This Day in Yankee History (Impulsive ‘Boss’ Fires Livid Yogi)

Apr. 29, 1985—After promising as late as spring training that he would let Yogi Berra manage the New York Yankees for the entire season, principal owner George Steinbrenner abruptly fired him before the first month had even ended.

The cause was not misconduct, a breakdown in relations with players, or defiance of the man the media had nicknamed “The Boss,” but a 6-10 record following an 87-75, second-place 1984 finish.

Berra’s replacement, Billy Martin—hired for the fourth time—didn’t produce the desired result, either, going 91-54, good for an overall 97-64 season—leaving the Bronx Bombers second once again in the American League East division. Forget about a pennant, the minimum that the Boss expected: Martin couldn’t even get the team into the playoffs.

Though Berra did not express anger initially (“He’s the boss, he can do what he wants”), at some point his dismissal began to gnaw at him. It wasn’t until years later that his grievance was aired: after 30 years with the organization, he felt that Steinbrenner owed it to him to deliver the bad news himself rather than to entrust the dirty job to General Manager Clyde King.

And so, the Yankee great—a Hall of Fame catcher, coach, and manager beloved by teammates, players, and fans—vowed to boycott all Yankee-related functions for as long as Steinbrenner remained in charge of the organization.

Fourteen years passed before Berra relented. In the process, he accomplished something remarkable: He became perhaps the only employee in the Steinbrenner Era to get the better of the Boss.

With each passing year—even with the team winning World Series again after a decade without even being in the playoffs—Steinbrenner suffered a public-relations embarrassment for his cavalier treatment of the most visible remaining link to the DiMaggio-Mantle dynasty.

At last, with Yankee radio announcer Suzyn Waldman as a diplomatic go-between, the standoff concluded with Steinbrenner showing up at the opening of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Montclair, NJ. All the way over from the Bronx to the museum, the owner had never looked so nervous, an associate recalled later, according to this 2015 article by the New York Times’ Harvey Araton.

But in a short meeting behind closed doors, Berra got what he wanted: an apology.

Think of it: a powerful man forced to travel abjectly to the turf of the one who had brought him to heel. How often does that happen?

Quite apart from the shabby treatment of the lovable Berra, was his removal warranted? Did the results justify it? To both questions, I would answer no, for these reasons:

*The three most important Yankees that year—Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield, and Rickey Henderson—were, at that point, still not at full strength because of injuries. In other words, this team had not yet started to fire on all cylinders, but it would do so shortly—if only Steinbrenner had given it a chance. In short order, they were about to become an offensive powerhouse this season.

*One complaint that Steinbrenner had voiced about the squad in the past few weeks—a “lack of discipline” on the field—was spurious. In addition to the three players mentioned previously, this Yankee team featured veterans like Don Baylor, Ken Griffey Sr., Ron Guidry, and Phil Niekro. Motivation and self-discipline were not problems for this group.

*The removal continued to destabilize a team in desperate need of a calming influence. This was the 12^th managerial change since Steinbrenner had taken over the club in 1973. The players liked and got along with Yogi.

*Speaking of “destabilizing,” Martin was about to fall into familiar habits. Martin favored a fast, aggressive style of play that had become known as “Billy Ball.” But sometimes his non-traditional style of play could backfire. That’s what happened late in the year, when he sent third baseman Mike Pagliarulo to the plate to bat right-handed, late in a crucial September game against the Detroit Tigers—even though “Pags” was not a righty, or even a switch-hitter. The move failed. Worse, as Steinbrenner’s carping predictably picked up again, the alcoholic Martin got into one of the barroom fights that had come to mark his career as player and manager, this time with his own pitcher, Ed Whitson. While Martin ended up with a broken ulnar bone in his right arm, his inconsistent but high-priced starter came away with a broken rib and fractured hand.

*If Martin was overrated as a manager, Berra was underrated. Martin’s insistence on complete games by his starters effectively killed on the best young rotations in baseball when he managed the Oakland A’s following the 1981 season. He might have produced immediate improvements for the teams he managed, but the gains were temporary, as he exhausted the patience of owners and players alike. On the other hand, Berra had already managed two pennant-winning teams that probably shouldn’t have even made it that far. In 1964, he had managed a proud but aging team of Yankee sluggers to the seventh game of the World Series before they fell to the St. Louis Cardinals. In 1973, with Rusty Staub—a productive but not traditional cleanup hitter—batting fourth, he took the Mets to the World Series, too—even knocking off the powerful Cincinnati Reds in the playoffs before falling to the Oakland A’s in the Fall Classic.

