Daily Archives: October 16, 2008

Joe Maddon has taken a team that was the worst in the majors a year ago and brought them to within one game of the World Series, but with a chance to win that one game tonight, he’s swapped out his best starter in favor of the one who gave up five runs in 4 1/3 innings in Game 2 . . . and it’s the right move. Now that’s mavericky! Of course the Rays may lose tonight, but they might have lost anyway like they did the last time they faced Daisuke Matsuzaka, and now they’re more likely to win Game 6. My preview’s up on SI.com.

And since I’ve got SNL in my LCS, here’s a little something for NL fans.

By Mark Feinsand

Since I started covering the Yankees in 2001, I have witnessed some of the most memorable moments in history at Yankee Stadium. Not just Yankees history or Yankee Stadium history, but baseball history.

The Aaron Boone home run. The Red Sox ALCS comeback. Roger Clemens’ 300th win. Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius hitting dramatic homers in the bottom of the ninth on consecutive nights in the 2001 World Series.

But when I was asked what moment stands out to me from my time as a fan (1978-2000), there was one that jumped to mind immediately.

It was Tuesday, October 17, and the Yankees were trying to close out the Mariners in Game 6 of the ALCS. The Mets had closed out the Cardinals in the ALCS the night before, and a win over Seattle would send the Yanks into the first true Subway Series between the crosstown rivals.

As a kid growing up in New York in the ’80s, I had many more friends that were Mets fans than Yankees fans, since the 1986 Mets captivated the city and seemed to turn most 10-12 year olds into Mets fans. But with a father who grew up in the Bronx, I wasn’t about to be a convert (He did help me become a San Francisco Giants fan, however, having moved to the Bay Area in 1989, but that’s another story). A World Series between the Yankees and Mets would be the most memorable baseball week in my lifetime.

I was at the game with my buddy Matt Sadofsky, his sister, Janna, and their father, Lenny. Sadofsky and I were fraternity brothers at Boston University, and as Yankees fans living in Boston, we had become good friends while fending off the Sox fans that surrounded us.

We watched the ALDS games at a sports bar in 1995 (that was the year of the Baseball Network, so the Red Sox series against the Indians was on local TV, forcing us to spend what little money we had to watch at the Sports Depot) and sped home in about 38 seconds to watch Jim Leyritz hit his homer after the manager told us they were closing up.

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Tommy Tresh died yesterday. Vic Ziegel writes that Tresh was a nice guy, always available to chat with reporters, even if he didn’t have much to offer. I hunted around my Yankee library last night, found some stuff on Tresh, and Ziegel was right, he wasn’t especially interesting. But he was a good Yankee and Ziegel shares his one good Tresh story here.