DO THE YANKEES STACK UP?

NEW YORK —  Great record?

Definitely.

Great team?

Wait a minute.

Conventional wisdom--and that of others--suggests that these New York Yankees will have to win a World Series before having their credentials approved.

Take Dick Williams, who managed the Oakland A’s to two of their three straight World Series titles in the early ‘70s and is now a Yankee consultant. Asked Wednesday to compare these Yankees to those A’s, Williams said:

“If they can do it three years in a row, then we’ll talk about it.”

At this point on the road to the first of those October goals, the Yankees are striving to regain their invincibility of midsummer.

The dogged Angels dented it again Wednesday in the first game of the day-night endurance test, winning, 6-4, to clinch this five-game series--as well as the season series, the only team that can make that claim.

In the second game, David Wells provided a weary and recently ineffective Yankee bullpen with seven innings of rest, but neither Wells nor closer Mariano Rivera could prevent the Angels from rallying from 5-1 and 6-3 deficits before New York won in the ninth, 7-6, ending its longest losing streak at four games.

If this has been a possible playoff preview, the Angels have clearly demonstrated they are not intimidated but make no mistake: With 95 wins on Aug. 27, the Yankees are producing one of the greatest seasons in their storied history and one of the greatest in baseball history.

They still have a shot at the Chicago Cubs’ major league record of 116 wins in 1906 and are still generating comparisons to the best teams of the last 30 years--generally thought to be Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine of the mid ‘70s and Charlie Finley’s A’s of the early ‘70s.

“I think the Reds set the standard, but the one thing that team didn’t have but the Yankees do is depth of starting pitching,” said Jim Kaat, who won 283 games in a 25-year major league career and has been a member of the Yankee broadcasting team for the last four.

“[Manager] Sparky [Anderson] had a good bullpen and several Hall of Fame position players [on the Reds] but the Yankees have a deeper bench and deeper starting pitching,” Kaat said.

“The Yankees may not have any sure-fire Hall of Famers among the position players, but they are all good players doing the ordinary things in an extraordinary way.

“On the basis of this one year, I think the Yankees could play with either the Reds or A’s, and I think when you’re talking about great teams anymore, you’re talking about a great season.

“The Reds and A’s basically stayed together for several years, but you don’t see that anymore because of free agency. When I was with Minnesota, the core was together for 10 years, but that doesn’t happen any more.”

The Yankees, for instance, won the 1996 World Series, but two years later they have two new starting pitchers (Hideki Irabu and Orlando Hernandez) and a new second baseman (Chuck Knoblauch), third baseman (Scott Brosius) and nearly full-time catcher (Jorge Posada).

The result is a team that has stunningly retained its focus, avoiding comparisons and projections, knowing a record will mean nothing if unaccompanied by the Series and that the Boss will be heard from if the season ends prematurely.

“The Yankees still have to go on and win the World Series or they’ll lose some of the credibility they’ve established,” said Frank Robinson, who played on a Baltimore Oriole team that dominated the American League East in the same era that the A’s were dominating the West, winning five division titles and three pennants in a six-year span starting in 1969, and winning 100 or more games in three straight years.

It was an extraordinary team that featured, among others, Frank and Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell, Paul Blair and a dynamite rotation led by Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson. Palmer, McNally and Cuellar all won 20 or more games in 1970, when the Orioles won 108 and the World Series.

“I guess we’re not mentioned among the great teams because we only won that one World Series,” Robinson said. “That’s the way it is, but I’m not sure it’s fair. I think it’s much harder to dominate a 162-game schedule, like the Yankees have, than a seven-game series. I don’t think what they do in the postseason should take away from what they’ve done, but that’s how they’ll be judged.

“All I can do is go off my gut instinct, and I would say they match up very well with the Baltimore teams of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. We relied heavily on pitching and defense, and so do they. I think where they may have an edge is on the bench. I think that’s really their strength.”

Said Larry Bowa, the Angel coach who played shortstop for the 1980 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies: “The Yankees have created something of a double-edged sword. They’ve been so good in the regular season that they’re going to be expected to blow people away in the postseason. Whoever they play will not be expected to win and should be loose. That can be dangerous.”

The Yankees’ pinstriped predecessors dominated October, but postseason history generally weighs against the team with the best record, particularly in the era of multi-tiered playoffs.

Consider:

* The team with the best record in the majors hasn’t won the World Series since the 1989 A’s won 99 regular-season games and went on to the Series victory. That same basic Oakland team, featuring Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and Dave Stewart, also had the major league’s best record in 1988 and ’90 but was upset in the Series by the Dodgers and Reds, a reason it is not considered in the same class as the A’s of the early ‘70s.

* The 116-win Cubs of ’06 lost the Series to the Chicago White Sox, who had batted a paltry .230 during the regular season.

