Bronx, N.Y., June 10, 2002 — It was the early nineties, on Old Timer’s Day. I was delirious (as I always am that day), sad (once again a given; so many have come, wowed us, and gone), but this time a bit apprehensive too, and not just about the score of the actual game after the Classic, though that’s always there too.
We were a run or two down, it’s true. But Sue’s and my guest in the tier box that day was her father, Bill, whom I had met once or twice. He’s a Yankee fan, but I didn’t know if he would find my cheering style a tad excessive, and I didn’t want to find out that he did. His musings on the game that day would come to mind during this — once again — beautiful evening in the Bronx.
What to focus on after the fabulous game I just witnessed? I don’t know where to begin. You’ve probably heard me (or read me) go on about “another wonderful night in the Baseball Cathedral,” and I’m sorry, but it was. We had 45,000 for this rematch of the best World Series ever (and not the 55,000 we had all weekend), but it was Monday night, and fully four months plus before a real rematch can take place. And unlike so many of the D’Backs, we were playing against and trying to beat a guy (a guy that a sign held up in the field boxes behind the Yankee dugout was referring to as “Rancid Randy” all night) we’ve faced for years (and rarely beaten), at least since October 1995.
And I can’t avoid mentioning Marcus Thames, starting because of a great spring and in spite of a horrible 2002 Columbus season, but more than anything because Juan Rivera was DL’d and Rondell was a pre-game scratch. Shane already had Randy a bit on his heels after his hard line-drive double on a 3-2 pitch leading off the third, but Randy was not off his game enough to not try to squeeze a little high cheese past “the rook.” Kudos to Marcus that he notched his dinger on the first major league pitch thrown to him, and 81 years to the day from the moment when Babe Ruth became the all-time home-run champ, unbelievably, by hitting No. 120. Sorry Marcus, you have many more than 119 to hit to contend now, but if you keep hitting ’em, I’ll be here to watch you.
Sterling had three decent innings (unfortunately he went 4-1/3), and Ramiro was superb. Not only did he retire seven of the eight he got out (and nine he faced) on ground balls (I’ll forgive him for throwing in the sixth-inning strike out of Finley), when you consider the portion of the game that would follow once he left, it is astounding that he managed to afflict that much damage on the D’Back offense while throwing only 24 pitches.
There were 60 pitches thrown in the eighth inning alone of tonight’s game in the Bronx, 28 by Mike Stanton, and a combined 32 by the D’Backs’ Randy Johnson and then reliever Bret Prinz. And although what most fans will carry with them for some time who experienced this thriller will be the loud sound of a dramatic and soaring “base knock” by Shane Spencer, much of the story of “the inning” (as I believe I’ll be calling this for some time), can be found in the 25 quietest pitches, the 25 that were called balls.
The cliches abound. It’s a game “of bounces,” often decided “by inches.” Some base hits are “seeing eye,” “strike one” is the most important pitch, “hit ’em where they ain’t.” Mike came right at (grrr!) World Series hero Luis Gonzalez and his cohorts, throwing first-pitch strikes to five of six. He threw four strikes to Gonzalez before surrendering the lead-off walk; he induced what could have been a double-play grounder up the middle (it also could have been a run-scoring single) to Durazo. Not only did he throw only seven balls among his 28 pitches, once he started Durazo off with ball one before his infield single, he followed it with 14 out of 15 strikes.
Yes, he stood there on the mound with the bases loaded with none out in a one-run game, but he had done nothing wrong. But he wasn’t alone, and that’s what many (non-Yankee fans, most of them) will object to in what I see as an unbiased, factual report — let them call it a “theory,” if they must. But, perhaps buoyed by years of almost nothing but success (and therefore simply conditioned to this behavior), Yankee fans cheer for good things that are yet to happen like no other fans in professional sports. And we literally lifted Mike to the F2, K, K that got him — and us — to the bottom of the eighth still one run down.
Randy, on the other hand, got himself into trouble in the bottom of the eighth in the exact opposite way. Both he and Prinz would throw more balls than strikes that inning, at great cost. I suppose I should yield some admiration for a guy who has been around and who was extended to 134 pitches, and left with a lead, and call him “wily vet,” or “battling lefty” (sorry, “Warrior” is taken). But after whiffing Bernie on four he walked Jason on six, and went 3-0 on Jorge. I don’t know if Randy was any more surprised than I was that Jorge swung at the 3-0 pitch, and the bounce was fortuitous, but the balls are what backed Randy into a corner, and they did the same to reliever Prinz when he went 3-0 on Shane with the bases packed. The Scooter would have called strike one the “old automatic” and Shane swung and missed at the next pitch, but he “had an idea”; he had it “zoned,” as became all too apparent when he didn’t miss pitch No. 6.
Sue and I were literally abuzz with what Shane had done, because we once again had just finished sharing amongst ourselves Bill’s pearls of wisdom from that Old timers Day in the early nineties. It was a similar situation, and the dugout had just ordered their righty-throwing reliever to walk Donnie Baseball, to get to Danny Tartabull, swinging a bat in the on-deck circle. “What Tartabull needs to do,” Bill began, turning to his daughter, “is to make them pay.” Danny did it that day, and Shane came through this night. Paid back in spades, Shane. Well done!
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!