“HUDSON’S YARD” and “THE RUBBER MATCH”
#718/#717
718. NEW YORK YANKEES VS OAKLAND A’S
AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES
GAME TWO
OCTOBER 11, 2001
YANKEE STADIUM
QUALITY OF PLAY—6.93
DRAMA—6.68
STAR POWER—7.84
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.95
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—7.12
LOCAL IMPACT—8.05
TOTAL: 44.57
“HUDSON’S YARD”
“Go shopping” was the insipid advice coming from the White House after the terrorist attacks of September 11 paralyzed the nation with fear. New York City, the primary focus of the carnage, was of course the nation’s great shopping Mecca, although by 2001 the focus was turning away from the large department stores that once defined the City—Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Barney’s, Gimbels, Alexander and Strauss in Brooklyn—towards downtown boutiques and chain outlets, robbing New York of a communal experience that helped define it.
Regardless, no one felt much like shopping.
But baseball was a different story. The National Pastime was a communal experience that defined NYC as well, and it was going very strong in the autumn of 2001. The Yankees were three-time defending champs and winners of four of five titles, and after 9/11 it seemed everyone was suddenly a Yankees fan (a cap displaying the interlocked NY of the team’s logo with “FD/PD” on either side was the hot fashion accoutrement of the moment). The ’01 Yankees weren’t the best team that year—indeed, Seattle had broken their American League single-season victory record set in 1998 by winning 116 games, tied for the most ever with the 1906 Cubs. But the Yanks had karma on their side, not to mention knowing exactly what it took to win in October.
Their opponent in the AL Division Series, Oakland, couldn’t claim that. They were a young and hungry team, led by exceptional starting pitching and the 2000 AL MVP, first baseman Jason Giambi, as well as an analytics-based front office that received plaudits that far outstripped any on-field accomplishments Oakland achieved. GM Billy Beane’s “shit didn’t work” in a five-game series, where anything could happen—“Russian roulette,” according to Yanks manager Joe Torre.
What happened was Oakland surprised the Yankees 5-3 in Game One in the Bronx. That set up Game Two, held on a beautiful Thursday night, October 11, 2001, at Yankee Stadium. It was exactly one month after 9/11, and the game was delayed until after a primetime address by President George W. Bush about the ongoing “War on Terror” (Is that one over, by the way? Did I miss VT Day?).
An enormous crowd of 56,864 filled the storied building at 161st and River, including a local orange-hued clown who pushed his way into seats right behind home plate, so the television cameras were on him interminably. Naturally, it didn’t stay for the entirety of the game. Mayor Rudy Giuliani was there too, at the time basking in the glow of his calm poise on 9/11 and not yet a colossal joke for his slavish tongue bathing of the aforementioned reality TV star. At least “America’s Mayor” stayed for the entire nine innings.
A far more interesting and gifted celebrity, one Sir Paul McCartney, was also in the house. In the fourth inning, just as the scoreboard flashed to a grinning McCartney, a scoreless duel between starters Tim Hudson and Andy Pettitte was broken up by Ron Gant, who homered off Pettitte to make it 1-0, Oakland.
Every Yankees fan was beseeching their team to Don’t Let Me Down, but alas, Hudson was no Fool on the Hill. Now 26, having won 49 games in his first three seasons and fully realizing the excellence that would make him a high quality starter over a 17-year career, Hudson combined a darting, diving four-seam fastball with pinpoint control and a veteran approach. He was 165 pounds soaking wet, and had struggled somewhat down the stretch, leading Yankee scouts to believe he was vulnerable. But New York managed just six hits, all singles, off him. The Yanks had two on and two out in the sixth, but Paul O’Neill, in his last go-around in the Bronx, flew out to end the threat.
The game was so important to Torre that he brought in hammerlock closer Mariano Rivera to pitch the ninth while still losing 1-0. But future Yankee Johnny Damon tripled, and came in on an error by one-time playoff hero Scott Brosius, allowing an insurance run to score. Jason Isringhausen, one-time Mets Uber-prospect turned A’s closer, put the first two Yanks he faced aboard in a tense ninth inning. “Isringhausen appeared unnerved, stalking around the mound a bit, cocking his head in disgust,” wrote Buster Olney in the Times. But Izzy came back to strike out Jorge Posada, then get Brosius and David Justice to pop out, and the game was over.
Oakland won 2-0, and went up 2-0 in the best of five. It would take a very heavy lift for the Yanks to continue their quest for another title. But they were still alive, according to Derek Jeter.
“Any time you've done something in the past, you know you can do it again,” Jeter said.
AFTERMATH:
Some said the Yankees channeled the unbreakable spirit of NYC after 9/11 by storming back from the 0-2 hole, winning three in a row, including two in Oakland. Metaphor or not, it was a thrilling rally. The memorable moment in the three-game stretch was of course the “Jeter Flip,” when the shortstop tracked down a wayward throw from right field and shoveled it to Posada to nail Jeremy Giambi at the plate, preserving a 1-0 victory that tilted the series. New York went on to win Game Five at home, then stomp out the 116-win Mariners in five games before at last falling in the World Series to Arizona.
Jason Giambi signed a large contract with the Yankees after the season, which seemed to add insult to injury and cripple the impoverished A’s. Nevertheless, the 2002 A’s won the AL West again, apparently thanks less to their starting pitching and MVP Miguel Tejada than to the inimitable genius of Jonah Hill.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“The Yankees have flashed their four rings, and the A’s looked away. The Yankees showed them their monuments, and the youthful A’s disregarded them. The Yankees don’t look storied now, they just look old.”
—Jon Heyman, Newsday
FURTHER READING:
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty by Buster Olney
VIDEO:
717. BARNEY ROSS VS JIMMY MCLARNIN
WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT
MAY 28, 1935
POLO GROUNDS
QUALITY OF PLAY—8.04
DRAMA—7.76
STAR POWER—7.74
CONTEMPORARY IMPORT—7.55
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE—6.26
LOCAL IMPACT—7.23
TOTAL: 44.58
“THE RUBBER MATCH”
We’ve covered the ins and outs of the classic welterweight battles between Italian battler Tony Canzoneri, the hard-punching Irish-Canadian Jimmy “Babyface” McLarnin, and Jewish slugger Barney Ross before. The troika of fighters brought glamour and ethnic pride to the sport of boxing during the painful days of the Great Depression, not to mention a plethora of memorable brawls.
Ross, the speedy miller with the enormous will, beat Canzoneri twice before taking on McLarnin, whom as you will remember built a reputation for defeating Jewish fighters. Their first fight, held at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in 1934, was when Ross outfought the “Jew Beater” to take the title. They went at it again at the same venue that September, and true to form for the “Graveyard of Champions,” the title belt changed hands again, with McLarnin taking a split-decision of his own to regain the welterweight championship. The first fight had been close; this second was highly controversial. Almost all the sportswriters at ringside thought Ross had won. The fact that both judges and the referee were Irishmen wasn’t lost on Barney’s supporters. A joke immediately began to circulate—“Didja hear the one about the Jew and the four Irishmen?”
Needless to say, there would have to be a rubber match to decide this this outstanding series. It was held on an unseasonably warm and humid Monday night, May 28, 1935, exactly one year to the day from their first fight. This time, huge public interest forced the fight to be moved from Long Island City, the sight of the MSG Bowl, to Manhattan and the Polo Grounds, where 45,000 fans packed the stadium (no fewer than one thousand police officers were on duty to keep things civil) for Ross-McLarnin III. Among the throng were a Bronx Bomber and the Brown Bomber—Yankees legend Lou Gehrig and an up-and-coming fighter out of Detroit named Joe Louis., who made his first-ever appearance in an NYC ring upon being introduced to the crowd.
Another heavyweight legend was in the ring, on official business. The referee for the match was the Manassa Mauler himself, Jack Dempsey, a mainstay of this countdown.
The MSG Bowl curse wouldn’t be a factor, but the welterweight jinx would remain in effect—the previous eleven champs in the division had lost their first title defense. McLarnin did all he could to avoid becoming the twelfth. As Henry McLemore of United Press wrote, “Babyface threw every punch he had, executed every wile he learned in years and years of fighting the best of them…
“But it wasn’t enough.”
Ross was also the lightweight champ, but he gave it up in order to take on McLarnin and end this trilogy. The extra speed showed, as the Jewish fighter was noticeably the first to the punch on most occasions. In the sixth he injured his hand bouncing a left hook off Babyface’s noggin, but kept right on slugging away.
Despite the torrid conditions, the pace was incredible. “In the most desperate fight between little men the sport has seen in many a year, the fighting was so fierce and so close that much of the time the two men were head-to-head,” wrote Damon Runyon in the New York American. With Ross clearly ahead, McLarnin spent the fifteenth going all-out for the knockout blow. Ross, true to his nature, refused to back away and play it safe, and so they traded haymakers at the center of the ring. At the bell, McLarnin sought to influence the judges by twirling a cartwheel back to his corner. Ross, the “Pride of the Ghetto,” just stood with his head draped in a towel, awaiting a judgment that surely was favorable.
It was. Ross won a unanimous decision. Virtually all the sportswriters on hand agreed with the verdict; McLarnin had been game, even resolute, but Ross was simply better. But when the decision was announced, the crowd booed heavily. Whether distance, partisan rooting, or poor handicapping was at the root of this mistaken impression, the crowd was incorrect.
Perhaps they were simply disappointed at the lack of damage. As Runyon wrote, “They are both superb craftsmen, both dead game, both thoroughly honest performers. But they do not knock each other down or knock each other out, and so only the discerning few appreciate their skill, for what the pugilistic proletariat wants, if anybody drives up and asks you, is plenty of blood and thunder inside those ropes, and not mere art.”
Jimmy’s manager, Pop Foster, declared his boy was done with the fight game, and indeed, Babyface was undone at losing his title. Reported the Times, “McLarnin took his defeat to heart and was a crest-fallen fighter when he reached his quarters. He sagged down on a bench and tears came to his eyes as his handlers took charge.”
Ross, by contrast, stood in the ring and smiled as thousands of flashbulbs popped all around him. It was the capstone moment in an incredible, if mostly forgotten, sporting life.
AFTERMATH:
Ross and McLarnin became fast friends after their battles, even as their lives took far different turns. As we’ve seen in previous entries on the list, Jimmy retired to Hollywood, where he became tight with a circle of celebrity golf buddies, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart. He lived very well until his death in 2004 at age 96.
Ross, by contrast, saw his fortunes change when he volunteered for the Marines and was badly wounded at Guadalcanal. He survived, but in his recovery turned to heroin, and became addicted. A long struggle proved victorious when he got clean, but the battle took a lot out of him, and Barney died of throat cancer in 1967 at just 57 years of age.
WHAT THEY SAID:
“Ross has won permanent possession of McLarnin.”
—Jimmy Powers, New York Daily News
FURTHER READING:
Barney Ross by Douglas Century
VIDEO: