Friday, December 10, 2010
Hall of Fame pitcher born 30,000 days ago . . .
Posted by Chris JaffeHappy "anniversary" (of a sorts) to Yankees legend Whitey Ford. Today marks 30,000 days since his birth.
By and large, Yankee legends don't live that long. Ford is 82 years and almost two months.
He's seventh all-time in franchise WAR, with 55.3. Ahead of him are only two men who lived longer lives than Ford has so far: Joe DiMaggio (died at age 84), and Yogi Berra (still going strong at age 85). The others include Babe Ruth, who died at age 53; Mickey Mantle, who passed on shy of his 64th birthday; Lou Gehrig - who of course died of Lou Gehrig's disease before his 40th birthday, and Derek Jeter, who is still playing.
Here's an all-time Yankees team for their still-living legends (determined solely by WAR as a Yankee):
C: Yogi Berra
1B: Don Mattingly
2B: Willie Randolph
SS: Derek Jeter
3B: Alex Rodriguez
RF: Rickey Henderson
CF: Bernie Williams
LF: Roy White
DH: Jorge Posada
SP: Whitey Ford
SP: Ron Guidry
SP: Andy Pettitte
SP: Mel Stottlemyre
SP: Mike Mussina
CL: Mariano Rivera
RP: Dave Righetti
RP: Rich Gossage
RP: Sparky Lyle
Manager: Joe Torre
Yeah, that's right : The team got two catchers before any other slot, which is why Posada is in at DH. A-Rod narrowly beats Graig Nettles at third, 40.9 WAR to 40.6 WAR.
I know Rickey didn't play right, but he tops any living right fielder for the Yanks. By WAR, Henderson is still the weakest part of the order. Beyond him, you have to go to Dave Winfield for a true Yankees right fielder.
At any rate, happy 30,000-day to Whitey Ford. I hope he'll enjoy it. Odds on anyone making it to 40,000 are rather slim.
Take a bow, Whitey.
History instructor by day, statnerd by night, Chris Jaffe leads one of the most exciting double lives imaginable; with the exception of every other double life possible to imagine. Despite his lack of comic-book-hero-worthiness, Chris enjoys farting around with this stuff. His new book, Evaluating Baseball's Managers is available for order. Chris welcomes responses to his articles via e-mail. Oh, and now he's on twitter.
That’s some bullpen!
Might be fun to do similar lists for other teams.