THE ART OF ART DITMAR

Speaking to my friend David about Art Ditmar, you'd think he was the shining light and driving force behind the New York Yankees in the late 50's, early 60's. He wasn't, but he was a pretty good pitcher with a couple tough breaks while on the Bombers. The first break was being overshadowed by an already talented rotations during his years in pinstripes. The second was losing 2 World Series starts in terrible fashion, yet, Art Ditmar did what every great New York Yankee does in their career; He tried to compete and tried to win, every time. That's all you could ask for and that's why David loved Art Ditmar so much.

Art Ditmar was a right handed pitcher and quite good, for a short amount of time. More importantly, he was quite consistent which makes for a heck of a pitcher, especially when you are in a rotation that consisted of greats like Whitey Ford, Don Larsen, Bob Turley, Ralph Terry and Bobby Shantz. Yes, Art Ditmar was in rotations with those guys and because of it, he didn’t get to pitch a lot during his stay in New York. He did however get 15 wins, a career high for him back in 1960.

(In Photo: Ditmar, left, Casey Stengel, Bobby Shantz, right)

Ditmar had 3 pitches, his fastball, slider and curveball. His fastball was by far the best of the 3 pitches. During his span with the Yanks, Ditmar won 47 games. Those years were from 1957 to 1961. During that 5 year span, Ditmar was apart of 1 World Championship team, and that happened in 1958 against the Milwaukee Braves. As far as American League pennants are concerned, the Yankees won in 1957, 1958, 1960. In the 1960 World Series though, Art Ditmar started and lost both Game 1 and Game 5 for the Yankees. Those 2 games he put an absolutely horrible display only pitching 1/3 of an inning in Game 1 and 1 1/3 in Game 5. Horrendous doesn’t even begin to describe it. The story goes like this, Casey Stengel wanted Ditmar to start Game 1 instead of Whitey Ford because he thought Whitey would be a better matchup in Yankee Stadium. Read it HERE. We all know what happened, the Yankees lost that World Series to the Pirates 4 games to 3.

Ditmar played 9 years in the Major leagues. During that time, he first played for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954 and compiled an American League record high 22 losses. After that season, he went to the Yankees and then to the Athletics again, this time to the Kansas City Athletics from 1961 and 1962. His career numbers are 72-77 with a 3.98 ERA and 552 strikeouts.

The most interesting tid-bit I found out about Art Ditmar is something that really isn't about Ditmar at all. It's about Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Back in 1954, Art was with Philadelphia Athletics and he defeated the Yankees 8-6 in the last game at Shibe Park in Philly. This was before the team moved to Kansas City. the nugget comes here; In that game, Yogi Berra played his first and only game at third base and Mickey Mantle played shortstop for the Yankees. That's right...Mickey Mantle.

So, while Art Ditmar doesn't have an outstanding career in pinstripes, he sure has a unique one. And while there are thousands of Yankees players over the years, everyone has a favorite or one they loved to watch play. I guess that one for David, was Art Ditmar... and that's alright by me.

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