Arthur 14x7

1. Support from viewers like you makes this program possible.

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3. Man on radio: Welcome back to the baseball show on the WEEI

4. Sports Radio Network and Comcast sports.

5. It's Mike Felger, Lou Merloni, Steve Buckley here in studio in Burlington...

6. They think so highly of this young kid...

7. They could have gotten Santana if they wanted...

8. Would they drop him in the order? I don't know.

9. I'm not sure I would do that, but that might be the next step.

10. You gotta be crazy or the most arrogant person going.

11. Never tested positive, but he makes everyone in that lineup better.

12. You know, there were a couple of times over the weekend

13. in particular, he looked very slow on a fastball.

14. I just think he's pressing right now.

15. John, now we've been talking about this throughout the course of the day,

16. Red Sox starting pitching...

17. It seems to me,

18. with the Red Sox in first place as May is about to turn into June,

19. worrying or complaining about whatever you

20. think the Red Sox issues are...

21. Good morning, Harry.

22. Thanks very much. Hello, again, everybody.

23. And the Babe swings. It's a long one, a long one...

24. going out towards right center...

25. it's a beauty down the leftfield line,

26. And Boston Red Sox...

27. Here's the pitch and there's a long drive to deep right center,

28. it could be, it could be,

29. it's a home run!

30. a balmy 74 degrees and the wind

31. is blowing dead out over the Green Monster in leftfield...

32. Long drive, left field. If it stays fair, it's gone, home run,

33. the Red Sox win!

34. And the series is tied...

35. I sometimes sit and stare out the window

36. thinking, what could I have done with my life

37. had I not spent all this time on the Red Sox?

38. Might I have completed this novel I've been working

39. on for 25 years?

40. Might I not have done something else?

41. But what it becomes in the end is like raising your children.

42. If you raise them well, and they love you

43. and you love them back,

44. at the end of the day you know that when you

45. leave this life your children won't be thinking about,

46. you know, oh, what a great column he wrote in October of 1972.

47. They'll be thinking about the time they spent

48. with you as a father.

49. That's how I think about the Red Sox,

50. the time I have spent with the Red Sox.

51. This is "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw."

52. Tom Brokaw: Good evening.

53. There's never been a time quite like this one,

54. with so many people making so much money.

55. 1999 will go down as the year of the high tech, high flyers

56. with stock prices going from pocket change to hundreds

57. of dollars in a heartbeat, and staying there.

58. But will this continue into the 21st Century?

59. As the last baseball season of the 20th century began,

60. the country - and its national pastime -

61. were thriving as never before.

62. In the 5 years since the crippling strike of 1994,

63. the game had bounced back spectacularly.

64. Insiders and casual fans alike felt they were watching some

65. of the greatest players, and some of the greatest plays

66. the sport had ever seen.

67. Yet just as the game seemed to have entered a new golden age,

68. suspicions grew that many of the best players were using

69. performance-enhancing drugs,

70. that steroid-inflated home run records

71. had replaced day-to-day heroics,

72. that greed had trumped loyalty, that only money and success,

73. not character, mattered.

74. But at a time when America seemed most threatened,

75. baseball provided a welcome distraction, and offered

76. the hope, at least for a few hours, that things could

77. return to normal.

78. At a time of ever increasing offense, a handful of pitchers

79. still managed to dominate, and a skinny singles hitter

80. from the other side of the world electrified fans

81. with his elegant mastery of the old game.

82. And at a time when winning was all that mattered in America,

83. baseball, with its failures and disappointments, reminded

84. the nation that loss is often the best teacher.

85. Through it all, the game continued to astonish, to rise

86. above its own scandals, and to reflect, in good times and bad,

87. the complicated country that had created it.

88. I've always loved the game from the time I was little.

89. And I'll always love the game and nothing,

90. nothing can tear me from the game.

91. There's something about what happens on the field that's

92. like a kind of poetry, it's like a kind of ballet.