With his 10 championship rings, Berra had long been loved by Yankee fans not just as an important contributor to the team’s success but also as a colorful character famous for malapropisms—sometimes real, sometimes invented by others—that became known as “Yogisms.” His often basic, awkward communication skills led sportswriters particularly to underestimate his knowledge of pitchers and feel for the game.

But the long cold war with Steinbrenner enhanced the respect with which he was held. For years, it had been the pugnacious Martin who had garnered sympathy for his fights with the owner, even though it had often been manifested in boorish, self-defeating antics.

But, by standing stubbornly on principle without acting out, it was now Berra who had become an object of sympathy, as well as a stand-in for anyone who had to endure a bumptious, bullying boss. When the dust had settled, though no longer working on baseball, he had become the beloved elder statesman of the Yankees, a position he retained until his death 10 years ago.

(The image accompanying this post, of Yogi Berra in 1984, was made available by the New York Yankees via tradingcarddb.com.)

This Day in Yankee History (Mantle Summons Fading Magic in Last Days of Dynasty)

Sept. 17, 1964— Mickey Mantle reached his 2,000^th career hit in the same game he recorded his 450^th home run, a 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels that kept momentum going in a pennant race for the proud but aging veteran core of the New York Yankees.

With a sixth-inning single to go with a double and his milestone home run, Mantle was just a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. His bat and leadership by example were proving more essential than it ever had been before, as the Bronx Bombers, in a grim portent of the future, was fending off a younger, hungrier Baltimore Orioles squad.

In third place and 4 ½ games out in mid-August—and having endured a much-publicized bus “harmonica incident” between infielder Phil Linz and manager Yogi Berra—the Yankees would go 30-13 through the rest of the season to secure their fifth straight World Series berth. But they won the pennant by only one game.

Mantle was not the only reason the team was able to survive: rookie pitcher Mel Stottlemyre, for instance, was virtually lights out when called up in October, and Roger Maris’s return to something like peak offensive form and late-season replacement for Mantle in centerfield took much of the burden off his power-hitting teammate.

But Mantle’s consistency and dominance (35 homers, 111 RBIs, .303 batting average, 1.015 OPS) throughout the season were recognized by sportswriters now in a way that finally matched how his admiring teammates had felt for years. When the season was over, he finished second in the voting for Most Valuable Player, surpassed only by Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson.

Just as the team fed off Mantle’s offensive brilliance in 1964, they collapsed when their string of injuries began to mirror his own the following season. Maris, catcher Elston Howard, shortstop Tony Kubec, and starting pitcher Jim Bouton would join Mantle on the injured list in 1965. The team would not make it back to the World Series again until 1976.

It turned out that 1964 would be the last great year for the 32-year-old Mantle. His power, batting average, and speed steadily declined over the following four seasons, only staying on because the Yankees implored him to lend his leadership to a team transitioning to youth. When he retired following the 1968 season, he was mortified that his career batting average had dipped below .300. 

This Day in Yankee History (Peterson, Chambliss Swapped in ‘Friday Night Massacre’)

Apr. 26, 1974—In a multi-player trade derided at the time as “The Friday Night Massacre,” the New York Yankees sent a former All-Star pitcher who had deeply embarrassed the club to the Cleveland Indians for a quiet first baseman who helped return them to glory after 12 years away from the postseason.

The reports two weeks ago that Fritz Peterson died last October reminded me of the scandal that engulfed the pitcher a half-century ago—then, after a few minutes’ reflection, of the subsequent trade involving him that became one of the building blocks in the revived Yankee dynasty of the Seventies.

If you thought you saw a pun in the headline for this post, you are correct.  The Bronx Bombers had sat stony and red-faced when veteran lefty Peterson and younger starter Mike Kekich admitted in separate March 1973 press conferences that they had swapped wives and children the prior summer.

Three months after the scandal exploded, the Yankees had no compunctions in unloading Kekich, who had seldom mastered the requisite control to go with his fastball. But it was another matter for Peterson, who won 20 games in 1970 and, if he could overcome a back injury incurred in spring training in 1974, could have returned to form.

