Bronx, N.Y., July 31, 2005 — It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in New York, with Anaheim and the Yanks closing a weekend series. I was in heaven because we were seeing crisp baseball as my young nephew reveled in his once-a-year trip to the Baseball Cathedral in the Bronx, and the Yanks had grabbed an early lead. Then Angels catcher Bengie Molina strode to the plate with two on and one down in the fifth inning and blasted a three-run bomb to left.

The Yanks suffered a 4-3 loss in that game, which took place 11 months ago on August 22, 2004. Molina’s three-run blow in the top of the fourth this Sunday against this 2005 Yankee bunch, however, was just one more deficit they’ve faced, and they wouldn’t give up as easy this time around. They have become used to recovering from ineffective starts, and they were batting against an Anaheim staff that had to piece together 11 innings (eventually) from a starting staff strained by injury and a pen stretched to the max three days ago in an 18-inning marathon loss in Toronto.

It was great that Jason Giambi’s first homer (in the second) gave the Yanks the early lead with The Big Unit on the mound. And that his second singleton started the Yanks on a rally from three down, just as he did in the big comeback win the day before. They were Jason’s 13th and 14th July home runs in his surprise turnaround season, tying him for second and then first for July Yankee home runs with Roger Maris (13, from 1961) and then Mickey Mantle (14, from that same magical home-run record Yankee season). And the latter was Giambi’s 300th career home run. If that’s not enough, he reached base safely five of six times this day, scored three, and drove in two, of course. He was matched by team captain Derek Jeter, who also reached five times, notching four singles and an rbi.

Randy Johnson was having trouble throwing his hard-breaking slider close enough to get the Angels swinging, and when he got the pitch under control it became hittable. Pitch count was a problem from the first. Some teams like the Yankees can drive pitchers crazy by taking pitches; Anaheim mounts a pitch count to dangerous levels by swinging from the moment they arrive at the plate until they leave, for good or ill. They fouled off 15 of Johnson’s tosses through three, even though he was doing well and had retired nine of 10. It’s hard to say if a minor glitch in his communication with John Flaherty bothered him, but The Unit was caught unawares when the backup catcher retured the ball to him after the second out of the third inning. He flailed, jerked his head, and stumbled, but apppeared OK after a moment, though he and Flaherty did have some words.

Then with the Yanks up on Giambi’s first homer, Johnson faced Anahiem DH Vlad Guerrero with one on and none out in the fourth. Johnson won the battle of lanky bodies when Vlad struck out on high cheese after fouling off six straight, but the red-clad visitor may have won the war. The Angels would add 16 to Johnson’s fouled-off-pitches count in the fateful fourth, and after a seven-pitch walk to ex-Yankee Juan Rivera, the fateful Molina deja-vu at bat turned the game. Bengie’s brother Jose added a run with a solo blast off Johnson in the fifth, while the only really dominating pitcher on the field was the unheralded and unheard-of Anaheim starter Chris Bootcheck, who shut down the Yanks’ high-power offense for six impressive frames.

The tall rookie started with a 91 mph fastball that edged to 93 a few times, but there appeared to be a bit of a cut to his pitches and batters swung and missed or fouled weakly often. On 80 pitches thrown, he struck out but three Yankees, but he walked none and sprinkled four harmless hits around Giambi’s second-inning tracer, and Bootcheck handed a 4-1 lead to the Anaheim bullpen after six frames. Anaheim’s weary pen looked good finishing the Angels’ 4-1 win over Mussina Friday, but they showed the strain the rest of the weekend, and it cost them two games.

Still, they would have prevailed today despite the four-run rally Brendan Donnelly and Steve Shields presided over in the home eighth. The pair threw 46 pitches and walked three that frame, but the rally fizzled with the score tied at seven when Robinson Cano continued a rare bad day at the plate (0-for-6, two Ks) with a roller to first with Jorge Posada standing on third base. And then the irrepressible Chone Figgins came to the plate against the inestimable Mariano Rivera (in for his second inning) in the top of the 10th. Rivera powered his way to two strikes, and Figgins flicked a liner into the right field corner that Gary Sheffield misplayed into a triple. Figgins would score after Andy Philips, in for defense at first after Crosby had run for Martinez, denied him for one out on a total-stretch snatch of Cabrera’s liner ticketed for the corner. Guerrero delivered Figgins on a single, and the Yanks were in the soup again.

