New York, New York: Mets, Yankees Each Poised to Finish First
This may not be a big deal for baseball fans in Middle America who are sick of the Mets and Yankees but in the Big Apple, it is a huge deal. Fans already are talking about another Subway Series. In 1999, the Mets and Yankees each made the playoffs in the same season for the first time. A year later, they met in the first Subway Series since 1956, with the Yankees winning in five games to claim their third straight World Series title and 26th overall.
However, the Mets qualified for the playoffs in 1999 and 2000 as a wild card team since the Atlanta Braves have had a strangehold on the National League East Division since 1995. But that is about to change as the Mets are on the verge of securing their first division crown since 1988. The Yankees shockingly swept a five-game series in Boston from August 18-21, putting them in position tp capture their ninth straight AL East title.
While baseball has reached new heights of popularity in New York with more than seven million fans to attend Mets and Yankees games this season, until recently the two teams were rarely good together. When one was up, the other was down.
When the “Miracle Mets” won the World Series in 1969, the Yankees were going through some of the darkest days in the franchise’s storied history. Then when the Yankees returned to glory in 1977 and 1978, the Mets were floundering near the bottom of the NL East. Prior to 1999, the closest the teams came to making the playoffs in the same year was 1985, when both were eliminated on the final weekend of the season.
There used to be a time when a Subway Series seemed to be an annual rite of fall in New York, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. All told,there have been 14 Subway Series, with the Yankees winning 11, the New York Giants two and the Brooklyn Dodgers just one. Eight Subway Series were played between 1941-1956, including five in six years starting in 1951. The Giants and Dodgers moved to the West Coast following the 1957 season and the city didn’t see another Subway Series until 2000.
The Giants won the first two Subway Series, beating the Yankees in 1921 and 1922, though technically those weren’t Subway Series since the teams shared the same ballpark – the Polo Grounds.
In 1923, the Yankees moved into their own stadium about a quarter mile from the Polo Grounds and just across the Harlem River in the Bronx. Seating 62,000, Yankee Stadium was the largest baseball facility in the country at the time and hailed for its beauty. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Yankees won a championship in their very first year in their new home, beating the Giants in the 1923 World Series. Yankee Stadium became the center piece of the sports world in the Roaring Twenties, also hosting championship boxing matches and big college football games. Yankee Stadium was where Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne made his “win-one-for-the-Gipper” speech.
The Yankees also beat the Giants in the 1936 and 1937 World Series, beginning a stretch of four straight titles, a record that stood until they reeled off five in a row under Casey Stengel from 1949 through 1953. The Yankees’ fourth and final World Series win over the Giants came in the magical year of 1951.
IIn 1941, the Yankees took on a new opponent in the World Series – the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the first of seven World Series meetings between the teams in a span of 15 years and the Yankees won all but one. In 1955, “Dem Bums” – as the Dodgers were affectionately known by their fans – ended years of heartbreak by winning Brooklyn’s first and only World Series title.
Four years earlier, the Giants broke Brooklyn’s hearts by rallying from a 13 1/2-game deficit in the final two months of the season and winning the pennant on Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” off Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca. It is perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history, made more famous by the hysterical play-by-play of Giants’ announcer Russ Hodges.
“Branca throws … There’s a long drive … It’s gonna be, I believe …. The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Wahoo! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left field stands! Wahoo! The Giants win the pennant, and they’re goin’ crazy! They’re goin’ crazy! Heeeey-oh! … I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it! I do not believe it! Bobby Thomson … hit a line drive … into the lower deck … of the left field stands … and this place is goin’ crazy! The Giants! Horace Stoneham has got a winner! The Giants won it, by a score of 5 to 4, and they’re pickin’ Bobby Thomson up, and carryin’ him off the field!”
The final Subway Series between the Yankees and Dodgers in 1956 was marked by Don Larsen’s perfect game – the only one in World Series history. The Yankees gained revenge by beating the Dodgers in seven games.
A year later, the Dodgers and Giants moved to the west coast. Baseball in New York never was the same. There are still a few Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants fans around, though the number is dwindling as time goes by. Next season will mark the 50th anniversary since the Dodgers and Giants left town.
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