“Our entries on MLB Monday always vary, or so we’d like to think.”

That was our lede in this same space last week, and it rings true today, for sure. The 1990 New Yankees were the only franchise team since 1966 to finish in last place, thus making those Bronx Bummers the only ones in our lifetime to do so. They won a mere 67 games, and in our memories from the summer after our first year of college, two things stand out about that year since we had a close friend who was a diehard Yankees fan at the time. It seemed like the whole season this guy was ranting and raving on this.

The first thing was the no-hit game thrown by New York starting pitcher Andy Hawkins on Sunday, July 1, 1990: the journeyman held the upstart Chicago White Sox hitless and still lost the game, 4-0, thanks to three errors by the defense behind him. Jim Leyritz, Jesse Barfield (4), and Mike Blowers (10) committed those crimes, although Hawkins himself aided the Pale Hose by walking five batters. Chicago scored all its runs in the bottom of the eighth inning, too. This game deserves its own piece, though.

What we want to focus on today is the fact the 1990 Yankees went 0-12 against the defending World Series champions and eventual American League pennant winners: the Oakland Athletics. Back before interleague play, each team played 12 games against teams from the other division, and while season sweeps weren’t necessarily uncommon, what makes this one stand out is that New York scored a total of just 12 runs in those 12 losses against the A’s, demonstrating a very low level of ability and talent.

Let’s look at each of the 12 games here, in brief:

  • April 30 @ NY: Oakland 6, New York 0. Eventual Cy Young vote winner Bob Welch tossed a six-hit, complete-game shutout. Welch had famously faced the Yankees as a Los Angeles Dodgers rookie in the 1978 World Series.
  • May 1 @ NY: Oakland 4, New York 2. The A’s overcame an early 1-0 deficit behind two RBI from light-hitting second baseman Mike Gallego, who would eventually play three seasons for the Yankees (1992-1994).
  • May 2 @ NY: Oakland 2, New York 0. Another shutout for Oakland, as a pitchers’ duel between Scott Sanderson and Tim Leary resulted in the latter losing a complete-game effort. The former tossed seven shutout innings of five-hit ball, which perhaps motivated George Steinbrenner into acquiring him for the 1991-1992 seasons.
  • May 7 @ OAK: Oakland 5, New York 1. Just a week later on the Best Coast, it was Leary again taking the loss, giving up all five runs in just seven-plus innings. José Canseco hit two home runs off the Yankees starter, driving in four runs. And guess who later played for New York, too? The Yankees traded for Canseco 10 seasons later on their way to another ring.
  • May 8 @ OAK: Oakland 5, New York 0. Sanderson picked up the victory again over the Yankees with another 6 1/3 innings of shutout baseball. No wonder Steinbrenner wanted him, and interestingly enough, Sanderson did pitch better in New York (3.8 WAR in two seasons) than he did with Oakland (0.3 WAR in one season). The losing pitcher in this one was Greg Cadaret, who the A’s sent to New York in the infamous 1989 Rickey Henderson trade, when baseball was different.
  • May 9 @ OAK: Oakland 2, New York 1 (11). This one went extras before the A’s walked it off on a bases-loaded, one-out walk to Henderson off reliever Eric Plunk, yet another player involved in that same 1989 trade. To add injury to insult, Henderson had scored the tying run in the eighth inning by scoring from second on a groundout to shortstop. No joke, although we can’t find any video of the play itself. This may have been the Yankees’ best chance to beat Oakland in 1990.
  • August 10 @ OAK: Oakland 3, New York 0. Three months later, it was more of the same. Dave Stewart (8 2/3 IP) and Rick Honeycutt combined on a three-hit shutout for the A’s. New York had been in last place among AL East teams since late May and was 14 games out of first. Interestingly, Honeycutt would pitch in three games for the Yankees in 1995.
  • August 11 @ OAK: Oakland 10, New York 1. The biggest blowout of the dozen victories for the A’s, this matchup saw Oakland score all of its runs between the fourth and seventh innings—and the Yankees scoring their only run in the ninth inning. Winning pitcher Curt Young would pitch briefly for New York in 1992; A’s reliever Gene Nelson, a Yankees rookie in 1981, got the save by pitching the final 3 1/3 IP. These two franchises obviously always had an intertwined connection.
  • August 12 @ OAK: Oakland 6, New York 1. The A’s scored four in the first and never looked back, as Mark McGwire his a three-run HR early. Welch got his 19th victory of the season, with Honeycutt getting the save although we’re not sure why. He seems to have created his own jam in the top of the ninth with a pair of two-out walks, and that shouldn’t be a thing.
  • September 7 @ NY: Oakland 7, New York 1. The Bronx Bummers were 20 games out at this point, even though the cast of characters seemed to be the same. Young got the win by pitching the first five innings, while Hawkins took another loss. A’s reliever Todd Burns got a four-inning save. Both Canseco (35th) and McGwire (36th) hit HRs in this game, too.
  • September 8 @ NY: Oakland 5, New York 2. The Yankees had a 2-1 lead heading into the eighth inning before giving up two runs in both the final two frames. Henderson, the eventual AL MVP, did the most damage, hitting a solo HR leading off the eighth to tie the game and then hitting a two-run shot in the ninth to win it. All that late-inning magic gave Sanderson another victory over New York on the year, while Dennis Eckersley finally got a save against the Yankees in 1990.
  • September 9 @ NY: Oakland 7, New York 3. This game was tied going into the ninth inning, before the A’s scored four runs to clinch the game—and the season series. Stewart got the win; Leary took another loss; both Cadaret and Plunk got a single out in that fateful ninth. A’s center fielder Willie McGee hit a two-run triple in that inning off Cadaret, finishing with four RBI in the game overall. Oddly, he won the NL batting title this season, as Oakland acquired him on August 29, and he had compiled enough plate appearances with St. Louis by that time to qualify. Oh, and the Yankees had drafted McGee in 1977 in the first round before trading him away to the Cardinals after the 1981 season before he ever reached the majors.

That’s the skinny on the season sweep; our Yankees friend was livid about all this, and even though we lost touch with him long before 1996, we suspect he got over it, eventually. New York had a decent chance to win at least three of the games, but the ugly bullpen was full of holes—and the A’s were pretty good, in truth, on the way to their third-straight AL pennant. Yet four shutouts in the 12 matchups obviously is a testimony to the roster quality of each team, and the overall one-run average per game is brutal.

We all know how soon after this season, with the Bud Selig Commissioner Coup, the economics of the game changed significantly, and the Yankees would return to their MLB throne while the A’s would get relegated to small-market status—shafted by Selig and his successor at every turn for the next three decades. It is interesting to remember many of these moments now, so many years later, thanks to the venom spewed at MLB and the Oakland franchise by our one-time friend. Spite never sleeps, eh?