In a 2015 interview for the “Bleeding Yankee Blue” blog, Peterson recalled that he had told Yankee President and General Manager Gabe Paul that he wouldn’t mind if he ended up being traded, as long as it wasn’t to the Philadelphia Phillies or the Cleveland Indians. The executive assured him he had nothing to worry about.

So much for promises, especially those made in baseball’s pre-free agent era. 

Paul wound up dealing Peterson to the Indians along with righthanded starter Steve Kline and relievers Fred Beene and Tom Buskey. In return, the Yankees received righthanders Cecil Upshaw and Dick Tidrow, as well as the trade's linchpin, Chris Chambliss (pictured).

(Perhaps Paul's only concession to Peterson's feelings was that the trade occurred one month after Cleveland bid goodbye to Kekich, which meant that any clubhouse awkwardness with the onetime great friends would be eliminated.)

No matter how much about Peterson’s role in the wife-swapping scandal may have angered the Yankee brass, he remained a favorite in the clubhouse, which valued his on-field pinpoint control and delighted in his off-field pranks.

Most of all, teammates like Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, and Mel Stottlemyre wondered publicly about the wisdom of getting rid of 40% of the pitching staff during a transition year for the team—its first since 1964 without manager Ralph Houk.

With Richard Nixon’s abrupt firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox still on the minds of many, the farewell to Peterson and the three other Yankee pitchers inevitably became known as “The Friday Night Massacre.”

The 1971 American League Rookie of the Year, Chambliss had followed up with a combined .281 his next two seasons. 

But, with a subpar .243 BA with the Yankees in that first season after the trade—and with Buskey performing creditably coming out of the Indians’ bullpen—it looked like the Yankees had gotten the worst of the transaction. There was no telling how long he’d last with impulsive owner George Steinbrenner calling the shots.

Within a couple of years, all these concerns would fall by the wayside. If the trade wasn’t as lopsided as, say, the St. Louis Cardinals receiving Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio, it still, in the long run, decisively benefited the Yankees.

After two seasons with the Indians, Peterson would be traded to Texas in 1976, then retire. The careers of Kline and Beene would also flame out.

As their stars fell, the long-term advantage of the deal for the Yankees became more apparent. Although Upshaw would be traded after his 1-5 season, Tidrow—whose nickname “Dirt” mirrored his blue-collar grit—became a dependable long reliever and spot starter.

Chambliss was even better, rebounding in 1975 with a .304 batting average. Through the end of the 1970s, he proved a model of consistency, with his BA ranging from .274 to .293.

Although Reggie Jackson, the slugger who replaced Chambliss in the cleanup role in 1977, may have been the self-styled “straw that stirs the drink” for the Yankees, Chambliss helped cement the team being cobbled together by Paul.

In the field, Chambliss was smooth, earning a Gold Glove in 1978. At the plate, if he did not hit prodigious home runs in batches, he rarely slumped, laying off bad pitches enough to wear down opposing pitchers and easing the way for the rest of the lineup. (He would successfully preach the same gospel of plate discipline as the Yankees’ hitting coach in the 1990s.) 

In a clubhouse that became increasingly dominated by large egos, Chambliss presented an unassuming but necessary contrast.

But this quietest of men became known for one particularly loud at bat: his dramatic, ninth-inning walk-off homer in the 1976 American League Championship Series off Kansas City Royals reliever Mark Littell—sending the Yankees on to the World Series for the first time since 1964.

When Paul pulled off another trade that brought rookie second baseman Willie Randolph to the Yankees from the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Bombers had solidified the right side of their infield with intelligent, consistent players who, by rarely making mistakes, contributed mightily to their late Seventies dynasty.

This Day in Yankee History (Bobby Murcer Retires, Just Short of Greatness)

June 20, 1983— Bobby Murcer, saddled with the burden of succeeding superstar Mickey Mantle as the great hope of the New York Yankees—and one of the few bright spots in the Bronx during the wilderness years out of the postseason from 1965 to 1974—was released by the team and took up duties in the broadcast booth.

