A century of Subway Series: New York’s intercity baseball battles captured in timeless pictures

The term ‘Subway Series’ has come to refer to the interleague rivalry between New York’s Mets and Yankees – teams that compete for the city’s spotlight, but little else, historically speaking.

Not only are the American League’s Yankees and National League’s Mets vying for separate pennants, but their regular-season matchups since interleague play began in 1997 have been mostly one-sided affairs. The 27-time World Champion Yankees are 76-58 against their Queens rivals, not including their 4-1 win over the Mets in the 2000 World Series.

But with both clubs currently sitting atop their respective divisions this season, another World Series meeting could be in the cards, and that would fit the true definition of a Subway Series: two New York teams playing for baseball’s biggest prize.

Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle (left) poses alongside Giants centerfielder Willie Mays before the 1951 World Series

Giants teammates Bill Terry (near left) and Mel Ott (far right) pose alongside Yankees teammates Babe Ruth (near right) and Lou Gehrig (far left) prior to one of their three World Series meetings in the 1920s 

Manager Casey Stengel #37 of the New York Yankees removes pitcher Bob Turley #19 during game three of the World Series on September 30, 1955 against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn

A young worker at Yankee Stadium sells programs ahead of the 1947 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers 

A closeup view of the main scoreboard after game four of the World Series on October 7, 1956 between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium

Derek Jeter crosses the plate during Game 5 of the 2000 World Series as Mets catcher Mike Piazza watches 

It’s a tradition that outdates both clubs, and for that matter, the city’s subway itself. 

In 1889, 15 years before New York City’s subway opened, the National League champion New York Giants defeated the American Association’s Brooklyn Bridgeworms in a precursor to the World Series.

More than a few things have changed since then.

The World Series now has a best-of-seven format rather than best-of-11, the Bridgeworms changed their name to the Dodgers and joined the National League, and in the late 1950s, both teams fled the city for sunny California.

But before the Giants and Dodgers left for the west coast, becoming MLB’s first clubs along the Pacific, they helped turn New York into what documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has called The Capital of baseball.

Due in large part to the Yankees’ 40 AL pennants, the World Series has featured two New York teams 14 times since 1921. Naturally, the Yanks have won the bulk of the Subway Series, beating their local NL rivals 11 times and losing just three. Besides the 0-1 Mets, the Giants have won two Subway Series while the Dodgers famously upset the Yankees in seven games to capture their first World Series title in 1955.

But like everything with New York, the city’s baseball dominance couldn’t last. Not only did the Giants and Dodgers move to California, but the expansion Mets would set a record for futility in 1962 by losing 120 games – the most in the modern era.

Meanwhile the Yankees dynasty went dormant in the mid 1960s, and it wasn’t until 1997 that New York teams began playing each other again with MLB’s creation of interleague play, which put American and National League teams in direction competition. 

Due in large part to the Yankees’ 40 AL pennants, the World Series has featured two New York teams 14 times since 1921. Naturally, the Yanks have won the bulk of the Subway Series, beating their local NL rivals 11 times and losing just three. Besides the 0-1 Mets, the Giants have won two Subway Series while the Dodgers famously upset the Yankees in seven games to capture their first World Series title in 1955

A band plays the national anthem as the flag is raised in centerfield prior to game 6 of the World Series on October 5, 1947 between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx 

In 1889, 15 years before New York City’s subway opened, the National League champion New York Giants (pictured) defeated the American Association’s Brooklyn Bridgeworms in a precursor to the World Series

The following is a brief synopsis of New York’s ever-evolving Subway Series and the figures who have made it so compelling: 

1921 and 1922: Hall of Manager John McGraw’s Giants dropped their co-tenants at Harlem’s Polo Grounds 5-3 in a best-of-nine series in 1921 and swept the Yankees in 1922 in baseball’s first best-of-seven World Series.

Most notably, the Yankees’ star slugger Babe Ruth failed to power his club to victory in either series, battling an infected elbow in 1921 and recording just two hits in 1922 while scoring only a single run.

