Phil Linz

Born today, Phil Linz.

Phil is mostly known for the "Harmonica Incident" which occurred on August 20, 1964 while a member of the New York Yankees.

As told by Jim Bouton in his book "Ball Four", on the team bus after a loss to the White Sox, Linz was in the back playing a version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on his harmonica. Yankee manager, Yogi Berra thought the song was mocking his team and told him to knock it off. Linz did not hear this and kept playing at which time Berra became angry and yelled, "If you don't knock that off, I'm going to come back there and kick your ass." Linz could not hear this over the music and asked Mickey Mantle, "What he say?" Mantle responded, "He said to play it louder." This led to a confrontation where Berra stormed to the back of the bus and slapped the harmonica out of Linz' hands, and the instrument hit Joe Pepitone's knee.

Apparently the altercation convinced Yankee management that Berra had lost control of his team and did not have the respect of his players and they made a decision to fire Berra at the end of the season which they did after winning the pennant but losing in the World Series.

That Mick!

You know people sometimes ask why his cards are more valuable than those of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron who were superior players.

Well, there you go.