Bo knows the Big Apple

1987 Season. Part 2 – The Hot Stove Season.

With an excellent season ended by such a devastating loss, George Steinbrenner’s first inclination was to fire someone. His ire immediately hovered over manager and Yankee icon Yogi Berra. Clearly Yogi hadn’t gotten the team prepared to face the Mets. George didn’t care how many rings Yogi had from his playing days, the drive to win simply didn’t ooze out of every pore of his body like it did for someone like himself or George’s dark soul mate the hard fighting and drinking Billy Martin. When during one of his anti-Yogi rants GM Clyde King unwisely decided to point out the PR hit the team would take in the media should they fire Yogi, who was likely to win a second straight AL Manager of the Year award thanks to the team pulling out the division title on the last day in a do or die game against the likely Cy Young award winner, George immediately knew who was getting a promotion firing … Clyde King. On October 22nd the team announced that Clyde King was becoming a “Special Advisor” to the Boss and Woody Woodward was being promoted to General Manager. At George’s prodding, Woodward began making calls in search of a blockbuster trade to alter the chemistry of the clubhouse to that of hardnosed winners. The Brewers didn’t want to part with Paul Molitor. The Tigers wanted too much for Kirk Gibson. John Schuerholz of the Royals laughed at inquiries about Brett Saberhagen. Tommy Lasorda couldn’t live without Mike Scioscia behind the plate at Chavez Ravine. And despite an off year the Cardinals refused to talk about any of their starting pitchers. But everyone asked about the availability of Bo Jackson and Doug Drabek, the Yankees best playoff performers. When Woodward asked the Boss if he could move either one if the right deal came along, George chewed his new GM out for ten straight profanity laced minutes.

There were some excellent players available as Free Agents that fall: Jack Morris and Lance Parrish of the Tigers, Tim Raines and Andres Dawson of the Expos, Rich Gedman of the Red Sox, Brian Downing of the Angels, Ray Knight of the Mets. But Steinbrenner informed Woodward that this particular year the stars were not aligned for those kinds of signings. The word from Commissioner Peter Ueberroth’s office was that the free agent freeze started in 1985 was still on. And as much as George kvetched to himself about it, he was not going to be the first owner to stab his brother owners in their collective collusional backs.

So GM Woodward shifted over to a small ball theory of Hot Stove Season operations. On December 19th he arranged for the unhappy in New York catcher Butch Wynegar to go to the much more relaxed southern California atmosphere in exchange for hard throwing A ball reliever Bryan Harvey. He resigned some of his own free agents: Ron Guidry, Willie Randolph, and Tommy John. On January 5th he traded rookie pitcher Scott Nielsen to the White Sox in exchange for minor league infielder Randy Velarde and minor league pitcher Pete Filson. Backup second baseman and former Yank Juan Bonilla was signed as a free agent in early January after he was release from the Orioles. Pitcher Dave Schmidt, released by the White Sox, was the biggest off season Free Agent acquisition signing a 3 year contract for $1.8 million on January 20. The Dave Schmidt signing cleared the way for the team to release long time reliever Bob Shirley from the roster. Right before catchers and pitcher were to report to Florida, the Yankees welcomed back free agent and catcher Rick Cerone to the organization in a 3 year $1 million dollar deal. The lone loss of the off season came when Don Mattingly won his arbitration case against the Yankees and secured himself a $1,950,000 salary for the 1987 season. The last significant deal of the Hot Stove Season came on March 13 when 1984 second round pick pitcher Al Leiter got sent to the Rangers for relief pitcher Jeff Russell. Woodward was happy that with the newly signed relievers and the continued growth of last year’s rookie pitchers the pitching staff in 1987 should be better than the previous season’s.

Don Mattingly won the American League MVP for the second year in a row. Rickey Henderson came in 3rd, Dave Winfield 6th, and Bo a distant 20th. Dave Righetti came in 4th in Cy Young voting. And yes, Yogi Berra won his second straight American League Manager of the Year award. Yogi returned as opening day manager for the Yankees despite the Boss's peevishness.
 
