New York ? In the spring of 2005, New York Yankees scout Steve Lemke got into his Dodge Intrepid and drove from Chicago to Missouri, checking out prospects. Joba Chamberlain wasn’t on his list.

Chamberlain didn’t start pitching until his senior year at Lincoln Northeast High School, was overweight and hadn’t even been drafted. A member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, he spent his freshman year at Division II Nebraska-Kearney before transferring to the University of Nebraska.

But when the burly right-hander with the unusual name started throwing fastballs and sliders, Lemke took notice. He reported back to his bosses that he’d found someone special in his eight-state territory.

When the Yankees languish, they usually trade for stars of distinguished pedigree, with shelves full of awards and trails of All-Star appearances.

This year, they reached down into their minor-league system for players many fans had never heard of at the start of the season, promoting Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes at warp speed.

Wide-eyed yet confident, they meshed immediately with Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano and the veterans to create a new kind of Yankees, giving the team a youthful vitality it lacked for a decade.

“This is exciting to me, to be here as long as I’ve been here, and all of a sudden you’ve got this crop of young arms that have come along,” manager Joe Torre said.

As George Steinbrenner and nearly every Yankees fan can point out, while New York is making its 13th straight postseason appearance, it hasn’t won a title since 2000.

They lost in the last inning of the 2001 World Series to Arizona. There was the 2002 first-round loss to Anaheim, the 2003 World Series defeat to Florida. Then came the 2004 collapse against Boston in the AL championship series, and first-round exits against the Angels in ’05 and Detroit in ’06.

They looked old and frail, especially their pitching. MRIs were talked about more than ERAs.

That started to change as the roster turned over this spring and summer.

“We wouldn’t be here without our young studs,” Alex Rodriguez said. “They deserve a lot of credit. The energy from the young guys is exactly what this team needed.”

Chamberlain and Kennedy are 22 and Hughes is 21. Cabrera, just 23, displaced Johnny Damon from center field. At 24, Cano is nearly a veteran already – having started the youth movement in 2005. Chien-Ming Wang, now 27, also came up three years ago.

Shelley Duncan, a relatively old rookie at 28, quickly became a fan favorite. They’ve made a difference.

Third base coach Larry Bowa thinks that enthusiasm reaches some inner sanctum inside veterans.

“Maybe they forgot how it was to have fun before and they see these kids up here, having lot of fun, kidding around and joking, not afraid to show their emotions,” Bowa said. “Some veteran players, if they’re from old school, some don’t show emotion. Now they watch these kids and it reverts back to when they first came up. They’re running out every ground ball. They’re going from first to third. It doesn’t matter what the score is. When you have kids, they don’t throw up the white flag ’til the last out’s on the board.”