2009 Yankees: Twenty-seven

Welcome back to the final chapter of 2009 Yankees: The Last Championship - a week-by-week remembrance of the year in which they gave us their most recent World Series title. Later this week, the Yankees will start their pursuit of world championship No. 28, but 15 years ago, Andy Pettitte finished off what he had intended to do when he returned to the Yankees after his brief dalliance in Houston. Win yet another World Series, No. 27.

NEW YORK (Nov. 4, 2009) - At the time, Andy Pettitte thought it was the right thing to do, going back to Houston where he had grown up to sign with the hometown Astros as a free agent following the 2003 season.

He had spent the first nine years of his big-league career with the Yankees and enjoyed a remarkable run during which he had posted a record of 149-78 in 276 starts while pitching to a 3.94 ERA. More importantly, he had been a postseason stud and one of the most important pieces of a dynasty that won seven AL East division titles, six AL pennants and four World Series.

But when the Yankees seemed a little hesitant to re-sign him following their loss to the Marlins in the 2003 World Series, he considered the opportunity of perhaps finishing his career while raising his young children in a place that was so familiar, for an Astros team that he also saw as one that could compete for a World Series title.

“When I walked off the mound at Yankee Stadium at the end of Game 6, I didn’t think this would be a reality,” Pettitte said on the day he officially signed a three-year, $31.5 million contract to change teams. “I didn’t know how interested the Astros would be.”

How determined was Pettitte to go home? Ultimately, the Yankees’ offer for those same three years was $7.5 million more, but his wife made it clear what she wanted her husband to do. “They really wanted me here,” Pettitte said of his young family. “My heart started pulling me and tugging me to come back down here and play in front of the Houston fans.”

So Pettitte did, though he could not replicate the success he’d had in New York. He missed most of 2004 including the Astros’ seven-game loss to the Cardinals in the NL Championship Series. He returned to pitch fantastically in 2005, winning 17 games with a 2.39 ERA in helping the Astros to their first NL pennant, though they were swept four straight in the World Series by the White Sox. And in 2006 he wasn’t as effective but he still pitched well enough for a disappointing team that missed the playoffs.

When he re-entered free agency, the Astros made a one-year offer, but so did the Yankees for more money, and after Pettitte consulted with his family, he decided coming full circle to close out his career just seemed right, so back to the Bronx he went.

“I wanted to come back and help this organization and this city win a championship,” Pettitte said when he agreed to return. “If I’m not able to get it done, it’ll be a great disappointment for me.”

It did not happen in 2007 as the Yankees finished behind the Red Sox in the division and were eliminated by the Indians in the ALDS, and after he re-signed in 2008, for the first time with Pettitte in their rotation they missed the postseason entirely.

Now in 2009, with a team loaded for bear with the free agent additions of CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher, adding to a cast that already included Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon and Mariano Rivera, here was the chance.

The Yankees could have taken care of business two nights earlier in Game 5 at Philadelphia, but the Phillies staved off elimination with an 8-6 victory. A.J. Burnett, who had been so good in Game 2, was terrible this time as he gave up six runs on four hits and four walks in the first two innings and the Yankees never had a chance facing Phillies ace Cliff Lee.

Lee finally faltered in the eighth with Philadelphia up 8-2 as the first three men reached base, the last being A-Rod who hit a two-run double, but from there Chan Ho Park and Ryan Madson closed it out.

It was almost what had to happen because it allowed Pettitte to stride to the mound to start Game 6 with the opportunity to do what he had intended when he made his return to New York because as he said, “There’s no better place to win than here.”

And on this night, Nov. 4, 2009, Pettitte did what he so often did while wearing the pinstripes: He put on a gritty performance amid a cauldron of pressure at Yankee Stadium, doing so on just three days rest because the Yankees asked that of him, and he gladly accepted.

When Joe Girardi took him out with two outs in the sixth inning, the Yankees were up 7-3 and the sellout crowd which gave Pettitte a loud, long standing ovation knew the lefty had just helped deliver the 27th world championship.

“This is what I came back for; I couldn’t have drawn it up any better,” Pettitte said in the jubilant clubhouse, several minutes after Mariano Rivera - as he so often did - recorded the final out of the 7-3 victory over the Phillies that wrapped the series in six games.

This was the third time that Pettitte started the game that clinched a Yankees championship, also doing it in 1998 and 2000, and he became the 10th pitcher in history to win two World Series clinchers including former Yankees Lefty Gomez, Wilcy Moore, Vic Raschi and Allie Reynolds. And this was the third time in the 2009 postseason that Pettitte started what turned out to be the clinching game in a series, joining Boston’s Derek Lowe in 2004 as the only pitcher to ever do that.

“He never ceases to amaze me,” said Jeter, Pettitte’s long-time teammate and fellow Core Four partner. “Everybody talking about three days rest; you could have thrown him out there on one day’s rest. There isn’t another guy you’d want on the mound more than him. We had a lot of confidence in him.”