1987 Season. Part 3 – Spring Training.

Spring Training was an unhurried affair in 1987. The team knew it was good. They were defending AL Champions for Christs sake. On offense no major player personnel changes occurred in the off season, so everyone knew their role. The pitching staff was bolstered by the additions of veterans Dave Schmidt and Jeff Russell. With a healthy Joe Niekro and Tommy John back in the rotation, Bob Tewksbury slide back into the bullpen himself to join the new acquisitions as well as closer Dave Righetti, Rich Bordi, and Brian Fisher. The main aim of the very confident Yankee team was staying healthy.

Bo worked hard prior to reporting in Florida on getting over his nagging injuries from the 1986 season, particularly the hip pointer he’d received the last game of the regular season from a Roger Clemen’s fastball. From Day One in Fort Lauderdale, Bo worked on getting better reads and running better routes in center field. It was clear the previous season to Yogi that Bo was not a natural defensively, but his speed and arm covered up most deficiencies. As favors to Yogi, Bo at various points that spring spent time working on his defense with Joltin Joe, The Mick, and Bobby Ray. They all also spent time, along with hitting coach Lou Pinella, with Bo in the batting cage helping him with pitch recognition and strike zone judgement. Bo had struck out 162 times in 1986, but everyone was tactful in pointing out the benefits of shortening the swing (i.e., choking up) with two strikes, intentionally fouling off strikes not in Bo’s “zone”, and learning the pitch tendencies of the opposition.

As the team headed north, both Bo and Yogi felt good about his development the last 6 weeks. The pitchers believed they had adjusted well to new catcher Rick Cerone. Yogi, the coaching staff, and the team felt good despite winning only 12 games in Florida. The only one unhappy seemed to be owner George Steinbrenner. Every spring training loss could be traced to a lack of desire on the part of a few scape goats, the biggest being manager Yogi Berra and perennial Mr. May Dave Winfield. The beat reporters by this time were used to the Boss dropping the occasional snide or even straight out acidic comment about Winfield. What was new was the vitriol that seemed to ooze out of every pore of George Steinbrenner every time Dale Berra made a miscue at the plate or in the field. After one game when Dale muffed an easy double play toss from Willie Randolph, the Boss stormed at GM Woody Woodward that he needed to cut Yogi’s boy by the time he was done showering. Woodward calmly explained that this was an unnecessary spring training PR battle that George couldn’t win, but maybe once the season started and New Yorkers were paying attention to real wins and losses, then an opportunity could present itself.
 
1987 Season. Part 4 – The First 50 Games.

On Monday April 6th, Ron Guidry took the mound at Tiger Stadium as the Yankees opened the season on the road at Detroit against Jack Morris. The lineup manager Yogi Berra put out that day for the Bronx Bombers was 1 – Rickey Henderson (LF), 2 – Willie Randolph (2B), 3 – Don Mattingly (1B), 4 – Dave Winfield (RF), 5 – Ken Griffey (DH), 6 – Bo Jackson (CF), 7 – Mike Pagliarulo (3B), 8 – Rick Cerone (C), and 9 – Bobby Meacham. Guidry lasted 6 innings allowing only 1 run on a Larry Herndon home run and had the lead when Jeff Russell came on to pitch the 7th. Donnie Baseball smacked two doubles off of Morris to account for all the Yankee scoring, the first of which plated Henderson and Randolph and the second of which scored Rickey. Dave Righetti made things interesting in the ninth, allowing Darrell Evans to single home Alan Trammell from second with 2 outs. But Rags struck out the next batter, Mike Heath, to seal the save and the win for New York. Bo had a broken bat single in the 5th, but never signified in the results of the game offensively or defensively. Still, an auspicious start to the 1987 season against one of the Yankees’ heated rivals for last year’s AL East crown.

For the rest of April, the entire team played extremely well as a whole. The rotation of Guidry, Rasmussen, John, Drabek, and Niekro didn’t pitch brilliantly, but all above average. Likewise the bullpen. On offense, Mattingly, Henderson, and Pagliarulo joined Bo as threats to hit a home run any time at the plate. The only drags on the offense were at catcher where Ron Hassey was a far cry from the previous year’s run machine and the short stop combo of Meacham and Dale Berra where combined they had a hard time hitting above the Mendoza line. Bo wrapped up the month looking smooth with 5 dingers and 7 stolen bases. The team went 14 and 7, and held second place behind a scalding hot Milwaukee Brewer team with 18 wins.

