The team finished in first place in the
American League East with a record of , 2½ games ahead of the
Baltimore Orioles to successfully defend their division title. In the best-of-five
League Championship Series (ALCS), they beat the
Kansas City Royals in five games. In the
World Series, New York defeated the
Los Angeles Dodgers in six games.
Season standings Record vs. opponents Notable transactions • April 5:
Oscar Gamble,
LaMarr Hoyt, minor leaguer Bob Polinsky, and $200,000 were traded by the Yankees to the
Chicago White Sox for
Bucky Dent. • April 27:
Dock Ellis,
Larry Murray, and
Marty Perez were traded by the Yankees to the
Oakland Athletics for
Mike Torrez. • August 2: The Yankees acquired
Stan Thomas from the
Seattle Mariners for future considerations.
Draft picks • June 7:
1977 Major League Baseball draft •
Joe Lefebvre was selected by the Yankees in the third round, and signed on July 6. •
Chuck Hensley was selected by the Yankees in the tenth round. •
Chris Welsh was selected by the Yankees in the 21st round.
All-Star game Yankee Stadium hosted the
All-Star Game on July 19, less than a week after the
blackout. Four Yankees were in the game:
Willie Randolph and
Reggie Jackson were in the starting lineup at second base and right field, while relief pitcher
Sparky Lyle and third baseman
Graig Nettles were part of the roster as reserves. The
National League defeated the American League 7–5.
Roster Characters Reggie Jackson Jackson's first season with the Yankees was a difficult one. Although team owner
George Steinbrenner and several players, most notably catcher and team captain
Thurman Munson and outfielder
Lou Piniella, were excited about his arrival, Martin was not. He had managed the Detroit Tigers in
1972 when Jackson's
A's beat them in the
league playoffs. Jackson was once quoted as saying of Martin, "I hate him, but if I played for him, I'd probably love him." The relationship between Jackson and his new teammates was strained due to an interview with
SPORT magazine writer
Robert Ward. During
spring training at the Yankees' camp in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jackson and Ward were having drinks at a nearby bar. Jackson's version of the story is that he noted that the Yankees had won the pennant the year before, but lost the World Series to the Reds, and suggested that they needed one thing more to win it all, and pointed out the various ingredients in his drink. Ward suggested that Jackson might be "the straw that stirs the drink." But when the story appeared in the May 1977 issue of
SPORT, Ward quoted Jackson as saying, "This team, it all flows from me. I'm the straw that stirs the drink. Maybe I should say me and Munson, but he can only stir it bad."
Thurman Munson Thurman Munson was "uncharacteristically happy" about the team getting Jackson in large part because he believed he had received "a verbal agreement from Steinbrenner that, with the exception of Catfish Hunter (who'd signed a five-year, $3.75 million contract with the Yankees before the
1975 season), he [Munson] would always be the highest-paid player on the team." But, Steinbrenner did not follow through and adjust Munson's contract upward. As the baseball book
Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ‘76 puts it, "But the Yankee captain wouldn't be smiling for long, once he realized that Steinbrenner had no intention of making good on their agreement." An article in
The New York Times in January 1977 reported, "Munson, however, has continued to be disturbed with Steinbrenner because of what he said first was the owner's denial of any verbal agreement and secand [second] was Steinbrenner's misleading him on Jackson's salary."
Billy Martin Martin feuded publicly with both Yankee owner Steinbrenner and star outfielder Jackson. In one especially infamous incident on Saturday, June 18, in the second game of a three-game sweep by the
Boston Red Sox at
Fenway Park, Martin pulled Jackson off the field in mid-inning for failing to hustle on a check-swing pop double by Boston's
Jim Rice. Replaced in right field by Paul Blair, Jackson confronted Martin when he returned to the dugout, and Martin had to be restrained by his coaches (
Elston Howard and
Yogi Berra) from fighting with Jackson during the nationally televised
Game of the Week.
In popular culture Jonathan Mahler wrote a bestselling book entitled
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning about the turmoil in New York City in 1977, including the
Son of Sam, the
blackout, and how Yankees season rallied the people of New York. The book was adapted for an
ESPN miniseries,
The Bronx Is Burning The 1977 Yankees season provides a backdrop in the
Spike Lee film
Summer of Sam. == Game log ==