Man on radio: Welcome back to the baseball show on the WEEI
Sports Radio Network and Comcast sports.
It's Mike Felger, Lou Merloni, Steve Buckley here in studio in Burlington...
Man: They think so highly of this young kid...
Man: They could have gotten Santana if they wanted...
Man: Would they drop him in the order? I don't know.
I'm not sure I would do that, but that might be the next step.
Man: You gotta be crazy or the most arrogant person going.
Man: Never tested positive, but he makes everyone in that lineup better.
Man: You know, there were a couple of times over the weekend
in particular, he looked very slow on a fastball.
I just think he's pressing right now.
Man: John, now we've been talking about this throughout the course of the day,
Red Sox starting pitching...
Man: It seems to me,
with the Red Sox in first place as May is about to turn into June,
worrying or complaining about whatever you
think the Red Sox issues are...
Announcer: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Thanks very much. Hello, again, everybody.
Announcer: And the Babe swings. It's a long one, a long one...
going out towards right center...
Announcer: ...it's a beauty down the leftfield line,
Announcer: And Boston Red Sox...
Announcer: Here's the pitch and there's a long drive to deep right center,
it could be, it could be,
it's a home run!
Announcer: ...a balmy 74 degrees and the wind
is blowing dead out over the Green Monster in left field...
Announcer: Long drive, left field. If it stays fair, it's gone, home run,
the Red Sox win!
And the series is tied...
Man: I sometimes sit and stare out the window
thinking, what could I have done with my life
had l not spent all this time on the Red Sox?
Might I have completed this novel I've been working
on for 25 years?
Might I not have done something else?
But what it becomes in the end is like raising your chiIdren.
lf you raise them welI, and they Iove you
and you love them back,
at the end of the day you know that when you
leave this life your children won't be thinking about,
you know, oh, what a great column he wrote in October of 1 972.
They'll be thinking about the time they spent
with you as a father.
That's how I think about the Red Sox,
the time l have spent with the Red Sox.
Announcer: This is "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw."
Tom Brokaw: Good evening.
There's never been a time quite like this one,
with so many people making so much money.
1 999 will go down as the year of the high tech, high flyers
with stock prices going from pocket change to hundreds
of dollars in a heartbeat, and staying there.
But will this continue into the 21 st Century?
Narrator: As the last baseball season of the 20th century began,
the country - and its national pastime -
were thriving as never before.
In the 5 years since the crippling strike of 1 994,
the game had bounced back spectacularly.
Insiders and casual fans alike felt they were watching some
of the greatest players, and some of the greatest plays
the sport had ever seen.
Yet just as the game seemed to have entered a new golden age,
suspicions grew that many of the best players were using
performance-enhancing drugs,
that steroid-inflated home run records
had repIaced day-to-day heroics,
that greed had trumped loyalty, that only money and success,
not character, mattered.
But at a time when America seemed most threatened,
baseball provided a welcome distraction, and offered
the hope, at least for a few hours, that things could
return to normal.
At a time of ever increasing offense, a handful of pitchers
still managed to dominate, and a skinny singles hitter
from the other side of the world electrified fans
with his elegant mastery of the old game.
And at a time when winning was all that mattered in America,
baseball, with its failures and disappointments, reminded
the nation that loss is often the best teacher.
Through it all, the game continued to astonish, to rise
above its own scandals, and to reflect, in good times and bad,
the complicated country that had created it.
l've always loved the game from the time I was little.
And l'll always love the game and nothing,
nothing can tear me from the game.
There's something about what happens on the field that's
like a kind of poetry, it's like a kind of ballet.
The remarkable thing about the game is how beautiful it is
despite all the ugliness that may be around it at times.
It's just a beautiful thing.
Announcer: The 0-2 pitch, fast ball, blown away.
Man: When you watched Pedro,
it was aImost poignant in a way that someone that small couId throw that hard.
Most great pitchers you look at them and they alI have one
great strikeout pitch.
If the count's 0 and 2 or even if the count's 3 and 2,
he always has one place to go to to get you out.
Well, Pedro Martinez had 3 places to get you out.
It was the fastball, it was the changeup,
and it was the curveball.
They were all the best pitches of their kind in baseball
at the time.
And he could put them anywhere that he wanted.
Narrator: Pedro Martinez had been born into a family
of pitchers in Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic,
but because of his sIight frame, scouts worried that he
would not be able to withstand the punishment of pitching
in the majors.
Martinez ignored them all and made himself into one
of the greatest players the game had ever seen.
Announcer: Swing and a miss. He struck him out.
1 5 strikeouts for Martinez!
Narrator: In the 1 999 All-Star game,
Martinez struck out 5
of baseball's best hitters: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker,
Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell--
a performance reminiscent of Carl Hubbell's in the 1 934
All-Star game.
He was the master of pitching inside, giving him a distinct
psychological edge over opposing hitters.
First of all, I'm confident.
Now, a lot of people misjudge that.
People might say he's cocky.
I'm fearless, intense.
Some people might say he's mean.
And sometimes, since I'm so intense, l will strike you out,
keep on looking at you, see because basebalI has
a little bit of psychology in it.
If you see a guy frustrated with a changeup, you have to
continue to throw that changeup.
If you can't hit a changeup, l'm sorry.
You're gonna see it again.
Narrator: Between 1 997 and 2003, he would post an earned run average of 2.20
when the league average was above 5,
twice strike out more than 300 batters, and win
3 Cy Young Awards.
Man: For 4 years he had no-hit stuff every night.
Every time he went onto the mound there was a chance that
he was gonna throw a no hitter.
Pitching coaches will telI you that the differential between
your fastball and your changeup should be somewhere
around 1 0 to 1 2 miles an hour, on average.
Pedro, at his best, his differential between his
fastball and his changeup was 1 6 miles an hour,
which was criminal.
It's unhittable.
There's no way that you can expect a 98-mile-an-hour fastball
and adjust to an 82-mile an-hour changeup.
He was remarkable.
Martinez: When everything clicks for you, you just feel
right on top of everybody.
You look at A-Rod or Jeter or anybody and just--
I'm gonna blow you away.
And you're gone.
Narrator: Pedro Martinez was not alone.
Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux of the Braves would together win
660 games.
Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees would save nearly as many,
becoming the most successful closer of all time.
In the post season, he had no equal--in 88 appearances,
his ERA was an extraordinary 0.74.
Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks was the most
intimidating left-handed pitcher ever, striking out
nearly 5,000 batters in 22 seasons.
Roger Clemens, a hard-throwing right-hander, was every bit as
fierce as Johnson.
For 1 3 years, he had been the exalted star of the Red Sox'
pitching' staff, winning 20 games in 3 different seasons
and regularly finishing among the league leaders in ERA
and strikeouts.
But in 1 996, the team decided to let him go, explaining to disappointed fans
that the 34-year-old Clemens-- like most pitchers his age--
was in "the twilight of his career."
Indignant, Clemens signed with Toronto and began training
with one of the team's strength coaches,
former New York City policeman Brian McNamee, who would prove
willing to do whatever Clemens asked to enable the pitcher to
hurl fastballs all season long.
Traded to the Yankees in 1 999, he remained one of the most
imposing pitchers in the game, nearly as dominant in his Iate
30s and early 40s as he had been 20 years before.
Roger Clemens would eventually receive a record 7 Cy Young Awards.
Man: We can forget about the debate
between Walter Johnson and Cy Young and Lefty Grove.
The greatest pitcher in the history of basebaIl is
Roger Clemens.
Now, there have been many, many great pitchers, but no one
has ever done what Roger did.
And there's the freak show accomplishment.
There's 20 strikeouts in a game, twice, 1 0 years apart.
This is a superhuman...critter.
[Man speaking Japanese]
For me, baseball is what made me.
They say a wolf cub believes the first thing it sees is
its parent.
Perhaps that is the way I sense baseball within myself, yes.
Narrator: Ichiro Suzuki was born in Aichi, Japan, the son
of a factory manager whose philosophy of life was based
on 4 guiding principles:
harmony, patience, effort, and fighting spirit.
"The onIy way to succeed," he once said, "is to suffer
and persevere."
From the time Ichiro was 9, his father drilled him
in batting and fielding 2 to 3 hours every day, even when
freezing temperatures left his hands too numb to grip a bat.
A natural right-hander, Ichiro learned to hit from the left
side of the plate, so he could begin each at-bat two steps
closer to first base.
Under his father's tutelage, he developed an unorthodox
hitting style that alIowed him to put the full weight of his
body behind each swing.
[Ichiro speaking Japanese]
I was told, "your swing isn't the same as
the fundamentals, so fix it."
A coach would instruct me about these things, but as soon
as I would say to him, "I'm still hitting more than
anyone else," he would not say anything else.
So, I didn't memorize this form of hitting, it came
naturally from my body.
Narrator: At 1 8, Ichiro made his debut with the Orix Blue Wave
of Japan's Pacific League.
He would go on to win 7 consecutive batting titles
and become Japan's highest-paid player.
Having reached the pinnacle of the Japanese game, he was
determined to find out if he could compete in America --
against the best in the world.
But most scouts doubted that Ichiro, with his slender frame
and unusual batting stance, would be able to handle
big league pitching.
1 0 Japanese pitchers had already come to the United States,
but no Japanese position player had ever
appeared in the majors.
Then, in 2000, the Japanese- owned Seattle Mariners decided
to sign him anyway, hoping Ichiro would attract a large
following among Asian- Americans living
in the Pacific Northwest.
Announcer: Batting first, right fielder, number 51 ,
lchiro Suzuki!
[Man speaking indistinctly]
Announcer: And a base hit into center field.
Up the first base line. He can fly.
They throw it away!
Look at the acceleration down the base line.
Narrator: In an era filled with home runs, Ichiro was
a revelation, slapping the ball in every direction,
beating out infield hits, flying around the bases.
Announcer: Now he's taking off for third, and the throw is
not in time.
It pops loose.
Huff can't find the ball.
Ichiro is headed to the plate and he's gonna score.
Narrator: He was a 21 st- century throwback to earlier
generations of stars like Wee Willie Keeler, George Sisler,
Ty Cobb and the fast-moving, fast-thinking stars
of the Negro Leagues.
American fans embraced him immediately.
