The manager, who’d seen the Yankees struggle through a long season in which they’d uncharacteristically finished only a couple of games over .500, was delighted at the prospect of adding such a powerful bat, just in time for the player to play his age-25 season.
The player was left-handed, “just what the doctor ordered for the home yard,” according to the skipper. He could run. He was an excellent corner outfielder, too. And at 25, he was just entering the prime of his career.
“I’ve admired him from afar for a number of years,” the manager crowed when that player at last became a Yankee. “I think he’s going to find that our team and our stadium are a wonderful fit for him. And I think he’ll be a tremendous fit right in the middle of our batting order.”
Yes. Casey Stengel was quite the happy camper on the evening of Dec. 11, 1959, when George Weiss called him at his home in Glendale, Calif., and informed him that the Yankees had shipped a boatload of players west for Roger Maris, ending a heated few days of wheeling and dealing between the Yankees and the Kansas City A’s.
You suspect that Aaron Boone was equally delighted when Brian Cashman called him sometime Wednesday evening and alerted him that after a busy few weeks of offers and counteroffers the Yankees had at last sent a boatload of players west for Juan Soto, prying him free from the San Diego Padres.
After all, Boone had practically been blushing the other day when he talked about Soto:
“He’s a machine offensively. On-base, power, has accomplished a ton already at a young age, durable, has been a central figure on a world championship team. Has come with a lot of fanfare and been one of the rock-solid performers in our sport on the offensive side of the ball, year in and year out. He’s a great player.”
He sounded almost frantic. And should be. This is precisely the kind of player the Yankees have been thirsting for: a power lefty bat to take aim at the Stadium’s short porch and lend needed balance to a righty-heavy lineup. He’s got one of the best batting eyes in the sport. Best of all, he’s young, which projects to the best years of his career still lying ahead of him.
In so many ways, Maris is a perfect model for Soto. He wasn’t as accomplished by December 1959 as Soto is through December 2023 — through their age-24 seasons Soto has a slash line of .284/.421/.524 and Maris was .249/.329/.435, plus Soto has won a World Series and already been an MVP runner-up while Maris toiled for terrible teams in Cleveland and KC.
But Maris ascended to greatness as soon as he joined the Yankees, fulfilling all the promises that had been forecast for him not long after Cleveland signed him out of Fargo, N.D. Too often Maris is defined by what he did in 1961, his second year as a Yankee, when he broke Babe Ruth’s sacred home run record after giving chase all year alongside Mickey Mantle.
But it was 1960 that was his true signature year. He was brilliant from the start, and finished with 39 homers and 112 RBIs, winning the MVP in a close vote over Mantle. He won the Gold Glove as a right fielder. More to the point: by 1959 the Yankees had grown stagnant and a little stale after nine pennants and seven titles in 11 years, finishing third, 15 ½ games behind the White Sox at 79-75.
They won 18 more games in ’60, and by rights should’ve beaten the Pirates in the World Series. And the lone everyday difference between the teams was Maris. He was that impactful, even before his name would forever be linked with Ruth.
(Who, not for nothing, the Yankees ALSO acquired just in time for his age-25 season of 1920.)
Baseball is a whole different solar system in 2023, true. The A’s had long been viewed as the Yankees’ unofficial farm system and were happy to take Hank Bauer, Don Larsen, Norm Siebern and (not-yet-marvelous) Marv Throneberry off their hands, and the Yankees knew once they acquired Maris there was no avenue for him to escape. Time will tell whether the Soto haul will feel painful, and there is still the small matter of a nine-figure extension to talk about. In some ways, a vastly different solar system.
But this truth still applies, same as it did 64 years ago: you add the right young player to the right team in the right stadium, you never can tell just how fun the coming days of summer can be. The Yankees found that out as soon as 1959 gave way to ‘60. They hope for a redux as 2023 yields to ’24.
