So, I was a bit peeved at ESPN for showing all these clips of momentous, historic home runs before tonight's Home Run Derby, as if saying a player having a ball purposely lobbed at them for the sake of hitting a home run in an exhibition is somehow on the same level as a magical, real-deal home run hit in a game, a la Kirk Gibson or Hank Aaron or Reggie Jackson. It's that kind of manufactured "drama" that I'm getting kind of tired of from MLB in general - let's remember our past and try to force something equally as memorable instead of letting you decide if it's important or not. Ugh.
When the irritation had passed (helped by baking some cookies. I've been on and off with baking for the All-Star Break in recent years, but tonight I sort of remembered - really I just wanted some fresh-baked cookies and it wasn't blisteringly hot, so what the hey?) I got to thinking about the home runs that really registered with me. I can't count many of the famous Yankee homers of the past because I was too young (Chris Chambliss: zygote. Reggie Jackson: six months old. Bucky Dent: a year and a half old). Bobby Thomson and Hank Aaron? I wasn't even alive yet. I wasn't rabidly into baseball when Kirk Gibson homered, so that one missed me. While I can obviously appreciate them all because of their significance, I can't say I lived them as they happened, which kind of elevates things, you know?
So here are the top 5 home runs that really made an impression on me. Or at least the top 5 I could think of while baking cookies.
No. 5:
In 1993, the Yankees had finished their first competitive season in years and had been in the playoff race until late September, when they kind of fell apart and Toronto surged ahead. While I was disappointed, I'd kept up with the playoffs, because I wasn't ready for the season to end yet. I remember watching Game 6 of the World Series on that Saturday night, sitting in my basement in the recliner my parents always fought over when watching TV, but they were both entertaining friends with their annual Octoberfest upstairs, so the chair was all mine. If I'm remembering this right, some other network was airing Mermaids (which ended up becoming one of my favorite movies after that, incidentally) and I switched between that and the Blue Jays/Phillies game all night.
When it got to the bottom of the ninth, I stayed with the game, though. I don't really know why, except that something told me to. So when the ball left Joe Carter's bat and sailed over the left field fence, I just sat there, completely and utterly stunned, all, "Did that really just happen? Did the World Series just end on a walk-off home run??" And as Carter danced around the bases and the crowd went crazy and the fireworks went off, I thought to myself, "That has to be one of the greatest moments in World Series history. No, really, did that just happen?" I was completely and totally awestruck. And totally jealous of Toronto fans. And I wondered if I'd ever get to see a moment like that involving the Yankees.
Oh, 16-year-old KB, don't you fret.
No. 4:
This one's sort of a tie, because the two games go together in their implausibility and the fact that history sort of repeated itself in a moment when people - New York-based fans, in particular - were in desperate need of something uplifting in the weeks following 9/11. No, really, that may sound like a lotta sentimental hogwash, but the 2001 World Series was a pretty wonderful distraction, at least for a few hours each night. It was weird because right after everything happened, I didn't give two s***s about baseball. No one did. Walking around the city and seeing walls plastered with hundreds of missing persons posters kind of made you realize just how pointless wins and losses and runs and walks were. When it did come back, I felt extremely weird about watching/listening. Thousands of people had died horrifically, why did this matter? But the playoffs started and you found out the search and cleanup crews down at the WTC site were watching (and rooting) on their breaks. Families of the victims were at the games. It felt sorta okay to watch.
The Yanks had been down 2 games to 1 in the Series, and it still felt strange to be getting invested in it. But when Tino homered to tie the game in Game 4, and the crowd burst out in a manic sort of glee, it felt okay to hope for something as trivial as a win again. And when Jeter homered, it was okay to take joy in it.
When it happened again the next night with Brosius' homer tying it up (My dad's "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" seemed to sum it up nicely) and the crowd going batshit, it was okay to care again.
It was also nice to see the ghosts shut up Curt Schilling, even if it was just briefly.
