Mission 27, page 25
Burnett took the mound in Game 5 with a chance to power his team to the pennant, but the Angels pounced on him for four first-inning runs, opening the game with a walk and four consecutive hits. Six days after being visibly frustrated by his club’s sloppy defensive play in Game 1, Lackey cruised through six scoreless innings before Cabrera cracked a one-out double in the seventh. Posada and Jeter worked walks to load the bases.
Lackey had starred for the Angels as a rookie during their 2002 World Series run, but he was out of gas. Teixeira greeted left-hander Darren Oliver by belting a bases-clearing double on his first pitch. After an intentional walk to A-Rod, Matsui singled in Teixeira, tying the game. Jepsen relieved Oliver, though he was equally ineffective as Cano tripled in both A-Rod and Matsui, capping the six-run inning.
The Yankees were nine outs from the pennant, but they should have known that it would not come that easily in The House of the Rally Monkey. Burnett opened the seventh but exited after allowing a single and a walk, and three runs came home against Damaso Marte and Hughes. The 7–6 lead held thanks to Weaver and Fuentes; Swisher popped out with the bases loaded to end it, sending the ALCS back to the Bronx.
Despite losing two of three in Anaheim, the Yankees jetted home loving their chances. Having won 35 of their last 43 games at the Stadium, they had Pettitte ready to take the ball on regular rest. After tough losses Pettitte was always the correct choice to restore order and hope, peering over his glove while balancing fire and peace. “It was huge because there would never be a moment too big for Andy Pettitte,” pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “He’s never going to back down from any moment or situation. He’s going to stay in control and he’s going to continue to make pitches in big moments. That’s how we felt about it. You hand Andy Pettitte the ball in a big game. You know he’s going to do his part.”
Pettitte and the Yankees would have to wait an extra day for Game 6, as rain washed away the originally scheduled contest. When the teams took the field on October 25, they did so on a mild 58-degree night—much to the Angels’ relief—that bore no resemblance to the inhospitable conditions they faced in the same building eight days earlier.
Abreu opened scoring against his former team with a third-inning single off Pettitte, but the Yankees answered in the fourth, tagging Saunders for three runs as Damon stroked a two-run single, and A-Rod worked a bases-loaded free pass. Pettitte used his vast postseason experience to hold that lead into the seventh, when a Juan Rivera single prompted Girardi to summon Chamberlain, who recorded the final two outs of the inning. With six outs separating the Yankees from the pennant, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera, but the closer surrendered a Guerrero RBI single in the eighth that drew the Angels within one run.
Assisted by two Angels errors, the Yankees tacked on two insurance runs in the bottom of the inning, giving Mariano Rivera breathing room in the ninth. When Posada squeezed the closer’s final pitch, a swinging strikeout of Gary Matthews Jr., the Yankees had secured the 40th pennant in franchise history. “It brought back so many wonderful moments as a player,” Girardi said. “I wanted to see Alex enjoy it, Tex enjoy it, Swish, and these guys that have never done it. And I wanted to pay it back to Mr. Steinbrenner for trusting me. It was like, ‘Okay, we’re two-thirds of the way, we’ve beat two pretty good teams, we’ve got one more to go.’”
Mariano Rivera calmly raised his right fist as Posada ran to embrace him. He laughed and repeatedly thumped his longtime catcher on the back. The rest of the team gravitated toward the dirt near third base, where A-Rod was swarmed by his teammates on the way to his first—and, as it would turn out, only—trip to the Fall Classic. “I couldn’t be more excited; I felt like a 10-year-old kid,” Rodriguez said. “That’s what you play for: in order to win a World Series. You have to get there first.”
The Yankees went through the traditional clubhouse celebration, dousing one another with champagne and beer. A proud Hal Steinbrenner glowed that his team had “been a family. They play like that every single day, and that’s why they’re here.” But as they popped corks, it was clear that they were choosing to follow Jeter’s “this is what you play for” lead. If this was to be the final celebration of 2009, it would be a grave disappointment. “I was excited, but I didn’t want to get too excited because I knew this meant nothing,” Sabathia said. “If I was in Cleveland or Milwaukee, winning the ALCS or NLCS would be huge, but it’s not here. This was not the time to celebrate, so I wouldn’t let myself get there yet.” “It wasn’t finished business,” Teixeira said. “But for one night—or a half a night—you could enjoy it.”
