Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Red Ruffing

Hip Hip Jorge: Saying Goodbye to Posada and Placing Him Among the Yankee Greats

The question of whether or not Posada is one of the twenty greatest Yankees will have to be left to future, and longer, subway rides, but his place in the top 25 is reasonably secure. The same ambiguity around Posada’s place in Yankee history will probably surround his Hall of Fame candidacy, but there is no ambiguity around his role in the last four Yankee championships. If game five of the LDS was indeed Posada’s last game, he will be missed by all Yankee fans, whether hunched over their computers looking at numbers or cursing A-Rod while semi-conscious on the subway.

The Core Four in Historical Context

It is very unusual for four players to play together for this long, but it is not unprecedented. There are two other groups of four players who played together for ten years who are comparable to the core four. In addition, two other groups of Yankees played together for nine years, but not ten. From 1930-1938, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing were teammates winning five pennants and five World Series. From 1954-1962 Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle and Moose Skowron another group of four teammates won seven pennants and four World Series The core four played together from 1997-2003 and 2007-2009 winning six pennants and four World Series.