It was the team’s first since winning three straight from 1998-2000. “It feels better than I remember it,” Derek Jeter said. “It’s been a long time.”

Matsui, the Series MVP, powered a quick rout of old foe Pedro Martinez. And when Mariano Rivera got the final out, it was ecstasy in the Bronx for George Steinbrenner’s go-for-broke bunch. What a way for Alex Rodriguez and Co. to christen their $1.5 billion ballpark: One season, one championship. It certainly ended a lot better than it started – with a steroids scandal involving A-Rod, followed by hip surgery that kept him out until May.

For Chase Utley and the Phillies, it was a frustrating end to another scintillating season. Philadelphia fell two wins short of becoming the first NL team to repeat as World Series champions since the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds. Utley tied Reggie Jackson’s record with five home runs in a Series. But Ryan Howard’s sixth-inning homer came too late to wipe away his World Series slump, and Phillies pitchers rarely managed to slow Matsui and the Yankees’ machine.

“I told them that I loved the way they played. We’re fighters and never quit,” Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel said. “We want to keep what we got as far as attitude and chemistry.” Howard said, “You don’t look at it as a failure. We had a great season. We just got beat by the better team.”

In a fitting coincidence, this championship came eight years to the day that the Yankees lost Game 7 of the 2001 World Series in Arizona on Luis Gonzalez’s broken-bat single off Rivera. Steinbrenner spent billions trying to win another Series. At long last, his team did.

On this November night, Matsui delivered a sublime performance at the plate that must have made Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, proud. “It’s awesome,” Matsui said through a translator. “Unbelievable. I’m surprised myself.” Matsui hit a two-run homer off Martinez in the second inning and a two-run single on a 0-2 pitch in the third. A slumping Mark Teixeira added an RBI single in the fifth off reliever Chad Durbin, and Matsui cracked a two-run double off the right-center fence against lefty J.A. Happ.

A designated hitter with balky knees, Matsui came off the bench in all three games at Philadelphia. Still, he had a huge Series, going 8 for 13 (.615) with three homers and eight RBIs. His go-ahead shot off an effective Martinez in Game 2 helped the Yankees tie it 1-all. Bobby Richardson was the only other player with six RBIs in a World Series game, doing it for the Yankees in Game 3 against Pittsburgh in 1960. Richardson had a first-inning grand slam and a two-run single in the fourth.

Matsui’s big hits built a comfortable cushion for a feisty Pettitte, who shouted at plate umpire Joe West while coming off the field in the fourth. Still, Pettitte extended major league records with his 18th postseason win and sixth to end a series. The 37-year-old left-hander, pitching on three days’ rest, became the first pitcher to start and win the clincher in all three postseason rounds. He beat Minnesota and the Los Angeles Angels in the American League playoffs.

Pettitte lasted 5 2/3 innings, allowing three runs, four hits and five walks. Chamberlain and Damaso Marte combined for 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief before Rivera secured the final five outs.

It had been nearly a half-century since players had won five titles with one team. Who was the last to do it? Of course a bunch of Yankees: Yogi Berra (10 titles), Mickey Mantle (seven) and Whitey Ford (six) in 1962.

For second-year manager Joe Girardi, a three-time Yankees champion as a player, it was the fulfillment of a mission. When he succeeded Joe Torre in October 2007, Girardi chose uniform No. 27, putting his quest on his back for all to see. His tenure didn’t start out so well, with New York missing the playoffs in his final season at old Yankee Stadium following 13 consecutive appearances.

Matsui, the unflappable hitter, had a homer, a double, a single and also drove in six runs to help the Yankees stop the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3, and win the World Series in six games Wednesday night, November4. It is the first championship for the Yankees since 2000. After seven seasons, Matsui has his first World Series ring. Even as Matsui tied Bobby Richardson’s World Series record with six runs batted in, he still moved around the field in a disciplined way. After each hit, Matsui barely smiled as he accepted congratulations. After each ovation, Matsui looked straight ahead or at his feet.

The fans chanted, “M.V.P.! M.V.P.!” for Matsui, who started only three games because the teams did not use a designated hitter for the three games that were played in Philadelphia. The fans were right. Matsui won the Most Valuable Player award after hitting .615 with three homers and eight runs batted in.

“I guess you could say it’s the best moment of my life,” Matsui said.

If the Yankees do not re-sign Matsui, he will leave them with a memorable game. Matsui socked a two-run homer and a two-run single off Pedro Martinez in the first three innings to help the Yankees exhale. While Martinez was trying to squeeze another magical performance out of his aging right arm, Matsui would not let him get comfortable.

After Martinez left, Matsui received a standing ovation before his third at-bat and promptly belted a two-run double off J. A. Happ to give the Yankees a 7-1 cushion. As Matsui stood, he received another standing ovation. But Matsui was the most subdued man at Yankee Stadium. “All I can say right now is I feel great,” Matsui said. “I’m so happy.”

For Matsui, the game bookended his performance against Martinez in his first season in the 2003 American League Championship Series. Matsui belted a run-scoring double off Martinez as the Yankees rallied to beat the Red Sox, 6-5, on Aaron Boone’s homer.

