March 18, 1975: "M*A*S*H" Kills Off Henry Blake

March 18, 1975. 50 years ago: The TV show M*A*S*H closes its 3rd season -- meaning it had now run for as long as the Korean War, which it depicted, had.

Early in an episode titled "Abysinnia, Henry," U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, M.D., commanding officer of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, played by McLean Stevenson, finds out that he has been discharged. (Henry had been known to say goodbye by saying, "Abysinnia," the former name of the African nation of Ethiopia, as a corruption of "I'll be seeing you.")

But at the end of the episode, during a surgery session, the camp's company clerk, Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff) came in, and said, needing to pause due to the weight of the words, "I have a message: Lieutenant Colonel... Henry Blake's plane... was shot down... over the Sea of Japan... It spun in... There weren't no survivors."

Radar took it harder than anyone else. Having lost his father before he was old enough to remember him, he looked up to Henry, who became like a father to him. But even the show's meanest characters, Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, the head nurse (Loretta Swit), and Major Frank Burns, the "Do as I say, not as I do" second-in-command and now temporary C.O., were broken up over it.

This was the 1st time that an American TV show had actually said that a main character had died. Previously, when an actor died, either the character was played by someone else, or written out of the series and not mentioned again. The same thing was done when an actor simply left the show.

But when Stevenson left M*A*S*H after 3 seasons, wanting to do other things, the producers and writers killed Henry off. They had the announcement right there in the script.

Americans had seen on their TVs that a President, and other beloved figures, had been murdered; that the scenes of wounded soldiers they were seeing in Vietnam were real; that there really were riots by protestors, and beatings, even shootings, by police and national guardsmen at political demonstrations; that a President had committed crimes, and that he was resigning rather than face impeachment over it.

But they had never been told that a TV character that they liked, played by a person who, then, was very much alive, was dead -- and just as he was going home from a war, too.

This was a year and a half before a dispute with the showrunners led to John Amos being fired from Good Times, and his character, James Evans Sr., being written out as dead in a car crash; 11 years before Officer Joe Coffey (Ed Marinaro) was gunned down on Hill Street Blues; 12 years before Valerie Harper was fired from Valerie over a salary dispute, resulting in the title character being killed off and the show being retooled as The Hogan Family; 16 years before Gary Shepherd (Peter Horton) was killed off on thirtysomething; 23 years before the death of Detective Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) on NYPD Blue; 26 years before an offscreen car crash killed Dolores Landingham (Kathryn Joosten) on The West Wing; and 36 years before Game of Thrones showed that no character was safe by killing off what appeared to be its lead character, Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean).

With every such death, once the initial shock wears off, the surprise becomes less. Nothing will ever top the surprise of Radar saying of Henry's plane, "There weren't no survivors."

Whatever happened between Stevenson and the showrunners, this was unjust. People still complain about it, half a century later.

The thing is, Henry wasn't the main character of M*A*S*H. Nor was his replacement as C.O., Colonel Sherman Potter (Harry Morgan). Nor was the Chief Surgeon, Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (Alan Alda). The show's main character was war. Not even the Korean War per se, but war itself.

And, as one of America's greatest generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, taught us, "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it." Or, as he told the graduating class of a military academy, "There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell." There's a reason the writers showed the cast in the operating room at least once an episode.

Two seasons, our time, and, I suppose, a few months, their time, after Henry's death, in an episode titled "The General's Practitioner," premiering on February 15, 1977, Hawkeye put it in even starker terms:

Frank: Everybody knows that war is Hell.

Captain B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell): Remember: You heard it here last.

Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell, and, of the two, war is a lot worse.

Father Francis Mulcahy, the camp chaplain (William Christopher): How do you figure that, Hawkeye?

Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me: Who goes to Hell?

Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.

Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. But war is chock-full of them. Little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

What better way to show that war is Hell, or worse, than by having it kill a beloved character?

June 18, 1924: Basketball's 1st Great Big Man

June 18, 1924, 100 years ago: George Lawrence Mikan Jr. is born in Joliet, Illinois. Basketball's 1st great "big man," the 6-foot-10 center led DePaul University to the 1945 NIT title, then considered more prestigious than the NCAA title.

He won National Basketball league titles with the 1947 Chicago American Gears and the 1948 Lakers. The Lakers then went into the nascent NBA, and he led them to the title in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953 and 1954. That's 7 league titles in 8 seasons.

It's been 68 years since he last strode the hardwood in a game that counted, but he is still responsible for 5 of the 7 World Championships that Minnesota basketball teams have won.

He was NBL Most Valuable Player in 1948, a 5-time scoring champion (twice in the NBL, 3 times in the NBA), and played in the NBA's 1st 4 All-Star Games (1951-54). He was bigger than the league: A game against the Knicks had the marquee at the old Madison Square Garden not mention the Lakers, just him: "GEO MIKAN v/s KNICKS."

That's a legend, but it's no myth, and it's no joke.

He was named the greatest basketball player of the half-century by the Associated Press, was a charter inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959, and was named to the NBA's 25th Anniversary Team and its 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players. The Minnesota Timberwolves dedicated a statue of him outside the Target Center in Minneapolis. He lived long enough to receive all of these honors.

Shaquille O'Neal paid for his funeral, saying,

"Without Number 99, there is no me."

He died on June 1, 2005 at the age of 80, from the long-term effects of diabetes. In 2021, he was named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players. In 2022, the now-Los Angeles Lakers finally retired his number, even though 99 is a number rarely seen in the NBA. They also have a banner honoring their Minneapolis-era Hall-of-Famers.

Happy 100th Birthday, Art Schallock!

April 25, 1924, 100 years ago: Arthur Lawrence Schallock is born outside San Francisco in Mill Valley, California. In other words, if the M*A*S*H character B.J. Hunnicutt, said to be from Mill Valley, were a real person, they could have been in the same class at school.

Art graduated from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, which has a rather distinguished alumni corps, even with B.J. being fictional: Baseball figures Tony Freitas, Sam Chapman, Joe DeMaestri and Nyjer Morgan; football star Matt Hazeltine; sportscaster Pete Gross; actors Eve Arden, Pat Paulsen, Kathleen Quinlan, Cassandra Webb, Merritt Butrick, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Beth Behrs; and music figures John and Mario Cipollina, Chris Chaney and Tupac Shakur. Unfortunately, it's also the Alma Mater of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan.

During World War II, he served as a radio operator on the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea. He was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. He never got to Ebbets Field, because, on July 12, 1951, the Dodgers traded him to the New York Yankees for Eddie Malone, a catcher who, as it turned out, had already played his last major league game; and Bob Landeck, a pitcher who, as it turned out, would never play a first, although he did play for eventual major league cities Kansas City and Toronto.

Four days later, on July 16, 1951, Art made his major league debut. Wearing Number 26, he was the Yankees' starting pitcher against the Detroit Tigers, at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. He did not get out of the 3rd inning, but the Yankees won anyway, 8-6, thanks to home runs by Yogi Berra and Joe Collins. Neither Joe DiMaggio nor Mickey Mantle played in the game: DiMaggio got a day off, and Mantle had been sent down to the minors, before being brought back up.

