Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil? H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low. L-O-V-E! You see these fingers, dear hearts? These fingers has veins that run straight to the soul of man. The right hand, friends, the hand of love. Now watch, and I'll show you the story of life. Those fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warring and a-tugging, one agin t'other. Now watch 'em! Old brother left hand, left hand he's a fighting, and it looks like love's a goner. But wait a minute! Hot dog, love's a winning! Yessirree! It's love that's won, and old left hand hate is down for the count!
What happened with Molina and Ramirez in Game 4? This is why Molina is special: in the third inning, when Ramirez was on second base, he tried to tip off one of his teammates on the pitch location. (don't know who was hitting at the time). Anyway, Ramirez shouted "inside" to let his teammate know where the pitch was coming. Molina waited until Ramirez came up the next time and told him he'd better never do that again when he (molina) was catching, or he'd get knocked on his ass. And Ramirez started babbling and Molina got in his face and asked him if he wanted to go. And Manny backed way off and apologized.
"The biggest move, when all was said and done, was the non-move. I think if we get A-Rod [Alex Rodriguez], we don't get here [to the World Series]. I don't question that for a second," said Schilling.
"He's a Hall of Famer, sure. But after getting to know people who a) play with him and have played with him, I don't think it would have worked here. I think this clubhouse would have been a much different place, and I don't think it would have been better, given the personalities involved."
Labels: birds on bat
Labels: birds on bat
It didn't help that America's prom king, Tom Hanks himself, showed up on TV tonight to declare his love for the Red Sox. "I'm an American," said Hanks. "There's nothing wrong with the city of St. Louis. They are a lovely people, they have lovely colors on their baseball uniforms -- but come on! I want Billy Buckner to have a good night's sleep for crying out loud!" Two seconds later David Ortiz hit a long drive foul, then protested that it was fair. As the umps were huddling on the field, I half-expected them to turn to Hanks up on the Green Monster. Hanks would yell out, "Come on! Do it for Billy Buckner! Do it for America!" Whereupon first-base ump Brian Gorman would circle his index finger: home run!
As much as the Sox impressed me as batsman, they impressed me far less as gentlemen. I know, I know, gentlemanliness is a quaint notion nowadays, but what was with that slide into second by Orlando Cabrera, when he came up elbow-first? (Thank God Reggie Sanders reprimanded him the next inning.) The other bush-league moment was Manny Ramirez trotting to first on a tie-breaking single with his finger telling the world he was #1. A one-run game in the seventh and you're acting like you just hit a walk-off homer? Ridiculous.
Fortunately the baseball gods got their revenge an inning later, when Manny made Skates Smith look like Elvis Stojko out in left field. I noticed he wasn't holding up the #1 sign as he was tripping over himself on Larry Walker's liner.
Fuck you, FRONTRUNNERS
At least you're out in the open now. My heart bleeds for all of you whining, sniveling, spoiled crybabies. I'm not talking about people who are upset about this loss and especially the way it went down. That's normal, no one likes to see their team lose, especially not on their homefield to their biggest rival in monumental fashion.
I'm talking to all the people who are worried about going to work or school and taking some shit, all the people who are acting as if the team intentionally betrayed them, all the people who seem to think that 'Yankee class' is something that they don't need to exhibit, all the people who think it's the Yankees God given right to always win and always beat Boston. Guess what, dipshits? If 8 teams had made the playoffs every year since 1918 the Sox would have likely beat us quite a few times in the post season by now and other teams would likely have blown 3 -0 leads. That's why it's happened in hockey before, because they didn't have a 70 year era where only 2 teams made the playoffs.
I'm really disgusted by some of the shit I've heard from people who call themselves Yankees fans over the last 24 hours. The same people who were chanting 'MVP' when Sheff was at bat are now trashing him. The same people who were ready to suck ARod and Matsui's dicks 6 short days ago are now calling them assholes with no pride. Suddenly a team that came from behind to win 61 times is accused of having no heart.
Well fuck you. For the first time in my life I'm embarrased to be a Yankees fan and it's not because of the team, it's because of the assclowns who think that if the team didn't win it's an affront to their personal right to have a victory parade every year, and that each player and coach who didn't perform perfectly should be crucified for selling out Yankee Pride. In case no one informed you, the Yankees don't have exclusive rights to dramatic comebacks or storybook endings and they're not immune to embarrassing failure.
