Roger Maris blasted his 59th home run of the 1961 season off Milt Pappas on September 20 in a 4-2 win over Baltimore. Because this was the Yanks’ 154th game of the year, AL Commissioner Ford Frick had determined that Roger neither tied nor broke Babe Ruth‘s single-season home run record of 60, because Roger would hit numbers 60 and 61 in the eight games that were to come, while Ruth had hit his during a season composed of just 154 tilts. It is worth adding, I think, that Rajah came close to no. 60 in this tilt, and that he lost a tater earlier that season in a Baltimore four-inning-plus rainout. The Yankees, meanwhile, clinched their 26th AL pennant with the win. Continue reading →
Things looked OK in the Bronx on September 19, 2023, once Gleyber Torres drove Aaron Judge in with a first-inning double, tying visiting Toronto, who had scored on George Springer‘s homer on a 3-1 pitch from Clarke Schmidt to lead off the game. But Beau Bichette went yard against Schmidt in the fifth, and the Jays tacked on three more in the ninth of a 7-1 defeat of the Yankees. Continue reading →
Down just 1-0 to Cleveland through four innings on September 18, 2021, Luis Gil combined with reliever Albert Abreu to allow seven fifth-inning runs in an 11-3 loss. Late home runs from Giancarlo Stanton and Luke Voit allowed the home team to avoid a shutout. Continue reading →
While Corey Kluber held visiting Cleveland to four hits and no runs through six in the Yanks’ 8-0 win on September 17, 2021, the Bombers plated seven of those tallies on home runs from Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner, and Giancarlo Stanton, and two by Joey Gallo. Continue reading →
With the superb Gerrit Cole going in a September 16, 2020, game against visiting Toronto, it was more than OK that outfielder Aaron Judge, on his first day off the Injured List, had an oh-fer, as the rest of the team pounded the Jays 13-2. Clint Frazier and Luke Voit homered; DJ LeMahieu went yard twice; but the star of the game was catcher Kyle Higashioka, who cleared the fences three times. Continue reading →
A three-run Aaron Judge third-inning homer was the big blow in a 5-2 win over Boston in the Stadium on September 15, 2024. By so doing, the Yanks took three of four in that series. Continue reading →
You don’t win as many pennants as the Yankees have without having some memorable mid-September moments. First, the Yankees resurrected their season in what was a very bad September when they won a come-from-behind contest in Toronto on the 14th in 1999. Hitting two grand slams in the same game for only the third time in their history, Bernie Williams tied the game at six with his in the eighth inning, and the Bombers won behind Paul O’Neill‘s salami in the ninth, 10-6. Continue reading →
On home runs from Masataka Yoshida and Trevor Story, the Red Sox led 4-0 in Yankee Stadium on September 13, 2024, until Aaron Judge closed a five-run seventh inning with a grand slam in a 5-4 Yankee victory. Continue reading →
The Yanks and Boston finished tied after nine at 1-1 in Yankee Stadium on September 12, 2024, as Gleyber Torres and Danny Jansen hit singleton jolts, in the first and fifth innings, respectively. With Jon Berti pinch running for Torres as the ghost runner in the bottom of the 10th, Juan Soto drove him in for the 2-1 win. Continue reading →
September 11 is a tough day to write about, in any sense. I’ll just share one meaningless and one poignant Yankee memory. I was looking forward to going to the Stadium THAT day because I had sat through a two-hour-plus rain delay on the evening of 9/10/01. After a long wait above a very wet field on which no new rain fell during most of the delay, they called the Yankee game vs. the Red Sox. Needless to say, I never got to the 9/11 Yankees/White Sox tilt. And one of the most touching “Portraits of Grief” from the Times that I read was of the gentleman who was from Chicago, but had married and started his family in New York. He imbued a love of the game into his four daughters and was scheduled to take all four to that night’s game against his beloved White Sox before he perished in the World Trade Center. Continue reading →