A-Rod had posted huge numbers for a second straight series, finishing the ALCS 9-for-21 (.429) with three home runs, six RBIs, and a whopping 1.519 OPS. But when the ALCS Most Valuable Player award was announced, Sabathia brought home an honor that he hadn’t even been aware of. “I thought that we could’ve been co-MVPs for sure,” said Sabathia, who was 2–0 with a 1.13 ERA against the Angels. “Before that, I guess I didn’t pay attention to the playoffs enough. I didn’t know they did MVPs for the ALCS and NLCS. That award was cool.”
There was a sentiment that if the Yankees could finally get past the Angels, there was no stopping them. As the celebration raged on, Teixeira excused himself to the clubhouse washroom, where he found A-Rod sitting on the countertop. His legs dangled, as he was lost in thought. “He was just soaking it in,” Teixeira said. “I forgot that it was his first World Series. The best player in baseball over the last 10 years, this was his first World Series. I was happy that I got to experience that with him.”
22. Boastful Bravado
Seventy-seven years before Jimmy Rollins agreed to be booked as a guest on The Jay Leno Show, Babe Ruth had appeared in the Wrigley Field batter’s box during Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. As the legend goes, the Bambino responded to catcalls from the Chicago Cubs’ dugout by pointing his bat toward the center-field grandstand, slugging Charlie Root’s next pitch into that general area. Historians debate whether the Babe actually called his shot, but the tale of Ruth’s bravado stood the test of time.
Following through on a bold boast could cement a reputation, as Joe Namath discovered 37 years after Ruth’s homer. Three days before Super Bowl III, the New York Jets quarterback appeared at the Miami Touchdown Club and brashly guaranteed victory over the Baltimore Colts, who were favored by 18 points. The Jets’ 16–7 victory gave birth to a legend that Namath parlayed into a half-century in the public eye, remaining relevant long after his final snap.
For every Sultan of Swat or Broadway Joe, there was the danger of becoming another Patrick Ewing, who promised his New York Knicks would defeat the Indiana Pacers in Game 6 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals and then missed his final six shots. As he appeared on NBC’s air two days before the Yankees and Phillies were to open the Fall Classic, the loquacious Philadelphia Phillies shortstop placed a public wager on his team. “Of course, we’re going to win,” Rollins said. “If we’re nice, we’ll let it go six [games], but I’m thinking five. Close it out at home.”
Rollins was known for this brand of bombast. Prior to the 2007 season, the eventual National League MVP said his Phillies, not the New York Mets, were the team to beat in the National League East. Rollins guaranteed that Philadelphia would win 100 games in 2008; the Phillies notched 92 in the regular season and 11 more in the playoffs, celebrating the club’s first championship since 1980. The switch-hitter kept the braggadocio going into the spring of ’09, when Rollins told Playboy, “The Fall Classic? I see our boys vs. the Yankees. They spent all that money. They’ve got to be there. We’ve got a title to defend, so we’re going to be there.”
As the Yankees returned to their lockers following a rain-soaked workout on the stadium turf, they largely yawned when quizzed about Rollins’ boast. Jorge Posada referred to Rollins as “Nostradamus,” and Derek Jeter quipped, “He predicted we’d play them in the World Series about seven years ago, too. You make enough predictions, I guess you’d be right most of the time, right?”
In private some members of the team were incensed. “I remember we heard that Jimmy Rollins said, ‘Phillies in five,’ and that was a turning point for us,” Robinson Cano said. “We didn’t like that. It pissed a lot of guys off, and we said, ‘You know what? We’re not going to let that happen.’ I remember the year before he said something, and they won, so he came back and said the same thing again.”
“That was fuel to our fire,” Posada said. “He woke us all up because we were already determined to do it, but this one helped us do it a little more.”
