Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty

by Phil Pepe

  In the bottom of the seventh, Mussina quickly disposed of Jermaine Dye on a pop-fly to shortstop and Eric Chavez on a fly ball to center field. But Jeremy Giambi, Jason’s younger brother, smacked a single to right to bring up Terrence Long, a 25-year-old left-handed hitter from Montgomery, Alabama, who had batted .288 and .283 in two seasons with the Athletics with 18 and 12 home runs, and 80 and 85 runs batted in.

  Long whistled a line drive into the right-field corner that sent Giambi spinning around the bases. He was rounding third base when right fielder Shane Spencer retrieved the ball and fired home. But Spencer’s throw sailed over the cut-off man, first baseman Tino Martinez, and bounced down the first base line, an errant throw that surely would score Giambi with the tying run.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, and out of position, there was Derek Jeter. Seeing that the throw was off-line and was going to miss the cut-off man, Jeter made a beeline across the field from his shortstop position to retrieve the ball in foul territory between first base and home plate. In one motion and with not a moment to spare he caught the ball and flipped it backhanded to home plate, where catcher Jorge Posada grabbed it and applied the tag on Giambi, who tried to score standing up. If he had slid, he probably would have been safe. Jeter’s flip was right on the money, up the line slightly toward third base to Posada’s left— the perfect spot for him to grab it and tag the runner without a wasted motion. If Jeter’s throw was to Posada’s right, there is no way he would have time to grab it and tag the runner before he reached home plate.

  Jeter never should have been there. He should have been covering second base for a possible play on Long, the go-ahead run. Why was he there?

  There was no answer. As suggested by Ron Washington, the then-third-base coach for Oakland, who is now the manager of the Texas Rangers, it was merely Jeter being Jeter, acting on instinct, being in the right place at the right time.

  “Derek Jeter noticed that there was nobody over there to back it up and he left where he should have been and went over there and did what he did,” Washington said. “It was Derek Jeter that made that play. If Derek doesn’t touch that ball, he’s safe. No doubt about it.

  “That’s what you call awareness on the ballfield. He was definitely not supposed to be there. I wish he wouldn’t have been there. That’s Derek Jeter, man. That’s why he’s a champion.”

  The Yankees won the game 1–0. They won Game 4 by a score of 9–2. And back home in Yankee Stadium for Game 5, they won 5–3, and advanced to the World Series.

  The Dive

  There was no pennant on the line in Yankee Stadium on the night of Thursday July 1, 2004, the Yankees holding a commanding and seemingly uncatchable 7½ game lead in the American League East. It was not a must-win situation in Yankee Stadium, but it was the Yankees against the Red Sox, the consummate rivalry, and that alone made it special.

  They had battled for almost four hours, through 11 tension-packed innings, the Yankees jumping out to a 2–0 run lead in the second on a walk to Jorge Posada and a home run by Tony Clark off Pedro Martinez, and adding a run in the fifth on Posada’s home run. The Red Sox fought back with two in the sixth on Manny Ramirez’s two-run homer, followed by one run in the seventh.

  Now it was the top of the 12th, with the score still tied 3–3, two outs and Red Sox runners on second and third when Trot Nixon lifted a high, twisting pop-fly near the seats in short left field and Derek Jeter in reckless and determined pursuit.

  We never did learn if the ball, had it dropped, would have been fair or foul, but in the next few moments we would witness another addition to the Jeter legacy, another example of his competitiveness and his willingness to put his body in harm’s way, all for the ultimate goal of winning a game. Traveling at break-neck speed, and with utter disregard for his own safety, Jeter caught up with the ball either just barely before the foul line or just barely after it, snared it, and then, unable to halt his momentum or avoid the inevitable, went flying headfirst into the seats. He would emerge moments later with the baseball still in his glove and blood pouring from a cut over his right eye, fortunate to have avoided serious injury.

  Jeter left the game, which the Yankees would win an inning later on a pinch-hit RBI single by John Flaherty, and was taken to nearby Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where seven stitches were taken to close the gash on his right cheek. He was back in the starting lineup the following night for an interleague game against the New York Mets in Shea Stadium.

