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Posted By: howard

It seems to me that when someone wants to criticize a player with impeccable stats they resort to things which are difficult to define such as clutch ability. Somehow or other the Yankees won year after year with Mantle as their best player and Ford as their best pitcher even though it "seemed" they only contributed when it didn't count. I assume you know the stats so I won't bother with them except for this:

When Stengel managed the Yankees he often held Ford back so he could use him against the tougher teams and sometimes used him in relief in crucial spots. As a result Ford rarely had 30 or more starts in a season but still managed to win 18 or 19 games a couple of times. When Ralph Houk and then Yogi became managers they gave Ford the ball 35 to 39 games a season and he averaged 20 wins for the last five seasons of his career.