Word: bauers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Drink. On or off the field, his value to the Yankees was priceless. "Bauer taught me how to dress, how to talk-and how to drink," says Mickey Mantle, remembering how he arrived from Commerce, Okla., wearing a straw hat and carrying a $4 cardboard suitcase. "I'll never forget the first game I pitched for the Yankees," says Whitey Ford. "I came flying into the locker room at 1 p.m. I had overslept. Nobody said anything, but Bauer gave me that look of his. I dressed and ran. As it turned out, I won the game. Afterward, Bauer...
There were bad moments too. There was, for instance, the celebrated "Copacabana incident" in 1957. A Bronx delicatessen owner sued Bauer for $250,000, claiming that Hank had punched him and broken his jaw. That was silly; a Bauer punch would have broken him into little pieces. But Hank was still hauled off to a police station, photographed, fingerprinted and booked-"just like a criminal." Partly on the strength of Yogi Berra's now-classic testimony-"Nobody never hit nobody nohow"-a Manhattan grand jury cleared Bauer of the charge. Another sore point: the cavalier way the Yankees traded...
...that sadly depressing trade proved to be the biggest break of Bauer's career. After a so-so 1960 season (.275 average, three homers), the aging outfielder was summoned to a meeting with Kansas City Owner Charles O. Finley and General Manager Frank Lane. "How would you like to manage one of our minor-league farm clubs?" asked Lane. Replied Bauer: "I'd like a shot at managing, but I don't think I'm interested in going back to the minors." Announced Finley: "Well, then, you're the new manager of the Kansas City...
...Bauer, naturally, did not get along with Finley. Nobody does. A cigar-chewing Chicago insurance man who made $10 million at his trade, Finley runs his ball club like a child playing with a Roger Maris Baseball Game. He battles constantly with sportswriters, rival owners, league officials. And he discards managers the way women throw away hats...
...Bauer's Athletics won 72 games-their second-best showing ever. Finley still insisted that Bauer play certain men, bench others, ordered him to tell Manny Jimenez, the club's rookie sensation (.301, eleven homers in 1962), to stop slicing singles and start swinging for the fences. Bauer ground his teeth-and followed orders. Last Jimenez' average plummeted 20 points, and he did not hit a single home run. Bauer, gratefully, had long since left. There were still two days to go in the 1962 season when he announced that he was quitting: "When a man loses...