The Yankees of the mid- and late-1970s were known as much for the distractions surrounding the team almost as much as for their success on the field.
And according to Ron Guidry, it was Oscar Gamble, who passed away Wednesday, who kept his teammates from being overwhelmed by the chaos.
“For all the big hits and big home runs he hit for us, his personality kept everyone loose- no matter what was going on,” Guidry said by phone. “Having him around gave people a boost. As soon as you saw him, you knew you’d be laughing soon.”
“He was a character,” Goose Gossage said of Gamble, who was 68 and died from cancer of the jaw. “He was one of the funniest people I was ever around. He had that hair that he was famous for and he was just a free spirit.”
Gamble, whose Afro stood out even in the ‘70s, played for the Yankees twice.
He spent 1976 in The Bronx after arriving in a trade from Cleveland for Pat Dobson. He trimmed his hair after joining the Yankees, but his Topps baseball card from 1976 remains a collector’s item because the company had to airbrush a Yankee hat onto his oversized hair following the trade.
That season, Gamble hit 17 homers in 110 games, as the Yankees got to the World Series for the first time since 1964. Following the season, Gamble was part of a trade that brought Bucky Dent to the Yankees from the White Sox.
Dent went on to hit one of the most memorable homers in Yankees’ history, when his three-run shot against the Red Sox at Fenway Park catapulted them to a title in 1978, but Gamble went on to hit a career-high 31 homers in Chicago in 1977.
Gamble was traded back to the Yankees in July 1979, with Mickey Rivers among those going to Texas.
The outfielder spent the next five seasons with the Yankees before he retired with the White Sox in 1985, finishing with 200 career home runs.
“He was a force,” Gossage said of Gamble, who had a .969 OPS in 880 plate appearances in The Bronx. “Whether it was at Yankee Stadium, where that lefty swing played great because of the short right field, or anywhere else. He was a weapon.”
Gamble played for seven teams in a 17-year career.
“I remember in the back of the bus or back of the plane with Catfish [Hunter] and those guys, they would get on guys, it was ruthless,” Willie Randolph said. “Oscar kept it light because he was one of the funniest guys on the team. You hear a lot about Yogi-isms or Mickey-isms but there were more Oscar-isms. … My heart is heavy. We are going to miss him.’’
“No matter what was going on around the team, as soon as you saw Oscar, you knew it was going to be a good day,” Guidry said. “Back then, we needed a guy like that. He was one of our unsung heroes.”
Additional reporting by George A. King III