The 2009 Yankees: Return of the Kings

will laugh at or with fan bases as well. We're gonna look back at the two thousand and nine season for the New York Yankees. This was their most recent championship, and my goodness, was this full of twists and turns from the beginning. I don't know that any team has won a championship that's gone through as much off season red tape and controversy as the Yankees have had coming

into this year, well going into that year. It's almost like the taking off of tabloid TV on a whole other level, right, So it only fit that the Yankees and the back pages of the Fish Wrap would have a story seemingly every day of great magnitude, and we watch it all the way through to right as the Yankees celebrated the departure of Mookie Bets from the Red Sox roster. Right, all of those things that we see time and again. But yeah, this was a season unlike

they'd seen in a long, long time. It was a long way to get to beating the Phillies in the World Series. And here's to give you an idea of what the Yankees went through to start the season. First of all, they were opening the new Yankee Stadium. All right, the old stadium was done. Here's a new Yankee Stadium with the jet stream and all the balls are flying out, a new Yankee state to um. I remember, the prices of the seats was the big deal when New Yankee

Stadium opened. It was wait a minute, this seat in New Yankee Stadium. If you corroborated to the old Yankee Stadium, the seat for this game is two more. I mean, that was what the prices were for New Yankee Stading. The corollary absolutely huge. Way you shrink the stadium a little bit, and let's face it, you gotta pay for

that construction in New York somehow. Hey, the stadium didn't go up for nothing, you know, and no matter what you're doing on the TV network side and whatever other sweet deals you might have made with the construction companies. See I wanted to make you laugh. There no getting in some nefarious The potential is there, and I'm not accusing anybody of anything. I'm just saying people do each other favors. You want to build something on six square blocks,

you gotta come talk to me, allegedly. So the facts of the matter is you've got a recoupsive costs and that's the way it goes. Personal seat licenses, all of those kind of things, sweet prices and consent, you gotta you gotta pay the piper. And to get a seat in a new stadium on any of the major cities. Right we're ready to launch a new one here in Los Angeles. You could only have so many Taylor Swift

lover fests. Eventually you gotta lay some sports in there, and the sports people they've got to pay for some of this. So while the Yankees are waiting to open the new stadium, there was a big passing of control. Is George Steinbrenner stepped down as the main decision maker for the team on November twenty the year before his

son's Hank and how would run the team. This is a seismic move because this is a guy who micro managed every aspect of the Yankee franchise, sometimes to the franchises detriment before they got all those great players in. But Steinbrenner was it. He was the back page guy. He was Jerry just Straw who stirred the drink, but even more so than Jerry Jones, because every day George Steinbrenner gave you something. It was sometimes outlandish, it was

sometimes pointed, but he always gave you something. And look in ill health. You know, he passed away um about a year or so later, but he went from being a larger than life figure too. Now his sons are running the team. Wow, and he traded Castanza for some fermented Yeah, no, I that's just huge, right. We talked about larger than life figures in the inner sporting world. You know, we commemorated and more in the loss of Kobe Bryant tragically, you know, in that helicopter crash, and

that's abrupt. But then you have giants like a George Steinbrenner who had been part of the game and had been so instrumental to the growth of the game and what he did buying the Yankees and creating a network and all of this changing the way business was done, and be with all the headlines that he controlled and made sure New York was always a number one and the a block of every breakdown, every highlights show ever to come because your kid, you know, when I was

a kid, the Mets stunk, then they got good in the mid eighties when the Yankees stunk, and that's when Steinbrenner really started taking over because if the team wasn't good, at least he was gonna make headlines. And that's what he did, and it was every day. It was boy, everybody knew all the players, and you knew George. You didn't know who the hell own the Mets. Nobody knew,

nobody cared, but you knew George Steinbrenner. I was gonna make a joke about who's still owning the Mets and will own the Mets and chaos that's associated we know, don't anybody. I don't think anybody needs to know that. It doesn't I don't think anybody does know, but I don't think anybody needs to know that either well, I mean that might hit their Google machine and see who owns it today. Could be Bobby Benia for all we know.

But that just that that switch is just seismic, just because when we look at our major sports landscapes, there's from an ownership perspective, a lot of anonymous, faceless guys and and women to that matter, I mean across sports that that don't cut through, that aren't making noise, that aren't even when we talk about the commissioner and who is you know, their brains, japs, who are the leaders

like you mighty know two or three of them. In baseball you still have Jerry Ryan Storff with the White Sox. But even then he's one of one of thirty. I mean, there's a lot of other guys. If you tried to, you know, play the game, I mean, you're really good at state capitals. We tried to play that game with sports ownership groups or principles, it would be a very difficult game to play. The capital of Washington is Olympia.

