NEW YORK Graig Nettles, Charlie Hayes, Scott Brosius, Aaron Boone, Alex Rodriguez.It always seems that on cold October nights, whoever is manning thehot corner for the Yankees tends to play a bigrole in the team's postseason succe s. Each third Shohei Ohtani Youth Cool Base Jersey baseman listed had his moment(s). Each of them meant something to the team's playoff runs.Enter Todd Frazier.Now with his third team in seven seasons in The Show (and his second team this year), Frazieris anything but conventional: the swing, the Frank Sinatrawalk-up music, the natural charisma and the "it"factor. Though he has been a Yankee for all of about three months and potentially not for too much longer, given his impending free agency it feels as though he has been in the Bronx forever.GAME CENTER: Complete Astros-Yankees statsManager Joe Girardi's face lit up when he was asked Monday night how important Frazier has been."He's a joy to be around,"Girardisaid with a wide smile after the Yankees' 8-1 ALCS Game 3 rout of the Astros at Yankee Stadium. "He's fun to be around. He brings a ton of energy every day. As I said, he's always cheering for his teammates and trying to build them up."It was Frazier's three-run dingerin the second, whicheked over the right-field wall, that broke the Yankees' scoring silence Andrelton Simmons Jersey and helped open the floodgates for the Bombers.While Frazier addedhis name to that smorgasbord of memorable in some cases legendary Yankeethird-base talent, it was actually another Yankee great who inspired Frazier prior to the game.PHILLIPS: Aaron Judge creates own moments in Game 3"You saw the (hype) video out there today. Bernie Williams coming and throwing the first pitch and the memories he (made)," Frazier said postgame. "It's time to step up. It's what you play the game for."And luck be a lady tonight. Though Frazier homered, it was hardly a blast, which is unlike him: He has an average "true" home run distance of 398.5 feet, according to ESPN's home-run tracker. But what the home run lacked in distance (367feet, per the tracker), it made up for it in significance: It warmed up an ice-cold Yankee offense that had scored one run in each of the series' first two games.Maybe Frazier and the Yankees Shohei Ohtani Cool Base Gray Jersey feel like one of those baseballnatural fits.(Or maybe we're conditioned to feel that way since wesee that photo of a young Frazier and Derek Jeter whenever there's dead air during a broadcast.)In any case, Frazier's power is noteworthy,but his personality is one of a kind. While numbers matter, personality and clubhouse guysmeana lot to teams trying to make deep October runs, especially teams that have lots of young players, as this year's Yankees do.Yankees Game 3 starter CC Sabathia, in fact,named Frazier first among Yankees teammates he has had fun playing with this year."We talk on the field a lot," Sabathia said. "Just hanging out, having fun keeps you loose."MORE: Takeaways from Yankees' Game 3 routThe loosene s should be surprising, not just for this young Yankees squad, but for Frazier: He had played in just five career postseason games before this year, all of which took place with the Reds in 2012 and 2013.Playing in a league championship series is new territory for him, though you can hardly tell."It's Andrew Heaney Jersey 10 times different. It's a different scenario for me," Frazier said when comparing those Reds playoff games to now. "The atmosphere was great (in Cincinnati), but there's nothing like here in New York. This is where you want to be."If you don't want to be in this situation, don't even play this sport."It's a story that's been told ad nauseam through media channels since Frazier's arrival in New York: the local kid from Toms River, N.J. who brags about being able to get to Yankee Stadium in an hour, mind youwinds up with the team that he (presumably) grew up watching.Now in New York, New York, the noted Sinatra fan added Jose Alvarez Jersey to the list of great Yankee third-base moments in the franchise's storied history, and he seems to understand his place in it."It's funny (the media) just saw this now," Frazier said about his home run trot in which he holds his arm out to check the time when rounding second base. "Basically that's what (I was doing). I was pointing to (my family members), and saying what time it was. It wasmy time."
