Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
After a come-from-behind win in Game 3, there seems to be no stopping the New York Yankees.
Oct 27, 1999 | Through two games there was no way to tell how much this World Series was the story of one great team establishing its greatness, and how much it was about one talented but overmatched team embarrassing itself by showing nothing. Now we all know. The New York Yankees really are that good, or even better than that, and their power to reduce opposing teams into blinking, baffled fools is almost scary.
"I think the ballpark beat me more than anything," Braves starter Tom Glavine said afterward. You almost expected an orderly in white to show up and reprimand him for delusional behavior, then shoot him up with something powerful and soothing.
For the second year in a row, a member of the Yankees supporting cast became the hero. Last year, it was third baseman Scott Brosius who went on to become the Series Most Valuable Player. Tuesday night, left fielder Chad Curtis helped keep the Yankees in the game with a solo shot off Glavine in the fifth, and then jumped right into the jumbled center of Yankee lore with a game-ending homer off reliever Mike Remlinger in the 10th inning.
It was so crazy, so preposterous, so quiet and methodical -- as the Yankees continue to roll, hoping to finish off their sweep of the best-of-seven series Wednesday night and put the Braves out of their misery. "It almost feels like we stole it," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said of the game Tuesday, though he might as well have been talking about the entire series.
Braves manager Bobby Cox could have been gripping his head in pain during his postgame news conference, or mumbing gibberish at the way the game got away from him and the way once again none of his moves seemed to pay off. Instead, he was laughing at the 5-foot-8 Curtis.
"When you saw him introduced tonight, I knew he was a little guy, but I was amazed when he was standing by players how short he is and how powerful that he is, too," he said.
That was the beauty of it. Curtis makes no lists of the most-liked players in the league, or on the Yankees for that matter. But his coming through like this was straight out of a childhood fantasy. Millions of kids have imagined themselves on the field at Yankee Stadium as the World Series hero. Curtis was all of us out there, and it was quite a ride.
"I've never hit a walk-off home run," he said. "I've heard people talk about tingling. I've never felt that before, but I think somewhere between second and third base I felt like there was electricity running through my legs. It was a great feeling. You're rounding third base coming home, seeing all your teammates waiting there for you in a World Series game. It was a big thrill."
As a reward for his moment of glory, Curtis even earned the right to carry the torch for Pete Rose. You could see it coming, but it was still fun: Payback for NBC reporter Jim Gray, the one who ignored the sense of moment and history in the air at Turner Field on Sunday night and badgered Rose with question after question about his gambling.
The Gray controversy has been the best thing to happen to Rose in the 10 years of his suspension, the way people are rallying to his cause. Add the Yankees to the list. Gray walked up to Curtis after the game, mike in hand, and was told that none of the Yankees would be talking to him because of the way he handled the Rose matter.
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