Whitey Ford: Memorial*

The death of Whitey Ford , the legendary Yankee pitcher, brought back a childhood memory as only baseball can. It was 1950 and my favorite team, the NY Yankees, was in the World Series against the “whiz kids” of the upstart Philadelphia Phillies. My aunt worked for a company that had seats for the Series and so my uncle and I were able to attend the fourth and, what turned out to be, the final game.

The Yankees had won the first game 1-0 in Philadelphia as Vic Raschi, one of the Yankee magnificent pitching triumvirate, pitched a masterful two hitter. The Yankees won the second game 2-1 as their fire-balling ace Allie Reynolds outpitched Phillie star Robin Roberts. Both pitched complete games, a rarity today. The Yankees won the third game 3-2 behind cagey left-hander Ed Lopat who had a wide variety of pitches none of which would match the speed of a high school player today. Still, Lopat pitched eight innings in that victory.

So, my uncle and I had the good fortune to be in box seats near the left field foul pole for game four. The Yankee pitcher was their young rookie phenom Whitey Ford, a small but crafty pitcher who had come up to the majors in mid-season and racked up nine straight wins. In his long career he would go on to become the winningest pitcher in World Series history.

Anyway, Ford was in good form that day and the Yankees jumped out to an early lead. He pitched a shutout into the ninth inning and the score was 5-0. There were two outs in the ninth when a fly ball was hit to Yankee left fielder Gene Woodling who was positioned just about fifty feet in front of us. He lost the ball in the sun and dropped it allowing two runs to score. (World Series games were still played in the daytime back then).

I think I remember all of this because of what happened next. Yankee Manager Casey Stengel immediately came out of the dugout and removed Ford, who had pitched magnificently, from the game. Up three games to none and ahead 5-2 with two outs in the ninth, Stengel was not going to take any chances. He brought in Allie Reynolds, who had pitched 10 innings just a couple of days before, to end the game. I believe that Reynolds blew away the batter on three straight fastballs, and that was that.

People thought that Casey Stengel was crazy and he certainly could say crazy things in a crazy manner but no one has ever matched his success as a manager. He was unorthodox but many of his seemingly strange strategies soon became the new orthodoxy. Looking back on that game now, I wonder if Stengel was motivated by more than winning the game and the World Series. He took Ford out after he had pitched brilliantly and should have won but for Woodling's mishap. The rookie left hander left the game and no blame or shame could be placed on him. He went on to a great Hall of Fame career.

* The announcement of Ford's death at the age of 91 coincided with the elimination of the NY Yankees from the playoffs in this pandemic shortened season. Once again, the teams's ace closer gave up a game losing home run on a 100 mph fastball, a velocity Ford could never have come close to. Still I believe that  Ford would have handled that batter easily.

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