Jackie Robinson happily returns to the clubhouse after the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees, 1-0, in Game 6 of the 1956 World Series at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn

1923: Things changed in 1923, with the opening of Yankee Stadium across the Harlem River from the Giants’ Polo Grounds. Ruth’s three home runs helped lift the Yankees to their first World Series title in six games, although the series’ most exciting moment was Giants outfielder Casey Stengel’s game-winning inside-the-park home run in Game 1.

1936 and 1937: Two years after Ruth’s last game with the Yankees, the team was back in the World Series with first baseman Lou Gehrig serving as team’s unquestioned leader, not to mention catcher Bill Dickey and future franchise cornerstone, Joe DiMaggio. The Giants, meanwhile, were led by pitcher Carl Hubbell, who allowed only one run in a Game 1 victory. 

But the Yankee bats caught fire in Game 2, scoring 18 runs as the club went on to win four of the final five contests. Things were even more lopsided in 1937, as the Yankees went on to win 4-1 to claim their sixth title.

1941 and 1947: In the 1940s, the Yankees became DiMaggio’s team, due in no small part to his performance in 1941, when he went on a record 56-game hitting streak before winning that year’s World Series over the Dodgers in five games. 

But 1941 also marked the ascent of the previously dormant Dodgers. Once maligned by Brooklyn fans as ‘Dem Bums’ in the late 1930s, Brooklyn became one of baseball’s most competitive teams in the 1940s thanks to executive Larry MacPhail, who added manager Leo Durocher, shortstop Pee Wee Reese and All-Star outfielder Dixie Walker before enlisting himself in the US Army in 1942. The hard-drinking McPhail was ultimately replaced by Branch Rickey, a fervent Christian, who helped to integrate baseball by signing Jackie Robinson in 1945. Robinson would go on to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947 before losing that year’s World Series to the Yankees in seven games.

1949, 1951, 1952 and 1953: The two teams met again in 1949, which the Yankees won in five games under the guidance of a new manager, Stengel, the former Giants star and failed Dodgers skipper. It was the first of nine World Series wins for Stengel, who would capture five consecutive titles between 1949 and 1953 as DiMaggio gave way to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. The Dodgers, under Durocher’s successors Burt Shotton and Charlie Dressen, and the Giants, under Durocher, were elite clubs during this time. They just couldn’t match a Yankees lineup that included Yogi Berra or a pitching rotation that boasted Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat and Whitey Ford. 

The Dodgers, led by Robinson, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges, fell to the Yankees in 1949 (4-1), 1952 (4-3) and 1953 (4-2), while the Giants and their star centerfielder Willie Mays fell to the Bronx Bombers in 1951 (4-2).

The New York Giants outfield of Monte Irvin (left), Willie Mays (center) and Henry Thompson before Game 2 of the 1951 series

Left to right: Yankees teammates Frank Crosetti, Tony Lazzeri and Joe DiMaggio (date unknown) 

The managers of the two opposing teams in the World Series, Casey Stengel (1890 – 1975) of the New York Yankees and Leo Durocher (1905 – 1991) of the New York Giants, pose awkwardly together after the opening game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, New York, New York, October 4, 1951. The Yankees won the game and eventually, the series as well

In downtown Brooklyn, Dodger fans hold a mock wake for Casey Stengel, the longtime Yankees manager, after winning their first World Series title in 1955. Fans assembled around the ‘coffin’ put on the show in the spirit of good clean fun. The Brooklynites waited almost two generations for their beloved bums to take their first series. Five times before the Yanks had thwarted Dodger hopes, but all of that ended in 1955

Bobby Thompson’s historic ‘Shot Heard ‘Round the World’ was a home run to the Polo Grounds’ short left-field porch off Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca that clinched the 1951 pennant for the Giants. They would lose the World Series to the Yankees

One of the more iconic photos from the 1951 playoff shows Jackie Robinson (No. 42) gazing at the Giants’ celebration

1951 Dodgers-Giants playoff: However, the 1951 season is best known for the first postseason meeting between the Giants and Dodgers. The two clubs finished with identical 96-58 records, necessitating a best-of-three series to decide the pennant winner despite the fact that the Dodgers held a massive 13.5 game lead over their crosstown rivals as late as August 11. With the alleged help of a sign-stealing scheme at the Polo Grounds (see box: right), the Giants caught the Dodgers in the season’s final days before splitting the first two games of the playoff with the Dodgers. 

