From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Clinton Richardson (born August 19, 1935, in Sumter, South Carolina) is a former second baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the New York Yankees from 1955 through 1966. Batting and throwing right-handed, he was a superb defensive infielder, as well as something of a clutch hitter, who played no small role in the Yankee baseball dynasty of his day.

Richardson debuted on August 5, 1955. He racked up 1,432 hits in his career, with a lifetime batting average of .266, 34 home runs and 390 RBIs. He won five Gold Gloves at second base, while forming a top double play combination with shortstop (and roommate) Tony Kubek. With the light-hitting but superb-fielding Yankee third baseman Clete Boyer, Richardson and Kubek gave the Yankees' arguably the best defensive infield in baseball. Many times during Richardson's career it seemed that the Yankees were nearly impossible to beat. Commonly, a terrific play by the New York infield, coming late in a close game, snuffed out one more team's hope of besting them. Perhaps the most famous came at the end of the 1962 World Series, mentioned below, when Richardson made a clutch catch that prevented Willie Mays and Matty Alou from scoring the runs that would have beaten the Yankees and given the Series to the San Francisco Giants.

Richardson's 12-year career statistics also include 643 runs scored and 73 stolen bases. He also had 196 doubles and 37 triples.

His best year was probably 1962, when he batted .302 with 8 home runs and 50 runs batted in. His 209 hits led the American League, and he stole 11 bases in 161 games. He made the AL All-Star team once again that year, won his second Gold Glove, and came in second in the AL MVP voting, just behind teammate Mickey Mantle. When informed he had won the award, Mantle supposedly said, "Bobby should have won it."

One of the best parts of Richardson's game was his ability to make contact. He struck out just 243 times in his entire 12-year career, usually accomplished today in about two years by power hitters. He was among the top three players in the league in at bats per strikeout eight times during his career, and led the league three times, all later on in his career. He topped out in his last year, striking out just once for every 21.8 at bats. He twice led the league in sacrifice bunts.

He also led the league in at bats three times, partly because he batted early in the order and partly because he rarely missed a game, coming to be known as a workhorse. His career high was 692 at-bats in 161 games in 1962.

He had an all-time fielding percentage of .979 at second base.

Richardson won three World Series (1958, 1961, 1962) of the seven he played with the Yankees(1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964). Hardly moving from his position, he caught the final out of the 1962 Series, snaring a screaming line drive off the bat of Willie McCovey, which if it had been two or three feet higher would have won the Series for the San Francisco Giants.

He was named World Series MVP in 1960 when he helped the Yankees against the Pittsburgh Pirates, although they lost in a Series in which normally light-hitting second basemen (the other being the Bucs' Bill Mazeroski) shone at the plate. During that Series, Richardson hit .367 with 11 hits in 30 at bats. He had a home run (a grand slam) and 12 RBIs, and also racked up two doubles and two triples in the seven-game series. To this day, Richardson remains the only World Series MVP selected from the losing team.

In the 1964 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, he tied a World Series record with 13 hits. However, with his Yankees losing 7-5 in Game 7, and batting against Cardinal ace Bob Gibson, he had the dubious distinction of also making the final out of the Series, popping out to Dal Maxvill.

• 7-time AL All-Star (1957, 1959, 1962-66)
• World Series MVP in 1960
• Lou Gehrig Memorial Award winner in 1963
• 5-time Gold Glove winner (1961-65)
• Led the league in hits in 1962 (209)

• Richardson wore the uniform number 1 (one) for the majority of his career (1958-1966)
• Richardson is a born-again Christian. In the 1980s, he served as the collegiate baseball coach at Liberty University and also for two seasons (1985-86)at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C. where he compiled a record of (61-38). Today, Bobby Richardson is a national leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and a much sought-after Christian speaker.
• Richardson ran for United States Congress from South Carolina in 1976 as a Republican, losing to Democrat Kenneth Holland. Richardson's old friend, Yankee shortstop Tony Kubek, refused to campaign for Richardson as Kubek was a Democrat.
• His manager Casey Stengel once made this observation about Richardson, who was better known for his glove than his bat: "Look at him. He don't drink, he don't smoke, he don't chew (tobacco), he don't stay out too late, and he still don't hit .250!" His career average was, in fact, .266, and he batted at a .305 clip in World Series play.
• Referring to Bobby Richardson's clutch hitting, Casey Stengel later said, "Bobby Richardson was the best .260 hitter ever to play the game."

1. ESPN web site, yearly list of World Series results from the beginning to the present.

• Baseball-Reference.com - career statistics and analysis