Top 10 Yankee Right Fielders

And so I close with the last remaining position. Or should I do the Managers as well? Or the Broadcasters?

Two things you'll notice about Yankee right fielders: They win a lot of Pennants, and they have great nicknames. Number 1 on the list having more nicknames than James Brown and Apollo Creed combined.

And, keep in mind, I've already included Lou Piniella and Dave Winfield among the left fielders.

Mention... Honorable?... to Gary Sheffield, 2004-06. He was only a Yankee for 3 seasons, only had 2 good ones, and he did sort of get caught using steroids. But look at the numbers: In 2004 and '05, he batted .291 with 57 doubles, 70 homers and 244 RBIs. That's some heavy production.

And then, in 2006... injuries limited him to 166 plate appearances. He still batted .298, but only 5 doubles, 6 homers and 25 RBIs. And, in postseason play, while he tore it up for the 1997 Florida Marlins (his only World Series win), he was otherwise invisible, both for the Atlanta Braves before he came to the Yankees, and in Pinstripes.

In that infamous 4-game flop in the 2004 ALCS (cough-Roid-Sox-cough), he went 1-for-17 (.059 -- 5-for-21 counting walks for an OBP of .238). In the 2006 ALDS, in which the Yankees meekly went down to the Detroit Tigers, 1-for-12, no walks, no XBH, no RBIs.

His career led to some great totals: .292 BA, 140 OPS+, 2,689 hits, 467 doubles and 509 home runs. But will we ever know how much of that was legit?

10. Nick Swisher, 2009-12. He hit 105 of his 245 home runs as a Yankee, with a 124 OPS+ (113 overall), helped the Yankees reach the Playoffs all 4 times, and helping the team loosen up after a few years of a "corporate" image was a big reason why the Yankees won the 2009 World Series. He now plays for the Atlanta Braves.

9. Jesse Barfield, 1989-92. One of the great embarrassments of my life came when I attended my first Opening Day, in 1990 – and not because it was the start of the worst Yankee season in my lifetime. In fact, the Yankees won that day, beating the Cleveland Indians. But there was a point late in the game when Barfield came up, and I yelled, "Come on, Jesse, you can do it!" Guess who was pitching for the Indians: Former Met closer Jesse Orosco. Perhaps not as bad as that night in 1994 when the Yankees were playing Texas in April, and a hockey Playoff score went up on the scoreboard, and the home fans chanted, "Let's go Rangers!" But bad enough.

But there was nothing wrong with cheering for Jesse Barfield. Well, maybe in 1985, when he helped the Toronto Blue Jays reach the postseason for the first time, beating the Yankees out for the AL East title as the teams battled in Toronto on the final weekend. In 1986 he had 108 RBIs, led the AL with 40 homers and made the All-Star Team.

In 1986 and '87, he won Gold Gloves. He had one of the best right field arms of his time, along with Winfield and Dwight Evans. George Bell in left, Lloyd Moseby in center and Barfield in right was a fantastic outfield. When the Yankees sent Al Leiter to the Jays for him on April 30, 1989, Barfield was arguably the greatest player the Jays' franchise (then in its 13th season) had yet had.

Unfortunately, as so often happened to the Yankees in the Eighties, injuries prevented a guy who was great elsewhere from being great in The Bronx. Barfield hit 60 homers in what amounted to 3 full seasons in Pinstripes, but by 1992 he was broken-down. Still, despite playing in unfriendly ballparks (Exhibition Stadium was a wind tunnel and Yankee Stadium is bad for righthanded hitters), he managed to hit 241 home runs.

He became a broadcaster for the Blue Jays, and now runs a baseball school in Houston. He is the father of 2 professional ballplayers: Josh played 2nd base for the Indians, and Jeremy got as far as Single-A ball.

8. Hank Bauer, 1948-59. Mel Allen, the Voice of the Yankees, gave him a nickname that rhymed with his name: The Man of the Hour. He sure was: From a catch sliding on his knees to make the final out of the 1951 World Series to homering in 1958 to extend his World Series hitting streak to 17 games – still a record – Hank always seemed to be coming through.

He was pretty good in the regular season, too: A 113 OPS+, 2 .300+ seasons, 164 homers despite being a righthanded hitter in the pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, a 3-time All-Star, led the AL in triples in 1957.

And nobody messed with this Marine Corps veteran of the battles of Guadalcanal and Okinawa – 2 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts to go with his 7 World Series rings. In 1966, he managed the Baltimore Orioles to their 1st-ever Pennant and World Series win.

7. George Selkirk, 1934-42. It wasn't going to be easy for the man who would replace Babe Ruth as the Yankees' right fielder. It was harder still because he was given Ruth's Number 3, which was not retired until right before Ruth' death in 1948. But it was worse for Selkirk: His nickname was Twinkletoes. No, he wasn't gay (that I know of): The nickname was because he seemed to be dancing across the outfield to make great plays.

He could hit, too. A 2-time All-Star, he batted .300 5 times, and twice had 100 RBIs. His career OPS+ was 127, so he wasn't just padding stats in the hitting-friendly 1930s. He helped the Yankees win 6 Pennants (1936, '37, '38, '39, '41 and '42) and 5 World Series (all but the last). But he was already in decline by 1940, and after World War II never returned to the majors as a player.

He did serve as a major-league and minor-league manager, and a major-league scout (with the Yankees) and general manager (with the “new” Washington Senators, getting him on the Washington Wall of Stars at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium and now Nationals Park). Probably the greatest Canadian native in Yankee history, he is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

6. Willie Keeler, 1903-09. The 1st man to play for all 3 of the classic New York City teams, the Brooklyn native actually began his career in 1892 with the New York Giants. A a year later he went to his hometown team – and, yes, until January 1, 1898, the day the consolidation of "Greater New York" took effect, Brooklyn was a separate city. But Wee Willie's sojourn in Brooklyn didn't last long, and in 1894 he went to the original Baltimore Orioles, winning the next 3 NL Pennants.

Unfortunately for him, his best year was the next, 1897, when the Orioles lost to the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Braves) in what author Bill Keller, in his book A Game of Brawl, called the 1st truly great Pennant race. (If you love baseball and you do not have this book, find it. You'll thank me later.) Keeler batted .424, had 239 hits (an National League record for years to come), and 74 RBIs (a good total in the Dead Ball Era). He hit no home runs, but had 27 doubles and 19 triples.

Also that season, he had a 44-game hitting streak, the longest in baseball history for 44 years (Joe DiMaggio), and while it was matched after 81 years (Pete Rose), it has never been topped in the NL (114 years). And yet, according to Keller's book, the streak was barely even mentioned at the time – hence lots of people's surprise when it was mentioned that Keeler, not George Sisler with 41, had the real record that DiMaggio was going for.

In 1899, he was brought back to Brooklyn, and led the Dodgers (the name was used off and on from 1883 to 1931, but at this time they were officially called the Superbas) to back-to-back Pennants. Since there was no postseason series in either year, the 1899 and 1900 Pennants marked the last World Championship for a Brooklyn sports team until the 1955 Dodgers.

In 1903, Keeler was lured across the City to Manhattan and the brand-new New York Highlanders, who changed their name to the New York Yankees in 1913, after the nickname had been unofficial almost the whole time. In 1904, he batted .343, and he, pitching superstar Jack Chesbro, and pitcher-manager Clark Griffith nearly led them to the Pennant. It was not to be, nor was it in 1906 when the team again finished 2nd. In 1910, he played one last season for the Giants and hung 'em up.

His lifetime batting average was .341, his OPS+ 126, and he fell just 68 hits short of 3,000. At 5-foot-4 and 140 pounds, he was not only one of the smallest players in major league history, but the smallest in the Hall of Fame. In 1999 – 89 years after his last game, and 76 years after he died – The Sporting News put him at Number 75 on its list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the smallest, and aside from Cy Young the earliest-debuting.

If Wee Willie Keeler is remembered at all today, it is for his nickname, and thus his lack of height, his hitting streak, and his advice to hitters, meaning to not drink so much and to keep the ball away from opposing fielders: "Keep your eye clear, and hit 'em where they ain't."

5. Roger Maris, 1960-66. A lack of longevity and physical health prevents the man from Fargo, North Dakota from being higher on this list, but make no mistake, he was a great all-around player. He was named AL MVP in 1960 – and deserved it, too, hitting 39 home runs with 112 RBIs. True, Mickey beat him in both categories, but Roger was the difference between the Yanks' mediocre 3rd-place finish the season before and their Pennant that season.

Everyone talks about the homers the Rajah hit, but he took a few away, too. He was probably the best-fielding right fielder the Yankees ever had, and might have been the best-fielding outfielder in team history except for DiMaggio.

Of course, he will always be remembered – usually fondly, but there are some still alive who choose not to – for "61 in '61," the single-season home run record he set on October 1, 1961, and, if we're being honest, still stands, because Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds were not honest.

Some said he wasn't good enough to break the record of Babe Ruth, and that the 8 extra games that season gave him an unfair advantage. Well, Roger batted against black and Hispanic pitchers, which the Babe didn't have to do – which also counters the argument that, "In 1961, the pitching was watered down by expansion." The Babe also never batted against the forkball (predecessor of the split-fingered fastball) like Roger did, and faced very few sliders, knuckleballs and screwballs, unlike Roger who batted in a time when those pitches were well-known. (Then again, Roger faced very few of the pitches that fall into the category of “spitballs,” while the Babe faced plenty.)

And Roger had 698 plate appearances in the 161 games he played in 1961, while the Babe had 691 in his 151 games in 1927 – in other words, those extra 8 (or 10) games gave Roger an average of one extra trip to the plate per extra game. Or, to put it another way: In 1927, Babe Ruth hit a home run every 11.52 plate appearances; in 1961, Roger Maris, every 11.33. Slightly better.

Roger won 7 Pennants in his career (1960, '61, '62, '63, '64, '67 and '68) and 3 World Series (1961, '62 and '67). He, Johnny Hopp and Enos Slaughter are the only players to win World Series with each of the top 2 teams in terms of most Series won: The Yankees (27) and the St. Louis Cardinals (10).

Injuries limited Roger to what amounted to 10 full seasons, and 275 home runs. But this 4-time All-Star had a 127 career OPS+. To give you an idea, there were 4 right fielders in Roger's generation who made the Hall of Fame. Hank Aaron's was 155. Frank Robinson's was 154. But Al Kaline's was 134, and Roberto Clemente's was 130 – theirs wasn't substantially higher than Roger's, and no one questions whether they belong in the Hall of Fame.