  Blessed with good genes, good health, and good fortune, in the 15-year period from 1996 to 2010, Jeter has appeared in more games than any other player in the major leagues, a total of 2,280 of the Yankees 2,428 games, a remarkable 94 percent of his team’s games.

  DiMag And “D” Captain

  Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson. And Derek Jeter?

  The mind boggles. The imagination trembles. The idea astounds.

  Who would have thought that this Michigan kid, this 21st- century interloper, would take his place alongside the greatest names of sport’s greatest team, and deservedly so; that this erstwhile skinny shortstop would be aligned with the gods of the game whose legacy go as far back as 100 years; that he would topple records and achieve heights that never were attained by any of them.

  Where does Derek Jeter rank in this pantheon? Is he the greatest of all New York Yankees? One of the three greatest?

  Of that Mount Rushmore of Yankees, the one Derek Jeter most closely resembles in style and substance is Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper. Jeter does not have the power game of a Ruth, a Gehrig, a Mantle, or a Jackson, but he has the grace and the elegance of a DiMaggio, and at the risk of being accused of heresy, he even out-DiMaggios DiMaggio.

  To be sure, Joe D. deserves his props. He played only 13 seasons (Jeter has played 18 seasons), having lost three prime years to military service during World War II, his career cut short by a debilitating bone spur on his foot.

  Jeter never has come close to DiMaggio’s incredible, probably unbreakable, record of hitting in 56 straight games, which has lasted more than 70 years, or to matching Joe’s career mark of only 369 strikeouts, a miniscule 13 of them in the 1941 season.

  But DiMaggio never came close to 3,000 hits and had only two seasons of 200 hits or more (Jeter has eight). DiMaggio never stole as many as 10 bases in a season, Jeter has done it 16 times and has eight seasons of 20 or more steals.

  DiMaggio batted .271 in 10 World Series. Jeter has batted .321 in seven World Series.

  Carrying the DiMaggio/Jeter comparison (debate?) further:

  In his first six seasons (1936–41) DiMaggio’s Yankees won 598 games (99.7 per year in a 154-game schedule) and failed to win the World Series only once.

  In his first five full seasons (1996–00) Jeter’s Yankees won 487 games (97.4 per year in a 162-game schedule) and failed to win the World Series only once.

  In his first five seasons, including the regular season and the World Series, DiMaggio scored 625 runs, had 994 hits, and played in 19 World Series games with a record of 16–3.

  In his first five full seasons, including the regular season and the World Series, Jeter scored 619 runs, had 1,022 hits, and played in 19 World Series games with a record of 16–3.

  27. Andy Returns…Again

  “You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

  — Jim Bouton

  He had been gripping the baseball for more than two- thirds of his life, and now, when he should have joined the pipe-and-slippers set, he couldn’t let go, and so the on-again, off-again, in-again, out-again Andy Pettitte soap opera was on again.

  Would he be making a comeback? Again?

  Pettitte thought it was over for him. He really did when on February 4, 2011, at a gala press conference at Yankee Stadium jam-packed wi
th Yankees brass and employees, members of the print and electronic media, still photographers, television camera- men, and assorted friends, relatives, and hangers-on, he announced his retirement.

  “I am not going to play this season,” he had said on February 4, 2011. “I can tell you that 100 percent. But I guess you can never say never.”

  And now, 406 days later, on March 16, 2012, three months before his 40th birthday, the Yankees announced that Andy Pettitte was coming back. Again.

  The news created a buzz in the Yankees’ training camp—all of it good. His teammates, the older ones and the younger ones, were excited that Andy was coming back. Not because the team needed him, but because the players wanted him for who he is, respected and loved, not just for what he could do.

  Alex Rodriguez called Pettitte “a road map that people can follow. What he brings is priceless. It is beyond what he does when he pitches.”

  “He’ll add to our team on the field and off the field,” said Derek Jeter. “I would assume everyone’s excited.”

  This latest comeback had its roots three months earlier, when Pettitte heard that Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said he would welcome a comeback from the veteran left-hander. Pettitte, who had stayed active at home by throwing batting practice to his two sons, began throwing in earnest and reached out to Cashman to give him a progress report.