Pettitte knew how special this was. So did Jeter, and Rivera, and the fourth member of the Core Four, Jorge Posada. “We’ve been through so many wars together, this is very gratifying,” Posada said, his eyes burning with champagne.

But it had been nine years since they last celebrated, and Pettitte hadn’t even been on the team for three of those years, so for this group to rise up once again while all were now in their 30s and on the back nine of their careers was quite a thing.

“It feels better than I remember it, man,” Jeter said. “It’s been a long time.”

Of course they knew what it felt like to win it all, but newcomer Teixeira had never experienced this euphoria during his time with the Rangers, Braves and Angels.

“It’s an honor for me to win a championship with those guys. They are Yankee legends,” Teixeira said.

The same held true for A-Rod, perhaps the most polarizing Yankee in franchise history, as talented on the field as anyone who has ever played but as flawed off the field as anyone who has ever played.

He’d been with the Yankees five years and at least in the fans’ eyes had never lived up to the expectations and the hype, let alone is contract, because he’d never won a championship. That’s how they measure you in New York. The standard is how many rings are you wearing and A-Rod had none. And until 2009, he had never really done much of anything in October, further branding him as a fraud when it mattered most. But across three-plus weeks, A-Rod was a superstar and was one of the primary reasons why the Yankees won it all.

The year began with A-Rod embroiled in the steroid scandal, and then he needed surgery on his hip which delayed his season debut until early May. There were huge questions hanging over his head, but A-Rod shrugged all of it off, hit 30 homers and drove in 100 runs in his shortened regular season, then hit .365 and delivered 19 hits including six home runs and 18 RBI in the 15 postseason games.

At long last, A-Rod became a Yankee.

“Look, a lot of people were running the other way but my teammates and coaches and organization stood right next to me and now we’re together and as world champions and I couldn’t be happier and prouder,” A-Rod said. “It’s even better than you can imagine. Obviously we were close in ‘04 and things happen for a reason. We waited for a long time. It feels great.”

Matsui waited even longer. He arrived in Gotham a year before A-Rod and he got closer to a championship because his 2003 team made it to Game 6 of the World Series before losing to the Marlins. Now, in what was going to be his last year with the Yankees, playing on aching knees, the man nicknamed Godzilla came through with a truly monstrous final game.

He hit a two-run homer off Pedro Martinez in what proved to be the final game of Pedro’s Hall of Fame career to get the Yankees rolling in the second inning. After Pettitte allowed a run in the third, Matsui ripped a two-run single in the bottom half for a 4-1 lead.

Then in the fifth, Jeter led off against reliever Chad Durbin with a double, Teixeira drove him home with a single, and after A-Rod drew a walk, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel lifted Durbin for lefty J.A. Happ to pitch to Matsui, and Matsui hit a two-run double that all but iced the game.

His six RBI tied a World Series record set by Yankees second baseman Bobby Richardson in Game 3 of the 1960 Fall Classic, and while it wasn’t official yet, everyone knew this was the exclamation point on Matsui’s seven years with the Yankees.

Even though he started only three of the games because there was no DH used in the National League park, Matsui was named MVP of the Series - the first Japanese-born player to be so honored - as he slashed an incredible .615/.643/1.385 for an OPS of 2.027 thanks to three homers and eight RBI in just 14 plate appearances.

“It’s awesome,” Matsui said. “Unbelievable. I’m surprised myself. I guess it’s hard to make a comparison. When I was in Japan, that was the ultimate goal, being here, winning the World Series, becoming world champions, that’s what you strive for here. You could say that I guess this is the best moment of my life right now. It’s been a long road and very difficult journey.”

That could also sum up the Yankees’ journey since the last time they dog-piled at the old Yankee Stadium in October 2000 when they closed out the Mets in five games, their last world championship.

They were two outs away from winning a fourth straight World Series when the great Rivera faltered in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 against the Diamondbacks in 2001, and then there was the surprising loss to the Marlins in 2003, followed by the calamity of the 2004 ALCS when the Red Sox did the impossible.

Since that unfathomable collapse, the Yankees hadn’t sniffed the World Series, but the 2009 team finally ended the misery. It was a magnificent collection of talent that met every challenge along the way.

When Girardi took over for Joe Torre as manager in 2008, he chose to wear jersey No. 27. The idea was for that to be a constant reminder of what the goal was for the Yankees, to win their 27th world title, after Torre had produced Nos. 23, 24, 25 and 26.

“I felt good about this club all year,” Girardi said. “I really believed in this club, I’ve always believed in this organization, the job the Steinbrenner family has done, Cashman and his staff, and it’s where we wanted to be, and the guys did it.”

When the Yankees showed up for spring training in 2010, Girardi made the switch to No. 28, but something Posada said amid the celebration of No. 27 rang true, and has continued to ring true for the past 15 years: “You never know when you’re going to get back here,” Posada said.

Still, the Yankees wonder.

And there it is, the final chapter in a project that I have truly enjoyed bringing to you throughout this season. I hope you enjoyed it.