Damn Yankees

Damn Yankees (1955), a musical comedy by George Abbott, Douglass Wallop (book), Richard Alder (music), Jerry Ross (lyrics). [46th Street Theatre, 1,019 perf.; Tony Award.] For years the New York Yankees have won the pennant, while the forlorn Washington Senators remain in the cellar. A Senators fan, middle‐aged Joe Boyd ( Robert Shafer), blurts out that he would sell his soul to have his team in first place. Obligingly, the devil in the person of Mr. Applegate ( Ray Walston) appears and transforms the aging Joe into young Joe Hardy ( Stephen Douglass). As “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.” he sparks the team into surging ahead to the top. When something inside the new Joe yearns for the wife he left behind, Applegate sends the sultry Lola ( Gwen Verdon) to seduce him. But Joe cannot forget his wife and, with Lola's help, he reneges on his agreement with the devil and returns home. Notable songs: Heart; Near to You; Whatever Lola Wants; Two Lost Souls. Although the 1905 baseball musical The Umpire had enjoyed a long run in Chicago, this production by Hal Prince, Frederick Brisson, and others was the first successful New York musical dealing with the national pastime. The work was based on Wallop's popular novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. A Broadway revival in 1994 with Victor Garber as Applegate and Bebe Neuwirth as Lola was very popular.