by Phil Pepe
The pregame ceremonies were a testimony to Yankees past and present, living and dead. Former Yankees, as many as could be contacted, were brought back to Yankee Stadium. They were introduced to the crowd and they ran, trotted, or walked out to the position they had occupied in their playing days. Later, those players were joined at their positions by widows, children, and grandchildren of those players who had played those positions and had passed on.
Among active players, special acknowledgment was accorded the Core Four, the oldest Yankees in point of service.
Jorge Posada, who would miss the last 65 games of the season after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery in July, and batted .268 with three home runs and 22 RBI in 51 games, was asked to receive the pregame first ball thrown out by Babe Ruth’s 91-year-old daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens.
Andy Pettitte had the honor of starting the last game at the stadium. He pitched five innings, recorded the 2,000th strikeout of his career in the second inning, and earned the victory, evening his season’s record at 14–14.
Mariano Rivera, who would finish the season with 39 saves and 482 for his career, came into the game to the strains of “Enter Sandman” for the final time in the old Stadium. He pitched the ninth inning in a non-save situation and retired the Orioles in order on three ground balls.
Derek Jeter, who would bat an even .300 for the season with 11 home runs and 69 runs batted in, would be removed from the game with two outs in the top of the ninth so he might hear, one more time, the crowd, led by the Bleacher Creatures, chant, “DER-ek JEE-ter” as he jogged off the field. He ducked into the dugout and then popped his head out for a brief curtain call.
Later, it would be Jeter’s duty as captain to represent the current Yankees team in addressing the capacity crowd. Speaking without notes (“I just sort of winged it,” he would say), his remarks were clear, concise, heartfelt, and eloquently simple:
“For all of us out here, it’s a huge honor to put this uniform on every day and come out here and play. And every member of this organization, past and present, has been calling this place home for 85 years. It’s a lot of tradition, a lot of history, and a lot of memories. The great thing about memories is you’re able to pass them along from generation to generation. And although things are going to change next year and we’re going to move across the street, there are a few things with the New York Yankees that never change. That’s pride, tradition, and most of all, we have the greatest fans in the world. We’re relying on you to take the memories from this stadium, add them to the memories that come in the new Yankee Stadium, and continue to pass them on from generation to generation.
“So, on behalf of the entire organization we just want to take this moment to salute you, the greatest fans in the world.”
With those words, Jeter removed his cap to salute the crowd while behind him his teammates did the same.
The Yankees played the final six games of the 2008 season in Toronto and Boston, ending up with a record of 89–73 (five fewer wins than Joe Torre’s last Yankees team the previous season and their fewest wins in eight years). They finished in third place, eight games out, behind the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox, and were left out of the postseason for the first time in 14 years.
While Derek Jeter batted an even .300 (the 10th time in his career he had reached the precious .300 mark), his critics pointed out that it was his lowest season’s average in four years, his 69 RBI and 11 home runs were five-year lows, and he was crowding his 35th birthday. Some even said that on defense Jeter had lost a step (or two) and suggested that the Yankees would be best served moving him off shortstop to center field, which Robin Yount had done a decade earlier on his way to the Hall of Fame.
Jeter bristled at the notion and vowed to work hard during the off-season on a conditioning program that would improve his speed and quickness. With a new home and a new beginning, he was determined to put up the kind of numbers that would cause his critics to choke on their words.
19. Core Fours of the Past
As Yankee Stadium closed for good, Yankees fans and historians found themselves looking back at the fascinating legacy the team had left behind. Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter did not comprise the only “Core Four” of Yankees’ legend, merely the most successful and the one that remained together for the longest period.
The Yankees won at least one World Series in six consecutive decades from the 1920s through the 1970s. Presented herewith are the Core Four representing each decade, chosen not only for their singular performance on the playing field but also for their longevity as a unit.
The ’20s
Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Lou Gehrig, Waite Hoyt
Years as Yankees Teammates—7 (1923–29)
Pennants Won as Teammates—4
World Series Won as Teammates—3
The Yankees had not won a thing in their 17-year history as both Yankees and Highlanders until Babe Ruth was purchased from the Boston Red Sox on January 3, 1920. That season they would improve from 80 victories to 95, yet finish third in the eight-team American League. But over the next 12 seasons, Ruth would lead them to seven pennants and four world championships, including the amazing 1927 season when Ruth belted a record 60 home runs while leading the famed “Murderers’ Row” to a World Series victory. That year the Yankees had a record of 110–44, for a winning percentage of .714, the exact number of home runs hit by Ruth in his career.
