Ballpark evictions, broken bats and Goliath vs. Goliath: The 10 hottest times in New York baseball history

Don't tell this to New Yorkers, but baseball wasn't necessarily invented in the city.

Bat-and-ball games go all the way back to ancient Egypt nearly 4,500 years ago, John Thorn writes in his book "Baseball in the Garden of Eden", with a game called seker-hemat, or "batting the ball." In the temple of Hatshepsut, there is a wall relief of Thutmose III holding a ball in one hand and a stick in the other. Thutmose III is regarded as one of the greatest military strategists and warrior pharaohs of all time, but perhaps he was also the Aaron Judge of the Nile.

But in more recent times, baseball has often revolved around New York City -- from the famous match game in 1846 between the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and the New York Ball Club played at the Elysian Fields right across the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey, to John McGraw's transformative New York Giants of the first three decades of the 20th century to the New York Yankees of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to the Brooklyn Dodgers signing Jackie Robinson and on and on, all the way to the present day battle of "Goliath vs. Goliath," as the New Yorker put it, in reference to Juan Soto and the New York Mets taking on Judge and the Yankees for the hearts and wallets of Gotham City baseball fans.

The teams meet at Yankee Stadium as part of MLB's rivalry weekend, and the boos that will rain down on Soto will signify a new level of heat between the Mets and Yankees. With this series in mind, let's go back through history and find 10 times when New York's baseball rivalries have been at their most fiery.

Jump to a moment:

McGraw kicks Yanks out of Polo Grounds | Ruth builds a house
The Shot Heard 'Round the World | Willie, Mickey and the Duke
Mr. October in, Tom Terrific out | '86 Mets take over the town
Interleague play begins | The Subway World Series
New ballparks in Bronx and Queens | Soto flees to Flushing

1920: John McGraw kicks the Yankees out of the Polo Grounds

Here's how the story goes: McGraw, the Hall of Fame manager of the New York Giants, had built his team into a powerhouse in the National League, winning six pennants from 1904 to 1917, while the Yankees, who leased the Polo Grounds from the Giants beginning in 1913, usually finished near the bottom of the American League standings.

Then the Yankees acquired Babe Ruth in 1920 -- and fans flocked to see this new slugging outfielder. On May 14, the Giants -- McGraw was now a part-owner of the club -- informed the Yankees their lease would not be renewed for 1921. With Ruth on his way to shattering the single-season record with 54 home runs and the Yankees on their way to drawing more than a million fans -- something the Giants had never done -- McGraw was jealous of the Yankees' new drawing card. The Yankees had to go.

Is that what really happened? It's possible, especially knowing McGraw, who was no fan of Ruth or his newfangled style of hitting. But the Yankees had played only 12 home games at that point, arguably too soon for attendance jealousy to set in, and the Giants did relent on the lease for 1921 a week later, albeit at a sizable increase. In the bigger picture, the Giants certainly now viewed the Yankees as a potential rival.

That became clear when the teams met in the World Series in 1921 and 1922. The Giants won both times as Ruth didn't do much in either series, hitting .313 with one home run in a series that went eight games in 1921, but sitting out the final three games, except for a pinch-hitting appearance, because of an infected elbow, and then hitting .118 in 1922. It would be McGraw's last World Series title.

1923: The Babe builds a house, turns NYC into a Yankees town

The lease scare of 1920 finally pushed the Yankees into building their own home ballpark, something the American League had reportedly been pressuring the Yankees to do since 1915. "The Yankees will have to build a park in Queens or some other out-of-the-way place," McGraw reportedly said. "Let them go away and wither on the vine."

Instead, Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston purchased the site of an old lumber mill -- directly across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds. The groundbreaking for the new ballpark took place in May 1922 and it was completed in less than a year at a cost of $2.5 million. But Ruppert and Huston wanted something more than a ballpark: They wanted a stadium, with a seating capacity larger than any other current venue.

The original designs called for an enclosed stadium with a seating capacity of 80,000, but the design was modified and the upper decks stopped at the foul poles (they weren't extended into the outfield until 1937). That meant Ruth never actually hit any upper-deck home runs at Yankee Stadium.

He did homer in the first game there on April 18, 1923. "In the third inning, with two teammates on the baselines, Babe Ruth smashed a savage home run into the right field bleachers, and that was the real baptism of the new Yankee Stadium," the New York Times wrote.

The new stadium became, unofficially, the House That Ruth Built.

