H. Res. 306
In the House of Representatives, U.S.,
September 30, 2003.
Whereas the New York Yankees were officially acquired in
1903 and are celebrating their 100th anniversary in
2003;
Whereas what would become the most successful team in
sports history actually began as the Baltimore Orioles in
1901. When that franchise folded after only two seasons,
it was purchased for $18,000 by two colorful New York-
ers, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery;
Whereas New York’s third Major-League team, joining the
New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers of the National
League, would play its home games in a hastily con-
structed, all-wood park at 168th Street and Broadway.
Because the site was one of the highest spots in Manhat-
tan, the team was named the ‘‘Highlanders’’ and their
home field ‘‘Hilltop Park.’’ They played their inaugural
game on April 22, 1903, losing 3–1 to the Senators at
Washington. New York recorded the first win in fran-
chise history the next day, a 7–2 decision at Washington;
Whereas the Highlanders nearly captured the American-
League pennant in 1904—only their second season—as
they finished only 1.5 games behind the Boston Pilgrims
in the first of three second-place finishes from 1904 to
1910;
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Whereas after a spectacular fire severely damaged the Polo
Grounds in 1911, the Highlanders’ owners invited the Gi-
ants to share Hilltop Park. Two years later the Giants
returned the favor and allowed the Highlanders to move
into their rebuilt and vastly superior park. With the
move, the Highlanders officially changed their nickname
to ‘‘Yankees (by which they had actually been known for
most of their history).’’ Two years after the move—on
January 11, 1915—Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Colonel
Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston purchased the fran-
chise from its by-now disgruntled owners;
Whereas from 1911 to 1919, the Yankees won as many as
80 games in a season only twice, but the franchise’s for-
tunes would change forever on January 3, 1920. On what
is perhaps the most significant date in club history, the
Yankees purchased the contract of George Herman
‘‘Babe’’ Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000 and
a $350,000 loan against the mortgage on Fenway Park;
Whereas Ruth’s impact was immediate. The Yankees won 95
games in 1920, their highest victory total to date, and
captured their first American-League pennant a year
later. Their attendance at the Polo grounds doubled to
1,289,422 in 1920 and, in 1921, the Giants notified their
tenant to vacate the Polo grounds as soon as possible.
Now bitter rivals, the two teams squared off in the World
Series in 1921 and 1922 with the Giants winning both
times;
Whereas with their departure from the Polo Grounds inevi-
table, the Yankee owners set out to build a spectacular
ballpark of their own. Baseball’s first triple-decked struc-
ture with an advertised capacity of 70,000, it would also
be the first baseball facility to be labeled a ‘‘stadium’’;
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Whereas construction began on May 5, 1922 and, in only 284
working days, Yankee Stadium was ready for its inau-
gural game on April 18, 1923 vs. the Boston Red Sox.
An announced crowd of 74,200 fans packed Yankee Sta-
dium for a glimpse of Baseball’s grandest facility while
thousands milled around outside after the fire depart-
ment finally ordered the gates closed. Appropriately,
Ruth christened his new home with a three-run homer to
cap a four-run inning as the Yankees coasted to a 4–1
win;
Whereas because it was widely recognized that Ruth’s tre-
mendous drawing power made the new stadium possible,
it would immediately become known as ‘‘The House that
Ruth Built’’. Later that season, the Stadium hosted the
first of 36 World Series and the Yankees won their first
World Championship over their former landlord, the Gi-
ants. Of course, as the Stadium became the stage for a
staggering number of World titles—now totaling 26—it
would also become known as ‘‘The Home of Champions’’;
Whereas on June 1, 1925 in a 5–3 loss vs. Washington, Man-
ager Miller Huggins inserted a 21-year-old rookie first
baseman as a pinch hitter for light-hitting shortstop Pee
Wee Wanninger. No one could have imagined at the time
that this appearance would be the first of 2,130 consecu-
tive games played by Lou Gehrig, who, with Babe Ruth
and later Joe DiMaggio, anchored some of the greatest
ball clubs of all time;
Whereas after a disheartening loss to the St. Louis Cardinals
in the 1926 World Series, the Yankees rolled to World
Championships in both 1927 and 1928, sweeping the Se-
ries both years. The 1927 club, the first Yankee team to
be labeled ‘‘Murderers’ Row’’, became the yardstick by
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which athletic greatness is measured. During that season,
Ruth shattered his own single-season home run record
with his 60th on the season’s final day on September 30,
1927;
Whereas in his 15 seasons in pinstripes, Ruth helped build
a tradition of winning with seven American-League pen-
nants and four World Championships. He finished his
