While neither man ever reached the #1 spot, Woody Held and Ron Hansen were two of the better shortstops of the Roger Maris era.  By our system Held ranked 3^rd after the 1959 season—his first season as a regular shortstop—and then ranked 5^th, 3^rd, 5^th and 5^th over the next four seasons.   Hanson ranked 3^rd after the 1960 season—his rookie season—and then ranked 6^th after the 1963 season, 2^nd after the 1964 season, and 6^th after the 1967 season. 

              Roy Smalley the Elder in 1950 became the first major league shortstop to hit less than .260 with 20 or more homers.  He lost his job after that season, in part because of the low batting average but mostly because he was charged with 51 errors.   Eddie Joost hit .244 with 20 homers in 1952; he never played regularly again, either, although he had been around a long time before then.  Daryl Spencer hit .208 with 20 homers in 1953, but he was drafted by the US Army after the season, so he didn’t keep his job, either.   When he returned to the majors a couple of years later the Giants played him at second base, although he played a lot more shortstop later on.

              I mention Smalley, Joost and Spencer to acknowledge that the statement that Held and Hansen were the first low-average, power-hitting shortstops is not unarguable truth, although it is sort of true.  They were the first low-average power-hitting shortstops who were able to keep their jobs. 

              In the early 1950s the Yankees had a talent production machine.   Baseball didn’t have the rules in place then that would limit how many young players an organization could control, so the Cardinals in the 1920s and 1930s and the Dodgers and Yankees in the 1940s and 1950s ran lots of minor league teams which produced more players than the major league team could use.  The Yankees would choose the cream of the crop, of course, but also they were able to pick and choose the KIND of guy that they wanted on their team.  The kind of guy that they wanted on their team was white, usually, but also he was. . .well, he fit the image.   He didn’t fight the system.  He did what he was asked to do.  

              The Yankees were described as the General Motors of baseball.  Part of the deal was, the Yankees didn’t want stars.   They had Whitey and Mickey and Yogi; that was all the God Damned Stars that we need around here, thank you.   Hank Bauer and Gene Woodling had the ability to be bigger stars, but they were platoon players on the Yankees.   Bauer accepted and embraced the role completely.   Woodling, I think, was less happy about it; he accepted the role, let us say, but never quite embraced it.  Woodling had the ability to be a guy who hit .300 to .320 with 25 homers and 90 RBI every year, and he knew that he did.

              Moose Skowron, although he hit .300 every year and made the All Star team in 1957, 1958, and 1959, was never really a regular until 1960, when he was 29 years old.  Elston Howard, although he also made the All Star team in 1957, 1958 and 1959, didn’t become a regular until 1961, when he was 32.  Gil McDougald, one of the three or four best shortstops in the major leagues, would play second base or third base or wherever he was needed today to work around the aging Phil Rizzuto, and he also embraced that role.   Being a Yankee was more important to them than being a Star.   That was part of the deal; buy in or get out. 

              There wasn’t room for everybody in the ship. The two best catchers in the American League in the late 1950s were both Yankees, Berra and Elston Howard, but the two best catchers who weren’t Yankees, Gus Triandos and Sherm Lollar, were ex-Yankees.   They were guys who got a trial with the Yankees and got shipped out.  Jackie Jensen, the 1958 American League Most Valuable Player, was a guy who got a trial with the Yankees and got shipped out.   Lew Burdette, one of the best pitchers in the National League, a 200-game winner, was a guy who got a trial with the Yankees and got shipped out.  Jerry Lumpe and Norm Siebern, the two best players on the Kansas City A’s of my childhood, were guys who got a trial with the Yankees and got shipped out.  Deron Johnson, who drove in 130 runs for the Cincinnati Reds in 1965, was a guy who came up with the Yankees and got shipped out, and Lee Thomas, who drove in 104 runs for the Angels in 1962, was another.  Marvellous Marv Throneberry was a guy who got a trial with the Yankees and got shipped out.  Vic Power was a Yankee farmhand at the same time as Moose Skowron, but he didn’t get a trial with the Yankees at the major league level because he really didn’t fit the image.   And they had Moose Skowron.

              Woodie Held was one of those guys; he had quite a lot of ability, so the Yankees sat on him for years before they shipped him out.  A key thing for a lot of these guys was that they were right-handed hitters with power or a little power.  Triandos and Lollar and Jensen and Deron Johnson and Woodie Held were right-handed power hitters; Power was a right-handed hitter who had some power, 14 to 19 homers every year, although he was more of a line drive hitter.  That wasn’t the right type.

              Woodie Held is listed at 5-10, 167, but he looked more like 5-9, 190.  He had blacksmith arms.  You would notice it; you would think "that guy looks too muscular to be a shortstop."   In the Yankee system he was fighting for space with Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek and Jerry Lumpe and Gil McDougald and Phil Rizzuto—and he’s a right-handed power hitter, so that ain’t working in Yankee Stadium.  By the time they shipped him to Kansas City he was 25 years old.  He hit 20 homers for KC in a little more than a half a season.   He was playing center field then.  He was in a slump early the next season, and the A’s traded Held and Vic Power to Cleveland for Roger Maris. 

              The Indians, who had outfielders coming out of their ears, made Held their regular shortstop.  In 1959 he hit .251 with 29 homers.   In all of baseball history through the end of the 20^th century, no other shortstop hit less than .260 with as many as 29 homers—nobody.   Held was the only one.

