The Yankee Years Part 21

Only three weeks and one day prior to Cashman's meeting with Torre-it was Valentine's Day night and the second night of the Yankees' spring training camp-Swindal was driving his 2007 Mercedes in St. Petersburg at a little past two in the morning when he made a hard left turn at the intersection of Central Avenue and 31st Street, cutting off another car. The other vehicle had to brake abruptly to avoid a collision. The other vehicle just so happened to be a police cruiser driven by Officer Terri Nagel. At that moment at the corner of Central and 31st, the future operations of the New York Yankees also took an abrupt turn.

Nagel followed the Mercedes, which zoomed through the 35 mph zone at 61 mph. The officer pulled over the Mercedes some 18 blocks later. It was 2:12 a.m. Swindal failed a field sobriety test. He refused a Breathalyzer test. He was arrested for driving under the influence, taken to jail, booked at 4:26 a.m. and released at 9:53 a.m. His police mug shot was soon all over the Internet.

The Yankees actually released a statement that said, "Mr. Swindal apologizes profusely for this distraction during the Yankees' spring training." Distraction? Sure, driving under the influence is wrong because, well, you don't want it to distract from millionaires taking batting practice and fielding fungoes.

Despite the comically benign wording, Steve Swindal was soon to be finished with having anything to do with the New York Yankees. He just didn't know it quite yet. About four weeks later, Jennifer Swindal filed divorce papers in Hillsborough County Circuit Court's family law department, citing "irreconcilable differences" that led to the couple splitting on, yes, Valentine's Day. In the filing, Jennifer Swindal asked to keep the couple's $2.3 million home in Tampa's upscale Davis Island neighborhood. Swindal was out of the family, which meant he was out of the Yankees.

In between the arrest and the divorce, Swindal continued to show up for work each day at Legends Field, the Yankees' grand but joyless spring training compound that was heavy on concrete, fencing and stern security officers. He and the Yankees kept up appearances while the lawyers started hammering out divorce papers and severance issues. Swindal remained in the loop on club issues, which meant Cashman would need to run his idea of a contract extension for Torre past both Swindal and Levine before presenting it to The Boss for approval. In times of better health for Steinbrenner, Cashman and Torre may have dealt directly with Steinbrenner, who then could have chosen to table the idea or give it a green light, perhaps handing it off to one of his lieutenants for negotiation. But with Steinbrenner's vitality in question, so was the usual power structure of the Yankees' front office. That's why Cashman told Torre he would need to run the idea of an extension past "them."

A couple of days pa.s.sed without Cashman giving any word back to Torre about what he heard back from "them." Finally, Torre decided to ask Cashman what was going on. Torre had rented a home for spring training, and the owners wanted to know if he would be renting the place again in 2008.

"Cash, we just have to make a decision on this place we're renting here," Torre said. "Do you have any idea about a contract?"

"Well, I did talk to Swindal," Cashman offered.

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'How much is he going to want?' "

"Oh. Okay."

_Swindal's response to Cashman was not an encouraging one for Torre. When Torre was hired after the 1995 season, the Yankees had not won a playoff series since 1981, the longest drought ever seen at Yankee Stadium since the joint was built back in 1923. They were drawing an average of 23,360 fans per game when Torre was hired, worse than 14 other franchises, including the Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds and Florida Marlins. But under Torre, the Yankees had made the playoffs every season and won 17 postseason series, including those four World Series, and the per-game attendance shot up 124 percent to a major league best 52,445. The Yankees were bankrolling gobs of money because of the demand for season tickets-nothing better for a club than having tickets sold with cash in hand months before the season even started-and the demand for season tickets was driven by the near certainty that every October the Yankees would be hosting playoff games. From 1996 through 2006 the Yankees played 59 postseason games at Yankee Stadium, two more than were played in the entire 94-year history to that point of Fenway Park in Boston.

"What drives season tickets is the expectation of postseason games," said a high-ranking business executive of a National League club. "And to make sure you get those postseason tickets that everybody wants, you have to get your season tickets. The opportunity to see postseason games is the big carrot."