Friday, May 1st brought the start of a 3 game series in Minnesota against the Twins and it opened with a dozy, as the Bosses’ hammer came down hard on Yogi Berra. Since spring training, Dale Berra had looked lethargic at the plate and also in the field. GM Woody Woodward knew Steinbrenner wanted Dale gone simply as a dig against Yogi. When Dale badly bobbled a relay throw on April 29th against the Texas Rangers to allow the tying AND winning runs to score in the 8th, Woodward knew the moment to make George happy had come. He was on the phone all day the 30th, a travel day for the team, looking for a veteran middle infielder. And he found him in Montreal. On the 1st, Woodward called Yogi in Minnesota to tell him that he had to notify Dale he was being cut by the team. Once Yogi calmed down enough to listen to Woodward again, he heard that the Yankees would be receiving not exactly veteran short stop and second baseman Tom Foley in exchange for minor league outfielder Roberto Kelly. When Yogi hung up the phone, he knew the team needed to win the pennant again or his ass was grass with the man calling the shots, Steinbrenner. Later, in the clubhouse, when told of Dale being cut, the rest of the team knew too that they had to win to protect Yogi’s job.

The team responded with more over .600 winning percentage ball. They only won one out of three against the Twins. But took 2 out of 3 from the White Sox and then 2 out of 3 at home against the Twins again. A quick 2 game series at home against the White Sox saw two more victories, the second of which slide them into a tie with the Brewers a top the AL East. The next series, a two game split against the Rangers, saw the Yankees take sole possession of first place. A position they did not relinquish the rest of the month, going an extremely solid 17 wins and 11 losses for the month of May. Dale Berra may not have exactly been a brother like figure to Bo, but Yogi sure was a father figure. And Bo responded to upper managements snub of Yogi by putting on a dazzling display of speed, power, and skill in May. He hit just over .300 with 5 home runs, 2 triples, 5 stolen bases, 18 runs scored, and 18 runs driven in. The ESPN highlight of the month was of Bo running on a full out sprint to deepest Death Valley and leaping to the top of the fence to take a home run away from Kirby Pucket. As the month ended, early as it was in the voting process, Bo lead all players in All Star balloting.
 
1987 Season. Part 5 – The Middle of the Season.

June started with a home series against the previous season’s ALCS opponent for the Yankees, the California Angels. The Angels were not the dangerous opponents of the previous season, and the Bronx Bombers took 2 out of 3 to keep a two game lead in the AL East. Things started getting … interesting later that week. The next game, on the road in Milwaukee, Don Mattingly badly pulled his lower back stretching for an offline throw from Pagliarulo. Don promptly left the game, replaced at first by Jerry Royster. Examinations the next morning showed no improvement, so the call was made to place Mattingly on the two week disabled list. Yogi quickly decided Ken Griffey would talk over as the regular first baseman and Dan Pasqua slipping in as the primary DH. The call went down to Columbus and Henry Cotto came up to take the 5th outfielder and pinch runner spot on the roster. When asked about the ramifications of the injury to the team, Bo summed up everyone’s feelings by answering, “Donnie Baseball’s the heart and soul of this team. The man’s the defending two time league MVP. Anytime he’s out of the lineup we are the worse for it. But we’re all professionals. We need to man up for Donnie and for Coach.”

However the roster movement in June didn’t end there. Two days later, on the 7th, GM Woody Woodward pulled the trigger on two trades. Back on the horn with Montreal, he unloaded underperforming catcher Ron Hassey to the Expos in exchange for former 15 game winner Pascual Perez who had been laboring in the last season and a half. Wanting another lefty hitting bat to replace Hassey, Woodward sent the ancient knuckler, Joe Niekro, to the Twins in exchange for the young Mark Salas. Many fans scratched their heads on this deal, Niekro had pitched well despite having one more loss than win, but catcher Rick Cerone was ecstatic. In one day he’d solidified his position as the primary catcher and he no longer have to suffer through trying to catch Niekro’s knuckleball. Bob Tewksbury was pretty happy too as he slid from the bullpen into the rotation, and Chris Bosio got the callup from starting against International League hitters to being the garbage time man on the mound for the Yankees.

