Forging a SPECIAL BOND

Sporting News, The, Dec 13, 1999 by Sean Deveney

On and off the field, the 1999 Yankees pulled together. Along the way, they overcame bout the opposition and difficult times ... and evoked poignant memories of father-and-son relationships.

The bond between father and son is, in some ways, difficult to explain. "It is impossible," observed French poet Jean de La Fontaine, "to please all the world and one's father."

Indeed, there are hindering factors--things like pride and competition and expectations--that can put fathers and sons at odds, but there also is a basic human understanding of the relationship, something universal. We know what it means to be a father and to be a son.

So when we see the Yankees, minutes after winning Game 4 of the World Series for a sweep of the Braves, surround outfielder Paul O'Neill, whose face is buried in manager Joe Torre's shoulder, we can relate. We know. Only 20 hours earlier, O'Neill's father, Charles, died.

We know what it means to be fathers and sons.

That includes Yankees infielders Luis Sojo and Scott Brosius, who also lost fathers during the season. That includes Torre, who rediscovered his fatherhood as he battled cancer during the first part of the season. It includes Andy Pettitte, whose father has been ill since having heart surgery a year ago, and Chuck Knoblauch, whose father has Alzheimer's disease.

Watching these Yankees reminded us that fathers and sons all over the country are intricately and emotionally connected through baseball--fathers are coaches, they play catch in the back yard until dusk, they take their kids to their first big-league games. Baseball, more than any other occupation, is built on fathers and sons.

"My father meant everything to me," O'Neill said later "He taught me how to play the game. He told me when I was a kid I would make the big leagues."

For being fathers and sons, the Yankees are our Sportsmen of the Year.

They played through grief. They won despite their losses, going 98-64 before blitzing through the playoffs 11-1, taking their second consecutive World Series championship and their third in four years. They handled themselves with grace and poise, supporting each other on and off the field. They were a team--unselfish, humble, democratic--and for that, the Yankees are our Sportsmen of the Year.

They led the league in public displays of emotion. They were not on a pedestal. They were mortal, like the rest of us. "When good things are happening," Torre says, "sad things are happening as well. We're just like everyone else."

For that, for losing and winning, just like everyone else, the Yankees are our Sportsmen of the Year.

It's a strange circumstance, this ability to feel an emotional bond with the Yankees. These are the same Yankees who, when the whim catches them, I have smacked around the league's other piddling teams like uppity little brothers for 76 years. Including their first championship in 1923, the Yankees have won 25 World Series. Most fans simply don't like the Yankees because of the way they have dominated the game. Hey, it's not Those Wonderful Yankees! It's Damn Yankees!

In some ways, these Yankees share characteristics with the franchise's past champions. At $94,392,399, they are the second-highest-paid team in the majors. The Twins earn $23,250,407 collectively. The Yankees take in, roughly, as much as the state of Vermont. This sort of thing doesn't usually engender the loyalty of the common man.

But these Yankees are different. They play with what Torre calls an "inner conceit." There is a swagger, but unlike the surly pinstriped Goliaths of the past, these guys are subtle. Confident, but not cocky. The mingled odor of cologne, Scotch and expensive cigars hung over past Yankees champions--those were Cadillac teams. This is a minivan team. It's a beer and Old Spice bunch.

The Yankees play with grand goals, but they accomplish them in small ways. In Game 1 of the World Series, for instance, they score four runs on six singles to beat Atlanta's Greg Maddux, 4-1. Their 3-4-5 hitters bat just .209 against the Braves, but New York still sweeps. "They are just as happy with a single as with a homer," Maddux says.

They are perhaps the only group of millionaires who could be called scrappy. "In years past, the Yankees had all that high-priced talent and didn't get anywhere," Atlanta pitcher John Smoltz says. "The last four years, you can tell there's no selfishness, and that makes a club that's already great even better. From the seventh inning on, they're as dominant as any team I've ever seen."

There are statistics to prove Smoltz fight Six times in 12 playoff games this year, the New Yorkers were fled or losing heading into the seventh. Their closer, Mariano Rivera, didn't allow a run in his last 36 appearances, including the postseason. The bullpen's regular-season ERA was 3.69. It was 2.70 during the playoffs, and if you eliminate Hideki Irabu's seven-run relief nightmare against Boston, it was 0.71.

But the late-inning performances were just part of one of the finest displays of basic, fundamental baseball in recent memory. During the playoffs, while the Rangers, Red Sox and Braves were fumbling bunts and missing tags, the Yankees were nearly flawless. They made eight errors in the postseason, their opponents 16. They turned 15 double plays but were doubled up only four times.