A much-needed victory
Game 3 victory helps Mets put Clemens incident on back burner
Oct 25, 2000 12:21 a.m. ET
BY DAVE VAN DYCK
FOXSports.com
NEW YORK — Rick Reed could tell something was different when he walked into the Mets' clubhouse Tuesday afternoon.
"Everyone came in relaxed, having fun, joking around," said Reed, whose job was to save the Mets' season.
Relaxed?
Sure, and why not?
"I think the guys were exhausted from talking about The Incident," third baseman Todd Zeile said. "Playing baseball was actually a relief."
We all know about The Incident. That would be Roger Clemens going batty during Game 2.
"That's over with, it's done, it's history," said Mike Piazza, himself looking very relieved and relaxed that he would not have to talk about having his own bat thrown at him.
Ironically, the Mets' 4-2 victory Tuesday night might have assured them of having to talk about it again, because it brings us closer to a Game 6. And you-know-who pitches that one.
But enough about him.
What we have today, finally, is a feel-good Subway Series story.
It is the story of a Brooklyn born-and-raised son of a sanitation worker. His name is John Franco and you know he has never had a bigger moment than winning for the New York Mets against the New York Yankees on the world's biggest stage.
"I'm ecstatic," Franco said. "But, more important, we won the ball game."
That's Franco, ever the team man.
"Our leader, we all look to him," Leiter said.
They looked to him during the dark times of the last few days, too.
"Hopefully, everybody's forgotten about The Incident," Franco said. "It's over with. Everybody wants to see some good baseball."
Aha, good baseball.
That would be a change, at least from the Mets' perspective.
They finally played a game without baserunning mistakes, without dropping the ball, without their closer blowing a save, without one of their players creating headlines for saying something stupid.
This was a change for the Mets, all right.
Actually, it was a change for the World Series. Somebody finally beat the Yankees, which is a first since the second game of October, 1996.
Fourteen victories, including two World Series sweeps, separated the losses.
"When you think about all the teams you had to beat and how tough it is to win four out of seven — much less four in a row every year — it's pretty incredible," manager Joe Torre said. "But we never think about that until the end and we're not near the end. We're only halfway home. We need to win two more games."
Do the Yankees have it in them?
Probably.
But finally there is a postseason question mark following their name, as in World Series champion Yankees?
The Mets not only proved these Yankees mortal, but they proved to themselves they could play with the Bronx Bullies. No one was sure until after midnight Wednesday morning.
The Yankees played Tuesday like they had played before October. Their starting pitcher was an inning short and they left 10 runners on base, half of them by their cleanup hitter who made the last out three times. "I've just been missing my pitches," Bernie Williams said. "Maybe I've been trying too hard. Things like this happen, you go through stretches like this."
Well, it's not usually the Yankees who do this, not in October.
Now we'll see how they bounce back. They are the ones with something to prove now.
Their amazing streak finished and their supposedly invincible pitcher vanquished, they still badly want to find their place in the history books by winning a third straight World Series.
It sure would have been a lot easier if they had won Tuesday, although this makes for a much better Subway Series.
The Mets are back in this, at least for 24 hours.
And just maybe the Mets are finally getting the hang of this thing. His five-game prediction now an impossibility, Benny Agbayani got down to hitting — instead of talking — by driving in the winning run.
"I didn't definitely say we were going to win in five," he said. "I just blurted it out."
So the Mets have learned their lesson and have come back better for it.
They have ended The Streak.
"It's yesterday's news now," Robin Ventura said.
Kind of like The Incident.