The Yankee Years

by Joe Torre

  But Pettitte was baffled by how little interest the Yankees showed in him when his contract expired after the 2003 World Series. For 14 of the 15 days after the World Series in which the Yankees held exclusive negotiating rights with him, the Yankees made no outreach to him. Finally, with Pettitte about to hear from other teams, the Yankees offered him $30 million over three years. Meanwhile, true to the Yankees’ penchant of coveting what was not theirs, Steinbrenner occupied himself with personally negotiating a contract with Sheffield as the Astros, Red Sox and other clubs told Pettitte how much they wanted him. It was as if the Yankees were resigned to Pettitte leaving for his hometown Astros. Pettitte, though, said the Yankees’ lack of interest in him pushed him toward Houston, ultimately giving Astros owner Drayton McLane his word and handshake that he would accept the Astros’ offer of $31.5 million over three years, pending a physical and minor contractual details. Only then did the Yankees swoop in with a $39 million offer over three years, but it was instantly moot because of Pettitte's personal commitment to McLane. (Clemens, emboldened by his friend Pettitte signing with Houston, also signed on with his hometown Astros.) Even now, after having returned to the Yankees in 2007, Pettitte is sure the Yankees did not make a strong effort to keep him after the 2003 season.

  “That's definitely how I felt,” he said. “I'm so happy to come back here. But, I mean, back then they made the worst offer from among seven or eight other teams. After I already had talked to the Astros and told the owner I would play for him, then I get a higher offer. I couldn't go back on my word.”

  On the day the Yankees lost Pettitte, as if to cover the hit from the loss of one of the most popular Yankees, they completed a trade for Brown, who would turn a broken-down 39 the next March and, according to the 2007 Mitchell Report, had built his reputation as an ace with the help of performance-enhancing drugs that were now outlawed in the game.

  It was shaping up as a miserable off-season for the Yankees. Already they had been caught napping while the Red Sox stole one of the best pitchers available and a guy who would tilt the balance of power in the New York-Boston rivalry. The Arizona Diamondbacks let it be known that they were shopping ace Curt Schilling. The righthander had veto power over any trade, and he told the Diamondbacks he would accept a trade only to the Yankees or the Philadelphia Phillies.

  “I remember reading that,” said Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein.

  Indeed, the Yankees had talked to Arizona earlier that November about a trade for Schilling. The Diamondbacks put Nick Johnson and Alfonso Soriano on their wish list. The talks died, but the Yankees figured it was all part of the give-and-take of negotiations.

  But the Red Sox, as they displayed in their wildcat pursuit of Jose Contreras the previous winter, had a new purpose under Epstein and owner John Henry: Be bold. Take nothing for granted. Don't worry about looking stupid. Epstein decided to make a run at Schilling while the Yankees attended to other business. He approached Arizona general manager Joe Garagiola at the general managers’ meeting in Phoenix in the second week of November.

  “I inquired about Schilling,” Epstein said. “I kind of caught them at the right time because Garagiola seemed to be fed up with Schill and was frustrated that he had his hands tied with all the public speculation about New York or Philadelphia.

  “I told him, ‘We don't control the process. He has a full no-trade clause. But the part we can control is making a trade. Technically we could make a trade and then bring it to him.’ “

  Garagiola said he would think about it. Two days later, Epstein called back. He detected some interest now from Garagiola.

  “If you're serious,” Epstein said, “if you don't mind coming to the altar and getting stood up, we don't mind. Why don't you take a look at our system?”

  Garagiola was interested.

  “Okay, we'll make you an offer,” Epstein said. “It'll be like ordering from a Chinese restaurant menu. You can take two from Group A and two from Group B.”

