Are you ready for some BASEBALL!!!!?!?!

XMan

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
12,513
49
91
World Series-winning inning still lives in minds of D-Backs
BY DAN ZEIGER
TRIBUNE

One of the few quiet moments the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks has had since early November happened on a chilly morning two weeks ago.

Bob Brenly was standing in the dugout at Bank One Ballpark, trying his best to re-create in his mind the evening of Nov. 4, 2001. Game 7 of the World Series, bottom of the ninth inning.

?I tried to picture where everybody was at the time,? said Brenly, whose task was a little tough, considering the field was covered with dirt for an upcoming motocross event. ?I got the same chills, same lump in the throat, the same anticipation of something good happening, even though we all know something good did happen. It still felt new.?

However, with a new season on the horizon, Brenly is no longer affording himself such luxuries. On Thursday, Arizona begins preparing to defend its world title when pitchers and catchers report to the team?s spring training facility in Tucson.

?We want to constantly look forward,? Brenly said.

But for fans of the D-Backs, and those who simply love baseball, the urge to look back is almost irresistible.

The indelible Game 7 images have been regularly replayed on Valley VCRs: Arizona dethroned the three-time defending champion New York Yankees with a 3-2 victory, scoring two runs in the ninth against super closer Mariano Rivera.

Luis Gonzalez?s floating single over a drawn-in Yankees infield scored Jay Bell with the championship-winning run and climaxed what is considered perhaps the most emotional, unpredictable World Series ever.

?It was ironic the way things came about,? D-Backs catcher Damian Miller said. ?The Yankees hit home runs to win games, and then we came back to win Game 7. I think it was simply meant to be our series.?

Reflecting on the inning months later, Brenly and many of the players involved say the key to the comeback was a calm confidence that belied the predicament the D-Backs found themselves in. One run down, three outs left against baseball?s most storied franchise and its best relief pitcher.

?Honestly, there was never a point where we felt we didn?t have a chance,? second baseman Craig Counsell said.

Call that confidence the result of a season in which Arizona made a habit of pulling victories out of thin air. Or the result of the D-Backs? success against other elite closers, as they knocked around Trevor Hoffman, Robb Nen and Troy Percival in 2001.

Or, perhaps more than anything else, Arizona?s players sensed that ? in a series that already had two improbable come-from-behind, late-inning wins by New York ? fate would step in one more time.

The victory has often been referred to as destiny beating a dynasty. And some of the D-Backs won?t dispute that.

?I?ve thought about adjectives to describe it, but it always comes back to being surreal,? Brenly said. ?It seemed as if it was happening to somebody else or being controlled by something far greater than our efforts should have produced on the field.

?It was just a feeling like I?ve never had before in sports.?

Certainly, Brenly?s team had lengthy odds to overcome.

Going into Game 7, Rivera was 6-0 with 24 saves and a 0.70 ERA in his postseason career. The right-hander?s ERA (now 0.91) is still the lowest all-time among hurlers with at least 50 innings of work in the playoffs.

Beforehand, one could have said that Arizona?s chances of solving Rivera were as remote as the possibility of rain during a game at BOB. Yet, during the seventh and eighth innings of Game 7, a light shower fell.

?In four years here, I?d never seen anything like that,? outfielder David Dellucci said. ?The wind started whirling, dust was kicking up, trash was flying around. It was almost like a ?High Noon? moment.?

It was through the precipitation in the top of the eighth that Yankees second baseman Alfonso Soriano, a rookie who had the game-winning hit in the 12th inning of Game 5, golfed a low split-finger fastball from Curt Schilling into the left-field seats for a solo home run and a 2-1 lead.

For New York manager Joe Torre, it was a no-brainer: Rivera time. In the bottom of the eighth, Gonzalez struck out swinging, as did Matt Williams. Steve Finley managed a single, but Danny Bautista swung and missed for strike three causing, albeit briefly, a sense of despair among the D-Backs.

?I?m not going to lie,? bench coach Bob Melvin said. ?When they got the home run and Rivera went out there, it wasn?t a great feeling. And then he punched out the side, it was like, ?Oh, God.? But in the ninth, we picked it up again. We had no choice.?

Setting the tone was first baseman Mark Grace, the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth. During the between-innings break, Grace encouraged his teammates to ?Believe! Believe!? then stood next to Dellucci.

?We?re about to show the Yankees that we have some magic of our own,? Dellucci said.

Grace replied, ?Yeah, you bet. I feel something is about to happen.?

To make it happen, the D-Backs had to suddenly figure out Rivera?s one pitch, his cut fastball that breaks in on the hands of left-handers. A late-inning jackhammer on hitters.

But Arizona in 2001 had one of the most experienced teams ever. And it was about to pay off at the most important time.

