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Greatness on display Hall of Fame-bound hurlers were the story of Game 7
The starting pitchers for one of the greatest Game Sevens ever met in a hallway after it was over Sunday night. Roger Clemens wrapped a hug around Curt Schilling and said, "I'm so proud of you." Said Schilling later, "Getting that hug from Roger is one of the highlights of my career. That means so much to me. I told him, 'I hope you don't mind me telling that story about how much you helped me early in my career in Houston.' He said, 'No, not at all. Go ahead and keep telling it.'" Game 7 wasn't just brilliant because of its competitiveness. With Clemens starting and Mariano Rivera finishing for New York and Randy Johnson picking up for Schilling, the game also included four pitching giants of our time. As Arizona first baseman Mark Grace said, "You had the greatest right-handed pitcher of our era [Clemens] and the greatest left-handed pitcher of our era [Johnson] pitching in a Game 7."
Clemens and Johnson are locks for the Hall of Fame. Rivera is definitely on that track. He remains, despite the Game 7 defeat, the greatest postseason reliever in history. Even with those two runs he allowed Sunday, he has the lowest postseason ERA of any pitcher with at least 40 innings: 0.91. That's just a bit better than Sandy Koufax's all-World Series mark of 0.95. The two players who most enhanced their reputations in the series were Johnson and Clemens. Each began this postseason amid questions about their October histories. No more. Johnson's seven-game postseason losing streak seems like ancient history now that he's won three World Series games, including Game 6 and 7 on back-to-back days. He became the first pitcher ever to win a World Series game in relief after winning one the previous day as a starter. To do it at age 38 is all the more remarkable. Then there is Clemens, who has now come within two blown saves of being the starting pitcher for three World Series clinchers (1986, 1999 and 2001). His career World Series record in six starts is 3-0 with a 1.56 ERA while allowing no home runs in 40 1/3 innings. He carried New York to one out in the seventh inning of Game 7 while having to pitch out of the stretch for most of that time. Still, he gave up only one run on a night when Schilling blew through six innings while facing the minimum number of batters. "He was terrific," manager Joe Torre said of Clemens. "He's been our leader on our pitching staff, there's no question. He had two tremendous starts in a row -- the Game 3 we needed to get and [Game 7] to hopefully win it." The Yankees' postgame clubhouse was remarkably calm for a team that had just seen a world championship slip away in a span of 14 pitches. They knew that somehow -- more by will than by ability -- they had come to the ninth inning of the seventh game with a lead and Rivera on the mound. It is a scenario they would take for any game of any season. They lost with their best, and that made defeat easier to swallow. Maybe deep down, too, they knew they had no right stealing a world championship when they batted .183 and scored 14 runs over seven games. The only anger evident in the room was from owner George Steinbrenner, who was seething at FOX people for setting up a post-game platform in the Yankee clubhouse for a championship presentation. Catcher Jorge Posada was emotional and glassy-eyed talking about Rivera. Paul O'Neill, after his last game, was prideful. Scott Brosius, after what was probably his last game as a Yankee, was content with the team's effort. Rivera was absolutely comfortable with himself. "I'm not perfect," he said. "I'm trying to do my best. Unfortunately, it was a big game today. I've got to finish it off and I didn't. I did everything I could. I made my pitches. I'm feeling good." It wasn't the greatest World Series, not even the best among the past 10 -- 1991 remains the best. Games 1 and 6 were blowouts, even to the point of boredom. But it may be a long, long time before we again see three ninth-inning comebacks in the same series. That's how this World Series will be remembered -- the one in which the 27th out proved so hard to get. And it will be remembered, too, for the giants on the mound in Game 7.
World Series Extra InningsThe Yankees never did have good approaches against even the secondary Arizona pitchers, but give Schilling credit for never allowing them to get deep into counts, the way they have in past postseasons. The Yankees had 77 plate appearances against Schilling and worked him to a three-ball count only eight times. He walked only two batters. ... Luis Gonzalez set a record by playing in 179 games this year. He played in all 162 regular season games and all 17 of Arizona's postseason games. His game-winning hit in Game 7 was his 802nd plate appearance overall. Gonzalez's bat, with its wicked crack halfway down its length, will be on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Also on display: Schilling's road hat, inscribed under the brim with "Whatever It Takes." ... Derek Jeter was curt with reporters after Game 7 when asked about his injuries. "Doesn't matter," Jeter said. However, he was clearly hurt before Rivera's throwing error in the ninth, and may have been physically limited when trying to reach for the ball. Jeter was limping badly coming on and off the field and ran with an obvious limp from first base on a foul ball by Chuck Knoblauch in the eighth. He clearly wasn't the same after falling into the stands in Game 5 of the Division Series, but appeared to be hurt much worse in Game 7. ... Can we please eradicate this idea that David Justice is something of a clutch postseason player? Yes, he's hit a couple of big home runs, but his complete disappearance from the World Series (2 for 12, no RBIs, no runs, nine strikeouts, including a record eight in a row) is more in line with his typical October performance. Justice is a career .223 hitter in the postseason over a whopping 107 games. He's a .202 hitter in the World Series. ... The best World Series debut? Well, Alfonso Soriano showed he is an absolutely fearless player destined for great things in this game. But the award goes to the stealth bomber that made a surprise and awesome flyover prior to Game 7. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers the baseball beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.
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