Whitey throws in his ‘2’ sense worth
Whitey Ford, who surely wasn’t Chairman of the Bored when he and Mickey Mantle painted the town in pinstripes, isn’t about to take sides in the George Steinbrenner-Derek Jeter saga, but the champion southpaw knows this much: Derek Jeter could have played behind him and in front of Mantle any day, any time, any era.
While making it clear that he was not criticizing the Boss, Ford launched into an impressive defense of Jeter.
“Nobody should criticize a player like Derek Jeter,” Ford told us with passion. “If George gets on him, it’s just a spur-of-the-moment thing and it’ll be forgotten real soon. I think he’s probably gonna be the next Captain of the team.”
Ford insists that any carousing he and Mantle did was overblown a bit by the press. “We had fun but we picked our spots,” Ford said. “We did not hurt the team by our behavior, believe me. I won more games than any Yankee pitcher in history. Mickey played more games than any Yankee in history … What could we have done that wrong?”
“Derek’s a great kid,” Ford added. “He’s always in shape. He plays hurt. What more do you want? He’s not a drinker. Derek takes good care of himself.”
But the Yanks haven’t won a world championship the last two years, and Jeter’s numbers are down, and the Boss is demanding 110-percent bang for his buck. “George would have liked Mickey and [me] on the team,” Ford explains. “He might have screamed at us once in a while, but that doesn’t change the way we were gonna play.”
Whitey, Mickey and Derek know what being a champion is all about.
POSTSCRIPTS
Herm Edwards will be honored Thursday at the Grand Hyatt with the 26th Annual Brotherhood Award from One Hundred Black Men, Inc. and Association for a Better New York … Knicks legend Willis Reed will headline a Black History Month symposium entitled “Breaking Down Barriers” on Tuesday afternoon at Gallagher’s Steak House. Reed will be joined at the open-to-the-public event by Fordham University women’s basketball coach Jim Lewis and WNBC sports broadcaster Otis Livingston … MetroTV is airing a 90-minute special on Yogi Berra Friday (Yogi Berra: In His Own Words) at 8. Highlights include rarely seen footage of Yogi’s career, including his pinch-hit home run in the 1947 World Series (the first ever recorded). The pitcher … Ralph Branca.
MRS. STRAWSOME & FRIENDS
Charisse Strawberry, an ex-model, is having a fashion-show fundraiser with sports wives Wednesday in Tampa. It will benefit the Tampa affiliate of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, which she heads. Modeling will be the spouses of David Wells, Andy Pettitte, Tino Martinez, Gary Sheffield, Warren Sapp and Deion Sanders. The show is part of the 50th anniversary activities of the Christopher D. Smithers Foundation, headed by Charisse’s top benefactor, Adele Smithers-Fornaci, who will be on hand.
DON’T FORGET ELLIE
Our webfind of the week is ElstonHoward.com. It’s only fitting Elston Howard be remembered this Black History month and The Insiders are backing a campaign to get him elected to the Hall of Fame, not only for what Howard did as a ballplayer but for the kind of man he was as well. It’s all there in the book: “Elston and Me” – written by Arlene Howard with Post colleague Ralph Wimbish. A tremendous catcher, oward was the first African American to play for the Yankees and the first to win AL MVP honors. He also was on 10 pennant winners in his 13-year career, was an All-Star nine times and invented the batting donut.
FAST TIMES AT METS HIGH
Bobby Valentine clears the air with us on that bizarre Met Marijuana press conference late last season at Shea, where Valentine imitated a batter swinging at a high pitch.
“Unbelievable that I got criticized for that,” Valentine tells us. “I shouldn’t even have been in on that?”
What do you mean? “I shouldn’t even have been in the room.”
Why? “Because I didn’t want to have anything to do with it; and I didn’t have anything to do with it. If I have my way eventually in this media world, I’m gonna do a thing where I critique the critics. Someone that day decided that they were going to interpret my … eyes, my eye movement or my hand gesture, or some nonsense that they were going to interpret rather than the real deal. For me to get criticized when I got frustrated with some idiotic line of questioning … I was asked repeatedly, at least twice, maybe three times by someone: How I was sure my players weren’t smoking marijuana before the game? And if they weren’t high on marijuana when they were playing?
“And I answered in a straight fashion, I answered in a definitive fashion, and then I answered in a sarcastic fashion.”
So you were dragged into that room against your will? “No; it was just one of those situations. To have a press conference for it I thought was a little overblown. Someone – not Jay [Horwitz] – was handling how we were going to control that situation, and I was just told, ‘OK, we’re coming into a press conference.’ I wasn’t part of that planning process on what we were gonna say and do in that meeting.”
Horwitz, the Mets VP of media relations, insists it was his decision to bring Valentine into that press conference. “Generally,” Horwitz explains, “when there is a breaking news event I like to get all of the principals involved in one room so that there aren’t three separate press conferences and so everyone knows what everyone is saying.”