Yankee4Life

Bobby Richardson Bobby Richardson played second base for the New York Yankees from 1955 to 1966, a key contributor during one of the Yankees' most successful stretches in their legendary history. Richardson was by all accounts a slick, rangy glove man and a steady stick man. He won the Gold Glove Award five times, he batted over .300 in two different seasons, and he was selected to the American League All-Star team eight times. And when the October spotlight was turned on, Richardson excelled. His lifetime regular season statistics include a .266 batting average, a .299 on-base percentage, and a .335 slugging percentage. In World Series play, however, he batted .305 with a .331 OBP and .405 SLG. Richardson played in seven World Series, 36 games in all including a major league record 30 consecutive World Series games, and he holds several remarkable World Series hitting records as well: he is one of only four players to have 11 or more hits in two different World Series, he has the most RBIs in a World Series [12], and the most RBIs in a single World Series game [6]. His total of 40 World Series hits places him at #13 on the list of Most World Series Hits in a Career, as of this writing. Richardson is the only second baseman and the only player from the losing team to win the coveted Sport Magazine World Series MVP award. Bobby Richardson was inarguably one of the best second sackers in his day, and a convincing case could be made that he is the greatest all-time Yankee second baseman after Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri. Richardson's most productive year was 1962. He led the American League and recorded personal career best performances with 754 total plate appearances, 692 official at-bats, and 209 hits. As of this writing, his 692 ABs and 754 TPAs still ranks Bobby among the top five of all time in the American League in those two single-season categories. With a mere 24 strikeouts, Bobby struck out only one time for every 28.8 official at-bats that year. And with opposing pitchers not wanting to walk Bobby in front of Mantle and Maris, Bobby racked up several other personal-best batting performances that year: .302 batting average, 38 doubles (led the team; fourth in the American League), 8 home runs, 59 RBIs, 99 runs scored (led the team), 37 walks, a slugging average of .406 and an on-base percentage of .337. He also led the Yankees and the league with 20 sacrifice bunts. He won his second Gold Glove Award and finished second to Mickey Mantle in the voting for the American League's Most Valuable Player Award. The 1962 World Series against the San Francisco Giants was notable for both franchises. The San Francisco Giants and their fans remember this World Series as the most heart-wrenching of the three Series they lost after moving to the West Coast. The New York Yankees and their fans remember it as the last World Series victory until 1977. Game 7 at Candlestick Park was a genuine nail-biter, a pitching duel between the Giants' Jack Sanford and Yankee ace Ralph Terry, both of whom were able to pitch even though they pitched Game 5 because of the three days of rain that postponed Game 6. The Yankees scored the only run in the game when Bill Skowron crossed the plate as the Giants were completing a 6-4-3 double play on a Tony Kubek ground ball in the fifth inning. The ninth inning has been written about extensively, but here's how Richardson remembers it: Pinch-hitter Matty Alou led off the bottom of the ninth with a drag bunt base hit that I could not get to in time. Felipe Alou attempted to bunt him over but was unsuccessful. He struck out, as did the next batter Chuck Hiller. Then Willie Mays slapped a double down the right field line. Roger Maris made a wonderful play to cut the ball off before it reached the corner. He threw the ball to me at the cutoff position and I got rid of the ball quick and it was on line. When Maris got me the ball, third base coach Whitey Lockman held up Matty Alou at third. But as it turned out my throw took a high bounce and Ellie Howard had to reach up for it. Who knows? Had Alou been trying to score, he might have been able to slide under the tag. With the tying and winning runs on third and second base, Ralph Houk visited the mound to check with Terry, the same Ralph Terry who gave up Bill Mazeroski's home run in Pittsburgh two years earlier. Terry and Houk decided to pitch to Willie McCovey--even though he tripled in his previous at-bat and homered off Terry in Game Two--rather than pitch to the on-deck batter Orlando Cepeda whom Terry already struck out twice in the game. McCovey hit a long foul ball down the right field line on the first pitch. On the second pitch, he hit a line shot right at Richardson that Bobby caught shoulder high and the Yankees won the Series. "People often suggest that I was out of position on that play," recalls Bobby. "But McCovey hit two hard ground balls to me earlier in the Series, so I played where I thought he would hit the ball." Richardson finished his career with 1,412 regular season games and a .266 lifetime batting average. He led the league three times in at-bats (1962-1964). Although Richardson did not draw many walks, he was a splendid batter at the top of the Yankee order. He was tough to strike out (only 243 in 5,780 career plate appearances), tough to double up (only 100 times in his career), and a great bunter--he had 98 sacrifice bunts in his career, good enough to finish in the AL's top ten in that category seven times, and twice (1962 and 1964) he led the league.

