The Yankee Years Part 15

"Let's use that one!" Lofton said.

"All right," Torre said. "Fine."

Torre picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. He showed it to the two center fielders: "Bernie Williams."

Lofton dropped his head and shook it in anger. Torre was taken aback by Lofton's reaction.

"I thought, What does that that mean?" Torre said. "He's probably not going to play enough to make the All-Star team, so what the h.e.l.l's the difference anyway?" mean?" Torre said. "He's probably not going to play enough to make the All-Star team, so what the h.e.l.l's the difference anyway?"

Watching Lofton's reaction made Torre think he could leave nothing open to interpretation about this little game of chance. He reached into his hat and pulled out the folded piece of paper that said "Kenny Lofton" and showed it to him.

"I had to open it up to show him that he was on the other one, to make sure he didn't think there was two Bernies," Torre said. "That was a big deal to him, being on the All-Star ballot. It's too bad. And I had a taste of that kind of thinking on All-Star teams. It was always interesting when you watched all those guys from Cleveland when they came to All-Star Games. They were so undisciplined. Colon, Manny, Lofton, Belle . . . they were just marching to their own drummer."

That was the real problem. The Yankees no longer had one drumbeat. It was obvious before the Yankees played a game in the 2004 season that the workmanlike, egoless culture of the championship Yankee teams was irretrievably gone. Sure, the Yankees began to change when they said goodbye to Paul O'Neill, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez and Chuck k.n.o.blauch after the 2001 World Series. But in 2003 they had successfully transitioned into a pitching-dominant team, clearly the best team in baseball until the Marlins, a 91-win wild card team, happened to throw some hot pitchers at them in October. The front office panic after that 2003 World Series did more to send the Yankees into a downward spiral, especially when it came to building a roster with team-centric grinders, than anything that happened after the 2001 World Series.

Not long after the 2003 World Series, Torre gave Brian Cashman a word of advice on Weaver.

"I remember telling Cash, 'You've got to get rid of this guy because emotionally he can't handle it, trying to come back from that,' " Torre said. "It's not like Eckersley giving up the home run to Kirk Gibson or Mariano giving up the home run to Sandy Alomar. This guy wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with that, especially in New York. I had become more comfortable with his pitching, like what he did earlier in that game, than I was earlier. But I couldn't sell it. There was just too much stuff that had happened."

Weaver would never throw another pitch for the Yankees. With a trade that winter, the Yankees turned Weaver into Kevin Brown, one pitcher who struggled with New York for another-only older.

In that one off-season the Yankees brought in Lofton, the surly, antisocial Kevin Brown, the infamously moody Sheffield and the needy, status-seeking Alex Rodriguez. In addition, the team shipped off its two best young hitters, Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera, to obtain pitcher Javier Vazquez, who came from Montreal wholly unprepared for pitching under the weight of expectations in New York. Of course, they still had Jason Giambi, the guy with his own personal trainer at his beck and call and who had removed himself from the starting lineup in the previous World Series and then been summoned to appear in front of the grand jury investigating the BALCO scandal. The Yankees were less of a team than ever before in the Torre years and more a collection of individual stars.

"You're mixing together people from all different teams," pitcher Mike Mussina said. "You're not going to get that precise, perfect blend with every group of players you put in uniform. And when you do find that perfect mix, you've got to hang on to it. It hasn't been the same mix, and it's n.o.body's fault. I don't blame any one player or any group of players for anything. It's just different."

When asked how long the Yankees were able to maintain the right blend of players who kept to the same mindset, Mussina said, "Until '03, until probably even during '03. Then Andy left after '03 and Roger left and Boomer left . . . So when '04 rolled around it was really different. We had very different personalities as compared to the other group, to the group that was here when I first came in 2001."

To the Old Guard of the Yankees, especially Derek Jeter, who had known nothing in his career except 25 guys buying into one mindset, the star system was a jarring change for the worse.

