The Closer (21 page)

Utley, Howard, and Werth are the next three hitters, and this is no time to complicate things or make things exciting. I need to get Victorino right now. I throw one more cut fastball, down, and Victorino pounds it down into the ground, a harmless bouncer to
Robby Cano. I start to run toward first, thinking I might need to cover, but Cano tosses to Teixeira and I start pumping my fist before the ball is even in his glove. I turn around toward the infield and keep running, and now it feels as if the whole team is chasing me.

I am laughing like a little kid playing keep-away. This is the fourth time I’ve gotten the final out in the World Series, and the best one of all. Maybe because it has been so long. Maybe because the last time I was this close to winning I had that debacle in the desert in 2001—eight years earlier, to the day. I don’t know. I am not stopping to analyze it. It’s beautiful not just that we won but how we won. Hideki Matsui, a total pro, hits .615 and knocks in eight runs in six games. Damaso Marte retires the last twelve hitters he faces, among them Utley and Howard, both of whom he strikes out in the final game. Andy pitches his second clincher and does it on three days’ rest. Derek hits .407 and Damon hits .364. Alex, a new man this October, has six RBIs; Jorge, five.

What is also beautiful is that for the first time Clara and the boys are at every game, and so are my parents and in-laws. We share the whole ride together. What could be better than being surrounded by the people you love the most?

Later that night, after a half-hour ride home and congratulations and good nights from my family, I get on my knees beside our bed. My Bible is on the nightstand. I begin to pray, purely and completely overcome with gratitude to the Lord for my life and my health and my family. None of it would’ve been possible without Him.

I
F
A
MERICA EVER WANTED
to have a queen, Rachel Robinson would be the perfect choice. She is regal and gracious, intelligent and tireless—a champion of freedom and equality for her whole life. I am not in awe of too many people, but I am in awe of Rachel Robinson. More than forty years after she lost her husband—the most courageous and important baseball player in the history of the sport—Rachel continues to honor Jackie Robinson, No. 42, through the foundation that bears his name, and through her efforts to make the world a more just place.

Before I report for my twenty-first season of professional baseball, I begin 2010 by getting to meet Rachel for the first time. It happens at a fund-raising event in Lower Manhattan for the Jackie Robinson Foundation. I am there with Henry Aaron, in an informal question-and-answer session, speaking about the privilege and the pressure of being the last player to wear Jackie’s 42, after all of the other guys who’d been grandfathered in had retired.

The privilege part couldn’t be more obvious; who would not want to share a uniform number with the great Jackie Robinson? The pressure is living up to the measure of a man who changed the world, and conducted himself with dignity every step of the way.

I don’t know if any person can match that standard. I am no pioneer, I can tell you that. Roberto Clemente was the first Latin
star, and there were many others, including Vic Power and Orlando Cepeda, who followed. Humberto Robinson, a relief pitcher, was the first big league player from Panama. I am a simple man who measures his impact in a smaller way: by being a humble servant of the Lord, and trying to do my best to treat people—and play the game—in the right way.

The home opener carries on with the big moments—it has always been a festive occasion, especially when there is a ring ceremony attached. But this year it is not so festive at all. Sure, we get our rings and standing ovations, the biggest of them all reserved for Hideki Matsui, World Series hero, who is now a member of the Angels—our opening day opponent. The fans salute him for his quiet excellence and years of service and send my heart soaring, the exact opposite direction my heart is going when Gene Monahan is introduced.

Through all these years and all those rubdowns, Geno remains a man who radiates kindness in all he does. So it’s a body blow when I find out a month before spring training starts that he has been diagnosed with throat cancer. He has spent four decades caring for his Yankee ballplayers. Now he has to take care of himself.

It turns out that Geno felt a lump in his neck when he was shaving one day during the postseason. He does exactly what he tells us not to do; he puts off getting it checked out. He finally goes and sees a doctor in December and gets his diagnosis in January. He has to get his tonsils and an affected lymph node taken out, and then begins a course of thirty radiation treatments. Geno knows, because he counted. He is a man who is more precise than a Swiss watch. His training room is almost as spotless as his car, which he washes and vacuums the way most people brush their teeth. Everything is in its place, right down to the antique brass scale that Babe Ruth used to get weighed on. The room is so… cared for. And that’s exactly how I feel when I am in it.

