Drowning Sorrows with Vintage Yankee Photos

Talk about your all-time duds. The Yankees opened 2023 with championship aspirations, yet here we are at the end of September and they are a lost franchise with no direction, identity, or clear path back to respectability. Recent history tells us that there's no reason to have faith in Yankee leadership this offseason, so let's instead re-live the glory days.

I have an aunt and uncle that live in Maine. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it, any part of the state will do. Anyway, in my younger days my family used to visit them each summer and one of those years we got to talking to their neighbors who discovered that we were a family of Yankee fans. For some reason, they had a collection of framed photos of Yankee legends in their basement. As Red Sox fans, they had no use for them and offered them to us for the bargain price of zero dollars. Who said Red Sox fans aren't sweethearts?

Of course, we took the photos home and put them right in our basement where they remained, untouched, for twenty plus years. A few years ago I dug them out of the basement I grew up in and put them in the basement of the house I now own, determined to figure out something to do with them. It only took me a few more years to take the photos out of the frames and see if I was sitting on a gold mine or not.

Baseball card shops have become a relic of the past, but luckily I knew of one in Toms River, NJ, close to my wife's family shore house. I brought in a stack of 24 photos, knowing that I'd either leave a much wealthier man, or still have a bunch of cool Yankee photos that I can re-frame and put in places of my house that my wife won't approve of. The guy at the store confirmed that it would be the latter. The photos were likely re-prints of stock photos that he'd seen before and wouldn't be worth selling. That was last summer and I still haven't gotten around to re-framing the photos. It might be a few years.

In the meantime, I'll share with you all here an exclusive subset of the photos. Specifically, these are the ones that feature Yankees that I profiled in The New York Yankees All-Time All-Stars. I'll even take an educated guess as to when the original picture was taken. I'm sure there's easier ways to figure that out than guessing, so feel free to correct me in the comments if you're so inclined. Regardless, I hope these bring back memories of happier Yankee times.

Lefty Gomez - mid 1930's

Here Lefty's got his serious face on, but he's no doubt goofing off with his fellow pitchers amongst the palm trees in Florida.

Lefty doesn't exactly look like a spring chicken, so I would guess that this was taken when he was a perennial All-Star in the mid 1930's.

Red Ruffing - mid to late 1930's

Don't let the frown fool you, Red is thrilled to be pitching for the Yankees instead of the lowly Red Sox.

Ruffing joined the Yankees in 1930, but he's sporting the classic interlocking NY on his jersey. That element wasn't added to the Yankee uniform until 1936, so this is likley from the back half of the 1930's.

Lou Gehrig - July 4, 1939

Just moments before the most memorable speech in Yankee history, Lou Gehrig was reluctant to even approach the microphone. We should all be thankful that he did.

There's no doubting this one. We can pinpoint exactly when the "Luckiest Man" speech occured.

Charlie Keller - early 1940's

Researching Charlie Keller's life and career was one of my favortie parts of writing the book. Here he is, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Given the doe-eyed look on his face, I'd say this is before he served his country in World War II.

Yogi Berra - 1946-47

In full catcher's gear and a wool uniform underneath, there's no way Yogi's not dying of the heat under the Florida sun.

The fact that the picture refers to him as "Larry" is all we need to know. This is definitely before he was a star player, which means it has to be either 1946 or 1947.

Tommy Henrich - 1946-47

"Old Reliable" is looking as confident and reliable as ever in this majestic pose at Yankee Stadium.

There's a grizzled veteran look on Henrich's face here, which means the photo was probably taken after he came back from the war.

Joe DiMaggio - early 1940's, late 1940's, and October 1, 1949

There were not one, not two, but three Joe DiMaggio photos in this collection. It's a nice mix of action, posed, and candid shots.

It's tough to age the first two exactly, but he's looking pretty young in the first one and pretty old in the second one. The last one is easy. "Joe DiMaggio Day" occured on October 1, 1949. Strange timing, because he was still playing and would for another two seasons. Naturally, he went 2-4 in the game that took place after the ceremony which ended in a Yankee victory over the Red Sox.

Mickey Mantle - early 1950's

The Mick is looking very carefree during a lazy spring afternoon. Also, it could be a well-placed smudge on the camera lens, but I could swear I see a "7" on the ankle of his left stirrup. Don't think I've ever seen stirrups numbered like that before!

This is definitely a very young version of Mantle, when he had all the speed in the world and his whole life ahead of him.

Whitey Ford - mid 1950's

The Chairman of the Board is looking in complete control of things in this cheesetastic pose.

Whitey had a babyface into his 90's so it's tough to put an age on him. Still, the big smile makes me believe this had to be pretty early in his career.

Graig Nettles - 1973-74

Now we're into the Bronx Zoo era and we start with one of the unsung heroes of those teams.

Nettles is looking quite fresh-faced here and his smile indicates that the craziness that started in the mid-1970's hadn't worn him down yet. He must be younger than 30.

Thurman Munson - 1975

The Captain of the Bronx Zoo is looking much more at ease than usual in what looks like a pre-game shot at Yankee Stadium.

Munson's sporting his moustache, so it's not super early in his career. Similar to Nettles above, his smile shows that this is probably also not in the thick of the craziness during the era. It's either soon before or soon after. I'm going with before.

Reggie Jackson - 1977

Reggie looks primed to put on a show for the fans during batting practice.

I think this is from 1977 mostly because of those plaid pants in the background. Nothing says "1977" quite like the look of those pants. I'm pretty sure my dad had a pair.