Art appeared in 11 games that season, starting 6, and had a 3-1 record with a 3.88 ERA. He was placed on the World Series roster, but did not appear in any of the games. He was in the minor leagues for most of the next 3 seasons, making 2 major league appearances in 1952 and 7 in 1953. He was not on the Yankees' World Series roster in 1952, but he was in 1953. Now wearing Number 38, he pitched the last 2 innings of Game 4, and was not responsible for the Yankees losing the game. The Yankees won the Series, so he received a World Series ring.

He spent most of the 1954 season on loan to the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League, so he was back in his home region, going 12-4. He made 6 appears in the majors that season. The Yankees waived him on May 11, 1955, and the Baltimore Orioles picked him up. They put him in their bullpen, and he had a record of 3-5. He spent the 1956 season with the Seattle Rainiers of the PCL, and then hung 'em up. His major league record was 6-7, with 1 save, a 4.02 ERA, and a 1.703 ERA.

He and his wife, Dona Bernard, were married for 76 years until her death in 2023. They had 2 children and 5 grandchildren. He still lives north of San Francisco, in Sonoma, in what's known as "California Wine Country."

Art Schallock had a very ordinary career, stat-wise. But he is still alive at age 100, is the oldest living former major league baseball player, and is the last surviving former teammate of Joe DiMaggio. He wasn't on the World Series roster in 1952, but he was in 1951 and 1953, making him the last survivor of those Yankee World Championship teams.

Top 10 Things About M*A*S*H That Don't Make Sense

I love M*A*S*H. The show, part comedy, part drama, set in a U.S. Army hospital during the Korean War in the early 1950s, might be the greatest TV show of all time. But there are some things about it that just don't make any sense.

And I'm not talking about continuity errors, such as which characters' family members were still alive or not, or consistency in what their names were, or where they might have lived. I'm talking about things that, had they happened in real life, would not have happened that way.

10. The Manpower Turnover Rate. Hawkeye, Margaret, Klinger, Father Mulcahy, and possibly some of the nurses seemed to be at that one unit for the duration of the war, 3 years. They each would have been transferred at least once.

9. Potter's Age. In one episode, he gave his age as 62. But in more than one, he mentioned that he was too young to serve in World War I, and thus lied about his age. This would have put him in his mid-50s. But he looked more like 62, or even older. At that age, it's unlikely that he would have been put in that particular command.

For the record, Harry Morgan played Potter from the age of 60 to 67.

8. The Hair. In that era, men would not have had hair as long as Hawkeye, B.J. and Klinger had. I'm also not sure they would have allowed B.J. to have that mustache.

7. Henry's Unfitness For Command. Aside from cheating on his wife, Henry Blake was a decent guy, and a good doctor. But, as was pointed out by Hawkeye on one side, and Margaret and Frank on the other, he was a bad choice to command any military unit, even a hospital. Potter was so much better suited to it.

And Henry knew it, too. Frank and Margaret "went over his head" so many times, "I've developed athlete's scalp!"

6. Klinger's Stunts. It wasn't just wearing the women's clothing. He tried all kinds of things to either escape from the Army (mostly early on) or convince Henry or Potter to give him a psychiatric discharge. It's shocking that he got away with it for as long as he did, without getting tossed in the stockade, and eventually getting a dishonorable discharge.

5. Hawkeye's Antics. No matter how good a surgeon he was, half of what he did would have gotten him court-martialed.

4. Frank Burns' Incompetence. If he was that bad a surgeon, that would have gone on the record, and he would have been transferred out of there.

And 5. and 4. both lead to...

3. The Frank & Margaret Affair. A couple of times, Hawkeye threatened to blow the whistle on them if they didn't back off on their threats. At some point, the good surgeons would have had enough, and ratted them out. Even if Hawkeye and Trapper, and later Hawkeye and B.J., weren't willing to do so, and Henry didn't have the spine to act like a true commanding officer on the subject, a man like Colonel Sherman T. Potter, M.D., U.S.A. would have.

The only way not doing so can be justified is their professional respect for Margaret as a nurse. They couldn't take Frank down without also ruining Margaret's career. But, at the very least, one threat to Frank should have scared him into leaving Hawkeye alone.

2. Hawkeye's Crackup. In the series finale, the war finally breaks him. While he and Sidney Freedman did reach a breakthrough, it was way too soon to be allowed back into action. It proved to be vital, but the real Army wouldn't have allowed it.

1. The Drinking. There is no way the Army would have let surgeons have a distillery in their quarters. At the rate they were going, surely, there must have been an occasion where they were already drunk when wounded came in. And there was one time when Hawkeye proved to be too hungover to operate. One time that we know of. Surely, there were more. That kind of drinking -- when he was always on call -- would have cost him not only his honorable discharge, but possibly also his civilian medical license.

November 3, 1953: No More Gloves On the Field

November 3, 1953, 70 years ago: Baseball's rules committee restores the pre-1939 rule which says that a sacrifice fly is not charged as a time at bat.

Also‚ the committee votes for the "no gloves on the field rule." Hank Greenberg‚ the Hall of Fame-to-be slugger who is now the general manager of the Cleveland Indians, had proposed the change‚ saying, "Aside from the possibility of hindering the play‚ gloves on the field look sloppy." It also made it easy for opposing players to sneak creepy-crawly or otherwise disgusting things into the glove of an easily scared player, such as the Yankees' Phil Rizzuto.

The committee also makes a rule that any runner will be called out for deliberately running the bases backwards, or even taking a lead off the base in the wrong direction.

A new balk rule is instituted which gives the batter an option: If he gets a hit after a balk is called‚ he has the option of accepting the outcome of the pitch‚ instead of being limited to the advance of the runner(s). This is the baseball equivalent of a football team that is the beneficiary of a penalty having the option to decline it, if the outcome of such is more advantageous to them than the outcome of the penalty.

Rule suggestions that are rejected include the re-legalization of the spitball‚ 2 bases for an intentional walk‚ and the option of declining ball 4. None of these ideas have been picked up since.

October 5, 1953: Five Straight World Series Wins

Left to right: Hank Bauer, Yogi Berra,

Billy Martin and Joe Collins

October 5, 1953, 70 years ago: The New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium, to win Game 6 of the World Series, clinching it, 4 games to 2. This was the 5th straight World Championship for the Yankees. No other baseball team has ever done that.

The Yankees hired Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel as their manager for the 1949 season, and he led them to the American League Pennant in each of the next 5 years. In 1949, they beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series in 5 games. In 1950, they swept the Philadelphia Phillies in 4 straight. In 1951, they beat the New York Giants in 6 games. That was Joe DiMaggio's last season, and Mickey Mantle's 1st season.

In 1952, it took them 7 games to finish the Dodgers off. That gave them 4 straight World Series wins, matching the Joe McCarthy-managed Yankees of 1936 to 1939.

In 1953, they faced the Dodgers again. It's important to note that, due to his U.S. Army commitments -- the Korean War was over by this point, but not everybody serving in it had been discharged yet -- the Dodgers did not have their best pitcher, Don Newcombe, for either the 1952 or the '53 Series. However, the Yankees had lost Whitey Ford to the war for the Series in '51 and '52. And the Giants had lost their best player, Willie Mays, for the '52 and '53 seasons, so if he was available, maybe they would have won those Pennants instead of the Dodgers.

