New York Yankees

(Also referred to as "Americans" 1903-1909 and "Yankees" 1910-1912)

[1] - In 1981, a players' strike in the middle of the season forced the season to be split into two halves. The Yankees had the third best record in the division when considering the entire season, two games behind Milwaukee and Baltimore.
[2] - In 1994, a players' strike wiped out the last eight weeks of the season and all post-season. For defunct football teams of the same name, see New York Yankees (football).

The New York Yankees are a Major League Baseball team, based in the borough of The Bronx, in New York City. The Yankees are one of two major league baseball franchises in the City of New York, along with the New York Mets. From 1923 to the present, the Yankees have played at Yankee Stadium. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Yankees have been Major League Baseball's most storied franchise, winning 26 World Series titles in 39 appearances.

Franchise history

Origins

At the end of the 1900 season the American League (AL) re-organized and, with its president Ban Johnson as the driving force, decided to assert itself as a new major league. The intention of Johnson and the American League had been to place a team in New York City, but their efforts had been stymied by the political connections that owners of the National League New York Giants had with Tammany Hall.

When the team began play as the Baltimore Orioles in 1901, it was managed by John McGraw. A week later the owner of the Giants also gained controlling interest of the Orioles and raided the team for players, after which the league took control of the team, still intending to move the franchise to New York when and if possible.

The Highlanders

The franchise's first park in New York was located at 165th Street and Broadway in Manhattan, near the highest point on the island.

As the Highlanders, the team enjoyed success only twice, finishing in second place in 1904 and 1910; First, the presence of the Highlanders in the race had led the Giants to announce the team would not participate in the World Series against a "minor league" team. For fans of the team formally named the Red Sox in 1908, the 1904 season ending game would prove to be the last time for a century that Boston would defeat the Yankees in a pennant-deciding game.

From 1913 to 1922 the team would play in the Polo Grounds, a park owned by its National League rivals, the Giants. With the change of parks in 1913, the "Highlanders" reference became obsolete, and the team nickname became exclusively "Yankees". Before very long, "New York Yankees" had become the official name of the club. But now with an owner possessing deep pockets, and a willingness to dig into them to produce a winning team, the Yankees were on their way to acquiring more prestige than Ruppert could have envisioned. The Yankees detente with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox circa 1920 (all three collectively known as the "Insurrectos") paid off well. Many of the newly acquired players who would later contribute to the team's success came from the Boston Red Sox, whose owner, theater impresario Harry Frazee, had bought his team on credit and needed money to pay off his loans and purchase Fenway Park from the Fenway Park Trust. From 1919 to 1922, the Yankees acquired pitchers Waite Hoyt, Carl Mays and Herb Pennock, catcher Wally Schang, shortstop Everett Scott and third baseman Joe Dugan, all from the Red Sox. Frazee traded Ruth to the Yankees in January of 1920, citing Ruth's demand for a raise after being paid the highest salary in baseball, and despite owning the single season home run record at the time of the trade (hitting 29 home runs in 1919). Frazee also wished to aid the Yankees, as giving the Yankees a box office draw would strengthen a legal ally, and reduce the pressure he faced. That would continue during his Yankees years, but the New York ownership was more tolerant, provided he brought fans and championships to the ballpark.

The perceived outcome of the trade in favor of the Yankees would haunt the Boston club for the next 84 years. The Red Sox ended up not winning a World Series from 1919 until 2004 (see Curse of the Bambino), often finding themselves out of the World Series hunt as a result of the success of the Yankees. Barrow would act as general manager or president of the Yankees for the next 25 years and may deserve the bulk of the credit for the team's success during that period.

The home run hitting exploits of Ruth proved popular with the public, to the extent that the Yankees were soon outdrawing their landlords, the Giants. In 1921, when the Yankees made their first World Series appearance, against the Giants, the Yankees were told to move out of the Polo Grounds after the 1922 season. In 1922 the Yankees returned to the Series again, and were again defeated by the Giants. Because of his success and all the fans that he brought to see the Yankees, the Stadium became known as "The House that Ruth Built".

