It’s hard to imagine Yankee Stadium being more electric in June than it was the past few days against San Francisco, but Bernie Williams thinks there’s a good chance it will be starting tonight.
“It’s going to be a special atmosphere,” Williams said after the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Giants yesterday as they readied themselves to face the Diamondbacks for the next three days. It will be the first time the teams have met since Arizona ended the Bombers’ reign atop the baseball world with their World Series win last November. “I think it’s going to be like the playoffs, especially with Randy Johnson out there.”
Johnson, who at 9-1 has been as good as he was in 2001, is set to pitch tonight for the first-place Diamondbacks. The Yankees will miss 12-game winner Curt Schilling in the rotation. Since this is the first season the AL East is playing the NL West in interleague action, Arizona will be making its first regular-season appearance in the Bronx. The Yankees will see the World Champs for the first time since Luis Gonzalez blooped a single in the bottom of the ninth to give Arizona the title in Game 7 a little more than seven months ago.
While Williams admitted to being a bit more energized for these upcoming games, most of his teammates did not.
“There’s no extra meaning,” said Mike Stanton. “We’re not living in the past. They beat us, that’s it. Things like that happen.”
Maybe so, but they shouldn’t – at least according to Yankee fans.
“I remember signing autographs during spring training,” Joe Torre said. “And some guy said, ‘Let’s get it done this year.’ Like last year was some kind of failure. I just said, ‘Fine.’ I didn’t want to argue with him.”
Obviously, the faithful from the Bronx have had a harder time letting go of the defeat than the people who were actually involved in the classic Series.
“I would take a one-run lead going into the ninth with [Mariano] Rivera every time,” Torre said. “I’m not beating myself up over what happened. I never relive that game at all. Of course, it would be nice to win.”
That sentiment was echoed around the Yankee clubhouse, but most players are approaching the games as just a few important games in June and aren’t overly concerned with revenge.
“It’s going to be a little different than playing against some other teams, but that’s mostly because of the people who will be here,” Jorge Posada said. “But we have to focus more on what they’re doing now and how well they are playing. Hopefully, we give the fans what they want.”
But Posada knows, as do all the Yankees, that no one will be satisfied until they beat Arizona – or anyone else – to win their 27th World Series title.
“If you get caught up thinking too much about last year, you lose focus,” Stanton said. “We can only think about ’02. We know how good they are, but right now, we have to think about ourselves. We’ll concern ourselves with October when October gets here. We’ve got to run down Boston first.”
RANDY JOHNSON GS CG SHO IP H R ER SO W-L ERA
2002 Statistics 13 2 1 95 75 32 27 115 9-1 2.56
PROJECTED Statistics 35 5 3 252 299 85 72 305 24-3 2.56