It’s been two full decades now since the New York Yankees returned to the World Series in 1996, the first of seven that they have played in since. Let’s take a look back at the year that ignited their most recent dynasty and changed many career trajectories, a year that introduced an entire generation of Yankees fans to playoff baseball. Let’s look back at the 1996 New York Yankees.
In 1994, the team had the best record in the league and seemed ready to hit the playoffs and the World Series for the first time since 1981, but the catastrophic strike that year wiped out any chance of that happening. The next year, they won the first-ever American League Wild Card to finally return to the playoffs. Don Mattingly made his first playoff appearance as a player, “Black Jack” McDowell was a pitching horse, and manager Buck Showalter’s steady hand seemed poised to guide them to success after years of playing golf in October. They were up 2-0 on the Mariners in their best-of-five Division Series (there was just one Wild Card then and no play-in game), and Yankees fans starving for postseason baseball anticipated heading to the ALCS with momentum to take the team right through to the World Series. It was not to be, however. The Yankees lost the next two games, Seattle’s Edgar Martinez hit “The Double” that scored Ken Griffey Jr., and just like that it was over. Their taste of the playoffs was brief and ultimately bitter.
George Steinbrenner was at his blustery worst and aghast at the team’s playoff elimination. He vowed that big changes were coming, and they sure did. Don Mattingly sat out the following season and ultimately retired, never to play again after finally reaching the playoffs. Jack McDowell was sent packing. His flipping the bird to booing fans during the season didn’t endear him to them and, more to the point, giving up the game-winning hit in their final playoff loss didn’t endear him to George Steinbrenner. Shortstop Tony Fernandez was hurt and would miss the following season, so he would have to be replaced as well.
The Yankees also said goodbye to two fan favorites in utilityman Randy Velarde and veteran backstop Mike Stanley. They bid farewell to manager Buck Showalter, who left after refusing to fire hitting coach Rick Down as part of a new contract. Steinbrenner, who likely wanted him gone anyway as part of his furious purge, thus did not technically fire him. Even General Manager Gene Michael was not spared; the Yankees lifer was reassigned within the organization.
After the carnage (and because of it), the Yankees then faced one of their busiest offseasons ever. Bob Watson was brought in as General Manager and traded for first baseman Tino Martinez and reliever Jeff Nelson. The team re-signed pitcher David Cone and brought in free agents Mariano Duncan and former Mets star Dwight Gooden (Steinbrenner gambled that Gooden would be able to resurrect his career there and thus poke his finger in the eye of the Mets owners). They also traded for Tim Raines, the former Expos star who was nearing the end of his playing days and was in the “elder statesman” portion of his career. Joe Girardi came in to replace Mike Stanley at catcher.
These moves were nothing, however, when compared with the two biggest moves of that offseason, one of which was opening the era in which Derek Jeter would be their starting shortstop. We all know how that worked out. The other, which was the key to making all the other moves work, was the hiring of Joe Torre as the team’s manager.
Joe Torre was a veteran who had seen it all over thousands of ballgames, a very good catcher in his playing days who had amassed more than 2,300 hits and won the 1971 NL MVP Award. After he retired, he managed the Mets, Braves, and Cardinals with no real distinction. In fourteen seasons he had just five winning records and had never made the playoffs. He had never made the World Series as a player and, in fact, had spent more games in uniform without making the World Series than any manager and/or player ever had. Yankee fans went ballistic upon his hiring and the local media had a field day. Their strong team with a good manager was being dismantled and rebuilt, and was now going to be led by this fourteen-time loser with no record of success and no hint that there would be any coming.
The New York Daily News famously announced the hiring with a front-page photo of Torre and the headline “Clueless Joe.” But Torre was a Brooklyn native and had family in the area. He knew how it worked in New York City, how to manage the media in addition to managing a game. Most importantly, he knew how to handle George Steinbrenner, this man who played fantasy baseball with real players before it was even a thing with fake players. This new team had changed three-quarters of its infield (Wade Boggs remained at 3B), added and subtracted pitchers in the rotation and bullpen, brought in a new LF/4th outfielder in Raines, had a promising but untested rookie shortstop, and a doomed-to-fail manager. What could possibly go right? There were still plenty of good player holdovers in Boggs, Paul O’Neill, and Bernie Williams, but there were many new faces in town who needed to get their bearings quickly.
The team played well in April and led the division by the end of the month. In May, David Cone went on the disabled list with an aneurysm in his arm, uncertain if he would ever pitch again. Dwight Gooden pitched a no-hitter that month to give the team a boost with a successful storyline after he had washed out with the Mets. By that point, Torre had realized that a failed starter named Mariano Rivera could make an excellent set-up man for closer John Wetteland. If Rivera could pitch the 7th and 8th innings before handing off the ball, the Yankees would only have to worry about the first six innings of the game, thereby putting much more pressure on the other teams to secure early leads. Rivera thoroughly exceeded every expectation, emerging as a big-league star with a 2.09 ERA and 130 strikeouts to set a Yankees season record for relievers. At one point he tossed twenty-six consecutive scoreless innings and even had an unfathomable fifteen straight hitless innings. Torre’s game-shortening strategy was working. With Cone on the shelf, the pitching rotation was led by second-year lefty Andy Pettitte (who won twenty-one games and showed a wicked pickoff move) and veteran Jimmy Key, with Gooden and lefty Kenny Rogers eating up innings as well.
