Surprisingly, journeyman righty Paul Byrd of the Red Sox delayed the almost relentless Yankee march to the 2009 AL East title for almost six innings in a rain-soaked Yankee Stadium on September 27, 2009, against a game Andy Pettitte who, because he completed six innings, got the win. After Byrd allowed two 2-out singles in the sixth, Hideki Matsui singled in two runs three pitches after a Takashi Saito wild pitch, to give the Bombers a 3-2 lead. Mark Teixeira homered for the final run in the 4-2 win in the eighth, Melky Cabrera went yard earlier, and the Yanks earned the division crown at exactly 5:00 pm New York time.

On September 27, 2021, the Yankees optioned righthander Albert Abreu to AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and activated righty Jameson Taillon.

On September 27, 2021, in anticipation of his first ever major league start, the Yankees recalled righthander Clarke Schmidt from the team’s Alternate Training Site, and optioned righty Miguel Yajure to that same Training Site. But Schmidt failed in his outing, surrendering four tallies to the visiting Marlins in a 5-0 loss. But when Toronto fell 7-5 in Baltimore, the Yankees backed into the playoffs, with a 33-27 record.

In a dissatisfying season where the Yankees began their penultimate series of 2016 discussing their “tragic” (not magic) number, the team began a surprisingly enjoyable three-game set with visiting Boston with a 6-4 victory on September 27. Bookended two-run rookie home runs drove this win, as Gary Sanchez reached David Price with a jolt in the first, and Tyler Austin, capping a 3-for-3 night, cleared the right field wall in the home seventh.

In another outing that surely puzzles you if you witnessed his efforts starting in 2016, young Luis Severino was superb in blanking the visiting White Sox through six in a 6-1 Yankee win on September 27, 2015. It was actually a tight battle, with the Yanks having scored one in the first after back-to-back errors by Chicago first baseman Jose Abreu, the only tally until Dustin Ackley homered in the sixth. Severino struck out just two, but allowed only five hits and a walk, and Greg Bird doubled and singled late, and scored both times.

Bill Dickey finished the 1931 regular season during a 13-1 demolition of Lefty Grove and the A’s on September 27 having allowed no passed balls. He set a record for being charged with none that year, as did the Yankee club with none to any other catchers either. Among other highlights in the game: Lou Gehrig not only hit his 46th home run, tying fellow Yank Babe Ruth, his two rbi’s topped off his season at 184. The 347 he and the Babe (163) amassed as teammates is one of those records one doubts will ever be eclipsed. And the Iron Horse completed his sixth full season without missing a game.

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig picked on Lefty Grove and the A’s on September 27, 1927, too. The Babe hit his 57th homer, a grand slam, while Lou hit no. 46 in a 7-4 Yankee win.

Although I was sad at what I thought could be (and was) Mickey Mantle‘s last at bat when he flied out in Fenway against Lee Stange on September 27, 1968, I was one of many fans who took heart (foolishly, it turned out) when the Mick’s replacement that day, Andy Kosko, homered later to tie the game. Joe Pepitone then went yard in the ninth for a 4-3 Yankee win. Kosko and the other pretenders who followed him would prove over the years how big a hole Mantle’s departure had left.

Take your highlight pick from the September 27, 2006, 16-5 Yankee win over Baltimore: The loudspeaker crowed that the 53,000-plus crowd gave the Yanks their second 4-mil-plus season of paying customers. The Bombers slugged four home runs, including one each by Jorge Posada and Jason Giambi, the two guys who led the way with four rbi’s apiece. Giambi had three hits and scored three times, Mariano Rivera pitched the seventh (!) with Ron Villone and T.J. Beam finishing up, and Chien-Ming Wang won his 19th.

Lou Gehrig hit the first of his 493 career regular-season homers off Bill Piercy in Fenway Park in an 8-3 Yankee win on September 27, 1923.

On September 27, 2013, the Yankees signed free agent first baseman Kevin Gonzalez to a minor league contract.

In one of the most notorious baseball incidents of the nineties, Roberto Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck after he was ejected for arguing a strike call on September 27, 1996.