The Yankees won Game 1 of the 1953 World Series, 9-5 at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. They won Game 2 at home, 4-2. The Series moved to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and the Dodgers won Game 3, 3-2, and Game 4, 7-3. In Game 4, Carl Erskine struck out 14 batters, setting a new Series record that would last for 10 years. But in Game 5, Mickey Mantle, approaching his 22nd birthday and already in his 3rd World Series, hit a grand slam to give the Yankees an 11-7 win, and a 3-2 lead in the Series.

Game 6 was played at Yankee Stadium, in front of 62,730 fans, about the twice the seating capacity of Ebbets Field. Ford started for the Yankees, Erskine for the Dodgers. With one of the best curveballs in the game at the time, "Oisk," as the Dodger fans called him in their Brooklyn accent, gave the Flatbush Faithful -- also known as the Flastbush Flock -- hope that "Dem Bums" could push the Series to a Game 7.

But the Yankees struck quickly. Gene Woodling led off with a walk. Joe Collins struck out, but Hank Bauer singled, and Yogi Berra hit a ground-rule double to get Woodling home. Mantle was walked intentionally. Billy Martin grounded to 2nd, and Jim Gilliam bobbled the ball, allowing Bauer to score. For whatever reason, Dodger manager Chuck Dressen had put his usual 2nd baseman, Jackie Robinson, in left field.

The Yankees scored again in the 2nd, on a sacrifice fly by Woodling. The game remained 3-0 until the top of the 6th. With 1 out, Robinson doubled to left, and stole 3rd base. Roy Campanella got him home on a groundout, to make it 3-1.

Stengel brought Allie Reynolds in for the 8th inning, thinking he had the right mentality to close the game out. Perhaps the best starting pitcher on his 5 Pennant winners, Reynolds had a blazing fastball, and was willing to throw inside. He once plunked a batter on a 3-0 count, telling a reporter after the game, "If I'm going to put you on, I might as well hurt you." Partly because of his Cherokee heritage, and partly because his fastball seemed to bring up memories of a speeding train of that name, he was known as the Superchief.

Reynolds got through the 8th, giving up only a single to Robinson. But with 1 out in the 9th, he walked Duke Snider, and then gave up a home run to Carl Furillo, who had won the National League's batting championship that season. The game tied, Reynolds then struck out Billy Cox and the opposing pitcher, Clem Labine.

This was the last game played by Hall-of-Famer Johnny Mize: The Big Cat pinch-hit for Joe Collins in the 8th, and grounded out to 1st. He was 40 years old and fat, so, despite also being a 1st baseman, he did not take the position in the 9th, Stengel instead sending Don Bollweg in to do so.

Labine walked Bauer to start the bottom of the 9th. He got Berra to fly to right. But Mantle beat out a single to 3rd. The batter was Billy Martin. An ordinary player from April through September, he always seemed to turn it on for the World Series.

At this point, 4 players had collected 12 hits in a single World Series: Charles "Buck" Herzog of the 1912 New York Giants, Shoeless Joe Jackson of the 1919 Chicago White Sox (in spite of the accusation that he helped "throw" the Series), Sam Rice of the 1925 Washington Senators, and Johnny "Pepper" Martin of the 1931 St. Louis Cardinals. Oddly, all but Pepper Martin -- no relation to Billy -- were on the losing side.

Billy Martin singled up the middle, for his 12th hit of the Series, and Bauer came around 3rd to score the winning run: Yankees 4, Dodgers 3. The Yankees had won their 5th straight World Series.

There were 11 players who played on all 5 of those Yankee World Champions: Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Johnny Mize, Gene Woodling, Hank Bauer, Jerry Coleman, Joe Collins, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, Eddie Lopat, and, though he played just 156 games in those 5 seasons, and just 1 ever in the World Series, backup catcher Charlie Silvera. Coleman, however, was serving in the Korean War for most of the '52 and '53 seasons, and, though he returned for the end of the '53 season, was not placed on the Series roster. Collins was a rookie in '49, and was not on the Series roster.

Since then, 3 in a row has been done, but not 4, and certainly not 5. The Montréal Canadiens would soon start a streak of 5 straight Stanley Cups, but they were unable to make it 6. The Boston Celtics would later win 8 straight NBA Titles, but basketball didn't exactly get the best athletes then.

This was the last World Series, and the last Pennant in either League, won by an all-white team. The next season, the Yanks lost the American League Pennant to the well-integrated Cleveland Indians, and the argument of, "Why integrate? We're winning with what we've got" was no longer valid. Elston Howard became the 1st black man to play for the Yankees the following April, and the team went on to win 9 Pennants and 4 World Series in the next 10 years.

Art Schallock is the last surviving member of the 1953 World Champion New York Yankees. He is also the last surviving former teammate of Joe DiMaggio, although he was not on the World Series roster in either 1951 or 1952. As of October 5, 2022, he is the oldest living former player, age 98.

There have now been 3 players with 13 hits in a single World Series: Bobby Richardson of the 1964 Yankees, Lou Brock of the 1968 Cardinals, and Marty Barrett of the 1986 Boston Red Sox -- all 3 ending up on the losing side.

In 1972-74, the Oakland Athletics won 3 straight World Series. They remain the only team other than the Yankees ever to win more than 2 straight. The Yankees won 3 straight in 1996-98.

June 19, 1953: Julius & Ethel Rosenberg Are Executed

June 19, 1953, 70 years ago: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, husband and wife, Americans convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union, are executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, Westchester County, New York. Julius was 35 years old, Ethel was 37.

They were the 1st American civilians to be executed for treason during peacetime. The Korean War was in its final days, and North Korea was receiving aid from the Soviet Union, as well as from China. But there was not then a declaration of war between America and any nation.

Millions of people around the world wanted to believe that they were innocent. Many others believed that, even if they were guilty, they should not receive the death penalty. But many others believed that spying for the Communists deserved the death penalty. Some people suspected that the desire to believe them guilty, and worthy of execution, was motivated by anti-Semitism.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, declassified documents showed that Julius was a courier for American atomic energy secrets, and Ethel was a recruiter, including of her brother, David Greenglass, who ratted his sister and his brother-in-law out to save himself from "the chair." The real villain of the story, Greenglass served nearly 10 years in prison, and lived until 2014.

The Rosenbergs had 2 sons, left orphans. They were adopted by Abel Meeropol, a songwriter who had written Billie Holiday's anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit" and Frank Sinatra's anti-bigotry song "The House I Live In." Both sons are still alive, and retired from careers as college professors: Michael Meeropol, age 80, economics; Robert Meeropol, 76, anthropology. Each of the brothers has 2 children.

May 29, 1953: The Conquest of Mount Everest

Tenzing Norgay on the summit.

Photo taken by Edmund Hillary.

