Okay so yesterday I got this wild idea after watching a rerun game on YES Network – how many weird little secrets about the Yankees do people really know? I mean, everyone knows the big stuff, the championships, the big names. But the quirky stuff? Not so much. I decided to dive headfirst and find 15 cool things people might not know. Grabbed my laptop, a cold beer, and settled into my old armchair. Let me tell ya, it was a ride.
Starting the Deep Dive
First things first, I just started typing questions into my search bar like a madman. “Yankees weird facts,” “Yankees secrets,” “random Yankees trivia.” You get the picture. Tons of lists popped up, but they all felt kinda… surface level? Like the same old stories recycled. I needed more. I spent way too long clicking links and falling into rabbit holes about old stadium lore.
One thing led to another, and I found myself looking at old newspaper archives online. That’s where the gold started showing up. Found this crazy piece about the team barnstorming in airplanes back in the 1920s! Imagine DiMaggio or someone just hopping on a rickety prop plane for exhibition games across the country. Wild. Scribbled that down immediately.
Hitting the Books… Sort Of
Okay, “books” might be generous. My bookshelf mostly holds cookbooks and old spy novels. But I do have a beat-up copy of some baseball encyclopedia my cousin gave me years ago. Dusted that sucker off. Heavy thing. Flipped through the Yankees section, looking for footnotes or little asides the internet might skip. Found a couple gems, like the fact that the Yankees almost became the New York Burros at one point?! Dodged a bullet there, name-wise.
Then I remembered something about Lou Gehrig not originally being nicknamed the “Iron Horse.” Started digging. Turns out, it was a sportswriter covering a college game who first called him that, before he even joined the Yankees. Little details like that felt cool to uncover.
Rabbit Holes and Weird Details
Man, research gets messy. One minute I was confirming the exact date Bucky Dent’s homer landed in the netting (seriously, that detail matters?), next I was reading about Babe Ruth owning a pet monkey named Cheeky that caused chaos in the clubhouse. Couldn’t make this stuff up. Another search somehow landed me on vintage uniform details. Found out the Yankees pinstripes? Originally meant to make players look taller and slimmer! Baseball’s first optical illusion.
I almost spilled my coffee laughing at this next one: the story of Joe DiMaggio getting spooked by mirrors in the old clubhouse. Seems silly now, but players back then swore the place was haunted. DiMaggio apparently hated seeing reflections in the dark corners.
Verifying the Unusual
Okay, some stuff sounded too wild. Like Mickey Mantle’s famous homer supposedly being measured wrong? Had to double-check that. Dug into newspaper reports from the actual day he hit it. Turns out, yeah, the initial 565-foot estimate was way off because the police officer measuring misread the tape! Probably closer to 450 or something, which is still nuts, but not that nuts.
Another one: did Don Larsen really not know he had a perfect game going? Old interviews confirmed it. Yogi didn’t say a word, superstitious guy, and Larsen was just focused pitch by pitch. The silence was golden, literally.
Putting the List Together
After a few hours (and way too many browser tabs open), I had my list. Narrowed it down to the 15 coolest, weirdest, most unexpected facts. Here’s a quick taste:
- Secret handshakes! Apparently used all the time for pickoff plays before signs.
- George Steinbrenner wore wigs! That famous hair? Not all his own.
- Munson’s pilot’s license saved lives! Tragic irony there.
- The team once drafted a girl! Eleventh round, 1950s.
- Paul O’Neill charged the mound… as a pitcher! Briefly, with Cincy.
Finished typing up the post late, feeling pretty pleased. It was chaotic, messy, involved way too much caffeine, and my chair kinda kills my back. But uncovering little pieces of baseball weirdness? Totally worth it. Learned way more than just 15 things, lemme tell ya. Turns out those legends were just regular guys with some seriously strange stories.
