Who is now the Greatest Living Yankee?
For 16 years, Yogi Berra wore that honor, and he wore it well, and humbly. He would show up in spring training and patter around the clubhouse, a little old man amid the modern-day behemoths.
Berra, who died last Tuesday at 90, seemed most comfortable with the Guidrys and Gossages, spring advisers from more recent glorious eras. Presumably, most of the new breed, crowded into narrow aisles of lockers, had some clue that this was the very same Lawrence Peter Berra who once terrorized pitchers from April to October, swinging at anything that moved.
(I have a friend, Big Al, who likes to torment me in midwinter with a totally unsolicited email that asks, “Just how great was Yogalah, anyway?” Sometimes, just to be cruel, Big Al reminds me that Berra hit eight of his 12 World Series homers against my Brooklyn Dodgers.)
On no other North American sports franchise is there the same cachet to the hypothetical ranking of Greatest Living. Undoubtedly fans and writers perform the same mental exercise for the Montreal Canadiens or the Boston Celtics or the Dallas Cowboys. But the New York Yankees lead the league in monuments and plaques and retired numbers and special “days,” some of it blatantly extraneous, to sell tickets and memorabilia.
Still, the Yankees have nearly a century’s worth of excellence, starting with Babe Ruth’s arrival in 1920. At some point, people began playing with the concept of Greatest Living Ballplayer for the entire major leagues. I recall debates about Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams in their old ages — Stan Musial was always third in that exercise — and now it is probably Willie Mays.
Admittedly, these mental gymnastics have a morbid side because they involve the passing of the mantle — never worn by Mickey Mantle, by the way.
Whether or not anybody had invented the category in his lifetime, Babe Ruth was surely the Greatest Living Yankee almost immediately upon lofting home runs at the Polo Grounds, allowing the Yankees to build their own palace across the Harlem River. Lou Gehrig came later and died young. When the Babe died on Aug. 16, 1948, he was surely the Greatest.
Was there any debate that DiMaggio became the Greatest Living Yankee as he morphed from classic center fielder to pitchman for coffee machines and perennial guest at banquets? Mantle, who inherited the superstar role after 1951, lived longer than he had ever imagined, but he died on Aug. 13, 1995, at the age of 63. DiMaggio lived until March 8, 1999, and was honored in a funeral in the cathedral in his hometown, San Francisco. Outside, in the plaza, dozens of people performed tai chi in the brisk sunshine.
Then, with all due respect to the Scooter, Phil Rizzuto, the title went to Berra, with his .285 batting average and 358 homers (12 more in 75 World Series games), his exemplary catching and his versatility that allowed Casey Stengel to station “Mr. Berra” in the outfield to make room for that great Yankee, Elston Howard. (Two stars who treated Howard — the first African-American on the Yankees — with particular acceptance were Musial and Berra.)
Berra was a taut competitor (he took his cues from DiMaggio) and saved his so-called Yogi-isms for his spare time, unscripted. (Perhaps his final Yogi-ism came Aug. 27, when Marty Appel, the Yankee historian, visited him at an assisted living home. “He asked the nurse what time 3:30 Mass is,” Appel reported fondly Wednesday.)
Now the title moves on. Personally, I think it is a no-brainer: The Greatest Living Yankee is Whitey Ford, who came out of Aviation High School, which was then in Manhattan, and helped pitch the Yankees to victory in the 1950 World Series when he was 21.
In those days, there was no Tommy John surgery, and there were no pitch counts or innings limits, but Stengel did minimize the smallish Ford — 5 feet 10 inches, 175 pounds — to some degree, and Ford prospered. When Ralph Houk managed from 1961 through 1963, Ford pitched 810 innings, winning 66 games and losing 19. He lasted 16 seasons, with a 236-106 record, and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.
Ford is now 86 and spends his time between Florida and Long Island. On Wednesday he was out to the doctor and then seeing friends for lunch, according to his wife, Joan, who said her husband was saddened by the death of his battery mate, his pal. Ford had often brought out the humor in Berra as he had for his moody friend Mantle. Ford was a witty presence in the clubhouse, available win or lose. When his body began to fall apart, along with the Yankees franchise in 1965, I referred to him as “the game lefty.” He smiled and suggested a word change — to “gamy.”
Decades from now, somebody else can parse the lineage that will include Reggie Jackson, who played for three other teams; and Alex Rodriguez, who played for two others and once tried to jump to the Boston Red Sox; as well as Don Mattingly, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, beloved Yankee lifers.
As far as I am concerned, Whitey Ford, nicknamed the Chairman of the Board by Mel Allen, is now the Greatest Living Yankee.
