NEW YORK -- They stood together, arms around each other's shoulders, on a makeshift podium in the middle of a still-packed stadium as euphoria rained from the sky.

Mariano Rivera. Derek Jeter. Andy Pettitte. Jorge Posada.

They had done this before. And not just once. But somehow, this time was different. This time was special. This night was one that made them want to freeze time and hold onto a moment that was nine years in the making.

The clock had already blown past midnight on the night the New York Yankees won their 27th World Series. And the Gang of Four who connected two Yankee generations was going to savor this one for many more ticks of that clock.

So Derek Jeter held the World Series trophy in his hands and looked out at the ecstatic masses.

"Now," he said, cradling that trophy as if he might never let it go, "this thing is right where it belongs."

Behind the four of them, the scoreboard told the tale of the final World Series game, the final baseball game of 2009: Yankees 7, Phillies 3.

But scoreboards never tell you the whole story. And for these four men, this was a night that couldn't have followed a more perfect script if George Steinbrenner had been able to personally sign the big script-writing free agent in the sky to an $8 zillion contract.

The Great Mariano got the final five outs. Derek Jeter slapped three hits. Andy Pettitte won the clinching game of a postseason series for the sixth time. Jorge Posada was the man catching that first pitch by Pettitte and that final pitch by Rivera.

There was something fitting about that -- the four of them finding their names in this particular box score -- because they are the men who connect all the dots in the Yankees' universe.

You might have trouble convincing a Cubs fan or a Giants fan or an Indians fan that it has been a long time since the Yankees had themselves a night like this. But it's longer than you think.

The last time they did this, the men squirting champagne all over the Gang of Four were long-lost names like David Justice, and Denny Neagle, and even Jose Canseco. It feels like those guys haven't played in the big leagues in 90 years, not nine. But the last time the Yankees floated down the Canyon of Heroes, those men were riding right along with them.

In between titles, Mike Mussina came and went. Jason Giambi came and went. Even Raul Mondesi, Rondell White and Karim Garcia came and went.

But Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada kept putting on those pinstripes day after day. Pettitte bolted for Houston, then found his way back. And it was all about waiting for this night to arrive again.

So by the time it did, they understood this wasn't their birthright, wasn't as automatic as their teams had once made it look.

"It makes it sweeter, no doubt," said Andy Pettitte, "because you don't know if you're going to go back. I realize I'm 37 years old. I realize I'm getting older. I realize I'm toward the end of my career. And that makes it sweet.

"The first one is always sweet, because you live your whole life, you want to win a championship, and when you're able to do it that first time, that's sweet. But when so many years pass, you don't know if you're ever going to be able to do it again. So it's just very gratifying to be able to do this."

We understand this is no tale of some plucky underdog battling to this place against all odds. This is a $208 million baseball team we're talking about. This is a team that paid its four infielders alone more money ($81.225 million) than 16 of the other 29 franchises paid their whole teams. This is a team that had spent nearly $1.8 billion hard-earned Steinbrenner-family dollars in between trips to the Canyon of Heroes.

But contrary to popular belief, it's never dollars alone that make that happen. You need talent. You need brains. And you need people -- people who understand what winning is all about, what leadership is all about, what being a teammate is all about.

So these Yankees needed the Gang of Four -- even more than they ever needed them back in the day when they were winning four of these titles in five years.

"On those teams [that won in the '90s], those guys were young," said GM Brian Cashman. "They weren't veteran guys like they are now. They had different roles. Derek Jeter wasn't a leader back then. Jorge Posada wasn't a leader then. They were the guys looking to the David Cones, the Paul O'Neills, the Scott Brosiuses, the veterans around them. But now this is those guys' team. They've taken over that leadership role. And they've proved they can deliver a championship with a whole new cast."

That cast included the World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui, a man who would drive in a record-tying six runs in the Series clincher. And it included a fellow who can finally tune out the ridiculous debate about whether he's a "true Yankee," Alex Rodriguez. And it included the latest batch of Yankees free agents who will eventually earn more money than the gross national product of Trinidad and Tobago -- Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett.

But those pieces never could have fit if the leaders on this Yankees team didn't do what had to be done to make sure they fit. And the Gang of Four made sure.

"You know what?" said Burnett, still sopping from the Moet & Chandon shower he had to show for his first season in New York. "These guys are very classy individuals -- Jeter, Mariano, Pettitte and Posada especially for me, in my first year here, being a pitcher. They're guys who really showed you how to be a New York Yankee.

"And they do that by being themselves. By showing class. And being the most humble human beings I've ever been around. They're all Hall of Famers, but you wouldn't know it, man. They come in here, and they're just one of us. They're humble people who play this game one day at a time, one game at a time. And that rubbed off on everyone else."

But this was a night to recognize that the Gang of Four was still -- even now -- way more than just a quartet of nostalgic figures from the '90s who hung around the clubhouse, telling stories about the good old days.

Jeter may be 35, but he hit .334 this year. Spewed 212 hits. Finished third in the league in on-base percentage (.406). Then his seventh World Series rolled around, and all he did was bat .407, hit safely in all six games and just miss tying the record for most hits in a six-game World Series.

"This is what you play for," Jeter said on the night he passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time World Series hits list. "When you're 6, 7 years old, you're out on the field, thinking about being in the World Series, winning the World Series. And it's always something special to be able to do it."

He has now won more World Series as a Yankee...