Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty

by Phil Pepe

  Unfortunately, by his own admission, those numbers are tainted, and they likely will keep a large segment of the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America from voting for Pettitte when he becomes Hall of Fame eligible,

  Consequently, rather than possibly spending his retirement years basking in Hall of Fame glory, Pettitte is likely to spend them in performance-enhancement-drug infamy.

  28. False Step

  Their glasses half empty, the gloom and doomers saw it as a bad omen.

  Opening day of the 2012 baseball season, the Tampa Bay Rays hosting the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field in sunny St. Petersburg, the Yankees rallied from a four-run first inning eruption by the Rays to come from behind with two runs in the second and four in the third. Now, leading 6–5 going into the bottom of the ninth, it was time for manager Joe Girardi to call on his closer, the invincible one, Mariano Rivera.

  What happened next was unthinkable, unlikely, unbelievable, and unsettling.

  On a 1–2 pitch, Desmond Jennings singled up the middle to lead off the inning.

  Ben Zobrist hit Rivera’s next pitch into the right-center gap for a triple. Jennings scored the tying run.

  Evan Longoria was walked intentionally.

  Luke Scott was walked intentionally to load the bases.

  In a standard, time-tested move, Yankees manager Joe Girardi brought his infield and his outfield in to try to cut the winning run off at home plate.

  Sean Rodriguez struck out.

  Carlos Pena sent a fly ball to left center that sailed over the heads of left fielder Brett Gardner and center fielder Curtis Granderson, and Zobrist scored easily with the winning run.

  It was the first game of the season, only 161 games remaining. No reason to panic, but…Mariano Rivera, the peerless closer, had blown a save!

  He had suffered a loss!

  His earned run average was 54.00!

  He was 42 years old!

  Did doubt creep into the hearts and minds of Yankees fans? Maybe a little. Maybe more than a little.

  Three days later in Baltimore, Rivera was brought in to pitch again in the ninth inning with the Yankees leading 6–2. It was not a save situation, but it was a significant early-season game because the Yankees had been swept in three games by the Rays and because it could reveal something about their closer.

  This time Rivera was on his game. He allowed a one-out double to Robert Andino, but otherwise escaped unscathed.

  Over the next 21 days, Rivera would pitch seven more times with his usual superlative results. On April 30, again against the Orioles, but this time in Yankee Stadium, Rivera entered in the ninth inning with the Yankees leading 2–1. He retired Nolan Reimold on an easy ground ball to second, gave up a solid single to center to J.J. Hardy, and then got Nick Markakis to hit a soft ground ball to shortstop that Derek Jeter turned into a double play, eliciting from Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling his familiar cry of “Duh Yankees win….DUHHHH YANKEEES WINNNNNN!”

  Since his Opening Day loss, Rivera made eight appearances with the following results: eight innings, no runs, three hits, seven strikeouts, no walks, one win, and five saves. His earned-run average dropped from 54.00 to 2.16. The Yankees, winners of 13 of their last 19 games, were 13–9, a game and a half behind Tampa Bay.

  The surprising Orioles won the next two games in Yankee Stadium. On Tuesday night, May 1, they beat the Yankees 7–1 as Chris Davis and J.J. Hardy torched Phil Hughes with home runs. On the getaway game, Wednesday night, May 2, Jake Arrieta pitched eight shutout innings, allowing five hits and striking out nine and the Orioles hit two more home runs to beat Ivan Nova 5–0. The loss dropped the Yankees to 13–11 and into fourth place in the American League East, 3½ games behind the Tampa Bay Rays, 2½ games behind the Orioles and a half game behind the Toronto Blue Jays.

  After the game, the Yankees boarded a charter plane for the flight to Kansas City, where they would begin a four-game series against the Royals the following night.

  Early on the evening of Thursday, May 3, Mariano Rivera, dressed in his spiked baseball shoes and baseball pants and a dark gray short-sleeved zippered pullover with the words “New York” emblazoned along the chest, and jogged out to center field of Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium during batting practice to shag fly balls.