But does Roger belong? Baseball-Reference.com's Hall of Fame Monitor has him at 89 out of 100 (a bit short), and their HOF Standards have him at 22 out of 50 (well short). Their 10 Most Similar Batters include some interesting names, including ex-Yankees Barfield, Curtis Granderson and Jay Buhner (and also Hank Sauer, not to be confused with Hank Bauer), but not HOFers. In all honesty, I can’t say that Roger Maris belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But he is in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park, his Number 9 is retired, and he has a museum in his memory in his hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, at the West Acres Shopping Center. I should say, "In his honor," because it opened in 1984, while he was still alive. When asked by the man running it if he could, Roger asked 2 conditions: That it be where people could easily get to it (a mall would have parking lots and bus service) and that admission be free. Both requests were granted.

4. Paul O'Neill, 1993-2001. In spite of his recent endorsement of Donald Trump, My Man O'Neill remains 1 of my 2 favorite athletes of all time. (You'll see the other in a moment.) Why?Because he played the game the way I would have: With desire, with intensity, with a drive to win that would make the fans say, "This is the guy for us." The difference is, Paulie Pinstripes had something I don't have. It's called "talent."

His intensity reminded me a lot of Lou Piniella, who was his manager on the 1990 World Champion Cincinnati Reds. When the Yankees got him for Roberto Kelly in the 1992-93 offseason, I was thrilled. His lefty stroke was perfect for Yankee Stadium, and he could field, too.

What I didn't know was that he was also a great opposite-field hitter (in fact, nearly all the 1996-2001 Yankee stars were), that he would win a batting title in 1994, that he would play through pain, that he would hit one of my favorite home runs of all time (the Mel Rojas Game, June 26, 1998), and that he would have the most important plate appearance in Yankee history (his 9th-inning walk that led to him scoring the tying run, saving Game 1 of the 2000 World Series and making possible the most important of Yankee World Series wins, the one over The Other Team).

You know how much this guy is loved, right? Knowing that he had talked about retiring, and that it was probably his last game at Yankee Stadium, the fans chanted his name late in Game 5 of the 2001 World Series – a game the Yankees were losing at the moment. For once, Yankee Fans decided something was more important than winning. They did not, however, give such a salute to Tino Martinez, even though the rumor was already floating that Yankee brass would not re-sign him, but rather would go after Jason Giambi. I wonder what the fans would have done if they'd known Scott Brosius was also retiring. Or if it would be the last home game in The Bronx for Chuck Knoblauch. But O'Neill got the kind of reaction that Don Mattingly might have gotten – if he'd gotten that far even once.

Lifetime batting average .288 (.303 with the Yankees), OPS+ 120 (125), 451 doubles (304), 281 homers (185). Won 6 Pennants (1990, '96, '98, '99, 2000 & '01, all but the 1st with the Yankees) and 5 World Championships (all but the last). His Number 21 was briefly given out to pitcher LaTroy Hawkins in 2008, which was received rather poorly at The Stadium. Hawkins, who had not previously worn it (usually wearing 32) and had no attachment to it, wisely gave it up. Paulie got his Monument Park Plaque, but it is time to retire his number.

3. Tommy Henrich, 1937-50. Probably the best of the many nicknames Mel Allen thought up was "Ol' Reliable" for the man from Massillon, Ohio – which was already renowned as a football factory, but he is still the greatest baseball player to come from the town.

How reliable was Henrich? In 1941, when DiMaggio's bat was stolen in between games of a doubleheader, right after Joe had tied Sisler's AL record of a 41-game hitting streak, he remembered that the bat that Joe was using was his own model – Louisville Slugger then made them to each player's specifications – and offered Joe another of his own. Joe took it and broke Sisler's record, and the previous Henrich/DiMaggio bat was recovered in time for Joe to break the Keeler record.

Later that season, seeing that Mickey Owen of the Brooklyn Dodgers had dropped the ball, Henrich was reliable enough (and alert enough) to turn a game-ending strikeout into the start of a rally, and the Yankees won Game 4 of the World Series.

On October 5, 1949, in Game 1 of that year's World Series, Henrich broke up a scoreless pitching duel between Allie Reynolds and the Dodgers' Don Newcombe by taking Newk deep, and hitting the 1st walkoff home run (as we would now call it) in the history of postseason baseball.

Henrich missed the 1942 and '43 Series due to serving in the Coast Guard in World War II, but was with the Yankees in their World Championship seasons of 1937, '38, '39, '41, '47, '49 and '50 – and the Yankees won all 7 of those.

When he died in 2009, he was 96 years old, the oldest living Yankee, the last one to have played for Lou Gehrig, and the last player to have won a World Series in the 1930s. As late as 1994, he was still coming to Old-Timers' Day. He wore Number 7 before The War, and Number 15 after it; both are retired, but neither for him. Still, I can't help thinking that Ol' Reliable deserves a Plaque in Monument Park.

2. Reggie Jackson, 1977-81. Did I say a lack of longevity hurts Maris? Yeah, well, this is my list, and this is my favorite athlete of all time. Henrich or Jackson? Old Reliable or Mister October? The difference in the nicknames is negligible, if you think about it.

Reggie was probably a better all-around player when he was younger, with the Oakland Athletics dynasty of the 1970s. Supposedly, when George Steinbrenner was trying to sign him in the 1976-77 offseason, Billy Martin objected, saying he's a bad fielder, strikes out too much, and would "mess up my running game." Billy, you already had Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss and Lou Piniella. You didn't need a damn running game! And, as Reggie proved (and as another Philly-area native who starred in New York, Mike Piazza, would later say), if you hit the ball far enough, you don’t have to run.

Reggie's lifetime batting average is .262, one of the lowest of any nonpitcher in the Hall of Fame. And his 2,597 strikeouts are an all-time record. But his BA rises to .281 if you count only his Yankee seasons, his career OPS+ is a hefty 139 (148 in Pinstripes), he had 2,584 hits, including 463 doubles and 563 homers – among non-cheaters, the only ones with more are Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Frank Robinson and Harmon Killebrew. He hit 18 homers in postseason play, including 5 in the 1977 World Series (only Chase Utley in 2009 has matched that in a Series), including 3 in Game 6 (a one-game performance preceded only by Ruth, in '26 and again in '28, and not done since).

He was the American League regular-season and World Series MVP in 1973, and was the Series MVP again in 1977. In 21 seasons, with the A's, Yanks and California Angels (he also had 1 with the Baltimore Orioles, but they didn't make the postseason), he reached the postseason 11 times (1971, '72, '73, '74, '75, '77, '78, '80, '81, '82 and '86). He won 6 Pennants (1972, '73, '74, '77, '78 and '81) and 5 World Series (all but the last of those). He was one of those guys about whom it was said, "It's funny how these winning teams keep following him around." He says he never said it, but if he did, he wasn't lying: He really was "the straw that stirs the drink."

As I said, he's in the Hall of Fame. His Number 9 was retired by the A's, his Number 44 by the Yankees (on August 14, 1993 – I was there), who also gave him a Plaque in Monument Park (July 6, 2002 – I wasn't gonna miss that day, either). The Angels haven't retired his Number 44 yet, nor have they elected him to their team Hall of Fame – what are they waiting for?

But for the Yankees, Reggie is the symbol of a generation of stars that amazed, shocked, sometimes appalled, and so often thrilled. He helped to bring the excitement back to The Bronx – and away from Flushing Meadow. He was the 1st black man to be a star for the Yankees (in a way that the quiet, good but not spectacular Elston Howard or even the Pennant-clinching Chris Chambliss could never be), thus helping local black fans to see that the Yankees could bring in their people as well.

He was the right man in the right place at the right time: The man who was the biggest star of the team that meant the most to me when I was first seeing what sports was. For that reason, whatever his flaws, Mr. Reginald Martinez Jackson will always be my guy.

In spite of his massive ego, he understands what matters most: In an interview with Tom Seaver shown on WPIX-Channel 11 prior to his number retirement ceremony (which came a few days after his Hall of Fame induction), he said, "It's not important that I did it; what's important is that it was done."

And nobody ever did more for baseball than this last man – not even Jackie Robinson, because, if you think about it, if this guy hadn't done what he did, baseball wouldn't have been big enough of a stage upon which to try an experiment like the one Jackie and Branch Rickey tried.

1. Babe Ruth, 1920-34. What can I say about the Big Guy that hasn't already been rehashed a thousand times? Not much. But there is much to say about The Great Bambino that needs to be said.

He's not only in the Hall of Fame, but he was one of the 1st 5 inductees when they began voting in 1936, along with Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson. A life-size wooden carving, meticulously shaped and painted (right down to the fold of his shirt and the cracks on the leather of his belt), of the Babe, and another of Ted Williams by the same artist, greets you when you walk into the Hall in Cooperstown, New York.

He was elected to the All-Century Team in 1999, 64 years after his last game, by fans whose parents were too young to have ever seen him play. The Yankees retired his Number 3, and put a Monument on the field at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day 1949, a few months after his death, before moving it to the new Monument Park in 1976, and to the new Stadium's Monument Park in 2009.

Is he The Greatest Baseball Player Who Ever Lived? Let me put it this way. From 1915 to 1918, 4 years, he was a lefthanded pitcher as good as Randy Johnson. Then, from 1919 to 1934, 16 years, he was a lefthanded hitter better than Barry Bonds, and he didn't use steroids, either -- they weren't available. Book editor and baseball writer Daniel Okrent said, "It's like Beethoven and Cezanne were the same man, doing the same things." No, it wasn't: Beethoven composed music, Cezanne painted. Pitching and hitting are different sides of the same game, so it's more like if he were a great film actor and a great film director. Like Orson Welles, who also got fat midway through his career. Except Welles' window of greatness turned out to be very brief; the Babe was one of the best players in the game over a 20-season stretch.

And if you think Willie Mays was the greatest all-around baseball player who ever lived, you're wrong: Willie  was not in the Babe's league as a hitter (figuratively or literally), Willie never threw a pitch in a major league game, and there's no way Willie, even as good an outfielder as he was, was as good at preventing runs as even the best pitchers of his time, which the Babe was one of in his own time.

