The pinstripes had lost some of their luster.
Eighteen years had passed since the Yankees won a World Series, the longest drought since Babe Ruth led the team to its first title in 1923. Following a postseason appearance in 1995, captain Don Mattingly retired. Manager Buck Showalter was gone, too.
The future was uncertain and the past still hogged the spotlight.
“When I came in the ’90s, the whole marketing promotional scheme for the Yankees was tradition, excellence, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. The Yankees of the ’90s, nobody talked too much about them,” former center fielder Bernie Williams said. “The ’96 team brought us back to that sort of atmosphere, that these are the Yankees [and] that this is the team that’s supposed to be on top. It set a precedent for the teams that came after that.”
The only unlikely title team of the most recent Yankees dynasty was celebrated in a pregame ceremony Saturday afternoon in The Bronx, 20 years after starting the run of four championships in five seasons.
Though players such as Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte would become team leaders and franchise legends, back then they were first and second-year players, blending with veterans like Cecil Fielder, Jimmy Key and closer John Wetteland to end nearly two decades of disappointment.
“For me as a young player, just to see them and the way they worked, it was the start of an amazing run for us,” Andy Pettitte said. “I think back to ’95 when we got knocked out by Seattle. The hurt in that locker room, I know that was one thing that drove me in ’96. Being able to see how crushed everyone was, to see Wade Boggs crying and them telling us to remember this feeling.”
For Jeter, who won Rookie of the Year that year, ’96 remains special because it was the only one of his five rings he wasn’t supposed to get. After upsetting the defending champion Braves — winning four straight games after losing the first two World Series games at home — the Yankees reclaimed their long-held role as perennial favorites.
“It was the first. You never forget your first,” Jeter said. “That was the beginning. The Yankees hadn’t won in a long time. You remember the excitement in the Stadium. You remember the excitement in the city.
“The Boss [George Steinbrenner] said if we won he’d keep us together and we continued to win.”