Uh So, while this is going on, Brian Cashman makes big changes to this Yankee team because they were coming off missing the playoffs for the first time. Since nineteen Think about that for a second. Obviously, ninety four there was no season the Yankees. Yankees made the playoffs every year from through till two thousand and seven. Every year there We didn't win the World Series every year, but they were in the playoffs every year. Two thousand and

eight they still won eighty nine games. Didn't matter. Wasn't good enough. So what do the Yankees do in the off season? They part ways with Jason Giambi, Carl Pavano, Bobby A. Bray, you, Von Rodriguez, Mike Mussina retired. You also lose the Jason Giambi and the and the golden thong. So there is that. No, it was his brother that had the golden No, was it a Jeremy No, Jeremy Johny didn't have anything. It was Jason Johnbi had the golden thong. Jeremy Giambi he was, he was in He

was in Moneyball for five minutes. Jeremy he was he was a little, a little out there sometimes. So that shed ninety million dollars in salary for the Yankees. And yeah, but how many people remember that Ivan Rodriguez's not many, but it would look, Hey, it happened, but it did happen, Like the golden thong happened, and whether you want admitted or not, it happened. I think you used to wear a golden thong and that brings back back. Oh wow, really,

that's something for our show at night. Hang on, let me write that down, right down. Let's celebrate all of it. So that sheds ninety million dollars in salary. What are the Yankees do? They bring in Nick Swisher, nice trade White Sox in the year before extra base hits sixt RBI did only hit two nineteen, but came up with some big hits and still some power. They bring in a J. Burnett, who was for most of his career disappointing, but for this one moment in time hit it pretty

good with the Yankees this year. Seemed to find the right group to hang out with. That that season, Mark two Share comes in and becomes a Yankee right away, a big addition. And they go out and spend a lot of money to get C. C. Sabathia, who was the free agent prize acquisition. He goes seven years, hundred and sixty one million dollars. That Yankees told out a

lot of money. They gave eighty two million dollars to A. J. Burnett, they gave to Share eight and one eighty, So shedding all that salary said, Yep, we're gonna gift to Share a bunch of money. We're gonna give it to A J. Burnett. We're gonna give to Cec Sabathia. It's kind of funny when you look at to Share, the thought that he'd already been through three teams before he showed up in

New York. A guy at that caliber, with that level of production the year before, thirty three home runs, one with a three or eight batting average, and CC Sabathia getting all that money, he must have passed a lot of health inspections because the way he was brutalized by the Milwaukee Brewers, I thought his arm was gonna fall. I remember seeing that contract going. The end of that

contract is going to be so incredibly brewted. Remember remember when that was how the two thousand eight season just every other day it seemed like we've gone back in time to where guys were pitching fifty seven times in a season with CC. Who's pitching for the Brewers today? Sabathia fday Sabathia. It's like, wait, he pitched Monday, It's Wednesday morning. What the hell? He he started him on

eight hours rest. It's gonna be great. He goes eleven and two for the Brewers, has a fantastic season, goes into the postseason, whatever. But it was just one of those when the Yankees signed him, is really, what do you expect? To your point, what do you expect the podcast three years, how heavy he's gonna be, the injuries, and it wasn't a great last three years, but it wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it was going

to be. At the end, well, and the tail was quite long, right, I mean, he just finally hangs him up after the season. So this is where the Yankees are. They're feeling pretty good. They remake the team, and then just before spring training, Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids while playing for the Rangers back in two thousand one to two thousand and three. He admits this, it's a

huge story. And then a rod gets hurt, so he misses most of spring training the early part of the season with a hip injury, and now the Yankees have to answer for Alex Rodriguez admitting to steroid usage, not with the team, but way before they got him. Doesn't matter. A Rod Yankee steroids. This is what they're dealing with going into the season. Kind of a big deal. You make a bunch of additions and looking to rebuild off of a non playoff year, and this is a Rod.

Still you're trying to He's not embraced as a Yankee at this point, right, it's still Derek Jeter, all the rest of your high priced free agent acquisitions and the guys that were home spun home grown, and you still have a Rod. And now you've got this admission, and he misses the first month and a half of the season. So it adds to just enough for the tabloidal nature of the newspapers and reporting as well. I mean, this is back when Jeter versus a Rod was everybody loves Jeter,

everybody hates a Rod. You know, A Rod's image was bad, and now the the steroid thing tarnished it even more. And how are the Yankees gonna survive with Alex Rodriguez. Look at this is around the time when we started finding out the names of the big players who involved with stories. Mandy Ramirez was there as well, and it was just a gut punch after gut punch. It was following the Mitchell Report. But here's a Rod who people couldn't stand anyway, and now here he is, Oh steroid,

you're ape d guy, that's why you're so good. It was everybody hates Alex, everybody loved Jeter even more, which a lot to do with this popularity increase at this time. But I didn't see, even though the Yankees thrived on controversy, how are they going to survive this? How are they gonna because a Rod's gonna come back and play, They're paying him a lot of money. There was no way they were getting out of it. There was no way they were trading him. He was gonna come back and

play eventually. How are they going to get out of this? Like like Batman? Like every like every time when I watch Batman as a kid, And there would be they would cut the episode into two and hanger was, here's Batman and Robin and there in some kind of cylinder that's gonna pull their molecules apartner all, they're never getting out of this one. Then they get out of it like that's kind of how I felt about a Rod? How are how is a Rod? And the Yankees gonna

