Damn Yankees by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Damn Yankees

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won the two games and the league championship. New York won a World Series rematch with the Dodgers in five games. Stengel was named AL Manager of the Year in his first season. The Yankees faced another competitive pennant race in 1950, as the Tigers joined New York and Boston at the top of the AL. Late in the season, the Yankees broke a tie with the Tigers for first place and went on to win the pennant. In the 1950 World Series, the Yankees swept the Phillies. The second game was decided by a DiMaggio home run in the tenth inning. Following the season, Yankee Phil Rizzuto was named AL MVP after recording 200 base hits during the regular season.

Fan interest in attending games had begun declining throughout MLB in the late 1940s, and the Yankees faced a drop off in their crowds after 1947, when they sold about 2.2 million tickets. By 1957, season attendance was down by over 700,000. New York

baseball fans had the option of watching games on television instead by the early 1950s. The Yankees joined the other New York City franchises in allowing game telecasts. This was a departure from the team's strategy when radio broadcasts were introduced. Regular season games of the Yankees were not broadcast until 1939, as management believed that fewer fans would attend games if they could listen on radios.