The Captain's Blog

The 1953 Yankees’ drive for five straight World Series titles was temporarily sidetracked by a nine game losing streak, the longest ever by an eventual champion.

Defending a World Series title isn’t always easy. The 2014 Boston Red Sox can attest. Last year’s World Series victors just completed a 10-game skid, becoming only the fifth defending champion to post a double-digit losing streak. Can they recover in their title defense? The track record of teams with such a long stretch of losing isn’t good, so a Red Sox repeat doesn’t seem to be in the offing. However, if there is solace to be had, the Fenway Faithful may be able to find it over 60 years ago in the Bronx.

Longest Losing Streaks by a Defending World Series Champion

Note: Bold numbers indicate team had more than one losing streak of the stated length.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

In 1953, the Yankee dynasty was going full-bore. Casey Stengel’s crew was coming off four consecutive World Series titles, and the current season was shaping up to be one of the franchise’s best. Over the first two months, the Bronx Bombers ravaged the American League, at one point winning 18 in-a-row to push their record to an astounding 46-13. No team had ever gotten off to a faster start, but the Yankees’ drive for five was about to hit a speed bump.

Best W-L Records After 59 Games

Note: Bold indicates team went on to win the World Series.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

On June 21, 1953, the Yankees lost the second game of a double header to the Tigers. The loss was unremarkable, until the White Sox came to town and swept the Yankees in three straight. Then, it was the Indians turn to run the table in the Bronx. A trip to Fenway provided no reprieve. The Red Sox beat the Yankees in the first two games of their midweek series, and, all of a sudden, the invincible Bronx Bombers seemed incapable of winning a game. The nine game slide was not only tied for the worst in franchise history, but it set a new low for a defending champion. Break up the Yankees, which had become a rallying cry throughout the league, had taken on a new meaning.

So, how does one of the best teams in baseball history go from domination to doormat? Was such a mighty team capable of playing poorly over a prolonged period? Or, was something more subtle at play? The Yankees’ losing streak was so unfathomable to the fans and media of the era that more than a few conspiracy theories emerged from the team’s downward spiral.

Casey Stengel, who was once run over by a taxicab in Boston, probably wouldn’t care Thursday if some errant hackie ran over his entire Yankee ball club.” – Carl Lundquist, United Press Sports Writer, July 2, 1953

While the Yankees were in the midst of their 18-game winning streak, the rest of the baseball world was either wringing its hands or throwing its arms up in surrender. After watching the hometown Indians get swept in four games, Ed McAuley, a columnist for the Cleveland News, warned, “Organized baseball is in trouble. Its ailments will be aggravated seriously if the 4-time winners continue to make a job of the flag race.” Not to be outdone, Gayle Talbot of the Toledo Blade wrote, “Who, for instance, beyond a few homeless knotheads from the Bronx would be interested in watching the big team win its 19th straight?” Foreshadowing sentiment that would expressed 50 years later, media and fans around the country expressed a similar lament: by winning so much, the Yankees were ruining baseball.

The Yankees never won their 19th in-a-row. The streak was ended by the woeful St. Louis Browns, who, in the process, snapped a 14-game losing streak. That result alone raised eyebrows, but the real suspicion emerged during the Bronx Bombers’ nine-game slide, which would start one week later. With the Yankees in an unexpected free fall, some began to wonder whether the team might be laying down a bit just to make the pennant race a little more exciting. Another popular theory was dissension in the Yankees’ clubhouse sparked by Stengel’s use of Allie Reynolds in the bullpen. Were the growing number of TV appearances a distraction to the players? Some pundits seemed to think so. Others attributed the slide to the absence of Phil Rizzuto, who was sidelined with an injury. Whatever the underlying reason, everyone was now asking whether the Yankees were good enough to repeat, a question that would have inspired ridicule one week earlier.

Longest Losing Streaks by an Eventual World Series Champion
Note: Bold numbers indicate team had more than one losing streak of the stated length.
Source: Baseball-reference.com

The reports of the Yankees demise were greatly exaggerated. The team followed up its nine-game losing streak by reeling off five wins in a row and finished the 1953 season with 99 victories. More importantly, the Bronx Bombers drank champagne in October for the fifth straight year, a feat that has never been matched. By then, the team’s nine-game losing streak was a distant memory, even if the furor it caused nearly overshadowed what was an incredible season before, during, and after the historic slide.