1999
World Series Game Three October 26, 1996
Atlanta
Braves vs. New York Yankees
By David H. Lippman
My
brother couldn’t use his tickets, so that was the only reason my wife Kathy and
I were there. Kathy wasn’t sure she wanted to go. She had just endured the
14-inning National League Championship Series nightmare at Shea Stadium ended
by Robin Ventura’s “grand slam single” amid pouring rain and vexatious sinuses
and didn’t want to put up with another freezing and rainy night at the
ballpark. But it was likely our only chance to see a real World Series game.
As
usual on both Yankee game night and Manhattan rush hour, the Lexington Avenue
northbound express was jammed, with a hat trick of Yuppies heading home to the
Upper East Side in chic power suits, working-class Latinos and blacks in jeans
and denim, and Yankee fans in pinstriped shirts and dark blue t-shirts with
that interlocking “NY.” It was a cheerier version of the “Last Train from
Barcelona.”
The
game was a critical moment for the visiting Atlanta Braves and the New York
Yankees alike. The Yankees had burned Atlanta in the first two games there, 4-1
and 7-3, and were now leading the World Series 2-0. The Yankees were fighting
to keep up with the endless and implacable demands of their history. Tonight’s
win would give them a commanding lead in the series. More importantly, it would
set a major league record of 10 consecutive World Series wins, a trail dating
back to 1996. It would also be their 100th World Series game win. As Kathy and
I navigated through the crowd outside Yankee Stadium to get the lanyards for
our tickets, I felt as if the ancient stadium and its ghosts seemed to be
staring down at the present team, arms folded in judgment.
Our
seats were in Yankee Stadium’s upper deck in right field, which made the
contestants appear like miniatures in the distance. We could not see the right
field outfield wall below us and would have to rely on replay screens to tell
us what was going on. Game time temperature was a tolerable 57 degrees but
began to fall in the October cold.
Two of
the teams’ titans were facing off: The Braves’ Tommy Glavine, a future 300-game
winner and Hall of Famer, against the Yankees’ Andy Pettitte, a member of the
“Core Four,” whose Number 46 would ultimately be retired and honored in
Monument Park. Both were control pitchers, with superb location. Pettitte’s
signature was his peering down at the batter with the beak of his cap slightly
covering his eyes, to give an aura of menace.
I had
never really learned to appreciate Andy Pettitte. In 1998, he’d had a tough
year. In 1999, he’d had a dreadful first half. But he bore down in the second
half. Only when he left for a three-year sabbatical in Houston did I realize
his toughness. Andy’s later replacements – mediocrities like Javier Vazquez,
Kevin Brown, and Jon Lieber – never showed the essential ferocity the Yankees
needed in the post-season.
But
this chilly evening, it was the Andy Pettitte I did not appreciate, and as I
began filling in the batting orders on the immense World Series scorebook in my
hands, I feared that the Atlanta offense would finally show up and show the
Yankees up.
Before
the game, the usual ceremonies: Challenger the tame bald eagle flew in from the
visitors’ bullpen beyond left field to home plate, taking his time, in a very
neat parabolic arc to his handler at home plate. United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan, wearing an official World Series jacket, threw out the
first pitch, to display New York’s role as an international capital and
baseball as an international game. As a pitcher, he was a great diplomat.
Pettitte
went to work on leadoff hitter Gerald Williams, who lashed a single to right
field. He moved to third on a Bret Boone double. Chipper Jones, universally
loathed by New York baseball fans because he hit Met and Yankee pitching with
equal impunity, dribbled a ground ball to third baseman Scott Brosius. The
normally sure-gloved Brosius intended to throw home to nail Williams at the plate
but could not scoop up the ball on the first try. He had to settle for erasing
Jones at first, and the run scored. So far, Pettitte appeared to be hitting the
inside and outside corners with his tricky stuff with his usual effectiveness.
