A Retrospective, 2009

The season isn't over. There's still 6 games to be played, and then the Yankees will go to the big dance to decide the world champion.

But today we can celebrate. A division crown and title as the team with the best record in baseball is an enormous accomplishment. The Yankees will probably finish the season with at least 5 more wins than any other team in baseball. Vegas will have them as the favorites (maybe the prohibitive favorites) to go all the way. But the playoffs are a funny place, where inches are the difference between champions and forgotten contenders. As John Sterling said, the time to be happy, to take pride in what the Yankees have accomplished, and to look back on how they got where they are today, is now. So let's take a look.

April: April started with a stumble. CC botched his debut and Wang was getting hammered repeatedly. Teixeira couldn't get over .200 and wasn't even hitting for power. The bullpen was a mess: Veras, Bruney, Marte, and Coke were the set-up men, and none of them were particularly consistent. Nady's elbow problems ended his season. Matsui couldn't play the field. A-Rod was out with hip surgery. Joba was hot one day, cold the next.
In April the guys carrying the team were Jeter, Burnett, Pettitte (to an extent), Nick Swisher Johnny Damon, and Melky Cabrera. Those were the guys who got it done, who were there to beat back the Devil Rays early in the season.
But that consistent core was not enough to beat the Red Sox, and in 5 straight games in April, one of which was the infamous Jason Bay home run off of Mariano, the Yankees were soundly beaten. By the end of April the Red Sox were already well ahead, while the Yankees were barely above .500, with several high-profile, low-performance free agents botching the early stages of their Yankee careers. Some even speculated that Girardi's job could be in jeopardy.

May: Though the Yankees performed well against the Tigers, they seemed to find a nemesis once more in the Anaheim Angels, who seem to have built a franchise on scratching and clawing their way through baseball games in the most obnoxious way possible. Then in 4 straight rain-soaked games at their gleaming new palace of a stadium, the Red Sox and Rays took four miserable games from the Yankees. With few fans in the stands many in the media thought that the Yankees had been greedy in their ticket pricing. And with losses to their arch-rivals in the American League East, and a worst in the league team ERA, still others were whispering that maybe, just maybe, the Yankee organization itself was to blame.
But a funny thing started happening at around that time. The Yankees started playing better. A-Rod came back and hit a home run on the first pitch he saw. Teixeira, whose fly balls were consistently reaching the warning track, started getting some of those balls to go over the wall. CC and Burnett started to settle in, Wang went to the bullpen, Hughes was brought in, and a couple of other guys came up to solidify the bullpen. And suddenly the Yankees looked better. And if Serena Roberts' scathing book about A-Rod was supposed to impose as a distraction, perhaps it wasn't after all. Perhaps it was part of what brought the team together, part of what helped the team rally.
Manny tested positive and was kicked out of baseball for 1/3 of a season. Hughes came up. Wang went down before returning. The Yankees played well against the Blue Jays and the Orioles. And then they swept the Twins in a four game massacre, three of those games being won in walk-off fashion. In retrospect this might have been the first real turning point in the season. Of course, there would be another.
Before that, though, the Yankees were severely tested by the Phillies, who, at the time, were considered probably the best team in the National League besides maybe the Dodgers. The Yankees only won 1 of the 3 games but played very well. You could see that the Yankees weren't quite there yet, while the Phillies were rolling.

June: With help from a resurgent Wang out of the bullpen, the Yankees beat Texas, Cleveland and the Rays (the latter in a dramatic set of performances by Mo), all punctuated by Joba's famous dive and double-play throw-out. At the same time the Yankee defense broke the record for consecutive games without an error...and even better, the record had been held by the 2006 Red Sox.
But then the Yankees went to Fenway and were drubbed again in 3 straight. Though the Yankees played well for long stretches in those games, they fell to 0-8. Girardi seemed to reliant on CC and too reluctant to use his bullpen. And whispers that Girardi's days as the Yankees' manager were numbered, again grew louder. It was just embarrassing, and infuriating, not being able to get even one of those games. But they just couldn't do it. It was mental, physical, everything. It was awful to watch.
And then came turning point #2. The drop by Castillo of the A-Rod pop. Perhaps the most unforgettable, exhilarating play of the season. And as a fan you really didn't feel bad about it, because you knew the Yankees were due, that they'd somehow been robbed in that game and that they should have been better, should have been more dominant, should have been in first. After losing the second game the Yankees destroyed Johan Santana, the man they passed on two years before, and won 15-0. Oh what a glorious victory that was...and another turning point.
It should be noted that at the time the media had caught on to the fact that the Yankees were getting along better than they had in years past. They were going around shooting pool together, Nick Swisher was clowning around and easing tensions in the clubhouse, and the even started a kangaroo court in which they busted on each other for all sorts of funny things. I remember it mattered a lot in Little League if the team was tight. And I guess it matters in the big leagues too.
June was an eventful month, now that I think about it. Because after the Yankees beat the Mets in the way that they did, it looked like things were turning around. Then they lost 2 of three to the Nationals at Yankee stadium. Then they lost two more to Florida. And then they lost again in Atlanta, getting shut out 4-0.
Turning point #3. Brian Cashman came to visit. Girardi blew his stack. And the Yankees responded with a flourish to end play in June, winning the series against Atlanta and sweeping the Mets, while Mo got his 500th save and first RBI in the same game.