  At one point, Cashman made Pettitte an offer. He could come back to the Yankees on a one-year contract for a salary in the $10- to-$12-million range, but Pettitte said he was not ready to make such a commitment. A few weeks later, Cashman swung two deals to acquire two pitchers, veteran right-hander Hiroki Kuroda as a free agent and young right-hander Michael Pineda in a trade with the Seattle Mariners.

  With the Yankees now well-stocked with pitchers and their budget stretched to the max, the deals seemed to put an end to a Pettitte re-signing. There remained a small opening, however. Pettitte was to attend spring training in Tampa as a guest instructor (it has long been the Yankees’ wont to invite their retired stars to spring training to serve as window dressing) and he asked Cashman for permission to pitch the occasional batting practice. Permission granted.

  One day in Tampa, Pettitte cornered Cashman and told the GM that he had the old urge back, he was throwing and he would like an opportunity to give a comeback a try. Cashman agreed and arranged for Pettitte to throw a clandestine bullpen session in order to determine if he still had his good stuff after a year layoff. And so, in the wee hours of the morning, approximately 7:30 am, on March 13, in the presence of Cashman, manager Joe Girardi, pitching coach Larry Rothschild, and special assistant GM Gene Michael, Pettitte had his audition and received unanimous approval in the form of a thumbs up from the panel of experts.

  “Once I stood on that mound the other morning, it was like I’d never left,” Pettitte said. “Even though it was Tuesday morning, Cashman was standing there with Gene Michael, Joe [Girardi] and Larry [Rothschild]. It was just like I had never left. It was weird.”

  Cashman got permission from Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees managing general partner, to stretch the budget slightly and offer Pettitte a contract, but he had to tell Andy that instead of the $10 to $12 million he had offered earlier, the best he could do was one-year at $2.5 million.

  “He’s worth more than that if he’s right,” Cashman said. “There is no downside. This guy knows how to pitch even when his stuff is not great. As long as he’s healthy, he’s in position to help us.”

  “For what I’m coming back and playing for, it’s an awful lot of money and I realize that,” Pettitte said. “It’s a long ways from what we were talking about in January. I’ve just got to follow what I feel like my heart is telling me to do. I have a desire to work again. As a man, I want to go to work and my work is baseball and it’s pitching. That’s what I know, so I’m going to try to get it cranked back up and do it again.”

  Coincidentally, at the time the Yankees were having concerns about one of their two newest arms, Pineda, whose velocity had dwindled from a reported high of the upper 90s to the lower 90s (he would be placed on the disabled list with tendinitis on March 31 and eventually have surgery on May 1 for a tear of the interior labrum in his right shoulder), so the Yankees would be in the market for a pitcher anyway. But even if they weren’t, they’d still be interested.

  “This is Andy Pettitte,” Cashman said. “How do you say no to that potential asset, despite what you have? All that equipment is still there, or should still be there. Let’s go see. Why not? Does it complicate things? Yeah it does, but Andy Pettitte’s worth complicating things for.”

  If not for the money, why was Pettitte coming back?

  “This is all about me having the desire to do this again,” he said. “I really believe that mentally I’ll be able to get back to where I was. I believe that if I’m mentally right, I’m going to win. I just believe that. For me it’s a no-brainer. I’m not scared. I don’t think I’m going to fail, but I’m not scared to come back. I’m not worried about that. I’m going to trust that I know in my heart I’m doing the right thing. And I’m hoping and praying that it’s going to be great.”

  Pettitte was reminded that at his press conference in Yankee Stadium in 2011 he said he would be embarrassed if he was forced to change his mind and unretire.

  “I am embarrassed that I’m coming back,” he admitted. “But then I’m like, ‘What can I do?’ Things have changed. My desire to do this has changed and I sure as heck don’t want to look back [in] 10 years and say, ‘Man, I wish I would have done that.’”

  Pettitte would spend the next two months getting in playing shape, building up his arm strength, facing live hitters in minor league games, all with the intention of being ready to pitch for the Yankees by mid-May.

