Six World Series rings, but it hasn't always been a shiny, happy baseball life for Willie Randolph, the Brownsville native who grew up to be a Yankees' captain and manager of the Mets.
Randolph still wears the disappointment from that firing, like a dirty T-shirt beneath his street clothes, because he's the type of ultra-competitive person who doesn't let things go. And for it to happen in New York, his backyard, only amplified the sting.
But on Willie Randolph Day in the Bronx, the Man of the Hour returned to his true home turf, donned the pinstripes again, and flashed a winning smile that couldn't be washed away in a rainstorm.