?Our guys knew that we had to make some kind of adjustment,? Brenly said. ?They put into play all the things they?ve learned in their careers and weren?t afraid to make a change on their final at-bat of the season.?

The D-Backs had seen Rivera in Games 3, 4 and 5 in New York. While that exposure made him no less formidable, it did make him more familiar.

?He bullies left-handers in with that cut fastball,? Grace said. ?You know it?s coming.. . . I think you have to try and cut the swing short and stay up the middle with him. That?s what I tried to do.?

The first veteran to adjust was Grace, who choked up more than usual to get the bat around quicker. He sent the second pitch into center field for a broken-bat single.

?When Grace started that inning off with a base hit, that really rekindled things,? Gonzalez said.

Dellucci was now at first base as a pinch runner. The next batter, Miller, was ordered to sacrifice. ?I remember telling myself to just get it on the ground,? Miller said.

In the dugout, Brenly and Melvin were going over the potential scenarios, among them Miller bunting into a force at second or, even worse, a double play. Then, Brenly took a step to his right, where a bat sat on the ledge of the dugout. He tapped on it.

This, Brenly said, was his plea to the ?baseball gods,? a playoff ritual that turned into a near-obsession by Game 7.

?I was never a superstitious guy as a player or a coach ? never before in my life, really,? Brenly said. ?But as the playoffs progressed, it kind of got to be an inside joke between Bob Melvin and me. His job as a bench coach is to point out when things might not go right.

?I used to kid him about the negative stuff, to think positive. So we?d start knocking on wood.?

At first, Brenly would walk over to the rack and tap on one of the bats. He started doing it so often that he decided to bring lumber near him.

Brenly used one of backup catcher Rod Barajas? bats at first. During the National League Championship Series against Atlanta, he switched to one owned by Counsell, red-hot at the time. In New York, he picked one from Bautista, who batted .583 in the World Series.

?A superstition, that?s all it was,? Brenly said. ?But at that point, with the intensity, stress and anxiety, I talked myself into needing to do that every time I had a negative thought. .

?I probably pounded on that bat a dozen times in (the ninth) inning.?

Whether the result of divine intervention or not, Arizona got a big break on Miller?s bunt. On his throw to second base, Rivera sailed the ball into center field for an error, giving the D-Backs runners on first and second with none out.

?I just didn?t have a good grip on the ball,? Rivera said afterward. ?It was the right throw to make. (Dellucci) wasn?t even halfway to second base. If I make that play, we have a pretty good chance of winning.?

With Arizona able to bunt again, Brenly called Greg Colbrunn back from the on-deck circle and sent Bell in.

The veteran infielder was batting for Randy Johnson, who tossed 1 2/3 innings of relief a night after starting and winning Game 6.

?I?ve gotten a lot of publicity the last few months scoring the winning run in the World Series,? Bell said. ?What has gotten a little overlooked is that I didn?t lay down the greatest bunt earlier in the inning.?

With Bell attempting to bunt to his left, the ball again went to Rivera, who threw to third base to force Dellucci.

?I got to first base thinking I?d potentially screwed up the World Series,? Bell said.

If Bell felt he was on the hook, shortstop Tony Womack took him off it with another veteran adjustment.

On a 2-2 pitch, Womack took a more compact swing than normal, and the result was a double to right. Midre Cummings, who was pinch-running for Miller, scored the tying run, and Bell advanced to third.

Womack said that his shortened stroke was due to a two-strike count, not because of Rivera?s stuff.

?It wasn?t that big of an adjustment,? Womack said. ?My stride isn?t that long to begin with.?

Now, runners were on second and third with one out. With Counsell up, Brenly said he briefly thought of ?something I?m sure the fans will get a kick out of? ? a suicide squeeze, a tactic that went awry in the deciding game of the Division Series.

In the ninth inning against St. Louis, Womack was unable to get a bunt down with Cummings racing home.

Cummings was tagged out, but four pitches later, Womack delivered a series-winning RBI single.

?The idea of a squeeze crossed my mind with Counsell,? Brenly said. ?I can?t say I ever really considered it. Anyway, Rivera hit him with a pitch to take that out of the picture.?

That brought up Gonzalez, he of the 57 regular-season home runs. The man who carried the team?s offensive load all year.

?Everything seemed in slow motion,? Gonzalez said. ?You look around and see fans on their feet, biting their nails and being nervous. You think, ?They?re nervous? I?m the one that has to go out there and get it done.? ? His wrists were aching, thanks in part to getting hit there by Andy Pettitte in Game 2. Gonzalez wasn?t getting the bat through the zone as quickly as he did earlier in the playoffs, Brenly said.

Like Grace and Womack, Gonzalez is a left-handed hitter. And like Grace and Womack, Gonzalez made an adjustment. He choked up on the bat, something he had never done before.

