The news on Monday afternoon that Yankees great Tommy Henrich had passed away brought a bit of sadness to the older members of the “Yankees Universe,” who remembered “Old Reliable” as a clutch, tough and proud Yankee.

I never saw Henrich play of course, He retired in 1950, nine years before I was born, but growing up I was made aware of his exploits by my father and uncles, who described him as one of the most consistent players in Yankees history.

When I first heard the news of Henrich’s passing, I immediately turned to WFAN to get some perspective from Mike Francesa, whom I was sure would make mention of the story right away. What happened next greatly disappointed me. Francesa, who is usually very good reporting such matters, didn’t acknowledge the subject until a caller brought it up more than an hour after the story broke. (Henrich’s passing was noted by every major sports and media outlet, including EPSN and the Associated Press).

In fact, Francesa, who had interviewed Henrich numerous times over the years, seemed almost bothered by having to acknowledge the news, and immediately went into a diatribe where he defended his reasoning for not mentioning the former Yankees’ death. Francesa’s convoluted reasoning was that, in his opinion, his audience, especially his younger listeners, didn’t care and had no interest in the passing of a “90 year old man.” Francesa continued this defensive posturing after he was corrected on-air by his producer, who told him that Henrich was actually 96, not 90. This gave him a chance to reiterate his stance that the younger members of his audience didn’t care about an old ball player that they had never seen play.

Maybe I’m being a little nit-picky here, but I think that a man of Tommy Henrich’s stature deserved much better from someone like Mike Francesa, who often boasts about his knowledge of Yankee history. Besides being the oldest living Yankee at the time of his death, Henrich was also the last living teammate of Lou Gehrig, and the last living Yankee player to have played in the 1930′s. A member of some of the greatest Yankee teams of all-time, he was on eight pennant winners and appeared in four World Series. He was also part of a devastating outfield trio that included the immortal Joe DiMaggio in center and Charlie “King Kong” Keller in left.

Henrich was also part of baseball lore, as he was the lynch-pin to one of the greatest World Series rallies of all-time. The incident in question happened in Game 4 of the 1941 “Fall Classic” between the Yanks and Dodgers. Henrich stepped to the plate in the top of the ninth inning with a man on and two out and his team trailing 4-3. On the mound was Dodger’s reliever Hugh Casey, one of the best in the game. After working the count to 3-2, Henrich struck out swinging on a breaking ball that passed through the legs of Dodger’s backstop Mickey Owen. The always alert Henrich made it safely to first base to continue the inning. After that, all hell broke loose. DiMaggio singled, Keller knocked in two with a double and then Joe Gordon doubled in two. The Yankees wound up winning the game 7-4 to take a 3-1 series lead, and would take the series 4 games to 1.

To be fair here, I know there is a limited amount of time when it comes to doing sports talk shows, especially morning and afternoon drive shows where the majority of callers usually already have an agenda. Talk show hosts will almost never do a 360 and change direction in the middle of a show.

Still, using his “younger audience” as an excuse was downright lame and lazy for someone of Francesa’s experience and stature. In fact, I’m pretty positive that many of his younger listeners would have found the story of Henrich’s life and career to be quite fascinating.

In the end, you have to ask yourself would it have killed a Mike Francesa to spend five lousy minutes remembering a Yankees legend like Tommy Henrich. I think not.

Tags: Mike Francesa, New York Yankees, The Passing of Tommy Henrich, Tommy Henrich, WFAN