And don't tell me the Babe never faced black or Latin pitchers: He faced them on postseason "barnstorming tours," and the surviving accounts of those at-bats show that they weren't any more successful at getting him out than white pitchers were in regular-season and postseason games.

The new Yankee Stadium is not "The House That Ruth Built." But the Babe Ruth Plaza outside the right-field stands, across 161st Street from the site of the ballpark whose construction his home runs, and the money they made for Colonel Jacob Ruppert, made possible, testifies to his life, his performance, and his legacy.

He played in 10 World Series (1915, '16 and '18 with the Boston Red Sox; 1921, '22, '23, '26, '27, '28 and '32 with the Yankees), winning 7 (1915, '16, '18, '23, '27, '28 and '32). As much as Ruppert's money and Ed Barrow's trades and purchases, Ruth’s hitting made the Yankees, and made baseball, more popular than ever before, aided by the development of radio and motion pictures, and doing it in the media center of North America, New York City. Had he put up the same numbers in Boston, playing there for his entire career instead of just the first 6 seasons (5 full), it would simply not have been the same.

"A big, badly flawed, swashbuckling palooka who strides with great spirit -- not just talent, but with a spirit of possibility and an enjoyment of life -- across the American stage. That's an American... You give me Babe Ruth over any king who's ever sat on the throne, and I'll be happy with that trade." – Bob Costas.

Except he was a king. The King of Crash. The Sultan of Swat. The Rajah of Rap. The Majarajah of Mash. The High Mandarin of Maul. The Wizier of Wham. The Czar of Clout. (Sometimes it's "the Colossus of Clout," and you can add "the Behemoth of Bust," although neither the Colossus of Rhodes nor the mythological Behemoth was a monarch.)

Some people compare baseball to religion. Well, as with Christianity, in baseball, a babe shall lead them. Then again, Babe Ruth tended to lie in places other than a manger. And he certainly did a lot that required repentance and forgiveness. But has any American ever been loved by more people in his own time? Don't forget, even Washington, Lincoln and FDR had their haters during their public service.

The Babe was one of a kind, and my generation hasn't seen another – and, if the rise and fall of Mark McGwire is any indication, we never will, and neither will any other generation. More than any other player, he was the right man, in the right place, at the right time.

Like Art LaFleur said while playing the Babe in The Sandlot: "Heroes get remembered, but legends never die."

Yankee Position Players Who Pitched

Occurrence. Date: Name, usual position. Pitching performance on that day.

1. 1908: Hal Chase, 1B. Pitched to 1 batter and got him out. I have no further information, not even an exact date. This is the same Hal Chase who was accused of throwing multiple games and ultimately banned from baseball, one of the most disreputable characters in the game's history.

2. May 11, 1909: Charles "Butch" Schmidt, 1B. Pitched 5 innings, finishing the game. 8 runs, but only 4 earned. 10 hits, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. Later won a World Series with the 1914 Boston Braves.

3. June 1, 1920: Babe Ruth, RF. Appropriate that he's Number 3 here. He made 5 appearances as a pitcher for the Yankees, after having been a really good pitcher for the Red Sox from 1915 to 1918. But by 1919, he was almost a full-time pitcher, so this counts.

On June 1, 1920, he started, pitched 4 innings, gave up 4 runs, 2 earned. According to the rules of the time, he got credit for the win. On June 13, 1921, he started, pitched 5 innings, gave up 4 runs, 3 earned, hit 2 home runs, and got the win. On October 1, 1921, he pitched 4 innings of relief, and got the win, despite allowing 6 runs and causing the game to go into extra innings.

All 3 of those appearances were home games at the Polo Grounds. (The original Yankee Stadium didn't open until 1923.)

He didn't pitch again until September 28, 1930, another late-season performance, a complete-game victory over the Red Sox, who, knowing the former Sox start might bring in a huge crowd, asked the Braves to borrow Braves Field, instead of playing it at Fenway Park.

His mound finale was another end-of-season job, October 1, 1933, his only outing as a Yankee pitcher at Yankee Stadium. He was shaky, but he went the distance in a 6-5 win over the Red Sox.

Then it didn't happen for the Yankees again for 33 years -- and then it happened on back-to-back days.

4. August 25, 1968: Rocky Colavito, RF. The Bronx native starred for the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers, but was only a Yankee for the last 3 months of a career that saw him hit 374 home runs and showcase a rifle arm in right field.

He pitched most of the 4th inning, plus all of the 5th and the 6th, against the Tigers at Yankee Stadium, allowing no runs on a hit and 2 walks, striking out 1, and ended up the winning pitcher as the Yankees won, 6-5 at Yankee Stadium. He had previously pitched 3 innings in a 1958 game for the Indians, and in 5 2/3rds career innings pitched, his ERA was 0.00.

5. August 26, 1968: Gene Michael, SS. The very next day, "Stick" went 3 innings, in relief of Al Downing, against the California Angels, and allowed 5 runs -- none of them earned. Ironically, it was the man substituting for him at shortstop that day who made an error that led to a 4-run 8th inning: Ruben Amaro Sr., father of the current Philadelphia Phillies' general manager. (A mark and his son, Ruben Amaro Jr., also played for the Philadelphia Phillies.)

Stick allowed 5 hits, but no walks, and struck out 3. The Yankees lost, 10-2. This was the last time a position player pitched for the Yankees at the old Stadium.

6. August 6, 1991: Alvaro Espinoza, SS. The last long-term Yankee shortstop before ol' What's His Name, he got 2 outs in the 8th inning of a 14-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox in Chicago.

7. July 18, 1996: Mike Aldrete, OF. The last player to wear Number 20 on a Yankee title team other than Jorge Posada, he pitched the last inning of a 16-4 loss away to the Milwaukee Brewers. It was his last season in the majors, but he got a ring.

8. August 19, 1997: Wade Boggs, 3B. The Yankees were in the middle of what used to be a traditional bad August trip to the Coast -- some of them were "Borg roadtrips," where we lost seven of nine and resistance was futile -- losing 12-4 to the Anaheim Angels (as they were then known), when Joe Torre brought Boggs in to pitch the 8th inning. He threw 16 knuckleballs and didn't allow a run.

He would also pitch a scoreless inning for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

9. April 13, 2009: Nick Swisher, RF. The Yankees got off to a rough start in their 1st season in the new Yankee Stadium, before losing badly in 2 of their 1st 3 games in it. This was a 15-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, after trailing 9-0 after just 2 innings.

Swish pitched the 8th and final Yankee inning in the field, and allowed a hit and a walk, but no runs. Meaning that, at that point, he was the Yankees' best pitcher of the season. Things did settle down, and the Yankees won the World Series.

10. June 30, 2012: Dewayne Wise, OF. This was the 1st time it happened for the Yankees at the new Stadium, in a 14-7 loss to the White Sox.

Wise throws lefthanded, so it's surprising that Joe Girardi didn't pitch him over and over and over again to pitch to 1 lefty batter and then take him out for a righthander. Of course, he had Boone Logan for that, to every Yankee Fan's dismay. Wise got 2 outs in the 9th, without allowing a run.

11. May 15, 2013: Alberto Gonzalez, IF. Got the last out of a 12-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

12. April 19, 2014: Dean Anna, SS. Another whacked-out move that couldn't possibly have been in Girardi's Binder Full of Strategies, he allowed the last 2 runs of a 16-1 battering from the Rays in St. Petersburg. As with the last day on this list, the shelled starter was Ivan Nova.

13. May 23, 2015: Garrett Jones, 1B. Got the last 2 outs of a 15-4 home throttling at the hands of the Texas Rangers.

14. August 25, 2015: Brendan Ryan, 3B. Coming 47 years to the day after Colavito's mound appearance, in a 15-1 home disaster inflicted on us by the Houston Astros, he pitched the 8th and 9th innings, pitching to 8 batters, allowing 2 hits, no walks, and no runs. 

They're Trying

Yesterday, the Yankees lost Game 2 of the American League Championship Series to the Detroit Tigers, 4-0.  Hiroki Kuroda seemed to turn into Harvey Haddix: He took a perfect game into the 6th, but the Yankees couldn't score off Anibal Sanchez. The Yankees got just 7 baserunners, and none of them scored.

And the boos came out. Long and hard.

Let's get something straight: I don't think the Yankee Fans are booing individual players -- except for Alex Rodriguez, who, whether he or we like it or not, is the easiest target, because of how much money he makes, and how many times he's failed in postseason play for us.

I think they're booing the failure in general. Nick Swisher is simply the one who's reacted to it. He's got a point: It isn't completely fair. But the fans also have a point: It is partly fair.

It reminds me of Phil Esposito's interview after Game 4 of the 1972 "Summit Series," after the Soviets had embarrassed Team Canada on Canadian soil:

For the people across Canada, we tried. We gave it our best. For the people who booed us, jeez, all of us guys are really disheartened and we're disillusioned, and we're disappointed in some of the people. We cannot believe the bad press we've got, the booing we've gotten in our own buildings.

If the Russian fans boo their players like some of the Canadian fans - I'm not saying all of them - some of them booed us, then I'll come back and apologize to each and every Canadian. But I don't think they will.

I'm really, really, I'm really disappointed. I am completely disappointed. I cannot believe it. Some of our guys are really, really down in the dumps. We know - we're trying. What the hell, we're doing the best we can. They've got a good team, and let's face facts. But it doesn't mean that we're not give it our 150 per cent, because we certainly are.

Every one one of us guys, 35 guys who came out to play for Team Canada, we did it because we love our country, and not for any other reason. They can throw the money for the pension fund out the window, they can throw anything they want out the window. We came because we love Canada. And even though we play in the United States and we earn money in the United States, Canada is still our home, and that's the only reason we come. And I don't think its fair that we should be booed.

Granted, playing for your country is far different from playing for a club -- as Wayne Rooney finds out when he plays international soccer and doesn't have officials who are inclined to give his team the benefit of the doubt simply the team is Manchester United and officials who don't fix matches for Man U have seen their jobs suffer.

But Espo's analogy applies. The Yankees aren't trying to fail. They're just in an awful slump, at the worst possible time. These things happen.

And while Yankee Fans pay an inordinate price for their fandom -- high ticket prices, high food prices, high souvenir prices, and the MTA is about to announce a Subway fare hike -- and they have the right to express their displeasure when the highest-paid team in North American sports doesn't get the job done, certain things have to be realized:

1. Success is not guaranteed, no matter how much money is spent. Ask the Mets. Ask the Boston Red Sox these last 2 years. Ask the Philadelphia Phillies this year. Ask the Los Angeles teams, as both the Dodgers and the Angels have spent a lot of money over the last 10 seasons (2003 to 2012), and have no Pennants between them to show for it.