On September 27, 1986, Jack Morris won his 20th game of the season when he shut out the Yankees, 1-0, in 10 innings, stopping Don Mattingly‘s 24-game hitting streak in the process. Other September 27, 20th (and better) wins were achieved by Randy Johnson for the Mariners in 1997; and Bill Lee of the Cubs in 1935. Giants hurler Larry Jansen garnered his 21st this day in 1951; Lefty Grove reached 24 wins for the A’s in 1928; and Indians righty George Uhle won his 27th in 1926. On the low end of the scale, Steve Arlin of the Padres lost his 21st on September 27, 1972.

And three more 20-plus victories were garnered on September 27 in wins against the Yankees. Amazingly, Jack Morris has his name repeated here, as he won his 20th of the 1992 season when he beat Scott Sanderson and the Yanks in a 12-2 blowout. Tex Hughson of the Red Sox won his 22nd as Boston edged the Yanks 7-6 on this day in 1942; and Urban Shocker of the Browns shut the Bombers out 2-0 in 1921 for his 27th victory that season.

Playing first base, Jason Giambi delivered his 100th rbi of the season and catcher Jorge Posada drove in his 99th, both with singles, as the Yankees defeated the Baltimore Orioles 6-2 in Camden Yards on September 27, 2002.

Yankee lefty Sparky Lyle had one of his rare bad days on September 27, 1972, as the Tigers scored three in the eighth and two more in the ninth. Trailing 5-1, Detroit turned the tables and bested Lyle and the Yanks 6-5.

The Yanks maintained their one-game lead over the Red Sox on September 27, 1978, by beating the Blue Jays at the Stadium 5-1, as the Sox topped the Tigers 5-2 in Fenway.

Bob Gibson completed an incredible 1968 season with his 13th shutout, 1-0 over the Astros, on September 27. He threw an unthinkable 28 complete games, amassed 268 strike outs, and pitched to the tune of a minuscule 1.12 era.

Though it was comfortably within the Joe Torre years, few Yankee fans recall righty Jim Bruske, but he got his only Yankee win in his lone Pinstriped start in an 8-3 Yankee victory over the Devil Rays on this day in 1998.

Boston Pilgrim hurler Bill Dineen threw the only September 27 no-hitter back in 1905, as he bested the White Sox 2-0 in the first of two.

When Cleveland outscored the Yankees 3-2 on September 27, 1914, Indians second baseman Nap Lajoie stroked his 3,000th major league hit.

Pascual Perez recorded his last major league decision in a 3-0 Yankees win over Greg Swindell and the Indians on September 27, 1991, sending the Tribe to their 100th loss of the season.

Babe Ruth lined his 52nd and 53rd homers of the 1920 Yankee campaign and drove in all three runs in a September 27, 3-0 shutout of the A’s, as Carl Mays allowed four spread-out base hits.

After getting victories in his first nine decisions, southpaw Whitey Ford took his first loss after relieving in a game against the A’s on September 27, 1950. Philly won the game 8-7 and Ford finished his rookie campaign with a 9-1 mark.

In a 10-8 victory over the Athletics on September 27, 1930, Lou Gehrig played the last of 885 consecutive games at first base. He would take Babe Ruth‘s spot in left field in the next game, the last of that season.

Those who think that much of the enmity Red Sox fans have for all things Yankee is rooted in New York victories in the fifties and the seventies and the nineties (not to mention this century) should take note of the Fenway crowd behavior on September 27, 1924. On this day the fans cheered as the Senators rallied from a 4-0 deficit to a 7-5 win over their Red Sox. Combined with the Yanks’ 4-3 loss to the A’s, the Senators’ victory gave them a two-game lead on New York with two to play, something that delighted the Fenway Faithful despite that fact that the Sox took the loss.

The highlight of Bob Shawkey‘s 9-2 win over the A’s on September 27, 1919, was that he set the at-the-time Yankee record by notching 15 strike outs. He combined with teammate Jack Quinn‘s earlier 4-1 victory for a doubleheader sweep in Philadelphia.

It’s worth pointing out another highlight from this day in 1919, even though it relates to Babe Ruth the year before he joined the Yanks. Ruth’s 29th home run was his first of the year in Washington. By doing so he became the first player ever to hit one in every park in the league in one season.

The tenure of the Browns in the American League, playing in Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, came to an end after their 10-inning, 2-1 loss to the White Sox on September 27, 1953. Fittingly, the loss was their 100th of the season.

When Seattle’s Randy Johnson struck out 18 Texas Rangers in a 3-2 Mariners loss on September 27, 1992, he equaled the American League high for a southpaw, set by Ron Guidry of the Yankees in 1978.