May 29, 1953, 70 years ago: For the 1st time, there is documented proof that someone has set foot on the summit of the world's highest mountain, on the border between Nepal and the Tibet region of China. and Nepal, in the Himalayan mountain range. The Nepalese name for it is Deodungha, meaning "Holy Mountain." The Tibetan name is Qomolangma, meaning "Holy Mother." In 1849, Andrew Waugh, the British-appointed Surveyor General of India, named it for his predecessor, George Everest -- who opposed the honor, but got it anyway.

In 1856, a British survey team determined that Mount Everest was the tallest on Earth. Over the years, various figures have been cited: It has been 29,000 feet high exactly (as measured by early surveyor Andrew Waugh), or 29,002 (Waugh listed it as such, because he didn't think anyone would believe it was exactly 29,000, thus earning him the mock title of "the first man to put two feet on Mount Everest"), or 29,028 (the generally accepted height in 1953), or 29,035 (a revision determined in 1999).

In 1922, a British expedition, with several Sherpa guides from Nepal assisting them, made the 1st serious attempt to climb to the top. It was led by George Mallory, and it made 3 attempts, with the last resulting in a height of 27,320 feet, before causing an avalanche that killed 7 people.

In 1924, Mallory announced another expedition. Someone asked him why he was doing this, when it was so dangerous. His answer has become legend: "Because it is there." (This answer would be cited by President John F. Kennedy, 38 years later, when giving a speech about America's mission to the Moon.) A member of Mallory's crew, Edward Norton -- no relation to the real-life actor or the fictional sewer worker of that name -- got to 28,126 feet before he had to turn back.

On June 9, Mallory and Sandy Irvine went up the route he'd taken, and were never seen alive again. Irvine's body has never been found. Neither was Mallory's... for decades.

English adventurer Maurice Wilson set out to climb it in 1934. Alone. His body was found a year later, not even as close to the summit as either of Mallory's attempts.

The Communist revolution in China in 1949 led to the mountain's North Face being closed off to would-be adventurers for decades, forcing them to try the more dangerous south side, the Nepal side. On October 31, 1952, a Swiss expedition tried to reach the top, when Dorje Mingma was killed by falling ice, and they chose to turn back.

In the Spring of 1953, Colonel John Hunt of the British Army launched a new expedition. He had hoped to reach the summit by June 2, to help celebration the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. On April 12, they established a base camp at 17,900 feet. On April 15, they got to 19,400; on April 22, 20,200; on May 1, 21,000; on May 3, 22,000; on May 4, 23,000. Then, things stalled, and it took them until May 17 to get to 24,000. On May 21, they got to 26,000; On May 26, 28,700. They were now 300 (or so) feet away. But altitude sickness set in, and they had to turn back.

On May 29, another attempt was made, by 2 members of the team: Edmund Hillary, 33, who had served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force during World War II; and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa mountaineer. At 11:30 AM local time -- Nepal is in a unique time zone, so it was 5:45 PM in Hillary's native New Zealand, 6:45 AM in Britain, and 1:45 AM on the U.S. East Coast -- Hillary set foot on the summit, planting a pole with the flags of Britain, New Zealand and Nepal.

Edmund Hillary. Not on Mount Everest.

Just as most of the photographs of the first manned Moon landing were taken by the first man to walk on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, and are of the second man, Buzz Aldrin, the first photograph of a human being on top of Mount Everest is of the second man, Norgay, taken by the first man, Hillary.

Tenzing Norgay. Not on Mount Everest.

In his memoir, Norgay wrote, "I motioned to Hillary that I would now take his picture. But for some reason he shook his head; he did not want it." In his memoir, Hillary asked Norgay if he'd ever used a camera before, and Norgay said he hadn't. "This didn't seem like the time to teach him," Hillary said, so he took the picture of Norgay.

On the way back down, they were met by expedition member George Lowe. Hillary told him, "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off." Not exactly "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," but certainly memorable.

They got back to base camp in time to relay the news around the world, and it was announced on June 2, Coronation Day. As a native of a country in the British Commonwealth, both men were eligible to be knighted by the Queen. She did knight Hillary. She did not knight Norgay, possibly under pressure from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, who was then feuding with Nepal's government. Norgay did get medals from various countries. He died in 1986. 

In 1999, an expedition found a well-preserved body at 26,760 feet. The remains were taken back down, and determined to be those of George Mallory, finally found after three-quarters of a century. But was he on his way up, or on his way back down?

Sir Edmund Hillary was asked for his thoughts on the subject, and he was sacrosanct: "For 45 years, I've been regarded as the hero of Everest, so I really couldn't be upset now if it was someone else's turn." But he added, "You know, to mountaineers, it's one thing getting to the top, but another getting back to the bottom. I'll settle for that."

(After all, again to connect the conquest of Everest with that of the Moon, 16 years later, JFK said the goal was, before the 1960s were over, "of placing a man on the Moon, and returning him safely to the Earth.")

In 1999, Sports Illustrated conducted a joint interview with Sir Edmund Hillary and Dr. Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile race in less than four minutes. The 2 events took place a little less than a year apart, and while each achievement has been matched many times, there could be only one first time for each.

Hillary died on January 11, 2008, at age 88. At the time, his face was on his country's five-dollar bill -- and his name was still listed in the Auckland phone book. "If someone wants to believe I'm a heroic figure, fine," he said in that SI interview. "But for me, I did a reasonable job at the time. I didn't get carried away then, and I never have."

April 17, 1953: Mickey Mantle's "565-Foot" Home Run

April 17, 1953, 70 years ago: The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 7-3 at Griffith Stadium. It was 2 days after Opening Day, when the new President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, threw out the ceremonial first ball. So instead of a sellout of around 30,000 people, only 4,206 fans attended.

Eddie Lopat went 8 innings to get the win for the Yankees. Billy Martin and Gene Woodling each had 2 hits. So did Mickey Mantle, the Yankees' 21-year-old center field phenom. One of Martin's hit's was a home run. So was one of Mantle's.

It was 2 years to the day after Mantle's major league debut, and he found a way to celebrate the anniversary. In the top of the 5th, with 2 out and Yogi Berra on 1st base, the switch-hitting Mantle batted righthanded against Chuck Stobbs, a lefthander.

Mantle admitted that he was a better hitter for average from the left side, but he clearly had more power from the right side. Stobbs threw him a fastball, and he hit one of the most powerful drives anyone had ever seen. It glanced off a scoreboard at the back of the bleachers, a 460-foot drive. The ball caromed off the board, and kept going.

Arthur "Red" Patterson, then the Yankees' public-relations director, noted that nobody had ever hit a ball out of the left side of Griffith Stadium. This probably was not true: Josh Gibson, whose Homestead Grays divided their Negro League home games between Washington and Pittsburgh, probably did it a few times.

Patterson left the ballpark, and looked for the ball. He finally found a 10-year-old boy, in the backyard of a house at 434 Oakdale Place NW, across 5th Street from the left-field bleachers. Patterson asked for the ball. The boy wanted 75 cents -- about the standard price at the time for a fresh baseball from a store. Patterson gave him a dollar and got the ball.

Then he paced off the distance to the wall of the bleachers. Then he got the width of the bleachers. Then he saw the 391-foot marker on the wall where the ball had crossed the fence. He put it all together, and decided that Mantle had hit the ball 565 feet.

