Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League Baseball. The musical is based on Wallop's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.

Damn Yankees ran for 1,019 performances in its original 1955 Broadway production. Adler and Ross's success with The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees seemed to point to a bright future for them, but Ross suddenly died of chronic bronchiectasis, at the age of twenty-nine, a few months after Damn Yankees opened.

Damn Yankees is a 1958 musical film made by Warner Bros., a modern version of the Faust legend set in 1950 involving the New York Yankees baseball team. The film is based on the 1955 Broadway musical of the same name.

The film version was directed by George Abbott, as he did the earlier stage version, with assistance from Stanley Donen. With the exception of Tab Hunter in the role of Joe Hardy (replacing Stephen Douglass), the Broadway principals reprised their stage roles. The film is very similar to the stage version. A notable difference between film and stage versions, however, was Gwen Verdon's performance of the song, “A Little Brains”. For the film version, Verdon’s suggestive hip-movements (as choreographed by Bob Fosse and performed on stage) were considered too risqué for a mainstream American film in 1958, and so, in the film , she simply pauses at these points. Similarly, the film was released in the United Kingdom under the title What Lola Wants, to avoid use of the word "Damn" on posters, hoardings and cinema marquees.

Wishing that his favorite baseball team, the Senators, win the pennant, Joe Hardy makes a deal with the devil (literally), Mr. Applegate, and becomes his alter-ego, Joe Hardy. However, during as a young man, Joe begins to have second thoughts of being a baseball star. Written by rocknrollunderdawg

Film adaptation of the George Abbott Broadway musical about a Washington Senators fan who makes a pact with the Devil to help his baseball team win the league pennant. Written by Stewart M. Clamen