I just wish more of you frontrunners would add 'bandwagoner' to your repertoires and bail altogether, because none of you deserve to take pleasure from the successes that will come in the future. I hope someone breaks into your house tonight and steals all your Yankees gear.
It wasn't until someone else asked about, oh, you know, playing center field at Yankee Stadium, that Beltran cracked a smile.
"That's something," Beltran said. "I would like to see if that's going to happen. I don't know if the Yankees have an interest in me or not. That's something we'll want to see in the off-season."
And when he was asked if he thought he looked good in pinstripes, the smile cracked even wider. "I don't know," Beltran said. "What do you think?"
Labels: birds on bat
Seven years ago I became a Christian, and tonight God did something amazing for me. I tried to be as tough as I could, and do it my way, Game 1, and I think we all saw how that turned out. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do this alone. And I prayed as hard as I could. I didn't pray to get a win or to make great pitches. I just prayed for the strength to go out there tonight and compete, and He gave me that. I can't explain to you what a feeling it was to be out there and to feel what I felt.
...the Red Sox 86 years of misery has not come exclusively at the hands of the Yankees. Sure the Yankees beat them out for the pennant on the final day of the 1949 season, beat them in a one game playoff after a tremendous comeback in the standings in 1978 and defeated them in the 1999 and 2003 ALCS. But the Yankees had to watch from home as the Sox lost to the Cardinals in 1946 and 1967, the Indians in 1948 and 1995, the Reds in 1975, the Mets in 1986, and the A's in 1988 and 1990, just as I hope they will be home watching as either Roger Clemens and Jeff Bagwell's Astros or descendents of Slaughter and Gibson in St. Louis stop them short of the World Championship once again.
Fifth Inning: Before the game, Howie Long, in town for Sunday’s Patriots-Seahawks game, and the rest of the FOX NFL crew were hanging out down by the Red Sox dugout. Long was giving Mets pitcher Al Leiter, who by all accounts has been great in the booth, some advice about the broadcasting business. Hopefully he passed some on to McCarver.
They should have Francona miked for this game. I can only imagine the Boston manager. “Get an out. Please, can’t someone get a &^%$#@& out?” 13-6 Yankees. The 19 runs combined thus far set an ALCS record for most runs in a game. Can we mention it is the FIFTH INNING?
Reasons why the YANKEES SUCK :
- The Yankees don’t suck because they have a bad baseball team they $uck because they are located in the largest U.S. city (8 million citizens, over twice as large as #2 L.A.) and by default enjoy an enormous financial advantage over other teams. They $uck because they leverage their financial advantage so successfully. [because it's the current team's fault the orioles were relocated and renamed all those years ago, and that the organization has more often than not been a well-run machine.]
- Of course the worse example of their financial strength occurred on January 3, 1920 when the Yankee$ bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan against the mortgage on Fenway Park. It wasn’t hard work that started their success but $$$$$. [and of course it's the yankees fault harry frazee decided to sell the babe. interestingly:"Frazee did sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees, but at the time, it seemed like a reasonable trade. There was no outcry from fans or opponents or media members when it happened. In fact, some people thought the Yankees made a mistake in picking up a player whom Stout calls “Carl Everett with a smile." ]
- On November 21, 1934 the Yankee$ bought Joe DiMaggio from the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League for $50,000. [but the red sox purchased his baby brother dom dimaggio for $75,000, and that's, you know, cool]
- In April 2003 the Yankee$ imposed a tax on up to 3 million New York metro area homes when their YES cable network began to charge $2 per month to each Cablevion cable subscriber. This should result in an estimated $200 million dollars in revenue to the Yankee$ from cable operators and advertising versus a league wide average of $22 million per team. [NESN makes no money? i guess it all gets funneled to the jimmy fund. great guys, those red sox.]
- The Yankee$ have always had more money than other teams but the advent of free-agency and cable television subscription revenue has allowed the Yankee$ to buy just about any player they want. [... this is just getting redundant.]
One thing Mientkiewicz remembers Rodriguez could not do as a teenager was dress. Rodriguez now has an endless collection of brilliant suits.
"Let's put it this way - a lot of my clothes ended up in his closet," Mientkiewicz said. "Some of the stuff he wore was like rookie dress-up day. Thank God we had to wear a uniform for school. I wish I could get into his closet now."
Rodriguez, always the All-America type, was a frequent visitor at the Mientkiewicz home, which was a few minutes from the school. He would charm Doug's mother, whom he still visits occasionally.
