Yankee4Life

Bob Johnson Because he was born on an Indian reservation, Bob Johnson was considered a ward of the government. He and his older brother Roy Johnson, whose career began in 1929 with the Detroit Tigers, were both born in Pryor, Oklahoma (some 35 miles east of Tulsa) – before Oklahoma became a state. Roy was the eldest of the two, born in 1903. Robert Lee Johnson was born on November 26, 1905. They had six siblings, two other boys and four girls. Their father was also named Robert Lee Johnson; he’d moved to the area from Missouri. Anna B. Downing was half-French, half-Cherokee. Bob came to be widely known as “Indian Bob” Johnson. When he was asked his nationality, Bob replied, “American.” There are different stories suggesting why the family moved to Tacoma, Washington, but move there they did. Both brothers enrolled in Irving School and played sandlot ball. It’s said they attended Tacoma High School, but biographers Patrick J. and Terrence K. McGrath report, “Nobody remembers the boys ever attending high school.” Bob Johnson is listed as batting and throwing right-handed, standing an even six feet tall and weighing 180 pounds. He was an outfielder throughout his 13-year big-league career (three more than his elder brother). Bob hit for more power (288 HR to Roy’s 58, for instance) but, remarkably, both brothers wound up with identical .296 averages. If they really wanted to get down to it, though, Roy could lord it over his brother just a bit in batting average: Roy hit .2963982 and Bob came in second with .2963872. Bob held a very significant edge, being named seven times to the American League All-Star team. Roy was never so honored. Bob had been playing some semipro ball in Glendale, California, and he took a position as a firefighter serving in the ladder company as a pump engineer. Both he and Roy had played for the Miner Bldg. Co. team in Los Angeles, Roy as a pitcher and Bob at shortstop. They won the Industrial League pennant in 1925. In 1931, he told sportswriters in Philadelphia, “I’d probably be chief of my company by now if that brother of mine, Roy, hadn’t kidded himself that he was a ball player. I was always better than Roy. When he stuck with Detroit, I knew I was good enough for the big leagues. That’s why I’m here.” Roy’s ragging on his brother may have blurred the timeline a little. Roy’s first year with the Tigers was in 1929, the same year Bob began his career with Portland in the Pacific Coast League. But Roy had been playing baseball for pay for several years, though one could say he started his own full time career the year before, with the San Francisco Seals. Roy wowed followers of the game that year, hitting .360 with 22 homers, and making the Pacific Coast League All-Star team. The Detroit Tigers paid the Seals $75,000 for him. As one of the highest amounts ever paid for a player, it made headlines and certainly showed Bob Johnson there might be more lucrative opportunities for him than firefighting, particular if he did indeed believe he was a better player than his brother. Henry P. Edwards of the American League Service Bureau quoted Bob: “By all the gods of the Cherokee, if Brother Roy can get away with it in the big leagues, so can I.” While Roy was due to break in during 1929, Bob continued to play semipro ball. In fact, he’d saved some vacation time and in the spring of 1928 had visited any Coast League training camp he could get to. “He was rejected by every team he approached.” Even after Roy’s $75,000 purchase was so widely publicized, Bob was again “turned down by virtually every club in the circuit. But Lady Luck was riding with Bob this time around. A Wichita (Western League) scout spotted Bob during one of his futile attempts with a Coast League club.” The “scout” in question was Art Griggs, manager of the Wichita Aviators. Griggs had first heard of Johnson from Marty Krug of the Angels, who saw Bob hit five balls over the left-field fence during a workout, but the Angels had too many outfielders at the time and no place to farm out Johnson. Henry Edwards told another story about the tryout for the Angels. He wrote that Bob had shown up in shoes that were too big for him, resulting in his coming across as very awkward and an L.A. writer calling him a “big-footed Swede.” Bob, the Glendale firefighter, later said, “If I knew that writer’s house were burning, I would have let it burn. Me, a big-footed Swede. Me through whose veins the blood of the Cherokee warriors flowed.” Bob signed with Wichita in February 1929. Even with Krug’s recommendation, he had difficulty getting established. Wichita, unimpressed, even loaned him out to the Pueblo club at one point. At Pueblo, “they decided someone had pulled a fast one of them and they sent me back. The Wichita manager grunted and made room for me on the bench. Then the regular center fielder [Forrest Jensen] broke an ankle and I was placed out there. Suddenly, I began to hit and after that they couldn’t get me out. Portland bought me.” They could have signed him a few months earlier. Now it cost Portland $12,500. He had begun to hit for sure. The Chicago Tribune says he had hit 16 homers in three weeks. In all he hit .273 with those 16 homers for Wichita. It took him a while to get going with the higher-classification Portland, but in 81 games he hit a respectable .254 with five more homers. Portland’s president Tom Turner predicted, “You’ll hear from this fellow in the majors in another season, or so.” It was three seasons later. Bob Johnson played 1930 through 1932 for