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Yankee cool This is one team that just doesn't get rattled
NEW YORK -- It's still early. Probably way, way early. But when you see how the New York Yankees are handling themselves in this World Series, sidestepping the Roger Clemens thing, working over the Mets like a teenager picks on his punky kid brother ... well, you have to think this one's pretty much a foregone conclusion. The Yankees are just too good, too cool, too unflappable for the Mets. Has there ever been a team as cool-headed as this Yankees team? Not counting that Clemens guy, of course. Nothing rattles them. Nobody out-waits them. Get a lead on them, they come back. Watch them go through a little slump, they snap out of it. Throw all the attention of the baseball-loving world at them, the pressure of a hometown World Series, have one of their pitchers go semi-loopy and ... what? Nothing. They simply beat you. This is the World Series, for goodness sakes, and the Yankees are playing like it is a June series against the Orioles. These Yankees are not the Bronx Bombers, for sure. They may not be as good as they were back in, say, '98. But they've won the last 14 World Series games they've played, dating to the '96 Series against the Braves. Fourteen in a row. In the world of sports nowadays, winning 14 straight anythings is impressive. It is almost unfathomable. "We just happen to play well when it counts," says shortstop Derek Jeter, doing the Yankee-like thing and playing the whole thing way too cool. "I don't think [teams] just flip on a switch. If that were the case, I think people would switch it on a lot earlier." The problem with that is that the Yankees don't happen to do just anything. You think George Steinbrenner leaves things to chance? You think all those moves around the trading deadline were an accident? You think Jose Vizcaino is a fluke? "Don't try analyzing it," Jeter says. "We just get hot at the right time." For sure, 14 in a row in the World Series is a bit of a fluke. But the three Series titles in the past four years -- and it looks right now like it'll soon be four out of five -- are not. Point to the money they spend, the shrewd baseball mind of Joe Torre, a roster filled with great players and solid veterans who fill holes and seem happy to do it. They're all good reasons. And they all add up to this: You can't shake this team. The Yankees pulled out a win in Game 1 when they waited around until Mets starter Al Leiter tired, then cobbled a run off of the Mets' best reliever to tie the score. They kept the pressure on until the winning run was pushed across with two outs in the 12th. They won Game 2 by not biting on lefty Mike Hampton's stuff, something the St. Louis Cardinals couldn't help but doing in the National League Championship Series. And they won it -- and maybe Game 3 on Tuesday -- by not letting the antics of the testosterone-filled Clemens get them off their game, when it clearly took the Mets off theirs. When things look bleakest, like when they lost seven in a row to end the regular season, is when the Yankees are at their best. "This is a team that is very close," says catcher Jorge Posada, talking on the Yankee Stadium field Monday as his teammates were still being bombarded with questions about Clemens. "The team comes first. So, at the worst times, we're going to stick together. No matter what." Yes, it's early. Maybe too early. But if the Mets come back to win this thing, it will be because, somehow, they got hold of themselves and out-cooled the Yankees, out-waited them. The Yankees simply aren't going to crack. Not even if someone throws a bat at them. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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