The Mantle-Maris-Ford Yankees Also Finished Last Once

NEW YORK â€”  Once, Yankee Stadium was their stage. Their names reflect treasured memories that are passed from old baseball fans to new or from parent to child. Names such as Mantle, Ford, Maris, Richardson and Howard are woven into the fabric of pinstripes and perhaps help ease the pain of what the summer of 1990 has offered Yankee fans.

And yet those time-honored legends endured a season of futility comparable to the one about to be completed by an aching and tarnished Don Mattingly and his tattered teammates.

The year was 1966 and the Yankees won 70, lost 89 and finished 10th in a 10-team league. Last place. That hadn’t happened since 1912, when the club was known as the Highlanders and went 50-102.

So forget for a moment the dreary Yankees of ’90 and journey back to ’66 to experience what it was like for those Yankees -- just two years removed from a World Series -- to finish last.

Opening Day and a 2-1 loss to the Tigers served as a microcosm of what the season would be like. Whitey Ford, whose 232nd career victory in his 16th and final win of 1965 made him the all-time Yankee leader, started against Mickey Lolich. It was a cool mid-April afternoon at Yankee Stadium and Ford, who was having arm circulation problems that had necessitated an operation, was trying to keep his hand warm to maintain a feel for the ball.

“Joe Soares, our trainer, was filling this small bottle with hot water each inning that I would keep in my back pocket,� Ford said. “The umpire saw me reaching there, and he came out to check what I had. He said, ‘I’ll let you keep it if Charlie Dressen (the Tigers’ manager) doesn’t object.’ Dressen said, ‘No way!’ I called Dressen something, you know, cursed at him. It was the last time I ever talked to Charlie, and I liked the man.�

Dressen died that year, in August, and so did the Yankees. A 4-16 start didn’t help. Certainly it derailed Manager Johnny Keane. After 20 games, including eight one-run defeats, General Manager Ralph Houk fired Keane in Anaheim and began his second run as Yankees manager. There was a sense of relief among the players, most of whom never did get used to Keane, who had replaced a fired Yogi Berra after managing the Cardinals past the Yankees in seven games in the ’64 World Series.

The Yankees limped home in sixth place under Keane in ’65 with a 77-85 record, the first losing record for a Yankee club since 1925. “We had won the pennant in ‘64,� left fielder Tom Tresh said, “and even though we had such a bad year the following season, we went into ’66 thinking we had the talent to win.� The starting lineup was the same as the pennant-winning team of ’64 with the exception of shortstop Tony Kubek, who retired after ’65.

“The team didn’t need a minister, and that’s what Keane was,� pitcher Jim Bouton said.

Free spirit Joe Pepitone, who hasn’t agreed with Bouton on much the last 30 years, agrees on that point. “Johnny was really uptight,� the first baseman said. “He was always on my case. I can remember taking my uniform off and throwing it at him. He didn’t even treat Mickey good.�

Even more mature Yankees such as pitchers Steve Hamilton and Mel Stottlemyre retain reservations about Keane’s season plus 20 games. “I always felt the job overwhelmed Johnny Keane,� Hamilton said. “Late in his first spring training, we had an off day and he scheduled a workout. You just didn’t do that to those Yankees. It was starting off wrong. Nor did John laugh or kid with us. There was always that skepticism of him, whereas Ralph tried to keep the players loose.

“As you become a losing club, you start playing for personal stats, which I was never aware of Yankees doing before. I did a couple of things I’m not proud of,� Hamilton said. “I got a little fed up with losing some save opportunities where Johnny would bring in a right-hander to relieve me with two outs in the ninth to face a right-handed batter. At 6-7, I would stand right on the very top of the mound so I could make John, who was pretty small, feel smaller than he was.

“Ballplayer humor can be cruel and we didn’t know he was having health problems. One time I came out of a game in Minnesota and they were giving him oxygen on the clubhouse floor. I looked and said, ‘Did I pitch that bad?�’

Stottlemyre, the bright young star of the pitching staff who as a rookie started three times against Bob Gibson in the ’64 Series and was 20-9 when the Yankees’ tumble began in ‘65, took exception to the way Keane treated Ford and Mantle. “I’m sure it wasn’t like John set out to do it intentionally, but he would degrade the veteran stars,� the current Mets pitching coach said.

“He would let Mantle go all the way to the outfield, then send in a defensive replacement for Mickey just before the inning started. We were buried in ‘65, and late in the season, Whitey was going for the win that would make him the all-time leader among Yankee pitchers. He pitched a great game in the Stadium and was ahead by one run in the seventh or eighth with two outs. Somebody hit a solo home run to tie it up and Keane took Whitey out. He really had no touch. That stuck with me for a long time because I thought so much of Mickey and Whitey.�

Bobby Richardson, as straightforward with his life as he was skillful around second base, figured to be the compassionate one who would visit Keane the winter after he was fired. “It was right before he died (Jan. 6, 1967, at age 55),� Richardson said. “I really feel he died of a broken heart.�

Ford, who always has had a knack of seeing things as they are, said, “He wasn’t the Ralph Houk type that you could say, ‘Hey, Skip, I’m going to stay out a little late tonight.’ He just came at the wrong time. We were all growing old at the same time.�

The upbeat Houk was back in the dugout and the Yankees wanted to believe they would soar as they had in the three earlier seasons he managed, 1961-63, when they won 309 games and three pennants. For a while they did respond, winning 18 of their first 27 games under Houk. When they won against the then-first-place Indians on the night of June 7, they were in sixth place with a 22-25 record and had sliced their deficit from 12 games to 7 1/2.