The immediate response by the team did not appear positive. They were swept at home by the Blue Jays and fell into second place behind the aforementioned Blue Jays. For once Steinbrenner didn’t default his anger at Yogi. He was heard, through closed doors, yelling, “Wood, what the hell did you do to MY team!!!” But the team righted itself quickly to win six out of their next seven against the Brewers and Orioles to edge back into a tie for first with the Blue Jays. The Jays and Yankees jockeyed for first the rest of the month until the Bronx Bombers returned the favor of the sweep against Toronto in Toronto on June 29th, June 30th, and July 1st. The June 29th game was a particular barn burner with the Yankees winning a 15 to 14 slug fest at Exhibition stadium. Bo hit two home runs in that game to wrap up another good month at the plate. All in all, the Yankees repeated May’s record, with 17 wins and 11 losses.

Despite finishing the month strong, it was not without further difficulties. On the 17th, Ron Guidry and his aching shoulder also went on the DL. Recently called up Chris Bosio, who’d performed well for the team the previous autumn took Guidry’s place in the rotation. And new acquisition Pascal Perez came up from Columbus to fill Bosio’s slot as last man in the pen. But the injury news was not all bad for the team. Don Mattingly’s back injury turned out to be not as bad as first feared. Since the team ultimately played well while Mattingly rested and rehabbed, there was no rush to return him and he stayed a full two weeks on the DL. Upon his return Yogi opted for caution with his superstar and rested him a bit more often the remainder of the season, sometimes with off days and other times by having him DH.

June also saw the Yankees prepare in the annual MLB draft. Based on their league leading best record in 1986, the team drafted in the 26th slot. Though they had forfeited their first round pick when they had signed Rick Cerone as a free agent in February. In the second round, with their first overall pick, the Yankees took New York City high school shortstop Alex Arias. In the third round Scott Chiamparino a right handed pitcher from Santa Clara University was chosen. Right handed pitcher Doug Gogolweski was selected out of Michigan State in the fourth. The fifth round saw the Team take another high school pitcher, Red Morrison. Pop Popplewell a pitcher at Miami-Dade College went in the sixth round mostly for the promise of his arm and only partly from the coolness of his name. Another right handed college pitcher, Dave Eiland out of the University of South Florida was grabbed in the seventh round.

July witnessed the Yankees lead the AL East every day of the month. Their greatest lead was by 5 games on the 4th of July. By the 31st their lead stood at 2 and a half. For the first time in 1987, the Yankees’ did play a month with less than a .600 winning percentage, going a still healthy 15 wins against only 11 losses. While some players expressed a bit of frustration that the All Star Break might interrupt the winning roll they’d been experiencing, most of those comments seemed to come from the few Yankee players that didn’t happen to make the All Star Team itself.

To say the America League All Star roster was Yankee laden in 1987 would be an understatement. Don Mattingly, Willie Randolph, Rickey Henderson, Dave Winfield, and Bo Jackson were all voted in as starters. By MLB rules, Yogi, as the manager of the AL pennant winning team in 1986, became the manager of the AL All Star Team and participated in selecting the pitchers and non-starters. He chose Dave Righetti to be the only pitcher from the Yankees staff to make the team. Yogi got a bit of heat from Yankee fans when he selected Kevin Seitzer over his own Mike Pagliarulo as the backup third baseman behind voters’ choice Wade Boggs. The game itself was an American League 1 to 0 victory over the NL. Bo scored the only run of the game on a double by Cal Ripken. Bo also stole two bases. Cal just beat Bo for the game MVP, partly thanks to a couple scintillating defensive plays at short.
 
1987 Season. Part 6 – The Last Third.

As the dog days of August started, the team hoped for the return of Ron Guidry to the rotation. Though Chris Bosio was performing adequately in his stead, posting an ERA in the low 4s. With the team in first place, Yogi continued his recipe of resting Don Mattingly and what was turning out to be a chronically sore, but thankfully so far only mildly, back. Not only was Mattingly getting one game a week off, usually against a lefty if arrangeable, and one game a week at DH, but he often found himself pulled late in blowouts. Yogi clearly had Don’s and the Yankee’s long term interests at heart. New acquisition Tom Foley was splitting time at short stop 50-50 with Bobby Meacham. Foley’s bat was pretty decent for a middle infielder and the challenge of his presence seemed to light a bit of fire under Meacham’s bat as well, raising his batting average from Mendoza territory to over .250. Willie was proving a little brittle, and some weeks found Foley playing as much second as short.