Torre was at the helm during this period of staggering success and wealth for the Yankees. Yet when Cashman broached to Swindal the idea of simply adding one year to Torre's contract, Swindal reacted first not on the merit of the idea but on the bottom-line cost. Like a piece of bric-a-brac at a garage sale, Torre's value to the franchise was reduced to a pricing point. This was not a good sign for Torre. And it was about to get worse.

Cashman still needed to run the idea of an extension through Levine before it could get to Steinbrenner. He did so on March 13, which just happened to be the day after the Yankees lost an exhibition game the previous night to Boston, 7-5. Levine immediately told Cashman to forget about going to The Boss at the moment.

"I wouldn't go to The Boss with it right now," Levine told Cashman, according to what Cashman reported back to Torre. "Not after the team has lost a couple of games in a row. It's not a good time for this."

Torre was incredulous. Not a good time? Torre had won 1,079 games as manager of the Yankees (averaging 98 wins per year) and had won 21 World Series games. No man alive had won more than that. And now Levine was saying that just because the Yankees had lost two early spring exhibition games that they couldn't possibly broach the idea of an extension for Torre with Steinbrenner? How could it be possible that after 11 straight years in the postseason Torre's future was being judged on two meaningless spring training games? How could it be that his worthiness was tied to a game the night before that was so meaningless that the Yankees' lineup was packed with players that Steinbrenner himself would not have been able to identify if he ever happened to make one of his old, bl.u.s.tery sweeps through the clubhouse, the sweeps he had all but abandoned in his advancing age? How could it be that Torre's future employment was iced because of a loss with Todd Pratt at catcher, Alberto Gonzalez at shortstop, Chris Basak at third base, Josh Phelps at first base and Kevin Reese in right field? How could such a game possibly matter that much?

That was it for Torre. The Yankees had told him enough. The mock firing, the hand-wringing over the cost and now this, his extension considered unspeakable simply because of two spring training losses after 11 years on the job.

"Forget it," Torre told Cashman.

"What do you mean?" Cashman replied.

"Just forget it," Torre said. "Don't even bother asking anymore. I don't want any talk about an extension anymore. Just drop it. And if it does come up, tell them I'll wait until after the season to talk about it. Just forget it for now. I don't want to feel like I'm auditioning for this job. That's the last thing I want to do, to think about that while I'm doing my job. I can't do that.

"Listen, you guys either like what I do or you think somebody else can do it better. You're not going to hurt my feelings. That's reality."

Cashman nodded.

"I don't want you to have to think about it while you're doing your job," Cashman said. "Don't change anything. Just do what you do."

There. It was done. The trial balloon of an extension was shot to pieces before it ever got off the ground. The pitfalls of what Ali predicted would be the toughest year of her husband's life were officially put in place. Torre was a confirmed lame duck who, like it or not, was auditioning for the job he had held for 11 years. It was the beginning of the end.

"We Have a Problem"

Every year Joe Torre would call a team meeting on the first day of spring training and make sure everyone knew what was expected of them: win the World Series. No other team in baseball began this way. The speech, of course, also would include the boilerplate stuff about being on time, hustling on the field and representing the Yankees franchise at all times with cla.s.s and dignity. But Torre would make sure they also understood the expectations upon them. Twenty-nine other teams were hoping for a shot at the playoffs and taking their chances with the random nature of postseason baseball. The Yankees, having once pocketed four world champions.h.i.+ps in five years while winning an odds-defying 12 out of 13 postseason series, had come to believe not just that they should be playing every year in October, but also that they should win the World Series. should win the World Series. They adopted the exception as their rule. They adopted the exception as their rule.

Each year that pa.s.sed without the Yankees winning the World Series became a little more joyless, with the incremental successes and highlights of a long season-the kind of season that would have made 29 other franchises proud-lost to the disappointment of not having won at all. Torre got a glimpse of this emptiness at spring training in 2002 while signing autographs one day for a group of fans.

"Too bad about last year, Joe," one of them said. "You guys will do better this year."

The Yankees had lost the last game of the 2001World Series on the last pitch of the last inning because of a broken-bat bloop hit, and yet the season was a failure. In 2007, you could multiply the disappointment by six, the number of seasons that had gone by without the Yankees winning the World Series. They were a more pedestrian 5-6 in postseason series in that time.