Man: I think he represents a counterpoint
to a lot of what was out there because this was in the midst
of a bludgeon-ball era in baseball,
and here's this wiry little guy
spraying base hits everywhere, beating out
infield choppers, playing this sort of cerebral game,
was so different from the prevailing culture
of the sport that I think it made it even more appealing.
Martinez: You have to make the perfect pitch
to get him.
And he's gonna make you throw pitches too,
which we hate.
Pitchers hate to throw more pitches than they should.
And even if you get him to hit the ball the wrong way,
he's got such great speed that you never know-you might
break his bat and still he gets a base hit.
And Ichiro is one of those.
Announcer: Ground ball, base hit into right field.
Heading for third is Terrence Long.
The throw by lchiro- beautiful peg!
He got him!
Holy smoke, a laser beam strike from Ichiro.
Narrator: "That throw," a Seattle reporter wrote,
"needs to be framed and hung on the wall at the Louvre next
to the Mona Lisa."
Japanese newspapers and television stations dispatched
hundreds of reporters to send back news of his every move to
a nation eager for any information about their hero.
"Ichiro," his Prime Minister declared, "makes me proud to
be Japanese."
Ichiro! Ichiro!
Narrator: Ichiro finished his first season, leading
the American League in at-bats, hits, batting average,
and stolen bases, won a Gold Glove Award, and was voted
Rookie Of The Year and MVP.
It would be his first of 9 consecutive 200-hit seasons,
breaking a record set by Wee Willie Keeler a century
earlier in 1 901 .
Other big league clubs were now eager to sign
the next Ichiro.
Man: That's a great thing
about globalization that people can take this thing
that you played with and invented and maybe to some
degree spoiled with whatever's going on here and it can go to
an entirely different place and be re-created and re-grown
as if it's a hybrid flower of some kind and come back
and show you the game maybe in a different way and maybe
in a way it used to be that you hadn't thought
of in a long time.
And I think that's something really beautiful.
Barnicle: I have, still, two gloves that I've carted across
all the years and I have them for a purpose, one selfish,
one familial.
The selfish reason is, l love them.
l love them because they remind me of what I was when l
was a kid and they allow me to stilI be a kid when I hold
the gloves.
l can still see my parents.
I can still see the apartment we lived in,
all of those things.
The familial reason is that my kids, like a lot of kids today,
have an excess of things, material things.
A bad day for them is they lose an iPod.
But my boys who played basebalI, when they were 1 2, 1 3, or 1 4,
they would occasionally come to me
and say, "Dad, l can't find my stuff.
"I can't find my catcher's equipment.
Do you know where my bats went?"
And I'd go get one of the gloves and I'd say, I'd hold it up
and I'd say, "I've had this since 1 954.
"I know where this is.
Go find your stuff and don't lose it."
Narrator: In 1 999, a 34-year- old Barry Bonds had arrived
at spring training with a brand-new physique.
The previous summer, he'd watched in frustration as
fans cheered Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for hitting home runs
while ignoring his own all-around contributions
to the game.
Determined to outdo them both, he had put on 20 pounds
of muscle in the off-season.
Man: Bonds had 8 gold gloves, 8 All-Star appearances,
3 MVP awards.
He should have had a 4th; they gave it to a less
obnoxious player just to punish him.
He had more than 400 home runs, more than 400 stolen bases.
He was a Hall of Fame player.
And then that wasn't good enough.
Narrator: Bonds hit home runs more frequently that year than
he ever had before, but sidelined by injuries,
he appeared in only 1 02 games.
In 2000, the Giants moved to their new home
near downtown San Francisco, Pac Bell Park.
3.3 million people paid to watch Bonds that summer,
more than had ever come out to see the club in its
1 1 5-year history.
He finished the season with a career best 49 home runs
and propeIled the Giants to the top of their division.
At his age, he was supposed to be declining,
and he just kept getting better and better and better.
All the different things that Barry Bonds did,
he was playing at another level.
He was playing a different sport.
Barry Bonds--incredible eye at the plate,
incredible discipline at the plate.
And also intelligent.
Tremendous memory in how they got him out and how he hit it
and what to anticipate.
In hitting, guessing is no good,
but anticipating is great.
Narrator: Off the field, Bonds worked hard to improve
his image, telling San Francisco fans, "I love you.
You're beautiful."
On opening day 2001 , Bonds sIammed a 420-foot home run.
By the All-Star break, he had hit 39 and was on a pace to
break the single-season record of 70 that Mark McGwire had
said would never be broken.
Bonds was so masterful at the plate that many teams decided
it was simply safer to pitch around him.
Verducci: I can remember thinking this is the most
feared hitter who ever lived.
Teams have never avoided a hitter like they have
Barry Bonds.
Not Ted Williams, not Babe Ruth,
Not Joe DiMaggio.
And then when there was that one pitch that happened to be
in the strike zone, he didn't miss it.
ln baseball, you had Bonds and everybody else.
Narrator: Bonds had a sensational summer.
Announcer: Bonds hits one high, hits it deep, and he
hits it outta here!
Man: The thing that goes through your mind mostly
is what's gonna happen if it's over today?
You think about that more than you know, what's happening
at this point in time now.
Are you a wonderful person because you hit a bunch
of home runs or are you an evil person because you
don't do it?
Announcer: Uh-oh. Bonds. High fly ball...
Narrator: On Sunday, September 9, 2001 , in Denver, he slammed
a 488-foot shot in the 1 st inning,
a solo home run in the 5th,
and a 3-run blast in the 1 1 th.
Announcer: Wow.
A 3-homer day for Bonds.
Boy, alI you can do is stand and appIaud and admire
the great talent of Barry Bonds.
3 homers today.
Narrator: He now had 63.
Woman: ...the plane fly into the World Trade Center.
lt was a jet, it was a very large plane.
[Siren]
Man: It crashed into the top of the tower.
Man: I woke up the morning of September 1 1 th.
I had an appearance in Manhattan,
waiting for a car service to pick me up.
My phone rings.
It's the car service saying, "You still going?"
I said, "Yeah, why?" l hadn't turned the TV on.
He says, "Well, a plane flew into
the WorId Trade Center."
Well, I turned on the TV, and then the second plane hit
the WorId Trade Center.
Man: Can you see it?
Katie Couric: Yes.
The last thing on your mind is basebalI
at this point in time.
[Rumbling]
Don Dahler: ...just collapsed.
Peter Jennings: The whole side has collapsed?
Don Dahler: The whole building has collapsed.
Peter Jennings: The whoIe building has collapsed?
Don Dahler: The building has collapsed.
Narrator: The tragedy was too great to comprehend.
The country was in shock. No one knew what was going to happen next.
Planes were grounded.
Schools and businesses were closed.
The financial markets shut down.
Major League Baseball canceled all games indefinitely.
Over the next few days, the nation slowly began
to regroup.
Thousands made their way to New York to help search the
rubble for survivors-- only a handful were found.
"They're still trying to find people," Derek Jeter,
a resident of Manhattan said.
"I reaIly don't think it's the right time to play baseball."
On Friday, September 14th, Commissioner Bud Selig
announced that baseball would begin again
the following Monday.
Man: And the following Monday when
they opened Wall Street the streets were ringed with men
with machine guns.
There was still smoke pouring out of the pyre of the World Trade Center.
After about 4 hours of walking around downtown,
He says, "How are you Keith?"
I said, "I'm alright. I'm alright.
How are you?" He said, "I'm worried."
I said, "Yeah, l'm worried too."
He said, "I'm worried about the Mets."
Then I sort of snapped out of it.
I said, "You're worried about the Mets?"
He said, "Yeah, well, I mean the season resumes tonight
"and I'm reaIly worried. They're in Pittsburgh.
"Do you think they've got enough to get back
"in the Pennant race?
"I mean, they were doing so well.
Can they catch the Braves?"
l said, "How on earth could that
possibly matter?"
We're standing and there's smoke coming up from behind us.
And he says, "Well", he says "lt doesn't matter.
"Of course it doesn't matter.
l got 300 friends dead. It doesn't matter."
He says, "But tonight 7:00 and aIl day
"the rest of today I can look forward to 7:00 where I can
put my feet up and pretend it does matter."
[Fireworks exploding]
Narrator: The New York Yankees' first game
was in Chicago.
Torre: The remarkable part was we go out there
and in the stands you see "We Love New York," and we're
in Chicago and you know that, you know, in Boston they were
playing "New York, New York.
That type of stuff just gave
you goose bumps when you realized that it was just
a country coming together.
And our baseball was there to distract the people from,
you know, thinking about the horrors that just went on.
Narrator: In San Francisco, Barry Bonds announced that he
would donate $1 0,000 to 9/1 1 relief funds for each home run
he hit the rest of the season.
Announcer: 63 home runs for Bonds.
Announcer: Bonds...hits one high, hits it deep,
he hits it outta here!
Number 64, game tied.
Narrator: "For a time," wrote the "Kansas City Star",
"Bonds became a symbol of American resilience,
of the country getting back to business."
By October 4th, Bonds had hit 69 home runs, one shy
of McGwire's record.
The Giants were in Houston, playing the Astros
at Enron Field.
Announcer: Bonds with a drive.
Looks like number 70 for Barry Bonds, tying the all-time record
set in 1 998 by Mark McGwire.
Barry Bonds hits home run number 70 at Enron Field.
He's now homered in every National League park this year.
Narrator: The next day, the Giants were back
in San Francisco.
Announcer: There's a high drive, deep into right center field,
to the big part of the baIl park.
Number 71 !
And what a shot!
Narrator: Barely 3 years after Mark McGwire had broken
Roger Maris' 37-year-old record, Barry Bonds
was the new single-season home run champion.
And he wasn't finished.
Number 72 came later that evening.
Announcer: There's a high drive...Grissom back
in centerfield. He's all the way back to the wall.
Number 72!
72 and counting for Barry Bonds.
Narrator: Then, on the last day of the season,
in his first at-bat, he hit his 73rd.
Announcer: A floater to Bonds.
And he hits it high; he hits it deep; and it is outta here!
Number 73!
Announcer: That's incredible.
Narrator: Bonds' 2001 statistics were astounding.
He had hit a home run in every 7 at-bats.
His slugging percentage of .879 broke a record set
by Babe Ruth in 1 920.
He had been walked 1 77 times, more than any batter
in history, and with 567 career home runs,
he was now 6th on the all-time list.