2. The Yankees aren't trying to fail. A-Rod, Swish, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, yeah, these guys are highly paid professionals and should win -- but they are trying. You think their failures don't bother them? To borrow an analogy from another sport, they're not throwing in the towel. They keep fighting. They don't seem to know where to punch at the moment, but they're getting off the deck and continuing to fight.

3. There are no bad teams in the Playoffs. The Baltimore Orioles nearly won the AL East. The Tigers did win the AL Central, and beat the AL West Champion Oakland Athletics in a tough 5-game series.

These are good teams, and they deserve some credit for the way they've driven the Yankees nuts. The Tigers did eliminate the Yankees from the Playoffs last year, and some of the players they've got are holdovers from the 2006 Tigers who did the same.

If the Yankees do somehow come from behind and win this Pennant, they'll have to face either the defending World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, 5th seed though they were, or the NL West Champion and previous World Champion San Francisco Giants. Should we be shocked if either of them wins the World Series, completely shutting down the Yankees or Tigers? Certainly not.

4. As bad as things look for the Yankees right now, remember what Yogi Berra said: "It ain't over 'til it's over."

No Jeter. A-Rod not hitting. Robbie not hitting. Grandy not hitting. Swish not hitting. Good pitching performances by Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda getting wasted. (Not that kind of "getting wasted.") No Mariano Rivera to rely on, if we somehow get a lead and hold it into the 9th inning. Lost the 1st 2 games of this ALCS at home. And now we have to go to Detroit. And face Justin Verlander in Game 3.

But you know what? The Yankees have faced situations like this before, and won: 1996 World Series, 1998 ALCS, 2000 and 2001 ALDS. Even in the 2009 World Series, we lost Game 1 at home before taking 4 of the next 5.

Paul Sullivan, author of the blog Sully Baseball and a huge Red Sox fan, is really enjoying the Yankees' failure -- as if he wouldn't give a tooth to see the Sox failing in the Playoffs, because that would mean they made the Playoffs. Like Jim Mora Sr. would say, don't talk to him about playoffs, his team has to worry about just winning a game!

But Sully rightly points out that a comeback is incredibly unlikely, and cites the fact that the 2012 Yankees are not the 2004 Red Sox.

He's got a point. The Yankees can't count on their steroid cycles kicking in. The Yankees can't purposely throw at opponents and expect to get away with it every single time. And if this series does somehow get to a Game 6 at Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter is not coming to bat with blood coming out of his ankle and through his sock.

To boo these Yankees in understandable. All that money, and, undeniably, they have spectacularly failed.

But maybe we need to accept the truth: These are not the 1927, 1936, 1941, 1949, 1961, 1977, 1996 or 2009 Yankees -- but remember, those teams all had something to prove, and until they did win the World Series, they hadn't proven it.

Every great Yankee has gotten booed. Babe Ruth. Lou Gehrig. Bill Dickey. Joe DiMaggio. Yogi Berra. Whitey Ford. Mickey Mantle. Roger Maris. Thurman Munson. Reggie Jackson. Dave Winfield. Yes, even Jeter. Even Mariano, mainly early in his career, but it happened. Especially A-Rod.

It seems that the only great Yankee who didn't get booed was Don Mattingly -- even though he pulled off the unique feat of playing 14 seasons in a Yankee uniform and never winning a postseason series.

We Need Runs. Score Them Early and Often.

Thirteen innings. One run.

That is unacceptable.

Don't blame Phil Hughes. In perhaps the biggest start of his career, against a feisty Baltimore Oriole team that simply will not quit (though they can be pummeled -- if you hit), he pitched into the 7th inning and allowed only 1 run -- a 5th-inning home run to Nate McLouth.

Don't blame the bullpen. In 6 1/3 innings, only 1 run on 4 hits and no walks was allowed by a combined force of Boone Logan, David Robertson, Rafael Soriano, Joba Chamberlain, David Phelps, Clay Rapada and Derek Lowe.

Certainly, don't blame Phelps. He came in because Joba took a broken bat off his elbow and had to leave the game. Phelps went in cold, knowing that, as a guy who has started games, he'd be the long man if the game went 15 or more innings -- or he would be, if we had a manager who saw the big picture. (And you have to see the big picture. "Playing for the next out," and only for the next out, can come back to bite you later.) Phelps got out of a jam in the 12th, before allowing the winning run in the 13th, on doubles to Manny Machado and J.J. Hardy.

No, the game would not have gotten to Phelps' bad inning if it wasn't for the people we should blame:

* Robinson Cano, who is 2-for-18 in this series (but does have 4 RBIs, including the only one for the Yankees last night). He flew out to end the 1st, and popped up to end the 10th, both times with Teix on 1st.

* Curtis Granderson, 1-for-16, who struck out with A-Rod on 1st to end the 2nd.

* Mark Teixeira, who actually is hitting in this series, going 5-for-15, but with only 1 RBI. Last night, he struck out with Nix (a leadoff double) on 2nd to end the 3rd, and struck out to lead off the decisive 13th.

* Nick Swisher, 2-for-15, who grounded into a double play to end the 4th, after A-Rod actually got a hit; and went for the home run instead of a hit of any kind, and juuuust got under a pitch, flying out to end the 8th, stranding Ichiro on 3rd and Teix on 2nd.

* Jayson Nix, 2-for-4 in the series, but grounded into a double play to end the 5th.

* Ichiro Suzuki, who picked a hell of a time to go cold, 4-for-20. He grounded out with Jeter on 1st to end the 12th.

* Russell Martin, 3-for-14.

* Yes, even Derek Jeter, who's 8-for-19 in the series, but struck out with Russell Martin on 2nd and Nix on 1st to end the 7th.

* And, of course, the $275 Million Man, Alex Rodriguez, now 2-for-16 -- 4-for-18 if you count walks. He who struck out with Teix on 2nd to end the 6th, and struck out again with 2nd & 3rd with 1 out in the 8th, before Swish's flyout. And, for the 2nd night in a row, Joe Girardi sent up a pinch-hitter for him, Eric Chavez, in the bottom of the 13th. (Chavez lined out to 3rd to end the game.)

No, it's not just A-Rod. He's a convenient symbol of our inconvenient attack. But he's hardly the whole problem.

Even the 1 Yankee run came on an out: Jeter led off the bottom of the 6th with a double, Ichiro sacrificed him to 3rd, Teix walked, and Cano grounded out to get Jeter home.

Overall, in this series, the Yankees have a batting average of .216, an on-base percentage of .280, and a slugging percentage of .633.

That is unacceptable.

So we go to a deciding Game 5, at Yankee Stadium II, starting at 5:00 this afternoon. CC Sabathia goes for us, and Jason Hammel for the Orioles -- a rematch of Game 1, which the Yankees won with that 5-run 9th at Camden Yards.

Yes, we have the Big Fella on the hill.  But it won't matter a damn if we don't hit. At the rate the Yankees are going, CC could turn into HH: Harvey Haddix.

We need hits. We need runs.  e need to score runs in New York like we vote in New Jersey: Early, and often, with dead guys if necessary.

If we do win, there is no day off: Game 1 of the ALCS is tomorrow, and we don't even know the time yet. At least we would know the opponent: The Detroit Tigers, who finished off the Oakland Athletics last night.

Since Billy Beane became their general manager, the A's are now 1-6 in postseason series -- and 5 of those 6 have come in Game 5 of the ALDS. (The 1 they won, the 2006 ALDS, was followed by getting swept by the Tigers in the ALCS.)

The San Francisco Giants advanced, coming back from dropping the 1st 2 games to the Cincinnati Reds in San Francisco, and taking 3 straight in Cincy.

The St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Nationals play a decisive Game 5 tonight, after the Yanks & O's. With that game, the city of Washington, D.C. will have had as many postseason baseball games this week as they had in the preceding 87 years combined. In fact, this week, they will have had 5 postseason games; in the preceding 136 years of Major League Baseball, they had 19.

But for now, my interest in Cards vs. Nats is minimal. Right now, I'm all about the Yankees.

Get men on base. Get them around to score. Repeat. Repeat some more. Put this game beyond doubt.

COME ON YOU PINSTRIPES!

*

October 12, 1492: Christoffa Corombo – as he was known in his native Genoa, or Christophorus Columbus as he was known in Latin, or Cristobal Colon as his patron, Queen Isabella I of Spain, calls him – finally gets his ships to land. He believes he has reached South Asia. He names the island on which he lands San Salvador, after Jesus. Eventually, the island will be taken over by the English, and renamed Watling Island. Today, it is a part of the Bahamas.

Eventually, the man the English-speaking world knows as Christopher Columbus will make 4 voyages west, never fully realizing he was in what became known as “the New World,” always thinking he was in Asia. But he does start the wave of European exploration that will make the Americas – eventually named for rival Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci – possible.

Yet, considering previous voyages of the Vikings (and, some believe, the Chinese), it is disingenuous to say, “Columbus discovered America.” In fact, he never set foot on the soil of the continental U.S., coming the closest when he reached Puerto Rico. As far as I can tell, it was Juan Ponce de Leon, who came with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, that was the first European to set foot on present-day U.S. soil, reaching Florida in 1513. (Vespucci did reach land in what's now called South America, but not North America.)

It's also not true that Columbus "proved the world is round." By 1492, most people already believed that. Even so, it would be 1522, and the conclusion of the Ferdinand Magellan expedition, before anyone sailed all the way around the world, and proved through firsthand experience that the world was round.

What does this have to do with baseball? Today, there is a Triple-A minor league baseball team in Columbus, Ohio, and a Double-A team in Columbus, Georgia. And a major league team in Washington, District of Columbia. And, of course, there is a tremendous amount of talent in lands that Columbus revealed to the Old World, including the places now known as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

October 12, 1899: The American League is founded by Ban Johnson.

October 12, 1906: Joseph Edward Cronin is born in San Francisco. Both shortstop and manager for the Washington Senators, he led them to the 1933 American League Pennant, still the last Pennant ever won by a Washington baseball team (unless you count the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, and even then they split their “home” games between Washington and Pittsburgh).

