Monday, March 28, 2022

Collapse? Pt. I

 

Just to riff off an earlier post from our Peerless Leader, El Duque: Is this the year we finally see the out-and-out Yankees collapse some of us have been predicting (all right, crying wolf on) for years now?

For purposes of comparison it might be useful to take a look at the Yanks' most famous collapse, a.k.a., The Big One, back in 1965. Much has been written about that one, and various shibboleths and urban myths abound. 

But the central truth is this: The collapse of the 1960s Yankees came out of nowhere, and happened to a team that seemed much better equipped to go on dominating the American League for years, than HAL & The Brain's various editions of the Pinstripers ever have.

First off, going into 1965, the Yankees were the dynasty di tutti dynastia, far and away the greatest sports dynasty ever to dominate North America, and probably in any major sport, anywhere in the world.

From 1919-1964, your New York Yankees had exactly one (1) losing season out of 46, the year of the Babe's Great Bellyache—in 1925. 

From 1920 to 1964, they won 29 pennants and 20 World Series, with a winning percentage of .619. That put them 12 games ahead of the Indians—yes, the Indians—and 15 ahead of the Tigers, and at least an average of 20 games ahead of every other team in the American League in that time.

During that 45-year stretch, the Yanks also outhit every other AL team by at least 3 points, outscored them by at least 3,300 runs, and outhomered them by at least 1,900 roundtrippers. 

Similar margins existed in most other statistical categories—and at the box office, where the Yankees were first in the American League in 37 of 45 seasons.  

They finished out of the first division only once, from 1917-1964. And from 1920-1964, they finished lower than third place only twice—the year of the Big Bellyache, and the war year of 1945. 

And they only seemed to be getting more dominant. From 1947-1964, the Yanks won 15 pennants and 10 World Series in 18 seasons.

Now that's a !#&@ dynasty!!!

And suddenly...it was all over. The team dropped to sixth in 1965, 25 games out of first. 

This did not prove to be an aberration. They were tenth and last in 1966 (the first time they had finished in the cellar since 1912), and ninth in 1967, before they managed to scrap their way back to some generally respectable, winning, even contending seasons from 1968-1975—but nothing like the old dynasty.

So what happened?  What caused the collapse?

Well, a lot of people said the Yankees just got old.  

Not true. The average age of all players on the 1965 team was 28.3; of pitchers, 27.2—slightly younger than the team had been in the record-mashing year of 1961 (28.4, 27.8, respectively), and younger than the 1953 team, winner of a record, fifth-straight World Series (28.4, 31.0).  

Some have attributed it to the Yanks' atrocious refusal to enthusiastically pursue Black or Hispanic players. This was certainly contemptible—but it didn't much hurt them in the very white Junior Circuit. 

As it was, the Yanks had the first, Black AL MVP, in Elston Howard in 1963.



In 1964, with Howard and Al Downing, they even had the first, all-Black, World Series American League battery. And Downing in general was considered for several years the best Black pitcher in the game not named Bob Gibson.

After the dismissal of George Weiss following the 1960 season, the fact was that the Yanks got a lot more colorblind. Finally.


So, what was it that led to the collapse, then?

The most popular theory has it that longtime Yankees owners Del Webb and Dan Topping actually decided to sell the team back in 1960, and that from then until they finally handed it over to CBS near the end of 1964, they decided not to put anymore money into it, letting it decay and rot. 

It was an excuse that CBS and its designated president of the Yanks, Mike Burke, seized with both hands, claiming that when they took over, "the cupboard was bare," both on the big team and in the minor leagues.


Again: not true.

Topping and Webb, for all their flaws, handed over a genuine favorite—and continuing powerhouse—to CBS. 

And not only was the team in the Bronx all set, they had not cut the development budget—as evidenced by the formidable number of good-to-excellent players the Yankees kept producing, all through the 1960s and into the '70s.

These included:

1960—Bill Stafford, Deron Johnson.

1961—Rollie Sheldon, Hal Reniff.

1962—Jim Bouton, Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh (Rookie of the Year).

