Due to his wounds and injuries, Bauer had assumed his baseball career was over, but Yankee scout Danny Menendez remembered Bauer from before the war, signed him and got him a tryout with the Quincy Gems. There in 1946, five years after his last minor league game, Bauer returned to pro baseball. From there, he quickly made his way through the Yankees\u2019 minor league system. By the end of 1948, the Yankees called him up for a September cup of coffee. The next year, the Yankees had some injury problems in the outfield, leading new manager Casey Stengel to give some chances to young players, including Bauer. He made the most of his opportunity with a solid season, locking down a place in the Yankees\u2019 lineup for years to come.<\/p>\n
In 1949, Bauer became a reliable bat for a Yankees team that won five World Series titles in a row starting that season. Over those years, Bauer steadily got better, posting his best career hitting seasons in the final years of that five-peat: a 132 OPS+ in 1952, and a 131 in \u201853. He also emerged as a favorite of Stengel as well as a leader in the clubhouse.<\/p>\n
Throughout all that, Bauer also had some big moments. In 1951, his three-run triple in the sixth inning of Game 6 gave the Yankees the lead for good, as they won that game to clinch the series. Later that game, he made a sliding catch for the final out of the series, as the Giants threatened a comeback.<\/p>\n
Later in his career, Bauer recorded a hit in 17-straight World Series games over the course of the 1956-58 series. In the \u201858 Series, he put up a 1.032 OPS with four home runs in a seven-game victory over the Braves. Were it not for Bob Turley\u2019s heroics on the mound, Bauer could\u2019ve been named MVP of that series.<\/p>\n
Bauer was also known as someone who didn\u2019t take much crap. Whitey Ford described one incident<\/a> where after he came in worse for wear after a night out, Bauer pinned him against the wall and said that Ford was \u201cmessing with (Bauer\u2019s) money.\u201d Bauer was also one of the notable participants of the \u201cCopacabana Incident.\u201d While the outfielder always said he played no part in the brawl that happened that night, one person sued him claiming that Bauer had punched him. The charges didn\u2019t stick, and Bauer was later proven correct decades after the fact.<\/a><\/p>\n Despite his World Series hit streak, Bauer had begun to fall off by the end of the 1950s. In 1959, he rated as a below average hitter for the first time since his 1948 big league cameo. The Yankees decided to move on, and Bauer was included in a trade with the Kansas City Athletics that brought a certain Roger Maris to the Bronx.<\/p>\n Bauer spent two seasons as a player in KC. In the second of those, the, uh, \u201ceccentric\u201d Charlie Finley named Bauer the team\u2019s manager partway through the season. He led the team through the 1962 season before being let go, but the A\u2019s were a mess at that time, as the Maris trade was hardly the only one they made that massively benefitted the Yankees.<\/p>\n After his departure from the A\u2019s, Bauer joined the Baltimore Orioles coaching staff. Following a disappointing 1963 season, Baltimore elevated Bauer to the manager. In his first two years, Bauer led the O\u2019s to 90+ win seasons, but third place finishes in the AL. Following the addition of Frank Robinson in 1966, Baltimore won the pennant and then swept the Dodgers in the World Series.<\/p>\n
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