Thursday, October 11, 2018

How Long It's Been: The Yankees Won the World Series With a Republican as President

The 1958 World Champion New York Yankees

I told you to vote for Hillary Clinton, but did you listen to me?

So the Yankees' 2018 season is over, every bit as ignominiously as every season they've had from 2010 onward.

Brian Cashman is the general manager of the New York Yankees. Officially, his job is to do whatever it takes to win the World Series.

He has not done that -- not without Gene Michael's players, anyway. He acts as though his job is to bring in players who will lead fans to buy tickets to Yankee home games, and to keep the team's payroll under the luxury tax threshold.

For as long as he does this, this is a sign that the Yankees will never win another Pennant, to say nothing of a World Series.

Donald Trump holds the Presidency. This is another sign that the Yankees will not win a World Series, until at least October 2021.

You see, the Yankees haven't won a World Series with a member of the Republican Party as President since 1958, when they beat the Milwaukee Braves 6-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium in Game 7, and avenged their defeat by the Braves in the previous year's Series.

Since then, when Republicans have been President, the Yankees have won Pennants in 1960 (Eisenhower), 1976 (Gerald Ford), 1981 (Ronald Reagan), and 2001 and 2003 (George W. Bush) -- and lost the World Series all 5 times.

For comparison's sake: Under Presidents of the Democratic Party, the Yankees won the World Series in 1961 (John F. Kennedy), 1962 (JFK), 1977 (Jimmy Carter), 1978 (Carter), 1996 (Bill Clinton), 1998 (Clinton), 1999 (Clinton), 2000 (Clinton) and 2009 (Barack Obama); and lost it in 1963 (JFK) and 1964 (Lyndon Johnson). So, 9-2, as opposed to 0-5.

In spite of winning more World Series since 1958, 9, than any other franchise has won, ever, except the St. Louis Cardinals (11) and the Philadelphia-Oakland Athletics (9), the Yankees have not won a World Series while a Republican has held the Presidency since October 9, 1958.

That was 60 years ago. How long has that been?

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This was the Yankees' starting lineup in that game:

9 RF Hank Bauer
12 2B Gil McDougald
7 CF Mickey Mantle
8 C Yogi Berra
32 LF Elston Howard
11 3B Jerry Lumpe
14 1B Bill "Moose" Skowron
10 SS Tony Kubek
18 P Don Larsen

Manager Casey Stengel did some weird things, including batting Mantle 3rd instead of 4th most of the time. And Jerry Lumpe (pronounced like "lumpy")? 6th? This is a guy Casey himself described as, "He looks like the greatest player in the world, until you play him." (He did eventually bat .291 and .303 in back-to-back seasons in 1961 and '62, and make the All-Star Game in '64 -- although the former achievement was with the Kansas City Athletics, and the latter with the Detroit Tigers.)

Yes, Casey made some weird managerial choice, but starting Don Larsen, who pitched that perfect game 2 years earlier, in Game 7 isn't as strange as you might think, especially since the season's Cy Young Award winner (1 award for both Leagues at the time), Bob Turley, had already started and won Game 5, and come in for relief work and saved Game 6.

The Braves included future Hall-of-Famers Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Red Schoendienst and Warren Spahn; hard hitters Joe Adcock, Del Crandall, Wes Covington, and Frank Torre, whose younger brother Joe had just begun to come up through their minor-league system; and Lew Burdette, whom the Yankees had traded to them to get Johnny Sain, a trade that worked out very well for both teams.

The Braves had beaten the Yankees in the 1957 World Series, and took a 3-games-to-1 lead this time. But the Yankees got their revenge, particularly on Burdette, as Skowron hit a home run to finish him off. Larsen wasn't very effective, though, and Stengel brought Turley in during the 3rd inning. Exhausted, he allowed just 1 run the rest of the way, finishing the Series with 2 wins, a save, and the Babe Ruth Award as Series Most Valuable Player. The last out was Schoendienst flying out to Mantle, the only time in Mickey's 12 World Series, including 7 wins, that he was involved in the final play.

There were 16 teams in Major League Baseball. The Dodgers and Giants had just moved from New York City to California: Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and Upper Manhattan to San Francisco, respectively. The Mets did not yet exist: They were just an idea, which came true; but as a part of the proposed Continental League, which didn't.