unparalleled career (with the Boston Braves in 1935)
with 714 home runs, 12 American-League home-run ti-
tles and six RBI crowns, including five seasons with more
than 150. A charter member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame,
he remains widely regarded as the greatest player of all-
time;
Whereas after the 1934 season, Ruth’s last in New York, the
Yankees purchased the contract of a budding star named
Joseph Paul DiMaggio from the San Francisco Seals of
the Pacific Coast League. Two years later, DiMaggio
made his debut in pinstripes and helped the Yankees to
an incredible string of four consecutive World Champion-
ships under Manager Joe McCarthy from 1936 through
1939. The decade of the thirties also produced one of the
game’s greatest lefty-righty pitching combinations in fu-
ture Hall of Famers Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing. A
four-time 20-game winner-including 24–7 in 1932 and
26–5 in 1934—Gomez was also 6–0 in five World Series.
Ruffing posted seasons of 20, 20, 21 and 21 wins on four
World-Championship clubs from 1936–1939;
Whereas sadly, in 1939, Gehrig was diagnosed with a crip-
pling disease and his streak of 2,130 games came to an
end on May 2 when he did not appear in a 22–2
Yankees’ win at Detroit. On July 4, the Yankees honored
their captain with an emotional ‘‘Lou Gehrig Apprecia-
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tion Day’’ at Yankee Stadium and his uniform number
(4) became the first in Baseball to be retired. He died
on June 2, 1941;
Whereas with the departure of Gehrig, DiMaggio became the
pillar of the next generation of Yankee champions. In his
13 seasons in pinstripes, the Yankees played in the World
Series in all but two years and won 10 World-Series ti-
tles. The legendary ‘‘Yankee Clipper’’ compiled one of the
game’s most remarkable—and perhaps unbreakable—
records in 1941 when he hit safely in a record 56 con-
secutive games;
Whereas the Yankees also made a seamless transition after
DiMaggio’s retirement at the age of 37 after the 1951
season. With Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle joining fu-
ture Hall of Famers Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto, the
Yankees won eight American-League pennants and six
World Championships under Manager Casey Stengel dur-
ing the 1950’s. Their streak of five consecutive World-Se-
ries titles from 1949 through 1953 remains a Major-
League record with no other winning as many as four
straight;
Whereas Mantle would achieve greatness despite an arrested
case of osteomyelitis and numerous injuries. The power-
ful switch-hitter belted 536 home runs, collected 2,415
hits and batted .300 or more 10 times in an 18-year ca-
reer. In his first 14 seasons in pinstripes, the Yankees
missed the World Series only twice (in 1954 and 1959);
Whereas Ford’s lifetime record of 236–106 gives him the best
winning percentage (.690) of any 20th century pitcher
and he paced the American League in victories three
times and in ERA and shutouts twice. He still holds
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many World Series records, including 10 wins, 33 con-
secutive scoreless innings and 94 strikeouts;
Whereas the heart of the Yankees for 18 seasons, Berra
played on an incredible 14 pennant winners and 10
World Champions. He was a three-time MVP and was se-
lected to the All-Star team in every season from 1948
through 1962;
Whereas Rizzuto was recognized as the glue of 10 pennant
winners and eight World-Series Champions from 1941–
56 and captured the league’s MVP award in 1950, bat-
ting .324 with 200 hits and 125 runs scored;
Whereas not every contributor to Yankee—and Baseball his-
tory was a future Hall of Famer. In Game Five of the
1956 World Series vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers on October
8th at Yankee Stadium, right-hander Don Larsen au-
thored what is perhaps the game’s greatest pitching per-
formance when he retired all 27 Dodger batters for the
only perfect game in World Series history;
Whereas the Yankees opened the decade of the sixties in their
usual fashion, winning pennants in the first five seasons
(1960–64) and World Series titles in 1961 and 1962. In-
credibly, in the 29 seasons from 1936 to 1964, the
Yankees won a remarkable 22 pennants and 16 World
Championships. The 1961 club is still regarded as one of
the best teams in Baseball history. With Mantle and
Roger Maris embroiled in a season-long race to break
Ruth’s single-season home-run record, the Yankees rolled
to 109 wins en route to the World Championship. Maris
smashed Ruth’s record when he belted his 61st home run
on October 1 at Yankee Stadium in the last game of the
season;
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Whereas but age finally caught up with the ball club after a
seven game Series loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in
1964. The Yankees would finish in the first division only
once in the next nine seasons and actually plummeted to
last place in 1966 for the first time in 53 years;
Whereas the team’s fall from grace ended on January 2,
1973, when the most storied franchise in sports history
was sold by CBS to a group headed by George M.
