The Night The Most Recent Yankees Dynasty Was Born

The game that officially launched the Yankees dynasty of the late 1990s early 2000s was Game 4 of the 1996 World Series against the Braves because it turned that series irreversibly in the Yankees favor, a game that Joe Torre will never forget. Lets get to it.

ATLANTA (Oct. 23, 1996) - Of all the games Joe Torre managed, a number that surpassed 4,300 by the time he retired in 2010, one stands above all the others in his mind: Game Four of the 1996 World Series when his Yankees staged the greatest postseason rally in the team’s illustrious history to defeat the Atlanta Braves 8-6.

“It was the greatest for me,” Torre admitted, speaking not only of the drama that took place during the 10-inning, 4-hour, 17-minute marathon, but the strategic manner in which he had to manage the game under National League rules.

“Don Zimmer and I were yelling at each other during the game: ‘What’s next? Where’s the pitcher hitting? How many players we got left?’ And I kept saying ‘Isn’t this great?’ and Zim would go ‘Shaddup.’”

To fully appreciate what took place that night at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, you must understand that this wasn’t just any ordinary World Series.

This was the Yankees return to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1981, a 15-year drought that seemed like an eternity for baseball’s most glorious and decorated franchise.

This was Torre’s fulfillment of a lifelong dream. He had been pulling on uniform jerseys for more than 32 years as a player or manager, and no man in baseball history had done so more often - a span of 4,272 games - without making it to the World Series than Torre.

Then, once he made it to baseball’s grandest stage he had to somehow juggle the stress and excitement of the World Series with the emotions and fears that came with his dying older brother, Frank, undergoing a heart transplant in between games five and six.

Finally, there were the Braves, the defending world champions who had outscored St. Louis 32-1 in winning the final three games of the National League Championship Series, then had beaten the Yankees 12-1 and 4-0 in the first two games of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees painted as the underdog? They were in this Series.

To say the least it was an interesting week for Torre, but the night that stands out was that balmy Wednesday evening when the modern-day Yankee dynasty - a five-year stretch between 1996 and 2000 when the Bombers won four world championships - began to take shape.

The Braves looked invincible those first two games in New York and when the Series headed south to Atlanta, it looked for all the world that Bobby Cox’s team would make quick work of the Yankees.

But in Game Three, David Cone put on a clutch pitching performance, left the game with a 2-1 lead after surviving a tense bases-loaded situation in the sixth inning, and the Yankees went on to a 5-2 Series-saving victory.

However, while the Yankees had avoided the impossible 3-0 hole, they were faced with a perplexing dilemma the next night. Because Game One had been delayed a day by rain, there was no off day for travel between games two and three. Torre had hoped to use a three-man rotation of Andy Pettitte, Jimmy Key and Cone, but the rainout forced Torre to give the ball to shaky fourth starter Kenny Rogers for Game Four. Rogers had not pitched well in starts against Texas in the wild-card round and Baltimore in the American League Championship Series, unable to get past the third inning each time, but Torre had no other option.

Not surprisingly Rogers was strafed for five hits and five runs in the first two-plus innings before Torre sent him to the showers. Fred McGriff’s solo homer and Marquis Grissom’s two-run double keyed a four-run second, and when Rogers gave up back-to-back singles to start the third, he was done. One run eventually scored on a sacrifice fly, and when New York’s third pitcher of the night, David Weathers, allowed an RBI double by Andruw Jones in the fifth, it was 6-0.

History told us only two teams had ever rallied to win a World Series game when trailing by six runs or more, the 1929 Athletics against the Cubs (eight), and the 1956 Dodgers against the Yankees (six). History was about to be altered.

Atlanta’s Denny Neagle was cruising into the sixth inning having allowed just two hits. But then Derek Jeter singled, Bernie Williams walked, and both scored when Cecil Fielder’s single to right caromed past Jermaine Dye and went to the wall. Fielder ended up at second and he later chugged in to score on Charlie Hayes’ single. The Yankees were halfway back, and Neagle was out of the game.