As I said, there was a National League team in Milwaukee, but it was the Braves, not the Brewers. There was an American League team in Kansas City, but it was the Athletics, not the Royals. There was a team in Washington, but in the American League.

The eventual major league cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Houston, Atlanta, Oakland, Seattle, San Diego, Montreal, Dallas-Fort Worth, Toronto, Denver, Miami, Phoenix and Tampa Bay were home to minor-league teams. There were now many black players, and a few Hispanic ones, but no Asians, Europeans or Australians.

There were no stadiums with domes, retractable or otherwise; no artificial turf; no fireworks-shooting "exploding scoreboards," and not even message boards (the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox would introduce message boards the next season, and the ChiSox would introduce the fireworks); no designated hitter; and no split-fingered fastball, although its predecessor, the forkball, was in use.

Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago were the only major league ballparks in use then that are still in use now. The only NFL stadiums in use in both 1958 and 2018 are Lambeau Field in Green Bay and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. (The Chicago Bears and the Cleveland Browns are playing on the same sites they did then, but in new stadiums built there.) The buildings used in the 1958-59 season by the NHL's Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the NBA's Syracuse Nationals still stand, but are no longer being used by those teams.

The NBA had yet to go coast-to-coast. The NHL still hadn't gone west of Chicago, except for a single season in St. Louis, 1934-35. The NFL had, with the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers.

In addition to the Yankees' dethroning of the Braves, the defending World Champions were the Detroit Lions (and they haven't been since), the St. Louis Hawks (who would move to Atlanta in 1968), and the Montreal Canadiens (in the middle of their record streak of 5 straight Stanley Cups).

The Heavyweight Champion of the World was Floyd Patterson. Wolverhampton Wanderers had dethroned Manchester United, stricken by the recent Munich Air Disaster, as Champions of England's Football League, while Bolton Wanderers won the FA Cup. Real Madrid retained the European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League.

Of the 16 teams then in MLB, only the Philadelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles, until 1953 the St. Louis Browns, had not yet won the World Series. The O's would win their 1st in 1966, the Phils theirs in 1980. The Boston Red Sox had not won the Series in 40 years, the Chicago White Sox in 41 (or even a Pennant in 39), and the Chicago Cubs in 50 years.

Nap Lajoie, Tris Speaker, and William "Boileryard" Clarke of the 1890s Pennant-winning, National League version of the Orioles were still alive. Of the players who defined the game in my youth, Carl Yastrzemski was in college, Willie Stargell was in the minor leagues; Pete Rose, Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton were in high school; Rod Carew and Reggie Jackson were in junior high; Nolan Ryan was 11 years old, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk were 10, Mike Schmidt was 9, and George Brett was 5. None of the current managers or head coaches of the New York Tri-State Area teams had been born yet.

The World Cup had just been held in Sweden, and has since been held in Chile, England, Mexico twice, Germany twice, Argentina, Spain, Italy, America, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, and Brazil, and is about to be held again in Russia.

The Olympics have since been held in America 5 times; Canada and Japan 3 times; twice each in Italy, Austria, France, Russia and Korea; and once each in Mexico, Germany, Bosnia, Spain, Norway, Australia, Greece, China, Britain and Brazil.

There were 48 States in the Union, with Alaska gaining Statehood 3 months later, and Hawaii 7 months after that. There were 22 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. There had been a Civil Rights Act in 1957, but it was essentially toothless. Segregation in public schools had been struck down, and enforced at Central High School in Little Rock, but would be seriously tested at the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama.

There was no Medicare, Medicaid, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA, Title IX, or legalized Abortion. There was no "gay rights" of any kind. Quite the opposite: What we would now call getting "outed" was a public and commercial death sentence. The idea of 2 people of the same gender marrying each other was ridiculous -- but then, so was the idea that corporations were "people," and entitled to the rights thereof.

The President of the United States was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Richard Nixon was Ike's Vice President. Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, and Eleanor Roosevelt were still alive. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were in the U.S. Senate, and Gerald Ford was in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jimmy Carter was running a peanut farm, George H.W. Bush an oil company, and the one and only film that co-starred Ronald Reagan and his wife, then still billed as Nancy Davis, had been released the year before: Hellcats of the Navy. Neither Carter, nor Reagan, nor Bush had ever yet run for office. Bush's son George W. was 11. So was Bill Clinton. So was Donald Trump, and he hasn't matured since. Barack Obama wasn't born yet.

The Governor of the State of New York was Averell Harriman. The Governor of New Jersey, newly re-elected, was Robert Meyner. The Mayor of the City of New York was Robert F. Wagner Jr., who somehow got re-elected a year earlier, despite having just lost 2 Major League Baseball teams.

Dominique Pire, a Belgian priest, was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for his efforts to aid refugees. The Prime Minister of Canada was John Diefenbaker; of Britain, Harold Macmillan. Queen Elizabeth II was the monarch of both nations. That hasn't changed, but she was only 32 years old at the time.

There was no Pope: Pius XII had just died, and Angelo Roncalli would be chosen as Pope John XXIII on October 28. The current Pope, Francis, was then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and had just begun his seminary studies. There have since been 12 Presidents of the United States, 11 Prime Ministers of Britain and 6 Popes.

There was some dispute as to whether, 93 years after the surrender at Appomattox Court House, there were still any surviving veterans of the American Civil War. Albert Woolson, authenticated as the last surviving veteran on the Union side, had died in 1956. But so many Confederate records were lost, no one was sure how many of their veterans were left. Walter W. Williams claimed to be a surviving Confederate veteran, and when he died on December 19, 1959, he was hailed as the last Civil War veteran on either side. But who the last Confederate veteran was may never be known for sure.

There were surviving veterans of America's Indian Wars, the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882, the Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-80, and the Mahdist War of 1882-99. Laura Bullion, a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, was still alive. So was John Henry Turpin, the last survivor of the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898. So was Raymond Kaighn, who had played in the 1st basketball game in 1891.

Major novels of 1958 included Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, Red Alert by Peter George (later adapted into the film Dr. Strangelove), The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver, Exodus by Leon Uris, and The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

Also written that year were H.E. Bates' The Darling Buds of May, adapted in the 1990s for a TV series that introduced the world to Catherine Zeta-Jones; Brendan Behan's memoir Borstal Boy; the 1st volume of Shelby Foote's The Civil War; John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society; and Ian Fleming's Dr. No, which, due to seeming to be the cheapest to produce, became the 1st James Bond novel to be turned into a feature film.

C.S. Lewis published Reflections on the Psalms. His old Oxford University pal, J.R.R. Tolkein, published The Old English Apollonius of Tyre. Each book was a scholarly work, rather than one of the fantasy novels for which each had already become renowned. Stephen King was 10 years old, George R.R. Martin 9, and J.K. Rowling had not yet been born.

No one had yet heard of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, John Yossarian, Jean Brodie, Modesty Blaise, Alexander Portnoy, Spenser: For Hire, Lestate de Lioncourt, T.S. Garp, Arthur Dent, Jason Bourne, Hannibal Lecter, Kinsey Millhone, Celie Harris, Forrest Gump, Jack Ryan, Alex Cross, Bridget Jones, Robert Langdon, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan or Katniss Everdeen.

Major films of the Autumn of 1958 included The Big Country, The Man Inside, The Horse's Mouth, Houseboat, Cop Hater, Desert Patrol, and, at the tail end of the golden age of cheesy-special-effects science fiction era, The Blob and Earth vs. the Spider.

On December 28, Akiro Kurosawa would release The Hidden Fortress, a major inspiration for George Lucas' Star Wars. Lucas was then 14 years old, Steven Spielberg 12. Gene Roddenberry was writing for the TV Western Have Gun -- Will Travel.

Recently-debuted TV shows included the sitcom The Donna Reed Show;  the crime dramas Peter Gunn and 77 Sunset Strip; the Westerns The Rifleman, Lawman and Bat Masterson; and the show that began the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons, The Huckleberry Hound Show.

Soon to debut in Japan was what is now the oldest surviving anime TV show, Mole's Adventure. So was the NBC special An Evening with Fred Astaire. The game show Concentration had recently debuted, but what became known as "the quiz show scandals" were about to hit.

No one had yet heard of the Chipmunks, Yogi Bear, Ben Cartwright, Fred Flintstone, Andy Taylor, Rob Petrie, George Jetson, Jed Clampett, Richard Kimble, The Doctor, Napoleon Solo, Underdog, Gomez Addams, Herman Munster, Willy Gilligan, Maxwell Smart or Space Ghost. All would debut over the next 10 years. If you count their initial appearances, rather than the TV shows that would later feature them, so would Felix Unger & Oscar Madison, and Hawkeye Pierce.

No one knew it yet, but the season of The Adventures of Superman that would conclude later in 1958 would be the series' last, as star George Reeves was shot and killed the next year. Robert Lowery, in 1949, was still the most recent live-action Batman. The Marvel Comics revolution had yet to happen, so there was, as yet, no Spider-Man, no Hulk, no Iron Man, no Thor, no Daredevil, no Fantastic Four, no Avengers, and no X-Men. Robert Kardashian Sr. was 14, Bruce Jenner was about to turn 9, and Kristen Mary Houghton, who would grow up to marry each of them, was about to turn 3.

The Number 1 song in America was "It's All In the Game" by Tommy Edwards. The bossa nova was born in Rio de Janeiro, with João Gilberto's recording of Chega de SaudadePrivate Elvis Presley was serving in the U.S. Army in Germany, after going into RCA's studios and recording enough songs to still have singles for his entire 2-year hitch. Paul McCartney had just talked John Lennon into letting George Harrison into his band, then named The Quarrymen.

Frank Sinatra had just released his album Come Fly With Me. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon were in high school. Diana Ross was 14 years old, Elton John was 11, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen were 9; and Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson were all infants.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $8.72 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp had just been raised in cost from 3 to 4 cents, and a New York Subway ride was 15 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 28 cents, a cup of coffee 33 cents, a McDonald's meal (cheeseburger, fries, shake) 49 cents, a movie ticket 65 cents, a new car $2,155, and a new house $11,975. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 539.61.

Computers? Get outta here! They could take up the entire side of a building. And nobody expected them to get any smaller anytime soon. Steve Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee were 3 years old, while Bill Gates was about to turn 3. Jack Kilby had just invented the integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments. The tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building. Diners Club and American Express had introduced the credit card, but it had not yet been popularized. There were no automatic teller machines.

The idea of a telephone that you could take with you was ridiculous. Telephone numbers were still based on "exchanges," based on the letters on a rotary dial. So a number that, today, would be (718) 293-6000 (this is the number for the Yankees' ticket office, so I'm not hurting anyone's privacy), would have been CYpress 3-6000. There were no ZIP Codes, either. They ended up being based on the old system: The old New York Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street, was "New York 17, NY"; it became "New York, NY 10017."

There were artificial kidneys, but no artificial hearts. Transplanting a kidney was possible, but not a heart, lung or liver. There was no birth-control pill, and no Viagra. Satellites, including some with live animals, had been put into in orbit; but, as yet, no people.

In the Autumn of 1958, Communist China began its 1st television broadcast, but also its Great Famine, an unintended consequence of Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward." Typhoon Ida killed over 1,200 people in Japan.

France presented a new constitution to its voters, and it was approved, creating the Fifth Republic. The African nation of Guinea declared its independence from France. The Sudan, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon would soon follow.

Britain allowed women to sit in the House of Lords for the first time. Prime Minister Robert Menzies and his Liberal Party were re-elected in the 1st Australian election to use television as a communication medium. Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but the Soviet Union did not allow him to leave to accept the award, due to the novel that earned him the prize, Doctor Zhivago.

In America, NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, began operations. The Boeing 707 went into service. Hurricane Helene hit the U.S. East Coast. The lake freighter SS Carl D. Bradley sank in Lake Michigan, killing 33 of its 35 crewmen. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald had recently been launched, and it, too, would one day sink in a Great Lake.

Robert W. Service, and Tyrone Power, and New York Giants Hall-of-Famer Mel Ott died. Orel Hershiser, and Willie McGee, and Tim Robbins, the actor who played Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham, were born.

October 9, 1958. The New York Yankees won the World Series. A Republican was President of the United States.

Each of those things has been true since, but not at the same time. Will it ever happen again? As a Democrat, and as someone who knows the record of current Yankee general manager Brian Cashman, I doubt it.

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