Daily Archives: October 11, 2006

When the Yankees lost the 2001 World Series to the Diamondbacks there was a silver-lining to the defeat–it saved the life of utility infielder, Enrique Wilson. Had the Yankees won the Serious, Wilson would have been on the flight headed for the Dominican Republic that tragically crashed in Queens. From Buster Olney’s ‘The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty’ on the Belle Harbor crash:

The victory parade that would have taken the Yankees up New York City’s Canyon of Heroes for the fifth time in six years was canceled, so Enrique Wilson, the team’s utility infielder, decided to change his flight home. He was supposed to return to the Dominican Republic on Nov. 12, eight days after the end of the World Series, but moved up his departure a few days. He was at home when he heard that American Airlines Flight 587 – the plane he was supposed to be on – had crashed in Belle Harbor, a neighborhood in Queens. Two hundred and sixty-five people were killed in an accident that shook a city still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

When Wilson saw Mariano Rivera in spring training the next year, the reliever expressed great relief that Wilson was still alive. If Rivera had held the lead against Arizona, Wilson would likely have been on Flight 587. “I am glad we lost the World Series,” Rivera told Wilson, “because it means that I still have a friend.” For Rivera, this was further confirmation that they were all subject to God’s will.”
(thanks to joejoejoe for providing the excerpt)

Had the Yankees managed to beat the Tigers last weekend in the ALDS, Corey Lidle would still be alive. These are just some of the thoughts that ran through my mind tonight during an intermidable commute home from Manhattan to the Bronx. I could not concentrate on reading, I did not not want to listen to music. I wished I had someone I could talk to, and I looked around for anyone wearing a Yankee cap but found nobody. I was left to my thoughts and felt very alone. When I got off the subway on 231st street, I ran for the BX 7 bus in a driving rain and just missed the damn thing. I did not have an umbrella and so I waited for more than twenty minutes in the rain, the hollow pit in my stomach now climbing up to my chest, which became tighter by the moment. A crowd of people formed but hardly anybody spoke.

It’s so interesting to see how death affects people. Before I left work this evening, there was already a good dose of gallow’s humor floating around. “I bet A Rod is to blame for this,” said one co-worker, obviously joking. Another walked past my desk and said something about how Steinbrenner always manages to steal the Mets’ thunder. I shot him a dirty look and said, “Wow, that’s messed up.” He registered my reaction and said defensively, “If you can’t laugh at life, what have you got?” Rage shot through me. What kind of insensitive jerk, I thought. Then I remembered something callous a family member said to me about the Twin Towers on the afternoon of 9.11 and was reminded that in a time of death or existential crisis there is no “right” or “proper” way to act. Some people will instinctively use humor to avoid the pain of the situation. They may say things that strike others are completely inappropriate. Really, it’s unfair to judge anyone’s reactions in these moments.

As I stared into space on the subway, I wondered why I was feeling so empty, so sad. I’ve never had any special affection for Lidle, a mouthy pitcher who seemed to have burned his fair share of bridges in different clubhouses across the big leagues. Nevertheless, he was a familiar face. Though I didn’t know him personally, we all watched him on TV, lending the illusion of intimacy. This summer, I saw Lidle in the Yankee clubhouse on several occasions, walked up the runway to the dugout right behind him on one occasion, in fact.

I was sitting in the middle of the Yankee dugout, staking out a prime seat for Joe Torre’s pre-game press conference, one late Sunday morning in August when Lidle walked past me, down to the far end of the bench, to conduct a TV interview. A middle-aged woman interviewed him, and a young camera operator with a baseball cap turned backwards, stood next to her. Lidle, an altogether average-looking man, wore a Yankee cap and a warm-up suit and held a bottle of water in his right hand as he sat on the bench and looked into the camera. The smell of freshly-cut grass permeated the air, and though the Yankees would not take batting practice on this morning (it had rained the night before), the grounds grew were busy attending to the field as the organist played a medley of pop tunes–first “Sonny,” then “I’ve got you Under My Skin,” and then “I Feel Fine.” I overheard the woman asking Lidle about being a Yankee and him saying, “One month exact.” Had he seen any Broadway shows since he’d been in town? No, he had not. “I understand you are a big poker guy,” she said, hoping to engage him. Lidle had a blank look on his face and answered her questions in a bland manner, as if he was on automatic pilot. He told her about a Texas Hold ‘Em celebrity event he hosted in the off-season. Eric Chavez, Scott Erickson, and David Wells were just some of his friends who had shown up.

The interview did not last long. After Lidle walked away, the interviewer looked disappointed. She asked her cameraman, “Did he sound O.K.? He wasn’t very talkative.”

“He could just be tired like the rest of us,” he said.

The cameraman began packing up his equipment as the organist transitioned into “I Can See Cleary.”

The first time I remember seeing my father cry when I was a boy was the day after Thurman Munson died. When they had a ceremony for Munson at Yankee Stadium, my father sat in his chair in the living room and sobbed. I was nine at the time and just couldn’t understand why he was so upset. After all, he didn’t even like the Yankees. He explained to me that sometimes it is sad when a person dies, no matter who they are, even if they did play for the Yankees. When I got older, I understood what he was telling me. But it wasn’t until my trip home on a chilly, wet, October night, that I really felt what he meant.