"I don't know if it bothered him or not," said Mussina, who witnessed the breakdown of playoff-caliber Orioles teams before signing with the Yankees, "but I know as a player who has watched good players be on a team, a good group of players, because I had a good group of players in Baltimore for a couple of years in a row, then, to watch a good group of guys just depart and then another group comes in and you see the whole dynamic of the clubhouse be different-be younger, not used to winning or not be about winning, it's about performing-I know it's got to be hard.

"I'm sure for him it was a big change and especially having Alex, because Alex was the best, highest-paid player in the league, arguably. He was the highest paid, but he was arguably the best player in the league. You've got a new second baseman, you've got a brand-new third baseman . . . that's a lot to deal with."

Said Jeter, "The thing is we were winning and for the most part we had the same group together year and after, you know what I mean? Because we won, we were able to stay together. So as a group, we had pretty much gone through everything together. Whereas in recent years, when we lost, people changed. Different guys were in and out."

It wasn't just that the personnel changed; the culture changed. The tipping point to the end of the championship Yankees' culture, both in the clubhouse and its on-field foundation-strong pitching-was the almost casual loss of Pett.i.tte to free agency. Pett.i.tte was a rare commodity in baseball: he was lefthanded, durable, only 31 years old, coming off a 21-win season and hardened by the postseason experience and daily expectations of having played nine years in New York. Had he made his career somewhere else all those years, the Yankees, given their l.u.s.tful ways in free agency, would have deeply coveted Andy Pett.i.tte. But George Steinbrenner never did have a warm spot for Pett.i.tte, always withholding his highest praise of calling someone a "warrior" and famously wanting him gone in an ill-conceived trade attempt in 1999. Steinbrenner's lieutenants, too, constantly worried about Pett.i.tte's throwing elbow, in part because Pett.i.tte seemed to chronically worry about it himself. It was just Pett.i.tte's honest nature to share his feelings about usual aches and pains. Other than the 2002 season, Pett.i.tte's elbow was good enough to allow him to be one of the most reliable pitchers in baseball for almost a decade. From 1995, when he broke into the big leagues, through 2003, Pett.i.tte threw more innings than all but nine pitchers in baseball and tied Randy Johnson for the second-most wins, behind only Greg Maddux.

But Pett.i.tte 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 Pett.i.tte 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 Pett.i.tte how much they wanted him. It was as if the Yankees were resigned to Pett.i.tte leaving for his hometown Astros. Pett.i.tte, 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 Pett.i.tte's personal commitment to McLane. (Clemens, emboldened by his friend Pett.i.tte signing with Houston, also signed on with his hometown Astros.) Even now, after having returned to the Yankees in 2007, Pett.i.tte 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 then I get a higher offer. I couldn't go back on my word." I get a higher offer. I couldn't go back on my word."

On the day the Yankees lost Pett.i.tte, 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 Mitch.e.l.l 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 YorkBoston 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 a.s.sistants 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-p.r.o.ne 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 a.s.sistants 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 a.s.sistant 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 subst.i.tute for a cheering throng at Logan: an appeal to Schilling's ego.

"At 37 years old," the letter said, "with a great resume and an even greater reputation, it's clear to us that the next step in your career is baseball immortality. Baseball immortality-an enshrinement 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 t.i.tle 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 a.n.a.lysis, 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 ma.s.sive amounts of video of Roger Clemens-Schilling's pitching doppelganger, 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 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. 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 pet.i.tioned 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-a.s.s mentality we had on offense, Schilling brought that same att.i.tude to the pitching staff."

The Red Sox's off-season would only get better. Pett.i.tte left the Yankees 22 days later. Boston was thrilled to see Pett.i.tte leave for Houston. The Red Sox actually had offered Pett.i.tte 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 Pett.i.tte's negotiations with the Yankees. How come, Pett.i.tte was left to wonder, the Red Sox value me so much more than the Yankees after all these years in New York? Getting Pett.i.tte 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. Pett.i.tte was 13-5 in his career against the Yankees' greatest rival.

