Posted on 09/17/2004 8:27:59 AM PDT by presidio9
This is the kind of September we are supposed to have with the Yankees and the Red Sox. This is the way it is supposed to be, a series like this at the Stadium this weekend, then another one next weekend at Fenway Park. It wasn't supposed to be as easy as the Red Sox made it look in April. It wasn't supposed to be the kind of knockout punch the Yankees threw at Boston at the end of June, that three-game series when Derek Jeter, in addition to everything else, seemed to have taught himself how to fly.
It wasn't supposed to be the Yankees ahead by 10-1/2 games in August, as giddy as that made everybody around here feel, when the Red Sox were declared dead, and gone, again.
This, tonight at the Stadium, is the way it is supposed to be:
El Duque Hernandez with the ball in the top of the first tonight, trying to kick his leg to the upper deck and duck his head behind his shoulder and throw one of those breaking balls that starts out by Ruppert Place past Johnny Damon of the Red Sox.
Maybe last year isn't as good as the Yankees vs. the Red Sox could ever be. Because after everything that has happened between Game 7 last October and now, the sides are still even.
"A showdown in the Bronx," is the way Damon described this series the other night.
It is all of that.
It is not the kind of all-in, knockout baseball it used to be in the old days, the way it was in September of 1978, when it was the Yankees trying to come from way back in the pack. Barring a total collapse by the Red Sox - and it is hard to see them collapsing after the kind of good, clean hardball they have played lately - you can almost book both teams making the playoffs.
So no matter which of these two teams wins the American League East, it looks as if we will be right where we were a year ago after the regular season, hoping to get both of them through the first round, and into another series with a trip to the World Series on the line. Where it will be all-in, knockout baseball. Where everything could come down to one swing of the bat, the way it did with Aaron Boone, on the night when he finally ended the greatest Yankee-Red Sox season of them all.
But you have to know this: The Yankees don't want to blow the biggest regular-season lead they have ever blown. The Yankees do not want the Red Sox to come back from 10-1/2 behind on the 15th of August to win the AL East, whether they know they've got the safety net of the wild card or not. Because in their minds, they would be carried into October on a stretcher.
For now, we get these six games, starting with the ball in El Duque's hand tonight. Where would the Yankees be without him? Second place, is where. The big fat lead would be gone already. Alex Rodriguez was supposed to be the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox this season. We've got him, Yankee fans crowed. They don't. That was the first time the season was declared over, back in February, when it was announced that the Yankees had made a deal with the Rangers for A-Rod.
Only he has not been the difference. Somehow, even as he has hung up fairly gaudy numbers, even with the richest contract in the history of sports, A-Rod has just been one of the stars on the Yankees this season. Just not the biggest. The Yankees are still ahead because Gary Sheffield has been the kind of batting star A-Rod was supposed to be. And because El Duque, with all his spin and mystery intact at whatever age he really is, remains one of the great big-game Yankee pitchers of them all.
Now he gets the biggest game he has had in a while, at least until he gets to the playoffs.
"[The Red Sox] are still trying to catch us," Derek Jeter said.
Only for about 900 years.
But for now, the two teams are as close as they could be. In the last two seasons, counting the 2003 postseason, the Yankees and Red Sox have played 39 games. Thirty-nine. The Red Sox have won 20 and the Yankees have won 19. All those games, and really only one swing from Boone separating them.
The Red Sox don't go away. They made their run and now the Yankees have won eight of their last 10. There is a great wild-card race in the National League East. But this is something different. This is the Yankees against the Red Sox. The season started with all those games between them in April. Now here we are again, 11 months, exactly, from Aaron Boone.
Curt Schilling is with the Red Sox now, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are gone from the Yankees. Nomar Garciaparra is gone from the Red Sox. The Red Sox tried to cut Manny Ramirez of Washington Heights to get A-Rod and now Ramirez might be MVP. The Yankees got A-Rod. We get the September we wanted. It is the September we always want. Somehow, the sides are still even.
A-Rod was on his way to the base.
WE did not hear if he said anything.