93. The remarkable thing about the game is how beautiful it is

94. despite all the ugliness that may be around it at times.

95. It's just a beautiful thing.

96. The 0-2 pitch, fast ball, blown away.

97. When you watched Pedro,

98. it was almost poignant in a way that someone that small could throw that hard.

99. Most great pitchers you look at them and they all have one

100. great strikeout pitch.

101. If the count's 0 and 2 or even if the count's 3 and 2,

102. he always has one place to go to to get you out.

103. Well, Pedro Martinez had 3 places to get you out.

104. It was the fastball, it was the changeup,

105. and it was the curveball.

106. They were all the best pitches of their kind in baseball

107. at the time.

108. And he could put them anywhere that he wanted.

109. Pedro Martinez had been born into a family

110. of pitchers in Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic,

111. but because of his slight frame, scouts worried that he

112. would not be able to withstand the punishment of pitching

113. in the majors.

114. Martinez ignored them all and made himself into one

115. of the greatest players the game had ever seen.

116. Swing and a miss. He struck him out.

117. 15 strikeouts for Martinez!

118. In the 1999 All-Star game,

119. Martinez struck out 5

120. of baseball's best hitters: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker,

121. Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell—

122. a performance reminiscent of Carl Hubbell's in the 1934

123. All-Star game.

124. He was the master of pitching inside, giving him a distinct

125. psychological edge over opposing hitters.

126. First of all, I'm confident.

127. Now, a lot of people misjudge that.

128. People might say he's cocky.

129. I'm fearless, intense.

130. Some people might say he's mean.

131. And sometimes, since I'm so intense, I will strike you out,

132. keep on looking at you, see because baseball has

133. a little bit of psychology in it.

134. If you see a guy frustrated with a changeup, you have to

135. continue to throw that changeup.

136. If you can't hit a changeup, I'm sorry.

137. You're gonna see it again.

138. Between 1997 and 2003, he would post an earned run average of 2.20

139. when the league average was above 5,

140. twice strike out more than 300 batters, and win

141. 3 Cy Young Awards.

142. For 4 years he had no-hit stuff every night.

143. Every time he went onto the mound there was a chance that

144. he was gonna throw a no hitter.

145. Pitching coaches will tell you that the differential between

146. your fastball and your changeup should be somewhere

147. around 10 to 12 miles an hour, on average.

148. Pedro, at his best, his differential between his

149. fastball and his changeup was 16 miles an hour,

150. which was criminal.

151. It's unhittable.

152. There's no way that you can expect a 98-mile-an-hour fastball

153. and adjust to an 82-mile an-hour changeup.

154. He was remarkable.

155. When everything clicks for you, you just feel

156. right on top of everybody.

157. You look at A-Rod or Jeter or anybody and just—

158. I'm gonna blow you away.

159. And you're gone.

160. Pedro Martinez was not alone.

161. Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux of the Braves would together win

162. 660 games.

163. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees would save nearly as many,

164. becoming the most successful closer of all time.

165. In the post season, he had no equal—in 88 appearances,

166. his ERA was an extraordinary 0.74.

167. Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks was the most

168. intimidating left-handed pitcher ever, striking out

169. nearly 5,000 batters in 22 seasons.

170. Roger Clemens, a hard-throwing right-hander, was every bit as

171. fierce as Johnson.

172. For 13 years, he had been the exalted star of the Red Sox'

173. pitching' staff, winning 20 games in 3 different seasons

174. and regularly finishing among the league leaders in ERA

175. and strikeouts.

176. But in 1996, the team decided to let him go, explaining to disappointed fans

177. that the 34-year-old Clemens— like most pitchers his age—

178. was in "the twilight of his career."

179. Indignant, Clemens signed with Toronto and began training

180. with one of the team's strength coaches,

181. former New York City policeman Brian McNamee, who would prove

182. willing to do whatever Clemens asked to enable the pitcher to

183. hurl fastballs all season long.

