Jim Leyritz

A backup catcher nobody drafted, playing his age-32 season as a part-time bat, steps in against a closer throwing 100 miles an hour in a World Series the Yankees were about to lose. He'd asked Don Zimmer what to expect. Zimmer told him: "Jimmy, this guy throws 100 miles an hour. Just get ready." That's the whole scouting report Jim Leyritz got before the biggest swing of his life -- and it was enough.

Nobody Drafted Him. The Yankees Signed Him Anyway.

Leyritz broke his foot right before the draft, spent two seasons at a junior college in Georgia trying to get noticed, then landed at the University of Kentucky still hoping someone would call his name. Nobody did. The Yankees signed him as a free agent in 1985 anyway (they had a type: the guy every other organization passed on), and he reported to spring training in '86 as an afterthought in a system full of them.

He debuted June 8, 1990, got a hit in his first big-league at-bat, and spent the next several seasons as exactly what his career says he was: a backup catcher who could also play third, first, or the outfield in a pinch. Nothing about the numbers -- a .263 average in pinstripes, 58 homers over parts of nine seasons -- screams "legend." The moments do all the screaming for him (two of them, specifically, and both of them ruined some poor closer's whole October).

The Homer That Changed Everything

October 4, 1995 came first, if you want an appetizer: Game 2 of the ALDS against Seattle, 15th inning, a two-run walk-off off Tim Belcher on a 3-1 count after five-plus rain-soaked hours. (The Yankees still blew the series. Baseball's funny that way.)

Then came October 23, 1996, Game 4 of the World Series in Atlanta, and this is the one that actually matters. The Braves had the Yankees down 6-0 by the fifth inning of a series they already led 2-1. Down 6-3 in the eighth, Charlie Hayes and Darryl Strawberry singled, a Rafael Belliard bobble kept the inning breathing, and up stepped Leyritz with runners on first and third against Mark Wohlers -- a closer who'd been sitting 98, 99, 100 all night. Wohlers worked the count full at 2-2 on fastballs. Then he hung a slider. Leyritz turned on it and sent the freakin' thing into the left-field seats, over a wall-scaling Andruw Jones who never had a chance. Three-run homer. Game tied, 6-6. The Yankees won 8-6 in ten innings, tied the Series at two, and never lost again -- four straight, the franchise's first title in 18 years, and the launch code for a dynasty that would win three more before the decade ended.

Everywhere Else, Then Back Again

The Yankees traded Leyritz to the Angels that December, and over the next three seasons he bounced to the Rangers, the Red Sox, and the Padres -- a well-traveled bat who kept hitting in October wherever he landed (.400 with three homers in the '98 NLDS for San Diego). The Yankees brought him back at the trade deadline in 1999, and in Game 4 of that year's World Series -- another sweep of Atlanta -- he hit a solo shot in the eighth to make it 4-1. It turned out to be the last home run hit in the 1990s. Bob Costas, on the air, delivered the perfect epitaph: "You could send this guy to a resort during the spring and summer, as long as he comes back in October." They call him "The King" to this day, and honestly, nobody seems to agree on exactly why. Doesn't matter. The nickname stuck the same way the pitch stuck in that Atlanta scoreboard.

He wasn't a star. He didn't need to be. The Yankees have had plenty of Hall of Famers and exactly one guy who turned a 2-2 slider into the first pitch of a dynasty.