?I know a lot of little-leaguers think that?s a sissy thing to do, choke up,? Dellucci said. ?But in that situation, our big-leaguers did it. They went back to the fundamentals.?
In the visiting clubhouse, Major League Baseball officials had given Fox network cameramen and technicians the go-ahead to start setting up for a postgame trophy presentation.

This isn?t an unusual procedure. During Game 5 of the NLCS at Atlanta, the D-Backs? locker room was readied for a celebration as Arizona was trying to hold a one-run lead in the ninth.

A stage and banner backdrop had been set up in the Yankees? clubhouse before Arizona tied the score. With Gonzalez up, workers watched on TV while standing next to the stage, prepared to take down it and the banner in a hurry if another run scored.

On the field, New York?s infield was in. In the same situation in the 11th inning of Game 5 ? score tied, bases loaded, one out, Rivera on the mound ? the infield was back with Reggie Sanders up. Sanders lined to Soriano for an out, and the Yankees eventually got out of trouble.

?If I hit a dribbler and they?re back, we win,? Gonzalez said. ?If you?re in their dugout, you have to think of a bunch of different scenarios.?

Meanwhile, in the D-Backs? dugout, the lineup changes ? Arizona used two pinch runners and a pinch hitter in the ninth ? had Brenly worried about who would play where defensively if the game went to the 10th.

?My philosophy is always to tie the game and do whatever we need to after that,? Brenly said. ?We were using a lot of players, it seemed, so I was concerned that we might not have enough guys left.?

During the regular season, pitchers such as Brian Anderson and Miguel Batista were, on rare occasion, asked to be prepared to play in the field if Arizona ran out of position players late in a close game.

?Right before Gonzo stepped in, it dawned on me,? Brenly said. ?Do we have all the positions manned by players who can handle them? I turned to Melvin to ask if we have everything covered as the pitch was thrown.?

Gonzalez fisted Rivera?s 0-1 offering into short left field, ending the game and unleashing a delirium never before seen at a sporting event in Arizona.

After stepping on home plate, Bell leaped into the arms of Williams, who was on deck. Bell and Williams, part of the D-Backs since the team?s first game in 1998. The first two to celebrate.

?That was really special,? Bell said. ?We?ve been close the last four years. Our lockers are right next to each other, and we?ve lived and died on each other?s accomplishments and failures.?

Bell now also has a kinship with Counsell, who had been the last man to end a World Series by scoring the winning run in the decisive game. Counsell did it for the Florida Marlins in 1997.

?He came up to me and said he scored the run, an hour or so afterward,? Counsell said. ?I didn?t realize it because of all the craziness. It was neat. We shared some laughs, that?s for sure.?

In the visiting clubhouse, the stage and banner were removed before any players came in. That apparently wasn?t good enough for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who had been uncomfortable with Fox setting up in the first place.

As reporters entered the clubhouse after the game, they caught the end of Steinbrenner?s berating of an MLB official. Soon afterward, Rivera exited the shower and ? like Dennis Eckersley after he gave up Kirk Gibson?s homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series ? answered every question.

?I?m not second-guessing myself,? Rivera said. ?I made good pitches, and they hit them.?

Meanwhile, the celebration continued on Arizona?s side. In many ways, it raged on well into the offseason.

Christmas Eve at Miller?s Wisconsin home featured a tape of Game 7, with family members cheering loudly. Grace watches the highlight video regularly. Womack said that ?whenever my kids want to see it, I?ll watch it, too.? Each time Dellucci visited his dad recently, the tape was in.
?I watch it and still get nervous,? Grace said. ?But the best thing is that it always ends the same way.?
 

webnewland

Golden Member
Apr 21, 2001
1,250
0
0
You bet I am. Hopefully my beloved mariners can roll once again over the revamped rangers and the always dangerous Athletics.
 

Novgrod

Golden Member
Mar 3, 2001
1,142
0
0
Ahh man what a great season.

Too bad my precious Astros will never amount to anything.

Who has predictions for this year?

I say cards will win the NL, Yanks the AL.

Cards win NL central, Giants the West, Mets the East

Yanks, White Sox, Mariners in the AL.
 

zod

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
825
0
0
Lets Go Mets!!

Cedeno - Alfonzo - Alomar - Piazza - Vaughn - Burnitz - Payton/Timo - Ordonez

or possibly..

Cedeno - Alomar - Piazza - Vaughn - Alfonzo - Burnitz - Payton/Timo - Ordonez

either way! No more anemic offense for the metsies!
 

calpha

Golden Member
Mar 7, 2001
1,287
0
0
Yes, I am. I have been a braves fan for life, and still like them (although being owned by AOHell hurts). I dunno if they can ever win again with thier current crew, but I'm interested in seeing Chipper fill in in left. Their pitchers may not be the stuff of legends anymore, but, damn, what an outfield ( at least in the batters box)

Chipper
Andrew (when he's not slumping)
Shef

Jordan can say he got the knife, but it was a no-brainer decision to me.

