They were soaking wet, and they were hoarse, and you have to think more than a few of them will wake up this morning and wonder what happened to their lungs. But there they were, the hearty and hardy remnants of 49,922 people who’d endured a hellacious night of weather and a heavenly game of baseball.
And finally, at 1:07 a.m., a ground ball off the bat of Melky Cabrera caused nine kinds of havoc. Maicer Izturis threw it past Erick Aybar at shortstop. Chone Figgins, the third baseman, tried picking it up but that didn’t work so well, either. And around third base came Jerry Hairston Jr., one of the last spare parts on the Yankees bench.
Finally, after five hours and 10 minutes, the Yankees had an exhausting 4-3 victory over the Angels and a hefty 2-0 lead in this American League Championship Series, and it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe anymore that destiny has taken up residence at Yankee Stadium.
PHOTOS: YANKEES BEAT ANGELS IN FIVE-HOUR GAME 2
For a second straight night, the Yankees and the Angels shared top billing with the cold and the chill, an icy wind whipping around Yankee Stadium and, it would seem, right into the psyche of both teams. There wasn’t a preponderance of offensive linemen on the field, put it that way, a minimum of short sleeves and a maximum of ski caps and wind socks.
About the only ones who weren’t bothered by the conditions were the ones who had their hands all over the baseballs, and all over the game. A.J. Burnett and Joe Saunders were superb, the two of them matching zeroes for most of their work nights, scratched only for a couple of runs apiece.
It was the Yankees who seized the early lead, and had the crowd immediately thinking about another sweep, to go nicely alongside the three-game broom job they applied on the Twins. Robinson Cano’s triple scored Nick Swisher in the second inning and Derek Jeter hit the series’ first homer in the third, and the way Burnett was clipping the Angels’ wings for a time it looked like that would hold up just fine, would be more than enough in fact.
But there is a flip side to Burnett. There is an entire generation of digital youth that has no idea what a “flip side” is, that wouldn’t know what to do with a 45 if you gave it to them wrapped in gold. But that’s OK. Because Burnett is the modern personification. On the A side, this is what you get: a sizzling heater, a spine-breaking curve, a puzzling slider, and control so pinpoint you could throw away three-quarts of home plate because Burnett throws to dots, not spots.
The B side is the fifth inning last night.
The B side is an adventurous two-run, 38-pitch at-bat that included a single, a double, a walk, a hit batter and a wild pitch that scored the tying run. The B side made only a brief came of an appearance but it was enough to sabotage everything else, enough to turn what looked to be a pleasant, if frigid, walk to California into a gut-wrenching (and very frigid) test of wills.
It was 11:07 p.m., the top of the ninth inning, when the rain finally arrived, rain that had been expected all day, rain that seemed to be bearing in on Yankee Stadium from Philadelphia then somehow skipped over the Bronx and started to douse Brooklyn and seemed to understand just how badly both teams wanted to earn a resolution so they could fly to where the sun is.
By then it was a battle of bullpens, and Mariano Rivera reminded everyone who has the first advantage in that particular matchup. Rivera had come in with two on and two out in the eighth and he’d thrown exactly one pitch, inducing a weak grounder to second from Erick Aybar. Then he’d needed only 12 more to blitz through the top of the Angels’ order in the ninth, getting both Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter looking.
But the Yankees can’t pitch the great Rivera in every inning of every game. Eventually, he had to give way to Alfredo Aceves. And eventually, the mortals had to decide the game.