Ford, pitcher who epitomized mighty Yankees, dies at 91
NEW YORK >> Whitey Ford, the street-smart New Yorker who had the best winning percentage of any pitcher in the 20th century and helped the Yankees become baseball’s perennial champions in the 1950s and ‘60s, has died. He was 91.
A family member told The Associated Press on Friday that Ford died at his Long Island home Thursday night.
Ford had suffered from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease in recent years.
Nicknamed “The Chairman of the Board,” Ford was a wily left-hander who pitched from 1950-67 in the major leagues, all with the Yankees. He was among the most dependable pitchers in baseball history.
He won 236 games and lost just 106, a winning percentage of .690. He would help symbolize the almost machinelike efficiency of the Yankees in the mid-20th century, when only twice between Ford’s rookie year and 1964 did they fail to make the postseason.
“Whitey earned his status as the ace of some of the most memorable teams in our sport’s rich history,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “Beyond the Chairman of the Board’s excellence on the mound, he was a distinguished ambassador for our national pastime throughout his life.”
Ford’s death is the latest this year of a number of baseball greats: Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock and Bob Gibson.
Ford’s death occurred in a month when he for so long soared on baseball’s biggest stage, and hours before his Yankees played Tampa Bay in a decisive Game 5 of the AL Division Series.
“He would have been the starting pitcher in this
game for the Yankees in years past,” former teammate and World Series MVP Bobby Richardson told The Associated Press.
The World Series record book is crowded with Ford’s accomplishments. His string of 33 consecutive scoreless innings from 196062 broke a record of 29 2/3 innings set by Babe Ruth. Ford still holds records for World Series games and starts (22), innings pitched (146), wins (10) and strikeouts (94).
Ford was in his mid-20s when he became the go-to guy in manager Casey Stengel’s rotation, the pitcher Stengel said he would always turn to if he absolutely needed to win one game. Ford was Stengel’s choice to pitch World Series openers eight times, another record.
Ford’s best seasons came in 1961 and 1963, in the midst of a stretch of five straight AL pennants for
the Yankees, when new manager Ralph Houk began using a four-man rotation instead of five. Ford led the league in victories with 25 in 1961, won the Cy Young Award and was the World Series MVP after winning two more games against Cincinnati. In 1963, he went 24-7, again leading the league in wins. Eight of his victories that season came in June.
He also led the AL in earned run average in 1956 (2.47) and 1958 (2.01) and was a six-time All-Star selection.
Ford did have his World Series disappointments. He spoke bitterly of the 1960 championship, when he shut out Pittsburgh twice but was used by Stengel in Game 3 and Game 6 and so was unavailable for the finale, won 10-9 by the Pirates on Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth. In 1963, Ford was
outmatched twice by Sandy Koufax as the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Yankees.
Unlike Koufax, Ford was not an overpowering pitcher. Instead he depended on guile and guts, rarely giving hitters the same look on consecutive pitches. He’d throw overhand sometimes, three-quarters other times, mixing curves and sliders in with his fastball and changeup.
Ford would also acknowledge using some special methods to add movement to his pitches, including saliva, mud and dirt and cutting the ball with a ring.
“If there are some pitchers doing it and getting away with it, that’s fine by me,” Ford told sports writer Phil Pepe, in 1987. “If it were me and I needed to cheat to be able to throw the good stuff that would keep me in the major leagues at a salary of about $800,000 a year, I’d do whatever I had to do.”