The Day the Yankees Fell into the Cellar. June 1, 1959 Life magazine

Exerpt from June 1, 1959 Issue.

First Time in 19 Years Yankees are in Last Place

The haughtiest heads in baseball were bowed in humiliation last week. on a day deservedly known in New York - Black Wednesday, the New York Yankees, pennant winners for nine out of the last 10 years, slumped without a murmur into a place they have not occupied in 19 year--the American League cellar. A few fans were loyal, but they were outnumbered 100 to 1 by a nationwide army of rabid Yankee-haters who for years had had to content themselves with fictional accounts of Yankee downfalls in Douglass Wallop's novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, and it’s stage-screen versions. Damn Yankees. Now they could enjoy a far worse debacle than anyone, even wallop, had dared imagine. The Yankee misery began with the season less than a month-old. While losing a series of one-run games, they skidded into the second division and then the dam broke. The strange thing about their final dunking was that everybody, including the Yanks themselves, seemed to know it would happen. They were playing the Tigers, a constant thorn in their side, and on the hill was Frank Lary, the old Yankee-killer. Just before the game Yankee Manager Casey Stengel decided to save his star pitcher, Bob Turley, for another day. So began the debacle. If the Yanks had been beating themselves in previous games, now they seemed lent on self destruction. They threw the ball away, kicked it around, let 11 Tigers bat in one inning without changing pitchers. It was the most humiliating three hour-that Stengel ever sweated out in the dugout.

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