Bronx, N.Y., June 4, 2002 — Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you. A not so witty cliche for the transitory nature of good and bad fortune. But it became painfully obvious both that I’ve been looking at the baseball world through Yankees-tinted glasses, and the rest of the world sees what it wants to see.
I was frustrated as I searched World Series databases and baseball archives all over the Web. How is it that the most of the baseball world only grasped the “you get the bear” part of the equation, when both chapters of the Bob and Reggie story speak so clearly to me?
I’m sure that there’s very little about the wonderful eight-run sixth inning that I can tell all the Yankee fans out there. All three of the homers were special in their own way; it’s fun to compare them. Jason hits moonshots the likes of which I just don’t recall. They go so high that these eyes and ears, very well trained over the years in the sound and the look of a ball going over the fence, had to pause and wait until Gary Matthews Jr.’s reaction told me that, yes, this baby was going out.
And Robin’s ball, well, in its own Yankee Stadium way, it was even more impressive. The last author I witnessed of a line shot into the loge in right, that section that is so inaccessible due to the fact that it is recessed well back from both the boxes below and the grand tier above, was Mr. Justice in his prime. Poor Rondell’s bomb seems to be commonplace by comparison, which is decidedly unfair, because he chose the least forgiving home run destination in the park to club his off the first pitch from Calvin Maduro.
But the fun thing is that we can sit around and think about and compare them at all. You see the words in my title were banging out loudly in my head this evening during the depressing fifth, as our wonderful 4-0 lead became a 5-4 deficit. “Maybe better come back, maybe next week, cause you see I’m on a losing streak.” I knew going into this game that one item of note in today’s history was the release of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” 37 years ago. And regardless of all the superlatives one can utter about our rally, the things that stick out as I look down at my program are the singularly unpromising way the whole thing came about.
Back in the 80’s, for instance, I witnessed a game where the first nine Yankees that came to the plate in an inning reached base and scored. This sixth inning was nothing like that. The leadoff man whiffed on three pitches. Even though Shane singled with one out, he was almost instantly removed on Alfonso’s 3-6 force (which could have been a 3-6-3, and where would we all be then?) So there we are, with a man on first with two outs. Sound like an eight-run rally to you? And joy aside, we were still losing 5-4 24 pitches into this 38-pitch inning. Kudos to Derek, who is a “star” personified, and to Shane, Alfonso and Nick for the parts they played in setting it all up.
But I bring the “Bob and Reggie” story up for a reason. You can find with ease, I learned, even today — 24 years later, that the rookie Bob Welch struck Reggie Jackson out in the decisive ninth inning of Game Two of the 1978 World Series, moving the L.A. Dodgers to a 2-0 lead in games over our beloved Yanks. And Jason faced B.J. Ryan yesterday with the game on the line. Going back in television history to a similar time to that ’78 Series, you could say that we viewed back-to-back, Monday, then Tuesday episodes of the old network TV show, “B.J. And the Bear.” Last night’s story saw Jason being struck out, just as Reggie had done 24 years ago. But Reggie homered off the same Mr. Welch six days later in the seventh inning of the sixth, and final, game of that 1978 Yankee World Series. Jason only had to wait 24 hours. “Sometimes you get the bear…” Don’t look now, B.J., but it’s the Bear’s turn.
And by the way, for those Luis Sojo fans out there, it was one year ago today that Luis beat the Red Sox with his base hit. Manny had tied the game with a two-run, two-out dinger off Mo in the ninth, but Luis hit a shot barely fair down the right field line off Rod Beck with two outs in the bottom of the 10th to score David Justice.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!