But in the aftermath of September 1 1 th, the response
to Bonds' accomplishments was muted - most of the country
was not in the mood to celebrate.
Dan Rather: On the first night of Operation: Enduring Freedom,
the U.S. counterstrike against Osama bin Laden
and the ruling Taliban is underway, Ied by cruise missiles
and manned bombers.
Narrator: ln late October, as the war in Afghanistan began
and demolition crews removed rubble from the site
of the World Trade Center, the New York Yankees found
themselves in the World Series for the 5th time in 6 years.
They were led by their shortstop Derek Jeter,
who had emerged as one of the most popular and respected players
in all of baseball history, the epitome
of the Yankees' success.
New York would face the Arizona Diamondbacks,
an expansion team in only its 5th year of existence.
They were led by two overpowering pitchers: Randy Johnson,
whose fastball seemed to be halfway home before he even let go of it,
and Curtis Montague Schilling, a brash right-hander
known for pitching deep into games
and fooling hitters with a wicked split-finger fastball.
Between them, Schilling and Johnson led the National League
in wins, strikeouts, earned run average,
and innings pitched.
Together, they were responsible for nearly half
of Arizona's regular season victories.
When asked whether he was intimidated by the Yankees'
"mystique and aura," Schilling responded, "those are dancers
"in a nightclub, not things we concern ourselves with
on the ball field."
Johnson and SchiIling are more dominant as a pair now than
anybody in the history of basebalI has ever been,
and that's what the Yankees were up against.
They aren't up against a team, they're up against
two pitchers.
Narrator: It would be one of the most memorable World Series
in baseball history-- less for who won or lost,
than as a sign that the country and its national
pastime would endure.
In game 1 , Schilling stifled Yankee bats.
Randy Johnson was even more dominant in game 2.
The 3rd game would be in New York City.
Security was tight. More than 1 ,000 police officers
guarded the stadium.
Fans were forced to pass through metal detectors,
and many were afraid there might be another attack.
Roger Clemens pitched the Yankees to a 2-1 win.
ln game 4, the Diamondbacks were leading 3 to 1
in the bottom of the 9th.
Byung-Hyun Kim, a 22-year-old relief pitcher from South Korea,
faced Yankee first baseman Tino Martinez.
In 9 at-bats in the series, he had had no hits.
Kim had struck out the side in the 8th.
Announcer: 1 on, 2 out.
Torre: Tino Martinez hits a balI right centerfield.
And what I can see, still visualize, is that baIl
disappearing over the fence into the stands.
And boom, here we are.
Narrator: The game was now tied.
Announcer: 3 balls, 2 strikes.
Narrator: With 2 outs in the bottom of the 1 0th inning,
Derek Jeter came to bat.
Announcer: Byung-Hyun Kim trying to send this game
to the 1 1th.
Narrator: It was 4 minutes after midnight
on November 1 st.
Announcer: ..taking care of the first two here in the 1 0th.
Jeter hits it in to right back at the wall.
Game over!
Yankees win and the series is tied!
[Cheering]
Narrator: Just 20 hours later, they were back at Yankee Stadium
for game 5.
Both teams played well, but in the bottom of the 9th
the Yankees were again trailing by 2.
Again, Kim was on the mound.
Announcer: After last night, blowing the save in the 9th inning...
Announcer: Putting Kim right back over the coals.
Announcer: Got 'em. 2 gone.
Narrator: For the second straight night, the Yankees
were down to their final out.
Announcer: Now it's up to Brosius for New York.
Narrator: Third baseman Scott Brosius came to the plate.
Announcer: Tying run at the plate, runner at 2nd, 2 out,
2-0 Arizona here in game 5.
Announcer: A huge pitch for Kim.
Announcer: Brosius hits one into left.
Back at the wall, the Yankees have tied it again!
Narrator: Again, the game went to extra innings.
ln the bottom of the 1 2th, Alfonso Soriano batted
for New York.
Announcer: On 2 and 1 , into right field, base hit.
Here comes Knoblauch.
The throw by Sanders, play at the plate, Yankees win.
They lead the series 3 games to 2.
Narrator: The Yankees had come from behind again.
Verducci: They say lightning doesn't strike
twice in the same spot.
lt sure did that series.
And l'll never forget being in the Yankees' parking lot after
game 5 when the Yankees had done it again.
The players didn't wanna leave.
lt reminded me of after a little league game after a big win,
you're all hanging out at the parking lot at Dairy Queen
just talking about the game.
Announcer: These last two games defy description.
Narrator: In game 6, Randy Johnson came through
again for Arizona and they beat New York 1 5 to 2 in Phoenix.
In game 7, for the third time, Curt Schilling started
for Arizona.
Roger Clemens again pitched for New York.
Announcer: Curt Schilling, who last night guaranteed
a victory, saying, "We're going to win."
Narrator: Through 5 innings, neither pitcher
let a runner past second base.
In the 6th, Arizona broke through.
Announcer: Finley floats one to center for a leadoff hit.
Into left centerfield, Danny Bautista deIivers again.
That ball's gonna put Arizona on top.
Going for third.
Out, but it's 1 -0 Arizona.
Narrator: The Yankees fought back in the 7th.
Announcer: Runners at the corners, one out.
Martinez with a base hit to right, and the Yankees
have tied it.
Announcer: Soriano into deep left field.
At the wall, Yankees on top 2-1 .
Narrator: Curt Schilling had been outstanding,
but he was tired.
Announcer: Randy Johnson is coming in...
Narrator: Randy Johnson, who had thrown 1 04 pitches the day before,
came out to pitch in relief.
Announcer: Randy Johnson in the game...
The 1 -2 punch for Arizona giving the Yankees
all they can handle.
Narrator: Johnson kept the Yankees from scoring again.
As he had for most of the past 6 seasons,
Joe Torre again turned to his unflappable reliever
Mariano Rivera, who had already pitched 3 times
in the series without giving up a single run.
But in the bottom of the 9th, Arizona tied the game,
and then loaded the bases.
Rivera would face outfielder Luis Gonzalez, who had hit
57 home runs that year.
Announcer: The chance of a Iifetime for Luis Gonzalez.
2-2, bottom of the 9th, bases loaded,
infield in, one out.
Tim McCarver: The one problem is Rivera throws inside to
left-handers, and left-handers get a lot of broken bat hits
into the shallow part of the outfield.
That's the danger in bringing the infield in with a guy like
Rivera on the mound.
OIbermann: There's just enough time in baseball to see
tragedy or triumph headed your way.
But there it was. For Yankee fans, it was
they got him positioned wrong.
Season's over.
Announcer: The Diamondbacks are world champions!
[Cheering]
Narrator: The New York Yankees, the team much
of America was rooting for, had lost.
Several of their stars, including Tino Martinez
and Scott Brosius, moved on or retired.
lt would be 8 years before they would win
another championship.
Torre: It was just so sad saying good-bye to everybody.
I went around the room and hugged everybody and, um...
it was just a sad way to end our
relationship, basicalIy.
Even though the memories were great, that night was about
as sad as it gets.
Man on radio: He developed a concept that pretty much everyone
in basebalI knows now, that's VORP--Value Over RepIacement Player.
And how did this come about?
Man: VORP? Did he say VORP?
This guy's VORP is 350?
What the hell is VORP?
We could spend half the day explaining what VORP is.
But there are those who will tell you VORP is probably
the defining statistic of any player to tell you if he's
really good, if he's great, or not as good as we think.
l don't have a clue how they figure out VORP.
But it's something to do with the value of a player
over an average replacement for him at his position--VORP.
How that adds up and how they calculate it
l don't have a clue.
I'm still trying to get OPS, you know, O-P-S which is
slugging percentage added to on base percentage.
And that's OPS.
His OPS is 970.
I know that that's really good.
Narrator: For decades, scouts and managers had relied on
gut instinct and accumulated experience when evaluating talent,
but in the new millennium, inspired by
the iconoclastic theories of statistician Bill James,
one cIub discovered a radically new way to compete.
By compiling and reinterpreting baseball's
unending stream of statistics, the cash-strapped Oakland A's
were able to identify players whose particular talents had
been undervalued or overlooked by wealthier clubs.
How batters got on base didn't matter, they realized,
compared to whether they got on base at aIl, and how often
they scored.
How many games pitchers won didn't matter as much as how
efficiently they got batters out.
Announcer: ...strikes out.
Narrator: The A's, despite having one
of the lowest payroIls in the game, made the postseason
4 years in a row.
Before long, sophisticated data analysis would affect
every decision made by every team, on the field and off.
But many observers continued to believe that intangibles
like a player's heart and determination still had value,
that regardless of the numbers, some individuals did
perform better than others in "the clutch."
[Commentators talking indistinctly]
Derek Jeter with one of the most unbelievable plays you will ever see
by a shortstop!
[BELL DINGS]
TV Announcer: The greatest home run hitter of all time,
Hank Aaron, opens trading today at the New York Stock Exchange
and the market promptIy hits a home run
for investors, the Dow now up 23% for the year, NASDAQ
with all its "tech stocks" up an astonishing 71 %
for the year.
Narrator: At the beginning of free agency in 1 975,
the average salary of a big league player had been $45,676
a season, just three times what the average American
earned in a year.
Now with revenue pouring in from cable and satellite TV,
radio, the Internet, international markets and new ballparks,
the average basebalI salary had soared to
nearly 2.4 million, almost 50 times what the average
American made.
Hoenig: Who dreamed that players would make $25 million
for a season in a game like baseball?
And that creates a great amount of desire to get to
that place just as it created among us the sense that we
could all make a ton of money in dot com or we could take
make a lot of money in flipping houses or we could
get all these mortgages, all of these home equity loans
and buy whatever it is we wanted.
Narrator: Other things were out of proportion, too.
Man: lt's hard to compare eras now, but I also
think that the balls are a little--go a little farther.
l won't say juiced, most of the parks are smaller,
but players today are bigger and stronger than before.
Bob Costas: The baIl may be juiced, and some
of the players may be juiced.
Costas: I was trying in a general sense to call
attention to the fact that this stuff just doesn't
make sense.
And this was the part that I found especialIy galling.
People throughout baseball who pride themselves on knowing
the difference between the split-second it took Bill Mazeroski
to turn a double play as opposed to the average
second baseman, who pride themselves on knowing when
a guy's arm angle comes down ever so slightly because he's
fatigued in the late innings, who notice if a guy has moved
half a step in or half a step back at third base,
they didn't notice a damn thing when guys showed up
looking like they'd been inflated with bicycle pumps.
Narrator: As the memory of the crippling strike of 1 994 faded away,
baseball's popularity surged, but rumors
and suspicions about performance-enhancing drugs
kept surfacing.
Over the years, a few sportswriters and broadcasters
had tried to call attention to steroids' infiltration
of the national pastime.
But nothing was done, and doping became an open secret
in the game.
Verducci: I don't think a bunch of owners or general managers
got into a room and they said, we got a great
thing going here.
Turnstiles are humming, fans love it, let's not
do anything.
I think what happened was, when they were clued enough
into what was happening it was already too late without
really getting their hands very dirty.
Cleaning it up meant taking down the biggest players
in the game.
And that was an undertaking they weren't going to touch
until somebody made them touch it.
Narrator: In May of 2002, Jose Canseco, who would later
claim that without steroids he would have never even made it
to the major leagues, retired from baseball with
462 home runs.
He told the press that 85% of major leaguers were
taking steroids.
"There would be no baseball left," Canseco insisted,
"if we drug-tested everyone."
But hardly anyone took his claims seriously.
Then, a few weeks later, "Sports Illustrated" published
a cover story by Tom Verducci which described players taking
a wide range of performance- enhancing drugs.
In the article, former Padres third baseman Ken Caminiti
confessed that he had taken heavy doses of steroids
for years, beginning in 1 996, when he had been named
the National League's Most Valuable Player.
And what really, really struck me was first of all
the responsibility that he took for his own career
but aIso the fact that he had no remorse whatsoever.
And that's when it really hit home to me that it was
so pervasive in the game that given the choice he would
do it again.
Narrator: In 2001 , Commissioner Bud Selig had
imposed a drug-testing program on the minor leagues, where he
did not need the consent of the Players' Association.
But the union had refused to permit a similar program
in the major leagues.
Man: Our view was there may well be
reasons to test people if you have some reason to believe
they're doing something wrong.
But if you have no reason at all that's an entirely
different set of circumstances and that there oughta be some
reasonableness factor.
It's sort of the industrial counterpart
of probable cause.
This is a subject of collective bargaining.
This is not something the Commissioner can do
unilaterally as much as I'd like to.
What took so long?
Some very long and difficuIt negotiation.
Bryant: The union was in a very difficult position,
but at the same time they did not cover themselves in glory here.
And I think that the players hurt themselves by simply
believing that they were above accountability.
Narrator: 3 months after the revelations about Caminiti
and Canseco, Selig and Fehr announced that the union had
agreed to limited drug testing.
Players would be tested anonymously, only once or
twice, and not at all during the off-season.
lf more than 5% did test positive, a punitive plan
would automatically go into effect.
Thanks largely to the Players Association,
it was the weakest drug prevention program
in professional sports.
But in the first year, more than 5% did test positive.
From then on, those who failed more than once,
faced suspensions of at least 1 5 games.
After 5 positive results, they would be suspended
for an entire season.
Woman: They came to an agreement
about a drug testing policy that had so many holes in it
that there was no way a player, unless he was just
dumb as a rock, was gonna fail under the guidelines that they set forth.
Narrator: Despite the negative publicity about steroids,
Bud Selig could justifiably take credit for the fact that
baseball was booming, enjoying a "renaissance" unparalleled
in its history.
And for the first time, the owners and players had
managed to negotiate a collective bargaining
agreement without a work stoppage.
ln the new contract, the richest clubs also agreed to
share some of their profits with the poorest clubs,
and the players allowed a luxury tax to be imposed
on the teams with the highest payrolIs --
the Mets, the Red Sox, and especially the Yankees.
Although no one could have predicted it at the time,
the disastrous strike of 1 994 had ushered in a period
of unprecedented labor peace, as the players and the owners
finally learned how to work together.
Bud Selig: This is the golden era of baseball.
Average game today is drawing 33,000, 34,000 people
with all the games on television.
The popularity of the sport is just enormous.
Bryant: And that's been the question.
ls it possible to have a renaissance and a calamity
at the same time?
lt aIl depends on what your barometer is.
What is your measure?
If your measure is money and only money, then yeah,
it was possible because people in this game made
more money than ever.
But if your barometer is something more than that,
if your barometer is integrity, is in having people
look at you and believing in your sport, not just going to
the games, but believing in your sport, then it's
not possible.
Boswell: I think fans have been able to
compartmentalize their disappointments
and stiIl enjoy it the way they used to.
And I think we've built up the same sort of sieve for letting
experience through that we have with real people in our
real lives.
We don't expect them to be saints and we no longer expect
our athletes to be.
We expect them to be the same range of peopIe that we see
in the rest of our life.
And I think that one of the reasons that baseball has not
only not lost popularity but gained it, is, as its flaws
become apparent, it actually gains depth and humanity even
as it loses its fairytale, um, mythic qualities.
Announcer: Bonds swings.
There's a high drive, deep into centerfield...
Bonds: I have done well in my career.
If it ended today l have nothing to be ashamed of.
The only thing is I would just feel very sad about not having
an opportunity to go to a World Series.
Because you can play 1 00 years of baseball and never,
ever have that opportunity to go to the World Series.
The World Series is what I want more than anything.
Narrator: ln 2002, Barry Bonds had another spectacular season
and would be named the National League's most
valuable player for the fifth time.
And now he was on his way to the World Series for the first time,
eager to prove he could perform as welI
in the postseason as he did the rest of the year.
The Giants would face the Anaheim Angels.
Both teams had been their league's wild card, something
that had never happened in a World Series before.
Man: I had the privilege of covering all
7 games of that World Series for the Sacramento Bee,
my newspaper.
And it looked for all the worId that the Giants were
finally going to win.
Narrator: With Bonds leading the team, the Giants took
a 3 games to 2 lead.
Game 6 wouId be played in Anaheim.
Announcer: Bonds has walked twice tonight, 26 times
in the post-season.
That is crushed!
Deep into the night and it's 4-0 San Francisco.
Just absolutely crushed.
1 5 batters faced, 1 4 outs.
Narrator: San Francisco starter Russ Ortiz pitched
brilliantly and the Giants took a 5-0 lead into
the bottom of the 7th.
Miller: We were all counting the outs.
And they were 8 outs away from winning the World Series
for the first time as the San Francisco Giants.
Russ Ortiz was pitching a shutout.
Announcer: Here's the 2-2 pitch.
Swung on and missed by 3.
Narrator: In the Giants' clubhouse, attendants iced
champagne in preparation for a celebration.
Announcer: Russ goes into his wind-up.
And the pitch on the way to Glaus.
Line drive, that's a base hit.
And Troy Glaus has just the third Angel hit.
Breton: And I can remember being in the press box,
and I was thinking it's finally gonna happen.
lt's finally gonna happen.
Announcer: Ortiz delivers and it's ripped into right field!
Breton: At that point I was 40 years old.
Announcers: Angels being shut out 5-0 at the moment.
Breton: I had been with these guys since I'm 8.
Announcer: So that might be it for Ortiz.
He has a 4-hit shutout working.
You know, I'm trying to keep some sort of professional distance,
but l couldn't help to imagine a parade down
Market Street in San Francisco.
And you know and I was already thinking I was gonna take off
my jacket cause I didn't want it to stink of champagne
and the whole thing.
Announcer: Big pitch coming up.
Breton: And then the bottom fell out.
Announcer: The 3-2 pitch is belted to right field.
Back on it goes Sanders, he can't get it!
Home run!
[Cheering]
Announcer: Here's the pitch by Worrell.
Drive hit into right field.
That ball is gone!
And they are within 1 !
Here's the 1 -0 to Salmon.
A drive into centerfield.
Lofton can't get it.
Base hit!
Breton: And at a certain point the Angels rally kept going,
I sat back in my chair and I stopped writing.
Announcer: The Angels take the lead, 6-5!
And then when the Angels went ahead, l did what all writers
dread doing l highlight everything I had written
and l hit delete.
Announcer: A 3rd strike, a 7th game.
They're one strike away from all of that.
The 2-2 pitch.
Swung on and missed!
The Angels win the game, 6-5!
Breton: When game 6 was over, I knew it was over.
l knew they weren't gonna win game 7.
Narrator: The next night, the Angels became world
champions for the first time in their 42-year history.
Barry Bonds had made 30 trips to the plate, hit 4 home runs,
and was walked 1 3 times, a World Series record.
But it hadn't been enough.
Breton: It was like a morgue afterwards.
There's so much media for a World Series.
And we're aIl trying to cram into his Iocker.
And at one point he's got his shirt off, this enormous
physique and he wheels around and he says, "lf you guys don't
step back right now I'm gonna snap."
Barnicle: I love them so much that every year,
for 25, 30 years, I would write
in the paper, in "The Globe" each spring, "This is the year",
no matter how poorly they appeared to be as a team
in spring training.
And it was, it was the hope of a child because that's part
of the gift of baseball.
It's a child's hope.
And I always had that hope.
But also the reality that, you know, well, probably not
gonna happen in my lifetime.
Woman: The tension is so great for me
that I'm embarrassed to admit that when the other team is up
in a close game l cannot even watch the game.
I run out of the house sometimes.
And I know that's crazy.
you have this sense that as long as you don't watch
something bad is not gonna happen.
and then you just pray that by the time you come back your
worst fears will not be realized and you'lI suddenly
see them up at bat again.
l mean it makes no sense at all but there is this strange
dynamic that the fans feel that their actions have
something to do with what the players are gonna do
on the field.
Narrator: In 2002, hedge fund owner John Henry
and television producer Tom Werner bought the Boston Red Sox
for $700 million.
Neither of them was from New England and locals were
skeptical about their motives.
But rather than tear down Fenway Park, the team's home
for 90 years, Henry and Werner decided instead to
renovate the cherished ballpark.
And, most important, they promised to bring a world
championship to Boston.
They had their work cut out for them.
The Red Sox had not won the World Series since 1 91 8,
and always seemed to find new ways to break their
fans' hearts.
Martinez: l would say the Boston fans are
the most loyal fans I've ever seen.
l got very famiIiar with some
of the comments that they made: "Is gonna be the year?
ls this gonna be the year?"
