[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 306 Introduced in House (IH)]
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 306
Congratulating the New York Yankees on the occasion of their 100th
anniversary.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 26, 2003
Mr. Serrano (for himself and Mr. Ney) submitted the following
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Congratulating the New York Yankees on the occasion of their 100th
anniversary.
Whereas the New York Yankees were officially acquired in 1903 and are
celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2003;
Whereas what would become the most successful team in sports history actually
began as the Baltimore Orioles in 1901. When that franchise folded after
only two seasons, it was purchased for $18,000 by two colorful New
Yorkers, Frank Farrell and Bill Devery;
Whereas New York's third Major-League team, joining the New York Giants and
Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League, would play its home games in a
hastily constructed, all-wood park at 168th Street and Broadway. Because
the site was one of the highest spots in Manhattan, the team was named
the ``Highlanders'' and their home field ``Hilltop Park.'' They played
their inaugural game on April 22, 1903, losing 3-1 to the Senators at
Washington. New York recorded the first win in franchise history the
next day, a 7-2 decision at Washington;
Whereas the Highlanders nearly captured the American-League pennant in 1904--
only their second season--as they finished only 1.5 games behind the
Boston Pilgrims in the first of three second-place finishes from 1904 to
1910;
Whereas after a spectacular fire severely damaged the Polo Grounds in 1911, the
Highlanders' owners invited the Giants to share Hilltop Park. Two years
later the Giants returned the favor and allowed the Highlanders to move
into their rebuilt and vastly superior park. With the move, the
Highlanders officially changed their nickname to ``Yankees (by which
they had actually been known for most of their history).'' Two years
after the move--on January 11, 1915--Colonel Jacob Ruppert and Colonel
Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston purchased the franchise from its by-now
disgruntled owners;
Whereas from 1911 to 1919, the Yankees won as many as 80 games in a season only
twice, but the franchise's fortunes would change forever on January 3,
1920. On what is perhaps the most significant date in club history, the
Yankees purchased the contract of George Herman ``Babe'' Ruth from the
Boston Red Sox for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan against the mortgage on
Fenway Park;
Whereas Ruth's impact was immediate. The Yankees won 95 games in 1920, their
highest victory total to date, and captured their first American-League
pennant a year later. Their attendance at the Polo grounds doubled to
1,289,422 in 1920 and, in 1921, the Giants notified their tenant to
vacate the Polo grounds as soon as possible. Now bitter rivals, the two
teams squared off in the World Series in 1921 and 1922 with the Giants
winning both times;
Whereas with their departure from the Polo Grounds inevitable, the Yankee owners
set out to build a spectacular ballpark of their own. Baseball's first
triple-decked structure with an advertised capacity of 70,000, it would
also be the first baseball facility to be labeled a ``stadium'';
Whereas construction began on May 5, 1922 and, in only 284 working days, Yankee
Stadium was ready for its inaugural game on April 18, 1923 vs. the
Boston Red Sox. An announced crowd of 74,200 fans packed Yankee Stadium
for a glimpse of Baseball's grandest facility while thousands milled
around outside after the fire department finally ordered the gates
closed. Appropriately, Ruth christened his new home with a three-run
homer to cap a four-run inning as the Yankees coasted to a 4-1 win;
Whereas because it was widely recognized that Ruth's tremendous drawing power
made the new stadium possible, it would immediately become known as
``The House that Ruth Built''. Later that season, the Stadium hosted the
first of 36 World Series and the Yankees won their first World
