Scott Brosius | The Foxx Loves the Yankees

Way Back Wednesday is a feature FanCred does, I’ve mentioned them here before, click the tag to see the post. The theme for today is “Your favorite sports moment at your favorite sports venue”. This picture only partially fits, O.K., not at all since these are from the old Yankee Stadium and I go to the new Stadium. I never liked the old Stadium and yes I know Yankee fans see that as heresy. Deal with it.

These are tickets from last year, the game was rained out and I couldn’t go to the make-up game. I traded them in for this Saturday’s game, Sylvia will be there and it looks to be a fun time. I was smart this time and scanned them before I traded them in.

Elston Howard was the first African American player on the Yankees. He made his debut on April 14, 1955 and played most of his career for the Yankees. In his last year he was traded to the Red Sox but then came back to the Yankees as a coach. His number (32) was retired in 1984. He won the MVP award in 1963, the Babe Ruth award in 1958, has two gold gloves, World Series Champion 4 times and played in 12 All-star games. No I never saw him play, how old do you think I am? I did watch a Yankeeography about him.

November 1, 2001 Scott Brosius hit a home run to tie game 5 of the World Series. It was a great moment, unfortunately the Yankees lost that World Series to the Diamondbacks, making them one of the teams that was able to take advantage of a human moment by Mariano Rivera. I didn’t see Scott Brosius play either, that was during my non-baseball years. I don’t know if there is a Yankeeography about him.

That’s it for my way-back Wednesday.

I was at the gym and looking through the TV channels to find something to watch when I came across a baseball game. I stopped and looked at the Yankees! But they didn’t have a game and they were playing at Yankee Stadium. And who was that pitching? He didn’t look familiar to me, then the announcer said, “El Duque, …. ” HuH? That was when I noticed the logo for “Yankees Classics” on the screen. I was happy to watch the game, in fact I was excited to watch a game from 8 years ago that I knew how it ended, sad and pathetic I know, although technically I didn’t know how this game ended, just how the series ended.

And it wasn’t really ‘my boys’ playing, I mean I recognized the names, Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams but I don’t really know them. Does that make me a ‘fake fan’ like my idiot co-worker says? Maybe it does, maybe I should stop writing this blog, nah …….

Course my man Derek was shortstop and made a fabulous double play, tagging second and throwing the ball to first base where Mark …. no …. Tino tagged the runner out, Jorge was catching, made a beautiful catch of a popup foul ball, throwing his helmet down at the last minute, he looks so cool when he makes those catches, and I saw Andy Pettitte in the dugout along with Joe Torre (boo hiss) sitting with his back against the wall, scowling.

When the Diamondbacks made their second run in the 8th inning I turned off the TV and left, well I kind of had just enough time to shower and change before they closed. So I missed Mariano (enter Sandman).

Below is a brief synopsis I copied from The Baseball Almanac, the link is at the bottom. It is a fantastic website. I love it.

Shutdown by the return of Schilling (on three days’ rest), the defending champions were staring at the possibility of a three-games-to-one deficit in Game 4. With one out, Paul O’Neill shot an opposite-field single in front of left fielder Luis Gonzalez and after Bernie Williams struck out, Tino Martinez hit the first pitch he saw from reliever Byung-Hyun Kim over the wall in right-center field. As the ball cleared the outfield barrier, the hometown crowd of 55,863 erupted as the invigorated Yankees spilled out of the dugout. The stadium that had fallen deadly silent after the Diamondbacks scored two runs (in the eighth) was deafening now and would not stop celebrating until Martinez came out on the deck for a curtain call. Rivera (1-0) cruised through the tenth and improved to 2-0 with five saves and a 0.71 ERA in nine postseason appearances. Derek Jeter completed the cycle in what had evolved into one of the most memorable games of all time by lining a 3-2 pitch over the right-field wall for the game-winner.

2001 World Series Game 4 Line Score / Box Score
2001 World Series Game 4 Capsule
Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	R	H	E
Arizona	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	3	6	0
New York	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	4	7	0
Arizona Pitcher(s)							New York Pitcher(s)
Curt Schilling Byung-Hyun Kim (L, 8^th) – –							Orlando Hernandez Mike Stanton (7^th) Ramiro Mendoza (8^th) Mariano Rivera (W, 10^th)
Arizona Home Runs							New York Home Runs
Mark Grace (4^th) – –							Shane Spencer (3^rd) Tino Martinez (9^th) Derek Jeter (10^th)