New York Yankees Underrated Star, Tommy Henrich

The New York Yankees have claimed more World Series titles than any baseball team around over the years, and in his eleven year career, Tommy Henrich was a part of the teams that took eight of them.

Before we get started, I wanted to give you a brief intro as to why I’m writing this piece at this point in time. Last week my grandfather came home from the hospital and entered hospice care. Knowing we wouldn’t have much time left with him, my family drove the couple of hours up north to visit him for what could very well be the last time.

My two sisters, Amanda and Samantha (or Samanda as they were called during our youth) and I shared the room with our grandpa for a couple of hours, and he was in rare form that afternoon. Knowing that this could be his last time with his grandchildren, he told us about life, the importance of family, and cherishing one another. Knowing that he is a baseball fan like myself, I asked him which players he enjoyed watching while he was growing up in the Bronx. He named some of the usual suspects like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, but one name stood out because it was unfamiliar to me: Tommy Henrich, or as he called him “The Clutch”.

I immediately started looking up the former Yankee outfielder to see what I could find, and what I’ve come across is a player that served his country for three years during the second World War as a member of the Coast Guard, and was a part of some of the best years in New York Yankees history.

Henrich is not enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, nor is his number retired at Yankee Stadium. His number 15 is the same number that Thurman Munson wore from ’69 until his tragic death in ’79. Yet, Henrich was still a key contributor in one of the best Yankee outfields of all time–arguably the best according to this FanGraphs post from three years ago.

Grandpa’s description of Henrich was on point, saying that he always delivered in a big spot, as his nickname can attest, but he was also the first player in baseball history to hit a walk-off home run in the World Series.

Henrich only saw the field in four of the Yankees eight title runs, playing in ’38, ’41, ’47 and ’49. In those four World Series runs, Henrich hit a modest .262 with a .333 on-base percentage, but in each of those Series he made sure to send one over the outfield wall.

The Yankees finished four games back of Cleveland in ’48, which was arguably his best season at the plate. The Indians would win the World Series that year, and then the city would add a few pre-Super Bowl championships, suffer a 52-year title drought, and then finally get another this summer when the Cavs defeated the Warriors in the NBA Playoffs. Obviously, the sports gods were smiting the city for taking that opportunity away from Henrich. It just took them a hilw to get around to their vengeance. Obviously.

In an ESPN article posted after his passing, former Yankee teammate Bobby Brown said of Henrich: “He was extremely good in games that meant something. If we were ahead 10-1 or 10-2,  he was just average. If we were behind 10-1 or 10-2, same thing. But get him in a big game and he was terrific. We didn’t call him ‘Old Reliable.’ We just knew he was ‘Old Reliable.'” In 1949, Henrich had broken a bone in his back and was relegated to first base for just about half of the games in which he played, yet in the final game of the regular season against the Boston Red Sox with a trip to the World Series on the line, he drove in a run in the first inning and homered in the 8th. In the next game he played, he hit the walk-off homer in the video above.

In that same ESPN piece, they mention that Henrich’s biggest career at-bat was not the game-winning shot in the World Series off of Don Newcombe of Brooklyn in 1949, but instead an at-bat that ended in a strikeout in the 1941 World Series.

With the Yankees up two games to one, but down by a run in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the ’41 Series, Henrich struck out to seemingly end the game, but Brooklyn’s catcher Mickey Owen dropped the third strike, and Henrich scampered to first. The Yankees would plate four in the inning, and take a commanding 3-1 series lead, clinching their fourth title in five years the next day.

In his career, Henrich averaged a 131 wRC+, while the average over that span of years was 93. His career WAR of 38.6 (per FanGraphs), is just two-tenths behind that of Hall of Fame outfielder Enos Slaughter during the time that Henrich played from ’37-’50. Slaughter began his career one year after Henrich, but was in the big leagues up until 1959, nine years longer than the Yankee outfielder turned first baseman. Those extra years are likely what vaulted Slaughter into the Hall and kept Henrich out, with an accumulation of stats over a longer period of time. Knee troubles cut Henrich’s career short, however.

He bashed a career-high 31 homers in 1941, and drove in a career-high 100 RBI in 1948, the same season he finished with a 5.8 WAR. He also finished his career with a .209 ISO, which ranked 17th in his era behind names like Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Ralph Kiner, Stan Musial and DiMaggio to name some of the all-time greats.

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We all have a player or players that speak to us throughout our lives. For me, I grew up watching Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey Jr. and Tony Gwynn, and still have soft spots for the Orioles, Mariners and Padres because of it. For my grandpa, it was Tommy Henrich.

Grandpa would later move the family out west right around the time the A’s moved to Oakland, coinciding with their streak of three straight championships from ’72 to ’74. Because of the timing of these events, I grew up an A’s fan. Grandpa would take me to a game or two a season, and from about the time I was eight years old he would point all the way across the stadium and say, “Hey Jason. You see that girl over there? She hasn’t taken her eyes off of you all game. I think she’s smiling at you.” He’s always been a jokester, and that is just one of the many reasons that I’m going to miss him when his day does come. That, and baseball.