By Jonathan Migdal
1964 marked the last year of a great Yankee dynasty. It also marked the end
of harmonica tunes on the Yankee team bus.
Despite winning the pennant in each of the
previous four years, the Bronx Bombers spent
most of the 1964 season in a slump. The
promotion of the always popular Yogi Berra to
replace manager Ralph Houk had been well
received, but at times, it seemed that Berra
garnered more laughs from his players than he
did respect.
In mid-August, the Yankees found themselves
languishing in third place behind Baltimore and
Chicago. But the team ignited down the stretch,
winning thirty of their last forty games to take
their fifth consecutive pennant. Their spark came
from an unlikely source -- reserve infielder Phil Linz.
Linz was a career .235 hitter for the Yankees, Phillies, and Mets. Even though
he was a tough, aggressive player who loved being a Yankee, he was
regarded by some to be an un-Yankeelike young rascal, as were teammates
Joe Pepitone and Jim Bouton.
The summer of 1964 was Linz's most productive season. Injuries to Tony
Kubek made the "supersub" a regular: Linz started the majority of the games
down the stretch, and every World Series game at short. But his greatest
contribution came off the field. When the Yankees hit bottom in late August,
his harmonica unwittingly turned the team around.
It was Aug. 20, and a 5-0 shutout at the hands of Chicago's John Buzhardt
had completed a demoralizing four-game sweep by the White Sox. As the
Yankees boarded the team bus to O'Hare Airport, Linz pulled out his
harmonica and quietly began to toot the only song he knew, "Mary Had a
Little Lamb."
From the front of the bus, an irate Berra
shouted, "Knock it off!" But Linz barely heard
him. When asked what their manager had
said, Mickey Mantle replied, "Play it louder."
And Linz did just that.
Berra had heard enough. He stormed to the
back of the bus and told Linz to "shove that
thing" before smacking the instrument out of
his hand. The harmonica flew into Joe Pepitone's knee and Pepitone jokingly
winced in pain. Soon the entire bus -- except for Berra -- was in stitches.
Once Berra returned to his seat Mantle fetched the harmonica, turned to
Yankee ace Whitey Ford and said, "It looks like I'm going to be managing this
club pretty soon. You can be my third base coach. And here's what we'll do.
One toot, that's a bunt. Two toots, that's a hit and run."
Coach Frank Crosetti labeled it the "first case of open defiance by a player"
and later said it was the worst incident he had seen in his 33 years with the
team. Linz was fined $200 -- but was said to have received a $20,000
endorsement from a harmonica company.
Mantle once suggested that he had done Berra a favor by inciting the incident.
He once wrote, "I'm not trying to brag, but in a way, unintentionally, I may
have turned the team around for Yogi."
Indeed, the Yankees' new respect for their manager salvaged what had been a
disappointing season. The club put together a 22-6 record over the month of
September, winning a tight pennant race by one game over the White Sox
and two games ahead of the Orioles, led by A.L. MVP Brooks Robinson.
But the Yankees went on to lose the World Series to Bob Gibson and the St.
Louis Cardinals in seven games (despite two home runs from Linz, an unlikely
power source) and Berra was unceremoniously released the day after the
series ended. His fate had been sealed long before the Yankees fell to St.
Louis; club management had already decided they wanted to hire Cards
manager Johnny Keane well before the Series began.
Whether or not Linz was liked by the old-timers, he did play hard. And like
him or not, he may have salvaged the 1964 season -- not with any swing of
the bat, but with a few toots out of his harmonica.
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