When the New York Yankees opened up another can of managers last spring and Joe Torre popped out, he implored his many millionaire players to try doing things his way.
Put egos aside, tend to what may seem trivial pursuits, and let’s go to war.
“We like Joe, we respect him, and so we listened,” said Joe Girardi. “We do the little things, the grunt work, and we have a lot of heart.
“Yeah, and there are a lot of older guys here, who might have set ideas. But older guys also realize that there isn’t much time left. Only so many chances to go for the brass ring.”
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The Yankees are close. They beat the Atlanta Braves again Thursday night. Andy Pettitte outdueled John Smoltz 1-0. The Yankees lead the World Series, 3 games to 2, after sweeping through the South. The Yankees have played eight postseason road games–in Texas, Baltimore, here–and won them all.
And we believe. Those of us who underestimated the Yankees earlier in the week will get what we deserve, another weekend in the Bronx Zoo. It should be a riot.
The Braves have other worries besides crowd control. After winning the first two games in New York, the defending champions were being compared with the 1927 Yankees. Now the Braves have their hands full with the 1996 edition.
The Braves would like everybody to know that they still have faith and hope because they still have Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine ready to throw. Smoltz was too Thursday night, and if Marquis Grissom–who never drops a fly ball, according to manager Bobby Cox–didn’t do just that in the fourth inning, maybe it’s still 0-0 on Friday morning.
But the Yankees are winning with a deeper bullpen and a lot more bench. The next pinch hit by the Braves will be their first this entire postseason. They are 0 for October in 20 attempts. The Braves left Fulton County Stadium forever with the tying run on third and the winning run on first in the ninth, one night after they committed the unconscionable act of blowing a six-run lead.
“I had to tell them,” said Cox of the traumatic Game 4, “we didn’t lose the World Series tonight.”
He has 48 hours to write another speech. Or prepare his Braves to execute better.
In the fifth inning, Andruw Jones singled for Atlanta’s first hit. He tried to steal second, but was ambushed by Pettitte, who possesses an exceptional move.
Then in the sixth, Pettitte required assistance with damage control, and the Braves obliged. Smoltz opened with a single, and after Grissom tried to bunt, he singled too.
Mark Lemke, for whom no job is too big or too small, was next up, and the bunt was on. He tapped the ball directly toward Pettitte, the worst place possible, and the left-hander snared it in one motion and gunned his throw to third for the force on Smoltz. If Lemke had bunted anywhere else–like maybe toward third–the runner would have been safe.
Lemke, normally dependable, was the man in the middle when the Braves again crossed wires in the eighth. With two out, Grissom took off from first and had 90 feet stolen. But instead of taking the pitch, Lemke swung and bounced out.
All of this roughly 24 hours after Wade Boggs knocked in the most important run of the Yankees’ dream season by keeping the bat on his shoulder. He wasn’t in the lineup for Game 5, and wasn’t happy. But as Torre was saying back in Florida last March, selflessness is an art.
“I was pulled for a pinch hitter, Paul O’Neill, last night,” Girardi went on. “It hurt, but only for a little while until I realized why Joe did it. He needed a long ball. He didn’t get it from O’Neill, but you know what happened with the guy who took over for me behind the plate, right?”
Jim Leyritz went deep. The Braves are going to New York, New York, where they must win, win, or else.