HISTORY and will triumphed over youth and talent on Saturday night as the legendary New York Yankees defeated the champion Atlanta Braves to win their first World Series in years.

The 3-2 nail biter at Yankee Stadium, baseball's most hallowed arena, capped a remarkable comeback in which New York won four consecutive games, three of them in Atlanta, to clinch the best of seven series 4-2.

More than two million New Yorkers are expected to line Broadway, the so called Canyon of Heros, tomorrow for what Mayor Rudolph Giuliani promised would be "the biggest victory parade ever".

The celebrations began at 10.55pm on Saturday as New York's Charlie Hayes caught a looping ball hit by Atlanta's Mark Lemke to end the game and give the team of Babe Ruth and Joe Di Maggio their 23rd "world championship".

The victory was particularly sweet for Joe Torre, the Yankee manager who had never won a championship in 35 seasons as a player and manager. "This really does last forever, because now I can talk about this forever, and I plan to do that," he said.

Saturday night's game was by no means a classic. The Yankees collected all three of their runs in a frenetic third inning when Atlanta's usually perfect pitcher Greg Maddux briefly lost control. Then they clung on for dear life.

No one cared how they did it, of course. After 6,584 days, the good old days were back at Yankee Stadium.