Labels: team a-rod
Torre knows how important Hernandez was in a previous ALCS Game 4 back in 1998, Hernandez's first season with the Yankees. They were behind 2-1 in the series to the Indians, but Hernandez pitched the Yankees into a series tie and they ended up winning it in six games.
"I remember going down to the coffee shop that morning and having a late breakfast with my wife," Torre said. "There was Duque moving dishes around and helping people with their breakfasts, and I thought, `Well, one thing about him, I know he's not afraid.' He was dynamite that day."
With Rivera, it starts more with marvel than affection, more with awe and appreciation than feeling.
The guy has been scary-good for such a very long time. He plays the game at such a perfect pitch. To deny him is to turn away from some magical baseball something.
Years from now, when you sit your grandkids on your lap and tell them stories of baseball in your day, focus on the Diamondbacks and the Angels pulling longshot victories in the early oughts. Tell them about Bonds, Maddux, and Pedro. Gloss over the Yankee titles, downplay their run. But do linger long enough to tell them you saw Rivera pitch.
Tell them about weird, skidding cutters in pressure-packed air. Tell them about a wiry frame and perfectly calibrated physics.
In 18 postseason series coming into this fall, he had an ERA of 0.79 (and this year, it's hanging tight at 0.75). Tell them that.
Tell them about watching a guy who was consistent enough and dominant enough to make you think paradigm shift, to make you think hitting the target and fooling the hitter is easily done, no matter what the circumstances.
Tell them something as good as this is its own sweet thing, uniforms and allegiances be damned, and that, hokey as it sounds, you swear there was something inspiring, something we-can-put-a-man-on-the-moon inspiring about watching Rivera set 'em up and mow 'em down time and again.
Fifty pitches and three innings last Thursday night. Tell them that.
Tell them ...
He was too thin to do what he did.
He didn't have enough pitches to do what he did.
And he never, not once, looked as scared as he should have been.
You can't help but marvel at what Mo does with that thin wiry frame.
Say all that.
Try your hand as a poet, get all imagistic. Talk about scythes cutting rye in the dying light, about cobra strikes snapping the air, and fish flying lean and low above the waves.
Trot out some pop, too. Invoke Batman's sculpted blend of grace and oomph, or maybe the searing, straight-to-the-heart voice of Thom Yorke.
Then explain that while all this stuff dazzled you, made you tip your cap in Rivera's direction, it had seemed so automatic for so long that you had a hard time coming around to really caring about it.
And then, if you think you're up for it, describe him crying on the mound at the end of Game 7 the other night. Say he was in child's pose, like the yoga master he is, and that those shoulders that lock and launch missiles were just shaking skin and bone then. Say the floodgates were open and the rush of want, fear, need and courage that went into every pitch he'd thrown came down the hill in a torrent. Say you didn't just admire him then. Say you felt for him. Say he was mighty likeable right that minute, mighty and likeable. [eric neel]
Tanyon's most ardent supporter might just be his 11-year-old niece, Tiana, Heather's daughter. Last week Tiana's school held a "Red Sox Day" to show support for the team during its first-round series with Anaheim. A defiant Tiana went to school wearing every piece of Yankees apparel she could find.
A team from New York has been in a playoff series at Fenway Park just three times -- in 1986, when the Mets played in the World Series here, and in 1999 and 2003, when the Yankees came north for the ALCS.
All three times, the visitors took two out of the three games here -- a feat, if matched by the Yankees this weekend, would allow them to pop corks on Boston turf.
So while the Red Sox spoke excitedly about returning to Fenway for the next three games after losing Games 1 and 2 at the Yankee Stadium, history shows the home field is not much of an advantage this time of year for Boston.
The Red Sox are 23-23-1 all time at Fenway Park in the playoffs.
"I'm not sure you can put too much stock into that," Red Sox veteran Ellis Burks said. "It seems like every year we do well at home, and this year was no exception."
The Red Sox had a 55-26 record here in the regular season, good for a .679 winning percentage, winning 18 of their final 23 games. They led the majors in batting average (.306), on-base percentage (.378) and runs per game (6.4) at home.
Only one team won more games at their home park -- the Yankees, of course. [newark star ledger]
...the geniuses who bring you Major League Baseball could not bring themselves to schedule the two baseball games at two different times.
They couldn't begin one game at 5 p.m. and the other at 8.
