If there is any sport that most closely resembles the course of human history, baseball may be the answer in many people's minds. In those classic battles that have been passed down by fans, there are superstars like Napoleon who lead their teams to victory on their own, and there are always some unknown role players who burst out with unparalleled energy in that fleeting moment and write their names into the history of baseball.
The Phillies trailed by five points in the first World Series game of this year's World Series must still be fresh in the memory of fans, and in the next chapter, we will talk about an equally thrilling comeback and the story of the stars who weaved this beautiful picture together. You might not have imagined that at the beginning of this game, the final hero was sitting alone on the bench, watching anxiously as the Napoleons showed their skills. Of course, in addition to the flashes of the players at different times, the game is always the fighting style of two managers who represent traditional baseball thinking, in an era when baseball digitalization is still in its infancy, the coach duel around trust, courage and intuition is so incredible today, but there is always a bit of nostalgic romance.
The Yankees vs. Red Sox showdown at the beginning of the 21st century is still hard to beat, and the seventh match of the 2003 AL Championship was the culmination of an epic collision between the two sworn enemies, when the Red Sox, plagued by the "Holy Child Curse", had failed to win the World Series for 85 years, and the Yankees regarded the "Holy Child" Babe Ruth as the patron saint, believing in the invincibility of the sworn enemy under the protection of the gods.
Yankees coach Joe Torre, who has a distinguished player experience and has won four World Series titles as a coach, is still anxious in such a saber rattling on and off the court, not to mention Grady Little, who has not entered the major leagues as a player and has only been a Red Sox coach for two years in the major leagues.
The match was started by two of the era's greatest starting pitchers, with Yankees ace Roger "Rocketman" Clemens, who had already won six Cy Young Awards, facing three-time Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martinez at home, and for the first time in playoff history, two Cy Young Award winners went head-to-head in Game 7.
At the start of the showdown, Yankees third baseman Aaron Boone stood gloomy in front of the team's bench cheering on his teammates. Aron's grandfather, Ray, and his father, Bob, won the World Series with the Indians and Phillies in 1980, respectively, and his brother Brett also helped the Warriors reach the World Series in 1999, and served as a TV guest at the game, sitting in the commentary booth and watching the court, why wouldn't Aron want to follow in the footsteps of his elders in this crucial game and use his strength to help the team reach the World Series in the presence of his brother?
Traded from the Reds in the middle of the season, he originally played a career year this season, racking up 24 home runs in the regular season, scoring 96 points and being named an All-Star. However, in the first six games of the series, Boone played extremely poorly as a starter, with a batting average of only .125. In a life-and-death battle, head coach Tori could only keep him on the bench in order to maintain the quality of his attack.
In the first half of this Giants showdown, the Red Sox was clearly the more imposing side, and the 39-year-old Clemmons looked cheap and old, facing the Red Sox's no-end line that put the season's AL batting king Bill Mueller in eighth place, and was in trouble from the second inning, being scored by the Red Sox for three consecutive points. If it weren't for Clemmons' glorious past resume, perhaps Tori would have replaced him early, but in an era when respect for great players was valued by tactical common sense, as an old-school coach, Tori still expected Clemmons to regain his form.
When the Red Sox made it 4-0 in the first half of the fourth inning, Tori finally couldn't wait any longer and walked onto the pitcher's mound to eclipse Clemmons in what many fans thought would be the last shadow of the great pitcher's career. Clemmons was replaced not by a traditional rescue pitcher, but by future Hall of Famer Mike Mussina, who won 270 career games. He took only two days off after starting the fourth game before taking on the battle, and for Tory, there is no reservation in the battle of life and death, and he needs to use the best resources at his disposal to avoid further widening the point gap.
In contrast, Martinez, who started for the Red Sox, was in just good shape. Compared to Clemmons, who is 1.93 meters tall and looks like a strong pitcher, Martinez, who is 1.80 meters tall and looks very thin, is the best proof that there is a place in baseball regardless of whether he is tall, short and thin.
Martinez was the most repressive pitcher in major leagues during his turn-of-the-century years, and was the AL self-blame leader from 1999 to 2003, except for 2001, when he was injured and didn't have enough innings to pitch. He was able to do this thanks to an arsenal with almost no shortcomings.
Usually we say that a pitcher can attack a player in three ways, up and down, inside and out, and create a time difference through changes in ball speed, and the little giant from Dominica knows it all. His straight and change balls combine ball quality and possession, and his variable speed ball can create a speed difference of about 10 miles with the visual effect of the pitching action that does not look different from the straight ball. Because of his excellent mix of different types and pitching strategies, the Yankees are overwhelmed.
Although the Yankees relied on Jason Giambi's two Yangchun cannons to push the score to 2-4 in the second half of the seventh inning, it was difficult to put together an effective offensive in front of Martinez. With "Daddy" David Ortiz's yang chun cannon in the first half of the eighth inning, the Red Sox, with a three-point lead, was just six outs away from crushing the archenemy to break into the World Series.
Martinez, as a starting pitcher, is slightly inferior to his muscular counterparts due to his small stature, and often has some ups and downs after using more than 100 balls. According to him, as the level of physical fatigue increases, although the quality of the ball can still be maintained, the precision of the ball will decrease.
When Red Sox coach Ritter, who needed to decide between the bullpen pitcher and Martinez, asked Martinez if he was confident in solving the next batter, the stubborn Martinez naturally could not back down, and he thought the work had been done by the end of the seventh inning, and he appeared on the pitcher's mound in the second half of the eighth inning and took the lead in scoring an out. Seeing such a scene, Rittel, like all old-school coaches, decided to continue to believe in his ace who has already thrown more than 100 goals, rather than replacing it with the bullpen players who have also played well in this series.
Facing a tired Martinez, the Yankees' line suddenly awakened, from Derek Jeter to Bernie Williams to Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada, the Yankees hit four consecutive hits, including three second bases, erasing the three-point difference. The image of Poshada cheering at second base after hitting an equalizing second base at the old Yankee Arena became one of the most iconic scenes in that series. From the point of view now, and even then, Ritter's inaction was the primary reason for the Red Sox's misfortune, but it was only consequential cruelty.
As Martinez walked lonely off the pitcher's mound and put on his sweatshirt hat and stared blankly at the court, Yankees coach Tory's regular, at the time completely unobtrusive maneuver became the prelude to a legendary story, replacing Boone with a substitute for his teammate who had just been on base, but it wasn't time for him to shine.
In the first half of the ninth inning, the Yankees, who had been in a no-boggle pursuit for most of the game, not only put the winning bullpen into use early, but even the starters Musina and David Wells had already played, and the only trusted pitcher left in the Yankees' bullpen was their finisher, Mariano Rivera.
Young fans may have heard the story of Rivera's first finisher and first unanimous induction into the Hall of Fame, but his own history is far more fulfilling than those prestige. Coming to the Big Apple from the backcountry of Panama, he was also a late bloomer, he was already a 25-year-old "older" rookie when he entered the major leagues in early 1995, and as a starting pitcher, he seemed unlikely to have any hope of being associated with the "Hall of Fame", after all, in his first season, with a 5.51 ERA rating, he was clearly difficult to establish himself in the major leagues, and once appeared on the trade list of team owners.
But the discerning Yankees coaching staff found that Rivera, despite his poor overall performance, was not without bright spots. Skinny Rivera, like Martinez, has less endurance, and compared to Martinez, who is proficient in multiple types of ball, Rivera can only take the cutting ball (Carter ball), which also leads to his endurance problems being more extreme than Martinez, often being defeated the second time he faces the opponent's line. Instead of letting him take a hit as a starting pitcher, why not transform it into a rescue pitcher who only needs to specialize in one or two types of ball and doesn't need to face the same batter multiple times in a single game? It was also this decision of the coaching staff that not only allowed Rivera to stay, but also gave birth to the number one weapon in the arsenal of the century--Rivera's cutting ball.
The strong inward drift of his cutting ball against a left-handed batter has become a logging saw in the eyes of opponents, breaking the bats in the hands of countless batters with a strong movement that changes direction in the moment of swinging and smashing into the thin part of the bat, and has also become the most secure bullpen guarantee for the Yankees team in the years. But in this game, what Rivera needs to do is not to hold on to one or two games and clock out as usual, but to be the last gate of the Yankees, hold on to the end, either the team wins or loses and leaves the court, behind him is Tori's helplessness and complete trust in the superstar.
In 9 innings, 10 innings and 11 innings, despite the Red Sox's multiple penalty scores, Rivera held on, but Yankees coaches and fans also knew that Rivera, who had not rescued more than three innings in the playoffs for eight years, was approaching its tipping point, and the Red Sox, who had lost the lead, showed no signs of surrendering, and replaced Tim Wakefield, the butterfly ball master who played extremely well in this series and has won two games in the extended game.
In the second half of the 11th inning, the first striker for the Yankees was Boone, who came off the bench, and he would play his first game of the game. Faced with a disciple who was not doing well recently, Yankees coach Tori said as calmly as possible: "You just have to try to hit a hit, although that doesn't mean you won't hit a home run." ”
In the eyes of the experienced Tory, players who are not in good form tend to be agitated and get out of the batter too early, and it is impossible to take advantage of the butterfly ball with the extremely slow speed and erratic trajectory of the battering zone. He needed Boone to slow down and push the ball towards the center of the court or the other way around.
However, the development of the matter was unexpected by everyone, aiming to disrupt the timing of the batter's swing, and the extremely slow butterfly ball met Boone, who had been disordered to the point that the swing time could not be worse, but produced a negative negative positive effect. Boone, who swung his stick at the first ball, hit a high-flying ball that flew far-reaching from the left outfield and easily flew off the wall, goodbye home run! The Yankees reversed and defeated their arch-rivals and advanced to the World Series that year. Tens of thousands of people in the entire Yankees arena thundered with joy, old coach Tori burst into tears, and their hero Rivera collapsed on the pitcher's mound from exhaustion, and the last hero Boone was speechless for a while, and could hardly say a complete word in front of reporters... After the game, the Yankees will flock to the outfield Monument Park to kiss the monuments of Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and others to thank the team's heroic spirits.
This spectacular game was the best demonstration of baseball's appeal, with the high level of performance of legendary superstars like Martinez and Rivera, the dedication of Hall of Famer starting pitchers like Musina from the bullpen, and "little guys" like Boone seizing their chances to be the winning factor, and the tenacity and courage of both teams to give fans a classic battle. In this game, both coaches Tori and Ritter are full of trust in their superstars, but the final result is a heaven and a hell. They may have made the same decision in a different place, but in this time and space, Tori is the winner, and Ritter becomes the scapegoat for the defeat and is gloomy at the end of the season.
But baseball is like life, fairy tales don't necessarily have a happy ending, the Yankees who advanced to the World Series lost to Marlins, and their hero Boone was terminated by the Yankees after a torn cruciate ligament in a private basketball game a few months later, and he was not able to regain his 2003 form until he retired. He returned to the Yankees as a master again in late 2017, when he overtook current Phillies coach Rob Thomson, who had worked with the Yankees for more than 20 years, to steal the Yankees coach.
The nightmare is called a nightmare only because before waking up, the Red Sox, which changed managers at the end of the season, staged an epic comeback in the following year's AL championship game, defeating the Yankees and reaching the World Series, winning the cup again in 86 years, giving Martinez and Vikfield and other frustrated people a year ago a happy ending.
The coach's hard work, superstardom, small people to complete the counterattack, the spirit of never giving up and epic stories full of legends, this is probably the biggest charm of playoff baseball!
What other stories do you know about players and coaches who shine in classic battles? Hurry up and discuss with us in the comments section!