Cletis Leroy "Clete" Boyer (February 9, 1937 – June 4, 2007) was an American professional
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
third baseman
A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the Baseball scorekeep ...
— who occasionally played
shortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball positions, baseball or softball fielding position between second base, second and third base, which is considered to be among the Defensive spectrum, most demanding defensive positions. Historically, the ...
and
second base
In baseball and softball, second baseman, abbreviated 2B, is a fielding position in the infield, between second and first base. The second baseman often possesses quick hands and feet, needs the ability to get rid of the ball quickly, and must ...
— in
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
(MLB) for the
Kansas City Athletics
The Kansas City Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1955 to 1967, having previously played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the Philadelphia Athletics. After moving in 1967, the team became the ...
(1955–57),
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...
(1959–66), and
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Eas ...
(1967–71). Boyer also spent four seasons with the
Taiyō Whales of
Nippon Professional Baseball
is a professional baseball league and the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning simply ''Professional Baseball''; outside of Japan, NPB is often referred to as "Japanese baseball".
The roots of the league ...
(NPB). In his 16-year big league career, Boyer hit 162
home runs
In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run ...
, with 654
runs batted in
A run batted in or runs batted in (RBI) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if th ...
(RBI), and a .242
batting average, in 1,725
games played.
Early life
Born in
Cassville, Missouri, Boyer grew up in
Alba, Missouri, as one of fourteen children. All seven boys in the family played professional baseball, with two of his older brothers also reaching the major leagues:
Cloyd was a
pitcher
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("Pitch (baseball), pitches") the Baseball (ball), baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of out (baseball), retiring a batter (baseball), batter, ...
for the
St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1950s, and
Ken became an
All-Star
An all-star team is a group of people all having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and has been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry.
Sports
"All-star" as a sport ...
third baseman for the Cardinals.
Early career
Boyer was originally scouted by the New York Yankees while he was still high school. But because the Yankees had already signed two other highly touted "
bonus babies" (
Frank Leja and
Tommy Carroll) prior to scouting Boyer, the team decided that they could not sign him due to the rules in which bonus babies had to be on the Major League roster for their first two professional seasons.
Knowing Boyer might become a potential star, the
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
of the Yankees,
George Weiss contacted the general manager of the Kansas City Athletics,
Parke Carroll, whom the Yankees had a friendly relationship with, to sign Boyer with the final intention of eventually acquiring him (by trade or sale of his contract).
In , Boyer broke into the major leagues as a utility infielder, at age 18. With no minor league experience, he played a total of 124 games for the Kansas City Athletics from 1955 to 1957.
On June 4, 1957, the Athletics traded Boyer to the Yankees to complete a deal that had been made prior to the start of the season. On February 19, the Athletics had dealt five players, including pitchers
Bobby Shantz and
Art Ditmar to the Yankees for seven players, most notably
Irv Noren and
Billy Hunter. The trade also involved three
players to be named later, two going to the Yankees, and one to the Athletics. One of the players to be named was Boyer, fulfilling Weiss' original intent of making Boyer a Yankee.
The Yankee years
After joining the Yankees, Boyer spent the better part of three seasons in their
farm system
In sports, a farm team (also referred to as farm system, developmental system, feeder team, or nursery club) is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful pl ...
until he was called up late in . He became the Yankees' regular third baseman in , beating out three others (including
Gil McDougald, who had announced in
spring training
Spring training, also called spring camp, is the preseason of the Summer Professional Baseball Leagues, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), and it is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spri ...
that this, his tenth season in the majors, would be his last) for the starting job. He batted .242 with 14 home runs and 46 RBIs as the Yankees won the pennant. However, he had a humbling moment in the first game of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
against the
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...
. With two runners on base and the Yankees trailing 3–1 in the second inning, manager
Casey Stengel
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (; July 30, 1890 – September 29, 1975) was an American Major League Baseball right fielder and Manager (baseball), manager, best known as the manager of the championship New York Yankees of the 1950s and later, t ...
, never confident in Boyer's hitting, replaced him with
pinch-hitter Dale Long, who flied out to right fielder
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (; August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball player who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates, primarily as a right fielder. On December ...
. The Yankees didn't score in the inning and lost 6–4, ultimately losing the Series in Game 7 on
Bill Mazeroski's home run off
Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth. Boyer didn't play in the Series again until Game Six.
After the Series, the Yankees fired Stengel.
Ralph Houk
Ralph George Houk (; August 9, 1919 – July 21, 2010), nicknamed "the Major", was an American catcher, coach (baseball), coach, manager (baseball), manager, and front office executive in Major League Baseball. He is best known as the successor o ...
replaced him as manager and had a confidence in Boyer which Stengel did not. Houk saw something special in Boyer's defensive prowess, and gave him the opportunity to play every day.

