Making the Most of His Moment

Admittedly anxious and sleep-deprived, what right did Gordon — a 32-year-old career minor leaguer, an outfielder turned pitcher at 27, a Lehigh Valley Ironpig as recently as Tuesday — have to expect the rousing ovation he wound up receiving in that notorious Bronx cheer zone known as Yankee Stadium?

Only if you believed that Ironpigs can fly would you have liked the odds of Gordon coming from nowhere to keep a game within arm’s length of a 12th-inning, game-winning base hit by Brett Gardner for a 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers.

“If I was in Vegas, I’d bet against us,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said in the dugout an hour before Gordon strolled in from the bullpen for his first major league start under conditions that mimicked a reality-television cross between “The Apprentice” and “Survivor.”

Between his catcher, Russell Martin, and the pitching coach, Larry Rothschild, Gordon walked softly and carried a big, slow breaking curveball he described as his go-to pitch since pre-adolescence. In his fifth major league appearance against 15 years in the bushes, he was the essence of command and calm.

That did not surprise his father, Ernie, who grew up in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, N.Y., was an Army engineer stationed at West Point when Brian was born and who frantically dug out his old interlocking NY cap from the closet of his current home in Round Rock, Tex., for the hasty trip north.

In his front-row, second-tier seat, alongside a 10-member contingent of family and friends, he wore the blue cap with a surging pride when the sixth-inning ovation for his son began to build even before Manager Joe Girardi reached the mound and asked for the ball.

“We all knew he had it in him, that he just needed a chance,” Ernie Gordon said. “We’re all so grateful to the Yankees for giving him that chance.

“And all this,” he added, his voice cracking with emotion as he gestured with a sweep of the hand to the Stadium at large, “is a dream. It’s a lifelong dream.”

“All this” included his son’s five and a third distinguished innings against the potent lineup of the Rangers — a team Brian Gordon threw four innings for in relief in 2008. It included a three-pitch strikeout of Josh Hamilton, a poised short-circuiting of what might have been a blowout fifth inning and the reward of a seat on the Yankees’ charter to Chicago on Thursday night and another start in Cincinnati next week.

“Hopefully, I’ll stay around and help the Yankees,” Gordon said, admittedly incredulous that such words were tumbling out of his mouth.

It did not take long to see why the sandy-haired Gordon was dominating Class AAA hitters as a starter in Lehigh Valley, compiling a 5-0 record with a 1.14 earned run average before he was released by the Phillies’ organization as part of a prearranged agreement. He threw strikes, early and often, with a fastball clocked between 88 and 91 miles per hour, while mixing in the curve, a changeup and a cutter he developed this season.

Five years ago, Gordon gave up on being a power-hitting outfielder after a decade of touring minor-league America left him thinking “something outrageous would have to happen” for him to play in the majors.

He was drafted as a hitter by Arizona, which Ernie Gordon never understood because his son was 43-3 for a team that won the state championship at the biggest school classification level in 1997.

“We were shocked by that because he was always such a great pitcher,” Ernie Gordon said. “He always had control, great command. Nothing ever rattled him.”