Big Day For Big Apple Baseball
It was the Big Apple over the Bay Area in Major League Baseball playoff action Sunday … Times Two.
The Mets won their division series with the San Francisco Giants in four games while the Yankees won the fifth and deciding game in their series with the Oakland Athletics.
And by doing so, New York’s denizens of the diamond each took a step closer to a potential "Subway Series."
Bobby J. Jones threw the sixth complete game one-hitter in postseason history as the Mets eliminated the Giants with a 4-0 win in New York.
Left off last year's playoff roster and sent to the minors in June, Jones pitched the first one-hit shutout in the postseason since Boston's Jim Lonborg in the 1967 World Series against St. Louis.
Jones limited the Giants to a clean, fifth-inning double by Jeff Kent as the wild card Mets won the final three games of the series to avoid a cross-country trip and a decisive Game 5 in San Francisco.
The Mets got a superb pitching effort from Bobby J. Jones and the Yankees exploded for six first-inning runs as the New York teams won their respective division series Sunday. (CBS SportsLine) RealAudio |
"It's not going to be easy," Jones said. "They're a great team and play great baseball. We just have to go out and play the best we can."
The Yankees, trying to become the first team to win three straight World Series titles since the 1972-74 A's, wrapped up their AL division series less than five hours after the Mets completed their ouster of the Giants.
Tired of being eulogized as over-the-hill champions, the Bronx Bombers brke out of their offensive malaise to score six runs in the first inning and then barely held on to defeat the Athletics in a decisive Game 5.
"A lot of people were trying to say that our run was over, but you're not going to beat us that easily," Derek Jeter said.
After Mariano Rivera got Eric Chavez to loop a foul pop to first baseman Tino Martinez for the final out, the emotionally drained Yankees congratulated each other on the field and then headed quickly into their clubhouse for champagne showers.
There was a huge sense of relief for New York, especially after two weeks of being written off as too old or too weak offensively to defend their titles.
"That's just playing in New York," Martinez said. "Obituaries are written every day if you have a bad day, so you just learn to not pay attention to it."
The Yankees, forced to fly across the country early Sunday morning to finish the series with the A's, headed back to New York late Sunday night to prepare for Tuesday night's AL championship series opener against the Seattle Mariners.
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