The last time the Yankees and Red Sox met in the playoffs I was a just-turned 18-year-old college student in Boston. Six weeks after move-in day, it was parents weekend during Game 3 of the ALCS when the Yankees put together a 22-hit performance, including 13 for extra bases in their 19-8 win to take a 3-0 lead in the series. The next morning I laughed to my dad about how the Yankees were going to sweep the Red Sox. His response? “Why would you say that?”

That night the Yankees lost to the Red Sox after Kevin Millar walked, Dave Roberts stole, Bill Mueller singled and David Ortiz went deep in the 12th. But it didn’t faze me. Sure, my dad’s “Why would you say that?” kept coming to my mind, but the Red Sox weren’t going to come back. The Yankees had to go at worst 1-2 over the final three games of the series with two of them being at Yankee Stadium and that seemed like an impossibility. I didn’t even think the series would get back to the Stadium, so I decided to do the most sensible thing I could think of: use essentially all of my first-semester spending money on tickets to Game 5.

Here’s an excerpt from my book, The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers, which goes through Game 1 of last year’s ALDS by looking back at my trip to Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS.

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ALDS GAME 1

On the morning of Oct. 18, 2004, I woke up in my Beacon Hill dorm in Boston and didn’t really care and certainly wasn’t worried about what had unfolded just a few hours earlier.

The Yankees had come back in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, erasing a 3-2 deficit in the sixth inning. Tanyon Sturtze pitched a perfect sixth and seventh to hand the ball to Mariano Rivera for a two-inning save. The Yankees were six outs away from sweeping the Red Sox and returning to the World Series for the seventh times in nine years.

Rivera worked around a Manny Ramirez leadoff single in the eighth, striking out David Ortiz and getting Jason Varitek and Trot Nixon to ground out. Rivera threw 15 pitches in the inning and had moved the Yankees within three outs of the pennant.

In the ninth, holding on to a 4-3 lead, Rivera walked Kevin Millar to begin the inning, and Dave Roberts pinch ran for Millar. After three straight throws to first, Roberts took off on the first pitch to Mueller, successfully stealing second. Two pitches later, Mueller singled to center and Roberts came around to score to tie the game at 4.

Sure, it sucked. To be three outs away from World Series and to have that happen wasn’t ideal. But I wasn’t threatened by it. The Red Sox had extended a game they still might lose, and if they were to win, they would still be trailing 3-1 in the series. At worst, I thought this was just a minor nuisance in what would be an eventual series win.

In the 11th, still tied at 4, the Yankees missed out on their best chance to take the lead. Miguel Cairo singled off Alan Embree to lead off the inning, and Derek Jeter bunted him over to second for the first out. Alex Rodriguez, who had hit a two-run home run in the third, jumped on Embree’s 0-1 pitch and hit a line drive that Orlando Cabrera had to dive to his right to make an incredible catch on. (After his third-inning home run, if Cabrera doesn’t come up with an amazing catch, Rodriguez’s entire career and legacy are different.) The Red Sox intentionally walked Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui walked to load the bases for Bernie Williams, but Williams would fly out to end the inning.

At 1:22 a.m. — five hours and two minutes after the game started — Ortiz crushed a 2-1 pitch from Paul Quantrill to give the Yankees their first loss of the series.

When I woke up, I had missed some of my classes and certainly wasn’t going to go to any that day. Game 5 was scheduled for a 5:05 start time, not even 16 hours after Game 4 ended and I had to focus on that. Instead of going to class I went on eBay and found two tickets to Game 5 down the first-base line. I decided I was going to go to Game 5. All it would cost me was nearly an entire summer of working for first-semester spending money. To get the tickets, I would need to meet the owner of the tickets down a side street near Fenway Park and exchange cash for the tickets shortly before the game. Certainly not an ideal situation to put yourself in, but this was Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS and a chance to see the Yankees win the pennant and eliminate the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

I left my dorm and walked to the Fleet Bank ATM outside the Park Street T stop and withdrew a summer’s worth of work and pushed every last bill into the left-chest pocket of my fleece. It was 58 degrees in Boston, but I thought a fleece over a Yankees T-shirt would be enough to feel comfortable for the night.

I got on a jam-packed Green Line train at Park Station headed for Kendall Square. Pushed up against the T door with more and more people trying to pack in at each stop, I folded my arms across my chest to hide the fact that there was a bulging wad of 20s as big as a baseball covering my heart.

When I got off the T, I called the number of the ticket owner and he directed me toward a side street not far off Beacon Street. I slowly walked down the street, which was more like an alley, and came upon a parked Ford Explorer. Best-case scenario, the ticket owner was a nice man, who was going to make a small fortune off me wanting to see the Yankees clinch the pennant on the Red Sox’ home field. Worst-case scenario, I was going to have my bank account taken from me, or the tickets I was given wouldn’t scan at the gate.

A large, Red Sox-hat wearing man, who looked like he was on his way to his job as a bouncer, emerged from the driver’s side of the Explorer.

“Neil?”

“Yeah.”

“Here you go.”

I took the baseball-sized roll of 20s out of my pocket and handed it over. I walked away looking down at the tickets, hoping they were real and imaging what my father, who had strongly disagreed with me paying that much to go the game, would say if they turned out not to be. The tickets were real and I walked into Fenway Park just as Hideki Matsui was flying out to center to end the top of the first.

When Jeter’s sixth-inning, bases-clearing, three-run double landed in front of me down the right-field line and rolled into the corner, I could feel the World Series. Like always, the Yankees had gotten to Pedro Martinez, and Jeter’s two-out double, gave them a 4-3 lead.

Beginning in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Mike Mussina on the mound, I started to count the outs remaining in the game, and in turn, the series.

Nixon lined out to center. Eleven.

Varitek grounded out to third. Ten.

Mueller flew out to left. Nine.

My counting came to an abbreviated halt in the seventh when Mussina allowed a leadoff double to Mark Bellhorn and was taken out of the game for Sturtze, who had pitched those two perfect innings in Game 4.

Sturtze got Johnny Damon to pop up to short. Eight.

Cabrera walked and Joe Torre went to Tom Gordon with Ramirez coming up. Gordon induced a 5-4-3 inning-ending, double play. Six.

Gordon returned for the eighth, and two pitches into the inning, he was greeted by an Ortiz home run to shrink the Yankees’ lead to 4-3. Millar walked, as he had done the night before, and Roberts pinch ran for him, as he had done the night before. Nixon singled to center, allowing Roberts to move to third. Gordon had faced three batters in the eighth and didn’t retire one, so Torre called on Rivera, who he should have called on to begin the inning.

