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79. 1975. 3rd, 12 games out. After the close call for the Division in 1974, the signing of Catfish Hunter, and the trade for Barry Bonds, this was the most optimistic Yankee season since 1964. And at the All-Star Break, on July 12, they were only 3 1/2 games back. But they were 10 back on July 27, and never recovered, getting no closer than 8 1/2 back on August 8. After the season, Bonds was traded for Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa.
Book about this season: The Long Ball: The Summer of '75 -- Spaeeman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played, by Tom Adelman. The Yankees aren't featured much, but there is detail about their 3-way Division race with Boston and Baltimore, and how Bonds didn't fit in.
78. 1972. 4th, 6 1/2 games out. A strike that wiped out the 1st few games of the season meant that things never really felt like they got going. It also made this the only season since 1945 that the Yankees haven't drawn at least 1 million fans at home.
Nevertheless, the Yankees were close most of the way. A 4-game winning streak got them within half a game of 1st place on September 12. But they followed that going 7-12 the rest of the way, including a 1-6 stretch and closed with a 5-game losing streak. Of the 17 games they lost in September and October, 10 were by 1 or 2 runs.
77. 1970. 2nd, 15 games out. Their 93 wins was their best total between 1964 and 1976, but the Baltimore Orioles ran away with the Division. This was the high-water mark of the Dark Age of Bobby Murcer, Horace Clarke, Gene Michael as a player, Mel Stottlemyre, and, in his only 20-win season, Fritz Peterson.
76. 1929. 2nd, 18 games out.
75. 1930. 3rd, 16 games out.
74. 1931. 2nd, 13 1/2 games out. In each of these 3 seasons, the Yankees were really good, and had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but the Philadelphia Athletics ran away with the Pennant. I put 1929 the lowest of these because of the death of Miller Huggins at the end of the season, the only Yankee manager ever to die in office.
73. 1954. 2nd, 8 games out. The 1 time in a Major League Baseball career that began as a player in 1912 and ended as a manager in 1965 that Casey Stengel won 100 games (103, to be precise), and it wasn't enough, because the Cleveland Indians won 111, breaking the record of the 1927 Yankees, holding it until the 1998 Yankees, and ended the Yankees' streak of 5 straight Pennants and World Series wins. Yogi Berra won the MVP, but it didn't matter. The fact that another New York team, the Giants, won the World Series, didn't help.
72. 1919. 3rd, 7 1/2 games out. The lst real Pennant race of the Ruppert ownership, and the last year before the Ruth acquisition turned the Yankees from hoping to win to expecting to do so.
71. 1983. 3rd, 7 games out. Billy Martin's 3rd tenure as manager, and he won 91 games with a team that really didn't have enough pitching. But the Orioles led most of the way. The Yankees beat them on September 9 to close within 4 games, but the O's took the next 3, and that was that.
70. 1993, 2nd, 7 games out. This was the beginning of the 1996-2003 Dynasty built by Gene Michael: The 1st season in Pinstripes for Paul O'Neill, Wade Boggs and Jimmy Key; and the blossoming of Bernie Williams. On September 5, the Yankees were tied for 1st with the Toronto Blue Jays. But a 4-game losing streak began a 10-14 run. The next great Yankee team still needed some additions.
69. 1933. 2nd, 7 games out.
68. 1934. 2nd, 7 games out. The last 2 years of Babe Ruth saw the Yankees win 91 and 94 games, respectively. In 1934, Lou Gehrig won the batting Triple Crown, and Lefty Gomez won the pitching Triple Crown, his 26 wins still more than any Yankee pitcher since. (Whitey Ford in 1961 and Ron Guidry in 1978 won 25.) But the Washington Senators won the Pennant in '33, the Tigers in '34.
67. 1935. 2nd, 3 games out. The transition year, with Gehrig, but with Ruth gone and Joe DiMaggio not yet arrived. A 7-game winning streak near the end nearly salvaged the season, but losing 3 out of a rare 5-game series at home in mid-September pretty much ended it.