Every year.
"This is the year".
lt was a comment that we will hear almost every season.
Narrator: In 2003, the Red Sox made it to the postseason as
the wiId card.
They were led by their hugely popular shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra,
their designated hitter, David Ortiz,
and Manny Ramirez, one of the greatest right-handed hitters
in the game.
The pitching staff included the nearly invincible Pedro Martinez,
sinker-baller Derek Lowe, and Tim Wakefield,
who had mastered the knuckleball after failing to
make it as a first baseman.
In the American League Championship Series, they would
face their dreaded rivals, the New York Yankees, whom Red Sox
CEO Larry Lucchino had christened "The Evil Empire."
Verducci: People have said it's been the
greatest rivalry in sports,
but I don't know how much of a rivalry it can be when it's
been very one sided.
You know, to be a great rivaIry the other team has to win some
of the time and knock people off their perch.
The Yankees to the complete infuriation of Red Sox fans
seem to come out ahead every single year.
Narrator: The two teams were almost perfectly matched; the Yankees
won 2 out of the first 3 games, but Boston battled back
to tie the series at 3 games apiece.
Everything came down to Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, enemy
territory for Red Sox fans.
lt was the 26th time they had met.
No two teams anywhere, in any sport, had ever played each
other more in a single season.
Bryant: And I remember talking to Willie Randolph
who back then was the third base coach.
And l'd said to him, "So what do you think?"
And he said, "Listen, every single time we've had to beat them
"we've beaten them.
Tonight's not gonna be any different."
Narrator: Roger Clemens, Boston's one time ace, pitched
for New York; Pedro Martinez took the mound
for the Red Sox.
Announcer: Nixon into right centerfieId.
Did he get enough?
Yes, he did. The Red Sox strike first.
To the left side for Enrique Wilson.
His throw sails into the seats.
And that'lI make it 3-0.
Millar hits one to left field.
That ball back into the corner, up and out.
Home run Millar.
And the Red Sox and their fans have to be
thinking, "Finally!"
Announcer: We have not seen the Yankees hit anything
crisp so far here tonight against Pedro Martinez.
Narrator: Martinez was masterful through 7 innings,
and going into the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox
had a 5 to 2 lead.
But alI season long, Martinez had struggled after he had
thrown more than 1 00 pitches.
Goodwin: When Pedro came back out
in the 8th inning, we all started screaming, "No, no,
you can't be doing it!"
I mean, fans think they know more than
the managers and often we don't.
But at that point, everybody knew the pitch counts that
Pedro would suddenly faIl off the cliff if he were over that
pitch count.
He was way over that pitch count. And so there was this
huge sense of dread the minute he came to that mound.
Announcer: And with one out here in the bottom
of the 8th inning, he works to Derek Jeter, with the Red Sox
5 defensive outs away from heading to
the WorId Series.
Jeter flies into right, Nixon back, on the run,
it's over his head.
Jeter will dig for second and hold there with a doubIe.
The 2-2, into centerfield.
Damon will play it on a hop, Jeter will come to the plate.
lt's a 2-run game.
Narrator: Manager Grady Little went out to the mound.
The Red Sox bullpen had been all but unhittable that year
and Martinez had already thrown 1 1 5 pitches.
Little left Martinez in the game.
Announcer: He gave Martinez the chance to say "yea or nay"
and he said, "yes."
Ripped into the right field corner, fair.
Bernie Williams will dig. It's a ground rule double.
It's 2nd and 3rd with one out here in the 8th.
[Cheering]
Announcer: Boy, is it strange that Little is not going to
his bullpen?
I mean that is absolutely weird. His bullpen...
Martinez: I was just trying to do it.
And that's what a lot of people don't understand.
Well, why didn't Pedro give away the baIl?
Well, they didn't ask me to give away the ball.
They asked me if l could face the guys.
I said yes, of course I can.
l'm in the middle of the game.
And I'm here to do this.
Announcer: A base hit ties the game, 2nd and 3rd,
1 out.
The pitch.
Swung on and looped to shallow centerfield.
It is a base hit!
One run scores Bernie!
Here's Matsui, he scores!
Posada goes to second with a double.
lt is a true run double by Posada and the Yankees have come all the way back
to tie the game at 5 in one of the greatest
comebacks you'll ever see!
Narrator: The game went into extra innings.
The Red Sox turned to knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.
Olbermann: The odds were favoring
a hitter in a slump, because a hitter in a slump is already--
his timing is already off.
A knuckle ball pitcher throws your timing off.
Put a guy with bad timing and add more bad timing to him
suddenly he has good timing.
lt's a zero sum game in terms of timing.
So you're thinking who on earth is gonna get the base hit
for the Yankees?
Who can do anything against Tim Wakefield?
Boone.
Narrator: ln the bottom of the 1 1 th, 3rd baseman
Aaron Boone, whose grandfather, father,
and brother had all played in the major leagues,
came to the plate.
In 31 postseason at-bats, Boone had managed just
5 hits.
Announcer: Now we are tied at 5 as we go to the bottom
of the 1 1 th.
Here's Aaron Boone to lead off.
Announcer: His first at-bat of the game.
There's a fly baIl, deep to left, it's on its way!
There it goes, and the Yankees are going to the World Series!
Barnicle: My son Timmy was then 1 1 , and I always
used to say, when the baseball season was over,
it's time to put the storm windows on.
So it became time to put the storm windows on in a split-second
after an incredible game.
And the crowd was going berserk in Yankee Stadium,
and my son Colin, who was then 20, tapped me on the shoulder
and said, "Dad, you better take care of Tim."
And l looked down at this 1 1 -year-old child,
one of the loves of my life, and he had tears the size
of hubcaps streaming down his cheek.
And I started crying and I hugged him, and, you know,
in my heart of hearts I was thinking, "What have I done?
What have I done?"
Harry Caray: All right! Let me hear you!
Good and loud!
♫ Take me out to the baIl game ♫
♫..Take me out to the... ♫
WilI: I became a Cub fan at age 7 in 1 948.
That year, Mr. Wrigley, who owned the Cubs, took out
ads in the Chicago papers apologizing for the team.
It was not an auspicious beginning.
Uh, the day I was born they lost, by the way.
I've looked it up.
♫ If they don't win it's a shame ♫
♫ For it's 1 , 2, 3 strikes you're out ♫
♫ At the old ball game Hey! ♫
Narrator: Like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs played
in one of oldest and most beloved baIlparks in America.
But they hadn't appeared in the World Series since 1 945,
and hadn't won since 1 908.
Their loyal fans still showed up at Wrigley Field each spring
no matter how poorly their team played.
But in 2003, the Cubs finalIy put together a contender.
They made it alI the way to the National League
Championship Series, where they faced the Florida Marlins,
an expansion team that had already won the World Series
in 1 997, only their 5th year of existence.
The Cubs won 3 out of the first 5 games and returned
to Chicago for game 6, needing just one more win to
get to the World Series.
In the top of the 8th, they were leading 3-0,
with 1 out and a Marlins runner on 2nd.
Announcer: And the Marlins beginning to run out of outs
against Mark Pryor.
Again in the air down the leftfield line, Alou reaching
into the stands, and couldn't get it and he's livid
with a fan.
Announcer: We've seen this happen here before.
That's awfully close to fan interference right there.
Narrator: The offender was a lifelong Cubs fan named
Steve Bartman.
Announcer: If Alou has to reach into the stands,
it's fair game for the fans to catch the ball.
That is very, very close.
Narrator: Florida would score 8 runs before the inning was over.
The Cubs never recovered.
The Marlins won game 7 and headed to the World Series,
where they beat the New York Yankees.
"There are few words to describe how awful I feel,"
said Steve Bartman.
"I am so truIy sorry from the bottom of this Cub fan's
broken heart."
"I'm angry at the guy," said Illinois' governor
Rod Blagojevich.
Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, offered the beleaguered
fan asylum.
That winter, the "Bartman Ball" was auctioned off
for $1 06,000, and then blown up as thousands of approving
fans looked on.
[Cheering]
Verducci: There is gonna come a day when the Cubs
win a World Series.
It has to happen.
They've had a bad century. It's time to rally.
Alex Rodriguez joins Andre Dawson
as the only players to ever win the MVP award while
playing for a last-place team.
And an hour after winning, A-Rod confirmed the Rangers
have talked to him about trading him.
Bryant: lt was almost like a black hole where
everything got sucked into these two franchises.
And the players around the league bought into it.
When Alex Rodriguez was going to get bought out
of his contract, he only wanted to go to Boston or New York.
And so when that happens. the Red Sox and Yankees were
playing in a separate league.
And there was a lot of resentment around the league
because no one else could compete with this aura that
these two superpower teams had created.
lt was the stage in baseball.
lt was the place where everybody wanted to be.
Narrator: After their devastating loss to New York
in 2003, the Red Sox tried again to beat free-spending
Yankee owner George Steinbrenner at his own game.
They sent general manager Theo Epstein to Arizona
for Thanksgiving dinner with Diamondbacks' ace pitcher Curt Schilling,
who had helped defeat the Yankees
back in 2001 .
Schilling quickly agreed to be traded to the Red Sox,
and with characteristic bravado vowed to lead the team
to a World Championship.
But in February of 2004, after several failed attempts
by Boston to sign him, George Steinbrenner brought one
of the game's biggest stars, shortstop Alex Rodriguez,
to baseball's biggest stage.
Rodriguez was the highest paid player in the history
of the game, having agreed to a 1 0-year, quarter-of-a- billion-dollar contract
with the Texas Rangers back in 2001 .
To get that contract, Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras
liked to quote one reporter's assertion that
Rodriguez would one day "save baseball."
In Texas, he had more than proven his worth, batting
above .300, averaging more than 50 home runs,
and winning an MVP.
Despite his achievements, the Rangers had finished dead last
in the American League West 3 years in a row,
and Rodriguez was eager to jump to a winning team.
Now he was with the Yankees.
When the 2004 season began, Boston and New York picked up
right where they had left off.
Announcer: Alex Rodriguez is drilled, and he says something
to Bronson Arroyo.
And we know what he said.
Here we go.
Varitek and A-Rod going at it.
Schilling is right in the middle of it.
Now another fight off to the side.
Narrator: The Red Sox, now managed by Terry Francona,
played as if their humiliating loss of 2003
had never happened.
