The Journey Home

by Jorge Posada

  As I’ve pointed out before, managing in the big leagues is about managing people and acknowledging their differences and knowing how they need to be treated. With the exception of a couple of guys, Joe didn’t seem to have the same kind of open-door communication approach that Joe Torre did. Everyone has a different style, and obviously it didn’t have an effect on how 2009 turned out, but for me it was a tough adjustment to make.

  I know this all seems to contradict what I said about how I felt about the chemistry on the club, but that was among the players, not necessarily with Joe. The best way I can think of it is that it was like my shoulder injury: eventually something traumatic happened to make it really noticeable, but years of wear and tear contributed to it. In 2009, nothing happened that was really obvious, but damage was being done to that relationship.

  Maybe it was coincidence, maybe Joe’s getting tossed had its effect, but we did start to win. I was thankful for that, and hoped that no one thought it had to do with Joe’s guest speakers coming in to talk to us about the mental side of the game. No offense to those people, but I just wasn’t the right audience for those kinds of approaches at that stage in my career. I’m not saying that I knew it all, but with everything else on my plate that I needed to worry about to get ready for the season and then to play during the season, I really didn’t need one more thing added. I sometimes felt like I did back in school, when I’d wondered, How is this ever going to help me? Not a great attitude to take, I know, but that was how I felt.

  Mostly I believed that talent and hard work would pay off. I saw guys doing the right things and felt it was just a question of time before things would align and we’d all start to play better collectively. By that I mean that, for a while, a couple of guys were doing well and a few others were doing just okay. When we all got in a groove offensively, we were going to be tough to beat. I’d also been around long enough to know that a club is only going to go as far as its pitching staff can carry it.

  Over the years I’d come to realize just how important it is to go into a game believing that you have a chance to win with the guy who starts. We were fortunate to have the greatest closer in the game, but Mariano was only going to get saves if we had the lead. Obvious, I know, but that meant he was dependent on the guys in front of him. So it wasn’t just the starters but also the middle relievers, the setup guys, who were going to play a big role in how the season went. As it turned out, we struggled like a lot of clubs do to find a consistent fifth starter, but we had guys like Alfredo Aceves and Brian Bruney, who contributed 15 wins between them out of the bullpen, and Phil Hughes, who contributed eight wins in a starting role as well as out of the bullpen. What I enjoyed the most about the regular season was that sense that all kinds of guys were stepping up when needed.

  That was true on the mound and at the plate. I wasn’t there when this happened, but the guys won three straight games with walk-offs against the Twins on May 15 through the 17th. In the first of those games, we were down 4–2 going into the eighth when Mark Teixeira homered to tie it, and then Melky Cabrera got a big two-out hit to win it. The next night we gave up a lead in the eighth, tied it that same inning on a Teixeira hit, and then won it in the 11th when Alex hit a home run. The next night, down 2–0 in the seventh, we tied it on a homer by Alex and a Melky sacrifice fly, and then Johnny Damon ended it in the tenth with a home run.

  Those are just a few examples of how different guys contributed, but it was like that all year. Johnny Damon amazed me. He could look terrible on one pitch and then the next put the best swing on it and drive one out of the park. He tied his career high with 24 home runs and drove in 82 hitting second behind Derek. The Caveman wasn’t stealing as many bases as he once did, but he was still one of the smartest base runners I’d seen and had a really keen understanding of the game overall.

  One of the overlooked parts of the game is defense. Even though we were struggling a bit at the beginning of the year, in early June we set a Major League Baseball record of 18 straight errorless games. In sports, one guy’s performance can lift another’s. We see that with pitching staffs sometimes when the starters compete against one another. Or hitters take advantage of one guy being on a roll and maybe being pitched around to make the opposition pay the price. That kind of momentum can happen with the gloves as well.

