MYSTIQUE and Aura have left the building.
Yankee Stadium was a cold, dark and windy place yesterday. Early in the morning, after the most red-eye of flights imaginable, the Yankees arrived back home from Phoenix, disappointed and depressed, their World Series crown unceremoniously stolen by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“We feel that we stole two games here and they feel like they stole Game 7,” is the way catcher Todd Greene put it.
And now these Yankees know how the rest of the baseball world feels.
On the field of the silent Stadium, the 2001 World Series logos remained, a reminder of the Yankees’ three pulsating wins in this Series. In the clubhouse, several attendants were busy packing boxes. At Derek Jeter’s locker, there was a souvenir 2001 World Series base placed under his chair.
A stolen base, perhaps, to represent a stolen series. Maybe Jeter won’t be able to catch Yogi Berra and his 10 World Championships, after all.
Players were expected to come and clean out their lockers yesterday, but on this day, the media far outnumbered Yankees. At 1 o’clock, Mike Mussina pulled into the parking lot. He got out of his SUV and walked briskly into the player’s entrance, head down past a small group of hardy fans, who were yelling his name.
Mussina kept moving. After the Yankees had made three straight trips down the Canyon of Heroes, Mussina had signed here as a free agent hoping to win his own championship. Turns out, this chilly moment was his one-man parade.
Inside, Mussina meticulously boxed up his belongings, one by one working through his locker with the same focus he uses to work through opposing lineups. Later, as Mussina was getting ready to leave, several reporters approached him to ask if he could talk for a couple minutes.
“What do you want to know?” Mussina said. “The season’s over.”
You got that right, Moose. The plain truth is that these Yankees weren’t good enough to beat the gritty Diamondbacks. And if the A’s had played with the same focus and defensive presence as Arizona, the Yankees wouldn’t have gotten past the first round of the playoffs.
Said one major league scout of the Yankees’ abysmal hitting performance, “I don’t think I have ever seen more bad swings by one team in a World Series.”
David Justice led the way with those terrible swings. The Yankees were outscored in the Series 37-14 as they batted a record low .183 over the seven games. A neon bat such as Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds or Scott Rolen must be acquired to fill the void.
Back outside in the cold, back behind those barricades, one fan, Jimmy from Queens, noted, “The great thing about the Yankees is that you know George will spend the money to get something done. Count on it.”
Considering the immense skills of the Yankee pitchers, it would be a dangerous move by George Steinbrenner not to acquire a big bopper. As it stands now, this lineup really had no central threat. Offered another scout. “The Yankees did not have one batter in the middle of the lineup that you just positively had to stay away from.”
Until they get that kind of hitter, there will be too much pressure on the pitchers to keep up with the Curt Schillings and Randy Johnsons of the world. Oakland’s Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson and Barry Zito aren’t going anywhere either.
Late in the day as dark clouds raced over the Stadium, a wind whipped up the tunnel that leads from the Yankee dugout to the clubhouse. At the top of the tunnel, Steinbrenner had one of his rah-rah, high school football signs put in place years ago.
The sign was cracked as if it had been hit one night with a swing of white-ash frustration. The sign reads:
“There is no substitute for victory.”
Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
After three straight championships, and four in five years, these Yankees might have thought that sign was a bit corny, until that exact moment Sunday night when Luis Gonzalez’ pop fly plopped onto the outfield grass of Bank One Ballpark.
You can be sure that General George is already ordering up the reinforcements.