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ON BASEBALL; Failure to Win in '97 Left Mark on Yankees
The New York Times ^ | October 25, 2001 | Murray Chass

Posted on 04/18/2020 2:51:47 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff

For most players and teams, the baseball season ends basically at the end of September. Play 162 games and go home. The Yankees' season, however, is like a run-on sentence; it just keeps going.

The Yankees, of course, like it that way. George Steinbrenner pays them well enough to cover the overtime, and if they win 11 games in October (and, for this year only, maybe November), they are champions.

They reached the requisite number each of the past three years and four years in the past five. It was that odd year when they fell short of 11 victories that irked them; 1997 was not a very good year.

''That was the first year since I was about 12 years old that I didn't watch the rest of the playoffs,'' Paul O'Neill recalled yesterday. ''Didn't even watch the games. It just made me sick to my stomach, because I knew we were going back again and we didn't. As I look back, that was probably the most depressing time I've ever had as a baseball player. It was just frustrating.''

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Sports
KEYWORDS: baseball; flashback; jeter; yankees

1 posted on 04/18/2020 2:51:47 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
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To: GuavaCheesePuff

You must be having some serious withdrawal symptoms.


2 posted on 04/18/2020 2:55:12 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: GuavaCheesePuff

Yanks had a great dynasty in the late 90s and early 2000s in spite of this loss in the 1997 playoffs. It’s a cliche but you can’t win them all. Playoff series can be a crap shoot.


3 posted on 04/18/2020 2:58:24 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Dilbert San Diego

For George, it was not enough.

George pays the players to win, if they don’t win, it’s ERUPTION in Tampa.


4 posted on 04/18/2020 2:59:41 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff (I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee-Old Yankee Stadium (1923-2008))
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To: GuavaCheesePuff

How do you think the Indians felt?!


5 posted on 04/18/2020 3:00:13 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: aquila48

It is good to remember and look back at sports and entertainment galore.


6 posted on 04/18/2020 3:00:46 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff (I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee-Old Yankee Stadium (1923-2008))
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To: GuavaCheesePuff
This was my great baseball moment. I was just 13 years old and watching on a crappy TV in my bedroom just a few miles from Fenway. I could almost hear the crowd from my bedroom window.

1975 World Series

7 posted on 04/18/2020 3:09:25 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: Dilbert San Diego
Yanks had a great dynasty in the late 90s and early 2000s in spite of this loss in the 1997 playoffs.

From 1996 through 2003 they went to the World Series six times and won it four times. That was quite a run.

8 posted on 04/18/2020 3:11:48 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego
It’s a cliche but you can’t win them all. Playoff series can be a crap shoot.

Indeed. Some unknown journeyman comes out of nowhere to slay a giant and promptly returns to obscurity. Alomar does not fit that description- a family with a great baseball pedigree (the Indians would go on to to beat the Orioles and his brother Roberto in the ALCS that year). But that homer against Rivera was probably the biggest hit of his career.

Reminds my of 1988, when the Dodgers were down two games to one against the Mets late in Game 4. Gooden on the mound and Mike Scioscia hits a two-run shot to tie it and the Dodgers win game 4 in extra innings, come back the next day to win Game 5, and eventually win Game 7 to win the series and go on to beat Oakland in the World Series. The last World Series the Dodgers gave won btw.

9 posted on 04/18/2020 3:17:04 PM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: GuavaCheesePuff

When the Phillies played the Yanks in 2009,it sickened me when A-ROID and carpetbagging fraud Damon ripped our hearts out.


10 posted on 04/18/2020 3:39:00 PM PDT by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: Rummyfan
Reminds my of 1988, when the Dodgers were down two games to one against the Mets late in Game 4.

Orel Hershiser IV was phenomenal in that series.
11 posted on 04/18/2020 3:59:02 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics)
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