  In 2004, when Pettitte became a free agent, left the Yankees, and signed with the Houston Astros, Roger Clemens also became a free agent, left the Yankees, and followed Pettitte to Houston.

  Three years later Pettitte became a free agent a second time and returned to the Yankees. Five months later Clemens, who had announced his retirement after the 2006 season, came out of retirement and returned to the Yankees as a free agent in ’07.

  Pettitte and Clemens were best friends. They were as close as brothers.

  But now, on May 1, 2012 (coincidentally the same day Michael Pineda was undergoing surgery), Pettitte was in Washington, D.C., having been called as a witness in the U.S. government’s perjury case against his former friend.

  Under oath, and with Clemens present (Pettitte never looked at Clemens, never acknowledged him; Clemens never acknowledged Pettitte and the two never spoke), Pettitte said that some years ear-lier, either 1999 or 2000, Clemens told him he had taken human growth hormone.

  “We were working out at Roger’s house in the gym,” Pettitte said. “Roger had mentioned to me that he had taken HGH and that it could help with recovery. That’s really all I remember about the conversation.”

  When he was on the stand, Clemens denied ever telling Pettitte he used HGH, commenting that Andy must have “misremembered.” Under cross examination from Clemens’ defense attorney, Pettitte backed off his statement that Roger told him he had used HGH. Clemens was acquitted of the charge of perjury, but the rift between Clemens and Pettitte had not been repaired.

  Pettitte’s comeback debut came in Yankee Stadium against the Seattle Mariners on May 13. He pitched 6¹⁄³ innings, allowed four runs—all earned—seven hits, walked three, and struck out two as he was tagged with the loss in a 6–2 defeat. He wasn’t great, but he wasn’t terrible, either. It was a start.

  Five days later, in an interleague game against the Cincinnati Reds, he was the Andy Pettitte of old, the familiar icy stare from behind the glove that practically covered his face all the way up to his emotionless eyes, the impassive visage, the steely gaze as he baffled hitters for eight tantalizing shutout innings. He all
owed four hits, walked one, and struck out nine in a 4–0 victory, the first win of his comeback, the 241st win of his major league career, 204 of them as a Yankee. He would win two of his next three starts, including 7¹⁄³ shutout innings, two hits, two walks, and 10 strikeouts in a 7–0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on June 5.

  Pettitte pitched decently in his next three starts, but failed to win a game. Then, in the fifth inning of a June 27 game in Cleveland, he was struck on the left leg by a line drive off the bat of Casey Kotchman and suffered a broken fibula (just above the ankle). Pettitte would try to accelerate his rehab and suffer a setback that would sideline him for 11 weeks, an eternity for a 40-year-old pitcher.

  Pettitte returned on September 19 against the Toronto Blue Jays, pitched five shutout innings (four hits, two walks, three strikeouts) and picked up the win in the Yankees’ 4–2 victory. Five days later against the Twins in Minnesota, he pitched six shutout innings (seven hits, one walk, three strikeouts) and was the winning pitcher in a 5–3 victory.

  Through 2012, Pettitte had won 208 games as a Yankee, placing him third on their all-time list to Whitey Ford and Red Ruffing. Again, it’s not too great a leap of faith to project that, had he won the same number of games (37) for the Yankees that he won in his three years with the Astros, he would stand at 243 for his Yankees’ career, or 12 more than Ruffing and nine more than Ford.

  The question for the ages, and for future Hall of Fame voters, will be whether Pettitte has the qualifications to warrant admittance in Cooperstown.

  His 245 regular season wins with the Yankees and Astros (51st on the all-time list, one behind “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity and Amos Rusie), .633 winning percentage (44th on the all-time list, .0050 behind Jim Palmer), 3.86 earned run average, 3,130²⁄³ innings, and 2,320 strikeouts (44th all-time, 14 behind Early Wynn, 37 behind Robin Roberts, 76 behind Sandy Koufax), plus his all-time-best 19 postseason wins, make him a borderline Hall of Famer. Not a shoo-in by any means, but certainly in the conversation.