Nobody's Perfect: The 11 Biggest Failures in New York Yankees History
To fans of other teams, it probably doesn't sound so bad.
Sure, the New York Yankees look to be on the verge of blowing the ALCS. Down 3 games to 1 with two remaining games on the road, a Cliff Lee start to look forward to and Mark Teixeira's bad hammie to overcome, one could even call the Yankees' 2010 chances "bleak" as of Wednesday afternoon. But they're still in their second straight ALCS after winning the World Series last year, and they've still got a shot to make their fourth Series in the last ten years.
To fans of the Kansas City Royals, that sounds like Nirvana. Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates would sell Mean Joe Greene's spot in Canton for that kind of success. I can personally attest that a Mets fan would swap destinies in about 0.5 seconds.
But you know, it's not always easy being the Yankees. Big stars and big payrolls bring big expectations. When you're perpetually cast in the role of Goliath, even against teams like the Red Sox and Dodgers who are not exactly bringing slingshots to the big fight, everybody's rooting for you to go down. And when you inevitably do-- because it happens to every team, sooner to later-- nobody lets you forget it.
It's not even a little bit fair. On the other hand, like I said, I'm a Mets fan. So let's rub it in, shall we? I suggest you find your favorite Yankees fan, buy him or her a drink to drown the sorrows, and try to suppress the gleeful chortle that will threaten to emerge as you scan this list of the New York Yankees' ten greatest choke jobs of all time...
Remember, we kid Yankees fans because we love them. And because they root for a malevolent force of evil. Mostly the love.
#10 (TIE): 1954 Pennant Race, 2002 ALDS
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I couldn't decide between these two for the final spot on the list, so we'll call it a tie.
In 1954, the Bronx Bombers had perhaps their best team of the Casey Stengel era, posting a 103-51 record, their best showing in a decade they dominated-- but didn't even come close to matching the Cleveland Indians, who set an American League record for victories at 111-43. The Yankees eventually broke that record, but it did take them 44 years.
In 2002, the Yankees were coming off a string of four straight (and five of six) pennants, and had just added Jason Giambi to make their offense even more fearsome. Then then ran into a buzz saw called the Anaheim Angels, who scored 26 runs in the final three games of the series to polish off the Yankees in four, en route to their first-ever title.
All things, good and bad, do come to an end...
#9: The 1985 Pennant Race
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This one makes the list because the top of the Yankees' order in the mid-80's featured Rickey Henderson, Don Mattingly, and Dave Winfield-- three transcendent performers at the height of their powers-- and never did better than back-to-back second place finishes in 1985 and 1986. The supporting cast wasn't terrible, either: Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry, and Dave Righetti all had good years in them. But the AL East was formidable in the 80's, and they weren't able to put it together after their 1981 World Series loss.
The toughest year was probably '85, when the Yankees opened a three-game series with the Blue Jays on October 4th needing a sweep to tie the Blue Jays. They won that game and the finale, but Doyle Alexander (whose trade to the Tigers in '87 also played a big role in that year's pennant race) shut them down with a 5-hit complete game on October 5th, and that was the season. The Yankees would never come that close again, and fell off the table at the end of the decade before their resurgence in the mid-1990's.
#8: The 1922 World Series
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Even once the Ruth Era got going, it took a while before the Yankees turned into The Yankees, you know?
Part of the problem was that John McGraw and his crosstown Giants stood in the way at first, and they blasted the Yankees out of two consecutive World Series at the beginning of Ruth's tenure. The second time was particularly embarassing: A four-game sweep (with one tie), as Ruth went 2-for-17 in the Series without a homer.
The next year, he blasted three homers as the Yankees finally toppled McGraw, and the Dynasty was in business. It was touch-and-go for a while there, however.
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#7: The 1980 ALCS
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After outlasting the defending AL champion Orioles in one of the better two-horse races nobody remembers anymore, the Yankees faced off against Kansas City in the ALCS. You know, that expansion team from the little city out west, the one they'd streamrolled in 1976, 1977, and 1978 for trips to the World Series? Only the story went a little differently this time.
The defining blow came in the 7th inning of Game Three, with George Brett's three-run homer off Goose Gossage. That same Goose was nearly unhittable in the regular season, posting a league-leading 33 saves and 103 strikeouts in 99 innings, and had picked up a win and a save in the 1978 ALCS win.
