Whitey Ford - Few and Chosen Yankees: Defining Yankee Greatness Across the Eras

Copyright 2001 by Whitey Ford and Phil Pepe

Photography by Lou Requena except where noted otherwise.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ford, Whitey, 1928

Few and chosen : defining Yankee greatness across the eras / Whitey Ford with Phil Pepe.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-57243-418-X (hardcover)

1. New York Yankees (Baseball team) 2. Baseball playersUnited StatesBiography. I. Pepe, Phil. II. Title.

GV875.N4 F65 2001

796.35764097471dc21

2001033606

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ISBN 1-57243-418-X

To Joan, Sally Ann, Eddie, and Tommy

Index

I HAVE HAD MANY GREAT HONORS IN MY LIFE, which I am still living now, but none greater than knowing that my friend and my old battery mate, Whitey Ford, has picked me as the No. I catcher in Yankees history.

I always said Whitey was the smartest pitcher I ever caught. And the best.

I thought so much of Whiteys knowledge of pitching that, when the Yankees named me to manage the team after Ralph Houk moved up to general manager in 1964, I asked Whitey to be my pitching coacheven though he was still an active player at the time. I figured Whitey was one guy who could pitch and coach at the same time.

To me, choosing Whitey to be my pitching coach was a no-brainer. We had been together for so many years. I was his catcher for probably 95 percent of his starts in his 12 seasons with the Yankees and I respected him as a winner, a thinking mans pitcher, and as a competitor. I figured he was the right guy to teach our young pitchers his experiences.

I have known Whitey longer than just about anybody alive. I first met him in 1946. It was late in the season and the Yankees had just brought me up from Newark. Whitey had just been signed by the Yankees and he had come to Yankee Stadium to sign his contract. They took him through the clubhouse to meet the guys and somebody introduced him to me as Eddie Ford. And they introduced me to him as Larry Berra.

The next time I saw him was during the 1950 season, when the Yankees brought him up from Kansas City. He won nine games for us and lost only one, and helped us win the pennant. I knew right away that he was going to be a special pitcher. And he was. The best.

I even attended Whitey and Joans wedding in April of 1951. I wasnt personally invited to the weddingwe werent that close back thenbut the whole team went by bus to his wedding reception in Queens after we had played an exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In my 17 years with the Yankees, we won 14 pennants and 10 World Series. I always thought we should have won the 1960 World Series and made it 11. That was the year Casey Stengel chose to hold Whitey out of the first game, so he pitched only twice against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He shut them out both times. Im sure if he had pitched against them three times, he would have won all three games and we would have been world champions again.

We won the pennant in 1964, my first year as manager, and again I thought we should have beat the Cardinals in the World Series. Whitey started the first game and got knocked out in the sixth inning. When he tried to pitch, he couldnt even reach home plate. It turned out he had some kind of circulation problem and he couldnt pitch again for the rest of the Series. We lost to the Cardinals in seven games, but Im sure if Whitey had been healthy and could have started two more times, we would have beaten the Cardinals and I would not have been fired. I might still be managing the Yankees today.

I never expected to be fired after we won the pennant. In fact, on the plane ride home from St. Louis, I talked to Whitey and asked him to come back the next year as my pitching coach. And he agreed. The next day, I was told I was fired.

Its funny how things turn out. All these years later, more than 50 years, Whitey is still one of my best friends. He made the Hall of Fame and I made the Hall of Fame. He had his number retired by the Yankees and I had my number retired by the Yankees. I wrote a book and he has written a book, and he named me the No. 1 catcher in Yankees history.

All I can say is, thank you, Whitey, for making this necessary.

Y OGI B ERRA
April 2001

T HE SUCCESS OF THE N EW Y ORK Y ANKEES is unmatched in the annals of sport in this country. They are the most famous, most celebrated, most renowned team in baseball or, for that matter, in any sport.

From their nomadic beginning in 1903when the Baltimore Orioles were purchased for $18,000 by Frank Farrell, a gambling entrepreneur, and Bill Devery, a former New York City chief of police, and moved to New Yorkthrough the year 2000, the Yankees (known for the first 10 years of their existence as the New York Highlanders), won 37 American League pennants and 26 World Series championships. No other team even comes close.

The Athletics, for example, have won fourteen pennants in two cities (eight in Philadelphia, six in Oakland), and nine World Series (five in Philadelphia, four in Oakland). The Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers have each won nine American League pennants. The Red Sox won the World Series five times, the Tigers four.

In the National League, the Dodgers have won eighteen pennants in two cities (Brooklyn and Los Angeles), and six World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals, with fifteen National League pennants, have won nine World Series.

But the Yankees stand head and shoulders above the rest. In their 98 years, the Yankees have won 38 percent of the American League pennants and 27 percent of baseballs World Series.

These numbers are even more staggering if you consider that the Yankees did not win their first pennant until 1921. So, in an 80-year period, the Yankees have won 46 percent of the American League pennants and 32 percent of the World Series.

To achieve such success the Yankees obviously had to have great players. They have had some of the greatest ever to play the game, at all positions. Thirty-three Yankees players and four managers are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

With so much talent to choose from, it is obviously no easy task to select the all-time Yankees teamthe top five players at each position and the top five managers in Yankees history. But there is no one as uniquely qualified to attempt such a challenge as Edward Whitey Ford.

Elected to the Hall of Fame himself in 1974, Ford was a teammate of six Hall of Famers and the coach of another. He was born and raised in New York, has lived in New York all his life, and saw his first Yankees game 62 years ago. For the past 50 years, he has been part of the Yankees family.