Baseball: A Wave from Whitey

“Righteous living” was Edward Charles Ford’s stock answer when people asked him the secret of his success. That, perhaps, plus a whistling fastball, a jug-handle curve, a slider, a change-up and a “sinker” that just may have been a spitter, as scores of frustrated batters complained.

Wet or dry, in 18 years with the New York Yankees, “Whitey” Ford ensured himself a place among the pitchers in baseball’s Hall of Fame. He won 236 games and lost only 106 for a percentage of .690—the highest of any 200-game winner since 1900. In 1956 and 1958, he posted the lowest earned-run average in the American League; in 1961 and 1963, he led the league in victories. Lefthander Ford also rewrote the World Series record book—winning a total of ten games, striking out 94 batters, and hurling 331 consecutive scoreless innings to erase the old mark of 291 set by a onetime Boston Red Sox southpaw named Babe Ruth.

The son of a Queens, N.Y., bartender, Whitey started out as a first baseman at the Manhattan High School of Aviation Trades, switched to pitching on the advice of a Yankee scout and signed with the Yanks for a $7,000 bonus in 1946. Farmed out to the minors, he posted a 51-20 record over 3½-seasons, was called up by the Yankees in mid-1950, and promptly rattled off nine victories in a row. Professionally, Ford was the archetypical Yankee—cool, precise and confident of always winning the big game. Personally, he was a pleasure to be around; sportswriters delighted in his availability, affability and wit. His teammates called him “the chairman of the board.”

Not at 38. All that came to an end last week. “Pitching,” Whitey always said, “is not a natural act,” and over the years he was plagued by a succession of ailments common to his trade. A sore arm kept him out of action for much of 1957 and 1960; in 1964 and again last year, he underwent surgery for a circulatory blockage in his shoulder. Two weeks ago, a sharp pain in his left elbow forced Ford to quitthe mound after pitching only one inning against the Detroit Tigers. Doctors traced the trouble to an inch-long bone spur in Whitey’s elbow, advised him that an operation would be necessary to clear it up. Nothing doing, said Ford. “I won’t have another operation. If I were 33 or 34 years old, I would. But not now, not at 38.” He chose to retire instead.

Whitey’s retirement will be comfortable enough. Over those 18 years, he has earned an estimated $600,000 in salary—plus $80,000 in World Series bonuses. On the side, Whitey owns an insurance agency, a couple of office buildings, a garden-apartment complex and a piece of a bank in New Hyde Park, N.Y. “I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to,” he said with obvious satisfaction last week. “I came here wearing $50 suits and I’m leaving wearing $200 suits.” Then, grinning, he added: “I get them for $80.”