Rivera got Varitek to fly out to center, but Roberts scored on the sacrifice, tying the game and handing Rivera a “blown save” to show how ridiculous and dumb that stat is. Mueller grounded out and Bellhorn struck out swinging. Rivera had retired all three batters he faced in the inning, but would be forever credited with “blowing” it. The Red Sox had scored twice, the two-run lead was gone and my counting the remaining outs had stopped.

The Yankees didn’t score in the ninth, but they should have. Ruben Sierra drew a two-out walk and Tony Clark hammered a 1-2 pitch from Keith Foulke to right field. In nearly any other stadium or park in the league, Sierra scores, the Yankees take a 5-4 lead, and once again, move within three outs of the World Series. But at Fenway Park, where the right-field wall comes up to only the waist of most grown men, the ball bounced into the stands, and Sierra was forced to hold up at third on the ground-rule double. Cairo popped up to first in foul territory and that was that.

Up until a few seasons ago, there was a scoreboard to the right of the Green Monster at Fenway Park that would display both team’s lineups and it would place an asterisk next to the batter that was up in the game and an asterisk next to the batter that would be up next inning for the team currently in the field. Beginning in the bottom of the ninth, I became obsessed with that scoreboard, counting how many names the asterisk had to go before reaching “Manny Ramirez” and “David Ortiz”.

Rivera worked around a Damon infield single in the ninth after Damon was caught stealing second, Cabrera grounded out and Ramirez flew out. If Torre was willing to pitch Rivera two innings — and why wouldn’t he be with the pennant on the line — then why didn’t Rivera start the eighth with a plan for him to pitch the eighth and ninth? He would have entered the game with a clean inning and a two-run lead, and by this time, I would be celebrating an AL championship.

The game was headed to extra innings, and with the Red Sox facing elimination for the second straight night, every arm would be available, including Game 6 starter Curt Schilling. So before the 10th inning began, Schilling along with the other members of the pitching staff that hadn’t been used in the game, walked from the Red Sox’ dugout to the bullpen as “Lose Yourself” blared throughout Fenway Park. I don’t know if I will ever see an ovation like that or hear a stadium as loud as that ever again.

Bronson Arroyo pitched a perfect 10th, getting Jeter to fly out, and striking out Rodriguez and Sheffield swinging. Felix Heredia replaced Rivera and struck out Ortiz swinging, which gave me a a sense of relief, knowing it would be at least a few innings of that asterisk making its way through the rest of the Red Sox’ order. A Doug Mientkiewicz one-out double chased Heredia and Game 4 loser Quantrill came in to get the last two outs of the inning.

The Yankees didn’t score in the 11th and neither did the Red Sox. The 12th went the same way. In the 13th, things got interesting for the Yankees.

Tim Wakefield, on for his second inning of work, struck out Sheffield to begin the 13th, but Sheffield reached first on a passed ball. Then Matsui hit a ground ball to Bellhorn that forced Sheffield out and Williams flew out. A passed ball with Posada at the plate sent Matsui to second and led to Posada being intentionally walked. With Sierra at the plate, a  third passed ball in the inning moved Matsui to third and Posada to second. The Yankees had the go-ahead run 90 feet away and a much-needed insurance run in scoring position. This was it. Wakefield would be the losing pitcher in the Yankees’ pennant clinching win for the second straight season.

On the seventh pitch of the at-bat in a full count, Sierra struck out swinging.

The Red Sox went down in order in the bottom of the 13th and the Yankees did the same in the top of the 14th.

In the bottom of the 14th, Bellhorn struck out, Damon walked, Cabrera struck out and Ramirez walked. With two on and two outs, the asterisk had found Ortiz.

Ortiz immediately fell behind 1-2, fouled away the next two pitches, took a ball to even the count at 2, and fouled away three more pitches. On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, he hit a line drive back up the middle, and sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still see it hanging in the air, wondering if Williams is going to get to it in time. He never does get to in time, just like he didn’t that night, and as Damon rounded third and headed for home, my heart sank.

Damon touched home at 11:00 p.m — five hours and 49 minutes after first pitch — in what was the longest postseason game in history at the time. I looked to my right where a fellow Yankees fan wearing a “1918” shirt stared out at the field in disbelief. I walked out of Fenway Park where Red Sox fans kindly let me know the result of the game as my emotional state was given away by my Yankees hat.

I headed back to my dorm, regretting my decision to blow through a semester of spending money on a baseball game, in which the worst possible outcome had occurred. The Yankees didn’t just lose. They had blown a late lead for the second time in 22 hours with some bad managing, poor pitching and an inability to add on to their lead or score in extra innings. Somewhere in Boston, that large bouncer-looking man was enjoying my summer of working or planning a vacation on my dime. Meanwhile, I was in my dorm room trying to fall asleep, while replaying the events of the last two nights over and over.

The Yankees are headed home and they only have to win once before the Red Sox win twice. That was what I told myself as I tossed and turned in bed trying to clear my mind. It was now the early hours of Tuesday morning, I was wide awake, and thanks to a rainout between Games 2 and 3, an off day had been erased from the series, and both teams were on their way to New York with Game 6 later that night.

I watched from a foldable camping chair in my dorm room with the only light in the room being that emitted by the TV as the Yankees never bunted and never made Schilling move or really work on a surgically-repaired ankle in Game 6. I was in the same spot for Game 7 when Ortiz set the tone in the first inning with a two-run home run off of Kevin Brown and Damon essentially ended it with a grand slam in the second off Javier Vazquez.

A few hours after that grand slam, when Sierra grounded out to second to end the game and the series, like that guy wearing the “1918” shirt and staring out onto the field, I stared over my TV and out my 11th-floor window as chaos began in my dorm and the horns and sounds from outside on the street rose like heat into the Boston night.

The Red Sox had become the first team in history to erase a 3-0 series deficit, coming back in Games 5 and 6 at home and winning at Yankee Stadium in Games 6 and 7, all of it happening in four consecutive nights.

FOX kept showing replays of the final out of the game from different camera angles of different players’ reactions. I was still staring out the window with the deafening noise surrounding me when I caught a replay of the Red Sox’ dugout on TV.

All you could see at first was a pair of legs wearing the Red Sox uniform, but as the replay progressed, those legs made their way toward the dugout exit, and all that was left on the screen was the person behind this comeback mouthing “Come on, come” as Bellhorn fielded Sierra’s ground ball and threw to first. Then the left arm belonging to the same person as that mouth, flew into the air in celebration before being hugged by the men around him. That person was Terry Francona.

FOX returned from commercial with Curt Menefee set to interview Torre. Fittingly, the two spoke in front of the Yankees’ logo with “Thirty-Nine American League Championships” written under it. Torre’s last words of the 2004 season were, “We didn’t get it done.”

Joe Buck then threw it down to Kenny Albert, standing with Francona.

“Down 0-3, one inning away from getting swept,” Albert asked, “Did you ever in your wildest dreams, imagine this would be possible?”

