Game 122: Jorge Posada Day
“I don’t think I had a plan B”, Posada said.
Catching for the New York Yankees was such a thrill every day, Posada said.
“He knew how to push my buttons and get me going”. “I am today. I am simply a man who was born passionate about the baseball and the New York Yankees”. The Yankees are retiring his uniform No. 20 and will also honor Posada with a plaque. “It really is”. Over that time, he had 1,164 hits, a. 273 batting average, 275 home runs, and 1,065 RBI. Former teammates, coaches and other guests will be involved with the festivities. There was the suave leader Derek Jeter, the homespun starter Andy Pettitte and the classy closer Mariano Rivera. His 19 wins, 44 starts and 276 2/3 innings in the postseason are major league records. Yankee fans were calling for the veteran to be demoted to the bullpen or even cut from the team and bought out of his current contract.
The years you put in and the friendship you build up, just the trust you build with one another, Pettitte said. So for Posada, any fan that grew up watching him should enjoy the day to look back at his great career and Posada should be proud of what he has accomplished not only in his baseball career, but in life. That performance quickly earned him the respect of the pitching staff. Posada had a career.
He was obviously a very skilled player, but he brought an attitude, Girardi said.
More than any franchise in professional sports, the New York Yankees honors its heroes of the past and its greatest events of its lengthy and illustrious history. Then he had a late-November conversation with Don Mattingly.
As he listed the names of the former Yankee catchers he joined – Yogi Berra, Bill Dickey, Elston Howard and Thurman Munson – Posada was still in awe. “So when I see these people with No. 15, I always go up and hug them”.