The Harmonica Incident took place on a New York Yankees team bus on August 20, 1964, en route to O'Hare International Airport. Infielder Phil Linz, slightly resentful at not being played during a four-game sweep by the Chicago White Sox that was believed at the time to have seriously set back the Yankees' chances at that year's American League pennant, began playing a harmonica in the back of the bus. Manager Yogi Berra, feeling that Linz's behavior was inappropriate given the team's recent poor performance, angrily called on him to stop, whereupon Linz threw the harmonica and loudly complained about being singled out despite not having been at fault for the losses.
Journalists on the bus following the team reported the incident in the next day's newspapers, and it became national news. Although Linz was fined for the incident, he received an endorsement contract from harmonica manufacturer Hohner after the company saw an increase in sales. The contract more than made up for Linz's lost money from the fine. Radio stations in Boston urged fans of the Red Sox, whom the Yankees played immediately afterward, to greet Linz at the plate in Fenway Park with a harmonica and kazoo serenade. At an exhibition game against the crosstown New York Mets, Mets players tossed harmonicas onto the field.
The incident had divergent effects on the team. For the players, it ended well: Berra's authority as their manager was decisively established and they went 30–11 through the end of the season, clinching the pennant that had seemed out of reach. For the team's management, which had been dogged all season by reports that Berra could not control his former teammates, it confirmed that impression, and efforts to find a replacement for Berra (that had reportedly already been underway) succeeded shortly afterwards, with Johnny Keane, who was considered likely to be fired from his position as St. Louis Cardinals' manager after the season concluded, secretly agreeing to become the Yankees' manager. Keane's team also came back from deep in the standings to win the National League pennant, and then defeated the Yankees in that year's World Series. The day afterwards, Berra was fired and Keane shocked his superiors by resigning instead of accepting a contract extension. Keane took over from Berra a few days later.
Despite its role in catalyzing the team that season, the incident has been seen as the beginning of the end of the Yankees' 15-year postwar dynasty, since it also coincided with the announcement that the CBS television network was buying the team. Keane was never able to fully earn the respect of either the aging, injury-plagued stars or the few promising younger players, The 1965 Yankees not only failed to win the pennant, they recorded the team's first losing season in 40 years. When the subsequent season started with even worse results, Keane was fired, although that did not prevent the Yankees from finishing in last place. They did not return to the World Series until 1976, nearly four years after CBS had sold the team to George Steinbrenner.
Background
Yogi Berra and the Yankees In the years after World War II, the Yankees had come to dominate Major League Baseball in a way that no team had done before or since. Between 1947 and 1963, the team appeared in the World Series 14 times, winning ten. Rooting for the Yankees, as Peter Golenbock, the author of several books about the Yankees, some in collaboration with players, wrote, "became like rooting for U.S. Steel". Stars of the earlier era like Joe DiMaggio had been almost seamlessly replaced by younger players like Mickey Mantle. One of those, former catcher Lawrence "Yogi" Berra, had been a constant on the team.
Berra had accumulated considerable baseball knowledge during his career. Casey Stengel, the Yankees' manager throughout the 1950s, had considered him the most important player on the team, sometimes describing Berra as his assistant manager. When he published his own memoirs in 1961, a blurb on the back cover by well-regarded Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards suggested that Berra would be an excellent manager himself. Since Berra was nearing the end of his playing career, the Orioles and other teams made indications that they would be interested in hiring him for that position.Barra, 288
Berra explained later that he had turned down the other clubs' offers because many of them were not regular contenders for the pennant and he did not believe it likely that a new manager would last more than two seasons. During 1962, the Yankees' management noticed that Stengel, whom they had fired due to his advancing age a few seasons earlier, was becoming a big draw for the expansion New York Mets of the National League as the manager during their inaugural season. Despite the Mets' poor performance, the team regularly filled the aging Polo Grounds, and the Yankees only barely outdrew them even though they wound up winning the World Series. The executives worried that Berra, popular with the fans and the media, might be lured over to the Mets after his playing days were done (he would in fact join as player-coach in 1965), and with that team expected to move to the newer, larger Shea Stadium within two seasons, the possibility existed that the Mets' attendance figures could exceed those of the Yankees.Barra, 291
So, before the start of the 1963 season, manager Ralph Houk took Berra on a yachting trip with several of the team's executives. Out on the ocean, general manager Roy Hamey told Berra that, at the end of the season, he would be leaving that position to become a scout. He in turn would be replaced by Houk, leaving the field manager's position open. Hamey asked Berra if he was interested in that job. The catcher was incredulous at first, but then accepted the offer.Barra, 285–86
Not all the executives on board were enthusiastic about the prospect of Berra taking over as the Yankees' manager. Team president Dan Topping Jr., son of co-owner Dan Topping, who saw the chief benefit of hiring Berra as manager to be counteracting Stengel's force as a draw for the Mets, was not sure about the wisdom of the decision otherwise. Co-owner Del Webb had more serious doubts: Berra, unlike most other major league managers of the era, had no experience managing in the minor leagues; he also thought it inadvisable to go from being a teammate one season to a manager the next. Berra visited him in California to reassure him on both points, and Webb said he would support him as manager.
