Nine Innings from Ground Zero

Scott Brosius: "Life is not fair. I mean, if there was ever a fair time for the Yankees to win the World Series, that was the year." 

Nine Innings from Ground Zero was on when I woke up this morning, and I could watch it around the clock. The best World Series I've ever seen. Can still feel the goddam bar at the Hog Pit shake with Brosius' home run. Paul O'Neill's last game at The Stadium. And a quirky reminder that in the two times the Yankees have "blown it" since their last World Series title in 2000, Mariano Rivera, a first ballot Hall of Famer who is the single greatest player ever at his position, was the one with the ball: a throwing error that led to a blown save against the Diamondbacks, and then blowing what looked like an easy save in the 2004 ALCS that would've swept the Red Sox, therein opening the gates to the greatest comeback in baseball history. How much would history be different if the greatest closer of all time had done what he had done countless times before?

Anyway. Narrated by Liev Schrieber, it's a slice. As I wrote HERE:

I was watching Nine Innings from Ground Zero for the 900th time this morning. And it dawned on me that you know what, yet another piece of evidence that God does not exist is the fact that the Yankees lost that series.

Not just because the Yankees lost, mind you, but HOW they lost. Think about it...America was under attack blah blah blah, and if there ever was a time that was right for the Yankees to win, this was it. And look at what ensued...Tino's home run, Mr. November's home run, Soriano's gw rbi, the you're-not-human-if-theres-no-waterworks scene of the crowd serenading Paul O'Neill in his last ever game at The Stadium, all setting up a Game 7 of Clemens vs Schilling. All these miraculous moments playing out for people that needed miracles. Deserved miracles, even. And in the end...it all gets thrown away because, of all people, the greatest reliever in the history of the planet throws the ball away at second base. What? Are you kidding me? I'm supposed to believe there's a god, and he's that cruel? Setting us up like that?!?!??!

Mostly, it's just depressing to watch, even after ten years.  Not because of the people that died on 9/11, or the lost decade of endless wars and a shattered economny, but because it constantly reminds me "oh my god - I was still in my twenties then!!!!!!"

ps - everybody rightfully lauds it as a great play, but most people, myself included, forget that Jeter's "Flip Play" was the turning point in the Oakland series and spurred them from being down 0-2 to the A's to coming back to win the series and then plowing through a 116-game winning Seattle Mariners and into the World Series.

pps: even Bush was incredible in that Series. Dude threw a fucking strike.