Bronx, N.Y., July 26, 2005 — With the whole east coast of the United States in the grip of a hazy, hot, and humid Tuesday, it seemed the whole city — and much of the world — flocked to Yankee Stadium Tuesday night to greet the Bombers and root them on. In a city beleaguered by brown-outs, power failures, increased security, and air barely fit to breathe, almost 54,000 fans crammed themselves into a steamy Stadium to greet the hard-charging Yanks.

And to a man (woman and child), they were glad they came. Randy Johnson has undoubtedly had an up-and-down year trying to fill the ace role with the Yanks. Both the 10-6 record and the 4.18 pregame e.r.a. screamed “good, not great,” and fans wondered if they were in for more of the same when The Unit’s second pitch plunked Minnesota left fielder Shannon Stewart in the elbow, and the Twins had a baserunner. But third baseman Nick Punto rolled into a 6-6-3 double play, Randy outclassed Torii Hunter with a three-pitch punchout, and the fun had begun.

Twins righty Brad Radke zipped through the Yanks in the bottom half, but Randy was hot, and starting with the K of the just-retired Hunter, he pounded in seven strike outs of 11 Twins batters. The problem strike out pitchers often have is the mounting pitch count, but Johnson was being economical, and he managed single-digit pitch counts twice in the first four innings. He whiffed rookie catcher Joe Mauer on a nasty slider to start the fifth inning with just his 47th toss of the night.

Radke probably knew he was in for a battle when he strode to the mound to start the home second, but to no avail. Alex Rodriguez managed to maintain his tie with Boston’s Manny Ramirez for the league lead in homers when he crushed his 28th in a lofty arch to dead center to start the bottom of the second, and the Yanks had a 1-0 lead. DH Jason Giambi followed with a one-out walk, and he barreled into third on Bernie Williams’s soft single to short right, the second first-to-third sprint by the burly Yankee power hitter in the last few days. It was a huge base to attain, and he scored the Bombers’ second run when first baseman Tino Martinez rolled softly to second base for a fielder’s choice.

From that point on, Radke battled, but even he probably sensed that he had already allowed two too many runs to win this night. Radke retired the first 20 Yankees he faced one night in the Stadium in 1996, but two runs (a Tino Martinez home run) beat him that night, and it was enough to do so Tuesday as well. He retired the Yanks in order in the third and fifth (though the latter frame required a dp to close it), but he allowed two hits and five baserunners in the fourth and sixth innings, and the 49 pitches it took him to negotiate those two threats got him out of the game with 100 pitches in six taut frames.

Johnson, meanwhile, continued with his electric work. He was routinely pounding 94- and 95-mph fastballs all night, challenging enough to begin with, but the control he had with his slider and other off-speed offerings had the Twins batters muttering to themselves as they returned to the third-base dugout after one unsuccessful at bat after another. Many of us in the crowd were having trouble dealing with the incessant heat, and as Randy mowed down one Twins batter after another, it was becoming all too easy to forget that Stewart had led off the game being hit by a pitch; a perfect game was out of the question, but what we were watching certainly bordered on perfection.

Shortstop Juan Castro put us all out of our “misery,” so to speak (though we were hardly miserable, at least with the baseball) when his 10-bouncer up the middle with two down in the sixth rolled just past Derek Jeter’s glove and into short center for a single. The imperfect “Perfect Game” and the no-hitter were gone just like that. But Randy barely skipped a beat. His strike outs were becoming more labored perhaps, but no less regular in their frequency. When he coaxed Stewart to follow with a swinging K, he had netted nine on the game and two in that fateful sixth, even if each cost him seven pitches.