Portland. In 1930, he hit .265 in 157 games but showed some power, with 21 home runs, though he was inconsistent and a little streaky. After the 1930 season, the Philadelphia Athletics purchased his contract on November 10. He’d been personally recommended to Connie Mack by Athletics VP John D. Shibe, who’d been particularly impressed with his fielding. He kept in shape playing winter ball with the Shell Oil team in Los Angeles. Bob had a very good spring training at Fort Myers with the Athletics, but it was a tough outfield to crack. The absence of Al Simmons, holding out, gave Bob an opening. Bob even played in the city series with the Phillies in April, and Mack had decided to keep him. But at the last minute, Simmons signed, and Mack optioned Johnson back to Portland, admitting he’d changed his mind. In the 1931 season, Johnson hit .337 with 22 home runs for Portland despite being moved around in the field. He played every infield position at one time or another, though largely played outfield. The Beavers had been last in 1930 but finished in third place in 1931. The Athletics had won the American League pennant three years in a row, 1929-1931. They’d won the World Series in 1929 and 1930, and took the 1931 Series to Game Seven before falling to the Cardinals. Arguably, they didn’t need Bob Johnson yet, and Mack optioned him to Portland yet again, well before spring training – in December 1931. Johnson was disappointed, and perhaps surprised by Mack being quoted as saying, “Johnson still does not hit the curve ball well enough.” The McGraths suggest that there were “whispers throughout the league about Roy Johnson’s flirtation with firewater [and that in spring training 1931 there had been] reports of Bob roaming the streets of Fort Myers chanting war whoops into the small wee hours of the morning.” It took another year before Bob could make the Athletics. He hit .330 in 149 games for Portland, with 29 home runs, and the Beavers won the Pacific Coast League pennant. Johnson was pretty much a lock for 1933, and if there was any doubt he may have secured it with back-to-back games against the Dodgers in late March exhibition play in which he cracked four doubles and a home run, and drove in six. He debuted with Philadelphia on April 12, collecting his first base hit, a double, on a 1-for-4 day. He got one or more hits, including his first home run, in each of his first 19 games, save one (and in that one, he drove in a run). He was batting .348 with 18 RBIs after his first 20 games. That made an impression. It was less than two weeks into the season when the two brothers – Bob and Roy – first faced each other in major-league play on April 23, 1933 when the Athletics visited Fenway Park. Bob played right field for Philadelphia and batted fifth in the order, following Jimmie Foxx. He was 0-for-5 on the day, batting against an unrelated Johnson, Red Sox pitcher Hank. Roy Johnson batted second for the Red Sox, playing center field. He had a 2-for-5 day, with one RBI and one run scored. He committed two errors. The Red Sox won. Both Johnsons had two RBIs the next day, with Roy enjoying another 3-for-5 day, and Bob settling for a double and three runs scored. (Jimmie Foxx overshadowed them both; he drove in seven runs with three doubles and a homer; the Athletics held on to win, 12-11.) There were numerous other times in the four seasons they both played American League ball when both brothers played in the same game, but being on opposing teams didn’t affect their closeness. The two often spent time together in the offseason hunting and fishing. They never played for the same team at the same time, but after the June 17, 1933, doubleheader in Boston, the two teams shared the same train west — the Red Sox heading to Cleveland and the Athletics to Detroit. Bob played right field in April, then switched over and played left field from that point forward. He had a .952 fielding percentage and recorded 16 assists. At the plate, he drove in 93 runs and scored 103; his batting average was .290. In his third year – 1935 – he was named to the All-Star team for the first time. As late as June 8, he was still batting over .400. From June 10 on, he hit at a .259 pace, ceding first place on the 26th and winding up with a .299 average, but he drove in 109 runs. He was a legitimate slugger. Each of his first three seasons, he ranked third in the league in home runs. Presumably, he earned a nice bonus. He had argued for more money after his exceptional second season, but Connie Mack was apparently still concerned that Johnson could get a little too rowdy. One Philadelphia headline read, “Bob Johnson Learns He Will Get Bonus If He Conducts Himself Beyond Reproach.” In 1936, when he seemed prepared to hold out yet again, he told newspapers that he wanted $12,000 for the year, and that he’d gotten $2,500 the year before by holding out (perhaps not the wisest thing to say.) Matters were worked out quickly and he joined the team for spring training. Contrary to the prior years, Johnson got off to a slow start in 1936 and didn’t approach .300 until late June. His wife had a serious illness that required hospitalization, and it had been weighing on his mind. By season’s end, he hit .292. There was a stretch in mid-July where he played 22 games at second base (and turned 20 double plays), but otherwise he was in his accustomed left field. At the plate, he drove in a career-best 121 runs. The Athletics had slipped badly; they finished in last place. Johnson’s 25 homers were more than double