* The Cleveland Indians, who set the American League record with 111 wins in 1954, were swept in the Series by the New York Giants.

By comparison, Finley’s A’s and Anderson’s Reds generally survived the October minefield, enhancing the esteem in which they are now held.

* The A’s won five straight division titles starting in 1971 and three straight World Series titles, starting in 1972.

* The Reds won five division titles and four pennants in a seven-year span starting in 1970, and won back to back World Series titles in 1975 and ‘76, when they won 108 and 102 regular-season games.

Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench, from that team, are in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose and Tony Perez should be. The Reds could hit and field, but had to hope they did a lot of both. In a short series, the rotation was basically Don Gullett, Jack Billingham and Gary Nolan--no match, Anderson acknowledged, for Yankee Manager Joe Torre’s choice from among David Cone, David Wells, Andy Pettitte, Irabu, Hernandez and Ramiro Mendoza.

“I think we matched up in the bullpen but not in the rotation,” Anderson said. “Joe may have a better all-around staff than Atlanta. The Yankees used to sign free agents for name value. This time, the people they’ve signed and traded for fit the checkerboard. They’ve got all the right pieces.

“I mean, people who look at teams in history will have to look at this team, but my feeling is that you can only judge teams an era at a time. They are the best team of this era, and it would have been a hell of a series if we had played.”

Williams, who managed those feuding and fighting A’s of the early ‘70s, expressed high admiration for Torre and the Yankees, but acknowledged that they have some October proving to do before being put in the A’s class.

“People always give credit to Cincinnati, but we were the team of the ‘70s, not Cincinnati,” he said.

The A’s featured the strong pitching of Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Ken Holtzman and Rollie Fingers, outstanding defense built around middle infielders Dick Green and Bert Campaneris, and the blossoming bats of Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando and Joe Rudi, among others. Williams conducted a position-by-position comparison with the Yankees and emerged about even.

“Joe is doing a fantastic job,” Williams said of Torre. “He has them focused, executing as a unit and believing in team, which is what we did in Oakland. He’s also throwing in a little National League ball, which is what we tried to do.”

In the hit-happy American League, the Yankees are capable of winning with the bomb or the bunt, with pitching and defense. Their strengths have been chronicled. They lead the league in team batting and pitching, and are fourth in fielding. Their league-leading run total is as much a result of patience as power. They are only fifth in the league in homers but first in on-base percentage and walks, second in steals.

“I pull for them every night,” said Anderson, whose Big Red Machine is likely to retain its place on the comparative ladder no matter how many games the Yankees win.

“We need in our game a Yankee team or Dodger team that people can’t wait to get up in the morning to see if they’ve won. Like Muhammad Ali. You can be for ‘em or against ‘em. We need that dominating team, that rooting interest.”

The Yankees, of course, were once hated for being so good.

Wouldn’t they like to be that hated again?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

By the Numbers

How the 1998 Yankees compare to the best World Series champions since 1970: *--*

Team Record Runs** Avg. HR** ERA 1970 Baltimore Orioles 108-54, .667* 4.9* .257 1.1 3.15* 1972 Oakland Athletics 93-62, .600* 3.9 .240 0.9* 2.58 1975 Cincinnati Reds 108-54, .667* 5.2* .271 0.8 3.37 1977 N.Y. Yankees 100-62, .617 5.2 .281 1.1 3.61 1984 Detroit Tigers 104-58, .642* 5.2* .271 1.2* 3.49* 1986 New York Mets 108-54, .667* 4.8* .263* 0.9 3.11* 1989 Oakland Athletics 99-63, .611* 4.4 .261 0.8 3.09* 1998 N.Y. Yankees 95-36, .725* 6.1* .289* 1.3 3.73*

*--*

* led league; ** per game

Teams to Remember

The lineups of some of the best World Series champions since 1970:

1970 BALTIMORE

* Starting lineup: C--Elrod Hendricks; 1B--Boog Powell; 2B--Davey Johnson; 3B--Brooks Robinson; SS--Mark Belanger; OF--Paul Blair, Don Buford, Frank Robinson.

* Main Starting Pitchers: Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally.

* Closer: Pete Richert

1972 OAKLAND

* Starting lineup: C--Gene Tenace; 1B--Mike Epstein; 2B--Dick Green; 3B--Sal Bando; SS--Bert Campaneris; OF--Matty Alou; Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi.

* Main Starting Pitchers: Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, Blue Moon Odom, Ken Holtzman.

* Closer: Rollie Fingers.

1975 CINCINNATI

* Starting lineup: C--Johnny Bench; 1B--Tony Perez; 2B--Joe Morgan; 3B--Pete Rose; SS--Dave Concepcion; OF--George Foster, Cesar Geronimo, Ken Griffey.

* Main Starting Pitchers: Don Gullett, Gary Nolan, Jack Billingham, Fred Norman.

* Closer: Rawly Eastwick.