Berra was made a player-coach that season, although he fulfilled the latter role primarily by fungo hitting to his teammates during pregame warmups. The promotion to manager was not made publicThe reasons for the secrecy are not known, but it has been reported that Hamey had been having trouble selling his Upper East Side apartment and did not want it known that he had to leave town, which would likely have driven down the price he could expect even further. until after the Yankees had ended the season with a four-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Reporters greeted the news with some of the skepticism that Webb had expressed privately. Berra reassured them that he had learned much from Stengel and Houk in his years with the team. "You can observe a lot by watching", he said, adding to the stock of "Yogi-isms", the pithy, sometimes apparently self-contradictory remarks that had endeared him to the press over the years. "If you ask me a question I don't know", he continued, "I'm not going to answer".Barra, 290
As the next season drew near, Berra himself seemed to express some doubts about his own capabilities as manager. "If we win, they'll say Mickey Mouse could have managed this team to the pennant. If we lose, they'll say it's my fault", he observed at one point. "Maybe I'll quit even if we win".
The 1964 season
Berra faced challenges almost from the start of the season. The team, which had not played well during spring training, lost its first three games in extra innings. Pitcher Jim Bouton, seen as the Yankees' next ace after winning 21 games in his rookie season the previous year, had sat out part of the preseason due to a contract dispute and got off to an uneven start when he returned. Within weeks of Opening Day, all three of the team's starting outfielders—Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Tom Tresh—were out with injuries, forcing Berra to play Johnny Blanchard, the team's backup catcher, in that position for some games.Barra, 292
Fortunately for Berra, the team's pitchers made up for the injuries. Ace Whitey Ford performed consistently well, and Bouton had improved to his previous season's form by the end of April, to the point where he finished the season with more wins than Ford. Al Downing, another younger player and the first African American Yankee on the mound, also pitched well in the early months, striking out an average of one batter per inning. But then Bouton and Downing were sidelined with strained muscles. The relief pitchers also had their share of injuries, keeping Steve Hamilton and Hal Reniff from replicating their combined 23 saves in 82 appearances of the previous season.
Berra was also having issues with the healthy players. Concerns about his capability to manage former teammates were, in the eyes of some media observers, proving justified. Reports began to circulate about late-night carousing by certain players, Mantle in particular. "He ran wild on Yogi", said sportswriter Maury Allen, "staying out late and carrying on".
This was in large part a matter of perception. Mantle and other players had done the same thing under Houk, who had never felt it necessary to impose a curfew on them. "After racking up yet another win under the lights", writes baseball historian Philip Bashe, "[Houk']s clubs were known to wind up under tables". Phil Pepe, who covered the team for the World-Telegram and Sun, noted that under Berra, the Yankees "weren't doing anything differently than before—except not winning".
Berra's exercise of managerial authority did create some friction between him and his former teammates. He benched third baseman Clete Boyer when his late night antics began affecting his play. "Our relationship at that time wasn't too good", Boyer said later, adding that he only appreciated the move when he himself became a coach after his playing career. Berra's relationship with the pitching staff was rocky as well. He often criticized them in front of their teammates, something Houk had never done.
The relievers in particular began complaining to Houk about Berra having had them warm up in the bullpen only to leave his current pitcher in. This was consistent with a general pattern of indecisiveness some other players also noted. Hamilton recalled that Berra often wondered aloud about strategic decisions, asking, "Should I bunt? Should I steal?"
Despite these difficulties, the Yankees were still contenders. Mantle came back from his early injury and, while still suffering from it (in addition to continuing pain from older injuries), continued to play well, leading the team in home runs and runs batted in with 35 and 111, respectively. Those numbers were impressive in an off year for hitters following recent pitcher-friendly rule changes; it was Mantle's last good season.Barra, 297 Elston Howard, the team's first African American player, also avoided injury and put up the team's best batting average, .313. Despite their complaints of overwork, the relievers combined for a record of 20–7, with 15 saves during the summer months. By early August, the Yankees, despite winning fewer games and winning less overwhelmingly than they had in recent years, were in a tight battle for the pennant with the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox.
Efforts to replace Berra