Girardi, a Friend to You and Me: After the Yankees manager left the stadium last night, where do you think he went next? The answer was a pit stop at Cross County Parkway. Girardi stopped to help someone who had been in a car accident. Not only that, but police officers say he stopped at a particularly dangerous stretch or road and ran through traffic that reaches an excess of 80 MPH. Wow. Via Sam Borden.

Five Mo Years?: At the on-field trophy ceremony last night, Mariano Rivera joked that he's ready to pitch five more years. But, it was no joke. The closer told Chad Jennings: "I'm serious. I hope the organization does whatever it takes to bring me back."

Matsui's MVP Big in Japan: Finally, Jay Greenberg of the Post spoke with someone at a Japanese newspaper who said he expected news of Matsui's exploits in last night's game to be on the front page of the paper and to possibly be bigger then when Ichiro won the MVP or collected 262 hits in a season. Godzilla!

During game 4 of the World Series, Mariano Rivera was shown holding a heating pad to his side or his ribs, in the bullpen. At the time, it was thought to be nothing and that he could just be keeping warm.

But, after the game last night, he admitted to an injury on ESPN, without going into a lot of detail. Check out the end of the video below. It sounds like he says that he "had some ribs going on; some injury that we don't want to talk about."

Worth mentioning of course is that the Yankees' victory parade is going to be held this upcoming Friday at 11 a.m, according to MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. No truth to any rumor that city officials have dubbed this Friday as "Call in Sick Day."

OK, so we all know what happened by now. Hideki Matsui went absolutely berserk on the Philadelphia Phillies and Andy Pettitte gave the Yankees a solid start in Game 6 as the Yankees wrapped up their 27th World Championship, defeating the Phillies 7–3 at Yankee Stadium.

Andy Pettitte gave the Yankees 5 and 2/3 very respectable innings, pitching on short rest as the Yankees went with a 3-man rotation for this series. The only blemishes on Pettitte in this one were a sac fly off the bat of Jimmy Rollins and a two-run homer by Ryan Howard.

Pettitte was impressive, but we'd be headed for Game 7 tonight in the Bronx if it weren't for Hideki Matsui. Matsui completely demolished the Phils, driving in 6 of the Yankees 7 runs (Mark Teixeira drove in the other one), en route to taking home the World Series MVP award. Matsui put the Yanks ahead with a two-run homer off of Pedro Martinez in the 2nd to make it 2–0. He made it 4–1 with an RBI single in the 3rd, and then he pretty much put the nail in the coffin with a two run double in the bottom of the 5th inning that made it 7–1 Yankees (Ryan Howard's home run in the 6th made it 7–3). The 6 RBI for Matsui on the night tied a World Series record.

There were no bullpen issues to speak of in this one. Joba Chamberlain allowed a hit and a walk in his inning of work, but left unscathed after Damaso Marte helped him to get out of a jam by finishing out the 7th with a strikeout of Chase Utley. Utley, who had tied Reggie Jackson with a record 5 home runs in a single World Series, was neutralized in this game as he went 0-for-3 and struck out twice.

After Marte struck out Ryan Howard to start the 8th, Joe Girardi brought in Mariano to close this series out. At that point, we pretty much all knew it was over. Rivera did cough up a double to Raul Ibanez later in the 8th and walked Carlos Ruiz in the 9th, but that was the extent of any damage. With two outs and a runner on second, Shane Victorino grounded a 3–2 pitch to Robinson Cano, who made a short throw to Mark Teixeira to end the game, and the Yankees were champions of Major League Baseball for the 27th time.

Hideki Matsui, as mentioned was named the MVP of the series. Matsui hit a sizzling .615 for the series, driving in a total of 8 runs and homering 3 times. Matsui became the first Japanese-born player ever to be named MVP of the World Series.

Andy Pettitte was serenaded with chants of "Andy Pettitte! Andy Pettitte!" as he was being interviewed on the outfield stage after the victory. Pettitte was a horse all throughout October, going 4–0 this postseason and winning the final game of each postseason series.

