July 25, 1968: Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle reunite for Yankees’ exhibition in Syracuse

After 15 years of resounding success under the bright spotlights of New York City, the Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle Show played a less celebrated encore performance in July 1968, in Syracuse, New York, the baseball equivalent of off-Broadway.1

Ford, one year into retirement and serving on the New York Yankees’ coaching staff, returned to the mound on July 25 as the Yankees’ starting pitcher in an exhibition against their Triple-A affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs. Mantle, in his final season as an active player, started at first base. Between 1953 and 1967, Ford and Mantle had been teammates, friends, and sometime carousing partners2 on the Yankees, winning five World Series titles3 alongside a host of individual awards and league-leading statistical achievements.4

In the exhibition, the 36-year-old Mantle went 0-for-2 before being shuffled out of the lineup, but the 39-year-old Ford pitched three shutout innings to earn the unofficial “win” as the Yankees beat their farmhands, 5-0. Yankee position players Gene Michael and Rocky Colavito also took turns on the mound, signaling that the big-league club viewed the game more as an offday workout than a competition.

The best days of the Ford-Mantle era were several years past when the Yankees pulled into Syracuse. The previous season’s scintillating, down-to-the-wire AL pennant race hadn’t involved the New Yorkers, who finished ninth in a 10-team league with a 72-90 record.5

Manager Ralph Houk’s 1968 team again sat near the bottom of the league, in eighth place with a 44-49 record,6 14 games behind the eventual World Series champion Detroit Tigers. In the “Year of the Pitcher,” the Yankees performed creditably on the mound, led by 21-game winner Mel Stottlemyre and Stan Bahnsen, who won 17 games and the AL Rookie of the Year Award.7 But a weak offense let them down, as the one-time “Bronx Bombers” posted the fewest hits and lowest team batting average in the majors.8 Mantle, hobbled by chronic injuries, was playing regularly at first base and hitting .236.

The Yankees’ International League affiliate in Syracuse had also struggled in 1967, finishing eighth and last at 63-77, 17½ games back. Under the leadership of Frank Verdi, who’d very briefly been a teammate of Ford and Mantle, the ’68 Chiefs were showing more promise.9 They entered the day with a 47-46 record and were one of four IL teams within 4½ games of the first-place Toledo Mud Hens.10

The Chiefs accomplished this despite slumps from some of their leading prospects. The New York City press specifically cited outfielders Jim Lyttle and Tom Shopay, who were hitting .253 and .240 respectively. Of Lyttle, the Yankees’ first-round pick in the June 1966 amateur draft, Houk said, “He’s a great athlete. All he has to do is hit.” Houk’s evaluation of Shopay, who had impressed in an eight-game major-league trial in 1967, was more curt: “We thought he’d be doing better.”11 Houk denied that he was scouting any of the Chiefs’ players for possible promotion. “Some of these boys may be up in September,” he said, “but I’ve got no plans at present.”12

The Yankees’ starting lineup mixed a few regular starters – like Mantle, catcher Jake Gibbs, and shortstop Tom Tresh – with reserves like Colavito, Michael, second baseman Dick Howser, and center fielder Bill Robinson. News coverage did not explain why Ford received the start. Based on Houk’s use of position players on the mound, the manager was presumably conserving his pitching staff for the Yankees’ coming stretch of 12 games in 11 days.13

In addition to Lyttle and Shopay in center and left field respectively, the Chiefs’ starting lineup included five other players who had either been to the major leagues or were on their way there. They were third baseman Mike Ferraro, second baseman Len Boehmer, catcher Ellie Rodríguez, first baseman Dave McDonald, and pitcher Rich Beck. Beck, a 28-year-old right-hander, had gone 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA in three September 1965 games with the Yankees. He spent the following two seasons in military service and was much less effective upon his return in 1968. For the full season, Beck went 5-5 with a 4.46 ERA in 31 games at Syracuse, with more walks (66) than strikeouts (53).

Mantle had been the last player introduced during pregame ceremonies, drawing lusty cheers from the crowd of 10,523. But he fouled a ball off his leg during batting practice and moved with a visible limp during the game. In the first inning, he struck out after Tresh drew a game-opening walk. Robinson reached when Ferraro misplayed his grounder, and Colavito walked to load the bases. Gibbs grounded to McDonald at first base; the Chiefs got the force at second but couldn’t turn what would have been an inning-ending double play. Tresh scored to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.14

The score stayed 1-0 through four innings. Ford allowed just one hit and one walk in his three-inning stint, striking out five and throwing a wild pitch.15 The Associated Press’s game account credited him with “[tying] the Chiefs into knots … with a great curve.”16 His replacement was Michael, who had warmed up in the bullpen with a behind-the-back gimmick pitch but did not employ it in gameplay.17 Michael, an infielder by trade, pitched two innings of shutout ball, giving up two hits and a walk.

