November 4, 2001, 20 years ago: Game 7 of the World Series, at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix. Although the record has been tied, this remains the latest date that a Major League Baseball game that counts has ever been played.
It starts as a duel between 2 of the greatest pitchers of the era -- and, in hindsight, the era's 2 most controversial pitchers: Roger Clemens for the New York Yankees, and Curt Schilling for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Both live up to the occasion and the matchup, and pitch very well: Schilling holds the Yankees to 1 run on 4 hits over the 1st 7 innings, while Clemens holds the Diamondbacks to 1 run on 7 hits before Yankee manager Joe Torre calls on Mike Stanton to get the last 2 outs in the top of the 7th.
Diamondback manager Bob Brenly sticks with Schilling for the top of the 8th, with the game tied 1-1, and Alfonso Soriano hits a home run. It's 2-1 Yankees, and it looks like Soriano has become one of the biggest World Series heroes ever -- the man who had hit the 2nd-latest home run in World Series history, behind only Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-9th homer to beat the Yankees for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960. (Remember: This was Game 7, and Joe Carter's Series-clinching homer of 1993 was in Game 6.)
Brenly brings Randy Johnson, who'd already beaten the Yankees in Games 2 and 6, in to relieve. Less than one day's rest? It's Game 7: Win or lose, there's no tomorrow, and you've got until late February to rest.
It starts as a duel between 2 of the greatest pitchers of the era -- and, in hindsight, the era's 2 most controversial pitchers: Roger Clemens for the New York Yankees, and Curt Schilling for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Both live up to the occasion and the matchup, and pitch very well: Schilling holds the Yankees to 1 run on 4 hits over the 1st 7 innings, while Clemens holds the Diamondbacks to 1 run on 7 hits before Yankee manager Joe Torre calls on Mike Stanton to get the last 2 outs in the top of the 7th.
Diamondback manager Bob Brenly sticks with Schilling for the top of the 8th, with the game tied 1-1, and Alfonso Soriano hits a home run. It's 2-1 Yankees, and it looks like Soriano has become one of the biggest World Series heroes ever -- the man who had hit the 2nd-latest home run in World Series history, behind only Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-9th homer to beat the Yankees for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960. (Remember: This was Game 7, and Joe Carter's Series-clinching homer of 1993 was in Game 6.)
Brenly brings Randy Johnson, who'd already beaten the Yankees in Games 2 and 6, in to relieve. Less than one day's rest? It's Game 7: Win or lose, there's no tomorrow, and you've got until late February to rest.
Torre relieves Stanton by sending supercloser Mariano Rivera out for a 2-inning save. He'd gotten away with that 5 times in this postseason. This was the 6th time he'd tried it. It is still 2-1 Yankees in the bottom of the 9th, and Mariano needs to get just 3 more outs to give the Yankees their 4th straight World Championship, their 5th in the last 6 years, their 27th overall.
Mark Grace leads off with a single to center. Brenly sends David Dellucci in to pinch-run for him. Damian Miller grounds back to Mariano, who throws to 2nd to start a double play -- and throws the ball away. Tying run on 2nd. World Series-winning run on 1st.
Brenly rolls the dice, and goes for the win in this inning, sending Jay Bell up to pinch-hit for the Big Unit. Bell bunts, and Mariano throws to 3rd to get Dellucci on a force. The tying run is still on 2nd, the World Series-winning run is on 1st, but now there's 1 out. Just need to get 2 more.
Mariano wouldn't get his next 2 outs until April 3, 2002 -- 5 months later, or 148 days.
Brenly sends Midre Cummings in to pinch-run for Miller at 2nd. Tony Womack doubles down the right field line. Cummings scores the tying run. Bell reaches 3rd with the run that could win the Series, and could score on as little as a sacrifice fly, or an error.
Craig Counsell, who had been the man who drove in the tying run and scored the winning run for the Florida Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series -- at this point, the only World Series won since 1995 by a team other than the Yankees -- comes up with the chance to be the hero again. Mariano hits him with a pitch. Not known as a purpose pitcher, Mariano was, for one of the very few times in his career, rattled.
Up steps Luis Gonzalez. A man whose seasonal home run totals had been 13 at age 23, 10 at 24, 15 at 25 (okay, he was playing his home games in the Houston Astrodome), 8 at 26 (1994, strike-shortened season), 13 at 27, 15 at 28 (the last 2 as a Chicago Cub, and remember that the wind blows in at Wrigley Field half the time), 10 at 29 (back in Houston, still in the Astrodome), and then...