No, they had to begin both of these 2004 playoff contests simultaneously.
So if I wanted to watch both—and I did—I had the following options:
I could unplug one of my TVs at home and stack it atop my other TV, aiming my "mute" button at whichever game had cut to a commercial.
Or, I could use my really cool "Picture in Picture" feature to watch two shows at once, if I could just find my TV's manual to find out how "Picture in Picture" works.
Or, I could go to a bar, find a stool at the midpoint of a TV on my left (Yankees vs. Red Sox) and a TV on my right (Cardinals vs. Astros), tell everybody else at the bar to shut up so I can hear, ask the bartender to turn up the volume on one TV and down on the other, then stagger my way home after 3½ hours of swallowing 3½ beers, a basket of buffalo wings and the guy on the next stool's cigarette smoke.
Labels: yanquis
Either Jorge Posada has been reading George Orwell's "1984" about "Big Brother watching" or he's simply seen too much of the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day."
The folks at Fox Sports sure would like to know why the Yankee catcher saw fit to stomp out and destroy their in-ground mini-cameras in front of home plate that are designed to give a different view of the hitters.
According to Fox officials, it all happened in the first two innings of Game 1 and they have the videotape to prove it. Before the game, Fox technicians noticed that someone had pushed dirt all over the front of the camera lenses so that they weren't able to function. But after an aide rushed out to clear the dirt off the lenses in the top of the first inning, Posada was seen covering them all up again. Then, after Fox crewmen cleared them again in the top of the second inning, Posada walked over and was caught on tape stomping on the lenses, rendering them non-functional.
The special cameras have been approved for use through an agreement with Fox, MLB, the players' association and the Yankees, and upon being alerted to the incident by Fox officials, Chuck Torres , MLB's Manager of Broadcasting Operations ,went to Yankee GM Brian Cashman and Joe Torre , who reportedly told Posada to cease and desist.
Just why Posada was so determined to stomp out the cameras is unclear, although one baseball official said there was talk that both Posada and Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek thought the cameras were being used to steal the catchers' signs. "Either that," the official said, "or Jorge just didn't like the idea of having his cup on national TV."
Originally published on October 14, 2004
The Red Sox would be wise to spare themselves the mirage of the late-night rebellion on Mike Mussina's perfect game, the injection of a little uncertainty into a Game 1 that had once looked impenetrable for the Yankees. It was largely irrelevant in the wake of the biggest, boldest truth of the night: The reason they believed this American League Championship Series would be different, this season liberating, had been battered and beaten.
Curt Schilling had been crushed. The way that troubled right ankle left him struggling to produce the power to bring those fastballs beyond a tame 88 miles per hour, bringing his sliders with bite, the Sox suddenly lost the sure thing they believed separated themselves from the Yankees.
"The Yankees beat me," Schilling said in the Sox' clubhouse late Tuesday night. "They beat me. The bell rang and I didn't answer it.
"If I can't go out there with something better than I had in the game tonight, I won't take the ball again."
Whatever drama the Sox delivered late into this 10-7 Game 1 loss, it had to be tempered with the demoralizing first three innings where Schilling was a shell of his greatness. The Yankees delivered a staggering TKO to the Sox' ace, turning all that Sox swagger to uncertainty, turning those World Series plans into downright disarray. The Sox could've lived with losing Game 1, but seeing Schilling - the reason they believed they were finally going to beat the Yankees - get utterly humiliated was a devastating sight. [bergen record]
Labels: yanquis
"Baseball hasn't been on my mind since I left New York. My family is my priority. When I go back to New York, I know I have a job to do. At this moment, I think only about my family.
"I'm going to bury my cousins, and after that I go back home.
"The New York Yankees have been tremendous. Major League Baseball has been tremendous. Roger Clemens called to say he had sent flowers. I'm personally going to call everybody to thank them." [mariano rivera]
"Well, Mussina has like 20 different pitches. So, he throws all of them for strikes. Out of 20, you have to pick one. If he throws it, you don't want to miss it. If you miss it, you're going to have to deal with the other 19. Oh man, you see Posada sometimes taking his glove off to give him some signs. He doesn't have enough fingers on one hand. But that's why he's so good, not too many pitchers can throw 20 different pitches and he can." [david ortiz]
The Yankees may want to cue the Zombies' 1968 hit "Time of the Season," just for the chorus:
What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Is he rich like me? [ny times]
A child who was 8 years old back in 1987 is 25 now, and probably in law school or driving a truck, beginning to understand how miraculous were the championship seasons of his youth. But pity today's 8-year-old Twins fans: Crushed and in mourning, experimenting with the power of curse words and questioning the love of the parents who brought them into a world in which mighty multimillionaires beat the home team.[star tribune]
Labels: fuck you people
Johan Santana, no matter how great he is, is just one man … and he's facing a whole lineup of big strong men who hit the ball real far when it is pitched in their general direction.
For all the sturm und drang involving the Yankees this year -- What's wrong with the pitching staff? A-Rod isn't CLUTCH enough! Jason Giambi is wasting away like the guy in RoboCop after he falls in the toxic waste! Derek Jeter broke Mariah's heart! -- Joe Torre's boys did the same thing they do every year: Win, with deceptive ease. This is a team that dealt with a disorienting opening series in Japan, a self-destructing rotation, a withering slugger making $11.5 million (and going up!), a historic Jeter slump and a media horde gobbling up any power pellet and ghost it could dredge up. And yet they still notched their second-highest win total of the last 10 years.
This is a lineup that bats Alex Rodriguez second and got an MVP season from Gary Sheffield. And as much as people worry about the rotation, it still features potential Hall of Famer Mike Mussina, a revived Jon Lieber, a dangerous Kevin Brown and the still-fully functioning embalmed corpse of El Duque, who, if he were cut in half, you would discover by counting his rings is, in fact, 83 years old. And -- how could we forget? -- that bullpen, which, thanks to Tom Gordon's lead-in to the indomitable Mariano Rivera, shortens the game to six innings in the postseason … at least.
Johan Santana was the best pitcher in baseball this year, but he is facing one of the best lineups with an undermanned, intimidated team in the bowels of Yankee Stadium. He'll have to be near-perfect twice just for the Twins to even have a slight hope. These are the Yankees. Try as you might, you can't forget that. They will find a way; these guys aren't missing another shot to demoralize the Red Sox because of the Twins, that's for damn sure.
Labels: yanquis
People come to America for the same reason that A-Rod wanted to join the Yankees: both are well-run organizations with long histories of success. "I felt the allure of the tradition and the opportunity to win," said Rodriguez. People confuse pity with morality, but, as America has been arguing explicitly for several decades, there is nothing amoral about strength if it is used properly. The Yankees have good players, and the Romans made awesome aqueducts. Do you really think it makes you a better person to wish success upon a team with bad management, poor decision making and lesser talent?
... Every team has its creation myth: the Cubs teach the value of loyalty through suffering; the Red Sox, that every day is a new opportunity; the Expos, that for Canada, World's Fairs are exciting as it gets. The Yankees are the only team that teaches the true story of our country — that might mixed with class, talent and hard work often breeds success. Also, that pinstripes have a slimming effect. Except on David Wells.
Labels: yanquis
"I am invited to Old Timers' Day to stand out on that field not because I was a regular player who was an All-Star," Leyritz said by phone yesterday. "I am there because in October I did something special."
This is what I have told Alex Rodriguez during what has been a season-long dialogue about life in the baseball Bronx. Monday night against the Blue Jays in July matters. And then again, it really doesn't matter at all. Rodriguez is the most curious, aware athlete I have encountered in two decades, probably too curious and aware in fact, since he was all too familiar with every slap and slight during what at many times appeared his overburdened, underachieving first season as a Yankee.[ny post]
"They were dead, the place was dead," ESPN's Joe Morgan said. "And then it was alive."
Jeter was next. He had begun the game with the longest home run he has ever hit at the Stadium, one way up into the black in the bottom of the first, after the Twins had gone ahead 1-0. Then they went ahead 3-1. Gary Sheffield tied it with a two-run homer. Then A-Rod went deep. Got that RBI single later. At this point he had five hits in the first two games against the Twins. Should have had one more, thought he had one more in Game1 until Torii Hunter grabbed one off him at the top of the wall in right-center. It should have been his night right there.
Then Tom Gordon and Mo Rivera couldn't hold a 5-3 lead in the eighth and Hunter went deep in the 12th.
Nathan walked Jeter on four pitches.
First and second, one out.
A-Rod at the plate.
This was what he had come to New York for, games like this, a chance to show what he can do when it is all on the line. When he was asked to deliver the way Jeter always had. Rodriguez had lost to the Yankees in the playoffs when he was with the Mariners. Then he had watched Jeter and the rest of them from last place. Now here was one more chance to join the party.