Elston Howard With African Americans making their way in Major League Baseball, the most successful team in baseball, the New York Yankees, needed to break their color barrier. Elston Howard was the man to do that. On April 14, 1955 Howard made his Yankee debut against the Boston Red Sox. He had one at-bat in his first game, one hit, and one RBI. While he loved catching behind the plate, Yankee skipper Casey Stengel was content with Yogi Berra catching the Yankee hurlers. But Howard was so versatile; he could catch and play the outfield, a quality Stengel liked. He caught nine games in ’55 and played 75 games in the outfield. In 1955 overall, Howard played in 97 games, averaged .290 at the dish, hit 10 home runs, and drove in 43 runs. He also played in his first career World Series, and homered in his first Fall Classic at-bat against Don Newcombe in the second inning of game one. Unfortunately, the Yankees lost the series to the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games. In 1956, Howard played in 98 games for the Yankees, one more than the previous season. He caught 26 games and played 65 from the outfield. His numbers declined slightly from 1955, but overall he crushed five homers, knocked in 34 runs, and averaged .262. Howard had one of his better years in 1958, hitting .314 with 11 home runs and 66 RBI for the season. He caught a grand total of 67 games behind the plate for the Yankees, and played in 103 games. Stengel regarded Howard as the best platoon man in the game at the time. “You can say that Howard is our most valuable utility player,” Stengel said. In 1963, Howard made history. With his batting average at .287, his home run total at a career-best 28, an incredible .528 slugging percentage, and an RBI count at 85, Howard won the American League Most Valuable Player Award, becoming the first African American to ever accomplish this feat. After his ground-breaking accomplishment in being the first African American to win the AL MVP, the Yankees headed into a bit of a decline. Although they made it to the Fall Classic in 1964, the Yankees would not see another title while Howard was with them. In 1967, Howard would say good-bye to the Yankees, as he was traded to the rival Red Sox on August 3. He was sent to Boston to aid the Red Sox in winning the ’67 pennant, which they did with Howard’s assistance. Although only hitting .147, he was essential in handling the pitching staff. Tony Conigliaro, a pitcher for the Red Sox that season, once said, “I don’t think I ever saw a pitcher shake off one of his signs. They had too much respect for him.” In 1979, Howard was diagnosed with myocarditis, a rare heart disease that causes rapid heart failure. He had considered a heart transplant, but his condition quickly worsened and claimed his life on Dec. 14, 1980. He was only 51 years old. Howard accomplished so much over the course of his career. Four World Series titles as a player, two as a coach, nine All-Star game appearances, the 1958 Babe Ruth Award, the 1963 AL MVP Award, two Gold Glove Awards, and his number is retired. What some people may not know is that Howard is the player who is credited for inventing the doughnut. The circular weight that the batters use for practice swings in the on-deck circle is Howard’s responsibility. Just as George Washington Carver invented peanut butter and James Forten invented the sail hoist, Howard was an inventor of a device still used by players today.

Good! Because back on the 31st I had to delete about five spam threads. Thank you!

What?

