Over the course of the next month, we'll venture through the history of each of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises, discussing some of the best and worst moments, players, teams, etc. It's more a fun snapshot for discussion purposes than a be-all, end-all declaration. We continue today with the New York Yankees.
The Pinstripers! The colossus in the Bronx! Love them or loathe them, the Yankees are baseball's signature franchise. With 27 belts and titles and 40 pennants to their credit, the Yanks are also perhaps the most dominant club in any major professional sport. Given that they're nestled in the media capital of the world also doesn't hurt their profile. Now let's dig in ...
Best team: 1939
Obviously, you're rifling through a cornucopia when undertaking the task of naming the best Yankees team of all-time (the franchise has yielded 19 100-win squads, for instance). For me, it comes down to the '27, '39 and '98 models. I'm going with the '39 team. They barged to a 106-45 record in the regular season, claimed the pennant by 17 games over the Red Sox and swept the 97-win Reds in the World Series. Most remarkable of all, the '39 Yankees racked up a run differential of +411 in just 151 games (!). Simply put, that's a vanishingly rare level of dominance.
Paced by 24-year-old Joe DiMaggio, the Yankees that year averaged a remarkable 6.4 runs per game, and the team as a whole batted .287/.374/.451. Future Hall of Famer Joe Gordon authored an OPS+ of 123 ... and that figure was just the sixth-best among lineup regulars. And all of this is to say nothing of the rotation fronted by Red Ruffing (more on him in a bit) and Lefty Gomez.
Worst team: 1908
Yes, we're going back to the days in which they were called the "Highlanders." One of just two Yankee/Highlander teams to lose at least 100 games, the 1908 outfit went 51-103 and should've been even worse than that based on runs scored and runs allowed. In a "feat" of sorts, every single pitcher on the staff posted an ERA that was worse than the league average.
For the first 16 years of their history, the Yanks/Highlanders didn't win a single pennant and notched 10 losing seasons. Then, well, Babe Ruth came along.
Best exchange of assets: Babe Ruth for American currency
On Dec. 26, 1919, the Red Sox in essence sold Ruth to the Yankees ...
In the end, the Sox pawned off Ruth for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan. Ruth, of course, would go on to cut an unimaginable swath through baseball on the Yankees' watch and re-chart the course of baseball history. The Red Sox would endure eight decades and change of serialized miseries. Not a bad ROI on that one, Yanks.
Worst free-agent signing: Carl Pavano
Just before the 2005 season, the Yanks inked Pavano to a four-year, $39.5 million pact. In exchange, Pavano gave them nine wins, a 5.00 ERA and a total of 145 2/3 innings. He looked handsome while doing it, though.
Best trade: Red Ruffing from the Red Sox
(Image: Premier Auctions Online)
Another pilfering at the expense of the Red Sox! On May 30, 1930, the Yankees sent outfielder Cedric Durst and $50,000 to Boston for Ruffing, then a middling starting pitcher. Over the rest of the 1930 season, Durst put up an OPS+ of 65 and never played again at the big-league level. Ruffing became a Hall of Famer.
To put a finer point on things, here's Ruffing before and after the swap ...
Ruffing with Red Sox: 39-96, 4.61 ERA, 92 ERA+, 9.5 WAR
Ruffing with Yankees: 231-124, 3.47 ERA, 119 ERA+, 46.8 WAR
No fair! Ruffing surely benefited from playing in front of a better defense (and getting run support from a better lineup), but after the trade then-manager Bob Shawkey also helped rebuild Ruffing's delivery. All of that worked out, it would seem.
Worst trade: Fred McGriff to the Blue Jays
Let's go back to Dec. 9, 1982 ... On that date, the Yankees sent Fred McGriff, Mike Morgan and Dave Collins to the Jays in exchange for Dale Murray and Tom Dodd. McGriff was then an 18-year-old in the lowest rung of the Yankees system. The former ninth-round choice had promise, but the Yankees considered him to be blocked by Don Mattingly. So they traded him.
Dodd would compile all of 16 major-league plate appearances (for the Orioles, it should be noted), and Murray would log a 4.73 ERA in 120 innings for the Yanks. McGriff, meantime, would clout 493 homers over a career that spanned parts of 19 seasons. Heck, this deal would've been thievery if just Morgan and Collins had been involved.
Best manager: Joe McCarthy
Lots of worthies, as Miller Huggins, Casey Stengel and Joe Torre could each mount a case. I'll go with McCarthy, though. He's the all-time leader in W-L percentage (.615), and he's second only to John McGraw in career games over .500 (792). While helming the Yanks, he won eight pennants and seven World Series in 15 full seasons on the job.