That was as close as they would come. Stottlemyre lost the next night to the Indians, 2-1. It would prove to be the most rugged of seasons for the young star. So much of the burden to excel was his because Ford and Bouton, the twin props of the ’64 staff who had combined for a 35-19 record, could muster only five wins between them while losing 13. Ford was 37, the greatness drained from his arm, and was headed for more circulatory blockage surgery in August. While Bouton was a decade younger, an arm injury had robbed him, too.

The one-run losses kept piling up. The team was 15-38 in one-run games, worst in the league. Stottlemyre lost 10 of them on his way to a 12-20 record, the only Yankee pitcher to lose 20 in a season since Sad Sam Jones lost 21 in 1925.

“I took tests for an ulcer that year,� he said. “They put me on a special diet, gave me special meals on the planes. The year ate on me. I guess it was due to my poor season. I haven’t had any trouble with my stomach since that year.�

Still, he and Richardson were chosen to represent the Yankees in the All-Star Game. “I was embarrassed to make it because I had an 8-11 (actually 7-10) record at the break,� said Stottlemyre, who pitched two scoreless innings. “It really started to bother me in the second half. I would be waiting for something negative to happen. I got very negative about myself in close ballgames. I would be expecting a blooper or a ground ball in a hole to beat me.�

It was a frustrating year for the veterans, who were so accustomed to winning and thought they would get back to it under Houk. Richardson was offered a nice raise and made a pact with Houk that he wouldn’t retire in the same year as Kubek, but he didn’t want to be there. “I was really embarrassed,� Richardson said. “I felt like I wasn’t contributing my share but neither was anybody else.�

Mantle tried. He hit .288, the only Yankee regular to bat over .270. But his legs failed him. He hit 18 homers in 74 games before the All-Star break and only five thereafter, when injuries limited him to playing in just 34 more games.

“We told Mickey, ‘You’re going to hit 40 home runs,�’ said Dooley Womack, a newcomer to the Yankees’ pitching staff that season. “I remember him saying, ‘You guys are just a few years too late.’ He had a way of saying things, an honesty I guess you would call it, that made you think a lot of him.�

Stottlemyre had been there for the last of Mantle’s prime time; the pitcher joined the Yankees in early August of ’64. Mantle was into the final two months of a season in which he batted .303 with 35 homers and 111 RBI in 465 at-bats. By ‘66, the battered legs just wouldn’t permit such a return.

“Mickey played a lot of games with his knees wrapped when he shouldn’t have,� Stottlemyre said. “He played hurt before, but it was affecting everything he could do. He would be there with a blank stare sitting at his locker an hour after losses. He felt everything that the club did, if it was unsuccessful, it pointed right at him. Everybody took it hard, but it seemed Mickey took it harder.�

Elston Howard had turned 36 and the catcher had lost his throwing prowess. Roger Maris, who would turn 32 the final month of that season, wasn’t a baseball ancient, but a critical injury -- a broken bone in his left hand that deprived him of his fluid power-hitting stroke -- left him bitter. Management -- and some say Houk, too, although he still denies it -- lied to Maris about the extent of the hand injury so they could keep him in the lineup.

“He lost a lot of the pop in his bat,� Clete Boyer said. “I roomed with Roger and he had to soak the hand in hot water mornings to get it to open up. It would claw up overnight.�

With the media and the public unaware of the extent of his injury, the fans turned on Maris for his lack of production. “It got so bad that I can remember Roger saying that he would almost rather strike out to get even with them,� Stottlemyre said. “He developed a bitter feeling toward the organization in general and tried to climb into a shell. It became common knowledge after he was traded to St. Louis that he had a broken bone in his hand. But not before it.�

Everything that could go wrong did, even though the Yankees were outscored only 612-611 for the season. The hole Kubek left at shortstop wasn’t adequately filled until Bucky Dent arrived on the scene more than a decade later. Ruben Amaro, who had been acquired to replace Kubek, tore knee ligaments in the fifth game of ’66 and was sidelined 4 1/2 months.

The ownership by CBS, which purchased the Yankees in November of ‘64, is usually blamed for the decline and fall of the Yankees. But Dan Topping and Del Webb, who sold the club to the network, set things in motion by failing to replenish the minor-league system and refusing in their final seasons of ownership to engage in liberal free-agent spending for the top amateurs. Topping and Webb held on to the Yankees’ marquee names but were smart enough to get out just before they faded.

So by ’66 a Dooley Womack had the chance to make his one and only big-league start. “Whitey was supposed to start but he was hurt and couldn’t take the ball,� Womack said. “It was the second game of a twi-night doubleheader, and I did everything wrong you could do. I ate a big breakfast, slept all day and then ate a steak that was falling off the plate. When I was warming up, Jim Hegan was throwing the ball back to me harder than I was throwing it to him.� Hegan, a coach, was 46.

Womack, who otherwise had a fine rookie season after spending eight years in the minors, didn’t last long. “I remember (coach) Frank Crosetti going up in the stands to get Jim Bouton, who had started the first game and now might be needed to pitch in the second game,� Womack said. “Bouton was in civilian clothes and came into the clubhouse seething. He was ripping off his clothes piece by piece and I mean ripping. And I’m sitting there wondering what he’s going to wear home.�

Bouton wasn’t worrying about what to wear. He has long since decided the ’66 season was unkempt from start to finish. “It was like being at a formal party, all dressed up in a tux with food stains on your jacket. It was out of place. Totally embarrassing.�

But Bouton added: “Yankee fans and some sportswriters have perpetrated a myth that it’s terrible for the Yankees to finish in last place. That has no basis in fact. They have no right to be winning all the time. I did a mathematical calculation by computer. With all the world championships the Yankees have won, they’re really not due another until the year 2463.

“Any complaints before 2463, they have no right. Are the people of this city any better than the people of another city? Do you know how many last-place finishes the Yankees have coming to them? They could be in last place for the next 15 years and be ahead of the game.