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It's never over ... Yankees' winning ways positively otherworldly
Updated: Friday November 02, 2001 10:32 AM
NEW YORK -- The New York Yankees are to a point now beyond explanation. A point beyond analysis. A point waaaaay on the other end of understanding. Two straight nights of pure, unadulterated baseball magic. Back-to-back, backs-against-the-wall comebacks. The impossible becomes second nature. I mean, we knew the Yankees were good. We suspected they might have a little -- what, magic? -- on their side. But who knew they were otherworldly? "It doesn’t matter what the score is. It doesn't matter what the inning is," said Yankees reliever Sterling Hitchcock , who joined the team in mid-season. "It's almost like they set the stage for these kind of dramatics. It's unbelievable." The Yankees, the most storied of all sports franchises, winners of 26 World Series titles including the last three and four of the last five, are outdoing themselves this postseason. Two wins, both including forehead-slapping homers with the Yanks down to their last out, may have proven once and for all that God has a pair of pinstripe pajamas in His closet. "The last two nights," said former Orioles pitcher and now star-struck Yankees starter Mike Mussina, "have been phenomenal." Said skipper Joe Torre : "This is the most incredible couple of games I've ever managed."
The Yankees were two little outs from being the ex-champs. Now they are one win away from their fourth straight World Series title, something few would have figured just two days ago. But because of Tino Martinez and Derek Jeter on Wednesday, and because of Scott Brosius and Alfonso Soriano on Thursday, they have a 3-2 lead on the Arizona Diamondbacks in this best-of-seven Series. And now comes the need for all the magic the Yankees can muster. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling await. For all their Houdini-ism, for all the Sir John Gielgud dramatics they have staged, the Yankees roll into Phoenix for Game 6 and, maybe, Game 7 this weekend with the same problem they had when the Series started last weekend. Schilling and Johnson. Johnson and Schilling. The Yankees still have to beat them. At least one of them, anyway. "Nothing has been easy," said Yankees right fielder Paul O'Neill after the Yankees won Game 5 on Thursday, 3-2, in 12 innings. "I don't see any reason why that's going to change." The three nights of baseball in Yankee Stadium this week were stunning, but about the only thing the fantastic sweep did was keep the Yankees from having to beat Johnson and Schilling in Games 6 and 7. Instead, they first get a crack at Johnson, the big left-hander who stifled the Yanks on three hits in a complete-game shutout in Game 2 last weekend. Failing that, they get a shot at Schilling, who shut them down in Game 1. For sure, the Yankees have won a game that Schilling pitched. They didn't exactly beat him. He left with a lead that poor, poor Byung-Hyun Kim blew in Game 4. Kim, to add a fair dose of tragedy to the Yankees' award-winning postseason drama this season, blew Game 5, too, allowing a two-out, two-run homer to Brosius in the bottom of the ninth. "We're going to have the two most dominating power pitchers in the league, in our house," said Arizona's Game 5 starter, Miguel Batista, who pitched a marvelous game only to have Kim … well, it's just too sad to repeat. "I like the chances, at least." The Yankees have given us something this postseason that never has been done before. No team ever has won two games in the same World Series when trailing by two runs after the eighth inning. Quite possibly, no team ever has been as clutch as these Yankees. "We never give up. I say it time and time again, and I know it sounds old," said shortstop Derek Jeter, who won Game 4 with a two-out solo home run in the bottom of the 10th. "But it's never over until it's over." Saturday, if the Yankees can get to Johnson, it will be over. Failing that, if they can get to Schilling on Sunday, it will be over. It won't be easy. Not in Arizona. Not against Johnson or, if they have to, against Schilling. But who is going to bet against them? The Yankees have something special on their side. 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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