anyone else on the team. In 1937, six of the 108 runs he batted in all came in one inning, an American League record at the time. It was in the first inning of the first game on August 29 against the White Sox at Chicago, and accounted for half of the 12 runs the Athletics put on the board before the White Sox ever got to bat. He drove in two with a single his first time up and hit a grand slam the next time up. Johnson drove in another run later in the game. The final score was 16-0. Another run he drove in that year had been the June 30 fifth-inning homer he hit off the Yankees’ Lefty Gomez, the only hit of the game off Gomez. In terms of runs batted in, one would be hard-pressed to find someone with more consistent production over the seven-year stretch from 1935 through 1941: 109, 121, 108, 113, 114, 103, 107. By 1938, it was safe to say that Johnson had become Connie Mack’s franchise player. Many of the others – Foxx, Lefty Grove, and more – Mack had sold off, mostly to Tom Yawkey of the Red Sox. The Athletics held a “Bob Johnson Day” on September 17, 1939. Bob was 3-for-7 on the day. In ceremonies, he was presented “a set of silver, two bird dogs, and numerous gifts.” Mack continued to sell off players when he had to, but he always held back Bob Johnson. In preparing for the winter meetings in December 1939, for instance, he declared that the whole team was “on the auction block,” except for catcher Frankie Hayes and Bob Johnson. Johnson had been an All-Star once again in 1939, and this time maintained his hitting throughout the full year, ending with a .338 batting average, best of his career, topped only by Joe DiMaggio and Jimmie Foxx. His 114 RBIs also placed him third; only Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio drove in more. The Athletics were a seventh-place team in 1939, but Bob Johnson placed eighth in the MVP balloting. Before the 1940 season, Mack took the unusual step of signing Johnson to a two-year contract. Johnson had a mixed year in 1940; with a bad ankle, his average dropped to its lowest, .268, but he hit 31 home runs, drove in 103 runs, and played well in the field. The team finished in last place again. For a while, heading into August 1941, it looked like the Athletics might get out of the cellar; they were in fourth place as late as August 3. Bob Johnson drove in 107, homered 22 times, and improved his average, though only slightly, to .275. Bob was not likely to be called to military service in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. He was 35, married, and with two children. Fellow outfielder Wally Moses was no longer with the team, though, traded to the White Sox. The McGraths write, “One player who would definitely miss Moses was none other than Bob Johnson. It was no coincidence that with the arrival of Wally, Bob started his consecutive 100 RBI streak, and it would be no mere happenstance that with the departure of Moses, Bob’s streak would come to an end. Wally was one of the few guys at the top of the order who proved to be of great assistance to Indian Bob.” He hit .291 but drove in only 80 (the entire team drove in 517) and homered 13 times (no one else homered more than five times.) Johnson had one of his best years on defense, with a .990 fielding percentage and 17 outfield assists. After the season, and before September was over, Johnson announced that he would not play again for the Athletics. There was a bitter disagreement between him and Connie Mack over the second threshold of the attendance bonus Johnson believed he should have received, based on the announced attendance for the season. “Mack held to his position that the attendance figures announced daily had been inflated,” and that they had actually drawn more than 116,000 fewer (or more than 20% less than announced.) Naturally, Johnson was suspicious and felt aggrieved. He said he would work in a shipyard instead. At least one headline in November read, “A’s Want To Get Rid of Bob.” Mack announced that Johnson was available. Spring training started later in 1943, and the two were still at loggerheads, neither willing to bend. The day pitchers and catchers were due to report was March 21 and on that day, Mack traded Johnson to the Washington Senators for outfielder Bobby Estalella, infielder Jimmy Pofahl, and that ever-helpful commodity, cash. The McGraths say that not only did Mack deny Johnson the $2,500 bonus but he offered him $4,000 less in base salary for 1943 and did away with attendance bonuses completely. They also say that “Mack’s pique got in the way of his judgment” and he had turned down better offers that had been available earlier. Red Smith wrote, “The Athletics lost the finest ball player they have had since championship days.” Naturally, Johnson wanted to do well against his former team. He didn’t have a very good year overall. He got into 117 games (his previous low was 138) and hit a career-low .265 for the year, with only 63 RBIs, also the fewest of any year to date. Of the 63 RBIs, 19 of them were against the Athletics, far more than against any other team. His batting average was .320 against the Athletics; only the .306 he hit against the Red Sox exceeded .300. And he hit only seven home runs all year long, attributable perhaps to the softer “balata ball” used during World War II to help conserve rubber for the war effort. (The entire Washington team hit 47 home runs in 1943, and yet finished in second place.) Despite his offensive stats being much lower than other years, the baseball writers noted his importance