Make no mistake: the Yankees partied on Tuesday night.
But if those watching the celebration of the Bombers’ postseason berth on TV found it to be tamer than some of the bashes they threw last year, that’s because it was.
Sure, bottles were popped after José Caballero delivered a 3-2 win over the White Sox with a walk-off single. Eyes were burned by the bubbly. Dance circles formed, chants were shouted, and music blasted. But this was nothing compared to the destructive rager the Yankees enjoyed after winning the ALCS in Cleveland last year, an occasion that saw them clobber multiple televisions with the Guardians’ blessing, as the team planned to revamp its visiting locker room.
Even the 2024 Yankees’ equivalent celebration packed more of a punch, as the booze-drenched carpet in Seattle’s visiting clubhouse still squished the day after that club punched its postseason ticket.
But those Yankees didn’t get to enjoy the ultimate party, as they lost the World Series to the Dodgers in five games. Sloppy throughout the series, the Yankees then had to listen to the bottom of Los Angeles’ roster mock them all offseason.
That performance and trash talk didn’t sit well with the Yankees. It still doesn’t, which could be why things weren’t so rowdy on Tuesday.
“I still feel like it’s yesterday,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said of the 2024 Fall Classic. “That’s how much I’m driven by last October. So this October, we’re coming to prove a point.”
Chisholm, who repeated that the Yankees are the “best team in the league” after previously saying they planned to “step on necks,” wasn’t the only one who spoke of championship aspirations, as Aaron Boone told his team “we got a lot more to do” before players began spraying him with champagne.
Minutes later, Aaron Judge talked about the Yankees’ collective desire to win their first championship since 2009 as teammates showered him with bubbly and MVP chants.
“All the guys in this room have a good mindset,” said Judge, who will have to boost his .205 postseason average if his team hopes to go far. “They’re hungry. We want to get back, and we want to put the Yankees on top.”
Caballero, acquired from the Rays the day of the trade deadline, didn’t endure last October’s disappointment. But he grew up a Yankees fan in Panama, drawn to the team by fellow countryman Mariano Rivera before gravitating to Derek Jeter.
He knows what being a Yankee is all about.
“We’re going for everything,” the utilityman, as excited as anyone in the plastic-lined clubhouse, insisted with the team’s wrestling-style Player of the Game Belt sitting on his shoulder. “We’re going for the trophy.”
Caballero, set to play in his first postseason, and others also stressed that winning the American League East is on the Yankees’ to-do list, as reclaiming a division that they led by seven games on May 28 would net them a first-round bye and likely homefield advantage through the ALCS.
That could be another reason why they took it relatively easy on Tuesday night. With the pinstripers trailing the first-place Blue Jays by one game with five to go — Toronto also holds the tiebreaker — there’s no time for so-called hangover lineups.
“We’re very focused on the division,” Chisholm said with his squad leading the Red Sox by three games for the top wild card spot. “We want to win the division. This isn’t it for us. This is only like a small step. Step 2 is winning the division. Step 3 is going to the World Series after that. We’re really focused on winning the World Series.”
Chisholm, far more animated during the Yankees’ 2024 celebrations, is nearing the end of a rather satisfying season on a personal level, as he recently became the third member of the franchise’s 30-30 club. The same can be said for Judge’s year, as he is contending for his second straight MVP Award and what would be his third overall.
Max Fried, scheduled to start the Yankees’ first playoff game, has been brilliant in his first season with the team, while rotation-mate Carlos Rodón has stepped up tremendously in the absence of Tommy John recipient Gerrit Cole. Giancarlo Stanton also missed two months with tennis elbow injuries, but several other Yankees, including Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice, played huge parts throughout this season, helping the team overcome a summer swoon with breakout seasons and star-level production.
None of their individual campaigns will leave them immortalized in Yankees lore, though. Only a parade down the Canyon of Heroes will accomplish that.
That doesn’t appear to be lost on a group that still has unfinished business to tend to.
“I’m very proud,” Chisholm said of his own season, “but I feel like I’d be prouder with a ring on my finger saying that we won the World Series.”