Today marks 17 years since the Yankees took down the Atlanta
Braves in game six to clinch their first World Series title since 1978. Just like this year, the 26th landed on a
Saturday. Our beloved Yankees were
coming home with what seemed all but impossible just a few days before – a 3-2
lead in the World Series and the opportunity to win it all. A 12 year old at the time, I’m not sure how
much I slept between games 5 and 6, but it wasn't much. The anticipation since our young ace Andy
Pettitte had outdueled all-world John Smoltz 1-0 in game 5 was building and I
couldn't wait for the first pitch.
With their season on the line, the defending champs sent
sure first ballot Hall of Famer Greg Maddux to the mound. “Mad Dog” was coming off another fine
campaign and had tossed 8 shutout innings against the Bombers just a few days
earlier. The Yankees countered with
Jimmy Key and it was fitting that Key would get this start. He played an underrated, yet pivotal role in
the Yankees turn to relevance again. In
the winter of ’92, the Yankees had made a hard push to obtain Maddux. When Maddux turned them down to sign with
Atlanta, the Yankees moved onto various pitchers including David Cone, only to
be turned down by each of them. Eventually
they’d land a solid, yet less sexy pitcher – Jimmy Key. Key turned in two outstanding campaigns in
’93 and ’94 and helped the Yankees to their first winning seasons since 1988. He missed nearly all of the 1995 season with
a shoulder injury, but returned to the mound in ’96. Tonight he’d toe the rubber in pinstripes for
the final time.
All of the action from the Yankees bats would come in the
bottom of the third. Paul O’Neill started
things with a leadoff double down the right field line. Maddux had his good stuff and the Yanks just
wanted a run. Mariano Duncan moved
O’Neill to third with a bunt. Joe
Girardi followed with a booming triple to the center field wall that sent the
old ballpark into a frenzy. An iconic
moment and one that any Yankee fan would have a hard time forgetting. Jeter drove in Girardi with a single to
center and then stole second. After Wade
Boggs flew out to right, Bernie Williams lined a ball to center that would
score Jeter and push the score to 3-0.
Oh my. All of the sudden, the
Yankees had a lead and were just six innings from a World Series title.
Key would walk a run in in the top of the 4th to
make it a 3-1 ballgame. That would be
all as far as runs would go until the bottom of the 9th. Key would leave the game in the 6th
as Torre would turn the game over to his fantastic bullpen. David Weathers, Graeme Lloyd, and the
recently departed Mariano Rivera would toss a scoreless 6th, 7th,
and 8th before Torre went to his closer for the 9th –
John Wetteland. In classic Wetteland
fashion, John made things interesting.
He allowed a trio of hits and even a run before Mark Lemke came to the
plate with the tying run standing on second base. The count ran full before Lemke popped a ball
up foul near the Braves dugout – just out of play. I began to bicker about the batboy
interfering with Charlie Hayes’ opportunity to catch the foul. Before my mini-rant ended, Lemke had popped
another one up to the same area. Would
this one go out of play too? I can still
remember that moment when Hayes stopped moving laterally toward the stands past
third base. This one wasn’t going out of
play - we’re the World Champions I thought to myself. Hayes reached up and squeezed it and Joe
Buck’s next words were – “the Yankees are champions of baseball!” What followed was a blur of all things great
about being a baseball fan and particularly a Yankee fan that night – the pile
on the mound with Wetteland giving the “we’re number one” finger, Pauly O
rolling across that pile, Wade Boggs riding a horse around the park, and the
World Series trophy itself – it was glorious.
As we all know, the Yankees weren’t done winning World
Series titles. They’d go on to win three
more of them over the next four years, but this one was different. These weren’t the mighty juggernaut Yankees
that we’d soon come to know. What’s
often forgotten is that these Yankees were the underdogs. A good, but somewhat scrappy, team that took
on the mighty Atlanta Braves – the defending World Champions with a pitching staff
that boasted three aces (some might argue four) – and beat them. As vividly as I remember postseason games
throughout the Yankees reign and can even tell you where I was and who I was
with, I couldn't tell you the exact date of Jeter’s flip, Tino’s grand slam, or
the ’98 team’s 125th win, but I don’t need to look up the date of
game six of the 1996 World Series – Saturday October 26th, 1996.