Best Lou Gehrig nickname
The "Iron Horse" is fitting in its implications of strength, steadfastness and resolve. However, we should all agree that "Biscuit Pants" is Gehrig's best nickname. To repeat: Biscuit Pants.
Best walk-off homer: Chris Chambliss
Let's go back to Game 5 of the 1976 ALCS against the Royals ...
No, Mr. Chambliss did not touch the plate. Here's Uncle Mike's Musings with the post-script:
Fortunately, Lee MacPhail, President of the AL and a former general manager of the Yankees (and son of former Yankee part-owner Larry MacPhail), was at the game, and the ruling was easy: Since the ball left the field of play, and no one was on base for Chambliss to pass to nullify one or more bases, the home run stands, and the Yankees remain 7-6 victors.
Just to be sure, Chambliss, the umpires, and a couple of cops cleared a path through the fans, walked him over to the locations of third base and home plate, and he stepped on the spots where they were supposed to be.
The '70s, man.
Worst walk-off homer: Bill Mazeroski
Obviously, this is "worst" from the Yankees' standpoint. The Pirates, in contrast, would contend that Bill Mazeroski's deciding blow in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series was just delightful, thank you ...
Best imitation of a wrecking ball by a future Hall of Famer: Reggie Jackson
After the final out of the 1977 World Series (during Game 6, in which Reggie thumped three homers), the Yankee Stadium crowd, as they were wont to do in those buccaneering days, took to the field in righteous and celebratory mayhem. In order to escape said mayhem, Mr. Jackson summoned up his old Arizona State football skills ...
Make way or else, interlopers.
Best catch: Bobby Richardson
It's not an exaggeration to say that the final plate appearance of the 1962 World Series between the Giants and Yankees may have been the most high-leverage encounter of all-time. After all, it was the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, the Yankees were leading 1-0, and the Giants had runners on second and third with two outs. At the plate? The legendary and dangerous Willie McCovey ...
Game of inches? No, game of hairsbreadths ...
Best name of an owner: Col. Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston
The regally named Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston co-owned the Yanks with Col. Jacob Ruppert from 1915 to 1922. He looked at least a little bit like his name ...
(Image: Wikipedia)
Why, yes, Col. Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston is almost certainly looking down his nose at you.
Best/worst brawl: Orioles, 1998
Best if you like impromptu violence, worst if you do not. Let's roll color television footage ...
David Cone, your thoughts?
Best uniforms: 1936
The Yankees have pretty much looked how they've always looked, at least since 1936. The pinstripes first showed up in 1912 and were there for good starting in 1915. The plain-script "NEW YORK" on the road tops was there starting in 1911, and save for some occasional red striping on the stirrups in the early years, the colors have pretty much always been blue, white and gray.
It all came together in '36 ...
(Image: Dressed to the Nines)
Yep, that's how the Yankees should look. That's how the Yankees do look. As logos go, few are as iconic as the interlocking N and Y.
Worst uniforms: 2001
Regard ...
(Image: Dressed to the Nines)
Yeah, that's what the Yankees look like, so what's the problem? The problem, imaginary interlocutor, is that this is the first year in the Hall of Fame's uniform database in which the pants hide almost every bit of the blessed stirrups. This is not how things are supposed to be.
Socks high, lads. Always socks high.
Best/worst mascot: Dandy
The Yankees have had only one mascot, you see, so it's both best and worst. Said mascot was "Dandy" (as in, Yankee Doodle Dandy), and he busied himself from 1979 through 1981. Please regard ...
(Image: Bronx Banter)
All right. He looks a bit like an out-of-shape Sparky Lyle after being attacked by an apprentice graffiti artist. Anyway, given Dandy's short, possibly happy life, it's almost as though they believed the very concept of a mascot was beneath the august Yankees. Here's further evidence of that claim from a 1981 team promotional flyer ...
(Image: SportsLogos.net)
We're the Yankees, so we'll dabble briefly in mascotitude, but only with an understated yet distinguishing sense of contempt about the whole enterprise. Anyway, viva la Dandy.
Best/worst quote: George Steinbrenner
Upon seizing control of the Yankees in early 1973, here's what the Boss had to say ...
"I won't be active in the day-to-day operations of the club at all. I can't spread myself so thin. I've got enough headaches with my shipping company. We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned."
Hindsight suggests otherwise.
Best Derek Jeter girlfriend
And the people say, in unison and with raised fists: "Minka Kelly, obviously."
(Image: Rant Sports)
Up Next: On Friday, we'll look at the best and worst moments for the Boston Red Sox.
>> Want more franchise bests/worsts? CHC | MIL | STL | CIN | PIT | CLE | DET | MIN | CHW | KAN