  Epstein and his assistants worked up a menu for Garagiola of second-tier prospects. Nineteen-year-old shortstop Hanley Ramirez, who had just hit .275 in A ball, was in Group A. (Ramirez would eventually fetch the Sox Josh Beckett and become one of the biggest stars in the game.) Garagiola said the Diamondbacks liked pitchers Casey Fossum and Jorge de la Rosa from Group A, neither of whom Boston executives feared losing. From Group B he mentioned several names, but settled on Brandon Lyon, an injury-prone reliever, and Michael Goss, a 22-year-old outfielder who hit .245 with one home run in A ball, a guy whom the Red Sox did not consider to be much of a prospect. Epstein couldn't believe his luck.

  He turned to his assistants and said, “Guys, I think we've got something here.”

  One of them, Josh Byrnes, who eventually would become the general manager of the Diamondbacks, heard Epstein tell them the Diamondbacks were willing to accept Fossum, de la Rosa, Lyon and Goss for Schilling and deadpanned, “What time is the press conference?” It was a no-brainer for Boston.

  There was only one problem: the Red Sox had a 72-hour window to convince Schilling to agree to the trade, a window that ran smack through Thanksgiving. The first thing Epstein needed to do was get Schilling on a plane to Boston. He would spread the word through the media of Schilling's trip so that thousands of Red Sox fans would greet him as he stepped off the plane at Logan Airport, an appeal to Schilling's considerable ego.

  “There's no way he can say no!” Epstein said, delighted at the plan. It sounded great—until Epstein called Schilling to invite him to Boston.

  “Dude, there's no way I'm leaving Phoenix,” Schilling told Epstein. “I'm intrigued, but the only ones I really want to consider are Philadelphia and New York. If you want to come out, fine. But I'm not leaving.”

  Epstein would have to get on a plane to Phoenix. He already was running on fumes. He had just finished giving free agent closer Keith Foulke a recruiting tour of Boston the night before, a night in which they took in a Celtics basketball game and afterward repaired for multiple refreshments in a fine Boston establishment. The Red Sox needed a manager—Grady Little was fired after the 2003 ALCS Game 7 fiasco with Pedro Martinez—and he had interviewed DeMarlo Hale that day. Former Phillies manager Terry Francona, considered the front-runner, was due in Boston any day to take a physical. Now Epstein, along with assistant Jed Hoyer and Red Sox president Larry Lucchino, would be taking an early-morning flight to see Schilling on the day before Thanksgiving, but not before Epstein and the baseball operations staff put together a recruiting game plan.

  The first thing they did was draft a letter to Curt and his wife, Shonda, to be delivered the morning before the Red Sox contingent arrived that Wednesday afternoon. The letter, signed by Epstein and Lucchino, ran 1,165 words. It made reference to how the Red Sox traded Schilling to the Orioles in 1988, and three years later, convinced they had not make a mistake, the Red Sox had a report from one of their scouts on Schilling that said, “Still a thrower. Has arm strength but hasn't learned a thing.”

  The letter then praised Schilling for his turnaround from those rough beginnings. Mostly, the letter served as a substitute for a cheering throng at Logan: an appeal to Schilling's ego.

  “At 37 years old,” the letter said, “with a great résumé and an even greater reputation, it's clear to us that the next step in your career is baseball immortality. Baseball immortality—an enshrine-ment speech in Cooperstown, a plaque on the wall, a place alongside legends—is one of the reasons why the Schillings and the Red Sox are such a perfect fit. There is no other place in baseball where you can have as great an impact on a franchise, as great an impact on a region, as great an impact on baseball history, as you can in Boston. It is hard to describe what the Red Sox mean to New England. The players who help deliver a title to Red Sox Nation will never be forgotten, their place in baseball history forever secure.

  “We are so close to the goal that has eluded us for 86 years. We would not have traded four young players or intruded upon your
holiday if we did not sincerely believe that our time is coming very soon. The 2003 Red Sox were a talented and exciting team that came within five outs of reaching the World Series. As an ownership group and management team, we are committed to putting an even better team on the field in 2004 and beyond.”