Torre decided he could no longer give his usual spring training speech. Baseball had changed too much. It had become too democratic. Ten different franchises had played in the six World Series since the Yankees last won one. n.o.body talked about compet.i.tive balance problems anymore.

The Yankees themselves had changed too much. As Torre gathered his team in the clubhouse in Tampa for his opening remarks, he saw around the room only four faces who had won a world champions.h.i.+p in a Yankees uniform: Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pett.i.tte. Mostly, though, Torre was tired of hearing the Yankees' accomplishments diminished because the postseason wasn't breaking their way the way it did from 1996 through 2000. The 2006 Yankees had no reason to think they should have been world champions. Jaret Wright was their number four starter. Aaron Gueil and Andy Phillips got more at-bats than Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, who missed chunks of the season with injuries. The Yankees were four games out of first place on the Fourth of July. But somehow the Yankees grinded out 97 wins, the most in the American League and tied with the Mets for the most wins in baseball. All of it, however, was flushed away with the Division Series loss to Detroit, starting from the moment midway through Game 2 when Mussina lost the lead at home. The season was an abject failure because of three days in October. Torre was nearly fired because of it.

Torre decided the speech this year would be different. The goal still was to win the World Series, but he no longer wanted his players to feel the pressure that they were expected to win it.

"Look, we're not going to worry about anybody else's perception," Torre told them. "Go out there and do the best that you can. Prepare yourselves the best that you can and give your very best effort. But don't get caught up in the perceptions and the expectations.

"Last year we won 97 games. n.o.body won more games than us. I refuse to look at that as a failure. You can't always control the outcome. But what you can control is your preparation and how you play. Make sure you take care of preparation and effort. Get to the park every day ready to play and you basically earn where you wind up."

The Yankees had joined the other 29 teams, even if they were the last to admit it. The preponderance of players in the clubhouse had no idea what it was like to win a world champions.h.i.+p in Yankee pinstripes, so how could they a.s.sume it was their manifest destiny? Besides, on the first day of spring training, Torre already had some problems on his hands. Three of his starting eight positional players, Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, had reported to camp out of shape. And it was about to get worse. Less than one week into workouts, general manager Brian Cashman walked into Torre's office and said, "We have a problem. Johnny's not sure if he wants to play baseball anymore."

_Johnny Damon had reported to camp 15 pounds overweight, much of it carried in his midsection. All things considered, he much rather preferred riding his Jet-Ski on the lake right off his backyard in Orlando than getting ready for a baseball season. Damon hadn't bothered to work out that winter, partly, he said, because of a stress fracture in his foot that had not fully healed but also because he was burned out from baseball. For 11 consecutive years Damon had played in at least 145 games for four different teams without ever being placed on the disabled list. Even his off-seasons were frazzled. In 2001, for instance, he exercised his free agent rights and left Oakland to sign with the Red Sox.

In 2002 he divorced his wife, the mother of his two children, and lived the life of a hard-charging bachelor. Writing in his book, Idiot, Idiot, about the 2002 season, Damon said, "If you're good-looking and a ballplayer, girls want a piece of you. For the rest of the season, I met some women, some good, some bad. I had some one-nighters that I had never gotten to experience before. It was fun. I ended up having to carry around a separate cell phone for the women to call me. I didn't want them to have my main number because my phone would have been ringing off the hook and it just got tiring." about the 2002 season, Damon said, "If you're good-looking and a ballplayer, girls want a piece of you. For the rest of the season, I met some women, some good, some bad. I had some one-nighters that I had never gotten to experience before. It was fun. I ended up having to carry around a separate cell phone for the women to call me. I didn't want them to have my main number because my phone would have been ringing off the hook and it just got tiring."

One of the women he met that year, Mich.e.l.le Mangan, would become his next wife. They were engaged in 2004. That previous off-season Damon suffered from serious migraines, blurred vision and postconcussion syndrome after a violent outfield collision with teammate Damian Jackson in the 2003 playoffs. It literally hurt him to shave, so he didn't, which is how Damon came to acquire the iconic, biblical, bearded, long-haired look from what became the 2004 world champions.h.i.+p season of the Boston Red Sox. That winter, while also in demand for personal appearances and endors.e.m.e.nts, he and Mich.e.l.le were married.

