1961 Yankees Notes Part Two

Though he had been dead for 13 years (perhaps an unlucky #), 1961 was deemed a bad year for the Babe (Ruth).

Mr. Ruth, in my book, though flawed as we all are, is not only baseball’s greatest player, but this hemisphere’s greatest sports figure, had two records broken, a week apart in ’61.

He held the one season record with 59 home runs in 1921.

The “Babe” hit 60 home runs in 1927, the last on Sunday September 30th.

Thirty four years and one day later, also on a Sunday, Roger Maris hit his 61st home run.

One reason Ruth is in my book, the greatest,  was that he was a tremendous pitcher, in addition to being the game’s preeminent slugger.

Ruth held the World Series record of 29 and two thirds innings of scoreless pitching (13 straight in a 14 inning win for Babe’s Red Sox in the 1916 World Series) until another great, Edward “Whitey” Ford broke that mark.

Ford set the record when he got Elio Chacon (the next year, an original New York Mets player) on a Bobby Richardson to Bill “Moose” Skowron groundout, to end the third inning on Sunday October 8th. (Don Larsen authored a perfect game for the Yankees five years earlier on that date).

The great pitcher Edward “Whitey” Ford, pictured above.