Rollins’ prediction became bulletin board material in the clubhouse. Joba Chamberlain recalled seeing the quote posted somewhere, and CC Sabathia said that it raised his confidence in advance of the Fall Classic. “When Jimmy Rollins guaranteed that they would win the World Series, I knew that we were going to win,” Sabathia said. “That was a guarantee for me. I was like, ‘All right, cool, we got this.’ Nobody ever talked about it or said anything about it, but for me when I heard him say that, I was like, ‘All right, cool. Too cocky.’ They obviously hadn’t played us yet and didn’t know how good we were.”
A rematch of a 1950 Fall Classic (won by the Yankees in a four-game sweep) that predated the completion of the New Jersey Turnpike by 13 months, the New York-Philadelphia World Series opened at the Stadium on the evening of October 28 with Sabathia and Cliff Lee reprising the pitching matchup from the Yanks’ historic home opener.
A 30-year-old left-hander from Benton, Arkansas, Lee had made 22 starts for the Cleveland Indians before being swapped to Philadelphia in late July. Cleveland netted a four-player package headlined by pitching prospect Carlos Carrasco, and Lee went 7–4 with a 3.19 ERA in 12 regular-season starts for the Phils, using his spiked curveball, deceptive change-up, and pinpoint fastball to help his new club breeze past the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers to claim the pennant.
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel viewed the lefty as the obvious choice to take the ball in Game 1. Girardi had the same easy call to make with his starter, coming off an American League Championship Series in which Sabathia secured MVP honors by going 3–0 with a 1.19 ERA. Sabathia was incredulous that the former Tribe Cy Young Award winners were seeing each other again and on the game’s biggest stage. “Pitching against Cliff was surreal,” Sabathia said. “A year or two ago, we were on the same team, hanging out literally every day together on and off the field. Having us pitch Game 1 was nuts.”
With George Steinbrenner looking on from an upstairs suite, the pregame ceremonies featured First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden escorting Yogi Berra to the mound. Jeter caught a first pitch from Anthony Odierno, an Army lieutenant who lost his left arm in Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade smashed through his Humvee.
As the teams were introduced on the baselines, snipers stalked along the top of the massive scoreboard in center field, keeping close watch on a crowd that showed only a few pockets of Phillies red. The World Series was underway, and the fans booed loudly as Rollins prepared to take his hacks against Sabathia. At third base Alex Rodriguez pounded a fist into his glove, reflecting on his good fortune at that moment. “Game 1 of the World Series was honestly a dream come true,” Rodriguez said. “I played 25 years professionally and only got a chance to play in one World Series and I cherished every moment. I’m so thankful that I was able to capture the moment and not waste it. I grew up watching Dan Marino, and it still breaks my heart that he went to one Super Bowl, and he couldn’t finish it. I came up watching Charles Barkley—same thing. I just wanted to enjoy it, cherish the moment, and play well. I enjoyed the hell out of it.”
Chase Utley opened the scoring, winning a nine-pitch duel in the third inning by pulling a 95-mph fastball over the wall—the first homer that Sabathia had allowed to a left-handed batter at the Stadium that season. Utley struck again in the sixth inning, mashing a 96-mph heater into the right-field bleachers to give Philadelphia a 2–0 lead, stunning what had been a raucous crowd.
Though Utley was a four-time All-Star who hit 31 homers during the regular season, he was an unlikely candidate to rock Sabathia. Utley had been 0-for-7 with five strikeouts against Sabathia to that point, and there were whispers about Utley’s injured right foot and balky right hip going into the series. It proved to be the only damage that the Phils were able to inflict upon Sabathia, who took the loss as the Yankees flailed against Lee. “I felt like I pitched pretty good,” Sabathia said. “We lost, and I was like, ‘Damn, man. He just dominated us.’ That was the first time we got dominated in the playoffs and looked like we couldn’t hit. He made us look bad. It was a little bit of like, ‘Oh, we can lose?’ I had so much confidence in that team and felt so good about that team that I always felt we were going to win every game. It was humbling for sure.”
