Tom Tresh Passes
Posted by Steve L. on October 15th, 2008 · Comments (4)
Via the Michigan Morning Star – former Yankees player Tom Tresh died Tuesday morning at his home (in Venice, Florida). He was 71 and passed away in the early morning hours of a massive heart attack.
In a way, Tresh was the Scott Brosius of his time: Gifted enough defensively to play anywhere on the field and do well, capable of getting a big hit on the big stage at the right time…just a winning player…albeit not someone whose stats would suggest that he was a great/stud player.
And, you have to wonder, if the injury that he had in 1967 (to his knee) had happened today, with what they can do now, if the rest of his career would have looked differently…
He was my boyhood idol. I even wore his number(15)in Little League. He did everything the Yankees asked of him, playing shortstop, thirdbase, left and center, and hitting everywhere from lead-off to eighth in the order. He was the Yankees #3 hitter in the 1962 Series—the first rookie, I believe, since Joe D. to bat 3rd in every WS game. Of the 20 runs the Yankees scored in that Series 8 were either scored or driven in by Tresh. And his 3 run HR off 24 game winner Jack Sanford in the bottom of the 8th in Game 5 may have been the turning poin in that Autumn Classic. He had a Slugging Percentage of .508 in 65 WS ABs including HRs off a couple of guys named Koufax and Gibson. In 1965 he finished 2nd in the AL in TBs, 3rd in the AL in Runs and won a gold glove while mainly playing CF. Yes, he suffered a very debilitating injury in 1967, but—like so many players of that era—he didn’t spend a single day on the DL. In the end his legs failed him by the age of 30 and he fell victim to the “Five Year Plan,” being dealt to Detroit for a non-entity named Ron Woods. But in a curious way, the trade seems appropriate, for it permitted him to end his career the way he started it: playing SS for the defending World Champions. And since Tresh was from Detroit it allowed him to complete his major league trot by coming home. In his last ML appearance on September 29, 1969, he singled off Cy Young award winner Mark Cuellar in the 9th inning of a 1-1 game, went from 1st to 3rd on a single, beating the throw from Gold Glove CF Paul Blair, and scored what proved to be the winning run on a ground ball to Gold Glove SS Mark Belanger. Yes, he did it the hard way.
God, I loved that guy.
Just curious, since you saw him play…
what player today reminds you the most of him?
What player today reminds me the most of Tom Tresh?
That’s a tough call. Switch hitter who could play SS and CF…above averge power…drew alot of walks relative to his era…good baserunner
According to similarity scores the three players most like Tresh are Bill Melton, Ed Sprague and Scott Brosius—all thirdbasemen—but none of them actually put me in mind of Tresh. Aaron Boone (another 3B) is more like Tresh to my mind, but Boone doesn’t walk enough—not nearly enough—and Boone’s relative BA is probably more than a bit below Tresh’s. Still, if I’m pressed to pick one player, it probably would be Aaron Boone.
Then there’s a player I actually mistook for Tom Tresh once. I happened to be at Yankee Stadium on August 8th, 1969—a couple of months after Tresh had been traded to the Tigers—for a double header between the Yankees and A’s. Anyway, between the games I thought for sure I saw Tom Tresh mulling about around the Yankee dugout. In fact, I was so convinced it was him that I told the other boys in the church group I was with that Tresh was back and would probably be playing SS in the 2nd game. Anyway, the 2nd game started Tresh came out in catcher’s gear and squatted behind home plate. God, did I look stupid! It wasn’t Tresh at all. It was just somebody wearing his number—#15. A few innings into the game the Yankee scoreboard flashed greetings to our group and we all got up and cheered like crazy. And that greeting stayed on the messageboard for a while—maybe 10 minutes—and we just kept cheering and yelling to everyone around us in the Stadium “That’s Us! That’s Us!”—and even the ushers clapped for us and WPIX put a camera on us so practically everyone back home saw us. We were celebrities. Then they finally took the greeting off the message board and put another one up which we promptly booed:
ROOKIE THURMAN MUNSON’S
MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT.
Thurman Munson??? We booed, laughed, and booed. Thurman Munson??? Where’d the Yankees find someone named Thurman Munson—from Dr. Seuss?
Anyway, that was the player I mistook for Tresh. And when he got a basehit to score a run I cheered him. And I kept on cheering him for ten years—even though he had stolen Tresh’s uniform.
Great story! Apart from Mickey, he was my favorite. I always felt bad for him that his career went down, along with the team’s during the 60′s. I often wondered why. It seemed that he took on the pressure of trying to compensate for the decline. Then the knee injury and he was done. He could do everything – hit, field, run. Seemed to have a lot of class. And a big game player. But it seems that the load of trying to carry the team in Mantle’s declining years was too much for him. I always wondered what he thought about it in retrospect.
That Yankee team in the early 60′s was terrific, although the Dodgers took it to them in ’63.
In his best years, he reminds me of Paul O’Neill, although quieter. Good fielder and runner, solid hitter, good tho not great power. A little weaker than O’Neill in BA. But an all around guy, who came to play and was not afraid of the big game. It’s funny with the last game at the Stadium, I was thinking of him lately and wondering what he was up to.