Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 26, 2003
Player Reaction

Dan Le Batard was in the middle of the celebration last night.


This was at the center of the delirium, right near the mound, amid the laughter and screams and tears and hugging and singing and smiling.

Florida Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett, surrounded by bobbing teammates, at the center of a celebration he created, looked into the stands of an emptying Yankee Stadium, in the quietest New York City you've ever heard, and the defiance came out of him with more hiss than even one of those fastballs the mighty Yankees could not hit.

''Go home,'' he spat. ``Have a nice offseason. We're going to have a parade.''

This is what the lovable underdog looks like when angered, disrespected and overlooked.

It looks like a champion.


I'm sorry, I missed the disrespect. All I read the last few weeks was about the great Josh Beckett. I guess a New York fan must have called him a name. Of course, that's the kind of competitive midset that won't make you popular but will make you a champion.

Others were just too happy to be mean:


''This is indescribable,'' Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo said in the middle of the delirium, after lifting 72-year-old Marlins Manager Jack McKeon on his shoulders. ``How do you find any words for this? There are none. There is no explanation for this. Nobody thought we could do this. You just don't see this in Yankee Stadium.''

Castillo was winded from celebrating, gasping for breath.

''That was the team we had to beat -- the Yankees,'' Castillo said. ``What can they say about us now? That we beat them because of a goat or a fan or a curse? That we got lucky? We won because we were the better team. We're the best.''

McKeon came over to Castillo for yet another hug.

''Thank you,'' Castillo said to him in mid-embrace. ``You deserve this.''

''I love you,'' McKeon said.

The old man was on the cusp of tears.

''I cried, too,'' shortstop Alex Gonzalez said. ``A lot of us did. I never thought I'd play in a World Series, and now I've won one. I had to release that joy.''

There's one other thing in this article, that backs up something I wrote earlier:


On his way to the stadium Saturday, while walking the streets here, McKeon couldn't believe how many people who were Yankee fans came up to him, shook his hand and told him they hoped he would beat New York.

''It was unreal,'' he said.

It seems even parts of this city, having grown tired of the corporate, antiseptic Yankees, had fallen in love with the passion and hustle of the Marlins in a way that had New York fans actually embracing Florida's leader on the street.


Hard to believe.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:45 AM | World Series | TrackBack (0)