Yankeeography - History of the Yankees - 1903-1956

This is the sports dynasty of all sports dynasties. They dominate the whole history of the game. The Yankees are world champions. Five World Series in a row. It was our religion. It wasn't a game, it was our religion. We lived and died being a Yankee. The Yankees represented the pinnacle of sports. People root for the underdog. But they really love a winner. The Yankees are baseball's winners. The long and glorious story of the New York Yankees is now well into its second century. And is uniquely remarkable. Hi, I'm John Sterling for the YES Network. And this is a special edition of Yankeeography. The history of the New York Yankees. It's a team that built greatness upon greatness generation after generation. Until just the name of the team, the Yankees, came to define all the glory of sports in America. Together, they have achieved more in a few years than others have in a century. It seems that they just have to put on the uniform to transform from stars to heroes. He's done it. No rookie has ever hit 50 home runs in a season. Tell Aaron Judge right now. Attempting to describe what they've done often falls short. The only word necessary is Yankees. For it's a word that has come to represent a level of performance that stands at the very top of the game. And a determination to be nothing short of the best. Today, that standard of excellence and the name of the team it embodies are synonymous. There is no greater, more successful team in any sport. And the place they've called home are a shrine to everything they represent. Tradition and pride and excellence and that's what we're all about. When you look at their first 20 years, it's an extraordinary contrast to what the Yankees are today. I mean, the Yankees have won 26 world championships. 26 in exactly 100 years. But they've done more than that. They've won 26 in 80 years. The Yankees were actually born as the Baltimore Orioles. In 1903, a pair of New Yorkers named Big Bill Devery and Frank Farrell paid $18,000 for the team and moved it to some undeveloped land in Manhattan. The franchise had been moved from Baltimore and they were obviously looking for a place to live and they built this wooden grandstand in upper Manhattan where the hospital, Columbia Presbyterian, stands now. There is in fact now a monument at the hospital where the Yankees took their first faltering steps. Playing at Hilltop Park, high above the city, they called themselves the Highlanders. Their greatest player was a pitcher named Jack Chesbrough. In 1904, Happy Jack threw 454 innings in 55 games, 51 of which were starts, completing 48 of them and winning a modern day record of 41 games. All for a salary of just $1,500. He worked a bit of overtime that year. He won the 41 games and he's remembered for one errant throw. It happened on the season's final day when Chesbrough threw a ninth inning wild pitch, costing the Highlanders the pennant and plunging them into a decade of mediocrity. The thing with the early Yankees is that basically these two characters, Devery and Farrell, owned them for 12 years. They went through a manager a year practically. These were not baseball men. They couldn't hold on to good baseball players or managers. In 1912, the Highlanders added pinstripes to their uniform. Soon became tenants of the New York Giants' famous polo grounds and changed their name to what was then a northern colloquialism. As early as 1904, a New York newspaper had as a headline, Yankees Return North. And this was a report about the Yankees making a swing through the south as part of their exhibition schedule. And they were referred to generically as Yankees, northerners. They were called the Yankees on opening day in the newspaper headline and a couple of times in the story. But it went back and forth for several years. And about the time they moved to the polo grounds, the name became officially the Yankees. Highlanders was associated with the old team and a franchise that was not particularly distinctive. But with the tenants at barely 300,000 a year, the Yankees remained a second-class team. Finally, after the 1914 season, the Yankees were sold to a partnership led by Jacob Rupert. The first 10 or so years of the history of the New York Yankees is not a history of glory. The glory really begins when Rupert buys the team. But Rupert was no fool. For $450,000, we got an orphaned ball club without a home, he said, one without players of outstanding ability and without prestige. He was a good businessman and he had a lot of money. And he really wanted to get into baseball to promote his brewery, his beer business. Convinced that a great baseball team could further enhance his family name, Colonel Rupert had previously tried and failed to buy John McGraw's Giants. So the Yankees would have