Comments on: Misery, Meet Company

By: bags

bags — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:10:22 +0000

and i’ll never forget the hair on the back of my neck standing up when brosius hit the 9th inning home run in game 5. hell, i can feel it now. it really felt like something was controlling the game. effing crazy.

By: Bronx Boy in NC

Bronx Boy in NC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:12:59 +0000

Through the haze of 9/11, dynastic downfalls (paging Mr. Olney) and how awful the 9th inning of 2001 G7 felt, it’s hard to remember how amazing it was to have the Yankees even sniff a title that fall.

I felt while watching that the Yanks were overmatched and not destined to win. All those Byung-Hyun Kim dingers, then Soriano off Schilling… they didn’t feel like the inexorable march of a clearly superior team. More like a string of defibrillator shocks to a man you know will find a way to die.

All after surviving the ALDS by a millimeter (and a flip).

I wasn’t happy to feel that way, so don’t call my partisanship into question. But that’s the way I saw it as it played out.

By: Jon DeRosa

Jon DeRosa — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:30:55 +0000

I understand most New Yorkers cannot evaluate the pain of losing in 2001 without delving into the pain of September 11th. Emotionally wrecked as I was, I mostly kept baseball in a separate place. I wanted the World Series as selfishly as I wanted any other World Series.

By: kenboyer made me cry

kenboyer made me cry — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:12:32 +0000

2001 was disappointing, but in the context of September 11 was uplifting in taking the game 7 to the final inning, and how the team got that far.

I can’t imagine the collective mental health of Red Sox fans after the 1986 loss. Could they ever be world champions again? We know the answer now, but the self-flagellation then must have been brutal.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:11:39 +0000

“…It felt like New York won, even though the Yankees lost.”

That’s exactly right, man.

By: weeping for brunnhilde

weeping for brunnhilde — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:56:15 +0000

“The Rangers jumped out to another two-run lead to start Game Seven, but by this point they should have realized that two-run leads were just making the Cardinals angry. ”

Hahahahah!

Brilliant, Jon. Just brilliant.

By: bags

bags — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:32:08 +0000

that series felt so much bigger than baseball to me, given the context, coming right after september 11. (I still don’t like calling it 9/11.) it sounds so stupid to say that any sort of higher power wanted the yankees to win a baseball game to make a city feel better after such a horrible tragedy. but that’s what a couple of those midnight games felt like.

in some ways it felt like New York won, even though the Yankees lost.

By: Alex Belth

Alex Belth — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:18:24 +0000

Here’s Tom Boswell writing about Game 7 of the 2001 Series:

“When there’s rain, thunder and a windstorm in the desert at night, perhaps even Mother Nature herself is trying to give her opinion of what may be the best, most fascinating World Series ever played.

Surely the thunder was to celebrated the courageous Arizona Diamondbacks, who gave the New York Yankees a conclusive dose of their own excruciating medicine on Sunday night.

…Rivera’s own throwing error–on a simple sacrifice bunt back to the mound (which should have been an easy force at second)–opened the floodgates…If Rivera had gotten that one additional out on his misplayed bunt, the infield would have been playing back, the bloop might have been caught and this game might still be going in extra innings. Is that a certainty? Absolutely not.

But when your heart is broken, as the Yankees’ was Sunday night, there should always be some awful gnawing doubt that defeat might have been escaped.

…Surely, no champion bequeathed its title more grudgingly or with greater honor.”

No champion bequeathed its title more grudgingly or with greater honor. That is the line that helped me in those days and weeks after this loss. Great line and so true. (Three rings in the previous three years didn’t hurt, but all the success in the world doesn’t fully cancel out great pain.)