The big-leaguers added another run in the fifth. Rubén Amaro, replacing Tresh, singled and was forced at second on a grounder by Andy Kosco, in for Mantle.18 Kosco took second on Robinson’s groundball out and scored on a hit by Colavito, who went 3-for-3.

Offensive star Colavito moved to the mound for the sixth and seventh, pitching two hitless shutout innings with one strikeout. (A New York reporter poked fun at the Chiefs’ failure to compete, writing, “With a few exceptions, the Chiefs played as if they were trying to help the Yankees make an early flight.”19)

Houk denied that he was grooming Michael and Colavito for regular-season pitching work – “it would take an awful lot of doubleheaders in August”20 – but he called on both men later that season. Michael pitched three innings in the second game of a doubleheader against the California Angels on August 26, surrendering five hits and five runs – all unearned – in his only big-league pitching appearance. Colavito, who had pitched a game for the 1958 Cleveland Indians, fared better. In the first game of an August 25 doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, Colavito earned a win with 2 2/3 shutout innings of relief.

But back to Syracuse. Gary Girouard, a 25-year-old righty from Maine, took over from Beck in the sixth inning.21 He’d gone 14-6 with Double-A Binghamton in 1967 but struggled with Syracuse in 1968. For the full season he posted a 4-10 record and a 4.59 ERA in 42 regular-season games, mostly in relief. The 1968 season was Girouard’s last of four pro seasons.

Colavito bunted for a single to lead off the eighth against Girouard. Joe Pepitone singled down the right-field line, where Tommie Martz misplayed the ball for the last of four Syracuse errors.22 Colavito scored and Pepitone motored all the way to third. Frank Fernández, who’d moved from left field to catcher, then hit a home run to left, bringing the score to 5-0.

The score was still 5-0 when the Yankees wrapped up their win after 2 hours and 10 minutes of play. Houk used two full-time pitchers, Thad Tillotson23 and Dooley Womack, in the eighth and ninth innings. Each allowed one hit. Lyttle and McDonald earned notice for good defensive plays, while one reporter credited Beck with looking “fairly sharp, sharper than his ERA.”24 The Yankees left town promptly after the game to begin a series in Cleveland.25

The Yankees finished the season with a winning record at 83-79,26 but placed a distant fifth, 20 games behind Detroit. Syracuse tied for fifth in the IL with a 72-75 record, 11 games behind Toledo. Ferraro, the third baseman on that season’s IL all-star team,27 and Rodríguez got look-sees with the Yankees that season, but Beck did not. He pitched one more season in the minors but never returned to the bigs.28 Lyttle and Shopay received call-ups in 1969, though neither developed into major-league regulars.

Ford and Mantle subsequently appeared together in 1970s commercials for Miller Lite beer and Carvel ice-cream products.29 They also took part in Yankee Old-Timers Days alongside other franchise legends.30 But after the Syracuse game, perhaps their most noteworthy reunion took place in 1974. The former teammates and friends were both elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on January 16 of that year, and they were inducted together at ceremonies on August 12.31

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks SABR member Bill Nowlin for research assistance.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of exhibition games, but the July 26, 1968, edition of the Syracuse (New York) Post-Standard published a box score.

Photo of 1967 Topps card #5 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 “Broadway,” “off-Broadway,” and “off-off-Broadway” are terms used to denote different sizes of New York City theaters, regardless of whether the theaters are physically located on the street called Broadway. Works performed in off-Broadway theaters are generally considered less commercially oriented than Broadway productions, have lower budgets, and may be more experimental. Also, off-Broadway theaters are smaller. “How to Tell Broadway from Off-Broadway From …,” Playbill, January 13, 2019, https://playbill.com/article/how-to-tell-broadway-from-off-broadway-from-com-110450; “Off-Broadway,” Britannica.com, accessed January 2025, https://www.britannica.com/art/Off-Broadway.

2 More information on Ford and Mantle’s relationship, including their fondness for fraternizing over drinks, is available in Ford’s SABR Biography Project article, written by C. Paul Rogers III. Ford and Mantle were among a group of Yankees present for a well-publicized May 1957 incident at a New York nightspot called the Copacabana, where the players’ objections to other patrons’ racist comments eventually led to punches being thrown. For more on the incident, see David Margolick, “63 Years Later, a Confession in a Legendary Yankees Scandal,” New York Times, June 22, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/nyregion/1957-yankees-brawl-copacabana-silvestri.html.

3 Ford also pitched on the World Series-winning 1950 Yankees before Mantle arrived in New York in 1951. Mantle, in turn, played on World Series champion teams in 1951 and 1952 while Ford was absent in military service.

4 Ford was the 1961 World Series Most Valuable Player and American League Cy Young Award winner, as well as a three-time The Sporting News American League Pitcher of the Year (1955, 1961, and 1963), among other honors. Mantle won three American League Most Valuable Player Awards, the 1956 Triple Crown, the 1956 The Sporting News Major League Player of the Year honor, and a Gold Glove in 1962, also among other honors.

