Murderers' Row were thebaseball teams of theNew York Yankees in the late 1920s, widely considered some of the best teams in history. The nickname is particularly used for the first six hitters in the1927 team lineup:Earle Combs,Mark Koenig,Babe Ruth,Lou Gehrig,Bob Meusel, andTony Lazzeri.

The term, which mimicked the name applied to a section of theTombs prison in New York City,^[1] was applied to several different baseball teams before it became associated with the Babe Ruth-era Yankees. A 1905 newspaper article about the Yale baseball team notes that one of Yale's coaches, Billy Lush, who had been an outfielder with the Cleveland Naps the year before, was "a member of 'Murderer's Row,' as pitchers call the first six batters on the Cleveland list."^[2] The term was also used for the Philadelphia Phillies,^[3] the Philadelphia Athletics,^[4] and for some minor league and college teams. It was first applied to the Yankees in 1918, two years before Ruth joined the team.^[5] Ruth used the term himself in 1920 referring to the Yankees lineup, in his book, "Playing the Game, My Early Years in Baseball."^[6]

The term was initially associated with the beginning ofBabe Ruth andLou Gehrig Yankee teams in the mid-1920s, and is commonly recognized to refer specifically to the core of the 1927 Yankee hitting lineup.

OwnerJacob Ruppert is the man most often credited with building the team, although general managerEd Barrow may have had as much to do with it. In a game of a July series against theWashington Senators the Yankees won 21–1, prompting Senators' first basemanJoe Judge to say, "Those fellows not only beat you but they tear your heart out. I wish the season was over."^[7]

The1927 season was particularly spectacular by baseball standards for the Yankees. After losing in the1926 World Series to theSt. Louis Cardinals, they went 110–44 (.714) the next year, won the A.L. pennant by 19 games, and swept thePittsburgh Pirates in theWorld Series. Only five teams have won more regular season games: the1906 Chicago Cubs and the2001 Seattle Mariners with 116, the1998 Yankees with 114 and the1954 Cleveland Indians and2022 Los Angeles Dodgers with 111. However, the 1998 Yankees, 2001 Mariners, and 2022 Dodgers played eight more games. Both the Cubs and the Indians lost in the World Series, while the Mariners lost to the Yankees in theALCS and the Dodgers lost to the Padres in theNLDS. The 1998 Yankees went 11–2 in the playoffs, sweeping theSan Diego Padres in theWorld Series.

The 1927 Yankees batted .307, slugged .489, scored 975 runs, and outscored their opponents by a record 376 runs. Center fielderEarle Combs had a career best year, batting .356 with 231 hits, left fielderBob Meusel batted .337 with 103 RBIs, and second basemanTony Lazzeri drove in 102 runs. Gehrig batted .373, with 218 hits, 52 doubles, 18 triples, 47 home runs, a then record 175 RBIs, slugged at .765, and was voted A.L. MVP. Ruth amassed a .356 batting average, 164 RBIs, 158 runs scored, walked 137 times, and slugged .772. Most notably, his 60 home runs that year broke his own record and remained the Major League mark for 34 years untilRoger Maris broke it by one with 61; however, just like the 1998 Yankees and 2001 Mariners, this was done in a 162-game schedule, a fact that CommissionerFord Frick, a close friend of Ruth, wanted noted when the single-season home run record was to be referenced.^[8]

The 1927 Yankees pitching staff led the league in ERA at 3.20, and includedWaite Hoyt (22–7), tied for the league lead in wins, andHerb Pennock at 19–8. Wilcy Moore won 16 as a reliever, and three other Yankee pitchers had ERAs under 3.00 that season.

After sweeping the Pirates in the Series, the Yankees repeated the feat in1928 by sweeping theCardinals. They remain the only MLB franchise to sweep consecutive World Series; the Yankee teams of1938–1939 and1998–1999 repeated the feat.

The 1927 Yankees would eventually send six players along with managerMiller Huggins and presidentEd Barrow to theBaseball Hall of Fame. These were Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Hoyt, Lazzeri, Combs, and Pennock. Only the1928 Yankees had more, with nine players (including infielder Leo Durocher, inducted based on his subsequent managerial accomplishments) along with Huggins and Barrow.

The term "Murderers' Row" is commonly used as a descriptor for teams with formidable talent. It has also been used outside of sports, an example being theEssex-class carriers anchored at Ulithi Atoll, which were also known as Murderer's Row.^[9][10]

During the2006 American League Division Series,Detroit Tigers managerJim Leyland referred to the2006 Yankees as "Murderers' Row and Cano" since the entire lineup consisted of players such asJohnny Damon,Derek Jeter,Bobby Abreu,Gary Sheffield,Hideki Matsui,Alex Rodriguez,Jason Giambi,Jorge Posada and new second basemanRobinson Canó all of whom would have multiple All-Star game appearances over their careers. Despite Leyland's nomenclature, the team did not have the success of the original 1927 team as they were defeated by the Tigers in that series.

In 2016,ESPN announced1927: The Diary of Myles Thomas.^[11] The core of the project is a historical novel in the form of a diary of Myles Thomas, written by Douglas Alden, published along the same timeline as the events unfolded almost 90 years ago. The project was an attempt to relive the 1927 season through Myles Thomas's diary entries, additional essays and real-time social-media components (including Twitter, etc). The diary runs the length of the full 1927 season, from April 13 through October 10, 1927.^[12]

• M&M Boys
• Core Four
• 1927 New York Yankees season

• 1927 New York Yankees Statistics atBaseball-Reference
• Murderer's Row atThe New York Times online archive
• "The Man Who Created Yankees' Murderers' Row".The Daily Beast.

• New York Yankees
• Nicknamed groups of baseball players

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards