Okay, baseball types (**BobT, RickJay **, et al) as the journalist trip over themselves to hype what happened, can cooler heads prevail to help us understand how monumental the past two games have been? Are they automatic “two of the best games ever” candidates?
By the way - I was at last night’s Game 5!! It was incredible to actually be there…
Thanks
[list][list][list][list][list]GAME!
…;)…
A lot depends on how the series plays out (if the Yankees lose, the games themselves lose). But I think they’ll rank up there.
Personally, I’m biased, but I’d say the range of emotions during games 4-6 of the '93 Series was more incredible:
Game 4: Toronto wins 15-14, kicking a last second field goal. (Or something like that… really, they scored 6 in the eighth to win the game).
Game 5: Facing elimination, Curt Schilling (remember him?) pitches a 5-hit masterpiece, and the Phils win 2-0, forcing…
Game 6: Wherein Mitch Williams blows his second save in three games by leaving a pitch over the plate to Joe Carter.
I’m starting to cry just thinking about it again. 
Since the big shot on Wed’s game was after mignight …
What can you say. The Yankees have the best record in November in MLB history.
And in just about every other month, too, I’d bet.
Including October.
Off to IMHO
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Game 4 and 5 of the 2001 World Series put together are not as exciting as game 7 of the 1991 World Series. The Braves and Twins, both last place teams the previous year, played a “do or die” game highlighted by two amazing pitching performance by Jack Morris and John Smoltz in which both teams were held scoreless for 9 innings. The game goes into extra innings, where Gene Larkin of the Twins drives in the winning run with a single…an unlikely match-up, an unlikely hero, and a 1-0 extra inning dramatic ending to a wonderful World Series. That is the greatest World Series game I have seen, and this is coming from someone who has been a Braves fan since I was 7 years old. Even though my heart was broken that day (a feeling that would become all too familiar in the decade following that game) I will never forget it. No World Series game since compares.
IzzyR:
Is that really true? After all, people still talk about Carlton Fisk’s big home run in the 1975 World Series even though the Red Sox lost the series.
You generally don’t have to stay up past midnight to watch football’s great moments.
If the D-Backs have the Yankees’ payroll, those endings don’t happen.
HubZilla -
Can we give the payroll issue a rest? Is Tino Martinez being paid an extraodinary salary? Scott Brosius? Alfonso Soriano?
Shane Spencer? Jorge Posada? Is Mussina’s and Clemens’s salaries that much different than Johnson’s and Schilling’s?
HubZilla -
Sorry, I don’t mean to single you out with my response. Of course the Yankees have the highest payroll. But has that really come into play during this World Series? The D’Backs have pushed the Yankees to their last out TWICE. Looks to me like two pretty evenly matched teams in the talent department. Maybe in a few years, when the D’Backs are trying to re-sign some of their young talent, the payroll issue can be debated. But for the 2001 World Series, I don’t think it’s a major factor between these two teams.
Not even close.
For 99.99% of both games, the Yankees weren’t even in it. The Diamondbacks starting pitching effectively shut them down, and Kim got two outs in the 9th relatively easily.
They are definitely not two of the best World Series games ever played. Certainly two of the most bizarre, especially back to back, but not among the best. To be a really exiting game, you have to have repeated changes to the lead, or threats to score, and these games didn’t have that. More thrilling games would include the Carton Fisk Game Six in 1975, the “Twilight Zone” Game Six Mets/Red Sox Game in 1986, and even the Yankee comeback from being down 0-6 in Game 3 in 1996.
Games 4 & 5 were exciting, but they paled in comparison to the Game Sixes of 1975 and 1986.
However, the fact that they had similar bizarre endings is beyond belief.
In an average season, you might have 1-3 games where a team ties the game on a home run with two outs in the 9th. That’s for all 30 teams over 162 games.
To have it happen in consecutive games to the same team is mind boggling.
Well, I wouldn’t say that they will be completely ignored if the Yankees don’t win. But their value will be enhanced if the Yankees win. Part of the greatness of these games is that they fit into the myth of the Yankees as a team of tremendous courage, never giving up, cannot be put away etc. etc. This myth will suffer some if the Yankees ultimately are put away.