Best 50 — 1939 New York Yankees (#23)
Another season, another world title for Joe McCarthy’s juggernaut
This newsletter is slowly traveling through the Best 50. That’s my list of history’s 50 greatest ballclubs, as ranked by my new book, Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams. Today’s story focuses on No. 23, the 1939 New York Yankees.
Here’s a quick boilerplate explanation that I’m appending to every story in this series:
I compiled the Best 50 by analyzing 2,544 major-league teams from 1903 to 2024. Those clubs have been ranked by their team scores (TS), which are plotted on a 100-point scale. (A given club’s all-time percentile is the percentage of the other 2,543 teams that it outperformed.)
See my book for an explanation of my TS calculations. The book also offers separate breakdowns of the best and worst clubs for every decade and franchise, comprehensive profiles of the Best 50 (including position-by-position lineups and much more information than you’ll find in this newsletter), and similar summaries of the 10 worst teams of all time.
Now on to today’s profile.
Facts and figures
Team: 1939 New York Yankees
Team score: 87.289 points
All-time rank: 23 of 2,544
All-time percentile: 99.13%
Season record: 106-45 (.702)
Season position: First place in American League
Final status: World champion
Season summary
The Yankees were hit with two major shocks in 1939. The first came in January, when longtime owner Jacob Ruppert died of phlebitis. General manager Ed Barrow stepped in as the new president.
The second jolt occurred on May 2, when Lou Gehrig removed himself from the lineup. “I haven’t been a bit of good to the team,” said Gehrig, who missed his first game in 14 seasons. The first baseman was hitting only .143, yet manager Joe McCarthy refused to count him out: “Maybe the warm weather will bring him around.” But Gehrig, soon to be diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, would never play again.
Neither of these setbacks fazed the Yankees, who piled up 106 victories during the regular season. They rolled to a 13.5-game lead in the American League by the end of June, then glided to a 17-game margin at the end. “This Yankee club is better than the much-talked-about 1927 outfit,” Barrow insisted. “Who can stop this team?”
Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams
Get the complete lowdown on the 50 greatest (and 10 weakest) clubs of all time
Postseason summary
Nobody expected Cincinnati to win the National League pennant in 1939. The Reds had sunk to last place just two seasons earlier, and the Sporting News picked them to finish sixth in ’39. “The Reds look to me as if they will be the big disappointment of the year,” SN prognosticator Hugh Fullerton wrote in April.
Cincinnati confounded Fullerton by winning the NL title with a 97-57 record. Yet the oddsmakers remained unconvinced, installing the Yankees as prohibitive 5-to-13 favorites in the World Series.
The pundits, for once, were correct. New York won its fourth straight world championship, sweeping the Reds by a combined score of 20-8. The Yankees blasted seven home runs, three by rookie Charlie Keller. The Reds didn’t hit any.
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Lineup summary
The Yankees seemed vulnerable as the 1939 season began. A mysterious ailment, eventually diagnosed as ALS, brought Lou Gehrig’s fabulous career to an unanticipated end. The team’s other superstar, Joe DiMaggio, was hospitalized with a serious foot injury. He would appear in only 120 games.
But the club’s weakness was illusory. DiMaggio made another run at a Triple Crown upon his return. He led the American League with a .381 batting average and finished among the top four batters in homers (30) and RBIs (126), despite missing a month of action. He was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.
Four other Yankees topped .300. Third baseman Red Rolfe (.329) was productive and quiet, a pair of qualities that endeared him to Joe McCarthy. Rolfe’s 213 hits paced the AL. Rookie Charlie Keller (.334) was a muscular right fielder who didn’t think like a power hitter. “They can save Babe Ruth’s crown for someone else,” he said. Veterans George Selkirk (.306) and Bill Dickey (.302), the club’s two oldest position players, continued to earn their keep.
The player who received the most scrutiny was Babe Dahlgren, the new first baseman. He batted a very un-Gehrig-like .235, and the fans voiced their displeasure. “I don’t know why they keep picking on Dahlgren all the time,” said McCarthy. “I never have to worry about him losing a game through fielding.”
Seven New York pitchers notched at least 10 wins, but nobody in the rotation had an outstanding season. The staff was inconsistent. The Yankees fashioned 15 shutouts — the most in the league — but they also allowed seven or more runs on 24 occasions.