The team still led the division through the summer, though the Baltimore Orioles put up a pretty good fight as the season wore on. Bob Watson brought in numerous midseason reinforcements, including third baseman Charlie Hayes, outfielder Darryl Strawberry, lefty reliever Graeme Lloyd, and “Big Daddy” Cecil Fielder. The team’s bench was now the deepest in the league, and Yankees fans were jubilant. This was the year — maybe – in which they might see some playoff victories, maybe even a trip to the World Series for the first time since Reggie Jackson was the straw stirring the drink.
In September, David Cone returned to not only pitch, but pitch well. In his first start back, he tossed seven hitless innings against the Texas Rangers (who had a powerful line-up and were themselves playoff-bound). The Yankees rotation got a turbo boost with his return, as Kenny Rogers and Dwight Gooden had faltered a bit. Then, on September 25th against the Milwaukee Brewers (then still in the American League), the Yankees clinched the AL East division with a 19-3 victory. David Cone, who was thought to be done for the season, and possibly for his career, was the winning pitcher. This team of underdogs, led by “Clueless Joe”, had done more than just gel. These Yankees won ninety-two games and were back in the playoffs after the previous year’s stunning loss. This time it would be different.
This collection of homegrown players (“stars” wasn’t quite right) and solid imports now headed to the Division Series against the Texas Rangers. The Rangers won Game One, but that’s all they were able to get as the Yankees bounced back with three straight wins to take the series in four games. Bernie Williams hit .467 with three home runs, and rookie Derek Jeter followed up his strong regular season with a .412 batting average. He did not wilt under the bright lights of a playoff series, showing a hint of what was to come. Mariano Rivera’s mastery continued, as he allowed just one base runner in 4 2/3 innings (on a walk), and closer John Wetteland saved two of the team’s wins. Torre’s formula of shortening the game with his two star relievers was now working into the postseason. The Yankees advanced to the ALCS, vanquishing the ghosts of the previous year that had made George Steinbrenner essentially blow up the whole team.
The Bombers moved on to face the Orioles in the next round, their division rivals who had nipped at their heels for a good part of the regular season before getting into the playoffs as the AL Wild Card. In Game One, the Yankees were trailing at home before Derek Jeter hit a fly ball to deep right field that was caught but still tied the game. It wasn’t a sacrifice fly, however. The ball was actually caught by a fan who reached out and grabbed it before it could fall into the glove of Orioles right fielder Tony Tarasco. The play was ruled a home run and the game was suddenly tied. That fan, a 12-year-old named Jeffrey Maier, became an instant celebrity in New York. In Baltimore… well, let’s just say he’ll never be able to run for mayor of that city. Nevertheless, the game was tied. The Yankees won it in the 11th inning on a Bernie Williams home run as he continued his postseason theatrics. Had there been instant replay back then, the result may well have been different – the Jeter home run wouldn’t have stood and Bernie Williams probably never would have had the chance to smack that game-winning, extra-innings home run.
The Orioles came back and won the next game behind pitcher David Wells, who would soon enter baseball lore during several seasons pitching for the Yankees. As with the Rangers before them, however, the Orioles only got the one win. The Yankees won the next two and then, in Game Five, they ran up six runs in the third inning, aided by home runs from backup catcher Jim Leyritz, outfielder Darry Strawberry, and Cecil Fielder. That was all they needed behind a strong effort from Andy Pettite to clinch the series. The Yankees were finally back in the World Series.
These Yankees were not yet the dynastic “win it all every year” squad that people later became accustomed to (and had been in earlier eras). The Yankees had gone fourteen years since they were in a World Series, and seventeen since they had won one. This generation of their fans was the rare one that had never experienced a World Series victory. Don Mattingly had begun and ended his entire career in that span. The team had seen a parade of managers and general managers, all replaced at the owner’s whim. The fans had seen years of pitching that wasn’t quite good enough and promising rookies traded for veterans; Willie McGee, Fred McGriff, and Jay Buhner were just a few Yankees minor leaguers who made it big with other teams. Manager Stump Merrill came and went. The owner even got suspended for paying some gambler to get damaging information to use against star outfielder Dave Winfield, a fiasco that defies any logic even so many years later.
The Yankees had a #1 draft pick after a horrendous season and used it on a promising kid named Brien Taylor, so of course he injured his shoulder in a bar fight that cost him his career. The fans had even seen Andy Hawkins throw a no-hitter and lose. The Yankee fans of that era had waited a long time and had seen a lot of nonsense. They were ready for some World Series action.
These Yankees, it bears repeating, had no big stars. They had a lot of good players who acted as, and played well as, a team. Even two decades later, there are no reports of any team villains or bad apples among that collection of players, a stark contrast to the previous group of championship Yankee teams of the late 1970s. Players like Mariano Duncan and Graeme Lloyd were perfectly fine over the courses of their careers, but they rose to the occasion on this year and this team.
