When the Yankees lost Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series, I went and bought a ticket to Game 3 of the ALDS. It’s an easy piece of business this time of year. There’s rarely a better time to grab playoff
seats than after the team has lost and spirits are deflated, and the Yankees have made a bit of a habit of deflating our spirits in recent Octobers.
The next night, New York won a rousing Game 2 against the Red Sox, just barely surviving on the margins to stay alive. A day later, thanks to a friend offering up an extra ticket, I ended up heading last-minute to Game 3, and witnessed what quickly turned into a legendary performance from a rookie pitcher.
Then, the Yankees traveled to Toronto. They got absolutely flattened over the weekend, setting up another must-win Game 3. And for the second time in the span of a week, we got to see the Yankees produce an out-of-body effort, rallying from a 6-1 deficit to stave off elimination.
First, to see the Cam Schlittler Game in person was a crescendo. By the middle of the game, at the end of each inning, we thought, “surely, Boone will pull him soon”, only to peer into the Yankee bullpen to see no one but Mike Harkey, standing arms folded. The tension and the joy built in equal parts all night, exploding with the rookie’s 12th strikeout, Ryan McMahon’s heroic flip, and the completion of Schlittler’s eight shutout innings.
I did not expect one of the most memorable Yankee games (and I’ve had some memorable experiences at the Stadium just this year!) I’d ever seen in person topped within days. Erasing five-run deficits thanks to a signature moment from the franchise’s talisman will do that. There was no bad view of Aaron Judge’s three-run game-tying shot, but in my opinion, our look at it from the upper deck was sublime. The ball floated right in front of our eyes on its journey to the left-field foul pole, almost hovering in space and time for a moment before reaching its destination and setting Yankee Stadium on fire.
That’s the best sports moment I’ve ever seen in person, one that will become iconic if the Yankees pull off a comeback in this series. Despite a score that was still only tied, the rest of the game felt like a celebration. Through Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s go-ahead homer, the insurance runs in the later innings, and the much-needed dominance of the Yankee ‘pen, there seemed no doubt the Yankees would win, that we’d live to see one more day.
All those images will stay etched in my mind, but another moment, one that may not have stuck out as much on the broadcast as the highlights, will stick with me as well. After Carlos Rodón trudged off the mound down 6-1, the season all but down the tubes, Trent Grisham came up to lead off the home half of the third. There was no mourning. There was no funeral procession. Grisham lined a bullet double into the corner, and the crowd erupted as if he’d just driven in the go-ahead run in Game 7 of the World Series. There was not a soul in attendance who believed it was over, not in the stands nor in the dugout.
It’s that energy that will stay with me, and it’s why I think, win or lose tonight, that I will remember this Yankees team, not as the team that would forget the fundamentals, not as the team that couldn’t stop shooting itself in the foot, but as the team that never quit despite having every opportunity to do so.
That might just be because I had the fortune of going to two games at the death, where we witnessed the Yankees saving themselves in dire circumstances. If it is, so be it. What I will remember from this season won’t just be the baserunning blunders, the defensive mishaps, the bullpen meltdowns. It will be the team that showed up the next day and fought in spite of it all. My memory of this team will include the now-annual midseason swoon, undoubtedly, but it will be defined by their response to it, the MLB-best final two months of the season. My memory of this team will include the embarrassing performance in Toronto that got them into this mess, but it will be defined by their comeback, the greatness they summoned when they had no other choice.
Put another way: I don’t think a team that’s as bad as many observers think this one is could’ve won that game. I do not think a group of frauds could have gotten up off the mat. I do not think a team of losers, having gotten their doors blown off for the first 21 innings of this series, could have turned around and scored eight unanswered to save their season.
You could even see this bubbling quietly at the end of Game 2. Down 12 runs, the laughingstock of the league, the Yankees beat back against the current, continuing to work professional at-bats and barrel the ball in a vain lunge for a miracle. They fell short, of course, but that 13-7 loss where they never quit showed an uncommon level of resilience that some of their own fans fail to possess.
Again, maybe it’s just because of these two games, these two spectacular, surreal games. Even if it is, I’m happy to make that choice. I will gladly choose to believe that the essence of the team that we’ve all sat and watched for seven months is that of resilience. I will gladly choose to hold not contempt, but hope for the team we’ve invested so much time and emotion into. I will gladly choose to care about the flight of the ball into the dark night.
Maybe it all goes up in smoke in Game 4. Can they really save themselves three times in six days? The pitching matchup is in their favor, but the postseason plays cruel games with expectations. If it does go sour, at the very least, I’ll always have that ball off Judge’s bat, frozen in the air, a few seconds of flight time that felt like eternity. We’ll always have Game 3, the game where this team, no matter how many times they told us they couldn’t, refused to stop trying to show us they could.
And if it doesn’t all go up in smoke? Well, we’ll see you on Friday in Toronto.
