Spanking the Yankees: 366 Days of Bronx Bummers

The New York Yankees — Love ‘em or Hate ‘em.

Author Gabriel Schechter hates them!

Following up on his This BAD Day in Yankees History (2008), Schechter has now given us an “expansive, unfettered celebration of Yankees misfortunes.” He covers all 366 calendar dates here — with more than 550 items — all celebrating the Yankees’ “heinous history” which has earned their reputation as “the Evil Empire” (back cover).

Schechter clarifies: “I am not a Yankee -hater. I’m a Yankees -hater; I hate the whole damn franchise. But say to me, ‘I’m a Yankee fan. Are you?’ and my answer will be ‘Yes, I like Giancarlo Stanton . Which one do you like? I’ve almost always had one or two individuals in pinstripes I liked and rooted for. The first two were Moose Skowron and Jim Bouton , both of whom I was pleased to meet decades later. I particularly enjoyed watching Mel Stottlemyre pitch during my teens. But I’ve always wanted the team, the Yankees , to lose every game. Every year” (ix-x).

Schechter divides the book into four parts: 1) The Regular Season—featuring events from Opening Day through September; 2) The Postseason — which includes the World Series Era (1903-1968), Playoff Era (1969-1993), and the Wild Card Era (1995-2019); 3) The Off-Season — Bad Trades, Bad Free Agents, Bad Behavior, Salary Squabbles, Ugly Exits, Doing Business the Yankees Way, Spring Training and 4) Search Tools — Index of Infamy, Names, Ranks, and Serial Numbers, and Index of Dates.

One can read this book straight through absorbing the lethal doses of scorn, page after page. The indices make it possible to choose incidents of interest — particularly from the “Index of Infamy” — an alphabetical catalog of Yankee offenses, such as: Brawls; Brutality; Cheating; Fights; Greatest snits; Kiss of death; Revenge; Suspensions; Wasted money etc. This index stretches for seven pages, so there is much from which to choose! The extensive “Names, Ranks, and Serial Number” index allows one to focus on favorite — or unfavorite! players.

Particular disdain is heaped upon Billy Martin , on-again, off-again Yankee manager. Schechter provides a chart: “I’ve made it easy for you to keep Billy Martin’s managerial messes straight: each stint is designated the way you would indicate a monarch or pope, with a Roman numeral.” Hence: Martin I, II, III, IV, V with headings: Reign, First Game, Last Game, When Fired (8). Later, Martin is referred to as: “Herman Goering 2nd” (25). Martin leads off the chapter on “Bad Behavior” with accounts of Martin’s fights, Schechter saying that “rabid dogs backed off when he got in one of his moods, and he relished any chance to fulfill his self-image as a Western gunslinger” (184).

Even the great Babe Ruth does not escape scrutiny with multiple entries. For August 30, 1922, Schechter employs the New York Times to cast a light on the Babe : “Enjoy this New York Times description of Babe Ruth’s reaction to taking a called third strike: ‘The Babe’s fiery Peruvian blood boiled in his veins with an audible hissing sound. He took his stand by the plate, and gave two or three gruff Peruvian barks to clear his throat. Then he launched on the air a crisp, unflattering oration directed at the arbiter. [Tommy] Connolly had the last word, however, and the Babe was banished from the grounds. Hundreds of kids in the right field upper deck at the Polo Grounds spend the rest of the day screaming at Connolly. Ruth gets suspended, too” (67).

In the “tainted home runs” category, we hear of Mickey Mantle’s #535 to pass Jimmie Foxx and grab second place in American League history on September 19, 1968. Denny McLain was the “gopher pitcher” who won his 31st game of the season that day. McLain “salutes Mantle as The Mick circles the bases at Tiger Stadium, and he later admits telling Mantle he’ll groove an easy fastball to let him hit the home run. ‘ McLain has made a fan of me for life,’ says Mantle , without saying why. He needs all the help he can get, limping into retirement with a .237 batting average and .398 slugging percentage in his final season” (75-76).

Four days in October are highlighted in the “ 1960 World Series ,” which is “a particular favorite with Yankees-haters because the Yankees managed to blow it despite outscoring the Pittsburgh Pirates, 55-27” (96; as a life-long Pirates’ fan, this is my favorite!). The climax was Game 7 on October 13, 1960 — where, Schechter writes: “Imagine a major league game where nobody strikes out! It sounds like T-ball, not the major leagues, yet it happens in this 10-9 classic that brings Pittsburgh its first title since 1925” (97). With the game tied in the bottom of the ninth in Pittsburgh, the great glory became “ Bill Mazeroski’s famous smash over the left field wall at Forbes Field , a section of wall still preserved a half-century after Forbes’ abandonment by the Pirates” (97). Schechter points the finger at the “Yankee Goats”: pitchers Art Ditmar who was “especially awful” and Ralph Terry — loser as the game 4 starter and the Yankee pitcher who “gains a perverse immortality as Mazeroski’s victim, trudging toward the dugout after the first series-ending ‘walk-off’ homer in Series history” (97).

There is no mistaking the joy Gabriel Schechter got in writing this book! As he concluded in his “Introduction”: “We have just passed the first decade without a Yankees appearance in a World Series since the decade before they got Babe Ruth . What a treat it has been to add fresh failures to the litany of outrages that is the true legacy of baseball’s most-hated franchise. So pull up a chair and enjoy my smorgasbord of schadenfreude [pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune]. For dessert, there’s an Index like you’ve never seen before, [Index of Infamy], in case you wonder how I really feel” (xi).

Yankees -haters live!

Donald K. McKim

Germantown, Tennessee