Yankees Quit Playing Games, Start Playing Championship Baseball

NEW YORK -- The biggest World Series choke involved the New York Yankees, but they won back then in 1996 over the gasping Atlanta Braves.

The Yankees won this time, too. It's just that they did so to avoid sliding toward the brutal end of the second-worst choke in World Series history.

On a clear Wednesday night in the Bronx, with Hideki Matsui's sizzling Mizuno bat and various pinstriped chants warming the November chill inside the newest version of Yankee Stadium, the home team got a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. It also got a 27th world championship for the franchise.

Plus, it got these current Yankees off the hook.

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They would have been dangling by that hook over the edge of the George Washington Bridge with a World Series loss. Not only did they have to win the 2009 world championship, but the clincher had to come Wednesday night in Game 6. The way things were going for the extremely gifted but occasionally wobbly Yankees during this series that should have ended in five games, they couldn't depend on a Game 7. They couldn't spend another night pumping life into what was a World Series corpse after the Phillies won just once in the opening four games.

"It's a great ballclub with a lot of heart," said Yankees manager Joe Girardi, telling the truth about the Phillies, the defending world champions.

The thing is, the Phillies weren't superior to the Yankees. Nobody was, and despite many of the World Series results since 2000 -- you know, the last year the Yankees won it all -- nobody has possessed more reasons to hoist baseball's ultimate trophy after the past nine seasons than the team that has done it more than anybody. The Yankees have the money, and they have the talent, and they have the legacy. In fact, the NFL names its world championship trophy after Vince Lombardi. The NBA honors Larry O'Brien, and the NHL has its cup from Lord Frederick Walter Stanley. So, instead of the Commissioner's Trophy, which is the official name of baseball's award, how about something named after any great from Yankees history?

Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle. It doesn't matter.

Given all that Yankee stuff, it's like this: Whenever they don't win it all, they've usually choked. Said Matsui, crowned the World Series Most Valuable Player after he batted a ridiculous .615 with three home runs and eight RBI as mostly a designated hitter, "My first and foremost goal when I joined the Yankees [in 2003] was to win a world championship. Certainly it's been a long road and very difficult journey."

It was another World Series loss from becoming a wretched journey. That's why the Yankees couldn't take the chance of blowing it on Wednesday night, especially since they began the evening with a three-game losing streak whenever they've had the opportunity to clinch a world championship. There were Games 6 and 7 against the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001, when the Yankees dropped the World Series finale on the road. Then there was their 8-6 loss on Monday night in Philadelphia.

There also was that 2004 ugliness rattling around the memories of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Matsui. It was a quintet that experienced baseball infamy. After the Yankees surged to a 3-0 lead over the Boston Red Sox during that American League Championship Series, the Yankees miraculously spent the World Series at home. They lost four straight with much help in Game 7 from Johnny Damon's grand slam for the Red Sox.

This is the same Johnny Damon who was among those trying to keep the Yankees from grabbing their throats against the Phillies. He left the game before the top of the fourth inning after straining his right calf while scoring one of the Yankees' two runs during the bottom of the third.

The Yankees didn't need him. They had Matsui, along with a bunch of everything else that made this a must-win World Series for them.

Nobody won more games during the regular season than the Yankees' 103. They entered the World Series with a huge advantage over any National League team they would play courtesy of the DH -- as in Matsui, with a record-tying six RBI on Wednesday night. Their pitching was at least a Mariano Rivera (the greatest reliever ever in October and now November) better than the Phillies. In fact, that Yankees pitching was significantly better than that with the trio of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte trumping Phillies' brilliant ace Cliff Lee, a fading Pedro Martinez and Cole Hamels, who confessed during the middle of the World Series that he'd rather be fishing or something.

Oh, and don't forget about Derek Jeter continuing his Lou Gehrig imitation. Just like Gehrig, Jeter is a Yankee captain. And, just like Gehrig, Jeter is a terror in the World Series. He has hit safely in 32 of the 38 World Series games he has played, including Wednesday night, when he had three hits and scored twice. Just three players with 100 or more World Series at-bats have a higher batting average than Jeter's .321, and in case you're wondering, Gehrig leads the way at .361.

And did I mention the Yankees said before the playoffs began that they wished to win it all for George Steinbrenner, their ailing owner of yore?

The Yankees were just better, period.

As for the biggest choke, it was spectacular. It was Jim Leyritz. It was the Braves doing the unfathomable on the positive and on the negative in the same World Series. First, they won the first two games at Yankee Stadium. Then they roared to a 6-3 lead in the eighth inning of Game 4 while holding a 2-1 advantage in the series.

End of the positive for the Braves.

Leyritz ripped a three-run homer to tie the game along the way to a New York victory, and the Braves crawled into a corner for the rest of the World Series.

The Yankees didn't need Leyritz this time.

They just needed to stop fooling around.

Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning," an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta.