The ’72 Yankees: A Different Kind of Bronx Tale

It was the high point of the era of Murcer, Clarke and Lyle; the Scooter on WPIX; Bob Sheppard; the Mayor’s Trophy Game and family swaps.

For several years we had watched them from afar; grainy, black-and-white images on our Zenith television screen. For my father, older brother Mike and I that all changed on July 15, 1972. We were going to Yankee Stadium – the original Yankee Stadium, the real Yankee Stadium – for the first time.

I was 12 years old and had been to a big league game before. In 1969 we went to Shea Stadium and watched Tom Seaver fire fastballs for the Miracle Mets. Yankee Stadium – or the Stadium, as it was known to fans in our New York-New Jersey metro area – was something I had seen only on TV.

Living in north Jersey we watched the Yankees on New York’s WPIX Channel 11, a station famous at the time for its re-runs of Jackie Gleason’s classic Honeymooners and broadcasts of Laurel and Hardy’s March of the Wooden Soldiers on Thanksgiving Day and the Yule Log every Christmas Eve.

Walking inside Yankee Stadium and seeing for the first time its famed interior – the emerald green expanse of Death Valley in left-center field; the monuments in deep center field; the trademark façade – was unforgettable. I’ve made trips back to the Bronx since – an Old-Timer’s Game on a blistering summer day in the ’90s; covering the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium II and 2009 World Series at Yankee Stadium III.

But framed by a bright blue sky that early afternoon in ’72, the original House That Ruth Built was magnificent in its majesty; truly cathedral-like. Fittingly, and seemingly coming down from the heavens themselves, was the resonant tone of public address announcer Bob Sheppard, aka the “Voice of God.” As we made our way to our seats I recall the air thick with the scent of cigars. To this day the smell of a cigar is enough to transport me in memory back to old Yankee Stadium.

The opponent was the Oakland A’s, who would win the World Series that October over Cincinnati and become one of the great dynasties in MLB history. Catfish, Reggie, Rollie, Rudi, Campy, Captain Sal and Co. were outfitted in gaudy green, gold and white uniforms and white cleats. They wore turn-of-the-century, tintype mustaches and long hair at a time when the rest of baseball was clean cut and conservative. The Yankees’ traditional pinstripes, meanwhile, perfectly reflected their big-city, business-like background. Oakland won as Ken Holtzman beat fellow lefty Fritz Peterson. Bobby Murcer homered for New York and Sal Bando and Reggie Jackson launched countering shots for Oakland. Reliever Rollie Fingers wrapped things up for the A’s in the ninth, as he would do so many times that season. The soon-to-be-famous Mustache Gang went on to claim the first of its three consecutive world championships with a wild seven-game victory over the Big Red Machine in one of the most underrated Fall Classics in history.

The A’s upset of the Reds mirrored a time when life was a ball of confusion. The Temptations had it right when they sang “round ’n’ round ’n’ round we go, where the world’s headed nobody knows.” It was, the Temps told us in one of the iconic anthems of the era, a time of air pollution, revolution, gun control and the sound of soul. Art imitated society, so that just as in the 1972 blockbuster film The Poseidon Adventure , up was down and down was up.

The times they were-a changin’, as Dylan said. America no longer spent Sunday evenings with Ed Sullivan; iconic Life magazine would publish its final weekly issue on December 29, 1972. At times it seemed America’s cultural icons were crashing down all around us. Even John Wayne took a fall. In the January 1972 release of Wayne’s film The Cowboys , the man whom Elizabeth Taylor once said “gave the whole world the image of what an American should be” was shot in the back and killed on screen by a rogue character played by Bruce Dern. Off screen Wayne warned Dern, “America will hate you for this.” Dern’s reply – “Yeah, but they’ll love me in Berkeley” – was a sign of the times.

The boyhood memories Chicago would sing of in the mid-70s bring back a time of baseball cards, blue jeans and comic books. It was summer days playing stickball in the deserted A&P parking lot and sitting on our porch stoops foraging through freshly-bought Topps cards and the stale but sugary bubble gum stick inside every pack. It was summer nights under the street lights playing boxball – a form of stickball played with the same pink Spalding but with your fist rather than a broom-handle bat. More than one backyard had a PIC Mosquito Repellant Coil, a spiral-shaped coil that burned from the outside toward the center and produced an incense to ward off mosquitoes.

