Seven Hall of Famers died in 2020, two of them Yankees, franchise great Whitey Ford and knuckleball phenom Phil Niekro.
In all, 16 Yankees alums passed during this horrific year, and that doesn’t include part-owner and co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner, who died on April 14 at age 63.
Here’s a look back at the former Yankees who passed in 2020 with memories of their time with the club:
DON LARSEN, RHP
Died: Jan. 1, 2020 (age 90).
Career stats: 81-91, 3.78 ERA, 412 games, 171 starts, 1,548 IP, 1,442 hits, 130 HR, 725 BB, 849 K, 5 pennants, 2 World Series titles, 1 World Series MVP in 14 seasons with St. Louis Browns (1953), Baltimore Orioles (1954, 1965), Yankees (1955-59), Kansas City Athletics (1960-61), Chicago White Sox (1961), San Francisco Giants (1962-64), Houston Colt .45s (1964) and Houston Astros (1965).
Yankees stats: 45-24, 3.50 ERA, 128 games, 90 starts, 655.1 IP, 549 hits, 57 HR, 362 BB, 356 K, 4 pennants, 2 World Series titles, 1 World Series MVP in 5 seasons (1955-59).
Yankees claim to fame: Larsen instantly transformed from journeyman to legend pitching the only perfect game in postseason history at Yankee Stadium in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, a 2-0 Yankees win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen had a good season in ’56, going 11-6 with a 3.26 ERA, but went into the postseason with a 30-40 career record that included a 3-21 mark in 1954. After retiring 27 Dodgers in a row, Larsen told reporters, “Last night I was a bum and tonight everybody wants to meet me.”
The passing of Horace Clarke earlier this week inspired one splendid and loyal reader, Eric Schnipper (aka @drschnip on Twitter) to make a suggestion: “Name the Horace Clarke facsimile for all New York pro teams: a guy … who played for the better part of a decade and epitomizes the era of ineptitude — and, if possible, bridged winning eras.”
(Oh yes, consider us like the dueling pianists at either Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans or your local Howl at the Moon — remember piano bars? Remember bars? Just sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and — voila! — you, too have an Open Mike subject!)
It is a thankless task, sure, because as we all discovered this week a lot of us feel pretty bad about having laid all that ailed the 1965-75 Yankees at the feet of poor Horace Clarke. But, then, little about sports is fair, right? There are always way more lousy teams than good ones, far too many nights you want to punch a wall or kick a TV screen than you want to admit to.
Plus, as most of those repentant Yankees fans also admitted this week: It’s the bad times that make you truly embrace the good. So herewith, one man’s roster of the faces of futility for Our Teams, and let us remember: as Horace Clarke reminded us this week, you can still be proud to say you rooted for them. Losing doesn’t make you a bad person. Honestly.
Mets: Well, since it was Dr. Schnip’s idea, we’ll go with his choice here, and it’s a good one: Ron Hodges. Hodges actually broke in as a third-string catcher on the ’73 Mets and contributed a few key moments to that pennant drive but his great talent was, amazingly, to be a part of every successive (and successively awful) Mets team thereafter, right on through 1984 when they finally got good again. No relation to Gil, Hodges hit .240/.342/.322 and came back for more every year.
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