Whitey Ford

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Whitey Ford won 236 games and lost only 106 to register a lifetime .690 won-lost percentage, the highest recorded by any pitcher since 1900. He also broke Babe Ruth's forty-five-year-old record of 29-2/3 scoreless innings in World Series competition, ending up with 32. Ford also holds the records for most Series wins (10), strikeouts (94), and innings pitched (146).

Ford's Series stats are so impressive that his regular season numbers tend to get buried. He won 20 games only twice in sixteen seasons; however, from 1953 to 1960, he averaged nearly 16 wins against 7 losses. Casey Stengel, who manipulated the rotation so Ford faced the toughies (though he kept him out of Boston's Fenway Park), said, "If you had one game to win and your life depended on it, you'd want him to pitch it."

Even though he led the league in wins, innings pitched, and won-lost percentage and won the Cy Young Award in 1961, Ford's 25-4 record was almost overshadowed by Roger Maris' quest for home run number 61. He got more recognition by going 24-7 in 1963 and repeating in all three categories.

Ford was inducted into the Hall of Fame on August 12, 1974, along with Mickey Mantle, his partner in the long-running "Mick and Slick" Show. When writers recalled the spitter Ford used to strike out Willie Mays in the 1964 All-Star Game, Ford said, "Look, they didn't call me Slick for nothing."

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