66. 1986. 2nd, 5 1/2 games out. Don Mattingly set a Yankee record for hits in a season that still stands, Dave Winfield remained an RBI machine, and Dave Righetti set a major league record with 46 saves (which stood for 4 years).
But the starting rotation fell woefully short, The Yankees were 4 games behind the Red Sox on August 16, but a 4-game losing streak at home put an end to serious hopes. They were 9 1/2 back before a 4-game season-finale sweep at Fenway Park, one that no one was willing to call a "Boston Massacre," because the Sox had already clinched.
65. 1988. 5th, 3 1/2 games out. The last real 5-team Pennant race in baseball. In spite of an early injury crisis that made 2019 look like a healthy season, and ended Billy Martin's 5th and last run as manager, the Yankees were in it almost the whole way under the 2nd run of Lou Piniella. But dropping 3 out of 4 at Fenway was a killer, as the Red Sox won the Division by 1 game over Detroit, and 2 each over Milwaukee and Toronto.
64. 1940. 3rd, 2 games out. The 1 season between 1936 and 1943 that the Yankees didn't win the Pennant. DiMaggio won his 2nd straight batting title, but a few guys had supbar seasons, and the Tigers edged the Indians and the Yankees for the Pennant.
63. 1974. 2nd, 2 games out. The closest call since the last Pennant of the Old Dynasty, and the last gasp for Stottlemyre and the 1st run of Murcer. The Orioles were just too tough.
62. 1985. 2nd, 2 games out. The team was 6-12 on April 30, and George Steinbrenner fired Yogi Berra as manager. That it needed to be done could be justified; how, cannot. But on came Billy Martin for his 4th tenure, and, given that he never had a full starting rotation, getting this team to 97-64 may have been his best managing job. After being 9 1/2 games out on August 4, he got them to a game and a half out in the opener of a 4-game series with the Blue Jays on September 12.
But they lost the last 3, starting an 8-game losing streak, then won 8 of 9 to get back in it. They had to sweep the Jays in Toronto to set up a Playoff, won on Friday night, but lost on Saturday afternoon before winning the now-meaningless Sunday game, ending an MVP season for Don Mattingly. This one still bugs me: One more win against the Jays, and who knows?
Book about this season: Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl: How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought for New York's Baseball Soul, by Chris Donnelly, published earlier this year. "Doc" was Dwight "Doctor K" Gooden. "The Kid" was Gary Carter. The Yankees lost that battle, and would not regain New York's baseball soul until 1993 -- maybe 1996.
61. 1906. 2nd, 3 games out. A good job by the standards of the pre-Ruppert years (1903-14), including the New York Highlanders years (1903-12). The fact that it was the Chicago White Sox and their "Hitless Wonders" made this fallshort frustrating.
60. 1920. 2nd, 3 games out. A tough race won by Cleveland, with Chicago also finishing ahead, complicated by the White Sox having 8 players suspended (and eventually banned for life) for throwing the previous season's World Series. This was Babe Ruth's 1st year in New York, and his 54 home runs, nearly doubling the record he already held, took the sting out of it.
59. 1948. 3rd, 2 1/2 games out. Boston and Cleveland finished in a tie for the Pennant, with the Indians winning a 1-game Playoff at Fenway. The Yankees were in it until the next-to-last day of the season, losing at Fenway, before beating the Sox to set up the Playoff.
58. 1924. 2nd, 2 games out. Another great year for Ruth, but a streak of 3 straight Pennants ended. That it was the long-suffering Washington Senators, winning their 1st Pennant, who topped the Yankees, softened the blow, as did the fact that the Yankees had won the World Series for the 1st time the year before.
57. 1904. 2nd, 1 1/2 games out. The 2nd season for the Highlanders, their 1st Pennant race. and the 1st big showdown between the teams that would become known as the Yankees (in 1913) and the Red Sox (in 1907). Going into the last day of the season, they had to sweep a doubleheader with the Boston Americans at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan to win the Pennant. Lose either game, and they're beaten.
Jack Chesbro had won 41 games, still a record with the post-1892 pitching distance of 60 feet, 6 inches. But with the opener tied in the 9th, he threw a wild pitch that let the Pennant-winning run score. As would happen in Toronto 81 years later, the finale would be meaningless and the Yankees would win it anyway.
