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"Never let a woman in a red dress pass you by without talking to her."

As Mike Vaccaro notes in today’s New York Post, life is moving quickly for one David Price.  He’s enjoying moments now that just don’t happen everyday.  Heck, any of us would be lucky if they happened once in a lifetime. 

I watched Game 7 of the 2001 World Serious alone in my apartment with the sound off. When the Yankees lost I heard yelling from somewhere upstairs in my apartment building. Clearly, not everyone in the Bronx rooted for the Yankees. Over the next few days I ran into many Red Sox fans whose season had been made by the Yankee defeat.

The Sox have handled the Yankees over the past five year and Red Sox Nation has turned into their own entitled version of Yankee fans. I’ll cop to it–I really wanted the Sox to lose the ALCS in the worst way. It practically made the season for me, saved us from another winter of Boston lording over the game. Now, I sound like a Sox fan. Funny how these things work.

Meanwhile, both Yankee and Sox fans will have the Rays to contend with for some time. But for now, I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling. I can exhale, digest, and enjoy World Serious and then, the long winter.

By Neil deMause

Of the five hundred or so games I’ve seen at Yankee Stadium, a fair number would probably qualify as “historic”: The Pine Tar Game. The Jeffrey Maier Game. Don Mattingly’s first postseason appearance. Jimmy Leyritz’ game-winning 15th-inning homer in the 1995 ALDS, presaging his more famous game-winning 8th-inning homer in the World Series the following year. Game 6 of the 1996 World Series, which ended with Charlie Hayes’ catch in foul ground and Wade Boggs atop a police horse. Game 4 in 2001, which ended with Derek Jeter’s 10th inning “Mr. November” home run. Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, which ended with my friend David and I watching the final out on the TV in the bleachers concession stand, then turning on our heels and leaving before the Red Sox celebration could begin. No-hitters by Jim Abbott and Dwight Gooden (though I missed Dave Righetti’s July 4 no-no against Boston, along with most of the other 300,000 people who now claim to have been there).

Those, though, are all historic events – they’d be just as famed if they’d happened somewhere else. When I think of my two-plus decades as a Yankee Stadium denizen, I keep coming back to one weekend in 1985, which though historic in its own way, was mostly memorable for other reasons:

FRIDAY: It was the summer before my sophomore year in college, and rumors of a baseball strike were in the air, so I was determined to jam in as many ballgames as possible. The final weekend before the deadline was a four-game series against the White Sox – still then in those hideous horizontal-striped jerseys – so I set out to see them all.

I took my usual seat in Section 39 – the bleachers were general admission in those days, so I’d sit in whatever row was far enough back to give room to stretch out, but close enough to hear what Dave Winfield was saying if he made one of his excursions through the outfield fence gate to chat with fans during a pitching change. The game was instantly a seesaw battle, and went into the 7th inning deadlocked at three apiece.

Andre Robertson, the former phenom whose career was derailed in a car wreck on the West Side Highway, led off with a single, and was pinch-run for by rookie Bobby Meacham. Dale Berra, brought in that year to play for his dad (who lasted all of 16 games), reached on an error, bringing up Rickey Henderson. Henderson lined a ball toward Death Valley – then still a spacious 411 feet from home – and Meacham charged home, pausing only briefly to see if the ball would be caught. Berra, meanwhile, was running head-down, and was only a few steps behind Meacham as they approached home plate.

I had a perfect view of the relay throw from Ozzie Guillen to Carlton Fisk as it arrived, well before Meacham. Fisk grabbed the ball, lunged one way to tag Meacham, then the other way to tag Berra. A stunned, awed silence settled over the stadium.

The Yanks ended up losing in extra innings. It all seemed somehow appropriate for those years.

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Mr. Charles…

Emily and I listened to the last couple of innings of Game Six on Saturday night driving home from a black tie function upstate.  By the time we returned to the Bronx Em made me promise that we were not going to watch Game 7.  So I had movies on Sunday afternoon–first The Pope of Greenwich Village and then Charlie Wilson’s War.  I watched Rourke and Roberts ham their way through the old Village and then made it through the first hour of Charlie Wilson’s War with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and his mustache chewing up the scenery before Em asked how to check the score on-line. 

We turned on the TV.  The Rays were up 2-1 in the sixth, so it was safe to watch.  And we didn’t turn the tube off until past midnight, until the dopey post-game celebration and interviews were finished.  We sat there, our hearts beating, especially during the top of the eighth, into it.  Em complained that her stomach was hurting.  Welcome to Baseball, lady, you asked for it.  Of course, when it was all over, we went to bed heppy kets. Matt Garza was terrific, just that much better than Jon Lester, who was solid once again.