Championship over their former landlord, the Giants. Of course, as the
Stadium became the stage for a staggering number of World titles--now
totaling 26--it would also become known as ``The Home of Champions'';
Whereas on June 1, 1925 in a 5-3 loss vs. Washington, Manager Miller Huggins
inserted a 21-year-old rookie first baseman as a pinch hitter for light-
hitting shortstop Pee Wee Wanninger. No one could have imagined at the
time that this appearance would be the first of 2,130 consecutive games
played by Lou Gehrig, who, with Babe Ruth and later Joe DiMaggio,
anchored some of the greatest ball clubs of all time;
Whereas after a disheartening loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1926 World
Series, the Yankees rolled to World Championships in both 1927 and 1928,
sweeping the Series both years. The 1927 club, the first Yankee team to
be labeled ``Murderers' Row'', became the yardstick by which athletic
greatness is measured. During that season, Ruth shattered his own
single-season home run record with his 60th on the season's final day on
September 30, 1927;
Whereas in his 15 seasons in pinstripes, Ruth helped build a tradition of
winning with seven American-League pennants and four World
Championships. He finished his unparalleled career (with the Boston
Braves in 1935) with 714 home runs, 12 American-League home-run titles
and six RBI crowns, including five seasons with more than 150. A charter
member of Baseball's Hall of Fame, he remains widely regarded as the
greatest player of all-time;
Whereas after the 1934 season, Ruth's last in New York, the Yankees purchased
the contract of a budding star named Joseph Paul DiMaggio from the San
Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League. Two years later, DiMaggio
made his debut in pinstripes and helped the Yankees to an incredible
string of four consecutive World Championships under Manager Joe
McCarthy from 1936 through 1939. The decade of the thirties also
produced one of the game's greatest lefty-righty pitching combinations
in future Hall of Famers Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing. A four-time 20-
game winner-including 24-7 in 1932 and 26-5 in 1934--Gomez was also 6-0
in five World Series. Ruffing posted seasons of 20, 20, 21 and 21 wins
on four World-Championship clubs from 1936-1939;
Whereas sadly, in 1939, Gehrig was diagnosed with a crippling disease and his
streak of 2,130 games came to an end on May 2 when he did not appear in
a 22-2 Yankees' win at Detroit. On July 4, the Yankees honored their
captain with an emotional ``Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day'' at Yankee
Stadium and his uniform number (4) became the first in Baseball to be
retired. He died on June 2, 1941;
Whereas with the departure of Gehrig, DiMaggio became the pillar of the next
generation of Yankee champions. In his 13 seasons in pinstripes, the
Yankees played in the World Series in all but two years and won 10
World-Series titles. The legendary ``Yankee Clipper'' compiled one of
the game's most remarkable--and perhaps unbreakable--records in 1941
when he hit safely in a record 56 consecutive games;
Whereas the Yankees also made a seamless transition after DiMaggio's retirement
at the age of 37 after the 1951 season. With Whitey Ford and Mickey
Mantle joining future Hall of Famers Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto, the
Yankees won eight American-League pennants and six World Championships
under Manager Casey Stengel during the 1950's. Their streak of five
consecutive World-Series titles from 1949 through 1953 remains a Major-
League record with no other winning as many as four straight;
Whereas Mantle would achieve greatness despite an arrested case of osteomyelitis
and numerous injuries. The powerful switch-hitter belted 536 home runs,
collected 2,415 hits and batted .300 or more 10 times in an 18-year
career. In his first 14 seasons in pinstripes, the Yankees missed the
World Series only twice (in 1954 and 1959);
Whereas Ford's lifetime record of 236-106 gives him the best winning percentage
(.690) of any 20th century pitcher and he paced the American League in