He did not use a tape measure. But, later in the season, Mantle would also hit long home runs over the left field pavilion at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis and the double-decked left field bleachers at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Patterson did use a tape measure for those, and so, whenever Mantle hit a particularly long home run, it became known as a "tape measure home run."

The ball Mantle hit in Washington on this date went into The Guinness Book of World Records for the longest home run ever hit in a Major League Baseball game. In fact, he did not hit the ball 565 feet. A batted ball is supposed to be measured from home plate to where it first hit something. The ball made contact with the scoreboard, 460 feet away. Still, that is a very long drive, and it would remain the longest home run in that ballpark's history.

Did Mantle hit a baseball 565 feet, ever? Possibly: In addition to the preceding, he hit 2 drives over the left-field roof at Comiskey Park in Chicago, which probably exceeded 550 feet. He hit one over the right field roof at Tiger Stadium in Detroit that may have gone that far, although the 643-foot distance suggested by Mark Gallagher in Explosion!, a book about Mantle's home runs, is almost certainly a gross miscalculation. (Gallagher admitted he'd used trigonometry to determine the distance.)

And there were at least 3 occasions when Mantle hit the facade atop the right field roof at the old Yankee Stadium, which came close to clearing the roof. It's been suggested that, had those balls been just a little higher, they would have gone over 600 feet.

Did Mantle hit the longest home run in baseball history? The evidence is flimsy. Home runs were not measured in the 1920s and 1930s, when Babe Ruth was hitting them lefthanded, and Jimmie Foxx was hitting them righthanded -- in each case, further than anybody had that way until Mantle. Ruth has been suggested as having hit them further than 565, sometimes even 600.

One thing is for sure: At a time when pitching was paramount, but a few sluggers hit the ball over 500 feet -- including Luke Easter, Frank Howard, Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Dick Allen, and the player most often compared to Mantle, Willie Mays -- Mickey Mantle hit the ball further than anybody. Despite a seemingly unending run of injuries, he played 18 seasons, and finished his career with 536 home runs. At the time, he was 3rd on the all-time list, behind Ruth and Mays.

Griffith Stadium was replaced by District of Columbia Stadium in 1961, and torn down in 1965. The Howard University Hospital was built on the site. D.C. Stadium became Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in 1969. 

March 31, 1923: Don Barksdale, Basketball Pioneer

March 31, 1923, 100 years ago: Donald Argee Barksdale is born in Oakland, California. Before Drew Gooden, before Paul Pierce, before Jason Kidd, before Gary Payton, before Paul Silas, before Bill Russell, before Jim Pollard, Don Barksdale was the original Oakland basketball star.
 
And before Ed O’Bannon, before Bill Walton, before Sidney Wicks, before Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, before Gail Goodrich, and before Walt Hazzard, Don Barksdale was the original UCLA basketball star. They retired his Number 11.
 
In 1947, he became the 1st black basketball player to be named an All-American. In 1948, he was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the Olympics in London. He played for semi-pro teams in Oakland until 1951, when with the original Baltimore Bullets, he was only the 5th black player in the NBA. In 1953, with the Bullets, he was named an NBA All-Star. He played 2 more seasons, with the Boston Celtics, wearing Number 17 years before John Havlicek, before an ankle injury ended his career.

 

He made more money in his off-season job, owning 1 of Oakland's 1st 2 black-owned record stores. He later founded and owned a record label, a radio station, and a nightclub. He became the San Francisco Bay Area's 1st black beer distributor, and its 1st black television host, with a show called Sepia Review on KRON-Channel 4.

In 1983, he launched a foundation that is credited with saving high school sports in Oakland. He died of cancer in 1993. In 2012, long overdue, he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. 

Whitey Ford, 1928-2020

I got to see Whitey Ford pitch once. It was Old-Timers Day 1991, at the old Yankee Stadium, and he pitched to one batter. But I did get to see it.

Edward Charles Ford was born on October 21, 1928, in an apartment on 66th Street on Manhattan's East Side, and grew up on 34th Avenue in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens. He was supposed to go to William Cullen Bryant High School, but it didn't have a baseball team. So his father Jim, who worked for Con Edison, used his connections to get Eddie into a specialized school that did have a baseball team, the Manhattan High School of Aviation Trades, or "Aviation High." He graduated in 1946.

With some irony, that school moved to Long Island City, just one neighborhood over from Astoria, and is now named the Aviation Career & Technical Education High School. It is a vo-tech school, designed to train aircraft mechanics, not pilots. In the 1940s, shortly before Whitey, it produced another student who would go on to play in Major League Baseball, Lou Limmer, a 1st baseman for the Philadelphia Athletics from 1951 to 1954.

Although he was still usually identified as "Eddie Ford" as late as his rookie season, having very light blond hair gave him the nickname "Whitey." This had also been the case for George Kurowski, a 3rd baseman who was key in the St. Louis Cardinals' 1942 World Series win over the Yankees; and Richie Ashburn, the Hall of Fame center fielder and later broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies. It would later be the case for Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog, a journeyman infielder who became a Hall of Fame manager.

(Since all of these men got the nickname before the Civil Rights Movement as we know it got underway, it had nothing to do with race. In Ashburn's case, "Whitey" -- or, as his broadcast teammate Harry Kalas would say, "His Whiteness" -- was originally short for "The White Mouse." In Herzog's case, the original form of his nickname would also survive: "The White Rat.")

At his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he said he had been a Yankee Fan since he was 5 years old. But he told 2 different stories about how he came to the Yankees. In one version, he said, "I dreamed of making it to the Yankees, but as a first baseman. But when they saw how I hit, they made me a pitcher."

In another version, an interview with Peter Golenbock for his book Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, he said he had been a fan of the New York Giants, who offered him a signing bonus of $5,000, while the Yankees offered $6,000.

Golenbock: "So if the Giants had offered you $7,000, you would have signed with the Giants?"

Ford: "Yeah."

And if that's true... Giants owner Horace Stoneham moved the team to San Francisco after the 1957 season. After the last game, he said, "I feel bad for the kids, but I haven't seen too many of their fathers lately." Now, imagine a team with Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, Sal Maglie and Whitey Ford. Maybe enough of the fathers would have come out to the Polo Grounds, and the Giants would still be playing in New York City (or a suburb) today.

So if Whitey was telling the truth that time, then, Stoneham could have saved the Giants for New York, but chose not to, over $1,000 -- about $11,650 today. "So it was that a kingdom was lost, all for the want of a nail."

Instead, it was Paul Krichell, the same scout who had signed Lou Gehrig out of Columbia University in 1923, who signed Whitey for the Bronx Bombers in 1947.

*

He made his major league debut at Fenway Park in Boston on July 1, 1950. It didn't go so well: Tommy Byrne got shelled, and didn't get out of the 2nd inning. Wearing Number 19, Whitey came in to relieve, and wasn't much better, pitching to the 7th and allowing 5 more runs. The Red Sox beat the Yankees 13-4.

