The Yankees Mount Rushmore Is Finally Settled

Four players. Four legends. Four careers that defined the most iconic franchise in the history of professional sports. This is the definitive case for the Yankees Mount Rushmore, and by the end of this documentary, the debate is over. It begins with Yogi Berra, the five-foot-eight son of Italian immigrants who quit school after eighth grade, fired rockets at German machine gun nests on the beaches of Normandy at nineteen, and came home to win ten World Series championships, more than any player in baseball history. He was mocked for his looks, called the Ape by sportswriters, told he would never make it behind the plate. Bill Dickey taught him how to catch. Casey Stengel trusted him with every big game. He won three MVP awards. He made eighteen All-Star teams. He caught the only perfect game in World Series history when Don Larsen retired twenty-seven straight Dodgers and Yogi leaped into his arms in the most iconic photograph in baseball. He struck out only twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950. He played in seventy-five World Series games, more than any player who ever lived. He said things like "it ain't over till it's over" and "baseball is ninety percent mental, the other half is physical," and presidents quoted him more than Shakespeare. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He stormed the beaches of Normandy. And he considered himself a guy who just loved his family and loved baseball. Next comes Mickey Mantle, the Commerce Comet, born in rural Oklahoma during the Great Depression. His father Mutt worked in the lead and zinc mines, breathing toxic dust that would kill him at thirty-nine. Mutt named his son after Mickey Cochrane and taught him to switch-hit against a tin barn using tennis balls because baseballs were too expensive. At fifteen, osteomyelitis nearly cost Mickey his leg. At nineteen, he tore his knee on a drain pipe in the 1951 World Series and was never fully healthy again. He played eighteen more seasons wrapping his legs in bandages from thigh to ankle before every game. He won the Triple Crown in 1956, the only switch-hitter ever to do it, hitting .353 with 52 home runs. He won three MVP awards. He won seven World Series championships. He hit 536 home runs and holds World Series records that may never be broken: 18 home runs, 42 runs scored, 40 RBI. He hit the first tape-measure home run, a 565-foot blast against the Senators that left Griffith Stadium entirely. Ted Williams said the sound of Mickey hitting a baseball was like an explosion. He drank too much. Then Lou Gehrig, the Iron Horse. Born in a cramped apartment in Yorkville, Manhattan, the only surviving child of German immigrants. His father drank. His mother scrubbed floors for wealthy families. Lou carried blocks of ice up tenement stairs as a boy and grew into the most powerful first baseman the game had ever seen. On June 2, 1925, he replaced Wally Pipp in the lineup and did not miss another game for fourteen years. Two thousand one hundred thirty consecutive games through broken bones, back spasms, fevers, and seventeen fractures in his hands that healed on their own. He hit .340 for his career with 493 home runs and 1,995 RBI. He drove in 184 runs in 1931, still the American League record. He won two MVPs and a Triple Crown. His number four was the first number ever retired in baseball history. On July 4, 1939, dying of the disease that would bear his name, he stood at home plate before 61,808 fans and told the world he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Babe Ruth, who had not spoken to him in years, walked across the field and embraced him. He died on June 2, 1941, exactly sixteen years to the day after his streak began. He was thirty-seven. Eleanor never remarried. She said she would not have traded two minutes of her life with that man for forty years with another. And at the peak of the mountain, Babe Ruth. The orphan from Baltimore. Abandoned at seven. Declared incorrigible. Sent to a reform school where Brother Matthias taught him to hit. He entered the majors as a pitcher, won 89 games with a 2.28 ERA, threw 29 and two-thirds consecutive scoreless World Series innings. Then he became the greatest hitter who ever lived. In 1920, his first season as a Yankee, he hit 54 home runs. The entire Cleveland Indians roster hit 26. He hit 60 in 1927, a record that stood thirty-four years. He finished with 714 career home runs, a .342 average, and the highest career OPS in baseball history. He built Yankee Stadium with the force of his swing. They called it the House That Ruth Built. He saved baseball after the Black Sox scandal. Four legends. Ten World Series rings for Yogi. Seven for Mickey. Six for Lou. Seven for Babe. Thirty rings between them. The most dominant franchise in sports history was built on the shoulders of these four men. The Yankees Mount Rushmore. Finally settled.