  So maybe I wasn’t a psychic so much as just a guy who’d been around enough to see all kinds of positive signs in the three main aspects of the game to recognize that when we started to fire on all cylinders, we were going to be really good. Even when we went into Boston for a series June 9–11 and lost all three, I felt that way. The last of those losses set off a bunch of alarm bells in the media, though, and among some fans. We had lost all seven games to the Red Sox at that point. Chien-Ming Wang, who had not fully recovered the form that had him being our ace for almost two entire seasons before this, lost the game, and the Red Sox took over first place.

  If you believed everything you read, outside the waters were rising, but in the clubhouse we were still hoping to be named Johnny Damon’s “Star of the Game” and earn the coveted championship wrestling belt that went along with it. Derek and Mo also got involved in judging who the winner should be. The award itself had started out as a toy that one of A. J. Burnett’s kids gave him, but then Johnny received one from the former pro wrestler Jerry Lawler, and that made it even more desirable. That was also a lot better than seeing Jason Giambi strut around in his gold thong, which, he claimed, had magical powers to help get anybody out of a bad stretch. That thong gave new meaning to the term “bad stretch.” I don’t know if anybody used that thong in ’09 or if Jason took it with him, but there are some things you just don’t ask about. Anyway, as the year went on Johnny stopped just putting the belt in the winner’s locker and began doing a presentation in the clubhouse, shouting out the name of the winner like a game show host. He had us all laughing our asses off.

  Teams need to have those kinds of things going on in the clubhouse because if you let too many outside influences in, especially in New York, you go crazy. It took us a while, but we went crazy on the field. In July, August, and September, we won 58 and lost 25, for a .698 winning percentage. It was hard to say what had us playing so well—the meeting with Brian, Joe getting tossed out of that early game, or maybe Nick Swisher playing Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney’s “Say, Say, Say” in the clubhouse before every game. That song was one of Derek’s favorites, and even though we didn’t always remember to have it blaring, it became one of our good-luck charms. Hey, once we got going, we weren’t about to question it.

  I only played in 111 of the games owing to a couple of injuries—a finger, a toe, a stiff neck—and the need to be careful to not tax the shoulder too much. I had a couple of thrills in hitting two pinch-hit home runs, which is kind of like winning the lottery instead of bringing home a big paycheck all the time. You’re not in the game, you walk up there, boom, and then you got guys fist-bumping you and the fans screaming. That’s a lot of fun.

  And fun is the most lasting impression I have of that year. Yes, we had fun even in the down years, but winning and having fun is the best combination there is. We led by as many as 10.5 games, and despite the ups and downs that are part of any season, we ended up in front by eight games at the end of the regular season, when my amazing managing skills helped us to a 10–2 victory.

  Joe Girardi gave me the reins for that game. This was a holdover tradition from Joe Torre’s days: a veteran got to run the club the last day of the year if we had already clinched and the outcome of the game wasn’t going to affect the playoffs. Victory number 103 of the season came despite Derek Jeter’s reaction when he discovered who was going to be managing for the day. Before the game he walked past me a bunch of times saying, “I’m not playing. I’m not playing. I’m not playing.” The club was my ship that day, but he was still the captain.

  Actually, one of the biggest thrills for us as a club and for Derek that year came on, ironic
ally, September 11. I’m not kidding about this: for a while before that date, Derek had been saying to me, “I want this over with.” What he meant by “this” was the intense focus on him passing Lou Gehrig for the most hits in a career. Derek never liked having the focus on him. He put up with it, was gracious about it, handled the media with finesse, but he did it because he had to, not because he wanted to.

  In a way it was unfortunate for him that on September 9 he went 3-for-4 to tie the record. That meant that with the off day coming up, there’d be even more in the news about his quest. I can’t say that the pressure was getting to him, but I know that he didn’t like how the pursuit of the record was taking attention away from what we were doing on the field. As Derek had been telling me, it seemed like everywhere he went—in a cab, on the street—everyone was asking him, “When are you going to get the hit?”

  He got the record on September 11 with a leadoff single in the third. Going the other way, not trying to do too much with a pitch, was typical of him. He got to first base, and we poured out of the dugout to congratulate him. It was a rainy night in the Bronx, so it wasn’t exactly how we all wanted the story to go. That didn’t have an effect on the fans’ enthusiasm, though. The ovation seemed to last as long as the rain delays. During one of them, Derek got a call from Mr. Steinbrenner, and that meant a lot to him. We lost that game, but that was okay. We all knew that his taking over the lead in hits was coming, and we were prepared for it.