In 1923 the Yanks faced the Giants for a third straight year in the Series, finally turning the tables on the Giants.

The 1927 team was so potent that it became known as "Murderers' Row" and is sometimes considered to have been the best team in the history of baseball (though similar claims have been made for other Yankee squads, notably those of 1939, 1961 and 1998). The Yankees won an AL record 110 games against only 44 losses and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series.

The Yankees would repeat as American League champions in 1928, fighting off the resurgent Philadelphia Athletics, and would go on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series. After three also-ran seasons went to the Philadelphia Athletics, the Yankees returned to the American League top perch under new manager Joe McCarthy in 1932 and swept the Chicago Cubs in the Series, running the team's streak of consecutive World Series game wins to 12, a mark which would stand until the Yankees bested it in the 2000 World Series.

The DiMaggio era

The Yankees' run during the 1930s could also be called the "McCarthy era", as manager Joe McCarthy (no relation to the Senator of the same name) would guide the Yankees to new heights.

Behind the Yankee bats of DiMaggio, Gehrig and Frank Crosetti, and a pitching staff led by Red Ruffing and Lefty Gomez and anchored by catcher Bill Dickey, the team reeled off an unprecedented four consecutive World Series wins during 1936 to 1939.

The strongest competition for the Yankees during that stretch were the Detroit Tigers, who won two pennants before that Yankees four-year stretch, and one after. During Game Two of the 1936 Series, they pounded the Giants 18-4, still the World Series record (through 2006) for most runs by a team in one game.

After an off season came the Summer of 1941, a much-celebrated year, often described by sportswriters as the last great year of the "Golden Era", before World War II and other realities intervened.

The last game of the streak came on July 16 at Cleveland's League Park.

Modern baseball historians regard it as unlikely that anyone will ever hit .400 again, barring a change to the way the game is played, and that it will be extremely difficult to approach DiMaggio's 56-game streak, which is far beyond second place (44) and a modern day phenomenon.

The Yankees made short work of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1941 Series.

The team then went into a bit of a slump, and manager McCarthy was let go early in the 1946 season. After a couple of interim managers had come and gone, Bucky Harris was brought in and the Yankees righted the ship again, winning the 1947 pennant and facing a much-tougher Dodgers team than their 1941 counterparts, in a Series that took the Yankees seven games to win, and was a harbinger of things to come for much of the next decade.

Despite finishing only three games behind the pennant-winning Cleveland Indians in 1948, Harris was released, and the Yankees brought in Casey Stengel as the team's manager. The 1949 Yankees team was seen as "underdogs" that came from behind to catch and surpass the powerful Red Sox on the last two days of the season, in a faceoff that fueled the beginning of the modern intense rivalry between these teams. The post-season proved to be a bit easier, as the Yankees knocked off their cross-town Flatbush rivals - the Dodgers - four games to one.

The 1950s

Bettering the McCarthy-era clubs, Stengel's squad won the World Series in his first five years as manager, 1949 through 1953. The Yankees won over 100 games in 1954, but finished second to the Indians who won an AL record 111 games; that record stood for 44 years until the 1998 Yankees surpassed it. The five consecutive championships won by the Yankees during this period remains the major league record.

In 1955, the Dodgers finally beat the Yankees in the World Series, after five Series losses to the Yankees in '41, '47, '49, '52 and '53. The Yankees went on to win yet another World Series that season, and Larsen earned World Series MVP honors.

Yankee players also dominated the American League MVP award, with a Yankee claiming ownership six times in the decade (1950 Rizzuto, 1951 Berra, 1954 Berra, 1955 Berra, 1956 Mantle, 1957 Mantle).