to do. His new team would become Rupert's life work. And over the next 25 years, he would turn a second-rate ball club into the most prestigious franchise in the history of sports. Still to come on the history of the New York Yankees. No one could have guessed that Babe Ruth would become Babe Ruth. Welcome back to the history of the New York Yankees. Ironically, the first golden era in Yankees history began in Boston in 1918. The Yankees were struggling to be a 500 team while the Red Sox were winning a world title led by a pitcher who also liked to play the outfield on the days he didn't start. His name, Babe Ruth. He was an outstanding pitcher. He was arguably the best left-hander in the league. He was among the league leaders in shutouts, among the league leaders in opponents' batting averages pitching, among the league leaders in strikeouts, and he led the league in home runs. Same guy. In 1919, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow told Ruth he'd help the team more if he played the outfield every day. Babe was more than happy to comply. That season, Ruth set a new major league record with 29 home runs. And that offseason, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee made the most curious roster move in baseball history. The Red Sox owner invested in Broadway shows, and the story goes that he needed the money to keep his show going. So he sold the Babe. And when it happened, I'm sure the Boston fans weren't happy about it. But no one could have guessed that Babe Ruth would become... Babe Ruth. 1920 and 21, and then he got the team. During Ruth's first season in New York, the Yankees set a major league record by drawing more than a million fans to the polo grounds, something the Giants had never done. It's slashing my drives, but my memory of him is that he hit lofty home runs. With this beautiful, graceful swing, and up in the air, and you could watch them and watch them and watch them and cheer. It was exciting watching him play. Despite the fact that McGraw's Giants beat the Yankees in the World Series in 1921 and 22, the Babe was the biggest star and draw in the game. McGraw resented him to no end. McGraw never liked it. He was very possessive about his Giants, his park, his polo grounds, his part of town. He didn't want to be sharing his park and losing the attendance battle, the popularity to these junior circuit upstarts. The Yankees doubled their attendance in 1920. The Giants decided it was time for the Yankees to go somewhere else, as John McGraw reportedly said, they should go to the Bronx and there they will wither on the vine. So Rupert bought land right across the river from the polo grounds and built a home that would accommodate the ever-increasing number of fans anxious for the chance to see Babe Ruth. Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. It was the house that Ruth built. This flamboyant character that he was told a friend, Lord, I hope I hit a home run on opening day, and of course he did. And that year, the Yankees won their first World Series, finally defeating McGraw's Giants. Ruth had helped usher in the first era of Yankees glory, but he was not the only Boston transplant to help give birth to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. In terms of building a ball club on the field, the key moment in the history of the Yankees is when they hired Ed Barrow, away from the Red Sox, to be the Yankees' general manager. From there, the modern construction of the Yankees began. Ed Barrow, who prior to 2004 had been the last manager to lead a Red Sox club to a World Championship, in his first three seasons as GM in New York, the Yankees won each year. The fact is that within three years, nearly half the Yankee team were former Red Sox. Barrow had simply raided the team, bought it retail and wholesale, and moved it to New York. Future Hall of Fame pitchers Wade Hoyt and Herb Pennock headed the list of Yankee greats who had followed the babe from Boston to New York and helped make the team champions. In 1925, homegrown first baseman Lou Gehrig began to play full-time. He would put up numbers surpassed only by Ruth, and they became the most famous and most feared one-two punch in history. Ruth hit third, Gehrig hit fourth. That was a bad crew to face. In addition to Ruth and Gehrig, Bob Musil, Earl Coombs, and Tony Lazzari gave the Yankees a lineup known as Murderer's Row. In 1927, they won 110 games and lost just 44. Ruth was paid $70,000 for his most famous season when he hit an unprecedented 60 home runs. Gehrig, the league's MVP with 47 homers and 175 RBIs, earned $8,000. The World Series was a foregone conclusion. Perhaps the most remarkable moment in the 1920s for the Yankees was probably a batting practice before the first game of the 1927 series. They came into Forbes Field and they were