The 1927 New York Yankees featured the renowned Murderer’s Row, which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earle Combs, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri. The team won 110 games that year, and 1927 also happened to be the season when Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs.
This piece by Robert L. Harrison was first published in 1999.
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Gather ’round you fans of baseball
you lovers of season past,
let me take you back to the greatest team
that ever played on grass.
Guided by Miller Huggins
known as “murderer’s row,”
never was such a string of pearls
so feared this side of Hell.
Greedy was this awesome bunch
with Ruth and Gehrig leading the punch,
and Hoyt and Moore on the mound
shooting all the batters down.
Gasping crowds assemble
like sinners in a tent,
watching all the other teams
trying to repent.
God blessed those boys of summer
those pin-striped renegades,
with a winning passion
while others saw only the haze.
Gathering in the rosebuds
by playing excellent ball,
called the “five o’clock lightning”
taking the pennant in the fall.
Gone were any pretenders to the throne
no on stood wherever these Yankees roamed,
twenty-five men made up this team
and all had a year better than their dreams.
