Moment #91: Yankees' Murderer's Row Captures Fans' Imaginations | MLB's ALL-TIME MOMENTS

This MLB offseason, we are starting a countdown of the 100 greatest moments in baseball history. These moments helped make the game what it is today. They all had an impact in the short or long term and endure to this day in the hearts and minds of baseball fans everywhere. We continue with #91: the Yankees' 1927 Murderer's Row, who set the standard for baseball excellence for the next century.

When the topic of "best baseball team to ever play" comes up, the first team most look toward is the 1927 New York Yankees, who earned the intimidating nickname "Murderer's Row" based on their lineup that was riddled with future Hall of Famers. In all, the 1927 Bronx Bombers had six players reach the National Baseball Hall of Fame, which accounts for 24% of their roster.

Imagine having to face a lineup that had the following hitters: Earle Combs, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, Tony Lazzeri. Most opposing pitchers hated the idea of having to face those guys and that's how they finished the season 110-44, 19 games better than anyone else in the American League and 10 games better than anyone else, period.

How did this ultra-talented group get their nickname, which still resonates nearly a century later? Historian John Thorn has the answer. Well, sort of. Thorn, through his research, has come to the conclusion that the nickname is thanks to one of a number of possibilities. The most straightforward explanation is the group got its name from the rows of entombed villains in cells in a prison. However, a more interesting scenario involves a neighborhood in New York City.

Otter's Alley in New York was referred to as "Murderer's Row" in 1822 and 1827 in print, based on the dangerousness of the neighborhood. Thorn believes this could provide an explanation for why the 1927 Yankees got that distinct nickname.

No matter how they got the nickname, it stuck and the name was certainly fitting. In 1927, the Yankees blew away the competition, Bob Meusel only mustered the fourth-highest batting average on the team by hitting .337. Ahead of him were Earle Combs, who hit .356, Lou Gehrig who hit .373 with 47 home runs and 52 doubles, and Babe Ruth, who set the single-season home run record that would stand until 1961, swatting 60 balls over the fence.

In just 154 games, the Yankees outscored their opponents by a total of 376 runs, a mark that will never be touched by any modern team. They were better than their opponent on any given day by an average of almost 2.5 runs. When they got to the World Series against the NL champion Pirates, the Yankees swept the championship in four games as the Sultan of Swat hit .400 in the series.

Pittsburgh, the best team in the National League, hit 54 home runs as a team in 1927. Ruth hit more than them as an individual. Good luck ever finding that kind of dominance on a single-season basis again. What is unique about the Yankees' place as a superteam in 1927 is that they were the first superteam. They are also widely still considered the best superteam. Other iterations of the Bronx Bombers like the 1961 and 1998 versions were dominant, but nothing like the '27 Yankees.

Other teams like the 1970 Baltimore Orioles and 1976 Cincinnati Reds were about as dominant as you could imagine and still weren't as good, by comparison to the rest of the league, as the Yankees were as baseball moved into a new Golden Age in 1927.

Every team that ever dominates the league is put up against the 1927 Yankees for comparison. They rarely come close upon even a surface-level review. When there's a team that can endure for more than 90 years without another team topping their accomplishments on a single-season level, it's time to tip your cap and recognize the fact that a singular team, in a magical year, with six Hall of Fame players and a Hall of Fame manager, helped change the sport forever.