Series Co-MVP Randy Johnson
By most standards, this Game 7 would be considered extraordinary. But then, by the standards of this remarkable Series, it could have been another interleague game in May. Curt Schilling, the Series co-MVP, mowed the punchless Yankees down despite pitching on three days rest for the second time. His opponent, Yankee ace Roger Clemens, matched him frame for frame into the 7th inning. The D-Backs punched a run home in the 6th; the Yanks matched it in the top of the 7th. But when manager Bob Brenly elected to let Schilling hit in the 8th, it looked like a decision that could be second guessed for the rest of the century, especially when Alfonso Soriano reached him for a home run to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. But the other co-MVP, Randy Johnson, put out the fire, coming in as a reliever after shutting the Yanks down the day before, a bizarre 15-2 win.
Pitching prevailed in this Series, and the Diamondback All Star duo, Schilling and Johnson, accounted for the four wins, besting the best rotation in the American League: Andy Pettitte (0-2), Roger Clemens (0-0), Mike Mussina (0-0), and Orlando Hernandez (0-0). And, had manager Bob Brenly not given Schilling the hook too early in Game 3, a seventh game might not have been necessary.
By Game 7, the Yanks needed shovels at the plate, because they spent most of their time against Schilling digging out of 0-2 and 1-2 holes. Their attempts at first ball hitting (Schilling throws first ball strikes 70% of the time) were feeble.
Heck, you could argue that the Snakes beat the Yankees in six games out of seven. They merely failed to win two of them. Thats because the Yanks pulled a couple of miracles out of their pockets to leave New York on a three-game win streak. On Wednesday and Thursday in the Bronx they had conjured pinstripe sorcery on successive, sensational evenings to snatch extra inning victories in games that the Diamondbacks were within an out of claiming. On Wednesday, Tino Martinez hit a two-run homer in the 9th with two out to tie it, and Derek Jeter won it in the 10th with as cheap a homer as you can hit in Babes Place. The improbable wins filled Yankee Stadium and this whole grieving city with an innocent, silly joyousness that it desperately needed. In the process they added another chapter to the Yankee mystique that the Diamondback players kept insisting didnt exist. The most unbelievable couple of games Ive ever managed, said the normally placid Yankee manager Joe Torre.
The wins bore the hallmarks of vintage Bronx Bombers, with the Yanks clubbing opponents with their big sticks in the late innings, what used to be known as Five OClock Lightening in the days of daytime baseball. Yet the Diamondbacks could have easily won it all in New York. Their starting pitching has been outstanding — holding the Yanks batters under .200 as a team. In Game 1 in Phoenix, Curt Schilling paralyzed the Yankees with a combination of power and placement, and the Snakes quickly chased the Moose, Mike Mussina, en route to a 9-1 clubbing. In Game 2, 6-ft. 10-in. Randy Johnson, the Big Unit, threw peas past them. Andy Pettitte matched him until the seventh, holding the D-backs to one run. But then Matt Williams hit a mistake into the seats for a 4-0 win.
Bronx bedlam
The Series then returned to New York, where the Yankees, representing a city of sadness and devastation had, against type, become a sentimental favorite. Weve got them right where we want them, announced New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, with typical Gotham gumption.
By Tuesday the city was in a sports frenzy. Washington D.C.s most famous citizen showed up. So did the President. With Michael Jordan downtown making his third basketball comeback against the Knicks, President Bush choppered in to the South Bronx to toss the first ball, two days after the government issued a warning about a new round of terrorist attacks. Ticket scalpers were having an early Christmas. While Bush was heaving a floater over for a strike, fans were still lined up outside, impatiently waiting to get through an army of cops and metal detectors and into the ballparks. The South Bronx was never more secure. No so the D-Backs, who threw journeyman pitcher Brian Anderson, who seemed like the red meat the Yankees had been craving. But they could only eke out a 2-1 win, riding the arms of their ace Roger Clemens and their late-inning lock, closer Mariano Rivera.
The Miracle, Part I
Then came Wednesday, or as the D-Backs will remember it, Fright Night. The scintillating Schilling, pitching on only three days rest, served the Yanks his Phoenix early-bird special: large portions of unhittable pitches. But with the D-Backs up 3-1 in the middle of the 8th, manager Bob Brenly made what soon became a historic decision. He lifted Schilling so he would have something left for a possible Game 7. Maybe Brenly had a premonition. In came Byung-Kyun Kim, a 22-year-old submarine-style reliever with a kimchee-hot fastball. Kim whiffed three straight Yanks.