He hit 23 home runs at age 30. Yes, he was now playing for the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium, but this was also 1998. The year of whatever it was that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were using to hit 70 and 66 home runs, respectively. Gonzalez hit 26 at 31, and 31 at 32. Very good, but no big deal -- until you realize that those last 2 years were with the Diamondbacks, playing their home games at "The BOB," which, like the Astrodome but unlike most other indoor stadiums, is a bad ballpark for hitters.
At age 34, Gonzalez hit 28 homers. At 35, 26. At 36, 17. At 37, 24. At 38 and 39, 15 both times. He closed his career with 8 homers at age 40 in 2006. Respectable numbers -- if they were achieved honestly.
In 2001, at age 33, the year of Barry Bonds hitting 73 home runs, Luis Gonzalez hit 57 home runs. That's 26 more than he had ever hit before, and 29 more than he would ever hit again. People talk about Brady Anderson hitting 50 in 1996, when he'd only topped 16 once before, had never topped 21, and would never top 24 again nor 19 but once, and they suspected steroids.
What Luis Gonzalez did on the night of November 4, 2001 did not suggest steroids. Just as Bobby Thomson said that, 50 years earlier, he didn't need help to know that Ralph Branca was going to throw a meaty fastball. Doesn't mean Thomson didn't take advantage of the help that the Giants had been offering for the last few weeks. And it doesn't mean that Gonzalez hadn't been using steroids since 1998.
Gonzalez hits a looper into center field for a base hit. Bell scores the run that wins the World Series for the Diamondbacks, in only their 4th season.
At the time, I was terribly disappointed. But not crushed. The Yankees had given me countless memories to treasure since the start of the 1996 season, including in Games 4 and 5 of this World Series. And there were a lot of really good players on that Diamondback team who had played for a long time, some with awful teams, and had struggled to get to this point, and (I thought) really deserved it. Grace with the Cubs. Johnson with the Mariners. Schilling with the Philadelphia Phillies. Gonzalez with the Astros. Bell and Womack with the Pirates. Matt Williams with the San Francisco Giants and the Cleveland Indians.
For the Yankees, Paul O'Neill and Scott Brosius retired, and Tino and Chuck Knoblauch were allowed to leave via free agency. In this game, O'Neill went 2-for-3, including a single in his last at-bat in the 7th inning; Knoblauch flew out pinch-hitting for O'Neill in the 8th; Brosius went 0-for-3; and Tino went 1-for-4.
So 4 starters, nearly half the Yankee lineup, had to be replaced. While the Yankees did win the next 5 American League Eastern Division titles, including a glorious Pennant win in 2003, this game had a true "end of an era" feel, emphasized by Buster Olney, then of The New York Times, when he titled his book about the 1996-2001 Yankees, and especially this game, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.
Some Yankee Fans were heartbroken. Not me. I was over it fairly quickly, and by Opening Day 2002, I was really optimistic again.
Over the next few years, things would change, and make this defeat something to get really angry about. Williams would be revealed as a caught steroid user. Gonzalez would call a press conference and angrily deny that he had used them, after a newspaper article danced around the question of whether he did. Although never publicly revealed to have been caught, people have often wondered about Johnson and Schilling, chosen the co-Most Valuable Players of this Series.
And, of course, accusations have also been leveled at some of the Yankees from this Series, including Clemens (the proof has still never been publicly revealed), Knoblauch (who admitted taking human-growth hormone, or HGH, but also said that it hurt more than it helped, which doesn't take him completely off the hook, but hardly makes him a cheater on the level of, say, David Ortiz), and Andy Pettitte (the one thing that can be proven was a brief moment the next season, which didn't help the Yankees win a Pennant).
But no one suggests the D-backs' win was "tainted." Indeed, until the non-steroid cheating scandals of the 2017 Houston Astros and the 2018 Boston Red Sox (linked by the presence of Alex Cora), the only team whose World Series wins or Pennants are said to not be fairly won are the Yankees.
Take out all suspected steroid cheats, and declare their World Series wins vacant, and, between 1996 and 2013, you've got the '02 Angels, the '05 White Sox, the '06 and '11 Cardinals, the '08 Phillies, and the '10 and '12 Giants. That's it: 7 out of 18.
Unless you're prepared to vacate the titles won by the Diamondbacks in 2001; the Marlins in 1997 (Gary Sheffield) and 2003 (Ivan Rodriguez); and the Red Sox in 2004, 2007 and 2013 (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez for the 1st 2), then don't tell me the Yankees cheated.
In a small bit of irony, Jay Bell later worked in the Yankees' organization. He managed the Tampa Yankees of the Class A Florida State League in 2017, the Trenton Thunder of the Class AA Eastern League in 2018, and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees of the Class AAA International League in 2019. He now manages in the Angels' organization.
