1961 Profile: Tony Kubek

1961 AMERICAN LEAGUE ALL-STAR

"Kubek is a fancy-fielding shortstop who can move to third, second or the outfield and do a marvelous defensive job. He has a quick pair of hands and keen eyes when at the plate. He can punch or pull and is capable of chipping in with the long ball.

Born in Milwaukee, Kubek had three sensational minor league years, hitting .344 as a 17-year-old prodigy at Owensboro. He was American League Rookie of the Year in 1957, his best season of four for batting (.297). Kubek hit .333 in the '60 Series after a .273 season average, but will always be remembered for his hard-luck role in the Series when a ground ball struck him in the throat and enabled the Pirates to take the verdict."

Don Schiffer, The Major League Baseball Handbook 1961

WILL TONY KUBEK MAKE THIS HIS BIG YEAR?

Yankee Shortstop Ripe To Realize Rookie Promise

"The season ahead is an important one for the proud New York Yankees, the beginning of Ralph Houk's regime after an era of brilliant prosperity under Casey Stengel.

It could- in fact, should- also be the year Tony Kubek makes it ... BIG.

This may very well be the season 1958 was to have been, and then 1959 and 1960, for the tall blond youngster from Milwaukee. There seems to be no reason why he should not finally attain the stature of an established major league star and there are plenty of indications that he will.

Although he was one of Stengel's most valuable players, and certainly his most versatile performer, for the past four years, authentic stardom has somehow eluded Kubek. He has never quite managed to catch up with and fill out the shadow of greatness he cast before him when he was chosen the American League's outstanding rookie in 1957. It is no simple matter to specify in precisely what respects he has failed to reach his accredited potential. Admittedly, he has never quite become the .300 hitter everybody thinks he should and eventually will be. His batting average has never approached within 15 points of the .297 figure that represented his credential as a bright young star as he began his sophomore season.

It is even more difficult to explain why the husky youngster with the extravagant equipment and the lifetime ambition to be a big league star has not succeeded more spectacularly. There has been the suspicion, perhaps most importantly in his own determined young mind, that he has been handicapped by the shifting he has done in Stengel's kaleidoscopic defense. He has played more or less regularly at both shortstop and in left field but he has also seen service in center field and at all three bases. He has played all six positions with consummate skill but somehow without establishing himself as a star of the first magnitude at any of them and without realizing his full potential at the plate.

'I know where he can play- I'm just trying to find out if there's any place he can't,' Stengel once explained unsatisfactorily. Casey then spoke for quite a few baseball men, Yankees and others, when he added:

'You might truly say that this young man's long range prospects of continued employment around here appear to me to be highly favorable. He is a solid ball player with no weaknesses and no bad habits, who can make the hard play as well as handle the routine chance. He is like money in my bank in California, which is a hard thing to beat.'

Maybe so, but somehow the Yankees haven't quite realized the dividends that might be expected from a talent so diversified and consistent as Kubek's.

There were two opinions about Tony when he came up from Denver, a youngster just turned 20, in the spring of 1957. He brought with him a .331 batting average that took on added luster when it was discovered that he had played most of the season with a hairline fracture across his instep.

There was one school of thought that held that this 190-pound lad, who towered six feet two inches above the ground with a crew haircut, was too big to be a shortstop. There was another that held that he should be taught to pull the ball to capitalize on his power and perhaps become a home run slugger.

Both notions soon were either discouraged by the rookie himself or abandoned by his superiors. He proved that he had the glove, the range and the arm to play shortstop and he impressed his coaches, just as he had his own father years before, as too good a natural hitter to fool around with.

Kubek played 50 games in the outfield, 41 at shortstop, 38 at third base and one at second in his first year with the Yankees. And he hit a whopping .297. Since there is practically no more valuable commodity in baseball than a hard-hitting shortstop, Kubek was used at that position in 134 games in 1958. He proved adequate, at the very least, in the field, but his batting average shrank to .265, with only two home runs.

The following season he appeared in the outfield in 53 games and in the infield in 85, including 67 at shortstop. He restored his batting average to a respectable .279 with consistent, timely and occasionally long range hitting, but not quite enough of any variety to earn his way without his glove. He simply got the job done, establishing himself as an even better outfielder than shortstop if only because there was less demand on his talents, and proving himself a hard and daring base runner who could outfoot any of the Yankees except Mickey Mantle.

Then, last summer, he settled for .273 in 136 games at short and only 29 in left field. Batting left-handed, he still was rarely pulling the ball but hitting it with authority to right and center and with enough power to manufacture 14 home runs, three more than he had hit in his three previous seasons. Most important to himself, he drove in a personal big league high of 62 runs. Kubek happens to think a hitter's worth is best reckoned by the part he plays in getting runs for his team, whether it consists of getting on base, advancing runners or driving in runs.

