I remember watching TV and seeing Yogi Berra's rough-hewn visage in the Yankees' dugout. The long-time Yankees catcher managed the 1964 team. Their second baseman, Bobby Richardson, was one of my favorite players. We all knew about Roger Maris' background in the Upper Midwest. Maris was well past his lightning-in-a-bottle season of 1961. He was no longer the awe-inspiring presence at bat.
Then there was Mel Stottlemyre. He was no Whitey Ford in terms of name recognition. We lost Sottlemyre last Sunday (1/13) as he passed on due to long-time health issues. The first article I saw about this had an older Stottlemyre in the photo, and the emphasis seemed to be as much on his coaching as his pitching. I knew hardly anything about his coaching. One would assume that a pitcher of his stature would have stints coaching.
I remember him as an outstanding pitcher with a rather unique niche in Yankees' history. It was unique in that he came up to the bigs just in time to get in on the last great year of the mid-20th Century Yankees' dynasty. He was an impact player in his first year too. He got in on the World Series with Berra at the helm and us kids listening anxiously for game updates at the football field that would later be known as Coombe Field. Today there are large apartment units popping up there. In the future, the Historical Society will remind us of what all went on in that space, when it was the focus for grades K-12 education. Also, there was a time when East 7th Street was the main entry to Morris from the east. That's why businesses like the Dairy Queen and the "Pylin" were located along there, across from the school.
Oh, and Stark's Grocery, your typical neighborhood grocery store from the days before "convenience stores." You couldn't get gas there but you sure could get baseball cards! A nickel a pack. We tossed the gum. I'm sure I acquired multiple Mel Stottlemyre cards there. I remember the excitement felt in coming across a particular elusive card. I remember Rick Van Horn's excitement at getting a Zoilo Versalles card. I remember Gary Rose (the window washer today), who according to legend traded several cards in order to obtain Lenny Green, who the Twins promptly traded!
The hindrance of racial attitudes
Stottlemyre hung on with the Yankees after 1964 as the team mysteriously fell off a cliff. They entered the nadir of their history as it were. Maybe it wasn't so mysterious, as ownership/management could have been faulted for, among other things, dragging their feet in opening the door for players of color, something which National League teams had less aversion too. I congratulate those N.L. teams.
Vic Power came up in the Yankees system and such was the ownership's hesitation with the Puerto Rican, there were formal protests outside Yankee Stadium. Had Power gotten more advantages earlier in his career, he could be in the Hall of Fame today. His consolation was that he is remembered as the greatest fielding first baseman ever. Power was the team MVP for our new Minnesota Twins in 1962 when we chased the Yankees impressively. But we had to wait until 1965 to win the pennant. Stottlemyre is remembered as a Yankees stalwart in the post-1964 era when the team seemed barely a ghost of its storied past. Regardless of how they did, hey, they were the Yankees, and I never lost the particular fascination I felt with them. Even with Roy White as a star instead of Mickey Mantle.
The MSN news article on Stottlemyre's death described him as "the lonely ace of the Yankee pitching staffs in the 1965-71 pre-George Steinbrenner lean years."
I remember watching Stottlemyre pitch a game at our old Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington. My primary memory is of Stottlemyre looking like such a solid pro as he did his warm-ups, employing his sweeping, textbook pitching motion. I thought "there is a guy who can still kindle memories of the Yankees' greatness." And he could. I can't remember how that game turned out.
Indeed, "touchstone" times
Stottlemyre was on the cusp of his big league career when the Bronx crew was in an intense pennant battle in late summer of 1964. Us kids were awash in the innocence of our youth, the way it should be, and not yet distracted by the Vietnam war. My family attended the New York World's Fair in the summer of '64. I have read that the fair ended up as a "touchstone" for boomers to remember the more calm and normal time before Vietnam and the other issues associated with the latter part of the decade. I think we can insert the 1964 pennant races in both the A.L. and N.L. in the same category.
What if our nation had never gotten involved in Vietnam? It is perhaps the greatest "what if?" question. Something like 60 thousand American lives snuffed out.
Billy Crystal had the "touchstone" feeling about early '60s baseball and particularly the Yankees. That's why he made perhaps the greatest baseball movie ever, "61*," inspired mainly by Roger Maris. Incidentally, I don't think Maris was as lovable as the movie made him. His problem if he had one is that he just couldn't adjust his personality to being a celebrity.
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Stottlemyre had a fairy tale experience with his 9-3 record and team-best 2.06 ERA in 96 innings. He helped the Yankees win 34 of their last 52 games en route to a pennant that earlier looked in doubt. It was the Yanks' fifth straight pennant. After that the bottom fell out. The Yankees were aging. Their hesitance in signing players of color was an absolute curse, while N.L. teams were stocking their rosters with the likes of Frank Robinson.
Stottlemyre threw his sinker pitch overhand. Most often pitchers threw it sidearm or 3/4 arm because it's a hard pitch to control. There were never any personality issues with Stottlemyre. Was he even mentioned in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four?" If he wasn't, I think that's extraordinary.
Injuries could end careers
The end came for Stottlemyre abruptly in 1974 after the pitcher had completed 15 starts. He had a torn rotator cuff. He was 32 years old. Corrective surgery had not yet been developed. He had a career W/L of 164-139 and an ERA of 2.97. It was an era largely dominated by pitching including 1968, the "year of the pitcher." So different from later time periods.
We should have been bored by the dominant pitching so much of the time. Today we would be. My generation of fans stayed pretty riveted through all the zeroes on the scoreboard. I would choose to attend games with marquee pitchers. Remember the kitchen employee in the movie "Bobby" (about the assassination of RFK) who coveted his ticket to see Don Drysdale pitch? I remember making a trip to see Oakland's Vida Blue when he was on his "Blue streak" (as dubbed by Life Magazine).
The unceremonious release of Stottlemyre by the Yankees brought anger from many. Those were different times before the players union started feeling its oats. Your eyes bug out reading the outrageously low salary figures that players were bandying about (in one-sided "negotiations" with GMs) in Stottlemyre's era. Just read Bouton's "Ball Four," right at the beginning.
Stottlemyre ended up an exemplary coach, but I'm not thinking at all about that in this eulogy piece I'm writing. I remember him and his commanding pitching motion as he delivered his warm-up pitches at Met Stadium. Met Stadium ended up being replaced by a shopping mall. Life goes on.
Stottlemyre can get his corrective surgery in heaven where he can do again what brought him more joy than anything: getting batters out with his notorious sinker. Mel Stottlemyre, RIP.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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