Geno takes a leave from the team while undergoing treatment. He has radiation the morning of opening day and then heads to the Stadium. He is introduced right after Joe Girardi. Jorge asks Michael Kay, the master of ceremonies, to wait before he introduces anyone else. The crowd rises and cheers for Geno, and the Yankee players who owe him so much move to the dugout railing and cheer for him, too. Geno is choking up, tapping his heart. I am choking up, too. I miss him terribly, miss all the talks about his daughters and my sons, about everything. Geno wants to rejoin us by early June. I pray that the Lord will give him the strength he needs to get through this and help get him back to the job that he loves.

We celebrate our rings and Geno with a victory that day, even if another former teammate, Bobby Abreu, gives us a scare when he hits a grand slam off of David Robertson in the top of the ninth to make the score 7–5. Joe calls for me to get the last two outs. I strike out Torii Hunter and up steps… Hideki Matsui. A few hours earlier, I am clapping for him, and now I want to put him away so people will clap for us. It’s weird stuff sometimes, this free-agency racket, but when I look in at Jorge’s glove, Godzilla himself could be in the batter’s box and I wouldn’t be ruffled.

Hideki pops up my first pitch to second, and the game is over.

Geno actually makes it back ahead of schedule, and maybe it’s the inspiration of a sixty-five-year-old trainer that makes me feel, well, almost young. We have the best record in the majors (44–27) as we take the field on a Tuesday night in Phoenix against the Diamondbacks, and we rally to tie in the ninth and go ahead in the tenth when Curtis Granderson, our new center fielder, smokes a line-drive homer into the right-field stands. After a clean ninth, I come out for the tenth looking to nail down a victory. I have retired twenty-four straight hitters, a streak that ends when Stephen Drew singles to right and Justin Upton cracks a double. Joe orders me to
walk the cleanup man, Miguel Montero, to set up the force at home.

So the bases are loaded with Diamondbacks, and Joe and everybody else is wondering if I am having flashbacks to the 2001 World Series.

I give them the answer later:

No.

That was November 4, 2001. This is June 23, 2010. I had hair then. I have no hair now. I had Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez on the corners then. I have Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira on the corners now.

I was thirty-one then. I am forty now.

I don’t carry things that do me no good to carry. I let them go, so I can be light and free.

The batter is Chris Young, the center fielder. I bust him inside and he pops up to Francisco Cervelli, my catcher. Next up is Adam LaRoche. He has all five RBIs in the game for the Diamondbacks. I run a cutter in on his hands and he pops to Alex.

Now the hitter is Mark Reynolds. He leads the team in homers, leads the majors in strikeouts. Not a guy you want to miss your spot with.

I get strike one on a cutter away that Reynolds looks at. I miss away, then hit the outside corner with another cutter away. On the 2–2 pitch, I want to go up the ladder—change his eye level. I wind and fire—another cutter, but up now. Reynolds swings through it.

It is not nine years ago. You can tell by the outcome.

Two days later, we are in Los Angeles to face the Dodgers, our first game ever against Mr. T. I give him a big hug before the game. It is great to see his face and look into his eyes. He is not just the man who led us to four world championships; he’s a man who saw something in me, who was willing to give me a chance to become the Yankees closer. You never forget that.

Take it easy on us tonight, okay, Mo? he says. These guys have never seen a cutter like yours before.

I laugh and am on my way. CC Sabathia pitches four-hit, one-run ball through eight, and I take the ball for the ninth, three outs away from saving a 2–1 victory.

Due up are Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and James Loney. I strike out all three. I make sure not to look into the Dodger dugout for a reaction.

While we’re in town, my old bullpen buddy Mike Borzello, who came to the Dodgers with Mr. T, asks if I would be willing to talk to Jonathan Broxton, the Dodgers’ closer. He’s a kid the size of a boxcar, a young man with a great arm who has a strong start to the year but is suffering from some confidence issues. I walk up to him in the outfield during Dodgers batting practice.

Nice to meet you, he says.

I’ve heard a lot about you. How are things going?

Okay, I guess, he says. I’m just not doing the job the way I did last year.

Broxton talks some about how confident and in control he felt when he was blowing away the league in 2009. I can see how hard he’s trying to get back there, all but putting himself into a vise, and tightening it up. I talk to young pitchers often, and it’s never about grips or pitch selection or on-the-fly tutorials about throwing a cut fastball. It is always about the mental approach to closing. That is what separates the guys who are good for a year or two and the guys who get the job done year after year after year.

This is going to sound boring and obvious, I say, but you know what I think about when I come into a save situation? I think about getting three outs and getting them as fast as I can and getting out of there.

That’s it. The job is hard enough without overcomplicating it. You don’t want a lot of noise playing in your head. You don’t want
doubts. You just have to think about making every single pitch the best pitch it can be, so you can get that first out. And then the second out. And then the third out.

