Major League Baseball

THAMES PLAYIN' HIS ROLE

Published Oct. 11, 2010 10:10 p.m. ET

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THE YANKEES are about money, right? They are about stars. They are about the kind of might - fiscal and physical - that is supposed to send a shiver of fear into every opponent in their pathway. This is a description - or an accusation - that goes back generations.

There was no free agency for established players in the '20s or the '30s or the '40s, but there was always a free-for-all for the youngest players, and the Yankees always gathered more than anyone else. Why? Same reason they collect free agents now: Because they could.

Here's the thing, though: Might makes right over the course of 162 games, and a surplus of talent can push you into October. But as often as not, it is the bit player, the role player, that carries the Yankees to the finish line.

It is Joe Girardi hitting a triple off Greg Maddux on the night the Yankees became champions in 1996 for the first time in 18 years. It is Scott Brosius taking Trevor Hoffman deep, Chad Curtis going walk-off against the Braves in 1999. And think of the last two Yankees who have delivered ninth-inning hits to win a World Series: Billy Martin against the Dodgers in 1953, Luis Sojo against the Mets in 2000.

It's why Marcus Thames, already a terrific story for these 2010 Yankees, may well be an even bigger story by the time October gives way to November. Invited to camp on a minor-league deal, signed for about 1/30th of Alex Rodriguez's salary, Thames made the team out of spring training almost in spite of himself, hitting .135 with three times as many strikeouts (21) as hits in 52 at-bats.

"All I wanted was an opportunity to prove that I could be a part of this team, that I could help out," Thames said Saturday night, as a happy but muted celebration broke out around him in the Yankees clubhouse. "I know it might not have been easy for them, but they gave me that chance and I wanted to be equal to it."

The Yankees aren't complaining. Though the early part of Thames' season was devoted as much to the sheer slapstick comedy his defense inspired, he has become the unquestioned right-handed half of a designated hitter slot that, in the spring, was going to be Nick Johnson's full-time gig. And he delivered: 12 homers in only 212 at-bats, a .288 average and an antidote for the Yankees who have so often been vulnerable to left-handed pitching.

Thames' indoctrination as a Yankee came in a most appropriate setting, in the bottom of the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox. The Sox had erased a 6-1 Yankees lead that night, taken a 9-7 lead, but then Alex Rodriguez hit a tying two-run homer off Jonathan Papelbon and Francisco Cervelli was hit by a pitch. And then Thames ran into a Papelbon fastball, a no-doubter to left that sent a wicked jolt through the Stadium and solidified Thames' place on the roster.

The home run Thames hit Saturday night in the Division Series-clinching win over the Twins was simply the latest example of how important Thames has been in lengthening and strengthening the Yankees batting order. The Yankees already led, 2-0, which against the overmatched Twins might well have been enough. Still, when Thames took Brian Duensing deep to right field in the fourth, it doubled the Yankees' lead and all but shoved Minnesota to the brink of the abyss.

It was Thames' first postseason home run and will probably be as prominent as part of his mental scrapbook as his first regular season home run was back in 2002, when in his first tour with the Yankees he took Randy Johnson out of old Yankee Stadium.

"Derek [Jeter] was giving me grief all day in batting practice and I was hitting them to right field," Thames laughed. "Then I hit the homer in the game and he was like, 'Wow, you really can go over there.'"

Nothing Thames does should surprise Jeter or anyone else. Not now. Certainly not in the days and weeks to come.

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