I just got done taking a look on Amazon to see how much MVP baseball 2005 is being sold for and believe me even after fourteen years you still cannot buy this game with your spare change. For example a used copy in good condition will cost you $49.95. A used copy in extremely good condition will cost $145.01 and a brand-new out-of-the-box copy costs $177.14. There is a reason why I am starting out this review quoting prices for MVP. It's because even after all this time people still want to play this game thanks to the contributions of people like Dennis James and Jim825. While we have had many modders giving so much to this game it is the Total Classics season mods that make this game stand out and shine. Every time a new season mod comes out it is like you are getting a brand-new game and all you have to do to get it is download it. MVP users have been spoiled because of the work that these two fine people have been putting out for years now. And just a few days ago the 1919 season mod became the newest addition to the Total Classics family. There's a lot of history in this mod and Dennis and Jim managed to capture the feel of how baseball was one hundred years ago. And I'm sure that once people find out that another season mod has been uploaded to this website the price to buy this game on Amazon is going to go up. There are certain seasons in baseball history that stand out more than others because of what happened during that year. In 1941 it was Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. In 1951 it was Bobby Thomson's dramatic homerun against Brooklyn to win the pennant. And in 1919 it was Joe Jackson and the other members of the Chicago White Sox who became known as the Black Sox. Books have been written about this season and the events leading up to the throwing of the World Series and I highly recommend when the off-season comes to pick one up and read about it. You will discover if not for the miserly ways of Charles Comiskey things could have turned out differently. But that is history and now it is on to the 1919 mod. You can download the mod right here. Before you install it please make sure that you have a clean copy of MVP 2005 on your computer. That means a right out-of-the-box installation with no mods installed. Jim's installer will handle everything. All you have to do is point it to the directory where you want it installed. Once that simple procedure is done you can get into the game. The feature game that I used to review this mod was the Philadelphia Athletics going to Comiskey Park to take on the Chicago White Sox. But before I got into that game I did what I usually do before I review a mod. I played a few games first and then I looked around to check out the rosters of all the teams to see how many people I recognized. I knew some but I didn't know them all because some of the players in the major leagues one hundred years ago have been lost to history. Like the 1915 mod that Dennis and Jim made they created All-Star teams for both leagues even though the first All-Star game would not be played until 1933. Night games are also an option in this mod but every game that I played I played during the day. That's because the first night game in baseball did not occur until 1935 and I wanted to stay is accurate as I could to this particular year. The uniform department was once again taking care of by Dennis James and the only way that you are not familiar with the quality of his work is if you are a new member here. His uniforms speak for themselves at all I have to say is that they keep getting better and better. The jukebox is a mixture of Jazz and Blues. I am not a fan of either Jazz or Blues and if I was alive one hundred years ago I would've also complained when prohibition started because the only way to listen to this stuff is when you've had a few drinks too many. Please don't assume that I am being critical of the mod because of the music. Absolutely not. This music represents what people were listening to a century ago and it belongs in this mod. I am someone who feels that the music chosen for a mod is a big part of the charm and charisma of it and while I may not listen to this music I understand that it gives the proper sound and feel of a game played in 1919 and to me that is a lot more important than what I like or don't like. Dennis and Jim have once again included the Legends of the Booth mod to give this mod the complete classic feel. I would like to think Jim and Dennis for making a another wonderful mod. I appreciate the time and effort that the two of you put into it and the only request that I make from people who download this is to thank the two of these guys if you have not done so already. Screenshots Welcome to Total Classics 1919! What a lineup the White Sox had. It makes you wonder how much baseball history would have changed if this team stayed together and challenged the Yankees in the early 1920's. Joe Jackson may have been 0 for 2 so far in this game but he delivered a run-scoring single in the 8th to extend Chicago's lead to 6 - 1. This is Athletics first baseman George Burns. Burns played for sixteen years in the major leagues for five teams from 1914 to 1929 and had a lifetime average of .307. Now maybe it's me and maybe I'm seeing things but this guy's cybersface looks a lot like the young version of George Burns the entertainer. Between innings at Comiskey Park and the hometown White Sox have the lead. Each player in the 1919 mod has 0 as a uniform number. That is because uniform numbers were not worn my players at that time. Joe Jackson is featured in the good-looking custom made overlay by Dennis James.