Mark Grace leads off with a single to center. Brenly sends David Dellucci in to pinch-run for him. Damian Miller grounds back to Mariano, who throws to 2nd to start a double play -- and throws the ball away. Tying run on 2nd. World Series-winning run on 1st.
Brenly rolls the dice, and goes for the win in this inning, sending Jay Bell up to pinch-hit for the Big Unit. Bell bunts, and Mariano throws to 3rd to get Dellucci on a force. The tying run is still on 2nd, the World Series-winning run is on 1st, but now there's 1 out. Just need to get 2 more.
Mariano wouldn't get his next 2 outs until April 3, 2002 -- 5 months later, or 148 days.
Brenly sends Midre Cummings in to pinch-run for Miller at 2nd. Tony Womack doubles down the right field line. Cummings scores the tying run. Bell reaches 3rd with the run that could win the Series, and could score on as little as a sacrifice fly, or an error.
Craig Counsell, who had been the man who drove in the tying run and scored the winning run for the Florida Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series -- at this point, the only World Series won since 1995 by a team other than the Yankees -- comes up with the chance to be the hero again. Mariano hits him with a pitch. Not known as a purpose pitcher, Mariano was, for one of the very few times in his career, rattled.
Up steps Luis Gonzalez. A man whose seasonal home run totals had been 13 at age 23, 10 at 24, 15 at 25 (okay, he was playing his home games in the Houston Astrodome), 8 at 26 (1994, strike-shortened season), 13 at 27, 15 at 28 (the last 2 as a Chicago Cub, and remember that the wind blows in at Wrigley Field half the time), 10 at 29 (back in Houston, still in the Astrodome), and then...
He hit 23 home runs at age 30. Yes, he was now playing for the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium, but this was also 1998. The year of whatever it was that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were using to hit 70 and 66 home runs, respectively. Gonzalez hit 26 at 31, and 31 at 32. Very good, but no big deal -- until you realize that those last 2 years were with the Diamondbacks, playing their home games at "The BOB," which, like the Astrodome but unlike most other indoor stadiums, is a bad ballpark for hitters.
At age 34, Gonzalez hit 28 homers. At 35, 26. At 36, 17. At 37, 24. At 38 and 39, 15 both times. He closed his career with 8 homers at age 40 in 2006. Respectable numbers -- if they were achieved honestly.
In 2001, at age 33, the year of Barry Bonds hitting 73 home runs, Luis Gonzalez hit 57 home runs. That's 26 more than he had ever hit before, and 29 more than he would ever hit again. People talk about Brady Anderson hitting 50 in 1996, when he'd only topped 16 once before, had never topped 21, and would never top 24 again nor 19 but once, and they suspected steroids.
What Luis Gonzalez did on the night of November 4, 2001 did not suggest steroids. Just as Bobby Thomson said that, 50 years earlier, he didn't need help to know that Ralph Branca was going to throw a meaty fastball. Doesn't mean Thomson didn't take advantage of the help that the Giants had been offering for the last few weeks. And it doesn't mean that Gonzalez hadn't been using steroids since 1998.
Gonzalez hits a looper into center field for a base hit. Bell scores the run that wins the World Series for the Diamondbacks, in only their 4th season.
At the time, I was terribly disappointed. But not crushed. The Yankees had given me countless memories to treasure since the start of the 1996 season, including in Games 4 and 5 of this World Series. And there were a lot of really good players on that Diamondback team who had played for a long time, some with awful teams, and had struggled to get to this point, and (I thought) really deserved it. Grace with the Cubs. Johnson with the Mariners. Schilling with the Philadelphia Phillies. Gonzalez with the Astros. Bell and Womack with the Pirates. Matt Williams with the San Francisco Giants and the Cleveland Indians.
For the Yankees, Paul O'Neill and Scott Brosius retired, and Tino and Chuck Knoblauch were allowed to leave via free agency. In this game, O'Neill went 2-for-3, including a single in his last at-bat in the 7th inning; Knoblauch flew out pinch-hitting for O'Neill in the 8th; Brosius went 0-for-3; and Tino went 1-for-4.
So 4 starters, nearly half the Yankee lineup, had to be replaced. While the Yankees did win the next 5 American League Eastern Division titles, including a glorious Pennant win in 2003, this game had a true "end of an era" feel, emphasized by Buster Olney, then of The New York Times, when he titled his book about the 1996-2001 Yankees, and especially this game, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.
Some Yankee Fans were heartbroken. Not me. I was over it fairly quickly, and by Opening Day 2002, I was really optimistic again.
