Pettitte clearly hasn't gotten baseball out of his system yet

TAMPA, Fla. - Saturday morning at 7:30 under overcast skies, with the temperature 46 degrees and rain in the air, a lone figure in a dark blue Yankees sweatshirt jogged on the outfield track at George M. Steinbrenner Field.

Andy Pettitte has been an early-to-the-ballpark player much of his career, so it wasn't a surprise that he showed up for work well before most of his teammates. It's what he does.

"He works so hard,'' said the other lefthander in the Yankees' rotation, CC Sabathia.

Sabathia was one of a handful of teammates who implored Pettitte to return for another season. "I was begging him to come back,'' he said. "He's just a great guy to be around. A lefty who's been playing in this division a long time, he helped me out a lot. I was definitely pleading for him to come back.''

Pettitte, 37, went 14-8 with a 4.16 ERA in 2009 and was a postseason standout, winning three series-clinching games, including Game 6 of the World Series. The opportunity to retire while he was on top was tempting.

"Yeah, big time, because you said, if I was ever going to go, why not go right now?'' Pettitte said. "Right on top. Just couldn't have dreamed that last year would end like it did.''

Most important, Pettitte had to mull the decision with his wife and four kids and determine whether baseball truly was out of his system, which it clearly wasn't.

"I want to make sure. I don't want to go home and miss it and it be killing me not to be here,'' Pettitte said. "When I do it [retire], I want to be done with it. I don't think it would be fair to my family to say I'm done and then to pull the rug out from underneath them. I want to make sure I've fully exhausted myself of this.''

Pettitte, who wasn't happy with the contract he signed before the 2009 season - an incentive-laden deal with a base salary of $5.5 million - returned to the fold relatively quickly this offseason, signing a one-year deal for about $12 million.

And his expectations this season are as high as last.

"I wouldn't have come back if I didn't feel like I was going to put together a year like that for sure,'' Pettitte said. "You all know what I expect out of myself. When those [expectations] drop, that's when I know it's definitely time to not do this, because I expect a lot out of myself.

"I'm not coming along for the ride. I expect to push myself, I expect to be successful, I expect to try to push the other guys in this rotation and us all just feed off each other and hopefully have another great year.''

Pettitte isn't ready to speculate about how many more of those are to come. He said when he decides to retire, it will be a "family thing'' and probably won't have anything to do with loss of effectiveness.

He's a more complete pitcher now than he's ever been, he said, because when he came back after elbow surgery during the 2004 season, his fastball "may have topped out at 84, 85 mph.'' He adapted by, among other things, learning to work both sides of the plate better.

"I really feel like I can pitch as long as I stay healthy,'' Pettitte said. "The velocity's really not the concern. The only problem with that is I don't know if I can pitch in the AL East. But I really feel like as long as I can throw the ball up there, I feel like I could always have a job for a long time.''