Looking through my pictures from the original Yankee Stadium's Monument Park, I noticed how the retired numbers and plaques for Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford are next to each other. The catcher and pitching ace of the Yankees 1950s Dynasty (when the club won the pennant 8 of 10 years, including 6 World Series champions) are both Hall of Fame inductees and clearly the best ever at their position in club history.
But are they the best battery ever? If not, who's better? You could make an argument that whenever Sandy Koufax and Roy Campanella were paired for the Dodgers, they were comparable. But their eras touched briefly rather than overlapped: Sandy was young and unrefined at the beginning of his career; Campy's numbers fell dramatically in his final seasons, 1956 & '57. Back in the 1930s, the Philadelphia A's had Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove. WFAN colleague John Schweibacher pointed out that Johnny Bench and Tom Seaver spent several years together with the Reds. Perhaps there was a moment that Gary Carter and Dwight Gooden belonged in the discussion. In Texas, Ivan Rodriguez and Nolan Ryan worked together much the same way Campy and Koufax did (at opposite ends of their careers). Carlton Fisk had two-and-half years with Seaver as White Sox teammates.
Can you make an argument that any catcher-and-pitcher combo were better than Yogi and Whitey -- especially when you factor in the decade they spent together?
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