While we sit and wait for a New York Yankees baseball season delayed, and when it might start, our minds wander in search of something baseball. We look for stories about baseball and watch classics on the YES Network. Without a baseball season, this Yankee writer finds it a challenge writing about fresh content that has not been beaten to death.
Being a researcher as well as a writer, I find myself scouring the news outlets, Facebook pages, and anything I can get my hands on. On days that I don’t find much to write about, sometimes I just draw a blank and other days for some reason or another a subject just pops into my head.  Being that I write about the present player’s lives and historical pieces on Yankee Legends, I might have less of a problem writing than those writers that are reporters only.
This morning after I finished my New York Yankees News/Rumors article, I was thinking about significant plays. Thinking of DJ LeMahieu’s dramatic home run in the 9th that brought us close to a six-game win in the 2019 ALCS. All of the sudden my mind shifted to Mike Ford’s walk-off home run last year. And then pop, that’s what I’ll write about, walk-off home runs.
Nothing in baseball is as exciting as a walk-off win, especially when it’s a home run. The New York Yankees in their glorious history have had plenty of them over the last 115 years. In case you’re wondering what Yankee has had the most walk-off home runs, it’s not surprisingly Mickey Mantle (12) followed by Babe Ruth (11). What might surprise you, is that Brett Gardner has had more walk-off home runs than any Yankee player in the last ten years (3)
In the past 20 years, there have been very few postseason walk-off home runs. In 2009 Mark Teixeira hit one with the score tied at 3 in the 11th eleventh inning of the ALDS against the Twins. The other walk-off was against the Orioles by Raul Ibanez in a 2-2 tied game in the twelfth inning of game 3 of the 2012 ALDS. Interestingly both walk-offs benefited Yankee reliever, David Robertson.
Here’s a list of all the New York Yankees walk-off home runs in the last ten years:
2009/04/22: Mel Cabrera off the Oakland A’s, 05/16 Alex Rodriguez off the Twins, 05/17 Johnny Damon against the Twins, 07/20 Hideki Matsui against the Orioles, 08/07 Alex Rodriguez off the Boston Red Sox, 08/28 Robinson Cano from the White Sox, 09/08 Nick Swisher against the Tampa Rays, 10/09 Mark Teixeira off the Twins. 2009 had the most significant number of walk-off home runs of any year in the last ten years.
2010/05/17 Marcus Thames off the Red Sox, and 09/08 Nice Swisher off the Orioles, one year to the day of his previous walk-off. 2012/06/10 Russell Martin from the Mets, 09/21 also Russel Martin off the Athletics, and 10/10 Raul Ibanez from the Orioles. 2013/06/25 Ichiro Suzuki against the Rangers, and 08/11 Brett Garnder from the Tigers. 2014/06/20 Carlos Beltran from the Orioles, 08/24 Brian McCann off the White Sox, 09/04 Chase Headley from the Red Sox, and 09/11 Chris Young off the Rays.
2015/07/03 Brian McCann off the Rays. 2016/04/23 Brett Gardner from the Rays, 06/23 Stalin Castro from the Rockies, 06/29 Didi Gregorius from the Rangers, 09/08 Tyler Austin off the Rays, and 09/28 Mark Teixeira off the Red Sox. 2017/04/28 Matt Holiday against the Orioles, 07/08 Clint Frazier off the Brewers, and 07/28 Brett Gardner off the Rays. 2018/04/26 Gary Sanchez from the Twins, 05/06 Gleyber Torres off the Indians, 06/20 Giancarlo Stanton against the Mariners, and 08/28 Neil Walker from the White Sox.
In the 2019 season, we had only two walk-off home runs. One was on 08/31 by DJ LeMahieu. We were playing the Oakland A’s. It was at the Stadium in the bottom of the eleventh inning with the game tied at 3. DJ came to the plate with no outs and no one on base. He belted a homer giving Cory Gearrin the win. The other walk-off was a pinch-hitting situation. Manager Boone brought out Mike Ford to hit with no one on base at the bottom of the ninth against Oakland with the game tied at 4. Ford put his name into the history books when he slammed one into the stands, becoming the first Yankees rookie to hit a pinch-hit walk-off home run.
As I said earlier, there is nothing more exciting in baseball than the walk-off home run. It can change the fans’ perception of any player from so so to being a Yankee hero and inserting his name into the Yankee history books. The Yankees in their rich history have had 234 walk-off home runs. Brett Gardner’s three walk-off matches another Yankee great, Reggie Jackson, who also had three while with the New York Yankees.