As much as I hate to admit this you have to respect what
David Ortiz has done in his major league career. Sure you have the controversy
of the failed steroid test and the Mitchell Report inclusion that wasn’t an
inclusion because a Boston-area Senator was in charge of the report but if you
can presume that he has been clean since, and every drug test he’s taken has
suggested that he is, then you still have to think he has Hall of Fame numbers.
Numbers, I didn’t say credentials. While his Hall of Fame credentials may
always be up for debate and the fact that he has as many failed tests as Alex
Rodriguez has may be as well you cannot deny the fact that he’s been a
perennial Yankee killer. In fact there have been quite a few during my lifetime
and we will showcase them here this evening in honor, for lack of a better
word, of Ortiz.
Ortiz once had a teammate, speaking of failed steroid tests,
in Manny Ramirez that made up one of the toughest middle-of-the-lineups in my
recent memory. Ramirez faced the Yankees in 203 games and hit a monster 55 home
runs against them with 165 RBI and a .322 batting average. Ramirez killed just
about every team though.
Speaking of Ortiz, Ramirez and the Red Sox there was a trio
of starting pitchers that the Yankees simply could not get to on most nights
consistently. Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey all shut down some of
the greatest offenses of my lifetime starting with Beckett in the 2003 World
Series and ending with Lester and Lackey most recently before being traded away
by the Red Sox.
Speaking of the pitching side of things I can remember Roy
Halladay mowing down Yankees with tons of consistency. It didn’t matter who the
mighty Yankees sent at Halladay in his years with the Toronto Blue Jays the man
they called Doc set them down with ease. I halfway remember skipping games on
purpose that he pitched to save myself the aggravation.
The final pair of teammates to completely torment the
Yankees date back to my early years as a fan. Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar
Martinez absolutely destroyed the New York Yankees. I can remember Tino
Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. trading home runs on a Saturday afternoon in the
Bronx more than once and it always seemed like the Mariners got the better of
the Yankees. It started in 1995 in the ALDS and it went on that way until the
Yankees beat the 116-win Mariners in 2001. Edgar killed Yankees closer Mariano
Rivera at the plate, one of the few that could say that, and Griffey killed
anyone and everyone put in front of him during his prime. All because as a
child he got kicked out of the Yankees clubhouse when his father, Ken Griffey
Sr., was a member of the team. Way to hold a grudge kid!
