He was the spark at the top of the lineup, he and Derek Jeter feeding off each other to ignite rally after rally.

He was the transplanted New Yorker, living in Manhattan and riding the subway to and from the Stadium.

He was the troubled infielder who couldn't find first base.

He was the pesky leadoff man who epitomized the Yankee way of taking pitches, working the count, always prepared to lay down a bunt, or get hit by a pitch.

He was the intensely private player who never spoke about his father's Alzheimers nor his divorce, nor ever used his personal problems as his excuse for not performing on the field.

He was the cog in Joe Torre's dynastic machine that transformed himself into a corner outfielder when Shane Spencer was injured and Ricky Ledee traded.

All this from a kid who was told at every stage of his career that although he was great, he wouldn't make it because he was too small. (The Yankees list him quite generously at 5' 9".) His father and uncle both played in the minor leagues and groomed Chuck to be the best player he could be. Most of his life he was a pitcher and a shortstop. At Bellaire High School he played football, too, quarterback, but gave it up as the other boys outgrew him and he knew his destiny was the baseball field. His father was a legend among high school baseball coaches, and the two of them led Bellaire to the state championship.

The honors were piling up even before Chuck's first season as a pro. In 1988 he was named the Cape Cod League's best professional prospect. In college, he was named to the Freshman All-American Team and in 1989 earned second-team Baseball America All-America honors as a shortstop. In 1990, playing in the Double-A Southern League, Knoblauch was rated toughest to strike out. The next year he hit the majors, lead the Twins in stolen bases and steal percentage, batted .326 in postseason play, set the record for most hits in the ALCS by a rookie (seven) and most in the postseason (fifteen), and collected 26 of 28 first place votes in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. (The Twins won the World Series that year, for those of you who've forgotten.)

Back in the early nineties, it wasn't unusual to hear Chuck's name and the words "Hall of Fame" in the same sentence. In 1993 he was second in the Gold Glove voting to Robbie Alomar (back when Alomar was a Blue Jay); in 1995 he was named to the Silver Slugger team as the best offensive second baseman in the league and lead the league in multi-hit games, and in 1996 lead the league in triples, and was the Twins team MVP for the second year running.

In 1997 he appeared to have it all: his fourth All-Star team selection, his second Silver Slugger, and won the Rawlings Gold Glove at second base. In fact, he lead the American League for all time in fielding percentage for a second baseman. You could argue, at that point in his career, Knoblauch was the best second baseman in the game, about to eclipse Alomar and all who had come before him. But the Twins had changed. The team had been shaken by the sudden retirement of team leader Kirby Puckett, who was struck by a degenerative vision disease, owner Carl Pohlad was unhappy with escalating salaries and unwilling to spend to keep his team a contender, and Chuck had become so unhappy in Minnesota that his wife told him to seek counseling. Chuck sought a trade instead, and with the Twins looking to dump his $6 million a year salary (remember that the team's total salary in 2000 was under $20 million), they accomodated him.

The Yankees meanwhile were looking for both a leadoff man and a double-play partner for Derek Jeter. Knoblauch was a star, and seemed the perfect fit, a sparkling young second baseman with World Series experience. He jumped into a team that steamrolled the American league in 1998, winning a then-record 144 regular season games. His first year with the Yankees, Knoblauch reached career highs in home runs (seventeen) yet saw his average dip to his career low (then .265). He made sparkling plays at second, made only 13 errors, but had some mysterious throwing yips. He hit five leadoff homeruns that year, stole 31 bases, and was hit by pitch a league-leading eighteen times.

In the postseason, he was involved in one difficult situation in Game Two of the ALCS, and New York found out how Knobby would handle future controversies: by being up-front with the media and fans. The tied-up game had gone into the twelfth inning, when Tino fielded Travis Fryman's bunt and tossed the ball to Chuck covering first. The ball hit Fryman in the back in what should have been a clear case of interference. The umpire refused to call it, and Chuck stood there arguing, oblivious that pinch runner Enrique Wilson, already on base, was coming around to score. (Coincidentally, David Cone was involved in similar situation in 1990 whe he was with the Mets, in which Cone stubbornly allowed two Atlanta Braves to score while he argued a call at first.) The next day was an off day and only an optional workout was scheduled. But Knoblauch came in and made an unscheduled and unprompted appearance in the interview room. He had seen the replays, gone over the play in his mind a thousand times, and concluded: "I screwed up the play, and I feel terrible about that. I should have went and got the ball, regardless of what the outcome of the umpire's call was... I need to apologize to my teammates and my manager and the Yankees and all the Yankee fans. Bottom line, I screwed up the play."