The
Yankees struck back at Glavine in the first inning when leadoff hitter Chuck
Knoblauch belted a double to right. He moved to third on a sharp Derek Jeter
line out to right and scored when Paul O’Neill smacked a line drive to right
that popped out of Brian Jordan’s glove for an error. A rally was building that
was ended seconds later when Bernie Williams hit another liner, this time
straight at first baseman Brian Hunter, who stepped on first base for the
inning’s final out.
The
score remained tied at 1-1 until the top of the third, but it was clear that
Pettitte did not have his best stuff, putting two runners on in the second
inning, and coughing up a wild pitch. Meanwhile, Glavine, who had missed
starting Game One with a stomach virus, was popping his way through the Yankee
lineup with pinpoint control on his sinking fastball. In my scorecard, I wrote,
“Pettitte is doing his Ron Darling imitation, being tentative…intimidated...
falling behind hitters.”
Pettitte
got into trouble in the third. Second Baseman Bret Boone greeted him with a
double to center and moved to third on a Chipper Jones grounder to short. Right
Fielder Brian Jordan singled Boone home. Center Fielder Andruw Jones singled
Jordan to second, bringing up DH Jose Hernandez, who bashed a double to left
field, scoring both runners. The Braves now led 4-1, with a runner on second
and one out. A line out and fly out ended the rally, but not before Braves fans
near us brandishing elaborate and illuminated Tomahawks did the “Tomahawk chop”
to support their team.
Matters
worsened in the top of the fourth, when Left Fielder Gerald Williams smacked a
one-out triple to center, and Bret Boone bashed another double, this one to
left, scoring Williams. The Braves now led 5-1, the Stadium was a lot quieter,
and I was feeling colder. With a win here and John Smoltz providing another one
tomorrow, the Braves could tie up the Series and go back to Atlanta, no DH, and
a crowd full of “Tomahawk choppers” out for Yankee blood.
After
Boone was caught stealing third, Chipper Jones singled to center, and Yankee
Manager Joe Torre shuffled out to the mound to remove the puzzled Pettitte,
summoning the reliable Jason Grimsley. Torre gave Grimsley his usual simple
brief for these situations: “Hold them here and get yourself a win.”[i] While Torre did
so, Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch, trying to keep warm in the cold, told each
other the same thing.
They were
right. The tide began to turn in the bottom of the sixth. Left fielder Chad
Curtis led off against Glavine, who was still locating his pitches perfectly.
Chad
Curtis had a public reputation as a solid offensive and defensive outfielder.
Like a number of ballplayers, he was openly Christian, giving credit to God for
his successes in postgame interviews. However, he annoyed his less-devout
teammates by constantly trying to aggressively proselytize his narrow brand of
Christianity to them. He pressured team leaders Jeter and David Cone to convert
– both rebuffed him. Curtis threw out the dirty magazines players kept in the
toilets. When Yankee management asked Curtis to keep an eye on Chuck Knoblauch,
fearing that his partying habits were the cause of Chuck’s wild throws, Curtis
took the assignment to an extreme – he would pound on the second baseman’s
hotel room door to make sure he was there. When Curtis played for Cleveland, he
got into a punching match with imposing teammate and former MVP Kevin Mitchell
in the clubhouse, over Mitchell playing a rap song in the clubhouse. Mitchell
threw Curtis over a ping-pong table and Curtis suffered bruises that
necessitated a trip to the 15-day disabled list. When Curtis played in Texas,
he would shut off the “Jerry Springer Show” if it played on the clubhouse TV
before the game.[ii]
Perhaps
most annoying to the Yankee management was that on August 9 of that season, the
Yankees got into a fight with the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field, started by
the usual cause – warning hit batsmen after home runs. The two teams emptied
onto the field, but Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, then still friends, met up,
and pretended to hit each other, laughing and joking. Neither players were
aware that the portly, beloved, and fragile Yankee coach Don Zimmer had been
knocked to the ground and needed help getting on his feet.
