November 2, 2024

By Patrick Kennedy

Kingston Whig Standard

In the recent American League Wild Card series, Houston Astros’ Jason Heyward, his team trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded, ripped a laser line drive at Detroit first baseman Spencer Torkelson.

When Torkelson snared the ball, it sealed the Tigers’ victory. Had Heyward hit the ball a few feet higher or to the left or right, Houston would have tied the score and maybe even triumphed.

Almost simultaneously, some 1,600 km to the east, in South Carolina, former New York Yankees 2B Bobby Richardson experienced a moment of what his old teammate Yogi Berra described as “deja-vu, all over again.”

The flashback: 62 years earlier to Candlestick Park in San Francisco, a similarly dramatic game-ending moment with far more at stake – two out, two men aboard, ninth inning, Game 7, 1962 World Series. The hometown Giants, behind 1-0, had put the tying and winning runs in scoring position for slugger Willie McCovey. “Stretch” McCovey hit a chest-high screamer directly at Richardson, who caught it for the game’s final out. A few feet higher or to the left or right, and the wind tunnel known as Candlestick would’ve exploded in celebration rather than despair.

“You wouldn’t believe what was on my mind just before McCovey hit the ball,” Richardson, 89, recalled with a laugh over the phone the other day from Sumter, S.C., the hometown to which he retired in 1966 following a dozen memorable campaigns with the Bronx Bombers. “Moments beforehand, the second base umpire (Al Barlick) said to me, ‘Hey Rich, can I have your hat for my little cousin?’ I don’t know why, but that’s what I was thinking about before McCovey hit the ball.”

Richardson , left, and Mantle during their playing days

Sure enough, a look at the grainy black-and-white video – the only known Game 7 footage was discovered nearly a half-century later in the wine cellar of onetime Pirates co-owner and renowned crooner Bing Crosby - shows Richardson tossing his cap to the now-Hall-of-Fame umpire as the star infielder rushes towards the mound to congratulate winning pitcher Ralph Terry. That’s the same Ralph Terry, incidentally, who two years earlier had served up Pittsburgh Pirate Bill Mazeroski’s iconic World Series-winning home run.

“I didn’t see McCovey again until we did a banquet together 40 years later,” said Richardson. “When Willie saw me, the first thing he said was, ‘I’ll bet your hand’s still sore.’”

Richardson left his mark on baseball and indeed on the powerful Yankee teams of that era despite the fact he stood just 5-foot-9 and weighed a mere 170 pounds. He played in seven World Series, winning three of them. He played in 36 WS games overall (hitting .305) including an astounding record of 30 straight. The eight-time All-Star also holds or shares World Series hitting marks including most RBIs (12) and most RBIs in a one game (six, shared with three others). His record 13 hits in the 1964 WS has been equalled twice but never surpassed. Named 1960 World Series MVP, he’s still the only player from the losing team to cop the award.

“Sport Magazine gave me a new Corvette,” remembered Richardson. “I drove it home to Sumter. But it was a two-seater with no room for the kids, so I traded it in for a station wagon.”

A few years later, Pirates star pitcher Vernon Law, who pitched superbly and won two games in that 1960 World Series, spotted Richardson at a function.

“Are you still driving my Corvette?” Law asked with a grin.

Richardson’s 1962 season was his most productive. His 209 hits led the American League as did his whopping 754 total plate appearances and 692 official at-bats, the latter two statistics ranking among the top five all-time in the junior circuit. He struck out only 24 times that year. Today’s free-swinging sluggers might accumulate that many Ks during a long road trip. Richardson also won the second of his five straight Gold Gloves that season, “one for each of my children,” he says. He finished second to Mantle in league MVP voting.

Richardson nurtured a special relationship with Mantle, the two were close despite the fact they were polar opposites in their respective off-the-diamond pursuits. Richardson was a tea-totalling Southern Baptist lay minister. Mantle was a partier, a night owl in the city that never sleeps, and his excessive drinking proved to be the death of him.

Richardson delivered the homily at Mantle’s 1995 funeral, as he’d done for 15 other Yankees including Roger Maris a decade earlier.

“Sadly, Tony Kubek and I are the only ones left out of the 25 players on our original Yankee team,” he said of his 89-year-old close pal with whom he roomed throughout his pro career.

That Kubek-Richardson keystone that anchored New York’s middle infield is still widely regarded as being the slickest double-play duo in Yankees history.

Another unlikely friend of Richardson was ex-teammate Billy Martin, another polar opposite. Martin was a hard-drinking, cursing, combative fireball who, like Mantle, nevertheless took a shine to his clean-living fellow second baseman, who served as Martin’s backup until the latter was traded in the 1957 season.

In May of that year, Martin had joined Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer, Mantle, Yogi and their wives for a night on the town to celebrate Martin’s 29th birthday. What ensued was the now-infamous brawl at New York’s Copacabana nightclub. Days later, Martin, who was already considered a bad influence on the young and countrified Mantle – the future of the franchise - took Richardson aside after Martin met with Yankees management.

“Billy said, ‘It’s all yours, kid. I’ve been traded to Kansas City,’” Richardson recalled Martin telling him. “‘You can wear that No. 1 (jersey), too.’”

Despite all that, Richardson prefers to recollect Martin’s softer, generous side. Several years later, Martin showed up at a fundraising auction in South Carolina that Richardson, then coaching college ball, had organized.

“Billy bought everything at the auction,” said Richardson. “Then he donated it all back and said, ‘Now you can do it all over again.’”

Mantle, too, was a frequent visitor at Richardson’s door.

“Mickey would come to talk with the players when I was coaching at the University [of South Carolina],” said Richardson.

On another visit, Mantle, one year after he retired, gave a rudimentary instructional clinic to a group of wide-eyed eight-year-old boys. Afterwards the youngsters asked The Mick if he’d take a few swings himself. Mantle took one cut and batted the ball clean out of the park, over the football field, and into the adjoining parking lot.

“Stop! We can’t do that!” shouted a worried Richardson, as he put an end to the exhibition. “My car’s parked there!”

Richardson still receives on average 10 fan letters a day, requests mostly for autographs on cards, balls, bats, “whatever they send me,” he said. “It’s really something. Here I am almost 90, I’ve been retired almost 60 years, and still the letters keep coming in every day. I sign them all and send them back, no charge.”

He and Betsy, his wife of 68 years, have five children, 20 grandchildren, and just as many great-grandchildren.

On Bobby Richardson Day at Yankee Stadium in 1966, the honoree took time to reflect on his years with the fabled franchise. The player, respectfully dubbed ‘Preacher” by teammates, ended his speech by paraphrasing the words famously spoken by the dying Yankee immortal Lou Gehrig on Lou Gehrig Day in 1939. Bobby fittingly ended his speech with a Christian message.

“In closing I can only say ... how lucky it has been for me to have been a Yankee. To God be the glory.”

Patrick Kennedy is a retired Whig-Standard reporter. He can be reached at pjckennedy35@gmail.com