1973 New York Yankees season
| 1973 New York Yankees | |
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| Owner(s) | George Steinbrenner |
| General manager(s) | Lee MacPhail |
| Manager(s) | Ralph Houk |
| Local television | (Phil Rizzuto, Frank Messer, Bill White) |
| Local radio |
WMCA (Frank Messer, Phil Rizzuto, Bill White) |
| < Previous season Next season > | |
The 1973 New York Yankees season was the 71st season for the team in New York, and its 73rd season overall. The Yankees finished with a record of 80–82, finishing 17 games behind the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees were managed by Ralph Houk. The Yankees played at old Yankee Stadium, on the south side of 161st Street. This would be the last year in the "old" Yankee Stadium, which was targeted for major reconstruction in 1974–1975. During this period, the Yankees would share a home field with a National League team for the third time in their history, moving into Shea Stadium for two years.
The Yankees had been struggling during their years under CBS ownership, which had acquired the team in 1965. In 1972, CBS Chairman William S. Paley told team president E. Michael Burke the media company intended to sell the club. As Burke later told writer Roger Kahn, Paley offered to sell the franchise to Burke if he could find financial backing. Burke ran across Steinbrenner's name, and veteran baseball executive Gabe Paul, a Cleveland-area acquaintance of Steinbrenner, helped bring the two men together.
On January 3, 1973, a group of investors led by George Steinbrenner and minority partner Burke bought the Yankees from CBS for $10 million.
The announced intention was that Burke would continue to run the team as club president. But Burke later became angry when he found out that Paul had been brought in as a senior Yankee executive, crowding his authority, and quit the team presidency on April 29, 1973. (Burke remained a minority owner of the club into the following decade.) He handed in his resignation to the New York Yankees, so that he could become president of Madison Square Garden.
It would be the first of many high-profile departures by employees who crossed paths with "The Boss." At the conclusion of the 1973 season, two more prominent names departed: manager Ralph Houk, who resigned and then signed to manage the Detroit Tigers; and general manager Lee MacPhail, who became president of the American League.
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