I also tell him: Don’t worry about getting beat. It is going to happen. It happens to me. It happens to everybody. These are major league hitters and they are going to get you sometimes, but the best thing you can do for yourself is have a short memory. You can’t take what happened yesterday out to the mound today. Because if you do that, you’ve got no shot at succeeding.

Every time I have gotten beat, it has made me better. Every time. I am not happy it happened, but I am happy it made me better. You only pay attention to the positive, not the negative.

In the series finale, Clayton Kershaw holds us to two runs and four hits. Broxton comes in to close it. I wish him well, but not right now. He can find his way and change his mental approach after we leave town.

Broxton strikes out Teixeira looking for one out. I’m thinking I may have been better off talking to him after the series. Then Alex singles. Cano doubles. Jorge singles. Granderson walks. Chad Huffman singles, and we score four times to tie the game at six, smacking Jonathan Broxton with as rough a blown save as he will have all year. We win it an inning later when Robby Cano hits a two-run homer off of George Sherrill in the tenth.

Thanks for talking to Brox, Mr. T says the next time I see him. Whatever you said, he got a whole lot worse.

We go into the All-Star break in first place, with a record of 56–32, and even though I am selected to the team for the eleventh time, I sit it out so I can rest a cranky knee and a tender oblique muscle. The game is played in Anaheim. The date is July 13, and it brings with it prayers and one more tearful goodbye: Mr. George Steinbrenner dies of a heart attack in a Tampa hospital, nine days after
his eightieth birthday. It is two days after the passing of Bob Sheppard, the Yankees’ legendary public-address announcer. Death and illness are part of life, of course. Still, I am reeling. First Chico Heron passes, now Mr. George and the great Bob Sheppard, who graced us with his dignity and a voice that seemed to come straight from the Lord Himself.

It’s hard to know why anything happens in life, or why we seem capable of terrorizing the Minnesota Twins on command. We sweep them again in the postseason this year, making it nine straight October victories against them, and twelve out of the last fourteen. We have eliminated them in division series play four times in eight years and always seem to do it by coming from behind, as we do in two of our three victories this year, including Game 1.

I have more success against the Twins than against any other team. I feel it at the time, of course, but, looking back, and seeing that my career ERA in the Metrodome and Target Field is 1.09 and that, overall against the Twins, it is 1.24? I can’t explain it. I blew a save against them earlier this year at Yankee Stadium, allowing a grand slam to Jason Kubel, but otherwise have gone through them like a machete in a cornfield, especially in the playoffs; I have pitched sixteen and two-thirds innings against the Twins in the postseason and have given up no runs and only eight hits. The funny thing is that most of their big guns have hit me pretty well. Joe Mauer hits .286 against me. Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer hit .250 off of me. It’s not as if we have some master game plan against this club. I just always make the pitches I need to make and get the outs I need to get. You do that over a number of years, and you naturally develop confidence and positive associations when you are facing that team, fortifying you for the battle.

And the battle, for me, is what makes me so passionate about the game, even after all these years. If it weren’t a battle, then it
wouldn’t mean nearly so much to prevail. It is the prospect of the battle that makes you put in all the work, all the preparation, readying yourself to deliver your best, and that is all I am thinking of as I stare in at Jorge Posada’s glove, with Michael Young at the plate in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Texas Rangers in Arlington.

There is one out in the bottom of the ninth, the tying run on second. We have climbed out of a massive hole, taking a 6–5 lead on a Robby Cano homer in the seventh and a five-run outburst in the eighth. These two innings have left Rangers president Nolan Ryan with his arms crossed and his face pained, looking as if he’d eaten a bad piece of steer. I come in for the ninth, and after a single and a bunt, here comes Young.

He is a consummate pro and a tough out, a guy who never gives away an at-bat, and a career .320 hitter off of me. I don’t fear any hitter, but I have come to respect some more than others, and Michael Young has totally earned my respect. Jorge and I know it’s going to take work to get him—that I need to move the ball around and make sure I keep him guessing. So I start him out with a cutter up and a cutter in, and he fouls both of them off. I barely miss with two more cutters, one in, one away. I am positive the 1–2 pitch is a strike—it’s knee-high on the outside corner—but I don’t get the call. I take the ball back from Jorge. I’m not going to start staring down umpires or showing them up now.

I have a pitch to make.

I come in with a two-seamer that is in and higher than I want, probably the best pitch to hit of the at-bat; Young fouls it off. Now I come set again. Jorge sets up outside, and wants it up, and I throw a nasty cutter right to his glove.