More than seven months have passed since Mike Mussina learned he would become a Hall of Famer. It has been another month and change since his official enshrinement.
But after five failed appearances on the ballot, Mussina still has trouble processing his legacy residing in Cooperstown.
“I’m still surprised about the whole thing,” Mussina said after being honored with a pregame ceremony Sunday at Yankee Stadium. “It’s not something I think that all of a sudden I’m gonna wake up and figure it out. … It’s still weird to think about the names of people that are included, and that I’m part of those people.”
Mussina’s legacy in pinstripes is more complex.
The cap on the former Oriole’s Hall of Fame plaque bears no logo. The No. 35 Mussina wore for eight years in The Bronx now belongs to recently acquired reliever Cory Gearrin. The pitcher has no place in Monument Park, and no Cy Young Award at home.
And, despite being part of a team which won six division titles, two pennants and registered the franchise’s only back-to-back-to-back regular seasons with more than 100 wins, Mussina, 50, has no World Series ring. The Yankees’ two most recent championships (2000, 2009) came one season before his arrival from Baltimore, and one year after his retirement.
“People ask me, ‘If you’d have stayed one more year,’ but if I’d stayed a year, somebody else pitching wouldn’t have been there, and there’s no guarantee that if I stay I do as well as whoever replaced me in the rotation. Who knows if we’d have won?” Mussina said. “Me and [Don Mattingly] got a lot in common. That’s part of it, but that’s OK. I’m not upset about it. I don’t lose any sleep over it. It’s just how it happened.
“I felt really good about stopping when I stopped. … I got out and I knew it was time to get out. If I go out there and try to do too much, it’s either gonna get ugly, or I’m gonna break something. So I didn’t want to have to go through that.”
Even though Mussina — who currently coaches multiple youth sports in his hometown of Montoursville, Pa. — finished sixth in AL Cy Young voting in his final season, and memorably clinched his first career 20-win season in his final game, the right-hander decided in 2007 he would never pitch in 2009 after posting a career-worst 5.15 ERA.
“I struggled, I had some nagging health issues the whole year. It was just not fun for six months. So I decided before the season started that that was gonna be it,” Mussina said. “I had one more year on my contract. If it’s bad, it’s obviously time to get out of here. If it’s good, I want to get out of here when I feel good about it.
“I don’t regret stopping. Obviously it worked out.”