hitting the ball on top of the right field bleachers. It put the fear into a lot of people just seeing those guys in batting practice and doing things that nobody else had ever done. The Pirates knew that they had lost the World Series before it had even begun. The Yankees won in a sweep, a feat they repeated in 1928. The first golden era in Yankees history was in full swing. Ruth, here's your contract. Call for $80,000 for two years. That's to be agreed upon. Will you kindly sign it? Yes, sir, Colonel. The year 1929 began as the Roaring Twenties and ended with the Great Depression. As for the Yankees, hopes for a dynasty vanished with the loss of manager Miller Huggins. Huggins inspired excellence. Huggins led the Yankees to all of their early pennants and championships. He managed them from 1918 until he died in 1929. The first of what eventually became three monuments in center field in the old Yankee stadium was dedicated to Miller Huggins. The Yankees turned to Joe McCarthy, a straight-laced baseball man who many doubted could coexist with a fun-loving babe. Joe McCarthy was a very serious guy, and he was serious about winning. He wanted his ballplayers to wear coats and ties. He didn't want them to gamble on the train. He didn't want anybody drinking beer because he thought it caused you to lose your edge. John Trebinger, an old New York Times sports writer, said Babe Ruth was the most uninhibited man I ever met. He just did things. Three, seven, six. Someone was asking me about how I was going to get along with Joe McCarthy. Well, Joe and I are, I think, going to get along very nicely. Joe's a very nice boy, and I think he and I are going to get together. And as far as the ballclub is concerned, I think our ballclub is in very good shape. To his credit, McCarthy made it clear that his personal feelings about the Babes' private life wouldn't affect the Yankees on the field. Babe, I feel one of the biggest years you ever had in your life. In fact, the biggest year. Same to you, John. And Lou, I hope that it winds up that we bring that championship back to where it belongs, in New York again. Babe and Lou did reclaim the title in 1932, the third and last they would share as teammates. In 34, Garrick surpassed Ruth's home run total for the first time, and at season's end, Ruth was released by the Yankees and went on to sign a contract with the Boston Braves. Meanwhile, Garrick was named team captain, and he continued to put up the numbers that could only be described as, well, Ruthian. Besides Garrick, Ruth also left behind other future Hall of Famers, like Red Ruffin, Lefty Gomez, Bill Dickey. Still, the Yankees went three years in a row without a pennant. Then in 1936, Barrow brought in a man who would take what was already a great franchise and elevate it to the realm of greatest. If you look at the all-time standings of baseball teams at the end of the 1935 season, engaged teams in terms of how many championships they've won, the Yankees would have been on an all-time list fourth. Then Joe DiMaggio arrives, and by the time he's been there four years, they are firmly established as first on that list, and they're beginning to run away from the pack. I first joined the club in 1936, and it gave them a good real shot in the arm because they felt, well, here I got a chance to be in a pennant and possibly a World Series playing for the greatest city in the world, New York City. DiMaggio is a star in three very, very important ways. He can run like the devil, he can throw and he can bat, and he's just a kid. In Jolton Joe's first three years, the Yankees became the first team ever to win three World Championships in a row. It was also in 1938 that Lou Garrick played in his 2,000th straight game. Well, I want to congratulate you on your wonderful career and playing 2,000 games without missing a game, and I hope I'm around here when you play your next 2,000. Thank you very much. It's a wonderful job, and you should be congratulated, and I'm sure that you're going to continue for a long time to come. Thank you, Joe. No one knew in 1938 that Garrick was suffering from the early stages of the mysterious disease that would soon take his life. At first, only Yankees management seemed to notice that Lou's performance was slipping. So much so that in 1938, Barrow cut Garrick's salary by $3,000. In 1939, we played him the first first part of the season, and he just wasn't sharp. He's just not Lou Garrick. After meeting with McCarthy, Lou decided to finally sit down for the good of the team. And so on May 2nd in Detroit, Garrick took a lineup card to home plate that did not bear his name. After 2,130 straight games, the incredible streak was over. His replacement that day, Babe Dahlgren, hit a double and a home run. Garrick never once left the bench. The 7th inning, I went