Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty

by Phil Pepe

  The Yankees came back in Game 2 and jumped out to a 6–0 lead on Hideki Matsui’s three-run homer in the first, an RBI double by Juan Rivera in the second, and Alfonso Soriano’s two-run homer in the fourth, all in support of Andy Pettitte, who was making the second game of postseason series his private preserve. Pettitte took his 6–0 lead into the ninth having allowed just four hits, all singles, while walking one and striking out seven.

  When the Marlins scored a run in the ninth on two singles sandwiched around an error by Aaron Boone. (How could you fault him? It was because of his game-winning 11th inning home run against the Red Sox a few days earlier that the Yankees were even here.) Pettitte was lifted for Jose Contreras, who got the final out on a ground ball to third. This time Boone handled it and forced the runner at second for the final out to give Pettitte his third win of the 2003 postseason without a defeat.

  For the middle three games of the Series it was on to sunny Florida, where the Yankees won a 6–1 replica of Game 2, breaking open a tight game with four runs in the ninth on a three-run homer by Bernie Williams and a solo shot by that man Boone to take a two games to one lead.

  The Marlins kept their hopes alive by winning the next two games, a 4–3 victory in Game 4 on Alex Gonzalez’s home run off Jeff Weaver leading off the bottom of the 12th, and a 6–4 victory in Game 5. Suddenly, the Yankees were down three games to two to this upstart, expansion Marlins team in only the 11th year of its existence. But they were going home for the final two games in Yankee Stadium and they had old reliable Andy Pettitte, who had won his last three postseason decisions, rested and ready for Game 6.

  Jack McKeon, the 72-year-old baseball lifer who had taken over during the season from Jeff Torborg as manager of the Marlins, defied custom, tradition, and baseball logic by naming Josh Beckett to pitch Game 6 on three days’ rest.

  Just as he had been in Game 2, Pettitte was outstanding in Game 6, pitching seven innings, striking out seven, and holding the Marlins to two runs: one on three singles in the fifth, the other an unearned run scored without benefit of a hit in the sixth.

  As good as Pettitte was, Beckett, the Marlins’ 23-year-old fireballer, was even better. He dominated the Yankee hitters, allowing five hits, walking two, and striking out nine, and stunned the Yankee Stadium crowd with a 2–0 victory.

  While they failed to win their 27th World Series, the Yankees at least got there for the sixth time in eight years; and there was always next year.

  Or was there?

  Aaron Boone

  If not for Aaron Boone, Alex Rodriguez might never have been a Yankee.

  How’s that?

  Midway through the 2003 season the Yankees traded third baseman Robin Ventura to the Los Angeles Dodgers and acquired Aaron Boone in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds to be Ventura’s replacement. In 54 games, Boone batted .254 with six home runs and 31 RBIs and played a better than adequate third base. But it was in the postseason that Boone became part of Yankees’ postseason lore alongside Bucky Dent, Chris Chambliss, Reggie Jackson, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, and Jim Leyritz.

  Boone’s 11th-inning, walk-off home run to win Game 7 of the American League Championship Series over the archrival Boston Red Sox and send the Yankees to the World Series was one of the great dramatic moments in the history of baseball.

  It had not been a good series for Boone. In 16 previous at-bats, he had two hits, both singles. But that home run erased all that’d come before. Aaron Boone did not pass Go and he did not collect $200. He went directly into Yankees lore, a hero for the ages.

  The story of Aaron Boone’s time with the Yankees, however, did not have such a happy ending.

  That winter, Boone was playing a pick-up basketball game, a no-no in violation of his major league contract. He cut to free himself from his opponent and felt a pop in his knee. He had torn a ligament. He would need surgery and would be out for the year.

  On February 16, the Yankees, in a trade with the Texas Rangers, acquired Alex Rodriguez after he first agreed to move from shortstop to third base.

  On March 1, the Yankees released Aaron Boone.

  15. Breaking Up That Old Gang

  On December 16, 2003, Andy Pettitte, tired of being away from home, spending too many days away from his wife and three young children, and feeling unwanted by the Yankees, exer- cised his right to become a free agent and signed a three-year contract worth $31.5 million with his adopted hometown team, the Houston Astros.