“Actually, yeah,” Francona answered.

Terry Francona led the destruction of my 2004 season. Actually, he led the destruction of 2004, the year, as a whole for me. The entire year. What should be remembered as the year I graduated high school and went off to college has been completely erased by that series. Any song or movie or any reference at all to that year, I immediately associate with the ALCS. Thirteen Octobers later, here was Francona, once again, managing against the Yankees in the postseason.

A season after losing a 3-1 lead in the World Series and losing Game 7 of that series at home in extra innings, Francona had managed the Indians to 102 wins, including the historic 22-game winning streak in the second half. I’m a big believer that players and teams have to lose before they can win, and the 2017 Indians were looking like the latest example of this theory, joining teams like the 1995 Braves, 1996 Yankees, 2004 Red Sox and 2016 Cubs.

It had been a year since Francona “revolutionized” the way elite relief pitchers are used in the postseason, opting to bring in former Yankee and left-handed star Andrew Miller for high-leverage situations well before the late innings. Francona had done what I had been wanting Joe Girardi to do for so long, managing for the situation and not the inning. A closer is more valuable to their team facing the heart of the order in the eighth inning or coming in with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh than facing the bottom of the order with a three-run lead in the ninth. But a little bit of Francona must have rubbed off on Girardi in the wild-card game as he called on Chad Green in that ugly first inning to escape further damage before the Yankees’ comeback.

For all of the brilliant decisions Francona had made over the years, he made a puzzling one for the ALDS, choosing to go with Trevor Bauer (17-9, 4.19) over Cy Young-favorite Corey Kluber (18-4, 2.25) in Game 1 of the series. Kluber would go in Game 2, and therefore, be the Indians’ starter for Game 5, if needed. Maybe Francona was taking a page out of Joe Torre’s book, figuring Game 2 to be the most important of a series, which is when Torre would have the winningest pitcher in postseason history start in Andy Pettitte. Or maybe he was trying to be a little too smart. The Yankees couldn’t answer with their ace in Game 1 since Luis Severino was unavailable following Tuesday’s start even though it lasted about as long as Roll Call. So getting the ball in Game 1 was Sonny Gray.

I was ecstatic when the Yankees traded for Sonny Gray. Brian Cashman was able to add a front-end starter, who had pitched to a 3.42 ERA over 705 career innings, and more importantly had pitched to a 2.08 ERA in two career postseason starts. In exchange for the A’s ace, all the Yankees had to part with a 2015 first-round pick, who had pitched just 29 1/3 minor-league innings (James Kaprielian), a top prospect whose status had begun to fade (Jorge Mateo) and an outfielder who had suffered an unfortunate and potentially career-damaging injury (Dustin Fowler). The Yankees had added an All-Star and postseason-proven pitcher for two players that might never make the majors and one player with a long road back to the majors. The trade was a no-brainer with a chance to be an all-time steal.

As a Yankee, Gray wasn’t as good as he had been in 2017 before the trade and he was nowhere near his 2013-2015 self (2.88 ERA in 491 innings), but he was solid, pitching to 3.72 ERA in 11 starts. His offense and defense let him down in most of his starts as he received a loss or no-decision in four starts where he went at least five innings, and allowed two earned runs or less. But after the Yankees won the wild-card game, and Gray was announced as the Game 1 starter of the ALDS, his regular season didn’t matter. This is what the Yankees had gotten him for: the postseason.

Right before first pitch, Tom Verducci handed off the broadcast by saying, “For more on the Indians’ surprising Game 1 starter, here’s Ken Rosenthal.” As Rosenthal talked about Bauer’s 2.42 ERA over his last 14 starts, FOX showed a graphic showing opponent’s batting average against Bauer the first and second time through the order (.244) and the third and fourth time (.321). Bauer wasn’t going to get to face the Yankees a third time, not with Miller waiting to be called upon at the first sign of real trouble. If the Yankees didn’t score early, they weren’t going to score at all.

When Brett Gardner stepped into the box and showed bunt before taking a 92-mph fastball down the middle, I started to get the nervous sick feeling I hadn’t gotten in a long time. Not the nervous sick feeling you get when you’re in attendance for a postseason game, but the one you get when you’re forced to watch it on TV. This was the first Yankees postseason game I would be watching on TV since Game 4 of the 2012 ALCS, which felt like 100 years ago, and I had completely forgotten what it felt like.

Gardner popped out to short, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez struck out and the nervous sick feeling began to grow. When Gray walked Francisco Lindor to begin the bottom half of the first, the feeling had turned into heartburn. Three groundouts later and Gray had matched Bauer in the first.

The Yankees couldn’t do anything with a Greg Bird walk in the second, and on Gray’s second pitch of the inning, an 0-1 pitch, Jay Bruce crushed a double high off the tall left-field wall. Bruce had been traded to the Indians by the Mets, after the Yankees failed to land him. The Indians agreed to take on the final $3.7 million owed to Bruce for the season, while the Yankees were only willing to pay $1 million of that total. So for the difference of $2.7 million, the Yankees would be using Chase Headley and Jacoby Ellsbury as their designated hitter in the playoffs instead of Bruce, and that decision was already having an impact. I miss the Yankees not being worried about money.

Gray jumped ahead of Carlos Santana 0-2 and then the Indians’ first baseman hit a line drive to center field. Thankfully, the combination of Bruce’s speed, Aaron Hicks’ arm and there being no outs in the inning prevented a run from scoring. But it was still first and third with no outs and Gray had already thrown 25 pitches. Three pitches later, things got worse when Gray hit Lonnie Chisenhall on the right elbow. Bases loaded and no outs, and John Smoltz chimed in with “This is a huge inning” to state the obvious and to make me feel better.

Roberto Perez worked the count full and just as I started to envision Gray walking in the first run on the game, Perez smashed into a 6-4-3 double play. Sure, a run had scored, but the inning had been momentarily saved.

The game remained 1-0 until the bottom of the fourth when Gray walked Edwin Encarnacion to start the inning and then gave up a two-run home run to none other than Bruce. The $2.7 million difference had scored the first run of the game and now had driven in the next two to give the Indians a 3-0 lead. Bruce would strike again in the fifth, this time with a sacrifice fly against Jaime Garcia, to score Jose Ramirez.

The Indians went on to win the game 4-0, as Bauer, Miller and Allen combined to three-hit the Yankees and rack up 14 strikeouts. The $2.7 million difference had a hand in all four runs, going 2-for-3 with two runs, a double, a home run and two RBIs.

The game had been a complete letdown from two nights prior, and a game in which the Yankees never really threatened, and never really came close to making it a game.