to him. I said, Lou, you got to get in the ballgame. Keep that streak going. He just said, no, you're doing fine, babe. He said, go on, get out there. And that was it, and the streak was broken. On July 4th, 1939, the Yankees held Lou Garrick Appreciation Day, featuring a reunion of the great Murderers' Row team of 1927. Lou's number four became the first number retired in baseball history. And Garrick, his disease by then diagnosed as amyotropic lateral sclerosis and made known to the public, spoke the most famous words the game has ever known. Actually, it was a dead man talking. He knew he was going to die. And to go and face all of these people in that stadium, stumble out there, took a lot of guts. But he had a lot of guts. For the past two weeks, you've been reading about a bad brag. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Never played again, but continued to dress for every game, silently watching his teammates win their fourth straight world championship. Less than two years later, at the age of just 37, Lou Garrick died. In 1938, Lou Garrick's final full season as a player, Joe DiMaggio was not in uniform for opening day. He was home in San Francisco because of a salary dispute. GM Ed Barrow had offered his star $25,000. DiMaggio was holding out for $40,000. If and when I get my raise this year, I'll have a lot more spaghetti. Three days after the season opener, DiMaggio accepted all of Barrow's terms. To add insult to injury, Barrow also fined his superstar nearly $2,000 for missing spring training. I'll be out there doing my best. I know I missed the first few days, but it won't take me long, but I'll be out there having my best year. Barrow left little doubt who was running the ball club, but on the field, no one could deny that the New York Yankees were Joe DiMaggio's team. When you got to the Yankee Stadium and you saw Joe in that Yankee uniform, you said, well, by gosh, I'm here. You know, you know you arrived. Yes, the Yankees took their lead from Jolton Joe, but DiMaggio paid credit to still another Joe for establishing the Yankee way throughout his team's early championship years. Going on to win a pennant or two, it was Joe McArthur who always held a meeting and said, when you walk out of that field, he says, you walk out, he says, with your chin high. He says, you're world champions, he says, and make the other team and the other people, all the people in the stands know that you're champions. And that's the way we carried on. In 1941, the Yankee Clipper achieved one of the greatest individual feats in baseball history when he incredibly hit safely in 56 consecutive games. During the streak, he rallied the Yankees to another championship. When DiMaggio started hitting, he picked the whole ball club up. You know, we did a lot of winning when he was hitting, but we did it with the whole team picking up. They moved from second division to well in first place by the time the streak was over. Not only that, but inside their streak, they set the Major League Baseball record for consecutive games in which at least one member of the team hit a home run, 25 ball games. If you weren't intense, you couldn't play for the Yankees. I mean, it was an intense team. It was no joke when you went out there. You went out there and you played full blast, and Joe, of course, he set the example. Pressure didn't mean anything to him. Pressure meant he's going to dig in more. That's the type of guy he was. He's the toughest son of a gun you ever saw. He had bad legs. He had severe injuries. He'd play through those injuries to the extent that he could until he was almost incapacitated. During his 13 years in pinstripes, DiMaggio would lead the Yankees to 10 pennants and nine world championships. But 1947 was the first full season DiMaggio had ever played without manager Joe McCarthy, with Bucky Harris now in charge. DiMaggio still went about his business according to McCarthy's strict Yankee way, stoically and without fanfare. But in the 47 World Series, with a chance to put the Yankees on top and clinch the title, DiMaggio let his feelings show. You always remember the one where he hit a ball against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Yankee Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium, and Gianfredo jumped up and lost his hat, and you see DiMaggio kicking at the dirt. The Brooklyn Dodgers got the better of the Yankees in one of the most famous moments in series history. But in Game 7, one of the first pure relief pitches in the game, Joe Page, threw five innings of one-hit shutout relief, and the Yankees became world champions once again. And the New York Yankees closed the victory book with a 5-2 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Brooklyn outfit was tough. They played right down the wire. I never figured it would go seven ballgames. I actually thought it would go at least five. I'm tickled to death, however, that it did go to seven. And we did win it. Coming up next on the history of the New York Yankees. From the hearts of every American, God bless you great men and women over there, and God bless the ones that are going over. Welcome back to the history of the New York Yankees. 