1959 Yankee Season of the Past: 1925

THE YEAR THE YANKEES FINISHED SEVENTH

Waite Hoyt Remembers It Well - 28 1/2 Games Back Of Washington

"The Year the Yankees finished seventh was 1925. Waite Hoyt remembers it well. Too well, perhaps.

The man who broadcasts the Cincinnati Reds' games on WKRC was one of the Yankees' stars in those days. He pitched important victories while the team won pennants in 1921, 1922, and 1923 and finished second in 1924.

But 1925 was different. 'We got away badly,' he recalled recently. 'We'd had four great seasons in a row with the same team, without a replacement. And now, in the fifth season, we grew tired. A team can get tired just as an individual gets tired.

'We were tired of the pressure of being on top. Of having everyone gun for us.

'It was still a good ball club, but we seemed to lose our desire. It seemed like we had a joy ride all season.

'We had bickering and fights.

'We thought we should have won our fourth straight pennant in 1924, and we thought it was an accident that we didn't. So nobody bothered to make any changes to the club.

'No one realized the club was falling apart. Aaron Ward on second base was going downhill. Everett Scott at shortstop couldn't move anymore. Wally Schang, the catcher, was really through in 1924 but nobody was prepared for it.

'Wally Pipp, our first baseman, got hurt. He was hit in the head in batting practice. Charlie Caldwell, later the football coach at Princeton, threw the pitch. Pipp couldn't play that day and Miller Huggins put in a young first baseman, Lou Gehrig. Pipp never got back into the lineup.

'Babe Ruth had a bad year.' (Records show he hit .290. The year before he hit .378 to lead the league.)

Hoyt won 11 games. The team finished 28 1/2 games back of Washington, which won.

'They didn't have farm systems back in those days,' pointed out Hoyt. 'Now you have farm systems, and a club like Milwaukee, trying to keep on top, moves second basemen and outfielders up and down. We couldn't do that.

'But Gehrig came to the club. And Earle Combs and Mark Koenig. Next year, we added Tony Lazzeri. And in 1926-27-28 we won three straight pennants again.'

Hoyt came back, too. He led the league in 1927, and before he was through he had won 237 games in 20 years."

-Pat Harmon, Cincinnati Post (Baseball Digest, August 1959)