The Yankees would draw more than a million fans for a fourth straight season. The Giants drew 820,000 as the two teams met again in the World Series. This time, Ruth delivered. He homered twice in Game 2, was walked eight times, hit .368 and homered again in the clinching victory in Game 6.

The Yankees had their first title. They would win 26 more.

1951: The 'Shot Heard 'Round the World'

The Yankees continued to dominate through the Ruth era. He retired, DiMaggio entered the scene, and the Yankees won four World Series in a row from 1936 to 1939 -- including two over the Giants, now in their post-McGraw era.

Meanwhile, the Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers were fighting for National League supremacy. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 and the Dodgers soon added Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. The Giants signed Negro Leagues star Monte Irvin in 1949 and then called up an exciting rookie named Willie Mays in May 1951.

That season produced the most famous pennant race in history. The Dodgers had a 13-game lead on Aug. 13, but the Giants went 36-8 the rest of the way -- it would surface five decades later that the Giants deployed a telescope in center field at the Polo Grounds and rigged a wire going to a buzzer in the bullpen where signals were relayed to the batter -- and the teams finished in a tie, necessitating a three-game tiebreaker.

It came down to the bottom of the ninth of the third game, the Dodgers trying to close out a 4-1 lead. After two hits, an out and Whitey Lockman's RBI double that made it 4-2, Dodgers skipper Chuck Dressen summoned Ralph Branca out of the bullpen to replace Newcombe. Carl Erskine was warming up alongside Branca, but legend has it he bounced a couple of curveballs in the dirt, so coach Clyde Sukeforth advised Dressen to go with Branca to face Bobby Thomson, even though Thomson had homered off Branca in the first game of the tiebreaker.

The first pitch was a called strike. The second pitch was a fastball, high and inside. Giants broadcaster Russ Hodges delivered the call:

"Branca throws ... There's a long fly ... it's gonna be ... I believe ... the Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! Bobby hit it into the lower deck of the left-field stands. The Giants win the pennant and they're going crazy. I don't believe it! I don't believe it! I will not believe it! Bobby Thomson hit a line drive into the lower deck of the left-field stands and the place is going crazy!"

New York Herald Tribune columnist Red Smith wrote perhaps the most famous lede in sportswriting history:

"Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again."

(The Yankees won the World Series, their third of five in a row.)

The 1950s: Willie, Mickey and the Duke

Nothing symbolized the golden age of New York baseball more than that great existential question: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle or Duke Snider? Three Hall of Fame center fielders, all playing in the same city at the same time. "You could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best," Smith wrote.

All these years later, it's easy to forget the debate lasted only four years, from 1954 to 1957. Mays and Mantle were rookies in 1951, not yet at their glorious best, but then Mays was drafted into the Army and missed most of the 1952 season and all of 1953. The Dodgers and Giants would then slump off to California after the 1957 season.

Who was best? Their statistics over those four years:

Mays: .323/.397/.627, 163 HRs, 418 RBIs, 110 SBs, 35.5 WAR

Mantle: .330/.453/.625, 150 HRs, 425 RBIs, 39 SBs, 39.0 WAR

Snider: .305/.403/.616, 165 HRs, 459 RBIs, 21 SBs, 29.3 WAR

By modern analytic methods, Snider trails as a distant third, but he topped Mays and Mantle in both home runs and RBIs, and his best season came in 1953, so he gets shortchanged a bit in WAR. He could more than hold his own with Mays and Mantle, perhaps worth a diehard fan risking a fat lip over.

From 1949 to 1958, New York teams represented 16 of the 20 teams in the World Series, winning nine. In this four-year period, Mays' Giants won in 1954, Snider's Dodgers in 1955 and Mantle's Yankees in 1956. Then it was over. For a time, New York became a one-team city, with the Yankees' dynasty rolling along until 1964.

1977: In with Mr. October, out with Tom Terrific

The Mets were born in 1962, playing in the old Polo Grounds until Shea Stadium opened in 1964. Even though the Mets were terrible in that first season at Shea, losing 109 games, and the Yankees went to another World Series, the Mets outdrew the Yankees -- as they would every year the rest of the decade and into the 1970s. Along the way, the Miracle Mets won the World Series in 1969 and reached another World Series in 1973.