Senators owner Clark Griffith, himself a former pitcher good enough to make the Hall of Fame even if he hadn’t been a pioneering team owner, liked Cronin so much he let him marry his daughter Mildred. But when Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey offered the perennially broke Griffith big bucks for Cronin, he sold his son-in-law, his shortstop, and his manager off all in one fell swoop.

Yawkey made Cronin his shortstop and manager, but ego made Cronin the manager keep Cronin the player at shortstop long after his skills had deteriorated. This caused the Red Sox to trade away the star shortstop of their Louisville farm team, Harold “Pee Wee” Reese. True, this allowed Johnny Pesky to become an All-Star shortstop once Cronin finally accepted that he didn’t have it anymore, but it also led the greatest of all Red Sox, Ted Williams, to say that if the Sox had Phil Rizzuto at short, they would have won “all those Pennants” instead of the Yankees.

Finally, in 1946 – a year after he finally retired as a player, coincidence? – Cronin led the Red Sox to the Pennant, but lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, a loss often blamed on… drumroll please… shortstop Pesky “holding the ball.” Cronin only lasted another year as manager, then was “promoted” to team president. He left the team presidency in 1959 when he was offered the presidency of the American League, a post he held until 1973.

That the Red Sox became the last team to integrate is often blamed on owner Yawkey and his drinking buddy, 1950s manager Michael "Pinky" Higgins, who famously declared that there would never be a (racial slur beginning with N) on the team as long as he was the manager. And, once Yawkey fired him, the Sox then integrated. However, Yawkey hired him back, and at that point, Higgins managed more black players than his fired successor, Rudy York, or the man hired to replace York, Bucky Harris. Could it be that the real Yawkey drinking buddy/roadblock to integration was Cronin? After all, the year that the Sox integrated, with Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, was 1959, the very year Cronin left to become AL President.

Joe Cronin is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and his Number 4 has been retired by the Red Sox. But if he hadn’t managed the Sox to that ’46 Pennant, I wonder if he would have deserved these honors. After all, he wasn’t a great shortstop as long as his contemporaries Rizzuto, Reese, Luke Appling, Lou Boudreau or Marty Marion were. And, as far as I can tell, he was the first manager ever to walk out to the mound and tell his pitcher, “Don’t give him anything good to hit – but don’t walk him.”

October 12, 1907: At Detroit’s Bennett Park, right-hander Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown throws a 2-0 shutout, beating the Tigers to capture the World Championship for the Cubs. Although Game 1 ended in a 3-3, 12-inning tie, Chicago becomes the first club to sweep a Fall Classic.

October 12, 1910: With the AL season ending a week earlier than the NL‚ the champion Philadelphia Athletics tune up with a 5-game series against an AL all-star team‚ which includes Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers‚ Tris Speaker of the Boston Red Sox‚ Doc White and Ed Walsh of the Chicago White Sox‚ and Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators.

The A's drop 4 out of 5 to the all-stars‚ but Mack will later state‚ "Those games‚ more than anything else‚ put the Athletics in a condition to outclass the National League champions." These are not baseball’s first “all-star games,” but they were very consequential as far as determining the World Champions of baseball.

Also on this day, Robert Leo Sheppard is born in Richmond Hill, Queens. He played quarterback for St. John’s University in Queens, and later taught public speaking there. In between, he taught public speaking at John Adams High School in the Ozone Park section of Queens. This means he could, arguably, have had, as one of his students, my Grandma. (Sadly, family concerns forced her to drop out, so she never did graduate.)

When the NFL had a team called the Brooklyn Dodgers, speech professor Bob Sheppard did the public-address announcements for their games. Dodgers owner, and Yankees co-owner, Dan Topping heard this, and asked Sheppard to do the Yankees’ games. He accepted, and from 1951 until 2007, he hardly ever missed a game. Ill health forced him to miss the 2008 and 2009 seasons, but... 57 years! On top of that, from 1956 to 2005, 50 years, he did the football Giants’ games.

Sheppard was a generous gentleman and a complete professional, from sounding like an announcer, not a shameless shill (unlike such braying animals as Bob Casey of the Minnesota Twins, may he rest in peace, and Ray Clay of the Chicago Bulls); to accepting with humility the appellation that Reggie gave him: “The Voice of God.” Such is the appeal of Sheppard, and such is the pull of Derek Jeter, that Jeter asked that a recording of Sheppard introduce him before every at-bat, for the rest of his career, even after Sheppard died, which happened in 2010, just short of his 100th birthday.

October 12, 1913: Following the World Series, which his New York Giants lost to the A’s, John McGraw hosts a reunion for Hughie Jennings and the old NL version of the Baltimore Orioles, 20 years after their first Pennant.

After a night of heavy drinking‚ McGraw blames his longtime friend‚ business partner and teammate Wilbert Robinson, perhaps baseball’s first great pitching coach, for too many coaching mistakes in the 1913 Series. “Uncle Robbie” replies that McGraw made more mistakes than anybody. McGraw fires him. Eyewitnesses say Robbie doused McGraw with a glass of beer and left.

Six days later, Robbie will begin a legendary 18 years as manager of the crosstown Brooklyn franchise‚ replacing Bill Dahlen. The team will carry the nickname Robins‚ as well as Dodgers‚ during his tenure. Robbie and Mac won't speak to each other for 17 years, and after winning 3 straight Pennants together, McGraw will win just 1 Pennant in the next 7 years, while Robbie will win 2 -- the only Pennants the Brooklyn team will win between 1900 and 1941.

This is not the beginning of the rivalry between the Giants and the Dodgers, not by a long shot.  That rivalry had its beginning in rivalries between clubs of New York (Manhattan) and Brooklyn when they were separate cities prior to 1898, even going back to the days of amateur baseball in the 1850s and '60s.  And the rivalry between Manhattan and Brooklyn would have happened even if baseball had never been invented.

But the McGraw-Robinson bustup is the beginning of a rivalry that ruined one of baseball’s great friendships, not resolved until both men were retired and near death. Still, they both ended up in the Hall of Fame – neither lived to see the Hall’s establishment, though – and are buried in the same Baltimore cemetery.  Somebody should write a book about it: We've seen books about the Giants, about the Dodgers, about the Dodger-Giant rivalry, about McGraw, and even about the old Orioles -- but the McGraw-Robinson relationship is a fascinating one.  They're like the John Adams and Thomas Jefferson of baseball: Great friends in a great cause, then a nasty split and nastier rivalry, and ultimately the relationship was repaired and the great friendship restored toward the end.

October 12, 1916: The Boston Red Sox defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers/Robins, 4-1, and win the World Series by the same margin. After winning back-to-back World Series – still the only manager in the history of Boston baseball to do so – Bill Carrigan announces his retirement. He will return to the post in 1927, but, without future Hall-of-Famers such as Tris Speaker, Harry Hooper and, uh, Babe Ruth, he will finish at the bottom of the American League instead of the top.

October 12, 1920: The Cleveland Indians win their first World Series, in Game 7 of the best-5-out-of-9 Series, 3-0 over Uncle Robbie’s Dodgers/Robins, as Stan Coveleski outduels fellow future Hall-of-Famer Burleigh Grimes for his 3rd win of the Series. It will be 21 years before the Dodgers get back into the Series; for the Indians, 28 years.

October 12, 1929: Game 4 of the 1929 World Series, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, remains one of the wildest in postseason history. Having started a seemingly washed-up Howard Ehmke in Game 1 and having it work, Philadelphia Athletics owner-manager Connie Mack starts 45-year-old Jack Quinn. This seems to work, too, until the 6th, when the Chicago Cubs start scoring. By the time they stop, they lead, 7-0. Cub manager Joe McCarthy starts Charlie Root, who would later become a victim of McCarthy’s Yankees, including Babe Ruth’s “called shot,” though this does not do Root justice, as he was a fine pitcher for many years. Root enters the bottom of the 7th with an 8-0 lead.

Then the A’s come storming back. Hack Wilson, a great slugger but not the best of outfielders even when not drunk or hungover, misjudges a fly ball from Mule Haas, and it turns into a three-run inside-the-park home run. One of the runners scoring on the play is Al Simmons, and the great slugger storms into the dugout, yelling, “We’re back in the game, boys!” and his momentum causes him to crash into Mack – already 67 years old, if not the elderly figure most of us imagine him to have always been. Simmons apologizes profusely, but Mack, a former big-league catcher and familiar with ballplayers crashing into him, is just as enthused and tells him, “That’s all right, Al.”

The A’s score a Series record 10 runs in the inning, and ace Lefty Grove finishes the Cubs off, as 10-8 remains the final score. The A’s close down the shellshocked Cubs the next day.

October 12, 1938: Leo Durocher, already the Brooklyn Dodgers’ shortstop, is named their manager. He will hold the post for nearly 10 years, nearly all of them controversial. He had previously been a virtual coach on the field for Frankie Frisch on the St. Louis Cardinals when they won their “Gashouse Gang” World Series in 1934. However, unlike Joe Cronin in Boston, Durocher would recognize that his shortstop skills were fading, and allow Pee Wee Reese, whom the Dodgers had purchased from the Red Sox, to succeed him in the field and in the lineup.

October 12, 1944: Frank Sinatra appears at the Paramount Theater in New York’s Times Square. About 25,000 others, mostly teenage girls – “bobbysoxers” in the lingo of the day – were turned away, and vented their frustrations by smashing store windows.

It becomes known as the Columbus Day Riot, and for those Sinatra fans who grew up to have kids screaming over Elvis Presley and/or the Beatles, complaining that they never acted that way over a musical act they liked, well, guess what, old-timers, you did.

The Jonas Brothers ain’t no Beatles, Justin Timberlake ain’t no Elvis, and singers from Bobby Darin to Harry Connick Jr. to Sean Combs have deluded themselves, but none of them is in Sinatra’s league. The man has more charisma dead than any of them do alive.

What does this have to do with sports? Well, by itself, nothing. But Sinatra was a big sports fan. He sang “There Used to Be a Ballpark” about Ebbets Field, although he remained a Dodger fan after they moved to L.A. He was a great boxing fan who talked Life magazine into making him their official photographer for the 1971 “Super Fight” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier – and he took good pictures. And on a Pittsburgh Steeler roadtrip to San Diego, the Steeler fan club known as “Franco’s Italian Army” (named after the half-black, half-Italian running back Franco Harris) invited Sinatra, then living in nearby Palm Springs, and offered to make him an “Honorary General” in the Army. Although he had no connection to Pittsburgh, he posed for pictures with them and accepted a helmet with generals’ stars on it.