The third and deciding game at the Polo Grounds provided one of the greatest moments in baseball history. 

With the Dodgers holding a 4-1 lead in the ninth, Brooklyn’s Dressen opted to keep starting pitcher Don Newcombe on the mound. 

Unfortunately for Brooklyn, Alvin Dark led off the bottom of the ninth with a single before Don Mueller followed with a base hit of his own. Then Whitey Lockman doubled to the famously deep left-center gap in the Polo Grounds to score Dark and put Mueller on third.

Having seen enough of Newcombe, Dressen put Game 1 starter Ralph Branca on in relief against Bobby Thompson, a Scottish-born player who grew up in New York.

In what has since been dubbed the ‘Shot Heard ‘Round the World’ Thompson hit a game-winning home run to the short left-field porch at the Polo Grounds, prompting Giants play-by-play announcer Russ Hodges to exclaim: ‘The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!’

Legendary Washington Post sports reporter Shirley Povich also captured the moment: ‘Hollywood’s most imaginative writers on an opium jag could not have scripted a more improbable windup of the season that started in April and had its finish today in the triumph of Bobby Thomson and the Giants.’

1955: The unimaginable happened midway through the 1950s when Rickey’s Dodgers stunned the Yankees by taking the World Series in seven games. That meeting is best remembered for an aging Robinson stealing home to the dismay of an irate Berra, who furiously argued the Game 1 call. The Yankees would actually win that game, but fell in the deciding Game 7 due in large part to left fielder Sandy Amorós’s brilliant catch on a would-be double hit by Berra in the sixth inning. Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres was named series MVP for pitching two complete-game victories and allowing only two earned runs.

1956: The Yankees struck back against the Dodgers the following season with their own seven-game series victory. That meeting is highlighted by Yankees pitcher Don Larson’s perfect Game 5 and Robinson’s game-winning single at Ebbets Field in Game 6. Despite that drama, the Yankees breezed to a Game 7 win, 9-0, thanks to a pair of home runs by Berra.

With the Brooklyn Dodgers leading 4-2 in the last half of the ninth inning, Bobby Thomson hit a homer into the left field stands with two men on base, to give the Giants a 5-4 victory and the National League pennant. In a storybook finish to the playoff series for the pennant, happy and hysterical Giant fans carry Thomson on their shoulders and fight to shake his hand following his dynamite homer

Giants manager Leo Durocher (far left) and team hero Bobby Thompson stand atop the stairs to the Giants clubhouse at the Polo Grounds in 1951 after Thompson’s famed ‘Shot Heard Round the World’ that won Game 3 of a three-game playoff with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Police can be seen preventing scores of fans from climbing the clubhouse stairs, which were actually located in center field of the oddly configured ballpark in Harlem 

Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson looks up as the umpire calls him safe on his stolen base attempt in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series, much to the objection of New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra

(Left to right) Batboy Charlie DiGiovanni, Billy Herman, manager Walter Alston , pitching coach Joe Becker, coach Jake Pitler, Pee Wee Reese #1, Don Zimmer #23 and Jackie Robinson #42 of the 1955 World Series and 1956 NL League Champion Brooklyn Dodgers parade through Brooklyn

(Left) New York Yankees’ pitcher Allie Reynolds holds a baseball with Brooklyn Dodgers’ pitcher Joe Black during a workout at Yankee Stadium. The pitchers were chosen by their respective managers to pitch in the opening game of the 1952 World Series set for October 1, 1952 at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. (Right) Yogi Berra jumps into Don Larsen’s arms after the Yankees pitcher completed the first and only perfect game in World Series history in 1956

Aerial view of Yankee Stadium (foreground) and Polo Grounds, which sat on opposite sides of New York’s Harlem River

Ebbets Field is pictured in the 1950s along Brooklyn’s Flatbush Avenue. The park has since been demolished

Former Dodger pitcher Carl Erskine pretends he’s pitching with a one-ton demolition ball at Ebbets Field on February 23, 1960

