More than 55,000 fans packed Shea Stadium on October 26, 2000, for the fifth game of the World Series. The “hometown” Mets trailed the reigning, defending, undisputed two-time World Series champion Yankees three games to one.
To close out the Fall Classic, the Yanks turned to Andy Pettitte. He faced off against once and future Yankee Al Leiter, who left it all on the field in an attempt to the extend the series to a sixth game.
The Yankees’ list of heroes on this night reads like a who’s who of the
dynasty years. Pettitte, who hurled seven sterling innings. Mariano Rivera, the indomitable force at the back of the bullpen, who locked down the final outs. Bernie Williams, who took Leiter yard to get the Bronx Bombers on the board. Derek Jeter, who also went deep off Leiter, knotting the game in the late innings.
But the biggest hero was a journeyman infielder who returned to the Yankees in a minor August trade with Pittsburgh after leaving the organization as a free agent after the 1999 season. Luis Sojo’s clutch knock in the top of the ninth inning broke a 2-2 tie and enabled legendary manager Joe Torre to hand the ball to Mo. After the final three outs were locked down, the Yanks secured their third consecutive World Series championship — MLB’s first three-peat since Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson’s early-‘70s Oakland Athletics.
October 26: Yankees 4, Mets 2 (box score)
Playoff Record: Won the World Series 4-1 (98-77 overall)
Pettitte and Leiter each put up scoreless first frames. In the top of the second, however, Bernie went boom, and the Yankees took an early 1-0 lead. Mired in an 0-for-15 slump, Williams worked the count full. Leiter tried to beat him inside, but Bernie beat him to the spot and launched a solo shot to deep left field.
After delivering a shutdown inning in the second, Pettitte finally showed cracks in the third. And unfortunately, it was kinda his fault. With one out, Pettitte walked Bubba Trammell to put a man on. He promptly gave up a single and suddenly the Mets were cooking. But it was the bottom of the order. Pettitte whiffed Kurt Abbott to bring Leiter to the plate.
The Mets southpaw, up 1-0 in the count, laid down a bunt down the first base line. Pettitte broke for first, but couldn’t handle the toss from Tino Martinez. Leiter reached, Trammell came around to score, and the game was tied with Pettitte now facing the top of the Mets lineup. A Benny Agbayani single scored a second Mets run, though Pettitte managed to get out of further trouble.
From there, the two southpaws dueled. Zero after zero went into the run columns as Game 5 went deep into the New York night.
In the top of the sixth, the Yanks finally broke through again. This time, Jeets was the hero. Jeter worked the count in his favor 2-0. Similar to the Williams longball earlier, Leiter tried to come inside. He missed. Derek did not. Jeter’s home run sailed over the fence in left-center and thanks to that one swing of the bat, it was a brand new ball game.
Andy was up to the task. Off the hook after his error earlier, he shut the Mets down in both the sixth and seventh, bringing his night to a close. Tasked with leading the Yankees to another World title, all he did was spin seven innings of two-run ball (neither run earned), throwing 129 pitches and putting the Yankees in great position.
In the other dugout, Leiter was his equal. The Mets lefty just kept pitching. Through the seventh. Through the eighth. Into the ninth, despite having thrown 121 pitches already. Tino? Down swinging. Paul O’Neill? Down swinging.
But it’s here where the wheels finally fell off for Leiter and the Mets. Jorge Posada worked a nine-pitch walk to put the winning run on base. Scott Brosius singled. All of a sudden, there were two runners on with the go-ahead run in scoring position. And that brought Sojo to the dish. Though he may not have been your first guess for who’d prove the ultimate hero of the night, he came into Game 5 with eight postseason RBI already, despite a paltry .222 batting average (10-for-45).
Sojo wasted no time. He swung at the first pitch he saw, the 142nd and final of Leiter’s night. Sojo’s groundball got past Leiter and between the shortstop and second baseman, bringing Posada home. An unlucky throw in from center field allowed Brosius to score as well. 4-2 Yankees. And with only three outs remaining, literally everyone knew what was coming.
You have to feel for Leiter, who delivered an all-time gladiator performance on the mound and looked devastated. Kudos to Posada, whose lengthy plate appearance broke Leiter’s rhythm, drove his pitch count up even further, and set the stage for Sojo’s ultimate heroics.
The Mets did not go softly into the night. Agbayani worked a walk to bring the tying run to the plate. With two outs, Mike Piazza strode to the plate. And he put a charge into a Rivera offering. Luckily for the Yankees, Piazza hit it to the wrong part of the park. His deep fly ball nestled into Bernie’s glove and the three-peat was official, an outcome that seemed rather unlikely during the Yanks’ September doldrums. The legendary John Sterling and the voice of the Yankees Michael Kay deliver the radio call.
Jeter, whose sixth inning roundtripper tied the game, was named World Series Most Valuable Player after hitting .409 in the five-game set, with a pair of home runs and a 1.344 OPS. Mike Stanton, who pitched the eighth inning, bridging from Pettitte to Rivera, earned the win.
“The Winners, and Still Champions…” proclaimed the front page of the New York Times, which captured the euphoric on-field celebration after the Yanks clinched another Fall Classic. Meanwhile, in the lower left corner of the front page, “Once again, Leiter comes up short.” The Mets starter surely deserved a better fate. And he’s a reminder that triumph and anguish are inextricably linked.
Triumph belonged to the Yankees. A third consecutive World Series, and their fourth in five seasons. You’d have been forgiven, in the aftermath of this one, if you’d speculated on how many more titles the latest Yankee dynasty would bring home.
Read the full 2000 Yankees Diary series here.
