The Greatest Team: 1927 Yankees 110-44 (.714)

[Giambino]

Finishing with a 110­44 record, winning the pennant by l9 games, the Yankees pounded l58 home runs, batted .307 as a team, recorded the all-time best slugging percentage of .489, averaged 6.5 runs a game, scored 975 runs, outscored opponents by almost 400 runs.

Leading the league in every individual offensive category except for batting average, the Bronx Bombers had five regulars who batted .300 or better. Four of the eight American Leaguers who drove in l00 or more runs were Yankees. The pitching staff led the league in shutouts and its ERA was almost a run below the league average. The four best winning percentages in the league belonged to Yankee pitchers.

The '27 Yankees were so free of injury that six of the eight position players logged more than 500 at bats. That durability was a tremendous bonus for the team and masked the only weakness of the Bronx Bombers ­ a thin bench. Babe Ruth said of the World Series with the Pirates: "We won before it even got started. The first two games were scheduled for Forbes Field. Naturally we showed up a day early and worked out in the strange park-and we won the Series during that workout...

"We really put on a show. Lou and I banged ball after ball into the right field stands, and I finally knocked one out of the park in right center. Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri kept hammering balls into the left field seats."

A four game sweep of the Bucs gave the Yankees the honor of being the first American League team to sweep a World Series. "It all meshed for us," Mark Koenig said," the personalities, the manager, the luck, everything that l927 season."

Half a dozen Yankees from that fabled team became Hall of Famers: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Herb Pennock, Miller Huggins, Waite Hoyt, Earle Combs and Tony Lazzeri.