Johnny Blanchard was an exceptional three-sport athlete at Minneapolis Central in football, basketball and baseball. He was a left-handed hitter, right-handed thrower and primarily a third baseman in those years.
Blanchard was 18 when the Yankees signed him to a substantial bonus in 1951. They decided to turn him into a catcher and his first season in that role – 1952 with the Class C Joplin [Mo.] team – was not smooth. He led all of professional baseball with 35 passed balls.
Then came his draft notice, and he spent the next two years in the Army. It was the midst of the Korean Conflict, but he spent most of his stretch in Germany.
He came back to the loaded Yankees' farm system and had only one game and four at-bats in the big leagues over the next four years. He hit 37 home runs and drove in 184 runs combined in 1957-58 at Class AAA Denver, and the Yankees finally found a place for him in 1959:
Third-string catcher behind Yogi Berra and Elston Howard, past and future American League MVPs, and also outfielder and pinch-hitter. Lefty pinch-hitters in Yankee Stadium … the Bronx Bombers loved those guys for generations.
Blanchard played in five straight World Series with the Yankees from 1960 through 1964, with the first one being the most-notorious and his role being the most-intriguing.
I played cart-mate golf with Johnny a couple of times years later. Good stick, great guy, and as his son Paul Blanchard pointed out in our conversation last week: 'You guys were long-term members of the same club.''
That would be Alcoholics Anonymous – and it was discussed in the cart.