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It’s not surprising that there will be no testimonials for the 1974 Yankees this year. When you are a franchise that’s won 27 championships, that’s been in 40 World Series — that’s one out of every three ever played — it’s not necessarily on brand to honor a team that finished in second place, which, in the days before the wild card, meant out of the postseason.
Still, in many ways, 1974 was the most critical year in Yankees history.
You have to remember what the Yankees were in 1974. They weren’t just the Other Team in town, they were almost out of town, period.
This was the 11th straight year they’d been outdrawn by the Mets — and in a few of those years it was 2-to-1. They’d drawn fewer than a million fans in 1972. They nearly moved to New Jersey. New Orleans wooed them with the Superdome. A year earlier, George Steinbrenner put together a group that bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million — $2 million less than CBS paid for the team in 1964.
To make matters worse, 1974 was the first of two seasons the Bronx Bombers played in Queens, as Yankee Stadium was being renovated.
They were also a decade removed from their previous postseason appearance. The losing had become endemic. They’d been in first place as late as Aug. 1 in 1973 then had an epic collapse, finishing with a losing record (while watching the Mets make the Series again). And in ’74, things started just as depressingly. By July 2, they were eight games out. They were in last place as late as July 14.
They got hot just before the All-Star break. Fifty years ago Sunday, they beat the Royals in front of 36,000 at Shea to nudge above .500 at 48-47, two games out. And there started to be a sense that maybe this could be different.
“We’ve got momentum,” staff ace Doc Medich said that day. “And it’s not the kind that comes and goes with each passing day. It’s been building up.”
He was right. After the break, the Yankees started to win just about every day — 15 out of 18 at one point in August. They hopped into first place on Sept. 4, built the gap to as many as 2 ¹/₂ games. Shea Stadium was still a foreign place for them — especially for star Bobby Murcer, who didn’t hit a home run there until late September — but they learned to win there, 47 times.
Inside the clubhouse, the team adopted Paul McCartney’s “Band on the Run” as a fight song, which they played every postgame at ear-splitting levels. In the stands, Yankees fans adopted a slogan: “Yes, we can!”
Medich and Pat Dobson won 19 games each. Sparky Lyle pitched to a 1.66 ERA out of the bullpen. Lou Piniella and Elliott Maddox hit over .300, and though nobody had a breakout offensive season, they were a team known for timely hitting and clutch pitching.
In the end, the Orioles, making their last gasp of a dominant stretch that went back to 1966, overcame them. On the final day of the season, Steinbrenner — who’d kept a low profile because of his season-long battle with Watergate prosecutors — visited the team in Milwaukee and thanked them for “Playing like champions, which you’ll be soon enough.”
It would take a few more years for that. But the Yankees started being the Yankees again in 1974. By the end of the calendar year they would outbid the rest of baseball for Catfish Hunter, which would establish a tone that would last for the rest of Steinbrenner’s tenure with the team.
In the middle of 1975, they hired Billy Martin. And by ’76, with the refurbished Yankee Stadium as their stage, they finally did go back to October, and they zoomed past the Mets — which, except for a seven-season stretch from 1985-91, is where they would stay.
Nobody will ever hold a party for the ’74 Yankees, except Yankees fans who had a hell of a time that summer and fall. They know. They remember. That’s the team that started it all. Fifty years ago.
Vac’s whacks
If he keeps showing up at majors, I’m afraid “Tiger Woods at Troon” may finally supplant, after 51 years, sporting shorthand for “Willie Mays in the 1973 World Series” to describe athletes who stay on past their shelf lives.
Remember these two names: Matt MacDonald, new GM of the Long Island Nets, and Dan Bisaccio, longtime lieutenant for Erik Spoelstra, heading off to his first coaching gig with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, — the Heat’s G League team. Two kids with big, bright basketball futures ahead of them.
I think it’s a testament to how good the great Peter Sarsgaard is that he’s supposed to be the buffoon of “Presumed Innocent” and yet I’m rooting that they build the just-announced Season 2 of “Presumed Innocent” around Tommy Molto.
I’ll say now what I said before she played even one minute in the WNBA: Caitlin Clark is welcome to play on my team any day. And if I can also have Sabrina Ionescu on that team, even better.
Whack back at Vac
Matthew Meagher: The Diamondbacks drafted Trent Youngblood from Transylvania College. That’s scary!
Vac: He must have killed day game/night game splits.
Neil Ptashnik: I grew up always looking forward to the All-Star Game. I actually was at the 1977 game at Yankee Stadium right after Seaver was traded. What made it great was watching the best players in the game in their uniforms. This ain’t that!
Vac: The word that keeps coming back to me is this: pajamas.
@aurexia1213: Is it possible to be an overachieving underachiever? Yes, see Aaron Boone.
@MikeVacc: And this is one of the nicer replies I got to my Aaron Boone column the other day.
Ron Perri: Sherlock Holmes should be the Yankees’ closer. At least he’d have a clue.
Vac: It is a very, VERY tough room.