Steinbrenner III. With the addition of Catfish Hunter—
Baseball’s first marquee free agent—shrewd trades which
brought Ed Figueroa, Mickey Rivers, Chris Chambliss
and Willie Randolph and a strong nucleus which included
Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Roy White, and Sparky
Lyle, the Yankees would make their first post-season ap-
pearance in 12 years in 1976 by winning their first
American-League-East title. Then on October 14, 1976,
in the deciding fifth game of the League Championship
Series vs. the Kansas City Royals, Chambliss launched a
ninth-inning, pennant-winning home run to put the
Yankees back in the World Series;
Whereas after a disheartening four-game sweep vs. the Cin-
cinnati Reds in the 1976 World Series, the Yankees in-
troduced Reggie Jackson—the most prolific slugger of his
era—as the club’s newest free-agent acquisition. Jackson
then capped an exciting 1977 season with one of Base-
ball’s greatest individual performances. In Game Six of
the World Series vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee
Stadium on October 18, ‘‘Mr. October’’ belted three
home runs on three swings of the bat;
Whereas in 1978, the Yankees overcame a 14.0-game deficit
in the American League East to force a one-game playoff
with the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park to decide the
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American-League pennant. Shortstop Bucky Dent erased
a 2–0 Red Sox lead in the seventh inning with a dra-
matic three-run homer and the Yankees went on to a 5–
4 win en route to a second straight World Championship;
Whereas the ’78 season also saw the emergence of Ron
Guidry as one of the franchise’s greatest pitchers. A four-
time American-League All-Star, Guidry compiled one of
the most dominating seasons in baseball history in 1978
and became known as ‘‘Louisiana Lightening’’. He went
25–3 with a 1.74 earned run average in leading the
Yankees to their dramatic comeback, compiling a club-
record 248 strikeouts and nine shutouts en route to a
unanimous selection as the A.L.’s Cy Young Award re-
cipient. On June 17, 1978 vs. the California Angels at
Yankee Stadium, Guidry shattered the club record for
strikeouts with 18. The Yankees’ co-captain—with Willie
Randolph—from 1986 through 1988, Guidry also won 20
games in 1983 (21–9) and 1985 (22–6);
Whereas the seventies ended with tragedy as Thurman Mun-
son, the Yankees’ first captain since Gehrig, was killed
in the crash of his private jet on August 2, 1979. Only
32 at the time of his death, Munson was the undisputed
leader of the clubs that won three consecutive pennants
and two World Championships. After their Captain’s
death, the Yankees would make only one more World-Se-
ries appearance (1981) in 17 years despite compiling the
best record in the Major Leagues during the decade of
the eighties;
Whereas the eighties also saw the development of one of the
franchise’s greatest and most popular players, Don Mat-
tingly, ‘‘Donnie Baseball,’’ the team captain from 1991
through 1995, batted .307 in his Yankee career (1982–
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95) and compiled an incredible six-year stretch from
1983–89. During those years, he batted .327 and topped
100 RBI five times, including a career-high 145 in 1985
when he captured the A.L. MVP award. A year earlier,
he outdueled teammate Dave Winfield on the final day of
the season for the league’s batting crown (.343 to .340);
Whereas Winfield, who came to the Yankees as the game’s
most-sought-after free agent in 1981, compiled Hall of
Fame credentials in his eight-plus seasons in pinstripes
(1981–90). He belted 205 home runs for the Yankees
with 818 RBI and won five gold gloves;
Whereas after an absence of 13 years, the Yankees returned
to post-season play in 1995 as the American League’s
first-ever ‘‘Wild-Card’’ entry. A devastating five-game
loss to the Seattle Mariners in the Division Series was