get out of this one? I mean they did, but I didn't see it at that time. I got to help by the fact we mentioned all of the off season acquisitions with very hefty price tags with him. So by this point his contract, he was just a guy in terms of the dollars and cents, and you could slink away a little bit. The team playing well and

having the run that they did certainly helped. And showing back up onto the field and hitting a home run in your first at bat probably not a bad way to, you know, re engage your audience once you come back from that hip injury. Well, you still had great players around the team, not only who they signed. Remember this is still Robinson Canoe playing second base. You know, this is Johnny Damon in the outfit when the Johnny Damon contract was still pretty good for them. You know, look,

they had a pretty talented team. Melky Cabrera was a big contributor here, had DECKI mit Sue at designated hit. It's not like missing Alex Rodriguez suddenly met boy they have a gaping hole. It's just how do you navigate this. How does Joe Girardi navigate this looking for a championship

when you have Alex Rodriguez hanging over the team. And not only that, you had Joe Tori's book The Yankee Years come out right before the season started, which caused a lot of controversy because he called out Alex Rodriguez and Brian Cashman in his book, saying that Brian Cashman betrayed him in contract negotiations, said that the Yankee players called a rod a fraud, and so many Yankees were upset. They felt, oh, Joe Tore breached the confidence of the

locker room by writing this tell all book. And Joe Tori said, no, I didn't. But it didn't matter. No, it's good that he helps out a major League baseball Now wait less tell a book on Major League Baseball comes out. That's sausages made. But I kept three of the trash cans for the Houston Astros. But this was surprising because you didn't think Joe too. I was surprised because I didn't think Joe Tory would do something like this.

This was not a Joe Tory thing to say, here's a book, I'm gonna make money a lifetime baseball guy. This isn't a front office dude who came of the you know, accountants a lot at some company because he was good at analytics, got hired in. This was a guy who was an m v P. This was a guy who was thrice World Series winning manager. All of these things and he releases this book. It just flies in the face of everything about the clubhouse code and

and everything else. But you know what, everybody, uh, everybody's got a price, right, didn't That what Ted Dibiacy taught us all those years ago on our Saturday Morning WWF. Soa Joe already has got the briefcase out? Is that what he is? Is he? No? Well, that's the question. Is he the guy getting the money from Virgil? Am I giving the money to this? Well, let's see Virgil held up Virgil's Brian Cashman. Okay, because he gave out the I was gonna wonder whoever the publisher was of

this book, would they be virginal in this scenario? How did the Yankees go on from here? How did they go on to win a hundred and three games? How did they go on to finish first? And how did Alex Rodriguez complete the most unlikely character turn we have seen in sports and quite sometime. Keep it right here. All the drama is ahead. We haven't even gotten to the season yet. Now yet for the Yankees, I mean, this is a year that you know, the Cowboys open

Jerry World. In two thousand and nine, your guy Mark Burley pitched a perfect game, one of my favorite, because he could always pitch a game and under two hours. You had plans that night, you had no problems. Those games were going fast. But the biggest thing in two thousand and nine is we just give you one nice thing to get ready for the rest of the podcast. We do what we do. We look back at the year that was in two thousand nine, we saw Bellatour

one have followed. Yeah, I think they're up to now Bellatore five thousand, because there's belletor like every three days seems like that. I think that's where we're creeping up on two fifty years pretty fast. That was Belt one all the way back in Hollywood, Florida at the Seminal Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It was so popular they taped it the day before, cut it down and aired it the next night. On television. Oh that that that's how big Bellator one was. It was an exclusive television

agreement with ESPN. Deportez. Why do you gotta roll your tongue? You can't just say he's Panda Portis because it made it sound better. Okay, you're like a local news anchor. Why not? Right? Okay? I just wonder why you're doing it Los Angeles. So all that more coming up right here as we look back at the two thousand and nine New York Yankee season and all the while twists continuing on here. The two thousand nine Yankees, the last championship team for the Yankees. How did things start out

for them? This was Joe girardi second season. The pressure was on him because the Yankees didn't make the playoffs in two thousand and eight and this was it for him. If they didn't win this year, it would have been boy. We made the playoffs every year since, right the Yankees the first time they didn't make it. Well, obviously we had the no season, but every year in the playoffs, and the first year for Girardi they don't make it. They started out pretty rocky. It's not like this Yankee

team was dominant from the beginning. I wonder how much more rocky or things needed to get to, like if they got to the All Star Break still underachieving, if Girardi would have even been around, because you know, we talked about it. They spent so much money trying to get this team ready. They got rid of so much salary from the year before and brought in so many new players. I know that he would have gotten more

than the All Star Break to get things going. No, really curious because in April, aygo twelve and ten and then they lose six of their first eight May games and George Steinbrenner earlier in his life the Billy Martineers, Joe Girardi has gone. He might be back by the end of the year. And the way the revolving door work twice exactly. But the potential certainly was on out there for it, and the curiosity was already held held firm,

waiting for things to gel. Perhaps you know, a little calmer heads of with all those new additions and the high priced add ons that you've got that maybe you needed it to marinate a little longer before you you got hit your stride. But that's a good thing. It did but even into the All Star break, not exactly running on all cylinders and causing the wow factor at least for a moment. And I remember the articles being written. It's like, is the day of paying big salaries and

you know, trying to be Goliath. Are they over? This was a turning point in the season for them because at this point Alex Rodriguez is set to come back after being injured, after answering questions about performance and answering drugs, and it was I remember Yankee fans, my dad, all Yanks going all the last thing we need now is a Rod coming back. Last week is a Rod coming back.

