Yankees 2003 ALCS: Game 7

Even before Game 7 of the ALCS, I was convinced that the 2003 baseball playoffs were already the greatest of my life. In the National League, the Cubs were carried by the young arms of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to shock the Braves in 5 games. (The Braves had won their 12th consecutive division championship, and the Cubs their first in 14 years.) The Marlins' Ivan Rodriguez held on to the ball to defeat Barry Bonds and the heavily favored Giants. In the American League, the Red Sox stunned the A's after falling in a 0-2 hole, handing the Athletics their fourth straight Game 5 ALDS loss. And the Yankees rolled over the Twins in the Metrodome, despite losing Game 1 at home.

By October 16, 2003, the Cubs had fallen victim to the curse (and Steve Bartman) in a devastating 7-game NLCS in which the Fish came back from 1-3 to win in Wrigley. And on this night, the Sox tried to reverse the curse by toppling the Bronx Bombers. It was Pedro Martinez vs. Roger Clemens: the rematch of an ugly Game 3 that featured a Pedro fastball to the head of Karim Garcia, a bullpen brawl with a Red Sox groundskeeper, and the shoving of 72-year-old bench coach Don Zimmer to the ground. The last time the Red Sox had won a Game 7, it was 1986--and Roger Clemens was on the mound.

Unfortunately, this time, 17 years later and playing for the rival Yankees, Roger didn't have it. He pitched 3 innings and gave up 4 runs, leaving men on the corners with no out. He departed to Mike Mussina, making his first relief appearance in his career. Below, he makes the slow, lonely walk to the dugout--possibly for the last time; Clemens was set to retire at the end of the season, and unless the Yankees managed to crawl out from a 4-0 lead with Pedro on the mound, that would be it.

Red Sox fans were taunting, jeering, and mocking their former ace. They pointed their fingers and began an early celebration. Robert, my Mets-loving, Yankee-hating work friend who provided the tickets to the game, said, "Even a double play means a 5-0 lead for Boston." Feeling the pressure of being down by 4 already, I said, "Not if he gets a strikeout first." Alas, Moose struck out Jason Varitek, the AL's second-best catcher, before getting the dangerous Johnny Damon to ground out into a double play. The Yankees fans went nuts, knowing they were still alive. Barely.

At first, Robert was going to make a sign that read, "George Bush + New York Yankees = Evil Empire." I told him if he did that I would make a sign that read, "I Do Not Know This Man." He ended up making a political statement, criticizing not the Yankees or the Red Sox but the owner of Fox, the station broadcasting the game, Rupert Murdoch. (Murdoch also owns Fox News, one of the most blatantly biased news organizations, and the company that sued Al Franken for his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. What a joke.

Robert's sign showed Roger and Pedro, the two greatest AL pitchers of our generation, but no actual sports commentary. I thought it was funny.

It was certainly more clever than this Mastercard ad rip-off sign...
The Red Sox Will Not Win

Mussina got in and out of jams in the fourth and the fifth, preventing further damage. But the Yankees were still down 4-0, and Pedro was rolling. Giambi finally got the Yanks on the scoreboard with a solo home run in the fifth, but Soriano struck out for the third time to end the inning. By the seventh-inning stretch, it was still 4-1, and time was running out. With two outs (and seven to go), Giambi went deep again, crushing a Pedro offering beyond Damon's grasp in dead center. Two base hits followed, but Soriano struck out for the fourth time to end the seventh. Still, the lead was down to 2 with 2 innings to go.

David Wells, perhaps the biggest Babe Ruth fan of all time, came on in relief in the eighth to face Yankee-killer lefty, David Ortiz. Ortiz promptly punched the portly pitcher's primary pitch into the right-field stands to revive Boston's 3-run lead. But in the bottom of the eighth, Pedro unraveled and the Yankees took advantage. Jeter singled to right with one out, extending his own record for postseason hits. Bernie then singled to center, putting the tying run up at bat. Hideki Matsui, the newest Yankee import, then proved his Yankee worthiness with a clutch double to right. The score was 5-3, and the Yanks had men on second and third with one out and Posada coming up.

Although the Yanks were still down by a pair, the Yankee Stadium faithful erupted like never before. Jorge Posada, the Yanks' most valuable player that year--and easily the best catcher in the league--stepped up to the plate. Five days earlier, Pedro had pointed to his head while looking at Jorge and said, "I will hit you here."

Posada pushed the Pedro pitch past the infield, pushing the tying runs home. He then scampered to an unoccupied second base. Rookie manager Grady Little finally lifted Pedro for Embree, but the damage was done. The Yanks later loaded the bases, giving Soriano a chance for redemption. Alfonso ripped a rope up the middle, but it careened off the mound into Walker's glove.

Now going into the 9th inning, the score was tied. Pedro was out of the game, and the familiar notes of "Enter Sandman" echoed across the ballpark as Mariano Rivera jogged in from the bullpen. It was as if the game was over already. The Sox seemed defeated by a combination of Rivera's gas and an uneasy feeling that the Curse of the Bambino was in full force. Referring to the curse, Pedro Martinez once said, "Wake up the Bambino and let me face him--I'll drill him in the ass."

In January 1920, the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. At the time, the Sox were baseball's best team, winning five world championships. (Ruth pitched in their last World Series win.) The Yankees had not won any championships to that point.

In the 83-year period since the ill-fated transaction, the Sox have lost in heart-breaking fashion time and again, while the Yankees went on to win 38 pennants and 26 world championships.

Babe Ruth was in the Stadium he built that night. (In fact, the guy sitting next to us looked strangely like him.)

The historic game pushed into extra innings, and the tension only got more intense. Each pitch was potentially the difference between going home and winning the pennant. The time passed midnight and eventually, that potential pitch turned into reality. Aaron Boone, on the first pitch of the eleventh inning, turned on a Tim Wakefield knuckler that didn't knuckle. The ball stayed fair down the left-field line, and the pennant was one. Boone joined the Babe, Bucky, and Buckner in a list of killer B's that crushed the Red Sox spirit.

I did a minor amount of Photoshopping on the pictures below... The first was taken at 11:18.

After the game ended, Robert and I ran to the area by the dugout. There are a bunch of hardcore fans chanting and cheering. Bernie Williams was doing a post-game interview with Bobby Murcer with a bottle of champagne in his hands. His family stood beside him. Roger Clemens and David Wells were talking next to him. (They had just returned from Monument Park, where they had poured champagne on Ruth's statue.) I turned my video camera on in an effort to capture the surreal scene.

The next thing I know, we are getting doused with sweet-tasting champagne. I look up to see Bernie Williams, BERNIE WILLIAMS, spraying a bottle of champagne at me and some friends. He had a gigantic smile, and everyone was totally going nuts! I somehow managed to get video of what happened. The video is shaky but still captures the amazing end to an amazing baseball experience. I tasted champagne all night long--and this was no cheap bottle, either.