While Steinbrenner became more involved than he initially anticipated, his meddlesome energy eventually led to the restoration of the Yankee championship legacy. The key to the team’s success was Steinbrenner’s decision to hire former Yankee second baseman Billy Martin as the team’s new manager in 1975. With a fierce, two-fisted competitiveness that belied his diminutive stature, Martin led the Yankees back to the World Series in 1976, where they were swept by the Cincinnati Reds.


The following year, with the addition of free agent slugger Reggie Jackson, they won their first World Series championship in a decade-and-a-half, beating long-time rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to two. They repeated that result in 1978, and another decade of dominance seemed assured—until Steinbrenner fired Martin the following year after a fight with a marshmallow salesman. Incredibly, Martin returned to manage the Yankees three more times—in 1983, 1985, and 1988—but never led them to another title.





The Yankee Eras:

• Before the Babe (1901-1919)

• The Team That Babe Built (1920-1935)

• The DiMaggio Years (1936-1951)

• The Mantle Years (1951-1964)

• The Fallen Empire (1965-1974)

• The Billy Martin Years (1975-1983)

• The Donnie Baseball Years (1984-1995)

• The Joe Torre Era (1996-present)