to the second-place Senators and voted Bob Johnson fifth place in league MVP voting. It was the highest he ever placed. The Boston Red Sox offered cash and bought Johnson from Washington on December 4, reportedly for $10,000. He played his next two seasons for the team that had once employed his brother Roy. Burt Whitman of the Boston Herald wrote, “Johnson’s no paragon. In fact, he’s earned himself quite a rep with the old fire-water, second only to that enjoyed by brother Roy.” Whitman also reported that Bob had never had a run-in with Washington manager Ossie Bluege. Johnson played left field for the Red Sox and had a very good year. He hit .324, and his .431 on-base percentage led the American League. He hit for the cycle on June 6 in Detroit. Johnson drove in 106 runs, the eighth time he’d exceeded 100 RBIs. He was named to the All-Star team, and placed 10th for MVP. The Red Sox made a legitimate run for the pennant, but when September arrived (and Bobby Doerr and a couple of others left for military service), they slid back to fourth place, solidified by a 10-game losing streak. He came close to perishing on his way to spring training in 1945. He traveled across country from Oregon to Philadelphia, then caught a connecting train to Atlantic City, near where the Red Sox were holding spring training. The train was packed and there was no room to sit, but it was only an hour’s ride so he stood in between two cars, one foot on each side of the gap. Somehow the cars became uncoupled and he “found himself doing a split” but held onto one of the railings and pulled himself onto that car. Johnson’s last year in the majors was 1945, and his .280 average cost him the chance to finish with a career average over .300. He finished at .296. He added another 72 runs batted in, and 12 more homers boosted his career total to 288. Two days after Christmas, knowing that most of their prewar team – Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, etc. – would be rejoining them for the 1946 season, the Red Sox released Bob Johnson. On July 26, he had passed the 2,000-hit mark and he finished with 2,051 base hits. He realized he might have put up even higher totals on offense if he had played on better teams. “When you’re playing for a weak team, it’s a lot tougher…Just for my own satisfaction, I would have liked to have been playing for the Yankees when they were good. Pitchers couldn’t have afforded to concentrate on me – they would have been busy worrying about other guys in the lineup. Besides, when you’re with a winning team, you can’t help but be a better ball player.” Hall of Famer Bucky Harris agreed: “That guy should have led the league both in hitting and runs batted in. But with the Athletics there was rarely anybody on base to drive home, and because there was nobody behind him in the lineup with any batting power, Bob had to keep hitting at bad balls.” Only three times did he play for a team that finished above .500. He wasn’t ready to hang up his playing career, however. Apparently, more than one big-league team made him an offer, but the American Association’s Milwaukee Brewers offered $10,000, outbidding them all. He got off to a good start, but injured his leg on July 3, toughed it out but felt he was adding nothing to the team, and decided to quit on July 31. He’d been in 94 games, batting .270 at the end. Johnson came back in 1947, playing for the Seattle Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League. He hit .295 in 130 games, though with only seven home runs. The team released him on September 30 and it looked as though his time in baseball may be done. But on July 14, 1948, a need developed and the Rainiers added him to their roster. He got into 83 games and hit .283. In 1949 he was presented the managerial opportunity he had sought, with the Tacoma Tigers of the Class-B Western International League. He didn’t have the strongest personnel. The best player on the team was himself, and he assigned himself to play wherever needed – six positions in May alone, including pitching. It wasn’t just a stunt. He actually pitched 99 innings in 27 games, with a 5-7 record but a telltale 7.00 earned run average. On September 4, the team held a Bob Johnson Day in Tacoma. In December, Jim Brillheart was named manager for 1950. For years, Johnson had run a tavern in Tacoma. He had been driving an oil truck from the late 1940s, making fuel deliveries to homes in the area. Bob played City League ball in Tacoma for a few years, and played games against the maximum security prison team on McNiel Island all the way until 1967. After working for the oil company, he began driving for the George Scofield Company, which dealt in ready-mix concrete, sand, and gravel. Lastly, he worked driving a beer truck for the Heidelberg Brewery and as a worker in the Carling Brewery Co. bottling plant. Bob Johnson was later named to the Pierce County Hall of Fame and the Washington State Hall of Fame. None other than Ted Williams once spoke, in 1975, about Bob’s accomplishment with the Philadelphia Athletics: “Bob drove in over one hundred runs in seven of his first nine seasons with that rag-tag outfit. There weren’t that many runners on base than that when he came to the plate in those years, let alone guys in scoring position.” In total, Johnson compiled a .296 career batting average with 2,051 hits, 396 doubles, 95 triples and 96 stolen bases in 1,863 games. His 1,592 games in left field then put him behind only Goose Goslin (1,949) and Bobby Veach (1,671) in AL history.

