Ask most people to name the greatest New York Yankee team of all time and chances are, depending on their age, you will hear years like 1927, 1961 and 1998. What if I were to tell you that the 1961 Yankees, the team of Roger Maris and his too-long-asterisked 61 home runs should not only not be in the running for the title of Best Yankees Ever, but may well have been the worst Yankees team to ever win the World Series? Put down those baseballs and bats, I’m a Yankee fan, remember. It just so happens, however, that as I was perusing one of my big ol’ baseball coffee table books in the, um, library that I discovered some pretty interesting and not particularly impressive statistics going on with the 1961 Yankees team.
Here’s the thing: the 1961 New York Yankees were one of the most powerful offensive teams in history. They led the American League in home runs and slugging offense…but not much else. What if I were to tell you that the might 1961 New York Yankees, they of the 61 dingers by Roger Maris and the Mick’s career-topping 54 homer still only managed to put together 827 total runs. That may sound impressive, but 827 total runs doesn’t even rank in the top 200 of all times. Yeah, you read that right. At least 200 other teams have scored more runs in Major League Baseball history than the vaunted 1961 Yankees. But wait, it gets even worse. The 1961 New York Yankees needed to hit all those runs out of the park because they rarely had a guy on second who could score on a long single. In fact, the 1961 NY Yankees actually hit fewer doubles than any other team in 1961. The reason they rarely had any guy on second by the time Maris and Mantle strutted their stuff is because their 1-2 hitters were a couple of sub-300 guys who didn’t have the patience to draw walks. Neither Bobby Richardson nor Tony Kubek ever show in any conversation about what made the 1961 Yankees great. And don’t get me wrong, they were great. They just maybe weren’t as great as is commonly thought.
In addition to finishing last in doubles, the Yankees were the worst thieves in the league as well. Not that any Yankees team has ever been particularly great at stealing bases and, let’s face it, why take a chance on an aging Mickey Mantle injuring himself and taking away chances for more home runs. The numbers don’t lie. The New York Yankees offense in 1961 was above average in just one category and that was knocking balls out of the park. Other than that were only slightly above average or well below average in every other category.
Still, when all is said and done, all that matters is putting a W on the scoreboard and the 1961 Yankees managed to do that 109 times on their way to winning another World Series. It would be interesting, should future technology ever allow it, to allow the 1961 New York Yankees go up against, say, the 1977 or 1947 Yankees and see if that unheralded team could put a hurting on what is generally regarded as one of the top five teams of all time.