To compound the loss of Pett.i.tte, 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, Pett.i.tte 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 SI cover boys from only nine months earlier, was torn apart. 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 entire 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 lefthanded 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 Pett.i.tte 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."

Said Mike Borzello, the bullpen catcher, "Pitching was the problem. After Pett.i.tte, Clemens and Wells left in 2003, we went to an all-righthanded rotation. That was the beginning of the problem. Vazquez, Brown and then Pavano, Wright, Igawa, Farnsworth, Randy Johnson . . . They just didn't seem to work out. It never felt like we had the upper hand in pitching anymore. Before 2004 we never cared what the matchup was against the other team. We liked our guy against their guy, no matter where it fell in the rotation. But then it never seemed to be in our favor, never a case of 'We've got so-and-so tomorrow. We'll win.' "

While the 2004 Yankees marked an abrupt end to the franchise's run of championship-quality starting pitching, the loss of that key strength was exacerbated by what was happening around baseball. Starting pitchers were throwing fewer and fewer innings because of the convergence of several influences on player development, so workhorses such as Pett.i.tte, Clemens and Wells actually were becoming more valuable than ever.

What happened to the workhorse starter? The a.n.a.lytical-minded Red Sox, as they did with most issues, a.s.signed their statistical a.n.a.lysts to try to come up with objective answers to that question. They found that the decline in pitchers' workloads could be traced to manager Billy Martin's 1980 Oakland Athletics. Martin rode five young starters in their 20s into the ground. Rick Langford, Mike Norris, Matt Keough, Steve McCatty and Brian Kingman completed 93 of their 159 starts, a crazy workload. All of them broke down and never were the same. Martin had called so much attention to that staff because of their workload that when those young pitchers broke down, the entire baseball world noticed. No manager or club wanted the notoriety of being arm-killers, so a new conservatism began to grow.

The trend gained momentum at the end of the decade when another Oakland manager, Tony LaRussa, popularized the specialized bullpen, in which he preferred to entrust late-game outs that used to belong to a tiring starting pitcher to a series of lefthanded and righthanded relievers, backed by a closer. Also, by 1990 "pitch counts" began to appear in box scores, the effect being the placement of a sort of governor on managers, who now had to answer to a kind of "pitch count police"-fans and media who would draw a direct line between an arbitrarily high pitch count and a defeat or poor outing. Moreover, advanced research and data in the growing field of sports medicine convinced the medical experts that the greatest risk to a pitcher's arm health came from overuse. With seven-figure bonus payouts to amateur draft picks, the default philosophy became one of increasing conservatism when it came to pitchers' development and maintenance.

"The young kids, that's what we've conditioned them to do: pitch less," Torre said. "It's our fault. You have no choice because it's a bone of contention with everybody. A GM will tell you how much we have invested in these guys and we can't hang them out to dry. And even back with how we were using David Cone in 1999, evidently Billy Connors would tell George something about his pitch counts and George would scream at me or the general manager.

"To me, the pitch count is another of those number things that don't tell the whole story by itself. You can watch a guy have no problems throwing 120, 130 pitches, but he can throw 90 pitches with men on base every inning and be worn out. So that's where the number of pitches you throw is not indicative of being tired."

The workhorse starter was a dying breed in baseball, one of the most significant changes in baseball from the years the Yankees won World Series championships to the years they didn't. During Torre's 12 years as Yankees manager, here are the number of starts in which a pitcher threw at least 120 pitches: [image]

Two significant points emerge from the trend: the decline in 120-pitch games greatly accelerated right after the Yankees won their last world championship, and the decline for the Yankees themselves grew especially steep with that flawed 2004 staff.

Of course, with fewer pitches, starters were providing fewer innings. The number of times in baseball a pitcher worked eight innings, for instance, was cut by more than half in the 10 seasons from 1998 (736) to 2007 (362). Again, the Yankees' decline accelerated beyond the industry average. Their 1998 staff worked eight innings 42 times. The 2004 staff did so only 17 times, and by 2007 they were down to just 10. Perhaps no one disliked the trend more than an old-school guy like Andy Pett.i.tte, who went from a career high of eleven 120-pitch starts in 2000 to zero in 2007.