October 12, 1948: The Yankees hire Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel as their manager. Stengel had just managed the Oakland Oaks – including former star big-league catcher Ernie Lombardi and a 20-year-old sparkplug local boy from West Berkeley named Billy Martin – to the Pacific Coast League Pennant, so chances were that some big-league team would have snapped him up if the Yankees didn't.

But his two previous big-league managing jobs, with the Brooklyn Dodgers (managing them in between Uncle Robbie and Leo the Lip) and the Boston Braves, were terrible. In Brooklyn in 1935, it was quipped that overconfidence might cost the Dodgers 6th place. In Boston in 1943, Casey was slightly injured when hit by a cab, and one sportswriter called the driver the man who had done the most for Boston baseball that season.

He was 58 years old in 1948, and, like Connie Mack, he always looked even older than he was. And he had a reputation as a “clown,” for such antics as tipping his cap and letting a bird fly out from under it, and protesting the weather to an umpire by walking out of the dugout with an umbrella. This was not a man who would manage “the Yankee way,” sportswriters said.

Then again, Casey really didn’t have the players in Flatbush or in Allston. Once he proved everyone wrong by winning the 1949 Pennant, he said, with a mixture of pride and humility, “I couldn’t have done it without my players.” Finally having the horses, Casey went on to manage the Yankees for 12 years, winning 10 Pennants and 7 World Series. He then managed the Mets in their first 4 years, 1962-65.

He is still the most successful manager in baseball history. He was fast-tracked to election to the Hall of Fame after his retirement, the Yankees dedicated a Plaque in Monument Park to his memory, and he lived to see both the Yankees and the Mets retire his Number 37.

October 12, 1954: The AL owners approve the shift of the Philadelphia Athletics franchise to Kansas City. Roy and Earle Mack, sons of the now-senile Connie Mack, sell the A'sto Arnold Johnson, a Chicago-based trucking magnate, 25 years to the day after the team’s magnificent 10-run inning in the ’29 World Series. Johnson's bid is $3‚375‚000 for the team and stadium‚ Shibe Park, recently renamed Connie Mack Stadium. He says he will sell the stadium to the Phillies for $1‚675‚000, although Phils owner Bob Carpenter, a very wealthy man as a member of both the Carpenter and the duPont families, says, "I need Shibe Park like I need a hole in the head."

One of the offers for the team is from a wealthy Texas group that proposes to move the A's to Los Angeles, but Kansas City, long a hotbed of minor league and Negro League baseball, gets major league status for the first time since the Kansas City Packers of the Federal League in 1915 – or, if you don’t count that, since the Kansas City Cowboys of the old American Association in 1889.

October 12, 1955: The St. Louis Cardinals fire manager Harry “the Hat” Walker, and replace him with former big-league pitcher Fred Hutchinson. Walker, like his brother Fred “Dixie” Walker, a former Dodgers slugger, was a really good hitter in his day, but he was not such a good manager. (He would, however, return to the Cards as a coach, and later manage the Pittsburgh Pirates, and would also take the Houston Astros to their first Pennant race in 1969.) But his day as a player was done. He had used himself as a pinch-hitter in the ’55 season, but his firing means that, for the first time in the history of baseball, there are no current player-managers.

Joe Torre (’77 Mets), Don Kessinger (’79 White Sox) and Pete Rose (’85 and ’86 Reds) would briefly be player-managers, before Torre and Rose retired as players and Kessinger was fired (and subsequently retired as a player), but from this point forward, player-managers would be frowned upon. The last player-manager to get his team into a Pennant race was Lou Boudreau with the ’51 Red Sox. The last to win a Pennant, much less a World Series, was Boudreau with the ’48 Indians.

October 12, 1963: For the first time, and thus far for the only time, a Hispanic-American major league all-star game is played, one of the last events ever to be held at the Polo Grounds in New York. (It will host the New York Jets of the American Football League until December, then fall to the wrecking ball the following April as Shea Stadium opens.)

The National League beats their American League rivals, 5-2. With future Hall-of-Famers Roberto Clemente‚ Orlando Cepeda‚ Juan Marichal, and Luis Aparicio looking on‚ Minnesota Twins first baseman Vic Power, a native of Puerto Rico (where he is still usually referred to by his real name, Victor Pellot), receives the award as the number-one Latin American player during a pregame ceremony at the Polo Grounds. Back in 1956 or so, giving Power such an award would have made sense, but with all those other Latin stars, Power would soon be forgotten. He shouldn't have been, but, in all fairness, he never got nearly the shot those guys got.

October 12, 1965: Following the departure of the Braves for Atlanta, a Milwaukee-based used-car salesman founds Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc., named for the former minor-league team from the city, in the hopes of attracting an expansion team or buying an existing team and moving it to the Beer City.

The salesman’s name is Allan Huber Selig Jr. Yes, Bud Selig. The man who founded bought the Seattle Pilots on the eve of the 1970 season, moved them, and renamed them the Milwaukee Brewers, and has been Commissioner of Baseball since 1992, started out as a used-car salesman. He had become rich and famous by selling cars to the Braves players, including selling rookie catcher Joe Torre his first car.

October 12, 1967: Baseball and the Summer of Love converge on Fenway Park in Boston for Game 7 of the World Series, as a fan holds up a sign saying, “THE RED SOX ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.”

But the prediction made the day before, after a Game 6 win, by Sox manager Dick Williams, of “Lonborg and champagne,” does not happen: On only 2 days’ rest, Gentleman Jim is shelled, and even opposing pitcher Bob Gibson, himself on only 3 days rest (and having won Game 7 in ’64 on just two) hits a home run off him. The Cardinals win, 7-2, for Gibson’s 3rd win of the Series, the team’s 2nd title in 4 seasons, and their 7th World Championship.

For the Red Sox, “the Impossible Dream” came to an end one game too soon, but the season did revitalize the franchise, restoring its profitability and its place of veneration among the people of New England. They lost the World Series, but they cannot be called a failure. Without this season, the Red Sox might have ended up leaving Fenway Park, sharing a stadium out in Foxboro with the NFL’s Patriots. Or owner Tom Yawkey, who really wanted out of Fenway, might have moved them out of Boston entirely. So, even more than 2004, this is the most important season in Red Sox history. Years later, after the Red Sox failures of 1975, ’78 and ’86, but before the tainted triumphs of 2004 and ’07, Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy would write that, of all Red Sox teams, this one is absolved from criticism by “Red Sox Nation” – which, he says, essentially began that summer.

By the same – pardon my choice of words here – token, this was an incredibly important season in St. Louis. The holdovers from the 1964 season proved it was no fluke, and, much more so than the ’64 team, the ’67 team, with its mixture of white stars (Tim McCarver, Dal Maxvill and an aging but still power-hitting Roger Maris), black stars (Gibson, Lou Brock and Curt Flood) and Hispanic stars (Orlando Cepeda and Julian Javier) showed St. Louis, still thinking of itself as a Southern city, what integration could really do. Fans in Brooklyn had learned that 20 years earlier.

Yet, somehow, the 1964-68 Cards, as good as they were, have not been celebrated by Baby Boomers as much as have the 1950s and ’60s Yankees, the 1950s Dodgers, the ’60 and ’71 Pirates, the 1962-66 Dodgers, the 1962-66 Giants, the 1966-71 Orioles, the ’67 Red Sox, the ’68 Tigers and the ’69 Mets. Hopefully, that’s mainly because St. Louis was, and is, one of baseball’s smallest markets. Still, the Cardinals were then, and are now, one of baseball’s most profitable and most admired franchises.

October 12, 1969: The Mets win a World Series game for the first time, taking Game 2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Al Weis’ 9th-inning single breaks up a pitchers’ duel between the Mets’ Jerry Koosman (who is relieved in the bottom of the 9th by Ron Taylor and the Orioles’ Dave McNally.

The film Frequency tells the fictional tale of an atmospheric phenomenon that allows a 1999 NYPD detective and Met fan, played by Jim Caviezel, to use his father’s old ham-radio set to talk to his father, a 1969 fireman, played by Dennis Quaid. October 12, 1969 was the day the father died in a fire, when the son was just 6, and the son is able to warn him from the future. The result is that the father, and the teenage girl he would have failed to rescue from the fire, get out alive.

But interfering with time means that, because she wasn’t preparing for her husband’s funeral, the cop’s mother, a nurse, saves the life of a serial killer who would otherwise have died, and several more women end up dying – including the mother herself, played by Elizabeth Mitchell (who, unlike Quaid, is actually younger than Caviezel).

Now, instead of having his mother but not his father from 1969 to 1999, he now has his father but not his mother from 1969 to 1989 – the father living long enough to see the son graduate from the police academy, but dying from smoking before the son makes Detective.

Using the ham radio, father and son, roughly the same age as each other, track down the killer, played by Shaun Doyle, a Canadian actor who appeared on the series Lost and Big Love, and was so creepy in Frequency that he really should have played the Joker in The Dark Knight, and not just to save Heath Ledger’s life.

The kicker is that, as a result of his 1969 confrontation with the killer, the father begins to be suspected for the killings (which do not yet include his wife) by a young cop, played by Andre Braugher, who will be the son’s mentor and boss in 1999.

The way the father gets out of this and back on the killer’s trail is that Game 5 of the Series is being shown on a TV behind them. Having been told what’s going to happen by his son from 30 years in the future, he tells the cop (whose nickname is Satch, after baseball legend Satchel Paige) about the Cleon Jones shoe-polish incident and the subsequent Donn Clendenon home run. When it happens, the cop releases him, and... well, you’ll just have to see the movie. It’s a fantastic thriller, and I highly recommend it – even though the Mets are glorified in it.

Also on this day, with a connection to the Mets, Jose Valentin is born in Manati, Puerto Rico. The infielder last played in the majors for the Mets in 2007, and his only trip to the postseason was with the AL Central Champion White Sox in 2000.  He now managed the Fort Wayne Tin Caps in the Class A Midwest League.

October 12, 1970: Tanyon James Sturtze is born. Not a Yankee pitcher I care to say anything else about.  He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts -- a "Manchurian Candidate" for the nearby Red Sox?