  The letter went on to define Schilling's importance to that improvement, explaining that after the team's goal in 2003 was “to create a lineup that would be relentless one through nine,” it now was about creating “a relentless pitching staff to match our offense. You are the key to the plan; in fact, you are the plan.”

  It concluded, “Curt and Shonda, quite simply, we think this is a great match. The timing and the purpose are perfect for both of us. We hope you feel the same way and we look forward to discussing anything that can help make you and your family more comfortable with Boston. See you this afternoon …”

  The letter, the appeal to his ego, the attack while the Yankees slept … it was all brilliant tactical strategy by a smart, hungry organization. But the Red Sox weren't done yet with the recruitment of Schilling. They were just getting started.

  Epstein knew Schilling was “a preparation freak,” a guy who appreciated statistical analysis, kept voluminous notes and watched more video than a film critic. Schilling fit the profile, Epstein decided, of the perfect recruit for the techno-savvy Red Sox. Epstein ordered his staff to put together a disk to highlight all of the Red Sox's high-tech video and scouting equipment, which were among the most advanced in the game. In one disk they broke down massive amounts of video of Roger Clemens—Schilling's pitching doppelgänger, what with their four-seam fastball and splitter combination—pitching against the best hitters in the AL East. They also brought detailed scouting reports from one of the largest scouting staffs in baseball.

  “This is how we can help you prepare,” Epstein told Schilling when he presented the information at Schilling's home.

  Said Epstein, “He ate it up.”

  Epstein also put esteemed sabermetrician Bill James to work. Two weeks earlier, Schilling had told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he would not approve a trade to Boston because, “I'm a righthanded fly-ball pitcher. In Fenway Park, that's not a tremendous mix.” Epstein knew about that comment. He enlisted James to write a personal letter to Schilling that statistically proved that Fenway actually has been beneficial to righthanded fly-ball pitchers, including Pedro Martinez.

  Epstein even came armed with information for Schilling's wife, Shonda, whom he knew to be active in community work. He brought literature on places to live in Boston, on the school systems and on the opportunities for community work.

  Epstein also mentioned to Schilling that one of the candidates getting serious consideration for the Boston manager job was Francona. Francona had been Schilling's manager in Philadelphia and the two of them had remained extremely close.

  There was one more argument to reinforce: the opportunity to make baseball history in Boston. The Red Sox had not won the World Series since 1918. A world championship for the Red Sox would rank among the most meaningful championships in all of sports. The opportunity appealed to Schilling's sense of baseball history.

  “Right away we clicked as far as engaging in a baseball discussion,” Epstein said. “The more we talked about his fit with the Red Sox and what it would mean historically we knew we kind of had him on the hook. Then we had to find a way to make it work.”

  It was a strange and often tense negotiation at the Schilling house. Reporters, camped on the lawn, could peer through the windows to see Schilling and Epstein negotiating in the living room, and at night they could hear coyotes howling in the foothills of the nature preserve behind the house. Epstein ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Schilling house, but still had yet to gain Schilling's okay to the deal. The Red Sox petitioned Major League Baseball for an addition to the 72-hour negotiating window because of the Thanksgiving holiday, and they were granted one. They had until Friday afternoon to close the deal.

  “They were really nail-biting negotiations,” Epstein said. “It looked like we were going nowhere. I left after Thanksgiving dinner and I felt there was no way to get it done. We got a little more creative. As tough as the negotiations were, it would have been tougher to walk out of the house without him, knowing he was exactly the right guy for the club, to walk out and do the perp walk in front of all the cameras, all the while knowing we had delivered everything we could on a silver platter.”

  The persistence paid off. On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and just in front of the MLB deadline, Schilling agreed to the trade and a two-year contract that would pay him $25.5 million, with a third-year option worth $13 million. There was one special clause added to the contract that, though illegal under baseball rules, somehow slipped through MLB officials. The Red Sox would pay Schilling a $1 million bonus if they won the World Series with him. Players are not permitted to carry award bonuses based on team achievements, but this one managed to become official.

