A Yankee fan with a Texas Drawl

Whitey Ford, who died Friday at age 91, played a pivotal role in my life. My life was changed forever in a Central Texas peanut field when I heard his name for the first time.

Whitey, the Hall of Famer and greatest pitcher in New York Yankee history, is the answer to a Red Sox fan’s question in spring training in Tampa a few years ago. I was at Steinbrenner Field before a Yankees-Red Sox death match spring training game when a guy with a thick Boston accent asked me : how did somebody who sounds like you become a Yankee fan?

Whitey Ford is the reason a kid raised with a strong Texas accent became a fan of a team in the Bronx, NY. Whitey, a native of Queens, NY, grew up a Yankee fan and became their “Chairman of the Board” on the pitching mound. When he spoke, he sounded like a Yankee fan should.

Whitey and the Yankees were the biggest thing my dad and I had in common. My dad had a Central West Texas accent that grew on me as well along with an allegiance to the Bronx Bombers.

I have memories of my dad watching the Yankees against the Milwaukee Braves in the World Series when I was about five and he was upset when they lost to the Pittsburgh in the series that had just happened a month before.

I was seven years old in 1960 and following my dad, brother-in-law Henry Teague, and Uncle Buddy Witten on a quail hunt along with my cousins, Little Sidney and Travis (Buck) Witten. Sid wasn’t small for his age, but we had already had a Grandpa Sid and a “Red Headed Sidney” in the family and so “Little” was how he was distinguished. Travis was called “Buck” because at three years old he could charge head down into a wall and come off with a draw. I was always in awe of Buck, who was about a month older than I.

Sid was two years older than Buck and I and had a new .410 shotgun. I don’t remember if he still had possession of the gun during the hunt as this may have been the time he shot the floorboard out of my Dad’s new Chevrolet Impala.

I believe the .410 was locked in the trunk, but Sid may can clear up the mystery. Sid is the only other surviving member of the hunting party. I am sure he will affirm he was sure the .410s safety was on even sixty years later. I do remember my dad, who had an advanced degree in cussing, saying a few words to Uncle Buddy about a nine-year-old being armed.

Sid, Buck and I were tagging along with the quail hunters, staying out of the way and quiet as our lives depended on our silent compliance. The men were discussing baseball, probably because my dad was still angry at how the Yankees had blown the series to the Pirates on Bill Mazeroski’s home run. At one point, I heard my dad say the phrase that would change my life.

“If I had to win one game, I’d take Whitey Ford and you can have the rest of baseball,” my Dad said.

Whitey Ford? Who was Whitey Ford? What a great name! I had to find out about this Whitey guy!

I discovered through asking my mom Whitey Ford was a baseball player. I had known about baseball peripherally, but his was the first baseball player’s name I learned. She explained he played for the Yankees and they were my Dad’s team.

There were no baseball teams in Texas in 1960 and so the Yankees became my team also. When the 1961 season rolled around, I started following the Yankees and collecting baseball cards.

Of course, 1961 was likely the greatest season in Yankees history with an argument that could be made by 1927’s “Murderer’s Row”. Whitey Ford won 25 games and the Cy Young Award and pitched to 32 consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series. But the 1961 season belonged to the “M” boys, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, and their chase for Babe Ruth’s record. If Whitey was my first love, I cheated on him and eventually left him for Mickey.

The “Mick”, an Oklahoman, talked like me and was the hero of my boyhood, but I owed the introduction to my Dad and Whitey.

I saw Mickey and Whitey in 1967 when my parents took me to see the Yankees visit the Houston Astros in the Astrodome in preseason. It was Whitey’s last year before a circulatory ailment forced him to retire and Mickey was literally on his last legs, which were wrapped before every game like a mummy.

Still, it was a thrill to see them in person as I had only seen them on television. In a way, I got to say goodbye and thanks for the memories.

I grew up and remained loyal to the Yankees, never embracing Texas teams, through decades of thin and thick and then thin again in the mid-60s to mid-90s and into the gloriously thick of the late 90s. The last 20 years have only seen one World Championship in 2009. The Yankees only count World Championships, so we have spent another decade in the wilderness.

When I heard of Whitey’s death on Friday, I was of course saddened, but in another way excited because the Yankees were going into a fifth and deciding game with the Tampa Bay Rays that night. They had clawed back in game 4 to set up the decider and had their $324 million dollar ace, Gerrit Cole, on the mound. Cole is the successor to Whitey Ford’s legacy and was pitching on three day’s rest. The Yanks put Ford’s #16 on their sleeves, and I was hoping some of his New York state of mind confidence might bleed through before he headed to the great Cooperstown in the sky.

Mariano Rivera is now in the Hall of Fame with Whitey though even at his age I think we might still be better off than we have been with Aroldis Chapman closing games. Chapman has given up season ending homers each of the last two years. We may can excuse the Jose Altuve homer depending on what the little guy had around his neck and what he knew at the time of the swing. But Mike Rousseau’s homer was the purest sense of Karma and payback. You almost saw the script being followed to fruition as he fouled off 100 mile per hour fastballs before depositing one over the fence.

Luke Voit, the Yankee’s first baseman, made a statement last week that “nobody seems to be afraid of the Yankees anymore.” I think he may be onto something as the Tampa Bay Rays certainly were not. I cannot accuse them of cheating either, the Rays won fair and square and have been the better team all season on about a quarter of the payroll.

There used to be talk back in the ‘90s about the Yankee ghosts coming out when the team needed them most. The ghosts didn’t make an appearance this season. Some have said the ghosts got lost when the old stadium was torn down and they are still haunting the softball fields that stand on the site.

Whitey Ford is now one of the ghosts and nobody ever represented the supreme confidence of the New York Yankees better than The Chairman of the Board. Hopefully, he will rally the ghosts and bring them home to the new Yankee stadium. Whitey Ford was simply a winner and the Yankees need help payroll can’t buy.

In the last few weeks, baseball has lost three Hall of Fame pitchers, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson and now Whitey Ford. In all metrics, both physical and analytical, Whitey is probably in third place in St. Peter’s lineup. But, in lifetime Earned Run Average, Whitey’s 2.75 was the best of the three. And he did that without the fastball of the other two and at a stature that makes people wonder if similarly sized Deivi Garcia can remain a starting pitcher.

And for one game, on the Field of Dreams, my dad and I will take Whitey Ford and you can have whoever you want, the rest of the league or baseball history. Whitey gave me baseball and one of the best things I shared with my dad, the New York Yankees.