1962 World Series Teams

1962 was the last Fantasy Astrology recap that I got to during the 2022 season, which is indeed what kicked off the whole “years ending in 2” project of the last several weeks. That FABL season saw the Leo Lions finish in first place for the fourth consecutive (reverse-chronological) year, and five of the last six seasons. But now, let’s shift our focus to the real-life 1962 season, which culminated in a World Series where the New York Yankees defeated the San Francisco Giants. Let’s take a look at each of their color-coded starting rosters.

I mentioned this in the 1972 post, but with so many fewer teams in MLB, each team has a much higher concentration of key Fantasy Astrology contributors. Case in point: seven of the eight  members of the Yankees starting lineup also played key roles for their signs. Starting with the top of the order, we have Virgo Tom Tresh, who won the AL Rookie of the Year award while qualifying for both shortstop and left field. His sign-mate Roger Maris experienced a hangover from his home run record-breaking 1961 season, but was still a solid contributor, earning center field eligibility as well. Of course, the only reason why Maris had to slide over from his customary right field was that Mickey Mantle, the Libra star who also participated in the ’61 home run race, dealt with injuries, as was common throughout his career. Sticking with the Scales, let’s jump to the pitching staff briefly, where Whitey Ford was also on a hangover from his Cy Young Award-winning 1961. Ford ended up finishing a distant second in pitching points to Capricorn Ralph Terry, although he still led the Libra staff.

New York had two more signs with a contributor in each of the batting order and pitching staff, with Leo tops among them. Second baseman Bobby Richardson would bat in the two hole for both the Yankees and the Lions. Pitcher Bill Stafford was third on New York in terms of innings, but would slot fourth in the Leo rotation. Speaking of pitchers, this is a good opportunity to discuss how I’ve changed the notation of my team lists as we got into the 1960s. For lists in the modern era, I use “SP” to denote pitchers who started at least 50% of their games, and “RP” for pitchers who had fewer than five games started. (“CL” is a subset of relievers, who had at least 25-30% of their teams’ save opportunities – it’s not an exact science, and changes year to year.) The more generic “P” designation is for pitchers who had more than five starts, but had the majority of their appearances in relief.

However, in the earlier days of baseball, the roles of pitchers were far less defined. First of all, saves weren’t even measured as an official stat until 1968, so there was no recognition for Gemini reliever Marshall Bridges being the only pitcher to come in for the plurality of New York’s games with a lead of three runs or less. But more importantly, we saw very few dedicated relievers: apart from Marshall, every pitcher on the Yankees staff who logged more than 40 innings had at least five starts. So rather than have an empty “RP” slot and a bloated list of “P’s,” I altered the notation: the italic “SP” next to a relief pitcher denotes a number of starts between five and ten, while the “P” is left for primary relievers with at least ten starts. To take the distinctions one step further, the ` mark next to Pisces utility pitcher Jim Bouton’s name means that he approached 50% starts.

Speaking of Pisces, 1961 was the year when Bouton’s sign-mate Elston Howard took over full-time behind the plate, pushing Yogi Berra (a Taurus) to left field. The only other two FABL starters were Sagittarius first baseman Bill Skowron, and Aquarius third baseman Clete Boyer, although the latter only makes the Water Bearers lineup if we cheat him at shortstop (where he has 186 career games), in deference to former Negro League star Al Smith at the hot corner. The only Yankees starter to not make their FABL starting lineup was Cancer outfielder Hector Lopez.

While seven-of-eight starting Yankee batters is an impressive total to have as key fantasy astrology contributors, the Giants have them beat: not only did all eight starters make their FABL squads, but two bench players made the cut as well. I’ll start with Taurus, which not only supplied a team-leading four players, but included in those four are San Francisco’s top batter and top pitcher. Willie Mays was arguably the best baseball player of his generation, and he showed it with another 3,000-point season in 1962. While Jack Sanford doesn’t have the name recognition of a Warren Spahn, or even a Milt Pappas (both two-time All-Stars in ’62), the Massachusetts native was the top-scoring fantasy pitcher on both the Giants and the Bulls. Joining Mays in the lineup were outfielder Felipe Alou and shortstop Jose Pagan, although the latter only as an alternate and cheated second base option.

Hitting in between Mays and Alou in the lineup, we have Virgo first baseman Orlando Cepeda, whose presence in the lineup is a big reason for Capricorn slugger Willie McCovey moving to left field in a season where he was heavily platooned. Back to the top of the order, Havey Kuenn (pronounced KEEN) had enough versatility to get in the Sagittarius lineup in either left field or third base – and the possibilities expand when you consider that he started his career as a shortstop. I cheated second baseman Chuck Hiller as the Libra first baseman, since he finished behind another former Negro Leaguer Jim Gilliam at the keystone. Jim Davenport would only make the Leo lineup if you take issue with my blatant cheat of Carl Yastrzemski at third base, based on 34 career games there, most of them occurring in 1973. It’s unorthodox to see two catchers from one team each make their FABL starting lineups, but Cancer Tom Haller and Aries Ed Bailey split their time pretty evenly… plus, catchers are a hot fantasy commodity in a league with only 20 teams.

Ahead of Sanford in innings was Aquarius starter Billy O’Dell, who was joined by his sign-mate Bobby Bolin in the bullpen (but with at least five starts). The most famous pitcher on the 1962 Giants is undoubtedly Libra Juan Marichal, who made both ’62 All-Star teams. Marichal didn’t start either of the games: that honor went to two OTHER Libra pitchers, Jim Bunning and Johnny Podres, of the Tigers and Dodgers, respectively. Names like Billy Pierce and Stu Miller have not stood the test of time, but they were key contributors for the Aries rotation and Capricorn bullpen, again respectively. The lack of dedicated relievers in this time period creates some low-level bit players like Jim Duffalo to get recognition in my databases: despite just barely cracking 220 fantasy points on the year, he gets listed because two of the three top Sagittarius primary relief pitchers also had at least five starts on the year.