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Jimcs50
10-20-2004, 01:07 PM
It's winner take all
By Tony Massarotti/ Baseball
Wednesday, October 20, 2004

NEW YORK - There have been lopsided games and competitive ones. There has been injury. There has been intrigue. There has been drama and there has been intensity, and there has been pure, unbridled emotion.

And now, improbably and extraordinarily, there will be a culmination.

A seventh game.

So continues the never-ending struggle between the Red Sox [stats, schedule] and the New York Yankees [stats, schedule], who will meet tonight at Yankee Stadium in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. The Yankees won the first three games. The Red Sox have won the last three. And so now, for the second time in two years, the teams will play one game - one game - for the right to go to the World Series.

Take the phone off the hook, turn out the lights and send the kids to bed.

On second thought, keep them up.

``For the last three days, we kept showing up saying, `We have to win today.' And because of that we'll show up (for Game 7) and say the same thing,'' Sox manager Terry Francona said following his team's 4-2 victory in Game 6. ``Whatever it takes to win a game, we'll do.''

That is clear now, of course, in both Boston and New York. Sox doctors on Monday placed a suture in the damaged right ankle of pitcher Curt Schilling [stats, news] in a last-gasp attempt to get the pitcher to the mound. Schilling subsequently went out and threw seven rock solid innings - ``It worked,'' he said of the ingenious medical maneuver - with a dislocated tendon that was essentially sewn in place.

A stitch in time, indeed.

The Yankees, on the other hand, acted desperately. To the Red Sox, nothing demonstrated that more than the actions of Alex Rodriguez, the new lightning rod of this rivalry who nearly became a Red Sox but now wears the Yankees pinstripes.

In the eighth inning, with the Yankees trailing 4-2, Rodriguez hit a spinner to first that was fielded by Bronson Arroyo [stats, news]. In attempt to reach safely, Rodriguez reacted to an Arroyo tag by chopping his left arm at the pitcher's glove, a decision that prompted umpires to call him out for interference.

``It was a classless play. Unprofessional,'' said succinct Sox first baseman Kevin Millar [stats, news]. ``That's just as unprofessional as you're going to see. Play the game hard and play the game right. He's got to brush his teeth looking in the mirror, not with his head down.'' :smokin

There is still work to be done, Sox followers, but another victory tonight would complete arguably the greatest comeback in the history of team sports. Were Sox fans to dream up a scenario in which their team could inflict the greatest measure of pain on their privileged and (rightfully) arrogant New York brethren, coming back from an 0-3 series deficit to win four straight would be at the top of the list.

Such a development would not right 86 years of history in this rivalry, but it would come close.

``It means a lot to our fans and it means a lot to our players,'' Sox catcher Jason Varitek [stats, news] said about the reality of a seventh game given where the Sox were on Sunday morning. ``But this team has to continue to focus and focus on playing one game, and do what we've been doing.''

In the true spirit of gamesmanship, Yankees manager Joe Torre declined to identify his scheduled starting pitcher for Game 7. Francona promptly followed Torre and indicated that the Red Sox, too, would wait to name a starter.

``I watched Joe's press conference,'' Francona said with a grin.

So now, with their respective seasons at stake, the Red Sox and Yankees will meet for a 26th time this season, like last, and for the 52nd time since the start of the 2003 campaign. No one needs to be reminded that the Yankees won the last Game 7. And as we have learned over the last three days, things can change very quickly and unexpectedly when the Red Sox and Yankees meet in the heart of October.

It won't be a baseball game as much as it will be a contest of survival.