The Yankees lost the 1957 World Series to the Milwaukee Braves. Following the Series, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers left New York City for California, leaving the Yankees as New York's only team. In the 1958 World Series, the Yankees got their revenge against the Braves, and became the second team to win the Series after being down three games to one.

For the decade, the Yankees won six World Series championships ('50, 51, '52, '53, '56, '58) and eight American League pennants (those six plus '55 and '57). Led by Mantle, Ford, Berra, Elston Howard, and the newly acquired Roger Maris, the Yankees burst into the new decade seeking to replicate the remarkable success of the 1950s.

The 1960s

During the 1960-61 offseason, a seemingly innocuous development may have marked the beginning of the end for the future of this Yankees dynasty.

During Johnson's ownership, the Athletics traded many young players to the Yankees for cash and aging veterans, thus significantly improving the Yankees' future prospects. Roger Maris had been acquired by the Yankees in one such trade, going to New York in a seven-player deal in December 1959. Many fans, and even other teams, frequently accused the Athletics of being operated effectively as a farm team for the Yankees. Once Finley purchased the Athletics, he immediately terminated the team's "special relationship" with the Yankees, thus cutting off their easy supply of promising players.

In 1960, Roger Maris - the former Athletic, now Yankee - led the league in slugging percentage, RBIs, and extra base hits; Maris still holds the American League record.)

The Yankees won the pennant with a 109-53 record and went on to defeat the Cincinnati Reds in five games to win the 1961 World Series. The 109 regular season wins posted by the '61 club remains the third highest single-season total in franchise history, behind only the 1998 team's 114 regular season wins and 1927 team's 110 wins. The 1961 Yankees also clubbed a then-major league record for most home runs by a team with 240, a total not surpassed until the 1996 Baltimore Orioles hit 257 with the aid of the designated hitter.

Because of the excellence of Maris, Mantle, and World Series-MVP Ford, a fine pitching staff, stellar team defense, the team's strong depth and power, and its overall dominance, the 1961 Yankees are universally considered to be one of the greatest teams in the history of baseball, compared often to their pinstriped-brethren, the 1927 Yankees, the 1939 Yankees, and the 1998 Yankees.

In 1962, the Yankees once again had an intra-city rival, as the New York Mets came into existence. That year the Mets would lose a record 120 games while the Yankees would win the 1962 World Series, their tenth in the past sixteen years, defeating the San Francisco Giants in seven games.

The Yankees would again reach the Fall Classic in 1963, but they were swept in four games by the Los Angeles Dodgers. This was the first time the Yankees were swept in a World Series.

Feeling burnt out after the season, Houk left the manager's chair to become the team's general manager and Berra, who himself had just retired from playing, was named the new manager of the Yankees.

The aging Yankees returned for a fifth straight World Series in 1964 -- their fourteenth World Series appearance in the past sixteen years -- to face the St. Louis Cardinals in a Series immortalized by David Halberstam's book, October 1964. Despite a valiant performance by Mantle, including a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth of Game Three off of Cardinals' reliever Barney Schultz, the Yankees fell to the Cardinals in seven games, and Berra was fired. It was to be the last World Series appearance by the Yankees for 12 years.

After the 1964 season, CBS purchased 80 percent of the Yankees from Topping and Webb for $11.2 million. Topping and Webb had owned the Yankees for 20 years, missing the World Series only five times, and going 10-5 in the World Series.

By contrast, the CBS-owned teams never went to the World Series, and in the first year of the new ownership - 1965 - the Yankees finished in the second division for the first time in 40 years; the introduction of the major league amateur draft in 1965 also meant that the Yankees could no longer sign any player they wanted.

In 1966 the team finished last in the AL for the first time since 1912. Johnny Keane, the winning Cards manager in 1964 who joined the Yankees to manage in '65, was fired during the season, and GM Ralph Houk did double duty as field manager until the end of the year.