So much for momentum.  So much for experience.  The Future is Now and David Price saved the Rays’ bacon and helped them advance to the World Serious.  The Red Sox defended their championship admirably–the Rays had to beat them.  And that’s just what they did.  Now, all the Red Sox fans littered throughout Manhattan can go home, go back to where they belong—they can go back to Brooklyn.

Joba Chamberlain makes his first boo boo. Glug, Glug.

Over at Why I Like Baseball, Cecilia Tan posts an interview she conducted with Tommy Tresh back in 2004:

Tresh: You know, I grew up with my dad being a major league ball player and because everything was there in front of me all the time, I never paid a whole lot of attention to it, to stats and all that. But I tell you there are a lot of people out there today who do. Playing in these fantasy camps and so on you really run into people who know everything. They know everything about you. Those have really been fun, for the players as well as the people who come. I’ve been doing them for over 20 years now but some of my best friends are people I’ve met through fantasy camps. It’s like every year you have a week’s vacation with your friends. So it’s fantastic. As close friends as I’ve ever had. I’ve got friends of my own background that I might have known longer that I don’t see a week a year. But the thing that makes it all work is that everybody has a love of the game, they have that one thread of common thing, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a fireman from New York or you’re an attorney from Tampa, there are so many different variations of jobs and careers and so on that are all mixed together, and nobody wears that hat during that week, everybody wears a Yankee hat. It just really works well. I really enjoy it.

The Rays were seven outs away from a pennent and now they are one game away from going home.  And they have to go through Jon Lester.  Good Night and Good Luck.  Or something like that.  If Tampa finds a way to win Game 7 it will be a terrific story but they sure are facing an uphill battle.  And I certainly wouldn’t put any money on them, would you?

Happy Friday, Peoples.

And while yer at it, shake it, shake it:

By Jeff Pearlman

My family hated baseball.

That was the worst thing about growing up a sports fan at 24 Emerald Lane in Mahopac, N.Y. My mom could not care less about sports. My dad could not care less about sports. My brother could not care less about sports.

Me? I cared. Boy, did I care. My walls were lined with one poster after another—Rickey Henderson next to Wesley Walker next to George Foster next to Bernard King. My closets were stuffed—stuffed!—with baseball cards, 30 … 40 together, rubber-banded in ways that left Mario Soto and Dan Pasqua positioned in the most awkward of poses. Dozens of baseball caps lined up neatly behind my bed.

But nobody cared.

Then, one day, my dad asked if I had any interest in going to a Yankee game. It was 1985 and Rich Green, one of his employees at Herz Stewart & Co., had an extra ticket. "You guys both love baseball," Dad said. "He wants to take you."

I still remember walking into the stadium that first time. We sat along the third base line, and my posters had come to life. There was Ken Griffey, Sr., his hat tipped high atop the front of his Afro, stretching calves the size of large dogs. There was Henderson, the great base stealer, twitching his fingers into white batting gloves. There was Henry Cotto, uhm, well, yeah. Henry Cotto. The grass was as green as a 7-Up label, Bob Sheppherd’s voice even more God-like then the one I’d heard on TV all those times. My seat was made of a hard blue plastic, and as the innings passed I must have bounced up and down upon it, oh, 500 times. Like Victor Mata, I was just happy to be there.

I’ve been told a game was even played that day. I recall little of it, only that Dave Winfield made an amazing leaping catch into the rightfield stands and that Butch Wynegar started at catcher. Doesn’t matter, though. What sticks with me is the magic of the day; the feeling of walking into a building and knowing love.

True love.

Jeff Pearlman is a writer for ESPN.com.

As I was walking down 50th street last night after work I thought about a friend who recently was in town. He couldn’t stand walking in New York–or at least in midtown where he was staying.  He complained to me about the congestion.  "Why are people stopping to take pictures of a cop on a horse?" 

As a native New Yorker, I take it for granted that as I walk I’m thinking two people ahead, and that slipping in and around clueless pedestrains is second nature to me.

