Pinstripe Empire (82 page)

September 25 was the first home game for the Yankees after the tragedy. A long line of city rescue teams stood near the home clubhouse waiting to go onto the field, and the players came by and hugged them and thanked them for what they were doing. Along the baselines before the game, Clemens walked the line and wished everyone well. A huge American flag was unfurled in the outfield.

The Yankees clinched the Eastern Division title that night but shook hands and raised a toast, instead of spraying each other with champagne,
as had become sports tradition. “A lot of people were crying,” said Rivera. “It was secondary,” said Jeter. “It was great for the fans … it gave them something to cheer for, even if it was just a couple of hours each day.”

There were mixed feelings about baseball at this time. Often it was said how insignificant the game seemed in the face of such tragedy. And yet it had such an uplifting impact on New Yorkers who so needed to be able to smile again. On balance, it was a great thing that baseball was there as an escape, and greater still that the Yankees were again going to the postseason and giving their fans another reason to continue cheering.

While the urge to show patriotism and hang American flags on cars lasted for about a year, the wave of patriotic feelings took hold at Yankee Stadium for years afterward. Kate Smith’s version of “God Bless America,” the rousing World War II anthem, was played daily in the seventh inning, with fans unfurling their own flags as it was played.

On September 11, 2002, a plaque commemorating 9/11 was dedicated in Monument Park. For many years an eagle named Challenger would dramatically swoop down from the bleachers to the mound and onto its handler’s arm before postseason games. Similarly, Irish tenor Ronan Tynan would move the crowd with a live version of “God Bless America” on such occasions. (Alas, one errant flight by the eagle, and one overheard joke uttered by Tynan, thought to be in bad taste, and they were no more.)

Security was ramped up at all public landmarks and government buildings, and Yankee Stadium was certainly considered a target. Metal detectors were installed at every entrance, and no one was permitted to bring any bags or parcels, laptops, or (eventually) iPads into the ballpark. People had to remove their caps upon entering to show there was nothing hidden in them. Cell phones had to be turned on and shown to the security people. It was just a new way of life in America.

The regular season didn’t end until October 7. In the ALDS against Oakland, the Yanks began their quest for a fourth straight world championship.

NO TEAM HAD EVER lost its first two at home and come back to win a five-game series, but that was the tall order in front of the Yanks after two defeats at Yankee Stadium. Mussina and Rivera won a 1–0 game three on a Posada homer, a game best remembered for an unfathomable defensive gem by Jeter in the seventh. With Jeremy Giambi dashing home with the tying run, Jeter, dashing off to the right of home plate in foul territory, took
an off-line throw from Shane Spencer and in one motion flipped it to Posada, who tagged Giambi on the back of his leg to preserve the lead. In a 1–0 win, facing elimination, the enormity of the play made it one for the ages.

“The kid has got great instincts, and he holds it together,” said Torre after the game. Why was Jeter in just the right spot, so out of position from where a shortstop would normally be? He claimed it was a play they practiced, but even years later no one could cite a similar play in which Jeter just happened to be standing in foul territory on the first-base side for a possible cutoff.

El Duque went to 9–1 in postseason play, getting the win in game four to even the series. In the deciding game, back at Yankee Stadium, the Yanks won 5–3 with a big homer from Justice in the sixth as relievers Stanton, Mendoza, and Rivera pitched 4
⅔
shutout innings to send the Yanks to the ALCS.

The Yanks’ opponents were the Mariners, winners of a record 116 games in 2001 even with Randy Johnson, A-Rod, and Griffey having left. In this series, however, the Yankees dominated, winning four of five games for their thirty-eighth American League pennant. The big hit of the series was a game-four walk-off homer by Soriano that gave New York a 3–1 series lead. They won 12–3 the next day behind Pettitte, who earned MVP honors for the series with two wins, while Williams homered in three straight games. And thus the Yankees stood four victories away from a fourth straight world championship, which would set up 2002 as the year they could go after their record of five, from 1949 to 1953.

The Diamondbacks, their World Series opponents, reached the Series in only their fourth season of play. Former Yankee counsel Joe Garagiola Jr. was their general manager; Bob Brenly, their rookie manager, had replaced Showalter just that year.

This would be a Series with great sentimental support for the Yankees in the wake of 9/11, especially after coming home for game three, trailing 2–0.