A small plane crashed into a high rise building on 72nd street on the east side on Manhattan this afternoon. According to reports, the plane not only belonged to Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle, but he was apparently on board and killed as well. Lidle’s passport has been recovered. There may have been another Yankee on the plane too but this is not official. (My first thought is that Lidle played high school ball with Jason Giambi.) Intial reaction here in my office brought back memories of 9.11. For Yankee fans, this tragedy also brings back thoughts of Thurman Munson who was killed in a plane crash in the summer of 1979. It is foggy, almost a bluish gray, in mid-town Manhattan and it is raining as night falls. This is absolutely stunning, terrible news.

Update

5:30 p.m. The Mayor is giving a press conference. He has not released any names. Bloomberg said that the two people on the plane were the instructor and a student with about 75 hours of flying experience. According to the Mayor, the plane was small and flimsy and that it pretty much burned-up. The crash does not seem to have caused major damage to the building. Apparently the plane took off from Teterborough airport in New Jersey, circled around the Statue of Liberty a few times and then headed up the East River. Radar lost contact with it around the 59th Street Bridge. They still do not know why it turned toward Manhattan Island at 72nd street.

Last month, Tyler Kepner wrote an article about Lidle’s interest in flying for the New York Times:

He earned his pilot’s license last off-season and bought a four-seat airplane for $187,000. It is a Cirrus SR20, built in 2002, with fewer than 400 hours in the air.

A player-pilot is still a sensitive topic for the Yankees, whose captain, Thurman Munson, was killed in the crash of a plane he was flying in 1979. Lidle, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30, said his plane was safe.

“The whole plane has a parachute on it,” Lidle said. “Ninety-nine percent of pilots that go up never have engine failure, and the 1 percent that do usually land it. But if you’re up in the air and something goes wrong, you pull that parachute, and the whole plane goes down slowly.”

Tyler Stanger, Lidle’s flight instructor told Kepner:

“He was probably my best student,” Stanger said in a telephone interview. “He learned very, very quickly, and a lot of it is desire. He had huge desire.

“Really, anyone can learn how to fly. If you can drive a bus, you can fly an airplane. But to learn quickly takes money and time. Of course, Cory had plenty of money, and it was the off-season, so he had the time.”

…”On the mound, he has to hold in all the emotions and keep completely focused. It’s the same thing flying: If you’re in an emergency, you can’t waste any time worrying. You have to take command of the situation. A lot of people I fly with don’t have that mentality. Cory does.”

Chilling.

“You never complain about pressure because you understand it goes with what you do,” Torre said yesterday at a news conference at Yankee Stadium. “With the danger of failing is the elation of winning. You can’t get elated unless there’s a danger.”

Joe Torre was sharply dressed yesterday as he addressed the media at Yankee Stadium. His wife, Ali, was with him. After talking to several people about the situation, and then reading the papers this morning, it occurs to me that Torre needs the job as Yankee manager as much as they need him. Perhaps even more so. With two ex-wives, four kids, and more than a few houses to maintain, Torre was simply not going to walk away from $7 million. But it is more than that, of course. Torre will be paid handsomely (if not quite as handsomely) as a TV analyst and a regular on the lecture circut when he finally hangs up the spikes, but he’ll never have the prestige and glamour that he currently enjoys as the manager of the Yankees.

That is a lot to give up and Torre is obviously willing to allow himself to be left hung-out-to-dry for several days by the owner as the local media speculated wildly about his future. In the past he has put-up with being second-guessed by his owner, and allowed Steinbrenner to trash his coaches, stuff Buck Showalter would not put up with (you can see Lou Piniella telling George to take-this-job-and-shove-it if he had been in the same situation as Torre was this week). Of course, the Boss at 76 is different from the man who ran the team by fear and intimidation in the 70s and 80s, and Torre has achieved far more success than any manager George had before him. Still, I can’t help but feel how much the job matters to Torre, and am struck by how much he’ll deal with in order to keep the position.

The other thing that struck me was the following passage from Tyler Kepner’s coverage today in the Times:

“The interesting part is, when you say it’s been six years, if I’m not mistaken, it was 18 years when I got here,” Torre said. “And then in ’98, it was: ‘Hey, it’s been two years since you won. What happened?’ There’s a lot of luck involved.

“I don’t want you to think I’m backing off any accountability. I’m in charge here, it’s my responsibility to make sure we get the job done, and we didn’t get the job done. But there’s a lot of luck.”

For all the talk of the character and guts and will that the ’96-’01 Yankees had when compared with the ’02-’06 teams, some observers believe that the critical difference between the two is nothing more than pure luck. And here is Torre saying as much himself. He should know. Torre’s monumentally bad luck for most of his career as a player and as a manager has been well-documented. Then he enjoyed one of the most improbable runs of luck, good fortune, whatever you want to call it, that any manager in baseball has ever been blessed with (certainly in the free agent era). Now, he returns to the hot seat once again, hoping to roll a lucky seven one more time before the ride is finally over.