After Martinez walked Alex Rodriguez on four pitches to begin the second, his pace slowed against Matsui. After Matsui fouled off a 3-2 changeup, Martinez tossed a fastball. It was an 89-mile-per-hour pitch, which is about as robust a fastball as Martinez can muster these days, and Matsui drilled into the second deck in right field for a two-run homer.

Matsui said he loved New York and hoped that he gets to stay. In Matsui’s first season, he proved that he was comfortable on baseball’s biggest stage. In what might have been Matsui’s final game with the Yankees, he showed that he can still perform professionally and exceptionally.

Think about that. Deacon Phillippe did it in the first game, against Boston. Then there were 605 World Series games in which it didn’t happen. Then Cliff Lee did it again. It was his World Series debut, and he was incredulous at the notion that he might have been nervous.

“Not nervous at all,” he said, before pausing and adding, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been nervous playing this game. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. I put all the work in. You do everything you need to do to prepare, and I try not to leave anything to chance. So what’s the point in being nervous? I’ve already done the work. It’s game time. Time to go out there and have fun and execute and let your skills take over.”

Lee had command of enough pitches to be, in his words, unpredictable. Nick Swisher said Lee’s best pitch was his changeup. Johnny Damon, who looked utterly helpless until his single in the ninth, said Lee’s curveballs and fastballs did the most damage. And his cutter was effective, too.

“He was getting that low strike called, so when we saw that low pitch, we started offering at it,” Damon said. “If it was a curveball, we looked silly with the check swings or whatnot, and if it was a fastball, it seemed like we were taking it. He was able to establish that part of the plate in the zone, and he went with it.”

Lee also kept a remarkable rhythm, and nothing could knock him off it. There was an umpire’s conference in the fifth. There was “God Bless America” in the seventh, then a delay as the grounds crew spread new dirt around the mound and the batters’ box. Lee stayed loose, kept moving, and kept churning through hitters.

“What I call, he handles the flow of the game, if you know what I mean, everything about it,” Manager Charlie Manuel said. “Not only does he have command of the game, but he has the flow of the game. To me he sets the tone by his rhythm, getting the ball back, and he knows what he’s going to do and he knows what he’s going to throw. I like the way he pitches. I like everything about how he goes about it.”

There was bad news for the Yankees, but really not that much of it. Phil Hughes, who has been the primary setup man, did something he had not done all season, walking the first two hitters he faced. He did not stick around for a third hitter.

But mostly, the Yankees just got beaten by a pitcher who looked unbeatable for a night. They trail 1-0 in a series that is just underway. And as well as Deacon Phillippe pitched that day in 1903 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston, it did not matter much in the end: Phillippe and the Pirates lost the World Series.

Photographs by Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY, and Chang W. Lee, The New York Times

There is no more comforting sight to the Yankees than Rivera, his chin up and his eyes focused on the mound, jogging in from the bullpen. When the Yankees need to secure crucial outs late in postseason games, Rivera is the closer who gets them. He gives the Yankees a huge advantage in October.

Rivera, the impenetrable one-pitch pitcher, did it again for the Yankees as he notched the final outs to power them past the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3, and to a World Series title. For the fourth time in a superb career, he tossed the memorable pitch that carried the Yankees to another championship.

“What was going through my mind is that it’s finally over,” Rivera said. “Thank God, it’s over.”

After Rivera retired Shane Victorino on a groundout to second base with his trusty cut fastball, he pumped his fist once and then joined Mark Teixeira and the rest of the Yankees in a celebration. As “We Are the Champions” blared at Yankee Stadium, Rivera and the other Yankees put on white championship caps and gray championship T-shirts.

It had been exactly eight years since Rivera had the opportunity to close out an opponent and give the Yankees a World Series title. But Rivera failed, and the Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-2, in Game 7. Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single knocked in the decisive run. In 2009, there were no comebacks and no runs off Rivera. He was a champion for the fifth time.

“All of them are great, but this one is special,” Rivera said. “It was a drought for nine years and we finally got one.” Now that the Yankees ended that drought, Rivera, who turns 40 later this month, was feeling youthful. “I want to play for another five years,” Rivera told the fans in a postgame ceremony.

Before Rivera began lightly tossing a ball in the seventh, he sat in the corner of the bullpen as if he were sitting on his couch. Rivera stretched out his legs, chewed gum and chatted with Damasco Marte. Marte preceded Rivera into the game and struck out Utley to end the seventh and Ryan Howard to begin the eighth. Parte retired the last 12 batters he faced in the postseason.

When the postseason began, there were eight closers who fantasized about having a chance to get the last out. It is the ultimate dream for a closer, the way to complete a season. Of course, Rivera, the mighty Mariano, was the last closer standing.

As talented as the other postseason closers are, Rivera is different. As long as the Yankees could get leads, Rivera would protect them better than anyone. He has saved 39 of 44 opportunities in the postseason.

“He’s the best at what he does,” Jorge Posada said. “I think he’s the best to ever do it.”