10 out of 10, 30 seconds. Not bad, not bad at all. Now if I can get Jim to go back and visit Europe.... 😄 Unbelievable!!!! 24 seconds. Wow!!! Great job Jim. That is the best time that anyone has ever got in this game.

10 out of 10, 59 seconds. This is a surprise for me. It is my first ten out of ten on either a Tuesday or a Thursday, my most difficult days.

6 out of 10, 79 seconds. By the skin of my teeth I got six right and I don't know how.

4 out of 10, 61 seconds. Five soccer questions. What the hell? Oh, and I was 0 for 5.

8 out of 10 , 65 seconds. The two I missed I deserved to. I had no idea at all.

10 out of 10, 33 seconds. Another decent day. I have to take advantage of it because Tuesday and Thursday are waiting to tear me apart with soccer questions. I hope you had a wonderful time! I've never been to Europe.

Are you still in Europe Jim?

10 out of 10, 41 seconds. Slight hesitation because of the way a question was worded but not bad if I don't count that.

Thank you. It only took four years! 😄

10 out of 10, 29 seconds. Finally under 30 seconds!

4 out of 10, 76 seconds. Ouch. The only way I end up in first place today is if nobody else plays. 🙂

This guy is not me but I agree with him. He's actually a professional comedian.

7 out of 10, 77 seconds. Like Sabugo I got too many baseball card questions today but by blind luck I got one of them right.