His road to redemption on the field would begin in Game Five, in which he scored two of the five Yankee runs, after being hit by a pitch to lead off the game, and after walking in the second. In the ALCS clinching Game Six, he doubled in the second, leading to a run.

And then came the World Series versus the Padres. After Game One, the Associated Press opened their recap with "Botched-Play Boys, all is forgiven." Chuck hit a three run home run and Tino Martinez a grand slam in the seventh inning, in a cathartic come-from-behind victory 9-6 over the Padres. That game uncorked the Yankee offense, and Chuck was no exception, batting .375 in the series, with six hits, three walks, three runs scored, and three RBI.

At that point, you might have thought Knoblauch was on top of the world. But life at home was not so easy. His father 's Alzheimer's was worsening he no longer recognized his son. Within another year, Chuck would also divorce his wife. And on the field in 1999, problems making the throw from second to first began to crop up more regularly.

At first the throwing yips were sporadic, and mostly came on easy plays. Theories, mostly of the crackpot variety, abounded: he was having trouble adjusting to grass from turf, his mechanics were off because of this or that. One theory, which was probably not far off the mark, was that he was thinking too much, which was why he could still make the difficult plays, but not the easy ones where there was time to think. The Yankees and Chuck continued to hope that the problem would disappear, and for some periods of time, it would. But he ended the year with a career high 26 errors, though the press corps were hard pressed to find an example of a Knoblauch error that had cost the Yankees a game.

At the plate in '99, Chuck's average rebounded to .292, and he hit eight leadoff homers and a new career high 18 overall. He went 5-for-6 one April day against Baltimore and hit an inside the park home run to open a game in Texas. He again had five hits in a game July 30th in Boston. And Chuck was again hot when World Series time rolled around. Against Atlanta, he batted .313, scored five runs, and hit the game-tying two run home run off Tom Glavine that lead to the Yankee come-from-behind victory in game Three.

In 2000, the throwing problems flared up again. After a strong spring training, Chuck found himself the center of a media storm when one of his errant throws struck sportscaster Keith Olbermann's mother in the face in her box seat behind the dugout. It all came to a head on June 15th, a game in which he commited three errors and then was seen talking with Joe Torre in the dugout. "I told him, 'You've got to get me out of here. I'm done hurting this team with my mistakes.'" Chuck would later say. "He told me to go home, but he asked me to promise him one thing, that I would come back the next day." Torre sent him home early to avoid the media, and then told the writers "He's my second baseman. He'll be out there tomorrow."

Chuck stayed up most of the night talking with fellow Texan Jason Grimsley, and agonizing over whether he should quit baseball or not. Grimsley's level-headed advice, the multitude of phone messages from concerned teammates, and the encouraging words of Joe Torre convinced him it was not time to hang up his spikes. But when nagging injuries put Chuck on the DL for the first time in ten years, his season of troubles continued. The pressure only intensified at second base as crowds around the country jeered on every ground ball to the right side. "CHUCK IT HERE" read signs in the stands with targets painted on them.

When the postseason came, Joe Torre opted to use Knoblauch at DH instead of in the field. The pressure finally got to Chuck during the ALCS, when he sat out infield practice in frustration, and instead spoke to some newspaper writers. By the next day things were smoothed over with Torre, who said sometimes he just wanted to hug his suffering player, but at Shea Stadium, where the luxury of the DH was not available, Knoblauch was benched.

In the World Series, Chuck's action was limited to Yankee Stadium. In Game One, the four hour and fifty one minute marathon that pushed on past one a.m., Chuck was the DH. He tied the game at 3-3 with a sac fly in the bottom of the ninth. In Game Two he walked and then tried to score on a Jeter single, but was cut down at the plate. He got into Game Three at Shea, pinch hitting for Mike Stanton, and got a hit, but in a losing cause.

The next night Knoblauch's main contribution to the game was a bet he made with Clay Bellinger. With Knobby, benched, Derek Jeter was moved to the leadoff spot. Chuck bet that Jeter would homer to start off the game. On the very first pitch, Jeter deposited the ball in the left field bleachers, and Chuck can be seen leaping out of the dugout and high-fiving Clay. In Game Five he pinch hit for Jose Vizcaino, and fouled out, but it hardly mattered; the Yankees had won their third title in the three years since Chuck had come to the team.

