It happened 56 years ago. On May 24, 1936, the New York Yankees were visiting the Philadelphia Athletics. The Athletics scored their only two runs in the first inning. It wasn’t enough.
Shortstop Frankie Crosetti hit a pair of home runs and Joe DiMaggio hit one, but that was nothing.
Tony Lazzeri batted in the second inning with the bases loaded. He hit a home run.
Tony Lazzeri batted in the in the fifth inning with the bases loaded. He hit a home run.
Lazzeri hit a solo shot in the seventh inning. He also had a triple and finished the day with an American League record 11 RBIs. That record still stands.
The final score was 25-2.
The Yankees had 19 hits and received 16 walks. The game was reminiscent of the time a writer asked Yankees’ owner what he considered a good afternoon.
Ruppert responded that it was “When the Yankees score eight runs in the first inning and slowly pull away.”
The Yankees and Athletics had played a doubleheader the previous day. The Yankees won the opener, 12-6 and took the nightcap by a score of 15-1. Lazzeri hit three home runs in the twin bill, which meant that he had six home runs in three games.
Lazzeri was considered by many, and is still considered by some, the greatest of all Yankees second baseman.
He played for the Yankees from 1926-37. During those years, he was an integral part of six pennant winners and five world champions. Lazzeri was with the Chicago Cubs when they lost to the Yankees in 1938.
“Poosh ‘em up” Tony hit .293/.379/.467, averaging 17 home runs and 114 runs batted in over a 162-game season.
As a comparison, Robinson Cano, who will go down as the Yankees’ greatest second baseman despite his habit of first watching his deep drives and then running instead of the other way around, has batted .307/.347/.495, averaging 22 home runs and 94 RBIs over a 162-game season.
Nineteen-thirty-nine was Lazzeri’s last season. He played for both the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants that year. He is among of a handful of players that were Yankees, Dodgers and Giants.
Lazzeri was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991.
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