When Derek Jeter became the full-time starter at shortstop for the Yankees in 1996, he became the first Pinstriped rookie to do so since Tom Tresh did it in 1962. And Jeter was selected unanimously as the American League 1996 Rookie of the Year on November 5, 1996. Continue reading →
It was a long time coming until I could feel a little better about the report on the big loss that follows this game in today’s history, but fans smiled a wide Yankee smile on November 4, 2009, the day the Yanks rode six rbi’s from Series MVP Hideki Matsui to Championship No. 27. Homering, singling and doubling for two runs each his first three times to the plate, the first two off Pedro Martinez, Matsui gave Andy Pettitte a big lead that held up despite a two-run homer by strikeout-prone Ryan Howard in the sixth. The pen held it from there, impressively on consecutive strike outs of Chase Utley, Howard, and Jason Werth, the first two by the superb southpaw Damaso Marte. The Werth whiff came via the masterful Mariano Rivera, who closed it out by getting the last five outs of the 7-3 Yankee win. Yankee World Series hero from 1998 and 2001 Scott Brosius threw out the ceremonial first pitch, and Kelli O’Hara and Mary J. Blige sang. Lots to sing about! Continue reading →
The bold move the Yanks pulled off on November 3, 1992, might stand as a cautionary tale for fans, such as myself, who don’t want to trade any young Yankee talent away today. I was stunned when I heard the Yanks had traded star outfielder Roberto Kelly, and in shock that it wasn’t at least in exchange for the always-in-short-supply commodity: pitching. That the arriving Paul O’Neill had been largely a platoon player added salt to my wounds. But Paul’s incredible performance in the Bronx, where he combined a strong right field arm, and 185 homers with 858 rbi’s over the following eight years, with a passion for the game unmatched in my lifetime, healed those wounds many times over. Continue reading →
The Yankees threatened a big come-from-behind win before falling 8-6 to the Phillies in Philadelphia in game 5 of the 2009 World Series on November 2. After the home team jumped on A.J. Burnett for six runs through six outs, the pen held the home team until Chase Utley and Raul Ibanez hit singleton jacks in the seventh. Too bad because the Yanks scored three in the eighth on Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez doubles and one more in the ninth to forge the final score. Continue reading →
The Yankees managed only five hits off Miguel Batista in World Series Game Five on November 1, 2001. Mike Mussina allowed only five as well, but two were singleton homers by Steve Finley and Rod Barajas in the fifth, and the Yanks entered the ninth inning down 2-0. Undaunted, Yankee fans spent the better part of an inning cheering Paul O’Neill, playing his last Yankee Stadium game, win or lose. Everyone rooting back then remembers that Scott Brosius duplicated Tino Martinez‘s feat from the day before with a two-run, two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth, game-tying homer off Byung-Hyun Kim. Albie Lopez was the eventual loser when Alfonso Soriano singled in Chuck Knoblauch in the 12th. But in a perhaps forgotten detail, Soriano had made a diving catch of a one-out, bases-loaded, infield-in liner off Reggie Sanders in the 11th to keep the game going. Continue reading →
There is a little boy in me who fell for the game of baseball, the New York Yankees, and Mickey Mantle over 40 years ago, but the white-hot ardor and passion were just like brand-new as the clock approached 12 on the night of October 31, 2001. Just making the experience more wonderful was that I had my niece, in whom I had instilled the same love, with me when Tino Martinez drilled the first pitch he saw from Byung-Hyun Kim for a two-run, two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth, game-tying World Series home run. The sense of the unreal and the impossible was heightened by the fact that Kim had looked untouchable until then. He struck out the side in order in the eighth, retired Derek Jeter on a grounder to start the ninth, and recovered from allowing a six-pitch single the other way to Paul O’Neill by whiffing Bernie Williams on three pitches. The Yanks prevailed, 4-3 when “Mr. November,” Derek Jeter, homered to right on the ninth pitch of a two-out at bat in the 10th inning. Wow! Continue reading →
It’s really too painful to discuss what happened in Yankee Stadium on October 30, 2024, as the Yankees fumbled a 5-0 lead, and lost the fifth and final game of the 2024 World Series to the Dodgers 7-6. The crowd joy was palpable as Yankee power created the lead trough four innings on homers by Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm in the first, and Giancarlo Stanton in the third. With Gerrit Cole dominating, the wheels came off in the top of the fifth, when a Kike Hernandez leadoff single was followed by an Aaron Judge error and then another by Anthony Volpe. Cole almost escaped with back to back swinging strike outs, but neither he nor Anthony Rizzo beat Mookie Betts to first on a weak roller at the bag. Freddy Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez followed with two-run base hits for a 5-5 tie. The Dodgers reached an ineffective Tommy Kahnle for two in the eighth, which eclipsed Stanton’s rbi sac fly in the sixth, and all was lost. Continue reading →
Roaring back from the edge of elimination, the Yankees obliterated the Dodgers 11-4 in the Stadium in Game 4 of the 2024 World Series on October 29, 2024. Amazingly, it started off poorly, as Freddy Freeman homered for two runs in the top of the first for the second straight game. But that all changed when Yankee youngster Anthony Volpe came through with a grand slam in the home third. The home team put it away in a five-run eighth featuring a Gleyber Torres three-run bomb, and an rbi single by Aaron Judge. Continue reading →
Not surprisingly, it was a two-run first-inning home run by Freddy Freeman off Clarke Schmidt that got the Dodgers off to a 4-2 win over the Yankees in the Stadium in Game 3 of the 2024 World Series. Freeman’s Game 1 walkoff grand slam had defeated the Bombers in Game 1 in LA, where the pinstripers lost Game 2 as well. And on this night, the Yankees got just two hits off Walker Bueller over five innings; they would have been shut out except for a two-run jolt off the bat of Alex Verdugo in the bottom of the ninth Continue reading →
It was a kinder, gentler time for Yankees fans on October 27, 1999. After a season that can best be described as a struggle for star and fans alike, Roger Clemens took a 4-1 four-hitter into the eighth inning in a Series-sweeping Yankees win over the Braves, Mariano Rivera came on for the save — and the World Series MVP — and Jim Leyritz hit the last major league home run of the 1900s (which is not to say the Millennium, which, of course, technically would include the 2000 season). Continue reading →
