Historic

 

The g'int to the left is one Norman Arthur Elberfeld, a.k.a., "The Tabasco Kid," the first regular shortstop for your NewYork Yankees. He is pictured here at Hilltop Park, a.k.a., "The Rockpile," back in the days when the Yankees were more often known as the Highlanders, and they played up at 168th Street.

Kid Elberfeld was a pretty fair shortstop for his time. For about 5 years, he was the second-best major-league hitter at the position, finishing his career at .271, with 213 stolen bases. (Today, with those numbers, they would be measuring his plaque for Cooperstown.)

He was also an excellent fielder, with great range and a "cyclonic" arm. He was also, it seems, a gigantic pain in the ass.

The Kid was described by one contemporary observer as "the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most rantankerous [sic], most rambunctious ballplayer that ever stood on spikes." For fun, he liked to smash the crockery on the spring training tables. Most of his career, he wore whalebone shinguards in the field, for all the times that opposing players would try to spike him. He was also hit 165 times in his career, which is still high on the all-time list.

Why am I telling you of this long-ago hooligan?

Because your current New York Yankees are seriously threatening an all-time low that occurred when The Tabasco Kid was still hauling his whalebone shinguards around the Junior Circuit.

Despite last night's dazzling offensive display, the Yanks still boast an on-base percentage of .298. This is the worst such OBP the club has compiled since it finished at .292 in 1968, "The Year of the Pitcher," when hurlers tossed aspirin tablets down from mountaintops, and hitters were forced to stand at the plate with mere toothpicks in their paws.

But wait! I hear you protest. During the Year of the Pitcher, didn't pitchers still bat? 

Yes, indeed, my knowledgeable friends—a practice that was soon ended, in the American League at least, by the SPCA. Take away the pitchers' curious at-bats, and the 1968 Yankees—who that year set the post-1900 record for lowest MLB team batting average, at .214—actually had a lofty OBP of .303 on the season.

Taking that into account, for the lowest-ever, franchise OBP, we have to journey all the way back to...1908, when the Tabasco Kid still roamed the shortstop's ranges, performing herculean feats with his cyclonic arm. 

The Yanks started off well enough that year, then dropped 12 of 13 games in June, after being beset by injuries. Clark "The Old Fox" Griffith—the Highlanders' only manager to that date—resigned, saying the team was laboring under a "hoodoo," and that the bad luck sign was he himself. They didn't call him Old Foxy for nothing.

The pair of professional goniffs who ran the Yanks at the time, Frank Farrell and Big Bill Devery, gave in and made Elberfeld, who had been agitating for years to manage the team, their new skipper. This was a mistake.

"We are...playing under the direction of a crazy man," one of his players told the press. "It won't take Elberfeld more than two weeks to make us the most demoralized team that the American League has ever known. He thinks he is a manager, but he can't convince anyone but himself that he has the first qualifications for the job. It's a joke."

Hmm...

Among other things, apparently the Kid wouldn't choose his starting pitcher for the day without consulting his wife—a habit guaranteed to win you respect amongst professional baseballers. 

Whatever the reason, the Yanks went 27-71 under the Tabasco Kid, finishing the season at 53-101—only a hairsbreadth better than the very worst mark compiled by the Yankees, 52-100, in 1912. And among other depressing statistics, the 1908 Yankees/Highlanders had an OBP of only .283—and still just .292, not counting the hurlers that Mrs. Elberfeld selected.

CAN the 2023 Yanks be even worse??? I wouldn't bet against it.