It’s a world gone away, but memories make it seem like yesterday. A gallon of gas was 55 cents, the average cost of a new home $27,550. Afros and long sideburns were in style, as were bell-bottoms and go-go boots. The annual Sears Wish Book was a holiday tradition and mirror of its times. Highly anticipated each fall, the 600-plus page catalog of Christmas toys and gifts would arrive in the mail each October just after the World Series. Its 1972 edition featured, among other items, Super Bowl Electric Football and the Pitch-Back Net.

Sears described its Christmas catalog as a time capsule, “recording for future historians today’s desires, habits, customs, and mode of living.” The same can be said for the ’72 major league season. The tumultuous campaign marked an historical intersection between the game’s past and future. It was Alpha and Omega; the beginning of one era and ending of another.

The lordly Baltimore Orioles were fading and the Yankees were fighting longtime rivals Boston and Detroit in the most exciting race of the season. When New York beat the Orioles September 5 on a second straight save by the inimitable Sparky Lyle, it was all but bye-bye Birdies. For the first time since the American and National Leagues each split into two divisions in 1969, a new champion would be crowned in the AL East.

The Yankees’ wild ride to respectability was in large part led by Lyle. Obtained from Boston for first baseman Danny Cater in March 1972 in one of the most lopsided deals in baseball history, Lyle thrived on the extra work afforded him in New York. He hurled a then personal-best 107.2 innings and appeared in 56 games, tops among AL pitchers. By season’s end, Lyle had set an American League record with 35 saves while fashioning a splendid 1.92 ERA.

Just as writer Roger Kahn felt that the Cincinnati Reds had committed grand larceny in getting Joe Morgan from Houston prior to the ’72 season, Murcer believed New York had stolen Lyle from Boston.

An eccentric known to sit on birthday cakes in his birthday suit, Lyle was a star in the Bronx Bombers’ grand tradition. Colorful, cocky and commanding respect, Lyle would step from the pinstripe-painted Datsun that brought him from the bullpen and with his jaw stuffed with Red Man chaw, stride to the mound as Stadium organist Eddie Layton pumped out “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Despite the fact he was being called upon to rescue his team time and again, Lyle resisted the pressure by not thinking about it. His plan was simple: Throw fastballs and sliders inside to right-handers and outside to left-handers.

Against Milwaukee, he protected a one-run lead with two on and nobody out by slamming the door on just six pitches. Against Texas, he relieved starter Mel Stottlemyer in the eighth with the Yankees leading 3-2, runners on second and third and no outs. Lyle intentionally walked huge Frank Howard to load the bases and then struck out the next three hitters on a total of 10 pitches. In a key series against Detroit in mid-August he twice entered games in the ninth to preserve one-run leads and earned a victory in relief. Over the course of his three appearances in that series Lyle struck out seven in five innings and pitched scoreless ball.

Yankees manager Ralph Houk thought the breezy lefty had the perfect temperament to be a reliever. A hardened, cigar-smoking Army man whose nickname was “The Major,” Houk called the durable Lyle a “throwback to the old-timers.” As far as Houk was concerned, Lyle, a product of western Pennsylvania, seemed as much at home in the Bronx as any of his illustrious predecessors in pinstripes.

After Lyle had contributed to eight wins in mid-August, Houk rested his workhorse. New York lost its next four games. Lyle improved to 9-5 when he beat the Tigers 3-2 in 12 innings on September 28, the victory keeping the Yankees’ playoff hopes alive.

The dramatic victory over Detroit symbolized baseball in the Bronx in ’72. Presaging their epic playoff battles with Kansas City from 1976-80, the Yankees split wild, 7-6 decisions with the Royals in late summer. On August 15 in Municipal Stadium, Thurman Munson lashed three hits but future Yankees teammate Lou Piniella’s single capped KC’s winning rally in the ninth. Twelve days later at the Stadium it was New York’s turn to rally, Callison’s single in the ninth capping a comeback from a 6-0 deficit. On August 29 Murcer hit for the cycle against Texas, blasting the tying homer in the bottom of the ninth to set the stage for Callison’s decisive hit in the 11th in another 7-6 finish.