On July 6, manager Casey Stengel gave Whitey his 1st major league start, at Yankee Stadium against the Philadelphia Athletics. The Yankees won, 5-4, but he was not the winning pitcher. He didn't get another start until July 17, at home against the Chicago White Sox. That game, he won, 4-3. He won 9 straight decisions, before losing on September 27, 8-7 to the A's, and finished 2nd in the American League's Rookie of the Year balloting, behind Walt Dropo -- who had hit a home run for the Red Sox off Byrne in Whitey's debut.

Dropo himself knew how good Whitey was: "Right away, I could see this guy was going to be trouble. He was like a master chess player who used his brain to take the bat right out of my hands. You'd start thinking along with him, and then Whitey had you because he never started you off with the same pitch in any one sequence."

The Yankees won the Pennant, and swept the Philadelphia Philies in 4 straight to win the World Series. Whitey started Game 4, and was 1 out away from a shutout, when left fielder Gene Woodling dropped a fly ball, letting in 2 runs.

Stengel came out to relieve Whitey, and let Allie Reynolds get the last out. When Whitey walked back to the dugout, the fans booed. He couldn't understand why they were booing him. They weren't: They were booing Casey for taking him out. Whitey was already a fan favorite.

The following off-season, Whitey married a woman named Joan, but also got drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War, resulting in him missing the 1951 and 1952 seasons. He was discharged in time to play in 1953. He and Joan remained married 'til death did they part, and they had sons Eddie and Tommy and daughter Sally Ann.

Now 24, and wearing what became his familiar Number 16, Whitey became the ace of the Yankee staff, as the "Big Three" of Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat saw their careers wind down. He went 18-6 in 1953, 16-8 in 1954 (earning the 1st of his 10 All-Star Game berths), 18-7 in 1955 (leading the AL in wins), 19-6 in 1956 (with a League-leading 2.47 ERA), 11-5 in an injury-shortened 1957, and 14-7 in 1958 (with a League-leading 2.01 ERA).

As much as his Hall-of-Fame teammates, center fielder Mickey Mantle, catcher Yogi Berra, and shortstop Phil Rizzuto, Whitey was the key to the Yankees winning Pennants in 1953, '55, '56, '57 and '58, winning the World Series in 1953, '56 and '58. This was the era in which terms like "The lordly Yankees" and "Break up the Yankees!" were used.

It says something about this great competitor that my Grandma, a dedicated Brooklyn Dodger fan who hated the Yankees (especially Casey and Yogi, for some reason), loved 2 Yankees: Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford.

That both were from her home Borough of Queens had something to do with it, but she also loved that Whitey was smart and didn't rely on overwhelming force, mixing up his pitches like her favorite Dodger pitchers, Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine and especially Preacher Roe. (And also like her favorite Met pitchers, Tom Seaver, Ron Darling, David Cone and Al Leiter.) She had no patience for pitchers who were fastball-reliant, like Ralph Branca of the Dodgers. She also hated hotheads like Billy Martin, Eddie Stanky and Roger Clemens. She loved that Whitey kept his cool.

Whitey was on the mound in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series when Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers stole home plate. To the end of his life, Yogi insisted that he got the tag down and that Jackie was out. Whitey agreed that Jackie was out: "I was only 55 feet away by the time I threw the ball, and I thought he was out." But Rizzuto said, "Well, I was playing shortstop, and I had the best view of anybody, and he was safe!"

About a year later, Yankee outfielder Irv Noren was rooming with Whitey, and showed him a picture from that game, including that play. He'd blown it up, to show who was playing shortstop. While Rizzuto was in the game, by the time the steal happened in the 8th inning, he had been replaced in the field: The shortstop at the moment was Jerry Coleman. Whitey won that game, although the Yankees lost the Series.

Whitey and Yogi outside Yankee Stadium, 1956

These were the days when Whitey, Mickey, and 2nd baseman Billy Martin would go out after games and carouse. Casey called them "whiskey slicks," and, for the rest of their lives, Mickey and Whitey called each other "Slick." In 1987, Whitey published a memoir titled Slick: My Life In and Around Baseball.

Left to right: Whitey, Mickey, Billy

He also became known as "The Chairman of the Board," a nickname given to him by Elston Howard, a left fielder before he and Yogi switched positions in 1960. While "Board" rhymes with "Ford," the nickname spoke to his command on the mound, similar to that of another man who then had the nickname, singer Frank Sinatra, who was friends with Whitey and some of the other Yankees. Whitey loved Sinatra and loved the comparison.

The troublesome trio of Mantle, Martin and Ford was broken up in 1957, when Martin was traded. While Billy wasn't hitting, everyone presumed it was because of an incident the month before, when the 3 of them, plus Yogi, Hank Bauer and Johnny Kucks, got into trouble at the famed Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan. Whitey was the last survivor of the Yankees who were there.

Mickey was told that Billy was traded for being a bad influence on him. Years later, Mickey would say, "The last year Billy and I were roommates, I won the World Series and the Triple Crown. How bad an influence could he have been?" But he would sometimes add, "Turns out, it was Whitey who was the bad influence on me."

Mickey was joking. Of the three, Whitey was the only one still with his 1st wife until the end. In 2000, when Billy Crystal made his movie 61*, about the 1961 Yankees, Whitey, he showed the aftermath of a drunken incident that Mickey, played by Thomas Jane, had gotten into, and Whitey, played by Anthony Michael Hall, had to pay people off to not talk about it. He said to Mickey, "Hey, Slick: How come every time you get drunk, it ends up costing me money?"

*

In 1959, the Yankees had a down year, as they were in something of a transition, but Whitey still went 16-10. In 1960, he went 12-9, and the Yankees won the Pennant again.

You'll notice that, as good as he was, Whitey had not yet won 20 games in a season. This is because Casey would sometimes move Whitey up, or back, in the rotation to face a tougher opponent. This may have cost him a couple of wins every year.

In the 1960 World Series, Casey started him in Games 3 and 6. He could have started him in Games 1, 4 and 7, but didn't. The Yankees won Game 3 10-0 and Game 6 12-0. They lost Game 1 6-4, Game 4 3-2, and Game 7 10-9, as Bill Mazeroski hit what we would now call a walkoff home run. Although the official reason for Yankee management firing Casey was his age (70), lots of people thought the decision was justified because of the way he handled Whitey.

Casey was replaced by Ralph Houk. In the off-season, he and Whitey ran into each other at a prizefight at the old Madison Square Garden. Ralph asked him, "How would you like to pitch every 4th day?" As in, "No matter who the opponent is." Whitey said, "I'd love to."

It worked: Whitey had his best season, going 25-4. Although his ERA was a comparatively high 3.12, his WHIP was just 1.180. He had 11 complete games, 3 of them shutouts, a career-high 209 strikeouts, and went 243 consecutive innings without allowing a stolen base. From the establishment of the Cy Young Award in 1956 until 1966, it went to the best pitcher in both Leagues, and Whitey won it in 1961.

The Yankees hit 240 home runs, a record at the time, including a record 61 by Roger Maris and 54 by Mantle. In addition to Whitey's 25-4, Ralph Terry went 16-3, and reliever Luis Arroyo went 15-5 and set what was then a major league record with 29 saves. The Yankees won 109 games, finishing 8 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers, and won the Pennant.