1947 was another stellar season in the illustrious career of Joe DiMaggio. He won his sixth world title and third MVP award, narrowly edging out Red Sox superstar Ted Williams. The choice was a surprise to many, for Williams won the league's triple crown award. I always felt that, to some degree, it wasn't fair. But I have to say this, that I only lost out by one point, and I lost out to the greatest player I ever saw, Joe DiMaggio. Of course, this wasn't the first instance of MVP controversy between these two friendly rivals. Joe first edged out Ted for the honor in 1941, the year DiMaggio hit in 56 straight, and Ted hit 406 for the year. Their parallel paths continued when both served their country in World War II. Joe enlisted in the Army in 1943. He was not part of the Yankee Championship Club that season and missed the next two years, too. Ted served in the Air Force, where he also sacrificed three of his prime big league years, two valiant efforts that drew praise from another American hero. I want to say from the bottom of my heart and from the hearts of every American, I want to say God bless you great men and women over there, and God bless the ones that are going over. And if we fight as half as hard as you're fighting over there, that American flag will fly forever. The Warriors' conclusion marked a victory for the nation and a homecoming for two of the game's premier players. But the transition back to baseball was not smooth for Joe, who struggled through the 46th season. I just fell flat on my face. I don't know what happened. I just lost everything. In Boston, Ted also got off to a rough start but rebounded to win the 1946 MVP award. That offseason, the names DiMaggio and Williams came up once again in a clandestine meeting between the Yankees' team president, Larry McPhail, and Boston head man Tom Yawkey. The story that I have heard is that Larry McPhail and Tom Yawkey, who were both the people in position to make trades, went out for some drinks one night. They were drinking late into the night, and I'd like to know what they were drinking. Scotch, whatever the drink of choice was. And during the course of the evening and talking baseball and having a few more, while they were feeling that good, they decided they were going to make a change, DiMaggio for Williams. You know, Ted Williams, left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium. DiMaggio, right-handed hitter against the Green Monster. Hey, it made all the sense in the world. I don't care what time of night it was. And by the end of the evening, I think they had agreed that it was time to test that theory and make that deal. It was done on cocktail napkins, and wouldn't you love to have those napkins to auction off right now? It would be fabulous. You'd probably do well. The Yankee clipper in a Red Sox uniform? The Splendid Splitter a Bronx bomber? Blasphemy, a trade that could only be brewed up in a bar. Fortunately, no one signed a paper that night or shook a hand. And then when they woke up in the morning, or probably the more appropriate time is when they sobered up in the morning, one called the other and said, we can't do this. Boston fans would have been in revolt, and the Yankees fans would have been the same. It's a good thing they kept it the way it was. Ted and Joe stayed put, but continued to cross paths. In 1948, DiMaggio amazed those who thought injuries had gotten the best of him and led the league in home runs and RBIs. With the two teams in a heated pennant race, New York traveled to Boston for the season's final weekend. There, Ted led the Red Sox to two straight wins and kept the Yankees out of postseason play, even though it was Cleveland who'd win the pennant. New York's manager, Bucky Harris, was promptly fired, and the Yankees replaced him with a man many felt a dubious choice, Casey Stengel. When he came to the Yankees, most of the experts thought that the Yankees were making a sad mistake in hiring this man to be the manager. They wondered aloud why the Yankees, this wonderful Yankee team, was bringing a clown to manage. Some predicted the demise of the franchise. No one expected that Casey was about to lead the Yankees into the greatest era of dominance the game has ever known. Still to come... Stengel came in to manage a club that was the team in professional sports, and he was considered a sort of a character. We now return to the history of the New York Yankees. Well, I'll tell