July: With a solid performance against the Blue Jays and securing the season sweep over the Twins, the Yankees finished the first half of the season by getting wiped out by the Angels in Anaheim, swept for the first time since the Red Sox had done it to them more than a month before (making the Yankees wait a whopping 50 days before playing them again). The Yankees entered the All-Star break at about 13 games over .500 but in second place. More importantly, the entered the break with a lot to prove.

And so the second half began. Wang was out, Nady wasn't coming back, but other than those two and a few day-to-day strains and old-man injuries, the Yankees were reasonably healthy and positioned well for a stretch run. Their starting pitching, anchored by CC, Burnett, and Pettitte, had long-since settled in. Their bullpen was putting up great numbers. And the hitting had become spectacular, with the one-two punch of Teixeira (who catapulted himself out of .200 territory and hasn't stopped since) and A-Rod leading the way.

The Yankees came out of the gate in the second half with a tremendous three-game sweep of the Tigers. HOPE week began, and with it came total Yankee domination at home. It seemed that the Yankees had been inspired by the week's events. And to finish July, Joba made his best start of the season, overwhelming the Rays and leading the Bombers to yet another series win against the defending pennant winners, who were learning the hard way that...staying on top is a lot harder than getting there.

August: The Yankees went 21-7 in August, against teams with a combined .525 winning percentage. Mitre and Gaudin introduced themselves to Yankee Land. Melky Cabrera hit for the cycle, the Yankees roughed up Roy Halladay. But the real excitement came agaisnt the Red Sox.

Oh yes, though the Yankees were down 0-8 against the Red Sox for the year, the August winds had shifted, and the fortunes in this long, ferocious rivalry shifted with them. In four straight games the Yankees humiliated Boston in every way possible. A blowout. A pitchers duel, a 15 inning marathon. A comeback. Total domination in every phase of the game, involving everyone on each team. 4 straight games of Yankee magic, of the mystique returning, of vindication and catharsis. Of smacking down the Red Sox like the second class chumps they are. Glorious! Oh it was glorious.

After that the Yankees went to town. Walk-offs. Blowouts. Mitre, Gaudin, whomever. The Yankees just trounced everyone. And soon, it would be Jeter's time...
First Jeter broke Aparicio's record for the most hits ever by a shortstop. The most hits EVER BY A SHORTSTOP. Stop and think about that for a second. Just unbelievable. Of course, he wasn't done but...
The Yankees had some more games against the Sox, and this time at Fenway. So in the first game the Yankees scored 20 runs. Then they bombed Beckett for 5 home runs and an easy win to take the series 2-1. Matsui, who has been killing Red Sox pitching for his entire career in the States, went on a familiar Godzilla-like rampage in Fenway, and the Yankees, who had long since captured first place in the AL East, looked like they were destined for another division championship.
To finish August the Yankees swept the White Sox, a team that had given them some trouble at the beginning of the month. Rumors of Jeter's engagement surfaced and were debunked by none other than Jeter himself. And the team entered September on a warpath, determined to fly into the postseason and crush anyone standing in their way.

September: AJ Burnett started the month dubiously, with an admission that he hadn't had his mind right for quite some time (possible translation: I'm rather bored of winning so often). It was brave of him to do so, now that I think about it, though I killed him at the time for being so seemingly irresponsible.
But enough about AJ. Maybe the highlight of the Yankee season was when Jeter broke Gehrig's record for the most hits ever by a Yankee. For it was at that moment that Yankee fans had the chance to just stand and applaud in awe of the greatest shortstop of the modern era: Derek Jeter, captain of the NY Yankees, 4-time champion, all-time Yankee.
And so September, and magic numbers, and scoreboard watching, the seemingly endless march to the division title, began. They won some, they lost some. Anaheim stayed close. Boston heated up. They met Halladay twice and lost both times. They stayed ahead, though an 8 game lead became a 5 game lead rather quickly. Tensions were high going into the final series against the Angels, the team that had swept the Yankees there already.
But the Yankees did not lose in Anaheim. They beat the Angels in 3 of the 4 games they played in September, and therefore were able to stay ahead of the Red Sox. It would all come down to the final series against Boston for the year. If the Yankees could win just one of those games, they'd be a virtual lock to finish with the best record. If they had lost all three, they would have been just two in front with 6 to play and all the momentum on the Red Sox side.
So rather than getting swept, the Yankees did the sweeping themselves. While the Sox had a chance to get back into the race by sweeping the Yankees, before the series few observers remembered to acknowledge the other side of the coin: if the Yankees swept, they would clinch EVERYTHING. So that's what they did. They swept. They clinched everything.

And that's what we're celebrating today. This great season, so full of twists and turns and adversity, just as all seasons are when you think about it. The Yankees are going to the playoffs, and they're going there as, hands down, the best team in baseball. Of course, anything can happen when the playoff start, but even if the Yankees lose, fans should not despair. This was an epic season, a truly magnificent performance by a team that came together on and off the field, led by a manager and guided by a system they trusted, and grateful to have the chance to play on a team put together with such care and with such a commitment to winning.

Victory in the postseason cannot be guaranteed. Like I've said, it's a game of inches, and in the postseason series are decided often by even less. But if the Yankees perform bravely and at their best in the biggest moments of many of their careers, I'll be proud of what they've accomplished, no matter the outcome. Just as I'm proud of what they've done today.

That, to me, is what Yankee baseball is all about.