They may have lost the Series, and that Game 7 still goes down as the most heartbreaking loss I've ever seen in all my years of fandom. (That Yankee-fied hole in my heart was not filled until 2009. For real.). And it probably hurt even more because of the magical proceedings of Game 4 and 5. But you know what? I'd rather have had all that happen and to lose painfully than for the Yanks to just have rolled over and gone gently into that good night. It may have been bittersweet, but it was all very much worth it.
No. 3:
This is the only home run I saw in person, but it was quite, quite delightful. All Tonya and I wanted to see that day was Old Man Jeter hit Number 3,000. When 2,999 was hit, the electricity that started radiating through every seat and every pore on every fan in Yankee Stadium was incredible. I'm not sure I've ever been to a game where everyone was so wound-up, ready to explode.
When what would be 3,000 left Jeter's bat, for some reason, I was convinced it was going foul. Then I thought it didn't have enough to go. Then I saw the left fielder look up, and it was gone. Seriously, I had like forty thoughts in a span of five seconds.
And then I may have screamed myself hoarse. And Tonya may have cried. It was amazing.
Of course Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit would be a home run. I don't know why we didn't see it coming, but maybe it was better that way - it's nice when you can't predict baseball, Suzyn. Even if my hands were shaking too much to get decent pictures of the celebration at homeplate. Ah, well.
No. 2:
HIDE YOUR EYES, ERICA.
Okay, now that my favorite Braves fan is not reading, we can talk about 1996 and being down two games to one, in Atlanta, and being down 6-3 in Game 4 and Mark Wohlers and some guy named Jim Leyritz. It was my sophomore year of college, and I had actually turned the game off because I was so discouraged. And then I was like, "Self, this is the first World Series you can remember with your team in it, and there's still lots of baseball to be played. You watch this game, because fans of other teams can't say the same thing right now." (No, really, I was quite wise at 19, despite my moment of doubt.) I was sorta ho-hum about putting the game back on, and I remember sitting on my roommate's bed because it was next to the TV, and I could turn it off again if things got super bad.
But then they didn't. Nay, they got awesome. When Leyritz homered, I slid-fell off the bed (it was on cinderblocks, so that was no joke), screaming unintelligbly, to the point my cross-the-hall Yankee fan neighbor came in, on his cordless phone, looking at me all, "What happened?" and I shoved him in front of the TV and ran into the hallway, probably sounding like the Tasmanian Devil, and found pretty much every other Yankee fan in the dorm to commiserate with.
I think it might've been the first time in my baseball-loving life that I knew what a big-time momentum shift felt like. I never doubted the Yankees in that Series again. And I certainly never turned off the TV again.
No. 1:
I mean, how could this NOT be my favorite home run? I even remember what I was wearing (jeans and a navy and light-blue sweater from Express, before they went all club-y with their clothes). That series was completely insane and I was emotionally spent by the time Game 7 rolled around. When the Yanks were in the hole (Thanks, Roger) and it wasn't looking so good, I started making myself okay with a loss. Maybe "okay" isn't the right word. But whatever it is, I was like "I can survive this." Because Game 7 of the 2001 Series was much worse - still is - and it has served as a high water mark of what does and doesn't suck hard. So by the time the Yanks came back and tied it up, I almost didn't want to believe they could win. I didn't want to set myself up for that disappointment. And then the tension just got to be too much, and in the tenth inning, I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and said to my crazy-eyed self (and maybe God), "If they win this game, they don't have to win the World Series."
You know what happens next. The second the ball left the bat, this feeling of joy that felt so...earned I guess is the word - even if I hadn't done anything - welled up inside me, and all I could do was jump up and down and scream "OHMYGODOHYMYGODOHYMYGOD" and shout expletives and freak out my mom (I'm still not sure she understands my dad and I celebrating as much as we did) and have a run-up-the stairs gasp-y AAAHHHHHH! conversation with Tonya.
Regardless of what happened in the World Series, I will never not smile whenever I see that clip. Or whenever I think about it, for that matter.