Curtis
saw this odd behavior. When the fight ended 15 minutes later, and the Yankees
returned to the dugout, Curtis confronted Jeter, yelling, “You are a good
player, but you don’t know how to play the game.”
Jeter
told Curtis to “get out of my face” several times. The confrontation continued
in the postgame clubhouse, in full view of the media, when Curtis approached
Jeter, and the shortstop, aware of his image and the penalties that could
result for physical violence in such a situation, merely said, “Not now, not
now.”
Curtis
did not listen. With the Yankee beat writers looking on, he tried to explain to
Jeter why he was not playing the right way. He called his actions “a small
piece of mentoring” and believed he was helping the young players understand
the consequences of his on-field behavior.
Privately,
some Yankees agreed with Curtis, including coach Willie Randolph, a walking
paladin of Yankee tradition, but pitcher David Cone noted that if Jeter’s
behavior had been wrong, Curtis had no business chastising the shortstop in
public. Later Curtis apologized, but Jeter would not forget the insult.[iii] Nor would the
Yankees. Tired of Curtis’s irritating behavior, they were making plans to find
him a new home as quickly as possible.
Curtis’s
mere presence in this game was unusual. Yankee Manager Joe Torre had originally
planned to start Ricky Ledee in left field, noting that Curtis was 0-for-13,
lifetime, against Glavine.
Now the
Yankee season fell on this least-wanted member of the team on an increasingly
cold night. With two out in the fifth, he tore a home run into the right field
seats to make the game, 5-2. It was his first post-season home run. An unnerved
Glavine served up a single to catcher Joe Girardi, but a Knoblauch ground ball
back to the box ended the inning.
Jason
Grimsley had done an excellent job all year, posting a 7-2 record, with a 3.60
ERA, in 55 relief appearances. He had not pitched in either playoff series, as
the Yankees had pretty much steamrolled their opposition. Overlooked by the
fans, unsung by the media, he did another excellent job this evening, holding
the ferocious Braves for 2.1 innings, yielding only two hits. Only later would
we learn that his statistics and fine pitching that year were the result of HGH
anabolic steroids, and his name would come up in the famous Mitchell Report.
But as he gave way at the top of the seventh, he was a Yankee hero for the
night, even if he did not get any applause.
Jeff
Nelson, an imposing figure at six feet and eight inches, came on to start the
inning, and he stifled the Braves efficiently. 56,794 fans rose to their feet
between innings to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Kathy and I stretched legs
rendered immobile by seven innings of sitting.
Glavine
was still pitching in the bottom of the seventh with one out, when Tino
Martinez, the Yankee first baseman, came to bat. He had achieved the impossible
in his first season: he had successfully replaced Don Mattingly. Tino’s power
hitting, skilled glovework, and leadership made him a beloved figure in Yankee
Stadium. Now he showed the power ability again, smashing a pitch into the right
field second deck, to cut the Braves’ lead down to 5-3. Yankee fans jeered and
taunted the Braves’ fans, doing their own “Tomahawk Chop.”
Nelson
disposed of the Braves handily in the top of the eighth, and Braves manager
Bobby Cox got his eighth-inning pitcher, Mike Remlinger, and his closer, John
Rocker, ready in the bullpen. Glavine had done his job – seven good innings.
But Glavine’s pitch count was low, and the cerebral Massachusetts native
pitcher assured Cox he felt fine. “He was throwing great,” Cox said later. “He
didn’t want to come out of the game. I asked him if he was tired and he said
no.”[iv]
Girardi
led off the inning and lined a single to left. Next up was Knoblauch, the
accused hard-partier himself, whose defensive abilities had collapsed after a
legendary mental blunder in the 1998 American League Championship Series, where
he had stood challenging an umpire’s call on a bunt attempt while the ball
rolled fair behind him and allowed a critical Cleveland run to score. The
spectacle of Knoblauch shouting at the ump, pointing at first base, chewing his
gum, while failing to reach for the ball and fire it home to easily nail
Enrique Wilson proved the failure of multi-tasking and seemed to have
devastated the second baseman.
