Why the Yankees Are the Greatest: Part Three

Miller Huggins became the Yankee manager in 1918, at a time when the Yankees were less than mediocre.  The diminutive Huggins would remain the Yankee manager through their ascendancy in the 1920s.  He would lead them to six American League pennants and three World Series Championships.

The last championship team for Huggins was the 1928 Yankees, when they won 101 regular season games and beat the St. Louis Cardinals four straight games to win the championship.

In 1929 Miller Huggins fell seriously ill and had to be replaced after the season had begun by Art Fletcher.  On Sept. 25, 1929, Miller Huggins died.  The first monument ever erected in Yankee Stadium was placed in centerfield to honor the little man who had led all those big teams of the 1920s Yankees.

In 1931 Joe McCarthy was hired by the Yankees, essentially becoming the successor to Huggins.  It was McCarthy’s first managerial foray in the American League, but he had led the Cubs for five years in the Senior Circuit.  He had even led the Chicago team to the National League pennant in 1929.

But McCarthy really came into his own with the Yankees.  He would lead the Bronx Bombers to greater glory in the 1930s and 1940s than the Murderers’ Row teams of the '20s.  He would eventually lead New York to eight pennants and seven World Championships.

But McCarthy was not without his critics, including the greatest name in baseball.  Babe Ruth had been fined and suspended by both Miller Huggins and Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the Commissioner of Baseball.  But in his characteristic way, Ruth never saw his own shortcomings.

By the time Joe McCarthy was named the Yankee manager, Babe was convinced that he should be manager.  McCarthy not only had to quell Babe’s ego and hunger to be the player/manager, he also had to deal with Babe’s declining skills.

But there was plenty of talent on McCarthy’s teams.  Beginning with Lou Gehrig, the talent on the Yankees seemed endless.  A roll call of the Yankee teams that McCarthy managed would include many Hall of Famers, batting champs and great pitchers. 

Just a few of the names that were led by McCarthy are Bill Dickey (HOF), Yogi Berra (HOF) Tony Lazzeri (HOF), Frankie Crosetti, Ben Chapman, Earle Combs (HOF), Dixie Walker, Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto (HOF), Joe DiMaggio (HOF), Tommy Henrich, Charlie Keller, Spud Chandler, Herb Pennock (HOF), Vic Raschi, Red Ruffing (HOF), and Lefty Gomez (HOF).

In addition to his eight pennants and seven World Series, McCarthy steered the Yanks to second-place finishes four other times.  In his 16 years with the Yankees, he finished lower than second only four times. 

Unfortunately, three of those lower finishes came in his last three years with the Yanks. 

During the 1944 and 1945 seasons, the Yankees were decimated by World War II.  Stars such as Joe DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Phil Rizzuto, and Yogi Berra were inducted into the military and could not play.

In fact, things were so out of whack that in 1944 the lowly St. Louis Browns won the American League pennant.  The Browns, perennial doormats of the Junior Circuit, were better known for the one-time stunt of using “short person” Eddie Gaedel in one plate appearance on Aug. 9, 1951. 

The Browns would spend 10 more years in St. Louis before they became the Baltimore Orioles, but 1944 was the only World Series appearance in their 53-year history in St. Louis.  The Browns' success in '44, as much as anything else, spelled McCarthy’s end as the Yankee manager.

The Yankees brought Bucky Harris in to replace McCarthy for the 1947 season, and even though Harris led the Yanks to the World championship that year, he would never really be able to replace McCarthy.  Harris would stay only two years before the era of Casey Stengel began in 1949.

But Joe McCarthy was more successful than any manager the New York Yankees have had except Casey Stengel.  He won as many World Series for the Yankees as the Old Perfesser.

McCarthy had been born in 1887 and would live until 1978.  He played old school baseball, stressing fundamentals and perfection in all aspects of the game.  He was considered an excellent teacher.  He was so low-key that he would not go to the mound to change pitchers and almost never argued with umpires.

McCarthy would go on to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957 and have his own plaque in Monument Park in Yankee Stadium.  For those who wonder why his number was not retired, it is because he chose not to wear a number on his Yankee uniform.  He came to epitomize what all Yankee fans glory in—the consistent excellence of the Yankees.