No one had given the Yankees much of a chance to win the series before it had started and after Game 1, it was evident why. Francona’s questionable rotation strategy had paid off as his Indians had taken a 1-0 series lead with their second-best or possibly even third-best starter, and now the eventual AL Cy Young winner was going to get the ball for Game 2.

The Yankees were in trouble and I felt it in my apartment, nearly 500 miles away from Progressive Field.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

If I knew the AL Wild-Card Game was going to be that easy to win, I could have saved a lot of time and energy over the last six-plus months complaining about the Aaron Boone Yankees.

The 7-2 wild-card win over the A’s was about as smooth of an elimination playoff game as you could ask for. And I did ask for it a few days ago when I said it would be nice if the Yankees could put up a crooked number in the first inning and then coast from there, and that’s essentially what they did. I didn’t think it would ever happen, but it was a stress-free night for me in the right-field bleachers.

OK, maybe it wasn’t completely stress-free. I was nervous for the top of the first inning to see how Luis Severino would respond to his overthrowing in last year’s wild-card first inning, and I was nervous when the A’s loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth inning against Severino. But that’s it. Those were the only two moments in the game when I was worried that it might be the last game the 2018 Yankees played.

I have Aaron Judge to thank for both the coast to a win and for me smelling like a combination of Coors Light, Bud Light, Yuengling, Goose Island and Stella for eight-plus innings. It was his two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning that gave the Yankees an early lead and gave me the type of beer shower I received in the bottom of the first inning in last year’s wild-card game when Didi Gregorius saved the season.

Judge’s home run set the tone and from the moment it cleared the left-center wall, I knew the Yankees were going to win. I was confident entering the game and for weeks had been planning to be in Boston for Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS, but Judge’s home run turned that confidence into a sure-thing. The Yankees weren’t going to lose.

Even though the Yankees weren’t able to tack on to the Judge home run until the bottom of the sixth, it never felt like the A’s were in the game. Despite Severino’s four walks and the bases-loaded jam in the fourth and the two-on, no-out jam in the fifth, I was never worried, which is rare for me. What else was rare for the game was Boone having a near flawless night of managing.

Every move Boone made worked out even if they weren’t necessarily the right moves. I didn’t agree with him bringing Severino back out for the fifth after he had thrown so many high-stress pitches to get through the fourth. and I certainly didn’t agree with him letting Severino put two on in the fifth and then turning to Dellin Betances. It was the right move to go to Betances in that spot because he’s the team best reliever, but it was the wrong move to ever let that spot exist in the first place. Betances should have started the inning fresh, a situation he is much more comfortable and successful in. But when the dealer shows a 7 and Boone has a 16, he likes to stay. Sometimes the dealer will flop over another 7 and then pull a 10 to bust and Boone wins, but the result doesn’t make the decision right. Boone was fortunate the move didn’t backfire and is fortunate that today the Yankees are still alive.

To me, Boone is off the hook for everything that has happened to this point. In Major League Baseball, all you can ask for is to reach the playoffs, meaning the ALDS, and then hope the crapshoot that is the ALDS, ALCS and World Series goes your way. By the Yankees reaching the ALDS, the season was a success. Had they lost the wild-card game, it would have been a complete failure. One game shouldn’t have that much impact on the way a season is viewed or remembered, but when you have division-winning expectations and you don’t do everything possible to meet those expectations, then losing the wild-card game is unacceptable. Thankfully, the Yankees won the wild-card game.

Now begins the biggest postseason series since the 2009 World Series. After living in Boston for college during the 2004 ALCS, I prayed the two teams would never again meet in the postseason. A long 14 years later, they are meeting again, this time for only a five-game series, which just feels wrong.

There will be plenty of time to worry about my emotions and my health starting at 7:32 p.m. on Friday night and lasting for three to five games, but for now, I’m going to keep watching Judge’s first-inning home run.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I just laid in bed thinking about tonight, trying to envision what might unfold at Yankee Stadium and whether or not I would go to and leave the Stadium for the last time in 2018.

When I left Rogers Centre on Opening Day after the Yankees’ 6-1 win, I didn’t care that it was pouring outside. I missed the feeling of a Yankees win. I hadn’t had that feeling since leaving the Stadium following Game 5 of the ALCS when the Yankees finally solved Dallas Keuchel en route to a 5-0 win. That was back on March 29, 188 days ago. Since then, it was quite the season.

We watched the Yankees stumble to 9-9 before going on a 41-13 run. We watched them actually beat up the Red Sox at Fenway Park and then beat up on the Astros and Indians early in the season. We watched them struggle through the summer, get embarrassed in Boston in August and rebound in late August and September.

We watched Luis Severino become the best pitcher in the AL and then one of the worst. We watched the emergence of Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres as not only Rookie of the Year candidates but staples of the Yankees infield for hopefully the next decade. We watch Aaron Judge continue to build on being the Yankees’ best player and face of the franchise. We watched Gary Sanchez struggle through one of the worst offensive and defensive seasons of all time, and Giancarlo Stanton hit monster home runs and also weakly wave at every slider away as he tried to find his way through the AL. We watched Brett Gardner go from leadoff hitter to fourth outfield to possibly playing his final game as Yankee tonight. We watched Dellin Betances bounce back from his forgetful September and October and David Robertson show why the Yankees would foolish not to re-sign him this offseason. We watched Aaron Hicks finally realize his first-round draft status potential and Didi Gregorius solidify himself as one of the best shortstops in baseball. We watched Sonny Gray pitch himself out of the rotation and likely out of the organization after this season and we watched Luke Voit steal Greg Bird’s job from him after the Yankees traded Tyler Austin away for not being able to. We watched CC Sabathia show the Yankees should keep giving him one-year, $10 million deals until he longer wants to pitch and then we watched him give away $500,000 to protect his teammates on what could, but won’t, be the final of his Yankees or entire career. We watched J.A. Happ become a Yankee and then basically guarantee himself a contract offer this offseason from the Yankees. We watched Aaron Boone prove that you can spend your entire life in baseball and have no idea how to make sound bullpen decisions. We watched the team hit more home runs than any team in history.

When the Yankees are faced with elimination, it’s not only worrisome, but depressing. So much time and money is spent watching the team and writing, talking and reading about the team that the idea of the season, which spans more than seven months before the postseason, ending so abruptly is terrifying. But that’s where we’re at. That’s what happens when you play yourself into the one-game playoff. And for the third time in four seasons, I will be experiencing the very game I was petrified of ever having to experience when the league announced the change to the postseason format six years ago.

For months, it seems like everyone has assumed the Yankees will win the wild-card game and then play the Red Sox in the postseason for the first time in 14 years. I have been cautiously optimistic about the Yankees’ chances in the game, but I too at times have already penciled in the Yankees for an ALDS appearance. Not only because I think they are better equipped than the A’s for the game, even if it’s one baseball game in which anything imaginable can happen, but because it’s too much to think about the alternative. The alternative being losing the game and having the season end.