  Those who said Rivera was tempting fate by shagging fly balls were obviously unaware that it was something he had done a few thousand times, almost every day or night since he became a professional baseball player 22 years earlier, without being injured. He had not been on the disabled list in nine years.

  Rivera enjoyed shagging fly balls. It was good exercise, good for keeping his legs in shape, and it was fun. And he was good at it. With his agile, lithe, and supple athletic body that belied his 42 years, Rivera was so graceful and so skilled at running down those fly balls, more than a few of his managers and teammates said that if he chose to, he could have made it as in the major leagues as an outfielder. One of his minor league managers said Mariano was “the best center fielder on this team.”

  It was slightly after 6:00 pm Central Daylight Time when Jayson Nix hit a batting-practice fastball to the deepest part of center field where Rivera, following the flight of the ball, took off in his languid, loping gait. Man and ball reached the fence at approximately the same time and the man leaped to snare the ball as it was about to hit the wall. Instead, Rivera’s knee appeared to collapse under his weight. Rivera fell to the ground on the center-field warning track, grabbing his right leg as he writhed in obvious pain.

  “Oh my God,” said Alex Rodriguez waiting his turn in the batting cage some 400 feet away.

  Concerned Yankees gathered around Rivera, curious to see how badly their fallen teammate, friend, idol, and meal ticket was hurt and seeking to comfort him.

  Seeing his star closer writhing on the ground, manager Joe Girardi, accompanied by bullpen coach Mike Harkey and head trainer Steve Donohue, rushed to Rivera’s aid. They carefully helped Rivera get to his feet and gently placed him in a golf cart that had arrived quickly on the scene. Rivera had a slight smile on his face as the cart transported him to the Yankees’ dugout, where he spoke briefly with solicitous teammates before being taken to an opening in the right-field wall that led to the street. As he departed, the smile had left his face and had been replaced by the grim look of concern, worry, and fear for the worst.

  Rivera was taken to nearby Kansas University MedWest Hospital, where an MRI revealed a torn ACL and a torn meniscus of the right knee.

  “That’s about as bad as it gets,” Girardi said. “You lose a Hall of Famer, it changes a lot. We like the depth of our bullpen and it just got a little bit shorter. We’ll have to find a way to get through it.”

  The next night Rivera showed up in the Yankees clubhouse walking with the aid of crutches and wearing a bandage on his right knee and an occasional smile on his face. He was in relatively good spirits as he talked about his injury and the future. The night before he gloomily said he didn’t know if he would ever play again, but 24 hours later he was singing a different tune.

  All spring there had been speculation whether the 2012 season would be Rivera’s last. It was the final year of his contract and although he refused to be drawn into a discussion regarding a new contract, neither would he admit that 2012 would be his swan song.

  If he had made a decision about his future, he kept it to himself. He dropped enough hints that led to the conclusion that he would go out after the season in a blaze of glory and get on with his life, spend more time with his wife and three boys, concentrate on running the Mariano Rivera Foundation—which distributes more than $500,000 to underprivileged children in the United States and Panama—provide Christmas gifts to children, develop a program that provides computer access and adult mentors to children, resume building an elementary school and church in his native Panama, and contemplate the p
ossibility of entering the ministry.

  But now his injury had apparently caused a change of heart.

  “I’m coming back,” he declared. “Write it down in big letters. I’m not going out like this. When you love the game and you like to compete, it would be tough to go out like this. I love to play the game. To me, going out like this isn’t the right way. I don’t think like that. With the strength of the Lord, I have to continue.”

  Someone asked, facetiously no doubt, if the Yankees would want him back.

  Rivera laughed.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “They will want the old goat.”

  This news, after the gloom of the night before, to a man lifted the spirit of the Yankees.

  “I’ve never seen a clubhouse so depressed,” said Rodriguez. “It’s great to hear he’ll be back. I love the man. But it’s surprising. I thought it was over this year, but I guess Mo is all about endings and he wants to end it the right way.”