  “He'll be a king and a hero if they can win a World Series in Boston,” said Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo.

  Epstein was ecstatic. He already had a dynamic offense, one that the previous season broke the all-time slugging percentage record of the famed 1927 Yankees. Now he had a strong stable of starters, with Schilling, Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield, Byung-Hyun Kim and Bronson Arroyo. As a bonus, Schilling was a confident, Type-A personality who brought the same swagger to the mound that players such as David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez and Kevin Millar brought to the batter's box.

  “The intangibles were a great fit,” Epstein said. “Here was a guy who had pitched and won in Yankee Stadium and in big games. He was obviously fearless. The one thing you knew he was able to do is execute flawlessly, no matter what the situation. And he had a desire to be noticed. He had an ego. He liked being covered by the media, but in a legitimate way. He brought a fearlessness. He basically said, ‘I'm going to Boston to end an 86-year curse, and I'll do Dunkin’ Donuts commercials to let people know.’ I think that rubbed off. That same kick-your-ass mentality we had on offense, Schilling brought that same attitude to the pitching staff.”

  The Red Sox's off-season would only get better. Pettitte left the Yankees 22 days later. Boston was thrilled to see Pettitte leave for Houston. The Red Sox actually had offered Pettitte the most money, more than $40 million. That gambit, however, not only was an unlikely attempt to coax him away from both his career-long team and his hometown team, but also as a shrewd strategic attempt to influence Pettitte's negotiations with the Yankees. How come, Pettitte was left to wonder, the Red Sox value me so much more than the Yankees after all these years in New York? Getting Pettitte out of the league was a victory in itself for the Red Sox, who despite their historically potent offense knew they had some vulnerability to lefthanded pitchers. The 2003 Red Sox slugged 49 points worse against lefthanders than righthanders. Pettitte was 13-5 in his career against the Yankees’ greatest rival.

  To compound the loss of Pettitte, the Yankees elected not to pick up the $6 million option on the contract of David Wells, yet another proven lefthanded pitcher who had thrown at least 200 innings in eight of the previous nine years. Wells was headed toward back surgery to repair a herniated disk, an issue that did not stop the Padres from signing him to an incentive-laden contract in which Wells could earn $7 million. Wells had been 6-5 with the Yankees against the Red Sox.

  In two months after a 101-win season, the Yankees had lost Clemens, Pettitte and Wells, who in 2003 had combined to start 60 percent of their games while compiling a record of 53-24. The team lost three starters with a combined career postseason record of 31-17, a .646 winning percentage. One of the greatest rotations in Yankees history, the SI cover boys from only nine months earlier, was torn apart.

  To replace them, and to the delight of the Red Sox, the Yankees turned only to righthanded pitchers: Brown, who was 39 years old; Orlando Hernandez, who was 38; Jon Lieber, who was 34 and coming off an e
ntire season missed to elbow surgery; and Vazquez, who was 27 and testing himself in the American League and New York for the first time. In 2004 the Yankees did not have a lefthanded starter to use against the Red Sox—a flaw that would become fatally and infamously obvious come October—and only one righthander even close to having prime stuff, and that was the disappointing Vazquez.

  Moreover, Yankee Stadium was a ballpark designed for left-handed hitting, which could exploit the short porch in right field, and conversely for lefthanded pitching, which could exploit the vastness of the left side of the outfield against righthand-dominant lineups. Yet the Yankees were ill-suited for their own ballpark—and by historic measurements. In 2004 the Yankees would use lefthanders (all of them journeymen) to start only 11 of their 162 games, by far their lowest such incidence in the previous half century eclipsing the 27 starts by lefthanders on the 1992 team, the last time the Yankees fielded a losing club.

  “To go from Clemens and Pettitte and Wells and myself to, I don't know …,” Mussina said. “I know Kevin Brown was on that staff, but we just couldn't count on him. The mentality was changed.”