  We honored Derek formally on September 29. At a pregame ceremony, Andy and I got to present Mo and Derek with gifts that the guys had chipped in to commission and pay for. We had wanted something special and unique, and Andy came up with idea of a work by Opie Otterstad. It was a portrait of Derek and that tie-breaking hit, so the artist had to work hard to get it ready in time, and it was amazing. He incorporated other things into the piece—a Yankees uniform, a Lou Gehrig model bat, and dirt from both Yankee Stadiums among them. Derek also got home plate, first base, and a sign from the old Stadium that meant a lot to Derek: it said, I WANT TO THANK THE GOOD LORD FOR MAKING ME A YANKEE. We all felt that way that night, and when I got on the podium to speak to them and the crowd at the Stadium, I said what was in my heart: “I’m really proud that I got a chance to play with you. I think you guys represent what the Yankees are all about.” Derek got another gift that represented what he was all about—two of the seats he crashed into while making a catch against the Red Sox in 2004.

  We also honored Mo, who had reached 500 saves in June. For that accomplishment, he got the bullpen bench and the rubber from Citi Field from the night he reached that milestone there. It was a fun night to share with their families and friends. The whole thing was a nice break and a chance to reflect on what we’d accomplished during the regular season before the craziness of the playoffs took hold.

  If I had one thought nagging at me, I could trace its roots to our August series in Boston. On August 22, the Red Sox had hammered us, 14–1, at Fenway. A.J. was on the mound. He’d been on a pretty good run of not allowing runs early in the game, but that wasn’t the case this time. Three Red Sox runs in the first and four in the second had us down early. He wound up giving up three home runs, and after one of them he said, “How can you call that pitch?” I bit my tongue. He’d been shaking me off a lot early in the game, and we seemed a little out of synch. Why not shake me off then? I thought. I also thought, How can you throw that pitch?

  After the game, he and I were in the clubhouse, about the last two guys in that cramped little space. I could see him giving me the eye. I wasn’t happy about the game, about how the whole staff pitched, and I took responsibility for us getting our asses handed to us. Those games are no fun. I wanted to clear the air, so A.J. and I talked about it. We’re both passionate guys, and the conversation wasn’t the most polite it could have been, but I thought we both made our points. Later on I went to Joe and A.J. both—again, to try to sort things out. After that game in Boston, José Molina had begun to catch A.J. regularly, and I didn’t want that to go too far. I wanted to be in the lineup no matter who was on the mound. Joe told me that it wasn’t A.J.’s call and left it at that. Well, that could only mean one thing—Joe wanted José to catch A.J. from that point forward.

  No matter who was making the decision, I didn’t like it. When I tried again to talk about it, Joe seemed to hear me but not listen to me. With the playoffs about to start, I didn’t want to be in and out of the lineup, but that seemed to be how it was going to be. It was time to be the best team player I could be and just let it go.

  The Twins entered the ALDS hot, winning 18 of their last 25; even though they’d won only 87 games all season, we heard what Joe was telling us about not taking those games for granted. With Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Michael Cuddyer in the lineup, they posed a challenge. Each of them wound up hitting more than .400 in the series, as did Nick Punto and Denard Span. Still, we managed to beat them in three straight games. They had more hits than we did in the series, but they only scored six runs. In every game, they had the lead but we came back to win. That tells you something about pitchers coming up big when needed, and that’s just as true for our hitters. The big story that series was Alex. He had a couple of hits and also drove in two. Given our poor postseason track record since he’d joined the team, you couldn’t escape stories about his postseason failures with runners in scoring position. During Game 1, he broke an 0-for-29 streak dating all the way back to 2004, and I think that his solid start was the key to our entire playoff run. He got some confidence, and he also got that monkey off his back.

  When your cleanup hitter does his job like that, the whole team feeds off his success. That’s why that guy is in the number-four hole—to drive runners in. The way the lineup turns over, you can almost bet that in the last two innings he’s going to come up in a clutch situation with men on base. That’s a big burden, but you get the big bucks and the big-time attention that goes with it. That’s just how it is, and Alex stepped up for us. His home run in Game 2 in the ninth inning got us into extra innings, Teixeira’s blast in the 11th won it, and that was going to be a tough one for the Twins to overcome. They didn’t.

  I didn’t catch Game 2 with A.J. Burnett on the mound. As unhappy as I was about that, I just had to shut my mouth and do what was best for the team. I was happy to contribute in Game 3 with a home run to give us the lead in the seventh and to add another RBI with an insurance run in the eighth on a base hit. When Mariano closed it out for us, all those numbers that seemed to say the Twins were outperforming us didn’t matter. We did our celebrating off the field out of respect for the Twins and their fans, and it felt great to have some of that magic back. It seemed as if some of the breaks had gone our way and unlike a lot of times in the past when we hadn’t taken advantage of them, this time we did. That was what it was going to take.

  We’d led the league in all the major league offensive categories in the regular season, but in the playoffs all that was wiped clean. This was the new season, the one that we had always played so well in and come so close to winning five out of seven years. We were going to face the Angels, and they were coming in off a sweep of the Red Sox. For scheduling reasons, we would have four days off. That was a good thing and a bad thing. You can lose your edge a bit with that much time off, but you can also set up your rotation and spend more time preparing for the next squad. We had split the ten-game regular-season series with the Angels, but we had a history of not playing well in Anaheim, where we’d won only one game that year. The flip side was that they’d only won one at our place.

  I don’t know how much of an advantage we had in facing a warm-weather team in the middle of October, but I do know that it was 45 degrees and drizzling at the start of the first game. I felt it a bit when I went out for batting practice, but I wasn’t going to wear an Elmer Fudd hat. Our equipment manager, Rob Cucuzza, had kept earflap hats stocked all season, but I couldn’t wear one. Robbie Cano chose to wear a ski mask and got a lot of c
rap for that. Fortunately for us, the Angels seemed to be having trouble with fielding the ball, and we scored two unearned runs off their three errors. Whether it was the cold, the layoff, or the slick ball, I don’t know, but we took advantage of our opportunities and I was loving it. I hate the cold, but being a catcher and moving around the whole time made it a nonfactor for me. C.C. was outstanding. He came to us with a reputation for underperforming in the playoffs, but in his first two starts with us there was no evidence of that.

  Andy had something to do with that. During the season, he would talk a lot with C.C. about big-game pitching. When you’ve got a guy talking to you about playoff pitching who has won as many postseason games as Andy, you listen. And C.C. wanted to be the guy for us. That’s why we brought him in, and he knew that. He was going to be the big horse that we were all going to ride, and he liked that role. It’s always great to see a guy who wants to take the ball in every situation and then goes out there and does it. It was still early in the postseason, but it was clear that C.C. was on a mission. He attacked the zone, throwing first-pitch strikes to 17 out of 29, a good number for him. He set the tone early, throwing 12 of his first 15 pitches in the zone.

  For Game 2, the weather was more of the same, cold and wet. On those kinds of nights, you always hope for a quick game, a 2–1 pitchers’ duel in at most two and a half hours. We were out there for five hours and ten minutes in a 13-inning game with no rain delays. It was a tense game. A.J. Burnett started for us and was strong through six-plus innings, giving up just two runs on three hits. We scored our two runs with three hits, a Cano triple and a Jeter home run. Hitting in those conditions is always tough, and the ball wasn’t carrying, but Derek managed to drive one out. In the fifth the Angels tied it, and it would stay that way until the 11th. I pinch-hit and then came in to catch Mo in the ninth. He had come in to get out of a tight spot in the eighth. Derek had booted a routine ground ball, one of three errors we had, but none of them hurt us with a run. Guys were picking each other up, and that’s the sign of a championship team. Give them an opportunity, but don’t let them capitalize on it.