This year's Yankees are aged to perfection

Club gets plenty of production from its elder members

ANAHEIM, CALIF. -- Nobody yet calls Derek Jeter the 35-year-old shortstop, and nobody yet calls Johnny Damon the 35-year-old left fielder, because ballplayers hear about age only when they start to look aged. Watch Jeter and Damon play -- they're in the lineup every day, nearing or reaching career-best numbers, still torrid during this October playoff run -- and context beyond that doesn't matter.

You all but forget, just by watching them, that both players were drafted in the first round in 1992. And that Damon went golfing on draft day, just waiting for a phone call, because nobody yet had a good solution for tracking the selection process on a computer.

You all but forget that Damon and Jeter are draft class contemporaries of Ron Villone, 39, who's played for 12 big league organizations, and that aside from Villone and Jason Kendall, everybody else from that group of 38 first-rounders and supplemental picks has retired.

You all but forget that Damon and Jeter are old guys, same as you forget that the very foundation of this New York Yankees team is built on age-defying brilliance. Though CC Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez have claimed most of the attention this postseason, the Yankees run through October, which can continue with a Game 5 ALCS-clinching victory on Thursday, has been supplemented by Jeter and Damon and Jorge Posada (age 38) and Andy Pettitte (age 37) and Mariano Rivera (who turns 40 in November).

The Yankees aren't baseball's oldest team, but they are assuredly its best old team. New York has an average age of 30.0 -- that's third-highest in the majors, behind the Phillies (31.5) and Dodgers (30.6) -- but their four oldest position players are in the lineup every day. They have no Jim Thome, no Matt Stairs. No old sluggers hanging on in reduced roles.

Damon, who matched his career high with 24 homers this regular season, has homered in each of the last two games. Jeter is hitting .323 with three home runs in the postseason. Posada is 8 for 24 (.333). Pettitte (2.84 playoff ERA) has two quality starts, and will pitch Game 6 if necessary. Rivera, of course, is still unscored upon in the postseason.

"It's not easy to be together for so long," Posada said. "Nowadays, having just a couple guys on the same team is really tough, so having four guys for so long is really unheard of."

Though Damon joined the group of homegrown Yankees as a free agent in 2005, he belongs at this point in the team's tenured class. At this point, the aged are producing without parallel.

On Monday, in Game 3, the Yankees received homers from Jeter, Posada, Damon and Alex Rodriguez (age 34). It was the first time in baseball history, regular season or postseason, that four teammates 34 or older had homered.

Of the 10 active players with more than 2,400 hits -- Ken Griffey Jr. tops the list with 2,763 -- just four batted over .280 this season. One was Manny Ramírez. The other three (Jeter, Rodriguez and Damon) play for the Yankees. There's a chance, especially if Damon keeps his pace for the next several seasons, that baseball's next three 3,000-hit players all come from the current New York roster.

Rodriguez is still at the edge of his standard prime, but the others are doing things that make even their teammates forget about their age. According to http://baseball-reference.com's Sean Forman, Pettitte was the only pitcher older than 34 this season to throw more than 190 innings of above-average baseball. Posada's 2009 OPS was fourth-best ever by a catcher age 37 or older. As for Rivera? He's the only pitcher in baseball history to post an ERA below 2.00 between ages 35 and 39.

"Those guys," Nick Swisher said, "define the Yankees."

Damon, who's witnessed the careers of Jeter and Posada and Rivera and Pettitte both as an opponent and teammate, tried to put his finger on their success.

"Well, when you get drafted by the Yankees you get brought into a great system," Damon said. "A winning system, where they treat every player as -- what I've heard, the guys who come up from the minor leagues, they treat everyone like they're going to be a star. So that's how the Yankees work. They teach winning. They remind you about the history. And I think that's what made those guys very successful, and still very successful."