They were scrappy, wore their hair long, and goofed
around in the dugout.
Announcer: What is this?
Announcer: I don't know.
That is unbelievable is what it is.
Narrator: "What you see is what you get," said first
baseman and team ringleader Kevin Millar.
The heart of the team was Boston's designated hitter,
David Ortiz, known to everyone in Red Sox Nation as Big Papi.
Bryant: Here was a Red Sox player who really did
instill fear in the heart of the Yankees.
Here's a guy, he went out and when he was up you were afraid
if you were a Yankee fan.
lf you were a Yankee you were afraid of what this guy was
gonna do because he was doing things that most Red Sox
players had never done before.
He represented the sea change that, "Look we don't fear you.
We know we're better than you, and we're going to beat you."
Announcer: That one's not coming back any time soon.
Narrator: Led by the dominant pitching of Curt Schilling,
Boston again faced the Yankees in the American League
Championship Series.
Announcer: Solid strikeout by Curt Schilling.
Narrator: But in game 1 ,
Schilling, hobbled by an injury to his ankle, lasted
only 3 innings, the shortest postseason outing
of his career.
No one knew whether he would be abIe to pitch again
in the series.
New York took game 2, as well, 3-1 .
Game 3 in Boston was a blowout.
Yankee hitters hammered one Red Sox pitcher after another.
The final score was 1 9 to 8.
The New York Yankees were just one win away from going to
the World Series for the 7th time in 9 years.
No team in baseball history had ever come from 3 games behind
to win a best-of-7 series.
Barnicle: I was so angry at the 0 and 3 start to the
playoffs against the Yankees.
I was humiliated.
I was embarrassed.
I was thanking God for Caller ID, aIl the calls from area code 21 2 on the cell phone.
You'd push ignore 'cause you knew what it was gonna be,
just another winter of verbal abuse.
But you know what? You cannot count the Sox out.
Narrator: But the irrepressible Kevin Millar was
not about to let his teammates give up.
Millar: Don't let us win this game tonight.
Then they get Peedy, then they get Schill in game 6,
and game 7 anything happens.
Narrator: Derek Lowe pitched for Boston in game 4.
Orlando Hernandez was on the mound for New York.
lt was a back and forth game.
Announcer: A-Rod goes into Ieft centerfield,
back at the wall.
Alex Rodriguez has hit one over the Monster to make it
2-0 New York.
Ortiz, into right center, and the Red Sox have taken
the lead in game 4.
Timlin's thrown quite a few pitches in the dirt.
He grounds to the right side.
Bellhorn knocks it down, can't make a play,
and the Yankees lead again. It's a 2-run, 6th inning,
and a 4-3 Yankee lead.
Narrator: Once again, Joe Torre brought in Mariano Rivera
to finish off the Red Sox.
Announcer: Mariano Rivera in the post-season, 6 for 6
in save chances.
Narrator: With Boston down by 1 run in the bottom
of the 9th, Rivera faced Kevin Millar.
Announcer: Walk, and there's life for the Red Sox.
A pinch runner, Dave Roberts, is gonna come in for Boston.
He can run.
Picked up from the Dodgers.
Announcer: Good lead for Roberts.
Narrator: The great base stealer Maury Wills had once
told Dave Roberts the day would come when he'd have to
steal a base with everyone in the ballpark expecting it.
"When I got out there," Roberts said, "I knew what
Maury was talking about."
Announcer: ...are just average.
Announcer: And holding baserunners.
Announcer: Rivera to the set.
He Goes!
The pitch taken outside, here's the throw,
Roberts dives! And he is safe!
Stolen base, Dave Roberts, tying run at second base.
He went in with a hand tag.
Jeter took the throw, it was close.
Verducci: Dave Roberts, knew that moment was coming.
Had studied Mariano Rivera and knew every single one of his
moves to home plate.
And you have to love the fact that he took off on that
first pitch.
You know, the Red Sox down to their last breath--we're gonna
go down fighting and being aggressive.
And that's gonna be the stolen base that's gonna
be remembered in Boston forever.
Announcer: Up the middle.
Roberts will come to the plate.
The throw by WilIiams.
Bill MueIler has tied it.
Narrator: The game was tied, and it stayed that way into
extra innings.
Manny Ramirez led off the bottom of the 1 2th.
Announcer: The 2-1 .
Ramirez will start it with a hit.
And the Red Sox put their leadoff man on.
Now it's David Ortiz.
Announcer: Ortiz, so many times the hero
for the Red Sox.
The 2-1 pitch.
Swing and a drive, deep to right, way back, and this
ball is gone.
Jump on his back, fellas.
Narrator: It was 1 :23 A.M.
The Red Sox were still alive.
Announcer: ...a home run that went in the crowd,
and the Red Sox live to play again.
Goodwin: It was one of the most exciting
moments in my whole history of the game.
And you then began to feel, even so,
l mean, alI you are now is 3 to 1 .
But still there was hope because of that happening.
If it could happen in the last part of that inning,
then maybe it couId happen again.
Announcer: With a tying run at 3rd,
the go-ahead run at 1 st.
Narrator: In game 5, the Red Sox again came from
behind to force extra innings.
Announcer: That should tie it. Roberts will tag and go.
The throw into 2nd and it's a 4-4 game.
Narrator: With 2 outs in the bottom of the 1 4th, and men
on first and second, David Ortiz came to the plate.
Announcer: Ortiz bounced it off centerfield.
Narrator: 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 1 4 pitchers into game 5,
Ortiz had done it again.
lt was his second walk-off hit in less than 24 hours.
But Boston still had to win the next 2 games
at Yankee Stadium.
After the Red Sox won game 5, Boston's team doctor
sutured the skin around Curt Schilling's ailing tendon
to hoId it in place, a procedure that he had tried only once before...
on a cadaver.
Announcer: Like a scene from "The Natural," Schilling climbs
the mound and prepares to take on this Yankee line-up.
A 2-2 now.
Sierra strikes out, and that's the first strikeout
of the night for Curt Schilling.
Goodwin: When Schilling came out in game 6,
we already knew that there was trouble with his ankle.
One wasn't sure at all that he'd be able to pull this off.
Narrator: Despite the pain, Schilling managed to quiet
Yankee bats.
With 2 outs in the 4th, Kevin MilIar started a rally
for Boston.
Announcer: With 2 out, Millar hits it down the left
field line, into the corner.
Matsui gives it a look.
That's a fair ball and Millar digging for second.
The throw, too late.
Varitek has put Boston on top.
That's down the left field line.
Big trouble.
Matsui on the run.
And it's a homerun, 4-0 Boston.
Narrator: Schilling lasted 7 innings and gave up
just 1 run.
The bulIpen took over.
Announcer: Let it go. Red Sox force game 7.
A tremendous pitching performance by Schilling,
Arroyo, and Keith Foulke, who does it again.
Barnicle: It's now tied 3 to 3.
Two of my boys are in Washington.
Timmy is here with us.
I call them up and I say, "We're goin' back."
We went back for game 7.
Narrator: For the second year in a row, the American League
pennant would be decided in a 7th game between Boston
and New York.
More than 31 million people were watching on television.
Announcer: And here's Ortiz.
He rips one into right field.
Narrator: Boston came out swinging.
Announcer: Damon hits it in the air to right field.
Sheffield back in the corner.
A grand slam! Johnny Damon.
...Goes deep. 4 more...
There's another one into right field.
Johnny Damon is going off.
Bellhorn hits it into right.
lt's fair, it's gone.
lt is gone.
Home run Bellhorn.
Barnicle: And throughout the park you could see people
who had been huddled with winter jackets and sweatshirts
against the autumn chill remove them, and they had Red Sox
shirts underneath.
And Tim stood on the chair in Yankee Stadium and a friend
of ours was with us, and he turned to me and said,
"I've never seen a kid with as happy a look on his face as
Timmy Barnicle had."
Announcer: This would be the 5th pennant for the Red Sox since that 1 91 8 season.
Here it is.
Ground ball to second.
Reese.
The Boston Red Sox have won the pennant!
[Cheering]
Narrator: It was the greatest comeback in baseball history.
Goodwin: This was the victory we'd all been waiting for,
even though there was still the World Series to go.
Narrator: The Red Sox would now have to face
the formidable St. Louis Cardinals
who had twice before broken Boston hearts
in the 1 946 and 1 967 World Series.
Goodwin: For the first time in my baseball life
I watched every play of every inning.
l don't think there was a single time when I ran away,
closed my eyes, went out of the room.
l began to no longer think we were gonna lose.
I felt brave.
The team, I think, had transformed the fans.
It was almost as if they believed
in themselves so much, and if they could get us
through that Yankee series on the brink of disaster at every
moment and come back at the last minute, who were we not
to believe in them?
Announcer: The Red Sox are 1 out away from winning it all.
Narrator: Boston swept St. Louis.
The Cardinals never led in any of the games.
Announcer: Ground ball back to the mound.
FouIke with it!
Got 'em at first base and the Boston Red Sox can
finally say it!
For the first time in 86 years, for the first time
since 1 91 8, they are champions of the world.
For the Red Sox "next year" is finally here.
[Crowd chanting "Thank you, Red Sox!"]
Martinez: If you ask me about my World Series ring
with Boston, I will not trade that one for 3 anywhere
because it meant so much.
l think grown ups, small ones, little boys, little girls,
old people, everybody cried in Boston I think when we got
that World Series.
Verducci: l think about all the people who lived their
entire lives without seeing that moment.
it wasn't just about 2004.
It was about people's fathers and grandfathers and mothers
and grandmothers and all these people who had waited all
these years.
They were all connected.
And I've never seen a championship in any sport that
meant more to people in a region than l saw with the Red Sox in 2004.
["GIory Days" playing]
♫ Yeah ♫
♫ Whoa! ♫
♫ I had a friend was a big baseball player ♫
♫ back in high school... ♫
Narrator: It had been 31 ,458 days since Boston's last title.
From Bangor, Maine to New Haven, Connecticut,
from Burlington, Vermont and Charlestown, New Hampshire,
to Providence, Rhode Island, millions rejoiced.
The next morning, in corner stores and offices, barber shops
and on factory floors across New England,
fans were greeted by newspapers announcing Boston's victory.
Vendors who normally sold 1 ,200 papers in a day sold 8,000.