It all made for an exciting summer in the city. Longtime American League umpire Jim Honochick, who worked the Junior Circuit from 1949-73, believed Yankee Stadium the best American League ballpark to call games in. Apart from the historic surroundings and the often dramatic play on the field there was Sheppard welcoming fans to Yankee Stadium in his distinctive and dignified baritone; Layton in his trademark oversized glasses and captain’s hat, playing the Hammond organ; and Robert Merrill’s singing the Star Spangled Banner on special occasions.

Conditions outside Yankee Stadium were much different. New York today bears little resemblance to the Big Apple of the ’70s. The city then was far more Frank Sinatra’s gritty depiction – “If I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere” – than the gentrified Gotham and “pocketful of dreams” Alicia Keys soulfully sang of 30 years later. New York had a fiscal crisis the likes of which had rarely been seen before in an American metropolis. It led to Mayor Abe Beam leaving a desperate, one-word note – “Help!” — at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

From Times Square to Park Slope prostitutes and drug dealers plied their trade in full view. Heroin and cocaine were commonplace and with it came increased street violence. New York, like Detroit, suffered economic decline and ultimately, white flight. In the summer of ’77, New York City would descend into darkness during a terrifying 25-hour blackout. The chaotic event led to widespread looting and rioting in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and the devastation of neighborhoods from East Harlem to Bushwick. More than 1,000 fires were reported, 1,600 stores damaged, 3,700 arrests and a total cost to the City that exceeded $300 million. The trauma of those two days in mid-July symbolized the growing malaise gripping America’s major cities.

The sense of uneasiness shared throughout the five boroughs had been felt for years by Yankee fans. In the early 1970s Murcer and Munson led a modestly talented team that included Horace Clarke, Gene Michael, Celerino Sanchez, Johnny Callison, Roy White and Ron Blomberg, aka the “Boomer.” The ’72 Yankees were far removed from the fearsome Ford-Mantle-Maris squads of the early ’60s. But in 1972 they were winning and had their sights set on ending a seven-year absence from the postseason.

Clarke, a light-hitting leadoff man and second baseman, is often recalled as both front man and fall guy in this frustrating era of Yankees baseball. The playoff-drought that extended from 1965-75 is referred to as the “Horace Clarke Era.” It’s a bit unfair. Clarke wasn’t a star but he was a solid player for a squad that in 1970 won 93 games – second-best in the AL East and the fourth-highest total in baseball that season – and in ’72 was in the playoff chase until the season’s final days.

Nicknamed “Hoss” for his durability, Clarke averaged 151 games from 1967-73 and twice led the AL in at-bats. He had good range at second base, a fact recognized by Mickey Mantle. Playing first base at the end of his career because of bad legs, the aging legend told the young Clarke, “Take anything you can reach!”

A deft bunter and contact hitter, Clarke twice led the league in singles. The switch-hitter had a signature style at the plate. He would pull his batting helmet low over his glasses as he choked up on the bat handle. Settling into his stance he would bend forward at the waist and spread his feet so wide it seemed they spanned the entire batter’s box. In a July 23 game at the Stadium against California, Angels announcer Dick Enberg noted that when the 5-foot-9 Clarke batted out of his signature deep crouch, “he doesn’t give that pitcher much of a strike zone between the knees and letters.”

Fans who couldn’t make it to the Bronx to see Lyle, Murcer, Munson, Clarke and Co. in person tuned in to Channel 11 and were greeted by the team’s nostalgic anthem:

Here come the Yankees, Let’s get behind and cheer the Yankees…

Composed by Bob Bundin and Lou Stallman of Columbia Records and recorded by the Sid Bass Orchestra and Chorus, the song had been the Bombers’ theme since 1967. It ushered in each game’s broadcast by the announcing team of Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto, Frank Messer and Bill White. The trio worked together from 1970-84, endearing themselves to generations of Yankees fans in the metro area with their “Welcome to New York Yankees baseball” intro. Over the years, Rizzuto, Messer and White broadcasting on WPIX 11 and WMCA radio became for many as much a part of the team’s tradition as pinstripes, monuments and the Stadium’s lattice-work facade.