Years
later, after his baseball career ended, Knoblauch would admit to using HGH
steroids, but point out that after doing so, he suffered the worst offensive
year of his career. And more shockingly (or perhaps less surprisingly because
of steroids), he would plead guilty to misdemeanor assault, trying to choke his
soon-to-be-ex-wife amidst their ugly divorce. He drew a year’s probation. For
these various incidents, the Minnesota Twins chose not to induct him into their
Hall of Fame, despite him winning Rookie of the Year for them in 1996.
But
this evening, Knoblauch faced Glavine, and ripped a powerful drive that sent
Jordan back to the wall. The ball jumped into Jordan’s glove and back out,
landing in the first row of seats on the first deck. I didn’t see the home
run…the ball disappeared below me. I had no idea Knoblauch had homered until I
saw first base umpire Derryl Cousins wiggle his arm for the home-run signal.
The game was tied, 5-5.
“I was
so happy, I wanted to lift him up and carry (Knoblauch),” Yankee center fielder
Bernie Williams said after the game. “But I realized we still had to win the
game.”[v]
Cox
would be bitter in his post-game analysis, remembering how a major factor in
his 1996 World Series loss to these same Yankees was caused by an umpire
preventing one of his outfielders from reaching a crucial pop fly. Now he saw
Knoblauch’s short home run in the same way. “We basically got beat with the
pop-up,” he said. “It was a Yankee home run. We got beat with a 315-foot home
run. You get a 315-fot fly ball and it’s an out in my book.”[vi]
The
Stadium erupted. All 56,000-odd fans leaped to their feet, stomping and
cheering at the sheer unexpected drama. As Knoblauch ran around the bases, I
could feel the 76-year-old ballpark vibrate beneath me.
Kathy
was less impressed. “Don’t tell me we’re going to be stuck here for 16
innings,” she said.
I was
too busy cheering, but when I was done, I told her, “I hope not.”
That
was all for Glavine. He had done his best, but there was nothing left. Cox
shuffled out to the mound, took the ball, and summoned his closer, John Rocker,
to prevent any further damage.
The
very name “John Rocker” still sends veteran New York baseball fans into anger
and fury. 1999 was the Georgian’s rookie year, and it seemed appropriate that
he pitched for his Atlanta Braves. It also seemed appropriate that he had the
empathy and sensitivity of the generations of Georgians who had preceded him,
like Richard Russell and Eugene Talmadge. He had already irritated New York
with his generic arrogance and impressive pitching.
Now he
would do both in the eighth inning to end the damage, yielding a single to
Derek Jeter, followed by turning a Paul O’Neill bunt into a double play,
followed by a Bernie William fly ball to center.
Nonetheless,
the Yankees were feeling happy, Cone said later.[viii] They were
turning the game over to a young closing pitcher who still had his hair, and
had only just gained his signature entrance music, “Enter Sandman,” by
Metallica. The song was caused by a losing pitcher in the 1998 World Series,
Trevor Hoffmann. When he entered in San Diego, to the sound of “Hell’s Bells,”
Yankee Stadium Operations Director Kirk Randazzo was impressed by both the song
and the reaction among the normally laid-back Southern California fans.
He summoned five employees, not including
Rivera, who “auditioned” six possible selections and chose “Enter Sandman.”
Rivera played no part in the choice, preferring Christian music.
Now the
thumping and steady sound of “Enter Sandman” burst from the Yankee Stadium
speakers, and 54,000 fans leaped to their feet as Rivera jogged in the home
bullpen, head down, intent on his work. This was always my second-favorite
thing at Yankee Stadium. My first is always Old-Timer’s Day.