The next off-season brought another divorce of sorts, as the Red Sox thanked him for his four years of service to the team, decided they already had benefited from the best years of his career, and sent him on his free-agent way. A disappointed Damon wound up signing a four-year contract with the Yankees for $52 million.

"Somehow I became a free agent and New York was the team that wanted me," he said. "The team I ran through walls for didn't even want me. And I was called everything in the book [for leaving]. I'm just a baseball player. If there was a team in Orlando, Florida, that's the team I would have had the biggest allegiance to. Unfortunately, there's not a baseball team there."

Damon gave the Yankees a typically solid season in 2006, including a career-high 24 home runs. As always, he played virtually every day, scored more than 100 runs for the ninth consecutive season, and provided a manic kind of energy and lightness of being that the more serious-minded Yankees sorely needed.

"I loved his personality," Torre said. "All the fun he had just before the game was great for the team. He always checked with me, even if it was just to glance my way, before he did something stupid just for laughs before a game. He might pour water on himself or break a package of sunflower seeds . . . anything to relieve the tension. He was great."

It all caught up to Damon that winter. His life had been a nonstop string of catastrophes and triumphs . . . two rounds of free agency, divorce, marriage, concussion, the beard, the hair, the first Red Sox world champions.h.i.+p in 86 years . . . so when the Tigers sent him and the Yankees home to the unusual quiet of that winter, Damon stopped thinking of himself as a baseball player and fell into the welcome comfort of being a stay-at-home dad. He played nearly every day with his 7-year-old twins from his first marriage, while Mich.e.l.le gave birth in January to the couple's first child, a daughter.

"After the '06 season I had a broken bone in my foot," Damon said, "so every time I tried to do something physical, running or whatever, I couldn't. There was too much pain. So I didn't do much."

Torre said he didn't know Damon still had problems with his foot, but said, "I think it was all connected anyway, not knowing if he wanted to play. He never really got himself in shape for spring training. And if you think about the off-season in today's baseball, unlike when I played, guys use the off-season to get themselves into shape. Actually, into better shape than they were the previous season. They work all winter. But if he was in between about playing and not playing, he's not going to be committed to that kind of program.

"When he got to spring training and said he wasn't sure if he wanted to play, I'm sure that's not the first time it came up. I'm sure he was thinking about it all winter. So in having that thought process, he wasn't doing anything that was going to get himself ready for the season."

Damon admitted, "Every day in the off-season, I just . . . I didn't feel like getting ready for baseball. I was just having fun with the kids, playing on the lake every day. I felt unprepared to make that decision about playing."

Damon reported to Tampa for spring training, but his heart wasn't in it. Neither were his legs. His legs had helped make him a star, but being out of shape, Damon couldn't move or run the way he normally did with any kind of explosion.

"So every time I moved I felt brittle," he said. "And that's where all the leg issues started coming. And for me, that's part of the reason I'm playing baseball. That's why the scouts came out. Watch me run and do that kind of stuff. And when you're not able to do that and track down b.a.l.l.s in center field and do that, you start thinking about quitting.

"I just couldn't see from my perspective going to the ballpark and preparing every day, mentally and physically. I had been doing it for a long time. I have three kids who don't get to see me at my best all the time because I'm constantly thinking about baseball. I'm constantly traveling, and my life off the field is so great that I needed a little bit of a break . . . I knew I still had some baseball in me. But once I started getting these nagging injuries I started thinking, I don't want to play this game just to be okay. [Former Royals infielder] Frank White told me one of the best things I heard when he was coaching the outfielders in Kansas City. He said, 'Don't just play the game to play. Try to leave a mark.' When I go out there and have a bad game, I feel bad for the fans wearing my jerseys in the stands because I want them to watch me and be impressed. And I didn't feel like I had that going for me."

The last straw was knowing that his father's birthday was coming up. Johnny couldn't remember the last time he was with Jimmy Damon on his birthday. Johnny was always playing baseball at spring training somewhere in February. He felt badly about not spending enough time with his father.

"I wanted to get back to him," Damon said. "I don't know how much time he has. I want to spend time with him. I mean, there was just so much going on. My older kids are getting older and bigger . . ."

