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Sporting News, The, Nov 4, 1996 by Steve Marantz

How baseball's most storied franchise --and the team everyone loves to hate--became baseball's feel-good story and 1996's World Champions

Start spreadin' the news. The Yankees are back on top. It's 1996, and it's 1977, 1962, 1950, 1927. For one giddy out-of-time moment, the baseball universe is in proper alignment. Broadway ticker tape, tabloid melodrama, tears, courage, and heroes. Babe and The Mick and a host of pinstriped ghosts float above the Bronx popping spectral corks. This one is special.

The city that never sleeps is going on a winter-long bender, celebrating as only it can, clutching the Bombers to its bosom with pent-up love and affection, 10 years the barren gap in time since a baseball trophy was brought home by the Mets. When the drought ended, when third baseman Charlie Hayes squeezed his glove around Mark Lemke's foul pop to end Game 6 defeat the defending champion Braves, baseball had a new champion. make that a new old champion, possessor of the game's proudest tradition, resident of an early 20th-century shrine witness to 22 previous titles, inheritor of a name once connoting glamour and success.

You want baseball heroes--the '96 Yankees have plenty. No shortage of heroes between the chalk lines. Not to mention a manager who qualifies as a hero in life. "There are so many stories in this clubhouse, I wouldn't know where to begin," pitcher David Cone gushes.

So many stories, and so many tabloid columnists to write them floridly. Come himself, battling back from a circulation blockage in his right shoulder threatening his life as well as career. Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden--flotsam and jetsam from the drug nether world. Tino Martinez, who had the temerity to replace Donnie Baseball Mattingly at first base. Cecil Fielder, rescued from the Siberia of Detroit. Wade Boggs, with failing body and perfect eye, exorcising the Red Sox demon of 1986. Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter, two youngsters so blue chip they deserve a parade on Wall Street. Andy Pettitte, the likely Cy Young winner and 1-0 winner of Game 5, overcoming a slump during which he became known as Sigh Young. Bernie Williams emerging as the best baseball player in the world of classical guitar. Jimmy Key, winner of Game 6, battling back from rotator-cuff surgery. Jim Leyritz, a scrap-iron catcher with steel in his postseason bat, banging The Home Run in Game 4. Graeme Lloyd, the Aussie lefthander who was so bad before he became good that Bronx cheers kept him awake nights. Charlie Hayes, a nimble wide-body third baseman who started the season in Pittsburgh. John Wetteland, team weirdo, in-line skater and bulldog closer.

Stories in New York? How about The Boss, George Steinbrenner, aka Phineas T. Bluster, publicly feuding with his first-year general manager, Bob Watson? Steinbrenner ripped Watson for late-season deals involving Lloyd and David Weathers, then tried to have Lloyd's acquisition from the Brewers invalidated on grounds the Brewers concealed an injury. But when Lloyd became a key cog in the postseason bullpen and Fred McGriff's personal nemesis, was Watson thanked for making a smart move? Was Watson thanked when Weathers turned into a dependable middle reliever? No and no. "Watson takes credit for the Lloyd trade, does he?" Steinbrenner sneered. "I'd rather talk about how gold Lloyd is." Yet, Steinbrenner has a heart, and he proved it by giving Strawberry and Gooden chances to revive their careers.

And then there is Joe Torre--one of baseball's most beloved figures, winning a ring in his 36th year of pro baseball. Torre grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and made his name as an All-Star catcher and infielder for the Cardinals and Braves. His brains and character made him a natural for managing, and he has been a good one, for the Mets, Braves and Cardinals. But his clubs never could go all the way, and after being a fired three times--the last by the Cardinals early in the strike-delayed '95 season--Torre was about to hang it up. Then Steinbrenner offered him a job, and against the advice of friends who didn't want to see him humiliated, Torre accepted.

Managing proved to be the easiest part of Torre's summer. One of his older brothers, Rocco, died of a heart attack. Another, Frank, a first baseman on the 1957 Milwaukee Braves Worlds Series champions, lay on life support in a New York hospital awaiting a heart transplant. As the playoffs wore on, and Frank's condition deteriorated, Joe tried to cheer him up, visiting his bedside, consulting him on baseball decisions. Frank Torre's battle, documented breath-by-wheezing-breath in the city's tabloids, became an inspiration for his brother, the Yankees and the entire city. Marguerite Torre, a nun who is Joe and Frank's sister, asked the city to pray for Frank. Somebody up there must have been listening, because just four hours after Game 5, after the Yankees' stomach-clutching 1-0 victory, a heart became available for Frank. On the travel day before Game 6, Joe flew home in time to give doctors a message for Frank before he went into the operating room: "Tell him I said I'll be there when he wakes up to put a ball in his hand."