Randy Johnson was an accidental tourist no more. He was right smack in the delirious midst of a winning Yankee clubhouse, getting doused with champagne by Mariano Rivera and reveling in the fact his baptism by fire was complete.
Or was it?
This was a day for Yankees fans to feel good about all the trouble their team endured in acquiring him, this day inside Fenway Park when Johnson became Johnson again and an old order was restored in the American League East. After so many months of looking beatable, vulnerable, even frail, the Big Unit was living large on his singular brand of heat.
He clinched Joe Torre's eighth straight division title. In the clubhouse afterward, Johnson looked at home as a Yankee for the very first time.
"This is what we got him for," Alex Rodriguez said, "to come in here in a hostile environment and with a great lineup like the Red Sox (have) and dominate them. He's the one component we didn't have last year. He can dominate any lineup."
A-Rod was right and wrong at the same time. The Yankees did get Johnson to pay back a Boston team that had exorcised 86 years of demons and doubts by scripting George Steinbrenner's worst nightmare, by inspiring the greatest postseason collapse in baseball history.
But the Yankees aren't about winning division titles, even at Boston's expense. They are about ticker-tape parades. In that context, Johnson has not even begun to manage his pinstriped burdens.
He gets his first chance to do that Friday night at Yankee Stadium, in Game 3 of a Division Series matchup with the Angels. New York's decision to hire the 40-something ace will be judged on Johnson's postseason merits.
If Johnson helps Torre win his fifth ring, his one for the thumb, then it was the deal of the year. If Johnson doesn't carry the Yankees any deeper than Javier Vazquez and Kevin Brown did, then it was a Hollywood-sized bust.
That's the win-or-else mission statement in the Bronx, year after big-market, bigger-payroll year. It doesn't matter if Johnson wins 17 or loses 17 in the regular season. October is the only month on the calendar that encourages Yankees fans to count.
"Now he's throwing like Randy is used to throwing," said his personal catcher, John Flaherty, "and we'll try to ride him through the postseason."
Johnson's own roller-coaster ride through 2005 started as a train wreck on a Manhattan street. He got ugly with a cameraman simply doing his job, then apologized for being such a boor at his welcome-to-the-Bronx news conference the next day.
Torre believes the incident served to de-fang Johnson, to strip him of his jagged edge. One of the most dominant pitchers in baseball history suddenly was a win-one, lose-one study in mediocrity, just another superstar on the verge of being declared washed up.
Johnson actually surrendered four home runs to the White Sox in a one-inning, 16-pitch span. "That was his turning point," Flaherty would say. "After that, Randy really started to work on his mechanics. You have to give him the credit for doing the work."
The Unit rediscovered himself before it was too late, regaining his command in September and finishing with a 5-0 record against the Red Sox. It was official: Johnson had done for the Yankees what his dear desert friend, Curt Schilling, had done for the Red Sox the year before.
He'd put them in position to win a World Series. Of course, Schilling went ahead and won the World Series, pitching on a zombie film of an ankle.
Will Johnson do the same, minus the blood and gore?
"I understand the expectations," he said. "My No. 1 reason for coming here was to help the Yankees win a championship, and that's what my focus is right now."
As a Diamondback in '01, Johnson denied the Yankees their fifth title in six years, teaming with Schilling to recover from a 3-2 deficit. As a Mariner in '95, Johnson single-handedly killed the Yankees season, ending the New York career of Buck Showalter and opening Torre's dynastic door.
Torre needs an entirely different kind of assist Friday night. The manager wants no part of a return trip to Anaheim, not after the Angels crushed the Yankees in the Division Series three years back.
Johnson is the stopper, the ace in the middle of all this first-round angst. The Yankees appreciated his regular season efforts, especially those in September, but another AL East crown wasn't exactly what they had in mind.
They hired Johnson so they could ride under another ticker-tape rain. In Game 3, Johnson's baptism by fire begins for real.