Maybe I did miss some good games Jim. And you're right about those two games in London. The only good was knowing that the Yankees won both games but both those games took over nine hours to complete. That was too much! By the time the game ended yesterday afternoon I was completely worn out. For me it was painful. I punched my leg so hard on Saturday afternoon after they tied the game in the first inning that I have a bruise there right now. I'm happy to say that I broke nothing in my house during both games but if a Red Sox fan would've knocked on my door while those games were going on someone would've had to bail me out of jail.😕 Yeah it sure was painful. I'll be feeling it for a few days now!😄

Updated to 6-30 ...The Yankees have a way of ruining the month of July for me every year despite my attempts of trying to remain positive which, for me, can sometimes be too much to ask for. For me July has it all. There is nothing like baseball in the summertime. So's a picnic on the Fourth and lemonade and iced tea and catching a game on the radio in my backyard at night when the weather cools down some from the heat of the day. But then, as I said, I am a Yankee fan and that means for the entire month you have to worry that they will trade away a valuable piece of their future to get a quick return on the present. This year Clint Frazier is the player I am concerned about the most. All he did when Stanton and Judge were out step up and play well while delivering key hits. He's a good young player that I don't want to see wear the uniform of any of the team. If Frazier survives not being traded I can see him returning in September when the rosters are expanded and having a permanent role on the Yankees next year after Brett Gardner is gone. Gardner is someone that I don't understand was brought back this year. His bat disappears after the return from the break and the Yankees are fooling themselves if they think this year will be any different. He's about a .230 hitter now and for someone as fast as he is he hardly steals any bases. I get that he has had a good career with the Yankees but they can't keep on bringing him back on one-year contracts. Jeter was a good player too but you wouldn't want to see him play shortstop now. Pitchers didn't want to see him play shortstop five years before he retired. I just want Frazier to get a chance and until the trade deadline ends July 31st that's what I'm mostly going to be worried about. I know I can't control it and I shouldn't worry about it but without fail the Yankees do this to me every July. They almost make the hot dog I am going to have not worth it. ...For whatever reason the Nominating Committee of the National Radio Hall of Fame has decided to nominate New York Yankees color commentator Suzyn Waldman for membership in their Hall of Fame. It's obvious that the twenty-four person committee has never heard her screech during Yankee broadcasts or else her name would have never been considered. This is the same Hall of Fame that has already admitted people such as Mel Allen, Red Barber and Vin Scully. If Waldman somehow gets in it should be fair to say that anyone who has ever spoken over the airwaves at any time should at least be nominated also. If any of you who have never heard her and have the MLB package give her a listen one day. I promise you you won't even last an inning. ... Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Tommy Pham brought up a very good point recently about big market teams having an advantage in All-Star voting. And for those of you who think he's just complaining about nothing you don't have to look any further than the Yankees Aaron Judge. Judge has played in less than thirty games this year and yet he finished fourth in voting for American League outfielders. The names may change but each year one thing remains constant and that's the fans have no idea what they're doing. Pham is having a better year than the Yankees Brett Gardner and Boston's Jackie Bradley Jr. and yet he is way behind in the All-Star voting simply because he plays for a small market team. What Pham is saying has been said before by other players in the past who's home address was not New York, Boston or Los Angeles. Toward the end of his career Derek Jeter made the All-Star team on his name alone and not for what he did on the field. Most of the blame for this lays at the feet of ESPN and Fox because of their willingness to broadcast Yankee- Red Sox games as much as they can get away with. It's always been a popularity contest. Pham's just reminding everyone of this again. ... In Denver recently police were called to break up a fight between parents at a youth baseball game played between seven-year-olds because they were unhappy with the calls made by the umpire who at thirteen was not that much older than the players on both teams. The police said that several people have already been cited for disorderly conduct. There's a video of this online and in it the children are seen running off the field when the fight broke out. You can only imagine what was going through their heads when this was going on. Billy Martin has been gone for thirty years now and I don't even think that he would approve of what those parents did. Then