--- title: New York Yankees: Rare Photos From Spring Training by Tony Kubek description: In 1961, LIFE asked 25-year-old Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek to photograph his famous teammates -- Mantle, Berra, Maris, Ford and the rest. canonical: https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-16T17:53:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:08:36.867Z og:title: New York Yankees: Rare Photos From Spring Training by Tony Kubek og:description: In 1961, LIFE asked 25-year-old Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek to photograph his famous teammates -- Mantle, Berra, Maris, Ford and the rest. og:url: https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt051cf3b228a9aedf/6988458355a85982aaa8ad64/ugc1333491.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, 1961 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New York Yankees: Rare Photos From Spring Training by Tony Kubek twitter:description: In 1961, LIFE asked 25-year-old Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek to photograph his famous teammates -- Mantle, Berra, Maris, Ford and the rest. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt051cf3b228a9aedf/6988458355a85982aaa8ad64/ugc1333491.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Spring Training Follies: Unpublished Photos of Yankee Legends Goofing Off by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 16, 2014 5:53 PM UTC  Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek, photographed by LIFE's Bob Fellows, sets up a shot of teammate Bobby Richardson (munching an apple) at spring training in 1961. Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek, photographed by LIFE's Bob Fellows, sets up a shot of teammate Bobby Richardson (munching an apple) at spring training in 1961.Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 16, 2014 5:53 PM UTC In 1961, during spring training in Florida, LIFE gave 25-year-old Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek a camera and asked him to photograph his teammates: [Mickey Mantle](http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/10/29/micky.mantle.book/index.html), Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and the rest of the players on what would be seen, in time, as one of the greatest teams in baseball history. The resulting photos were never published. (See slide 12 in this gallery for a possible reason why.) Now, five decades later, LIFE.com presents those pictures, along with [Kubek](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony%5FKubek)‘s own insights and memories of that particular spring training and that singular, unforgettable era of pro ball. Kubek, the 1957 American league Rookie of the Year, played his entire nine-year career with the Yankees, winning seven American League pennants and three World Series. After he retired, he embarked on a distinguished broadcast career, working for NBC for more than 20 years (as an analyst for the network’s Saturday “Game of the Week,” among others) and calling Yankee games for the MSG network for another five. In 2009 he was given the Hall of Fame’s Ford Frick Award, bestowed on a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball.” Now 78 years old, Kubek lives in Wisconsin. He doesn’t follow pro ball much anymore. (He retired from broadcasting in 1994, he says, because “I got tired of hearing myself talk, and it was time to get on with another phase of life with my wife, Margaret.”) But the images in this gallery obviously had some resonance for him, and after all these years, they got him talking again — about his own playing days; about the game as he knew it back then; and about guys with names like Mickey, Yogi, Elston, Whitey, Moose, Bobby, Roger — his teammates, and his friends. --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” ---  Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek, photographed by LIFE's Bob Fellows, sets up a shot of teammate Bobby Richardson (munching an apple) at spring training in 1961. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek photographs Mickey Mantle in 1961. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Mickey Mantle at spring training, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Mickey Mantle, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek and Yogi Berra, 1961. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Yogi Berra poses for Tony Kubek at spring training, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Roger Maris at spring training in 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Bobby Richardson, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Bobby Richardson, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Elston Howard at the Yankees spring training camp in Florida in 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Elston Howard's No. 32 was retired by the Yankees in 1984\. He's also part of a relatively interesting piece of sports trivia, in that three professional athletes who wore No. 32 won MVP awards in 1963: Howard (AL MVP), Jim Brown (NFL MVP), and Sandy Koufax. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Part of a memo sent from Florida to the LIFE offices in New York by Bob Fellows, a photographer who accompanied Kubek and who took some of the pictures in this gallery. Fellows' wry take on the proceedings offers a plausible reason why the pictures of "the fellers" were never published: namely, the images were pretty good, and the players "hammed it up wonderfully for Kubek's camera," but in the end the "grisly business" of photographing ballplayers who had better things to do than stand around having their pictures taken by their young teammate proved too much for self-avowed "Baseball-Hater" Fellows to bear. Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Yankee pitcher Bob Turley, spring training, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Tony Kubek sets up a photo of pitcher Bob Turley, 1961. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. William Joseph "Moose" Skowron, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Whitey Ford, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1961. Tony Kubek—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. From left: Moose Skowron, Tony Kubek, and Roger Maris, Florida, 1961. Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/"},"headline":"Spring Training Follies: Unpublished Photos of Yankee Legends Goofing Off","datePublished":"2014-02-16T17:53:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:08:36.867Z","description":"In 1961, LIFE gave 25-year-old New York Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek a camera and asked him to photograph his teammates — Mantle, Berra, Maris and other greats. The result? Wonderful pictures of grown men goofing off.","url":"https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/","keywords":["Culture","Baseball","New York Yankees","black and white photography","1961"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt051cf3b228a9aedf/6988458355a85982aaa8ad64/ugc1333491.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ben Cosgrove","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt051cf3b228a9aedf/6988458355a85982aaa8ad64/ugc1333491.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, 1961","caption":"Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, 1961","creditText":"Bob Fellows—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/culture/","name":"Culture"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/11134/new-york-yankees-spring-training-rare-photos-1961/","name":"Spring Training Follies: Unpublished Photos of Yankee Legends Goofing Off"}}]}] ```