Bronx, N.Y., May 16, 2002 — If you like a game that is no contest, where your team dominates in every way possible, tonight was the night. The evening and night were beautiful. We scored early and often. We hit four more homers, three of them the opposite way. And that’s not uncommon in the Cathedral, but it is when the other way is to left!
And Boomer was dominant. In fact there was palpable “perfect game” buzz as early as the third inning! After watching the superbly honed Rocket power his way to out after out Tuesday night, Boomer seemed to be offering the counterpoint. He almost meditated his way to domination, as his “Zen-like” approach and pitches seemed to overwhelm by simplicity, calm and control. He threw 25 out of 31 first-pitch strikes. Reading from low to high his balls-thrown-per-inning count mapped thus: zero, two, three, three, three, four, five, five, five. Twice this eve I uttered a sigh of relief when the Rays got hits: first, at Tyner’s 20-hopper up the middle in the fourth, because I knew I had to leave early to pick a friend up at La Guardia, and I knew I couldn’t leave a perfect game. And then again at Conti’s sixth-inning double, because Tyner’s bouncer as the only hit in a one-hitter would have been too unfair to Boomer.
Yes, it was against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, I know. And yes, our first-inning six runs really did no more than echo their first inning last night, and ours was achieved with three errors chipped in no less. But the major-league-leadiing homerun total continues to grow. And what of the facts that three of the four were on the first pitch to the batter, that two of those pitches were the first thrown in an inning, and that one was on the first pitch to a Yankee in the game! Stirring stuff!
But it did get me looking skyward, and even on a beautiful night that’s not always a good thing. Thirty games ago when I watched a night game from Box 622 and looked up in the sky I got a look of a silvery moon; tonight I saw a light sky and a steady profusion of the domestic New York-departing airliners drifting south to north (right field to left field) above the Yankee Stadium outfield, just as I have seen during deep summer nights and afternoons for 20 years or more. But when Derek led off the second inning, I became aware of a change, as a liner that had started low climbed over the right field foul pole and seemed to head right for my perch above the visiting dugout. Then it banked and turned gradually left, almost as if it was preparing to cut the third base bag and head for home plate. Eventually it completed a .360 and headed back from whence it came.
I can’t be the only one who feels what I felt when I saw that liner behaving that way. Perhaps they have been making these maneuvers over the Bronx sky for years and I never noticed. But until tonight the only jet I have seen maneuver over the Stadium like that — and not just continue to travel in a pattern established before it reached my line of vision — were the two fighters that buzzed the Stadium before Game three of the 2001 World Series when George W. Bush threw out the first pitch.
I am sorry for sharing that. Because even with Mr. Sheppard still under the weather, the Cathedral was wonderful, and the fans were great. Everyone was IN the game; everyone was having a good time. So when Luis Sojo’s live picture from the press box was shown on the DiamondVision between the fourth and fifth innings while John Sebastian’s Welcome Back Kotter blared from the loudspeaker, the round of hearty applause wasn’t enough, and a spontaneous “Lu-is So-jo” chant (to the beat of the staccato “Let’s Go Yankees” cheer-and-clap) seemed to erupt spontaneously from every part of the stands at once. He had to love that.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!