The Yankees were next-to-last the following year, 1967, during which former farm director Lee MacPhail returned to the organization as GM, replacing Houk. By the mid-1960s, the Yankees had little to offer in the way of trades, and Charles Finley had taken the Athletics in a new direction. Some have suggested the Yankees paid the price for bringing black players into the organization later than other teams, though this theory is controversial.

Also during the 1960s, the Yankees lost two of its signature broadcasters. Two years later, Red Barber -- the former Dodgers voice who joined the Yankees on-air team in 1954 -- was also let go.

Steinbrenner was in charge during the renovation of Yankee Stadium (planned out by Burke and New York City Mayor John Lindsay), which was performed in a two-year period (1974-75) during which the Yankees played their home games at the Mets' home, Shea Stadium in Flushing, Queens.

Midway through the 1975 season, Steinbrenner hired former second baseman Billy Martin as manager, and over the next 13 years fired and rehired him several times. With Martin at the helm, the Yankees reached the 1976 World Series, but were swept by the Cincinnati Reds.

Steinbrenner continued his signing of high-priced free agents, by signing star outfielder Reggie Jackson, who had been traded from the Athletics to the Baltimore Orioles at the beginning of the season, for a then record $600,000 per year. Nevertheless, in Game Six of the 1977 World Series, Jackson proved his worth by hitting three home runs on three consecutive pitches against three different Dodger pitchers to wrap up the Series for the Yankees, earning himself the nickname "Mr. October".

Throughout the late '70s, the race for the pennant often came to a close competition between the Yankees and the Red Sox, and for fans of both clubs, every game between the two became important and added to a rivalry that was often bitter and ruthless, with brawls frequently erupting between both players and fans from the two clubs. On July 14, 1978, the Yankees were 14.5 games behind the Red Sox. The Yankees then went on a tear, and by the time they met up with the Sox for a pivotal four-game series at Fenway in early September, the Yankees were only four games out. In what would become known as the "Boston Massacre", the Yankees swept the Red Sox, winning the games 15-3, 13-2, 7-0 and 7-4.

On the last day of the season, the two clubs finished the regular season in a tie for first place in the AL East. In the seventh inning, the Yankees drove a stake through the hearts of their rivals' fans when Bucky Dent drove a three-run home run over the "Green Monster", putting the Yankees up 3-2. Reggie Jackson's solo home run in the following inning would seal the eventual 5-4 win that gave the Yankees their 100th win of the season and their third straight AL East title; (The outcome of this game, for Red Sox fans, was one of several emotional moments in their team's history that had their fans wondering if the Red Sox were under some kind of Yankee curse.)

After beating the Kansas City Royals for the third consecutive year in the ALCS, the Yankees faced the Dodgers again in the 1978 World Series.

The 1970s would end on a tragic note: on August 2, 1979, Yankees catcher and team captain Thurman Munson was killed in a plane crash.

Postseason drought: 1982 - 1994

Following the team's loss in the 1981 World Series, the Yankees would go into their longest absence from the playoffs since 1921.

During the 1980s the Yankees, led by their All-Star first baseman Don Mattingly, had the most total wins of any major league team, but failed to win a World Series (the first such decade since the 1910s). The Yankees consistently had powerful offensive teams - besides Mattingly, its rosters included, at one time or another, Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, Mike Pagliarulo, Steve Sax and Jesse Barfield -- but their starting pitching rarely matched the team's performance at the plate.

The Yankees came close to winning the AL East in 1985 and 1986, finishing second behind the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox, respectively, but fell to fourth place in 1987 and fifth in 1988, despite having mid-season leads in the AL East standings in both seasons. 1988 would be the last season the Yankees had a winning record until 1993. That year, the Yankees had the worst record in Major League Baseball, and their first last-place finish since 1966. Ironically, the Yankees (and Hawkins) were again no-hit for six innings in a rain-shortened game with the White Sox eleven days later.