  Thirty-four days later, Roger Clemens, tired of being away from home, spending too many days away from his wife and four young children, exercised his right to become a free agent and signed a one-year contract worth $5 million with his adopted hometown team, the Houston Astros.

  The two events were not considered coincidental.

  Back on February 18, 1999, the Yankees had pulled off a huge trade with the Toronto Blue Jays, sending infielder Homer Bush and left-handed pitchers Graeme Lloyd and David Wells north of the border in exchange for future Hall of Fame right-hander Roger Clemens, possessor of 233 major league victories and five Cy Young Awards.

  Andy Pettitte was ecstatic. It meant his boyhood idol would be his teammate.

  Clemens and Pettitte had much in common. Both were Texans—although Clemens was transplanted from Ohio and Pettitte from Louisiana—both had attended San Jacinto Junior College and both lived in suburban Houston, just minutes away from each other.

  In time, Clemens would also become Pettitte’s mentor, his role model, his counsel, his pitching guru, and, despite the difference in their ages—Clemens was 36, Pettitte 27—his closest friend, the older brother Andy never had. The two were practically inseparable during the season and in the off-season. They talked pitching constantly. From Clemens, Pettitte learned discipline, pitching strategy, mental toughness, preparedness, competitiveness, and passion.

  Their lives and careers were so intertwined it seemed that when one made a move, the other followed.

  Between them, Pettitte and Clemens won 38 games for the Yankees in 2003, but still the Yankees could not win the World Series. It was their third straight year without a ride down New York’s Canyon of Heroes, and owner George Steinbrenner was not very happy about this sudden turn of events. He demanded action. He wanted changes.

  With Pettitte and Clemens both gone, and their 38 wins gone with them, the need to bulk up their pitching staff was the Yankees’ first priority and that gave rise to rumors that they were in negotiations with the Arizona Diamondbacks for a trade that would bring the Big Unit, Randy Johnson, to the Bronx. In exchange, Arizona would get a package that included Jorge Posada.

  That trade was never consummated, so the Yankees turned their attention elsewhere. They traded three players to acquire pitcher Javier Vazquez from the Montreal Expos, three more to land pitcher Kevin Brown from the Los Angeles Dodgers, and they signed pitchers Jon Lieber and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and outfielder Gary Sheffield as free agents.

  But their biggest splash of the off-season came on February 16, 2004, when they completed a trade that sent Alfonso Soriano to the Texas Rangers in exchange for superstar Alex Rodriguez, the reigning American League Most Valuable Player, and his $252 million contract, of which there were seven years remaining.

  Among the new acquisitions, Vazquez, Brown, Lieber, and Hernandez would win 46 games, while Sheffield and Rodriguez (72 home runs and 227 RBI between them) beefed up the offense and enabled the Yankees to win 101 games. Of course, this by no means meant to say that the Yankees didn’t miss Clemens and Pettitte, especially in the postseason.

  In the Division Series, the Yankees disposed of the Minnesota Twins three games to one before meeting their archrivals the Boston Red Sox in the League Championship Series for the second straight year. The Yankees blistered them in the first three games, 10–7, 3–1, and, what everyone believed was a Red Sox deathblow, a 19–8 modern-day Boston Massacre in fro
nt of Red Sox Nation in venerable Fenway Park.

  The outcome of the 2004 American League Championship Series seemed a foregone conclusion until the Red Sox began to stir, refusing to roll over and perish.

  Faced with an early elimination, ignominiously in their own ballpark, the Red Sox rallied from a 2–0 deficit with three runs in the fifth, but fell behind when the Yankees scored two in the sixth. The Red Sox came to bat in the ninth trailing 4–3 and facing the invincible Mariano Rivera in his second inning of work. Kevin Millar drew a walk to start the bottom of the ninth and Dave Roberts ran for him.

  Every baseball player has a weakness. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times in his career. Rivera’s weakness is holding runners on base, and Roberts exploited that weakness by stealing second in a daring move. He scored on a single to center by Bill Mueller to tie the game at 4–4.

