New York Yankees 20’s: A Dynasty Begins

                                              One of our posters asked me during the World Series if I would mind doing a post about the Yankees and their dominance in the major leagues.  But to do this properly, one has to split it into different decades. Over their long history, the Yankees have been to the postseason 58 times. By far the most appearances in MLB history.  They have won 41 pennants. They have 27 World Series wins, both again, way ahead of the second-place team. The Cardinals, with their 11 wins, are in second. 

                                             They are the only teams with double figure wins. Oakland-Philadelphia is third with 9. The Dodgers and Giants both have 8.  With their win this year, the Dodgers now stand 8-14 in World Series play. They were 1-8 in Brooklyn. The Yankees joined the American League in 1903.  For the first 10 years of their existence, they were known as the Highlanders. In 1913, they changed to the New York Yankees. 

                                           The Highlanders finished 2nd, three times in their existence, the closest they came to winning a pennant was in 1904 when they finished 1.5 games behind the Boston Americans, now the Red Sox. But for most of the first 18 years of the organization, they were never the league champs. All of that changed in 1921. And it changed because they traded for a LHP who also played the outfield, kid by the name of Ruth. 

                                            After the 1919 season, the Red Sox owner, wanting to finance a Broadway play, sold Ruth to the Yankees for the outrageous sum of 100,000.00 dollars. Ruth, who had started out as a pitcher with the Sox, had transitioned to a part-time pitcher and outfielder. He shattered the MLB record for homers in a season by crushing 29 in 1919. His value as a hitter was becoming very clear. And the Yankees put that value to good use as they made Ruth their everyday RF. 

                                           Babe hit 54 homers his first season in New York, once again shattering the record. But the Yankees were putting together a pretty good team around Ruth. They had Carl Mays as the Ace of the staff, he too had come from Boston in a trade, but he was acquired mid-season in 1919. He would win 26 games in 20 and 27 more in 21. Bob Shawkey was the other Ace on the staff. He won 20 that year. Babe would post a WAR of 11.8 that year. The year was marred by the death of Ray Chapman, who was hit by a pitch from Mays on August 16th. Chapman tried to go to first base, but he collapsed twice. Tris Speaker went out to help him and Chapman was taken to a hospital where he died the next morning. Still the only MLB player ever to die after being hit by a pitch. Mays never left the mound and said later he regretted that. 

                                          Bob Meusel, who would become one of the Murderers Row members, made the team as a 23-year-old and played in 119 games hitting .328.  Second only to Ruth. In 21 they would win their first pennant. They won 98 games and beat Cleveland by 4.5 games. They would lose the World Series to the Giants in 8 games.  Ruth hit his first WS homer that year. 21-year-old, Waite Hoyt made his debut that year and won 19 games. 

                                          In 1922 the Yankees won their second title in a row. Again, they faced the crosstown Giants. And again, the Giants won the World Series. This time they lost 4 games without a win. They did tie in game 2, 3-3. Ruth had an awful series batting just .118 with no homers. His 1922 season was not a great one by Ruthian standards. He hit .315 and had 35 homers. Wally Schang, Wally Pipp and Meusel had higher BAs. Their best pitcher was Bullet Joe Bush who went 26-7. Shawkey was their other 20 game winner, 20-12. 

                                         In those days, players were usually found by scouts, and they were found in all sorts of places. There were town and factory teams. Lou Gehrig was a New York boy. He was discovered while he was playing for Columbia University in New York City. The local press made Gehrig pretty famous before he ever played a major league game. In 1923, the 20-year-old Gehrig would get his first taste of the majors coming up and playing in 13 games. The soon to be superstar hit .423 with a homer and 8 RBIs. 

                                         The Yanks moved into their new home, Yankee Stadium and won their third pennant in a row, and once again faced the Giants. After losing 2 of the first 3 games, the Yankees won the next 3 for their first World Series win. Ruth had 3 homers in the series. Gehrig did not play. Sad Sam Jones was the Yankees only 20 game winner in 23. Herb Pennock won 19, Hoyt, 17, Bush 19 and Shawkey 16. Ruth hit .393 that year with 41 homers and 130 RBIs. He led the league in walks with 170, OPS, 1.309, OPS+ was an unreal 239, He also led in OBP and slugging. Amazingly, he did not win the batting crown, Harry Heilmann of the Tigers hit .403. 

                                          Aaron Ward was the only other Yankee with double figure homers in 23, he had 10. That would soon change. Baseball was leaving the dead ball era, and the home run would soon be king. At this point in time though, Ruth was the biggest thing on the planet baseball wise. This infuriated purists like Cobb. Despite Ruth’s heroics with the bat, the Yankees finished second to the Senators in 1924. They lost the pennant by two games. The Big Train, Walter Johnson, finally made it to the big stage. Johnson won 23 games, the 11th time in his illustrious career. He would win 20 just once more. Ruth hit .378 with 46 homers and 124 driven in. It was his only batting title in his career. 

                                        1925 was not a good year for the Yankees. After finishing second to the Senators in 24, the Yankees sank to 7th place. One of the main reasons was the Babe’s famous bellyache. At least that is what the press called it.  Ruth, who never really looked like an athlete, had worked hard in 23-24 to be in shape for spring training, but in 1925, he had reportedly ballooned to 260 pounds. His usual routine was to go to Hot Springs Arkansas, where he would exercise and use saunas to take off any weight. 