On the subway platform I ran into a guy I used to know in the movie business.  A music editor.  I hadn’t seen him in a long time.  We met in 1988–twenty years ago, fer cryin’ out loud–when I was a messenger and he was the music editor on The Last Temptation of Christ.  He snuck me into a crew screening which was one of the highlights of my summer.  I recall that I was sent on a delivery to 5th avenue and 58th street with twenty minutes to spare before the screening.  I ran from the Brill Building on Broadway and 49th street and back, dodging through the crowds doing my best Barry Sanders, and was a hot, sweaty mess, but I made the screening.  The movie had been scheduled to debut at the New York Film Festival but there was so much commotion over it, they rushed the post-production schedule and it was released in August.  When the screening was over, I remember Michael Powell, the acclaimed British director and husband to Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, a frail man, stood up and remarked on Peter Gabriel’s score.

I mentioned the incident to the music editor last night and he said, "I got in trouble for that."  Which I also remembered.  We smiled about it.  Then talked about how much the business has changed, who has died who is still around.  Then we said goodbye.  But I’ll never forget how exclusive I felt, sitting in that screening, or how this dude went out of his way to do a solid for an eager young kid when he knew he’d get balled out for it. 

The Yankee brass met yesterday and Hank Steinbrenner told the AP:  "The plan as of right now is [Joba] Chamberlain is going to be a starter," the Yankees co-chairman said. "Everybody’s pretty much in agreement with that." (King, NY Post) 

Apparently, Andy Pettitte would like to return.  Perhaps Mike Mussina will be back as well, although I’m less sure about that.  Still, it would be cool to see Chamberlain begin the year in the starting rotation.  That would be nifty.

They won’t die.  The Red Sox just don’t go away.  They are a tough out and as much as I dislike them, I admire that as defending World Champs, they are making it difficult for the young Rays, who kicked away a shot at going to the World Serious last night.  Evan Longoria with an awful play in the eighth  (after making a nice pick) and then Gabe Gross with perhaps the worst pressure throw in recent memory helped the Sox tie the game.  It was a forgone conclusion that the Sox would win it in the ninth.  When Carlos Pena came to bat with runners on first and second and just one out in the top of the inning, Chip Carey said, "Pena’s only hit into two double plays all year…" 

The kiss of death…Thanks, Skip.

Hey, the Rays now have a painful moment they’ve got to live with.  They broke their cherry.

Funny thing is, I still think the Rays will win this series, in six.  As a friend of mine pointed out last night, my belief about momentum vanished after that Albert Pujols dinger off Brad Lidge didn’t secure the series for the Cards a few years back.  I sure wouldn’t be surprised if the Sox took it in seven.  Upset, yes?  Shocked, no.

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.

Mark Lamster has a nifty piece over at YFSF titled Fall Classic:

October is a bittersweet time for baseball fans. A long and sometimess difficult season comes to an end with the excitement (and often disappointment) of the postseason. We hate to see it go, but to be free of our rooting obligations is also a kind of liberation. There’s no greater consolation, whether your team’s been eliminated from play or just taken one on the nose in a tough game, than the splendors of autumn, especially in the northeast.

Check it out.

By Hank Waddles

I have only been to Yankee Stadium three times, but each visit holds a significant spot in my memories. My first visit changed my life. I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and geography told me to root for the Tigers until at the age of seven in the summer of 1977 I convinced my parents to spend one day of our New York City vacation at Yankee Stadium. Catfish Hunter started the game, Chris Chambliss launched a late pinch-hit home run to bring the Yanks from behind, and Sparky Lyle got the win in relief. My strongest memory from that afternoon, though, is of a play that wasn’t made. Graig Nettles lunged into the stands in pursuit of a foul pop-up, and I was confused when the crowd cheered for him even though he hadn’t been able to make the grab. “They’re cheering because he gave it his all,” my mother explained. He gave it his all. To this day, whenever I hear that phrase I think of Graig Nettles.

My third visit was bittersweet. Last month my family and I flew across the country to New York from our home in California so that my children could one day say they had been to the original Yankee Stadium, the place where Ruth and Gehrig, Mantle and DiMaggio, Yogi and Whitey, Reggie and Thurman, Jeter and Rivera had all played. A-Rod homered, Jeter picked up four hits, Mike Mussina coasted to his sixteenth win, and everyone went home happy, but a little sad that we’d never visit again.

Neither of those games, as memorable as they were, measures up to the visit I made in August of 1997. A friend’s wedding brought me to the east coast, and as fate would have it, Don Mattingly Day was scheduled while I was in the area.