Veritek chased A-Rod all the way, yelling at him.
A-Rod stood up for himself and the team!
I never said Rodriguez was a hero. Someone claimed Veritek was a tough guy and I explained why he wasn't. YOU keep trying to make this into "they're both wrong." It didn't happen that way. If Veritek doesn't throw a punch, no fight happens.
A-Rod was yelling at the pitcher, yelling threats. He admitted that. When Varitek went out, they both began yelling and swearing at each other. A-Rod ADMITS that he said to Varitek "Let's go." Varitek, like an idiot, took him up on it and nailed him in the face with his glove, then A-Rod ripped his mask off and they wrestled. The benches cleared.
I still believe that both men acted wrong. However, had A-Rod just went down to first wihtout all the drama, none of it would have happened.
I expect Pedro and Varitek will be re-signed; Lowe will not. IMO, the key to retaining both of them will be length of contract, not annual salary. I have no doubt that Theo and the trio will pony up the required $$$ : but, will they want to give them each that extra year beyond what is prudent or safe?
As for the Yankees signing Pedro, I don't think they will offer the extra years to him. After all, the Yankees (and their media) have been whispering for years they secretly know he has a torn rotator cuff and is just one pitch away from ending his career. Now all of a sudden they're going to sign him up for five years guaranteed?
If A-Rod had not been making threats at the pitcher, none of the incident would have happened. Period.
Actually, if Pedro hadn't thrown at Rodriguez it wouldn't have happened.
Guy hits me with a baseball, I am certainly entitled to call him an a$$hole.
Unless you are extremely old you have lived a charmed life. :)
If Pedro didn't have a control problem, you mean? I think it was an accident. I don't think the hit was deliberate. (You can usually tell when it's deliberate, and this was Pedro, after all. Not a guy you depend on for precision. If he'd have been trying to hit A-Rod, it would have probably been a perfect strike)
I don't blame him for being angry, but geez. It was an accident. It happens on occasion. If A-Rod can't handle it, maybe he needs to go back to playing little league.
I agree, his glory days are over. However, Pedro is taking the Nomar "low road" of holding out for more money while being offered more than the current market price. I wouldn't put it past George to come out with an offer he can't refuse to lure him to New York...more to piss off the Boston ownership than anything else. A lot of fans still believe we are doomed without him.
Agreed. But making threats?
Pedro does not get the benifit of the doubt anymore. He has a long history of hitting Yankees.
Point taken. However, one should consider that when your sole function in life is to stand still while someone throws 90+ MPH baseballs at you, you might accidently get hit now and again.
"If Veritek doesn't throw a punch, no fight happens."
Red Sox record prior to the punch: 52-44
Red Sox record since the punch: 36-13
If Varitek doesn't throw a punch, Sox don't make the playoffs. As an aside, anyone who thinks Arroyo was throwing at ARod on purpose simply does not know baseball. Look at the replay and it's obvious to see the rotation on a breaking ball that got away. People do not intentionally hit people with off-speed pitches.
However, I don't blame Sheffield for being ticked because Leskanic certainly drilled him. I believe that was intentional.
Why are you having such a tough time understanding the difference between "making threats" and acting on them? Guy hits me with a baseball, you'd better believe I'd make a threat. Rodriguez did not approach the mound.
Praying the rain holds off until after the game, but it doesn't look good.
And liberal baseball fans say this "curse" is due to W being elected, or selected, as they like to say. At any rate, I think most baseball fans would like their team to have a "curse" where they made the playoffs each year, and the World Series twice!
The improved record is about the trades.
And I believe the only reason he didn't approach the mound was because varitek got to him before he worked himself up to.
Personally, I think A-Rod was just waiting for an excuse where he could show the team "See? I'm a real Yankee! I mean it!" (I'm only half-joking LOL)
Of course this is all just conjecture. At teh beginning, Varitek did exactly what he should have done. Let A-Rod go, but when the threats started, he soes out to get between them just in case...
It was the juvenile behaviour on the parts of both men at that point that escalated it...
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