On February 24 Damon told Cashman he was thinking seriously about quitting baseball. Cashman quickly arranged a meeting with Damon, Torre and the team psychologist in Torre's office. Torre suggested they move somewhere else, knowing that any time reporters noticed the door to his office closed, a vigil would begin to see who would come out when the door opened. So the four of them moved the meeting to the trainers' room, in a back portion of the clubhouse not accessible to reporters.

"Johnny was apologetic, and I felt bad for him," Torre said. "Of course, Cashman's mind worked in a different way. It was more like, 'If you're going to retire, this is how much money we have to work with, this is what you're leaving on the table.' And we basically didn't try to talk him out of anything. We just said, 'Take what time you need.' And we're not going to lie to the media. We're just going to say you had to deal with some personal matters and whenever you come back, you come back."

Damon jumped in his car and drove home to Orlando. He played with his kids and took his father out to dinner to celebrate his birthday. Who knew how long he would stay away from baseball? A day? A week? Forever? His dinner with Jimmy actually convinced him he needed to get back to baseball, at least for the time being, anyway. Jimmy told him life after baseball would always be there for him, but for now baseball afforded him a national platform to affect people's lives. Damon, for instance, helps raise awareness and funds for the Wounded Warriors project, a charity that a.s.sists soldiers injured in battle to transition into civilian life. Being a baseball player, especially a Yankee, Yankee, Jimmy told him, made his contribution to that kind of work much more impactful. On the third day of his sabbatical, Johnny Damon drove back to Tampa and became a baseball player again. Jimmy told him, made his contribution to that kind of work much more impactful. On the third day of his sabbatical, Johnny Damon drove back to Tampa and became a baseball player again.

"I just found out the importance of going to play baseball again," Damon said. "What it came down to was coming back wasn't for me. It was for the Yankees. The Yankees were the reason I wanted to go play again. They showed faith in me and gave me a real nice contract.

"And there's a lot of fans out there who like what I do and a lot of charities out there I can help by being a ballplayer. I'm thinking about baseball now but I'm also thinking about life after baseball. There are so many people I can impact, and baseball gives me that avenue to do it."

_It wasn't so simple, however. It would be months before Damon was fully vested in playing baseball again, months in which the Yankees' season staggered and swooned. At the same time, Abreu and Giambi were also out of shape and unproductive. On the same day Damon returned to camp, Abreu strained an oblique muscle while taking batting practice. Giambi hadn't done any running all winter, restricting his workouts to weight training and cardio machines. His legs, back and hips had pained him too much to do any running, the result, he would later discover, of having unusually high arches in his feet. The Yankees, quite literally, began the year in bad shape.

Torre had another issue to consider that spring: Should he bend his team rules to accommodate the possible signing of Roger Clemens? Clemens visited the Yankees at Legends Field on March 7, still coy about whether he was going to come out of "retirement" a third time or not. The Yankees understood, however, that bringing in Clemens meant allowing him the same privileges that the Houston Astros had granted him the previous three years. The Astros permitted Clemens to leave the team between his starts whenever he wished. So if Clemens wanted to watch his son, Koby, play minor league baseball or caddy for his wife, Debbie, at their local golf club champions.h.i.+p, he was free to ditch his teammates. Clemens wasn't interested in giving up such a privilege to return to baseball.

Torre had allowed players to leave the team in the past, but only starting pitchers between starts and only then with work-related issues, such as the medical treatments Kevin Brown needed for his back.

"I turned down a lot of regular players who wanted to go to graduations and things and I couldn't let them go," Torre said. "Wade Boggs asked me once and I told him no. You can't make a case for regular players."

Torre considered relief pitchers also as too necessary to allow them to take leaves of absence. Indeed, during that 2007 season, in June, closer Mariano Rivera asked Torre for permission to skip the Yankees' series in Colorado to attend his child's school graduation. Torre told him no, that the Yankees could not afford to let him go.

"I'm sorry," Rivera told Torre, "but I'm going to go whether I have permission or not."