Bob Meusel was an ornery, mean, cranky outfielder whose career as a Yankee covered the entire decade of the 1920s. Born in San Jose, California, on July 19, 1896, he was purchased from Vernon in the Pacific Coast League, arrived with the Yankees in 1920, alternated with Babe Ruth between left field and right field, and left after the 1929 season. He played one season with Cincinnati before retiring from major league baseball. The younger brother of National League star Irish Meusel, Bob ranks eighth on the Yankees all-time list in batting average at .311 and 12th in RBI with 1,013. In 1925, when Ruth missed 50 games with his famous “bellyache,” Meusel led the American League in home runs with 33 and RBI with 138.
New York native Lou Gehrig, the “Iron Horse,” was discovered by the Yankees while playing baseball at Columbia University and signed by legendary Yankees scout Paul Krichell. He joined the Yankees in 1923 and got his big break two years later when first baseman Wally Pipp asked out of the lineup because of a headache. Gehrig stepped in and played in 2,130 consecutive games, a major league record that stood until 1995, when it was broken by the Baltimore Orioles’ Cal Ripken Jr. Gehrig ended his streak voluntarily when he removed himself from the starting lineup before a game in Detroit on May 2, 1939. On June 21, the Yankees announced that Gehrig’s uniform No. 4 would be permanently retired. On July 4, between games of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees staged “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day” at which Gehrig, in a poignant speech, proclaimed, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Just under two years later Gehrig passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Waite Hoyt was another local boy, born in Brooklyn and educated at Erasmus Hall High School, which was also attended by football’s Al Davis and Sid Luckman; basketball’s Ned Irish and Billy Cunningham; Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm; chess champion Bobby Fischer; actresses Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, and Susan Hayward; opera star Beverly Sills; pop singers Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond; and author Mickey Spillane. On December 15, 1920, Hoyt was acquired by the Yankees from the Boston Red Sox. He would twice win 20 games among his 157 wins as a Yankee (all but two in the decade of the ’20s), ninth on their all-time list. Hoyt was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969 by the Veterans Committee.
The ’30s
Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing
Years as Yankees Teammates—8 (1930–37)
Pennants Won as Teammates—3
&
nbsp; World Series Won as Teammates—3
With Babe Ruth in decline, Lou Gehrig took over as the Yankees’ go-to guy in the ’30s. In the decade he would lead the league in home runs and runs batted in three times each, win one batting title, hit 40 or more home runs four times, get 200 or more hits six times, and drive in 100 or more runs nine straight years until his retirement in 1939.
Tony “Poosh ’Em Up” Lazzeri is one of several Yankees born in the San Francisco Bay Area (Joe DiMaggio, Frank Crosetti, Lefty Gomez, Ping Bodie, Jerry Coleman, and Billy Martin were as well). In 1925, he hit 60 home runs for Salt Lake City in the Pacific Coast League and was sold to the New York Yankees after the season. In 12 seasons with the Yankees he hit 169 home runs, including 18 in 1927, which was third in the American League behind his Yankees teammates, Babe Ruth (60) and Lou Gehrig (47). Seven times in his career—four of them in the ’30s—Lazzeri drove in more than 100 runs. He is one of only 14 players in major league history to hit a “natural” cycle. On June 3, 1932, in a 20–13 romp over the Athletics in Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, Lazzeri struck, in order, a single, double, triple, and home run (which just happened to be a grand slam). On May 24, 1936, again in Shibe Park against the Athletics, in a 25–2 slaughter, he became the first player in MLB history to hit two grand slams in a game while setting a record with 11 RBI.
William Malcolm “Bill” Dickey of Bastrop, Louisiana, spent his entire 17-year career with the Yankees and finished with a career .313 batting average (seventh on their all-time list), 202 home runs (15th), and 1,209 RBI (8th). He showed his durability when he set a major league record by catching 100 games or more for 13 consecutive seasons. In the decade of the 1930s, Dickey had four straight seasons with at least 20 home runs and 100 RBI, and nine seasons with a batting average of .300 or better. In 1946, after Joe McCarthy abruptly resigned as manager of the Yankees, Dickey took over as player/manager for 105 games. He retired after the 1946 season, but returned in 1949 as a coach whose job was to help school Yogi Berra to continue the line of succession as Yankees catcher. As Berra would say, “Bill Dickey taught me all his experiences.”
