Bronx, N.Y., April 11, 2004 — Fans began staring at the skies long before Mike Mussina’s 1:08 pm first pitch today in Yankee Stadium. Although by the manner of their dress it was obvious that it was the weather that was their concern, it wasn’t a bad place to be looking for the game highlights either. Mussina, roughed up in two 2004 losing starts by the supposedly light-hitting Tampa Devil Rays, was facing a bunch of bangers from the south side of Chicago, and Mike had a score to settle.
Mussina had his 200th regular season win in his grasp last September 24 in the Windy City, riding to a 3-0 lead on Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams third-inning home runs. He had held a Chisox team whose season had headed south in the preceding several weeks to two hits on 73 pitches through five innings when suddenly the roof caved in. Carlos Lee, Frank Thomas, and Magglio Ordonez singled, doubled, singled on Mike’s first six offerings in the sixth, and two batters and another double later, Jose Valentin blasted a three-run jack to right.
It would be a fabulous story if I could tell you that Mike came back and blew all those White Sox players away in today’s Easter Sunday contest in the Bronx. But on second thought, it’s really a much better story the way it actually unfolded. Mike did get the win, but he needed help. And where the boost (make that “boosts”) came from is the best part of the story.
Things started well, as Mussina dispatched second baseman Willie Harris on three pitches for his first of six strike outs on the day. But when he delivered his 2-1 pitch to old (non)friend Jose Valentin, things took a turn. Mike managed to knock down a hard hopper right back at him, but Valentin reached on as clear an infield single as you’re about to see, even if the official scorer saw it as an error on the pitcher. Ordonez, with home runs the last two games in the Bronx, singled sharply on the following pitch, and next Moose followed a disturbing pattern he had showed in the losses to the Devil Rays, fooling Frank Thomas four times, but not putting him away. Thomas singled softly up the middle on the fifth throw, plating Valentin, and then Carlos Lee tripled off the right field wall. Joe Crede’s first of two double-play grounders to Yankee second sacker Enrique Wilson following a walk to Konerko ended the inning, but the damage was done and the Yanks were in a 3-0 hole.
With nobody on the team hitting, that was reason for concern in itself. The Yanks barely managed to answer with a tally at all when they got a gift as Valentin booted Jeter’s leadoff grounder. Sheffield came through with a sharp run-scoring single to right after Williams popped to second (the first of two, and a dp grounder), Rodriguez grounded to short and Giambi walked. The Yanks failed to penetrate the infield off Chicago righty Dan Wright in the second, and stranded Jeter after a leadoff double to the left-center gap in the third.
Mussina, meanwhile, battled to regain his equilibrium, striking out Rowand to start the second and retiring Olivo on his own eye-popping dive after the young catcher tried to bunt his way on. He pitched around Harris’s two-out double, but appeared to be in huge trouble when Ordonez began the third by blasting a 1-2 liner to the wall in right center. But young centerfielder Bubba Crosby, perhaps having earned the spot start after homering in his first 2004 at bat Friday night, wheeled and sprinted toward the wall on what appeared to be an impossible mission. Stretching full out, he caught up with the tracer on the track, hauled it in, and somehow held it as he caromed hard off the center field wall. It was clear that Mussina was still in this game, but if he wasn’t the pitcher who allowed the Sox eight tallies in the sixth last year, he wasn’t the guy who blanked them through five either. Back to back bouncers to third got him through that frame.
Seeing how comatose the Yankee sticks have been in this series, perhaps Wright let up a little, as he walked Sheffield and Posada around a Matsui liner (he hit the ball hard three tines this day, with nothing to show for it) to right. The Chisox righty continued down a dangerous path as he fell behind lefty swinger Crosby, 2-0, and followed with a low off-speed pitch. Bubba did not allow his chance to pass, flicking the bat quickly and lifting the ball in a high trajectory that ended when it smacked against the facade of the upper deck in right. The Yanks had their third hit of the day, and a 4-3 lead.
Moose had pitched around a leadoff single and walk in the top half of the fourth, getting through the Sox order twice on 68 tosses, but he would need one more frame to qualify for elusive win no. 200. But he fell behind Valentin, 2-0, leading off the fifth, and the shortstop made him pay, lining a game-tying homer over Sheffield in right. Mike managed to whiff bangers Ordonez and Lee, but in between them Thomas drove one to almost dead center. Again Crosby sprinted back for all he was worth, and this time when the ball came down he was waiting for it.
It seemed the Yanks would waste yet another gift from Wright, as he retired Rodriguez and Giambi after hitting Bernie Williams with a pitch leading off the home fifth, but Bernie advanced to second on Jason’s bouncer into the teeth of the overshift, and Sheffield doubled hard to left center to deliver the go-ahead run. Young Chicago centerfielder Aaron Rowand corraled Shef’s blast shortly before the wall, by the way, just as he had Jeter’s third-inning double, both of them excellent plays.
Mussina had a lead, and Joe gave him the ball for the sixth. Torre figures, I suspect, that the Yankees’ chances dwindle without a strong confident Moose anyway, and showed that he had faith in him. And despite a leadoff safety to Konerko up the middle, Mike coaxed a double play and struck out Rowand. He whiffed young Olivo leading off the seventh, and Torre signaled for Gabe White to face the two lefties at the top of the order. It seemed the Sox didn’t notice. After Giambi erased Harris on an attempted drag bunt, Valentin drove a 1-2 pitch over a lunging Sheffield attempt in right and made it all the way to third as Shef went down, even though Mr. Everywhere Crosby ran all the way to right to throw the ball in. Tom Gordon relieved, again to no visible effect on the White Sox swings. Ordonez followed with yet another long liner to right center, but Bubba tracked it down despite initially looking left and having to circle back to his right to grab the ball.
Jeter singled to lead off the seventh, but was erased on Bernie’s 6-4-3 grounder before Rodriguez lined a double into the left-field corner. The fans welcomed the sight of a few hard-hit balls anyway. Gordon retired the side in order in the eighth, even though Thomas stubbornly lined hard to center yet again, and the fans went wild as Mariano Rivera came out for the save.
It was a pretty good crowd when one considers that on the one hand it was Easter Sunday, and on the other the prediction of all-day cold rain had failed to appear. There were groans aplenty in the first frame, but the fans came back strong once Bubba Crosby started giving them something to cheer about. One fan hung K’s for Moose off the Tier facade in section 11 down the right side, and a guy in first row on the opposite side provided a bit of comic relief on a tense day, blocking Crosby’s 0-2 foul back over the rail with his body but managing to scoop it with his hand before it fell to the more expensive box seats below.
And one more note. The retired Yankee organist, Eddie Layton, made his fame while never missing a Yankee home game in 37 years on the job. If you haven’t been in the Stadium lately, be advised that while the organ plays in the background, fans and friends can turn and greet one another, sharing pleasantries and talking, literally, about anything under the sun. It is almost impossible to do this when the canned music is blasted through the huge Stadium speakers. So it was with a sigh of relief that we were advised on Opening Day that the organ music would continue with a new guy by the name of Paul Cartier. Perhaps the plan is to mix it up, but before today’s game we were entertained by the stylings of a new artist, named Ed Alstrom. He provided a perhaps mellower sound, but a pleasant enough background for laughs and conservation.
After having fallen behind three runs early, taking and then losing a lead, and hanging on to another one-run advantage through three tense, taut innings, the crowd was ready for a three-up/three-down Rivera save. But it wasn’t to be. Mariano hit Joe Crede with his second pitch, and allowed a one-out single to pinch-hitter Russ Gload after whiffing Timo Perez, who hit for center fielder Rowand. And although Mo came back strong to strike Harris out on four pitches, no one was eager to see Valentin stride to the plate with a bat in his hands. Had his hopper off Moose in the first been correctly scored a single, he would be a double away from hitting for the cycle. But Rivera coaxed a weak grounder to second on five pitches, the Yanks evened their record at 4-4, and Moose slayed his 200-win demon.
But that is not all that happened in the Bronx today. I am not alone, I know, in the opinion that some of the most entertaining baseball movies ever made were some zany screwball comedies made over 50 years ago. Paul Douglas, who would have been 97 years old today, was a featured player in the 1949 Ray Milland classic It Happens Every Spring, and starred in a baseball flick of his own two years later. Bubba Crosby, the young phenom who carried the Yankees to victory this day, was one of the inspirations behind a game report I submitted from Tampa just over one month ago. Down there, as today, he could have been a costar in Douglas’s flick, the original Angels in the Outfield.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!