only the start of an incredible run for eight consecutive
post-season appearances, a record shared only by the At-
lanta Braves;
Whereas in 1996, under new skipper Joe Torre, the Yankees
returned to the World Series and would win four of the
next five World Championships, including three straight
from 1998 through 2000. Their 114 victories in 1998
shattered the 44-year-old American-League mark of 111
wins by the 1954 Cleveland Indians (was broken by Se-
attle in 2001) and their 125 total victories (with 11 post-
season wins) remains Baseball’s best single-season total;
Whereas the Yankees’ most-recent era of greatness featured
a consistent lineup of great homegrown and acquired
players to rival any period in franchise history. Since the
arrival of Bernie Williams in 1991, the Yankees’ farm
system has produced All-Stars Derek Jeter, Andy
Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. In addition,
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shrewd trades and free-agent acquisitions have brought
such All-Stars as Wade Boggs, Scott Brosius, Roger
Clemens, David Cone, Jason Giambi, Tino Martinez,
Mike Mussina, Paul O’Neil, Mike Stanton and David
Wells;
Whereas in 2001, the Yankees failed to become only the sec-
ond team in history to win four consecutive World-Series
titles, but captured the hearts of the nation in the after-
math of the September 11th attacks. The Yankees
dropped the first two games of the Series vs. the Arizona
Diamondbacks at Bank One Ballpark, but rallied to win
the next three at Yankee Stadium behind dramatic ninth-
inning comebacks in both games Three and Four. On
consecutive nights, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius
erased two-run, ninth-inning Diamondback leads with the
Yankees winning both games in extra innings. It marked
the first time in World Series history that a team won
two games in the same series when trailing by at least
two runs in the ninth inning;
Whereas as the Yankees begin their second century in 2003,
they seek to extend their franchise record of consecutive
post-season appearances to nine (a record matched only
by the Atlanta Braves, 1995–02). They will do so by ex-
panding upon the kind of innovation that set their first
century—and its 26 World Championships—in motion.
One hundred years ago, the original 1903 team was built
with stars from no fewer than eight different Major-
League teams. The 2003 Yankees—with the additions of
Cuban All-Star pitcher Jose Contreras and three-time
Japan Central League MVP Hideki Matsui—will be com-
prised of stars from no fewer than six nations;
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Whereas the Yankees recorded their 41st first-place finish in
team history in 2002, the most of any professional sports
franchise . . . they are followed by the Montreal Cana-
dians (32), Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers (27), Boston
Celtics (24), Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (24), Boston/
Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (23), New York/San Francisco
Giants (21), Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland A’s (20)
and New York (football) Giants (20) . . . the Yankees’
first-place total includes the strike-shortened 1981 season
when they won the first half title; and
Whereas the Yankees have won 26 of the 97 World Series’
played (27 percent) . . . they have won 38 of the 101
American League Pennants (38 percent). Since 1921, the
Yankees have been a participant in 38 of the 81 World
Series’ played (47 percent). The Yankees have won a
total of 127 games in the World Series . . . no other team
has even played in that many World Series games: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives and the
American people extend heartfelt congratulations to the New
York Yankees on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, and
express the sincerest gratitude to the entire organization.
Attest:
Clerk.