View from New York
Mike Lupica is one of New York's top sports columnists:
At the end last night, Red Sox fans began to appear from everywhere near the Red Sox dugout, coming from all corners of the Stadium, as if they were coming around from Kenmore Square onto Yawkey Way. They chanted for the Red Sox and sang one of Boston's crazy baseball anthems, "Sweet Caroline." They held up Johnny Damon T-shirts and Red Sox home uniforms and even chanted, real loud, "Who's Your Daddy?" while their team celebrated and sprayed champagne on the field at Yankee Stadium the way the Marlins did last October.
All this money spent, three times more than most teams. And at the end, Torre couldn't buy the one hit he needed. Couldn't get the outs he needed. Did not trust Tom Gordon and Paul Quantrill, who both had pitched a million innings during the regular season. He had to throw a $15 million shot case like Kevin Brown in the biggest game of the year. Brown had nothing. Javier Vazquez, whom the Yankees wanted more than Schilling, had nothing, and the Yankees were never in the game, not for a New York minute. Now Steinbrenner has spent - what? - about three-quarters of a billion since 2000 on teams that couldn't deliver a World Series.
Somehow the Red Sox end up in the World Series, end up better off with Manny Ramirez on their team instead of Alex Rodriguez. Somehow the Red Sox came from 0-3 down and finally beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, which sounded like downtown Boston at the end. Sounded like Fenway Park.
Posted by jackhodgson at October 21, 2004 10:30 AM