Epic Yankees Flameout Seasons, Chapter Three!

Judging by the results in Beantown, it seems clear that ODUMODU does not yet believe that I have made sufficient obeisance to the JuJu gods. Therefore, I offer up yet another past example of pinstriped catastrophe.

Season number three: 1946.

Yankees 87-67, 3rd in an 8-team league.

Much like 1940, this wasn't so bad a season. The Yankees started strong (32-17) and hung around into July, before deflating and finishing 17 games behind the Red Sox juggernaut. It's just that so much more was expected...

Background:

The Yanks had been the dominant team in baseball before the boys went off to war, and everyone thought that would resume. Besides that, baseball had been threatened with lawsuits into expanding the rosters for one year, so that returning veterans could get their jobs back just like in every other profession—something that seemed to favor teams like the Yankees with deep farm systems.

What happened:

Rust, mostly, and age, and insanity in the owners' box.

A lot of the guys just didn't have it—or at least didn't have it yet—after spending years playing countless base games or even, in some instances, fighting. Flash Gordon had far and away the worst season of his HOF career, hitting just .210. Nick Etten at first, on the other, proved he really was only a wartime replacement.

The great DiMaggio got off to a hot start, then faded due to the foot and leg ailments that would increasingly hinder the last years of his career. He would complain bitterly about how many ball he'd had to chase down playing behind inferior pitchers during his service—seemingly unaware that there were other returning veterans who would have loved to have any legs or feet at all.

The pitching was not deep, as might have been survived by the fact that the Yanks actually started someone named Cuddles Marshall. Marius Russo couldn't come back, Tiny Bonham looked washed-up, and the great Red Ruffing got off to a great start, pitching two shutouts and four complete games, before realizing he was 41, and never throwing another pitch as a Yankee.

Most of all, though, the season was constantly disrupted by its lead owner, Larry MacPhail, invariably described in baseball chronicles as a mercurial genius, but someone who sounds more like a drunken boor.

MacPhail tormented Manager Joe McCarthy until Marse Joe, who had his own, considerable alcohol addiction, jumped the team to go "ride the White Horse," as they called it, then quit out of shame and disgust—a sad end to a great Yankees career.

Bill Dickey, who replaced him, didn't want to manage for MacPhail, either, and finally managed to get himself canned with two weeks left in the season.

Worst of all, MacPhail actually tried to peddle DiMag to the Washington Senators for Mickey Vernon, who won the batting title in 1946 and hit 8 home runs.

The Senators...said no, which was why they would always be the Senators.

But by the end of the season, all the writers agreed that the Yankees were done, and that a new dynasty had dawned up in Boston, where the Sox figured to dominate for years to come.

Bright spots:

At 38, Spud Chandler won 20 games, with a 2.10 ERA. Floyd "Bill" Bevens also had a great year on the mound, as did new acquisition Randy Gumpert. Catcher Aaron Robinson excelled, and King Kong Keller had another fine year in what looked to be a HOF career before injuries curtailed it the next year.

Plus, thanks to the expanded rosters, all sorts of promising kids got a cup of coffee: Bobby Brown, Vic Raschi, Tommy Byrne, and a funny-looking kid from St. Louis called Yogi Berra.

Despite their slow fade, the Yanks also set a new, major-league attendance record with 2,265,512 fans—the first time any team cleared over two million at the gate.

What happened next:

Joe D.—despite MacPhail nearly trading him to the Sox for Ted Williams—won his third and final MVP award in 1947, as the Yanks romped to the pennant by 12 games. It was the start of the most sustained skein of excellence in a major American sport, as the Yanks won 15 pennants and 10 World Series over 18 years.

While celebrating their thrilling Series triumph over the Dodgers that fall, MacPhail predictably got drunk and ran amok, firing GM George Weiss, insulting everyone, and belting a sportswriter to the ground.

Dan Topping, one of his co-owners, finally dragged MacPhail into a hotel kitchen and punched him out. The next day, Weiss was rehired, and MacPhail forced to sell out to Topping and Del Webb.

Ah, those were the days! Fist fights between Yankees owners!