Kubek, now 24, finds himself not at any crossroads of an established major league career, but on the threshold of stardom. This is the year he can burgeon into a .300 hitter and become the Yankees' regular shortstop until further notice. The quiet but determined young man is among those who think so on the former score and fervently hopes so on the latter.

'I haven't talked with Ralph Houk but from what I've read in the papers, he's planning to use me at shortstop,' Kubek said between hunting trips from his winter home in Milwaukee. He spent the winter trying his hand at promotion work for an insurance company with enough time off for hunting to bag a four-point buck in the woods of northeastern Wisconsin. His weight never has been a problem and he passes up any winter activity that might prove physically hazardous, just as he plays a minimum of golf during the summer because of his dedication to baseball.

'I've always liked shortstop best, ever since I gave up pitching in high school so I could play every game,' Kubek said. 'But I'd rather play the outfield regularly than shift around. I think changing positions affects my batting. I seem to be sharper, more in the ball game, when I'm playing short. Perhaps playing the outfield gives you too much chance to relax and makes it more difficult to concentrate when you get to bat.

'I don't care where I hit in the batting order- I never have. Helping in the run production is the most important thing. I try to do the things a hitter has to do in the different situations- get on base, move the runners along or bring them in, or try for the long ball.

'But hitting isn't something you can turn off and on, like a water faucet.  Not with me, anyhow. I know I do better when I'm in there every day, and at the same position. You get into the swing and the feel of things more. Maybe it's just a matter of confidence. That can be important, too.'

With Gil McDougald retired and Bobby Richardson likely to be a fixture at second base as a result of his World Series heroics, Kubek has perhaps his best chance to start the season as the Yankees' shortstop.

'There's DeMaestri and Brickell, in addition to Richardson and Cletis Boyer,' Kubek pointed out, 'but, then, there's always somebody. You can't expect to have it any other way.'

Lest Kubek's dissatisfaction with alternating between the infield and outfield be misconstrued and he be branded some kind of malcontent, it should be made plain that Tony never wanted to be anything but a Yankee and that hasn't ever changed since donning a New York uniform for the first time. He not only quit pitching as a kid as a precaution against hurting his arm, as his father had done while playing Triple-A ball with the Milwaukee Brewers [American Association] before Tony, Jr., was born; he also gave up football and basketball in high school for fear of aggravating a knee injury and he refused to compete in the state high school track meet after setting a hurdles record in practice because he had once broken his arm jumping. He could have been an outstanding end or back in football, possibly big-time college material, but that would have interfered with baseball.

Baseball has been Tony's life almost since birth. His father had retired from the game shortly before he was born because a sore arm cost him a chance as an outfielder with the St. Louis Browns. Instead, Anthony Christopher Kubek, Sr., married a young woman from Milwaukee's South Side and went to work for the post office.

Young Tony was born in the two-story house that is still the family home and found himself with no brothers but with a ready-made family of playmates. His young mother had taken over her three orphaned younger brothers. They helped his father make sure that little Tony would learn to play baseball. They themselves were husky youngsters and good athletes. Johnny Oleniczik got as far as Buffalo as a catcher and Roman had a trial with the Chicago White Sox as an infielder. Eddie played varsity basketball at Marquette University and baseball on the Milwaukee sand lots.

'I encouraged Tony to bat left-handed but I never changed his style much otherwise,' the senior Kubek says. 'He still could be a switch hitter, if he wanted to, but he's better off hitting left-handed. He learned to keep his eye on the ball and guard the plate playing cork ball in the streets. He tagged along after me when I  played industrial league ball until he got tired of chasing fouls and earned the chance to play himself.'

By the time Tony finished high school in Bay View, the Braves had moved to town from Milwaukee, but by then his father had taken him to see the Yankees play in Chicago and his mind was made up. It wasn't easy to change, either then or now. He wanted to be a Yankee. The help and encouragement he got from young gentlemen like Jerry Coleman and Phil Rizzuto when he worked out with the world champions at Comiskey Park cost the other big league clubs their last chance of signing him. When the Yankees offered him a contract and said they would meet the offers of the Braves and half a dozen other clubs, he asked only $3,000 because a larger bonus would have meant sitting on the bench. Tony was impatient to get started on his baseball career.

He needed only one season at Owensboro, one at Quincy and two at Denver to reach the maturity, gain the experience and acquire the special skills that made him a big leaguer.

He has these skills now, without weaknesses to detract from them or bad personal habits to dull them. There seems no doubt that he will continue to improve and no limit to how far he can go. The only question is what has held him back, if this actually has been a case of arrested development.