A bizarre highlight leads our list of additional September 27 items featuring future or former Yankee players. When Yankee-to-be Johnny Mize was tossed from a game for arguing in 1936, he was replaced by future Hall of Fame Dodgers Manager Walter Alston, who would then make one error and strike out in his only major league game appearance.

In a more conventional vein, Tim Raines became the first player since Ty Cobb to steal 70 bases and drive in 70 runs in the same season when he reached both figures in a 10-4 Montreal win over St. Louis on September 27, 1983. Raines played outfield for the Yanks in the late nineties; Luis Polonia did so earlier, and Karim Garcia in 2002-2003, but both homered for Detroit in the last ever game in Tigers Stadium, an 8-2 Detroit win over K.C. on this day in 1999.

 
Players Who Have Died This Day

From a numbers point of view, the saddest thing about hurler Andy Coakley‘s (1963) career-ending, two-game (one start) stint with the 1911 Highlanders was that the 0-1 mark moved him to one game under .500 at 58-59-3. The fact that lefty Frank Barnes (1967) also played just two games with New York at the end, to an 0-1 record too, are things he shares with Coakley, aside from the fact that they are two of the three Yankees who have died on September 27. Coakley’s near-even record was earned with the A’s, the Reds, the Cubs, and the Yanks from 1902-1911; Barnes had pitched just four other games, with one start, for the 1929 Tigers, with an overall 0-2-0 mark. Third baseman Eddie Tiemeyer (1946) barely edges those two out in longevity, as he too ended his big-league stay with the Highlanders, playing three games in 1909. He had three hits in eight at bats there, and two hits in 11 at bats for the 1906-1907 Reds, garnering neither a home run nor an rbi with either club.

Two of the noteworthy nonYankee players to die this day share that they were position players and that they both passed way in 2006. Shortstop Joe Koppe hit 19 homers and drove in 141 runs with the Braves, the Phillies, and the Angels from 1958-1965; and first baseman Craig Kusick went yard 46 times good for 171 rbi’s from 1973-1979, mostly with Minnesota. New to the list, big, bad left fielder Gates Brown (2013) played his entire 1963 through 1975 career with the Tigers; he stroked 84 long balls, and drove in 322 runs.

 
Players Born This Day

Righthander Don Schulze (1962), went 1-1 in two games with the 1989 Yanks to close out his seven-year career, and he is one of only two September 27 Yankee birthdays. Schulze was signed as a free agent in November 1988. The following July, Don was traded by the Yanks with Mike Pagliarulo to the Padres for Freddie Toliver and Walt Terrell. Schulze’s six-year totals: 15-25.

And the lefthanded Slats Jordan (1878) played his only two big-league games with the 1901-1902 Baltimore Orioles. This team would be moved to New York in 1903 as the Highlanders, and eventually the Yankees. Slats got no hits in seven at bats, played first base in one of the games and in the outfield in the other.

Righthander David Hale (1987), a 2009 Atlanta signee, pitched in one game in the 2018 Yankee pen, but another 19 in 2019 before going down with an arm injury, to a 3-0 record and two saves. Two of those numbers stayed the same through five games in 2020 while he added a third save, and he pitched in six games for Philadelphia following being released. David lost two with no wins or saves in 17 games in the Philly pen in 2021 as of this writing. In two years with the Braves, two with the Rockies, and with the Yanks and Phils, David has posted a 13-12 record, with three saves.

Other birthdays: Hall of Fame Phillies third baseman Mike Schmidt (1949), who blasted 548 homers in his 18 years playing in the City of Brotherly Love; hurler Whit Wyatt (1907), who won 106 and lost 95 playing primarily for the Tigers, White Sox, and Dodgers from 1929-1945; long-time Red Sox infielder Johnny Pesky (1919); reliever Dick Hall (1930), who had successful stints in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Philly during his 16 years in the bigs; Jason Phillips (1976); Vicente Padilla (1977); Jon Rauch (1978); Jon Garland (1979); John Lannan (1984); Pedro Ciriaco (1985); Vin Mazzaro (1986); Matt Shoemaker (1986); David Hale (1987); Grant Green (1987); Cameron Perkins (1990); Luis Guillorme (1994); Pedro Payano (1994); Alex Call (1994); Ángel Zerpa (1999); Adrian Del Castillo (1999); Mitchell Parker (1999); and Simeon Woods Richardson (2000).