You know what my favorite year as a Yankees fan was? 1996. That's because, almost to the very end, I never thought they had a chance.
It had started out as a really low time in the Chronicles of the Mad King. George had finally done the right thing and brought in the holy trinity of Buck, Bob, and Stick, and they seemed to have turned the team around in record time.
Then our killer, 1994 season got stopped short in August, due to a lockout. Then in 1995 we rallied to take the Wild Card, only to lose the Sleep-killer in Seattle.
Then, of course, Mad George fired Buck Showalter for Joe Torre (Wha—?)—and then tried to get rid of Joe and lure Buck back.
He demoted Stick, and frankly the results from the new front office were not encouraging. We replaced Mike Stanley, who had finally learned to hit at catcher, with a jug-eared National-Leaguer who couldn't hit for power even in Denver or Wrigley Field.
We did pick up Tino and Jeff Nelson, but only in exchange for Sterling Hitchcock—one of the best Yankees names ever, and a guy I thought, I have to admit, was going to be better than Pettitte—and 3B prospect Russ Davis, another one of the many rooks of whom people said, "He has the fastest hands—or was it wrists?—I've ever seen."
Whatever. Our present third sacker was 38 years old. There was this rookie at short I had high hopes for, but how was that going to go? And what was on second?
No, I thought, I am not NOT buying this.
Look at that Orioles team in our division, with all those suspicious home-run hitters, I told myself. Look at the Red Sox.
Even when we got 12 games up near the end of July, I still didn't believe. Sure, that kid at shortstop was playing great, and somebody named Mariano Duncan was hitting .340 at second, and Girardi seemed pretty good, and Tino even better.
But look at that pitching staff we had! Jimmy Key was just back from major arm surgery, Cone had nearly died of an aneurysm on the mound, and Doc had gone south after that amazing no-hitter. And...Kenny Rogers!
Down the stretch, the new regime reacquired Charlie Hayes to spell Boggs at third, which seemed like a good move. But they also gave up our best defensive outfielder, Gerald Williams, to bring in Graeme "Loogy" Lloyd, and got Cecil "Mondo" Fielder—the Laurel and Hardy of late-season acquisitions!
Sure, we had some bench now. And our bullpen was deep—deep as a fetid pond over an abandoned mineshaft.
Boehinger, Mecir, and Weathers had ERAs of 5.44, 5.13, and 9.35, respectively. If not at all respectably.
The Loogy from Down Under finished at 17.47. In 5 2/3 innings, he gave up 12 hits and 6 walks. That's right: in retiring 17 batters, he allowed 18 baserunners.
No way we are winning with these guys!
And sure enough, the lead shrunk. And shrunk. Twice in September, the Birds flew within 2 1/2 games of us, and the Wild Card was not in the least secure.
But hey, after a walk-off hit by Ruben Rivera in the 10th inning against Baltimore all but clinched the division on September 18th, I thought...
That's nice. So we'll get an official division title. Not that we're going any further, not with this team.
First up in the playoffs was Texas. They clobbered Cone—at home—in the first game, then went up 4-1 in Game Two against Pettitte. Juan Gone already had like three home runs on the series.
Oh, well, I thought. You can't win 'em all. And it's really been a special year.
Then they came back to win that game in the bottom of the 12th. Then we went to Texas, and scored two in the ninth to scrape out a 3-2 win. Then we came back from 4-0 down to win the clincher.
Well, how about that? A little icing on the cake!
Then came the ALCS against Baltimore, with the Jeffrey Maier game, and Bernie scoring when Zeal's fake throw got away, and Robbie Alomar making a huge error to open the floodgates in Game Five and HEY LADY!
Fun! But ya gotta believe? I still didn't.
Next up were the world champion Atlanta Braves, of course. I was in the stands when they crushed us in Game One. Worst Yankee loss ever in the World Series, to that point. A Maddux shutout that seemed to take about ten minutes in Game Two.
Atlanta sportswriters were writing about how the Braves weren't playing against the Yankees, they were playing against history. I tended to agree. Conie pulled out Game Three? Well how sweet. At least there won't be a sweep.
Then Leyritz, and Pettitte, and our suddenly lights-out bullpen, and I'm in a seat screaming my lungs out as Charlie Hayes squeezes the last out. Yeah, "history" had stepped out for a minute, it seemed, and the YANKEES were back.
As a Yankees fan, we don't gotta believe a damned thing. Show us.
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8 comments:
Nice piece, Hoss.
I shall never forget, for as long as I live, Charlie Hayes squeezing his glove for that last out.