Figgins, by the way, is not the only jack-of-all-trades player in the bigs, but when he switched from his usual infield duties to center field this day he almost immediately made a fabulous play, flagging Bernie Williams’s first-pitch liner to dead center in the second inning. The partisan home crowd gave him a standing “O” during his lengthy trip to the dugout. That Figgins grab denied the Yanks at least a run, but it was a small matter really. The Bombers managed to score on one of three Angels miscues through regulation, and with Tony Womack, who had run for Williams, on third with two down in the 10th and the home team down a run, Sheffield sent a slow hopper to short. The bounce, it’s true, was bad, but I’m sure Orlando Cabrera would agree that his flub was an error. But that’s bookwork, as Shef reached; he was credited with a single and an rbi, and the game was tied.

With their vets done, the Angels trotted out Joel Peralta and Kevin Gregg for an inning apiece while the Yanks were countering with Rivera and Tom Gordon. After both teams scored in the 10th, Saturday hero Hideki Matsui started the home 11th against Gregg with a liner even Figgins couldn’t catch; it thumped off the dead center field wall and bounded past the charging outfielder, and the Yankee left fielder turned on the jets and zipped to third. Angels Manager Mike Scoscia tried what he could, placing Figgins, armed with an infield glove, in front of second base, and the five infielders and two outfielders played in. Giambi was walked; Gregg got the youthful Phillips swinging for one out. Gregg pitched out three times vs. Tony Womack, defending against a potential squeeze; then Tony took a strike and fouled one off. But he lined pitch six past Cabrera at short, and the Yankees had a win a mere 4:20 after the game had begun.

It was an entertaining afternoon in the Bronx, and most of the 53,000-plus announced crowd hung into the end, under a hot but not unmanageable sun. In fact, the crowd actually grew by one in the top of the 11th. A small bird, apparently impatient for the humans to leave his late-afternoon picnic basket after four hours, planted himself on the infield dirt in front of Robinson Cano at second base for several pitches to Benjie Molina in the top of the 11th. When Izturis replaced Molina after a grounder to (thankfully) short, “Tweety” became bored and left to look for food in the stands. Before the game, the venerable Bob Sheppard announced a tribute to new Hall of Fame inductees Ryne Sandberg and ex-Yank (et al) Wade Boggs at 12:43, stating that the Yanks had arranged that holders of tickets to this game would be allowed a free entrance into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for the rest of 2005. The Yanks will probably attract 4,000,000 paying fans this year. It’s no wonder; they know how to treat their paid guests, and they prove it all the time.

With the Angels (and the Yankees) fouling pitches off all afternoon, many reached the stands. There were some fine catches, but none could compete with the one-(bare)-handed grab a fan in the back row of a Tier box in Section Nine made on one of Guerrero’s bullets in his seven-pitch battle with Johnson in the fourth. In other news, I was a vocal minority of one screaming for a balk call on Shields when he wheeled to second (occupied by pinch runner Bubba Crosby) and threw to shortstop Cabrera 15 feet from the base with one down in the eighth. I have heard that tossing to an infielder not covering a base is a rulebook balk in such a situation. I welcome any comment on that impression.

The Yanks managed not to lose games started by both their stable starters this weekend, and a day of rest Monday will be interrupted by a Monday flight to Cleveland for the first three of a six-game road trip. The team had already lost the season series to the Angels before this three-gamer began. I decided going in that if they were to end up with a debit to a potential playoff contender, I at least wanted my team to play as good a game. I was frustrated in this desire Friday, what with three runners pegged out at third in a three-run loss. And a passed ball, Alan Embree’s throwing error and the seventh-inning bullpen implosion disqualified Saturday’s second game, even if K-Rod melted down and walked the Bombers back into contention. I never could have guessed we would win one under my conditions Sunday, not because the Yanks played crisply, but because the Angels stunk up the joint.

Fifty years ago on July 31, 1955, the number-one music hit in the land was Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley and the Comets.

When the one clocks strikes one, join me hon,
We’ll have some fun, when the clock strikes one.

When the clock strikes two, three and four
If the band slows down, we’ll yell for more.

When the clock strikes five, six and seven.
We’ll be right in seventh heaven.

First pitch was 1:08, and the teams played a fun game, if a flawed one. It did slow down in the eighth inning, which seemed to take hours. The crowd (incessantly) yelled for more; and it only took until 5:28 to get to heaven Sunday afternoon.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!