July 1973, the Yankees are the talk of the town! How do you think things will turn out for the ’73 Yanks?
It was like old times. The Yankees were in first place, seemingly out from beneath the large rock that had obscured them since 1964. In the bars and supermarkets, on the trains and subways of the nation’s largest city, people were talking more about the Yankees than about the Mets. That hadn’t happened in â€well, it had almost never happened. Pitching Coach Jim Turner, who has spent 51 consecutive years in a pro baseball uniform, more than any man in history, said, “It’s so good to walk out there before a game and see so many people with notebooks, microphones and cameras interested in us again.”
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The Yankees have a new pride in themselves this season, a sense of no longer being the No. 2 team in a city that in recent years endured them primarily by stifling yawns. For a long time during their dark ages the biggest news they made was when they fired an announcer, but not now. The Yankees of 1973 are interesting in themselves. Playing in poor or threatening weather over much of last week, they drew 148,084 people to a Stadium that has received reams of bad publicityâ€muggings, poor parking, etc.â€and is about to be renovated.
Imagine that, a fun Mets club and the Yankees playing in a crappy ballpark. The Mets outdrawing the Yanks by a million fans. That could never happen, could it?
After years of drab mediocrity, the once lordly Yankees – 07.02.73 – SI Vault