A loss tonight would be absolutely devastating. And if that happens, there should be no “Well, they had a great season, they won 101 games!” and no “They were just unfortunate to be in the same division as the Red Sox!” There should only be anger and frustration that the season after they came within one game of the World Series, they couldn’t even reach the ALDS. The goal this season was to close the gap, not go backwards. It’s nice that the team won 100 regular-season games, but given the amount of losing in the AL this season, that’s not exactly some great accomplishment. And while I understand the postseason is a crapshoot and I will always be the first person to criticize the postseason format, it is what it is, and you have to win the division to avoid losing a one-game playoff, and the Yankees didn’t do everything possible to win the division.

But there’s no sense in being upset with what happened and didn’t happen since March 29. For now, there’s only tonight. One game, which will either extend the season and give us at least three more games of Yankees baseball (if there are only going to be three more games after this then I would rather have the Yankees lose tonight than get swept by the Red Sox) or end the season with a second team celebrating on the Stadium field in less than two weeks.

There’s no way to prepare for the one-game playoff. (Sure, I have my survival kit ready just in case things go south, but that’s about all I can do). Like the team’s supposed early bullpen plan for tonight, preparing for the wild-card game is worthless. The game doesn’t allow you to plan. It would be nice if the Yankees went out and batted around in the first inning, and I could spend the rest of the night counting down the outs and coasting to a win, but we all know that won’t happen.

At one point, this season had so much promise with the kind of October run we saw last year seemingly inevitable. It’s been an eventful season and one I didn’t envision the wild-card game being part of, though here the Yankees are again, back in the wild-card game.

But this can’t be it. There has to be more to this season. There has to be more Yankees baseball after tonight. It feels like this can’t possibly be the end for the 2018 Yankees. I’m not ready for it to end.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.

The Yankees are back in the AL Wild-Card Game. It’s not a place I thought they would be after the way last season ended and this season started. But it’s where they are for the third time in four seasons.

Three years ago, everyone expected the Yankees to lose in the wild-card game, while last season, everyone expected them to win. This season? No one knows what to expect and neither do I.

Here’s an excerpt from my book, The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers, which looks back at the 2017 AL Wild-Card Game.

***

AL WILD-CARD GAME

BR-ETT GARD-NER, CLAP CLAP, CLAP CLAP CLAP … BR-ETT GARD-NER, CLAP CLAP, CLAP CLAP CLAP

Roll Call had just gotten underway in a raucous Yankee Stadium and I was yelling in unison with the rest of the right-field bleachers, trying to clap without spilling my freshly poured Coors Light all over myself. And then it happened.

I sarcastically laughed, but there was nothing funny about Brian Dozier’s fly ball to left field, which barely reached the seats for a leadoff home run in the AL Wild-Card Game. I was stunned more than upset, though I was very upset.

Luis Severino had come out throwing hard. His first pitch of the game was a 100-mph fastball for a called strike to the right-handed-hitting Dozier. His second pitch was a 99-mph fastball low and away. His third pitch was a 91-mph slider way outside. His fourth pitch was another 91-mph slider barely outside. Three straight balls had put him behind Dozier 3-1, and everyone knew Dozier was going to be challenged with the fastball again. Dozier was challenged at 99 mph and he didn’t miss it.

There was just over an hour left until the 2015 trade deadline and the Yankees had to do something. Yes, the Yankees held a six-game lead in the AL East on July 31, 2015 in a season in which they weren’t expected to be competitive, but they needed to make a move to hold that lead over the final two months. Up until that point, the only player the Yankees had acquired was Dustin Ackley (and what an acquisition that turned out to be) while the Blue Jays went out and traded for seemingly everyone and anyone who was available.

I was on a Metro North train from Manhattan to Connecticut to visit my parents when the news broke that the Yankees had called up Luis Severino with the deadline about to expire. After eight starts in Double-A, Severino had gone 7-0 with a 1.91 ERA in 11 Triple-A starts to earn the call. He had been talked about as a potential front-end starter, someone with true No. 1 or No. 2 stuff, and the Yankees were finally ready to show off their future as an answer to both their need for starting pitching and the Blue Jays’ deadline acquisition of David Price.

In a move the Yankees never would have allowed in the previous 15 seasons, the 21-year-old Severino made his Major League debut on Aug. 5 against the Red Sox. He pitched well, going five innings and allowing one earned run on two hits and no walks with seven strikeouts, and finished the season with a 2.89 ERA over 11 starts. He was a breath of fresh air for an organization that hadn’t developed and kept a real starting pitching difference-maker since Andy Pettitte. For a team that had spent almost two decades overpaying for free agents and trading for other team’s failed prospects in search of starting pitching, the Yankees finally had a homegrown product.

Severino was my pick to start the wild-card game against the Astros, or at least be part of the formula in the game. After it was decided Masahiro Tanaka would start the game, the only other people I wanted to touch the ball in that game were Severino, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter as the offense couldn’t do anything against Dallas Keuchel.

Severino was rightfully given a rotation spot for 2016 and pitched himself off the team after his May 13 disaster against the White Sox (2.2 IP, 7 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 1 HR). That performance dropped him to 0-6 with a 7.46 ERA in seven starts and he went to Triple-A until the end of July. When he returned, he allowed one earned run in 8 1/3 innings out of the bullpen and was given a chance to start again, but after allowing 12 earned runs and 16 baserunners in eight innings, it was back to Triple-A. When he returned as a September call-up, it was as a reliever. And once again, as a reliever, he was dominant, allowing one earned run in 15 innings.

Severino’s weird 2016 season gave way to all the idiot Yankees fans to call for him to be a reliever, completely disregarding what he had done in 11 starts in 2015 and only focusing on nine starts in 2016. Those fans are likely the same ones who now call for Austin Romine to start over Gary Sanchez when Sanchez slumps, as if 2016 and 2017 Gary Sanchez never existed, and also as if 2011-2017 Austin Romine never existed. Thankfully, the Yankees front office is more intelligent than most fans and stuck with Severino as a starter. And thankfully, Severino reached out to his idol Pedro Martinez to teach him how to harness his stuff and dominate, so that 2016 would never happen again.

Severino went back to his pre-2016 self in 2017. He pitched to a 2.98 ERA with 230 strikeouts in 193 1/3 innings and was named an All-Star for the first time. He gave up two earned runs or less in 20 of his 31 starts, and most importantly, the Yankees went 20-11 in those starts. He had silenced his critics and the many fans who wanted him to become the team’s next closer rather than the team’s next ace, though it’s hard to find anyone who will admit to having that perspective now. The former face of the Red Sox pitching staff had created the face of the Yankees pitching staff, and in turn, helped build one of the best pitchers in the league.

