By Peter Finney, Times-Picayune
February 24, 2010, 6:00AM
George Strickland played on the Cleveland Indians' 1954 team, which won a record 111 games."
My last interview with George Strickland was in autumn 2007, a time his son was bemoaning the 0-4 start of his favorite football team, a franchise now celebrating a Super Bowl championship.
Son, it took the Saints a month to lose four games," said dad. "Remember, I was on a team that did a lot worse. We lost four games in four days."
It was vintage "Bo" Strickland, who passed away this week at age 84. He had a way of putting things in perspective, telling stories that left you laughing to the very end.
Before I asked a question at that October meeting in '07, Bo already was laughing. "It's World Series time, so I guess you want to keep talking about 1954," he said. "You laugh, and I'll cry."
The guy who grew up playing shortstop at S.J. Peters High School, then wound up playing shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, was part of a piece of baseball history at a time history was being written in capital letters.
Not by the Cleveland Indians. By the New York Yankees. When the Indians showed up to play the New York Giants in the '54 Series, they had snapped a record run of five consecutive world championships by a Yankees dynasty managed by Casey Stengel.
During this golden stretch, in 1951, Joe DiMaggio played in his final World Series and Mickey Mantle in his first. After their fall from grace in '54, the Yankees returned to play in nine of the next 10 World Series, winning four, baseball's most dominant stretch ever. "You look at this," said Bo, "and that's what made what we did in '54 so special."
What the Indians did was win a record 111 games. They finished eight games in front of the Yankees, 17 in front of the White Sox, 42 games ahead of the rest of the teams in the American League. "We played the Yankees 22 times and split 11-11," said Bo. "It was a great Yankees team. But our pitching was so good, so deep, we were hardly ever out of a game. We won 111, but if you check the scores, we had a chance to win close to 150. That's how dominant we were. No team ever had deeper pitching." Bo enjoyed rattling off the records: Bob Lemon (23-7), Early Wynn (23-11), Mike Garcia (19-8), Bob Feller (13-3), Art Houtteman (15-7). "In the bullpen," said Bo, "we had Hal Newhouser, a Hall of Famer, and two of the league leaders in saves, Ray Narleski and Don Mossi."
The Indians had a couple of double-digit winning streaks, 11 straight in May, 11 in September. Strickland remembered the last one coming when the Yankees came to Cleveland trailing by 6¤1/2 games. "It was for a Sunday doubleheader," said Bo. "We had to get permission from the league to sell tickets in the center-field bleachers for a stadium with a capacity of more than 80,000. We were pitching two right-handers, Lemon and Wynn, and they were going with two lefties. Thinking of all the white shirts sitting in the bleachers, it would have been smarter on our part if we had sold tickets for the side that would have given our hitters a better background in picking up the flight of the ball against lefties. We did just the opposite. "But you know what? We won both games in front of a record crowd of 86,000. Give the Yankees credit for that."
So how could a team as good as the '54 Indians get swept by the Giants? "We had a lot of respect for the Giants," said Bo. "We must have played them 15 times in spring training out in Arizona. They could do a lot of things -- hit, run and steal. And they had a guy named Willie Mays."
In the opening game at the Polo Grounds in New York, it was Mays, the 23-year-old phenom, who made an immediate impression. "We've got two men on, and Vic Wertz hits it 460 feet to deep center," said Bo. "It would have been a home run in any park except the Polo Grounds. Well, Willie makes the all-time highlight reel with a great catch that stops a big inning for us. Then Dusty Rhodes wins it with a pinch-hit homer in the 10th inning that didn't travel more than 200 feet. A 460-foot out, a 200-foot homer. That's baseball.
"In Game 2, it's Dusty again. He's responsible for all the runs in a 3-1 game, with a single and another chip-shot homer. Then we get to Cleveland, and Garcia loses, 6-2, and Lemon loses, 7-4. Give the Giants credit. Good pitching, timely hitting. Case closed." Strickland always said the best excuse he could offer was winning 111 games.
"After we clinched the pennant more than a week before the season ended, our goal was to beat the record of 110 victories. When we did, I guess we lost something. We went into the Series like a football team favored to win by three touchdowns. But this wasn't football." Getting swept in four games left Strickland with one lasting memory. "The next day I'm at the ball park in Cleveland, all packed, ready to drive back home to New Orleans," he said. "I'm just looking around, killing time, and I walk into this room piled high with stacks of programs to Game 5. Could have taken as many as I wanted. I always regretted not taking one."
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