Turns out what they needed was a Rod coming back, because this, more so than any other season, turned out to be Alex Rodriguez is dark side of the mood. It was his. He had other seasons with better stats fifty home runs, hundred and fifty r b i s, but this was his season where the Yankees needed him. He not only came in and gave you a great year, but as you're gonna hear about later on, I mean, he was this close to being World Series MVP. Without

a Rod, this team doesn't do it. He comes back in May hits a three run homer on the first pitch of the season. The Yankees have three walk off wins against Minnesota and they start getting things together a little bit. Look, the only way a Rod was gonna get past the pe d allegations, which were a huge bombshell. It was, oh my god, a Rod PDS. This was back when it was oh my god, Manny Ramirez and a Rod. Here's all the great sluggers of the past

ten years. To see, we're hoping we're not gonna hear their names, and then boom, here's a bombshell with Manny. And then boom, it's Alex Rodriguez and it's a Rod. And and look, everybody wanted to go crazy on him because people didn't like him. And now it was always a Yankee. Now I can hate him even more. He was very polarizing, and it was now but you were always a great player, and now you needed help, and now it's all a Rod, a Rod, And he really

flipped the script. But that's the thing with a Rod, and the handwringing was there was no body change right when he came up. He was a big kid, right McGuire. We we laugh at the five tops card. We laugh at the stick figure. Relatively speaking, that was the night seven rookie cards that were out there just to bring in the memorabilian sports world, because those are the images we remember more so than anything. Barry Bonds going from what he was at his beginning of his career at

Pittsburgh to what he became. Sammy Sosa look at him when he was with the White Sox. Then he goes away for one offseason and he looks like an action figure with a rod. He looked the same, And I think that got people salty because it raised a lot of other questions as to you know, it just used to seem, Okay, the guy got bulkier, right, the guy got more muscular, blah blah blah with a rod. More or less, he looked like the same guy. So it

got you handwringing a bit. But for the Yankees, all pressure was on him once he came back, so everybody else just got to relax and play their game. So it was no surprise that they at least started to push a little bit in the right direction, because all right,

a rod is gonna do his thing. They're gonna worry about getting him out and the media is just gonna worry about him, so we could just go back to work and with all that pressure on him, and a Rod has never had the image of being a pressure guy. He finishes that year where thirty home runs in a hundred RBIs but all the time he missed. The Yankees set a record with home runs two three. But he still goes thirty and a hundred in a game in which he's coming off injured, a year in which he's

coming off injury. He's coming off this controversy, and he was the spark the Yankees needed. They won a big game in June. They had a closed door meeting with Brian Cashman when they were playing in Atlanta and the Yankees that night, the Yanks are getting no hit through six innings. Brett Gardner gets picked off first base, Joe Girardi gets ejected for arguing Francisco Savelliot's his first MLB home run. The Yankees going to win this game eight

to four, and it became a spring board win. In fact, Yankees even talked about what was the difference in your season, and they all say, well, a Rod coming back and putting his head down and hitting and that game beating Atlanta, and from then on the Yankees just steamrolled by everybody. What's not like they ever were in trouble. After that, A Rod came back, He put his head down and the hit. They won this game. Everything started clicking and

the Yankees roll to the AL East Division. From July one to the end of the season, they go fifty nine and seven, absolutely dominating that month of August one and seven record and all the offense started to flow. And when when you look at the end of year numbers, I mean you mentioned that that point it was became a launching pad just like you expected. What two plus home runs as a team, which I always used the phrasing of the veritable congo line and it was ever

in full effect. This was the gashouse Guerrillas and bugs buy d'antanta dantana. Uh. They win the AL East by eight games over the Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays in third place nineteen games out. I mean, this was the Yankees suddenly are oh man, uh watch out that. You know. Now they got a ride back. Everything is is going their way and they get to the playoffs

and her first round. All about a Rod again, all right, it's very quickly how this season became about him, when Derek Jeter was so beloved, But this was, like I said, this was Alex Rodriguez, this moment, Game two against Minnesota, they're down three one in the ninth inning, and you know, look the Twins are it, have a chance to tie this series and suddenly turn it into something. They got Joe Nathan, one of the best closes in the game on the mound, and a Rod goes yard hits a

game time to run homer. You got David Robertson escapes a bases loaded, no outs jam in the eleventh to share it, hits a walk off home run in the bottom of the eleventh, and they sweep the Twins, who offer little resistance there on out. But as much as you have heroes with to share it is a Rod's two run homer. He had two home runs and six RBI in the sweep. He is your best player. He's the guy leading you through the A, L. D s. And this is very anti Alex Rodriguez so far. Well