"He would get real angry at the pitch count thing," Torre said. "We laughed at him. It wasn't a matter of how he would do for the next 10 or 15 or 20 pitches in that game, but how he would come out of it for the next time.

"Even in 2007, on the last Monday of the season, we took him out after six innings and 96 pitches. He was losing, 4-1. I said, 'Andy, it doesn't make sense for you to pitch anymore because we may need you again Sat.u.r.day if we still need to clinch. I don't want you throwing a hundred-some pitches. I don't need you throwing another 15 pitches.'

"He said, 'Well, let me throw 12 more next inning.' "

Torre didn't budge.

"Eight more?" Pett.i.tte pleaded.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here, will you please?" Torre said, laughing.

Said Torre, "He starts screaming at himself going up the runway. It was hysterical."

The 2004 Yankees could have used an old-fashioned workhorse like Pett.i.tte, who was able and willing to go deep into games. Instead, Yankee starters that year obtained 371 fewer outs than did the 2003 rotation, the equivalent of nearly 14 full games less coverage.

The aged, overly righthanded pitching staff turned out to be as fragile as it appeared it was going to be. For only the second time since the franchise began in Baltimore in 1901, not a single pitcher threw 200 innings, won 15 games or or qualified for the ERA t.i.tle with a mark below 4.00. (The only other such team devoid of such a modest milestone were the 1988 Yankees, whose staff ranked 12th in a 14-team league.) qualified for the ERA t.i.tle with a mark below 4.00. (The only other such team devoid of such a modest milestone were the 1988 Yankees, whose staff ranked 12th in a 14-team league.) In the spring training camp of 2004, however, George Steinbrenner did not see those problems coming with his pitching staff. He was too busy patrolling the clubhouse area with his chest out and shoulders back. Steinbrenner was head over heels happy that spring about getting Rodriguez-especially after the Yankees got him only after the Red Sox blew their chance, when the players a.s.sociation would not allow Boston to renegotiate downward the value of his contract. Steinbrenner was walking around as flush as the high school boy who asks the prettiest girl in cla.s.s to the prom and she said yes. The warning signs of his disjointed roster went unseen. So giddy was Steinbrenner that one day that spring training he walked into Torre's office and said, "What do you want to do next year?"

Torre was pleasantly stunned. It was an open invitation to a contract extension. Torre was working on the last year of his contract, and even though his Yankees had won four world championships and had come within three wins of owning six t.i.tles in nine years, they had not won the World Series in the relative eon of three whole years, and Steinbrenner hadn't breathed a word to Torre about an extension that winter after the Yankees lost the 2003 World Series in six games to Florida. Torre was heading into a lame-duck season with no idea about his future with the Yankees until that day when a starry-eyed Steinbrenner virtually invited him to remain with the team.

Steinbrenner then put his son-in-law, Steve Swindal, in charge of the negotiations of Torre's extension. It was a major a.s.signment for Swindal, his first high-profile task in the crosshairs of the New York media. The a.s.signment in part was designed to prepare Swindal for eventually running the team as Steinbrenner's successor.

"I certainly saw it as a great responsibility," Swindal said. "I didn't connect it to years later, that I am the heir apparent. That didn't cross my mind. I felt enormous responsibility to the fans. It was also important that Mr. Steinbrenner knew Joe and I had a very good relationship, built on mutual respect and trust.

"We were working on a two-year deal. At the last minute Joe said, 'What about an extra year?' I personally supported a third year. I said, 'I'll see what The Boss said.' He was supportive of it.

"Then we talked about a personal services contract added to it. Joe felt he wasn't going to manage after the three years, that he would retire. His thinking in this was that it would be his last contract. So we thought we could be creative and structure it in a way that it had added value. I used the quote, 'retire as a Yankee.' I thought it would be something that would be historical and appealing to him."

