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Sporting News, The, Nov 6, 2000 by Michael Knisley

The Yankees go through a World Series like a Mercedes on the autobahn. TV viewers may prefer an economy car, but the team from the Bronx handles well on rough roads and is quick to replace any worn-out parts.

"You've just got to tip your hat to them. They get out there, and they get after it. They get it done. They play good, sound, fundamental baseball. They do all the little things, and that's what it takes to win championships. Not that we didn't, but there are some places along the road where we stumbled a little bit. They do what it takes. They did what it takes."

--Mets pitcher Turk Wendell

Something about the Yankees rings the same bell year after year. Wendell may not a baseball tradition that's become as predictable as the seventh-inning stretch, the ceremonial first pitch and World Series games ending so long after midnight that even the vampires are tucked back into bed before the last out is made.

The Yankees are world champions now for three years running and for four out of the last five. That's a truly remarkable feat in this era of free agents and tiered playoffs. Because players have the freedom to change teams now and because a World Series winner needs to beat three clubs in October now to finish on top of the heap, the Yankees' string of titles looks more formidable than the Oakland A's three straight from 1972 to '74, the last time a team was this dominant.

In fact, Yankees manager Joe Torre makes a case, a strong case, for the 1996-2000 Yankees' being baseball's best team ever, and any counter to that argument isn't going to be entirely persuasive.

So the team wins consistently. But it's the consistency of the way it wins that really distinguishes the Yankees. You score one; they score two. You throw a play away; they make you pay. You get picked off first; they snuff your rally. It happens over and over and over, and it happens year after year after year.

It happened to the Mets last week almost exactly as it happened to the Braves in 1996, to the Padres in 1998 and to the Braves again last season.

The Mets put up a bold front in their five-game loss. They lost four games by a total of five runs. Every game was in doubt until the very end. A break here, a break there and maybe the overall outcome would have been different. Todd Zeile, for instance, came within a total of perhaps two inches of hitting two home runs, but instead wound up with a double and a long out in Games 1 and 2. The Mets lost both games by a single run.

Yankees shortstop and Series MVP Derek Jeter simply may be practicing Subway Series diplomacy, but he sent kudos in the direction of Shea Stadium when he said, "We made it look easy in three out of the last four years, but this one was a little bit of a struggle for us. It's been up and down. It seems like it's been one continuous game. I haven't slept in a week."

The Mets did manage to end two notable Yankee streaks. When they took Game 3 (by a 4-2 score), they stopped both the Yankees' unprecedented 14-game World Series victory string and pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez's personal postseason unbeaten record. (He was 8-0 in nine starts.)

Hey, it's something.

And yet, as the Mets' Wendell stood in front of his locker late last Thursday night and delivered his postmortem, his comments were practically indistinguishable from the analyses of other National League representatives who had fallen to the Yankees in previous years.

A season ago in a hushed visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, Braves infielder Keith Lockhart said, "It's hard to take anything away from that team. You can start to turn the tide just a little bit, and it's like they just smell blood over there. They just keep battling and battling. You can't just shut down one or two guys in their lineup and beat them. They're all tough outs."

In 1998 the appraiser was Padres right fielder Tony Gwynn and the scene was Jack Murphy Stadium, but the meaning of the words were the same. "Just as soon as you get the lead, they turn it around," Gwynn said. "They get two and then three, and you're in the hole again. So, yeah, it's frustrating as hell."

Even in 1996, when the Yankees dropped the first two games to Atlanta, they came back and won four straight and captured the Series, employing the embryonic stages of the modus operandi they've used over the last three seasons.

"Sooner or later," said Braves general manager John Schuerholz back then, "somebody has to say to that team over there, `Well done, guys. You're the champions, and your play and your fight and grit demonstrate that.' I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm surprised and disappointed we didn't win. But I'm also cognizant of the fact that those guys in the other uniforms over there battled their hearts out."

It doesn't seem to matter much whom the Yankees play in the World Series. All comers walk away shaking their heads. They all walk away in awe. They all walk away losers.

The Yankees have been doing this for so long that it's almost as if they win by rote. Even their jubilation scene near second base after this year's Series-clinching, 4-2 victory seemed more pure reflex action than true joy. They came running together in a teamwide huddle with the requisite jumping up and down, but none of them even hit the turf.