At times, the 2009 Yankees could be infuriating. As a team and as individuals, they displayed a few disturbing tendencies. Let’s consider just some of the following:
In what has become an annual ritual in the 21st century, the Yankees stumbled out of the gate in April, looking all too much like the 2008 team that finished well short of the postseason…
In an early-season game against the Indians, Yankee pitchers were torched so badly that they appeared to be auditioning for spots on the staff of the Washington Nationals…
The catcher, Jorge Posada, sometimes ran the bases as if he were Rich Gedman on acid…
No-hit backup catcher Kevin Cash actually took up space on the roster…
The bullpen, spearheaded by the erratic tossings of Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and Jonathan Albaladejo, imploded over the first two months of the season…
The top left-handed reliever, Damaso Marte, pitched so badly in the spring that the Yankees couldn’t figure out if he was hurt or just plain awful…
The first baseman, Mark Teixeira, started and finished the season by hitting with all of the dynamism of Miguel Cairo…
Angel Berroa, a no-hit, no-field infielder, actually occupied a place on the 25-man roster…
In losing their first eight head-to-head matchups with the archrival Red Sox, the Yankees looked like the “Little Rascals” playing a pickup game on a sandlot…
After sailing through the first four innings, A.J. Burnett coughed up a five-run lead against the Red Sox on the way to a nationally televised defeat at Fenway Park…
Brett Tomko, already deemed not good enough for teams like the Padres and Royals, actually took up space on the Yankees’ bloated pitching staff…
The left fielder, Johnny Damon, sometimes played his position as if the monuments were still in place on the field at Yankee Stadium…
Hideki Matsui, ravaged by two painful knees, ran so slowly that critics claimed he was headed toward retirement at season’s end…
In their last series before the All-Star break, the Yankees endured a discouraging three-game sweep to their pesky West Coast nemeses, the Angels…
Joba Chamberlain, once hailed as the premier pitching prospect in the organization, lost several miles from his fastball and failed to silence the critics who claimed he belonged in the bullpen…
And yet, in spite of it all, the 2009 Yankees emerged as the best team in baseball, first in the regular season and then in the postseason derby.
The above list of infractions isn’t intended as a means of nitpicking. Rather, it points out that how we, as diehard fans of a team like the Yankees, notice the flaws that emerge during the course of a long, seven-month season. The closer we examine a team, the more we see the warts, the bumps, the crevices.
All teams, no matter how talented, endure slumps, encounter problems, and suffer through embarrassing errors. The best of teams find ways to overcome their difficulties, to make up for their shortcomings. The Yankees were just such a team in 2009, winding their way through a maze of missteps to become the game’s world champions.
Hardly perfect, the Yankees rarely made it easy for themselves in 2009. As a result, they rarely made it easy for us, the fans and followers of the team. The Yankees often coasted through the first six innings of games before suddenly taking control from the seventh inning on. Ultimately, they did what needed to be done to pull out a championship: they played better than their opponents—from the Twins to the Angels to the Phillies, each progressively better than the last team.
For doing just that, the Yankees are, and deservedly so, the world champions…
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