again, maybe he would. One thing is certain and that's if that thirteen-year-old kid wants to continue being umpire he already has the experience of dealing with a rioting crowd. Grab his mask, run and let the crazies fight it out among themselves. ...If I were the city of Montréal I would tell the people who run the Tampa Bay Rays thanks but no thanks even if it means hosting major league baseball in Québec again. The Rays said that they received permission from the commissioner to explore a plan in which they would play home games in both the Tampa Bay area and Montreal and they went on to say that this is the most feasible way to save baseball in the Tampa Bay area. If this plan is approved the Rays would play early season home games in the Tampa Bay area and the remainder of the year in Montreal. To sweeten the pot both cities would get new stadiums. Why? If that happens one city is ultimately going to have a new stadium and no team. No matter how you look at it this plan makes no sense at all for Tampa and Montréal. What do the Rays consider early-season games? April and May? How does this supposed to help save baseball in Florida? Montréal was a good baseball town and after their growing pains years of the 1970s they built themselves a pretty good team. While hockey is number one sport there and always will be baseball has had a long and proud history there also. I understand that Montréal wants to return to the major leagues and honestly they should of never left but if they allow Tampa to do this they are just going to be taken advantage of again. My guess is that the Rays are doing this to gain an advantage in the stadium talks or they are indirectly saying that no matter what the city of Tampa does they are eventually going to leave no matter what. Let Tampa deal with their own mess. Montréal is too good of a city to have baseball walk on them again. ...For as much as I like him sometimes Paul O'Neill drives me crazy when he's in the Yankees broadcasting booth. The next time he's doing a game listen to how many times he says "I'll tell you what" when he has something to say. He does a good enough job but if if he can get out of that habit he'd be so much better. ...So sorry, but we shot the wrong guy, Dept.:A lot of people in the Dominican Republic are not accepting that the reason why David Ortiz was shot back on June 9 was because he was mistaken for somebody else. At 6'3'' and 240 pounds it's hard to mistake him for anyone. Eleven people were arrested in this murder-for-hire plot. The gun man's story was that the man sitting with Ortiz that day was the original target. He said he got confused because the two of them were dressed similarly but even that explanation makes no sense because the intended target is smaller and thinner than Ortiz and also has a lighter complexion. Try to picture Ortiz standing next to someone with the same build as Dustin Pedroia. This is the story that the Dominican authorities want everyone to believe and I think it's because they don't want to make other Dominican players nervous when they come home. It's too late for that because if a hit was put on someone is popular as Ortiz it could happen to anyone. Ortiz is doing better now and is out of intensive care at Massachusetts General Hospital after being flown up from the Dominican for additional surgery. It's worth mentioning that the doctors down there were the ones to initially work on him. They saved his life and made him stable to be flown to Boston.I'm sure he's grateful to the doctors in his country who helped him out but at the same time I'm wondering what he thinks of those officials who are trying to tell him that the other guy was supposed to get shot and not him? ...Tourism represents more than 17% of the Dominican Republic's economy and officials there are beginning to get concerned that travelers may become very reluctant to book their vacations because there have been at least ten American citizens who have died from apparent sudden health issues since June of last year. The United States Embassy in Santo Domingo has been actively working with Dominican authorities to ensure that American citizens are safe but it still makes you wonder if it's actually worth to go down there to begin with. Some people who have visited the Dominican Republic and returned home to tell about it brought home more than souvenirs and pictures when they got off the plane. Stomach cramps, diarrhea and other illnesses that lasted a long time after they returned home have been reported. What no one can explain is why many of the tourists died while they were in their hotel rooms. While the Dominican may be a very beautiful area with some of the nicest beaches in the world it's still a very poor country with a high crime rate. Not even David Ortiz who is a living legend down there is safe so I wouldn't want to gamble with my life there in or out of my hotel room. But this concern about traveling to the Dominican will soon be forgotten as soon as the travel prices to visit there are cut in half. Just like in a lot of cases money can clean up and fix just about anything. ...Sure I watched the FIFA women's World Cup games. Right after I watched a few Lifetime movies, read a romance novel and viewed