Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- David Zion, managing director of accounting research for New York-based Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc., says he’s glad he didn’t use his World Series tickets. They were for Game 7 tonight at Yankee Stadium.

Zion shares season tickets with friends and received the passes for Games 1 and 7. After watching the Yankees lose Game 1 to the Philadelphia Phillies, Zion said he was more interested in just seeing his team close out the series than whether he’d be there when it happened.

“I was 3 percent interested in seeing a Game 7, 97 percent wanting this thing to be over,” said Zion, 40, who this morning has been collecting on friendly wagers and trying to change his schedule so he can attend the victory parade tomorrow. “It’s been a while. Well, in Yankees years, it’s been a while.”

The Yankees claimed their record-extending 27th title last night with a 7-3 win over the Phillies, ending a championship drought for Major League Baseball’s most successful franchise that began after winning the 2000 World Series. Andy Pettitte collected his 18th career playoff win as the Yankees beat the defending champions four games to two in the best-of-seven series.

Hideki Matsui became the first Japanese baseball player and first full-time designated hitter to be named World Series most valuable player. Matsui went three-for-four with a home run and a record-tying six runs batted in last night.

The championship completes a year in which the Yankees opened their new $1.5 billion stadium and spent $424 million to add Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett after missing the playoffs last season. It also marked the emergence of Alex Rodriguez from a three-year postseason slump.

Last Nine Years

“We’ve been though the wringer for the last 9 years, so we know this is not an easy thing to win,” said Stephen Auth, 53, the New York-based chief investment officer for equities at Federated Investors Inc., which oversees $400 billion.

He said the victory will lift the spirit of New York and of the market. “I think it’s good for 20 points on the S&P.”

Keith Wirtz, chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management Inc., which oversees $18.6 billion in Cincinnati, traveled to New York to watch Game 6 with clients. A life-long Yankees fan who wore Yankees catcher Thurman Munson’s number in high school, Wirtz said the win makes his annual prediction to clients seem prescient.

“I put forth a Top 10 list every year and I’ve been doing that for 17 years and for 17 years straight, one of my top 10 predictions has been that the Yankees will win the World Series,” said Wirtz, 49. “I was finally right. I got that one right this year.”

Baseball Hangover

Steven DeSanctis, a small-cap strategist at Banc of America-Merrill Lynch, said he was relieved when the Yankees clinched the series, because of the memory of the 2004 American League Championship series, when the Yankees lost after leading the Boston Red Sox three games to none, still fresh in his mind. He also said he will get a little more sleep now that the playoffs are over.

“The one thing about the games is they are late, and we start in this business pretty early, so you’re a little sleep deprived as the playoffs roll on,” DeSanctis, 41, said. “Now I’ve got to find something else to do, my calendar is empty.”

Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at Philadelphia Trust Co. in Philadelphia and a Yankees fan, knows about the drain of being a committed fan. He went to the game yesterday and got back to the Philadelphia area at 3 a.m. He has spent the morning receiving congratulations from his Phillies-fan colleagues.

‘Congratulate Matsui’

“I’m a gracious winner; I’m not a good loser,” Sichel said. “I’ve made the rounds. I tell them don’t congratulate me, congratulate Matsui.”

The World Series was a popular topic as many companies reported quarterly earnings over the past two weeks. It was even blamed for absences at job-search Web site Monster Worldwide Inc.’s investor and analyst meeting to discuss the company’s earnings, which was held in New York the morning after the Yankees’ Game 1 loss.

“I do note some no-shows, particularly from our New York contingent,” Tim Yates, Monster’s chief financial officer said on the conference call. “The only thing I can guess is that they’re so upset with the loss of the Yankees last night, they couldn’t get out of bed this morning.”

The championship was the fifth for long-time Yankees Pettitte, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera, who helped the team win four titles in five years from 1996 to 2000. Zion said this year helped erase some of the bad taste left by World Series losses in 2001 and 2003.

“This team really felt like a team and it kind of took you back to when they were winning titles in the late ‘90s and 2000,” Zion said. “As Jeter said last night when he was holding the trophy, ‘It’s back where it belongs.’”

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Moore in New York at mmoore55@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 13:23 EST