Before the All-Star Game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Whitey and Mickey were invited by the Game's host, Giants owner Horace Stoneham, to his country club. They made $1,200 in pro shop purchases. Stoneham found out, and agreed to pay their tab if Whitey could strike the Giants' Willie Mays out in the Game. Whitey threw a particularly nasty pitch past Willie for strike 3, and he walked off the mound laughing. Mickey walked off the field, also laughing. After the Game, Willie asked him, "What was all that about?" Whitey admitted, "I'm sorry, Willie, but I had to throw you a spitter." Nevertheless, Stoneham kept his word, and paid the tab.

The Yankees played the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series, and Whitey won Game 1. Before his Game 4 start, he was asked by the press about the record. He said, "What record?" They told him: In 1916 and 1918, Babe Ruth pitched 29 2/3rds consecutive scoreless innings, setting a record for Series play. Whitey said he didn't even know Ruth had been a pitcher. He only pitched 5 innings before leaving due to an ankle injury, but the record was his, as was the Series' Most Valuable Player award -- the Babe Ruth Award. The Yankees won the Series in Game 5.

In 1962, against the San Francisco Giants, he would extend it to 33 2/3rds innings, still a postseason record (Mariano Rivera came within 1 batter of tying it), and the Yankees made it back-to-back titles. 

In 1963, he went 24-7, and finished 3rd in the AL MVP voting, the closest he ever came, behind Elston Howard, now his own catcher, and Detroit's Al Kaline. His Game 1 showdown with Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who was 25-5 and beat him out for the Cy Young Award, was one of the most-hyped World Series matchups ever. It was a mismatch: Whitey allowed 4 runs in the 2nd inning, and Koufax struck out 15 batters to set a new Series record. The Dodgers swept the Yankees in 4 straight.

Whitey went 17-6 in 1964, helping the Yankees to win their 5th straight Pennant, and their 11th with him on the roster. But, at age 35, his decline had begun. "I didn't begin cheating until late in my career," he later said, "when I needed something to help me survive. I didn't cheat when I won the 25 games in 1961. I don't want anybody to get any ideas and take my Cy Young Award away. And I didn't cheat in 1963 when I won 24 games. Well, maybe a little."

How did he cheat? He used the diamond in his wedding ring to cut the ball. Eventually, an umpire caught him, and warned him to stop. So Elston Howard came up with an alternative, sharpening a buckle on his shinguard, providing the same effect.

Whitey's shoulder bothered him through most of the '64 season. In Game 1 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, he had nothing. His arm went numb, and he allowed 4 runs in the 6th inning, including a long home run by Mike Shannon. He left the game, and never appeared in the World Series again. His unavailability almost certainly cost the Yanks that Series, but a doctor told him there was a blood clot, and if he kept pitching, it could have gone to his lung, his heart, or his brain, and killed him.

The Dynasty collapsed in 1965, as pretty much everybody on the Yankees got hurt, or old, or both, at once. Whitey managed to go 16-13 for a team that finished 6th. He was just 2-5 in August  1966, when he  finally got the shoulder operated on to relieve his circulatory problem. It didn't help, and on May 21, 1967, he pitched his last game, having gone 2-4 in just 7 appearances. He was 38 years old.

*

Whitey Ford has never gotten the credit he deserves -- not during his career, when he was always overshadowed by Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Roger Maris; and not in the more than half a century since his retirement. Fans under the age of 60 have never seen him pitch, except in Old-Timers' Games. Fans whose memories begin with the Torre/Jeter/Rivera era haven't even seen him do that. They don't get just how good he was, or just how important he was.

He won 236 games, still a Yankee record, against just 106 losses. This gave him a winning percentage of .690. That makes him the leader among modern pitchers with at least 300 career decisions. The only pitchers ahead of him are Al Spalding, who went a whopping 262-65 for .795, but that was in the underhanded-pitching era; another Yankee, Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler, who went 109-43 for .717, but didn't debut in the major leagues until he was nearly 30; and Clayton Kershaw, current star of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who finished the 2020 season at 175-76, for .697, but is only 32 and has not yet begun to decline.

As I said, until 1960, manager Casey Stengel would sometimes move Whitey up or back in the rotation, to face a tougher team. This makes his .690 winning percentage even more amazing. In 1950, from his debut on July 1 to the end of the season, and from 1953 to his last game on May 21, 1967, the Yankees went 1,486-1,027, and 1,250-921 in games that he didn't pitch, for a percentage of .576.

This made Whitey 11.4 percent more likely to win than his team -- which, don't forget, had Hall-of-Famers Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra on it, as well as Phil Rizzuto early on, not to mention All-Stars such as Moose Skowron, Elston Howard, Roger Maris and Joe Pepitone, and fellow pitchers Allie Reynolds, Bob Turley and Ralph Terry.

Among retired starting pitchers from the post-1920 Lively Ball Era, Whitey is the leader with a 2.75 career ERA. Koufax is 2nd, at 2.76, and he retired at 31, due to having a similar circulatory issue to Whitey's, in his elbow, so he never had a decline. Throw in currently active pitchers, and, again, Kershaw is ahead of him, at 2.43, but, as I said, has not yet begun to decline, and could well end up behind Whitey. It's worth noting that, for a few years, Pedro Martinez was ahead of Whitey in both categories, but ended up at .687 and 2.93.

Whitey's career ERA+ was 133, meaning he was 33 percent better at preventing runs than the average pitcher of his era. His career WHIP was 1.215. Despite not having a blazing fastball, he struck out 1,956 batters, against 1,086 walks, for a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.80. He wasn't much of a hitter, batting only .173 lifetime, with 3 home runs and 69 runs batted in, but he was a good bunter, with 65 sacrifice hits.

Since the Yankees were in the World Series nearly every year from 1949 to 1964 (all but 1954 and 1959), Whitey was nearly always in it. He holds Series records for most starts (22), innings pitched (146 -- nearly a full season), batters faced (594), complete games (7), wins (10), losses (8), strikeouts (94) and walks (34).

Whitey once said, "You kind of took it for granted around the Yankees

that there was always going to be baseball in October."

Note the red, white & blue bunting, a World Series tradition.

Look at the lineups he faced from 1953 to 1962: The Brooklyn Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider and Gil Hodges. The Milwaukee Braves of Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews and Joe Adcock. The Pittsburgh Pirates of Roberto Clemente and Dick Stuart. The Cincinnati Reds of Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson. The San Francisco Giants of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda. He did this in ballparks with short fences in right field (the old Yankee Stadium Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh), left field (Crosley Field in Cincinnati), notoriously bad infields (Forbes), or weird wind (Candlestick Park in San Francisco). And he still notched a World Series ERA of 2.71 -- not a record, but amazing.

*

Whitey served as the Yankees' 1st base coach in 1968, and as pitching coach in the 1974 and '75 seasons. In 1974, he and Mantle were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame together. On August 3 of that year, his Number 16 was retired, making him the 1st Yankee pitcher so honored. "There's really only four numbers that should be retired" by the Yankees, he once said, "and mine's not one of them." He meant Babe Ruth's 3, Lou Gehrig's 4, Joe DiMaggio's 5 and Mickey Mantle's 7.

