Mel Stottlemyre - Pride and Pinstripes: The Yankees, Mets, and Surviving Lifes Challenges

I t was the World Series of a lifetime for millions of New Yorkers, but even more so for me. The Yankees and Mets: For all but a few of my forty years in professional baseball, theirs were the only two uniforms I wore. So many memories. So much emotion. If only I could have soaked it all in from my usual front-row seat next to Joe Torre in the dugout. But as the Series began on a chilly Saturday night in the Bronx, I had to rely on recall to experience the feel of Yankee Stadium in October, the buzz inside the big ballpark that is unlike anything else Ive seen or felt in baseball.

Oh, I was there that night in the fall of 2000. I wouldnt have missed it for the world. But because it had been barely more than a month since my stem-cell transplant that enabled me to survive multiple myeloma, a rare bone marrow cancer, my doctor would only allow me to attend the game if I stayed in the relatively closed environment of the managers office. As it was, I had to beg the doctor for that much, since it would be months before my immune system was again strong enough to be exposed to the everyday germs that I would encounter being around people.

So although this was my first time at the ballpark since entering the hospital in early September, I hadnt exactly made a grand entrance. I was driven right up to the press gate, helped down the stairs, and from there I made the walk around the winding corridor, finally entering Joes office through the side entrance. I was wearing latex gloves to further protect me from exposure to germs, and feeling a bit out of place because of my condition. I wanted so badly to offer some pregame encouragement to our Game 1 starter, Andy Pettitte, one of my all-time favorite pitchers whom Ive coached. But the doc wouldnt budge: no contact whatsoever with the players in the clubhouse. Actually, Andy and I were so close that it probably wouldnt have been a good idea to throw such an emotional curve into his preparation anyway. I was just hoping that knowing I was there would offer him a bit of inspiration.

In Joes office, I settled in on the couch to watch the game on TV. From there I could feel the rumble from the roars in the stadium above, but as close as I was to the field, just a short walk up the tunnel from the dugout, I still felt strangely detached as the game began. At least Id been allowed to see and talk with Joe before the game. He had been a lifesaver during my absence, speaking to me almost daily by phone to keep me up to date and ask for my opinion on pitching matters, and Ill always be grateful for that. But then, I wasnt surprised. Over our years together with the Yankees, Joe had become like a brother to me, one of the most loyal, trusting people Ive ever known in or out of baseball. Just seeing him briefly had lifted my spirits, and now as the first pitch was thrown I sat alone, trying to concentrate on the TV, just in case I saw something that I might want to relay to either Andy or Joe. Other than an equipment man or clubhouse kid occasionally popping in to see if I needed anything, I assumed Id be watching the game by myself.

Then, suddenly, none other than George Steinbrenner came striding into Joes office, asking me how I felt, which was nice of him, and deciding that he wanted to watch the game with me, which wasnt really what I wanted to hear. George had been great to me during my illness, offering to help me in any way that he could. It is times like this, when any member of the Yankee family is ailing, that George can be the most kindhearted man in the world. Hell use his clout as the owner of the most famous franchise in sports to make sure the person gets whatever he or she needs. When I was in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital for three weeks in September, my only complaint was that I couldnt see the Yankee games on TV because the Madison Square Garden network wasnt available in the hospital. I mentioned that to Joe Torre over the phone, and one day later, I had MSG on my TV in my room. I was told that Joe had called George, who promptly called Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and, like magic, my TV was the only one in the hospital that picked up the Yankee games. Im sure it didnt hurt that the mayor was a huge Yankee fan, but I have a feeling that George would have convinced him to make it happen for me even if he were a Mets fan.

Of course, as everyone knows, George has a bully side to his personality as well, famous as he is for his impulsive fits of temper during his thirty-plus years as owner of the Yankees. Little did I know at the time that I would begin to see more of that side of him in the coming years, when we stopped winning championships and he began looking to place blame on one of his favorite targets over the years: the pitching coach. As it was, our relationship was cordial but George and I already had quite a history. I held a grudge against him for about twenty years after I was released from the Yankees as a player in late March of 1975, two years after George had bought the team. At the time I was stunned at first, then furious, because Id been promised by then-GM Gabe Paul that I would have until at least May to take my time rehabbing a shoulder injury incurred the previous year.

As it turned out, I never made it back from my rotator cuff injury, after hurting the shoulder again while trying to strengthen it with weight training a couple of months later. But that wasnt the point. The Yankees had flat-out lied to me, telling me not to even try to be ready for opening day, and then they cut me just a couple of days before spring training ended. George was suspended from baseball at the time, after being found guilty of making illegal contributions to Richard Nixons presidential campaign, and wasnt around the team that spring, but I still blamed him for my release. Eventually I came to believe that Gabe Paul was behind the decision as a cost-saving measure for the club, but that was only after Id avoided virtually all contact with the club for two decades, annually tearing up the invitation I received to Yankees Old-Timers Day.

Finally, it was George himself who convinced me he wasnt the bad guy all those years ago, during a phone call he made after the 1995 season to inquire about my returning to the Yankees as pitching coach. George sort of apologized for the way my Yankee career had ended, about as much as George can apologize for anything, I guess. He explained that because of his suspension, he truly was not involved in the day-to-day decision making at the time. He did a pretty good selling job, and as I told my wife, Jean, when I got off the phone, if George was big enough to finally call me, maybe I could be big enough to forgive and forget.

In addition, what I could never forget was how much my youngest son, Jason, loved the Yankees. Life had changed forever for me and my family in 1981 when he died at the age of eleven from leukemia. Besides the devastating effect Jasons death had on our daily lives, it eventually helped me reconcile my feelings toward the Yankees. I found that you look at life a little differently after experiencing that kind of tragedy. My other sons, Mel Jr. and Todd, were old enough at the time I was released to pick up on my bitterness, but Jason was only five years old, and to him the Yankees were Dads team, even if I wasnt playing anymore, so he continued to root for them enthusiastically. Even when I went to work as a roving pitching instructor for the Seattle Mariners, which was close to my home in Yakima, Washington, Jason wouldnt budge. I took the boys to see a Mariners-Yankees game in Seattle one time, and Jason said to me, Sorry, Dad, I know you work for the Mariners, but Im rooting for the Yankees.