What is the deal with Fran Healy? I just checked his stats, and he sucks! Why would the Yanks ever trade Larry Gura for Healy in a straight up deal? I just checked Gura's stats, and he's halfway decent. But Healy totally blows! Was it just so that Reggie could have a friend on the team?
And how the hell did he ever get to be a Yankee announcer?
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
The Yanks needed a backup to Munson in 76 and Gura was a guy that Martin couldn't stand. He would have traded him for a used cup and 6 balls if he could have. As far as announcing, Healy know his stuff, like most catchers do and he's fairly articulate.
Also, in the series his presence is beefed up a bit since the real Healy was a consultant on the show.
Thanks; I suspected as much with Gura (lol!), and I knew about Healy's association with the show.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I heard Healy interviewd the other day on WFAN. Healy said the writers came to him with rumors and old stories of conversations they had heard and asked him if they had really taken place. Healy said, "I don't think so, but it sure makes for a great story!" and they usually kept them in the script, lol
shareWhen the Yankees had Munson for their starting catcher, they didn't exactly need a superstar catcher as a backup although Healy was a pretty fair defensive catcher. The Yankees also had Cliff Johnson as a backup catcher, but he was used almost exclusively as a DH since he was a poor defensive catcher.
Billy Martin absolutely detested Larry Gura for whatever reasons I don't know. When the Yanks had the opportunity to get someone like Healy for Gura, I'm sure Martin was all for it.
The biggest thing that Healy had going for him, at least as far as the miniseries is concerned, is thaat he was probably closer to Reggie Jackson than anyone else in that clubhouse. Don't forget tht Jackson made more than a few enemies in that clubhouse with the Sport magazine article.
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What is the deal with Fran Healy? I just checked his stats, and he sucks! Why would the Yanks ever trade Larry Gura for Healy in a straight up deal? I just checked Gura's stats, and he's halfway decent. But Healy totally blows! Was it just so that Reggie could have a friend on the team?
When Gura was traded he was a 28 year-old pitcher who couldn't throw the ball through a window and never amounted to much in the Major Leagues. Gura just didn't have much of an arm, he got by with awesome control and guile. He ended up doing quite well for the Royals, but he never looked like he'd amount to much. Gura would pitch an average of 250 innings a year and only broke 100 strikeouts once and he needed 283 innings that year to do it! That's a big warning sign, there's very few pitchers who can succeed in the big leagues if they can't strike out at least one batter every other inning or so. It's like the canary in the coal mine if you see someone drop below that threshold. He just managed to be one of the few that could overcome it.
Healy wasn't a bad player, a .250 or so hitter with a little pop in his bat and a good defensive catcher. He was a starter for the Royals one season. Munson's knees were killing him, and the Yankees tried to take the strain off by playing him in the outfield, third base, first base and DHing him sometimes. Billy Martin was of the school that believed that a good team must have a good defensive catcher, look at how he's the guy who gave Sundberg his start, and even stuck with him when he was hitting below .200. He also made Mike Heath his starter in Oakland when he too had trouble staying above the Mendoza line. Thus they needed a backup catcher with solid defensive skills, and Martin didn't think much of Gura's chances in the Major Leagues.
Yes, Martin hated Gura. This was mentioned in Sparky Lyle's "Bronx Zoo" book. Even though he never played a single game for them, Gura was with the Texas Rangers for a few months in early 1974 (while Martin was managing them, probably *because* Martin was managing them LOL) before being traded to the Yankees in May of that year. After Martin was hired by the Yankees in late 1975, Gura still pitched some games. He was then traded to the Royals in May of 1976.
I don't know why Reggie and Fran Healy were drawn together. Their paths never appeared to cross as majoy league players before. Healy played for the Giants and Royals while Reggie played for the A's and a year with the Orioles. You can read more about Healy's befriending of Reggie in Steve Jacobson's "The Best Team Money Could Buy," a day-by-day book he wrote about the 1977 season. [Jacobson was also a consultant for the BIB series and was played by actor Alan Ruck.] Lely also mentiones Healy in his "Bronx Zoo" book. To me, Healy was a big hero in two key conflicts involving Reggie. The first was his telling Reggie to get out of the clubhouse after the incident at Fenway when Reggie got pulled from the game and nearly fought with Billy. The second was when he told Reggie to suck it up when he got benched for the final game of the ALCS against the Royals.
I recall Healy's early days in the radio booth with Phil Rizzuto. Those two were a riot LOL!
Cliff Johnson, IIRC, had bad knees and could not catch often. He was acquired after the Yankees already had Healy, mainly so the Yankees could have a third catcher and, moreimportantly, the Yankees could have a crusher to hit all the lefty pitching they were facing. Johnson also played some first base to rest Chambliss now and then. Against lefties in 1977, Johnson hit 9 homeruns in only 94 at bats and hit 0.362, so he surely did his job!
Mike Heath was a 0.240-0.260 hitter in the big leagues. Martin first managed him when he came up with the Yankees in early 1978 before Martin got fired. After he got traded to Texas (then to the A's without playing a game for Texas), he was reunited with Martin in 1980 after Martin got fired from the Yankees after the 1979 season. Heath played in a little more than half the games while Martin was there, eventually becoming the A's regular catcher after Martin left the A's after the 1982 season [to return to the Yankees].
Jim Sundberg was a good-field, bad-hit catcher when he entered the big leagues in 1974 with Texas while Martin was managing there. He was Texas' regular catcher but did not blossom as a hitter until 1977, 2 years after Martin left.
I saw something in an interview with Billy Martin's son after Billy died that Billy Martin had told one of his pitchers to throw at a batter's head in a spring training game and the pitcher refused and that's why he decided to get rid of him. I'm not sure if it was Larry Gura or someone else.
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>And how the hell did he ever get to be a Yankee announcer?
If you compare Healy now to his first days on radio with the Yankees in the late 70s (I still have an audio file he did for Tip Top Bread, pretty bad), it is like night and day. He knows his stuff, but is hard to listen to.
During Healy's tenrue with the Mets, if you listened to a game and then, at the end of the broadcast, wrote down the stupidest thing you'd heard, it was Fran Healy who said it every time.
The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are privileged to witness
Back then it was about team chemistry. Seems like now it's all about getting your own stats up so you have more market value and get signed to bigger contracts. That's why I stopped watching baseball. It became an individual sport
shareyou right, it did. that`s why we pay ballplayers huge overzealous salaries and spend more time worrying an idividual players accomplishments than we do the team as a whole. whatever happend to playing the game because it`s your passion. it`s turned into a business.
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Yes it's always been a business, but the business just got so big that it had a negative impact on the game in my opinion. Not just baseball but other sports too
shareAn interesting clip when the Yankees won the 1977 series, Reggie thanks Fran Healy at 4:19.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZRwwODYmA
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