Pitching in short sleeves on a drizzly 52-degree evening, Lee seemed to be toying with a lineup that led the majors with 915 runs scored during the regular season. Chomping on a wad of gum, the hurler extended his glove and easily—almost dismissively—snagged Johnny Damon’s sixth-inning pop-up to the mound. The Phils’ bench laughed, and, though Lee said that he was trying not to be cocky, some of the Yankees took it that way. In the eighth Lee made a nifty stop behind his back on a Cano one-hopper and then flipped the ball to first baseman Ryan Howard, who later remarked, “Wow, am I missing something? It was so nonchalant, so casual.”
“It was exciting,” said the Phils’ J.A. Happ, the current Yankees pitcher who had transitioned into a relief role for Philadelphia that autumn. “It was loud. It was intense. I remember Cliff being Cliff. He doesn’t get rattled. It’s another game to him. He had that outlook in general. He dominated. It was unbelievable. He pounded the strike zone. That’s something I’ll never forget.”
Three of the Yankees’ six hits belonged to Jeter, and the Bombers were kept off the scoreboard until the ninth inning, when a Rollins throwing error allowed Jeter to trot home. How good was Lee? He became the first pitcher ever to strike out 10 without a walk in a World Series start, in which he permitted no earned runs. “We were completely shut down by Cliff Lee,” Hideki Matsui said. “I remember going back to the clubhouse, and everybody was a little stunned.”
Raul Ibanez added a two-run single in the eighth inning off David Robertson, Shane Victorino tacked on an RBI single against Brian Bruney in the ninth, and Howard doubled home the Phils’ sixth and final run facing Phil Coke. Girardi had wanted to get some of the younger relievers into Game 1 if possible just to get their feet wet. “It’s tough to slow yourself down a little bit sometimes,” said Bruney, who had been left off the postseason roster in the first two rounds. “You know however many million people are watching the game. You just know it’s the biggest stage in the world that night. It’s just exciting.”
By that point Girardi had turned some of his attention toward A.J. Burnett and the next night’s lineup card and was relieved that Lee couldn’t face them for a few more days. “Just thinking about the importance of Game 2, for whatever reason I felt really good about A.J. against their lineup,” Girardi said. “They knew what they needed to do. I didn’t say anything. And maybe it’s because I had a calmness about it.”
The damp disappointment of Lee’s Game 1 smackdown did not last. After recovering from a 15–17 start to their season, including going winless in their first eight meetings against the Boston Red Sox, they hadn’t come this far to go down without a fight. “I remember after Game 1, we were down one, and everybody knew I was starting Game 2 [in right field],” Jerry Hairston Jr. said. “After BP there were 150 reporters at my locker and microphones in my face, going, ‘Are you nervous? How do you guys feel? You’re down 1–0. Are you still confident? Are you nervous for Game 2?’ I remember telling the reporters, ‘Look at our clubhouse right now. You have Johnny Damon and Eric Hinske wrestling in the middle of the clubhouse. We’ve got an hour and a half until game time and we’re arguing about fantasy football.’ That’s how loose we were, and that’s how confident we were in winning the World Series.”
23. Empire State of Mind
Cliff Lee made the Yankees’ vaunted offense look meek and overmatched in the World Series opener, and his efforts ensured that they wasted CC Sabathia’s solid effort. Now the weight of the World Series was upon A.J. Burnett’s shoulders, and no one ever knew which version of the enigmatic hurler would show up on a given night.
Lee’s performance did not represent the only disappointment for the fortunate home team faithful who held tickets for the first World Series contest at the new Stadium. Inclement weather had postponed an on-field performance by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, who had been slated to perform their hit single, “Empire State of Mind,” as part of the pregame ceremonies.
The orchestral rap ballad had become an anthem for both the team and the city that year, name-checking the Yankees as well as various neighborhoods and famous residents. Derek Jeter chose it as his walk-up music before the song was released to the public, and the Captain’s at-bats were hardly the only times it had been played over the stadium’s public-address system.
From his frequent appearances in the expensive seats behind home plate to attending parties thrown by star players, Jay-Z was viewed as an unofficial part of the team. In fact, Alex Rodriguez planned to ensure that the Brooklyn-born musician received his own World Series ring—should they claim one. His presence on the field was a perfect way to begin Game 2. “I was by the bullpen warming up and I see Jay-Z right there,” Jose Molina said. “That was unbelievable. It was special. I think that’s how the adrenaline starts.”