Joe Torre and a new dynasty: 1996-2000

The poor showing in the '80s and early '90s would start to change when management was able to implement a coherent acquisition/development program without interference from owner Steinbrenner, who had been suspended from day-to-day team operations by Commissioner Fay Vincent for hiring Howard Spira to uncover damaging information on former Yankee outfielder Dave Winfield. The first significant sign of success came in 1994, when the Yankees had the best record in the AL before the season was cut short by the players' strike. A year later, the team reached the playoffs as the wild card and were eliminated only after a memorable 1995 American League Division Series series against the Seattle Mariners where the Yankees won the first two games at home and dropped the next three in Seattle.

Shaking it up once again, Steinbrenner replaced Showalter and his staff with manager Joe Torre, who brought with him Don Zimmer as bench coach and former Yankees pitching star Mel Stottlemyre as pitching coach. Going 8-0 on the road in the three playoff series that year, the Yankees won the 1996 World Series, defeating the Atlanta Braves in six games (after losing the first two games at home by a combined score of 16-1), and ending their 18 year championship drought. Homegrown Derek Jeter was named Rookie of the Year, an auspicious start to his association with the Yankees.

After their first World Series win in 18 years, the Yankees signed lefties David Wells and Mike Stanton to improve the pitching staff.

General Manager Bob Watson was dismissed when the Yankees lost in the 1997 ALDS to the Cleveland Indians.

The 1998 Yankees are widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest teams in baseball history, having compiled a then-AL record of 114 regular season wins against just 48 losses en route to a Series sweep of the San Diego Padres. Their 125 wins is a major league record, though their AL regular season record was surpassed by the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who went 116-46 before losing to the Yankees in the ALCS.

After the 1998 season, fan favorite David Wells was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays for Roger Clemens, who had just completed two consecutive Cy Young Award and pitching triple crown seasons. After winning the Eastern division and defeating the Texas Rangers for the third time in the 1999 American League Division Series, the Yankees met up with the their longtime rivals, the Boston Red Sox, in the next playoff round. However, it was the only game the Red Sox won, as the Yankees won the ALCS four games to one, and then went on to sweep the Atlanta Braves in the 1999 World Series, with Clemens winning the clincher in Game Four in the Bronx. This gave the 1998-1999 Yankees a 22-3 record (including four series sweeps) in six consecutive postseason series.

In 2000, the Yankees met up with the crosstown New York Mets for the first Subway Series since the 1956 World Series. By winning the first two games of the Series, the Yankees won a total of fourteen straight World Series games from 1996 to 2000, breaking their own record of twelve (in 1927, 1928 and 1932). The Yankees are the most recent major league team to repeat as World Series champions and after the 2000 season they joined the Yankee teams of 1936-1939 and 1949-1953, as well as the 1972-1974 Oakland Athletics as the only teams to win at least three consecutive World Series.

The 21st century

In the emotional times of October 2001, following the September 11 attack on New York's World Trade Center, the Yankees defeated the Oakland As three games to two in the ALDS, and then the Seattle Mariners, who had won 116 games, four games to one in the ALCS. By winning the pennant for a fourth straight year, the 1998-2001 Yankees joined the 1921-1924 New York Giants, and the Yankee teams of '36-'39, '49-'53, '55-'58 and '60-'64 as the only dynasties to reach at least four straight World Series. The Yankees had now won eleven consecutive postseason series in consecutive years.

However, the World Series starters for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling (later named the World Series co-MVPs), kept them in check, starting Games One, Two, Four, Six and Seven; The Yankees finished the 2002 season with an AL best record of 103-58, winning the division by 10.5 games over the Red Sox. In the ALDS, the Yankees lost to the Anaheim Angels in four games.

In 2003, the Yankees once again had the best league record (101-61), defeated the Minnesota Twins in the ALDS, and then defeated their longtime rival Red Sox in a tough seven-game ALCS, which featured a bench-clearing brawl in Game Three and a Series-ending walk-off home run by Aaron Boone in the bottom of the 11th inning of the final game. The Yankees were then defeated by the Florida Marlins - a team with a payroll a quarter of the size of the Yankees' - in the World Series, four games to two.

