Dom Amore - A Franchise on the Rise: The First Twenty Years of the New York Yankees

Copyright 2018 by Dom Amore

Foreword 2018 by John Sterling

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo credit Library of Congress

ISBN: 978-1-61321-947-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61321-948-5

Printed in the United States of America

This book is in memory of the late, great Phil Pepe, who was originally to write this project. And it is dedicated to Bill Madden, who encouraged me to take it on.

First boyhood idols, then a young professionals role models, they became cherished friends.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

As I sit in the broadcast booth on a glorious midsummer day, I look up at Yankee Stadium and look at how majestic this ballpark is. Thats the Yankees.

I suppose I ought to begin when I was a little boy and was made a Yankees fan by my dad. This was in the late 1940s. The Yankees stadium was more majestic than the other ballparks, Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, and it seemed that the Yankees were, as they say, across the tracks and up the hill.

I listened to a game on the radio, I was in the car and the adults turned it on, and I fell in love on that day. You fell in loveI fell in lovewith the Yankees and their uniforms and the stadium and all the championships. I was born at the right time, when they were winning championships all the time. I thought I was a Yankee, because I was a Yankee fan. I thought they were the classiest team.

Now, looking back, it didnt start out that way. When they established the franchise in 1903 as the Highlanders, it took them 18 seasons to win the American League, and then they wound up playing the team that was their landlordthey were tenants of the Giants at the Polo Grounds. It began with Babe Ruth in that ballpark.

Thats the story Dom Amore tells in A Franchise on the Rise , the story of how the Yankees came to be and mean so much. If you look at the Yankees, theyve been able to carry this banner of being the greatest franchise in sports through the 20s with Babe and Lou; and then the 30s with Joe D., the 1936 to 39 teams, the greatest teams that nobody ever talks about; and the 40s with Yogi, and then Whitey and Mickey. Then there are the George Steinbrenner Bronx Zoo days of the 70syou cant even name all of those key players, from Thurman Munson to Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, Graig Nettles, Bucky Dent, Willie Randolph, Ron Guidrythe list goes on. And then to the 90s with Joe Torre, obviously, my era in broadcasting. Anyway, thats quite an accomplishment, to keep that franchise up there that many years, as being The Franchise.

The Yankees symbolize something. They symbolize the best, the classiest. And thats why a lot of people have said through the years, when they put on the Yankees uniform they feel they have to live up to the Yankees standards.

As you will learn in this book, in 1923 owner Jacob Ruppert ordered that players wear clean uniforms every day. That sense of class has embodied the Yankees, and its great for Yankees fans who love them, and its great for everyone else who hates them. Thats good for baseball.

The Yankees have been very lucky to have guys like Derek Jeter on their roster, and now Aaron Judge. Every time you mention to Judge how well hes doing, he tells you, Well, its because of my teammates. His character is very Jeter-like, its very Lou Gehig-like, its very DiMag-like.

You know, I dont believe that one job is better than another. Whether youre a broadcaster, a player, or a manager, its all Major League Baseball. But it carries a little bit extra when its the Yankees. And before I got this job, I didnt think it would ever happen, and now its over 30 years that Ive been broadcasting their games. I am so typecast, which you could understand by my having done so many games, but someone said to me once, Thats a pretty good thing to be typecast as. And its true.

I love the history of all sports. And if Dom Amore wrote a book about the 32 St. Louis Browns, who finished sixth (I looked it up), I would love to read it. But to read about how the Yankees were formed? The story of how they began with nothing and, piece by piece, built the franchise and the brand name that we all know today? Well, youve heard me say many times, you cant predict baseball, but I can predict you will love this book and learn so much from it.

Enjoy the read.

JOHN STERLING, Bronx, New York, July 5, 2017

INTRODUCTION

THE JOY CLUB

God, what a way to run a ballclub!

Jimmy Austin, infielder, 19091910

Those who met Roger Peckinpaugh late in his life were impressed by his long, lantern jaw and his firm handshake. Everything about him suggested he was all business, especially when it came to baseball.

So in 1913, when a young, beetle-browed Peckinpaugh was traded to the Yankees, who used to be the Highlanders and whose manager Frank Chance thought hadnt done enough to earn any nickname, he was appalled.

Hal Chase was the first baseman, Peckingpaugh told author Donald Honig for the book The Man in the Dugout. Prince Hal. I was just a kid breaking in and Hal Chase had the reputation of being the greatest first baseman of all time. I remember a few times I threw a ball over to first base and it went by him to the stands, and a couple of runs scored. It really surprised me. Id think, Geez, that throw wasnt that bad. Then later on, when he got the smelly reputation, it came back to me.

Chase was later traded by the Yankees and eventually kept out of baseball on suspicion of fixing games. Peck, the 22-year-old shortstop, was soon named Yankees captain.

The Yankees made Roger Peckinpaugh, at twenty-three, the youngest manager in major league history, a distinction he is likely to hold forever. Bain News Service, courtesy of the Library of Congress

The Yankees at that time were what we used to call a joy team, Peck continued, lots of joy and lots of losing. Nobody thought we could win, and most of the time we didnt. But it didnt seem to bother the boys too much. They would start singing songs in the infield in the middle of the game.

Hardly recognizable today, this was Yankees baseball for much of the first two decades of the 20th century. By comparison, the Mets, born with castoffs in 1962, were World Champions by 1969. The Yankees needed all of 21 years to reach the top.

There wasnt a comedian the caliber of Casey Stengel to ease the pain, but the journey, which began with a couple of well-connected New York pols providing what nobody else coulda suitable piece of landwas nevertheless fascinating and improbable, filled with colorful, sometimes unsavory characters, with would-be saviors. There was cheating, and brawling, and at times it seemed the American League franchise in New York barely existed at all.