Okay, the Rockies beat the Yankees, 4-2 on Friday. Okay, the Yankees pounded the Rockies 8-3 on Saturday. More on that, later. What I've just seen on TV is a true portrait of why I am a Yankees fan. The New York Yankees today are celebrating the 65th Annual Yankees Old-Timers' Day celebration and game at the new Yankee Stadium. The introductions of each and every Old-Timer brought with them a resume of their accomplishments while wearing the Yankee pinstripes. Oh, what memories. Four of the six living Yankee Hall-Of-Famers are there: Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra, Edward Charles (Whitey) Ford, Reginald Martinez (Reggie) Jackson and Colorado's own Richard Michael (Goose) Gossage. Missing are Wade Boggs and Dave Winfield.
No other professional sports team treats their legacy as seriously and celebrates their history as well as do the New York Yankees. And they have a lot to celebrate. Forty times, the American League Champion and twenty-seven times, the World Series Champions. Listening to the litany of records and milestones of my favorite Yankee ballplayers brought tears to my eyes as I remembered back to the days of ditching class to watch daytime World Series games, sneaking the old Sylvania transistor radio hidden in the hollowed-out hard-bound Moby Dick into fourth grade to listen to the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox in the 1959 World Series, four games to two. The big news that year, was that the Yankees were not in the fall classic. I was born in 1950. The Yankees were in the World Series in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964, when that version of the Yankee Dynasty ended. It wouldn't be until the 1976 season, that the Yankees would return as the American League Champions to the World Series, where they were swept in four games by The Big Red Machine, the Johnny Bench-led Cincinnati Reds. The Bronx Bombers returned in 1977 and 1978 to win the Series both years against Tommy Lasorda's Los Angeles Dodgers. The Yankees missed the 1979 pennant when the George Brett Kansas City Royals finally prevailed three games to none in the American League Championship Series. The Yankees had prevailed over the Royals in both 1977 and 1978 ALCS, so the breakthrough 1979 appearance in the World Series was sweet for the KC franchise. The Yankees made it back to the series in 1981, getting swept by the Lasorda-led Dodgers where Ron Cey, Steve Yeager and Pedro Guerrero shared the World Series MVP Award. It wouldn't be until 1996 that the New York Yankees would make their next appearance in the Fall Classic.
Until the 1969 season, the World Series was played by the winners of the National League pennant and the American League champions. In 1969, each league split into two divisions, Western and Eastern. The top teams in each division then played a best-of-five series to determine the League Champions and berths in the Fall Classic. In 1985, the League Championship Series were changed to a best-of-seven format. In 1993, the Major Leagues expanded, again, to include the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins. It was then, that league officials and team owners decided to split each league into three divisions each and introduce a "wild card" team, the best second-place division finisher, for the 1994 season. Except, oops, the 1994 Major League baseball season was interrupted by a strike, and there were no playoffs, World Series or any games, for that matter, played after August 11. At the time of the strike, the division leaders were the Yankees (AL East), Chicago White Sox (AL Central), Texas Rangers (AL West), Montreal Expos (NL East), Cincinnati Reds (NL Central) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (NL West). The Felipe Alou-managed Expos were running away with the NL, sporting a 74-40 record, when the strike ended everything. For the record, the Rockies were 53-64, in third place in the NL West, 6.5 games behind the Dodgers, and 3 games behind the Giants, but 6 games ahead of the last place Padres. Arizona did not enter the league until 1998.
After the strike was settled, the regular 1995 season was resumed on April 25, and the teams played a shortened 144-game regular season. 1995 was also the inaugural year for fabulous Coors Field in lower downtown Denver (LoDo). The Rockies drew 4,483,350 fans to the ballpark at Mile High Stadium in their initial season, a record for season attendance that will probably never be equalled. At the time of the 1994 baseball strike, the Rockies, as I previously mentioned, were in third place in the NL West, but had drawn 3,281,511 paid attendance in their first 57 home games and were on pace to shatter the 1993 attendance mark. That means that the Colorado Rockies were averaging a mind-boggling 56,267 fans for every game that they played in Denver. In their initial year at Coors Field, abbreviated as it was, the Rockies led the Major Leagues in attendance again, with paid attendance of 3,390,037 for an average of over 47,000 fans per every home game. Then, to top it off, the Blake Street Bombers qualified for the very first National League Wild Card playoff spot, by one game over the Houston Astros. The Rocks were dispatched by the Atlanta Braves in the playoffs 3 games to 1 in the first ever National League Division Series. I'll never forgive manager Don Baylor for making so many needless moves in the first game, that he ended up with pitcher Lance Painter pinch-hitting in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, two outs and behind by one run. Of course Painter struck out, but Baylor had burned Ellis Burks, Vinny Castilla, John VanderWal, Joe Girardi, Trinidad Hubbard and Jason Bates earlier in the game. I was screaming from the left-field pavilion that Baylor should be awarded the Over-Manager Of The Year Award for his boneheaded strategies. I think that the Rockies should have won this game and would have given the Braves a run for the right to play for the National League pennant against the Cincinnati Reds, whom the Braves swept in the NLCS. Oh, and the Braves beat the Cleveland Indians 4 games to 2 in the World Series. Just dreamin'.
Aw, the memories that baseball invokes. The third game of the Yankee-Rockie series is starting, so I won't review the first two games. Reminiscing about baseball is as good as it gets, and the Yankees' history and tradition is matched by no other organization in sports. Hate 'em if you must, you cannot find a better sporting franchise in history, so F-you Red Sox nation, how many effin' rings you got??? Oh, seven, one for every functioning brain cell in the average Red Sox fan's dome.
Go Rockies, beat the Yankees, while the Pirates sweep the Red Sux...................later.
No comments:
Post a Comment