Hoss, it's great to look back on 1996 and remember. That was the first Yankee championship of my Yankee fan career. Before then, in my first Yankee fan year, I saw them lose the 1981 WS to the hated Dodgers. So then from '82 to "95, it sure looked like they'd never win a championship.
I'm trying to remember what my state of mind was back in October 1996. It's kind of hard to remember if I was confident that they'd win. Every game was exciting back then. I hung on every game like it was life and death.
I think that before the regular season started, I was pretty confident that the Yankees were a really good team. Back then, Bernie Williams was in his prime, or reaching his prime. And Derek Jeter, just up from the minors, looked like the new kid who could do no wrong. If the team had a weakness, it was definitely starting pitching.
Going into the playoffs, I thought the Yankees had as good a chance as anyone. They had a very good lineup that was good at clutch hitting. They had a bullpen with a very strong top 4. The first two series were the Bernie Williams show.
In the World Series, they were up against a more powerful Atlanta Braves team. If they played a whole year against each other, I'm sure the Braves would have had the better record by far. But in a best of seven series, I thought the Yankee team matched up very well. The first two games were a disaster with zero Yankee offense, but the bats finally woke up in games 3 and 4. Then of course, games 5 and 6 were pitching duels with the Yankees squeaking out wins.
I really loved that team. The acquisitions of Charlie Hayes, Cecil Fielder, Graham Lloyd were pure genius. And those guys really contributed to an exhilarating World Series win. It exorcised a lot of the ghosts that I'd carried from that horribly disappointing 1981 WS. The 1996 Yankees won't be remembered as the greatest team ever, but as far as my Yankee fandom goes, it never got any better than that team and that championship.
Thanks, guys—and amen, Hammer!
I never would have thought that they could beat the Braves starting pitching. When they lost the first two it was, "Say goodnight Gracie". Game four was won, it seemed, by the juju gods, Leyritz homer off of Wohlers, and Torre out witting Cox (Wife beater) by bringing in Boggs to face Avery with the bases loaded (I believe) in the top of the tenth). For me, the amazing game was the fifth when Pettitte outdueled Smoltz in game six. The guts of a burglar! But this Series was won or lost so many times by inches, I thought at the time (not the last time!), but what a Series that had everything!
HC, great piece recounting things that I had half forgotten, and especially the thought processes and emotions that many of us shared, the vivid, the dreamlike, and the sometimes surreal.
A guy I worked with was from Atlanta and a Braves fan. He was feeling good going into the Series, I wasn't sure we could come anywhere close to winning. Then the first two games. Ugh. And the young phenom, Andruw Jones (who, due to the spelling of his name, my wife later dubbed "Dandruff"). Doomed.
I went to visit my folks. My dad was still alive then. We watched Game Four together, but were giving up and going to bed. He went to brush his teeth. By the time he got back, I was standing on the edge of the living room, and Leyritz hit his big home run. I looked at my father and said, "Maybe we should stay up a little while."
Good times.
Kevin...
Cox may have been a wife beater but according to her it was all her fault:
“I am as guilty as he is. I put my daughter’s pregnancy before spring training. I should have been there at spring training. “
What a world
Thanks, Kevin. And yeah, JM, I remember watching that Game 4 with some good friends. Really, we thought it was just going to be about having some beers and smoking some weed together. And then...
And yes, Kevin, that was a crazy-ass move by Cox. Walking somebody intentionally, I think, to pitch with the bases loaded to Boggs, the guy considered a legend for his control of the strike zone.
Any close pitch in that situation...you are not going to get!
Sad Cox became such an ass. I still have his 1968 rookie card somewhere. That year, he hit .224 and still made the Topps AL all-rookie team at third. The more things change...
Great reading these comments and reminiscing. What a year that was!
The more I think about it, the more I believe that it was mind over matter. That 1996 team had heart; it was clutch.
The stat-geeks will tell you "clutch" is a dirty word, that it doesn't exist. But they're wrong. Clutch doesn't show up in stats. Because it ain't a statistic. It's mental toughness, pure and simple. It's Bernie Williams giving the Yanks the lead in Game 3 of the '96 WS. Cecil Fielder getting that hit in Game 5. The clutch hits in Game 6. In 2000, against Al Leiter, Luis Sojo hitting that 18 hopper up the middle.
The '96 team had mental toughness in spades. Let's not forget Paul O'Neill, who, for all his talents, perhaps his greatest asset was mental toughness. Which in hitting is nothing more than being able to block out all of the bullshit and put up a professional at-bat during a crucial moment.
Does this 2022 Yankee team have that kind of mental toughness? I don't think so. They've got to prove it me. Sooner or later, we're going to find out what this team is made of.
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