By Paul Semendinger
January 27, 2024
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Note - I penned this article for the IBWAA. It appeared in their newsletter, Here's The Pitch on January 13, 2024
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It is fun to look back in history and find interesting and unique bits of information about my favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees.
The other day I was considering the list of Yankees who spent an entire decade with the team. Now, note that I am not saying ten years, I am saying an entire decade as in the 1920s or the 1950s. This is an exclusive and very short list. Some of the greatest Yankees of all time didn't make it.
Here then is that special and very unique list:
1910-1919:
None
1920-1929:
Bob Meusel (1,294 games)
Babe Ruth (1,399 games)
1930-1939:
Bill Dickey (1,213 games)
1940-1949:
Charlie Keller (953 games) - missed time for military service in WWII
Joe DiMaggio (927 games) - missed time for military service in WWII
Tommy Henrich (914 games) - missed time for military service in WWII
1950-1959:
Yogi Berra (1,396 games)
Hank Bauer (1,284 games)
Whitey Ford (245 games) - missed time for military service
1960-1969:
None
1970-1979:
Roy White (1,393 games)
1980-1989:
None
1990-1999:
None
2000-2009:
Derek Jeter (1,500 games)
Jorge Posada (1,302 games)
Mariano Rivera (651 games)
2010-2019:
Brett Gardner (1,349 games)
C.C. Sabathia (273 games)
What I found most interesting in this exercise is that from 1960 to 2000, a 40-year period, the only Yankee to remain with the club for a decade was the great (and very underrated) Roy White.
The decade of the 2020s is not yet half over and yet the only Yankees who have a chance to achieve this distinction are Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gerrit Cole.
Torres will be a free agent after the 2024 season. Stanton will be a free agent in 2028 and it is highly unlikely that he'll even be a Yankee that long.
Gerrit Cole, as well, is signed only through 2028, though he has an opt-out clause that the Yankees can supersede by offering him one more season (2029) that would allow him this distinction.
It is, of course, very likely that Aaron Judge, signed through 2032, will make this list.
When one spends time looking at baseball history, new learning seems to always follow. That is part of the fun and the beauty of this wonderful sport.
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Paul Semendinger runs the Yankees site Start Spreading the News. His latest book, a motivational book focused on running, titled 365.2, comes out in March. Paul has also written Impossible is an Illusion, Scattering the Ashes, The Least Among Them, and he collaborated with Roy White on From Compton to the Bronx.