The same demolition crew that took down Ebbets Field in 1960 did the same to the Polo Grounds in 1964 after the New York Giants left for San Francisco and the expansion Mets moved to Queens, where they began playing at Shea Stadium 

Mike Piazza of the New York Mets is restrained by home plate umpire Charlie Reliford from pitcher Roger Clemens after Clemens threw his broken bat in his direction in the first inning during Game 2 of the MLB World Series at Yankee Stadium

Carl Hubbell, star pitcher for the New York Giants, delivers a pitch to Bill Dickey, catcher for the American League champion NY Yankees in game one of the 1936 World Series. Behind Hubble is centerfield at the Polo Grounds 483 feet away from home

(Left) Batboys Tim Sullivan of the New York Yankees and Jackie Bodner of the Brooklyn Dodgers heckle each other before the start of the first game of the World Series Yankee Stadium (year unknown). (Right) Catchers Yogi Berra and Elston Howard pose for the camera prior to a World Series game against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in 1955

Left to Right: Duke Snider, Manager Chuck Dressen, Jackie Robinson; Back Row: Joe Black, Pee Wee Resse; show their excitement after wining game one of the World Series over the New York Yankees on October 1, 1952 at Ebbets Field

Members of the New York Yankees baseball team celebrate a World Series victory (over the Dodgers) in a locker room at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn, New York, New York, October 6, 1941. Among those pictured are Joe DiMaggio (center left), Phil Rizzuto (far right), and Joe McCarthy (near right) 

The first group picture to be made of the New York Yankees of 1937 is shown here. Winners of the American League Baseball championship, the Yanks meet the Giants in the World Series which start October 5th. Mascot Tim Sullivan is shown in front of the group. The players are front row and left to right: Pat Malone; Joe Glenn; Coach Dutch Schulte; Coach Art Fletcher; Manager Joe McCarthy; Coach Earl Combs; Jake Powell; Tony Lazzer;and Trainer Doc Painter. In the second row from left to right are; Charley Ruffing; Joe DiMaggio; Bump Hadley; Ivy Paul Andrews; Frank Makosky; Johnny Murphy; Red Rolfe; Monte Pearson; Lou Gehrig. Lefty Gomez and Joe Vance. In the third row from left to right are George Belkirk; Frankie Crosetti; Arndt Jorgens; Kemp Wicker; Myril Hoag; Schrriber; Don Heffner; Jack Saltzgaver; Tom Henrich; and Bill Dickey

2000: The rebirth of the Subway Series failed to live up to the hype as the Mets fell in five games despite being outscored by only three runs. Derek Jeter earned MVP honors for the Yankees after batting .409 with a pair of home runs in the series. But it was a Game 2 altercation between Yankees ace Roger Clemens and Mets catcher Mike Piazza that stands out as the series’ most memorable moment. 

Clemens had beamed Piazza in the head earlier in the year, resulting in a concussion for the All-Star catcher. So when Piazza shattered his bat in Game 2, only to have Clemens throw the wooden shards back in his direction, both benches prepared for a brawl. 

Cooler heads prevailed, and Clemens later said he wasn’t trying to instigate a fight. Regardless, Clemens won that game and his second of two World Series titles with the Yankees.

Interleague: For four decades, New York baseball teams did not play each other in a meaningful game. There was always the City Series and the Mayor’s Trophy Game – exhibitions aimed at capitalizing on the teams’ enormous local fan bases – but it wasn’t until interleague play began in 1997 that the Yankees and Mets finally played each other with something on the line. 

And although the Mets won the first battle, 6-0, they’ve dropped nearly 60 percent of the meetings ever since, including a gut-wrenching defeat in 2009 when second baseman Luis Castillo mishandled an Alex Rodriguez popup, leading to a Yankees win. 

Things haven’t been all bad for the Mets, though. In 2006, third baseman David Wright capped off a dramatic 7-6 comeback win with a walk-off hit against legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera at Shea Stadium.

Members of the New York Yankees and New York Mets line up together during the game between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets at Citi Field on Saturday, September 11, 2021 in New York