184. Traded to the Yankees in 1999, he remained one of the most

185. imposing pitchers in the game, nearly as dominant in his late

186. 30s and early 40s as he had been 20 years before.

187. Roger Clemens would eventually receive a record 7 Cy Young Awards.

188. We can forget about the debate

189. between Walter Johnson and Cy Young and Lefty Grove.

190. The greatest pitcher in the history of baseball is

191. Roger Clemens.

192. Now, there have been many, many great pitchers, but no one

193. has ever done what Roger did.

194. And there's the freak show accomplishment.

195. There's 20 strikeouts in a game, twice, 10 years apart.

196. This is a superhuman... critter.

197. For me, baseball is what made me.

198. They say a wolf cub believes the first thing it sees is

199. its parent.

200. Perhaps that is the way I sense baseball within myself, yes.

201. Ichiro Suzuki was born in Aichi, Japan, the son

202. of a factory manager whose philosophy of life was based

203. on 4 guiding principles:

204. harmony, patience, effort, and fighting spirit.

205. "The only way to succeed," he once said, "is to suffer

206. and persevere."

207. From the time Ichiro was 9, his father drilled him

208. in batting and fielding 2 to 3 hours every day, even when

209. freezing temperatures left his hands too numb to grip a bat.

210. A natural right-hander, Ichiro learned to hit from the left

211. side of the plate, so he could begin each at-bat two steps

212. closer to first base.

213. Under his father's tutelage, he developed an unorthodox

214. hitting style that allowed him to put the full weight of his

215. body behind each swing.

216. I was told, "your swing isn't the same as

217. the fundamentals, so fix it."

218. A coach would instruct me about these things, but as soon

219. as I would say to him, "I'm still hitting more than

220. anyone else," he would not say anything else.

221. So, I didn't memorize this form of hitting, it came

222. naturally from my body.

223. At 18, Ichiro made his debut with the Orix Blue Wave

224. of Japan's Pacific League.

225. He would go on to win 7 consecutive batting titles

226. and become Japan's highest-paid player.

227. Having reached the pinnacle of the Japanese game, he was

228. determined to find out if he could compete in America —

229. against the best in the world.

230. But most scouts doubted that Ichiro, with his slender frame

231. and unusual batting stance, would be able to handle

232. big league pitching.

233. 10 Japanese pitchers had already come to the United States,

234. but no Japanese position player had ever

235. appeared in the majors.

236. Then, in 2000, the Japanese- owned Seattle Mariners decided

237. to sign him anyway, hoping Ichiro would attract a large

238. following among Asian- Americans living

239. in the Pacific Northwest.

240. Batting first, right fielder, number 51,

241. Ichiro Suzuki!

242. And a base hit into center field.

243. Up the first base line. He can fly.

244. They throw it away!

245. Look at the acceleration down the base line.

246. In an era filled with home runs, Ichiro was

247. a revelation, slapping the ball in every direction,

248. beating out infield hits, flying around the bases.

249. Now he's taking off for third, and the throw is

250. not in time.

251. It pops loose.

252. Huff can't find the ball.

253. Ichiro is headed to the plate and he's gonna score.

254. He was a 21st- century throwback to earlier

255. generations of stars like Wee Willie Keeler, George Sisler,

256. Ty Cobb and the fast-moving, fast-thinking stars

257. of the Negro Leagues.

258. American fans embraced him immediately.

259. I think he represents a counterpoint

260. to a lot of what was out there because this was in the midst

261. of a bludgeon-ball era in baseball,

262. and here's this wiry little guy

263. spraying base hits everywhere, beating out

264. infield choppers, playing this sort of cerebral game,

265. was so different from the prevailing culture

266. of the sport that I think it made it even more appealing.

267. You have to make the perfect pitch

268. to get him.

269. And he's gonna make you throw pitches too,

270. which we hate.

271. Pitchers hate to throw more pitches than they should.

272. And even if you get him to hit the ball the wrong way,

273. he's got such great speed that you never know-you might

274. break his bat and still he gets a base hit.