Mattingly, for me, was everything, a bright light in a dark time. The previous generation of Yankee fans had Bobby Murcer to guide them through the wilderness, but Mattingly was better; in my teenage mind, he was legendary. I was fourteen years old when he outlasted Dave Winfield for the American League batting title, and I remember tracking each of his hits in a computer program I’d written. (This was long before the instant gratification of the internet, and I couldn’t wait for the stats in the Sunday sports section.) A few years later, just before he was robbed of what should’ve been his second MVP award, I announced to my mom that I would one day name my son after him. (As it happened, I didn’t, but I was wearing a Yankee jersey in the delivery room when my son Henry was born.) Even when I got to college I mirrored Mattingly’s batting stance during IM softball games, crouching low and turning my front toe towards home plate.

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Mmm, Mmm, Good.

I have watched all of the playoff games but it wasn’t until Willie Aybar’s blast last night that I made an audible noise.  I jumped up off the couch and yelled, then crossed the room to high five my wife.  She saw me coming and was scared, so she slipped her hand behind her back like a turtle retreating into its shell.  She didn’t want any part of a stinger.

I watched the game last night with a mixture of glee and dread.  I’ve effectively blocked out most of the details of the 2004 collapse but it won’t ever go away, at least not yet.  And of course, the Indians blew a 3-1 lead against the Sox last season too, so no, I don’t think Boston is out of it.  I won’t believe the Sox are done until they are done.  Dude, I was nervous when they scored their fourth run of the game last night, and when I went over the possible pitching match-ups for Games 5, 6, and 7, I convinced myself that the Rays are in trouble.

Still, that game was a Lu Lu.  And when I wasn’t being nuerotic, I enjoyed every last minute of it. 

Bobby Meacham is just destined to be a hapless figure in Yankee history.

Those of us who remember all too well his misadventures as a player in the Eighties can’t be shocked by the news that Meacham has been fired as the Yankees’ third base coach. Pete Abe has the details–and also links to an item by Mark Feinsand reporting that pitching instructor Rich Monteleone was canned too.

Think Tino Martinez will become a coach? Or maybe perhaps this will mark the return of Lucky Luis Sojo?

By Tyler Kepner

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written and submitted before the end of the regular season…]

My seat in the press box is Row 1, Seat 1. I have sat there for seven seasons as the Yankees’ beat writer for the New York Times. The Star-Ledger is to my right, and the visiting television booth is to my left.

The color analyst sits on the right side of that booth, so I am separated from him by a glass panel. You can’t really talk unless you lean out the front of the box, but you can communicate by signals. Was that pitch a slider or a curve? A changeup or a splitter? You make the universal hand motions for the pitch, and you get your answer.

Most of the analysts wear a World Series ring, it seems. Bert Blyleven of the Twins wears his 1987 ring. (I’ve never seen his ’79 model, from the Pirates.) Rod Allen of the Tigers wears his 1984 ring, Rex Hudler of the Angels wears his 2002 ring, and so on.

When Ron Fairly worked for the Mariners, he wore a 1989 Giants N.L. champs ring, from his days in the booth in San Francisco. I always wondered what happened to the three rings he won as a player with the Dodgers.

The broadcasters have their quirks. Hudler always holds onto a baseball when he calls a game. He calls it his pacifier. Jerry Remy of the Red Sox does every game with a little stuffed “Wally The Green Monster” on the desk in front of him. Nobody keeps more meticulous notes than Blyleven.

Sometimes I’ll look up the broadcasters’ career stats on my laptop, careful to tilt the screen away, in case they catch a glance. I remember learning that Candy Maldonado (he wears a ’92 Blue Jays ring) pinch-hit in the ninth inning of the game that made me happier than any sporting event ever – the final game of the 1983 N.L.C.S., when the Phillies won the pennant. (I was 8. Candy struck out.)

I’ll miss stuff like that when the Yankees move. Maybe I’ll have the seat next to the visiting broadcasters again, but I doubt it. And I doubt I’ll walk down the ramps after night games, instead of taking the elevator.

The ramps from the loge level to the street remind me of how old the place really is – they’re impossibly cramped, with low ceilings, thick black bars on the sides, and what I assume to be the original structural bolts, painted over many times. It’s better to walk the ramps when it’s empty, I suppose, late at night.

I remember covering the Angels in 1998, when a chunk of steel fell into the loge level seats down the left field line before a game at the Stadium that April. You knew then that the place was doomed, but it has stood for one more decade.

Now it has finished with a string of seasons where four million people packed in. The fans should be proud of that. The fortunes of the team rise and fall, but to the end, Yankee Stadium never lost its appeal.

Tyler Kepner is the Yankee beat writer for The New York Times.