At no point in the evening did the weather become friendly, or even bearable. Even if it was cooler (somewhat) seated above the city after the brain-cooking sun had retired, it was never actually pleasant. It had been 16 days since the Bombers had closed a pre-All Star Game homestand with a 9-3 blitz of the Indians, with Mr. Johnson on the mound that day too. But the summer has been tough since, and the Stadium and the city were having trouble coping. When I arrived in the Upper Deck at 6:30 pm, neither the Loge nor the Tier levels had any running water in their restrooms, a problem that was reportedly solved around first pitch. Also, apparently due to an air-pressure problem, the upper deck concession stands were unable to pour any sodas before the game either. Bottled water and beer apparently saved the day, but the evening was far from perfect, including my Metro North ride home on a train with no air conditioning or lights.

But the crowd was spirited in their support, and they fed off The Unit’s dominating performance. It easily could have been an unspirited bunch, given the conditions, and announcer Bob Sheppard lent a solemn note to the proceedings by advising the crowd that a Father David Kerns, who had celebrated Sunday mass in the Stadium for years, had passed away Sunday. But the first inning strike out of Hunter got the throng going and they never really stopped.

Noteworthy among the upper-deck contingent was a four-person group in the Tier down first in Section Nine with a four-piece, two-letter-apiece message in bold black letters on orange backing that simply read: YA-NK-EE-S! They were up each inning, and particularly when the Bombers threatened, perhaps never more obviously than when the Yanks doubled their lead in the home seventh. Righty reliever Jesse Crain, with a gaudy 9-1 win-loss record, replaced Radke to start the frame, and Jeter (with a great bunt) and Sheffield singles set the Yanks up with two on and two down. Crain walked A-Rod on five pitches to load ’em up, and lefty J.C. Romero came on to face Hideki Matsui. The Stadium was truly packed, and at that moment the Scoreboard cameras found a group of similarly hyped fans in the left-most section of the left field bleachers with a bright green sign with Japanese characters that probably spelled something like “Matsui is the best,” but which I tried to imagine said “YA-NK-EE-S!” too, spanning the world and the huge stadium with one loud uniform cry. Matsui responded, as he often does, and his single up the middle forged the game’s final 4-0 score.

Johnson equaled his season-high of 11 strike outs by getting Punto and Hunter swinging in that frame’s top half, and he survived a one-out Lew Ford double in the eighth when Tino Martinez made a nifty two-out grab at first on Michael Cuddyer’s hot shot with Ford running from third. The last time Johnson struck out 11 batters, it was in a June 16 masterpiece and complete game 6-1 win over the Pirates. In that game he allowed a Brian Restovich home run to the shortest porch in right, and closed the game with 110 pitches by finishing off Pittsburgh on 14 pitches in the top of the ninth. A 14-pitch ninth this night would have equaled his pitch count for nine innings that night, but no one was disappointed that he handed the baton to Tom Gordon this time around, even if a few of us longingly wondered if his trip to the showers featured cold water.

The Unit turned in a dominating performance June 16, but this one was better. He allowed three less hits this night, and avoided the seemingly obligatory “oops!” long ball in the mix as well, resulting in the shutout. And not only that, he did it against one of the Yanks’ most formidable foes in the Wild Card race, just in case the unthinkable were to happen and the Red Sox (or Orioles) can break the Bombers’ seven-year hold on the AL East Championship. Johnson did it with power; he did it with guile. And he did it with a spirited and stressed fanbase willing to forget the less-than-optimal conditions to scream him onto victory.

The day Randy Johnson was born, on September 10, 1963, the U.S. was all abuzz with a new talent on the entertainment scene. Stevie Wonder was a kid back then, and his genius musical talent had the world shaking their collective head(s) in “wonder.” Randy Johnson used his mastery over the flight of a baseball this night in much the same way Stevie used his gifts. Once again, he did it with power; he did it with guile. As much as he overpowered some of the Twins’ batters, he fooled others with offspeed spinning deliveries. Perhaps the key to Randy’s mastery can be approximated in the title of Mr. Wonder’s first mega-hit, the one that topped the U.S. charts on September 10, 1963:

Fingertips, Part Two

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!