Charlie Ward is also born on this day, in Thomasville, Georgia. The 1993 Heisman Trophy winner led Florida State to that season’s National Championship, but no NFL team would draft him, so he played for the NBA’s Knicks, not for the Giants or the Jets. Which is too bad, because, for a time, when the Giants had Dave Brown and Kent Graham, and the Jets had Neil O’Donnell and Bubby Brister, Ward was the best quarterback in New York. He did, however, play in the 1999 NBA Finals for the Knicks.

Kirk Cameron is also born on this day, in Los Angeles. He has spent most his time since Growing Pains went off the air making Christian Fundamentalist-themed films, including the movie versions of the Left Behind fables. His sister Candace Cameron, one of the stars of Full House, married hockey star Valeri Bure (who also has a famous brother, hockey legend Pavel Bure).

October 12, 1972, 40 years ago today: The Oakland Athletics defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1, and take the American League Pennant. The winning run is scored by Reggie Jackson on the front end of a double-steal, but Reggie tears his hamstring, and is unable to play in the World Series. He will make up for that many times, as he is the only man to win World Series MVPs with two different teams, the A’s in ’73 and the Yankees in ’77.

October 12, 1977: The Dodgers pounce on aching Yankee starter Catfish Hunter, and win Game 2, 6-1, and tie up the Series. Billy Martin is criticized for putting Catfish on the mound when he’d been injured and hadn’t pitched in a month, but it allowed Billy to start Mike Torrez in Game 3, rookie sensation Ron Guidry in Game 4, and Don Gullett in Game 5, all on full rest.

During the ABC broadcast, the camera on the Goodyear blimp caught the image of an abandoned school on fire, just a few blocks east of Yankee Stadium. “There it is, ladies and gentlemen,” said ABC’s Howard Cosell. “The Bronx is burning.” This became the title of Jonathan Mahler’s book about life in New York City in 1977, and of the ESPN miniseries about it.

October 12, 1980: The Phillies win the Pennant with a 10-inning 8-7 win over the Astros in the deciding Game 5 at the Astrodome. Each of the last 4 games of this epic series was decided in extra innings. The Phils‚ down by 3 runs to Nolan Ryan in the 8th‚ rally to tie, and center fielder Garry Maddox makes up for his Playoff goof of 2 years earlier by doubling home the winning run and catching the final out.

Although Tug McGraw had been on the mound when the Phils clinched the Division in Montreal, and would be on the mound when they clinched the World Series at home 9 days later, he was already out of the Pennant-clincher before it ended. Dick Ruthven, the Phils’ Number 2 starter behind Steve Carlton, turned out to be the pitcher on the mound at the end. This was the Phils’ first Pennant in 30 years, and only the second by a Philadelphia team in 49.

October 12, 1982, 30 years ago today: The Milwaukee Brewers win the first World Series game in franchise history, clobbering the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium. Paul Molitor sets a Series record, becoming the first player to collect 5 hits in a game. Robin Yount gets 4 hits.

October 12, 1986: Game 5 of the ALCS. One loss away from elimination and trailing 5-2 entering the 9th‚ the Red Sox stage one of the most improbable comebacks in post-season history, winning 7-6 over the Angels in 11 innings.

After Don Baylor's 9th-inning home run reduces the deficit to 5-4‚ reserve outfielder Dave Henderson slugs a 2-out‚ 2-run home run off Donnie Moore to give Boston a 6-5 lead. California ties the score with a run in the bottom of the 9th but Henderson‚ who had appeared to be the goat when he dropped Bobby Grich's long fly ball over the fence for a home run in the 7th inning‚ delivers a sacrifice fly in the 11th for the winning run.

The Sox would win the Pennant 3 days later. Three years later, still despondent over having given up the home run that blew the Pennant for the Angels, Moore shoots his wife, then himself. She lived, he didn’t. A loss in a baseball game may be a terrible disappointment, but there is a difference between disappointment, however great, and tragedy.

Henderson would also hit the home run that appeared to give the Sox Game 6 of the World Series, and their first title in 68 years. That they did not finish the job, and how they so failed, has become legend. If they had, Henderson would have become a god in New England. That he is not is no fault of his.

He would later help Oakland with 3 straight Pennants, and he was invited to throw out the ceremonial first ball before Game 3 of this year’s ALDS between the Red Sox and Angels. Unfortunately for the Sox, it didn’t work any more than the Yankees bringing out Bucky Dent to do the honors before Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS between the Yanks and the Sox.

October 12, 1987, 25 years ago today: The Minnesota Twins defeat the Detroit Tigers, 9-5, and win their first Pennant in 22 years. This was a major upset, as the Twins had won just 85 games in the regular season, and many people (including myself) were picking the Tigers to win it all. We did not reckon with the power of the Metrodome. Fortunately, the only people who will have to do so now are people whose favorite NFL team goes in there to play the Vikings.

This is the first Pennant ever won by a team playing its home games indoors -- the Twins' 1965 Pennant was won while they still played outdoors, in the suburb of Bloomington, at Metropolitan Stadium.

October 12, 1988: Orel Hershiser shuts out the Mets, and the Dodgers win Game 7 and the Pennant, 6-0. New York – the National League “half” of it, anyway, the half that should have cared about this – finally had a chance to stick it to the evil O’Malley family, and they blew it. The Mets, whose fans did not realize that their “dynasty” had ended without really becoming one, would not return to the NLCS for 11 years – but that’s sooner than did the Dodgers, who waited 20 years.

October 12, 2003: Joan Kroc, former owner of the San Diego Padres (inheriting them from her husband, McDonald’s tycoon Ray Kroc) dies at age 85. She had recently been the formerly “anonymous angel” who donated a huge sum to disaster relief when floods hit the Upper Midwest.

On this same day, the best possible thing that could happen in the Yanks-Red Sox ALCS does happen: Rain. An extra 24 hours gives everyone a chance to cool off a little.

October 12, 2005: In Boston, it’s Larry Barnett (1975 World Series Game 3). In St. Louis, it’s Don Denkinger (1985 World Series Game 6). In Baltimore, it's Rich Garcia (1996 ALCS Game 1).  In Atlanta, it's Eric Gregg (1997 NLCS Game 5).  In Orange County, California, the most hated of all umpires is Doug Eddings.

Game 2 of the ALCS at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. The Angels are up 1 game to 0 in the ALCS. Game 2 is tied 1-1 with the White Sox batting in the bottom of the 9th and 2 out. White Sox catcher A. J. Pierzynski faces Angels relief pitcher Kelvim Escobar, who quickly gets 2 strikes. Pierzynski swings at Escobar's third pitch, a split-fingered fastball that comes in very low. Angels catcher Josh Paul says after the game, "I caught the ball, so I thought the inning was over."

Eddings later said the ball had not been legally caught, but he made no audible call that the ball hit the ground. Pierzynski, already having had a reputation as a rough player, takes a couple of steps toward the dugout, but then, noticing that he had not heard himself called out, turns and runs to first base while most of the Angels are walking off the field. He makes it to first base safely.  A pinch-runner, Pablo Ozuna, replaces Pierzynski and steals second base, and scores on a base hit by third baseman Joe Crede for the winning run.

The controversy surrounding the play concerns both whether Eddings' ruling that the ball hit the ground was correct, and the unclear mechanic for signaling the ruling. Eddings did not indicate no-catch signals during the game. In fact, in the 2nd inning of the same game, Eddings had ruled no catch on a 3rd strike to Garret Anderson of the Angels, but the White Sox were not aware of the ruling until Eddings called Anderson out as he entered the dugout. At the time, professional umpiring mechanics did not dictate a specific no-catch signal or a "no catch" verbalization after an uncaught third strike. A mechanic has subsequently been added.

After the game, Eddings explained his actions: "My interpretation is that was my 'strike three' mechanic, when it's a swinging strike. If you watch, that's what I do the whole entire game. ... I did not say 'No catch.' If you watch the play, you do watch me — as I'm making the mechanic, I'm watching Josh Paul, and so I'm seeing what he's going to do. I'm looking directly at him while I'm watching Josh Paul. That's when Pierzynski ran to first base."

Angels fans remain convinced that Eddings screwed them over and cost them a Pennant – and, since the ChiSox went on to sweep the Houston Astros in 4 straight, that Eddings also cost them the World Series. They are wrong: The video clearly shows the ball touching the ground, and Angels catcher Benjie Molina should have tried to throw Pierzynski out at first. He didn’t, therefore Pierzynski was entitled to the base. Eddings was right, and Pierzynski acted within the rules of the game.

And here’s the key: The series was still tied. While the next 3 games were going to be in Chicago, theoretically the Angels still had as much chance to win the Pennant as the Pale Hose did. They could have shut their traps, gotten their acts together, and gone out and won Game 3 in Chicago, taken a 2-1 lead in the series, and it would have been a very different story. Instead, like the ’85 Cards on the Denkinger/Jorge Orta play, and like the ’78 Dodgers on the Reggie Jackson “hip-check” play, they let the incident get into their heads. They lost 3 straight and the Pennant. They did not deserve to win that one. The White Sox, thinking clearly, did.

October 12, 2010: Behind the complete-game effort by Cliff Lee, the Rangers beat Tampa Bay, 5-1, in the decisive Game 5 of the ALDS at Tropicana Field, for the 1st Playoff series victory in franchise history. They are the last major league club to accomplish the task -- unless you count the fact that the Montreal Expos, who did it in the strike-forced split-season format of 1981, still haven't done it since they became the Washington Nationals in 2005 -- although they can do it tonight, October 12, 2012.  The Rangers, who will take on the Yankees for the AL flag, lost their three previous playoff appearances with first-round losses to the Bronx Bombers in 1996 and 1998-99.

If We Had to Have a Meltdown, Last Night Was the Night to Have It

"Joe, you gotta be kidding me. This bum? Again?"

Last night could have been a very good night for the Yankees. The Baltimore Orioles lost to those pesky Toronto Blue Jays, so no matter what happened in the Yankees' game against the Minnesota Twins, the Magic Number would drop to at least 7.

Phil Hughes pitched pretty well for 6 innings, and Nick Swisher hit a home run in the top of the 4th (his 24th of the season). The Twins pulled a run back in the bottom of the inning, but Russell Martin homered in the top of the 7th (his 19th). It was 3-1 Yankees and looking good.

Then came the meltdown. The 1st 2 batters in the bottom of the 7th were Ryan Doumit, who singled to center, and Chris Parmelee, who drew a walk, following up on his earlier double that got the Twins their 1st run. Hughes was in trouble, as the tying runs were on base and the go-ahead run was now at the plate.