And btw. Mark Wohlers can rot in hell. If you throw a 100 MPH fastball, you think "Major League" when you're on the mound. If you can hit it you can rename it. Wohlers is the ultimate "Masterbator". Dag gone hanging slider.
 

iamshady

Golden Member
Mar 1, 2001
1,907
0
0


<< If you throw a 100 MPH fastball, you think "Major League" when you're on the mound. If you can hit it you can rename it. Wohlers is the ultimate "Masterbator". Dag gone hanging slider. >>

Hahahahahahahaha :p
 

bigrash

Lifer
Feb 20, 2001
17,653
28
91
Let's Go METS...Let's Go METS...Let's Go METS...Let's Go METS...Let's Go METS:D
 

FrogDog

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2000
4,761
0
0
Well I didn't read your thread body, but OH YES am I ever ready. Braves are going to OWN all of you this year. How can you beat a Shef, A-Jones and C-Jones outfield? You can't! GO BRAVES!
 

b0mbrman

Lifer
Jun 1, 2001
29,471
1
81


<< Well I didn't read your thread body, but OH YES am I ever ready. Braves are going to OWN all of you this year. How can you beat a Shef, A-Jones and C-Jones outfield? You can't! GO BRAVES! >>



Neither did I...damn that's a lot of words
 

pyonir

Lifer
Dec 18, 2001
40,856
311
126
Lets go DBACKS!!!! time to defend!!!!!! can't wait...living in Arizona here we get all the spring training...can't wait!!!! :D
 

Aquaman

Lifer
Dec 17, 1999
25,054
13
0
I like the DBacks but I'm a life long Mariners fan :D

Cheers,
Aquaman <<<<<<< Doesn't live in Seattle but close enough
 

zod

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
825
0
0
Frogdog -

How can you beat a Shef, A-Jones and C-Jones outfield? You can't!

EASY!! With an infield of Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Edgardo Alfonzo, and Mike Piazza!

Let's go Mets!
 

FrogDog

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2000
4,761
0
0


<< Frogdog -

How can you beat a Shef, A-Jones and C-Jones outfield? You can't!

EASY!! With an infield of Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, Edgardo Alfonzo, and Mike Piazza!

Let's go Mets!
>>

Talk to me when you've got a pitching staff. :)
 
Jul 12, 2001
10,142
2
0
queue music-----

Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets
Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets
Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets

Head for the park and greet the mets
Hot Dogs, Green Grass, all out at Shea
Guaranteed to have one heck of a day
Cause the Mets are really rockin that ball
Hittin those Homeruns over the wall

Long Island, New Jersey
Brooklyn, Queens, Uptown and Down

Let's Go Mets, Cause thats the cheer
of the New York town

Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets
Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets
Meet the Mets.. Meet the Mets

LETS GO METS!

 

zod

Senior member
Oct 10, 1999
825
0
0
Frog -

Ok, ok :)

Leiter - Astacio - Estes - Traschel - Chen/D'Amico with Benitez closing ain't bad.

We'll see if Maddux/Glavine ever age. I'm hoping they do this year. Albie Lopez?? No Burkett, Smoltz pitching 65 innings at best instead of 200... we'll see how it all plays out.
 

FrogDog

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2000
4,761
0
0


<< Frog -

Ok, ok :)

Leiter - Astacio - Estes - Traschel - Chen/D'Amico with Benitez closing ain't bad.

We'll see if Maddux/Glavine ever age. I'm hoping they do this year. Albie Lopez?? No Burkett, Smoltz pitching 65 innings at best instead of 200... we'll see how it all plays out.
>>

Yes indeed we will. :)
 

Arschloch

Golden Member
Oct 29, 1999
1,014
0
0
I'm an Athletics fan. Hopefully when they make the playoffs this year, they won't lose to an inferior Yankees team for the 3rd straight year...
 

cjsketchy

Senior member
Jan 23, 2002
401
0
71
Jays fan here, and they're looking pretty pathetic this year... don't think I'll be watching much baseball on TV...
 

Arschloch

Golden Member
Oct 29, 1999
1,014
0
0


<< Jays fan here, and they're looking pretty pathetic this year... don't think I'll be watching much baseball on TV... >>


Hey, JP Ricciardi knows what he's doing... He is making the team young, cheap, and good. I have ultimate faith that the Blue Jays will be very good in a very short amount of time.
 

badluck

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2001
5,357
0
76
Baseball is such a lame sport. Four teams have a chance to win it at the beginning of the year.....Why don't they just contract all of the other teams, play playoff baseball and save everybody their time and money....Who wants to see that?