Security was unusually tight for this game as President George W. Bush was to throw out the first ball. He had been to New York to visit Ground Zero, but this ceremonial moment, standing alone on the pitcher’s mound before a packed Yankee Stadium, would prove to be one of the dramatic moments of his presidency.

Bush wanted to throw a few warm-up pitches before he went to the mound. The bulletproof vest he wore might make the pitch awkward, but he prided himself on being good at this task. (He’d been the lead owner of the Texas Rangers before entering politics.)

As he practiced under the stands, Jeter walked by and said, “Hey, Mr. President, are you going to throw from the mound or from in front of it?”

As Bush recounted in his memoir, “I asked what he thought. ‘Throw from the mound,’ Derek said. ‘Or else they’ll boo you.’ … On his way out, he looked over his shoulder and said, ‘But don’t bounce it. They’ll boo you.’

“I climbed the mound, gave a wave and a thumbs-up, and peered in at the catcher, Todd Greene … My adrenaline was surging … The ball felt like a shot put. I wound up and let it fly.”

He unleashed a strike. “I was the definition of a relieved pitcher,” he wrote. As he walked to shake Greene’s hand and to meet Torre and Brenly by the Yankee dugout, the crowd began to shout, “USA, USA, USA …”

It was an indelible, post–9/11 moment for the national pastime and for the president.

The Yankees won that game behind Clemens, snapping an eighteen-inning scoreless streak.

In game four, the Yankees trailed 3–1 in the last of the ninth when O’Neill battled for a tough base hit, and then Tino Martinez electrified the crowd with a two-out, two-run homer off Byung-Hyun Kim to tie the score.

In the last of the tenth, the score still tied and the clock striking midnight, Jeter stepped in against Kim. Midnight meant this would be the first World Series game ever played in November. With two out and two strikes, Jeter fouled off three pitches—and then hit one down the right-field line for a game-winning homer. There was pandemonium in the stands: The swing tied the Series. One fan held up a sign that said, MR. NOVEMBER, and it remains a mystery why he had such a sign with him for a game that began October 31.

Yogi Berra once allegedly said, “It’s déjà vu all over again,” and that was the case in game five. Kim was again on the mound, sitting on a 2–0 lead with two outs in the ninth. This time it was Brosius who provided the miracle moment, with a two-run homer to tie the game, leaving Kim devastated as the fans tried to process what they were witnessing.

In the twelfth, Soriano provided the game winner with an RBI single to score Knoblauch, giving the Yanks a 3–2 win and a 3–2 lead in the Series, having won all three games in New York, the last two in miraculous fashion.

If scriptwriters in Hollywood—or even documentarians at HBO—could have their way the Series would have ended there, and New York would have had the post–9/11 moment of joy everyone seemed to crave.

But it was back to Arizona. And in game six, the D-backs crushed the
Yanks 15–2, setting the stage for a deciding game seven. And in this one, improbably, they beat Rivera, ending his streak of twenty-three consecutive postseason saves, when Luis Gonzalez dropped a single over the drawn-in infield in the last of the ninth for a 3–2 win and the world championship. Not since 1960, when the Yankees had outplayed Pittsburgh but lost, had Yankee fans felt so empty at the end. The dramatic homers in the middle games would live forever, but so too would a world championship trophy for Arizona.

THE
TIMES’
BUSTER Olney then wrote a prophetic book called
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty,
for this was indeed the end of something: for O’Neill (who’d been moved to tears by chants of his name in game five) and for Brosius, each of whom retired; for Martinez, who went to St. Louis via free agency; for Knoblauch, who as a free agent went to the Royals, where his odd career came to a close; and for popular Luis Sojo, who likewise had played his last game as a Yankee.

THE YANKEES’ BREAKTHROUGH deal with MSG Network expired in 2000 but was extended for 2001. Years earlier, Tom Villante, the director of marketing and broadcasting for MLB, had warned Steinbrenner about long-term broadcast deals, telling him, “The landscape is changing—teams will one day be able to produce their own games.” He was right.

In preparation for the end of the Cablevision contract, the Yankees and the NBA’s New Jersey Nets formed YankeesNets in 1999. The primary purpose by now had evolved to forming a regional sports network of their own.

