The 2020 Yankees Bear a Striking Resemblance to the 1981 Club
What will go down as one of the strangest regular seasons in baseball history is in the books. Now an equally wacky post-season begins and despite their Jekyll and Hyde routine to close out the season, the Yankees are a part of it. The last time Major League Baseball was forced to go off-script with both the regular season and playoff schedule was in 1981 due to a mid-season strike . That year, a similarly streaky Yankee team reached the playoffs - and ultimately the World Series where they lost to the Dodgers - by finishing the "first half" of the season with the best record in the AL East. Never mind that they were below .500 in the second half and actually finished with only the fourth best overall record in the division. The slapdash playoff system was far from perfect. The similarities between the 1981 and 2020 Yankees go well beyond team streakiness, though. As they embark on another playoff journey, let's dig into a comparison between the current Yankees and thei