Whitey Ford, Pitcher Who Epitomized Mighty Yankees, Dies at 91
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/whitey-ford-91-pitcher-who-epitomized-mighty-yankees-dies/2661047/
@EasyAce
@Gefn Not too long ago, Ford and the late Yogi Berra attended a Yankee Old-Timers Day and, during the ceremonies, the video board flashed tributes to former Yankees who'd passed away that year thus far. Yogi turned to Whitey and said, "Boy, I hope I never see my name up there!"
Ford also spent as much of his career cleaning up after his bestie Mickey Mantle's messes as he did pitching for eleven pennant winners and six world champions.
Like Mantle, Ford was a pretty good practical joker. The two once collaborated on a gag the victims of which were young infielders Joe Pepitone and Phil Linz. In Detroit, Ford told the pair they'd arrived, they were ready to party with the big boys. He told them to dress to the nines, take a cab to a club called the Flame, and ask for Whitey Ford's table.
The Flame was actually once a legendary rhythm and blues club in Detroit. By 1963, alas, the Flame was long gone and the place was a ramshackle wreck. Pepitone and Linz found out the hard way after they followed Ford's instructions, hailed their cab, and discovered . . . a ramshackle wreck with nothing left inside but maybe a couple of toasted tables. No Ford, no Mantle, no dinner.
Jim Bouton revealed in
Ball Four that Ford also had the habit of taking care of the Yankees' relief pitchers by setting up a table in the pen with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth, loaves of Italian bread, and assorted cold cuts and condiments. "Whitey Ford," Bouton wrote, "had style." A few weeks later, though, Bouton had to record this: "Hot flash! Whitey Ford's Italian restaurant has been topped by the Baltimore bullpen---wienie roasts!"
He also had a brain on the mound to make his assortment of junk balls into lethal weapons. Even if you didn't root for the Yankees, and I sure as hell didn't, you came to love and respect individual Yankees. Whitey Ford was one of them.
RIP, Chairman of the Board.