that's just it. You'd find those find those moments where guys that have always been great you wait for them to break through. For him, for Barry Bonds, postseason was not always kind and for this this became the the magical moment that acceptance. And even after that series, they would obviously, as we go through, go on to win

at all. But even in that moment, it turned the tide of all right, he's we kind of embrace him as one of ours, right uh Lebron James coming to Los Angeles, went through a whole year where he's still stand off ish arms length with everybody, and then it took reading names of the those who perished in the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash and then throwing a prepared speech to the ground and kind of add living. That became

his moment to a Laker being a Laker. For Alex Rodriguez took shining in the first of these postseason series, and I remember that home run and it was like something happened and that it was okay A Rods. Even the biggest skeptics were okay, well, A Rod's always hit home runs, always done well. That now need him and a two run homer when it looked like the game was over and he ties it. Not only do the Yankees tie the game, they go on and win it. They sweep the Twins, and it was, hey, now this

this is a post season a Rod. You know we have playoff Rondo, and now we have post season a Rod who turns into someone who gets heroics in the a LCS when they play the Angels Game two, HiT's a huge home run to tie the game at three three and the eleventh thinning off Brian Flente's who was the Angels closer. They go on to win that game in thirteen innings. Another big clutch home run in Game two where the series can still go either way for the Yankees, and it's a Rod hitting another big home run.

This was it was he's doing it again. It felt like every time he came up when he's gonna get it. Hit this two thousand nine postseason, it was like, there's everybody else. Look. C C. Sabathia wins the ALCS m v P because he has two incredibly great starts. He goes eight innings and both of his starts gives up on three days rest, gives up just a couple of runs as e r A is one point one three, and he wins the A l C S m v P. He was absolutely huge, but it was still all about

a Rod. Remember being on the air, and it was every night was Alex Rodriguez. And here's Alex Rodriguez trying to invent things to talk about with a Rod because you know, whatever else the Yankees were doing, it was Alex rod. He had a lot of love and positivity towards it. All right, redemption, and we always love a redemption story. But then there's still that little shadow and doubt. It's like, all right, he got he had gotten musted and everything. It's like, is he still canny still? And

there's always just that nervousness for Yankee fans. It was now turned up, all right, we need this guy as opposed to he was just a high price luxury and not accepted and everything else. And in this series, like CC Sabathia, you know, this was about as good as you can get. We talked about what Milwaukee tried to do with him the year before. I think he would have pitched every game if they could have pulled it off.

I don't know union rules to where you can't, but just a phenomenal series again, and for Alex Rodriguez, something that really helped in that redemptive story. So for the Yankees. They advanced to the World Series. We're waiting for them. The Philadelphia Phillies coming off the two thousand and eight World Series victory over Tampa Bay. They're trying to go back to back. And this was the dominant Cliff Lee.

This was as far as Madison Bumgardner had been so good in the postseason in the late teams here late two thousand's, it was Cliff Lee. And he turned into the biggest, most dominant postseason picture there was. And I remember going into the World Series going, boy, this Phillies team is loaded, right. You got Jimmy Rollins is saying we're gonna win in five or six games if we want to be nice to the Yankees. I mean, Chase

Utley had a huge World Series. This is back when Chase Utley was one of the top five players in baseball. But Cliff Lee was unbeatable. And I remember saying, here's my prediction for the World Series. And I've never been more right about many things in my life. I said that Yankees is gonna win the World Series, but the Philadelphia Phillies are gonna win every game. Cliff lea pitches. I just the Yankees had that momentum. The Phillies were still so good, but they couldn't stack up. But they

weren't gonna beat cliff Ley. And that's kind of what happened in the World Series. Yeah, cliff Ley, for those that that forget, I mean just dominant two point eight one e r A won both his games. Yeah, thirteen strikeouts against three walks, and going up against that lineup. Man, look, you're getting going out with four or less runs allowed in six innings. You're feeling pretty good, like you gave your team a chance. But for him, just dominant work

just didn't have enough around him. So that's where the Yankees sat Yankees Phillies. How did they win and what former Yankee nemesis popped up to try to get in their way? With all that more coming up next right here Special Teams with Jason Smith and Mike Carmen, we look back at the World Series championship of the two thousand nine Yankees. So just how did it go for the Yankees and what former nemesis showed up to say, Hey, you're not getting on and actually I'm gonna allow you

to win the World Series. As I said a few minutes ago, and when I said on the radio at the time, Did I say that enough people remember that I said that you've been around? Yeah? No, no, no, you want to people know that you want me to patch you on the back if I If I do it loudly enough, they can believe that it exists. I said Cliff Lee was gonna win both games he pitched. As long as he pitches two games, I would pitch Cliffy every day because Lee was just that good, and

the Yankees will win every other one. Well, Cliff Lee one game one, six to one, and he won Game five eight to six, but those were the only wins for the Philadelphia Phillis. Let me taging. Let me pat myself that that that pat myself. You really have no flexible. You got as bad flexibility was. It was my left ar because I'm not a lefty. My right arm can get up high. I can't do my right off because I got an impingement in my shoulder that needs rehab

and probably surgery. You have an impingement and surgery. I just can't go off. It's not my fault. Should have you should have stopped. What did you do? They got your arm? Well, you should have wrestle the Yeah, okay, I didn't wrestle the gator. You probably wrestled, though. Wrestled my brother when I was fourteen and I jumped off the top rope and I missed in my arm behind my back that ready ready savaged him team and then I got slammed on on a on a folding table.