275. And Ichiro is one of those.

276. Ground ball, base hit into right field.

277. Heading for third is Terrence Long.

278. The throw by Ichiro- beautiful peg!

279. He got him!

280. Holy smoke, a laser beam strike from Ichiro.

281. "That throw," a Seattle reporter wrote,

282. "needs to be framed and hung on the wall at the Louvre next

283. to the Mona Lisa."

284. Japanese newspapers and television stations dispatched

285. hundreds of reporters to send back news of his every move to

286. a nation eager for any information about their hero.

287. "Ichiro," his Prime Minister declared, "makes me proud to

288. be Japanese."

289. Ichiro! Ichiro!

290. Ichiro finished his first season, leading

291. the American League in at-bats, hits, batting average,

292. and stolen bases, won a Gold Glove Award, and was voted

293. Rookie Of The Year and MVP.

294. It would be his first of 9 consecutive 200-hit seasons,

295. breaking a record set by Wee Willie Keeler a century

296. earlier in 1901.

297. Other big league clubs were now eager to sign

298. the next Ichiro.

299. That's a great thing

300. about globalization that people can take this thing

301. that you played with and invented and maybe to some

302. degree spoiled with whatever's going on here and it can go to

303. an entirely different place and be re-created and re-grown

304. as if it's a hybrid flower of some kind and come back

305. and show you the game maybe in a different way and maybe

306. in a way it used to be that you hadn't thought

307. of in a long time.

308. And I think that's something really beautiful.

309. I have, still, two gloves that I've carted across

310. all the years and I have them for a purpose, one selfish,

311. one familial.

312. The selfish reason is, I love them.

313. I love them because they remind me of what I was when I

314. was a kid and they allow me to still be a kid when I hold

315. the gloves.

316. I can still see my parents.

317. I can still see the apartment we lived in,

318. all of those things.

319. The familial reason is that my kids, like a lot of kids today,

320. have an excess of things, material things.

321. A bad day for them is they lose an iPod.

322. But my boys who played baseball, when they were 12, 13, or 14,

323. they would occasionally come to me

324. and say, "Dad, I can't find my stuff.

325. "I can't find my catcher's equipment.

326. Do you know where my bats went?"

327. And I'd go get one of the gloves and I'd say, I'd hold it up

328. and I'd say, "I've had this since 1954.

329. "I know where this is.

330. Go find your stuff and don't lose it."

331. In 1999, a 34-year- old Barry Bonds had arrived

332. at spring training with a brand-new physique.

333. The previous summer, he'd watched in frustration as

334. fans cheered Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa for hitting home runs

335. while ignoring his own all-around contributions

336. to the game.

337. Determined to outdo them both, he had put on 20 pounds

338. of muscle in the off-season.

339. Bonds had 8 gold gloves, 8 All-Star appearances,

340. 3 MVP awards.

341. He should have had a 4th; they gave it to a less

342. obnoxious player just to punish him.

343. He had more than 400 home runs, more than 400 stolen bases.

344. He was a Hall of Fame player.

345. And then that wasn't good enough.

346. Bonds hit home runs more frequently that year than

347. he ever had before, but sidelined by injuries,

348. he appeared in only 102 games.

349. In 2000, the Giants moved to their new home

350. near downtown San Francisco, Pac Bell Park.

351. 3.3 million people paid to watch Bonds that summer,

352. more than had ever come out to see the club in its

353. 115-year history.

354. He finished the season with a career best 49 home runs

355. and propelled the Giants to the top of their division.

356. At his age, he was supposed to be declining,

357. and he just kept getting better and better and better.

358. All the different things that Barry Bonds did,

359. he was playing at another level.

360. He was playing a different sport.

361. Barry Bonds—incredible eye at the plate,

362. incredible discipline at the plate.

363. And also intelligent.

364. Tremendous memory in how they got him out and how he hit it

365. and what to anticipate.

366. In hitting, guessing is no good,

367. but anticipating is great.

368. