The NY Yankees suck. This is the first thing you will learn about baseball. You’ll also learn that the designated hitter rule sucks, but that’s a different story for another time.
Your hometown team, the Texas Rangers, would occasionally make it into the playoffs, and every time, it was the Yankees to knock them out. In 1996, 1998, and 1999 the Rangers won the AL West, and in every ALDS, the Rangers lost to the Yankees. We did manage to win one game in the 96 series, but we were swept in 98 and 99. Hence, the Yankees suck.
The Yankees chief rival is the Boston Red Sox, which means if you’re ever not rooting for the Rangers, you should be rooting for the Red Sox via the classic “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” rationale. The drama during Red Sox / Yankees games is always intense.
The Red Sox went several generations without a World Series championship from 1918 to 2004. The legend was that the Red Sox suffered “The Curse of the Bambino” because they never won another World Series after they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees, and the Yankees won approximately LOTS.
In 2003, the Yankees and Red Sox faced each other in the ALCS. At the time, I had fallen out of love with the Texas Rangers due to years of inept management and over-investment in offense and neglect for pitching. By the way, the next thing you’ll learn about baseball after the Yankees and the designated hitter rule both sucking is that pitching wins championships. The Rangers management in the 90s-2000s never learned this. More on that later.
In the void left by my frustrated separation from the Rangers, and also due to the Rangers getting no television coverage in Central Texas at the time, I wound up following the Red Sox as my new adopted team during the 2003 season. Almost every Yankees/Red Sox game was featured on ESPN, and they were all great games to watch. These teams HATED each other. It made for great baseball.
The Red Sox had a great team that year, and I was convinced that they would beat the Yankees and finally break “the curse.” Unfortunately, the season ended in heartbreak. Aaron Boone (or “Aaron F—ing Boone” as he is known to Red Sox fans) hit a walk-off homerun in extra innings during Game 7 of the ALCS, sending the Yankees to the World Series and sending the Red Sox home in heartbreak. As a newly minted Red Sox fan, I suppose this was a fair indoctrination for me.
The next year was a repeat matchup, as the 2004 ALCS featured the Yankees and Red Sox again. This time, the Yankees stormed to a 3-0 lead in the series. At the time, no team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in any major professional sport to ultimately win a playoff series. The Red Sox did it in the 2004 ALCS. I like to think part of the reason the Red Sox were able to win is that your mother and I had started dating during that summer, and your mom and I watched most of that ALCS together. (Side note: First lesson in dating and relationships: avoid potential partners that don’t love baseball.)
I don’t remember every at bat in the bottom of the 9th in Game 4 of the ALCS, but I remember a lot. I can’t remember if it was a walk or a hit, but somehow the Red Sox got a man on 1st. Red Sox Manager Terry Francona substituted Dave Roberts as a pinch-runner. Dave Roberts was basically only on the roster to steal bases. Everyone in the world knew they were going to have Roberts steal second. They threw a few pickoff attempts to first to try to hold him to the bag. And do you know what happened? Dave Roberts stole second on the first pitch. He wound up scoring on a single to tie the game and send it to extra innings. David Ortiz ultimately won the game for the Red Sox in the 12th inning with a walk-off 2-run homerun. The Red Sox never looked back.
Several things to note about the 2004 ALCS Games 4-7:
- David Ortiz was unstoppable. Every time the Red Sox needed a clutch hit, he delivered. He won the ALCS MVP for good reason. I’ve never seen a hitter do so much damage in seemingly back-to-back clutch must-have situations. He was amazing.
- Curt Schilling will never have to buy his own beer in Boston ever again. Curt Schilling pitched Game 6 with a torn ligament in his ankle. Boston’s team doctor’s did some kind of crazy, unprecedented procedure where they basically stitched the torn ligament in place so he could still pitch. By the end of the game, you could see blood seeping through Schilling’s sock. Talk about leaving it all on the field…
- The Yankees CHOKED. They had the series won, took a 1-run lead into the 9th inning with Mariano Rivera, generally considered to be the best closer of all time on the mound, and they lost 4 consecutive games.
You have to understand… No one ever came back from an 0-3 deficit in a best-of-seven series. NO ONE. And certainly not against the Yankees. But the 2004 Red Sox did it. They went on to win the World Series and break “the curse,” and won it again in 2008.
Not long after that, a magical thing happened back in Rangers territory. Nolan Ryan, the best player in the history of the Texas Rangers, wound up buying the team and put in new managememt. They’ve invested more in pitching, and lo and behold, the Rangers have made it to the World Series in back-to-back seasons (2010 and 2011).
We haven’t won it all yet, but do you know who we beat in the 2010 ALCS to make it to our first World Series? The Yankees. Proving, I think, once and for all: the Yankees suck.