You\u2019re probably already familiar with the story of the 1961 Yankees, of the Mickey Mantle \/ Roger Maris home run chase, of Whitey Ford\u2019s 25-4 Cy Young season, of the 109 wins that rates among the best seasons in the history of baseball. Put it this way: You know it\u2019s a memorable season when Billy Crystal makes an entire movie about it.<\/p>\n
What you might not know, because we can admit that until recently we did not, is that if Yankee president Dan Topping had managed to get his way, there might have been something even more notable about that \u201861 team. It wouldn\u2019t just have been the team of Mickey, Roger, Whitey, and chasing Babe for 61. It\u2019d have been the team of Ted, too. Ted Williams.<\/p>\n
If Topping had gotten his wish, one of the best lineups in baseball history would have also had one of the greatest hitters to ever live, bearing witness to one of the most memorable summers the sport has ever seen. He might have also accelerated the advent of the designated hitter to the American League by more than a decade.<\/p>\n
As if the Splendid Splinter in pinstripes wouldn\u2019t have shaken the baseball world enough, right?<\/p>\n
On Sept. 28, 1960, at Fenway Park in the eighth inning of his 2,292nd and final game in the Majors, Williams hit his 521st home run, a moment so remarkable that the John Updike-penned recap (\u201cHub Fans Bid Kid Adieu\u201d) is arguably the greatest piece of baseball writing ever put to paper. The Red Sox went on to finish their season by dropping three to the Yankees in New York, but Williams, wanting to finish his career at home, wasn\u2019t there. A month later, he turned down television jobs, unsuccessfully tried to purchase L.L. Bean, and mostly enjoyed a life of hunting and fishing.<\/p>\n
Aside from a brief stint managing the Washington Senators\/Texas Rangers franchise from 1969-\u201972, and occasional appearances as a hitting instructor at Red Sox camp, the baseball chapter of Williams\u2019s career was closed.<\/p>\n
So far as anyone knew, that was that. It wasn\u2019t quite that simple, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody knew this, but the Yankees tried to hire me to play one more year in 1961,\u201d Williams wrote in 1969. \u201cShortly after my last game, Fred Corcoran [Williams\u2019 agent] got a call from Dan Topping, the Yankee owner, and they met at the Savoy Plaza in New York. According to Fred, Mr. Topping said, “Would Williams play one year with the Yankees, strictly pinch-hit for us for what he’s making now — $125,000?”<\/p>\n
Relaying the story again in 1978, Williams then said it was an offer for two years, not one, although it\u2019s a moot point, as Williams wasn\u2019t interested. In the days before free agency, Williams would have needed Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey to relinquish his rights before he could negotiate with another team, though it doesn\u2019t seem to have even reached the point of a discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sure if I had wanted him to, Mr. Yawkey would have worked it out,\u201d Williams said, \u201cbut I wasn’t interested in playing for the Yankees. What did New York have to offer? A lot of bad air and traffic jams. I told Fred to forget it, not to promote anything, I wasn’t interested, I was never going to hit another ball in a big league park.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Williams clearly didn\u2019t have much positive to say about the five boroughs, the issue may have also been about what his role might have been on the 1961 Yankees, and that\u2019s where we land on some fascinating baseball history. The 1960 Yankees were loaded with lefty outfielders, thanks to Maris (who won the MVP with what we now consider a 160 OPS+), the switch-hitting Mantle (40 homers, 162 OPS+), and Yogi Berra, who at 35 was still a solid hitter (118 OPS+) but was transitioning from behind the plate to the outfield. Each were returning to the team in \u201861.<\/p>\n
Given that Williams would have been 42 and was already only a part-time left fielder in his final two years with Boston anyway, he would have been relegated to pinch-hitting, a role he had little interest in.<\/p>\n
“Hell, no,” Williams reportedly told Corcoran, as relayed in 1975. “You don’t get any kind of batting average pinchhitting once a game.”<\/p>\n
By most standards, Williams\u2019s career .297 average and .963 OPS as a pinch-hitter would be considered excellent. By his, it was a large step back from the .342 and 1.110 he\u2019d had as a left fielder, which tracks well with\u00a0recent research that shows\u00a0batters wear about a 20% penalty when serving as a pinch-hitter. You can understand why it might not have been worth his effort to hold off on the fishing to take 150 or so plate appearances coming off the bench for the Yankees, with all the travel required for what would have essentially been about three minutes of work per night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But: what if it wasn\u2019t once a game? What if it were several times per game — via a rule that didn\u2019t yet exist? It helps, as it turns out, to have friends in high places: In this case, the president\u2019s office of the American League, then occupied by Joe Cronin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
By 1960, Cronin\u2019s association with Williams had been established for more than two decades, dating back to the day\u00a0in 1939\u00a0that a 20-year-old Williams made his Major League debut with Cronin in the lineup as Boston\u2019s shortstop — a lineup Cronin had also written out as Red Sox player\/manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
They\u2019d spend four seasons together as teammates,\u00a0including Williams\u2019 legendary .406 season, then two more with Cronin as field manager after Williams returned from service in World War II. In 1948, Cronin moved upstairs into an executive role, serving 11 years — comprising most of the latter part of Williams\u2019s career — and\u00a0in 1959, he left the Red Sox to become the president of the American League, a position he held through 1973. In 1984, when their numbers were retired on the same night,\u00a0Williams said that\u00a0“one of the great breaks I had in this game was that I got to play for a manager like Joe.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Williams valued Cronin\u2019s name so much, apparently, that when Senators owner Bob Short was having difficulty getting Williams to return his calls about accepting the managerial job,\u00a0he sneakily succeeded\u00a0by leaving Cronin\u2019s name on the messages along with Short\u2019s own number.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n