The 1990s Yankees dynasty changed baseball

When the 1990s began, the Yankees were a bit of a joke. They had fallen from back-to-back World Series champions in the late-‘70s to mere title-less contenders in the mid-’80s, and by the end of that decade, they were a sub-.500 team. Their bombastic owner was about to be suspended from baseball for conspiring to dig up dirt on his own superstar, and there really weren’t many compelling players on the roster.

By the time the 1990s ended, the Yankees had won their third World Series crown in four years. They had an explosive core of young talent led by multiple Hall of Famers and annual All-Stars, and the more experienced players who joined them combined to create the game’s most dominant…