Charles Herbert “Red” Ruffing was traded by the Red Sox to the Yankees on May 6, 1930, and spent the next 15 seasons as the ace of the Yanks’ pitching staff, winning 231 games (second on their all-time list), striking out 1,526 batters (fourth), pitch- ing 261 complete games (first), and 40 shutouts (tied for second with Mel Stottlemyre). He won at least 20 games for four consec- utive seasons (1936–39). Ruffing also was one of the best hitting pitchers in baseball history, with a lifetime batting average of .269 and 273 runs batted in for 22 seasons with the Yankees, Red Sox, and White Sox. He is fourth on the all-time list of home runs by a pitcher with 34 (he also hit two as a pinch hitter).
The ’40s
Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, Tommy Henrich, Phil Rizzuto
Years as Yankees Teammates—6 (1941–42, 1946–49)
Pennants Won as Teammates—4
World Series Won as Teammates—3
With Lou Gehrig gone, the baton passed to Joe DiMaggio as the leader of the Yankees. After the 1934 season, DiMaggio, the middle of three major league–playing brothers (with Vince and Dom), was acquired from the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, where he’d hit safely in 61 consecutive games in 1933. The Yankees paid $25,000 for DiMaggio, plus five players and a promise to allow Joe to remain with the Seals for the 1935 season, in which he batted .398, hit 34 homers, drove in 154 runs, and was named PCL Most Valuable Player. In 1936, his first season with the Yankees, DiMaggio amassed one of the greatest rookie seasons in major league history: a .323 average, 206 hits, 44 doubles, a league-leading 15 triples, 29 home runs, and 125 RBI. Over the next five seasons he would bat .346, .324, .381, .352, and .357, hit 169 home runs, and drive in 691 runs. In 1941, he hit safely in a still-standing major league–record 56 consecutive games and, perhaps most remarkably, in 622 plate appearances he struck out only 13 times. DiMaggio finished his career with a lifetime batting average of .325, 361 homers, 1,537 RBI, and only 369 strikeouts. He might have compiled even more impressive numbers, but his career was held to only 13 seasons by a series of leg and foot injuries and by having lost three of his prime years—1943 to 1945—to military service during World War II.
Because of his strength, they called Charlie Keller “King Kong,” but never to his face. He hated the nickname and would never answer to it. Keller was a bear of a man and a hard-nosed, powerful slugger who served as protection for Joe DiMaggio in the Yankees’ lineup. Keller became the first rookie ever to hit two home runs in a World Series game when he did it against Cincinnati in Game 3 of the 1939 Series. Three times Keller hit at least 30 home runs in a season and three times he knocked in at least 100 runs. When he retired from baseball, Keller founded Yankeeland Farm in Maryland and had an enormously successful career as a breeder of harness horses.
On April 14, 1937, the Cleveland Indians were forced by Major League Baseball to release a young minor league outfielder named Tommy Henrich. Five days later, the Yankees signed him, and 22 days after that Henrich made his major league debut in the start of what would be a remarkable 11-year major league career (including three years out for military service) all with the Yankees. Teaming with center fielder Joe DiMaggio and left fielder Charlie Keller, Henrich in right field helped form one of the best hitting outfields of his era. Henrich had a career batting average of .282 with 183 home runs and 795 RBI, but it was his distinguished work in four World Series which helped earn him the nickname “Old Reliable.” In Game 1 of the 1949 World Series, Henrich hit the first “walk-off” home run in Series history when he drove a 2–0 pitch from Don Newcombe into the right-field seats at Yankee Stadium to give the Yanks a 1–0 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Henrich was in the center of one of the most memorable moments in World Series history in Game 4 of the 1941 World Series. The Yankees were leading the Brooklyn Dodgers two games to one, but the Dodgers were ahead in Game 3 by a score of 4–3 with two outs, nobody on base, and Henrich up to bat in the top of the ninth. Henrich swung and missed a 3–2 pitch from Hugh Casey. But when catcher Mickey Owen let the ball get by him for a passed ball, Henrich reached first base. The Yankees then rallied for four runs to win the game 7–4, and went on to take the Series four games to one.