As a youngster in the late Sixties and early Seventies, I was just a little too young to experience the Yankees in the golden era of Mantle, Maris, and Ford. I became interested in the team when a trio of young players gave them a glimmer of hope of a return to glory: Thurman Munson, Roy White, and Bobby Murcer. It was Murcer, above all, who became my childhood baseball idol.

I listened breathlessly on the radio on June 24, 1970, when he tied a major league record by clubbing four consecutive home runs in a doubleheader against the Cleveland Indians. I thrilled when, during his first two full seasons with the team (not shortened by injury or military service) in 1969 and 1970, he took advantage of the short rightfield fence at Yankee Stadium by swatting 49 homers.

I imitated that slight crouch at the plate that helped earn Murcer five All-Star berths. In my greatest delusions, I dreamed that, like him, I would win a Gold Glove and succeed him in centerfield at Yankee Stadium, in the same hallowed ground once also patrolled by Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and Earle Combs—all Baseball Hall of Famers.

And I mourned in late October 1974, when Murcer was traded straight up for another star saddled with outsized expectations: Bobby Bonds, who had been hailed as the next Willie Mays for the San Francisco Giants.

No matter the electrifying all-around play that Bonds flashed in his single season with the Yankees, he could never replace Murcer for me. I was angry with the Yankees for exiling this leader who sparked the club on the field and won over teammates in the clubhouse with his easygoing manner.

And I was absolutely delighted 4½ years later when the Yankees arranged a trade that brought him back to the team he had dreamed of joining as a child and never wanted to leave. As much as he gave all to the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs in his time away, it was obvious he never really felt at home away from the Bronx.

The three words that may have best defined Murcer’s career were “just short of.” In the first, most substantial part of his career, he fell just short of the postseason, as the team continually lost to the more powerful Baltimore Orioles. In his return, now as a part-time role player with eroding skills, he made it only once to the World Series, recording just one hit in 11 at-bats over two postseasons.

Ultimately, missing out on the postseason in his prime may have meant Murcer fell short of overall greatness. His career statistics over 17 years—252 homeruns, 1,043 RBIs, .277 batting average, .802 OPS—could not match Mantle’s stellar 536 homeruns, 1,509 RBIs, .298 batting average, and .977 OPS. But repeated, excellent play in the postseason during his best years might have earned him more serious consideration as a Hall of Fame candidate.

Comparisons with Mantle cropped up from the moment Murcer arrived at the Yankees’ training camp in 1965, as they both:

*hailed from Oklahoma;

*were signed by the great scout Tom Greenwade;

*started as shortstops before their erratic arms convinced the team they were better suited for center field;

*earned the affection of teammates through their country-boy charm.

Yet, though these comparisons were inevitable, they were also superficial because they obscured significant differences during their careers in the game and afterward. Murcer lacked Mantle’s gasp-inducing natural skills, especially his almost unparalleled power-speed explosiveness.

On the other hand, once their playing days ended, Murcer was not dogged by Mantle’s inner demons. Wondering if he could have been even better if he’d taken care of himself, unsure what to do in retirement, Mantle took refuge in womanizing and alcoholism that depressed those who knew him, while Murcer earned three Emmy Awards as live broadcaster for the Yankees and enjoyed a stable, happy family life.

Murcer’s return to the Bronx in 1979 came during a lost season for the Bombers: not just the only time that the club would miss the playoffs from 1976 through 1981, but one darkened by the tragic death of Munson in a plane crash.

It was a season painful for the Yankees and their fans alike except for August 6, when, after delivering a stirring eulogy at Munson’s funeral, Murcer flew back to the Bronx for a nationally televised game against the Baltimore Orioles. With the Yankees down 4-0 in the seventh inning, he brought the crowd to its feet with a three-run homer, then won the game with a two-run single in the ninth. (See this YouTube clip for footage of his heroics.)

With other lefty-hitting outfielders on the squad in Reggie Jackson, Oscar Gamble, and Ruppert Jones, Murcer found his playing time limited, and after the 1980 season he never played a position again, finding himself confined to pinch hitting. The emergence of the smooth-hitting 22-year-old first baseman-outfielder Don Mattingly meant that the Yankees needed to clear space on the roster for him, and Murcer accepted George Steinbrenner’s offer to become a broadcaster.

The title of Murcer’s memoir, Yankee for Life, testified to his steadfast loyalty to the team. It also proved sadly prophetic, as he died of complications from brain cancer only two months after publication.