The Yankees, while not terrible, were floundering. They even played at Shea Stadium in 1974 and '75 as Yankee Stadium received a makeover. In 1976, the Yankees made it back to the World Series for the first time in 12 years. The Mets finished a respectable 86-76. A new era of free agency ushered in the 1977 season and the Yankees had an owner in George Steinbrenner willing to spend money -- and happy to grab all the back-page headlines from the Mets.

The Yankees signed Reggie Jackson to a five-year, $3.5 million contract. Suddenly, Mets franchise icon Tom Seaver's $225,000 salary looked dated. He told reporters he might have been better off not signing the contract and filing for free agency. Mets president M. Donald Grant called Seaver an "ingrate" and complained about the new economic system in the game. Writers sparred in the newspapers. Finally, June 15, The Midnight Massacre: With the Mets mired in last place, the team traded Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds.

That season began a seven-year run of irrelevance and losing seasons for the Mets. The Yankees? They were again the toast of New York, and that fall Jackson became Mr. October when he hit three home runs in the clinching game of the World Series to beat the Dodgers.

1986: The Mets take over the town again

The Yankees reached peak dysfunction in the 1980s while the Mets rebuilt around young stars Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, and veterans Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter. Steinbrenner ran through managers as if they were paper towels, including hiring Billy Martin three different times in the decade (and five times overall). The Mets hired Davey Johnson and built the best farm system in the game.

In 1986, the Mets had one of the best teams in National League history, going 108-54 and drawing more than 2.7 million fans (and topping 3 million the next two seasons). They fought opponents on the field, partied hard off it, destroyed a plane with their boozing and a food fight after winning the NL Championship Series and escaped to win the World Series. The Yankees won 90 games that season but attendance dropped to 2.2 million and Steinbrenner's constant interference -- in part, he was trying to keep up with the Mets -- eventually led to a series of bad trades, bad free agent signings and four straight losing seasons as attendance dropped below 2 million.

But the Mets couldn't stay on top either. Strawberry and Gooden had off-the-field problems (and would both revive their careers as Yankees). Hernandez and Carter got old. They made bad trades. In 1993, they finished 59-103 despite one of the highest payrolls in the sport: The worst team money could buy.

1997: Interleague play begins

Interleague play meant the Yankees and Mets would now meet in the regular season. The rivalry was no longer about getting the headlines and controlling the airwaves but beating the other team on the field. Fans invaded each other's stadiums. The first game came at Yankee Stadium.

"The capacity crowd was screaming its split personality for all it was worth, with cries of 'Let's Go Mets' and 'Let's Go Yankees' competing on the airwaves, their different rhythms creating a different kind of cacophony than had ever been heard before in the Bronx ballpark," Bruce Weber wrote in The New York Times.

The Mets would win 6-0 behind Dave Mlicki's shutout. One Yankees fan said he was going to call in sick for work the following day. "I feel like screaming, 'What's going on here?'" the fan said. "We're the Yankees. They're the Mets."

One of the most memorable games came on July 10, 1999, when the Mets rallied for two runs to beat Mariano Rivera on Matt Franco's walk-off two-run, pinch-hit single -- following a questionable ball call on an 0-2 pitch. On June 12, 2009, nothing summarized the Yankees' winning ways and the Mets' frustrating mediocrity better than Mets second baseman Luis Castillo dropping Alex Rodriguez's would-be game-ending pop fly, allowing two runs to score and the Yankees to walk off with an improbable victory.

But one interleague moment stands out above all others, because it led to one of the most memorable moments in World Series history. In June 2000, Mike Piazza belted a grand slam off Roger Clemens on the way to a 12-2 Mets win. The teams met again a month later for a day-night doubleheader. In the nightcap, Clemens drilled Piazza in the helmet. Piazza remained on the ground for several minutes and sat out for a week because of a concussion.

The bad blood remained -- and ultimately boiled over -- as both teams eventually advanced to the World Series, the first Subway Series since the Yankees and Dodgers met in 1956.

2000: The Subway Series ends in a three-peat for the Yankees

"This is gonna break up a lot of families," Yankees manager Joe Torre said before the start of the series. The Yankees were going for a third straight World Series championship and fourth in five years. The Mets had Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo and a rookie call-up named Timo Perez with 24 games of major league experience.

New Yorkers had to pick a side. Even objective journalists such as ESPN's Steve Wulf: "Just when I think I can't take any more whining from [Chuck] Knoblauch, just when I find the superiority of Yankee fans so insufferable, just when I think I'm ready to throw in the white towel and go over to Mr. Met, I see this face," Wulf wrote. "It's a face like a baseball glove: old and new, homely and appealing, resolute and kind. It's the face of a Giants fan who grew up in Brooklyn. It's the face of Joe Torre. It's the face of New York."

