LITKE: Yankees Cash In With Best Team Money Can Buy

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Brian Cashman leaned against the wall just outside manager Joe Girardi's office as the best players money can buy milled about inside a quiet, but quietly confident, clubhouse.

The longest-running gripe in baseball is the Yankees have so much cash that only they can afford to bury their mistakes, and since 1998, the still boyish-looking general manager has been the guy wielding the shovel.

Late Sunday night, with New York just 27 outs from winning its 27th World Series — but first since 2000 — the small smile that creased Cashman's lips was part relief, part I-told-you-so. It seemed to say, "You have no idea how hard it is to get value for your dollar."

Cashman has shelled out more than $1.6 billion in salaries since a broken-bat single by Arizona's Luis Gonzalez looped lazily over a drawn-in infield and ended the Yankees' last dynastic run as the calendar turned over on a new century.

Since then, he's lavished some of it on ballplayers who were great before they arrived in New York, and a few who were great after they left town. But he conceded that for all the time, research and cash invested in the process, he still hasn't figured out exactly why some thrive there and others leave town with tails tucked between their legs.

And pitchers, he added, remain the most mystifying purchase of all.

"But they're the key to the kingdom," Cashman said. "The last five, six, seven years have proven that beyond a doubt."

The play that put the Yankees back within striking distance of another World Series championship, though, had nothing to do with pitching.

No. 2 hitter Johnny Damon singled with two outs and the score tied 4-4 in the top of the ninth of Game 4 off Phillies closer Brad Lidge. On the first pitch to Mark Teixiera, the next hitter, Damon took off for second. When a low throw from catcher Carlos Ruiz briefly handcuffed third baseman Pedro Feliz covering the bag, Damon popped up and alertly took off for third. A double by Alex Rodriguez put New York back in the lead, then Jorge Posada's two-run single provided more room for error than closer Mariano Rivera would need while shutting down the Phillies 1-2-3 to end the game.