PHOENIX -- Paul O'Neill wanted the uniform to stay this way forever -- dirt on his top, grass stains on his knee, pinstripes on his body. The clock on the clubhouse wall lurched past 1:30 a.m. on Thursday night, Game 5 was done and O'Neill was talking outside his locker. One by one, the Yankees had showered, dressed, dug into the postgame spread and left the clubhouse. One by one, they said goodbye to Yankee Stadium for the winter. One by one, the room grew empty and quiet.

	Paul O'Neill Right Field New York Yankees Profile
	2001 SEASON STATISTICS GM HR RBI R SB AVG 137 21 70 77 22 .267

For O'Neill, goodbye was forever now. He's retiring. So, he stayed and visited with reporters, telling stories, remembering these breathless two World Series nights at The Stadium, remembering these magnificent nine seasons and that uniform just wouldn't come off him. Finally, a voice called over to him.

"Hey O'Neill," a Yankee official blurted. "Why don't you just wear it home?"

The Yankees were on to O'Neill now. Of course, they understood. As 56,000 people chanted his name in the ninth inning of Game 5, showering the love over him in right field, he was completely paralyzed. "I was asking myself: 'What's the right thing to do here?"

He thought about his wife, Nev, in the stands. She never comes to the games. She had to be crying. What about him, though? "If this was September and we're out 20 games, but this is the World Series," O'Neill said, and he seemed so humbled, so embarrassed, so confused.

On his way to the dugout for the bottom of the ninth, they screamed his name louder and louder. He whirled his head, absorbed every corner of the Stadium, tipped his cap and disappeared into the dugout. A little later, outside his locker, O'Neill confessed. "The only right way to say goodbye," he said, "is to say goodbye at a parade."

Now, the Yankees try to bring the parade back to New York. They left Yankee Stadium for the desert on Friday, a Game 6 on Saturday night at Bank One Ballpark that could clinch it for the Yankees. Win or lose this Series, this is a crossroads for the dynasty. There are going to be significant changes on the roster, but none as dramatic as the moment O'Neill no longer walks into this Yankee clubhouse.

The beginning of these glory days -- seven straight trips to the playoffs, four World Series championships, including three straight -- is marked by the move an old Cincinnati Reds scout, Gene Bennett, begged the Reds never to make: trading O'Neill to the Yankees for Roberto Kelly on Nov. 3, 1992. O'Neill's arrival started the dynasty, delivering character, professionalism, and one relentless, hard-hitting slugger.

"When I got here, I was warned he was a selfish player," Joe Torre said. "All I've ever found is someone who cared about winning."

Twenty years ago, Bennett wasn't impressed with the big, strapping left-handed pitcher who had the rest of the scouts so enamored -- Paul O'Neill. As the rain pounded his windshield on a second scouting trip to Columbus, Ohio, Bennett feared a lost afternoon. Every few miles, he called the Brookhaven High School coach. The game still on? O'Neill still pitching? Yes, the coach told him. Keep driving to Columbus. As Bennett reached the town line, he called the school and discovered the game had finally been canceled. The grass was too wet. Still, the rain had stopped, the sun burned through the clouds, and the coach planned to have batting practice. Well, Bennett had come this far. Why not watch the hitting, right?

"So, I get there, and old Paul comes up and, shoot, he's hitting them out of the park, hitting them off the houses behind the fence," Bennett said. "I asked someone, 'Is this the pitcher?'

" 'That's the guy, they told me.' I didn't want to say too much to anyone. But the next time I called back, if they said he was pitching, I didn't go to the game.

"I'd go out when he wasn't pitching, and usually I'd be the only (scout) there. I wanted to see that boy play the field. I wanted to see that boy hit."

The Reds drafted O'Neill in 1981 and Bennett visited the family and hatched his plan for Paul: If your sons signs with us, he told Charles O'Neill, he'll never pitch again. He's a hitter, the scout promised. Trust me.

	“	He's the guy who really doesn't care what it looks like, as long as he's out there doing the best he can. I am going to miss him. ”
		— Joe Torre, Yankees manager

"Me and you are the only two who believe that," said Charles O'Neill, who had been a minor league pitcher in the 1940s, and the Reds had no problem signing his son. Twenty years later, the Yankees were so fortunate this old scout believed that O'Neill's tortured soul wasn't fit for four days of agony between starts.

Now, O'Neill takes his swings on his way out of a historic Yankee career, on his way back to Ohio to retire to his wife and three kids.

"He's the guy who really doesn't care what it looks like, as long as he's out there doing the best he can," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "I am going to miss him."

The Yankees found him to be completely selfless, playing hurt and painfully accepting praise. There's something completely comforting about O'Neill's gruff, self-loathing disposition, his one-man act as the clubhouse's human rain cloud. The young players watched, and they understood: It isn't about you, it's about the winning. That just isn't O'Neill's way, that's the Yankees way.

Through it all, O'Neill never lost his swing. He's had his slumps these final seasons, but it always comes back to him -- especially in the playoffs. In 139 games this season, he had 21 home runs and 70 RBI. His 2,105 hits and a National League batting title won't get him to Cooperstown, but his popularity, his four Yankees championships will get his No. 21 retired and a plaque in the Stadium's Monument Park.

Along the way, he's had too many temper tantrums; too many water coolers were needlessly lost in the line of duty. He's a walking contradiction, the best and worst role model for your kids. But if this is the flaw people need to get past to honor the complete portrait of the man and ballplayer, it's forgiven.

When it was over Thursday night at the Stadium, Paul O'Neill didn't want to leave. He didn't want to take his uniform off. He didn't want to go home. Will you keep this uniform, someone asked him?

Dragging his fingers across the NY over his heart, he said: "… I probably will."

O'Neill stopped a second, and smiled.

"I'll keep the memories longer than I'll keep anything else," he said.

Adrian Wojnarowski of the The Record (Bergen County, N.J.) is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.