Best 50 — 1961 New York Yankees (#30)

Roger Maris (61 homers) and Mickey Mantle (54) blast their way into history

Our countdown of baseball’s 50 greatest teams — a list known as the Best 50 — rolls today to No. 30, the 1961 New York Yankees. The rankings come from my new book, Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams.

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: 1961 New York Yankees

• Team score: 86.536 points

• All-time rank: 30 of 2,544

• All-time percentile: 98.86%

• Season record: 109-53 (.673)

• Season position: First place in American League

• Final status: World champion

Season summary

The Yankees flashed more power than any other ballclub in 1961 or, for that matter, any prior season. Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and Company pounded 240 homers, 51 more than the next-highest team that year. The Yanks obliterated the previous annual record of 221, shared by the 1947 New York Giants and 1956 Cincinnati Redlegs.

Maris, with 61 homers, famously broke Babe Ruth’s hallowed single-season mark of 60. Mantle finished close behind with 54.

The ’61 team piled up 109 wins — the most by any Yankees squad since 1927 — though the total was worthy of an asterisk. The American League had expanded its schedule to 162 games in 1961, up from the traditional 154.

Experts have differed widely on the relative quality of the 1961 Yankees. “It is doubtful that any team in baseball history, with perhaps the 1927 Yankees the exception, could have beaten them,” wrote Peter Golenbock. But Bill James was equally adamant: “I am certain that the 1961 New York Yankees were not a great baseball team.”

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Baseball’s Best (and Worst) Teams

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Postseason summary

The Sporting News asked 18 sportswriters to predict the 1961 World Series. Thirteen picked New York to defeat Cincinnati. Edgar Munzel of the Chicago Sun-Times spoke for the majority: “The crushing power of the Yankees simply is too great to overlook.”

The forecast seemed shaky after the first two games ended in a split. But the Yankees asserted themselves thereafter, sweeping the final three contests. The offensive stats for the series were lopsided in New York’s favor: seven to three in homers, 27-13 in runs. The Reds were shut out twice, both times by Whitey Ford.

“We were crushed,” said Cincinnati pitcher Jim Brosnan. “We didn’t belong on the same field with the 1961 Yankees.”

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Lineup summary

Roger Maris blasted 40 home runs by the end of July 1961, and Mickey Mantle (39) was right on his heels. Both Yankees were outstripping Babe Ruth’s record-setting pace. Ruth had hit 34 homers as of July 31, 1927, en route to the single-season mark of 60.

Commissioner Ford Frick should have been overjoyed by the attendant publicity, but he wasn’t. Frick had once been a ghostwriter for Ruth, whom he considered a friend. “I lived with the old guy, really,” the commissioner said. He hastened to protect his pal, decreeing that no player would be credited with breaking Ruth’s record unless he did it within 154 games, not the 162 the American League currently played.

Frick’s edict drained the excitement from the chase. Only 23,154 spectators straggled into Yankee Stadium for the season’s final contest. Maris hit his 61st homer that afternoon, nearly two weeks past the commissioner’s deadline.

Six Yankees exceeded 20 home runs. Catcher Elston Howard topped the club with a blistering .348 batting average. Howard had been named to every AL All-Star team since 1957, but 1961 was the first season in which he caught more than 100 games.

Starting pitcher Whitey Ford enjoyed the greatest season of his 16-year career, leading the league in wins (25) and innings (283). Luis Arroyo, a run-of-the-mill reliever since 1956, exploded into prominence, topping the majors with 29 saves. “I believe I have finally become a big leaguer,” Arroyo said. “Now I feel I belong.”