After the 2003 season, the Yankees hoped to add more power to a lineup which was shut down in the previous year's Series. In the ALDS, the Yankees once again met and defeated the Minnesota Twins three games to one.

In the 2004 American League Championship Series against the Red Sox, the Yankees became the first team in professional baseball history, and only the third team in North American pro sports history (it happened in the NHL twice), to lose a best-of-seven series after taking a 3-0 series lead. The Yankees thought they needed to improve their pitching, which faltered in the devastating collapse to the Red Sox, and they signed free-agent pitchers Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright and acquired dominant lefty Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The 2005 season started slowly for the Yankees, and they spent most of the season chasing the Boston Red Sox for the division title. The Yankees, however, won the division, clinching it in the second-to-last game of the season against the Red Sox.

In the 2005 American League Division Series, the Angels defeated the Yankees in five games in the first round of the postseason, marking the second time in four years that the Angels beat the Yankees in the first round.

In the 2005-2006 offseason, general manager Brian Cashman was given more control of the direction of the Yankees, and in December 2005, the Yankees signed center fielder Johnny Damon from the archrival Red Sox.

Despite losing starting outfielders Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield to injuries early in the season, the Yankees finished the first half of the 2006 season with 50 wins and 36 losses, three games behind the Red Sox. But they caught up to the Red Sox, and on August 18, the Yankees entered Fenway Park with a 1.5 game lead for a five game series. The series opened up with a doubleheader that the Yankees swept 12-4 and 14-11, echoing the Boston Massacre of 1978, and prompting the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy to dub the doubleheader sweep the "Son of Massacre". The Yankees went on to sweep all five games (calling the series the "Second Boston Massacre"). The Red Sox would eventually end the season in third place in the AL East behind the Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, making it the first time since 1998 that the Red Sox did not finish in second place behind the Yanks.

The division win was the ninth consecutive AL East title for the Yankees. However, the Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers in four games in the ALDS, while the Mets lost the NLCS.

Distinctions

The Yankees have won 26 World Series in 39 appearances (which, since the first World Series in 1903, currently amounts to an average appearance every 2.7 seasons and a championship every 4.0 seasons); The Yankees are also the only team that is represented at every position in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Uniform and dress code

Appearance

The team colors are navy blue and white. (The interlocking NY was also used by the New York Knicks on their warmup jackets, and later shorts from the 1960s to 1990 and remains on the Knicks' throwback uniforms.)

In 1929, the New York Yankees became the first team to make numbers a permanent part of the uniform. While other teams began putting names on the backs of jerseys in the 1960s, the Yankees did not follow the trend.

Although the Yankees have worn the same road uniform since 1918 (with the exception of 1927 to 1930, when the arched "NEW YORK" was replaced by the word "YANKEES", a radical change was proposed in 1974. Marty Appel, in his book Now Pitching for the Yankees describes the proposed uniforms:

(I)n 1974 I walked into (then-General Manager) Gabe Paul's office to find samples of new Yankee road uniforms draped across his sofa.

The Yankees wear navy blue caps with a white interlocking "NY" logo with both home and road uniforms.

Popularity

Fan support

With the recurring success of the franchise since the 1920s and its rejuvenated dynasty, the Yankees have always been and continue to be one of the most popular sports teams in the country. Even in road games, especially in towns like Baltimore, Boston, Toronto and Tampa Bay, the Yankees generally draw crowds of their own fans, showing that they not only have support in the New York area, but also around the United States and Canada.