Rivera had five saves in five opportunities and a 0.56 earned run average in 12 appearances – another pristine postseason. Rivera lurked in the bullpen as a valuable weapon for manager Joe Girardi. Girardi said Rivera had said that Rivera could be used for a six-out save, but Rivera only needed five outs because of Marte’s solid outing.

Closers who falter in the postseason can demoralize their teams, and even Rivera is not perfect (see the 2001 World Series). Because the series are short, turning a potential win into a loss is significant.

While Rivera flourished, the other closers all either botched save chances or lost a game. Brad Lidge, who never budged in the Phillies’ bullpen Wednesday, did not blow any saves. But in Game 4, Lidge allowed three runs in the ninth inning and took the loss, 7-4. Manager Charlie Manuel then bypassed Lidge and used Ryan Madson to close Game 5, which Madson barely succeeded in doing.

Rivera has notched the final out in nine series finales, including in the 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Series. Nine years ago, Rivera said being on the mound for the final out was an “incredible” feeling, but it was something he could not “really explain.” Now Rivera experienced that feeling again.

“It felt wonderful, guys,” Rivera said.

On Wednesday night, October 28, the Yankees and Phillies played the opener in New York in a drizzly rain, while temperatures hovered in the low 50s. You could see the pitchers’ breath as they exhaled. None of this is conducive to great performances by the “Boys of Summer,” as baseball players are known. Or to a great experience for the teams’ most ardent fans, who get to pay hundreds of dollars for seats and then freeze their butts off in them. But, hey, they’re only a tiny part of baseball’s revenue stream.

So how did the postseason stray this far from tradition? Just about every time Major League Baseball had a choice between a tighter postseason schedule and more lucrative TV contracts, it chose the latter. A stretched out postseason schedule – with lots of days off – means that more games can be televised in East Coast prime time.

A few days ago, Angels manager Mike Scioscia tagged this long postseason schedule for what it is: “Ridiculous.” After playing a relentless 162 games over 182 days in the regular season, the Angels played just nine in the next 21 days. All this waiting adds inequities to the game, giving an edge to teams from cold-weather climes that have fewer top-notch starting pitchers.

For years, baseball ended its World Series in early to mid-October; it wouldn’t be tough to do that again. A few regular season doubleheaders would help. So would scheduling more playoff games on the same day.

For now, fans will have to be content with the knowledge that it could have been worse. If the Rockies had made it from the playoffs to the World Series, some games would have been in Denver, which was hit Wednesday and Thursday with more than 10 inches of snow and blizzard conditions. Who knows? Then we might have had the Boys of Thanksgiving.

Then, with Swisher on third, Johnny Damon flied out to center field and Swisher tagged up, scoring what appeared to be the Yankees’ fourth run. The Angels appealed, and the third-base umpire Tim McClelland called Swisher out, negating the run. Again, Fox’s multiple replays showed that McClelland appeared to be wrong. One replay in particular showed McClelland looking toward the outfield and not at Swisher.

Fox’s Tim McCarver wondered how McClelland could make the call without looking at when Swisher left third, or if it was possible for any umpire to simultaneously and perfectly judge a ball is caught and when a runner tags up.

Joe Buck rightly suggested that McClelland would explain his call after the game.

Umpire Tim McClelland said spirits bruised by a missed call Tuesday, October 20, in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series game between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels were buoyed by messages of support. By midday Wednesday, his telephone surrendered.

“I’ve already had to recharge it today from everyone checking in,” said McClelland, in his 27th season as a major league umpire. It’s very humbling. You don’t want to make mistakes, and you certainly don’t want to see your mistakes on JumboTron and TV over and over again.”

The play happened during the fifth inning as McClelland umpired third base. The Yankees’ Nick Swisher hit a tapper back to the pitcher, and Jorge Posada broke for home. Robinson Cano ran from second base and lingered short of third as Posada rushed back to the bag. When Angels catcher Mike Napoli reached third base, neither Posada nor Cano was on the bag – and he tagged both, as pictured above. Although both were off the bag, McClellan ruled Posada out and indicated Cano was safe, though replays showed he was out.

“Posada was kind of in my way,” McClelland said. “I was trying to look around Posada. I thought Cano was on the bag.” The moment stirred more discussion about umpire errors in the postseason – which made the situation more difficult for McClelland to digest.

“I’ll live to umpire another day, but I hate to see my profession keep taking hits like it has,” he said. “I feel bad for umpiring. We’re a team, to be honest with you. When one guy makes an error, we all feel it. When we lose, we lose as a team.”

McClellan has long been considered one of the best umpires in the game. Former Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson told news reporters after the game that McClellan “is recognized as one of the great umpires. No doubt. So if one of your best umpires in baseball has a bad night, I do not hold it against him.”

Now McClelland will prepare himself for Game 5 in Anaheim. “That’s just part of being a professional. Like a guy who goes 0-for-4 and strands a few runners on base,” he said. “I’ll go out in Game 5 and try to get every call right – just like I’ve tried to do for 27 years.”