Twins vs Yankees (Part 1): The Rise Of The Damn Yankees

That disgust likely started in the mid-20s. The Yankees were a fairly futile franchise until they traded for Babe Ruth in 1919. Soon after, they started collecting pennants and dominated the rest of the 1920s - except for 1924 and 1925 when the Senators rose up and knocked them out of first place.

In fact, in 1924, the Senators not only beat the Yankees by two games to win the AL Pennant, but they also beat another heavily favored New York team – the Giants – to win their first and only World Series Championship. It could not have been more dramatic. The Senators had to play their last twenty games on the road that year, but never gave up first place in that stretch – but also never had more than a 2.5 game lead.

They were led by pitcher Walter “Big Train” Johnson, who despite being 36 years old posted a 23-7 record with a 2.72 ERA in 1924. Johnson was as dominant a figure in early baseball as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. Johnson not only set the all-time strikeout record at that time (breaking the record of Cy Young) but also held it for 55 years. He is one of only three two pitchers to belong to the 400-win club. And in Game 7 of that 1924 World Series, he came back on one day’s rest to pitch the last four innings – including three extra innings – without giving up a run. He was the winning pitcher when the Senators scored in the bottom of the 12^th and brought the District Of Columbia their championship.

But to really understand how legendary Johnson was, listen to Ty Cobb (who was hardly known for his gushing praise) talk about the first time he faced The Big Train:

“On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of the cornfields of the deepest bushes to pitch against us. …

He was a tall, shambling galoot of about twenty, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance. ... One of the Tigers imitated a cow mooing, and we hollered at Cantillon: 'Get the pitchfork ready, Joe—your hayseed's on his way back to the barn.' ...

The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him. ... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park."

Cobb was right: Johnson was arguably the greatest pitcher in the history of major league baseball. After his career, he was one of the “Five Immortals” (along with Ruth and Cobb) who were the first five players inducted into the Hall of Fame.

But the Big Train was not actually immortal. By the mid-20s, his career was nearing its end, and he retired after 1927 amid another run of Yankees pennants. He came back to manage the Senators, including from 1930 through 1932 when the Senators won over 90 games each year – and still never finished closer than eight games back for the AL pennant. The “Nats” finally won the pennant again in 1934 – and then the bottom fell out.

In the 22 years from 1934 to 1955 (when Damn Yankees opened on Broadway) the Senators only had three years where they finished less than 20 games out of first place. (And two of those were during World War II, when teams were forced to find ballplayers who had not gone to war.) During that same stretch of 22 years, the Yankees won fourteen AL Pennants and twelve World Series Championships. Yep – the Yankees won more World Series during that stretch than all the other MLB teams combined.

As long-suffering Senators fan Joe Boyd notes in Damn Yankees, the Bronx Bombers were especially known for their power hitters. During that time, Yankees players hit more than 25 home runs in a season 29 times – and this was after Babe Ruth’s prodigious run. During that same time, the Senators didn’t have a single player hit more than 25 home runs. It’s no wonder Boyd is willing to sell his soul for a long-ball hitter.

Ironically, the year that Damn Yankees opened, a quiet 18-year-old from Idaho hit his first home run for the Senators. He would be the one to break that powerless streak, but it wouldn’t be until the Senators were just about to move to Minnesota. And his nickname rightfully foretold that he would also be the player to end the Yankees’ dominance.

That player was Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame slugger Harmon Killebrew. And his nickname was “Killer.”

Part 2: How Killebrew Killed The Yankees.