Former Yankee publicist Marty Appel spoke for many in explaining how gracefully Murcer adjusted to the mantle of greatness thrust upon him:

"He had an easy, Oklahoma politeness and a modesty that isn't normally associated with elite athletes. He was a fans' player and he was a players' player.

"He was just a terrific kid who was handed an oversized assignment and he handled it with grace and honesty and dignity, as he did everything until the very end....He made you a better person just to know him. No man ever wore the New York Yankee uniform better.”

This Day in Yankee History (Much-Heralded Mantle Gets Hit in Big-League Debut)

Apr. 17, 1951—So anxious about his hype as the successor-in-waiting to Joe DiMaggio as centerfielder for the New York Yankees that he couldn't sleep the night before his major-league debut, Mickey Mantle got his first of 2,414 career hits, contributing to the team’s 5-0 season opener victory over the rival Boston Red Sox.

Yankee veterans and fans alike were curious to see the 19-year-old rookie. His output that day, a single in four at-bats, gave only the slightest indication of the exhilarating combination of power and speed that led the Oklahoma native to be nicknamed “The Commerce Comet.”

Over the years, Mantle’s statistics for his first season and his own recollections underscore 1951 as a sometimes painful period of adjustment. (It wasn’t this much-heralded minor leaguer who was named AL Rookie of the Year but his teammate, infielder Gil McDougald.)

But it wasn’t until after Mantle’s death that a circle wider than his intimates realized how a traumatic childhood and the heavy burden of expectation combined to produce what he called the worst day of his life.

Start with his family background. His father, Elven “Mutt” Mantle, had drilled him in the basics of baseball, in the hope that the boy’s talent would carry him far from life in the zinc and lead mines where Mutt worked.

But Mickey was not only carrying family hopes but terrible secrets, a fact not disclosed in depth until Jane Leavy’s 2010 biography The Last Boy. As a youngster he had been sexually abused multiple times—by a half-sister, neighborhood boys and a high-school teacher. Few realized at the time the psychic damage (including Mantle’s adult promiscuity and alcoholism) caused by such events.

In coming to the Bronx, he was also the proverbial fish out of water—a country boy in a city environment, removed from his normal emotional support and painfully aware of how inarticulate he could sound.

All of this he carried inside. What people saw on the outside was a ballplayer that Bob Sheppard---also making his debut that game, in the stadium public-address role he would have for the next half-century—described, in contrast to a later Yankee centerfielder, Mickey Rivers, as “Mick the Quick with muscle.”

Manager Casey Stengel put it even more memorably, in his eccentric fashion, to sportswriter Bob Deindorfer: “He has more speed than any slugger and more slug than any speedster—and nobody has ever had more of both of them together. This kid ain’t logical. He’s too good. It’s very confusing.”

One gift the youngster did not have was the ability to play shortstop. But Stengel converted him to right field—a position he himself had played—and then took the time to teach him the rudiments of the position.

Anyway, it was just a marker until DiMaggio—a superstar that Stengel had difficulty relating to—retired, as so many expected him to do the following year, given the increasing toll that injuries had taken on his body.

As for DiMaggio himself: perhaps he was jealous of the attention given Mantle by the press and Stengel, or perhaps this most graceful of centerfielders disdained how green the youngster next to him looked. But the proud, touchy Hall of Famer remained aloof from his teammate, further increasing Mantle’s unease.

In mid-July, Mantle—with a high propensity to strike out—had been reassigned to the Yankees’ Triple A Kansas City Blues unit. But, still slumping, and now with his power seemingly snuffed out, the despondent Mantle called his father to say he wanted to come home.

That would be fine, Mutt Mantle told his son. “But, if that’s all the man you are, then get your clothes and let’s go home.”

How much of Mutt’s reaction was due to frustration that the boy in which he’d invested so much emotionally wasn’t turning out as planned? How much of it was an attempt at tough love? How much was it a secretly ill man who would be dead within a year of cancer simply unable to contain his emotions?

Whatever the source of his reaction, it led Mickey to reconsider going home. He stayed and began drilling the ball again with the power and authority everyone had predicted. He was recalled to the majors, this time with his old uniform number 6 exchanged for #7, the one he wore for the rest of his career (and which the Yankees retired when he stopped playing 17 years later).