5 And one tie.

6 And one tie.

7 Despite allowing the second-highest hit total in the AL, the Yankees pitching staff performed better than the league average in several other statistical categories, including earned-run average, WHIP, Fielding Independent Pitching, walks per nine innings, and home runs per nine innings.

8 Entering the 2025 season, the 1968 Yankees’ .214 team batting average still ranked as the lowest in franchise history going back to 1903. However, this performance should be put into the broader context of the “Year of the Pitcher.” The league-wide batting average in the 1968 AL was just .230. The top-hitting team, the Oakland Athletics, hit only .240. And Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox was the sole qualifying AL batter to reach the .300 mark, finishing at .301.

9 On May 10, 1953, Verdi played a half-inning at shortstop as a defensive substitute for the Yankees against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park; he was pinch-hit for in the following half-inning. Verdi – who had replaced Gary Blaylock as Syracuse manager on June 14 – managed for 24 seasons in minor and independent leagues, including several jobs at Triple A, but his half-inning at shortstop in 1953 was his only major-league experience as a player, manager, or coach. Associated Press, “Verdi New Manager of Chiefs,” Ithaca (New York) Journal, June 15, 1968: 12.

10 “Scores and Standings,” Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, July 25, 1968: 1D.

11 Shopay hit .296 in 27 at-bats.

12 Al Cohn, “Yanks Swat Chiefs and Mosquitoes,” Newsday (Long Island, New York), July 26, 1968: 39.

13 The Yankees’ next scheduled offday was Tuesday, August 6.

14 Unless otherwise specified, all game action is taken from Jack Andrews, “Yankees Blank Chiefs, 5 to 0, in Exhibition,” Syracuse Post-Standard, July 26, 1968: 19. Newsday might have been the only New York City media outlet to send a reporter to Syracuse, and Cohn’s story (“Yanks Swat Chiefs and Mosquitoes”) focused more on nongame color than game action. The New York Times and New York Daily News ran brief Associated Press roundups of the game.

15 Game summaries do not specify which Syracuse player collected the hit or the walk off Ford. The Chiefs had only five hits – one apiece by Lyttle, Shopay, McDonald, Hawk Taylor, and right fielder Tommie Martz.

16 Associated Press, “Ford Stymies Chiefs,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 26, 1968: 1D.

17 Cohn, “Yanks Swat Chiefs and Mosquitoes.”

18 Andrews, “Yankees Blank Chiefs, 5 to 0, in Exhibition.” The box score in the Syracuse newspaper does not credit Amaro with a hit.

19 Cohn, “Yanks Swat Chiefs and Mosquitoes.”

20 Cohn.

21 After pitching five innings, Beck played the remainder of the game at first base. Beck had played first base while attending Gonzaga University, but according to Baseball-Reference, he never played first base in a regular-season professional game. Joe Schuster, “Rich Beck,” SABR Biography Project, accessed January 2025, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/Rich-Beck/.

22 Martz, a 26-year-old Virginian, was in his eighth and last professional season. He hit .271 in 81 games in 1968.

23 Tillotson actually spent more of 1968 with Syracuse than he did with the parent club, pitching in 39 games for Syracuse as compared to seven with New York. However, he was a Yankee at the time of the game, and had pitched for the Yankees against the Boston Red Sox on July 22.

24 Andrews, “Yankees Blank Chiefs, 5 to 0, in Exhibition;” Cohn, “Yanks Swat Chiefs and Mosquitoes.”

25 Andrews.

26 And two ties.

27 Charles J. Tiano, “For Mike Ferraro – Many Accolades but Not the Job,” Kingston (New York) Daily Freeman, October 2, 1968: 32.

28 Pitcher John Cumberland, who went 10-7 with Syracuse, also got a late-season call-up and appeared in one game with the Yankees. Cumberland did not pitch in the July 25 exhibition.

29 1975 Miller Lite commercial accessed on YouTube in January 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R__m-Run4Ug; Carvel Ice Cream corporate records accessed January 2025 via the Smithsonian National Museum of American History Kenneth E. Behring Center, https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.0488.pdf.

30 A few examples, spanning decades: Associated Press, “You Knew He’d Be a Star,” Boise (Idaho) Statesman, August 14, 1995: 4C (photo of Ford, Mantle, and others at 1974 Old-Timers Day); Mike Tschappat, “Gone but Not Forgotten,” Morristown (New Jersey) Daily Record, July 20, 1986: B1 (photo of Mantle, Ford, and others at 1986 Old-Timers Day); John Rowe, “They Knew How to Win,” Bergen County Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), July 25, 1993: S1 (photo of Ford, Mantle, and others at 1993 Old-Timers Day).

31 United Press International, “Mantle, Ford in Hall of Fame,” Palm Springs (California) Desert Sun, January 16, 1974: B3; Larry Bump, “Mantle, Ford Add Youth to Hall,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 13, 1974: 1D.