TO hear Joe Torre tell it, playing under pressure is as much a part of being a Yankee as putting on the pinstriped uniform, or winning in October.
“To me, the Yankees always have the need to win,” the Yankee manager said before the start of ALCS Game 6 against the Mariners at the Stadium last night. “Whether we’re up 2-0 or down 2-0, we’re always expected to win. For us, the pressure is always there.”
A lot of that pressure comes from the having to carry the burden of the richest history in professional sports. Some of it comes from the voracious local media, and some from the rabid, spoiled fans.
But most of the pressure of being a Yankee, of course, comes down from the top.
That is why there was a suitable amount of skepticism in the room when Torre, asked for a report on the mental state of George M. Steinbrenner III in the wake of the Mets’ NLCS victory over the Cardinals Monday night, reported that there was nothing of substance to report.
“He got frustrated just like the rest of us after Sunday’s [Yankee loss] ,” Torre said. “He was in my office earlier today and I didn’t sense anything that needed to be calmed down.”
No, of course not.
Steinbrenner-and Torre and the rest of the Yankees, for that matter-must really relish the position they found themselves in heading into last night’s game.
Chasing the Mets is not the normal state of affairs around here. It’s embarrassing. Undignified. Not at all Bomber-esque.
Furthermore, it could be dangerous.
For a day at least, the Yankees were the No. 2 baseball team in this town.
That is a position they have rarely assumed in the past 38 years. It happened in 1969, when Steinbrenner was still running his daddy’s shipbuilding business aground in Cleveland, and again in 1973, when he was a fledgling owner vowing to stay the heck out of the way.
Only once over Steinbrenner’s 27-year tenure as the Yankee Chief Meddler has his team had to take a backseat to the upstarts from Flushing. That was in 1986, and the humiliation was short-lived, since that championship team flamed out of its own flaws and excesses before it could make much of a dent in the Yankees’ stranglehold on New York’s baseball community.
But that could change over the course of the next 12 days.
Assuming the Yankees got past the Mariners last night, or will tonight in a supercharged Game 7, the balance of baseball power is decidedly shifting from the Bronx to Queens.
The Yankees may be the two-time defending World Series champions and have won 12 straight World Series games beginning with Game 3 against the Braves in 1996, but even their most ardent supporters have to acknowledge that the team in its current incarnation is nearing the end of its run.
The Yankees barely got past the talented but raw Athletics in the Division Series, and now have been pushed to six games, and perhaps the limit, by a Mariner team minus Junior Griffey and anything resembling a championship starting pitching staff.
The Mets, on the other hand, nearly swept the Giants, who had the best record in baseball, and needed just five convincing games to flatten the Cardinals, who had eliminated the Braves.
No matter which team is left standing after the ALCS, it is going to have its hands full with the Mets.
“They have a damn good pitching staff, and they hit the ball,” said Mariner manager Lou Piniella, who wasn’t quite buying into the Subway Series hype just yet, since his team still had two chances to knock off the Yankees.
“They are going to be a formidable challenge for whoever comes out of this league, believe me.”
I believe, I believe.
Right now, the best all-around player wears a Met uniform (Edgardo Alfonzo). So does the most dangerous hitter (Mike Piazza). The best left-handed starter in town may be Andy Pettitte, but the Mets have two tough lefties in Mike Hampton and Al Leiter. Orlando Hernandez, the best post-season starter in town, wears a Yankee uniform, but so, too, does the worst, Roger Clemens, his one-hitter against the Mariners notwithstanding.
The Mets eat up Clemens the way Clemens eats up a rack of ribs.
“The Mets have a great team,” said Derek Jeter. “I felt all along they had a team that could get to the World Series, they just had to get there. Now, they’ve punched their ticket.”
And that may be the most incredible thing about this truly incredible baseball season, that midway through October, we know that the No. 7 train will definitely stop at the World Series.
But heading into last night’s game, we still don’t know if the No. 4 or the ‘D’ will be making the trip.
If they don’t, The Boss may not exactly throw himself onto the tracks, but don’t be so sure he doesn’t throw a few of his players, his GM, or even his manager.
Back in the ’40s and ’50s, it wasn’t quite so big a deal to lose an all-New York World Series, since odds were there would be another one the following year.
But it hasn’t happened in 44 years, which is even longer than it has been since the Mets took over the Yankees’ spot on the back page – and the even the front page – and threatened to stay there.
“When I was a kid, it was always a New York World Series,” Torre said. “[But] this would be different, because, first of all, the media makes it different. I think after going through the interleague here for a few years, just to see how big that was, I think it gives you an indication that if it ever came to be, what an enormous energy the city is going to have. A lot of other cities are going to go, yawn, but I think New York City, they are going to be up for it.
“Baseball is more than just a game anymore.”
In this town, and especially in The Bronx, it’s more like war.
And there’s no more hated – or feared – enemy than the upstarts from Flushing, the upstarts who now threaten to unseat the champions.
That’s a kind of pressure not even the New York Yankees are accustomed to facing.