you, I got a little concerned yesterday in the first three innings when I saw that my three players that I'd gotten rid of, I said, well, if I lose nine, what am I going to do? And when I had a couple of my players that I thought so great of that didn't do so good up to the sixth inning, I was more confused. In 1949, most folks were as confused by the Yankees hiring of Casey Stengel as they were by what he was saying. It was shock, I think, surprise, bewilderment. Stengel was so much not in the Yankee pattern, and Stengel had the reputation, an unfair reputation, of being nothing but a clown. Despite the public perception, the Yankees knew that Stengel had shown a knack for winning throughout his playing career, and they suspected his limited success as manager of the talent challenge Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves was misleading. Stengel came in to manage a club that was the team in professional sports, and he was considered a sort of a character, and he wasn't. Stengel was one of the most brilliant baseball minds I've ever seen. Despite a rash of injuries, Casey's Yankees stayed close to Joe McCarthy's Red Sox all year and beat them on the season's final day to win the pennant. That old, reliable Tommy Hendrick lived up to his nickname in Game 1 of the World Series against the Dodgers in the ninth inning of a scoreless game. Hendrick won. Joe Page and Allie Reynolds got both a win and a save as the Yankees took the series in five. Casey had defied the critics, and the Yankees were champions once again. Manager Casey Stengel is deliriously happy with his first Major League title. Winning the World Series over the Dodgers, he now was legitimate. After all those years, he'd made it. The old professor finally had a respect. He also had an abundance of the game's greatest weapon. The 49 team and the team that went into the 50s under Stengel, they're carried by superior pitching. Casey's staff included the Springfield rifle Vic Rasche, who won 21 games in three consecutive seasons. After teams faced Rasche's speed, Stengel would start junk baller Eddie Lopat. Then Allie Reynolds, a man of Native American heritage known as Super Chief thanks to his success in big games and the only Yankees pitcher ever to throw two no-hitters in one season. It was quite a staff. Casey used it to change the way the game was played. Rasche, Reynolds, Lopat merging in with Whitey Ford and a manager who's inventive in his use of the bullpen. Stengel was really ahead of the curve going right against left, left against right. When they won in 49, the key was Joe Page. In that season, Joe Page has 27 saves, and he was in 60 ballgames. So you had a team that had very good pitching. But pitching wasn't the team's only strength. They had very good fielding. They had depth. Stengel started using the platoon. He had Woodling and Bauer and McDougan and all kinds of other players interchangeable. I want to kill him half the time. If he didn't play me, I want to choke him, you know, like all the players did. But he really, when I look back and reflect, in retrospect, this guy was something special. And about to embark on a special era in Yankees history. Welcome back to the history of the New York Yankees. On the heels of his first world championship, Casey Stengel showed no signs of stopping at one. And in fact, the Yankees were in prime position to win their second straight title in 1950, following an MVP year by their beloved shortstop, the Scooter, Phil Rizzuto. He hit over .300 that year and played the superb defense. He did everything. When you have a shortstop that can field and hit the way he did that year on a championship team, that's usually the key. Phil was unquestionably the greatest shortstop in Yankee history until Mr. Jeter has come along. But to have been the greatest in the franchise's history between 1903 and 1996 is pretty good. Casey and the Scooter did win their second straight World Series, and confidence was now playing a key role in the team's success. If you didn't feel unbeatable or think you were going to win, there's no sense being in the big leagues. My first two years, I made more money in the World Series than I made in my whole salary for the whole year. When you won World Series, you wouldn't have to go to work that winter. You'd be able to relax. The key thing was to win, because winning is where you made your money. And we were supporting families. That's how we made our money. We had to get into the World Series to make money. And if we didn't get into the World Series, we were stuck with our salary. The Yankees returned to the World Series for the third straight time in 1951 and defeated the Giants in six games. This would be the last title for Joe DiMaggio, and the first for a 19-year-old former shortstop now coming into his own as a