New York's Jeff Weaver walks dejectedly from the mound after giving up Alex Gonzalez's game-winning homer Wednesday. (Associated Press photo)

MIAMI - Put Jeff Weaver in the club no pitcher wants to join. There is only one qualification, and it comes with pain.

You've probably seen what happens when a World Series game ends suddenly with a home run. The cameras show the happy batter, dancing around the bases. Then his joyful teammates, hopping up and down at home plate.

And eventually, a man walking off the mound with his head down and a stricken look on his face - the poor guy who just threw the home-run ball.

It has happened only 13 times in the World Series. The list is shorter than players with 300 wins, 500 homers, 3,000 hits, or perfect games.

Thirteen men. Three have been New York Yankees. And probably none was led to the slaughter more than Jeff Weaver.

Set up to fail

He had not pitched since Sept. 24 - a stretch of 28 days. Since then, he had stayed out of sight, a pitcher coming off an awful first full year in Yankee Stadium, kept only for an emergency - not to be used in any important situation.

But then he was suddenly out there after midnight, in the 11th inning in a hostile stadium, with Game 4 hanging in the balance and a month of rust to shake off.

Yankees manager Joe Torre figured he needed some long relief against a right-handed lineup. Weaver was his choice, a move that will be second-guessed as much as anything Torre has done lately in October, because his moves nearly always turn out golden.

"I mean, if he's not in the game there," Torre would say later, "he shouldn't be on our roster."

(Don't even say it. I know what you're thinking).

"You can't talk about the last month," Weaver would say afterward. "It was my opportunity to make something happen."

The 11th inning went 1-2-3. And to start the 12th, there was shortstop Alex Gonzalez, who had not hit anything all October. Who is only in the lineup because Jack McKeon does not want his glove on the bench.

The count went to 3-2, then a couple of fouls. Then Weaver went against his judgment and threw the fastball catcher John Flaherty wanted, rather than the slider, which was his first instinct.

The fastball was supposed to be down and away, but stayed in and up. It was, in all probability, the last pitch Weaver will throw in a New York Yankee uniform.

"Irrelevant," Weaver said of the pitch selection, and who made it. "That's what I threw."

Gonzalez's drive slipped over the left field wall and was announced at 332 feet. Pro Player Stadium gave up the fewest home runs in baseball this season; in any other place in that ballpark, the ball stays in.

"Walkoff Weaver," blared one of the New York tabloids Thursday. How'd you like that for your scrapbook?

Unlikely to stay a Yankee

Game 4 is gone, but not for Weaver. He gets to live with it as his first, and probably last, 2003 World Series moment.

Roger Clemens ended his Yankee days bathed in applause Wednesday. Weaver, with two years and $15.5 million left on a contract that George Steinbrenner probably will dump after the season, is likely to end his Bronx career a subject of scorn.

You have to feel for him. Major league players still are human beings inside their uniforms. They get excited about being at a World Series, and nervous about how they will perform. They bleed, and they hurt.

Weaver is 27, still a young man.

But New York devoured him, and the World Series spit him out.