Daily Archives: June 25, 2003

AS GOOD AS IT GETS

One of the greatest joys of being a baseball fan is that every season brings something new and exciting. How many times do you say, “Wow, I’ve never seen that before,” or “That was the best _____ I’ve ever seen?” Well, it usually happens several times each year. A few weeks ago my cousin told me that D. Erstad made a catch against the Mets—I missed it—that was clearly “the greatest catch I’ve ever seen.” And just this week, Rob Neyer made the following observation:

I’ve watched it a dozen times, frame by frame, just to make sure. And after those dozen times, I remain confident that I’ve never seen a pitch quite like the curveball with which Mike MacDougal struck out Albert Pujols on Sunday in the bottom of the ninth.

And you can’t beat that with a stickball bat.

HAPPY BOITDAY REDUX

I guess George will have to stifle it for at least one more day. The birthday surprises didn’t end with Marlon Anderson last night, as Juan Rivera did him one better by tying the game with a three-run job of his own in the ninth. And Mr. Maligned, Todd Zeile came through with the game-winning hit to boot. Ah, me of little faith. A reader wrote in a suggested that I might want to root against the Yankees more often.

Larry Mehnken (Replacement Level Yankees Blog) hit the nail on the head:

An individual game can be both great and awful; full of excitement and joy, but at the same time frustration and forboding. For the poor teams, the former is what matters, but for a team like the Yankees, that is trying to win a pennant, it is the latter. Tonight, the Yankees won, and they won in exciting fashion, but the win was due more to the quality of their opponent, not their play. They did all they could to lose, and had it not been for the ineptness of Tampa Bay’s pitching staff, they likely would have.