One more trying event remained for Mantle in the 1951 campaign: In Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Giants, pulling up short when DiMaggio called him off on a fly ball between the two, Mantle tripped over an exposed drain pipe in right center and injured his right knee. He would be dogged by the pain from that knee for the rest of his playing days.

Even so, he would progress steadily in the next few years. The following season, he batted over .300 and placed third in the voting for MVP. In 1956, he put all his offensive skills together by winning the Triple Crown, leading the league in home runs (52), RBIs (130) and batting average (.353).

Over the years, some have seen Mantle as a real-life embodiment of Roy Hobbs, the astonishingly gifted player who never achieves his full potential, in the novel and movie The Natural. In addition to injuries, Leavy has pointed to the personal flaws that crippled him inside. In an interview with sportswriter Bill Madden, she observed: 

“The tragedy of Mantle is that he had so little time, at the beginning of his baseball career, and at the beginning of his sober life, to be his best self. He was a decent man who was genetically pre-disposed to alcoholism and enabled his whole life by the trappings of his celebrity.”

Yet other players with the gift-curse of potential never went on to enjoy the Hall of Fame career that Mantle did. When he stepped down at the end of the 1968 season, he ranked indisputably among the greatest players in baseball history:

*He influenced players of subsequent generations to become switch-hitters, and though many became Hall of Famers themselves (e.g., Pete Rose, Eddie Murray), he remains, by common consent, the best;

*He hit home runs so far—particularly one he blasted out of Griffith Stadium in Washington in 1953—that a new term was coined for the phenomenon: the “tape-measure homer”; and,

*Most important to him, he became the cornerstone of the Yankee dynasty after DiMaggio retired as anticipated after 1951, leading the team to 12 pennants and seven World Series championships.

This Day in Yankee History (Righetti Lights Up Bosox in No-Hitter)

July 4, 1983—With temperatures climbing to 94 degrees, heat was in the air, but it was nothing like the heat dealt by New York Yankee pitcher Dave Righetti to the Boston Red Sox. Midway through a season in which, as has happened so often in their history, the two clubs were neck-and-neck in their division, the Yankee southpaw tossed a no-hitter, sparking his team to a 4-0 victory before more than 41,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. 

Besides occurring on Independence Day and against a hated rival, Righetti’s gem was special for several other reasons:

*It happened on the birthday of George Steinbrenner, the best kind of present that win-win-win Yankee owner could ask for;

*It was the first Yankee regular-season no-hitter since Allie Reynolds’—also against the Red Sox—on September 28, 1951.

*It was the first Yankee no-hitter since Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

*It was only the fourth no-hitter ever pitched in the major leagues or their equivalent on July 4. The others were by the New York Giants’ George “Hooks” Wiltse (1908), the Detroit Tigers’ George Mullin (1912), and, in the Negro Leagues, the Pittsburgh Crawfords’ Satchel Paige (1934).

Righetti had great motivation to want to shut down the Red Sox on this day: Not only had they been punishing opposing pitchers recently (38 hits in the three prior games against the Yankees and 12 homers in their last four games), but, after 6 2/3 innings, they had broken up his prior flirtation with a no-hitter the year before. And he had an additional edge: despite a 9-3 record, he’d been passed over for the All-Star Game.

But first, the lefthander had to overcome some issues—starting with himself.

Since coming to the Yankees in a November 1978 trade involving former Bronx Bomber reliever and Cy Young Award winner Sparky Lyle, Righetti had been stuck with the “promising” tag while moving beyond it only fitfully. True, he had earned Rookie of the Year honors and been a key cog in their 1981 pennant drive, but the following season he had yielded more walks than anyone else in the American League.

His control was not pinpoint on this day, either—Righetti would walk four by the time he was done—but the Yankees neutralized the Bosox’ opportunities with sparkling defense (notably, nifty plays by outfielders Dave Winfield and Steve Kemp), and Righetti was aggressive, not just throwing fast but putting the Sox’ batters off-balance by checking locations. 

His final, ninth out came against Boston’s toughest batter: Wade Boggs. The future Hall of Famer would bat .361 that season and strike out only 36 times. 