Rivera’s
appearance was not initially impressive. Boone rapped his fourth hit of the
night, a single to right, to lead off the inning. Gambling on that one run, Cox
sent in Trot Nixon to run for him, and the speedy Nixon proceeded to embarrass
himself on the national stage by being caught stealing second. Rivera disposed
quickly of the next two hitters.
Rocker
matched Rivera’s excellence in the bottom of the ninth with three quick outs,
and Kathy became increasingly irritated at the possibility of enduring another
sea-serpent baseball game, and having to go home at 3 a.m. I hoped such would
not be the case.
Cox
thought the same in the 10th. We were now in the 50th extra-inning game in
World Series history. After Andruw Jones grounded out to second to open the
inning, Cox sent veteran Ozzie Guillen to bat for Hernandez. Rivera was unimpressed
and struck out Guillen. Ryan Klesko punch-hit and singled to right, and Greg
Myers batted for first baseman Brian Hunter, grounding out to Martinez.
Pinch-hitters
Klesko and Myers stayed in the game, at first base and behind the plate
respectively, and Cox, recognizing that he had got two innings out of Rocker,
and needed him tomorrow, summoned Mike Remlinger from the bullpen to face
leadoff hitter and unloved Yankee Chad Curtis.
Curtis’s
plan was small, he said later. To hit the ball up the middle, not do too much
with the pitch, and simply start the inning.
Curtis
fouled off the first pitch and stepped out. In the Yankee clubhouse, pitchers
Jeff Nelson and Jason Grimsley watched the game on television, Nelson’s arm in
an ice pack, Grimsley in the opposite corner.
Curtis
stepped back in to the batter’s box. Remlinger threw a changeup and hit the
ball deep to left field. I watched the ball fly toward the visitors’ bullpen in
left and lost it in the lights, crowd, and distance. However, I saw two things
at once – it was flying in the directly opposite direction that Challenger the
Eagle had taken from the visitors’ pen, but with greater speed. I also saw that
the ball was going to be a game-winning home run, although I couldn’t tell
where it would land.
Nelson
and Grimsley, who had the advantage of the TV view, could – as did the Yankees
in the dugout, and most of all, Curtis himself, watching the drive from the
plate. He flipped his bat and ran around the bases, expressionless. “I don’t
remember anything,”[ix] he said later,
when asked about the ritual trip around the bases to score the run and end the
game. The ball had landed in the visitors’ bullpen. To this day, I have no idea
what happened to it.
He
leaped into a sea of happy teammates at home plate to celebrate the Yankees’
6-5 victory. The Yankees were now one game away from sweeping the Atlanta
Braves and winning their 25th World Championship.
There
was more: it was Torre’s 11th consecutive World Series victory, which broke the
major league record set by his illustrious predecessor, another Joe, Irishman
McCarthy, who won 10 straight World Series games between 1937 and 1941.
Curtis’s game-winning shot was the 11th time a World Series game had ended on a
home run. The last one had been Joe Carter’s legendary 1993 World Championship
blast in 1993. The four Yankee home runs were the most in a World Series game
since the A’s bashed five at the expense of the San Francisco Giants in Game
Three of the 1989 World Series.
And
perhaps most importantly to me, as a man whose family had rooted for the
Yankees since 1912, and had seen all their history, this was the 100th World
Series game the team had won in its long and incredible history.
Beneath
me, the Stadium was vibrating again from cheers and stomping feet. Around me,
fans were roaring in delight, and ridiculing the Atlanta and its irritating
“Tomahawk Chop.” Down on the field, NBC reporter Jim Gray ambushed Curtis for
the usual post-game victory valediction.
Once
again, Curtis failed to rise to the moment. Before Game Two, in Atlanta, a
massive on-field ceremony had honored the “All-Century Team,” which included
controversial hit king Pete Rose. At the ceremony, Gray had asked Rose if this
was an appropriate moment for Rose to address his issues of gambling on
baseball. Rose had refused to answer the questions. Baseball players and fans
were appalled by Gray’s boorish behavior. The Yankee players privately voted to
snub Gray if he tried to interview them.
