SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020B7
YExactly 60 years before he died on
Thursday night at age 91, Whitey Ford
pitched a shutout in the World Series. It
was the start of a scoreless streak that
stretched 33⅔ innings, topping Babe
Ruth for the longest in
World Series history.
Yet Ford never be-
lieved he should have
been pitching on Oct. 8,
1960, in Game 3 at Yan-
kee Stadium against the
Pittsburgh Pirates. At the time, Ford
was a six-time All-Star on his way to
becoming the team’s career leader in
victories, with 236. He was the Yankees’
ace, and aces were supposed to start
Games 1, 4 and 7.
Casey Stengel, who had managed
Ford for a decade, had other plans. For
the opener at the Pirates’ cozy Forbes
Field, Stengel started Art Ditmar, a
right-hander who had a strong season
but who had never started in the World
Series. Stengel wanted to save the
left-handed Ford for the first game in
Yankee Stadium, with its cavernous
left-center field.
Ford would thrive in both locations,
following up his Game 3 shutout in the
Bronx with one in Pittsburgh while
facing elimination in Game 6. But the
latter effort left him unavailable for
Game 7, when the Pirates scored off
five Yankees pitchers in a 10-9 triumph.
It was the last game Stengel ever man-
aged for the Yankees, and he never
lived down his decision.
“Whitey’s like Bob Gibson,” said
Bobby Richardson, the Yankees’ second
baseman at the time, by phone a few
days ago, just after Gibson had died.
“They were different pitchers, of
course, but both of them were captains
of the team, so to speak. They’re the
ones you pitched against the tough
opponents.
“Stengel’s excuse was it’s a small
ballpark in Pittsburgh. But Whitey
pitched his two shutouts, and had he
been able to go three, I’m sure it would
have been a different ballgame.”
The Pirates were just as puzzled as
the Yankees players, but a lot happier
to see Ford only twice.
“We wondered about it, and so did
the players on the Yankee team — they
couldn’t understand Stengel,” Pirates
catcher Hal Smith, who hit a game-
turning homer off Jim Coates in the
finale, said in an interview shortly
before his death in January. “He had a
lot of talent on that club, but when it
came to changing pitchers and things,
he wasn’t too smart.”
Stengel was sharp enough to win
seven titles in 10 tries, but in popular
lore, it was the 1960 blunder that cost
him his job — even though the Yankees
were really just eager for a younger
manager with less authority over per-
sonnel. Ford felt bad that Stengel was
fired, according to his autobiography,
“Slick,” written with Phil Pepe in 1987.
But he fumed over the World Series
slight.
“It was the only time I ever got mad
at Casey,” Ford wrote, while insisting,
like Richardson, that he would have
won three starts if given the chance. “I
was so annoyed at Stengel, I wouldn’t
talk to him on the plane ride back to
New York.”
Replacing the 70-year-old Stengelwith Ralph Houk, who was 41, gave the
Yankees’ dynasty a final, four-year
burst atop the American League — and
helped Ford to his best season.
Persuaded by a new pitching coach,
Johnny Sain, Houk used Ford regularly
on three days’ rest in 1961, instead of
four or more, as Stengel had done. Ford
responded with his best season: a 25-4
record and his only Cy Young Award.
The Yankees finished in first place
again, and that time Ford did start the
World Series opener, shutting out the
Cincinnati Reds with a two-hitter. He
added five scoreless innings to win
Game 4 before leaving with a sore foot,
and was named most valuable player
after the Yankees prevailed in five
games.
“This wasn’t exactly a new experi-
ence for me,” Ford wrote. “But it was
the best. The end of an almost perfectyear.”
Ford’s October magic soon ran out;
he won the 1962 opener against the San
Francisco Giants, but lost his last four
World Series starts and never did pitch
in a Game 7. He dabbled in trickery to
survive in later years, throwing spit-
balls and mudballs. He also wore a
custom-made ring to the mound, dis-
guising it under a Band-Aid, and used a
rasp to scuff the ball.
