•HRES 306 IH 
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-
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;
•HRES 306 IH 
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 
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-
•HRES 306 IH 
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; 
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-
•HRES 306 IH 
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 
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
•HRES 306 IH 
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–
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
•HRES 306 IH 
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, 
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
•HRES 306 IH 
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; 
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 anniver-
•HRES 306 IH 
sary, and express the sincerest gratitude to the entire or-
ganization.
Æ