|
| |
|
|
 Calm, cool and collected No matter the situation, Yanks refuse to be rattled
Posted: Wednesday October 21, 1998 02:35 AM
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Composure and confidence have been Yankees trademarks all season, and on Tuesday night those traits surfaced when the club needed them most. Down three runs in the seventh inning, and in jeopardy of letting the San Diego Padres back into the World Series, New York rallied for a 5-4 victory to take a 3-0 lead and move within a victory of its 24th World Series title. Rattled? These Yankees? No chance. Showing the same precision and presence that helped them win 114 games during the regular season and 10 more in the playoffs, the Yankees displayed the grit of champions. "It's a professional team," Game 3 starter David Cone said. "It's the best team in baseball. I'm very proud to be a part of it." The Yankees didn't allow Paul O'Neill's throwing error in the sixth inning to unnerve them. They wouldn't permit Sterling Hitchcock, who slithered out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth, to get redemption against his old team. And with the tying run 90 feet away in the bottom of the ninth, Mariano Rivera finished off the Padres. If there is a bottom line, it's this: The Yankees refused to lose. Everyone contributed. Everyone came through. "This ballclub is going to take MVP votes away from each other," manager Joe Torre said. "It's a great feeling for a manager to know when these guys come to the field, the only thing they're interested in is winning the game. "They don't care who gets the winning hit. They all want to get the game-winning hit, but they don't want to talk about it. It's a very unusual club in my years in the game." The bounces had been going San Diego's way all night. Padres center fielder Steve Finley took away at least two hits with circus catches in the first two innings, including a grab at the wall off Scott Brosius. Hitchcock held the Yankees without a run and essentially without a threat for five innings. In the sixth, Cone began showing the Yankees the path to victory. Cone, called the team's spiritual guide by Torre on Monday, opened the sixth with a single -- his first hit in the Series since 1992 -- and, after a strikeout and two more singles, he was at third and New York had the bases loaded with one out. Bernie Williams and Tino Martinez failed to produce and New York would not only come out of the top of the inning scoreless, but O'Neill's throw to the plate in the bottom half somehow ended up under New York's bench and suddenly it was 3-0 Padres. There was work to be done and Brosius led off the seventh with a homer and, with some help from the Padres, the Yankees were within a run after seven. "I thought the sixth was a real turning point," Cone said. "Sterling did a great job getting out of that jam and I turned around and gave up three runs. But Scotty picked us up. That really gave us a little lift right there." In the eighth, O'Neill and Tino Martinez, who had been a combined 1-for-6 with two strikeouts, drew walks, and with one swing against closer Trevor Hoffman, Brosius turned a one-run deficit into a two-run lead. "We have extreme confidence regardless of what inning it is or where we are in the batting order," Cone said. "When we do fall behind, we don't panic," Martinez said. "We have the feeling that if we just get guys on and put pressure on them, we're going to win." There were some anxious moments in getting the next six outs, but when Rivera blew a fastball by Andy Sheets for the final out, the Yankees calmly celebrated their biggest win to date as if they had just beaten Minnesota in mid-May. They were poised professionals to the very end.
| |||
Copyright © 1999 CNN/SI. A Time Warner Company. Terms under which this service is provided to you.
|