Win a game like this.
Nathan threw him a ball and then a strike and then A-Rod hit one toward the "399 ft." sign, white on blue, in deep left-center. On the way to the monuments. On the way to the other great Yankees. Rodriguez came out of the batter's box as though he thought he had hit another home run, done a Reggie turn to end this one. But the ball stayed in the air a long time. Not as long as that big high moon shot he had hit over the left-field wall to make it 4-3 in the fifth. But long enough that you thought Shannon Stewart could catch it, just because you are conditioned by now to watch.
Stewart didn't catch this one. The ball jumped over the wall or Jeter would have scored easily behind Cairo with the winning run. He had to go back to third. A-Rod stayed at second. It was 6-all. Nathan walked Sheffield intentionally. You could see A-Rod standing there on second base, looking around, the crowd crazy now, knowing the Yankees were about to even the series.
Knowing this was another one of those nights.
Ron Gardenhire brought in J.C. Romero to pitch to Hideki Matsui. Matsui, one of the money Yankees even if he doesn't make A-Rod money, or Jeter money, hit the first pitch he saw from Romero on a line to Jacque Jones in right. The ball got on him so fast and so hot, it seemed to knock him back. He threw to the cutoff man instead of throwing all the way home, as if obsessed with getting rid of the ball.
"I got the ball, I got rid of it," Jones kept saying afterward.
Jeter slid across home plate. Home run into the black to start, a slide in the dirt to end it. Yankees 7, Twins 6. A-Rod had a night. He kept downplaying it afterward. He had his Yankee night. Series even.
Labels: yanquis
Last season, Mussina struck out 10 Red Sox in Game 4 of the A.L.C.S. at Fenway Park. But he lost, 3-2, and his rational side gave in to the result. Mussina stewed in the training room, letting the team bus leave without him.
He walked back to the team hotel with Borzello, replaying excruciating details. "He was just beyond dealing with it," Borzello said.
Three games later, Mussina saved the season. Pitching from the bullpen for the first time in his career, Mussina relieved Clemens in Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, escaping a two-on, no-out jam in the fourth and working two more scoreless innings.
The Yankees' comeback redeemed Mussina, who beamed in the wild postgame celebration. It was the first time, Borzello said, that he had seen Mussina smile that way.
Several Yankees called it the greatest victory of the era, the most satisfying and thrilling. Borzello encouraged Mussina to take it all in, assuring him that not even a World Series championship would compare.
After the flurry of Champagne and shaving cream, souvenir caps and TV lights, the players and coaches scattered. Mussina sat with Borzello by a corner locker, frozen for an hour, savoring the moment until 2:30 a.m. He was the last player to leave the clubhouse. [ny times]
Labels: yanquis
As for Hernandez, whose shoulder has been bugging him for more than a week and who had to muscle up to get his fastball to 88 mph in his three-inning stint Friday night, the plan is for him to play catch tomorrow at Yankee Stadium. If he feels like he can pitch, the Yankees will put him on the roster for the Division Series. If not, there's a chance he'll be left off.
"The question mark is El Duque, although my gut feeling is he'll be all right," Stottlemyre said. "I don't know when the deadline is, but I think he'll be a last-minute decision."
Labels: yanquis
Williams stood in the center of the room, swarmed by
reporters, as Derek Jeter kidded him.
"We got a plane to catch!" Jeter hollered.
Williams giggled, television lights shining in his face, not quite
ready for Toronto. "I'm stuck!" he cried.
It was a rare sight this season: Williams as the center of
attention. [ ny times]
"I really believe I'm part of something bigger than
just me," he was saying, as the celebration continued all around him.
"Playing for the Yankee organization, playing for the history that
comes with it, it's not about the numbers, or records, or anything
like that. It's about winning.
"That's the way I've always felt, and that's the way this team has
always played over the years. That's why we win."
As always, Bernie spoke softly, in this case as softly as anyone could
possibly speak with champagne being sprayed throughout a noisy locker
room. With his classical music training, his quiet manner, he has
never been your typical major leaguer.
In some clubhouses, he may never have been allowed to flourish. As a
young Yankee more than a decade ago he was teased for being too
gentle, to the point of crying. But then the Yankees cleaned house,
made character and team-oriented players a priority, and Bernie fit
perfectly. [ daily news ]
