Epic Yankees Flameout Seasons, Chapter 1

Again, I blame myself—the hubris of my ludicrous, 112-win season prediction, for the JuJu gods coming down upon us with such a vengeance.

In the interest of trying to sufficiently humble myself and avert their wrath, I have decided to amuse us with recaps of (other) epic, Yankees Flameout Seasons. That is, years in which the boys from the Bronx were supposed to be world beaters, and instead, not only fell short, but completely imploded.

Proceeding chronologically, here is Season No. 1:  1925

Yankees 71-83, 7th in an 8-team league

This was the only time during their remarkable run from 1919-1964 that the Yankees had a losing record, and the only time that they finished out of the first division.

Background:

The Yankees had won three straight pennants from 1921-23, and their first World Series in 1923. They had finished just three games behind the world champion Indians in 1920, and only two back of the Senators, who took Washington's one and only World Series in 1924.

When the Yanks re-acquired pitcher Urban Shocker, the man with the greatest name in baseball, manager Miller Huggins was carried away to proclaim that his 1925 team was the deepest he had ever had (sound familiar?)

What happened:

The usual three horsemen of the apocalypse: age, injuries, and pitching.

The Yanks had slowly snuck up in age, averaging 29.9 by 1925, and it quickly showed. What had been their strength up the middle decayed and collapsed, as 35-year-old catcher Wally Schang and 32-year-old shortstop Deacon Scott both played little. 28-year-old Aaron Ward, previously a very reliable second baseman, and 29-year-old centerfielder Whitey Witt, simply sucked.

Soon the team was reduced to playing the likes of Neil Walker and Jayce Peterson—sorry, Mike Gazelle and Pee Wee Wanninger.

After getting Shocker, the Yanks seemed deep in pitching, but that didn't really manifest itself, either. Shocker was a mediocre, 12-12, Sad Sam Jones was really sad, losing 21 games, and Sailor Bob Shawkey finished out his last season as a starter at 6-14.

Walter Beall, widely considered the fastest throwing man in baseball and just up from Baltimore, could not find the strike zone, something that would prove a lifelong problem for him in the show. Beall walked 19 men in 11 innings, and went 0-1.

The biggest problem with the Yankees, though, proved to be Babe Ruth's ailments, leading to the one and only season between 1918-1931 when he did not deserve to be the AL MVP.

It all started with some sort of terrible abdominal ailment in spring training, that reduced the Babe to convulsions, fevers, and even fainting spells. The sportswriters of the day, of course, mocked it as "The Big Bellyache Heard 'Round the World," and blamed it on Ruth's consuming "too many hot dogs and soda pop."

Later, club president Ed Barrow, never one to pass up a chance to humiliate his leading ballplayers, put it about that he was suffering from a venereal disease—though considering the course of the illness in those pre-penicillin days, this was almost certainly a canard.

In fact, there is every indication that Ruth's life was probably in jeopardy. In keeping with the general level of medicine at the time, it was diagnosed as "an intestinal abscess," requiring a major operation. Just what that means has never been fully explained. Gallstones? Kidney stones? A benign tumor? A crazy infection?

Who knows? But it kept the Babe out for the first two months, while the Yankees stumbled out to a 15-25 start and fell 13.5 games out of first.

Ruth made a fairly remarkable recovery, getting back into the lineup only a week after leaving the hospital. But having convinced themselves that his absence had been due to carnal pleasures of one sort or another, Barrow and Huggins took to vigorously fining and suspending their best player whenever they caught him breaking training, which was not hard to do.

The Babe managed to put in a pretty solid, 25 homer, .290/.936 season anyway, but the writers all agreed that he would never be the same player again.

Bright spots:

Bob Meusel took up some of Ruth's slack, leading the league in homers and RBI.

The Yanks replaced Witt in center with a swift young rookie named Earle Combs, who hit .342.  And the constant churn of their infielders led to a hard-hitting first baseman named Lou Gehrig being called up from New Haven to replace another injured stalwart, Wally Pipp, who was nearly killed by a pitched ball.

The Yanks also acquired a back-up outfielder named Benny Paschal, who hit a remarkable .360/1.028 with power. Paschal was one of many players from the time who seemed able to hit anything even if you woke up him up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night and put a bat in his hand—but for some reason was never able to crack a starting lineup for long.

What they did next:

Rebuild. Very quickly. By 1926, the Yanks had a slugging rookie in at second, one Tony Lazzeri, and Mark Koenig, who had looked Tyler Wade-abominable as a rook at short in 1925, rounded into a major-league player. Shocker and Waite Hoyt bounced back, and the pitching was sound again.

Three pennants and two World Series soon followed.