Facing
Gray and NBC’s cameras, Curtis snarled, “As a team, we kind of decided, because
of what happened with Pete (Rose), we’re not going to talk here on the field.”
With that, Curtis stalked off to accept interviews from other media outlets,
and Gray was left to awkwardly “throw it up” to the main booth.[x] The Yankees were
left to awkwardly explain Curtis’s questionable behavior.
Victory
soon followed. Roger Clemens, finally seeking both a World Series game victory
and a World Championship ring, earned both the following night for the Yankees,
and ran atop the Yankees dugout after the game, high-fiving and shaking hands
with happy fans. Darryl Strawberry broke down in tears at the victory parade in
the Canyon of Heroes.
Disorder
also followed. By December, the night’s hero, Chad Curtis, was traded to the
Texas Rangers for the forgettable pitchers Brandon Knight and Sam Marsonek. A
Yankee official explained the trade by saying, “Chad just couldn’t stay around
any longer because that act gets tired. Once he became comfortable here, he
became a preacher, and it ran its course.”[xi]
Curtis
soon annoyed his new team by being second among American League left fielders
in errors, with five, and telling Jewish teammate Gabe Kapler during stretching
that he would “burn in hell” if Kapler didn’t accept Jesus Christ as his “Lord
and Savior.”[xii] Next year,
Curtis hit a mere .252 and ended his baseball career.
He
began a new one as an athletic director and coach at Christian high schools in
Michigan, eventually at Lakewood High School, a public school. In 2012, he was
charged with six counts of criminally sexually touching four 15- and
16-year-old girls in his schools. Curtis resigned his position, stood trial in
2013, and was convicted.
Facing
Barry County Court Circuit Judge Amy McDowell with the same stone face and
tight crew-cut he wore as a Yankee (only a little grayer), Curtis spoke for an
hour at his sentencing. In his peroration, Curtis blamed the victims for his
plight, saying he had rebuffed their advances, called himself a servant of God and
hoped he could write a book with the victims about the case. Three of his
victims left the courtroom in disgust.
The
prosecutor, Julie Nakfoor Pratt, was astounded by Curtis’s statement at the
sentencing, calling it “the most selfish, self-serving, victim-blaming
statement I’ve heard in my career as a prosecutor. It speaks volumes about his
character, or lack thereof.” [xiii]
The
judge was also unimpressed. She sentenced Curtis to the top of the range, seven
to 15 years in prison. Curtis’s earliest release date is 2020. Meanwhile, his
victims filed suit against him. Three settled and one case went to trial,
winning the victim $1.8 million from Curtis.
Kapler
had a comment, too: “I’m floored that I misjudged the character of a man so
horribly. Perhaps I was blinded with the mantle of righteous moral authority he
always tried to wear and never looked deeper.”[xiv]
Sic transit Gloria mundi.
On the
opposing team, John Rocker also faced disaster. In December, he would grant an
interview to Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman, denouncing New York, the
Number 7 train, and all of its manifold riders, by ethnicity, sexual
preference, and family organization, comparing Queens neighborhoods to Beirut.
Being ignorant, Rocker was unaware that the No. 7 train had that year been
designated one of America’s “National Millennium Trails,” along with 15 other
iconic routes, including those taken by Lewis and Clark, the Underground
Railroad, the Iditarod, and routes created to honor the Civil War, the American
Revolution, and even the Hatfield-McCoy feud. The five miles of the No. 7 train
are known as the “International Express” for the line’s role in redistributing
vast numbers of immigrants to America in general and New York in particular after
it was built, a role it plays to this day.
Rocker’s
interview had the usual impact. New York was enraged, the Commissioner’s Office
was furious, Rocker’s teammates were shocked, and the press questioned his
sanity. Rocker drew a suspension, was required to apologize to his teammates,
and spouted self-serving apologies, claiming he had merely intended to respond
to the abuse New York fans gave him.