What the hell? Tell her you need at least one minute a day to yourself. 👍

Same here. I wonder what is going on in Muller's game?

8 out of 10, 48 seconds. Very, very lucky especially for a Tuesday.

8 out of 10, 65 seconds. Two questions I should have known. 😬

9 out of 10, 46 seconds. A bad day all around.

7 out of 10, 59 seconds. Exactly the same as Jim!

Aaron Boone’s Fenway Park decisions come with much bigger Yankees consequences By Larry Brooks, New York Post Yankees manager Aaron Boone walks off the field. Sometimes the Yankees can be the stick, just as they were while taking two out of three from Houston and Toronto in consecutive series the first week of the month. But the Yankees can also be the piñata, just as they were in The Bronx in dropping 12-2 and 11-1 games to Detroit on consecutive nights this week when the bullpen became combustible leading into Thursday’s series finale. The Yankees had Cam Schlittler on the mound against the Tigers with José Caballero at shortstop for the second straight game, Aaron Judge in right field, Giancarlo Stanton at DH, Austin Slater in left field, Cody Bellinger in center, Ben Rice behind the plate, Paul Goldschmidt at first base after sitting for three of the previous four, and both Austin Wells and Trent Grisham on the bench. These were choices. But more interesting will be the lineups manager Aaron Boone prescribes for the three-game series at Fenway Park against the Red Sox that starts Friday night. This is the series in which the Yankees and Boston will fight for home-field advantage in what is shaping up to be the best-of-three, first-round playoff series that would be played entirely in the higher seed’s ballpark. The Yankees entered Thursday’s game in a virtual tie with Boston with a one-game lead in the loss column and percentage points lead of .001 while trailing first-place Toronto by 3 ¹/₂ games with 17 games remaining and leading the third wild card Seattle by 2 ¹/₂. It is possible things could change but not all that likely. Does home field matter? The Yankees entered Thursday 43-31 at home and 37-34 on the road. The Sox, who were idle, are 44-28 at Fenway and 37-38 on the road. The Yankees are 0-3 in Boston thus far while finishing 2-5 at the Stadium. Yankees first baseman Ben Rice flips the ball after fielding a grounder hit by Tigers designated hitter Kerry Carpenter. Schlittler, who was rocked his last time out against Toronto in which the 24-year-old right-hander surrendered four runs on five hits in 1 ²/₃ innings, is auditioning for a spot in the postseason rotation. Slater, in his third game back after sustaining a pulled hamstring in early August, is also vying for a spot. By the way, a year ago the most pressing issue in Pinstripe World was whether Alex Verdugo or Jasson Domínguez should get the start in left field. Verdugo, a one-and-done Yankee, started all 14 postseason games. Domínguez got into three, all as a pinch-runner. He did not get an at-bat. The 22-year-old switch-hitter — once the Next Great Hope — is a long shot to even be in the conversation about the postseason roster this time around. Domínguez has started just two of the last 15 games, amassing only nine at-bats in that span. He is slashing .257/.329/.389 with 10 homers and 46 RBI while being a defensive deficiency. Something unforeseen would have to intervene to make Domínguez a lineup option for the postseason. Anthony Volpe reacts after he strikes out swinging during a game against the Blue Jays. There are choices for the rotation, where Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and Luis Gil are in the post positions. There are going to be choices for the outfield, where Aaron Judge patrolled right field Thursday for the first time in six games. There is going to be a choice whether Rice is on first base or catches that will obviously impact Wells’ and Goldschmidt’s playing time. And there is going to be a choice at shortstop that might have become even more complicated with the news that colleague Joel Sherman broke in The Post on Thursday afternoon that Anthony Volpe had received a cortisone shot Wednesday after aggravating a left shoulder issue Sunday that he had been dealing with since the first days of May. This was apparently the second cortisone shot of the season for Volpe after the Yankees volunteered that he took one over the All-Star break, which he responded to splendidly with a two-week stretch in which he slashed .280/.315/.720 with a 1.035 OPS and seven home runs over 14 games. Contrast that to the season’s .206/.268/.383 that is one of baseball’s worst with defensive metrics that are toward the bottom of the league. Operating with a partially torn labrum might go a long way to explaining the 24-year-old Volpe’s crash dive to the bottom. But no, and not at all, for Boone insisted that this issue has had almost no impact on Volpe’s season. Players play hurt all the time. Players succeed while playing hurt. This particular one has not. Boone refused to provide a cover for Volpe. The words were interesting. The manager’s decisions going forward will be more interesting. We’ll see if the manager still perceives Volpe as his best option in the postseason. We’ll see if Volpe regains his starting role and maintains it through the playoffs. We’ll see if he responds to this injection as he did the first one. Boone said that Volpe was unavailable for Thursday because of the injection, but that he should be in play “in some way” for the weekend. “Day by day,” said Boone. We’ll see.