A lot was made of course about the big four (Jeter, Rivera, Posada, Pettitte) getting their fifth Yankee rings and there were a lot of interesting stats thrown around after the game, but what stuck out most to me was a statistic that scrolled through on the bottom of the screen on YES that stated that Derek Jeter became the third player to hit .300 or higher in FIVE DIFFERENT World Series. My first reaction to that one was astonishment that this had even been done twice before. Another noteworthy statistic was that Joe Girardi became the third Yankee (Billy Martin and Ralph Houk being the other two) to win a World Series with the Yankees as both a player and a manager.

So that's all she wrote for the 2009 season. It's been a great ride, and soon it'll be time to talk about offseason moves, arbitration and all that good stuff leading into the 2010 baseball season. But for now, let's just soak this one in. You never know how many years it will be before the next one comes.

On page 3 of today's issue of am New York, I'm quoted very briefly about tonight's game 6, specifically about Pedro Martinez. The paper is free in NYC and is available online. The article I was quoted in is online. Thank you to the author of the article, Heather Haddon, for including me.

Marc Carig of the Star Ledger reports that Pettitte will start game 6, as expected. Via Mike Axisa.

MLB.com's David Gurian-Peck reports that Phillies manager Charlie Manuel and center fielder Shane Victorino have both come out to dispel the rumors that the team steals signs through the use of a camera or bullpen personnel, as shared by Dodgers third base coach Larry Bowa.

The Post shares the news that plans are being considered to christen the not yet built East 153rd Street bridge as "Derek Jeter Bridge." Nothing is official, but the idea has the support of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

Via Mike Axisa.

We're a little late mentioning this as it got lost in the attention paid to last night's game. But, infielder Ramiro Pena has been added to the roster, replacing the injured Melky Cabrera. MLB.com's Bryan Hoch reports that Melky has a "slight strain" of his left hamstring.

The Yankees had an opportunity to end the night as the 2009 World Series Champions, but A.J. Burnett was off his game and the Philly bats proved to be too much for the Yankee pitching staff in Game 5. Instead, the Yankees and Phillies will be heading to the Bronx for Game 6 after an 8–6 victory for the Phillies.

The game was all Phillies for the first seven innings of the game. Philadelphia jumped ahead 3–1 in the first on yet another home run by Chase Utley, this time a 3-run shot off of A.J. Burnett.

Three more runs would score off of Burnett in the third, giving the Phillies an early 6–1 advantage. Burnett in this game was just a shell of the man who dominated the heavy-hitting Phils in Game 2 of this series, walking 4 batters and allowing 6 runs to come across on short rest, and was unable to make it out of the third inning.

The game became seemingly out of reach for the Yankees in the bottom of the seventh, when Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez both took Phil Coke deep to give the Phillies a commanding 8–2 lead. Utley's home run was the 5th for him in this series, tying him with Reggie Jackson for the most home runs ever in a single World Series.

With Cliff Lee still on the mound entering the eighth inning, things didn't look very good for the Yankees. However, the Yanks would threaten in this one as they would tag Lee for three runs in the inning to pull within 8–5. The inning was highlighted by a two-run double by Alex Rodriguez that went off the glove of Raul Ibanez in left field. The third run was scored on a sacrifice fly by Robinson Cano that scored A-Rod.

The Yankees would get the tying run to the plate in the final inning, but the rally took a huge blow when Derek Jeter grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to record the first two outs in the ninth (Jorge Posada scored on the play). A base hit by Johnny Damon did put the tying run on base yet again to give the Yankees one final crack at tying the game, but Mark Teixeira struck out swinging on a bad at bat against Ryan Madson to end the game.

So it was a game that looked like a blowout that turned out to be a game that was lost on missed opportunities. A bad start by A.J. Burnett, a bad seventh inning out of Phil Coke, and an untimely double play by Jeter all stand out in this one. It's a little easier to take though when you consider that the Yanks still lead the series three games to two and will be coming home for the final game(s) with two chances to wrap things up.

Andy Pettitte will try to do something that he also did in 1998, and that is start a World Championship clinching game for the Yankees. He'll be up against Pedro Martinez in what could be an epic battle at Yankee Stadium Wednesday evening. Scheduled start time is 7:57 ET.