2024 NYY Collective
2024 NYY Collective
October 30, 2024: A season characterized, as it always is, by high expectations coming off of a disappointing 2023 campaign. The big difference? A 25-(now 26)-year-old phenom in right field by the name of Juan Soto. Traded from the Padres to the Yankees for Michael King, Kyle Higashioka, and prospects Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito, and Randy Vazquez, he immediately made his presence known by doing what he does best: getting on base at remarkable rates and ultimately swinging the Yankees into their first World Series appearance since 2009. Unfortunately, they fell just short, losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 5 games. Now, the Yankees have revenge on their minds in 2025: not only towards Los Angeles, but towards Soto himself, who jumped across the Whitestone Bridge to the New York Mets on the most expensive contract in professional sports history. Below are my favorite images from the 2024 Yankees season.
~ 94-68 record (1st in the American League East)
~ Automatic bye to Divisional Round
~ Defeated the Kansas City Royals, 3 games to 1
~ Defeated the Cleveland Guardians, 4 games to 1
~ Faced the Los Angeles Dodgers, arguably the best team in baseball headlined by Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman
~ Lost to LA in 5 games, leaving behind mistakes that will be played back forever.
So close, yet so far away...
So close, yet so far away...
But now we know what it takes. In the offseason following a painful ending, we let Soto walk towards the largest professional sports contract ever. The response? At the time of this being published, we added former World Series champion Max Fried, signed a top-tier closer in Devin Williams, and added former MVPs Cody Bellinger and Paul Golschmidt. And I doubt that the Yankees are stopping there. 2025 is all about revenge; with the Dodgers only getting better (having added even more than what propelled them to the top in 2024), it is up to the Yankees to find that last “click” to reverse the tide back in their favor.
LETS. GO. YANKEES.
What you just saw is a game from April 20th, 2024, shot entirely in black & white and primarily landscape to switch up my habit of vertical shots only. I really enjoyed manipulating the shapes of fans to create the silhouette effect, pulling all the focus into the players and the game action.
We now pivot to the rest of the games that I attended during the regular season, and I’ll dedicate the postseason and my photos there to its own section.
And now for the postseason…
Beat Kansas City in the DS
Beat Kansas City in the DS
Beat Cleveland in the CS
Beat Cleveland in the CS
One step away from #28
One step away from #28
Standing in their way were the Los Angeles Dodgers
Standing in their way were the Los Angeles Dodgers
Although we did not receive the Cinderella ending, every Yankee fan after Game 4 thought the comeback was brewing. No team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in the World Series; expanding to the entire MLB Postseason, only one team - the Boston Red Sox - came back from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees - poetically - in the 2004 ALCS, and ended up winning the World Series that year.
In Game 5, the Yankees jumped all over the Dodgers, with Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. homering early to produce a 3-0 lead. Yankees grew the lead to 5, but saw that lead quickly slip away on untimely mistakes. This resulted in a Dodgers lead, and eventually, their 9th World Series in franchise history.
We now turn the page to 2025, and, at the time I write this, the Yankees are off to a good start, with Judge, new signing Paul Goldschmidt, Max Fried, and rookie Will Warren off to respectable performances to the season.