Not a bunch of arrogant automatons–as generations of Yankee haters have called them–but an honorable, vulnerable, human collection of players. They celebrated, they wept, they embraced their children, the fans and each other. They doused each other with nonalcoholic champagne. Abner Doubleday, meet Oprah Winfrey. This was a team any mother could love; on talk radio, a few Red Sox fans even called to offer bittersweet congratulations. It was enough to make one wonder if all things were possible in baseball.
The New York Yankees have long been the greatest of sports dynasties. The Montreal Canadiens, the Boston Celtics, the San Francisco 49ers–these are passing fancies when compared with the team whose glory dates to 1923. From Gehrig to DiMaggio, from Babe to Mick to Reggie, the Yankees endure. And if you weren’t from New York–and maybe even if you were, assuming your part of town was called Brooklyn–the Yankees always represented the charmlessness of success. “Rooting for the Yankees,” goes the famous line, “is like rooting for U.S. Steel.” If you cheered the underdog, if you believed in the American myth of triumphing over adversity, if you were from Boston and never forgave Colonel Ruppert for stealing the Bambino away for $125,000, then you hated the Yankees. It was an elemental assumption, no different from what nature or Newton demanded.
These 1999 Yankees managed to mess with that destiny. Sure, they still had a bigger bankroll than any other baseball club–almost five times that of the Expos. Their fans are about the rudest in the country; if Jack Valenti rated ball games, no kid would be admitted to Yankee Stadium without a parent or guardian. But now the team itself was endearing.
And remarkably good. The players performed with intelligence and precision, capitalizing on the other team’s mistakes while making few of their own. Even when they were down by four runs late in game 3, they prevailed; Chad Curtis, a bit player, wound up the hero. They lost only one postseason game. Off the field, the team endured personal tragedies. The manager, Joe Torre, and an old slugger, Darryl Strawberry, both fought cancer. Yankee legends Joe DiMaggio and Catfish Hunter passed away. Then, late in the year, three players lost their fathers–Paul O’Neill’s died hours before game 4. When that last game ended, O’Neill, covering his eyes and leaving the field, cried and cried. He became the emotional embodiment of the Team of the Century. “You just open the floodgates,” he said, “and let it go.” They were tears of sorrow, tears of joy. It made the stadium seem a little smaller.
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