What goes around, comes around, and it smacked the Yankees upside the head in 1980.
#6: The 1955 World Series
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This one wasn't painful so much as it was a testament to the Law of Averages. After beating the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, the Yankees' luck finally ran out in 1955. Duke Snider homered 4 times, with 7 RBI and Roy Campanella tacked on five extra-base hits, while Johnny Podres notched two wins and Clem Labine picked up a win and a save, as the Boys of Summer finally picked up a well-deserved championship.
In 1956, they lost to the Yankees again. You'd think changing the fabric of American culture might have been worth more than one title to the baseball gods, but they're surprisingly fickle.
#5: The 2001 World Series
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You probably remember this one.
After pitching a brilliant eighth inning, the normally-inhuman Mariano Rivera runs out of gas on a cold November night, commiting an error, hitting a batter, and allowing three big hits to permit a 2-1 Yankee lead to become a 3-2 deficit and the first Arizona Diamondbacks championship. Luis Gonzalez got the big hit, Jay Bell celebrated the big run, and the nation felt a sense of genuine heartbreak. It was late fall, 2001, and everyone was rooting for New York and the Yankees for a change.
Rivera's going to the Hall of Fame, and rightfully so. Do you think he'd give up the ticket to Cooperstown to have that 0-1 pitch back?
#4: The 1904 Pennant Race
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This one could be at the top if it weren't 100 years old and nearly forgotten.
41-game winner Jack Chesbro let loose a wild pitch in the second game of a season-ending doubleheader against the Boston Americans, costing the then-New York Highlanders the pennant and delaying their first taste of success for 17 years. The Boston team, which had won the first World Series the previous year, would go on to win four World Series before the proto-Yankees swindled them in one particular transaction...
That's right, New York's baseball team got stomped by the American League's juggernaut from Boston. It was a very different time.
#3: The 1964 World Series
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For single-handed, virtuoso assassinations of one team by an opposing player, it doesn't get much better than Bob Gibson striking out 22 Yankees in Games 5 and 7 of the 1964 World Series, spurring the Cardinals to a seven-game win. The fact that the blow finally knocked the Yankee Dynasty off the pedestal it had held since Ruth, sending it spinning head over tail into the era of Joe Pepitone and Horace Clarke, is just icing on the cake.
A big part of the Yankee experience is aura-- that mystique that says we're the biggest, baddest sports franchise on the planet, and you cannot hope to compete with us. But for one World Series, it was the Bronx Bombers cowering in the corner while the biggest, baddest pitcher on the planet unloaded on them with the force of... well, a Bob Gibson fastball.
That's pretty freaking cool when you think about it.
#2: The 2004 ALCS
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This was the year reality shifted, up became down, fair became foul, and a team overcame a 3 games to 0 deficit in a seven-game series for the first time in baseball history.
The thing about this series-- and here's where you have to give the baseball gods credit for a truly brilliant job of table-setting-- is that its impact was doubled by the fact that the Yankees had prevailed in a just-as-epic, just-as-heartwrenching manner in a seven-game ALCS the previous year. You know, the Aaron Boone homer game. It was like the fates presented the Boston Red Sox and their fans with a second Bucky Bleeping Dent, then let them turn around and punch his team right in the mouth. It was perfect.
You know, unless you were a Yankees fan, watching your previously-dominant team inexplicably fold in four straight games, two of them in extra innings. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.
#1: The 1960 World Series
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For my money, the unofficial list of most memorable plays in baseball history looks like this:
3. Willie Mays' catch in the 1954 World Series.
2. The ball rolling through Bill Buckner's legs in 1986.
1. Bill Mazeroski's home run off Ralph Terry in the bottom of the ninth of the 1960 World Series.
It's hard to put anything ahead of 2004, but Maz's homer came at a time when the Yankees were still considered a juggernaut, and it's still the only time a Game Seven ever ended on a home run. (Joe Carter ended the World Series with a homer in 1993, but that was Game Six, with his team holding a 3-2 series lead.) To this day, Bill Mazeroski is the only man who ever lived out the ultimate dream scenario of every young baseball fan, the ninth-inning homer to prevent disaster in the World Series.
And he did it against the Yankees. We should probably let them forget it one of these years.
Nah...
(The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.)
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