The sign read Mr. November. It had been brought to the stadium by a well-prepared fan waiting got a magical moment. That moment occurred slightly after midnight on Halloween Night. It was officially November 1st as Jeter's ball sailed into the right field stands. What a hit, but the real magic had come one inning earlier when amazingly with two out to go and Arizona holding tight to a two run lead, the unthinkable happened. Tino Martinez belts a two-run home run over the center field wall off of Byung-Hyun Kim to tie up the game at three runs apiece. I remember watching this series of events on television, but not really believing what I saw. After Jeter's home run, I felt as if I could run a marathon I was so hyped up. But I had to get some sleep for in my dresser drawer I had two tickets to Game five the next day. I remember feeling a bit disappointed as everyone at game four had seen an incredible game. There's no way that the Yankees could repeat a performance like
that or could they?
I woke up early the next day despite the lack of sleep and I remember popping in an 80's horror movie (Friday the 13th part something?) despite the fact that Halloween was over. After 9/11, it just felt like everything was pushed back a week or two. I mean, baseball in November. Who'd of thought it? In the past, I'd always watched a splattering of flicks along with my Yankee playoff wins (and boy, had there been many). After my fill of teenagers running from a guy in a hockey mask, I got ready for the game. You see, for my friend Al and I, trips to the stadium were an adventure and all of the right preparations had to be made. It was a Thursday and while my friend had to go to work that day, I had taken the day off. So, I did all the errands, buy the beer, pack the cooler, pick up the food, buy cigars, fill the tank with gas: you know, the usual stuff. We also left very early for games. I recall that Al left work early that day and we headed up around 3:00 for an 8:00 p.m. st
art. It was a cold day and I remember that I had worn a Yankees pullover along with my Yankees jersey.
After arriving at our usual parking lot at the stadium, I have to say that things felt different. Since 9/11, we had been back for a couple of games, one in the Oakland series and one in the Seattle series, but this one truly had (I know it's cliché) electricity in the air. Al and I wore huge Uncle Sam hats in support of the Yanks, but we wore a regular baseball cap underneath these to keep them on straight. I remember a young kid selling us Yankee caps with the American flag stitched to the side. I've since retired that cap after wearing in out, but it's an item that will always remind me of that time period, the great interlocking NY with an American flag.
All the fans came out this night and we saw some familiar faces around the stadium. This was our game to win tonight. It was Mike Mussina against some pitcher I'd never heard of named Miguel Batista. He actually still around and pitching for the Blue Jays, but he's one of those pitchers that just kind of floated around through five or six organizations, mostly national league, and I had never hear of him before this game. What made this game so important was that the Yanks had to face Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling the next two days so we could not let this one slip away.
We had pretty good seats in the stadium that night. We were kind of high in the upper deck, but right behind home plate so we could see everything well. It was even colder up there, but everyone seemed primed for the game. I remember the group in front of us had lost their building in the World Trade Center attack. Their building was one of those close by to the Trade Center that had to be condemned due to extensive damage. They had all received 9/11 commemorative caps and pins, but were left jobless as a result. Even though so many New Yorkers had faced tragedy, they still came out in droves to the ballpark. Despite all that New York City was going through, the Yankees seemed to provide a welcomed distraction.
The game itself started out pretty ordinary. Mussina and Batista both threw five hitters, Mussina through 8 and Batista through 7 2/3. The difference being that the Diamondbacks had scored two runs on RBI hits from Rod Barajas and Steve Finley, while the Yankees had failed to cross the plate. The one highlight was an incredible ovation that the Yankee fans gave to Paul O'Neill in what was to be his last game in Yankee stadium. Paul would go on to say that it gave him chills, the Yankee fans shouting his name in tribute to the great moments that he had given them. What made this so amazing is that this tribute came on the heels of the Yankees potentially losing this important game, but the Yankee fans thought it was more important to acknowledge O'Neill for being a true Yankee or as George Steinbrenner would say a warrior.
If the Yankees were going to come back, they would have to do so again in the ninth. The D-backs were headed for a shutout as Byung-Hyun Kim was getting payback for his debacle the night before. The inning didn't start good Kim as he served up a leadoff double to Jorge Posada. But he them promptly got out the next two batters leaving it up to Scott Brosius. I remember looking at the faces around me at that point. "Please," you could see them asking, "don't make an out. Keep this game going. We need this." Just minutes before the bottom half of the ninth inning began, my friend Al and I had been talking about the traffic. After this bad of a loss and the prospect of facing the Big Unit and Schilling the next two games, the last thing that we wanted to do was to sit in traffic for any prolonged period. But with the tying run at the plate, we at least had a glimmer of hope. Hey, I'd be lying if I said that I expected us to win this game. There's no way that a team could pull thi
s off two nights in a row, but if the Yankees were going to pull off an unbelievable comeback, who better to be up at the plate than Scott Brosius.
He was anything but a home run hitter. In regular season games, home runs were few and far between. Only once in an eleven year career did he hit at least 20 home runs. In fact, he was only a career .257 hitter and in 1997, the year before the Yankees acquired Brosius, he hit .203 in 479 at bats. But when the Yanks had that World Series logo stitched onto their sleeves, Scott Brosius turned into a hitting machine. In 1998, Scott hit .471 with two home runs and 6 RBI's and a slugging percentage of .471 to gain MVP honors. In 1999, he batted .375 with a slugging percentage of .438 on the way to the Yankees 2nd straight world series title. In the subway series of 2000, he batted .308 with a slugging percentage of .538 as the Yanks won bragging rights in New York with their third straight world championship.
In the 2001 World Series, Scott had gone a bit cold as had most of the Yankee hitters, but with the game on the line, he was the man we wanted at the plate. I remember watching as Byung-Hyun Kim made the pitch and Brosius got a hold of the ball. My first thought was: that could go. Then, that's gonna go. Then, I can't believe what I just saw. When Brosius hit the two-run home run to tie the game in the ninth, the stadium went absolutely wild. All that I cold think was that this couldn't possibly have happened two nights in a row. I looked around at the fans and snapped some pictures with my camera. A city that had so much to be somber about was now finding solace in a game that truly lifted everyone's spirits.
The thing to remember about the two-run home runs in the consecutive nights is that these home runs didn't win the games, only tied them. Jeter's crowing Mr. November home run had won the previous contest for the Yanks, but they would need some more extra inning heroics to pull this game out. After Mariano Rivera got himself into and out of trouble, the Yankees put themselves into position for heroic measures from one of the young guys. Afonso Soriano lined a one-out single scoring Chuck Knoblauch and old Frank Sinatra was singing New York, New York again. It was over and the Yankees were up three games to two after two of the most memorable games in World Series history. Al and I were on our way home, neither of us complaining about the traffic as we savored the Yankee victory.
As fate would have it, the Yankees would not win their forth-straight World Series title as they lost the next two games in Arizona. After getting beat 15-2 at the hands of Randy Johnson, the Yankees would lose Game 7 seven 3-2 after letting a 2-1 ninth inning lead slip away. In the end, it just wasn't meant to be, but the Yankees and Yankee fans will always have those two magical nights in the Bronx. When talking about the Yankee dynasty, the words mystique and aura were often used to describe the magic at the stadium. Curt Schilling said that he didn't believe in mystique and aura, saying that these words sounded like the names of a couple of strippers. Well for two wild autumn nights in the Bronx, the Diamondbacks got to witness mystique and aura up close and you might say that they received the lap dances of their lives.
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Copyright © 2005 by Daniel Shields. Posted September 7, 2005.
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