First Gloves: Tom Tresh
The first question to answer when writing about Tom Tresh’s glove is to decide which of his gloves to use.
He arrived in the big leagues in 1961 having spent his entire minor league career - three full seasons - exclusively as an infielder. In fact, he played shortstop almost entirely, though he split the 1960 season between shortstop and third base. The only game he started in the big leagues in 1961 was at shortstop, and that was the only position he played for the Yankees that season.
A year later he was the team’s Opening Day shortstop, and capably held down that role until the middle of August. At that point he had a respectable batting line of .278/.347/.427, had cracked 15 homers and driven in 65 runs, and he’d played well defensively, worth +3 fielding runs with an above average fielding percentage. He was named an All-Star, and even doubled in a run in that game.
But then the Yankees just decided he was going to be a left fielder instead.
They’d gone into the season expecting to be without the services of Tony Kubek, who had been their regular shortstop for most of the prior five seasons. His National Guard unit had been called up for service, though, so Tresh was able to win the job in Kubek’s absence and performed really well. It was a surprise to everyone when Kubek was released from his service in mid-August, creating a dilemma for manager Ralph Houk. He didn’t feel it was right for Kubek to lose his job due to his military commitment, but at the same time Tresh was on his way to winning the Rookie of the Year Award and really couldn’t be taken out of the lineup.
Houk resolved the problem by sticking Tresh out in left field for the rest of the season. It was a bit of an odd choice, because, again, Tresh had been almost exclusively a shortstop his entire pro career, had never played a single professional inning in the outfield, and Kubek had some prior outfield experience, serving as a jack-of-all trades utility player in a couple of prior seasons. But Houk felt that was the move to make, so out to left Tresh went.