The first one-million fan season was in 1920, when 1,289,422 fans attended Yankee games at the Polo Grounds. The Yankees have beaten the league average for home attendance 83 out of the last 87 years (only during 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1994 did they not accomplish this). In the past seven years, in the dawn of their new dynasty, the Yankees have drawn over three million fans each year, with an American League record-setting 4,090,696 in 2005, becoming only the third franchise in sports history to draw over four million in regular season attendance in their own ballpark.

The Yankees were also the league leaders in "road attendance" in each year from 2001 through 2005, and are at the top again in 2006.

Many fans who attend games at Yankee Stadium would also be familiar with the famous fan simply known as "Freddy".

The Creatures have popularized the "Roll Call," which they chant in the top of the first inning when the Yankees first play defense.

Because of random rowdiness, and the fact that many families now sit in the more affordable bleachers, alcoholic beverages were banned from the bleachers in 2000, but the Bleacher Creatures have continued their antics, perhaps fueled by some clandestine drinking They are popular with the crowd and are known for their strict allegiance to the Yankees and their extreme hatred for the Mets and the Red Sox.

Celebrity fans

The Yankees also have one of the biggest celebrity fanbases in all of sports.

Other famous celebrity fans include:

The Yankees' hat is often seen in public worn by rappers to show an identity with New York City.

The popularity of the Yankees' hat has grown to include color patterns not actually used by the Yankees.

Critics

With the long-term success of the franchise and a large Yankee fanbase, other teams' fans across the nation have come to hate the Yankees. It has become a tradition at many road games for the home crowd to chant "Yankees Suck!", even - or especially - if the Yankees are winning.

Much of the animosity may derive from the Yankees' payroll (which was around $194 million at the start of the 2006 season, the highest of any American sports team), and the free agent superstars the team attracts - or buys - in the offseason.

Other reasons for anti-Yankee feelings go back as long as the 1950s with aging diehard Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants fans - some in New York, some transplanted elsewhere - still feeling the pain of the years that the Yankees repeatedly defeated their teams.

Famed sports columnist Mike Royko summed it up when he said, "Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax."

Fight and theme songs

The official fight song for the Yankees is "Here Come the Yankees", written in 1967 by Bob Bundin and Lou Stallman.

Another song strongly linked to the team is "New York, New York", which is played in the stadium after home games.

When the Yankees take the field the song, "You Ready For This" is played with the fans usually clapping along.

The YES Network

In 1997, Cablevision bought MSG Network, home of the Yankees, and became owner of the television rights to all seven MLB, NBA, and NHL teams in New York City. Due to the success of the Yankees in the late 90's, giving their brand name a boost, they decided to leave and form a new network.

The Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network launched in 2002, and served as the home of the New York Yankees during the baseball season, and the New Jersy Nets for the rest of the year, giving it live sports coverage for the entire year. It also offered original programming such as Yankeeography, CenterStage, and the re-airing of older games under the name Yankees Classics.

Retired numbers

The Yankees have retired 16 numbers, the most in Major League Baseball.

Although it has not been officially retired, the Yankees have not reissued number 21 since Paul O'Neill stopped playing.

The retired numbers are displayed behind the left field fence at Yankee Stadium, in a small alley connecting "Monument Park" to the rest of the stadium.

The numbers are placed on the wall in chronological order, each with a plaque that has a short history of the player, as well as special plaques for team owner Jacob Ruppert;

The number 8 of the New York Yankees was retired twice: retired in 1972 for both catchers Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra. The Yankees did not, and it is unknown if the Yankees will place it there once Rivera retires with his name or with both. Oddly, the official website of the Yankees lists Jackie Robinson's 42 among the Yankees retired numbers, along with biographical information just as the others are.

As the Yankees do not issue #0, the only two single-digit numbers that are still in use are #2 and #6.

Team captains

* Guidry and Randolph were co-captains.

The lack of a unifying figure following Mantle's retirement convinced team owner George Steinbrenner that the team needed an official captain, and he chose Munson.

Current roster

Active roster
Last updated on November 12, 2006

Minor league affiliations

Notes and references

Cited references

General references