The team (with
Mickey Mantle,
Whitey Ford,
Roger Maris,
Elston Howard,
Yogi Berra and
Moose Skowron), which defeated the
Cincinnati Reds in the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
, was considered by many as the best ever, with sluggers Mantle and Maris chasing
Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs (Maris eventually broke the record on the final day of a 162-game season) and Ford winning 25 games and losing four. Boyer batted only .224 during the regular season, but more than made up for it with his defense in an infield that also featured the
double play duo of
Tony Kubek
Anthony Christopher Kubek (born October 12, 1935) is an American former professional baseball player and television sportscaster, broadcaster. During his nine-year playing career with the New York Yankees, Kubek played in six World Series in the ...
at shortstop and
Bobby Richardson at second base. In the first game of that World Series, Boyer displayed his defense by making two spectacular plays — one on a
Gene Freese ground ball in the second inning, in which he backhanded the ball and threw Freese out from his knees, and another on a
Dick Gernert ground ball in which he dove to his left and threw Gernert out, also from his knees.
Boyer's offensive numbers improved in : career bests in batting average .272, home runs (18) and runs batted in (68). He also came within nine
assists of the third base record of 405 set by
Harlond Clift of the
St. Louis Browns. Once again, the Yankees won the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
, this time in seven games over the
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
. In Game One of the Series, Boyer's seventh-inning home run off starter
Billy O'Dell broke a 2–2 and gave the Yankees the lead for good; they won the game 6–2 in what would be the last of Whitey Ford's World Series-record 10 victories. The Series ended with Bobby Richardson catching
Willie McCovey's line drive with runners on second and third. If just a few feet to either side, Richardson could not have gotten his hands on it, and the Giants would have scored two runs and won the Series. In Boyer batted .251 with 12 home runs and 54 RBIs as the Yankees won another pennant, however, they were swept in the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
by the
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
, the first time this had ever been done to a Yankee team in a World Series. Dodger ace
Sandy Koufax
Sanford Koufax (; né Braun; born December 30, 1935), nicknamed "the Left Arm of God", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 195 ...
won the first and fourth games, striking out a series record 15 batters in the opener. Boyer was the only Yankee regular not to strike out against Koufax.
During each of Ralph Houk's first three seasons as Yankee manager (1961–1963), Boyer led all
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...
(AL) third basemen in
putouts, assists, and
double plays, finishing ahead of rival
Brooks Robinson — yet Robinson, not Boyer, won the
Gold Glove Award each year.
After the 1963 season, Houk was promoted to
general manager
A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
and
Yogi Berra replaced him as field manager. Early on, the team slumped under Berra, especially Boyer, who batted .218 on the season. As Berra's managing improved, the team improved with it and won its fifth straight pennant by one game over the
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. The club plays its ...
and two over the third place
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles (also known as the O's) are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East Division. As one of the America ...
. The Yankees faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
with Clete playing against his brother Ken. The Yankees lost in seven games, but not before Ken and Clete became the first brothers to hit home runs on opposing teams in a World Series game. In the 7th inning of that seventh game, Ken homered off Yankee pitcher
Steve Hamilton and exchanged nods with Clete. Clete returned the favor in the 9th after homering off Cardinal ace
Bob Gibson
Robert Gibson (November 9, 1935October 2, 2020), nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot", was an American baseball pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1959 to 1975. Known for his fiercely competi ...
.
After the 1964 Series, Houk unceremoniously fired Berra (in mid-season the management, dissatisfied with Berra's work, made up their mind to fire him at the end of the season no matter what the Yankees did) and replaced him with
Johnny Keane, who had managed the Cardinals to the World Series victory over the Yankees. In
spring training
Spring training, also called spring camp, is the preseason of the Summer Professional Baseball Leagues, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), and it is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spri ...
of Boyer was involved in a fight in a
Fort Lauderdale bar with a male model, Jerome Modzelewski. During the season, he did bat .251 with a career-tying 18 home runs, but the Yankees slumped to sixth place, their lowest finish in 40 years. In the Yankees fired Keane two weeks into the season, and Houk returned as manager. However, Houk's second managerial stint was far less successful than his first. With their talent and farm system both depleted, the Yankees finished dead last — the first time they had done so since . After a season in which he hit .240 with 14 home runs,
Lee MacPhail, who replaced Houk as general manager, traded Boyer to the Atlanta Braves for
Bill Robinson, that year's Minor League Player of the Year.
