"Smalley spent the year bouncing around the infield, going from shortstop to first to third, and occasionally serving as a DH, after an appendectomy in spring training delayed his start. He never has had much range and came under attack from the Yankee front office for making errors in critical situations. He has played the last few years with a back problem, yet established a Yankee record for home runs by a shortstop in 1982, hitting 16 of his homers while playing that position.
Born in Los Angeles, Smalley is the nephew of his former manager at Minnesota, Gene Mauch, and his father Roy Smalley Jr. played with the Cubs, Milwaukee Braves and Philadelphia.
Smalley was a philosophy major while playing on two national championship teams while at USC and was drafted five times before finally signing with the Texas Rangers, who made him the first player selected overall in the January 1974 draft and gave him a reported $100,000 signing bonus. Roy came to the Yankees in a deal that sent reliever Ron Davis to Minnesota."
-Tracy Ringolsby, The Complete Handbook of Baseball, 1984 Edition
"They say adversity builds character- and if that is true, Roy Frederick Smalley has more character than any player in baseball.
His acquisition by the Yankees stunned the baseball world and the New York Yankees themselves. After all, Bucky Dent was a fixture at short. Where was Smalley to play? Many insiders claim that Smalley was acquired to play first base, but it seems that something happened on the way to that base. Smalley was the 'villain' in some people's eyes, and this articulate philosophy major at USC suffered in silence. All he wanted to do was win, after languishing in last place with the Minnesota Twins for seven years.
He quietly did his job at first, short and third in 1982, and set an all-time homer record for Yankee shortstops. In 1983, he and young Andre Robertson played short, but the latter seemed to have more range. Neither Robertson nor Smalley complained openly, even though both were in an awkward situation.
Smalley was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. His main goal was to win- something, anything. He enjoyed the pressure of the chase and the thrill of the hunt, but he had to settle for third place, along with the rest of the team.
Now, he had a taste of everything- adversity, cutting remarks, pressure and New York. Always, he gave his best. He knew deep down that "You don't get shot for losing,' the adage of teams that finish last. But the Yankees aren't used to anything but winning.
'I told Bucky I wasn't after his job,' Smalley said. 'I told Andre we'd both be playing and we both wanted to win. It was tough, but I think that things have settled down to the point where we can all contribute and win this thing.'
You can believe Roy Frederick Smalley, a man of character."
-The New York Yankees Official 1984 Yearbook
"Smalley saw action at three positions in 1983- first base, shortstop and third base. He had a 12-game hitting streak from April 23 to May 7. On August 2 he hit two homers against Toronto, on September 3 drove in his 500th career RBI and on September 19 had a pinch-hit homer in Boston.
In 1978 he was named the Twins' most improved player and MVP, breaking Rod Carew's six-year monopoly on the Twins MVP title. Smalley won Twins MVP honors again in 1979, setting Twin single season shortstop records with 162 games, 24 home runs, 95 RBI and 80 walks, and his 24 homers were the most in organized professional baseball by a shortstop that year. In 1981, he was bothered by lower back pains in spring training, a condition diagnosed as congenital spondylolysis, which had not bothered him since his college days. Roy has a career batting average of .317 (46-for-145) with 11 home runs in Seattle's Kingdome. In 1974 he was named to the Eastern League All-Star team.
Roy joined the Yankees in 1982 before their season opener, being traded from Minnesota on April 10. He hit 16 of his 20 home runs as a shortstop, setting the Yankee single season shortstop home run record previously held by Frankie Crosetti (15 in 1936) and Tom Tresh (15 in 1962). Roy hit a grand slam at Yankee Stadium on May 1 off Bill Caudill and hit eight home runs in a 10-day period in September. He hit switch-hit homers on September 5 at Kansas City, joining Tresh, Mickey Mantle and Roy White as the only Yankees to hit switch homers.
Smalley starred in baseball at Los Angeles' Westchester High. He was a philosophy major at USC where he played on two national championship teams, earning All-American and two-time All-Pac 8 honors. Roy played with a U.S. collegiate all-star squad that played in Japan in 1972.
He's the son of Roy Smalley, Jr., who was an infielder with the Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves and Philadelphia Phillies from 1948-55, and is the nephew of Gene Mauch, his former manager at Minnesota."
-1984 New York Yankees Information Guide
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