A TALE OF THREE CITIES: NEW YORK, L.A. AND SAN FRANCISCO IN OCTOBER OF ‘62 (32 page)

In 1958, Casey Stengel hired him as a coach
and he was back at Yankee Stadium, where he served under the "Ol'
Perfessor" for three seasons that included two pennants and one
World Championship. Rumor had it that he was being groomed to
replace Stengel. Offered several managerial opportunities with
other teams, Houk turned them down because the Yankees' job would
be his. After losing to Pittsburgh in 1960, the Yankees decided on
wholesale change. Stengel was "discharged," telling the press that
the club's effort to disguise his departure at age 70 as retirement
was not true.

Owners Dan Topping and Del Webb then fired
65-year old general manager George Weiss, the architect of their
dynasty, and replaced him with Roy Hamey. The 41-year old Houk got
a call from Hamey asking him to meet at Del Webb's suite at the
Waldorf-Astoria shortly after the series concluded. He parked his
car two miles away, rode a cab, and called from a pay phone to make
sure the "coast is clear" of any prying eyes from the media. The
meeting was short and sweet. The Yankees had a new manager.

The club made the move when they did because
they did not want to lose Houk to another club. He had been a
scrappy player, a war hero, hard but fair, and was admired by his
teammates. Houk was also intelligent and a straight talker, which
some people wanted after years of "Stengelese."

In November of 1960, Houk's first task as
manager was to control the expansion draft. The trick was to limit
the damage and lose as few key men to the new Angels and Senators
as possible. Possible trades were discussed as part of this
strategy, including one with the St. Louis Cardinals, who offered
Larry Jackson for Elston Howard and Whitey Ford.

"I said what General McAuliffe said at
Bastogne," recalled Houk. "I said: 'Nuts!' "

"I think the war really gave Ralph his
understanding of men - that's where it started," his wife, Betty,
told writer Charles Dexter. "Ralph started at the very bottom. He's
been through everything in baseball and he's seen and lived it
himself. He understands those boys. He knows what they're going
through. He looks back on his own experiences, and knows how to
talk to them."

Despite his tough exterior, Houk had the
"human touch," as espoused by his autobiography, titled
Ballplayers Are Human, Too.

After his hiring, Houk attended a college
basketball game at Madison Square Garden between St. John's and
Kansas. He knew people at KU. Whitey Ford had friends at St. John's
and was in attendance.

"I'm glad you're here," Houk said to Ford
when he saw him. "I've been meaning to call you. There's something
I want to talk to you about. How would you like to pitch every
fourth day this season?"

"Great," replied Whitey. Ford said that
under Stengel he had pitched every fifth day, but "I couldn't
complain about it." However, he had never won 20 games in a season,
and figured under Houk, "I would have six or seven more starts a
year," thus increasing his shot at a 20-victory campaign.

"I never liked waiting four days before it
was my turn to pitch," he recalled. "I found it boring. I enjoyed
pitching. I didn't like watching."

The five-day rotation had been the
brainchild of Stengel's pitching coach, Jim "the Chicken Colonel"
Turner. Turner believed Cleveland's great pitching staffs - Bob
Lemon, Bob Feller, Early Wynn and Mike Garcia - tired late in the
season pitching on four days' rest. Houk's pitching coach was
Johnny Sain. Sain believed pitchers increased their arm strength by
throwing a lot, both in games and between appearances.

Sain had been part of the famed 1948 Boston
Braves pitching duo known as "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain," in
which he and Warren Spahn hurled the Braves to the World Series.
Ford was a control pitcher, anyway. His sinker was even more
effective when he was a little tired. He often completed games with
100 pitches or less.

Houk did a masterful job in 1961 of using
Elston Howard, Yogi Berra and Johnny Blanchard behind the plate,
maximizing each one's best performance. Berra and Houk had roomed
together in 1947. Despite having been a fellow war veteran, Yogi
was still a child of sorts, so homesick that he followed Houk
around like a little kid. Houk was a man's man already, but
tolerated Berra. He took him under his wing, even when Berra
established himself as the starting catcher with Houk in a back-up
role. Houk never complained. The final installation of the plan to
move Yogi from his regular spot behind the dish to an outfield
position, so as to transition Howard behind home plate, was handled
with aplomb on all sides. Berra loved Houk and would do anything
for him.