With tension mounting on the field (Glenn Hoffman stood at second because the Yanks’ Andre Robertson had thrown wide to first base) and in the Yankee dugout (manager Billy Martin claimed later it was the only time he’d ever prayed in a baseball game), Boggs got a chance to break up both Righetti’s no-hitter and shutout in one stroke when umpire Steve Palermo called a down-and-away pitch a ball on a 1-and-2 count.

But one chance was the only one Boggs got. Unlike Larsen’s perfect game, which concluded on a called third strike, there was not the slightest dispute on the next pitch. Boggs guessed wrong on the timing and location of Righetti’s nasty slider, swung and missed. For a second, Righetti stood stunned and amazed at how his 132-pitch performance had ended, then hugged his exuberant catcher Butch Wynegar. 

The trajectories of both Righetti and the Yankees would change following that game and season. The team finished the year in third place in the AL East behind the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers. (What little consolation they took away was that the Red Sox ended up 13 games back of them, in sixth place—a far cry from their epic season-long battle five years before.) They couldn’t imagine that it would take 12 years to get back to the post-season and not until 1996 before they would win another pennant and World Series.

During much of this era of instability, Righetti would be one of the few constants in the Bronx clubhouse, though not in the role that he and management originally projected. With Goose Gossage and George Frazier departing in the offseason, Righetti was moved over to plug the gaping hole left in the bullpen. Righetti accepted and adapted to the change, even though agent Bill Goodstein complained, in an April 1990 article on his client in Sports Illustrated, “He could probably have been a 20-game winner for five or six years and made twice as much money."

The high point in Righetti’s Yankee bullpen tenure came in 1986, when he recorded 46 saves—a high-water franchise mark for the entire pre-Rivera era. But for all his excellence, it is an open question whether the Yankees made the correct decision in converting this deeply loyal player from his starting role. 

I remember at the time that management justified this by noting that his effectiveness declined after the seventh inning, so he was better if used sooner. But this has the whiff of a move made less for sound statistical reasons than out of necessity. Starting pitching remained the Achilles’ heel of the Bombers in their lost decade out of the money. (In 1986, for instance, Dennis Rasmussen led the rotation with 18 victories, but no other starter recorded more than nine.)

This Day in Yankee History (Royals Sweep Series, Boss Sweeps House)

Oct. 10, 1980—The New York Yankees’ third consecutive loss in their best-of-five American League Championship Series did more than disappoint fans hoping for more after a superb 103-win season. It also pushed principal owner George Steinbrenner into his usual fume-and-fire cycle against a manager.

Dick Howser, a highly respected coach with the team for a decade, had managed to deliver success and serenity—two qualities never appearing simultaneously under predecessor Billy Martin. But, through no real fault of his own, he had broken two of the 10 Commandments of dealing with The Boss: “I am the lord thy owner; thou shalt not have any strange owners before me” and “Thou shalt win the World Series.”

The Lord taketh away, and the Lord giveth. Steinbrenner’s public execution of Howser, occurring at a press conference where the owner continually urged the media gathered in his office not to let the nearby spread of sandwiches go to waste, resulted in an ironic, devastating column by Dave Anderson, “Food on a Table at the Execution,” that would garner the veteran New York Times sports columnist a Pulitzer Prize.

It should not have ended this way for Howser. That year, several of his players—including Reggie Jackson (batting .300 for the only time in his career), Willie Randolph and Rich Cerone, replacing the deceased Thurman Munson at catcher—had career years. Moreover, the manager came to use Ron Davis as his set-up man while getting more appearances for Rich Gossage by confining him to one inning, rather than two or three, as had been done previously with “Goose”—an evolutionary step toward the notion of the closer.

More miraculously, he had taken an aging team that had ended up placing fourth in the American League East only the season before and pushing it into the postseason--an outcome that other professionals in the league thought near-impossible.

Just getting to the division title had been by no means assured for the team. During the two seasons under Steinbrenner when the team won the World Series, 1977 and 1978, the Bronx Bombers had won 100 games. In 1980, that same record would only have assured them a tie with the Baltimore Orioles, so they had been pushed to win three more games—a special achievement.

But in a short series, anything can happen—particularly in the best-of-five format that held sway in the playoffs at the time. The Yankees had lost their first two games in Kansas City, victimized by a George Brett homer in Game 1 and a sharp start by Dennis Leonard and save by Dan Quisenberry in Game 2.