But in the 9th, rightfielder Paul ONeill, at the end of a storybook career as a Yankee, dumped a single to left as the faithful serenaded him with chants of Paul-ie, Paul-ie. Then, with two out, first baseman Tino Martinez, who like most of the Yankees batsman had been hitless and helpless to this point, smoked the first pitch he saw over the wall in right center.
Maybe the Yankee ghosts finally got through security. Rivera mowed the D-Backs down in the top of the 10th. Then Kim, pitching in his third inning, got two easy outs to start the bottom half. Up stepped shortstop Derek Jeter. The Kalamazoo Clipper, who was hitting all of .067 for the series, fell behind 0-2. He got the count up to 3-2, fouled a couple of pitches off and then took a Kim delivery to the short porch in right field. He rounded the bases at 12:04 a.m. with the second and decisive homer. Double shots at midnight. Oh, the Babe would have loved that one. So would Mickey. Over the PA system Sinatra started singing New York, New York and youd swear they were all going to meet at Toots Shors in the wee small hours.
The Miracle, Part II
Martinez called it one of greatest games he could remember. And it was — at least until the following evening. Again, the Yankees would sleepwalk for eight innings as Arizona staked another unheralded hurler, Miguel Batista, to a two — run lead. Again, Brenly brought in Kim to finish the issue. And once again, the Yankees finished Kim. Catcher Jorge Posada doubled to left. Two pitches later, third baseman Scott Brosius connected with a slider that didnt slide. He knew immediately that it was gone, raising his arms in triumph. As delirious Yankee fans danced in the stands, several Arizona players ran to the mound to comfort the crushed Kim. Brenly came out and mercifully replaced him.
After an uneventful 10th, Arizona loaded the bases in the 11th, only to have Yankee second baseman Alfonso Soriano rob Reggie Sanders with a diving stab to stave off a run. It was now past midnight in the city that never sleeps. If they could have, the D-Backs would have hailed a cab. In the bottom of the 12th, designated hitter Chuck Knoblauch led off with a double, his first hit of the Series. Home run hero Brosius pushed him to second with a sacrifice. Then Soriano smacked a single to right. Knoblauch raced for home. Sanders throw beat him, but catcher Rod Barajas couldnt handle the short hop, and the Stadium exploded in disbelieving delight. I cant be surprised, Torre said after the most incredible two days in baseball history. It just happened the day before.
Snakebit
So how could Game 6 possibly produce anything close to what had happened in the Bronx? It couldnt. Instead, baseball in the Twilight Zone had shifted into Pacific Standard Time. The matchup was the same as Game 1, with the Slim Jim slinger, Johnson, paired against Pettitte. The Big Unit came into the playoffs with a horrible 1-7 record, while Pettitte had proven big game credentials. But in this Series, everything that ever happened in baseball before it seems irrelevant. Johnson set the Yanks down in order in the first, while his teammates touched Pettite for a run. Pettitte was clearly struggling. In the second, he gave up a single and a double, leaving runners at second and third. Third baseman Matt Williams grounded out and the Yanks walked Damian Miller to get to Johnson, who complied with a bouncer to Brosius. Normally a solid fielder, Brosiuss throw pulled catcher Posada off the plate, killing any chances for an inning-ending double play. Womack singled to plate two, and then Bautista did the same as Johnson lumbered around to score.
This is where it gets weird again. Pettitte could not get an out in the third inning. His replacement, Jay Witasick, could not get an out west of the Mississippi. The B-Backs hit doubles to right, scorched singles to left, and up the middle. Johnson, who looks like a licorice stick holding a pretzel rod when hes at the plate, directed a single to right, making the score 7-0. The D- Backs now had a cadence going. Single, double, single, double. Torre had already conceded the game, leaving the miserable Witasick in to face an Arizona team that was very intent on exorcizing the demons that possessed them in earlier in the week. If this game was played in Salem, they would have stoned him, too. By the end of the third inning, the score read 12-0. By the end of the fourth It was 15-0. The Yanks would grab a couple of souvenir runs off Johnson in the sixth, but they were still down two touchdowns.
It set up another classic in Game 7, in which once again the unexpected (Rivera losing a postseason game? Impossible) was commonplace. "These games, especially in the postseason, are an aberration. It's a freak thing," Brenly said. Is it ever.