The Scooter’s stream-of-consciousness style of broadcasting and lively play-by-play, with the occasional malapropisms, was adored by his fans even if it was irritating to his critics: “Uh-oh, deep to left-center, nobody’s gonna get that one! Holy cow, somebody got it!”

Rizzuto’s “Holy Cow!” catchphrase punctuated calls of some of the most famous moments in Yankees history: Roger Maris’ 61st home run in 1961; Chris Chambliss’ bottom of the ninth blast to beat Kansas City in the fifth and deciding game of the 1976 ALCS. His “Holy Cow!” would come to be featured in Meatloaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light and in an episode of Seinfeld .

The Scooter’s frequent digressions on the air led to his reading recipes sent in by listeners and viewers, speaking well of restaurants he frequented or the cannoli he ate between innings, wishing fans a happy birthday or anniversary and sending get-well wishes to fans in hospitals. He would joke about leaving the game early, issuing an on-air statement to his wife, “I’ll be home soon, Cora!”

Rizzuto was known for calling his broadcast partners by their last name – “White” rather than “Bill” – a habit that stemmed from his Hall of Fame career as the Yankees shortstop from 1941-56.

White: “And here’s Phil Rizzuto…”

Rizzuto: “I’m doing play-by-play? White, you’re doing play-by-play!”

By mid-September, Rizzuto, White, Messer, the Yankees and their fans were not only concerned with the play-by-play at the Stadium but also with watching the scoreboard for out-of-town games involving Boston and Detroit. Peterson’s 3-2 win over resurgent Red Sox ace Luis Tiant on September 12 in the Bronx brought New York to within a half-game of the lead.

The elevated IRT trains on the Third Avenue El weren’t the only rumble coming from the Bronx. It seemed the Bombers might turn back time to the days when the Yankees were winning pennants in waves and wearing the top buttons of their uniforms dangling in their signature style. Even Eddie Layton got swept up in the excitement, banging out It Seems Like Old Times on the Stadium organ.

It was a welcome change for a club that seemed to be better known in the early ’70s for off-the-field news – muggings in the Bronx; poor parking at the Stadium; the Mike Kekich-Fritz Peterson family trade that had its origins in a July 15, 1972 party but wasn’t announced until March ’73. Peterson would pace the ’72 staff in wins with 17 while Steve Kline posted the best winning percentage (.640, 16-9) and lowest ERA (2.40) among the starters.

Providing pop for the pitchers was an offense fronted by Murcer. He had always been a streak hitter, but Murcer’s usual modus operandi was to start fast and tail off. He reversed form in ’72. On May 15, he was hitting just .183 with two homers and six RBIs in 22 games. On June 1 he lit the fuse by lashing four hits in Milwaukee. On the 12-game road trip he went 21 for 46 to raise his average to .273.

Murcer was just getting started. From June 1 into mid-September he was the AL’s best hitter, batting .323 with 25 homers, 76 RBIs, 25 doubles and seven triples. His hot bat had helped fuel the Yankees’ fire. With his dark hair flowing from the back of his batting helmet, Murcer would take a slight crouch from the portside of the plate and punch hits to all fields. He caught fire in the heat of the summer, hitting .367 in June, .283 in July, .331 in August and .288 in September and early October.

Murcer wore No. 1 for the Bronx Bombers and matched that numeral by reaching career-highs to that time in all extra-base hit categories. He did so, by not being a Bronx Bomber in the traditional sense. It wouldn’t have been surprising at the time to hear Yankees fans paraphrasing Marvin Gaye’s 1971 hit Mercy, Mercy Me :

“Murcer, Murcer, me/Things ain’t what they used to be.”

In the aftermath of his 1970 season that had seen his home run total fall to 23 and his batting average dip to .251, the Oklahoma kid who had been touted as the “next Mantle” stopped trying to conform to the Yankees’ power-hitting image, stopped trying to pull every pitch into the inviting right field porch.

Like a lot of boys who had grown up in the 1950s Murcer idolized Mantle. Unlike the Mick, whose favorite player growing up was not Joe DiMaggio, the legend who preceded him in center field but St. Louis’s Stan Musial, Murcer thought Mantle the best player he’d ever seen. Murcer’s connection to Mantle was closer than most. Both were born in Oklahoma; both signed by legendary scout Tom Greenwade; both were shortstops at the time of their signing and later converted into center fielders.

