Words on a Dying Dynasty and Growing Up

There has been several drastic changes in the Yankees Organization over the past few years. The original Yankee stadium — one of the last remaining cathedrals of baseball — was torn down, and the new Yankee Stadium, full of modern bells and whistles was erected. There have been losses. The Boss is gone. Bob Sheppard, the “voice of God”, passed. Even ol’ Freddie is gone.  “Clueless” Joe Torre is now a Baseball Executive. More major changes are soon to come.

I’m 25 years old now. The players on the field during my first visit to Yankees Stadium included the likes of Mike Stanley, Pat Kelly, Jim Abbott, and Donnie Baseball. This was a sorry team in comparison to the ones in the years following. I wallowed about how much “Danny Tartabull stunk”. What I didn’t realize at the time was that the franchise was also in the process of change. I was clueless; I had no idea what a playoff-caliber Yankees team was like. Then of course there was the strike-ridden 1995 season, and the Playoff series against an intimidating Seattle Mariners team. Randy Johnson was terrifying to watch as a kid. But still, I never thought the Yankees team of 1995 would evolve into a baseball juggernaut over the next 15 years.  Besides, I was too busy cheering Don Mattingly, and his first postseason homerun, then immediately feeling sad the day he announced he would not return for 1996.

Mike Stanley, the catcher I enjoyed watching for his home-run power, was shipped up to Boston, and in came Joe Girardi, some guy I had never heard of. The platoon set up between Mike Gallego and Randy Velarde was over. Now some skinny kid named Jeter was going to play shortstop. The manager Buck Showalter was replaced by Joe Torre, a guy whom I heard lost a lot of games. In the dugout he always looked unhappy, almost like he was falling asleep. And most importantly, Mattingly was replaced by Tino Martinez from the Mariners, the team I was booing for only months earlier. Things looked bleak.

You know the rest by now. The Yanks won the 1996 World Series. Derek Jeter was rookie of the year. Another kid named Andy Pettite won 21 games. Another rookie named Mariano Rivera baffled hitters all year long as a set-up man for John Wetteland. Jim Leyritz ripped a loud home run against Braves closer Mark Wohlers. And the old heroes of my childhood — Bernie Williams, Paul O’Neill and Wade Boggs — were now champions.

My fascination with this team would only grow as they made it to the playoffs every single year. I remember hearing the 1998 Yankees being compared to the old “Murderer’s Row” Yankees. So I looked them up. I couldn’t believe that I was watching all this happen. That these guys were compared to the likes of Ruth and Gehrig was unbelievable to me.

Living in Long Island, and surrounded by Mets fans made it all even better. I had the Yanks. I knew to rebuke friends who said “the Yankees suck” with a properly timed “Oh hey look. The Yanks are in first place. What’s Rey Sanchez batting these days?”

Those glory days are over now.

Over the next few years, my Mets friends had a new argument for me. “All the Yankees do is buy talent” What could I say? They were right. I’m not going to name them all, because there’s just so many. Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi, Jose Contreras, Carl Pavano, and Alex Rodriguez. The Yanks weren’t winning the World Series anymore, not with those players.

There was more to the Yankees World Series drought than overpaid and underperforming ball players. The locker room was never the same. The intensity and need for perfection that Paul O’Neill and Tino Martinez embodied was gone. A guy like Scott Brosius, who just seemed to be along for the ride, wasn’t there to surprise the fans when he came through with the clutch hit.

When the 2009 season started with the huge acqusitions of C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett, I figured “here we go again.”

I was proven wrong. Sabathia was a true ace, something the Yanks hadn’t had in years. Texiera harkened the days of Mattingly and Martinez with his home-run power and defensive prowess. I also came to understand why guys like Sabathia and Nick Swisher were acquired. It was to lighten the mood of the clubhouse.

The Yanks that year took the World Series in an excellent match-up against the Phillies. They did it in true Yankee fashion, timely hitting and gutsy pitching. The “Core-Four” of Jorge Posada, Andy Pettite, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera seemed to be playing as if they were in their primes. That Yankee team deserved to win it all. They seemed to have fun when they played and they always ignored criticism. Derek Jeter was proving his critics wrong by having an excellent defensive and offensive season. He was the Jeter of old. He never smacked the home runs of a Hall of Fame Slugger, but he was always involved in a Yankees win somehow. And Mariano Rivera was perfection personified.

It’s 2011 now. I live in Philadelphia now. The Phillies are the constant talk of the town.  They sort of remind me of the 1998 Yankees in that the pitchers are all great, all in their primes and the players that are making a difference in the lineup are the underdogs like Wilson Valdez and Carlos Ruiz. When I moved to Philadelphia years ago, no one talked about the Phillies. Only the inconsistency of Donovan McNabb, the ineptitude of Andy Reid and the shoddy play of Pat Burrell seemed to be on people’s minds. Oh how things have changed.

The Core-Four is gone. Andy Pettite retired in the off-season to spend time with his family. Derek Jeter batted .270 last season and can’t seem to get out of a funk of slow tappers and routine ground ball outs. There was a battle in the off-season between Jeter and the Yankees brass over his new contract. Jeter has always wished to retire as a Yankee, and in a season in which he will have his 3000^th hit, he felt the Yankees should keep Jeter as the highest paid infielder in baseball. The Yankees General Manager, Brian Cashman, agrees that Jeter is an important part of the Yankee tradition, but that he is undeserving of making more money than other shortstops like Hanley Ramirez and Troy Tulowitzski. How come the Yanks weren’t penny pinching when they signed Alex Rodriguez to a huge multi-year deal through 2017? And Jorge Posasa looks done. After losing his Catching job in the off-season, he hasn’t been able to adjust to being a designated hitter. He is currently batting .165, with no hits from the right side of the plate. He recently was demoted to batting ninth, and took himself out of the lineup. It was a selfish act that will probably cost Posada his job. Mariano is still Mariano. Though there was talk of him maybe going to the Red Sox in the off-season. It is logical to think that he too will lose his touch.

I’m changing also. I will be a married man in September. I find myself to be more relaxed and in ease than ever. I’m thinking of things to come. My future. My career. My writing. My life with Brittany. My life with the children we raise. My children will have missed the great Yankee dynasty. The Yanks may not win another World Series for another ten years, and I’m fine with that. My only hope is take my first-born to a Yankee game so they can tell their friends and later their families that they got to see the likes of a Derek Jeter. I no longer care whether the Yanks win every year, and that they must beat the Red Sox every time they play. I’m truly thankful to have had a childhood full of memories of great Yankee teams.

I attended one game last year. It was May 20^th. My brother and I took my father to a ball game to see the new Yankee stadium. We went to Rosa’s pizza in Queens, for a Grandma’s Pie. Andy Pettite was pitching against David Price of the Tampa Rays, a multi-talented team with a fraction of the Yankees payroll. Good ol’ Freddie with his frying pans around his neck and a wooden spoon as a drumstick was in our section. I’d never seen him at a game before. I said hello to Freddie, but many in our section never acknowledged him. One man was busy on his iPad. Another was on his Bluetooth headset making business deals. Freddie banged on his pans, but the stadium never grew louder.  It was a sad sight and the Yanks lost to boot, but I was proud to have gone to the game with my brother and my father and to spend the day with them. I got to meet Freddie, a Yankee relic. More importantly, I realized that I had grown up.