It was with one out that the alternating cheers began, a few thousand voices starting with “We want Philly!” before the majority responded with the old standby, “Let’s go, Yankees!” With two outs, they were both muted by the din of an impending date with the World Series.
And at last, when it was done, when Gary Matthews Jr. swung at strike three and the game was won 5-2 and the American League pennant was wrapped in six games, it all dissolved into a wonderful chorus of joy, an absent melody around these parts for six years.
And over at third base, Alex Rodriguez pounded his fist and drowned in a sea of hugs from his teammates. At last. At long last.
This has been the postseason he’s always believed was inside him, a postseason that properly and perfectly mirrored everything he’s always been throughout his career. He was clutch when he needed to be; three times in seven Yankees wins, those victories were made possible because Rodriguez hit a tying home run in the seventh inning or later.
But he was also more than that. Last night was just as much of an example of how differently he’s approached these playoffs than any he’s played before, because nothing in the box score speaks to a do-it-yourself virtuoso, and all of it speaks to the kind of strategy Rodriguez swore he would stick to this October.
He singled in the first and walked in the third, staying within himself, “passing the baton” in the parlance of Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long, a New Age philosophy that makes all the sense in the world until you are standing at the plate in October, the expectations of the world strapped to your shoulders.
But maybe the quintessential at-bat was the one he put together in the fourth inning. The Yankees had already touched Joe Saunders for a couple of runs and the bases were loaded, the largest crowd in new Yankee Stadium’s history – 50,173 – screeching for a little magic, all but demanding a grand slam. And the way Rodriguez had been going, that wasn’t a terribly odd request.
But so many times in Octobers past, in similar situations, it had been Rodriguez who’d put the most burdensome expectations on his own shoulders. It had been A-Rod who’d tried to hit a ball 600 feet, who’d swung from his heels, who might not have been physically capable of putting together the kind of patient at-bat he did here.
Yes, it was only a bases-loaded walk and not anything requiring a tape measure, and it yielded only a run and not four. But it was an important run, one that looked ever more so a few innings later, when Mariano Rivera uncharacteristically allowed a run in the eighth inning, tightening the game to 3-2.
It was exactly the kind of situation someone to step up and be a hero by not trying to be a hero. If this was 2004 against Boston, or ’05 against these Angels, or ’06 against the Tigers or ’07 against the Indians, you can almost picture what would have happened: bad swing at a bad pitch, followed by a foul off followed by either a strikeout looking or a routine 6-4-3.
You know it. I know it.
And to his credit, at some point this year, A-Rod not only knew it, but vowed to do something about it.
For as long as he has worn a Yankees uniform, A-Rod has had to answer the always-absurd question as to what constitutes a real Yankee. Every day before these games, in fact, the Yankees themselves help to perpetuate the myth because every day they run a grainy old video of Billy Martin explaining what it means to be a “true Yankee.”
“You have to win championships,” Martin lectures from 30 years away.
You know what? The Yankees may well win a championship, may well unseat the defending-champion Phillies, and A-Rod may well keep this October roll going. But they may also lose to the Phillies, a team not inclined to sabotage itself the way the Twins and Angels have, a team equally as accomplished.
And if they don’t, it really shouldn’t matter.
Consider the matter closed. The Yankees needed A-Rod to be more than just a Yankee this October, they needed him to be his all-time great self. And he has been both.