He got Trevor Plouffe to pop up to 2nd, but Jamey Carroll beat out an infield single. Bases loaded, 1 out.

This might have been a good time for manager Joe Girardi to pull Hughes and bring in a reliever.

Instead, he goes against his usual policy, and trusts his starting pitcher, and leaves Hughes in to pitch to Pedro Florimon. And Hughes strikes him out.

Okay, he got the 2nd out. Maybe he can work out of this. Leave him in there to get the 3rd out.

Except that's not what Joe did. Whether he consulted that damn binder of his, or he simply had a hunch, I don't know, and I don't care. What matters is that he picked the wrong time to take Hughes out, and he picked the wrong pitcher to bring in: As Hank Williams would have said, "It's Boone Logan, I could cry."

Wild pitch, sending Doumit home and moving up the other runners. 3-2 Yankees.

Then he allowed a double to Denard Span. Not shocking: A, It was Span's 37th double of the season, and he's batting .289, so we're not talking about a bad hitter here, even though he's only got 3 homers; and B, It was Boone Logan, naturally. But it scored Parmelee and Carroll. 4-3 Twins.

You would think that, under these circumstances, Girardi would pull Logan immediately. You would think, but you'd be wrong. He left him in. Logan walked Ben Revere. (Not Paul Revere. Maybe Logan should have yelled, "The fastballs are coming! The fastballs are coming!" The results wouldn't have been any worse if the batters knew what was coming.)

Okay, now Girardi takes Logan out, right? Wrong. He only sends pitching coach Larry Rothschild out. Are you kidding me?

Logan allows a single to Joe Mauer. Great hitter, so no shame in that alone -- except it scored Span, making it 5-3 Twins, and that run would prove to be critical.

Wild pitch, double, walk, single. Turning a 3-1 lead into a 5-3 deficit.

Logan stinks. If this guy were righthanded, he wouldn't even be in the major leagues. But he's lefthanded, and so somebody is always going to think he has value. Unfortunately, for now, that somebody is Joe Girardi.

And in my hour of need, who goes and blows a lead? It's Boone Logan, naturally.

Look at that picture at the top: Even Derek Jeter seems to be saying, "Joe, you gotta be kidding me. This bum, again?"

Finally, Logan got the last out. Robinson Cano drew a 2-out walk in the 8th, but was stranded. Girardi brought Derek Lowe in to pitch the 8th. Oy vey, it's only a 2-run deficit, we could come back from this, and you're bringing in Derek "My Ability Was Once High But Now It's" Lowe? Actually, that worked out: Lowe pitched a scoreless inning.

Top of the 9th. Last chance. Curtis Granderson grounded out. Russell Martin struck out swinging. Andruw Jones, who lately has been as cold as Mitt Romney's heart, hit one out, his 14th homer of the season. 5-4 Twins. Tying run at the plate. But Jayson Nix strikes out. Game over.

WP: Casey Fien (2-1). SV: Glen Perkins (15). LP: Hughes (16-13), although it was more Logan's fault than anyone else's.

Still, the Orioles lost, so if we had to have a meltdown -- and it was as much Girardi's and Logan's as it was Hughes' -- then last night was the night to have it, rather than in the final series of the regular season, or in the Playoffs.

The Yankees remain a game and a half up with 8 to play (7 for the O's).

In other words, if the Yankees are only .500 the rest of the way, 4-4, the O's will have to go 5-2. So we're still very much in the driver's seat.

The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2, so they're 5 out. They're not yet eliminated from the Division race: Their elimination number is 4. Granted, they'd have to win all 8 of their remaining games, and the Yankees could still eliminate them by splitting theirs. But it's possible.

The Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers are now tied for the lead in the AL Central. The Texas Rangers' Magic Number to clinch the AL West over the Oakland Athletics remains 5. The Washington Nationals also have a MN of 5 to clinch the NL East, although the Atlanta Braves clinched at least a Wild Card berth last night -- with Freddie Freeman, who made the last out of last season's epic Braves collapse, hitting a walkoff homer to clinch it and beat the Miami Marlins. The Cincinnati Reds have already clinched the NL Central, the San Francisco Giants the NL West.

The Orioles lead the race for the AL Wild Card slots, and the A's have the 2nd slot. Trailing them are the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by 2, the Rays by 3, and whoever loses the AL Central race (both the White Sox and Tigers currently trail the A's by 5).

The Braves have 1 NL Wild Card slot wrapped up, while the St. Louis Cardinals currently hold the other. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers are both 4 1/2 behind them, the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks 5 1/2, and the Pittsburgh Pirates 7 1/2. The San Diego Padres were eliminated from contention last night.

CoolStandings.com rates the Yankees' chances of at least making the Playoffs as 99.3 percent, and winning the Division at 88.6 percent. Based on remaining schedule, they've got Detroit as 52 percent to win the AL Central. The O's are 82.6 to win at least a Wild Card, the A's 80.9, the Tigers 52.0, the White Sox 48.1, the Angels 24.9 and the Rays 12.6. In the NL, they've got St. Louis at 96.4 (that's for the other Wild Card berth), Milwaukee 2.2, L.A. 0.9, Arizona 0.4, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh at less than 0.1 percent.

The Yanks-Twins series wraps up this afternoon at Target Field, first pitch scheduled for 1:10 PM (12:10 local time). CC Sabathia starts for us, Samuel Deduno for them. No, I'd never heard of him, either. He's a righthander from the Dominican Republic. He's 30, but he's pitched a grand total of 20 games in the major leagues, 14 of them this season. He previously pitched for the Colorado Rockies in 2010 and the Padres last year. He's the proverbial "pitcher the Yankees have never seen before," but, seeing as how he's past 30, not under 25, I think we can avoid that particular trap. The Orioles play tonight.

Come on you Bombers!

Take 2 Off the Magic Number, Out of Pettitte Cash

A few years ago, when Michael Kay was still John Sterling's radio broadcast partner, rather than the lead man on the Yankees' TV broadcasts, Andy Pettitte was pitching -- it might have been the same matchup as this week, Yankees at Minnesota, although it would have been at the Metrodome rather than Target Field as now -- and Sterling said this, starting with the same condescending, "You know, (name of broadcast partner)... " that he now uses for Suzyn Waldman:

You know, Michael, if Andy Pettitte pitches, and the Yankees win, 9-5, people will say, "Andy's still got it, he's never lost it, he's really got the cutter working." But if the Yankees lose, 5-2, people will say, "Andy's lost it, he never had it, he's throwing the cutter too much." And he's pitched the same game!

Andy Pettitte has been a Yankee, off and on, since making his major league debut on April 29, 1995 -- a month before Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and 4 months before Jorge Posada -- and last night, he was going for his 208th win as a Yankee, his 245th overall.

The Yankees rewarded him for his renewed loyalty by staking him to 3 runs before he ever took the mound. Here were the 1st 5 batters of the game: Derek Jeter drew a walk, Ichiro Suzuki doubled, Alex Rodriguez flew out, Robinson Cano got Jeter home on a groundout, and Nick Swisher knocked one out, his 23rd home run of the year.  (And some of you were thinking we shouldn't re-sign him this coming off-season.)

Lisa Swan of Subway Squawkers might point out that, while A-Rod did make the 1st out of the game, it still could have scored Jeter, but he didn't go for it. 

The Yankees got another run in the 4th, as Curtis Granderson hit his 40th home run of the season. This made him the 5th Yankee to have 40 homers in back-to-back seasons. You might have heard of the 1st 4: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Jason Giambi. (Roger Maris almost made it, hitting 39 in 1960 before his record 61 in '61.) And 2 more homers in the 7th, both solo shots: The 18th of Raul Ibanez (yeah, like Pettitte, he's 40) and the 14th of Eric Chavez (he's 34, but was also supposed to be washed up).

Andy pitched 6 shutout innings. Joe Girardi didn't want to risk him any longer than that, as he's still working his way back up to full strength after coming off the Disabled List, and with the minor leagues' regular seasons ending, his "rehab starts" had to be at the major league level.

So Joe sent Joba Chamberlain out to pitch the 7th. Good move, as Trampoline Boy got 3 straight easy groundouts.

Joe sent Cory Wade out to pitch the 8th. Feasible move, as the Yankees were up 6-0. Even Wade can't blow that lead, right? Maybe he can: The 1st batter he faced was Pedro Florimon, a 25-year-old Dominican shortstop appearing in his 40th major league game, with exactly zero home runs and 9 RBIs at this level to his credit. Have I telegraphed the punch enough? (I know, I know: "What's a telegraph? Just how old are you, Uncle Mike?") Anyway, Florimon hit his 1st major league home run.  ade got 2 outs, and then Girardi's binder told him to replace Wade, with Justin Thomas, who got the last out in the 8th.

Thomas got into a jam in the 9th, and Girardi's binder told him to bring in David Robertson, who let the 2 runners Thomas let on score. But he got the last outs.

Yankees 6, Twins 3. A bit closer than it needed to be. Maybe Girardi should make a note in his binder: "Joba cruised through the 7th. Next time he does that, leave him in for the 8th."

WP: Pettitte (5-3). No save. LP: Liam Hendricks (1-8 -- the 23-year-old Australian is now 1-10 at the major league level for his career).

*

Having to make up an earlier rainout, the Baltimore Orioles had to play a day/night doubleheader against those pesky Toronto Blue Jays. The O's won the opener, 4-1, but lost the nightcap, 9-5.

The Yankees are now a game and a half ahead of the Orioles, 2 in the All-Important Loss Column, with 9 to play. The Magic Number to clinch the Division is 8.

Yankees: 2 more in Minnesota, 4 in Toronto, 3 at home to Boston.

Orioles: 2 more at home to Toronto, 3 at home to Boston, 3 at Tampa Bay.

If the Yankees go 5-4 (1 game over .500) the rest of the way, the O's will have to go 6-2 just to tie for 1st. The 1st tiebreaker is head-to-head play, but they split the 18 meetings between them. The 2nd tiebreaker is each team's record against the AL East as a whole. Since the Yankees still have 7 against AL East teams and all of the O's 8 remaining games are, that's still up in the air.

Who thought, going into the season, that we'd have to count on Andy Pettitte yet again? And, of those, who thought he would come through, at his age, after a one-year layoff?

Last night, the Yankees took 2 off the Magic Number, out of Pettitte Cash.