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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Birth of a Dynasty Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees by Joel Sherman Birth of a Dynasty: Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees by Joel Sherman. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 658bcc81f80d16a1 • Your IP : 188.246.226.140 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. Jim Leyritz’s World Series-saving home run helped start Yankees dynasty. Rex Ryan's stale act brought him Jets pink slip. A-Rod's legacy was already tarnished when he reached this rare milestone. The night Wilmer Flores cemented his place in Mets lore. The night Mike Piazza capped off an unbelievable Mets comeback. Earlier in the night, Jim Leyritz was just feeling thankful that at least the Yankees wouldn’t be swept by the Braves in the 1996 World Series. They were down 2-1 in the series and seemingly on their way to a 3-1 hole after Game 4 quickly went off the rails. In the eighth inning, though, the catcher served as a human defibrillator and brought the Bombers back to life. Leyritz came to the plate against flamethrower Mark Wohlers and delivered a game-tying three-run home run to spark the Yankees to a win in 10 innings. Two games later, they were World Series champions. “When I was running the bases, all I could think was we have to win,” Leyritz later told Yankees Magazine. “I was standing right next to the steps when Wade Boggs drew his walk in the 10th inning. We were just pounding the stairs. When we walked into the locker room, before the media came in and it was just us, you could tell that everything had changed. We knew we were going to win.” The Yankees had fallen behind 5-0 after three innings in Game 4 — leading to Leyritz nodding in agreement when Pat Kelly said in the dugout, “Well, thankfully we won yesterday, so we won’t get swept,” The Post’s Joel Sherman reported in his book, “Birth of a Dynasty, Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees.” They had chipped away to make it a 6-3 deficit by the time Leyritz walked to the plate with one out and runners on the corners in the eighth inning. He was using one of Darryl Strawberry’s extra bats, since he only had two of his own left and didn’t want to risk breaking one against Wohlers’ fastball that could reach triple digits. Leyritz fouled off three pitches and worked a 2-2 count before getting a hanging 86 mph slider. He sent it just over the wall in left field to quiet Fulton County Stadium and tie the game 6-6. Jim Leyritz watching his game-tying home run in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series. AP. “I was on the step waiting to go to the on-deck circle and I looked at [bench coach] Don Zimmer, and asked, ‘Zim, what’s this guy got?'” Leyritz told Yankees Magazine. “He said, ‘Jimmy, this guy throws 100 mph. Just get ready.’ I didn’t even know what Mark Wohlers threw. I guessed fastball/slider because that’s what Mariano [Rivera] had. I didn’t know he had a split-fingered pitch and that it was his second-best pitch. Had I known that, I don’t know if I would have hit the slider out. He threw me a first-pitch fastball and then two sliders. Now I had a look at what he had, so I was a little bit better prepared. But again, I didn’t know he had a split. “I always say sometimes it’s better to be ignorant than smart. But he ended up throwing a hanging slider, I hit the home run, and it was a pretty special moment.” Two innings later, Boggs walked with the bases loaded and Charlie Hayes drove in another run when he reached on an error, giving the Yankees an 8-6 lead. John Wetteland shut down the Braves in the bottom of the inning to tie the series at two games apiece. Leyritz had turned in more playoff heroics the year before. In Game 2 of the 1995 ALDS against the Mariners, Leyritz hit a walkoff two-run home run in the 15th inning to lift the Yankees to a 7-5 win. It gave the Yankees a 2-0 series lead, but they dropped the next three games to bow out of the postseason. They didn’t let Leyritz’s clutch homer go to waste in 1996, though, riding it to the first of four World Series championships in five years. Birth of a Dynasty: Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees by Joel Sherman. This is a "must-read" book that has been published this Spring by New York Post�s Baseball Columnist, Joel Sherman. A link with information about the book and how to purchase a copy can be found below. An excerpt from page 302 can be found under the link. Be sure to focus on the highlighted area when you read it. A portion of David Cone's forward he wrote for the book is also attached. Buy it, you will enjoy it! FOUND ON PAGE 302 : Torre , Zimmer, Mel Stottlemyre and Bob Watson all had just come from the National League, and each admired how Girardi worked a game. But Girardi�s attributes were understated and difficult to sell. He had eighteen career homers, as many as Stanley had the previous season. What Girardi did was harder to quantify and because of that he was lacerated more in the media and among the Yankee faithful. At the Yankees annual Fan Festival on February 4 at the New York Coliseum, the mere announcement of his name drew loud booing as it did at the club�s Welcome Home Dinner and home opener. Girardi was devastated. He struggled early in the regular season with just two RBIs in the team�s first twenty- one games. Over and over, the powerful all-sports station in town, WFAN, would play a tape from a previous season of Girardi grounding out weakly to Mets starting pitcher Bobby Jones as a way of defining him as a powder-puff performer. The station also mockingly played a song parody Joe, Joe, Girardi -o played to the same cadence of the deifying Joe, Joe DiMaggio that was performed by Les Brown in 1941. Girardi heeded the counsel of David Cone and Cone�s business manager, Andrew Levy, to call the station unsolicited and display a sense of humor about the whole thing, surmising that would humanize Girardi . That definitely helped. So did Zimmer�s advice a month into the season to stop trying to be Mike Stanley. But time was Girardi�s greatest ally. Because only time would allow all of Girardi�s attributes to be seen. FROM DAVID CONE'S FOREWORD : It is hard to put into words just what 1996 meant to me, so let me try someone else�s: "We play today we win today. Dat�s it." That was the statement our second baseman Mariano Duncan made the team motto as the 1996 season progressed. It was especially fitting that year because of all the adversity and distractions that we encountered. We could have had excuses, but that was not a team for excuse making. It was a team that focused on getting a job done. True genius is sometimes measured by the ability to simplify and Mariano�s statement struck a chord throughout the organization. David Szen , the traveling secretary for the Yankees, started to include this motto at the top of every itinerary for road trips. A lot of people have tried to define or quantify the importance of team chemistry, but this remains one of the mysteries of sport. A bonding and confidence materialized before our eyes that year because everyone bought into a team-oriented concept. Ask me how this happened? Why? Numerous variables came into play, but one constant I remember was no matter who was hurt, who we were playing or what kind of lineup we ran out there, "We play today we win today. Dat's it." It was our rallying cry. It was our soul. ‘JUMBO JIMMY’ COMES UP BIG – JIM LEYRITZ, THE BRASH ANTI-YANKEE, SWINGS INTO BOMBER LORE. “Birth of a Dynasty, Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees,” by Post baseball columnist Joel Sherman, is out in bookstores and tells the story of that poignant championship season. In the second of three excerpts, the good vibes the Yanks experienced from winning Game 3 are quickly squandered in Game 4. Kenny Rogers never recorded an out in the third inning, leaving the Yankees behind 5-0. In uniform, though he was disabled, Pat Kelly turned to his friend Jim Leyritz in the downcast Yankee dugout and said, “Well, thankfully we won yesterday, so we won’t get swept.” Leyritz nodded knowingly in agreement.