Baseball’s regular season is just a few weeks away- with the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners beginning the season with two games in Tokyo on March 20th and 21st- then everyone else will get going on March 28th with all 30 teams playing. I thought I’d do a baseball feature everyday leading up to the season. With spring training all ready underway- it makes me feel like spring up north isn’t too far away. I am going to feature a different team every day- doing their Mount Rushmore of All-Time players- I will start with the most illustrious team in the history of North American sports- the New York Yankees. I root against the Yankees always- but there is no denying the franchises greatness- 40 American League Pennants and 27 World Series Titles. When selecting just four New York Yankees I will be leaving off some all time greats but there can only be four on Mount Rushmore- with each player I will leave some comments- I am not going to list stats- how many times the player was an All-Star  and stuff like that- those things can easily be found.

1- Babe Ruth- The Babe- the greatest baseball player who ever lived. There have been two truly awful movies on The Babe- the first one in the late 40’s with William Bendix as The Babe and then in 1992 with John Goodman. Dreadful garbage both of them. The Ruth story is fascinating but both movies are riddled with fiction and well neither actor looks like Ruth. Sadly, a lot of people think that the Babe was this big heavy set guy- towards the end of his career he was out of shape and got heavy- but look at the picture below- does that resemble the image? He was a big fella at 6’2″ and a great all around athlete- he started out as a pitcher with the Red Sox and was one of the best in the league- no question he would have been a Hall of Famer had he played his entire career just pitching. There is a new book about The Babe- The Big Fella by-Jane Leavy- which has a different way of looking at him. But the go-to book remains Robert Creamers The Babe: The Legend Comes To Life from 1974.

2. Lou Gehrig- It should have been illegal to have Ruth and Gehrig on the same team- hitting 3rd and 4th in the line-up. Gehrig played 2,130 games in a row-and it took a fatal disease to get him out of the line-up. When I was a kid that was considered a record that no one would ever come close to breaking- then Cal Ripken Jr came along. I don’t think anyone will break Ripken’s record-not because it couldn’t be broken but because a team will never let anyone play everyday like that again. There was a lot of discussion during Cal’s streak- that he would have been a better player in some years had he took a day off here and there. I doubt anyone ever again even gets to 1000 consecutive games. Great bio on Lou- Luckiest Man by Jonathan Eig.

3. Mickey Mantle- Maybe the most popular baseball player ever? Ruth played before television- Mantle was breaking in just in time for television and the Yankees ruled baseball for most of his career- the Yankees won seven World Series during his career. He played in a dozen World Series total. Of course during his career little was known about his drinking and carousing. He was known as being a great teammate- and one of the guys -even though he may have been the most talented ballplayer ever born. To think that Mantle in his rookie season in the World Series tore his ACL_ and played the rest of his career with it- there was no surgeries back in that day to fix him up. If he had been healthy and taken care of himself off the field he may have been the GOAT. Every boy who was a baseball fan back then wanted to be The Mick.   Best biography on The Mick- The Last Boy- Jane Leavy- 2010. Great book but also very sad.

4. Joe DiMaggio- Back when I was younger and would quiz old time baseball fans about who the best ballplayer they ever saw was- the old timers would more often than not say DiMaggio. I mentioned earlier that it should have been illegal to have Ruth and Gehrig in the same line-up- how about having DiMaggio retire and have Mickey Mantle replacing him in center field for the Yankees? DiMaggio will forever be remembered for the 56 Game Hitting Streak- a record I think will never be broken- mainly because of the pressure a player would have on him the last couple weeks as he approached 56. Richard Ben Cramer’s book on DiMaggio -DiMaggio: A Hero’s Life- doesn’t paint a pretty picture. DiMaggio was a great ballplayer without question- but a seriously flawed, insecure, petty man. I would take Mantle over him as a ballplayer- and as a teammate. An outstanding book on the 56 game hitting streak- 56: Joe DiMaggio and The Last Magic Number In Sports by Kostya Kennedy. One thing I did like about DiMaggio as a person he kept his private life private he wasn’t going to be interviewed by Barbara WaWa  and blabber about his problems to the world.

Who would be #5 if there were room for one more? Yogi Berra.

Tomorrow -The Boston Red Sox.