Berra was already a fabled character by 1962,
his "Yogiisms" spread far and wide as fables of the English
language. A popular book about his life story was "selling good,"
Yogi explained, but he was still unsure of his grammar. "In fact, I
hear they might make a movie out of it." Asked whether Yogi would
play himself, he screwed up his homely face and replied, "Well,
it's a toss-up between me and Tab Hunter," a handsome screen idol
of the era.

Ryne Duren was a Yankee fireballer of the
1950s who had played with Houk. It was Houk who suggested the "Coke
bottle" glasses that were his trademark. After donning them he
became effective. After a pennant-clinching celebration, the
hard-partying Duren had too much to drink and smashed Houk's cigar
in his face. Houk reacted furiously and the two had to be pulled
off each other. The next day, however, Houk and Duren had breakfast
together, acting "as if nothing had happened." They were and
remained friends, but the press made a big deal of it, later saying
Duren's departure from the club was because of it. In truth,
Duren's effectiveness deteriorated mostly because of his lifestyle,
and he had become expendable.

In 1961, Houk and Johnny Sain liked a lanky
kid who had won 15 games in 18 starts at class-D Auburn, between
leaving college in June of 1960 and season's end. Roland Sheldon
had a good fast ball, curve, slider, change of pace, control, and
the self-assuredness of a pitcher older than the 21-year old he . .
. supposedly was.

"He seemed remarkably self-possessed for a
21-year old," remarked Houk. Sheldon had seemingly come out of no
where and had a good chance at making the club in 1961, so Houk
started to look further into his background. He discovered that he
had started at Texas A&M, then served in the Army before going
to the University of Connecticut.

"How old were you when you entered college?"
Houk asked him.

"Well, Mr. Houk, I guess I must have made a
mistake when I filled out the club questionnaire," said Sheldon,
all innocence. "You see, I'm figuring on sticking up here for a
long time. When I'm in my 30s I want people to think I'm younger
than I'll really be."

He was 24. Houk and Sain were
none-too-pleased about the deception and were ready to send Sheldon
back to the minor leagues, but the press loved him, calling him a
major young prospect. After a brilliant three-inning spring
appearance against the Milwaukee Braves of Eddie Mathews, Hank
Aaron and Joe Adcock, followed by a cool-headed performance against
Baltimore, he made it the big league roster.

When Sheldon broke into the starting rotation
mid-way through the 1961 campaign, Houk told Joe Trimble of the
New York Daily News
, "It's just as well he's older than we
thought. That little white lie about his being 21 had me puzzled at
first. Kids with terrific speed like Bobby Feller's sometimes get
by in the Majors before they've taken their first shave. Those
three years Rollie forgot about when he signed with us came in
handy. They were three years of valuable experience."

In the bullpen, Houk was hoping that southpaw
reliever "Papa Luis" Arroyo would turn in another command
performance in 1962. Arroyo had overcome a broken bone in his left
wrist in 1961, posting a great season at age 34. In street clothes,
fans rarely recognized Arroyo. He had wavy gray hair and looked
like "a businessman vacationing in Florida," said Houk. A native of
Puerto Rico, Arroyo started pitching at the age of 12, forming a
battery with his brother Ramon. At 17 he made an amateur all-star
team, then attended George Stirnweiss's baseball school in Florida,
where he was signed by class-D Greeneville. Aside from two years
shelved by a sore arm, he pitched consistently for the next 17
years with the Cardinals, Pirates, Reds, and a dozen minor league
clubs.

Every season Arroyo went home to Puerto Rico
to pick up $25 or $50 a game in winter ball. He pitched for Houk in
1956 with San Juan, and was already a seasoned performer. In 1958
he was on the brink of giving up. Pitching for Columbus of the
International League, he watched Al Hollingsworth, a former St.
Louis Browns' right-hander, demonstrate a variety of deliveries,
including a screwball. Arroyo began working on the pitch, and by
1960 had mastered its intricacies.

In July of 1960, with New York in a
neck-and-neck battle with Cleveland, Arroyo was at Jersey City in
the Cincinnati organization. Steve Souchock, the manager of New
York's Richmond farm club, was impressed with him and added a
post-script to his weekly report to New York: "Arroyo might help
the Yanks in relief. Suggest you scout him."

