On January 29, 1982, the New York Yankees name Graig Nettles the 6th team captain. Nettles becomes the first Yankee captain since Thurman Munson, who was killed in a 1979 plane crash.

The honor was held by only two other players in the last 40 years. The slick-fielding veteran third baseman is the American League team’s first captain since Thurman Munson, who died in the crash of a private plane in August 1979. Before Munson’s appointment in 1976, the Yankees had not had a captain since Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941. “Just to be in with those guys is quite an honor,” the red-haired Nettles Stress Yankees proud of me. Yankees President Lou Saban said Nettles, the sixth field captain in the team’s history, fits the image of a Yankee captain and has “all the attributes of leadership and pride which are two necessary ingredients to being a leader. Lou and Thurman had it, and Graig has it.” The Yankees had three captains before Gehrig Roger Peckinpaugh from 1914-21, Babe Ruth for six days in 1922, and Everett Scott from 1922 to 25.

Ruth was stripped of his title by the league after an altercation with a fan in the stands. The 37-year-old Nettles began his career at Minnesota in 1967. He went to Cleveland in 1970 and came to the Yankees in 1973. He has hit 295 home runs and is the all-time American League leader in that department for third basemen. A two-time Gold Glove award winner, Nettles set major league records for assists and double plays by a third baseman in 1971