But perhaps the pivotal play in that latter 4-2 loss came in the eighth inning, when Randolph rounded third on a hit by Bob Watson. Third-base coach Mike Ferraro, confident in the second baseman’s speed, sent him home. It was almost guaranteed to succeed, especially since left fielder Willie Wilson overthrew the cutoff man. But Brett, backing up, was able to catch the ball and throw a perfect peg to the plate to get Randolph out and end the Yankee threat.

Cameras caught an ominous image in the stands: Steinbrenner, sitting next to general manager Gene Michael, shouting Ferraro’s name as he turned to Michael. Clearly, if the Yankees didn’t win, the coach would pay with his job.

In the third game at Yankee Stadium, Gossage gave up a 2-1 lead in the seventh inning by serving up a three-run homer to Brett, who put an exclamation point on a year in which he came close to becoming the first batter since Ted Williams to bat .400.

From the moment the series ended, Steinbrenner was steaming, proclaiming his embarrassment at being swept. His anger at Howser, which may have been ignited during the season when the manager had cut short one of the owner's phone rants by saying he was busy, flared up further when Howser said that, as a former third-base coach himself, he, like Ferraro, would have sent Randolph home under similar circumstances.

For several weeks, Steinbrenner seethed before settling on a strategy. Finally, he fired Ferraro and offered the job to Don Zimmer--all without consulting Howser first. A manager who can't name his own coaches has been effectively neutered. Howser refused to go along. 

A month later, Steinbrenner called the press conference to announce that Howser was resigning as Yankee manager in order to pursue a not-to-be-missed real estate deal in Florida. 

"Were you fired, Dick?" one of the assembled scribes asked.

"I'm not going to comment on that," the now-former manager answered. He didn't have to. Everyone knew what had really happened.

Howser's demeanor demonstrated his quiet but real dignity and pride. Steinbrenner should have realized that earlier in the year, when the rookie manager showed that, while he might not be the firebrand that Billy Martin was, neither was he a cream puff.

Back in May, when Luis Tiant dropped the ball on the mound after the manager came to lift him for a reliever, Howser fined the veteran pitcher for “showing me up.” The message was heeded in the clubhouse: Howser was not to be trifled with.

Howser didn't pursue his phantom "real estate deal" for long. A year later, he ended up replacing the man who had beaten him in the playoffs, Kansas City's Jim Frey. Over the next couple of years, he gradually took the team further and further: two consecutive second-place finishes in the American League West, then a divisional title in what was expected to be a rebuilding year, and, at last, a World Series championship in 1985.

At the All-Star Game the following season, Howser felt sick and confused. Subsequent tests revealed a brain tumor. He died from the disease in June 1987. 

In a way, Steinbrenner ended up paying--to his mind, grievously indeed--for his bullying of Howser. The Yankees ended up back in the World Series the following year, when Bob Lemon took over midway through the season for Howser's replacement, Gene Michael. But, after jumping out to a two-games-to-none lead, the team ended up losing the World Series with four straight losses to the Brooklyn Dodgers--an even more ignominious end than the year before. The Yankees would not end up in the postseason again until 1995, and not earn another World Series trophy till the following year.

I have thought of Steinbrenner much in recent days with the Yankees being eliminated from the playoffs. Manager Joe Girardi would have been fired long ago for that failure. Heck, had The Boss been running the show back in 2008 instead of his (relatively) more patient son Hal, Girardi would have been canned after his first, also-ran season as manager with the Bombers. Of course, that would have meant Girardi would not have been around to take the team to their most recent championship the following season.

In my younger days, anger vied with irony whenever I thought of Steinbrenner. In the 1980s, he and Donald Trump came to epitomize for much of the nation what they erroneously saw as the blustering, overbearing, rude nature of New Yorkers--including a distinct distaste for losing. Indeed, both probably came to their career nadirs around 1990: Trump, when he was caught cheating on his first wife and it appeared his creditors would pull the rug out from under him; Steinbrenner, when he was suspended from baseball for hiring a gambler-turned-blackmailer to feed him derogatory information about a player with whom he was feuding, Dave Winfield.

In time, however, Steinbrenner came to look good by comparison with Trump. He was more interested in promoting the Yankee brand, not his own; he never felt the need to continually brag about how much he was worth; and he never became the star of a reality show, let alone a Presidential candidate.