Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 21, 2003
Game 7

Longtime reader Steve Bonner attended last Thursday's Red Sox-Yankees game and sends this report:


In a stroke of what can only be described as outrageous fortune, I was traveling to New York on business for a meeting on Friday. I mentioned this to someone I work with in Chicago and she serendipitously mentioned that she was going to be in New York on Thursday and Friday for a meeting and that since I am her client she could rationalize buying tickets to the game if I could change my flight to fly in earlier on Thursday.

Long story short, my first trip to the Stadium in nearly 10 years was for Game 7 of the LCS with Boston. And what a game it was. Pure depression and sadness for the first 7 innings. The team always seemed to win with smoke and mirrors…their record seemed better than the individual players were capable of…this was someone else's year…Boston was a Team of Destiny… let their fans have the win, let them get over the Curse so we could expel it from the lexicon. ‘Oh well,’ I figured, ‘there will be reason to hope again next year.’

And then a funny thing started happening, each time Giambi homered I felt a little spark of something...but figured it was too little too late. Just enough to redeem the G man for a tough season in which injuries dragged him down.

Then came the 8th and after Jeter doubled we were on our feet chanting, "Paaaaaay-Dro, Paaaaaay-Dro," trying to help our team out in the only way we could. Trying to turn the knob on the pressure cooker up to a Spinal Tap-ish 11. When Jeter's hit was followed by Bernie's and then Matsui's and finally Posada's I felt like we were finally back in this thing. And once again the core of this team had come through.

Rivera was scintillating as usual. And when Wakefield came in I started mentally calculating how significantly he had kept the Yanks bats in check and started to realize that the simple law of averages dictated that he couldn't keep it up much longer. There was a glimmer that this may be the guy who gives it up.

Boone had been taking a beating from the fans around me all game, "he hasn't had a hit in 6 weeks," one guy said. When he stepped in and swung and launched that high drive I though it was going foul. Sitting in the second deck on the right field line I couldn’t see the ball well in relation to the foul pole....we were all on our feet, on our tip toes, not a breath escaping anyone and then slowly, magically I saw the fans in the left field seats...the seats in FAIR territory rise to greet the ball and the place EXPLODED into a wave a white noise.

Two days later, my voice has yet to fully come back, my ears are still slightly ringing and my hands are bruised from clapping and high-fiving with the throng in the street in the heart of the Bronx at about 12:30 am on a Friday morning. I'll never forget it as long as I live, never. People who don't understand baseball like to say that Yankee fans feel it's their right to win the World Series every year, that we take no joy in it because it is such a common occurrence. They are wrong, nothing is guaranteed, nothing is taken for granted and the joy I felt watching my team come back against their most bitter rival, against one of the best pitchers to ever pitch in the big leagues, to overcome a bust of a start by the Rocket, to still rally after Wells gave up the home run to Ortiz...well it's the most pure sort of joy I think I am capable of feeling over something that I didn't personally accomplish. I'll never forget how lucky I am that this team happens to be my team.

Go Yankees; Long Live Baseball



Posted by David Pinto at 09:26 AM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (2)