Bill Skiff, one of the Yankees' player
development men, watched Arroyo have his way with Richmond the next
night. 24 hours later the Yankees purchased his contract. In 29
innings down the stretch in 1960 Arroyo was 5-1, helping the club
capture the title, and in 1961 he was Houk's ace out of the
bullpen.

After his MVP season of 1960, Roger Maris
entered the 1961 campaign with high hopes, but after a slow start,
Harold Rosenthal of the
New York Herald Tribune
asked Houk,
"What's wrong with Maris?"

"Nothing far as I know," replied Houk. When
his Spring Training woes carried into the season, Houk decided to
switch Roger from the clean-up spot to third, with Mantle hitting
behind him. The move worked wonders and he went on to hit 61 home
runs, with Mantle right behind at 54.

The Yankees had two clubhouse men, known as
the "two Petes," Sheehey and Previte. They were typical crusty
clubhouse gatekeepers. Told to buy more orange juice, a typical
reply was, "When I buy it you just drink it up." Complaints about
the post-game spread were met by guffaws and expletives with
typical friendly-but-cutting banter between the clubhouse men and
the players. Also, Pete Previte signed thousands of baseballs
supposedly signed by the great Mickey Mantle instead.

Houk's most-trusted coach was Frankie "Cro"
Crosetti, a standout Yankee shortstop of the1930s who, like Joe
DiMaggio and many others, hailed from the green playing fields of
San Francisco's Big Rec Park. Crosetti resisted any vestige of
change; baseball games were to be played, practiced and prepared
for the same way in 1962 as in 1932.

Ralph Terry was expected to be a Yankee ace
in 1962.

"He might have been ruined by that 'gopher
ball' he threw to Mazeroski in the Series," Houk wondered, in
reference to Terry's having given up the game-winning home run to
Bill Mazeroski in game seven of the 1960 Fall Classic. But Terry
had responded with an excellent season in 1961. Houk had full
confidence in his considerable abilities. Johnny Sain worked hard
with him on a fast-breaking curve ball, and Houk had learned to let
him work out of jams.

"I didn’t want him to sit in the clubhouse
mooning over his bad innings," said Houk. "I wanted him to believe
in himself."

Houk also dealt with a unique challenge in
1961. With expansion to Los Angeles, the team faced 7,700-mile road
trips. Prior to an 11-day, 12-game swing to the West Coast, Houk
advised his charges prior to the first stop, in Minnesota, not to
turn their watches back.

"East and sleep like you do in New York," he
told them.

The team maintained "Eastern time" in
Minnesota and won three straight, then made their way to Wrigley
Field in Los Angeles. It was a bandbox of a park and the big Yankee
sluggers figured to feast on the Angels' expansion-quality pitching
and short porches. But the club ran into something else in Los
Angeles, and it would continue to hold them back in successive
years in L.A. They were "Johnny Grant parties."

Johnny Grant was the "unofficial Mayor of
Hollywood," a local celebrity who presided over ribbon-cutting
ceremonies, the hand-printing on cement of movie heroes, and the
famed naming of stars on Hollywood Boulevard. He also threw wild
shindigs at his plush home in the Hollywood Hills.

The New York Yankees were as big as they
come, in the sports world or any other world. The arrival of Mickey
Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and company was tantamount to the
arrival of Presidents, astronauts, religious leaders, or any other
kind of superstar. They were especially big deals in those early
days. The Yankees had been to Los Angeles on numerous occasions
during Spring Training, when they would play exhibitions against
PCL clubs or coach Rod Dedeaux's USC Trojans. But in 1961 they came
out to play for real.

Grant invited the entire team to his place,
promising to have his swimming pool stocked with bathing beauties
and starlets. Mantle, who loved to party and had a real eye for the
chicks, took to Johnny Grant parties with great fervor. Of course,
where Mickey went, so too did his teammates. As a result, the
Yankees were hungover whenever they played the Angels; much to
Houk's consternation. In 1961, most of the Angels' pitching staff
could not contain them, drowning in alcohol or not. But in 1962,
the Angels would move to Dodger Stadium and feature a rookie
sensation named Dean Chance. The Dodger Stadium location made the
young Angels more prominent and therefore helped make the Johnny
Grant parties even more special. Chance's offerings would be
especially hard to deal with the day after those parties.