1963—Al Downing.

1964—Mel Stottlemyre, Pete Mikkelson.

1965—Roy White, Curt Blefary (Rookie of the Year with Baltimore).

1966—Fritz Peterson, Dooley Womack.

1968—Stan Bahnsen (Rookie of the Year).

1969—Bobby Murcer.

1970—Steve Kline, Thurman Munson (Rookie of the Year).


So...if it wasn't the age, or the racism, and it wasn't letting the team rot, what WAS the reason for The Big Collapse???...

14 comments:

Publius said...

A very few of us here may be too young to remember 1965. But one thing is absolutely clear...1965 was extremely traumatic to Yankees fans at the time.

el duque said...

It wasn't those planes that caused the collapse. It was beauty that caused it.

Doug K. said...

Nice cliff hanger! I'm probably the most curious I've ever been about this.

HoraceClarke66 said...

Thanks, guys! The tantalizing answer, tomorrow!

EdFoNY said...

What's even worse, the collapse occurred just four years after the 61 team that is considered among the best ever to play the game, and only a year after they took the World Series to seven games against a great Cardinals team.

I lived through the collapse as a kid. The only explanation I can think of is that the turnover in the team and management led to a breakdown in the clubhouse, the pitching fell apart, that and the fact that all good things must one day end.

Terry said...

They lost Mick, Whitey, and Yogi.

Hazel Motes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hazel Motes said...

Bad Karma from the brutish 1964 firings of Yogi Berra and Mel Allen.

The Archangel said...

Joe Pepitone's hair dryer ?

Not enough cowbell?

Lack of Velcro batting gloves?

cabish47 said...

I remember this disaster vividly. Sometimes average ages don't tell the story. Here are some comparisons
1964 Elston Howard, 127 OPS+ 150 G. 1965 77 OPS+ 110G
1964 Mickey Mantle, 177 OPS+ 143 G, 1965 137 OPS+ 122 G
1964 Roger Maris, 127 OPS+ 141G, 1965 126 OPS+ 46 G !!
1964 Jim Bouton, 120 ERA+ 18-13, 1965 71 ERA+ 4-15
1964 Whitey Ford, 170 ERA+ 17-6, 1965 105 ERA+ 16-13

Tom Tresh had a stellar 134 OPS+ in 156 games in 1965 and Mel Stottlemyre had a 129 ERA+ going 20-9. Outside of these, there was no meaningful contribution from the rest of the team.

I remember waiting for the team to heat up, to play to the back of their baseball cards. Never happened.

13bit said...

We have weathered bad times before. Why does this time - 2022 - feel so hopeless?

BTR999 said...

I was a little boy in ‘65, and just starting my fandom. Deep analysis was beyond me at the time (some would say still is), but the team seemed to have been suddenly bypassed by teams like the O’s and Twins, and players like Hector Lopez and Pepitone were not as good as they seemed to be. Tresh soon inexplicably stopped hitting all together. They made few moves to improve the team, just sent the same players out every day. Touted younger players like Roger Repoz never panned out, while superstars like Mantle, Ford, and Maris were in decline…Could injuries have been behind it all? Anyway, what a way to start my fandom! Looking forward to part 2.

JM said...

Bit, I think you mean, why is this season different from all other seasons?

Trick question. Since 2009, it's not! Whoo hoo, hey, that's a good one.

Why did the '65 Yanks collapse? Why did Sanchez go so far downhill after his rookie season? Why is Torres not playing up to his early promise? Why is Aaron Hicks, period? And what about Shane Spencer and Kevin Maas and other comets that burned brightly in our skies?

As George Carlin used to say, it's a mystery. We can come up with different explanations, but it's just all kind of weird. It's the gods. It's fate. It's kismet, an overlooked musical that deserves better in the Broadway pantheon (actually, I don't know if that's true, but what the hell).

The Archangel said...

I also think that injuries weren't so throughly diagnosed as they are and surgeries could not help like now.
For all we know Tom Tresh shredded a rotator cuff and then told him to put liniment on it.
Some of this we will never know