He was also 1 of the 1st 2 Yankee pitchers awarded a Plaque in Monument Park, honored along with Lefty Gomez on August 2, 1987. I was there for that ceremony.

In 1999, The Sporting News named its 100 Greatest Baseball Players. Whitey was ranked 52nd. That year, he was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. The next year, a baseball field where he had played as a boy in Astoria, at 26th Street and 2nd Avenue, at a bend in the East River near the Triborough/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, was named Whitey Ford Field.

While still active, in 1957, he, Mantle, Berra, Rizzuto and Gil McDougald appeared in an episode of The Phil Silvers Show. Silvers' ever-scheming Sergeant Ernie Bilko wanted to be the agent for a hillbilly soldier who could really hit, Private Hank Lumpkin, in a role that launched Dick Van Dyke to stardom. But the kid was a Southerner, and didn't want to play for the Yankees, because of the name. So Bilko introduced him to those Yankees, dressed in copies of Confederate Army uniforms, and when shaking Lumpkin's hand, each of them used the Southern expression "Sho' 'nuff" (meaning, "Sure enough" -- only Mantle, from Oklahoma, was actually a Southerner). That convinced him.

Ford, Mantle and Maris had appeared in the 1962 film Safe at Home!, generally regarded as one of the worst baseball-themed movies ever made. In 1984, Ford and Mantle played themselves on an episode of the NBC mystery drama Remington Steele. In 1997, Whitey voiced a character based on himself on The Simpsons.

In 1998, rapper Erik Schrody, a Long Island native who used the stage names Everlast and Whitey Ford, titled an album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues. He later released albums titled Eat at Whitey's and Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford.

In 2002, Whitey opened Whitey Ford's Cafe next-door to the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, Long Island. Like Mickey Mantle's Restaurant on Central Park South in Manhattan, it had a 1950s Yankees theme, complete with the waitstaff wearing Yankee jerseys with the respective player's number on the back. Around the same time, Mays opened a Willie Mays Chicken franchise.

Neither Ford's restaurant nor Mays' chain lasted long, and while Mantle's restaurant lasted a lot longer than his previous attempt, a chain named Mickey Mantle's Country Cookin', his New York restaurant only lasted a few years after his death in 1995.

As Mickey died, and so did Joe DiMaggio in 1999, and finally Yogi in 2015, Whitey became recognized as the greatest living ex-Yankee, and was eventually the oldest living player in the Hall of Fame. (Tommy Lasorda, elected as a manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is older.)

The title of "Greatest Living Yankee" was between him, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. The greatest pitcher in Yankee history? It's down to Whitey and Mo. Those of you who only knew Mo, it shouldn't only tell you how great Whitey was to be fairly compared with Mo. It should tell you how great Mo was to be fairly compared with Whitey.

Four Yankee pitching legends. Left to right:

Ron Guidry, Whitey Ford, Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia.

Photo taken at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, New Jersey.

He was a fixture on Old-Timers' Day, and was one of the players honored before the last game at the old Yankee Stadium in 2008. But in his last couple of Old-Timers' Day appearances, at the new Yankee Stadium, it looked to me like something was wrong. On TV, it looked like he didn't understand what was happening. He seemed to be thinking, "They told me they were taking me to Yankee Stadium. This isn't Yankee Stadium. It's got the facade on the roof like it used to have, but it hasn't had that in years. I don't understand... "

I was at Old-Timers' Day in 2019, and he did not attend. My sister was with me, and I told her that's usually a bad sign: Even Don Larsen, perfect game hero of the 1956 World Series, who was 90 years old, in a wheelchair, and, as it turned out, died a few months later, attended. But Whitey didn't.

Whitey Ford died last night, October 8, 2020, at his home in Lake Success, Long Island, 12 days short of his 92nd birthday. No cause has yet been publicly announced, but the New York Daily News has confirmed that he had "a long battle with dementia." He and Joan had been married for 69 years. He was predeceased by his son Tommy.

The Yankees' Twitter feed: The Yankees are incredibly saddened to learn of the passing of Hall of Famer Whitey Ford. Whitey spent his entire 16-year career as a Yankee. A 6x WS Champion and 10x All-Star, The Chairman of the Board was one of the best lefties to ever toe the rubber. He will be deeply missed.

The Yogi Berra Museum: We are devastated to hear of the great Whitey Ford’s passing. One of Yogi’s closest companions, Whitey was so incredibly kind and caring, beyond being a legendary pitcher. This loss is immense. Here’s to you, the Chairman of the Board. We love you.

Jim Palmer, Hall of Fame pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, now a broadcaster for them: Today I was asked who’s my fav pitcher of all time.I’ve never been asked! It’s Whitey Ford. What an honor to call him my friend.

Richard Neer, legendary classic rock disc jockey on the now-defunct, WNEW-FM, now with a talk show on all-sports WFAN: Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson and now Whitey Ford. We've lost three of the greatest pitchers of baseball's golden age. I'd interviewed Whitey several times and he was always a wonderful gentleman with a host of great recollections. 2020 just gets worse and worse.

With Whitey's death, 3rd baseman Bobby Brown, scheduled to turn 96 this month, is now, as he is for 1947, 1949 and 1951 (when Whitey was in the service), the last surviving member of the Yankees' 1950 World Series winners. Brown was in the service in 1953, so the last survivor of that year's Yankee title team is 96-year-old pitcher Art Schallock. Brown and Schallock are the last 2 living former teammates of Joe DiMaggio.

From the 1956 title team, there are 4 left: Pitcher Ralph Terry, 2nd baseman Bobby Richardson, backup shortstop Billy Hunter, and outfielder Lou Skizas, who played just 6 games.

From the 1958 title team, there are 5: Richardson, shortstop Tony Kubek, and pitchers Bobby Shantz, Art Ditmar and Zach Monroe. Terry had been traded away, but would be reacquired.

From the 1961 title team, there are 8: Richardson, Kubek, Terry, outfielders Hector Lopez and Jack Reed, infielder Billy Gardner, and pitchers Rollie Sheldon and Bud Daley.

From the 1962 title team, there are 9: Richardson, Kubek, Terry, Lopez, Reed, Sheldon, Daley, catcher Jake Gibbs, and rookie 1st baseman Joe Pepitone. Today is Peptione's 80th birthday: He was born on the exact same day as Jerry McMorris, the founding owner of the Colorado Rockies, and Beatle John Lennon.

There are 17 living former Yankees who played under Casey Stengel: Brown, Schallock, Richardson, Hunter, Terry, Skizas, Shantz, Kubek, Ditmar, Monroe, Lopez, outfielder Gordie Windhorn, and pitchers Gary Blaylock, Jim Bronstad, Fred Kipp, Hal Stowe and Johnny James.

And there are 13 living people honored in Monuent Park at Yankee Stadium: Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage, Don Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez and Joe Torre.

Whitey's death comes only a few days after that of Tom Seaver. Those two, plus old-time Giants Christy Mathewson and Carl Hubbell, lead me to paraphrase an old song:

If you believe in forever

then life is a momentary station.

If there's a New York Baseball Heaven

well, you know they got a hell of a rotation.