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BEWARE
THE 27 YANKEES All baseball teams take note. You must fear the 1927 Yankees. Murderers Row. One of the most lethal offensive teams in baseball. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth combined for 107 regular season home runs that year, 60 of those by Ruth himself. The Yankees had 110 wins in the regular season and hit over .300 as a team. They were the first American League team to sweep a National League team in the World Series as four different pitchers won each of those World Series games. Beware the 1927 Yankees! No, no, not those 27 Yankees. The 27 Yankees a team must get out in order to win the game against the 2001 Bronx Bombers. Those are the 27 Yankees you must fear. For the second time in as many games, the Yankees went down to the final out of the game before getting a two-run home run to tie the game, then went on to win in extra innings. Two games in a row, Arizona had a two-run lead with 26 outs in the game, only to see that elusive 27th out hit a blast that left baseball fans everywhere shaking their heads. The Yankees then rode the momentum from those home runs to win in extra innings. In game four it was a Derek Jeter home run in the tenth inning that secured the win. In game five it was an RBI single by Alfonso Soriano in the 12th inning that gave the Yankees the win. One of the interesting things about those two games is who had the hits. Every big hit in those late innings was by a different player. Game four saw Paul O’Neill get a base hit, followed by the home run from Tino Martinez to tie the game. In the tenth, it was Derek Jeter who provided the game winning home run. Fast forward to game five. This time Jorge Posada got a leadoff double in the ninth and Scott Brosius provided the two-run home run to tie the game. In the 12th inning, it was Chuck Knoblauch who got the leadoff base hit and Soriano who provided the game winning hit that scored Knoblauch. It is simply amazing what the Yankees have done these last two games. To be down by two runs and one out away from falling behind in the series, yet walk away with a heart stopping win and all the sudden be in the lead in the series. The difference between today’s 27 Yankees, and the 1927 Yankees are who the opposing pitchers fear. In the 1927 World Series, the Yankees had 38 hits as a team in the four games. Exactly half of those hits came from three players in Mark Koenig (9), Babe Ruth (6) and Lou Gehrig (4), and Ruth hit the only two home runs in the entire series. Today, a pitcher doesn’t know who will deliver that lethal blow. In the 2001 World Series, the Yankees have 29 total hits as a team in the first five games, but no player has more than four and ten different players have at least one hit. Five different Yankees have gone deep in the series, including the three memorable ones in the last two games, with no player having more than one home run. Just as pitchers feared the 1927 Yankees, they must fear the 27 Yankees who must be put out in order to complete the game. And just as pitchers could take no hitter in the 1927 Yankee lineup for granted, no pitcher in this postseason can take any of the 27 Yankees in this postseason for granted either. Especially that 27th one. Just ask Byung-Hyun Kim.
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