The 1996 World Series was the Yankees' first championship in 18 years, a six-game comeback over the Atlanta Braves that launched the dynasty nobody saw coming. After the Braves outscored them 16-1 in the first two games at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees won four straight -- three of them in Atlanta, where the Braves had their dominant rotation, their home crowd, and every advantage. None of it mattered. Derek Jeter was 22. Mariano Rivera was the setup man. And a backup catcher named Jim Leyritz hit the most important home run of the decade on a hanging slider he probably shouldn't have gotten.
Down 0-2 and Counting
After two games at Yankee Stadium, the scoreboard read Braves 16, Yankees 1. Not a typo.
Game 1 opened with 19-year-old Andruw Jones homering on his first two World Series at-bats (yes, both of them), which set the tone for what felt like an execution. Andy Pettitte lasted 2.1 innings, gave up seven earned runs, and got knocked around so badly that it looked like the series would be over in four games. Game 2 was Greg Maddux -- eight shutout innings, not a single walk, an exercise in quiet humiliation. Mark Wohlers came in and struck out Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, and Paul O'Neill in order to close it out.
Eighteen years without a title. Two games in, it damn sure felt like eighteen more were coming.
The Braves had Smoltz, Maddux, and Glavine. They were the defending world champions. Nobody outside the Yankees clubhouse thought the series was anything but over.
| Series Result | Yankees 4, Braves 2 |
| Series Dates | October 20-26, 1996 |
| World Series MVP | John Wetteland (4 saves) |
| Game 4 Series-Tying HR | Jim Leyritz, 3-run HR (8th inning, tied 6-6) |
| Game 5 Start | Andy Pettitte -- 8.1 IP, 0 ER, 5 H |
| Years Since Last Title | 18 (last won 1978) |
| Yankees' 23rd Championship | First since 1978 Reggie Jackson era |
| Rivera (Full Postseason) | 1 ER in ~14.1 IP |
The Trip South
Games 3, 4, and 5 were in Atlanta. The Yankees won all three.
Game 3 wasn't particularly dramatic -- David Cone went six solid innings, Bernie Williams hit a two-run homer off Greg McMichael to put it away, and the Yankees escaped with a 5-2 win that at least stopped the bleeding. Rivera and John Wetteland finished it. The Yankees were alive. Barely.
Game 4 is why this series is remembered.
The Slider
October 23, 1996. Fulton County Stadium. The Braves led 6-0 through five, looked untouchable, and were already chalking this one up as a Denny Neagle win and a 3-1 series lead that would send them home to celebrate. Then the Yankees scored three in the sixth to make it 6-3, which felt like false hope -- the kind of thing that makes a loss sting a little more.
Then the eighth inning happened.
Mark Wohlers was on the mound for the Braves. He was throwing 99-100 mph. He was closing. The Yankees had Jim Leyritz -- backup catcher, one career World Series game, a guy who'd asked bench coach Don Zimmer what Wohlers was throwing. Zimmer's advice: "Jimmy, this guy throws 100 mph. Just get ready." (Actionable intelligence, to be fair.)
Leyritz stepped in with runners on first and third, one out, the Yankees down 6-3. Wohlers went to a 2-2 count throwing fastballs. Then he threw a slider. And it hung.
"Sure enough he threw the slider and hung it," Leyritz said afterward. "That's why I was able to stay back and hit it out."
Three-run homer to left field. Tied. Just like that, the series changed.
I think about it every once in a while. I don't beat myself up over it, but I understand that I might have two world championship rings instead of one had I thrown a different pitch or made a better pitch.
Wade Boggs drew a bases-loaded walk in the 10th to put the Yankees ahead. They won 8-6. The series was tied.
Andy's Game
Game 5 might be the best World Series pitching performance you've never thought about.
Pettitte, who'd been knocked out in 2.1 innings in Game 1, went out and threw 8.1 innings of shutout baseball against John Smoltz, who gave up one unearned run in eight innings and struck out ten. The only run of the game scored in the fourth: Marquis Grissom misplayed a Charlie Hayes fly ball, Hayes reached, and Cecil Fielder doubled him home. That was it. 1-0, final.
Smoltz later called it the greatest game he ever pitched. He lost.
Pettitte called it his gold standard. "Any time I struggled in any situation and I thought, 'I can't get it right, I can't right this ship,'" he said, "I could always look back at that and say, 'Man, look, you did it right here under that pressure.'"
The Yankees needed one win in New York to end an 18-year drought. They went home.
The Night Before
Here's the part that doesn't make it into most of the highlights.
Joe Torre's older brother Frank -- a former big-league first baseman who'd played in the 1957 and '58 World Series with Milwaukee -- had been hospitalized throughout the entire postseason waiting for a heart transplant. His heart disease was so advanced he was being kept alive on IV medication. Every day of the World Series, Joe managed the Yankees while his brother waited in a hospital across the city.