"Listen," Torre said, "I can't stop you from going, but if it comes to the eighth or ninth inning and we have a lead and we need you and you're not there, what do I say to people? You tell me what I'm supposed to say. Say you're gone without permission? Do you want to deal with that kind of s.h.i.+t? I don't know what you want me to say, but I can't tell people I gave you permission when there are 24 other guys counting on you. I can't do that."

Rivera understood. He did not leave. And the Yankees were swept three games by the Rockies. Rivera wasn't needed at all.

As a starting pitcher, Clemens was different. He wasn't needed in the four games between starts. Still, Torre would have to decide if his disappearances would cause resentment or adversity within the team. At least Gary Sheffield and Randy Johnson, each traded after the 2006 season, were not still around. Torre figured both Sheffield and Johnson, both of whom were established stars given to moodiness, might have had trouble with the Yankees granting a privilege to Clemens that had not been extended to them. The Clemens Family Plan might have caused problems in a clubhouse with Sheffield and Johnson in it, Torre thought. "Cash felt the same way and it was for probably the same reasons," Torre said. To find out whether it still might cause resentment with the 2007 Yankees, Torre talked to some of his star players.

"Cashman told me in spring training we had a shot at Roger and this was going to be a part of his deal," Torre said. "It was part of the rules. If you wanted to get him it was part of the package. To be honest, when it was presented to me I first thought, I can't have that with this team. So when I got the heads-up then that he might be coming, I mentioned it to Jeter and Jason and Alex. I talked to them individually and casually, behind the batting cage. I said, 'I've got to know, is this going to bother anybody?' And everybody said, 'As long as he wins ballgames we don't give a s.h.i.+t about what he does.' No one had a problem with it.

"A lot of it depends on the makeup of your team. The comparison to me is when Richie Allen was coming from Philadelphia to the Cardinals when I was playing with the Cardinals. And we had stars like Bob Gibson and Lou Brock. Richie would show up late but we would protect his a.s.s and n.o.body would know it. But then Richie was with the Dodgers and it was totally different. Richie would show up late there and players would be waiting for him to show up in the parking lot just so they could show up after him. So it depends on the makeup of your team. I just had a feeling that Roger wasn't going to be running home all the time and abusing the privilege. I said to Cash, 'I don't think it will be an issue, but we'll accept whatever it is.'

"My thinking is you have to see how it affects other people, and allow certain things because of that. I may be off base. That's just the way I feel, knowing the personality of a team, knowing what's real and what's made-up."

_Of course, Clemens didn't know it yet, but he had far bigger problems than securing a season's worth of hall pa.s.ses from the Yankees. Three months earlier, federal agents had raided the Long Island, New York, home of Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant who for more than a decade had provided performance-enhancing drugs to baseball players. The agents discovered personal checks and phone records linked to Brian McNamee, the personal trainer of Clemens. It was only a matter of time before Clemens' career and his life would blow up into a complete mess.

The Yankees knew they would need Clemens, even with the righthander turning 45 that season. They went to spring training having committed two of the five spots in the starting rotation to Carl Pavano, who had not pitched in the big leagues since midway through the 2005 season because of a series of ailments, and Kei Igawa, a lefthander whom the Yankees acquired as a posted free agent from j.a.pan at the cost of $46 million, including a $26 million posting fee that stunned everybody else in baseball.

Igawa inspired almost no confidence in his own clubhouse. Even before the Yankees were announced as having placed the winning bid in the posting process, an American League general manager, asked about how Igawa might fare in the major leagues, said, "He better stay out of the American League. Maybe if you put him in the NL West, with the pitcher batting and the bigger ballparks in that division, you might get by with him as a fourth or fifth starter. But he can't pitch in the American League. We had no interest in him."

The Yankees fell in love with Igawa, valuing him higher than anybody else. Not coincidentally, the Yankees turned in their bid on Igawa soon after losing the posting process for Diasuke Matsuzaka, another posted free agent from j.a.pan. The Boston Red Sox blew away the field with a posting fee of $51.1 million for Matsuzaka, who was considered one of the best pitchers in the world. The Yankees had bid slightly more than $30 million for Matsuzaka. How was it possible that they could bid nearly the same amount for Igawa, who, though a strikeout champion in j.a.pan, gave up too many home runs and walks, rarely broke 90 miles an hour with his fastball and did not own a single impressive out pitch? Well, they made sure they weren't going to go 0-for-2 in posting processes. Igawa was all theirs.