By then, though, Ford was so accom-
plished that umpires refused to embar-
rass him.
“There was one time when Whitey
was scuffing up the ball and the umpire
came out, and he knew,” Jim Bouton, a
fellow Yankees pitcher in the 1960s who
died last summer, said in an interview
several years ago. “I forget who it was,
but he was one of those old-timer guys
who’s not going to be a wise guy or abig shot — this is Whitey Ford, he’s one
of the greats. A certain amount of re-
spect is due.
“So he went to the mound and the
conversation went: ‘Uh, Whitey, I see
the ring there. I tell you what, what you
need to do is call time out and go in and
change your jock strap. And when you
come back, don’t have the ring on.’ ”
Ford revealed his methods in his
book, published more than a decade
after his election to the Hall of Fame for
a towering career that spanned Yan-
kees generations. In Ford’s debut in
1950, Joe DiMaggio played center field;
in his final game, in 1967, Joe Pepitone
played there. (Mickey Mantle was at
first base.) On a staff in which most
pitchers took brief star turns and went
on their way — Don Larsen, Bob Turley,
Ralph Terry, Bouton — Ford was the
mainstay.
He holds nearly every World Series
record for pitching longevity, and no-
body else is close. Ford’s 22 starts are
nine more than the total for Andy Pet-
titte, who ranks second. He worked 146
innings; Christy Mathewson would
need five more complete games to top
him.
Yet Ford’s won-lost record, like that
of most aces, underscores just how
hard it is, in any era, to win regularly in
October. The Yankees won six World
Series with Ford, but lost five others.
His 2.71 World Series earned run aver-
age was almost identical to his regular-
season mark (2.75), but his record was
a modest 10-8.
There are exceptions — like Gibson,
who was 7-2 in Series games — but
many pitching greats have had simi-
larly mixed postseason results. Math-
ewson was 5-5, Warren Spahn and
Sandy Koufax 4-3, Steve Carlton 6-6,
Tom Seaver 3-3. More recent masters
have had similar luck: Tom Glavine,
Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and
Mike Mussina had losing postseason
records, Clayton Kershaw is 11-11, and
Justin Verlander, while dominant in
playoff rounds, is 0-6 in the World Se-
ries.
Likewise, controversial pitching
decisions are nothing new. The Yankees
said that Ford died at home, in Lake
Success, N.Y., surrounded by family
while watching his old team win a
playoff game against the Tampa Bay
Rays. Perhaps the Fords were also
watching two nights earlier, when an-
other Yankees manager, Aaron Boone,
made a modern version of Stengel’s
curious call by using an opener instead
of a traditional starter in Game 2.
The Yankees lost that game, just as
they lost Ditmar’s starts in 1960, but the
pitching moves, of course, were only
part of the reason. The Yankees proba-
bly still should have won Game 7 in
Pittsburgh, and while Mantle cried in
the dugout after Bill Mazeroski’s clinch-
ing homer — “He just felt like we had a
better team and we had lost it, and he
was just really sad,” Richardson said —
few fans tend to shed tears for the
Yankees. Their history is too rich to
dwell on the sad parts.
So it is with the news of Ford’s death,
which is less a cause for mourning than
a chance to celebrate a career that
included nearly everything a pitcher
could want, even without an extra start
in 1960.Whitey Ford pitching in Game 6 of the 1960 World Series at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Despite Manager Casey Stengel’s concerns, Ford threw a shutout. He was unavailable for Game 7.ASSOCIATED PRESSAn Ace Always Rued the One That Got Away
Ford appreciated the cheers during Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee
Stadium in 2014. His career spanned Yankees generations.BARTON SILVERMAN/THE NEW YORK TIMESTYLER
KEPNER
ON
BASEBALLDespite many records, there was that
World Series the Yankees should have won.
From left, Billy Martin, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Ford and
Phil Rizzuto at an Old-Timers’ Day ceremony in 1975.MEYER LIEBOWITZ/THE NEW YORK TIMESWHITEY FORD, 1928-2020