Baseball is in the midst of its third round of Opening Days, but the Yankees remain among the teams who have yet to play a game. Along with 2009, the team’s April 6 opening date marks the latest it has waited to launch a non-labor impacted season since April 7, 1992.
In order to accommodate the expanded playoffs and extinction of the scheduled doubleheader, Opening Day has trended earlier over the last two decades. In fact, during that span, the Yankees have played three games in March, only one of which was due to an opening series in Japan. However, before the divisional era, it was more common for Opening Day to take place much later in April.
Along with the April 26 beginning to the strike-delayed 1995 schedule, the Yankees latest start occurred in their very first season. On April 26, 1901, the franchise was officially launched as the Baltimore Orioles. In that inaugural game, the soon-to-be New Yorkers, who were managed by John McGraw, bested the Boston Americans at Orioles Park (the Americans changed their name to the Red Sox in 1908, meaning the Yankees very first game was against their chief rival, even if no one knew it at the time).
In honor of Opening Day III, and the fact that the Bronx Bombers still aren’t playing, a chart depicting the start to each Yankees’ season (in terms of date and outcome) is presented below.
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
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