The Yankees announced on April 10 that they had signed Torre to a three-year, $19.2 million contract extension that carried him through 2007, with six additional years in which he would be paid $600,000 per year as a consultant. But the two sides never could agree on that postmanagerial portion of the contract.

"So I streamlined it, and making it cleaner I just told Steve Swindal, 'I'll split it with you. One-point-eight you put into my contract and you keep 1.8.' And that's what happened."

"I reported to George and George was pleased," said Swindal. "When we did the deal it made him the highest-paid manager in the history of the game. But I personally felt that Joe was a part of the Yankee magic and aura and had shown his success on the field and how he handles himself with the media. He had a part in our attendance rise and our success. All of that. I think he has a calming effect, through injuries, losing streaks . . . that calming influence. We've had teams of superstars and he had the ability to make everybody feel like one team rather than a collection of individuals. He had the ability to make the team feel as a team. That's his best attribute. He was always calm in rough moments."

The collection of egos and ailments that were the 2004 Yankees would test Torre like no other Yankees team. Once the season began, the off-season moves looked no better on the field than they did on paper. Lofton, almost predictably, would have been better put to use making good on his offhand offer to park cars for the Yankees. He broke down with leg injuries, complained about his spot in the batting order (Torre sometimes batted him ninth) and complained about not being the everyday center fielder (surprise!). Williams earned the bulk of the playing time in center field, and even while fighting wear-and-tear injuries to his knees and shoulders he posted better on-base and slugging percentages than Lofton, the man who was brought in to replace him.

As Giambi's body continued to break down, journeyman Tony Clark, 32, was Torre's most-used first baseman. Another journeyman, Miguel Cairo, 30, played second base and yet another, Ruben Sierra, 38, saw most of the time at designated hitter.

Alex Rodriguez struggled through what would have been a fine season for most players, but one that for him was his worst since 1997, when he was 21 years old. He introduced himself to Yankees fans by hitting .248 with runners in scoring position, including .206 with two outs in those spots, the kind of trouble in clutch spots that would become their knee-jerk a.s.sociation with him. There was no honeymoon for Steinbrenner's prize acquisition.

Worst of all, the pitching staff, with its 4.69 ERA, was pedestrian, clocking in slightly worse than the league average of 4.63. The Yankees put up numbers that equated to an 89-win team, according to the Pythagorean formula developed by James, the statistics guru. Torre, however, like a pilot landing a jet on a bobbing aircraft carrier in stormy seas in the dark of night, somehow delivered the Yankees to a second straight 101-win season, keeping them three games ahead of the Red Sox, who repeated as the American League wild-card entrant.

The best player on the team turned out to be Sheffield, whom Steinbrenner wanted instead of Vladimir Guerrero, against the preference of Cashman. Sheffield, 35, was eight years older than Guerrero, whose free agency was complicated by a back injury during the 2003 season, though Guerrero had returned to terrorizing pitchers at his normal rate when he rejoined the Montreal Expos lineup after that injury. Steinbrenner dealt with Sheffield directly, giving rise to the notion that he wanted to do well for a fellow longtime resident of Tampa.

"I know Cash wanted Guerrero, which is fine," Torre said. "My feeling was that I knew for sure that Sheffield wasn't going to be bothered by New York. Guerrero was coming from Montreal. If it was short term I wanted Sheffield. If it was long term I wanted Guerrero."

The Yankees signed Sheffield to a three-year, $39 million contract, with an option for a fourth year. The Angels signed Guerrero to a five-year, $70 million deal, with an option for a sixth year. The word that reached Sheffield after his signing was that Torre preferred Guerrero instead of him. The thought gnawed at Sheffield, even two months into the season. By May 26 a sullen Sheffield was. .h.i.tting only .265 with just three home runs. The Yankees were playing in Baltimore that night. Sheffield walked into Torre's office at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

"I just have to know something," Sheffield told Torre. "Who wanted Guerrero and who wanted me?"