Harmonica Incident

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.

Keane's team had 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.

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.

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.

[11] The promotion to manager was not made public[Note 1] until after the Yankees had ended the season with a four-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

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.

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.

[13] 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.

The American League had queried the other nine teams about whether they would approve the sale of the Yankees to the CBS television network, the first word outside the two parties about a transaction that had been in the works since around the time Berra had been offered the manager's position; Topping and Webb did not want any negative publicity to disrupt the deal.

According to sportswriter Joe Trimble, around August 12 Houk discreetly contacted Alvin Dark, then manager of the San Francisco Giants, about taking over from Berra after the season.

Since any such negotiations before the end of the season would have violated baseball's strict anti-tampering rules, no records exist and thus it is also uncertain if, at that time, the team had definitely decided to replace Berra.

On August 17, they arrived in Comiskey Park for a four-game series with the White Sox which had the potential to give either team the upper hand in the pennant race, at least in regard to one another.

[15] After the last game, the Yankees dressed and got on the team bus to travel to O'Hare International Airport, from where they flew to Boston for another four-game series against their archrivals, the Red Sox.

[24] By his own account, into which he admits he has incorporated others' reminiscences over the years, he was "resentful",[25] but he was also aware that despite his hitting success, his fielding had been deficient, and he believes the pitchers had complained to the manager.

To take his mind off his resentment, he pulled out a Hohner harmonica he had bought the day before when he ran into Tom Tresh and Kubek doing the same at Marshall Field's department store.

Accounts differ as to whether he knew at the time it was Linz, but it is agreed that Berra eventually said something in the general direction of the rear demanding that the harmonica playing stop.

Houk commented in the press on reports that one Boston radio station was urging fans to bring harmonicas and kazoos to the games at Fenway Park to taunt Linz.

In the third game, rookie pitcher Mel Stottlemyre, who had snapped two other Yankee losing streaks in his August starts, held the Sox scoreless as Mantle, Maris, and Blanchard hit home runs en route to an 8–0 victory.

The White Sox lost three of four to Baltimore following their sweep of the Yankees, evening up the pennant race, but the Orioles were unable to build momentum from this; during a game in Boston before that, their star first baseman, Boog Powell, had chipped a bone after running into a wall at Fenway, putting him on the disabled list for three weeks.

"It will be told over and over for years to come how the 'dead' Yankees were revived and the 1964 pennant won because the manager, Yogi Berra, got mad at Phil Linz's harmonica playing on a bus", Leonard Koppett predicted.

[19] Although Houk did his part to assist the Yankees' surge by making a late trade with the Cleveland Indians early in September for Pedro Ramos, bringing some badly needed help to the bullpen,[14] he and the other front-office executives did not share the players' newfound respect for Berra.

[37] The Yankees did not need the additional negative publicity the incident brought,[19] especially in light of the doubts it raised about Berra's ability to manage his former teammates effectively.

[43] Some reporters found the circumstances suspicious and did not believe that Keane's sudden availability was a coincidence; Newsday columnist Stan Isaacs called Houk "the number-one charlatan, mountebank, quack, fop, fraud and ass of the sporting panorama".

Jim Bouton told Rob Neyer in 2014 that he believed the decision to fire Berra had been made "maybe right after Phil Linz decided to play his harmonica in Chicago".

In conjunction with upper management, he concealed from Roger Maris the information that he had broken his hand until late in the season, an injury that left him unable to grip a bat as tightly as he had before.

Elston Howard had to keep playing despite an arm injury, and the stress on Tony Kubek's bad back forced him into retirement at the end of the season.

[49]In 1974, shortly before his death, former Yankees' co-owner Del Webb relayed a message through his doctor, who also occasionally saw Berra, that he had made a mistake in firing Yogi.

[58] After the Martin-led Yankees finished with 91 wins in 1983, Martin was again dismissed by George Steinbrenner, who had bought the team from CBS ten years earlier; he then promoted Berra to the manager's position.

Players, who had heard the news, were nevertheless surprised to find Berra seated in the front of the team bus, which let him off at O'Hare where he flew back to New York.

While Berra's initial comments were extremely conciliatory,[73] he ended up even angrier than he had been after the 1964 situation, since Steinbrenner had sent King to do the job rather than face Yogi as Topping and Webb had.