They will never have an Old-Timer’s Day set aside for them. There are times it seems the season they had and all the games they won didn’t happen in real life, but in a movie, some direct-to-video sequel of “Major League.”
But for those who remember the 1994 Yankees, Saturday was a seminal anniversary.
Because on Aug. 3, 1994, the Yankees defeated Brewers (then of the AL Central), 2-1 in a rain-shortened game at old County Stadium. Sterling Hitchcock threw seven innings of five-hit ball. Jim Leyritz and Randy Velarde hit solo homers. Don Mattingly went 1-for-3, lifting his average to .310.
And all the newspaper stories the next day carried the same theme:
THE YANKEES CLINCHED THE PENNANT*
The asterisk, of course, was the relevant part — and also the most devastating part. Because baseball was the secondary conversation in baseball that August 25 years ago.
The win lifted the Yankees lead to nine games with only nine days (and eight games) before Aug. 12, which is when baseball’s players had called a strike date.
If, as expected, the players struck, they were guaranteed to be in first place.
If, as was also expected, the strike was long (which it was) and canceled out the rest of the regular season (which it did), but also was resolved before baseball did the unthinkable and canceled the postseason, it would have guaranteed the Yankees’ first appearance in October in 13 unbearably long years.
That last part was the trick, of course. Baseball did cancel the playoffs, and did stay on strike until the following spring, and nearly implemented a dreadful replacement-player scheme before future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor intervened. There were no playoffs for the 1994 Yankees, no crack at a 23rd world championship.
What happened in the immediate aftermath, of course, made that easier for Yankees fans to tolerate than, say, fans of the Expos, who wound up 74-40 and were the true what-if team of that year. Baseball never recovered in Montreal, that team was broken up and now plays in Washington.
The Yankees were 70-43. In two years they really did win No. 23, then added three more shortly thereafter and another in 2009. They have a fine chance at getting to No. 28 this year. It is easy to forget that 1994 even happened.
But it did. And when it did it announced a signal change not only in the city (where the Mets had ruled, almost unchallenged, from 1984-92) but in the sport. The Yankees were thought to be a relic only a few years earlier, lost and losing, the good times gone, possibly forever. That season — 1994 — changed that.
The Yankees started 26-10 and by Aug. 4, they had a 10-game lead. They were good on both sides of the ball and the mammoth crowds that defined old Yankee Stadium’s final years had started to return. And then it was gone. They are, technically and forever, the ’94 AL East champs. That was secured 25 years ago this weekend.
“I don’t look at it as a celebratory situation at all,” Buck Showalter said in Milwaukee that day, after saying they would celebrate with cans of Bud Lite, not champagne. “We’ve hoped all along to play a 162-game schedule and that’s what we still hope.”
Ah, well.
Vac’s Whacks
Of all the many lessons I learned from my mother, Ann McMahon Vaccaro, the one that seems most relevant to this page is this pearl she offered me many, many years ago:
“You know, just because you like the [Mets/Jets/Knicks/Islanders] it doesn’t mean you have to hate the [Yankees/Giants/Nets/Rangers]. Root for everyone. You’ll be much happier that way!” It was a privilege being her son.
Do we really have to still wait a couple of months for “The Irishman?”
No Christmas Day game for the Knicks seems like the best of all possible Christmas presents for Knicks fans, if you ask me.
The best compliment I can give David Cone is that as a broadcaster he is exactly what he was as a pitcher: interesting, unique, fun to watch and, most of all, very, very good.
Whack Back at Vac
Eric Pattison: Thurman Munson’s death was felt nationwide, even in Iowa. I’ll never forget seeing the news on national TV right after my neighbor and I had just played ball. A 9-year-old in ’76, those teams made me detest the Reds and think Thurman was the coolest guy in the world with his gruff ’stache. Feel the same as you every August 2.
Vac: I have literally never gotten more response to a column than the one I wrote Friday about the anniversary of Thurman Munson’s passing. This week, this space will be devoted to a small sampling of that reaction.
John Tsaousis: Like you, I’ll never forget that warm August night. I was just finishing up a Little League practice and a father picking up his son ran towards the field and announced Thurman’s passing to a devastated team. That “stillness” was (and still is). It’s one of those things that brings tears every year.
@ggallina: Profound sadness. Amazing, I was a 17-year-old kid. Now, at 57, I still feel the sadness and sense of inexplicable loss.
@statisticsphd: I was a grad student in England. No internet, read one line in the International Herald Tribune that Munson was killed. My parents kept the NY newspapers for me to read when I got back.
Steve Giegerich: For those of us who suffered through a lot of lousy Yankees teams post-1964, Thurman was very special. My wife had to REALLY talk me out of naming son No. 1 in his memory.
@realjdshaw: Went to work with my dad in the city that day. Driving home, stuck on the L.I.E. by Elmhurst gas tanks when the first, unconfirmed report broke. We waited and hoped before the second report confirmed No. 15 was gone. I had a flashback to [Roberto] Clemente, when I first became aware of mortality.
Larry Pellegrini: Thurman was our captain and unquestioned leader, consistent in his greatness and day-in, day-out effort. More important, he was a devoted young family man, with a lifetime of memories away from baseball yet to be made.
Ben Goss: I was a big Yankees/Ron Guidry fan growing up in Natchez, Miss., and put a band around my makeshift Yankees jersey the next day. Thank you for letting me know that I’m not the only one still affected by it.
@edbove85: That day ended my idyllic adolescence. My boyhood idol was ripped away in a most cruel was in the prime of his life. Even after 40 years the pain and sadness linger.
Michael Flannery: I was at a Pocono Mountain basketball camp when my roommate burst in and said “Thurman Munson died.” I got really mad at him and told him to shut up. I refused to believe it was true until I got home and read the sports section of the newspaper. Then I burst into tears.
Peter Rittmaster: I too played catcher growing up and his death was the first time I can recall total devastation about a loss of life. Just recently I was in my attic and I saw the Post I saved from 40 years ago and it really brought a tear to my eye.