Luis Sojo

Luis Sojo never started a season as anybody's plan. The New York Yankees claimed him off waivers from Seattle in August 1996 because Joe Torre needed a body who could spell Derek Jeter's legs down the stretch, and five years and two separate stints later, he was still hanging around a roster full of Hall of Famers -- not because he hit like one, but because he kept doing exactly the unglamorous thing the Yankees needed at the moment they needed it. Then, on October 26, 2000, with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series, the Yankees needed a base hit off Al Leiter, and Sojo delivered the biggest one of his life.

The Waiver-Wire Yankee

Sojo had already been around the league by the time New York found him. Toronto signed him out of Venezuela and brought him up in July 1990; he picked up a World Series ring with the Blue Jays in 1993 without appearing in that postseason (19 games, a .170 batting average that year -- the kind of ring you don't really talk about at parties). Seattle had him next, and he was hitting a flat .211 in 77 games there when the Yankees claimed him off waivers on August 22, 1996 -- not exactly a blockbuster addition, just a depth move to help spell Jeter's legs down the freakin' stretch.

Torre wanted infield depth. He got a guy who hit .275 in his first look, made the postseason roster, and went 3-for-5 in five of the six World Series games as the Yankees won their first title in 18 years. Sojo re-signed that January and hit a career-high .307 in 77 games the next season, bouncing between short, second, and third -- the definition of a utility infielder, never a starter, never expendable.

None of that is a Hall of Fame line, and Sojo would probably be the first to tell you so (he hit .231 in 54 games in 1998 and didn't even appear in that year's World Series sweep of San Diego -- he just got the ring anyway, same as everybody else in the clubhouse). But that's the point of a guy like Sojo. He wasn't there for the numbers. He was there for the nights the Yankees needed someone who wasn't Jeter or O'Neill to come off the bench and get a hit.

Released, Then Reacquired, Then a Legend

The Yankees let him walk after the 1999 title -- released outright -- and Sojo signed with Pittsburgh for 2000, playing the same utility role for a team going nowhere. Then New York hit a midseason wall, Chuck Knoblauch went down, and Jeter and Bernie Williams reportedly went to Brian Cashman themselves and asked for their old teammate back. On August 7, 2000, the Yankees traded a minor-league pitcher, Chris Spurling, to get him.

Sojo hit .288 with 17 RBI in 34 games down the stretch, filling Knoblauch's spot like he'd never left. It was a nice story on its own. Then came Game 5.

Al Leiter had already thrown 142 pitches and was still out there, protecting a 2-2 tie with two outs in the top of the ninth (a workload no manager would allow today, and honestly, most wouldn't have allowed it then either). Jorge Posada worked a walk. Scott Brosius singled. Up came Sojo, and he lined a single up the middle -- the kind of ball that barely gets out of the infield -- and Jay Payton's throw from center skipped past the plate. Both runners scored. Yankees 4, Mets 2. Third straight championship.

"It's the happiest day of my life," Sojo said afterward. "Today they gave me a chance to come through. I did and it was unbelievable." He wasn't wrong. A guy the Yankees had released the previous November had just delivered the biggest hit of a Subway Series.

From the Bench to the Dugout

Sojo played one more full season in 2001, didn't make the roster in 2002, and went to manage the Double-A Norwich Navigators instead -- and won the Eastern League title in his first year doing it. Then in September 2003, after making an appearance at Old-Timers' Day that summer, the Yankees brought him back to the majors for the final month of the season. He played three games, retired for good, and became the only player on record to appear in both an Old-Timers' Day game and a regular-season game in the same year.

He's got five championship rings total across his career if you count the 1993 one he picked up in Toronto without playing a single postseason game (fitting, in a way, for a guy whose entire Yankees identity was built on showing up exactly when it mattered and staying quiet the rest of the time). The four he earned in pinstripes came the hard way -- off the bench, off waivers, off a roster that released him and immediately regretted it.

Nobody drafted Luis Sojo to be a star. Two different organizations cut him loose along the way. He kept ending up exactly where a championship team needed him to be, right up until the moment Al Leiter needed one more out and never got it.