Old-Timers' Day never gets old
There is a quiz that former Yankees public relations director Marty Appel gives to friends who follow the team: "Twenty years from now, who will be the last five introduced at Old-Timers' Day?"
It's a timeless question, given that the Yankees save the most revered icons for the end. Right now, you'd have to say Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are locks. But where will Alex Rodriguez stand by then? How about Don Mattingly? Will Paul O'Neill rate?
However that works out down the road, it is pretty obvious what the ceremony and reception will be like Sunday. A couple of Old-Timers' Day rookies will steal the show. In what might be the most interesting Old-Timers' Day since the fired Billy Martin was stunningly re-introduced as future manager in 1978, Joe Torre will put on his Yankees uniform again and Bernie Williams will play centerfield again. For good measure, Lou Piniella will wear pinstripes for the first time since 1988.
Torre said in an email, "The Yankees have always made Old-Timers' Day a very special event. As manager, I looked forward to the fun and nostalgia . . . It's a terrific day that I'm proud to be a part of for the first time. The Yankees made my career!!''
One of the beauties of Yankees Old-Timers' Day -- redundant because there really is no other kind of Old-Timers' Day anymore -- is that, oddly enough, it never stays stuck in the past. It always is fresh and relevant. It always soothes old wounds and builds new bridges.
On Sunday, you'll never know Piniella has been gone nearly a quarter of a century. There will be no hint that Williams didn't leave on his own terms (maybe he finally will get around to officially retiring) or that there was bitterness about the offer the Yankees gave Torre and the comments Torre made in a book. On Sunday, it will be all good.
"It's going to feel strange, but it's going to feel familiar too," Torre said last week. "I never spent 12 years anywhere [else] consecutively. It was a pretty special time in my life. I know the way it ended the last couple of years in New York . . . Both the Yankees and myself, we didn't know how to say goodbye. It turned out to be something uncomfortable."
But discomfort doesn't last. Torre, now MLB executive vice president of baseball operations, was moved when he and Mattingly returned in 2010 for a George Steinbrenner tribute. He will be moved again Sunday: "Looking back -- and I knew it at the time -- I wouldn't have traded those 12 years."
And no Yankee or Yankees fan would trade Old-Timers' Day for anything. Kudos to the club for still holding it, even though it doesn't have to. During the mid-1960s and mid-1980s, memories were about all they had to sell. But these days, Yankee Stadium is mostly sold out anyway.
They do it because it still means something. It meant the world to Joe DiMaggio to be introduced after Mickey Mantle (and he was none too happy the one time they switched the two). It meant everything to Reggie Jackson to have his plaque installed in Monument Park on Old-Timers' Day in 2002.
Stuff happens on Old-Timers' Days. Phil Rizzuto was released (1956). Roger Maris was upstaged (he finally returned in 1978, only to be overshadowed by Martin's surprise return). Maris did have his number retired on Old-Timers' Day in 1984. Jim Bouton was welcomed back in 1998. It was the Yankees' way of saying "No hard feelings from 'Ball Four' " and their way of consoling him over the death of his daughter.
This one will be much better than last year's, when it was held the same day as Steinbrenner's funeral, and when the Yankees still were mourning Bob Sheppard, and when Berra was absent after a fall at home. The Yankees and their fans will welcome back Piniella, Williams and Torre, who will feel as though they never left.
