Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets

THE THREE-TIME DEFENDING CHAMPION Yankees were getting older even though they were still one of the most balanced teams in baseball. Anyone was capable of becoming the hero at any given time. They had played in four World Series and five American League Championship Series since 1996. Not only had they won all nine times, but nine different Yankees had been 4 named series MVP. In 2001, they tried to make it four straight titles against the Arizona Diamondbacks, a four-year-old expansion franchise.

The Diamondbacks Baseball team had invested more money in old players and Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets than any team in baseball history. They offered millions to Mark Grace, 37; Jay Bell, 35; Matt Williams, 35; Steve Finley, 36; Luis Gonzalez, 33; Reggie Sanders, 33; Greg Swindell, 36; Curt Schilling, 34; and Randy Johnson, 37. It should have been a recipe for disaster given the rate at which aging players usually break down. Instead, the remarkable performances of three of those players were enough to lift Arizona to the pennant. The ever-improving Gonzalez had a season of historic magnitude. He hit 57 home runs with 142 RBI and 419 total bases, the latter figure tying him with Lou Gehrig for tenth on the all-time list. Johnson and Schilling were just as good, becoming arguably the best one-two pitching tandem in baseball history. Counting the National League play-offs, the pair combined for 48 wins, 723 strikeouts, and a 2.60 ERA that was almost two runs better than the league average.
Schilling and Johnson could not be intimidated, not even by the New York Yankees. Schilling was asked about the Yankees' mystique and aura before the first game. He cracked "Mystique and Aura? Those are dancers in a nightclub." He proved it in the opening game by winning 9-1. Johnson shut out the Yankees in Game 2. (View Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets)The third game was tied 1-1 as Roger Clemens and the surprising Brian Anderson pitched to a draw for six innings. Clemens was helped by some fine defensive plays. Anderson had no such luck, and New York scored the go-ahead run in the sixth and won 2-1.

Schilling started Game 4 on three days' rest. He looked tired, but both he and El Duque pitched marvelously for seven innings. Mike Stanton relieved for New York in the eighth, and the Diamondbacks scored two runs to take a 3-1 lead. Arizona manager Bob Brenly then brought in his closer, 22-year-old submariner Byung-Hyun Kim, to try for a two-inning save-something he had done only twice all year. Kim faced Tino Martinez with a runner on and two outs in the ninth, and Martinez hit Kim's first pitch over the center field fence to tie the game. The game went into extra innings. Check out Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets deals. The exhausted Kim was pitching his third inning in the tenth and gave up a fly ball to Derek Jeter that barely reached the right field seats for a game-winning homer.

The Diamondbacks regrouped admirably the next day, taking a 2-0 lead behind Miguel Batista, the poet, novelist, and aspiring law student who doubled as Arizona's fourth starter. Batista pitched seven-plus innings of scoreless baseball. Kim took the mound in the ninth trying to do what he had failed to do the night before: protect a two-run lead. This time Scott Brosius came up with a runner on second and two outs. Like Martinez before him, he hit a two-run homer to tie the game. Cheap Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets are available. The shell-shocked Kim fell to his knees as players jumped up and down in the Yankee dugout. Then he wandered around the mound like a young deer that had lost its mother. He was now Ralph Branca times two. That he was done for the Series was obvious; the only question was whether his career would eventually recover.
Arizona loaded the bases in extra innings against the untouchable Mariano Rivera, but a diving catch by rookie Alfonso Soriano helped the Yankees escape unscathed. After saving the game with his glove, Soriano won it with his bat, as he singled in Chuck Knoblauch in the twelfth inning. The Yankees became the first team in Series history to win two straight games in which they trailed after eight innings. "You have to just sit back and chuckle a little bit, because it's so unbelievable," Knoblauch said. Yankee manager Joe Torre was asked if he was surprised at Brosius' homer. "How could I be surprised?" he said. "It happened just the night before." The Series should have been. our goal is to provide Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets to our clients, so take advantage of this apportunity.