The Bronx is Burning


	1977 New York Yankees		Home Field: Yankee Stadium
	World Champions		Hit: #4 R; #2t BA
	W - 100 L - 62 (.617) 2 1/2 GA		Pitch: #3 RA, ERA
	Manager: Billy Martin		Def: #2 FA

George Steinbrenner had to do something after the Yanks got swept by the Reds in the 1976 World Series. In his mind he had a very good team, but he needed something more to put them over the top. That something more was superstar rightfielder Reggie Jackson. Steinbrenner charmed Reg into brining his star to NY. Reggie had the resume. His Oakland teams only won 3 consecutive world championships (72-74) and 5 straight division titles. Reggie was a money player in the post season and George was convinced he added the final piece to the puzzle. Unfortunately his field manager, Billy Martin, wasn't as convinced. Billy loved his scrappy '76 Yankee team that was created in his image. Jackson was a cocky superstar, who immediately got under Martin's skin as well as his teammates with an ill-advised Sport magazine article where he called himself "the straw that stirs the drink". To add insult to injury Reggie insulted Yankee captain and 1976 AL-MVP Thurman Munson by saying he could "only stir the drink bad". Turmoil kills bad teams. This team was not going to be bad and proceeded to win despite all the turmoil. In fact it might have spurred them on to play better. The low point of the season occurred in June where the Yanks were playing the hated Red Sox. Jackson didn't move fast on a blooper to right field which, Martin took exception to. Managers typically come out to the mound to remove pitchers. Martin came out to remove Jackson. As Paul Blair trotted out to replace him Jackson looked at first shocked, then bewildered and finally totally PO'ed. On national TV (ABC-Monday Night Baseball) the country was treated to one of the worst displays of dugout hysterics ever witnessed. Martin and Jackson exchanged words then almost came to blows. Thankfully the level headed Elston Howard brokered some sort of peace and Fran Healy talked Reg into leaving the ballpark or it could have been even worse. Finally Reggie and Billy agreed to co-exist and George was convinced to lay off a bit by embattled GM Gabe Paul and the Yanks won the division by 2 1/2 over the Orioles. The LCS saw the Yanks beat the Royals in 5 for the second consecutive year in a hard fought series where NY had to win the final 2. Reggie had a pool LCS and was benched by Martin in the final game in favor of Blair. Martin's hunch paid off as the Yanks won and Reggie even had a key pinch hit RBI. Everyone knows how the series went and who of course could forget Reggie's 3 consecutive homers off of 3 different Dodger pitchers en-route to the series MVP. You can still hear Howard Cosell saying, "Oh, what a colossal blow" after Reggie slammed the final homer into the black in centerfield..

1977 NEW YORK YANKEES TEAM ROSTER
Pitchers
No.	Name	Pos	Bats	Throws	Height	Weight	Born
--	Clay, Ken	P	R	R	6'3"	185	4/6/1954
--	Ellis, Dock	P	B	R	6'3"	205	3/11/1945
--	Figueroa, Ed	P	R	R	6'1"	190	10/14/1948
--	Guidry, Ron	P	L	L	5'11"	160	8/28/1950
--	Gullett, Don	P	R	L	6'0"	190	1/6/1951
--	Holtzman, Ken	P	R	L	6'2"	175	11/3/1945
--	Hunter, Catfish	P	R	R	6'0"	190	4/8/1946
--	Lyle, Sparky	P	L	L	6'1"	182	7/22/1944
--	McCall, Larry	P	L	R	6'2"	195	9/8/1952
--	Patterson, Gil	P	R	R	6'1"	185	9/5/1955
--	Thomas, Stan	P	R	R	6'2"	185	7/11/1949
--	Tidrow, Dick	P	R	R	6'4"	210	5/14/1947
--	Torrez, Mike	P	R	R	6'5"	220	8/28/1946
Catchers
No.	Name	Pos	Bats	Throws	Height	Weight	Born
--	Healy, Fran	C	R	R	6'5"	220	9/6/1946
--	Hendricks, Ellie	C	L	R	6'1"	175	12/22/1940
--	Munson, Thurman	C	R	R	5'11"	190	6/7/1947
Infielders
No.	Name	Pos	Bats	Throws	Height	Weight	Born
--	Chambliss, Chris	1B	L	R	6'1"	195	12/26/1948
--	Dent, Bucky	SS	R	R	5'9"	170	11/25/1951
--	Klutts, Mickey	3B	R	R	5'11"	170	9/20/1954
--	Nettles, Graig	3B	L	R	6'0"	180	8/20/1944
--	Perez, Marty	3B	R	R	5'11"	160	2/28/1946
12	Randolph, Willie	2B	R	R	5'11"	170	7/6/1954
--	Stanley, Fred	SS	R	R	5'10"	165	8/13/1947
--	Zeber, George	2B	B	R	5'11"	170	8/29/1950
Outfielders
No.	Name	Pos	Bats	Throws	Height	Weight	Born
14	Bergman, Dave	--	L	L	6'2"	195	6/6/1953
--	Blair, Paul	--	R	R	6'0"	168	2/1/1944
--	Jackson, Reggie	--	L	L	6'0"	195	5/18/1946
--	Locklear, Gene	--	L	R	5'10"	165	7/19/1949
--	Piniella, Lou	--	R	R	6'0"	182	8/28/1943
--	Rivers, Mickey	--	L	L	5'10"	165	10/31/1948
--	White, Roy	--	B	R	5'10"	160	12/27/1943
Designated Hitters
No.	Name	Pos	Bats	Throws	Height	Weight	Born
--	Alston, Wendell	DH	L	R	6'0"	180	9/22/1952
--	Johnson, Cliff	DH	R	R	6'4"	215	7/22/1947
--	Kingman, Dave	DH	R	R	6'6"	210	12/21/1948
--	May, Carlos	DH	L	R	5'11"	200	5/17/1948
--	Wynn, Jimmy	DH	R	R	5'10"	160	3/12/1942