victories three times and in ERA and shutouts twice. He still holds many
World Series records, including 10 wins, 33 consecutive scoreless
innings and 94 strikeouts;
Whereas the heart of the Yankees for 18 seasons, Berra played on an incredible
14 pennant winners and 10 World Champions. He was a three-time MVP and
was selected to the All-Star team in every season from 1948 through
1962;
Whereas Rizzuto was recognized as the glue of 10 pennant winners and eight
World-Series Champions from 1941-56 and captured the league's MVP award
in 1950, batting .324 with 200 hits and 125 runs scored;
Whereas not every contributor to Yankee--and Baseball history was a future Hall
of Famer. In Game Five of the 1956 World Series vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers
on October 8th at Yankee Stadium, right-hander Don Larsen authored what
is perhaps the game's greatest pitching performance when he retired all
27 Dodger batters for the only perfect game in World Series history;
Whereas the Yankees opened the decade of the sixties in their usual fashion,
winning pennants in the first five seasons (1960-64) and World Series
titles in 1961 and 1962. Incredibly, in the 29 seasons from 1936 to
1964, the Yankees won a remarkable 22 pennants and 16 World
Championships. The 1961 club is still regarded as one of the best teams
in Baseball history. With Mantle and Roger Maris embroiled in a season-
long race to break Ruth's single-season home-run record, the Yankees
rolled to 109 wins en route to the World Championship. Maris smashed
Ruth's record when he belted his 61st home run on October 1 at Yankee
Stadium in the last game of the season;
Whereas but age finally caught up with the ball club after a seven game Series
loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964. The Yankees would finish in the
first division only once in the next nine seasons and actually plummeted
to last place in 1966 for the first time in 53 years;
Whereas the team's fall from grace ended on January 2, 1973, when the most
storied franchise in sports history was sold by CBS to a group headed by
George M. Steinbrenner III. With the addition of Catfish Hunter--
Baseball's first marquee free agent--shrewd trades which brought Ed
Figueroa, Mickey Rivers, Chris Chambliss and Willie Randolph and a
strong nucleus which included Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Roy White,
and Sparky Lyle, the Yankees would make their first post-season
appearance in 12 years in 1976 by winning their first American-League-
East title. Then on October 14, 1976, in the deciding fifth game of the
League Championship Series vs. the Kansas City Royals, Chambliss
launched a ninth-inning, pennant-winning home run to put the Yankees
back in the World Series;
Whereas after a disheartening four-game sweep vs. the Cincinnati Reds in the
1976 World Series, the Yankees introduced Reggie Jackson--the most
prolific slugger of his era--as the club's newest free-agent
acquisition. Jackson then capped an exciting 1977 season with one of
Baseball's greatest individual performances. In Game Six of the World
Series vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium on October 18,
``Mr. October'' belted three home runs on three swings of the bat;
Whereas in 1978, the Yankees overcame a 14.0-game deficit in the American League
East to force a one-game playoff with the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park
to decide the American-League pennant. Shortstop Bucky Dent erased a 2-0
Red Sox lead in the seventh inning with a dramatic three-run homer and
the Yankees went on to a 5-4 win en route to a second straight World
Championship;
Whereas the '78 season also saw the emergence of Ron Guidry as one of the
franchise's greatest pitchers. A four-time American-League All-Star,
Guidry compiled one of the most dominating seasons in baseball history
in 1978 and became known as ``Louisiana Lightening''. He went 25-3 with
a 1.74 earned run average in leading the Yankees to their dramatic
comeback, compiling a club-record 248 strikeouts and nine shutouts en
route to a unanimous selection as the A.L.'s Cy Young Award recipient.
