Core Four: The Heart and Soul of the Yankees Dynasty by Phil Pepe

Author:Phil Pepe [Pepe, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2014-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

18. Moving Day

The 2008 season was the beginning of one era and the end of another in the long and glorious history of the New York Yankees. Next year there would be a magnificent, majestic, brand-new Yankee Stadium rising out of the rubble next to the famed “House That Ruth Built” that Col. Jacob Ruppert had conceived 85 years earlier. For now there was a new manager calling the shots and making the moves on the field.

The Joe Girardi era got off to a shaky start, struggling on a win-one-lose-one diet in its early days. On May 20, after losing three out of four to Tampa Bay (George Steinbrenner’s adopted home), two games to the hated Mets, and one to the Orioles, the Yankees were 20–25 and had fallen into last place in the American League East, 7½ games out of first.

Had Boss Steinbrenner still been calling the shots, he might have done what he did several times in the past and fired his manager right then, and there never would have been a Joe Girardi Year Two. But it was not the old reckless, impatient, impetuous, impulsive, hair-trigger Boss in charge, it was a younger, more patient, more fiscally prudent Steinbrenner, his son Hal, making these decisions now, and he was willing to give Girardi a little more rope.

From June 12 to June 19, the Yanks won seven straight games, moved over the .500 mark to 40–33, and climbed out of the cellar into third place, five games out of first. It was as high as they would get all season and their lowest finish in 16 years.

The final game at the “old” Yankee Stadium came on Sunday night, September 21, against the Baltimore Orioles, a lovely late-summer evening that was perfect for baseball and for nostalgia as 54,610 fans crammed into the old ballpark, swelling the season’s attendance to an all-time Yankees record of 4,298,655.

The pregame ceremonies were a testimony to Yankees past and present, living and dead. Former Yankees, as many as could be contacted, were brought back to Yankee Stadium. They were introduced to the crowd and they ran, trotted, or walked out to the position they had occupied in their playing days. Later, those players were joined at their positions by widows, children, and grandchildren of those players who had played those positions and had passed on.

Among active players, special acknowledgment was accorded the Core Four, the oldest Yankees in point of service.

Jorge Posada, who would miss the last 65 games of the season after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery in July, and batted .268 with three home runs and 22 RBI in 51 games, was asked to receive the pregame first ball thrown out by Babe Ruth’s 91-year-old daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens.

Andy Pettitte had the honor of starting the last game at the stadium. He pitched five innings, recorded the 2,000th strikeout of his career in the second inning, and earned the victory, evening his season’s record at 14–14.

Mariano Rivera, who would finish the season

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