So Harmon and Smith brand tables for your next tails. Why were the Yankees able to win the World Series because they beat up on wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. Pedro Martinez, who the Phillies trotted out there for a couple of games. He had entered the Phillies rotation in August, right he he had signed with them, couldn't get in the rotation. This his pagro at the end of his long career where he had really nothing left in the tank. But he had pitched pretty well

when he comes in the Phillies rotation. Philadelphia won their first seven starts that he had, and he pitched really well, pitched good against the Dodgers in the NLCS and against the Yankees. He actually pitched okay in Game two, but he left down two to one and he lost that game. I mean that was like the last great moment for Pedro. This is him at the end. He did get the start later on in Game six, the must win game. We gotta stay alive, and this is when he gets

lit up. He allows four runs and four innings and the Yankees win the World Series. And not only do they win, but they can stand up and say we beat Pedro again and now we're World Series champions. Nine starts to a three sixty three e r A in the regular season, forty four innings pitched. That was it. That that postseason, and off to broadcasting. He went. No more issues with Don Zimmer or anybody else. It was

time for the next phase of Pedro Martinez. But for the the New York Yankees getting past another nemesis like that and a nice wink guy who was a real pain. You know, think about the unbalanced schedule. If those teams with Pedro and those guys were battling these Yankees now how much I mean we talked about it all the time, just the prime time games Yankees Red Sox and just

has that extra for baseball fans. Think about that if they're going eighteens and like they do now, like good god, so it was about Cliff Lee, it was about Pedro Martinez, but the World Series is also about two other players, and again we circle back to Alex Rodriguez. It very easily could have been Alex Rodriguez World Series m v P Game four, pivotal game. He doubles down the line at the top of the ninth thinning against Brad Lidge.

Yankees win the game five four, and it's a rotic then coming through in the clutch in a game in which the Yankees absolutely have to have him, and it

was almost like it was just gonna happen. He's up in a clutch situation, He's gonna get a hit, and I remember going through this saying he's gonna wind up being the World Series MVP, just like had the Giants held on against the Angels in two thousand two, Barry Bonds had such a great World Series after a horrible lifetime in the postseason, he would have been the World Series m v P. But Angels win, and so of course he's not. But he was that close. Alex Rodriguez

was that close as well. Three doubles, a home run, six rb I in this series bad at two fifty. So when you get down to it, Matt Suey doesn't matter. He had, he had big hits, he had. It's it's just that there's also gonna be that one guy, just like you know, that guy that will never know who didn't vote until he writes a book I didn't vote for Jeter to the Hall of Fame. There's gonna be one or two guys on that panel are like, forget it, I'm not I'm not name in this guy m v P.

Right that that's still gonna be a very real effect. Right, So, no matter how clutch he was, I think he was facing an uphill battle to get any extra accolades unless he really just outshined everybody to a monstrous degree. Well that's the thing because this series, and in which Hideki Matsuey goes on to win the m v P, we're gonna get to Game six coming up in a second, because that's the game mitsue one m v P four is that it's not like anybody else had a great

World series for the Yankees. It's not anybody else. It's mitts sue And it was really just Game six and a Rod with his clutch hits. So it's not like I can look as go Johnny Damon did this, and and you know we saw a J. Burnett did this or Sabbathia did this. It was really it was really

Alex Rodriguez. And when you look back at this World Series, I can honestly tell you they would not have won without Alex Rodriguez, because they won without HDECKI Mit Suey sure, they would not have one without any The only other guy you'd look at was Mariano Rivera because all the

starters were at can't. I can't give a closer, And that's where we always get into the difficulties of the closers, right hey, unanimous though, take that over Jeter uh In Game six, which is the game the Yankees would blow the Phillies out and win the World Series, this was a Decky mit Sue, the Decky mit Souee game. Um at Sue. He ended up with six rb I in the game. He had a home run, he had a double, he had a two run single, he got a hit in the second game of the fourth and sixth, and

he got the Yankees out to a big lead. And when you look at the gaudy numbers, six rb I in a World Series clinching game. He had six fifteen for the World Series, albeit in limited at bat bats for the series. They give him the m v P. But I'm gonna go back to a moment that possibly pushed it from a Rod to Met Suey in this game, in the mid Sui game, in game six, he has bases loaded and he strikes out looking against Pedro Martinez. The next adders Mit Suey, who gets hit and brings

in two runs. This is what gives them the bigger lead, pushes their lead out, and it's not a game anymore. Had a Rod gotten a hit there, all right, he gotten a hit instead of striking out leading up to Matt Suey. He wins the m v P. He wins the mv because now it's another game in which bases loaded, a clutch hit for a Rod. A Rod gets this hit, he wins the m v P. And I'll never forget

this as long as I live. The photo on the front page of ESPN dot com that they put up after the Yankees win the World Series, right, it's it's a photo of the Yankee celebrating, and this shows you

the completed journey of Alex Rodriguez. It was taken at such the perfect time, the perfect angle in which they win the World Series, right, and they're they're celebrating on the field and a Rod is taking steps towards the pitching mound, you know, with his hands out like hey, I won, and literally all of the Yankees who are in the infield, we're all s airing at him and running towards him like they were going to tackle him.