On October 25 -- the off-day between Games 5 and 6 -- Frank got his heart. Surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian. Four hours. A new heart from a 28-year-old man from the Bronx.
Joe Torre won the World Series the next night.
"Maybe the good Lord was just waiting for me to put on the pinstripes," he said.
The Clinching Game
Game 6 opened at Yankee Stadium with Greg Maddux on the mound for Atlanta, which under any other circumstances would be a nightmare. Joe Girardi tripled off Maddux in the third to score Paul O'Neill, Jeter singled to score Girardi, Bernie Williams singled to score Jeter. Three runs. That was the whole ballgame.
Rivera pitched two scoreless innings. Wetteland got his fourth save of the series in the ninth, inducing a popup from Mark Lemke for the final out.
Then Wade Boggs jumped on a police horse and rode a victory lap around Yankee Stadium, one finger pointed toward the sky. Boggs was reportedly afraid of horses (he'd been bitten as a kid). He later said he didn't remember how he ended up on the horse.
It was that kind of night.
Game 1: Braves 12, Yankees 1
Andruw Jones homers in his first two World Series at-bats; Pettitte knocked out in the third inning at Yankee Stadium.
Game 2: Braves 4, Yankees 0
Greg Maddux throws eight shutout innings without walking a batter; combined score Games 1-2 is 16-1.
Game 3: Yankees 5, Braves 2
David Cone goes six innings, Bernie Williams hits a two-run homer off McMichael, and the Yankees survive to play another game.
Game 4: Yankees 8, Braves 6 (10 innings)
Jim Leyritz hits a three-run homer off Mark Wohlers in the eighth inning to tie the game 6-6; Wade Boggs draws a walk-off bases-loaded walk in the 10th.
Game 5: Yankees 1, Braves 0
Pettitte throws 8.1 shutout innings in one of the great World Series pitching performances; Smoltz strikes out ten and loses 1-0 on an unearned run.
Game 6: Yankees 3, Braves 2 (clincher)
Three runs off Maddux in the third inning stand up; Wetteland records his fourth save of the series; 18-year drought over.
It had taken getting traded twice and fired three times. Both my parents had died years before they could have seen me celebrate the victory. And in the end, it had taken the most emotional twelve months of my life: the birth of my daughter Andrea Rae; the shocking death of my brother Rocco; and a life-saving transplant for Frank on the eve of the clinching game of the World Series.
The Start of Something
The 1996 championship was the foundation -- not the peak. The 1998 Yankees went 125-50 (regular season and postseason combined) and swept the Padres. The 1999 club beat these same Braves in four games. The 2000 club beat the Mets in five. Four titles in five years.
John Wetteland left as a free agent after the series. Rivera became the closer. That's the single most important personnel decision in franchise history, and it happened because the Yankees had a setup man so good he earned the MVP of a World Series that wasn't even his primary job.
Jeter would win four more rings. Pettitte would become the winningest pitcher in postseason history. Torre would manage the Yankees to three more titles before calling it a career that ended with a Hall of Fame plaque. The Leyritz homer would get replayed every October for decades.
And Wohlers would still be throwing that 2-2 slider in his head, wondering what happens if he gets it down.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the 1996 World Series?
The New York Yankees defeated the Atlanta Braves four games to two in the 1996 World Series, ending an 18-year championship drought dating back to 1978. John Wetteland won World Series MVP honors with four saves. It was Joe Torre's first championship as a manager.
Who hit the home run in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series?
Jim Leyritz, the Yankees' backup catcher, hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning of Game 4 off Braves closer Mark Wohlers to tie the game 6-6. Leyritz hit a hanging 2-2 slider with runners on first and third and the Yankees trailing by three. It's widely considered the most important home run in the modern Yankees dynasty era.
Who pitched Game 5 of the 1996 World Series?
Andy Pettitte started for the Yankees and threw 8.1 innings of shutout baseball, allowing just 5 hits in a 1-0 win. On the other side, John Smoltz pitched 8 innings with 10 strikeouts and one unearned run -- and lost. Pettitte later called it the gold standard of his career, four days after being knocked out in the third inning of Game 1.
What happened to Joe Torre's brother during the 1996 World Series?
Frank Torre -- Joe's older brother, a former MLB first baseman who played in the 1957 and 1958 World Series with the Milwaukee Braves -- had been hospitalized throughout the entire 1996 postseason waiting for a heart transplant. He received a donor heart on October 25, 1996, the off-day between Games 5 and 6. Joe Torre won the World Series the next night.
Was Mariano Rivera in the 1996 World Series?
Yes. In 1996, Rivera was the Yankees' primary setup man, not yet the closer -- John Wetteland held that role. Rivera pitched in Games 3 through 6, including 2 scoreless innings in the clinching Game 6. His full postseason ERA that year was under 1.00. Wetteland left as a free agent after the series, and Rivera became the closer in 1997, going on to become the greatest in baseball history.