YANKEES WON THE WORLD SERIES!

The Yankees had won the World Series again, and they all came running for Mo Rivera and this was all the Yankee Stadium night you could ask for now. Any Stadium. Rivera had gotten the last out of another Series, and now players from one of the great Yankee teams, which is exactly what this one became in the end, seemed to come running from everywhere, maybe even from across the street, on the night when the Yankees were finally back to being the Yankees again.
Old times at the new Stadium a few minutes before midnight, flashes of light everywhere. Felt like old times and sounded that way and felt that way. Felt that way most of all. So maybe it figured that they did it with old guys Wednesday night, the night when they won No. 27. They did it with the 39-year-old Rivera closing out one more Series, taking the very best of his act across the street. They did it with 37-year-old Andy Pettitte giving them all he had, hearing his name chanted louder on this night than it ever had been across the street.

And 35-year-old Hideki Matsui knocked in six runs and had the night of his life as a Yankee, on what might have been - but should not be - his last night as a Yankee. And Mr. Jeter, the 35-year-old captain of the team, got three hits in Game 6 and scored a couple. All Jeter did in this World Series was hit .407. Of course.

The Yankees won Game 6 from the Phillies, 7-3, won the World Series. They were 90-44 after Alex Rodriguez came back, and when you add on the 11-4 from the postseason, it means they finished 101-48 with him, and the only time in a long time you saw a Yankee team finish like this was in 1998, maybe the best Yankee team of them all. That is the kind of season you just saw. That is what you got out of the '09 Yankees.

"Player for player?" Paul O'Neill said when it was over, standing near the pitcher's mound, taking it all in. Old times for him, too. "This is one of the great Yankee teams."

Now the Yankees really were everywhere at Yankee Stadium, all around O'Neill, some of them in the infield and some of them in the outfield. Nick Swisher ran along the stands along the third-base side of the new Stadium, waving a "2009" banner like he was already starting the parade, and there was Joba Chamberlain waving another one, right behind him.

Finally behind them, running like a kid, came Rivera. He had come out of the bullpen in the eighth inning last night, got the last five outs of the World Series. Got the last outs the way he had before. Still as much of a baseball immortal as the Yankees have ever had, as great a Yankee as there has ever been.