Over the next few years, things would change, and make this defeat something to get really angry about. Williams would be revealed as a caught steroid user. Gonzalez would call a press conference and angrily deny that he had used them, after a newspaper article danced around the question of whether he did. Although never publicly revealed to have been caught, people have often wondered about Johnson and Schilling, chosen the co-Most Valuable Players of this Series.
And, of course, accusations have also been leveled at some of the Yankees from this Series, including Clemens (the proof has still never been publicly revealed), Knoblauch (who admitted taking human-growth hormone, or HGH, but also said that it hurt more than it helped, which doesn't take him completely off the hook, but hardly makes him a cheater on the level of, say, David Ortiz), and Andy Pettitte (the one thing that can be proven was a brief moment the next season, which didn't help the Yankees win a Pennant).
But no one suggests the D-backs' win was "tainted." Indeed, until the non-steroid cheating scandals of the 2017 Houston Astros and the 2018 Boston Red Sox (linked by the presence of Alex Cora), the only team whose World Series wins or Pennants are said to not be fairly won are the Yankees.
Take out all suspected steroid cheats, and declare their World Series wins vacant, and, between 1996 and 2013, you've got the '02 Angels, the '05 White Sox, the '06 and '11 Cardinals, the '08 Phillies, and the '10 and '12 Giants. That's it: 7 out of 18.
Unless you're prepared to vacate the titles won by the Diamondbacks in 2001; the Marlins in 1997 (Gary Sheffield) and 2003 (Ivan Rodriguez); and the Red Sox in 2004, 2007 and 2013 (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez for the 1st 2), then don't tell me the Yankees cheated.
In a small bit of irony, Jay Bell later worked in the Yankees' organization. He managed the Tampa Yankees of the Class A Florida State League in 2017, the Trenton Thunder of the Class AA Eastern League in 2018, and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees of the Class AAA International League in 2019. He now manages in the Angels' organization.
*
November 4, 2001 was a Sunday. These games were played in the NFL:
* The New York Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys, 27-24 at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.
* The New York Jets beat the New Orleans Saints, 16-9 at the Superdome in New Orleans.
* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 13-10 at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
* The Washington Redskins beat the Seattle Seahawks, 27-14 at FedEx Field in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The Indianapolis Colts beat the Buffalo Bills, 30-14 at Ralph Wilson Stadium in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York. (It's now named Highmark Stadium.)
* The New England Patriots beat the Atlanta Falcons, 24-10 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
* The Miami Dolphins beat the Carolina Panthers, 23-6 at Pro Player Stadium in the Miami suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. (It's now named Hard Rock Stadium.)
* The Tennessee Titans beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 28-24 at Adelphia Coliseum in Nashville. (It's now named Nissan Stadium.)
* The Chicago Bears beat the Cleveland Browns, 27-21 in overtime at old Soldier Field in Chicago.
* The Green Bay Packers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 21-20 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Arizona Cardinals, 21-7 at Sun Devil Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona.
* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Diego Chargers, 25-20 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.
* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Detroit Lions, 21-13 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
* In the Monday Night Football game the following night, the Denver Broncos beat the Oakland Raiders, 38-28 at the Oakland Coliseum.
* And the Cincinnati Bengals, the Minnesota Vikings and the St. Louis Rams had a bye. An odd number of teams with a bye? Yes: This was the last of 3 seasons in which the NFL had 31 teams, between the restoration of the Browns in 1999 and the start of the Houston Texans in 2002.
There were 7 games played in the NBA that day:
* The Toronto Raptors beat the Indiana Pacers, 113-100 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now named the Scotiabank Centre.)
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Washington Wizards, 100-78 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 94-85 at the Pyramid Arena in Memphis. Juwan Howard scored 36 points for the Mavs.
* The Houston Rockets beat the Phoenix Suns, 103-100 at the AmericaWest Arena in Phoenix. (It's now named the Footprint Center.) Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway scored 31 in a losing effort for the Suns.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 100-96 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant scored 38 for the Lakers.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 96-86 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
* And the Sacramento Kings beat the San Antonio Spurs, 103-85 at the Arco Arena in Sacramento. (It's now named the Sleep Train Arena.)
There were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Phoenix Coyotes, 1-0 at the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Center. (It's now named the PNC Arena.) Josef Vasicek scored the winner, 52 seconds into overtime.
* The Chicago Blackhawks beat their arch-rivals, the Detroit Red Wings, 5-4 at the United Center in Chicago.
* The Edmonton Eskimos beat the Minnesota Wild, 2-0 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
* And the team then known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 5-0 at the Arrowhead Pond in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California. (It's now named the Honda Center.)