Because of the season he had. This is here. He started out as a fraud Joe Tori's book and everything else, and this was where he had a lot to do to win the team over and to win everybody over because it was still Jeter or a Rod. You know, everybody still loved Jeter. It was like Shaq and Kobe, everybody loved Shack. But that picture was the total transformation. Here's a Rod and here's the rest of his teammates are gonna look to jump on top of him to celebrate.

They wanted to celebrate with him because they knew he was responsible. We want to also show our love for him, our teammate who did a lot this year and went through a lot of crap to be able to celebrate this moment with us. That was the complete and total transformation from a rod That picture, I'll never forget it. Here it is, he's smiling and everybody else wants to jump on top of him. I'll think about it as as we sit here talking about this early who's the

face of baseball? You could argue and Jacob dem nicely done. But when we talk about baseball where we sit in you don't have a guy Alex Rodriguez in the broadcast booth and some of it you know, j Lo uh and I mean, he's he's about as good as it gets. Right in terms of the large characters of the game. We can talk about guys putting up great performances. You've got Pete Alonso, who looks like you know, he's got a Dad Bodar right. You've got Mike Trout, he's a

great weatherman and Eagles fan. But beyond that, Albert Pooholes near the back end to his run. You've got a few other guys mixed there in some of the young Dodger guys getting some run. Maybe it could become a Mookie Bets kind of world. But Alex Rodriguez is about as big as you get in the game. Ten years

plus after this moment. But in that World Series, victory becomes a true Yankee, embraced by everybody, wipes out a lot of the ill will of the failed post seasons of the past, and everybody kind of pushes those to the side and will always be a champion. Because there's guys that play for the Yankees but don't ever really become Yankees. They they play for a few years and either the Yankees don't win or they don't live quite up to expectations, but they still play well enough, but

they never really become Yankees. Do you need that moment? You need that whatever the achievement is. And this was a Rod. Yeah, I'm a Yankee now, you know what. The rest of my doesn't matter how much longer I play. I'm a Yankee. And when you think of a Rod, it's not a Rod early in his career with Seattle. It's not the big contract with Texas. It's a Rod and the Yankees and the look he had, the controversy

at the end and his contract. But you know, you think of him as a Yankee because of this World Series, because he finally won. You know, a Rod turns into one of the Yankee greats of all time. And he also gets away from that list of look at all our leaders and all these statistical categories in the all time greats that never got there, right, because I mean

he was destined or so. It seemed to be the latest in a long line of Hey, look at all the great stats, great years, but in the playoffs empty, No. Here he delivered. Now. One of the things outside of a Rod the Yankees were able to do to win the World Series, which is really difficult to do, but they had the line up to do it was they kept hitting home runs. It was their calling card all season long. We talked about them setting a new franchise

record then for home runs in a year. But it's hard when you rely on home runs in October because if you don't have an offense that's generating runs, eventually you're gonna run into a Hey we're swinging from the heels on every pitch and if we don't hit home runs, well we're going home. It's hard to hit home runs through three rounds of playoffs and win, and the Yankees did it. They were so powerful top to bottom you could get home runs from anywhere, and they did. They

got from the the regular suspects. They got him from places he didn't expect to get them. But they still were able to get a couple of home runs every game, and that turns a three one game into a three three game of four two game into a five four win. And they were able to do it. It never got and never ran empty. The him of that sock drawer never came up empty. Hey, we stopped hitting home runs for three games and we wound up losing, getting knocked

out of the playoffs. They always hit home runs. Well, that's the beauty of having just power throughout the lineup. But we see it now and again. We saw it with the twins and twins that should say, and a few others. I mean, some of these Phillies lineups were absurd back in the day. But yeah, normally the well runs dry. But as you broke down the Phillies pitching staff outside of Lee, you got a lot of guys that you you you rode the power performances of the

offense for most of the year. When you're praying for big moments out of Pedro Martinez when he's out of gas, I and you you've tipped your hand as to your depth of your rotation. So the Yankees win the World Series, but there remains one big PostScript coming off of this series. Again, the last championship the Yankees had, they had loaded up, they had signed a lot of players, and you thought, well,

this is the beginning of a run of dominance. This turned out to be hit Decki Mitsui's last game as a Yankee. Fans were screaming, bring him back, bring him back, bring him back. Mitsue had been in the middle of that line up for a while. He was thirty five, but he was still hitting, he was still mashing. And you have the World Series m v P and it

was let's bring a docu mitsouey back. But the Yankees had a gloot of outfielders, so in the off season they let mit Sue and Johnny Damon go in free agency, and they struggle a little bit after that. I mean, look, it's not like Mitsue was still the guy he was when he was thirty. He was a thirty five and one twenty you know, he was still twenty five and eighty. But it was still he was such a big part of that team, and he was just one of those guys you counted on for so long. That was gonna

hit in the lineup. You started taking out a couple of those pieces and it's, oh boy, now we really need those guys to step up in that hole. And when you don't, you realize the production that walked away. It's not like Mitsouey had a lot left in the tank. He retired very shortly after, but still it was Keith Mitsouey. And when mitsue left, that left a big hole in that line up. Well, the continuity, right, he never went into really long, protracted slumps like he was a consistent hitter.