                                       Unfortunately, his carousing in town eventually led to him falling ill. He then relapsed during spring training. Many attributed his medical issues to overeating, and so it became a bellyache. He was actually hospitalized and collapsed a couple of times, once in North Carolina, and later in New York. His actual medical problem was never diagnosed and remains a mystery to this day. Needless to say, he played in only 98 games, hitting .290 with 25 homers. By far his worst season as a Yankee. There was a silver lining though, Wally Pipp was beaned and began having headaches. He asked out of a game, and was replaced by Lou Gehrig, who for the next 14 years would start every Yankee game. Gehrig hit .295 with 20 homers. And the Yankees would not have another losing season until 1965. 

                                       The Yanks rebounded in 26, winning the pennant by 3 games over the Indians.  They had 3 young guys on the infield, Gehrig, Mark Koenig and Tony Lazzeri. Joe Duggan, whom they had pried from the Red Sox in 22, was at third. Urban Shocker and Herb Pennock, both vets acquired in trade, led the staff. Gehrig, 16, Lazzeri, 18, Meusel 12, and Ruth, 46, were the home run guys. They faced the Cardinals in the series and lost in 7 games. 

                                       They went up 3-2 but lost the last two games at Yankee Stadium. Game 6 they were thumped 10-2. But game 7 was a nail biter. Jesse Haines started for St. Louis, and Waite Hoyt for the Yanks. The Yankees scored first on a homer by Ruth, his 4th of the series. But the Cardinals got 3 in the 4th, the first one scoring on an error by Bob Meusel, who was usually sure handed. A single by SS Tommy Thevenow scored the next two. 

                                      The Yanks got 1 back in the sixth. But in the seventh, Haines, a knuckleballer, got into real trouble. Combs singled and Koenig sacrificed him to second. Haines intentionally walked Ruth. Meusel grounded into a force out and Haines, who was obviously laboring at this point, walked Gehrig. Rogers Hornsby, the Cardinal manager, who was also the second baseman, went to the mound and noticed that Haines fingers were torn and bleeding from his knuckleballs. He called to the bullpen for Grover Cleveland Alexander. 

                                     Alexander had pitched the day before throwing a complete game. He was not expecting to be used, so he took his time coming in from the pen. By the way, that complete game took him 108 pitches. With the bases juiced and two out, he would be facing Tony Lazzeri. Alexander threw just 3 warmup pitches. He would get a scare when Lazzeri slugged one down the line that was foul by inches, but then he got the rookie on a curveball that dropped straight down.  In the ninth inning, 3 outs from a win, Ol Pete got the first two hitters to ground out to third. Being careful with Ruth, he ended up walking him. Bob Meusel came up to the plate. On his first pitch to Meusel, Ruth broke for second, and the Cardinal catcher, Bob O’Farrell fired the ball to Hornsby and Ruth was tagged out. The only time the series has ended on a runner being thrown out. 

                                      But in 1927, the Yankees became an unstoppable force, putting together one of the greatest seasons in baseball history, and Murderers Row became their nickname.  The 1927 Yankees were a well-oiled machine. They would win 110 games and lose only 44. Five of their starting 8 position players hit over .300. They hit 158 homers as a team, tame by today’s standards, but a lot back then. But look at it this way, the AL as a league hit only 439.  The Yankees hit 102 more homers than the #2 team, the A’s. The only other MLB team with 100 or more homers that year was the New York Giants who hit 105. Gehrig and Ruth combined hit 107. 

                                    I would bet few people could name any of the reserves on that team. Their best bench player was a guy named Ben Paschal, a reserve outfielder who played in 50 games and hit .317 with a couple of homers and 16 driven in. Their main starting catcher, Pat Collins, caught 92 games, his backups were Johnny Grabowski and Benny Bengough. Hoyt was their only 20 game winner, but all of the starters had winning records and won in double figures.  Dutch Ruether, a former Dodger, was the second lefty in the rotation with Pennock. The big gun out of the pen was Wilcy Moore.  He won 19, lost 7 and his adjusted stats give him 13 saves. 

                                   They steamrolled the league and then beat the Pirates four straight to win their second title. Although two of the games were decided by just 1 run, the Yankees never trailed by more than 1 run, and then that happened just twice. Ruth hit .400 with 2 homers and 7 driven in. They won again in 1928. This time the margin was much closer, the A’s were only 2.5 games back. A couple of future Hall of Famers were part of that team, 22-year-old SS, Leo Durocher played in 102 games. And 21-year-old, Bill Dickey played in 10 games. 

                                    They polished off the St. Louis Cardinals with their second 4-game sweep. They avenged the 1926 defeat. The Cardinals were simply no match for Ruth and Gehrig. Gehrig hit .545 for the series with 4 homers and 9 driven in. Ruth hit .625 with 3 homers and 4 driven in. He was 10-16.  In game two, they knocked Hall of Famer, Grover Alexander out of the game in the third inning. They expected to do the same thing in 1929. 

                                   A funny thing happened; the Yankees were not the best team in baseball in 1929. The Philadelphia A’s were. Led by Al Simmons and Double X, Jimmy Foxx, the A’s bested the Yanks by 16 games. They had solid pitching with George Earnshaw winning 24 games and Lefty Grove 20. Not that the Yankees did not have any stars, they did, but the A’s were just that much better. Dickey and Durocher became the regulars at their positions. Dickey hitting .324 his first season as the primary catcher. The infield was young, but the outfield was getting a little long in the tooth. Ruth, 34, Meusel, 32 and Combs, 30. Sam Byrd was a backup; he was 21 and he got into 62 games and hit .312. But the pitching was just not that great. They finished with a team ERA of 4.14. 

                                 As the decade ended, the Yankees still had some horses in the race, but there would-be new blood in the 30’s that would begin a domination of the AL that would last into the sixties.