big league outfielder. I know that when I first joined there, I was, like I said, 18 or 19 years old. And I looked up to DiMaggio and Allie Rannells and Vic Grasci. The guys that I joined, the team that I joined, were like heroes to me. Mano's legendary heroics were still to come. But the gritty and aggressive style of Mickey's close friend Billy the Kid Martin would make an immediate impact. Also known as Casey's boy, having played for Stengel in the minors, the scrappy Martin consistently came through, especially in the next two Octobers. Martin didn't have the talent that a lot of players had. But of all the players Stengel had, Martin was probably the shrewdest, smartest, most aggressive, most irritating. Billy Martin was among the most competitive players that ever played the game in temperament and attitude comparable to Ty Cobb. He was someone who sort of transcended his own ability. He played great baseball in the World Series. Like in the 1952 Fall Classic, when he helped secure the title with a typical take-charge hustling play. Is it any wonder why Casey had such an affinity for the Kid? He managed to get the big player, the big hit, in clutch situations with anybody that ever lived. Billy did it again in 1953, when his record 12th World Series hit in just a six-game series. A record Martin now shares with three other players, helped clinch still another championship for the Yankees. Behind Billy, the Yankees had done something never before accomplished in the history of Major League Baseball. Five straight World Championships. Incredibly, they showed no indication they would stop at five. We now return to the history of the New York Yankees. Hey, Sarge, I don't know. What's wrong now? Well, my pappy ain't gonna like the one bit of me playing up north with the Yankees. Hank, I told you a hundred times they're all Southern boys. Well, I ain't calling you no liar, Sarge, but I sure didn't hear no Southern accents out at that ballpark today. All right, Hank, don't take my word for it. The owner himself will be up here. You can ask him. That must be him now. Come in! Well, bless my soul, Hank. This here's Colonel Dan Tomkin. This is Hank Lumpkin. Well, I'm glad to meet you, Colonel. Showin' up. Here we have Colonel Philip Calhoun Rizzuto. How do. Showin' up. And coming this way is Colonel Gilbert Beauregard MacDougall. Hi, Al. Showin' up. Well, bless my soul, here's Colonel Whitey Stonewall Ford. How do. Showin' up. And last but not least from the Deep South, this here's Colonel Yogi Ashley Burra. All right, please make your appointment. Showin' up. Colonel Yogi is gonna be your catcher. Ain't that right, Yogi? Showin' up. How are ya? Good. Yeah, he reminds me of Doberman. Well, gentlemen, I guess you all came here to pick up the contract. Showin' up. Well, Hank, these gentlemen are in a hurry to get back to their plantation. You sign the contract, they'll give us the check. Ain't that right, gentlemen? Showin' up. Sure, I'll be glad to sign this. That's a good boy. Sign right there. Sign, sign, that's it. Here's the contract, Colonel. And this is the check. Well, gentlemen, we'll talk this over again sometime over some mint julep. Thank you all for comin' down. I'll be over to your plantation. We'll have some corn for ya, huh? Who's Doberman? I don't know. I saw him, he said goodbye. I'll leave a picture, you all. That's a good one. Paisley Stengel's Yankees had become as big a hit off the field as they were on it, thanks to a charismatic young nucleus and an unprecedented stream of success. Yes, sir, the Bombers did it again. Paisley Stengel and his American team. Although the Yankees were considered a young team, they still maintained a veteran presence. And once Joe DiMaggio left the team, the torch of leadership was passed to catcher Yogi Berra, one of the game's most respected players by both his teammates and his peers. Yogi's greatest asset was deliver under pressure. He was a great clutch hitter. When the hit is needed to win that game, he is more likely to produce it than most other people. The greatest 7 to 8 to 9 hitting hitter in baseball is Yogi Berra. Berra became the first American League catcher to be named MVP three times, capturing the honor in 51, 54, and 55. But beyond the awards and heroics, there's one thing Yogi remembered best about his team. We had more fun than anything. Whitey, myself, Nicky, Billy, we had a lot of fun. If you wanted to go to a movie, you sat in the lobby, and the first guy that came down and wanted to go to the movie, you went to the movie with him. It wasn't a question, I don't want to go with that guy or this guy. Anybody was okay because they were all good guys. The men who wore the pinstripes during this stretch helped make the Yankees clubhouse a special place. The camaraderie even seemed to revitalize