Many times money and owed money make the roster and lineup decisions for the Yankees, but despite having CC Sabathia and his $25 million for 2017 and Masahiro Tanaka and his $22 million for 2017, money wouldn’t decide who would start the one-game playoff.

Severino had become the Yankees’ ace, and was rightfully given the ball for the wild-card game.

I did my best to shake off the leadoff home run and pretend that the Twins scoring three runs in three innings off Severino just 13 days prior — in what was his shortest start of the season — meant nothing. I quickly tried to change the stunning negative into a positive. The Yankees weren’t going to win this game 1-0 anyway. That’s what I told myself to keep the pain that had been building for the last five years — since I stood in the same spot for Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS when Derek Jeter broke his ankle, ending that season and the Yankees’ most recent chance at winning the World Series — from making me cry. Joe Mauer popped up to Todd Frazier in foul territory for the first out of the inning, and I started to feel better.

I didn’t feel better for long. A seven-pitch walk to Jorge Polanco was followed by an Eddie Rosario two-run home run. The game was four batters and less than nine minutes old and the Twins were up 3-0 with one out in the first and Severino’s pitch count at 17.

I wanted to throw up. Had I already eaten the Yankee Stadium bucket of chicken sandwich sliders and fries, I would have. But luckily all that was in my stomach was a couple sips of Coors Light, so only dry heaving was on the table.

I was now sitting down with my head in my hands staring at my feet as Eduardo Escobar lined a 1-1 pitch to left-center for a single. Still seated and acting as though I was done watching while still peering in for each pitch, I looked between the two people standing in front of me as Max Kepler rocked a line-drive double down the right-field line on the ninth pitch of his at-bat.

Joe Girardi raced to the mound as if he tried the Stadium chili fries and needed to get back to the clubhouse. The Yankees manager moved faster than Escobar had going first to third on the Kepler double, wanting Severino out of the game as quickly as possible.

Severino walked off the mound to the type of boos his mentor Martinez used to walk off the Stadium mound to. I didn’t participate in the Bronx cheer for the 23-year-old righty. Not because I was focused on breathing and making sure my heart didn’t stop, but because Severino had been the team’s best pitcher all season and six batters wasn’t going to change that. Without Severino, the Yankees wouldn’t even be in this game, and so I wasn’t going to join in with the idiots booing the best thing to happen to the team’s starting pitching since Pettitte 22 years ago. I just wanted Severino to have a chance to redeem himself against Cleveland. But with runners on second and third and one out, and three runs already in, the possibility of that was on life support.

I wanted to cry, and if I were at home watching I might have. But sitting in the middle of the right-field bleachers I wasn’t about to start tearing up. Fifteen minutes ago, I had been trying to lose my voice during Roll Call with an ice cold beer in my hand while visions of playing the Indians with house money danced in my head. Now I was asking myself if I even like baseball and if the six-month, 162-game seasons were worth following anymore. As Paul Olden announced Chad Green into the game, I sat calculating the amount of hours I had wasted in 2017 watching and listening to games and writing, talking and reading about this team. My girlfriend Brittni, a Dodgers fan, whose team had avoided a one-game playoff by winning 104 games, tried to console me. There’s plenty of time! it’s only the first inning! But I didn’t want to hear it.

I should have known better. In three days it would be the two-year anniversary of me sitting in the same spot for the Yankees’ previous wild-card game, watching Dallas Keuchel run through the Yankees lineup like Cliff Lee 2.0. At least that result had been expected. Keuchel made two starts in 2015 against the Yankees, going 2-0 and pitching to this ridiculous line: 16 IP, 9 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 21 K. So when he pitched six shutout innings en route to a 3-0 Astros win, it wasn’t exactly a shock. That’s not why I should have known better though. I should have known better because after beating the Twins in four games in the 2003 and 2004 ALDS, and after sweeping them in the 2009 and 2010 ALDS, they were due. So of course they would cash in on their long overdue postseason success against the Yankees in a game that shouldn’t even be happening.

The five-team wild-card format implemented in 2012 has hurt the Yankees more than any other team in baseball. It gave the Yankees false hope in 2013 and 2014, keeping them close to contention long enough that they didn’t sell at the deadline, only to fall short of the second wild card both times. In 2015, the format prevented the Yankees from reaching the ALDS even though they were the AL’s best non-division winner. Under the pre-2012 format, the Yankees would have reached the ALDS following their regular season performance, but instead they faced their ultimate kryptonite in Keuchel. And again in 2017, it had screwed them over. Here they were, a 91-win team facing the 85-win Twins in a one-game playoff. And here they were, six batters into the game and trailing 3-0.

Severino had left the game a mess. Not the kind of mess where your dog has an accident on the living room rug, but more like the kind of mess where you have a party at your parents’ house and your friends use their bedroom as a brothel, their kitchen as a tailgate and their dining room as a drug den. Instead of coming home to find a clogged toilet, some used condoms that didn’t end up in the trash can and hundreds of empty beer bottles, Green was entering the game in the first inning with Kepler on second and Escobar on third with no outs and three runs already in. I guess they’re the same thing.

I had gone through the first four of the Five Stages of Grief from the time the bullpen door opened until Green threw his last warmup pitch. “Acceptance” is the final of the five stages and as Green came set on the mound to face Byron Buxton, I had reached it: realizing that the 2017 season was going to end the way 2015 had, knowing that I would have to wait another year to try to end the soon-to-be eight-year World Series drought.

The bullpen would have to get 26 outs and the offense would have to score at least four runs off Ervin Santana and Twins pitching to keep the season alive. At this point in the game, the Twins had an 81 percent chance of winning, but in my mind, it was even higher.

Thankfully, Green did what he had done all summer, blowing a 2-2 fastball by Buxton for the second out of the inning as the Stadium started to get back into it for the first time since the fifth pitch of the game when Dozier went deep. The idea of “OK, if Green gets out of this without anymore damage, things are looking up!” crept into my mind, but I remained cautious as a two-out base hit would mean two more runs and likely mean me in the back of the ambulance parked underneath the Stadium.

After Jason Castro fouled a middle-middle 1-2, 97-mph fastball back, which caused my heart to momentarily sink, Green blew a 98-mph fastball by him to end the inning.

On Oct. 10, 2005, I was sitting on my friend’s couch in Boston watching Game 5 of the ALDS between the Yankees and Angels. I had been at the Stadium the night before for Game 4 and the Yankees’ 3-2 comeback win to extend their season and force a Game 5 in Anaheim. Game 4 ended at 11:09 p.m. in the Bronx and Game 5 was set to begin less than 21 hours later on the other side of the country. Rain had pushed Game 4 back a day, so there was no travel day for the Yankees and Angels, and there was no travel day for me to get back to college with Columbus Day weekend ending.

