Thanks, Whitey

As I write this, Whitey Ford died today. To many, that will mean nothing. To me it means a lot.

Edward Charles Ford, known as “Whitey,” pitched for the New York Yankees from 1950 to 1967 He didn’t only just pitch. He won. In his career, he compiled the greatest winning percentage of any pitcher in the 20^thcentury. There were a lot of pitchers in the 20^thcentury. Winning is what teams in all sports try to do. It’s the goal of the game. Being the best winner in a hundred years ain’t chopped liver. It’s the best caviar ever tasted.

If he had only been a great pitcher, I would be mourning his passing.  But, it goes beyond that for me.  When Whitey played, especially in his earlier years, baseball was my passion. It occupied, especially during the season, the major part of my waking hours. As a little kid, I recall finding a bird’s nest on the ground. What intrigued me about it was not how it was made or where the chicks were, or any other ornithological curiosity. No, I immediately put it in my left hand, pretended it was a mitt and pounded a better pocket into it. 

What fueled my ardor for baseball, was my ardor for the Yankees. They were my team.  They were my team because they were my father’s team. He took me to Yankee Stadium once a year, on Old Timer’s Day. That was the day when many of the retired Yankees returned to be remembered and acknowledged by the fans for indebted those fans were for all the joy those players had given. My father would educate me.  He had started going to Yankee games before even Yankee Stadium was built, when the team played their games in the Polo Grounds. He knew everything about everybody, or, at least, that’s what it seemed to me. Just the other day, I was watching a Yankee game and a trivia question was posted where part of the answer was an old Yankee named, Snuffy Stirnweiss. None of the announcers had ever heard of him. They laughed at his name.  I’d heard of him. He was at Old Timer’s Day with my father and me.  My father had told me all about him. 

Now, Whitey was not my favorite player. Mickey Mantle was. Don’t get me started on how I felt about Mickey Mantle as a kid. I will say only that, at about age five, I honestly wondered whether my father and Mickey Mantle were the same person. And you know now how I felt about my father. In those days, the Yankees played mostly in the afternoon.  My father wasn’t home in the afternoon. I read about how tall Mickey Mantle was. My father seemed to me to be about the same height. Could it be possible that when my father left our apartment,  he went to Yankee Stadium, played center field and hit all those home runs? I considered it.  

But, Mickey aside, Whitey was still an icon to me. It seemed like he won every time he pitched.  He set the record for the most consecutive scoreless innings in a World Series.  You can imagine how much that meant to me. I lived and died with a meaningless game in June. A world series game? Shit, those games were gold

Whitey and Mickey are linked not just because of who they played for, but also because of  who they played with. As I grew older, and as the media reporting of sports grew from the scoring of games to the scoring of women, it became clear that Whitey and Mickey, along with their pal, Billy Martin, were not candidates for sainthood. Does that bother me? Not a bit. To slightly misquote Lincoln about General Grant, “tell me who they are fucking and I will send those women to my other players.”

So, Whitey, may you rest in peace. May you understand how much you have meant to people like me. May you realize that your successes were not just for yourself or even for your team. No, your successes were my successes. You made me happy. And beyond that, you gave me opportunities to connect my life with my father. There are few gifts that could mean more to me.

[Post-Script: After I wrote this, the Yankees lost the deciding game of this year’s American League Division Series eliminating them from any possible championship.  I am 71 years old and it still hurt.]