During the off-season in 1964, Boyer appeared on ''
To Tell the Truth
''To Tell the Truth'' is an American television panel show. Four celebrity panelists are presented with three contestants (the "team of challengers", each an individual or pair) and must identify which is the "central character" whose unusual ...
'' as an imposter for a sponge diver. Boyer received three of the four possible votes.
Post-Yankee days
In Boyer had his best offensive season. Playing in hitter-friendly
Atlanta Stadium, he established career highs in home runs (26) and RBIs (96) in a lineup that featured the likes of
Hank Aaron,
Joe Torre,
Felipe Alou, and
Mack Jones; Boyer batted cleanup behind Aaron. He also continued his mastery of the glove, leading
National League (NL) third baseman in
fielding both in 1967 and . In the latter year, he finally won the Gold Glove Award that had eluded him in his Yankee years; with brother Ken having won the award five times, the Boyers became the first brothers to win a Gold Glove. On August 31 of that year, Clete fell victim to
Morganna, the famed buxom "Kissing Bandit." Prior to the kiss, he had been mired in a 1-for-17 slump; in that very at-bat, Boyer drove in a run with a single. He got two more hits later in the game, then eight more hits in his next 15 at-bats. In the 1969 season the Braves won the Western Division title (both leagues now had Eastern and Western Divisions, after each expanded from 10 teams to 12) for their first post-season berth since losing to the Yankees in the
1958 World Series as the Milwaukee Braves. However, the team lost in the
playoffs
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
to the eventual
World Champion New York Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National ...
.
Boyer continued to sparkle at third base until he was released by the Braves on May 28, 1971, after a bitter feud with General Manager
Paul Richards and manager
Lum Harris over mismanagement. (Boyer has complained that the organization didn't teach the players the proper fundamentals. Richards countered that Boyer was a troublemaker.)
Boyer left Major League Baseball and resurfaced in Japan, where he played professionally for the Taiyō Whales, from to . While playing in Japan, Boyer’ s roommate was
Sadaharu Oh.
After retiring following the 1975 season, he was the defensive coach for the Whales in 1976. Afterwards, Boyer returned to the Major Leagues as a third-base coach with the Yankees and the
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (frequently referred to as the Oakland A's) were an American Major League Baseball (MLB) team based in Oakland, California from 1968 to 2024. The Athletics were a member club of the American League (AL) American League We ...
, mostly with former teammate
Billy Martin as manager.
Legacy
Boyer's teammates recognized his defensive ability. "When I think of Clete, I think of the outstanding defensive third basemen in baseball," Richardson said. "I know Brooks Robinson got all the Gold Gloves, and he's every bit deserving of the Hall of Fame, but Clete was as good as anyone who ever played the game." Richardson and Boyer remained friends after their careers ended. Kubek, also a lifelong friend of Boyer, thought he was as good at playing third base as
Graig Nettles,
Brooks Robinson, and
Mike Schmidt.
In 1986,
Cletus Seldin, who later became a champion
boxer, was named after Clete Boyer, as Seldin's grandparents were close friends with Boyer.
In 2000, Boyer opened a restaurant named "Clete Boyer's Hamburger Hall of Fame" in Cooperstown, New York, just a few miles south of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The restaurant features sandwiches and hamburgers named after various Yankees' immortals such as: "
Yogi's Special meatball sub", "the
Mickey Mantle Cheeseburger Deluxe", "the
Reggie Veggie Burger", "the
Bobby Richardson Cheeseburger", "the
Roger Maris Hamburger Deluxe", and "the
Whitey Ford Blue Cheese Burger". Boyer could often be found at the restaurant chatting with visitors and graciously signing photos and other memorabilia.
Death
Boyer died on June 4, 2007, in an Atlanta area hospital from complications following a
brain hemorrhage
The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...
.
Brother
Ken Boyer (1964 National League
MVP), former St. Louis Cardinal, predeceased Clete in 1982. Boyer's family had his cremated remains placed in a New York Yankees urn.
See also
*
References
External links
Clete Boyerat SABR (Baseball BioProject)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyer, Clete
1937 births
2007 deaths
Major League Baseball third basemen
Kansas City Athletics players
20th-century American sportsmen
New York Yankees players
Atlanta Braves players
Baseball players from Missouri
Gold Glove Award winners
Fort Lauderdale Yankees managers
American expatriate baseball players in Japan
Hawaii Islanders players
Taiyō Whales players
New York Yankees coaches
Oakland Athletics coaches
Major League Baseball third base coaches
People from Cassville, Missouri
People from Jasper County, Missouri
Binghamton Triplets players
American expatriate baseball players in the Dominican Republic
Richmond Virginians (minor league) players