  “I was thinking he was coming back anyway,” said Mark Teixeira. “I didn’t believe he was going to retire. He is still one of the best players in the game. It’s great to hear [that Rivera will be coming back] and it will be good for his rehab, something for him to look forward to.”

  “Everyone is happy to hear that,” said the Captain, Derek Jeter, “but we can’t sit around and wait. Injuries are unfortunate. Injuries happen. But we still have work to do and jobs to do. We can’t count the days.”

  Rivera promised to be around the team as much as possible during his rehab, to lend a hand in any way he could, even if only as a cheerleader.

  “I always put myself last,” he said. “I’m a positive man. I’m okay. The only thing is that I feel sorry that I let down my teammates. But besides that, I’m okay. And the team will be okay, too.

  “I’ll be around. We will talk. All my advice and all my knowledge will be there. I’m just going to give them encouragement that I trust them and believe in them. They can do the job. They will do the job.”

  True to his word, Rivera showed up frequently at Yankee Stadium, offered his encouragement, his advice, his support, served as a mentor, and cheered for his teammates. Into the breach came the veteran Rafael Soriano, who did a tremendous job as the Yankees closer. He was everything the Yankees hoped he would be, wanted him to be, needed him to be.

  He just wasn’t Mariano Rivera.

  29. Rebound

  All of a sudden, Derek Jeter was alone, the only member of the Yankees’ Core Four in the clubhouse, on the charter airplane to away games; the only one still pulling on a uniform every day.

  Jorge Posada, “Sado,” his closest friend on the team, the one who frequently accompanied him on his drive to and from Yankee Stadium, had vanished into retirement at the end of the previous season.

  Mariano Rivera, “Mo,” the dependable solid rock of the team’s bullpen, their indispensable weapon, was walking on crutches, awaiting surgery, finished for this year, at least.

  Andy Pettitte, “Handy Andy,” the steady one who had left and come back, left again and come back again, was missing once more, in Tampa rehabbing a broken fibula.

  Now only Derek Jeter remained.

  As the 2012 major league baseball season opened, Jeter was only 12 weeks away from his 38th birthday, an age when logic, history, and medical science dictate that a professional athlete is in decline. Except for a receding hairline, Derek Jeter didn’t look his age. He still was trim—not the skinny rookie of 1996, but no heavier than the World Series Most Valuable Player of 2000—and he still played with a little boy’s joy and an athlete’s grace and fluidity.

  At bat, he looked the same as always, striding into the batter’s box, tugging at his helmet and raising his right hand to the home plate umpire as if to say, “I’m not ready; I’ll let you know when I am,” a gesture that has become a standard ritual of young baseball players in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in fact, throughout the nation. (Go to a Little League, high school, even a college baseball game and notice how many young hitters will stride into the batter’s box and raise their back hand to the home plate umpire as if to say, “I’m not ready; I’ll let you know when I am.”)

  Jeter still held his bat high above his right ear, still had the quick hands, still had the ability to take an inside pitch and with his familiar inside-out swing hit a line drive inside the right-field foul line.

  Jeter began the season with 3,088 hits, 20th on baseball’s all-time hit list.

  On April 20, in a 6–2 win over the Red Sox in Boston, he passed his childhood idol, Dave Winfield, for 19th place.

  On May 13, the Yankees lost to the Mariners 6–2, and Jeter passed Tony Gwynn for 18th place. The next day, in Baltimore, he passed Robin Yount for 17th place.

  The Yankees were off to their familiar slow start, a record of 22–21, 5½ games out of first place on May 22.

  Five days later, Jeter passed Paul Waner for 16th place on the all-time hit list.

  A day after that, he passed George Brett for 15th place as the Yankees began their comeback with their fifth straight win, a 2–0 shutout of the Athletics in Oakland.

  On June 12, the Yankees beat the Braves 6–4 in Atlanta and moved into first place in the American League East.

  On June 26, his 38th birthday, in a 6–4 win against the Cleveland Indians, Jeter slammed out two more hits, giving him 3,183 for his career. On his 38th birthday the all-time hit leader Pete Rose had 3,170 hits.