Told by the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers that at 5'6" and 150 pounds he was too small, Brooklyn-born Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto signed with the New York Yankees and went on to be chosen American League Most Valuable Player in 1950, be elected to the Hall of Fame, and to spend more than a half- century with the Yankees as a player and beloved broadcaster. In 13 seasons as an All-Star shortstop, Rizzuto, acclaimed as one of the great bunters in baseball history, batted .273, accumulated 1,588 hits, played outstanding defense, and helped the Yankees win nine pennants and seven World Series. Ted Williams once said that if his Red Sox had Rizzuto as their shortstop, the Sox, not the Yankees, would have won all those championships. As a broadcaster, Rizzuto was known for his malaprops, sending birthday wishes to fans, friends, and restaurateurs, and his signature comments, “You huckleberry” and “Holy Cow.” Someone once looked at Rizzuto’s score card and noticed the entry WW. Asked what sort of play was WW, Rizzuto replied, “Wasn’t watching.”
The ’50s
Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer
Years as Yankees Teammates—7 (1953–1959)
Pennants Won as Teammates—5
World Series Won as Teammates—3
The line of Yankees superstars continued in 1951 with the arrival of switch-hitting Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest, strongest, most popular and revered players in baseball history. Known for his prodigious home runs, his shot on April 17, 1953, off Chuck Stobbs of the Washington Senators in Griffith Stadium was said to have traveled 565 feet and introduced into the baseball lexicon the phrase “tape-measure home run.” On May 22, 1963, he hit a ball that
almost became the first ever to sail out of Yankee Stadium, and on September 10, 1960, he hit one over the roof at Tiger Stadium that was calculated to have traveled 643 feet. In his 18-year career, all with the Yankees, Mantle batted .298, hit 536 home runs, drove in 1,509 runs, and won three Most Valuable Player Awards. Twice in his career he hit 50 home runs or more, four times he hit 40 or more, and nine times he hit 30 or more. In 1956, he won the Triple Crown with a .353 average, 52 home runs, and 130 RBI. As staggering as his numbers are, they might have been even greater had he not suffered with a variety of injuries that caused him to play fewer than 130 games six times in his 18 seasons.
Elston Howard, his longtime battery mate, dubbed him “the Chairman of the Board.” Whitey Ford, another New York native who starred for and played his entire career with his hometown team, is all over the Yankees all-time leader board for pitchers: first in wins (236), strikeouts (1,956), games started (438), innings (3,170), and shutouts (45), third in winning percentage (.690), and tied for sixth in complete games (156). Ford came up to the Yankees midway through the 1950 season and made his major league debut on July 1. He helped the Yankees win the American League pennant by winning nine of his 10 decisions and then was the winning pitcher in the clinching game of the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Ford spent the next two seasons in military service, returning to the Yankees in 1953 to begin a stretch of 13 consecutive seasons with double figures in wins, including 25 in 1961 and 24 in 1963. In 1961, Ford broke the record of 29²⁄³ consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series, held by Babe Ruth (set in 1918 when he pitched for the Boston Red Sox), ultimately raising the record to 33²⁄³ innings.
Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee…or Yogi Berra. We don’t know if Sara could hit a curveball, but we know that Berra could, and did. One of the most beloved baseball players ever to play the game, Berra has a .285 lifetime average, 358 home runs, and 1,430 RBI in 2,120 major league games as proof. Berra arrived with the Yankees fresh out of the U.S. Navy to appear in seven games in 1946. He would stay for 18 seasons as a player, during which he was one of only four players in baseball history to win three Most Valuable Player Awards (1951, 1954, 1955). A notorious “bad ball” hitter who would connect with balls that hit the dirt or were over his head, Berra’s greatest attribute was having played on 14 pennant winners and 10 World Series winners in his 18 years as a Yankee. Casey Stengel, who managed the Yankees from 1949 to 1960, called Berra “my assistant manager.” After retiring in 1963, Berra served nine years in two tenures as a Yankees coach and three more—also in two tenures—as the Yankees manager. He also managed the New York Mets and is one of only seven managers to win pennants in each league. The Yogi Berra Museum on the campus of Montclair State University in New Jersey is a shrine to Berra’s career, including displays of his memorabilia and his famous malaprops, or “Berraisms,” such as, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded,” “You can observe a lot by watching,” “I want to thank all those who made this night necessary,” and “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