Game 1 was scoreless in the sixth inning and Perez was on first base with two outs when Todd Zeile launched a fly ball to left field. Perez thought it was going to be a home run; it hit the top of the wall. By the time Perez started sprinting hard as he rounded third base, it was too late: Derek Jeter threw him out. The Yankees would go on to a 4-3 victory in 12 innings.

Then came the infamous bat toss in Game 2. Clemens started for the Yankees.

"Clemens's beaning of Piazza three and a half months ago has hovered over this Series, and although Torre has accused the news media of reopening the wound in the last week, the Mets' hostility toward Clemens has never really dissipated," Buster Olney wrote in The Times. "Everything Clemens did ... would be seen by the Mets through the prism of that incident in July."

Clemens faced Piazza in the first inning and the Mets' catcher dribbled a foul ball, breaking his bat in the process. Clemens picked up the barrel of the shattered bat and fired it in the direction of Piazza, who had started jogging toward first base. Benches cleared.

"There was no intent there," Clemens would say after the game. "I had no idea that Mike was running."

In the end: Clemens pitched eight shutout innings, giving up only two hits. The Yankees were up 2-0.

They would win in five games, three World Series in a row, their dynasty secured. No team has repeated as champion since.

2009: Yankees and Mets open new ballparks ... in the same week

Back in 1998, a 500-pound concrete-and-steel beam crashed into the seats below at Yankee Stadium. Luckily, it happened when the stadium was empty, but the incident certainly strengthened the hand of Steinbrenner in getting a new stadium. Shea? You could buy tickets for a Mets game and get a seat that literally didn't exist. If the Yankees were going to get a new stadium, the Mets needed one as well.

Both teams would build their new stadiums next to the old ones. The new Yankee Stadium resembled the old one and cost $2.3 billion (about $670 million from the Yankees). The exterior of Citi Field looked like old Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers had played. It cost $900 million ($135 million from the Mets).

"Shea was old when it was new and the old Yankee Stadium never got old," Tim McCarver, the Fox baseball analyst said when the stadiums opened. "You could have gone on and on and on with the old Yankee Stadium. You could not have done that with Shea."

The Mets opened first, on April 13, losing 6-5 to the Padres. Seaver threw out the first pitch, but then the bumbling Mets showed up. Pitcher Mike Pelfrey got his cleat caught in the dirt and fell off the mound. Jose Reyes slid past second base and was called out. Ryan Church turned a fly ball into a three-base error.

The Yankees opened three days later -- they also lost, 10-2 to Cleveland, as the bullpen gave up nine runs in the seventh inning. But that game was merely a blip in what would turn into a championship season, the franchise's 27th -- and, to date, most recent -- title.

2024: Uncle Steve signs Soto away from the Yankees

Before the 2024 season, the Yankees had traded for Soto and he delivered a huge campaign, hitting .288/.419/.569 with 41 home runs and finishing third in the MVP voting. He helped the Yankees reach their first World Series since 2009. Then he became a free agent.

Ever since they signed Reggie Jackson, the Yankees had used their checkbooks to sign the free agents they wanted or trade for high-priced talent: Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson, David Cone, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, Giancarlo Stanton, Gerrit Cole.

The Mets? Before Steve Cohen bought the team after the 2020 season, the biggest free agent they had signed was Carlos Beltran in 2005. The second biggest? Re-signing Yoenis Cespedes. Third biggest? Jason Bay.

This wasn't exactly Yankees territory.

The Yankees wanted Soto. The Mets got him: 15 years, $765 million.

"Think about that for a second," Jeff Passan wrote on ESPN. "A Yankee chose to be a Met. And not just any Yankee: one who helped lead the storied franchise to the World Series this year, one whom the team was equally prepared to pay $700 million-plus over 15 seasons."

So here we are. Mets-Yankees, Soto and Judge, both teams in first place, a continuation, in a sense, of a New York rivalry that goes back to John McGraw and Babe Ruth.

With Judge the best hitter in the game and Soto starting to heat up with five home runs in May after a slow start, they will be front and center in this series. It reminds us of a McGraw quote before the 1921 World Series.

"Why shouldn't we pitch to Babe Ruth? We pitch to better hitters in the National League," McGraw said.

He won that time. Ruth won in the end. Who will win this time?