When Joe Torre was the supervisor of the final main league crew to win back-to-back championships and the New York Yankees confronted moments just like the Los Angeles Dodgers face now, on the precipice of elimination, he would remind the gamers how nice they have been.
“It was at all times one of many greatest elements of Joe Torre’s speeches,” recalled Paul O’Neill, the appropriate fielder for the Yankees at the moment. “He’d say, ‘The expertise on this room is sweet sufficient to win this.’ When he mentioned it, you believed it.”
The accomplishments of these Yankees groups are introduced neatly within the document ebook, like completely boxed museum relics: These Yankees received the World Collection in 1998, 1999 and 2000 — three consecutive seasons, the center of a dynasty bookended by the 1996 championship and a Recreation 7 loss within the 2001 World Collection. 4 championships within the span of 5 years; 5 World Collection appearances in six years.
However in constructing that legacy, the Yankees have been repeatedly pushed to the brink, and thru the lengthy common seasons and the quick intense rounds of playoffs, they intermittently appeared older or drained or weak — because the Dodgers should some rival evaluators over the previous 72 hours.
In dialog final week, Torre recounted how the Yankees received 114 video games within the common season in 1998, and instantly performed very tight within the American League Championship Collection. As they dropped two of the primary three video games to Cleveland within the best-of-seven collection, he sensed they have been extra targeted on validating their summerlong accomplishment than on the postseason enterprise at hand. Torre known as a gathering and remembers saying, “Guys, you bought to have some enjoyable. You are attempting to show the 114 wins are usually not a fluke.'” After the assembly was over, O’Neill discovered Torre and mentioned, “Skip, it is not enjoyable until you win.”
In 1999, Torre left the crew to be handled for most cancers and the Yankees performed listlessly in his absence, drifting into second place earlier than rebounding. On the finish of the 2000 common season, the Yankees misplaced 15 of their final 18 video games and every of their final 5 video games, clinching solely as a result of the Boston Crimson Sox had misplaced a recreation — and Torre needed to remind them to rejoice, to acknowledge an accomplishment constructed over the lengthy season. Within the division collection in opposition to Oakland, the Yankees misplaced Recreation 4 in Yankee Stadium and flew throughout the nation in a single day to play a winner-take-all Recreation 5. They received, barely surviving an A’s crew that appeared youthful, sooner, higher. In the long run, there was one other championship parade, one other foundational piece in a legacy.
Whether or not the Dodgers can reply equally and turn out to be the primary crew in 1 / 4 century to win back-to-back titles will likely be determined within the subsequent two days. Like these Yankees groups, they’re loaded with stars, some future Corridor of Famers, and a lot postseason expertise that its influence is tangible. O’Neill defined that by means of the dynasty, Yankees gamers discovered to belief one another and consider that in robust moments, they might reply, individually, collectively. “You simply come to consider everyone will do their half,” mentioned Darryl Strawberry, a part of the Yankees’ championships in 1996, 1998 and 1999.
David Cone was a frontrunner on these groups and believes that the pitching was a separator for the Yankees, a spine of the success. “General pitching, and Mariano [Rivera] on the again finish of video games,” he wrote in a textual content. “We actually had 4 No. 1 starters, just like the Dodgers’ rotation.”
Roger Clemens, a part of that rotation in 1999 and 2000, famous the inherent luck required to repeat as champions, avoiding the accidents that may take down a crew. “All through the season, you utilize 50-plus gamers simply to get by means of the marathon of the yr,” he texted. “Upon getting the items just like the Dodgers have, it is about executing and profiting from alternatives that come up in every recreation.”
Strawberry mentioned, “You have simply bought to maintain your focus. That is not at all times simple.
“Joe at all times reminded us how good we have been, and to maintain a foot on the fuel.”
Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts has a long-standing friendship with Torre, who reaches out to him every so often, checking on him, encouraging him. Below the circumstances, it is potential that Roberts’ phrases to his crew earlier than Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the mound for Recreation 6 of the World Collection will echo a whole lot of what Torre mentioned in his years because the Yankees supervisor.
In Torre’s first yr as Yankees supervisor, he informed the gamers, “I do not wish to win one World Collection. I wish to win three in a row.”
Torre recalled, “I mentioned that simply to allow them to know, ‘When you win, that is nice. However you may have extra work to do. I do not care what line of labor you are in: When you cease to admire what you’ve got completed, you cease doing it.”
The 2025 Dodgers might have reached that crossroads, and as Torre did, Roberts may remind the Dodgers how extraordinary they have been and the way they’ve extra to do. Heritage development will be — and should be, at instances — a messy enterprise.