When he reached the majors Murcer was given Mantle’s locker. By 1972 reporters at Murcer’s dressing stall could spot several staples: a can of Skoal chewing tobacco and right next to it a can of The Dry Look hair spray; a hot comb; 15 new flame-treated bats; a glove; and on at least one occasion, a gift-wrapped bottle of Chivas Regal.

What Murcer realized in 1971 was that while he occupied The Mick’s locker he didn’t own Mantle’s raw strength. Joe Donnelly, a sports writer covering the Yankees for Newsday at the time, thought he and his fellow reporters were as guilty as anyone in “baiting the trap” that Murcer was destined to be the next Mantle. Despite hitting four homers in four official at-bats in a 1970 doubleheader – something not even Ruth had done – Murcer realized at season’s end he was a line-drive hitter, not a home-run hitter. He would quit thinking about the long ball, stop upper-cutting on his swing trying for the knockout blow and start hitting the ball where it’s pitched.

Making the choice to sacrifice power for average, Murcer choked up on the bat and cut down on his swing. If the pitch was outside he would go with it and hit it to left. He began bunting more, a tactic that eventually brought the infield in and gave him more room to spray hits.

Murcer’s average in 1971 jumped to .331, his RBIs from 78 to 94, his hits from 146 to 175 and his home runs to 25. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the quality of Murcer was no longer strained. Unlike DiMaggio, who led with an imperial air, and Mantle, who provided inspiration by playing through pain, Murcer by his own admission was not a leader. He would instead point to Houk as the club leader. Sportswriter Dick Schaap found Murcer to be unlike DiMaggio and Mantle in that while the two aging greats tended to act like the living legends they were – a little aloof, a little wary, a little annoyed by the attention – Murcer was friendly, cheerful and outgoing.Still, like DiMaggio, Mantle and Earle Combs, Murcer became a fixture at the most glamorous position in baseball – centerfielder for the New York Yankees. At that time it was comparable to being a running back for the Cleveland Browns and following in the footsteps of Marion Motley, Jim Brown and Leroy Kelly, or being a Montreal Canadiens goalie and joining the royal lineage of Jacques Plante, Gump Wormsley, Rogie Vachon, Tony Esposito and Ken Dryden.

Outfield was not Murcer’s natural position. He played shortstop in the minors and for 11 games in his debut season in ’65, grading a “3” on a scale of 1-to-5 for every category except “arm,” where he rated a “4.” That the Yankees didn’t know they had a future centerfielder or star in their midst was evident in their handing him uniform No. 17. The Yankees’ star sluggers always wore single digits: Ruth (3), Gehrig (4), DiMaggio (5), Mantle (7).

When Roy White made the majors on September 7, 1965, one day before Murcer, he was handed No. 6, a clear indication of who the Yankees believed would be the next man up on the monuments. Murcer was happy with his No. 17; at least it had The Mick’s No. 7 in it. But when star second baseman Bobby Richardson retired and asked Murcer to take his No. 1, he obliged. While his uniform number was finally fixed his position number wasn’t. Murcer would continue to play multiple positions and it wasn’t until August 29, 1969 in a home game against Kansas City that he would take his place for good in front of the monuments and as the everyday centerfielder.

A five-time All-Star from 1971-75, Murcer became, along with Mets ace Tom Seaver, a New York icons. The two represented their respective teams in the 1971, ’72 and ’73 Midsummer Classics but never faced each other. In an era decades before regular-season interleague games, confrontations between New York’s baseball clubs were largely limited to the Mayor’s Trophy Game.

Played once a year every season from 1963-79 and again in ’82-83, the Mayor’s Trophy Game was an annual in-season exhibition that alternated between Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium and benefited sandlot ball in New York City. From 1946-55 it had been a three-cornered series between the Yankees, Mets and Dodgers, and the Yankees and Dodgers would meet one final time in ’57 before the Dodgers moved west with the Giants.