Boston's World Series highlights from last year. Then I made sure to tune in. ...Last week Andrew Dice Clay and Roseanne Barr announced a new comedy tour called "Mr. and Mrs. America". What a combination those two are for a comedy duo. Barr, who thinks she is funny except when she is telling a joke and Clay who is famous mostly for pornographic nursery rhymes. Before hearing about this I didn't even know if Andrew Dice Clay was still alive since his last hit was the Adventures of Ford Fairlane which was almost thirty years ago. Clay said that the reason why they decided to start this tour was because of the current national obsession with political discourse in addition to the alleged policing of comedians’ language. I don't know if any comics have their language policed but I'm sure that Clay knows better about it than I do. He was funny at one time but that was a long time ago but having Barr around means that this little tour that they're going on is not going to last long because it's going to be hard to be funny to a bunch of empty seats. ...Amazon's highly successful Prime Day promotion will be running for two days this year starting at midnight on July 15 and will last for forty-eight hours. Amazon says the event will include more than a million deals around the world, such as steep discounts on Alexa-enabled devices. Prime day is used by Amazon to spotlight their own products and to get more people to subscribe to their prime service which costs $119 a year. This will be the fifth year that they have promoted this discount holiday and while they will have a lot of things for sale I have noticed that the things that they have marked down aren't really worth buying to begin with. I've been a prime member longer than five years now and I still have not purchased anything on Prime Day. The chances that you do find something to buy they only have twenty of and they're already sold out before you get there. But if you want a Kindle fire or a reader or an Amazon Echo wait until the middle of next month. Anything else I found it to be a waste of time. ...I am a baseball traditionalist and in being so it leaves me open to criticism that the game has passed me by. Maybe it has. While I still love baseball at the same time I can't help but think that they are changing the rules just because they can and not for the better. For as long as I can remember the rule above all others was no association with gambling. There was no way around it. Gambling was verboten. Ever since the 1919 World Series scandal the word "gambling" has always made baseball executives nervous. Not so much now it seems. In exchange for a cut of fans’ guaranteed gambling losses, MLB is requiring teams to submit their starting lineups fifteen minutes before game time for betting purposes. And to push it a little further the Chicago Cubs are considering adding betting kiosks inside and just outside Wrigley Field for easy and added in game action. If this is a big success in Wrigley it won't be long before you see them in every other major league park.It didn't take much for baseball to change their mind about gambling. All the game needed was a big cut out of their fans wallets and suddenly the over and under on the Atlanta - Milwaukee game for instance is not a big deal. Hey, who's it going to hurt? Just the game itself but don't listen to me. I'm just a traditionalist.

Mickey Rivers Originally signed by the Atlanta Braves, John Milton "Mickey" Rivers began his big league career in 1970 with the Angels, playing center field and third base. He stayed with them through the 1975 season. Rivers played part-time in his first few years, until becoming the starter in 1974. He led the American League in triples both years and stole a career-high 70 bases in 1975, tops in the league. Along with Ed Figueroa, Rivers was dealt to the Yankees in the 1975-76 off-season for Bobby Bonds, a trade that immediately paid dividends for the Yankees. Figueroa won 19 games and Rivers enjoyed a career year. Rivers was named to the All-Star team, batted .312, stole 43 bases and posted then-career highs in home runs (8) and runs batted in (67). Rivers placed third in the Most Valuable Player voting behind teammate Thurman Munson and George Brett and was named an outfielder on The Sporting News AL All-Star team. Rivers posted good numbers in his two other full Yankee seasons, including a .326 batting average in 1977, but was traded in the middle of the 1979 season to Texas. He set the single-season record for hits by a Ranger with 210 in 1980. He concluded his career in 1984 with a .295 lifetime average, 267 stolen bases and 1,660 hits. The Yankees faced the Kansas City Royals three years in a row, and Rivers starred in each one. In 14 total games, he batted .386, with an un-Rivers-like OBP of .417, belted 22 hits and scored 10 runs. His average in the 1978 series was a whopping .455. He didn’t fare as well in World Series play, though, only hitting .238 in 15 games. While Rivers played for them, the Yankees won the World Series in 1977 and 1978, both times against the Los Angeles Dodgers. They won the 1976 pennant, but lost in the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Rivers posted a .308 average in his 29 postseason games.