10 out of 10, 35 seconds. Very good but I think you guys once again are going to zoom right past it!

4 out of 10, 68 seconds. I'm happy I got this many right. I had two questions about something called Euro 2004. I don't know what that is and I don't want to. On to Friday!

Book Review: The Yankee Way by Andy Martino This book was a very aggravating book to read. No, now that I think about it that is not the right way I would describe it. I should've said it was very disappointing to read and this opinion had nothing to do with the author who wrote it or how he presented it. I think that Andy Martino told a very interesting story that turned into a page turner for me. The Yankees themselves made it a very disappointing book because the author showed how they screwed up a good thing. Gene Michael had an outstanding eye for talent and when he was actually able to do his job because of George Steinbrenner's interference he may have been the best in the game. Because of Steinbrenner's suspension thirty-five years ago Michael was able to implement his ideas and before long the last place Yankees of 1990 became the best team in the American League in the strike shortened season of 1994. And we all know what they did after that. The Yankees were fortunate to have a man named Bill Livesey, who was the Yankees' scouting director from 1991 to 1996 and he was instrumental in assembling the "Core Four" that led the Yankees to their dynasty in the late 90's. In other words someone who knew what he was doing. What I didn't understand is the Yankee viewpoint that they could never go back to how it was in the late 1990s. They made it sound as far back as the 1950s. Change of course is inevitable and if you stay in one place you will see everything go past you. Steinbrenner gave Cashman full control in 2005 and that is when analytics really started to take hold of how the Yankees run things. They hired some jackass named Michael Fishman now is in charge of the analytics department for the Yankees. Fishman never played baseball and yet here he is giving advice to the general manager of the New York Yankees. His talent was sitting in front of a computer putting numbers in and telling Cashman what he learned. There is old saying that goes like this. There are lies, damned lies and statistics. In other words you can make a statistic say whatever you want it to mean. Analytics can be helpful but not when you are afraid to go against them like the New York Yankees seem to act. The entire book paints Brian Cashman as the greatest general manager around. I don't know if any Yankee fan would agree to that. Like I said it was a disappointing book because I could see that the Yankees were never going to shy away from analytics and the only thing that will change in the future is that they will depend on even more. A good book. Thanks KC.