              The 1959 Indians were a good team (89-65, second place), but after 1959 they started to fall apart at the seams.  They traded Colavito for Kuenn the next April. They didn’t make good long-term decisions.  They didn’t MAKE long-term decisions; they just reacted.  Jim Perry was a great young pitcher, had a so-so year; they moved him to the bullpen and moved him out.   Mudcat Grant, Gary Bell, Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Tommy John, Sonny Siebert, Steve Hargan; the system produced great young arms like it was nothing, but they never had a top pitching staff because they had no plan.  

              Held got caught up in that miasma.   He was an OK defensive shortstop.  In terms of range, fielding percentage and double plays, he was almost exactly average.   The Indians would play him at shortstop, second base, the outfield.   He’d sit on the bench.   The games of June 27 and June 28, Indians at Boston, symbolize the problem for me.   Held’s position in the box score for June 27 is listed as "ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss", and for the 28^th, as "ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b,ss,2b", which is the same but with one more "2b".   What they were doing was, the Indians listed Held as the starting shortstop and Granny Hamner as the second baseman, but when a left-handed hitter came up they would switch Held to second and Hamner to short, since Held was younger and more athletic than Hamner.

              The Gil McDougald stuff worked, for the Yankees, because they had so much talent.  It doesn’t work, doing things that way, unless you have LOTS of talent.  The less talent you have, the more respect you have to have for the players you’ve got.  

              Woody Held was, in a sense, the first low-average, power-hitting shortstop, and Ron Hansen was the second.   Held in 1959 became the first American League shortstop to hit less than .260 with more than 20 homers, and Ron Hansen in 1960 became the second.  In a sense they are almost the same player.  Held played 1,390 games in his major league career; Hanson played 1,384—same league, same years, basically.   Held hit .240, Hansen hit .234.

              Of course they are not EXACTLY the same.  Held, short and powerful, was a better hitter.  Held hit 179 career homers to Hansen’s 106, and thus has a 70-point advantage in slugging percentage, although their doubles and triples are almost identical.   Their walks and stolen bases are about the same.

              But while Held was short and powerful, Hansen was large—seemingly overlarge for a shortstop; one of the largest shortstops in baseball history up to his time—but tremendously athletic.  He was strong, quick, and agile.  He was a much better defensive shortstop than Held.

              As a rookie in 1960 Hansen was the American League Rookie of the Year, and also was fifth in the Most Valuable Player voting, drawing one first-place ballot and 110 points in the MVP vote.  This was the best performance by a rookie in MVP voting since Joe Black in 1952.  Hansen did better in MVP voting, as a rookie, than guys like Orlando Cepeda, Frank Robinson and Luis Aparicio, who had very impressive rookie seasons. 

              After that season he fought injuries and weekend military commitments for several years, but in 1964 Hansen had an almost-historic season, earning 7.7 WAR—third-highest in baseball—although this time the MVP voters ignored him, dropping him to 14^th in the MVP voting.  It is a season which is much more impressive to a modern analyst than to a 1964 sportswriter.  He hit just .261 with 20 homers, 68 RBI, but with 73 walks giving him a .766 OPS.    The American League OPS in 1964 was .697, and Hansen’s team—the White Sox—had a park factor of 83.    And he’s a shortstop.   His OPS was at least 100 points better than average.  Defensively, he led all major league shortstops in Assists and Double Plays, was third in fielding percentage and second in Range Factor.   His team won 98 games, and came within one game of beating the Yankees.  

              I am not arguing that either Held or Hanson was a Hall of Famer, even given better luck, but I would argue that Held’s "career luck factor" was quite low, and that given better luck he could have wound up in a very different place.   If he had come up with the Red Sox in 1954, rather than the Yankees, he would have been a right-handed power hitter in Fenway Park, and he might have become a regular several years earlier.  If the team had accepted him as a shortstop and stuck with him, rather than jerking him around like the Indians did, it could have been a much more impressive career. 

              Hansen fought injuries, and did not have as many good seasons as Held, but he had two seasons better than Held’s best, his 1960 season (fifth in the MVP voting) and 1964 (third in the majors in WAR).  Held was the better hitter, but Hansen edged him in career WAR, 24.1 to 22.0.  

              Toward the end of the Held/Hansen era, the Yankee dynasty collapsed.  Many people assume that they collapsed because their farm system went dry, but that’s not my understanding of what happened.  What actually happened was, the Yankee way turned on them. 

              Did you ever know. . .well, I won’t even ask, because you have known.   You have known parents who were too strict, and it backfired on them, right?  You try to pass your values on to your kids, you try to get them to embrace the virtues that have worked for you, and sometimes you have to be strict when they don’t make the right decisions—but sometimes parents are TOO strict, their kids don’t buy in, and it turns bad.   That’s what happened to the Yankees.   They over-sold this "Yankee Way" stuff until the  young players didn’t buy in. 

              If you look at the talent produced by the Yankee system in the early 1960s, you realize that not only is it solid, it was tremendous.   Tom Tresh, Joe Pepitone and Jim Bouton in 1962, Al Downing in 1963, Mel Stottlemyre in 1964, Roy White, Bobby Murcer, Fritz Peterson and Bill Robinson in 1966.   I know Robinson was a trade acquisition, but the point is that there was plenty of talent there to keep the team strong.  If that much talent comes out of YOUR farm system in the next six years, you should be in good shape. 

              But they oversold this "Yankee Way" stuff, the young players didn’t buy in, and the organization tanked. That’s why the Phil Linz Harmonica Incident is so relevant; it’s the marker that marks the end of the Ruth-to-Mantle dynasty.  It’s a young player Not Buying In.  It is the Revenge of Woodie Held.