By Paul Semendinger
January 25, 2024
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Well, here we are. This looked to be, when I started this project, the last article in a long series. But, alas! This is not the final article. Three more are forthcoming after this one.
About a year after I started this project, Bryan Hoch wrote an article where he listed who he considered the best Yankee at each uniform number. I have never looked at his list and am eager to. I'll compare his conclusions to my own.
Next, I will look back at the 2022 and 2023 Yankees to see if any of the previous articles in this series need to be updated.
Finally, when Adam Ottovino was the only Yankees player to wear #0, I didn't feel the need to pen an article about him. But, in time, Domingo German also wore number zero. And, I suspect Marcus Stroman might as well. One day I'll have to do a #0 article.
At that point, this project will be completed, save for any updates from new players and such.
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Let's now look at Uniform Number One...
The Yankees retired #1 for Billy Martin. This was retired, for the most part, for his managerial career, not his playing career.
As a player, Billy Martin was a good, not great, scrappy, second baseman. He played in seven seasons as a Yankee. Martin, in that time, batted .262/30/88. His OPS+ was 88 (on a scale where 100 means a player is an average big leaguer).
Martin did have some big moments. He famously caught a crucial popfly in Game Seven to help the Yankees win the World Series in 1952. He also batted .333 across 28 World Series games. But, while many like to say that he was on five World Series Championship teams, the specifics are less kind to Billy. He didn't play in the World Series in 1950. And in 1951, he played in only one game - as a pinch runner. As such, while he was on five winners, he didn't contribute to all five championships.
But, Martin was only once the every day starting second baseman on the Yankees (1953). In that season, Martin played in 149 games batting .257/15/75. For the rest of his career as a Yankee, Billy Martin was a part-time player. Martin's games played by Yankees seasons were as follows:
1950 - 34 games
1951 - 51 games
1952 - 109 games
1953 - 149 games (mentioned above)
1954 - In Military Service
1955 - 20 games
1956 - 121 games
1957 - 43 games (before he was traded to the Kansas City A's)
In short, it would be impossible to argue that Billy Martin was the best player in uniform Number One on the Yankees.
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The complete list of Yankees to wear Uniform #1 for the Yankees is:
Earle Combs (1929-1935)
George Selkirk (1934)
Roy Johnson (1936)
Frank Crosetti (1937-1944)
Tuck Stainback (1944)
Snuffy Stirnweiss (1945-1950)
Billy Martin (1951-1957)
Bobby Richardson (1958-1966)
Bobby Murcer (1969-1974)
If we rank them by WAR, for only the years listed when they wore #1, they rank as follows:
Bobby Murcer: 27.4
Earle Combs: 26.2
Snuffy Stirnweiss: 18.7
Frank Crosetti: 9.1
Bobby Richardson: 8.7
Billy Martin: 5.9
George Selkirk: 1.3
Roy Johnson: 0.2
Tuck Stainbach: -0.5
There is a lot to unpack there...
First, Billy Martin wasn't even the best second baseman to wear uniform Number One as a Yankee. By WAR, Snuffy Stirnweiss and Bobby Richardson both out performed him.
Roy Johnson and Tuck Stainback are quick to get overlooked here, but both were long time big leaguers who played for the Yankees just briefly. Johnson had a ten-year Major League career. He batted .296 for his career. In 1934, he batted .320 and even earned some MVP votes.
Tuck Stainback had a 13-year big league career. He spent four seasons with the Yankees (but only one wear he wore Number One). He batted .259 for his career with seven different teams.
George Selkirk was the player who replaced Babe Ruth in right field. He was a career Yankee who batted .290 over nine seasons. For most of his career, a different time back then, he wore #3 (yes, the Babe's uniform number).
Frank Crosetti, a shortstop, was a long time Yankee (who deserves to be in Monument Park). He anchored the Yankees infield and was on eight World Series teams (seven of them were World Champions). After his playing days (although this doesn't "count" for this exercise, Crosetti coached third base for the Yankees. No player in the history of baseball was part of more World Series teams than Frank Crosetti.
George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss has an impressive, but brief, peak during the World War II years. He led the American League in batting in 1945. In both 1944 and 1945, he finished in the top five players in the American league MVP race. During those two years, he led the A.L. in At Bats (once) and Runs (twice), Hits (twice), Triples (twice) and Stolen Bases (twice).
Bobby Richardson was a great Yankees second baseman as well. He won the 1960 World Series MVP after he batted .367 in the series. Richardson is the only player to win the World Series MVP for a losing team.
But, the amazing stat that we have to unpack here is the fact that Bobby Murcer outperformed Earle Combs (by WAR, at least) while wearing this number. Murcer was an excellent Yankee, but was he better than Hall of Famer Earle Combs?
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Since this isn't an exercise in which player had the highest WAR (it is, after all, just one measure), let's dive in more closely at the years they both wore uniform Number One:
First, of note, for Earle Combs, the years he wore this number were the last years of his career, for Bobby Murcer, these were the first years of his. Combs didn't wear a uniform number (no one did) prior to 1929. Murcer was traded by the Yankees after the 1974 season. He returned in 1979, but when he came back, he wore #2.
Here are Combs' and Murcer's numbers wearing uniform Number One:
Earle Combs: .322/34/394 OPS+ - 127
Bobby Murcer: .285/139/533 OPS+ - 136
It seems clear that Murcer, again, was the better player.
Diving in further, Earle Combs, in those years, never earned an MVP vote. Bobby Murcer never won the award, but he did place in the voting four times:
1971 - 7th
1972 - 5th
1973 - 9th
1974 - 21st
In those years, Earle Combs led the league in a category once, triples, in 1930.
In his years wearing #1, Bobby Murcer led the league in On Base Percentage, OPS, and OPS+ in 1971 and in Runs and Total Bases in 1972.
Again, this favors Murcer.
But, one area where most would believe Murcer falls way short of Combs is in regard to championships...
When one looks back at the Yankees from Earle Combs' era, they often immediately think that the Yankees won the World Series all the time back then, but while Combs wore #1, the Yankees were in only one World Series (1932). A lot of people forget that from 1929 through 1935, the Yankees were in the World Series only once. The Philidelphia Athletics were in three World Series, the Detroit Tigers were in two, and the Washington Senators were in one during those years. In all those years, except 1930, the Yankees were the second place team in the American League.
Bobby Murcer's Yankees never reached a World Series, but it would be impossible to give Earle Combs any significant edge in this area. One championship is greater than none, but not by much...
Over the course of their entire careers, at least by OPS+, the two players were extremely similar:
Earle Combs Career OPS+ = 125
Bobby Murcer Career OPS+ = 124
In the end, while Earle Combs' career was one that brought him to Cooperstown, and while Bobby Murcer isn't a Hall of Famer, the greatest Yankee while wearing uniform Number One was...
BOBBY MURCER.
(How's that for a surprise ending?)
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Most of the background research for this project came from Baseball-Reference.com and the SABR BioProject.
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PREVIOUS ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES: (All the links should work. If not, please let us know.)