When 2001 arrived, Knoblauch was determined to beat the throwing demon. He arrived at Yankee camp a full month before pitchers and catchers, just to take ground ball after ground ball. He said he had lost his natural feel for the throw, and needed to regain it. He also admitted he was seeing a counselor, trying to work out the mental block that was preventing him from making that simple throw from second to first. "I think that he's addressing the problem, rather than ignoring it," Torre said in praise of his player that spring. "I ignored it myself, didn't pay attention to it. I thought it was something that would go away. But evidently [not]."

Whatever it was that was eating Chuck inside would stay inside, unsolved. He would take fifty ground balls in infield practice and field every one flawlessly, and then in the exhibition game launch one into the stands. After the game, he'd make a coach hit him fifty more, but it was no use. In fourteen spring exhibitions, he made five errors on throws, and countless other bad ones that never showed up in the box score. "I really think, deep down inside of me, something is going on. Something, somewhere along the line in my life, has affected me, and I don't know what it is," Chuck told ESPN. "Whenever this thing stops, I'll know it without even picking up a baseball and throwing it."

By mid-March, he turned to the writers gathered in the Yankee clubhouse, showed them the Media Guide that listed him at second base and told them "Have to scratch off the '2B.' It's '2B' not to be." He and Torre put their heads together to try to find a solution. Pete Rose, Robin Yount, these were the names that were bandied about the clubhouse, Hallof Fame caliber infielders who were converted to outfielders late in their careers. "I considered it almost an honor to be asked to switch positions, because it meant Joe still wanted me in the lineup."

On March 23, 2001, Knoblauch made his first start in left field, in an exhibition game in Port Charlotte against the Texas Rangers. He was fine in the field, but you could tell his mind was still out in left when he was picked off first, his head shaking with disbelief as the throw sailed into the first baseman's glove. But anyone who was skeptical that Chuck could make the transition to left had forgotten how fast he can run, and had never seen him play long toss with Jeter before a game. Knoblauch, for all his throwing woes, did not have a weak arm, and makes the throw to the plate from left, and can run down balls with the best of them. Knoblauch played centerfield one year in college ball and made the transition smoothly.

At the start of 2001, the change of scenery seemed to ease his mind, at least temporarily, and he went on a torrid streak at the plate, his average peaking at .352 on April 28th, his on-base percentage at .417. After taking him out once for a defensive replacement in the ninth, Torre announced he would no longer do so, as Knoblauch had gained his trust as a leftfielder. But the newly-instituted high strike hurt him, and his on base percentage became mediocre by the All Star break. Shane Spencer returned to the lineup, and David Justice complained that he preferred to play the field rather than just DH ("It's like pinch hitting four times.") As the season wore on, Gerald Williams came on board as well, and the outfield was suddenly very crowded. Knobby was still an everyday player in name, but in reality, he was warming the bench more and more. He was unable to get ontop another hot streak all season. "Every day, oh-for-four," he would lament. "Every [darn] day."

But he got hot in the ALCS. He batted over .300 against Seattle, worked their pitchers, and ran the bases like AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki was supposed to. Then came the World Series, when it seemed like none of the Yankees could hit, Knobby among them, for most of the seven game set.

Chuck's final shining moment as a Yankee brought them a win. In Game Five of the World Series, the Yankees were down to their final out when Scott Brosius stepped to the plate. The night before, Tino Martinez had hit a home run in that situation, off Arizona closer Byun-Hyung Kim. Kim was again on the mound, when Brosius pulled a pitch over the left field wall to tie the game. As Chuck wrote in his online journal, "You don't generally feel sorry for an opponent, but if you're human you have to feel a little for Kim. Lightning struck twice against him."

In the twelfth, it was Chuck who looked like his old self, leading off the inning with a single, his first hit in 14 Series at bats. He had come in to the game earlier, to pinch run for David Justice, and stayed in the game as the DH. Brosius sacrificed him to second. Then Alfonso Soriano laced a hit into right center, and Chuck flew around the bases. The throw to catcher Rod Barajas bounced and was fielded in front of the plate. Chuck was by Barajas in a blur, then leaping into the waiting arms of Derek Jeter. The winning run. For those of us delusional enough to think that this year's World Series was the greatest five game set ever, it was the moment of triumph.

Chuck Knoblauch's time as a Yankee is now over. He still has a lot of baseball left in him. Don Baylor, with the Cubs, said he'd like to have Knobby play centerfield for them. Tony Muser of the Royals wants him in left and to lead off, and Knoblaugh has signed to spend the 2003 season with KC. Both managers said they'd even consider trying him at second base once in a while. While Chuck's future is wide open, one thing is certain. His controversies and his contributions to the Torre dynasty will not soon be forgotten by this generation of Yankees fans.