On June 17, 1978 vs. the California Angels at Yankee Stadium, Guidry
shattered the club record for strikeouts with 18. The Yankees' co-
captain--with Willie Randolph--from 1986 through 1988, Guidry also won
20 games in 1983 (21-9) and 1985 (22-6);
Whereas the seventies ended with tragedy as Thurman Munson, the Yankees' first
captain since Gehrig, was killed in the crash of his private jet on
August 2, 1979. Only 32 at the time of his death, Munson was the
undisputed leader of the clubs that won three consecutive pennants and
two World Championships. After their Captain's death, the Yankees would
make only one more World-Series appearance (1981) in 17 years despite
compiling the best record in the Major Leagues during the decade of the
eighties;
Whereas the eighties also saw the development of one of the franchise's greatest
and most popular players, Don Mattingly, ``Donnie Baseball,'' the team
captain from 1991 through 1995, batted .307 in his Yankee career (1982-
95) and compiled an incredible six-year stretch from 1983-89. During
those years, he batted .327 and topped 100 RBI five times, including a
career-high 145 in 1985 when he captured the A.L. MVP award. A year
earlier, he outdueled teammate Dave Winfield on the final day of the
season for the league's batting crown (.343 to .340);
Whereas Winfield, who came to the Yankees as the game's most-sought-after free
agent in 1981, compiled Hall of Fame credentials in his eight-plus
seasons in pinstripes (1981-90). He belted 205 home runs for the Yankees
with 818 RBI and won five gold gloves;
Whereas after an absence of 13 years, the Yankees returned to post-season play
in 1995 as the American League's first-ever ``Wild-Card'' entry. A
devastating five-game loss to the Seattle Mariners in the Division
Series was only the start of an incredible run for eight consecutive
post-season appearances, a record shared only by the Atlanta Braves;
Whereas in 1996, under new skipper Joe Torre, the Yankees returned to the World
Series and would win four of the next five World Championships,
including three straight from 1998 through 2000. Their 114 victories in
1998 shattered the 44-year-old American-League mark of 111 wins by the
1954 Cleveland Indians (was broken by Seattle in 2001) and their 125
total victories (with 11 post-season wins) remains Baseball's best
single-season total;
Whereas the Yankees' most-recent era of greatness featured a consistent lineup
of great homegrown and acquired players to rival any period in franchise
history. Since the arrival of Bernie Williams in 1991, the Yankees' farm
system has produced All-Stars Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada
and Mariano Rivera. In addition, shrewd trades and free-agent
acquisitions have brought such All-Stars as Wade Boggs, Scott Brosius,
Roger Clemens, David Cone, Jason Giambi, Tino Martinez, Mike Mussina,
Paul O'Neil, Mike Stanton and David Wells;
Whereas in 2001, the Yankees failed to become only the second team in history to
win four consecutive World-Series titles, but captured the hearts of the
nation in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. The Yankees
dropped the first two games of the Series vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks
at Bank One Ballpark, but rallied to win the next three at Yankee
Stadium behind dramatic ninth-inning comebacks in both games Three and
Four. On consecutive nights, Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius erased two-
run, ninth-inning Diamondback leads with the Yankees winning both games
in extra innings. It marked the first time in World Series history that
a team won two games in the same series when trailing by at least two
runs in the ninth inning;
Whereas as the Yankees begin their second century in 2003, they seek to extend
their franchise record of consecutive post-season appearances to nine (a
record matched only by the Atlanta Braves, 1995-02). They will do so by
expanding upon the kind of innovation that set their first century--and
its 26 World Championships--in motion. One hundred years ago, the
original 1903 team was built with stars from no fewer than eight
different Major-League teams. The 2003 Yankees--with the additions of
Cuban All-Star pitcher Jose Contreras and three-time Japan Central
League MVP Hideki Matsui--will be comprised of stars from no fewer than
six nations;
Whereas the Yankees recorded their 41st first-place finish in team history in
2002, the most of any professional sports franchise . . . they are
followed by the Montreal Canadians (32), Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers
(27), Boston Celtics (24), Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (24), Boston/
Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves (23), New York/San Francisco Giants (21),
Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland A's (20) and New York (football) Giants
(20) . . . the Yankees' first-place total includes the strike-shortened
1981 season when they won the first half title; and
Whereas the Yankees have won 26 of the 97 World Series' played (27 percent) . .
. they have won 38 of the 101 American League Pennants (38 percent).
Since 1921, the Yankees have been a participant in 38 of the 81 World
Series' played (47 percent). The Yankees have won a total of 127 games
in the World Series . . . no other team has even played in that many
World Series games: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives and the American people
extend heartfelt congratulations to the New York Yankees on the
occasion of its 100th anniversary, and express the sincerest gratitude
to the entire organization.
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