Inside the 1927 New York Yankees: Murderer's Row

The current New York Yankees' lineup is so potent that it is being compared to that of the 1927 team, known as Murderer's Row. But fans and experts alike need to stop and think before they make such statements, because there has never been the like of Murderer's Row since that 1927 squad tore through the American League and the World Series. With four future Hall of Famers in the midst of their batting order, Murderer's Row outscored, outhit, outhomered, and outran their opponents by ridiculously wide margins. How good were the Murderer's Row Yankees? The Philadelphia Athletics won a highly respectable 91 games in 1927, but still finished almost twenty games behind Murderer's Row!

The '27 Yankees scored a total of 975 runs in 155 games with a team batting average of .307 and slugging average of .489. They led the league in base hits, triples, homers, walks, strikeouts, and runs. Murderer's Row hit 102 more home runs than the team with the second most, the A's. Four men from Murderer's Row hit better than .337, with Lou Gehrig at .373, Babe Ruth and Earle Combs at .356, and Bob Meusel at .337. Tony Lazzeri hit .307, but was one of four players from Murderer's Row with 100 plus runs batted in. Gehrig had an astounding 175 RBI, Ruth had 164, Meusel 103, and Lazzeri 102.

Ruth scored 158 runs, Gehrig tallied 149, and Combs crossed the plate 137 separate times. Shortstop Mark Koenig almost joined them at the century mark with 99 and Lazzeri had 92 to give Murderer's Row five players with 90 or more runs scored. The swift Combs belted 23 triples to lead the league, while Gehrig smashed 18 and Koenig cranked out 11. Murderer's Row did not play for one run at a time. They clobbered doubles and triples and home runs at an alarming rate and also stole 90 bases with Meusel second in the American League with 24.

32 year old Babe Ruth hit sixty homers for Murderer's Row, more than any other team in the AL totaled. Lou Gehrig, who was just coming in to his prime and only 24 years of age, belted 47 home runs himself. Manager Miller Huggins would pencil in his lineup every day and sit back while they battered other team senseless. Combs led off for Murderer's Row, and he had a .414 on base percentage with 231 base hits. Koenig batted second and then came Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel, and Lazzeri. Third baseman Joe Dugan and a platoon of catchers Pat Collins and Johnny Grabowski hit before the pitchers came to bat.

Those pitchers included a pair of Hall of Famers in Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt, who combined to go 41-15. Urban Shocker, George Pipgras, and Dutch Ruether were 41-15 together as well, and the prime reliever was Wilcy Moore, who posted a 19-7 standard with 13 saves. Moore, Hoyt, and Shocker had the three best earned run averages in the American League, and when this staff was combined with the Murderer's Row lineup, the result was devastating for the rest of baseball.

In the World Series, the Pirates met Murderer's Row and were swept, but all four games were closely contested. Two were one run affairs, while the other two were broken open late by Murderer's Row. Ruth hit the only two round trippers in the four contests while knocking in seven runs. It would be a few years later that the idea that Murderer's Row was the greatest team ever assembled, and over the years, whenever a team has a banner year, the comparisons follow. One has to understand though that Murderer's Row had six Hall of Famers on the team in Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Combs, Hoyt, and Pennock. The argument could also be made that Meusel, who hit .309 lifetime with 1,068 runs batted in over eleven seasons, and Shocker, who went 187-117 with four twenty win seasons for the Browns, also should be in Cooperstown. Murderer's Row had numbers that were so superior to the rest of baseball, that teams are simply not capable of doing the same today. To hit a home run ratio similar to Murderer's Row, a modern day team would have to hit around 600 long balls so as to have about three times as many as the next best club!

These current Yankees do have future Hall of Famers playing for it in Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, and Randy Johnson. Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, and Mike Mussina will be borderline candidates when they retire. But even with that much talent, they are not on a par with what Murderer's Row was and did.