At the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, miniature Red Sox flags
appeared beside headstones as fans shared the
happy news with relatives who had spent a lifetime hoping
for a championship.
The joy of it really didn't seep into me,
I think, until they came back home.
And the explosion of emotion couldn't be contained.
Narrator: On October 30th, 3 million people,
5 times the population of the city of Boston, turned out
for a victory parade through the streets of the old town.
Barnicle: One of our most enduring memories,
my brother and I, was my mother sitting
on the stoop of her house in Fitchburg, Massachusetts,
in the shade of a single tree on a busy street with her
nylon stockings roIled down to her ankles in order to,
get some cool breeze, and the radio on the front porch
and she would keep score
on a piece of paper.
Not the score book, on a piece of paper.
And when the Red Sox won the World Series, my brother took
a scorecard out to the cemetery from game 4 in St. Louis
and put it on the grave.
[Bangs gavel]
John McCain: We are here today because this sport is about to
become a fraud in the minds of the American people.
You have a serious public relations problem here.
Mr.Fehr and Commissioner Selig, aIl l can
say to you is, this issue has reached the level where
the President of the United States discusses it
at a State of the Union message to the American people.
Your failure to commit to addressing this issue straight on
and immediately will motivate this Committee to
search for legislative remedies.
l don't know what they are, but I can tell you and your players
that you represent, the status quo is not acceptable.
Verducci: If you look at the history of the game,
it takes an outside influence to really get baseball to ask
the tough questions--
you know, going back to the gambIing problem in the early
20th century, going back to cocaine in the 1 980s,
going back to Pete Rose's gambling problem,
and now with steroids.
In every case, it took an outside agent like the Federal Government
or Congress or a court case, a legal case,
to really get baseball to move.
Narrator: In the fall of 2004, when fans wanted nothing more
than to revel in one of baseball's greatest post seasons,
the game's steroid problems hit the front pages
and airwaves once again.
Man: Now this: a report in the "San Francisco Chronicle"
that Bonds admitted before the grand jury investigating
the BALCO steroids case, that he did take substances now
identified as steroids.
Narrator: An ongoing federal investigation of BALCO,
a Iaboratory in Northern California that sold
nutritional supplements to athletes, had implicated some
of the biggest names in sports.
BALCO was run by a former funk musician named Victor Conte.
He had joined forces with Patrick Arnold, an avid body builder
and brilliant chemist who had already introduced
Andro, an over-the-counter steroid, to the American market.
Arnold had also done something that made the blood of every
anti-doping expert run cold.
He had created an untraceable steroid called "the Clear."
When taken with a meticulously orchestrated combination
of other drugs, it enabled BALCO's clients,
some of the greatest athletes in the world, to become greater still:
Olympic medalist Marion Jones, NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski,
as well as baseball sluggers Jason Giambi,
Gary Sheffield, and Barry Bonds.
Reporter: How much testing do you welcome in baseball?
Bonds: They can test me every day if they choose to.
You know, like I tell everybody--
you want to be on top, you have to have broad shoulders
to be on top, let me tell you that right now,
because as fast as you get there is as fast they try
to knock you down.
And so I have broad shoulders. I can deal with it.
Narrator: ln San Francisco, many fans were reluctant to
believe that their favorite player had taken performance-enhancing drugs,
but some critics pointed out that his head
had gotten bigger, and his shoe size had
increased from 1 0 1/2 to 1 3.
Man: Bonds, according to his lawyer, was told by his trainer
that "The Cream" rubbed on his skin was rubbing
balm for arthritis, and that "The Clear," taken orally,
was flaxseed oil.
Narrator: Bonds testified that he had taken steroids
inadvertently, and later complained that he was being
unfairly singled out.
Will: Bonds has been certainly singled out,
but that's what happens when the results of your
cheating are so lurid.
It attracts attention if you hit 73 home runs.
What do you expect?
I mean, if some middle infielder tries to buy another year
scuffling in the big leagues with performance-enhancing drugs,
it doesn't get as much attention.
This is not complicated.
Narrator: Then, in February of 2005, Jose Canseco published
a tell-all autobiography.
In it he extolled the benefits of anabolic steroids, detailed
his own extensive use of them, and named many other stars--
hitters and pitchers-- who he said had also been "on the juice"
Wilson AIvarez, lvan Rodriguez, Bret Boone,
Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire.
Now people listened.
[Gavel bangs]
Man: Let me start by telling you this:
l have never used steroids, period.
Man: Do you think that the team trainers,
the managers, the general managers, and even the owners
might have been aware that some players were
using steroids?
No doubt in my mind, absolutely.
So it's not a secret that...
Costas: Many people sneered,
"Doesn't Congress have something better to do?"
Well, sometimes they may poke their nose into sports where
they don't belong, but in this case it actually led to
a good outcome.
Even if there was some grandstanding involved, it was
very clear that Don Fehr and Bud SeIig felt the whip
from Congress, and they had to respond.
Man: lt is rather an infamous occurrence that
in the year you were breaking the home run record,
a bottle of Andro was seen in your locker.
Well, Sir, I'm not here to talk about the past.
I'm here to talk about the positive and not the
negative about this issue.
Man: As far as this being about the past, that's what we do.
This is an oversight committee.
lf the Enron people come in here and say, "Well, we don't
want to talk about the past," do you think Congress is
going to let them get away with that?
I have accepted, by my attorney's advice,
not to comment on this issue.
Hoenig: And you could just see him deflate
like a giant balloon in a Thanksgiving Day parade
with a pin stuck through it.
And that's very sad and also unfair to some degree.
'Cause Mark McGwire never had the kind of ego that could say,
"Let's see you try and do this on steroids."
Bonds had that ego but he didn't have that ego.
And so he couldn't come back and say,
"You can't take this away from me."
It looked as if he was shattered as a consequence.
Bryant: Without the Federal Government, you still
have people like Mark McGwire telling you there's nothing
in a bottle that can help you hit a home run
or Barry Bonds just telling you to get out of his face
because he's bigger than you.
It was about time that somebody bigger than them
heId them accountabIe.
Man: Mr.Sosa, what obligation do you think you have
if you are aware that someone is using drugs
on your team.
l'm a private person.
l don't really go, you know, ask people whatever it is.
Narrator: In the fall of 2005, Major League Baseball
and the Players Association finally took decisive action.
The anti-doping program they put in place for the 2006 season
would be the toughest in professional sports.
Players who failed a drug test once would be suspended
for 50 games.
The second time, 1 00 games.
And the third time, they would be banned for life.
WilI: It's now time for realism, and the reaIism is this:
the stakes of athletic excellence, the financiaI stakes
are now so high, and the incentives for cutting corners
therefore so great, that we are in an endless competition
between the chemists trying to devise non-detectable
performance- enhancing drugs,
and the enforcers trying to devise detection.
And it will probabIy never end.
Narrator: The baseball world may have hoped the stigma
of steroids would go away, but the most dominant player
implicated in the scandal was making that an impossibility.
Announcer: The pitch.
Bonds hits one high, hits it deep to center.
Outta here!
71 5.
Bonds passes Babe Ruth.
He is second on the aIl-time home run list.
So he does it where he wanted to do it,
at home in front of his friends.
Hoenig: He's larger than life and had to fall
for that reason.
He was reaching like Icarus, he's reaching for something he
can't reach for and he had to fall for that reason.
He was good enough without that. Everybody says it.
I'm not even sure what he wanted was public adulation,
although behind all that is an insecurity that is really sad.
He comes into the world not trusting anybody.
And then desperately wants to change that and then gets angry
when he can't trust you.
Bonds: The problem with me, like my dad told me before he passed away,
he said, "The biggest problem with you, Barry,
"is every great athlete that has gone on for great records,
everyone knows their story."
And l'm sorry.
l was raised to protect my family, keep my mouth shut,
and stay quiet.
But it doesn't make me a bad person.
lt doesn't make me an eviI person.
I'm an adult and I take responsibilities for what l do,
but you know what, I'm not going to allow you guys to
["Fame" playing]
Narrator: Barry Bonds began the 2007 season just 21 home runs
shy of Henry Aaron's career mark of 755.
He was 42 years old.
David Bowie: ♫ Fame makes a man... ♫
Narrator: As he approached the record,
fans, writers, and Major League Baseball
struggled with how to honor the man who was
about to become the game's new home run king.
Early: And it was sort of like Bonds--oh, my goodness,
we never liked you and we never wanted you to
break the record.
And the steroids just added insult to injury, I think,
with all that.
Narrator: Some suggested Bonds should retire rather than
presume to play long enough to break Aaron's record.
Miller: And as he approached Aaron's record,
every game was sold out not just in San Francisco,
but Chicago, in L.A.,
every city the Giants went into, couldn't get a ticket for those games.
So those fans I don't think were hoping he was gonna retire
before he got to their city 'cause they'd already
bought the tickets to see him play and I think they were
hoping to see him hit one.
Narrator: Henry Aaron, who in 1 974 had received racist hate mail
and death threats as he approached Babe Ruth's home run record,
grew tired of answering awkward questions
about Bonds and decided to be elsewhere when his record
was broken.
Bud Selig, a close friend of Aaron's, said he wasn't sure
he would be there either.
Costas: Thee whole thing was a joyless march toward
the inevitable.
Baseball powerless, Selig with his hands in his pockets
watching obviously in some pain, not just because of what
had happened to the game but what had happened to his
lifelong friend Henry Aaron and Aaron's mark.
Narrator: Bonds got threats and hate mail, too.
Fans in opposing ballparks taunted him, booed when he was
announced as the hitter, then booed louder when their
own pitchers walked him.
Bonds: Boo me, cheer me-- those that are going to cheer me
are going to cheer me, and those that are going to
boo me are going to boo me.
But they still come see the show.
And l'm happy. L.A., Dodger Stadium is the best show
I ever go to and watch baseball.
They say, "Barry sucks" louder than anybody out there.
And you know what, you'Il see me in left fieId going just like this,
because you know what, you've got to have some serious talent
to have 53,000 people saying "you suck."
[People chuckling]
And I'm proud of that.
Narrator: On August 4, 2007, Bonds faced Clay Hensley,
who had once been suspended for 1 5 games after
testing positive for steroids.
Announcer: There it is.
Number 755.
Barry Bonds has done it.
He has tied Henry Aaron.
His 755th career home run.
