager Joe McCarthy until Marse Joe, who had his own, considerable. . ." No comma needed before "considerable."

"Bill Dickey, who replaced him, didn't want to manage for MacPhail, either, and . . . " No commas needed around "either."

"kids got a cup of coffee": petrified old cliche.

"But by the end of the season, all the writers agreed that the Yankees were done, and that a new . . ." No comma needed after "done" because there a new independent clause does not follow the comma.

I point out the foregoing not in the spirit of pedantry but to demonstrate that HC66 is a mediocre, inept plagiarist/stenographer posturing as a baseball expert--one who has obviously not read even one paragraph of any major work of sabremetric analysis but who nevertheless, aping MSM idiots like Sterling, persists in criticizing what he can't understand--or doesn't even know about.

KD said...

To not have your genius recognized is so unfair, right sassy? The world is a cruel place, my friend. but hey! It's Friday. fire up a blunt, have a beer and try to make peace with your fellow man. you'll be happier for it and you just might make some friends. and I mean real friends. People that care about you and not just people who care what they can get from you. I have a sense that those are the sorts of people that you consider friends. they're laughing at you, you know. They really are.

Sad.

Anonymous said...

KD--you're a pathetic moron, a cliche machine, a brain-dead mediocrity, sitting in your darkened room, aching for just ONE moment to take your shot, huddling for comfort with your fellow mediocrities. That's your ENTIRE life--that and obsessing about a baseball team like a ten-year-old.

Anonymous said...

C'mon, HC66--why not credit the books from which you're lifting large chunks of your lore and then dumping it onto this blog?

KD said...

sassy: I do like to get after you, it's true, and my home is rather dark but that's to keep down our energy bills. That I torment you is my weakness and I'm not proud of it. I am intrigued as I've never experienced anyone in as dire need of personality adjustment as you. Come to jersey for a visit. we'll smoke up a big Boston (sorry. I didn't name it) butt, down some home brews, toke up some home grown, eat back yard tomatoes, watch the Yankees, and howl at the moon after Gray tosses another stinker. We could even have a rousing game of The Dozens and then you'll see the clichés really fly. I could be the one friend that wants absolutely nothing from you. and if we really hit it off, you could come down to the family farm in Virginia where we could fish and shoot guns. think about it.

Anonymous said...

Why am I not surprised that you live in New Jersey?

Save your desperate ego-repair project for someone else. I'm not interested.

Anonymous said...

OK, sassy, you want to be the site's diction & punctuation nag, so be it: take it, it's yours. Nobody likes a language nag.

Of course you're not interested in personality improvement - - what the hell, you're already a full-blown sabremetric genius, right??

I hope you're getting warm feelings from your constant, vicious put-downs of our regulars, because you're not going to get any warmth from the guys on this site without altering your on-line personality.

PEE TAPE!! LB (No J)

Anonymous said...

Unlike you, idiot, I don't view life as a popularity contest among fellow mediocrities. You just LOVE being part of some group of REGULARS. That's the level of your emotional/cognitive functioning--REGULAR. That's your problem.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Um, just for the record, it took me about 15 minutes, using stats from baseballreference.com. Oh yeah, and 52 years of reading about and watching baseball.

Bitter Buck Anon, have at it—with search engines today, you should be able to track down any "plagiarism" on my part without much trouble. I will take your high opinion of something I dashed off so quickly as a great compliment. Thank you.

Also, I like commas. And I think "cup of coffee" is a GREAT baseball cliche, one that should be kept alive along with "frozen rope," "Texas Leaguer," and "can of corn." Or, "can o' corn," your choice.,,,,,, ,,,.

Anonymous said...

Look, asshole: if you're going to post grammar flames that turn out to be INCORRECT, then be prepared to face further evidence of your linguistic ineptitude.

And SURE your little local color tidbits about MacPhail being a deranged drunk and DiMaggio's bitterness about fielding behind flyball pitchers come from STAT SITES! Good one, A-hole!

Justify your inept, trite, second-rate "writing" on an obscure blog all day if it makes you feel better about yourself. That or maybe take up a heroin habit--I think that's what it might take in your case.

Anonymous said...

OK, sassy, if it makes you feel superior to label me as REGULAR, that's fine; I would rather BE regular than - - um - - exceptionsl, such as your incredible self.

While we're at it, I would like to know what you are employing for a source authority in aid of your torching of us REGULARS grammar & diction. Until you identify that, I will just have to lay back and - - um - - admire your - - um - - very own glow of exceptionalism - - which, of course, we all appreciate so very much.

All Hail His Ruddy Highness, sassy!! LB (No J)

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