Never never the godzilla that we thought was showing up to major League Baseball. Right. He wasn't a fifty home run guy. Everybody was expecting these gargangean numbers. But he was a consistent player and whenever you have to replace that. We watched that with teams in every sport. There's always just those glue guys that you don't recognize in the moment, especially when you're talking about the type of run generation

that this team had. Just thinking his absence would be that much of a of a drop off because that was a big salary, I mean, that was that was one one or the other things. Not that the Yankees shed salary for some you know, philosophical reasons. They know she said that they don't let money go for philosophical reasons. But it became a we're not gonna pay him to stick around at that point. So it was someone someone in the early early days of analytics. All right, it's

always been analytics. Now we just have added the pejorative tone to it when we say it, uh these days. So there's your Yankees World Series champions in two thousand nine. A validates Joe Girardi at validates CC Sabathia, Alex Rodriguez. What about some of those guys, where are they now? Mike Carmen, All right, let's start. Let's start with the fun. Well the two obvious. Well, I mean, you've got a lot of guys that stayed around the game that are coaches.

So Anthony, because this is fun, you had twenty three different pitchers usual by the Yankees to get through the two thousand nine season, So underscore that a little bit. You've got a lot of bodies rolling through. Uh. You've got uh, Anthony Claggett. He's now a pitching coach after he was with the New Jersey Jackals. I wanted to make a note of that because that's just kind of cool. I We'll have to look at that logan. You might need a new hat. Uh. He's now at Washington State.

After a couple of other stops along the way, you got Shelley Duncan, who's working for the Blue Jays, and I wanted to ask you what you thought a major league field quarterinamer did a major league field because because I know with our kids soccer league, Okay, there's someone that that has to find practice fields or whatever. No, and they make sure what when the fields are booked and when you can But I'm pretty sure no one's

booking Yankee Stadium. I don't think so. I don't think anybody like, oh, hey we can't play the World Series. Why I let I let up? You know a a peewee football team. They're gonna come on and scrimmage that day, So yeah, we can't play the World Series. I believe it's kind of kind of a an operations role is kind of how it works. Field coordinator for just the Yankees. Well he's within Blue Jays now, so but just one team, but just one team, So I think it's kind of

a flow as too, Uh, implementing ideas throughout the organization. Right, So here's what we want to do and the trickle down effect to make sure managers and coaches are are following the instruction, so kids, the kids at class A are getting taught the same thing in double A all the way up as opposed to al right, next up, this guy's got a totally different so as best I

can and can relay, that's where it was. How about Chimman Long another guy that was a legend last not that do we have a job for him, but there was a documentary. You're gonna say last scene or you're gonna last scene, Well last scene had a bunch of premiers for a documentary made out of his life around the baseball diamond. Anyway, uh call did he started? It was the Chimman Wong story starring Cheman I believe, basically called Late Life, which is what they called his slider life.

But the idea of this is the guy that battled a lot of injuries to get back on the diamond and they to really extend his career. So late life having double meanings. See how clever they are in Hollywood actually in Taiwan, Uh, because it was, you know, a celebration of their guy, and and how he battled back and became a folk here on finally, Brian Bruney. All right, so he pitched with the White Sox. He pitched in a for four teams in Major League Baseball. Got to

bring up the White Sox. Course you'll you'll like this. Currently he works for a time share company as an executive in Seaside, Oregon. That's fine. As a kid, he was an extra in kindergarten. Cop Oh, which one was he? I don't know, how do you not have that? I've not found that well, but he's an extra. That doesn't mean he doesn't. He wasn't. He was one of the kids in the in the room. But I don't think he has a speaking role. Our mom said, my dad's a real sex machine. I mean it wasn't. Okay, Well

we know it wasn't her. Okay, I'm making making sure. So wait, so now he's one of those guys that says, hey, listen, you can have a free stay in this hotel, but you gotta listen to this pitch for an hour. What's funny though, sign if you they counterbalance, there's somebody inviting you. And there's another guy skin out of your time share. Now, Hey, if you buy a time shore, I'll tell you a story about the two thousand nine Yankees, Derek, Jeter and Jetersburg. Honey,

we gotta buy this. I gotta hear this story. I don't know who involves we to do it. That'd be a good story. I mean storytime with Jetersburg. Play Brian Bruney really gets a lot of time share. Sould Hook tells a lot of stories about he's got a lot of two. I mean, he had Jeter and he had a rod. Come on. So there it is our look back at the last championship to New York Yankees had in two thousand and nine. You can hit us up on Twitter at how about a Frescup? Mike at Swollen Dome.

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