Book about this season: The Year They Called Off the World Series: A True Story, by Benton Stark. Published in 1991, 3 years before another World Series would be called off.
56. 1994. led the American League Eastern Division when the Strike of '94 hit. This was Don Mattingly's best chance, and we'll never know.
Part III follows. From here on out, each of these seasons was, at least, a Playoff season.
Nevertheless, the Yankees were close most of the way. A 4-game winning streak got them within half a game of 1st place on September 12. But they followed that going 7-12 the rest of the way, including a 1-6 stretch and closed with a 5-game losing streak. Of the 17 games they lost in September and October, 10 were by 1 or 2 runs.
77. 1970. 2nd, 15 games out. Their 93 wins was their best total between 1964 and 1976, but the Baltimore Orioles ran away with the Division. This was the high-water mark of the Dark Age of Bobby Murcer, Horace Clarke, Gene Michael as a player, Mel Stottlemyre, and, in his only 20-win season, Fritz Peterson.
76. 1929. 2nd, 18 games out.
75. 1930. 3rd, 16 games out.
74. 1931. 2nd, 13 1/2 games out. In each of these 3 seasons, the Yankees were really good, and had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, but the Philadelphia Athletics ran away with the Pennant. I put 1929 the lowest of these because of the death of Miller Huggins at the end of the season, the only Yankee manager ever to die in office.
73. 1954. 2nd, 8 games out. The 1 time in a Major League Baseball career that began as a player in 1912 and ended as a manager in 1965 that Casey Stengel won 100 games (103, to be precise), and it wasn't enough, because the Cleveland Indians won 111, breaking the record of the 1927 Yankees, holding it until the 1998 Yankees, and ended the Yankees' streak of 5 straight Pennants and World Series wins. Yogi Berra won the MVP, but it didn't matter. The fact that another New York team, the Giants, won the World Series, didn't help.
72. 1919. 3rd, 7 1/2 games out. The lst real Pennant race of the Ruppert ownership, and the last year before the Ruth acquisition turned the Yankees from hoping to win to expecting to do so.
71. 1983. 3rd, 7 games out. Billy Martin's 3rd tenure as manager, and he won 91 games with a team that really didn't have enough pitching. But the Orioles led most of the way. The Yankees beat them on September 9 to close within 4 games, but the O's took the next 3, and that was that.
70. 1993, 2nd, 7 games out. This was the beginning of the 1996-2003 Dynasty built by Gene Michael: The 1st season in Pinstripes for Paul O'Neill, Wade Boggs and Jimmy Key; and the blossoming of Bernie Williams. On September 5, the Yankees were tied for 1st with the Toronto Blue Jays. But a 4-game losing streak began a 10-14 run. The next great Yankee team still needed some additions.
69. 1933. 2nd, 7 games out.
68. 1934. 2nd, 7 games out. The last 2 years of Babe Ruth saw the Yankees win 91 and 94 games, respectively. In 1934, Lou Gehrig won the batting Triple Crown, and Lefty Gomez won the pitching Triple Crown, his 26 wins still more than any Yankee pitcher since. (Whitey Ford in 1961 and Ron Guidry in 1978 won 25.) But the Washington Senators won the Pennant in '33, the Tigers in '34.
67. 1935. 2nd, 3 games out. The transition year, with Gehrig, but with Ruth gone and Joe DiMaggio not yet arrived. A 7-game winning streak near the end nearly salvaged the season, but losing 3 out of a rare 5-game series at home in mid-September pretty much ended it.
66. 1986. 2nd, 5 1/2 games out. Don Mattingly set a Yankee record for hits in a season that still stands, Dave Winfield remained an RBI machine, and Dave Righetti set a major league record with 46 saves (which stood for 4 years).
But the starting rotation fell woefully short, The Yankees were 4 games behind the Red Sox on August 16, but a 4-game losing streak at home put an end to serious hopes. They were 9 1/2 back before a 4-game season-finale sweep at Fenway Park, one that no one was willing to call a "Boston Massacre," because the Sox had already clinched.