players thought to be past their prime. Johnny Mize or Johnny Sane, all these old guys used to come to the Yankees at the end of their careers when they weren't really doing that well, and when they come to the Yankees for some reason or other, it just seemed like they did better again. It was a lot of pride. We're in a Yankee uniform. We were not jealous of one another. We played together as a team. I mean, it seemed like everybody we got in trades knew what we had to do. We had to win a pennant. We all benefited by it. The ball players, when they joined us at the end of the season, like Enos Lauder, we gave them a full share, which the next year in spring training, they busted their fanny to stay and be a Yankee. That's why the Yankees were successful. Of course, winning helps breed confidence, but the Yankees won so often in the 50s, even their fans felt invincible. Hunter Casey Stengel, that was when I was a boy. We woke up in the morning knowing that the New York Yankees were going to win the pennant. 1949 through 56 was the golden era of baseball in New York. At least one New York team made it to the World Series every year, and there was a Subway Series in six out of eight years. Playing in that many World Series I played in, it was great. Look how many guys have played and never played in the World Series. That's what you live for. It was exciting every year. Barrett was fast becoming the record holder of World Series games played and championship titles. Meanwhile, one of his teammates was becoming the next great Yankees legend, something his manager had predicted when he first saw him play. Here's what Casey said. This kid is phenomenal. He's another Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, all rolled into one. And it just didn't happen. Then in 52, 53, 54, 55, I did pretty good. I had some really good years, but never anything like what Casey had bragged about. And the fans in New York was starting to say, where's this guy that's supposed to be the next Babe Ruth? Up until that time, the people still booed me. And then in 1956, I did lead the league in about five or six different offensive departments, and I really became Mickey Mantle, I guess. Hitting .353 with 52 homers and 130 RBIs was something only a great player could do. In 1996, guys who just came up from AAA could do it. In 1956, you had to be Mickey Mantle to do it. It meant something. He was so good, you can't imagine. Also in 1956, shortstop Gil McDougal replaced future Hall of Famer Phil Rossitto and became an All-Star himself. McDougal was a classic example of the dependable, versatile role player that Stengel used to stock the team to support his superstars, a formula that year after year ensured his team's success. Stengel loved to work with young ballplayers and teach them. In 1951, he established what he called the Instructural School. And this was a pre-spring training camp where they brought in the rookies, the minor leaguers, the people that really weren't going to make the club that year, so they could look at them and see them and explain things to them. With savvy scouts like Paul Critchell feeding him the talent, Stengel constantly tinkered with his roster. And though the lineup would often change, the result remained the same. Success. The Yankees were a franchise seemingly run to perfection. And in the 56 series against Brooklyn, perfection was achieved. Don Larson started Game 2, but didn't make it past the second inning of a 13-8 loss. But in Game 5, Stengel gave Larson another chance, and Yogi Berra had a prime view. That's the best game he ever pitched. He had control. Every pitch I called for, he got it over. He was behind on one hitter. That was in the first inning of the PB race. He got three balls on him, and that was it. In Game 7, starting pitcher Johnny Cooks wasn't perfect, but did pitch a three-hit shutout of his own, and was backed by two two-run home runs by Yogi Berra. The Yankees, the greatest team in New York's Golden Era, had captured what would be the final subway series of the century. Just six years beyond the century's halfway mark, a franchise founded as a ragtag group of rejects, and with nothing but a rickety old stadium to call home, had established a standard of success unmatched in all of sport, one with an extraordinary legacy of heroes, legends, and championships. From their days as the Highlanders, until their first season in Yankee Stadium, the Yankees were really no different than any other team, hoping to someday win a championship. But then it all came together, and by the end of 1956, they had captured their 17th World Series title in just 33 years, better than one every other year. Incredible, and even more amazing, there was much more still to come. For the Yes Network, I'm John Sterling, and thanks for watching Yankeeography.