Narrator: On August 7th, a sellout crowd crammed into
AT&T Park in San Francisco to see the Giants play
the Washington NationaIs.
In the bottom of the 5th, with one out and nobody on,
Bonds faced lefthander Mike Bacsik.
Announcer: ...and Bacsik deals.
And Bonds hits one high, hits it deep.
lt is outta here!
756!
Bonds stands alone.
He is on top of the all-time home run list.
What a special moment for Barry Bonds and what a special moment
for these fans here in San Francisco.
There it is.
[Fireworks exploding]
Hank Aaron: I would Iike to offer my congratulations to
Barry Bonds on becoming baseball's career home run leader.
It is a great accomplishment, which required skill,
longevity, and determination.
l'll move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry
and his family on this historical achievement.
Bryant: When Hank Aaron's record went down, I felt nothing.
I can't tell you where I was.
I didn't wake up my son to let him watch the moment.
I didn't care.
And I think that a lot of people felt the exact same way
I did because of all that had been lost.
This was not supposed to be this way.
lf you care about the sport, no matter how you felt
about the man, when you achieve the all-time home run record,
this is supposed to be a moment of celebration.
This is supposed to be a moment where everybody drops
their swords and they recognize the history that
they've witnessed.
And none of that happened.
And to me that told you more than anything else
about what's been lost in this sport.
Man: Some people have suggested that this record is--
the word, you've heard that word "tainted".
Do you feel at all it's tainted, and what would you say--
This record is not tainted at aIl, at alI, period.
Verducci: l'm not a big believer in putting
an asterisk next to records.
You start pulling on this one thread, say it's Barry Bonds,
and it leads to another thread.
The pitchers he hit against; the players who were in the field;
the players who were competing against him.
Who was clean? Who was dirty?
You're not gonna be ever able to answer those questions.
But I think in some ways the asterisk is already there.
Man: There are no asterisks.
There's no asterisk next to the name
of the Cincinnati Reds who won the 1 91 9 World Series
that was thrown.
It doesn't say they didn't deserve to win, you know,
asterisk, they should have lost.
The asterisk is whatever exists in the minds of the fan.
Narrator: "No asterisk," Henry Aaron said.
"Let's just congratulate Barry and give him his due."
Many baseball fans disagreed.
Although other players had used performance-enhancing drugs,
Bonds had become the symbol of the "Steroids Era."
Barry Bonds finished 2007 with 762 career home runs.
Although he remained one of the toughest outs in the game,
San Francisco decided not to offer him a contract for 2008.
Other teams stayed away, too.
He never played again.
Mitchell: For more than a decade there has been
widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids by players
in Major League Baseball.
This has not been an isolated problem
invoIving just a few players or a few clubs.
Narrator: In December 2007, a commission set up by Major League Baseball
and led by former senator George Mitchell
to investigate the steroids scandal, released its report.
It was a damning indictment.
Players on every team illegally took drugs to
enhance their performances, and club owners, general managers
and managers routinely considered players'
possible steroid use when discussing their injuries
or strategizing about trades and contracts.
Costas: l thought the MitchelI Report was good
insofar as it provided an official declaration that
there was a steroid era, that it was long-lasting
and pervasive, that it wasn't isolated, and that it affected
contemporary competition and distorted the game's history.
So far so good.
But beyond that, there's a randomness to it, which is not
to say that any of the individual accusations are
inaccurate, but it's so selective and random.
Off the top of my head I could name 1 00 guys who likely
could have wound up in the Mitchell Report, and just by luck escaped.
Narrator: Although 89 players were named, the most
sensational section of the report was devoted to
allegations of extensive doping by the most successful
pitcher of the previous 1 5 years, Roger Clemens--
winner of 354 games and 7 Cy Young awards.
Early: So now with Roger Clemens they got a white player
with comparable accomplishments
in the game to Bonds.
it gives baseball an out.
First, you have a position player and now you have
a pitcher.
You have a black and you have a white and both of them are
big stars who normaIly would make the Hall of Fame and now
it's kind of clouded and you don't know whether they'll
make it or not.
Narrator: In the coming months and years, other players,
including some of the greatest stars in the game, would also be exposed:
Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro,
and Manny Ramirez.
Mark McGwire, saying it was now time to "talk about the past,"
admitted what many had long suspected,
that he had used steroids for most of his career,
including 1 998, the year he was so celebrated for breaking
the singIe-season home run record.
Roger Clemens vehemently denied doing anything wrong.
Barry Bonds, under indictment for perjury in the BALCO
investigation, said nothing.
Torre: Yeah, it's a bad thing.
Baseball had a black eye but I'm not sure that everybody should have been named.
It's a sad time but it's something we have to deal with,
we have to get through it and,
you know, hopefully there's sun shining on the other side of this thing
because this game is too beautiful
to, you know, have a lasting scar on it.
Selig: When you look at the Mitchell Report,
and you look at the minor league program, and you
look at the major league program, and you look
at the peopIe who've been suspended, doesn't matter who they are,
we're gonna clean this sport up.
I'm the commissioner.
l'll take full responsibility to everything that's gone on
in my tenure.
I'll take credit for aIl the great things and I'lI take
responsibility for these things.
And I think that's fair.
Boswell: The moralist wants to decide what's right and wrong.
The artist wants to see things exactly as they are, even if
there are so many shades that right and wrong isn't a place
that you get to.
John Keats wrote in a letter-- and he was talking
about William Shakespeare-- he said that the feature that
distinguished Shakespeare the most and made him the greatest
of all writers was what Keats called negative capability,
which he described as the ability to remain in tension,
undecided between opposing poles.
And he said that Shakespeare
had that negative capability--the ability to see everything
and not jump to one side of the question
to a greater degree than any other artist.
Now we live in a sports age and a basebaIl age where
nothing's more valuable than negative capability,
because if we're just in a rush, if we can't wait to see
Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or whoever it is as right or wrong,
then we're missing the complexity of these people
and the difficulty of the age that they're living in.
Announcer: A groundball up the middle.
Sliding stop.
Jack Wilson flips it to Castilla.
Throw to first base!
How did they do it?
Announcer: Slicing foul.
Byrnes dives.
Got it.
An amazing catch by Byrnes.
Announcer: Jason Varitek a swing.
A fly ball into centerfield,
and Ichiro going back to the running track.
to the wall, reaches back, and he makes the catch!
Holy smokes!
An amazing running catch by lchiro! Right into the wall...
Bryant: At the end of the day, I think most people
have found a way to make their peace with the sport they love
because they don't wanna say good-bye to it.
The fan has decided that the game is more important than the players,
that the game is more important than the owners.
The game is more important than steroids.
lt's more important than money.
lt's more important than all of it.
Announcer: Here's the 1 -2 pitch to Palmeiro.
A ground ball, past Jenks, up the middle of the infield.
Uribe has it, he throws.
Out! Out! The White Sox win!
And a World Championship!
The White Sox have won the World...
Announcer: Swing and a miss!
The Cardinals are world champions for 2006!
The 1 0th worId championship in their illustrious history.
Announcer: Game over, Series over, and the Red Sox are world champs again!
Announcer: The 0-2 pitch.
Swing and a miss! Struck him out!
The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions
of baseball!
Narrator: In 2009, in the midst of the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression, baseball gloried
in one of the most exciting World Series in years,
reminding the country and the world of the joyousness,
the unpredictability, and the surpassing beauty of the game.
The Yankees, having bolstered their old guard of homegrown talent
with a new crop of lavishly paid free-agents,
faced the Philadelphia Phillies,
the defending champions.
The MVP of the series was Hideki Matsui, a former
outfielder for the Yomiuri Giants, who led New York to
their 27th championship.
Announcer: And there's number 27.
The Yankees have won it all again.
Hoenig: lt just seems to be eternal.
You know how they say that forest fires are good for forests?
Every year you think there's possibility in the ground.
There's new trees there.
We can be a forest one day.
Announcer: ... dives and makes the catch.
Hoenig: l don't know why that is in that sport.
Maybe it's the number of games, maybe it's the right
number of players, more than in basketball, less than
in football.
Announcer: What a catch by Tory Hunter!
There's nothing quite like it, and it still takes my breath away
after 50 years.
I can't not feel that way.
Boswell: I've looked for the next generation of ball pIayers
to be less serious, to be less craftsman-like,
to be less committed to be less reckless--
a virtue sometimes-- but they haven't.
It's wonderful how the game revitalizes itself, reshapes itseIf,
shows a different facet of itself
and yet essentially doesn't change.
What a wonderful touchstone to return to--always the same,
always changing.
Goodwin: When my children have children--we have our
first grandchild now, a little girl--I'm gonna teach her how
to keep score, and hopefully someday my children and their
children will remember going to games with me
just as I remembered going to games with my father.
They'll tell stories about me and funny stories the way
I do about my father, which means that those lives don't
really come to an end, that you really can live
on in the memory of others.
And to the extent that baseball is a continuing thread
through many of our lives, then the stories that
will be told will keep the memory of us alive.
Barnicle: I do love this game.
I love being there.
Other than my home, other than being with my family, it is,
I can honestly say, the one place I truly feel at home,
at peace, comfortable, is at Fenway Park watching
the Red Sox play.
I always have, through losing years, winning years, I just
feel it's a piece of my home.
Man on radio: Well, let me ask you, do you think the Red Sox have
any appetite to trade some of these young arms?
They've got 3 who are just off the charts and...
Man: I mean, the Yankees obviousIy
are a very talented team.
They have some issues, but I do think they wiIl be in it.
[Man speaking Spanish]
Man, singing: ♫ Take me out to the ball game ♫
♫ Take me out to the crowd ♫
♫ Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack ♫
♫ I don't care if I never get back ♫
♫ Let me root, root, root for the home team ♫
♫ If they don't win it's a shame ♫
♫ 'Cause it's 1 ♫
♫ 2 ♫
♫ 3 strikes you're out ♫
♫ At the old ball game ♫
♫ Take me out to the ball game ♫
♫ Take me out to the crowd ♫
♫ Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack ♫
♫ I don't care if I never get back ♫
♫ Let me root, root, root for the home team ♫
♫ If they don't win it's a shame ♫
♫ 'Cause it's 1 ♫
♫ 2 ♫
♫ 3 strikes you're out ♫
♫ At the old ball game ♫