Why Anthony Volpe won’t be the Yankees’ first choice shortstop in the playoffs By Joel Sherman, New York Post Anthony Volpe's struggles at the plate and at shortstop have drawn no small share of boobirds. I am not much for predictions. I like sports for many reasons — among the biggest is that as opposed to most of life, we will get resolution on everything, from who wins each game to who earns awards to who captures championships. I don’t like the current sports ecosystem in which folks boldly state — usually they scream, actually —what is going to happen and then boast about the one-in-four they get right. So you know what is coming next, right? I am going to make a prediction. Hopefully, it is borne of history, observation and experience — and also comes with a larger point. I am predicting that Anthony Volpe is going to be Gary Sánchez. You might remember that Sánchez arrived to the Yankees with fanfare and enjoyed terrific early success. The belief was he was more than just a power hitter, but a terrific all-around hitter who used the whole field. Slowly he fell under the organizational spell to pull the ball in the air, and with that came a plummeting batting average and a skyrocketing number of strikeouts. Resemble anyone? Stick with me. Sánchez’s defense also was a problem, and his shortcomings kept showing up at the worst times. Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe’s 19 errors leads the American League this season. But no matter how bad the results became on both sides of the ball, Aaron Boone stuck with a “nothing to see here” approach. In fact, he kept insisting everyone’s eyes were lying, that Sánchez was actually a very good defensive catcher. What we have learned over time, though, when it comes to the Yankees in general and Boone specifically, is to ignore what is said and concentrate fully on what they do. In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Sánchez started 38 regular-season games at catcher and Kyle Higashioka started 13. But then the playoffs rolled around and Higashioka started five of the Yankees’ seven games. In 2021, Sánchez started 100 games at catcher and Higashioka 58. But in their only playoff game that year, Higashioka started. Some of this had to do with Higashioka evolving into Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher, but that evolution was forged out of a diminishing faith in Sánchez. Sánchez was traded after that season as part of an ill-fated deal for Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. It brought new players who were clearly failing, yet Boone insisted were doing great. Of course, then the 2022 playoffs arrived and IKF started just five of nine games at shortstop. Volpe has similarities to Sánchez with a touch of Kiner-Falefa. He arrived to great jubilation from Yankees fans in 2023 and with the reputation as an all-field hitter. But we only have seen that all-field approach in spurts — notably in last year’s postseason, when he hit superbly. Mostly he has followed the organizational mantra for pull power in the air, leading to him opening up and becoming too easy of an out and subject to long cold spells. In the past 20 games before Tuesday night’s series opener against the Tigers, Volpe was hitting .130 (9-for-69) with one walk and 27 strikeouts. Like Sánchez, his game has decayed with each passing year rather than improving. And in every phase: his offense, defense and baserunning. Volpe has stolen one base since Aug. 8. Of course, you can’t steal first, and Volpe’s .269 on-base percentage is the second-worst among qualified hitters. In Sánchez’s final four Yankees regular seasons, totaling 361 games, he had a slashline of .210/.299/.444 and struck out 28.1 percent of the time. In 459 career games, Volpe has a slashline of .207/.269/.396 and has whiffed 25 percent of the time. Sánchez’s defensive miscues and strikeouts brought out the worst of home booing in his time, as Volpe’s does now. Gary Sanchez’s increasing struggles on defense led to his being benched during the playoffs in his final two seasons with the Yankees. Yet, as with Sánchez, Boone talks about Volpe as if he is experiencing minor glitches. But, again, it is not what the Yankees manager says. In the final three weeks of the 2021 season, Boone began playing Higashioka equally to Sánchez and then had Higashioka start the postseason game. We are not there with José Caballero, but — prediction alert — I think we are going to get there. Because at this moment (and perhaps more than just this moment), he is better than Volpe at everything — hitting, field and baserunning. It is not even that close. Watching Caballero play short is a reminder of how un-smooth Volpe is at the position. In this way, he resembles Kiner-Falefa, who never looked like a natural shortstop and notably, like Volpe, mixed frantic movement with unsure handling of the ball and needed to muster full force to throw. Watch Volpe field the ball and see how infrequently he gloves the ball in the pocket. There is no easy part of his shortstop game, no flow. Caballero is smooth. He throws to first effortlessly. Plus, he is a dynamic base-stealer and has hit well as a Yankee. I suspect the more Caballero plays, the more you will see stuff you don’t like. Already, he unforgivably was ejected from two games where his presence was badly needed. That is hot-headed, selfish behavior that does not have the team as the priority. It probably offers a window into why a talented player who is not yet even arbitration-eligible has been traded twice. José Caballero has played shortstop with an ease and confidence the Yankees may need in the postseason. But Boone ultimately gave up on Sánchez in the biggest games because he just became too much of a liability while sucking the air out of the home stadium with his struggles. Volpe has reached that point. Every ground ball is a hold-your-breath-moment. Every two-strike count feels like the inevitable will follow. He feels more and more untenable to hold the position. Higashioka was not a star, but he removed the tension and uncertainty around a discomforting issue. Caballero feels as if he can do the same. At some point, you can’t just hope, pray and delude as a reason why a championship-or-bust team sticks with a second-best choice. That would rise to managerial negligence. So I predict that by the playoffs, Caballero will be the regular shortstop.