by Unstoppable Force

Created on: May 16, 2008

26 World Series Championships. The New York Yankees, the Bronx bombers and recently known as the "evil empire". After starting out as the lowly Highlanders and renting space from the New York baseball Giants; they had graduated to what many consider to be the cathedral of baseball... Yankee Stadium. They have existed for 100 years and in those years many great squads have taken the field in those trademark pin stripes. Squads from the "murderers row" of 1927 that included titans of baseball such as Lou Gehrig and the legendary Babe Ruth to the 1961 squad that included Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and the chairman of the board Whitey Ford. You would indeed be hard pressed to pick which squad out-shined any other squad that donned the interlocking NY on their cap. In my own time I witnessed greats like "Doc" Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, the awesomely charismatic Reggie Jackson play for my beloved Yankees.

However, since I am made to choose, for the sake of this title what i consider to be the best all time Yankees squad; I have to side with the 1998 New York Yankees. I was working on finishing up the final 3 or 4 months of my enlistment in the U.S. ARMY when the 98 season opened for the Yanks. I watched every game I could watch, if not, I watched the highlights on ESPN and read the box scores in the post newspaper. The season was half way over by the time I had ETS'ed and gotten back home. By then the 98 squad that included the likes of future hall of fame inductees like Derek Jeter, Scott Brocious, Paul O'Neil, Jorge Posada, the most feared closing pitcher in the history of baseball Mariano Rivera and at the helm of this machine the great Joe Torre; were working what can only be called a season of magic. That squad mowed through the opposition in a way that seemed effortless. They owned every game they played. Whats important, is how they owned that season. The 98 Yankees played through a combination of outstanding teamwork and small ball. They moved the runners and chipped away at opposing teams. It was, for lack of a better description, poetry in motion.

That squad had no stars. In fact, there was a different game maker every game. Most nights you could see Jeter delivering the game winning base hit with runners in scoring position in the bottom of the 9th. On other nights you would witness Rivera mowing down hitters in the bottom of the 9th with his knee-buckling cutter to nail a win down. You could always count on one of two things as that season drew to a close...

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>