Sport: Old Stoneface & the Major

The last time the New York Yankees played the Cincinnati Reds, they won 1-0. That was in April, in an exhibition game. and Yankee Manager Ralph Houk still remembers the occasion. “I had a little chat with Fred Hutchinson at home plate. We were both going badly at the time, and we wondered how either of us would ever win anything.” This week Managers Houk and Hutchinson meet again at home plate, to conclude the managerial success story of the year. The Yankees are the American League champions, the Reds are the National League champions. and each team has only one thing left to win: the World Series.

Monumental Tantrums. The news that their city was back in the series after 21 years of frustration sent Cincinnati citizens into a nightlong riot. By morning, 27 had been arrested on charges ranging from receiving stolen property (a telephone ripped off a cafe wall) to disorderly conduct. But the man who had engineered the excuse for all the excitement had no time to relax. Fred Hutchinson remained the glowering dugout pacer who kept the Reds going all summer long.

Tall and rangy (6 ft. 2 in., 205 Ibs.), “Old Stoneface” Hutchinson has the shoulders of a longshoreman and a face that might have been sculpted by Modigliani. He has been known to terrify rookie ballplayers merely by staring at them, and his temper tantrums are monumental: enraged by the loss of a close game, he has attacked the dugout watercooler, ripped his uniform to shreds, and pounded a concrete wall until his knuckles were bruised and bleeding. When Hutchinson was pitching for Detroit, recalls Yankee Yogi Berra, “I could always tell how he had done when we followed the Tigers into a town. If we got stools in the dressing room. Hutch had won. If we got kindling, he had lost.” But for all his anger, Hutch the manager is a gentle despot, careful not to dress down his players in public, never to ridicule their mistakes. “You can’t go up to a man who’s making $25,000 a year,” he says, “and start joking about his work. It just isn’t funny.”

Picked by sportswriters to finish no better than sixth, Hutchinson’s Reds are a genuine baseball miracle: an odd assortment of discarded has-beens and untested maybes who suddenly jelled into the only consistent team in the fiercely competitive National League. Third Baseman Gene Freese, traded away by four teams in three years, hit 26 homers for the Reds. Reserve Outfielder Jerry Lynch, woefully weak on defense, batted over .400 as a pinch hitter. Catcher Darrell Johnson, a Yankee castoff, hit a lusty .333. First Baseman Gordy Coleman, obtained from Cleveland, found Cincinnati’s bandbox Crosley Field to his liking, collected 25 home runs.

Particularly in his handling of Cincinnati’s thin, erratic pitching staff, Hutchinson proved himself a master tactician. An iron-man pitcher in his own day (112 complete games in 169 starts), Hutch let his starting pitchers try to work themselves out of jams instead of yanking them at the first sign of trouble. “If I keep taking you out,” he said, “you’ll never learn how to pitch. You can’t keep looking back over your shoulder at the bullpen.” Forced to pace themselves carefully, the youngster starters worked on control, wasted few pitches. Little League Alumnus Joey Jay, 26, dumped by the Milwaukee Braves after seven disappointing seasons (lifetime record: 24 wins, 24 losses), came alive and won 21 games to lead the National League. Cocky Jim O’Toole, 24, with only 17 victories (and 21 losses) to show for two previous seasons, won 18. And Kansas City Castoff Ken Johnson, bought from Toronto for $35,000, won five games in his first five weeks on the club.

A Simple Thing. In jaded New York, where the arrival of autumn serves mainly to announce one more World Series (25 pennants are draped on the walls of Yankee Stadium), news of the Yankees’ victory was accepted serenely. Mayor Robert F. Wagner planned a ticker-tape parade, but the idea was promptly vetoed by the businesslike Yankee front office. “Too many things have to be done,” explained a Yankee spokesman. Hard-shelled Ralph (“The Major”) Houk, 42, who won a pennant in his first year as a big league manager, had a disarmingly simple explanation for his success. “Really, this business of managing is a simple thing,” said Houk. “All you need is a flock of .300 hitters, several 20-game winners on your pitching staff, some speed, and some power. Once you have that, you’re a cinch.”

The 1961 Yankees are undoubtedly the strongest-hitting Yankee team since 1939 —when Joe DiMaggio, Charley Keller, Bill Dickey & Co. lowered the boom on hapless Cincinnati in the World Series, won in four straight games. Only three players hit over .300—Elston Howard (.353), Mickey Mantle (.317) and Johnny Blanchard (.305)—but Roger Maris slammed a record 61 home runs, Mantle hit 54, and no fewer than six Yankees hit 20 or more. So powerful was the Yanks’ new Murderers’ Row that First Baseman Bill Skowron (28 homers) found himself batting seventh in the lineup.

Subtler Discipline. Walking in Casey Stengel’s footsteps. Houk was under severe pressure to produce a winner for the Yankees. “There’s only one way to get ahead in this organization,” Houk admitted, “and that’s to win. It doesn’t much matter what else you do, or how people feel about you, or what your personality is. Winning is all that counts.” To tighten the shaky Yankee defense, Houk discarded Casey Stengel’s platooning tactics, installed Tony Kubek permanently at shortstop, slick-fielding Cletis Boyer at third. To get more power into his lineup, he shifted Catcher Yogi Berra to leftfield, made longtime Second Stringer Elston Howard the No. 1 catcher.

Forced to fall back on second-line pitching when Bob Turley developed a sore arm and Art Ditmar totally lost his effectiveness. Houk unhesitatingly moved Youngsters Roland Sheldon (10-5) and Bill Stafford (13-9) into the regular starting rotation. The high-strung Yankees, who had detested dictatorial Manager Stengel, responded enthusiastically to Houk’s subtler brand of discipline. At a time when his every swing counted in his assault on Babe Ruth’s home-run record (TIME, Sept. 29), Roger Maris bunted down the third-base line to squeeze the winning run across the plate in a crucial game. Whitey Ford (25-4), fighting hard for every game, put together his best season, and Screwballer Luis Arroyo (15-5) set a new Yankee record by making 65 relief appearances.

A rigidly self-disciplined technician, blocky (5 ft. 11 in., 198 Ibs.) ex-Catcher Houk arrives at Yankee Stadium four hours before game time, consults with his coaches and studies line-up cards in a paneled office that is necessarily equipped with a handy silver spittoon. He takes careful notes during pregame batting and fielding practice. “That way,” he says, “I might notice that one of their guys is hurt, or pick up one or two other little things.” Like Hutchinson. Houk has a fierce tem per—but he usually keeps it in check. “Temper hurt me a time or two as a player,” he says. “I knew it wasn’t going to help the club, so I said. ‘Well, hell, let’s put a rope on it.’ I don’t say I’ve licked it. but I’ve improved.”

Bookmakers confidently installed the slugging Yankees as prohibitive 5-12 favorites. Houk was quietly optimistic. But Hutchinson was not conceding a thing. “We played in a tough league, and we won the pennant,” he said. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t beat the Yankees.”