Slick: My Life in and Around Baseball

Whitey Ford tells the story of his rise from the sandlots of New York to national prominence at Yankee Stadium, describing events from the Yankee past and the golden age of baseball

Hall of Famer Ford was the Yankee pitching ace in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the team frequently won the pennant. Raised in Queens, he was a quintessential New Yorker, and his well-publicized friendship with country boy Mickey Mantle made him seem the archetypal city slicker. Here he and New York Daily News columnist Pepe cover his diamond career, which was pretty much an uninterrupted triumph. Ford's lifetime winning percentage was .690, he played in 11 World Series and set the record for most consecutive scoreless innings in the series. There are also tales of his epoch-making carousing with Mantle and Billy Martin, his doctoring of baseballs and the greats he has known. Additionally, there is a warm introduction by pal Mantle. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ford is the co-author with Mickey Mantle of Whitey and Mickey ( LJ 2/15/77), which told about their antics together on and off the field. This is Ford's autobiography, written 20 years after his retirement from baseball. Unlike The Mick (7/85), Mantle's autobiography, Ford's account of the same years is very low-key, downplaying all of the drinking and carousing that went on with Mantle and Billy Martin, the others in the "Unholy Trio of the Yankees." Sticking with anecdotes relating to the playing field, he does give a detailed account of how he had to resort to "cheating" (doctoring the ball) towards the end of his career and the decline of the Yankees in the 1960s. This is a smooth recounting of Ford's life in baseball. Jo DeLapo, Queens Lib., New York
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.