Saturday, August 20, 2016

TURN BACK THE CLOCK- 1961 YANKEES REVISIT MURDERER'S ROW

Next up in my “Turn Back The Clock” series is the 10th anniversary of the new “Murderer’s Row”, the 1961 New York Yankees and their march towards another World Championship:


The Yanks almost matched the franchise record of 110 wins (1927 team), but fell one short, but it wasn’t a problem as they took the American League and them swept the Cincinnati Reds to take yet another title during the Berra/Mantle era.
Although they had great pitching as evidenced by their six pitchers with double-digit wins and single-digit losses, led by the “Chairman of the Board” Whitey Ford and his Cy Young winning 25-4 record, it was their monster line-up that featured no less than six players with 20 or more home runs.
Of course it was all about Mantle and Maris, as they slammed their way into the record books with 54 and 61 homers respectively. But they were helped by 28 homers by Bill Skowron, 22 homers by Yogi Berra, and 21 homers apiece for Elston Howard and Johnny Blanchard, who managed his 21 homers in only 243 at-bats!
Considered one of the great teams of all-time, they had the Cy Young winner in Ford and the MVP in Maris, with Mantle as arguably the player with the MVP season!