In
2000, Rocker grandly announced that he would take the No. 7 train to Shea
Stadium when the Braves came into town. The New York Police Department talked
him out of it. The security measures at Shea were immense, but, oddly, most of
the booing went to former Met Bobby Bonilla, now an Atlanta Brave. Rocker had merely disrespected New York. Bonilla had spent
the final innings of the critical final game of the 1999 NLCS playing cards in
the Met clubhouse with equally lethargic teammate Rickey Henderson. Bonilla had
disrespected his team, his city (and birthplace), and the entire game of
baseball. New Yorkers had no use for all three violations of the code. Perhaps
more annoyingly to Met fans, Bonilla’s contract called for deferred payments on
unique scale – every July 1, from 2011 to 2035, Bonilla is paid $1.19 million,
for his ability to breathe. Compared to that, Rocker was small beer.
Oddly enough, the deal was negotiated by Bonilla’s wife, his
high school sweetheart. In 2009, the pair divorced, and now Madiglia “Millie”
Bonilla pockets most of the $1.19 million in that settlement. There’s irony –
and more reason for New Yorkers to dislike a Bronx native.
But when Pearlman materialized in the Braves’ clubhouse
later that 2000 season, the pitcher exploded and threatened the writer with
physical violence. That, combined with Rocker’s poor pitching, was enough for
Atlanta…they shipped him to Cleveland, and the once-bright star fizzled out
quickly. He did a sorry term with the minor-league Long Island Ducks, insulting
fans who insulted his mediocre pitching, and gave up the game for the
presumably more enjoyable life of writing for conspiracy theory websites.
All
that remained for the future, though. For that one brief moment, shining under
the immensely powerful lights of Yankee Stadium, Chad Curtis was the glittering
hero for the Yankees. The Yankees had set all kinds of victorious records. My
boys stood within inches of yet another World Series. Being a Yankee fan is
harder in some ways than rooting for other teams – you are required to meet
impossible standards and expectations, to maintain and uphold traditions of excellence
set nearly a century ago. You have to measure up to the achievements of players
long-dead, visible only on grainy black-and-white newsreel or harsh color
videotape, and failure to do so means that an entire nation jumps on you for
failing to do so.
The
flip side is that when your boys win, the rest of the country is angrier – you
are expected to win. With all that money, you should win. New Yorkers are seen
as arrogant, omnipotent, and endlessly successful. New York Yankee haters
forget that the Yankees still have to play and win their games under the same
rules as every other team, and New York-haters should try living here. New York
invented stress.
But it
didn’t change the equation for this night. Once again, as Shakespeare wrote,
“We sit on England’s royal throne, purchased with the blood of our enemies.”
And
perhaps most importantly, Kathy was relieved. The game was over. We would get
home at a reasonable hour.
Which
we did.
[i]
New York Times, October 27, 199
[ii]
Sports on Earth, “Sins of the Preacher,” by Greg Hanlon, April 3, 2014 http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/70575174/how-chad-curtis-went-from-hero-to-convict-for-sexual-misconduct
[iii]
The Captain, by Ian O’Connor, Houghton Miflin Harcourt, 2011, pages 161-162
[iv]
New York Times, ibid.
[vi]
New York Times, ibd.
[vii]
New York Times, ibid.
[viii]
New York Times, ibid.
[ix]
New York Times, ibid.
[x]
The Captain, ibid.
[xi]
Sports on Earth, ibid.
[xii]
Fox Sports, “How I was Fooled by Chard Curtis’ Religious Beliefs,” by Gabe
Kapler, April 7, 2014 https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/how-i-was-fooled-by-chad-curtis-religious-beliefs-040714
[xiii]
MLive, “Chad Curtis blames his victims in court speech, offers to write book
with one,” by Barton Deiters, http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/10/chad_curtis_delivers_speech_in.html October 3, 2013
[xiv]
Fox Sports, ibid.
