PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Herman Weiskopf

May 02, 1966

Fred Whitfield of the Cleveland Indians speaks in a voice rich with hominy grits, and he strums a lazy guitar—an easygoing man if ever there was one. It's just that he has this thing about the Yankees. He can't stop hitting against them. It has become almost a disease, and there seems to be nothing that medical science—or the Yankee pitchers—can do about it. Whitfield first showed these symptoms on May 4 a year ago when he hit a three-run homer against New York. The next day he did it again—another three-run homer. By the end of the season Whitfield had hit Yankee pitching for 10 home runs and 26 RBIs and had batted .358 against them. Had he kept up that pace against the rest of the league, Whitfield would have ended up with 90 home runs and 234 RBIs. His Yankee malady was diagnosed as temporary, something that, with time, would go away. But when Whitfield faced New York for the first time this year, there it was again—a game-winning, two-run homer. Next day—certainly—he did exactly the same thing. "I give up," said Manager Johnny Keane of the Yankees. Whitfield himself feels that maybe it's his guitar playing that does it. "Strummin' with one hand and fingerin' with the other is good for the wrists and hands, and strong wrists and hands are important to hittin'," Whitfield says. "The good Lord gave me the ability to hit. That's all I can do. Otherwise I'd be plantin' crops back home in Alabama."