Game 120: Yankees (Severino) at Braves (Elder)

Inger, I hope this doesn't sound like nit-picking, but what you are describing sounds more like the 66-67 teams than the 1965 team.  By an amazing historical coincidence, the 65 Yankees had the exact same record -- 60-60 -- on the exact same date -- August 15 -- as the 2023 Yankees.  The team hovered around .500 for most of the year, mostly bubbling a few games under (hitting a low point of seven under in late June) until a modest surge got them as far as two games above (64-62) on August 24.  That was unfortunately their high-water mark for the year.  The last time they were at .500 was September 3, when they were 68-68.

It was like they threw in the towel after that, going 9-17 the rest of the year to finish in sixth place at 77-85.  It was their first losing season since 1925, and they would, as you noted, sink to even greater depths in 66-67, finishing tenth and ninth "respectively," if that's the right word to use, with records of 70-89 and 72-90.  It was the first time the Yanks had three straight losing seasons since the four from 1912-1915, the transition from the Farrell-Devery ownership (as the Highlanders) to the Ruppert-Huston ownership.

That 1965 squad is unfortunately more vivid to me than the 2022 version.  Nobody saw it coming -- this group had won five straight pennants, so they had accomplished a lot more than the current gang -- and it wasn't really an old team.  Only two regulars were over 30 -- Elston Howard was 36 and Mickey Mantle was 33.  But Howard, Mantle, Bobby Richardson and Tony Kubek each had the worst season of their careers up to then.  Roger Maris had his broken hand problems that limited him to 40 games and the sapping of his power.  Joe Pepitone nosedived from his earlier seasons, although he was only 24 and would in fact bounce back with some more good years afterward.  Whitey Ford began to develop arm problems and started to show his age (he was 36) going 16-13 with an ERA+ of 105, which would actually be the worst of his 16 year career.  Al Downing and especially Jim Bouton regressed, even though they were only in their mid-20s.  Mel Stottlemyre was essentially Gerrit Cole, going 20-9 with an ERA+ of 129.  Why we always loved Mel.

It was an almost perfect storm of underperformance, and it wasn't helped by first-year manager Johnny Keane, who had replaced the beloved Yogi, and his distant relationship with this established team.  Keane really wasn't a bad guy at all, more like a victim of circumstance who was never accorded much respect by a group that was very much set in its ways.

All through the season, everyone kept expecting the Yankees to hit the switch -- seasons like this just did not happen to the Yankees -- but it never happened.  It was quite shocking.  Minnesota ran away with the pennant -- the White Sox were in their accustomed second, seven games out, the Orioles finished eight behind, while the Yankees were a distant 25 games from the top.  I think most of us expected a bounce-back in 1966, but they got off to a terrible start, going 4-16 before Keane was fired and Houk came back, which even at that we figured, okay, back to business as usual, but of course it didn't happen (and Houk had burned a lot of bridges as GM with the players who used to love him.)

One small bit of sunshine from the 65 team -- 21-year-old Roy White and 19-year-old Bobby Murcer each made their late-season debuts, one day apart, Roy on September 7 and Bobby on September 8.  The less-heralded and sometimes unfairly derided Horace Clarke also made his debut that year at the age of 26.

Well I got that out of my system.  Sorry for the prolix prose.  I increasingly believe that there are more similarities between that team and this one than I would have hoped, but still we are talking about different eras, different personalities, so who really knows.  We'll find out soon enough.