In spring training 2002, the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network launched. The YES Network gave the Yankees control of their own broadcast fate after fifty-three years of selling their TV rights to others. The Yankees-Nets owned two thirds; Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity the other third. (YankeesNets dissolved in 2004 after the Nets were sold to Bruce Ratner, but the Nets were still broadcast by YES.) Leo Hindrey was the network’s first CEO. The production value was first-rate, and the concept worked.

(A glitch in 2002 and early 2003 was a disagreement between the Yankees and Cablevision over terms to carry the games, and they were blacked out over a wide sheath of area homes during that span.)

Yankee Global Enterprises, the successor company to YankeesNets, separately owned the ballclub. Yankee Holdings, owned by the Steinbrenner family and the original limited partners (or those who acquired their shares), controlled Yankee Global and the Yankees’ portion of Legends Hospitality. YES paid the Yankees a rights fee that exceeded that paid by MSG. The original Nets people, who sold to Ratner, retained their shares in the network. The network came to be valued at almost twice what the team was worth, according to a report in
Sports Business Journal
. “The total value of all YGE companies is about $5 billion, but YGE’s share is roughly $2.75 billion,” they wrote.

This was a long way from the days when Steinbrenner first bought the team, finding itself unable to even sell radio rights. The YES Network became the most lucrative regional sports network in the country, with a reported $435.2 million in revenues in 2010.

THE YANKEES AGAIN WON THE AL East in their one hundredth season, but 2002 would not result in a fifth straight World Series appearance, as they lost to the Angels in the ALDS, going down in four games as Wells, Pettitte, and Mussina pitched poorly in the postseason.

Yes, David Wells was back, landing in the same rotation as Clemens. On January 17, Boomer spurned a handshake agreement with the Diamondbacks and returned to pinstripes, winning 19 games at age thirty-nine. He still caused Torre to shake his head, but the fans always loved the sight of the rumpled, 275-pound Boomer, battling away.

The Yanks third baseman in 2002 was Robin Ventura, who had played the previous three seasons for the Mets after nine years with the White Sox. It was unusual for the Yankees and Mets to trade first-line players with each other, but the Yanks sent David Justice to the Mets for him in a one-for-one deal. Ventura hit 27 homers and drove in 93 runs; the Mets sent Justice to Oakland.

Soriano continued to dazzle, leading the league with 128 runs, collecting 209 hits, stealing 41 bases, and hitting 39 home runs, the most ever for an American League second baseman. Rivera went on the disabled list three times in 2002, limiting him to just 28 saves, the fewest in his first fifteen seasons as a closer.

JASON GIAMBI, THE American League MVP of 2000, spent seven years at Oakland and then signed a seven-year, $120 million contract with the
Yankees beginning in ’02. Arriving at age thirty-one, he hit 41 homers in each of his first two seasons, splitting time between first base and DH. The free spirit from Long Beach State was thought of as a motorcycle-riding, tattooed beach guy, but he adapted to the Yankees’ conservative style and won over the fans with a dramatic walk-off fourteenth-inning grand-slam homer in a driving rainstorm on May 17 for a 13–12 win over Minnesota.

At six foot three and 240 pounds of muscle, Giambi was a left-handed presence in the lineup that put fear into opposing pitchers. As powerful as he was, he was always disciplined at the plate, twice leading the league in walks while a Yankee, and once in on-base percentage.

By 2002, after several years of whispers, the subjects of steroids and human growth hormones began to be spoken of more openly, particularly after published remarks by Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco acknowledging their own use. People began to look at over-muscled sluggers with growing suspicion, especially during Barry Bonds’s astonishing 73-homer year in 2001. Canseco, a teammate of Giambi’s at Oakland (and briefly a Yankee himself in 2000), had been the subject of “steroid” shouts from Yankee Stadium fans as far back as 1991, when he proudly answered them by flexing his big bicep.

It was becoming increasingly clear that steroids were playing a big part in the game, and that MLB, the Players Association, and the media were ignoring the havoc it was causing to the record books, and to the health of the players, with their increasingly cartoonish physiques. The entire nation seemed asleep at the switch on this growing controversy. Among players, the subject was hushed. Even those who played “clean” wouldn’t rat out a teammate. Talented minor leaguers were losing out on promotions that went to steroid users. It was a sorry time.