Thanks to a pair of scoreless innings by New York’s Jeff Nelson and Atlanta’s Mike Bielecki, things were quiet until the top of the eighth, and then the excitement never ceased. With feared Atlanta closer Mark Wohlers on the mound trying for a six-out save, the Yankees pulled even in eye-popping fashion.

With runners on the corners and one out, Jim Leyritz - who had come into the game when Paul O’Neill had pinch-hit for starting catcher Joe Girardi in the sixth - launched a dramatic game-tying three-run homer to left field on a 2-2 pitch, silencing the Atlanta crowd.

“Easily the biggest hit of my career,” said Leyritz, who the year before had won Game Two of the wild-card series against Seattle with a dramatic 15th-inning solo homer at Yankee Stadium. “My wife is happy because I played that one so many times during the off-season, now I’ve got another one to play.”

Leyritz had seen Wohlers’ best stuff in the at-bat, his 99 mph heater, but that’s not the pitch he hit out.

Why the slider, Cox was asked. Why didn’t Wohlers stay with his best pitch? “I don’t question the pitch, I question the location,” said Cox. “It slipped on him. It was a slider that backed up. It didn’t bite.”

Mariano Rivera, at the time the set-up man for closer John Wetteland, made it through the eighth without incident, and then the Yankees went back at Wohlers in the ninth. With two outs Fielder, Hayes and Darryl Strawberry - who were playing in this game in place of first baseman Tino Martinez, third baseman Wade Boggs and right fielder O’Neill on hunches by Torre - all singled to load the bases. With nails being bitten to the fingertips, Mariano Duncan lined out to right field as Dye made a diving catch to end the inning.

Rivera stayed in to pitch the ninth, but he allowed a single to Mark Lemke and a walk to Chipper Jones so Torre brought in lefty Graeme Lloyd to face the power-hitting McGriff, and the result was an inning-ending double play started by Jeter.

On to the 10th and with Wohlers gone, replaced by Steve Avery, the Braves got two quick outs before Tim Raines walked on four pitches, Jeter singled through shortstop, and Williams was intentionally walked to load the bases. Boggs was the only position player Torre had left, and this was a perfect spot for him. He pinch-hit for Andy Fox - who had been inserted into the game in the ninth as a pinch-runner for Fielder - and the eagle-eyed Boggs worked the count full before he drew what he called, “Probably the biggest walk I’ve ever had in my 15-year career” to force in the go-ahead run.

Now trailing 7-6, Cox ordered a double switch. He brought Brad Clontz in to pitch and slotted him into the fourth spot in the batting order, McGriff’s spot, which was already passed. Then he brought in power-hitting outfielder Ryan Klesko to play first base so Klesko would lead off the bottom of the 10th. This move backfired, too, when Hayes hit a little pop to first that Klesko somehow lost in the lights. The ball fell to the ground, everyone was safe and Jeter scored an insurance run to make it 8-6.

Staying lefty on lefty, Torre allowed Lloyd to start the bottom of the 10th against Klesko and he struck him out. Then Torre summoned Wetteland who, after giving up a single to Andruw Jones, retired Dye and Terry Pendleton on a pair of fly balls to left, both of which Raines caught at the warning track to end the game.

“We’re shocking the world,” Nelson said.

Maybe not the world, but certainly the Braves who looked spellbound in defeat, unable to comprehend how they had lost the game.

“I still can’t believe it,” said McGriff. “I don’t think any of us can.”

Added Cox: “A lot of things went wrong for us ... we just blew the game. Wohlers has been in that situation many, many times this season and he’s come through. It just didn’t happen to work out this time.”

As for the Yankees, they were back in the Series and Boggs, who for years was frustrated in Boston by the Red Sox inability to win in pressure situations, was talking about how fate seemed to be shining on the Yankees. “We’ve been going over the destiny kind of thing, and so far, it’s getting kind of eerie,” said Boggs. “The twilight zone is starting to evolve.”