The Yankees didn’t score in the first inning in Game 5, but with a pair of singles from Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield, they had made soon-to-be 2005 Cy Young winner Bartolo Colon work as he threw 17 pitches in the frame.

Robinson Cano led off the second against Colon and on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Colon was injured and removed from the game. Needing 24 outs from his bullpen, Mike Scioscia turned to 22-year-old rookie Ervin Santana.

Santana was a starting pitcher. He had made 23 starts for the Angels in the regular season after making 84 career starts in the minors. He had only ever pitched in relief once, and that was as an 18-year-old in Rookie ball in 2001 — his first professional season. He had finished the regular season strong, going 5-1 in his last seven starts and pitching to a 1.62 ERA, but he hadn’t pitched in over a week, and here he was, making his postseason debut in a winner-take-all Game 5 in a role he had experienced once in 133 games.

Three pitches later, Cano was on his way to first with a 10-pitch walk and I immediately started to think about facing the White Sox, who had swept the Red Sox in three games, in the ALCS. Santana looked not only young, but like a nervous wreck on the mound. He had been thrust into an unenvious situation in the biggest game of his life.

With Cano on first, Santana fell behind Bernie Williams 2-1. On the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Cano, who has never been fast, and, who at the time, had stolen one base in his career on four attempts in 132 regular-season games, took off for second with Santana looking ready to walk the ballpark. Cano’s inexplicable decision led to an out, giving Santana and the Angels an enormous break.

Williams followed Cano’s 10-pitch walk with a 10-pitch walk of his own. Instead of first and second and Santana at 13 pitches with no outs, it was just Williams on first with one out.

Jorge Posada walked on four straight pitches and instead of bases loaded and Santana at 17 pitches with no outs, it was just first and second with one out.

Despite Cano’s or the dugout’s baserunning blunder, the Yankees did make Santana pay. Bubba Crosby grounded a single to right field to score Williams and move Posada to third, and Jeter drove in Posada with a sacrifice fly to right. The Yankees had an early 2-0 lead and Santana had thrown 26 pitches in the inning with Alex Rodriguez coming to the plate. Crosby stole second with Rodriguez up, but after an 11-pitch battle, Santana struck out Rodriguez to end the inning. It was 2-0 Yankees, but it felt like it should have been more and it could have been more.

Garret Anderson led off the bottom of the second with a home run off Mike Mussina. Bengie Molina walked before Darin Erstad struck out and Juan Rivera popped out to second. With two outs and Molina on first, Mussina lost Steve Finley on a full count to bring up Adam Kennedy with first and second and two outs.

Crosby had started Game 1 of the series in center field for his defense, forcing the 37-year-old Williams to designated hitter. Joe Torre had gone back to Williams in center field for Games 2 and 3 and then again to Crosby in Games 4 (Ruben Sierra hit for him in the seventh inning and Williams took over for in center field in the eighth) and 5. The 29-year-old Crosby was in center field for Game 5 for his legs and Torre most likely told him to go get anything and when Kennedy hit a fly ball to right-center field, Crosby did just that.

Kennedy made good contact on the first pitch from Mussina and the combination of Kennedy’s star-gazed expression and slow bat release coupled with Mussina not wanting to turn around and see where his pitch was headed initially made me think it was a three-run home run. But when the camera switched to the outfield, Joe Buck let out a monotone, “In the air to right-center field,” and it seemed as though Kennedy’s drive would die on the warning track.

Buck continued, “Crosby on the move …”, and as Crosby approached the wall and the San Diego Zoo ad just beyond the 370 marker on the Angel Stadium wall, Gary Sheffield quickly grew closer and closer to Crosby.

“He’s there …”, is what Buck said of Crosby, but as “He’s” came out of Buck’s mouth, Crosby and Sheffield collided. Both outfielders lost their hats in the collision, with Crosby falling on his right side and Sheffield falling on his back. Crosby sprang up and raced to the ball that had rolled toward center field, throwing it into the cut-off man Cano as quickly as he could, but not before both Molina and Finley would come around to score on what was scored a triple. The Angels led 3-2.

Leading by one in the third, Santana settled down to pitch around a one-out Jason Giambi single. After Mussina allowed two more runs in the fourth, the Angels’ lead grew to 5-2, giving the Angels’ rookie right-hander three runs to work with.

In the fourth, Santana induced three groundouts from Williams, Posada and Jeter, not allowing a two-out bunt base hit from Crosby to amount to anything.

Torre, feeling the pressure of the 2004 ALCS collapse and the rumors that this would be his last season as Yankees manager unless it resulted in a World Series win, had turned to Randy Johnson to get the third out of the fourth and he was back on the mound for the fourth. The Yankees traded for Johnson six months too late, but after not landing him at the 2004 deadline, they landed him to avenge the 2004 disaster. The Yankees wanted Johnson for big games, the kind of games he won against them in the 2001 World Series, and in finally landing him, they expected the regular season to just be a formality leading up to games like Game 3 of the 2005 ALDS against the Angels.

Johnson was awful in Game 3, allowing five earned runs on nine hits in just three-plus innings of work. He was booed off the same Yankee Stadium mound I helped cheer him off of on Apr. 3 on Opening Night in a season-opening 9-2 Sunday Night Baseball win over the Red Sox in which he went six innings, allowing one earned run against the defending champions. Now a little more than six months after he made his way to the Yankees bullpen at Yankee Stadium to warm up on Opening Night to loud RAN-DY JOHN-SON, CLAP CLAP, CLAP CLAP CLAP, cheers, he was trying to hold the Angels at 5 and give the offense a chance to come back so he could have a chance to redeem himself in the ALCS.

The 41-year-old version of the Big Unit retired the side in order in the fourth and with 15 outs left in their season and the heart of the order due up, the Yankees had their best chance to break through against Santana.

The third pitch of the fifth inning hit Rodriguez and Giambi jumped on the next pitch from Santana, singling to right field and moving Rodriguez to second. With first and second and no outs and Santana at 68 pitches through three-plus innings of work, the Yankees had Sheffield, Hideki Matsui and Cano coming up with a chance to get back in the game.

Sheffield flew out to left, Matsui popped up to first and Cano struck out swinging, and just like that there were 12 outs left in the season.

In the sixth, Santana worked a 1-2-3 inning, needing just nine pitches to retire Williams, Posada and Crosby. A leadoff home run from Jeter in the seventh, closed the gap to 5-3, but Santana got Rodriguez to ground out to short, ending his night and postseason debut.

5.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR.

It wasn’t Roger Clemens or Curt Schilling in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, but for a 22-year-old making his postseason debut, in a role he had no Major League experience in and virtually no experience in at all, it was a very solid and respectable performance. And when the Yankees were unable to come back against Kelvin Escobar or Francisco Rodriguez, Santana earned the win to send his team to the ALCS.

