Bronx, N.Y., August 26, 2002 — Some days, we go out and play and, win or lose, nothing special really happens. Sometimes the hits seem pedestrian, the defense routine, the game log run-of-the-mill. We score, they score, hopefully more of the former. So I try a look around the league, even into the unthinkable (what’s happening in other mass-market spectator sports), or what’s happening around the world. And then This Day in History usually comes through with an obscure fact or two that can be twisted into making a salient point about what happened in the game.

But not today. The team has been struggling offensively and broke out big time. We had lost two of three to an inferior rival and came back to tie the series. We got a good start from a wily vet and, eventually, a stellar relief appearance. So why is it this day, when the game could scream out for itself, that potential links to the very fiber of the human experience leap off the pages at me?

The first thought came to me as the young Arod-a-phile to my left in the row in front leapt to his feet and screamed basically every time Alex breathed. He yelled, “Look at the numbers!”, predicted Hall of Fame and intoned “MVP” every chance he got. And even though Alex popped up meekly in the first, probably should have had a play on Bernie’s dink base hit to short left in the first, and just barely failed to come up with the Coomer single that got us on the board in the second, he is great, did homer, and made a nice play on Jeter’s grounder up the middle that finally ended the sixth. Raffy Palmeiro is great too, and they have a potential Hall of Fame catcher in Irod (who sat out today), but what they don’t have is a team.

So on this, the anniversary of the birth of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, the Father of Chemistry (to some), the Rangers showed again and again that they have no chemistry. Even though Arod and Raffy homered back-to-back in the sixth (thereby outhomering us on the day), Arod made no attempt on Bernie’s aforementioned pop in the first, ran into his overshifted third baseman Herbert Perry as Perry caught Jason’s third inning popup (hit right to him) and, as the fastest Ranger on the field, did not score from second on Everett’s bases-loaded single in the eighth. But the most embarrassing Ranger moment of the day came at the end of the five-pitch frame The Duke threw at them in the fifth. Obviously surprised after every other half inning on both sides to that point had cost double-digit pitches (and six of them went into the twenties), virtually their whole team was in the clubhouse when Hollandsworth bounced to Soriano to close the inning. As the scoreboard gave out birthdays, first and second out Haselman (catcher) and Young (second baseman) had a catch, and we wondered, watching just two players warm up, if they had conceded a game they were losing 3-0 at the time.

On August 26, 1498, Pope Alexander VI commissioned the 23-year-old artist Michelangelo to carve the Pieta. El duque was artful and cunning today 504 years later, and might have shut the Rangers down all day if he hadn’t fallen in love with his “eephus” pitch in the sixth. But apparently frustrated that he could neither get a strike call from Mike Fichter or a swing from Arod or Raffy, he threw it on consecutive pitches to Alex in the sixth, and the man Tom Hicks said “we can afford” last year didn’t miss. Raffy, too, saw an eephus on the way to following Arod with a homer, and there we were up only 4-2 with Everett on second after he followed with a double. Hernandez got out of it, but his day was over.

Then young Weaver acted like he was just preparing his paints or his chisels in a one-hit seventh and the first 14 pitches of the eighth, during which he loaded the bases via a double, then eight straight balls, and eventually surrendering a run on a single. But by then the easel and canvas were in place, the paint (or sculpting stone) were the right temperature, and inspiration struck. From that point, it took 26 pitches to strike out five in a row and end the game on a foul pop. “Bravo!”

But my choice for the historic moment to frame this Yankee day in the Bronx took place in 1883 when the volcano Krakatoa erupted. OK, we didn’t really erupt until the five-run sixth, and even that wasn’t earth-shattering as rallies go. It was the succession of eruptions that impressed me. After eight shots to the wall early against Chan Ho Park Friday night, this team amassed five runs in the next 24 innings, and failed several times yesterday when a two-out hit was what was needed. Today was different.

After the first seven times the Yankees put a runner in scoring position today, the next batter got a base hit six times, and the seventh could have been scored a hit when a run scored on Jorge’s sixth-inning dribbler in front of the plate (it must have been scored a fielder’s choice — no hit or error ever went up on the board). And on the first four of these occasions, there were two outs. If the five runs in the sixth were our Krakatoa, how about those “pre-shocks”! Two outs in the first: Giambi walk, Bernie single, Jorge single. Two outs in the second: Rondell double, Coomer single, Soriano single. Two outs in the third: Posada double, Mondesi walk, Spencer single. After Soriano homered in the fourth and Raul’s one-out single in the fifth, White and Coomer followed with two-out singles. A team in a slump looks “sluggish,” I reported yesterday. Today we were “explosive.”

I arrived in time to see the Rangers bp (the gates are only open early enough to catch some Yankee bp in the playoffs and on weekends), and aside from the usual homerun orgies that feature bands of fans mostly in right field, but in left too, catching some cleanly and struggling over the rest, there were guests grouped behind home plate. The Yankees honored the Little League World Series Runners Up (and International Division Champs) from the Sendai Higashi Little League of Japan. They watched all of bp, and were announced and feted on the scoreboard before the game to a nice round of applause. Derek scored his 100th run in the sixth, becoming only the third player since 1900 to score 100 in his first seven seasons. Jason notched his 100th rbi (five consecutive seasons now) three innings later (and made two fine scoops at first!), Bernie extended his hit streak to 17 and Rondell got two hits, both to right field.

In Yankee history, I read where we turned a triple play while defeating a team called the Browns in 1916, and in 1971, in what must have been a colossal blow to the franchise at the time, the New York Football Giants announced they would be moving their games to New Jersey in 1975.

And personally, Sue and I saw our first Staten Island Yankee game on this day in 1999, when they played at the College of Staten Island before they got their new ballpark. Current AAA lefty Alex Graman beat the Hudson Valley Renegades that night. After we moved to Westchester in 2000, the College field became a rougher trip, but we were eager to check them out in their new digs last year. So I had a great double header on August 30 (of all days), seeing the Yanks beat Toronto in 11 in the Bronx 5-4 (Witasik got the “W”), and meeting Sue for the ferry ride to Staten Island. They beat the Renegades again that night, and put playoff tickets on sale. We returned and saw them beat the Cyclones in the first game of those playoffs. Those two nights, the wins over the Renegades on August 30 and the Cyclones on September 6, gave me the only opportunities in my life to have seen the Southern tip of Manhattan — and the Twin Towers — from that wonderful Staten Island Ferry evening approach.

BTW,TYW

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!