  Three days later, while the Yankees were being blown out 14–7 by the White Sox in Chicago, Jeter had one hit in four at-bats, a double, and passed Cal Ripken Jr. for 14th place on the all-time hit list.

  The Yankees would win 35 out of 48 games and open a commanding 10-game lead in the AL East on July 18.

  On August 14, the Yankees were in a slight decline, their AL East lead shaved to six games by the charge of the surprising Baltimore Orioles. Hideki Kuroda stopped the bleeding with a complete game, two-hit, 3–0 victory over the Texas Rangers at Yankee Stadium. Jeter had a pair of singles and moved into 13th place on baseball’s all-time hit list ahead of Nap Lajoie.

  The Yankees’ decline, and the Orioles’ surge, continued through the month of August, while on August 21, Jeter moved past Eddie Murray into 12th place on the all-time hit list.

  On Tuesday September 4, the Yankees were beaten by the Tampa Bay Rays 5–2, while the Orioles were slaughtering the Toronto Blue Jays 12–0, wiping out the Yankees’ entire 10-game lead. The Yanks and O’s were now in an exact tie for first place and the Rays were only 1½ games back.

  For the next 19 days, the Yankees and Orioles would be separated by no more than one game, but the Orioles never could pass the Yanks in the standing, except for a few hours on September 14 when the Yankees lost to Tampa Bay at Yankee Stadium. A couple of hours later, the Orioles lost to the Athletics in Oakland, and the deadlock for first place in the AL East remained.

  In the Yankees defeat, Jeter had two more hits, pushing his career total to 3,285 and moving him into 11th place all-time, ahead of the “Say Hey Kid,” the incomparable Willie Mays, voted baseball’s greatest living player.

  When he learned Jeter had passed him, Mays was gracious and lavish in his praise of the Yankees’ shortstop, whom he had met briefly at an All-Star game and who was born eight months after Mays played his last game.

  “What I noticed is that he is a very, very nice person, not just the ballplayer,” said Mays, 43 years Jeter’s senior. “He’s a good person and that’s what really comes across when you meet him. He puts his team first, that’s the way I played the game. There are some guys who don’t do that. Derek knows how to play the game. He makes the players around him better.”

  The Yankees didn’t shake loose of the overachieving Orioles until the final day of the season, officially clinching the division title when the Orioles lost to the Tampa Bay Rays. A short time later the Yankee
s finished off a 14–2 victory over the Red Sox as Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano both hit a pair of home runs, Granderson finishing the regular season with 43 home runs—one behind the league leader, Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers—and 106 RBI. Cano finished with 33 homers and 94 RBI.

  Rafael Soriano more than filled in adequately for the indispensable Mariano Rivera with 42 saves, third in the league. Kuroda and Phil Hughes each won 16 games and CC Sabathia won 15.

  And Derek Jeter, 38 years old, was Derek Jeter.

  Jeter was a .300 hitter for the 12th time in his career, his .316 good for fifth place in the American League.

  Jeter led the league in hits with 216 and no other shortstop in the history of baseball—not Honus Wagner, not Cal Ripken Jr., not Omar Vizquel, ever got 200 hits at age 38.

  Jeter led the league in plate appearances for the fifth time in his career with 740. Nobody else ever led the league in plate appearances at age 38, not Pete Rose and not Methuselah.

  “That’s not supposed to happen unless you’re maybe a DH,” said a reflective, admiring Joe Girardi. “He played shortstop every day and he played hurt. It’s truly remarkable. It’s one of the greatest seasons I’ve ever seen, considering all the factors.”

  At age 38, Jeter started 158 of the Yankees 162 games, 133 at shortstop, 25 as the designated hitter, and he still wasn’t finished for the year.

  “The fact that he was able to get so many at-bats and stay out there every day exceeded my expectations,” Girardi said. “I talked about wanting to get him days off. I DHed him sometimes but I had to play him more in the field than I probably wanted to just because of some of the [injuries] we were going through.”