Meanwhile, free agent pitcher Ted Lilly was hoping the Yankees would sign him. Lilly had cried the day in 2002 when Cashman traded him to Oakland in a three-way deal in which the Yankees wound up with Jeff Weaver, who turned out to be the worst of the three pitchers traded. (Detroit obtained Jeremy Bonderman, who would help beat the Yankees on the Tigers' way to the 2006 pennant.) Lilly fit the profile of a cla.s.sic Yankee contributor: a left-handed pitcher who thrived in the pressure of New York and the AL East. He wanted to be a Yankee. Lilly had just won 15 games for the Toronto Blue Jays. He had no major arm issues.

Cashman didn't want Lilly. He preferred Igawa, though Igawa would cost the Yankees more money over four years ($46 million, including the $26 million posting fee) than what Lilly would cost on the free agent market ($40 million, with the Cubs winning his ser-vices). Cashman told Torre, "Igawa's as good as Lilly, and he won't cost us as much," because the posting fee did not count toward the Yankees' official payroll, thus rendering it tax-free money as far as their luxury tax bill was concerned.

"As soon as Cash said that-Igawa was as good as Lilly-that was good enough for me," Torre said.

Igawa was no sure thing, and even the Yankees knew it. When the Yankees introduced Igawa at a news conference after his signing, Cashman did as much as he could to lower expectations for his $46 million man.

"We're trying to be very careful and respectful of the process, and not put too much on his shoulders," Cashman said then. "He seems like a tough kid and he's obviously pitched in front of big crowds for a very successful organization. At the same time, there's going to be a lot of new experiences for him here in the States and in this league. We'll have to wait and see what we get."

The Yankees had pa.s.sed on Lilly as well as Gil Meche, another free agent, and traded Randy Johnson so they could commit two spots on their rotation to Pavano and Igawa. Worse, there was little insurance behind them, none of it proven. The Yankees had people such as Darrell Rasner, Matt DeSalvo, Jeff Karstens and Chase Wright behind them, all of them underwhelming. Phil Hughes was the crown jewel of the farm system, but he was only 20 years old. The Yankees had placed high-risk bets that Pavano could stay healthy and that Igawa could get major league hitters out, and it was apparent extremely quickly that both bets were losing propositions. In the case of Igawa, it took only one day to figure out he was a bust.

Bullpen catcher Mike Borzello was a.s.signed to catch Igawa's first throwing session in spring training. Borzello was looking forward to it, especially after Billy Eppler, the a.s.sistant to Cashman, had raved about Igawa to Borzello.

"Did you catch Igawa yet?" Eppler asked excitedly.

"No," Borzello replied.

"Just wait," Eppler said. "He's got a nasty changeup. You'll see."

Igawa threw to Borzello at Legends Field. Borzello could not believe this was the same guy Eppler was talking about, the same guy to whom the Yankees gave $46 million, and the same guy the Yankees wanted instead of Lilly.

"I caught Kei Igawa," Borzello said. "It was awful. He maybe threw three strikes out of 25 pitches. The changeup was horrible. I was reaching all over the place for his pitches."

Eppler saw Borzello after the throwing session that day.

"So, what did you think of Igawa?" Eppler asked.

"The truth?" Borzello said.

"Yeah."

"He threw three strikes the whole time. His changeup goes about 40 feet. His slider is not a big league pitch. His command was terrible."

Eppler was stunned.

"I'll tell you this," Borzello continued. "I hope he's hurt, so there's an explanation for throwing like that."

"Oh, really?" Eppler said.

"Really," Borzello said. "He was terrible."

Igawa would never get any better.

"His command was a big problem," Torre said. "He could never throw two pitches in a row to the same spot, even in a bullpen session. He would miss and miss badly with his location consistently."

Borzello said the investment in a pitcher like Igawa caught the attention of the players in the clubhouse, who had once known the Yankees to be the big-game hunters of the pitching market, having acquired such talents as Jimmy Key, Orlando Hernandez, David Wells, David Cone and Clemens over the years.