I Was Actually At Games 6 & 7

Yeah I was there.

I was there alright, first base side, and what you saw as a momentary instance, followed up by what I can only imagine was a raid of Joe Buck & Tim McCarver replays, proclaiming A-Rod is the smarterst player in baseball... I saw it as a one time event, like a slow motion flash. I wasn't uspet when Derek Jeter crossed home with the tieing run, just confused. Confused as any baseball fan would be because I know for a fact that Alex Rodriguez should be automatically out, and as I stood silently screaming this in a crowd of ecstactic Yankees fans I thought only this, Wow, the Yankees get all the breaks !

Suddenly of course there was a second out on the board, one less Yankees run, and Derek Jeter was back on first. Now this was after several minutes, in which of course zero replays were shown in Yankee Stadium. Many of the Yankees fans did not know how to react, they were not exactly sure what had just happened, most of them being oblivious to the game of baseball as it is. When the call was finally made I stood up in disbelief of the Red Sox break, consequently taking the barrage of peanut shells and other Yankees fan-propelled items that went along with it, as the right call that was made on the field.

Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series.

Yeah, I was there, as any of you watching the 5 o'clock news on FOX25 in Boston may know, I was there -- bright and early, showing my support for the BoSox, that being only one of the several interviews that was aired featuring myself that day. It was my 15 minutes of fame that just happened to air before what was the greatest comeback in sports history.

I spent 48 of the greatest hours of my life in New York.

Within these 48 hours I listened to a lot of sports radio in the New York area and to my dismay there was no line-up predictions, no pregame analysis, no career pitcher versus batter statistics... just bickering. The break had finally rolled the Red Sox way and the Yankees were shocked, instead of a questionable line-up move conversation, every Yankees caller wanted to discuss the A-Rod ball-slap, not be confused, of course, with the A-Rod bitch-slap, that was seen in a Yankees-Red Sox game several months prior.

Even after game 7's conclusion there were some callers congradulating the Red Sox, but many of them just called to complain, and their main complaint, the "botchery" of the A-Rod call, and the fact that the Curse will not be broken until the Red Sox beat the Cardinals/Astros (which of course still has no chance of happening), and of course no fan left untouched the fact that the Red Sox conquest of the Yankees was simply a "botchery" in itself on part of the Yankees.

I still listen to Yankees radio, trying to find out exactly what it is the Yankees fans know about, or what they are passionate about, but their expectancy and their arrogance is one that upsets me as a sports fan. It was about a week later in New York sports radio that I was still hearing the fans calling in, complaining that it was a fluke, and shifting their attention to the fact that the Yankees have 26 World Championships (of course there was the occasional caller who claimed the Yankees had 25, or 27 championships but that type of knowledge is expected of Yankees fans) to the Red Sox now 6 World Series -- Yankees fans are of course not knowing it yet, but simply giving the Red Sox a new goal, one that may be a little tougher, and take a little longer to accomplish, but one that will of course need to be done to finally silence and bring a fall to the Yankee fan.

So here I sit in front of my computer, with a little piece of me still refusing to leave Yankee Stadium after game 7, no matter how much the security tells me to get down from the top of the Yankees $500 seats behind third base, still waiting for the Babe to come out of the dugout, and do his one last curtain call.

Yeah, I was there, and I still don't believe it.




Paolo DeVito
Philly's Own Fenway Faithful