1977 NEW YORK YANKEES TEAM BATTING STATS
Player	AVG	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	HBP	SB	CS	GDP	OBP	SLG	OPS
Locklear, Gene	0.600	1	5	1	3	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.6	0.6	1.2
Perez, Marty	0.500	1	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0.5	0.5	1
Piniella, Lou	0.330	103	339	47	112	19	3	12	45	20	31	1	2	2	12	0.365	0.51	0.876
Rivers, Mickey	0.326	138	565	79	184	18	5	12	69	18	45	4	22	14	2	0.35	0.439	0.789
Alston, Wendell	0.325	22	40	10	13	4	0	1	4	3	4	0	3	3	2	0.364	0.5	0.864
Zeber, George	0.323	25	65	8	21	3	0	3	10	9	11	0	0	0	1	0.405	0.508	0.913
Munson, Thurman	0.308	149	595	85	183	28	5	18	100	39	55	2	5	6	18	0.351	0.462	0.813
Johnson, Cliff	0.296	56	142	24	42	8	0	12	31	20	23	6	0	1	2	0.405	0.606	1.01
Chambliss, Chris	0.287	157	600	90	172	32	6	17	90	45	73	2	4	0	22	0.336	0.445	0.781
Jackson, Reggie	0.286	146	525	93	150	39	2	32	110	74	129	3	17	3	3	0.375	0.55	0.925
Randolph, Willie	0.274	147	551	91	151	28	11	4	40	64	53	1	13	6	11	0.347	0.387	0.734
Hendricks, Ellie	0.273	10	11	1	3	1	0	1	5	0	2	0	0	0	0	0.273	0.636	0.909
White, Roy	0.268	143	519	72	139	25	2	14	52	75	58	0	18	11	11	0.358	0.405	0.762
Klutts, Mickey	0.267	5	15	3	4	1	0	1	4	2	1	1	0	1	0	0.389	0.533	0.922
Blair, Paul	0.262	83	164	20	43	4	3	4	25	9	16	2	3	2	7	0.303	0.396	0.7
Stanley, Fred	0.261	48	46	6	12	0	0	1	7	8	6	0	1	1	0	0.37	0.326	0.696
Nettles, Graig	0.255	158	589	99	150	23	4	37	107	68	79	3	2	5	8	0.333	0.496	0.829
Kingman, Dave	0.250	8	24	5	6	2	0	4	7	2	13	1	0	1	0	0.333	0.833	1.167
Bergman, Dave	0.250	5	4	1	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.2	0.25	0.45
Dent, Bucky	0.247	158	477	54	118	18	4	8	49	39	28	1	1	1	9	0.3	0.352	0.653
May, Carlos	0.227	65	181	21	41	7	1	2	16	17	24	1	0	0	7	0.292	0.309	0.601
Healy, Fran	0.224	27	67	10	15	5	0	0	7	6	13	0	1	0	1	0.288	0.299	0.586
Wynn, Jimmy	0.143	30	77	7	11	2	1	1	3	15	16	0	1	0	0	0.283	0.234	0.516
Team Totals:	0.281	158	5605	831	1576	267	47	184	784	533	681	28	93	57	117	0.34	0.44	0.79

1977 NEW YORK YANKEES TEAM PITCHING STATS
Player	ERA	W	L	SV	G	GS	CG	ShO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	RATIO	BAVG
Ellis, Dock	1.83	1	1	0	3	3	1	0	19.2	18	9	4	1	8	5	1.35	0.237
Lyle, Sparky	2.17	13	5	26	72	0	0	0	137	131	41	33	7	33	68	1.2	0.257
Guidry, Ron	2.82	16	7	1	31	25	9	5	210.2	174	72	66	12	65	176	1.14	0.224
Tidrow, Dick	3.16	11	4	5	49	7	0	0	151	143	57	53	20	41	83	1.22	0.25
Figueroa, Ed	3.57	16	11	0	32	32	12	2	239.1	228	102	95	19	75	104	1.27	0.252
Gullett, Don	3.58	14	4	0	22	22	7	1	158.1	137	67	63	14	69	116	1.3	0.232
Torrez, Mike	3.82	14	12	0	31	31	15	2	217	212	99	92	20	75	90	1.32	0.259
Clay, Ken	4.37	2	3	1	21	3	0	0	55.2	53	32	27	6	24	20	1.39	0.251
Hunter, Catfish	4.71	9	9	0	22	22	8	1	143.1	137	83	75	29	47	52	1.29	0.25
Patterson, Gil	5.40	1	2	1	10	6	0	0	33.1	38	20	20	3	20	29	1.75	0.29
Holtzman, Ken	5.78	2	3	0	18	11	0	0	71.2	105	55	46	7	24	14	1.81	0.362
Thomas, Stan	7.11	1	0	0	3	0	0	0	6.1	7	7	5	0	4	1	1.8	0.28
McCall, Larry	7.50	0	1	0	2	0	0	0	6	12	7	5	1	1	0	2.17	0.375
Team Totals:	3.63	100	62	34	72	162	52	11	1,449.10	1395	651	584	139	486	758	1.3	0.25