Cy Young Award Winner in 1958 Bullet Bob Turley looks back on his big league career - pitcher - Interview

Baseball Digest, August, 2002 by Norman L Macht

Turley struck out 11, a Yankees World Series record that stood for 45 years, and walked eight (control was never his strong point), but he left 10 Dodgers stranded.

"Pitching is easy with nobody on base," he says. "The good pitchers get guys out with men on base."

Why does nobody remember that game? It was overshadowed by the events of the day before: Don Larsen's perfect game.

Turley pitched to Yogi Berra and Elston Howard. "Yogi was not excitable, a good catcher, smart, good arm, got the ball away quick. Elston was more into the emotional side of it. He'd come out and talk to you more."

Turley also remembers his most and least liked umpires.

"Ed Runge was a pitcher's umpire. I could throw off the plate and get strikes with him. I pitched 24 shutouts in the big leagues, and I'd guess half of them came with him behind the plate.

"On the other side, Ed Hurley didn't like me for some reason. I could throw every pitch right down the middle of the plate and walk everybody. I don't know to this day what he had against me. I didn't yell at umpires, not even him."

Turley was not impressed with Yankees manager Casey Stengel.

"One day I'm pitching in New York, got a 3-0 lead with two outs in the fifth inning, a little left-handed batter hits a ball off the end of the bat over the shortstop's head. Here comes Stengel out of the dugout, waving for a relief pitcher. He got to the mound, didn't say anything, but I did. I don't swear a lot, but I called him every dirty name I could think of. He stands there and says nothing.

"I stormed into the clubhouse, tore off my uniform--clubhouse man Pete Sheehy claims I was trying to flush it down the toilet, I was so mad. For the next month Stengel avoided me. Then one day on a train, I'm reading a book and Stengel comes over to me. `Now that you've quieted down,' he says, `I'll tell you why I took you out of that game. You weren't striking anybody out.'

"Imagine that? I wasn't striking anybody out. I was so disgusted, all I could say was, `Casey, get out of here.'

"We didn't have many meetings, except before the World Series. Then we'd have scouts come in with their reports, but I didn't have much use for them. Every pitcher has to pitch his own game. They'd tell us things like, `Don't throw this guy a high fastball ...' What was I supposed to do? That's where I made my living.

"Or they'd say, `Pitch him low and away, curveballs outside.' If I could have controlled my curveball that way, I'd have won 40 games a year."

When Stengel held a meeting, the players often learned more about the past than the day's opponent.

"He'd say something like, `This guy is a lowball hitter, be careful, keep the ball in on him, he likes it low and away. I played with a guy by the name of Heinie Manush, and he loved the ball way outside, but Heinie's problem was he couldn't catch the ball ...' and he'd go on like that.

"In his later years with the Yankees Casey would call on guys to pinch hit that we'd traded away two years earlier."

Turley suffered his first sore arm during the 1960 World Series. A bone chip limited him to 72 innings work in 1961. He had the chip removed after that World Series. The Yankees had a deep pitching staff in '62 and he didn't work enough to stay sharp. "The older you get, the more you have to work," he says. "Your muscles don't come back as fast."