  Rivera pitched out of a bases-loaded jam and the game went into extra innings, extending the Red Sox’s season, if only temporarily, and delaying the presumably inevitable.

  They went to the bottom of the 12th with veteran Paul Quantrill pitching for the Yankees. He gave up a leadoff single to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz followed with a two-run home run that gave the Red Sox a 6–4 victory, and new life.

  They were back in Fenway Park for Game 5 the following night. This time the Red Sox jumped out in front with two in the first and the Yankees stormed back with a run in the second and three in the sixth to take a 4–2 lead. Again in the eighth, the Red Sox came from behind. Ortiz homered off Tom Gordon to make it a 4–3 game. Millar followed with a walk (déjà vu all over again?) and Roberts ran for him. This time he didn’t steal second, but he raced to third when Trot Nixon followed with a single.

  The Red Sox had the tying run on third and the lead run on first with no one out, and Joe Torre went to the mound to replace Gordon with Rivera. For the second straight night, Rivera was brought in to pitch in the eighth inning by a manager whose team was ahead in the World Series—three games to none the first night and three games to one the second night. Who was panicking now?

  Jason Varitek hit a sacrifice fly and the game was tied 4–4.

  In his first 51 postseason games, Rivera had won six, lost none, and saved 24. Now in his last 18 games, he had lost one and blown four saves.

  They went to the bottom of the 14th inning, with Esteban Loiaiza pitching for the Yankees. With one out he walked Johnny Damon. With two outs he walked Manny Ramirez. Ortiz followed with a single to center to score Damon with the winning run and the Red Sox had survived another day. But they would have to win two straight games in hostile madhouse Yankee Stadium.

  No problem!

  In Game 6, pitching with a torn tendon sheath in his foot and a blood-soaked white sock, Curt Schilling went seven courageous and overpowering innings, allowing one run (a seventh-inning home run by Bernie Williams) while striking out four, and the Red Sox evened the Series with a 4–2 victory.

  Game 7 was no contest. The Red Sox hit four home runs, two by Johnny Damon, one each by David “Big Papi” Ortiz and Mark Bellhorn, and blew the Yankees away before 56,129 shocked patrons in Yankee Stadium.

  Rivera, who did not pitch in Game 6, pitched to one batter in Game 7 and got the Yankees’ final out. At the time, the Red Sox were ahead 10–3.

  The Red Sox would go on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and finally conquer “the Curse of the Bambino,” so called because after winning five world championships in their first 18 years, the Sox, after selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees, would fail to win another for almost 100 years.

  In Houston, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte teamed up with staff ace Roy Oswalt to win 130 games over three seasons. Clemens won 18 games and lost four in 2004 for the Astros, who finished second in the National League Central and reached the playoffs as a National League wild-card, where Clemens won one game in the Division Series and one in the League Championship Series.

  It’s a safe bet that if he was still pitching for the Yankees and in the postseason against the Red Sox, the team that dumped him after the 1996 season (they would not offer him a free agent contract after he had given them 13 years and 192 victories), Clemens would have been motivated enough to stop the bleeding and win one game.

  Pettitte won six games and lost four for the Astros in 2004, his season curtailed when he underwent elbow surgery. But he rebounded to win 17 games in 2005 and, no surprise, the Astros made it to the World Series for the first time in their 44-year history. Pettitte won one game in the League Championship Series, but in the World Series Houston was swept in four games by the Chicago White Sox. Pettitte started Game 2, allowed two runs in six innings and left leading 4–2, but the White Sox came back to win it with a run in the bottom of the ninth.

  While Pettitte was missing from the Yankees in the 2004–06 seasons, the remaining three members of the Core Four remained intact and thriving.

  Mariano Rivera, after his blips in the 2001 and 2004 postseason, saved 130 games in the three-year period, pushing his career total to 413, fourth on the all-time list, ahead of Dennis Eckersley and behind Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith, and John Franco.

  Jorge Posada had a three-year total of 63 homers and 245 RBI giving him 198 home runs (12th on the Yankees’ all-time list) and 771 RBI (17th on the Yankees’ all-time list).