He has a new measure of determination, too, and increased confidence.

Typically, he doesn't say much. But he has an idea this is going to be his year.

His BIG year."

-Cleon Walfoort (Baseball Digest, April 1961)

1960

April 24: Hits two home runs in win over Orioles.

May 23: Hits two doubles for two RBIs in win over A's.

June 7: Hits two-run double in 5-2 win over Chisox.

June 24: Five RBIs on two home runs and single in win over Indians.

June 29: Hits two doubles and single in rout of A's.

July 7: Decides win over Orioles with sacrifice fly.

July 19: Gets four hits in 13-11 win over Indians.

July 28: Beats Indians, 4-2, with two-run homer.

August 10: Three RBIs on single and sacrifice fly in win over Chisox.

August 24: Beats Chisox, 3-2, with home run in 7th.

September 5: Gets four hits in 3-2 win over Bosox.

September 18: Hits home run and decisive sacrifice fly in sweep of key doubleheader with Orioles.

September 30: His home run against Red Sox gives Yankees American League mark.

Comment: "A topflight player, Kubek had his best year for power and improved at short. His versatility is a big asset."

-Joe Sheehan, Dell Sports Magazine Baseball, April 1961

"Though he's only 24 years old, Tony Kubek is in his fourth season as the regular Yankee shortstop. The big blond from Milwaukee has played every infield and outfield position for the Yankees, but Manager Ralph Houk is determined to leave him at shortstop this season.

In 1957, Tony was the American League Rookie of the Year. While his average has never equaled his freshman year's .297, he has been developing home run and RBI power.

Manager Houk, who had Tony at Denver in 1956, believes Kubek has great value as an all-around player. 'He's still improving in all departments and has not yet reached his potential,' said Houk early this spring.

Tony, whose father played in the American Association, has set his goals for 1961 and they include a .300 batting average, 75 RBIs and about 20 homers ... and, of course, the American League pennant for the Yankees."

-The New York Yankees Official 1961 Yearbook

Anthony Christopher Kubek (SS)     #10

Born October 12, 1936, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he resides. Height: 6-3, weight: 190. Bats left, throws right.

-The New York Yankees Official 1961 Yearbook

"One of the most versatile players in the majors, Tony Kubek has played second, short, third and the three outfield positions in his four-year career with the American League champs. The 24-year-old Milwaukee bachelor, whose dad was once a minor leaguer, found a home as Yankee shortstop, after moving around from spot to spot during his first three years in the Bronx.

Tony broke into Organized Ball with Owensboro in 1954. He batted .344 for the Kitty Leaguers and advanced to  Quincy of the Three Eye League in '55. A .334 average (including 53 extra-base hits) pushed him to the Triple A Denver Bears in '56. The 6' 3" left-handed swinger's .331 mark in the American Association earned him a shot with the Bombers.

Kubek was selected Rookie of the Year by the Sporting News [and by the Baseball Writers' Association of America] following a .297 season. He topped off his freshman campaign with eight hits, including a pair of homers (in one game) against the Milwaukee Braves in the 1957 World Series.

Never the slugger, Tony hit 14 circuit blows last summer for a personal high in big-league competition. He also drove out 25 doubles and three triples and led the club with 12 successful sacrifices. The strong-armed youth drove in 62 runs, his big league high.

The injury he suffered in last fall's post season classic (hit in the throat by a bad-hop grounder) gave the hot-stove leaguers plenty of fuel this past winter. Would the Yankees have won the Series had Tony not had this accident?

An Army veteran (via the six-month plan during the winter of 1958-59), Tony is also an All-Star Game veteran, playing in 1959 and 1960.

Ralph Houk's shortstop problem is solved for many years to come, and he has the best 'second string' outfielder in the loop."

-New York Yankees 1961 Yearbook (Jay Publishing Co.)

"Tony Kubek's one of the most under-publicized infielders in the game."

-Joe DiMaggio (Baseball Digest, June 1961)

"Though he is only 24 years old, Tony Kubek is in his fifth season as a Yankee regular. The big 6-3, 190-pound blond from Milwaukee has played every infield and outfield position for the Yankees, but Manager Ralph Houk is determined to leave him at shortstop. Tony was the American League's All-Star shortstop this summer and the club's regular No. 2 hitter.

In 1957 Tony was American League Rookie of the Year. Though his average has never equaled his freshman year's .297, he has been developing home run and RBI power. Manager Houk, who had Tony at Denver in 1956, believes Kubek has great value as an all-around player. 'He's still improving in all departments and has not yet reached his potential,' says Houk.

Kubek has been in three World Series with the Yankees and in the 1959 All-Star Game. His father played in the American Association."

-1961 World Series Official Souvenir Program