65. 1988. 5th, 3 1/2 games out. The last real 5-team Pennant race in baseball. In spite of an early injury crisis that made 2019 look like a healthy season, and ended Billy Martin's 5th and last run as manager, the Yankees were in it almost the whole way under the 2nd run of Lou Piniella. But dropping 3 out of 4 at Fenway was a killer, as the Red Sox won the Division by 1 game over Detroit, and 2 each over Milwaukee and Toronto.
64. 1940. 3rd, 2 games out. The 1 season between 1936 and 1943 that the Yankees didn't win the Pennant. DiMaggio won his 2nd straight batting title, but a few guys had supbar seasons, and the Tigers edged the Indians and the Yankees for the Pennant.
63. 1974. 2nd, 2 games out. The closest call since the last Pennant of the Old Dynasty, and the last gasp for Stottlemyre and the 1st run of Murcer. The Orioles were just too tough.
62. 1985. 2nd, 2 games out. The team was 6-12 on April 30, and George Steinbrenner fired Yogi Berra as manager. That it needed to be done could be justified; how, cannot. But on came Billy Martin for his 4th tenure, and, given that he never had a full starting rotation, getting this team to 97-64 may have been his best managing job. After being 9 1/2 games out on August 4, he got them to a game and a half out in the opener of a 4-game series with the Blue Jays on September 12.
But they lost the last 3, starting an 8-game losing streak, then won 8 of 9 to get back in it. They had to sweep the Jays in Toronto to set up a Playoff, won on Friday night, but lost on Saturday afternoon before winning the now-meaningless Sunday game, ending an MVP season for Don Mattingly. This one still bugs me: One more win against the Jays, and who knows?
Book about this season: Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl: How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought for New York's Baseball Soul, by Chris Donnelly, published earlier this year. "Doc" was Dwight "Doctor K" Gooden. "The Kid" was Gary Carter. The Yankees lost that battle, and would not regain New York's baseball soul until 1993 -- maybe 1996.
61. 1906. 2nd, 3 games out. A good job by the standards of the pre-Ruppert years (1903-14), including the New York Highlanders years (1903-12). The fact that it was the Chicago White Sox and their "Hitless Wonders" made this fallshort frustrating.
60. 1920. 2nd, 3 games out. A tough race won by Cleveland, with Chicago also finishing ahead, complicated by the White Sox having 8 players suspended (and eventually banned for life) for throwing the previous season's World Series. This was Babe Ruth's 1st year in New York, and his 54 home runs, nearly doubling the record he already held, took the sting out of it.
59. 1948. 3rd, 2 1/2 games out. Boston and Cleveland finished in a tie for the Pennant, with the Indians winning a 1-game Playoff at Fenway. The Yankees were in it until the next-to-last day of the season, losing at Fenway, before beating the Sox to set up the Playoff.
58. 1924. 2nd, 2 games out. Another great year for Ruth, but a streak of 3 straight Pennants ended. That it was the long-suffering Washington Senators, winning their 1st Pennant, who topped the Yankees, softened the blow, as did the fact that the Yankees had won the World Series for the 1st time the year before.
57. 1904. 2nd, 1 1/2 games out. The 2nd season for the Highlanders, their 1st Pennant race. and the 1st big showdown between the teams that would become known as the Yankees (in 1913) and the Red Sox (in 1907). Going into the last day of the season, they had to sweep a doubleheader with the Boston Americans at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan to win the Pennant. Lose either game, and they're beaten.
Jack Chesbro had won 41 games, still a record with the post-1892 pitching distance of 60 feet, 6 inches. But with the opener tied in the 9th, he threw a wild pitch that let the Pennant-winning run score. As would happen in Toronto 81 years later, the finale would be meaningless and the Yankees would win it anyway.
Book about this season: The Year They Called Off the World Series: A True Story, by Benton Stark. Published in 1991, 3 years before another World Series would be called off.
56. 1994. led the American League Eastern Division when the Strike of '94 hit. This was Don Mattingly's best chance, and we'll never know.
Part III follows. From here on out, each of these seasons was, at least, a Playoff season.
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