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True grit Yanks do all they can just to stay alive in Series
Updated: Wednesday October 31, 2001 4:42 AM
NEW YORK -- There's no magic in this World Series, not for the New York Yankees. All the pennants, all those monuments in the outfield. The grainy pictures of the Babe and Mickey and Lou and the sappy soundtrack that goes with them. That's yesterday. Today for the Yankees is scrapping for a run, diving in the dirt. It is trying to stay alive in a World Series where they are half-buried already. Glamour? No. Not even close. This Series is the bags under Joe Torre's eyes, the icebag on Derek Jeter's shoulder. It is Roger Clemens' sore hamstring and Paul O'Neill's busted foot. The 2001 Yankees, going for their fourth consecutive World Series title and having one bear of a time trying to pull it off, are one at-bat Tuesday in Game 3. One delicious, agonizing, seemingly endless, seemingly fruitless at-bat by a rookie: second baseman Alfonso Soriano. "I think throwing those 13 pitches could have been an entire inning," Soriano said through a translator after the Yankees' painful but satisfying 2-1 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks. "That could have had something to do with [starter Brian Anderson ] tiring."
It's easy to get wrapped up in the Yankees, with all those pennants and the money and The Boss and all that. They have the best uniforms, they play in the most storied stadium, they have one of the best cities in the world at their feet. But the Yankees, at least these Yankees, are struggling. They were behind in this World Series 2-0 before Tuesday's game. They came into a stadium on edge, in front of 58,000 fans who snailed their way through maybe the tightest security ever at an American sporting event, in front of a president and a nation trying to return to normalcy. The Yankees came into the game hitting .102. The mystique was shattered. The brazen Diamondbacks, in only their fourth year of existence, had them on the ropes. The score was tied, 1-1, in the bottom of the fourth when Soriano came to the plate against Anderson with runners on first and second with two outs. This was his at-bat. A called strike. Another called strike on the outside corner. And then things got interesting. A fouled-off fastball. A ball outside. Another foul. Anderson shook off his catcher, Damian Miller, then stepped off the mound. He threw again. Soriano swung and popped the ball into the swirling winds above the plate. Miller stepped out to make the catch but got turned around. He lunged, missed, and the ball hit the turf, taking a spin into foul territory. Just another harmless foul ball. And then another. And another. The next pitch sailed low for ball 2. Another foul. Another foul. A pitch outside to bring the count to 3-2. And then Soriano lifted a ball deep to center. Steve Finley ran under it and grabbed it for the final out of the inning. Nothing came of it? Hardly. "I had flashbacks to '99. I had a similar at-bat with Rickey Henderson, but I gave up a basehit to Rickey," Anderson said. "So I was out there thinking 'No way am I giving up a hit here.'" Anderson insisted the number of pitches he threw to Soriano was not a big deal. "You can be tired next week," he said. Still, two innings later, the Yankees fought their way to the winning run, scoring it on a looping single to left field by third baseman Scott Brosius with two outs. "That's probably an at-bat I don't have during the regular season," Soriano said. "It was a close game. I wanted to knock the run in. [Still,] it was a very satisfying at-bat." The Yankees have only scored three runs in the three games of this Series. For the three games, they're hitting only .144. Yet here they sit, back in this thing somehow. They are alive now, more alive than they were Tuesday morning anyway. For right now, that's enough for these Yankees. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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