Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

Page 142

and batted Maris third in the lineup, just in front of Mantle, and the new Yankee responded with an MVP season in 1960, with 39 home runs and 112 RBI’s. Stengel had health issues during the season, spending ten days in the hospital in late May and early June, with the illness variously reported as a bladder infection, a virus, or influenza. The Yankees were challenged by the Baltimore Orioles for most of the year but won the pennant by eight games, Stengel's tenth as manager, tying the major league record held by McGraw. The Yankees played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series, and Stengel picked Art Ditmar, who had won the most games, 15, for the Yankees, rather than the established star, Whitey Ford. The Pirates knocked Ditmar out of the box in the first inning, and won Game 1. Ditmar was also knocked out of Game 5, while Ford won Games 3 and 6 of the seven

game series with shutouts, but could not pitch Game 7, as he might have if Stengel had used him in Games 1 and 5. The Pirates defeated the Yankees in Game 7, 10–9, on a ninth inning Bill Mazeroski home run.

“I'll never make the mistake of being seventy again.” - Casey Stengel, on being fired by the New York Yankees in 1960.

Shortly after the Yankees returned to New York, Stengel was

informed by the team owners that he would not be given a new contract. His request, that the termination be announced at a