DETROIT — The Yankees playing the “Rocky” score and montage late in games they trailed as inspiration has always struck me as out of place as a guy in a tux and tails standing in a bread line.
They are Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago rolled into one. They are the definition of overdog. You don’t wave wads of cash, 27 title flags and all that pinstriped lore as part of the day-to-day operating principle and make folks think broken-down club fighter. I have seen the Yankees training setup at their new Stadium and, trust me, there are no cold sides of beef hanging next to the state-of-the-art aerobic equipment.
Yet now for the first time since they last lost their first two games at home in a best-of-seven — that would be the 1996 World Series — these Yankees can actually cue up the Rocky stuff without invoking giggles. For they are no-doubt underdogs again, down on their luck, health and the ALCS.
They have no Mariano Rivera, no Derek Jeter and no offense. Oh yeah, they have to get their act together tonight in Detroit against the best pitcher on the planet. When Justin Verlander’s fastball/curve/changeup trilogy is in peak-level synchronicity as it was in two Division Series starts against Oakland, then you have a better chance of scoring with Olivia Wilde then off of him.
Keep in mind the Yankees did not generate a run against Detroit’s Games 1 and 2 starters, Doug Fister and Anibal Sanchez, who are very fine pitchers with this in common: They are not Justin Verlander. Sadly for the Yankees, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher are not themselves either. Well, scarily for the Yankees, maybe this is A-Rod from now on: slow with bat, large of contract.
You know the overdog has reached underdog status when you begin to hear pangs of sympathy for as polarizing a figure as Rodriguez. It is tough to watch a once-great talent look so feeble against righty pitching. And, for the record, Verlander’s thunderbolts come from his right hand.
“Don’t doubt us,” said A-Rod, 0-for-18 with 12 strikeouts in the playoffs against righties. “Don’t count us out.”
That feels like a statement from a handbook on being down 0-2. But it sounds no more disingenuous than this: “Atlanta’s my town. We’ll take three games there and win it back here on Saturday.”
That was what then-Yankees manager Joe Torre told an incredulous George Steinbrenner after Atlanta took the first two games of the ’96 Series in The Bronx by a combined 16-1. And these Tigers in no way rate with those Braves.
Atlanta had just rallied from three-games-to-one down to capture the NLCS by winning the final three games 32-1 over St. Louis. John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine — the equivalent of three Verlanders — were in the midst of winning six straight Cy Youngs among them. The Braves were the NL representative for the fourth time in five World Series, and had won the title the previous year. In Vegas, you had to wager $175 to win $100 if you bet the Braves over the severe underdog Yankees, in their first World Series in 15 years.
When the defending champs went up two-games-to-none, Smoltz, Maddux and Glavine were all 30, Chipper Jones was 24, Jermaine Dye was 22 and Andruw Jones was 19. The idea that the dynasty was percolating in the other clubhouse was the silliest notion in the world.
And maybe this is where the 2012 Yanks can begin to draw inspiration about rousing from seemingly lost causes. Those stars benched now due to slumps and troubling matchups should remember that in the ’96 Series Torre didn’t start Wade Boggs, Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill at various times. Boggs was nearly as susceptible vs. lefties as A-Rod is against righties. But he came off the bench to deliver the winning run of Game 4 with a bases-loaded walk against southpaw Steve Avery. So maybe A-Rod can have a similar moment against Octavio Dotel or Jose Valverde.
Those Yankees won four straight by playing to their strengths — long, grinding at-bats that got starters out of games early and turned the contests into a battle of the bullpens, where the Yankees were far superior to Atlanta. These Yankees need to follow the same formula: Find the patience and grinding spirit that has abandoned their at-bats and get into that dubious Detroit pen.
Joe Girardi should know all this well. When, as Torre predicted, the Yankees did get back on Saturday for Game 6, it was Girardi who delivered the big hit, an RBI triple off Maddux, in the clinching win. These Yanks need to get back to The Bronx for Game 6, too. Maybe the new, more apathetic Stadium cannot shake like that old place did when Girardi’s drive went over Marquis Grissom’s head.
Still, Torre’s successor, Girardi, should use the seemingly hopeless state from which the ’96 squad emerged as a sermon to summon the inner Rocky in his group, let it know that getting back to The Bronx on Saturday is possible.
Can these Yankees find that underdog spirit?
joel.sherman@nypost.com