When the Mayor’s Trophy Game resumed in 1963, a crowd of 50,742 was on hand in the Bronx as former Yankees skipper Casey Stengel, now managing the Mets, returned to the scene of his greatest triumphs. Even if the Mayor’s Trophy Game was an exhibition, New York fans took their hardball seriously. Hopping the F train for Queens or the D train to 161st and River Avenue in the Bronx, they flocked to Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium for the one-game Subway Series and the rare occasion to see Murcer and Seaver on the same field or Ed Kranepool shaking hands with Horace Clarke. The game’s outcome would settle, for that summer at least, comparisons made by Mets and Yankees fans: Murcer or Tommie Agee; Munson or Jerry Grote; White or Cleon Jones; Lyle or Tug McGraw.

On August 24, 1972, 52,308 were in Yankee Stadium to see Yankees rookie Doc Medich beat the Mets 2-1. John Ellis, who in 1973 would become the first designated hitter in Cleveland Indians history, slugged the game-winning homer in the sixth inning off Bob Rauch. The victory marked the Bombers’ third straight over the Amazin’s and second straight by a 2-1 score.

At the height of the Mayor’s Trophy Game’s popularity in the early 1970s, Murcer was maturing as a hitter and as a man. Still, he was haunted by what might have been.

“I realize it does no good to look back but when I think of what might have been I could weep,” he told the media late in the summer of ’72. “I don’t think it would sound like bragging if I said we would have won at least six more games if I had gotten off to a good start. Six more victories and we would be getting ready for the playoffs.”

The Yankees were still in it but they were up against it. With their season hanging in the balance, the Bombers had to face Indians ace Gaylord Perry and his mystifying pitches.

“If the league president or commissioner had any guts,” Murcer said of Perry’s alleged spitball, “they’d ban the pitch.”

Perry delighted in keeping hitters guessing whether he was doctoring the ball or not. Some say the illegal pitch paved Perry’s path to the Hall of Fame, but he was a brilliant craftsman and one of the premier pitchers of his era. He accumulated 314 wins and 3,524 strikeouts over a 22-year career. Baseball historian Bill James called Perry’s 1972 campaign the best by an American League pitcher since Lefty Grove’s 1931 season.

Perry provided sensational pitching for a Cleveland club that was struggling both on the field and financially. Prior to the season the Indians, seeking greener pastures, proposed to play half their home games in New Orleans. But new owner Nick Mileti outbid a Cleveland shipping magnate named George Steinbrenner, among others, and after purchasing the team on March 22, 1972 for $9 million kept the club in Municipal Stadium.

Gaylord and his brother Jim combined to surpass the most publicized pitching brothers in history – Dizzy and Daffy Dean of the Cardinals – in career victories, their 529 wins ranking second all-time behind the 539 amassed by Phil and Joe Niekro.

Gaylord beat the Bombers 4-1 in Cleveland to drop them 4½ back with 10 to play, then faced Peterson in the first game of a Sunday doubleheader as the calendar flipped to October.

Their duel was a dandy. Amid sunny, cool weather at the Stadium, the Yankees struck first. Bernie Allen’s ground-rule double scored White in the fourth, but Cleveland countered on Ray Fosse’s leadoff homer the following inning. The score stayed at 1-1 as Perry and Peterson dueled into the 11th. Chris Chambliss – a future Yankees hero – plated the eventual winning run with a sacrifice fly.

The taut final was followed by another one-run decision in the second game, won by the Tribe 4-3. The Yankees’ drive to the postseason died with the doubleheader loss to the Indians. Ironically, three key members of that Tribe team – Chambliss, Graig Nettles and 1972 AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year Dick Tidrow – would help the Yanks win three straight Eastern Division titles and league championships from 1976-78 and back-to-back World Series titles in ’77-78.

The Yankees’ failure to win the division didn’t diminish the solid summers enjoyed by Murcer, Peterson and in particular, Lyle. The latter’s season-long, late-inning magic had saved almost half of the Yankees’ 79 wins, and Lyle was given the pinstriped Datsun that brought him from the bullpen. The little car, a sports writer in the press box cracked, must have 20,000 miles on it.

Lyle, Murcer, Munson, et al. were the pride of the new Yankees. In the tumultuous summer of ’72 they gave baseball fans in the Bronx reason to believe better times were ahead.

(Ed Gruver is the author of six books. The above is an excerpt from his newest book, Hairs Versus Squares: The Mustache Gang, Big Red Machine and Tumultuous Summer of ’72 ).