This Day in Yankees History: Gehrig’s streak gets a scare

Welcome to the relaunched This Day in Yankees History! With the start of the 2020 season delayed for the foreseeable future, the Pinstripe Alley team decided to revive the program in a slightly different format. These daily posts will highlight a few key moments in Yankees history on a given date, as well as recognize players born on the day. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

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This Day in Yankees History (June 11)

87 Years Ago

On this day in 1933, Lou Gehrig lost his cool, along with manager Joe McCarthy, and the two were ejected. Fortunately for Gehrig, he had already recorded an at-bat in the game, helping his streak of consecutive games played reach 1,249. After the game, McCarthy was suspended for three games, and Gehrig caught a break when he wasn’t suspended at all, allowing his streak to continue for nearly another 1,000 games.

67 Years Ago

The 1953 Yankees completed one of the greatest dynasties of all time, winning the fifth of five straight World Series. On this day in 1953, the Yankees took two games from Cleveland to extend their winning streak to 18 games, coming just short of the franchise’s top mark of 19 games after a loss to the Cardinals the next day. The big blow of game one against Cleveland was a three-run bomb by Yogi Berra in the top of the eighth to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead, and the next game was dominated by Vic Raschi, who pitched a complete game shutout.

22 Years Ago

The 1998 Yankees had an impressive streak of their own, which reached its high point on this day in 1998 when the Yanks beat Cleveland 4-2 to make it 24 straight series without losing a set, tying a major league record shared by the 1912 Red Sox and 1970 Reds. David Cone was masterful in the victory, going eight innings while allowing just one run and striking out 12.

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The Yankee birthdays are a little bare for this day, but Happy birthday to Chase Whitley, who was born on this day in 1989. Whitley pitched for the Yankees in 2014 and 2015, but allowed 114 hits in 95 innings during his time in pinstripes.

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We thank Baseball-Reference, and Nationalpastime.com for providing background information for these posts