The Yankees were always famous for this, in those days when taking one for the team often meant paving your own way out of town.
Frank Crosetti was the first one. All Crosetti had done in the five years from 1936 through 1940 was anchor four Yankees champions at shortstop. He was — in the words of no less an authority than Henry Louis Gehrig — “our heart, our soul, our leader” and never played fewer than 145 games.
Then he turned 30 on Oct. 4, 1940.
And the next spring, manager Joe McCarthy called Crosetti into his office in St.