And then there were none. Or more accurately, then there will be none. Barring a change of Derek Jeter’s mind, when the Yankees open spring training for the 2015 season a year from now, none of the core four will be present. Jeter is the lone remaining member of that nucleus of five World Series championships and two other Series appearances in a 14-year span.
Actually, Jorge Posada missed the first of those World Series, and Andy Pettitte one-upped his fellow New York Yankees by sneaking in an extra World Series appearance during his brief hiatus with the Houston Astros. But let’s not quibble.
Bernie Williams, another child of the Yankees’ system, played in six of the World Series, but he preceded the others in the organization by five to seven years and retired five years before any of the others. In addition, if he had been included to make it a core five, it would not have rhymed and would not have been as catchy a phrase.
Williams, however, fits in with the others for the purpose of this column, whose primary subject is not Jeter but the man who doesn’t get enough credit for making the Yankees of the 1996-2009 period happen. That man is Gene Michael, and Jeter’s pending retirement gives us reason to recognize and acknowledge his contribution to the Yankees’ resurgence.
Player, coach and general manager in the Yankees’ organization, Michael assumed command of the Yankees when owner George Steinbrenner was suspended in 1990 for paying a two-bit gambler, Howard Spira, to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield, his star player with whom he was feuding.
Michael, who works for the Yankees as a front-office adviser and major league scout, is modest about what he accomplished in the early ‘90s, but the modesty is undeserved. Without Michael’s effort, Joe Torre would not be in the Hall of Fame.
“I didn’t sign any of those guys,” Michael was quick to say when I brought up the core four on the telephone Wednesday after Jeter had announced his retirement, effective following this season. But he conceded, “I think I had something to do with keeping them. We traded some young players, but we kept the right ones.”
Michael, 75, offered an example from nearly 20 years ago. With Don Mattingly having retired after the 1995 season, the Yankees needed a first baseman and were talking to the Seattle Mariners about Tino Martinez.
“Woody was demanding Hitchcock or Pettitte,” Michael recalled, referring to Woody Woodward, the Mariners’ general manager, and pitcher Sterling Hitchcock. “We needed a first baseman.”
The Mariners put pitchers Jeff Nelson and Jim Mecir in the deal, and the Yankees gave the Mariners Hitchcock and third baseman Russ Davis, who was 26 years old and in parts of two seasons with the Yankees had played in 44 games, hitting two homers and driving in 13 runs.
Davis spent four seasons with Seattle and two with San Francisco. The left-handed Hitchcock pitched for nine more seasons and finished his mediocre 13-year career with a 74-76 record while Pettitte had a sterling 19-year career, finishing 256-153.
Michael’s refusal to trade Pettitte, Posada, Rivera, Jeter or Williams had a simple explanation. Understanding far better than the owner the need to develop good young players and give them a chance to play, Michael convinced Steinbrenner to try that approach rather than trade good young players for veterans without giving them a chance to play for the Yankees.
I remember there were times I played it down to George,” Michael related, “saying we should keep these guys and give them a chance to fail for us. I think I taught George patience. It wasn’t easy, but he learned.”
Michael recalled a time when the Yankees and the Montreal Expos were talking about a possible swap of outfielders who weren’t hitting, Williams for Larry Walker. “But both started hitting, Bernie about .350 and Walker .290 or .300,” Michael recalled.
He suggested that Steinbrenner favored the deal, but his chief aide wasn’t eager to do it.
“He was tough,” Michael said, “but I learned if you went at him twice, three times for sure you had him.” He meant that was the way to dissuade Steinbrenner from wanting to trade a player.
A pivotal moment occurred, Michael said, when Steinbrenner returned from his suspension at the start of spring training in 1993.
“He came back and he knew the team had improved,” Michael said. “We added players along the way who were important. We made some moves. As it went on, George became more appreciative. He wasn’t as stubborn as he had been earlier in his career. When Torre came along he had it easy.”
Joe Torre wasn’t Michael’s idea or Steinbrenner’s. The Yankees needed a new manager – nothing new about that – when Buck Showalter was fired or resigned, depending on who was telling the story.
Steinbrenner had no manager in mind – Billy Martin was unavailable – and Arthur Richman, a senior member of the media relations department, recommended Torre, with whom Richman had worked with the Mets.
Torre’s arrival coincided with Jeter’s becoming the everyday shortstop. Jeter always referred to the manager as Mr. Torre. That respect, highly unusual in professional sports, apparently stemmed from Jeter’s upbringing. Given the way Jeter acts, Dorothy and Charles Jeter did a remarkable job raising him.
His 3,316 hits, however, he got on his own. He had only 12 of those hits last season, the result of a series of serious injuries that limited him to 17 games.
At the age of 39 going on 40 in June, the shortstop will not have an easy time coming back. The view among baseball people is the older a player is the harder it is for him to come back from a missed season.
I will say this, however. If anyone can overcome a year’s absence at his age, it’s Jeter. They don’t often come along like Jeter, and the Yankees have Michael to thank for changing Steinbrenner’s view of young players so that two decades later Jeter is still around and will retire next fall as a Yankee.