Most of the Yankees’ players had never been in a World Series, though six players had previously won with other teams (Mariano Duncan and Paul O’Neill with the Reds, Jimmy Key and David Cone with the Blue Jays, Gooden and Strawberry with the Mets), and they served as a calming influence on some of the playoff novices. Even longtime Yankee haters had to admit that there was nothing much to hate about this team (again excepting the Orioles fans grumbling about the Jeffrey Maier home run).
The team went into the 1996 World Series universally considered the underdogs against the powerhouse, defending champion Atlanta Braves, who featured Chipper Jones on offense and a starting rotation helmed by future Hall of Famers Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and John Smoltz.
The Braves came to New York and dominated the Yankees. They clocked Andy Pettitte in Game One, winning by a score of 12-1. A 19-year-old named Andruw Jones, who recently announced his retirement and was the last active player from this Series, hit two home runs in that game. In the next game, Greg Maddux delivered a masterful 4-0 shutout. The Braves had the momentum, the stars, and the championship rings, and the teams headed to Atlanta where the Braves would presumably close out it against the suddenly feeble Yankees.
It was at this point that Joe Torre assured the team’s anxious owner not to worry, that the Yankees would win three straight against the Braves and then come home to New York and win the series in Game 6. We’ll probably never know if Steinbrenner tried to fire him on the spot.
The teams went to Atlanta and David Cone outpitched Tom Glavine for a 5-2 Yankees win in Game Three, with John Wetteland getting the save. They moved on to Game Four, which saw the Braves run up six early runs against Yankees starter Kenny Rogers. He had been inconsistent all year long and picked an awful time to continue that trend. The Yankees managed to score three runs in the 6th inning to halve the lead, and then got two runners on in the 8th before Jim Leyritz came to the plate. Leyritz’s home run right then, tying the game in the late innings when the Yankees were about to go down 3-games-to-1, is the stuff of legends. The home run brought the house down in nearly every bar in New York City. These underdogs were sticking it to the defending champions and looked like they might have a chance in this series after all. And they did, since they scored two runs in the 10th inning to win the game and square the series at two games apiece.
Andy Pettite took on John Smoltz in Game Five, in what became an epic pitching duel. Cecil Fielder’s 4th-inning RBI double comprised the game’s scoring. Both pitchers went to the 8th inning and John Wetteland got the save again in the 1-0 Yankees win. These Yankee,s who had looked so awful at home, who weren’t supposed to have gotten this far, were fulfilling Joe Torre’s prophecy to Steinbrenner. They had won three straight in Atlanta and were coming home to play Game Six in front of their fans.
Veteran Jimmy Key, in what turned out to be his last game with the Yankees, took on Greg Maddux in the big game. The Yankees stung Maddux for three runs in the third inning and made it hold up, as Key allowed one run in 5 1/3 innings before the Yankee bullpen took over. The Braves scored a run in the top of the 9th to make it a one-run game. They got the game’s tying run to second base before John Wetteland induced the Braves’ Mark Lemke to pop up. Charlie Hayes, a Yankee only since August 30th, camped out under the ball and put it away for the final out of the game and the final out of the season. The 1996 Yankees had won the World Series.
Joe Torre, whose brother had recently died and whose other brother had just had a heart transplant, won the first World Series in which he appeared. A near-great player and longtime fairly adequate manager, this victory started him on a path that led him to the Hall of Fame. Derek Jeter, the rookie shortstop who was so poised all year long, won the Rookie of the Year award and would go on to accumulate more than 3,000 hits and win four more rings. He has a summer date in 2020 circled on his calendar for his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. This was also the year that Mariano Rivera found his role in a major league clubhouse. John Wetteland (the first closer to save all four World Series wins for a team) was allowed to depart via free agency so Rivera could assume the role. He only became the best closer ever – by any and all measures – and he too will soon be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Bernie Williams, Paul O’Neill, and Tino Martinez were amid or went on to have fantastic careers and have all been honored by the Yankees in the past couple of years. Tim Raines also got his first ring as he wound down a spectacular career, and Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry found some redemption with the Yankees after their difficult off-field struggles with the Mets. Mariano Duncan only played one more year in the majors after that season, but his signature “We play today, we win today, dassit” became a rallying cry among the team’s broadcasters and fans. And it’s often forgotten now, but Bob Watson became the first African-American general manager to win a World Series.
This was the year that begat Joe Torre, Genius Manager. It was the year that first brought us Mariano Rivera in a successful bullpen role, was and the season that saw the emergence of Derek Jeter. A back-up catcher named Jorge Posada was a late-season call-up. David Cone would become a Yankees fixture, and Andy Pettite would enter the Hall of Fame conversation by the end of his long career (mostly) with the team. No one knew it yet, but the most recent Yankees dynasty was born then. Three championships, five pennants, nine division titles, and a historically dominant 1998 team were still on the horizon. Baseball would never be the same thanks to this collection of players who weren’t supposed to make it quite so far.
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