Off season bullpen pickups Schmidt and Russell weren’t setting the world on fire setting up Righetti, but they were adequate and probably better than the likes of last season’s Bob Shirley. Righetti himself wasn’t lights out either. New acquisition Pascal Perez, however, was appearing to be lights out. When Yogi felt like he needed to adjust his rotation a bit, spot starts went to Perez, or Rich Bordi, or Brian Fisher. The staff ERA so far was very comparable to last season’s seventh best in the AL, but run scoring was up, especially home runs, this season. So relative to the rest of the league, the staff was above average, despite what most Yankee fans thought on the subject.

The team opened the month at home against the hard charging Tigers, losing 2 of 3. Four days later they again played the Tigers, this time in Detroit, in a four game series. The bounces seemed to go to Sparky Anderson’s way in this series too and his Tigers took 3 of 4. The team quickly righted itself by swiping three games in Kansas City against the excellent trio of Danny Jackson, Bret Saberhagen, and Charlie Liebrandt. They followed that up with 2 wins at home against the Indians. Louisiana Lightning took his place back on the mound in Seattle on the 18th. The chain reaction bumped Bosio back to the pen and Pascual Perez returned to the International League. Gator looked ok throwing 6 innings of 2 run ball. The offense plated the winning run in the top of the ninth, and Righetti held the door closed for the 4 – 3 victory. After that, the team muddled through six wins and six losses to finish the month with an overall record of 78 wins against 53 losses and tie for first place in the AL East with the Detroit Tigers.

The September 1st expansion of the 25 man roster saw the return of Pascual Perez, Henry Cotto, and second baseman Juan Bonilla. Rookie prospects Jay Buhner, Randy Velarde, and Bryan Harvey also got invites to come up to the team for cups of coffee. The month started well with the Bronx Bombers winning three of their first four, but the last victory came with a cost. After giving up 4 runs in the top of the first to the California Angels, Ron Guidry regained control and shut them down the next four innings while the offense scored 2 in the 2nd, 3 in the 3rd, and 2 in the 4th. While throwing his warm tosses in the top of the sixth, Gator grabbed at his left elbow and left the game. X-rays later revealed bone spurs. Guidry tried rehab, but it quickly became obvious he needed surgery. His season was over. To Yankee fans, it looked like the loss of Guidry deflated the entire team. Lots of individual Yankees played well. Only a couple played poorly. But for the rest of the month, few of the players played well on the same day. Bo smacked 4 home runs and swiped 5 bases, but he only hit .240 while racking up a whopping 30 strikeouts. The team fell out of first place with the loss on September 1st, but the Tigers were so hot the Yankees didn’t catch up with their subsequent three victories. In fact, the Yankees never got back to first the rest of the season. Ultimately they limped out 13 wins versus 14 losses for September and split the last 4 games of the season against the Red Sox and Orioles. The Detroit Tigers won the AL East with a 96 and 66 record. The Yankees came in second place, one game ahead of the Blue Jays and two games ahead of the Brewers.

“Finishing with 93 wins is nothing to be ashamed off,” said Bo in the locker room after the last game of the Season. “But we the Yankees. Anything short of the playoffs is a disappointment. Disappointment to us, to Coach Yogi, to Mr. Steinbrenner, and to the City.” Bo started clearing out his locker with a glum look on this face.

Disappointment of not, Bo himself had taken a step forward in the 1987 season as a player. In 585 at bats he scored 92 runs and drove in 96 while smacking 26 doubles, 6 triples, and 33 homeruns assisted by 39 stolen bases. All in all he had a .273 batting average, a .341 on base percentage, and a .507 slugging percentage. He got voted to his first (of many) All Star games and garnered 7th place in the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) award voting.

However the wrath of the most disappointed and most important Yankee, the Boss, would soon fall upon the organization.
 
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1987 Season. Part 7 – Season Ending Yankee Stats.

Hitters and Pitchers Stats for the 1987 Regular Season.



NYY 1987 Season Stats.jpg
 
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