It wasn’t just Santana settling down that led to the series loss for the Yankees. Three errors and three unearned runs lost Game 2 for the Yankees. Johnson lost them Game 3. A combination of Cano’s stolen-base attempt, Mussina being bad in a big spot and not getting through three innings, the Crosby-Sheffield collision and leaving 13 runners on base cost them Game 5. And I will always remember Game 5 for the collision, but after that I will remember it for Santana not succumbing to the pressure in a winner-take-all game.

Santana is no longer a scrawny, 22-year-old kid with a 133 2/3 Major League innings to his name pitching for his team’s season. He’s once again pitching for his team’s season, but now he’s 35 years old with 149 career wins, 13 seasons in the majors and nearly $100 million in career earnings. As he throws his warmup pitches, all I can think about is Oct. 10, 2005 and waiting for him to implode to send the Yankees to the ALCS, but he never does.

Give me a walk over a hit when needing a rally. When the Yankees are trailing by three runs in the ninth inning of a game, I would rather have the leadoff hitter walk than hit a solo home run. A walk sets a rally in motion, rattles the pitcher and gets the crowd going. A solo home run in that spot allows the pitcher to shake it off and reset as if nothing happened. No, statistically it doesn’t make sense, but a leadoff walk to start a rally brings the human element into the game, and that can’t be discounted.

Had Brett Gardner led off the bottom of the first inning with a solo home run, maybe that’s the only run Santana gives up the entire game. He had been given a three-run lead before he ever threw a pitch, so challenging Gardner right away and forcing him to beat him and giving up a home run in the process wouldn’t have been a big deal. Sure, it would have caused the Stadium siren to turn on and the crowd to cheer, but Santana would have been able to say he challenged Gardner and got beat. But to be given a three-run lead before you throw a pitch and then to walk the leadoff hitter and awake a Yankee Stadium crowd looking for any inkling at all to get excited, well, that’s where the game changed.

Gardner worked a six-pitch walk to start the inning and Aaron Judge drove a line-drive single to center field on the seventh pitch of his at-bat as Gardner coasted into third after taking off on the pitch. Gary Sanchez got jammed on 1-2 fastball and popped it up to Castro, who nearly tripped in the Yankees’ on-deck circle. With Gardner on third and Judge on first, the Sanchez pop-up felt like a missed opportunity and I started to think back to the second inning of Game 5 of the 2005 ALDS.

Didi Gregorius taking over for Derek Jeter at shortstop in 2015 went about as well Nick Johnson taking over at designated hitter for Hideki Matsui following Matsui’s 2009 World Series MVP performance. Between the early-season baserunning and defensive miscues and him batting .215/.276/.289 with two home runs and 11 RBIs through June 1 of 2015, I was done with Gregorius. Shane Greene, who he was traded for, was thriving for the Detroit Tigers, and I was on board with Cincinnati, who gave up on Gregorius in December 2012, and Arizona, who gave up on him two years later.

Gregorius worked his way back to respectability in 2015, finishing the season at .265/.318/.370 with nine home runs and 56 RBIs and then broke out in 2016 at .276/.304/.447 with a career high 20 home runs, and I apologized to him (on Twitter) for wanting to reverse the Greene deal. This regular season, he improved again, batting .287/.318/.478 with 25 home runs and 87 RBIs, becoming a fan favorite for his TV, Stadium big screen and social media personality, and he stepped into the box against Santana with a chance to get the Yankees back in the game.

After sitting in the right-field bleachers for 95 percent of the games I have attended at the Stadium (on both sides of River Ave.), my eyes have grown accustomed to the perception from behind the right fielder, so when I sit anywhere else, the view takes a few innings of getting used to. I don’t want to say when I sit elsewhere that I become those fans (or John Sterling or Michael Kay) that think every ball in the air has a chance to get out, but for the first inning or two, I feel like someone trying to drive on the right side of the road.

The beauty of sitting in right field, other than having the best depth perception on balls in play and knowing if those fans cheering for any ball in the air have a right to be cheering, is when those big moments come your way. When the bleachers become a party. I desperately wanted the bleachers to become a party. I wanted a beer shower. I needed a beer shower.

Gregorius’ body language said it all before his bat could fall to the ground following his quick-wristed and concise flip of it, and my eyes and their years of judging fly balls from this vantage point let my brain know what was happening and where the ball was headed.

Gregorius had turned around Santana’s 23rd pitch of the inning — a 96-mph, full-count fastball — and the white dot that started roughly 400 feet away grew larger and larger and larger until it looked like a beach ball, flying into Section 102 in right field. I went wild. I had missed this feeling. I hadn’t had this feeling in over five years since Raul Ibanez’s game-tying two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS went out to right field, and 20 minutes earlier, I thought it would be at least another year until I would have that feeling again.

Tie game. A new game. New life.

It began to rain beer in the bleachers, as I high-fived and embraced strangers, completely thankful that Greene was no longer a Yankee. I felt like I drove for 22 hours straight and then ran a marathon and then biked from New York to Los Angeles, and it was only the bottom of the first inning. I had to take a piss when I left Billy’s before the game and that was at 7:30. It was now 8:52.

Gardner homered in the second to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead, but the Twins tied the game in the third after Green loaded the bases with one out to give way to David Robertson. Greg Bird singled in a run in the third and then Judge hit a two-run home run in the fourth and the Yankees never looked back.

Santana lasted two innings, allowing four earned on three hits, two of which were home runs, and two walks. He had a chance to escape the first inning like he had escaped that second inning 12 years ago, but unlike the 2005 Yankees, the 2017 Yankees didn’t let him off the hook.

Max Kepler took a beating from the fans all night in right field, the way he would have on the other side of River Ave., and after three hours and 51 minutes (most of which came in the first inning), the Yankees were going to the ALDS, and I was elated.

The previous four seasons had given me time to reflect on taking the ability to reach the ALDS for granted from 1996-2012 (minus 2008, but that’s what happens when Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson make 21.6 percent of your team’s starts), and I wasn’t going to do that again. The Yankees were headed to Cleveland to face arguably the best team in baseball and a team that won 22 consecutive games in August and September. They were headed there with their ace’s confidence in question, a beaten-up bullpen and a postseason-inexperienced lineup, but I didn’t care. The Yankees were back in the postseason, the real postseason, and that’s all I cared about.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The book details my life as a Yankees fan, growing up watching Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams through my childhood and early adulthood and the shift to now watching Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird and others become the latest generation of Yankees baseball. It’s a journey through the 2017 postseason with flashbacks to games and moments from the Brian Cashman era.

Click here to purchase the book through Amazon as an ebook. You can read it on any Apple device by downloading the free Kindle app.