From perfect games to iconic home runs, these are the Yankees' 10 best on-field moments

Attempting to pick the Top 10 moments in Yankees history guarantees disagreement and debate. Ask 10 fans at the corner of 161st Street and River Avenue, and it’s a near-certainty that you’ll walk away with 10 different lists.

That said, this one is mine. After covering the Yankees for nearly two decades and watching thousands of games in the Bronx, I’m the first to admit that trimming more than a century of franchise lore into a series of tidy paragraphs is a near-impossible task.

So while you likely have your own lineup of unforgettable Yankees moments, here are the ones that made the cut on my scorecard.

1. Don Larsen’s perfect game, 1956 World Series

The only perfect game in World Series history, Larsen’s Game 5 gem over the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium inspired the next day’s New York Daily News to announce: “The imperfect man pitched a perfect game.” An unlikely hero who’d finish his career with an 81-91 record, including a 3-21 record two seasons earlier with Baltimore, Larsen was untouchable for one afternoon. He zipped a called third strike past Dale Mitchell for the last out, spurring catcher Yogi Berra to leap into his arms.

2. Reggie Jackson’s three-homer game, 1977 World Series

Some October legends are built over weeks, or even years. Jackson crafted his with three magnificent swings. In Game 6, he launched home runs off three different Dodgers: Burt Hooton, Elias Sosa and Charlie Hough. Jackson’s blast off the knuckleballer Hough landed in the distant black bleachers, prompting booming chants of “Reg-gie!” that capped a wild first season in New York and cemented “Mr. October’s” place in lore.

3. Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot,” 1932 World Series

Did he point? At what? And does it really matter? Nearly a century later, the debate about Game 3 at Wrigley Field still survives, which says everything about the moment’s power. Ruth embraced this version: the Cubs were jockeying him from their dugout, and on a 2-2 pitch, he silenced them with a long home run off Charlie Root. Baseball’s mythology began with the Babe, and this is a moment that crosses into legend.

4. Bucky “Bleeping” Dent stuns Fenway, 1978

The light-hitting Dent flipped a one-game playoff against the Red Sox that decided the American League East, capping the Yankees’ surge back from a 14-game summer deficit in the division race. Having hit just four homers all season, his three-run drive off Mike Torrez cleared the Green Monster – “Yastrzemski … will not get it, it’s a home run!” – and forever secured Dent’s new middle name throughout New England.

5. Chris Chambliss walks off the pennant, 1976 ALCS

The Yankees hadn’t been to a World Series in a dozen years, and the Bronx was ready, with fans flooding the field immediately after Chambliss’ home run off the Royals’ Mark Littell. Chambliss’ drive secured the franchise’s 30th pennant as he was mobbed even before touching home plate, which was soon ripped from the ground as a souvenir. It stands as a snapshot of the wild Bronx Zoo era that was to come -- chaotic, loud and unforgettable.

6. Roger Maris hits No. 61, 1961

The “M&M Boys” ruled the summer, with Maris and Mickey Mantle trading blows in an epic home run race. Injury forced Mantle out at 54 blasts, and then it was Maris alone chasing the ghost of Babe Ruth, whose record of 60 homers had stood since 1927. Maris hit his 61st off Tracy Stallard of the Red Sox, launching a drive into the right-field seats that fueled decades of debate: Ruth had hit 60 in a 154-game season, while Maris’ final drive came in the season’s 162nd game. Regardless, Maris shouldered immense pressure to rewrite history.

7. Aaron Boone’s walk-off homer, 2003 ALCS

The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry was at full boil, the “Curse of the Bambino” still alive, and Boone ended a Game 7 classic by launching an 11th-inning Tim Wakefield knuckleball into the left-field seats. Yankee Stadium shook as Boone rounded the bases. Mariano Rivera’s three scoreless innings made Boone’s swing possible, and Rivera dashed to the mound, kissing the pitching rubber in gratitude.

8. David Cone’s perfect game, 1999

If you tried to script it, no one would believe you. It was “Yogi Berra Day,” with the iconic Yankee returning to the Bronx after an absence of more than a decade. Berra caught a ceremonial first pitch from Larsen, then Cone went out and threw a perfect game against the Expos -- retiring Montreal on 88 pitches, an eerie homage to Berra’s uniform No. 8. It felt like the ghosts of Yankee Stadium showed up right on cue.

9. Derek Jeter becomes “Mr. November,” 2001 World Series

It was after midnight, the first postseason game ever played in November, New York City’s nerves raw throughout a game played just a few miles from the still-smoldering pit of Ground Zero. Jeter launched a pitch from Byung-Hyun Kim of the D-backs for a walk-off Game 4 homer, an unforgettable highlight in a postseason filled with them, including Jeter’s “Flip Play” and the homers from Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez.

10. Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run, 2022

For weeks, every Judge at-bat carried the weight of history, prompting fans to raise their cell phones high in hopes of capturing the moment. Networks even broke into college football games, offering viewers a split-screen experience. With Roger Maris Jr. in attendance, Judge eclipsed the AL record with a big swing off the Rangers’ Jesus Tinoco in Arlington, a clean and emotional passing of the torch between two pinstriped titans.

Bonus: Lou Gehrig’s “Luckiest Man” speech

This isn’t a game moment, which is the only reason it doesn’t appear in the top 10, but it’s the emotional core of franchise history. Facing a terminal ALS diagnosis, Gehrig stood at Yankee Stadium’s home plate on July 4, 1939 and called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” It endures as the gold standard for humility, courage and grace.