  Derek Jeter batted .292, .309, and .343, had three-year totals of 604 hits, 56 homers, and 245 RBI, and was rapidly moving up on the team’s all-time lists with 2,150 hits (seventh) 183 home runs (17th), and 860 RBI (11th).

  Without Pettitte in 2005 and 2006, the Yankees finished first in the American League East again, their eighth and ninth consecutive division titles, but both times they failed to advance past the Division Series. In 2005 they were eliminated in five games by the Los Angeles Angels (Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang, and Aaron Small took the losses) and in 2006, they were knocked out in four games by the Detroit Tigers (Mussina, Randy Johnson, and Jaret Wright were losing pitchers).

  It cannot be ignored, nor passed off as mere coincidence, that in the three seasons Pettitte was away, the Yankees failed to even reach the World Series. In the nine years Pettitte—the definitive big-game pitcher—was there, the Yankees made it to the World Series six times and won it four times.

  Considering his overall postseason record of 18–10 with the Yankees, it is not too great a leap of faith to suggest that had he been there, Pettitte might have changed the outcome of the 2004 ALCS or the Division Series of ’05 and ’06. Baseball savants were left to wonder if the Yankees might have won one, two, or three more pennants and World Series if Andy Pettitte had never left New York.

  Gary Sheffield

  In 22 seasons, three with the Yankees, Gary Sheffield (nephew of Dwight “Doc” Gooden) put up Hall of Fame numbers: a career batting average of .292, 509 home runs, 1,676 RBI, was a nine-time All-Star, and won a National League batting title (.330 with the San Diego Padres in 1992).

  Sheffield was a 35-year-old veteran who had played with five other major league teams when the Yankees signed him as a free agent in 2004. He promptly produced two outstanding seasons in the Bronx: a .290 average, 36 homers, and 121 RBI in 2004 and .291, 34, 123 line in 2005. The following year he was off to another great start when on April 29 he injured his wrist in a collision with Shea Hillenbrand of the Toronto Blue Jays. He underwent surgery on the wrist and missed most of the season, playing in only 39 games. After the season, he was traded to Detroit.

  A controversial figure throughout his career who has been outspoken, confrontational, and combative, Sheffield will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2014. However, despite his statistical qualifications he is not expected to be elected, mainly because he was mentioned in the Mitchell Report as having obtained and used steroids.

  16. Lightning (A)Rod

  Adding Alex Rodriguez (and Gary Sheffield) to a lineup that already had Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, Hide
ki Matsui, Derek Jeter, and Jorge Posada was a coup for the Yankees. Only they could afford to do it, because only they had George Steinbrenner signing the checks. George Steinbrenner liked marquee players and big boppers, liked amassing a roster filled with the game’s best players—as many as possible.

  Rodriguez was going to make the Yankees unbeatable. But adding him was a mixed blessing for the Yankees. They knew they were getting a superstar player, a huge run producer, an annual Most Valuable Player candidate, and a slugger with a chance to make a run at baseball’s all-time career home run record.

  They also were getting a player who was a lightning rod for controversy, a player who came with baggage, enormous pride, and an ego to match. He was a shortstop who liked playing there and believed he was the best in the game at the position.

  How, people wondered, were ARod and Derek Jeter going to coexist? Like Rodriguez, Jeter had his pride and, even if he didn’t flaunt it, an ego about his ability. And like Rodriguez, Jeter was a shortstop who loved playing the position, believed he was pretty good at playing there, and was unwilling to move to another position.

  ARod made the grand gesture (some say he was merely posturing) of agreeing to move to third base out of respect for Jeter, whose public persona presented a civility toward Rodriguez. In truth, there was an underlying rivalry, distrust, and envy between them. And then there was The Magazine Article.

  Back when he was still a member of the Texas Rangers, in a lengthy piece in Esquire magazine, Rodriguez, commenting on the rivalry among major league shortstops, said, “Jeter’s been blessed with great talent around him. He’s never had to lead. He can just go play and have fun. And he hits second—that’s totally different than third and fourth in a lineup. You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie and O’Neill. You never say, ‘Don’t let Derek beat you.’ He’s never your concern.”