Johnny Kucks obit

Johnny Kucks, World Series hero for the Yankees in 1956, dead at 80

 

He was not on the list.

Johnny Kucks, a born and bred "Jersey Boy" who went from the sandlots of Jersey City to a 1956 Yankee World Series hero, died Thursday after a long bout with cancer. He was 80.

Kucks, a side-arming righthander who had what Yogi Berra said was one of the "heaviest sinkerballs" he ever caught, spent 4½ seasons with the Yankees from 1955-59 and appeared in eight games over four World Series with a 1.89 ERA in them. But his finest hour was when Yankee manager Casey Stengel gave him the ball for Game 7 of the 1956 World Series at Ebbets Field — after the Dodgers had tied the Series 3-3 the day before on a 1-0, 10-inning shutout by Clem Labine — and Kucks responded by pitching a three-hit shutout in a 9-0 Yankee win.

"Actually, I didn't know I was going to start that game until about an hour before, when I found the ball in my glove in my locker," Kucks recalled years later. "It was going to be either me, Whitey Ford or Tom Sturdivant, and I think the reason Casey picked me was because Ebbets Field was such a small ballpark and I had that good sinkerball."

Just the same, Stengel had both Ford and Sturdivant warming up in the first inning. But the Yankees immediately staked Kucks to a 2-0 lead when his batterymate, Berra, hit a two-run homer in the first, and two innings later, Berra hit another two-run homer to help deliver an early KO of Dodgers ace Don Newcombe. Moose Skowron would later add a grand slam in the Yankee rout. "I remember I had trouble in the first inning when I walked Pee Wee Reese with one out and gave up a single to (Duke) Snider," said Kucks, "but I was able to get out of it by getting Jackie Robinson to hit into a double play. Whitey and Sturdivant sat down, and I never had any trouble the rest of the way."

A standout pitcher at Dickinson High in Jersey City, Kucks went on to play for a semi-pro team there called Cloverdale A.C., and was first discovered by the Phillies.

But after the Phillies reneged on an initial bonus offer to him, he signed with the Yankees for $18,000 in 1952 and was sent to their Class B Norfolk team in the Piedmont League, where he was 19-6 in his first pro season. After spending 1953 and '54 in the service, Kucks came to spring training with the Yankees in '55 and pitched his way onto the team.

Kucks was 8-7 his rookie season with a 3.41 ERA. The following season he was a regular part of the Yankee rotation and was second behind Ford on the Yankees in victories with an 18-7 record. Culminating with the World Series-clinching Game 7 shutout, it was, said Kucks, "my career season."

However, Kucks was to gain almost as much notice the following season — for the wrong reason. On May 16, 1957, he was part of the Yankee party (albeit the least known) — along with Berra, Ford, Mickey Mantle and Hank Bauer — that was celebrating Billy Martin's 29th birthday at the Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan when a fight broke out and a patron at the next table over wound up being punched out. Berra, Bauer, Mantle and Ford were all fined $1,000 by the Yankees while Kucks, because he was earning far less than the established veterans, was docked $500.

 

Kucks, who was born in Hoboken in 1933, was never able to come close to duplicating his 1956 form and by '58 was pitching mostly out of the bullpen. In May of 1959, in one of those many one-sided trades the Yankees made with their "country cousins," the Kansas City Athletics in the '50s and '60s, they sent Kucks, Sturdivant and infielder Jerry Lumpe to the A's for third baseman Hector Lopez and righthander Ralph Terry, both of whom would become staples on five more pennant-winning clubs.

Kucks remained with the A's through 1960 and then drifted to the minor leagues. He made one last bid to return to the majors in 1963 when Stengel, then managing the Mets, invited him to their camp. But a sore arm prevented him from making the team. For his career, Kucks was 54-56 with a 4.10 ERA.

In retirement, Kucks lived in Hillsdale, N.J., and had a long second career as a stockbroker on Wall St. He is survived by two daughters. His wife, Barbara, whom he married in 1955, died in 2006.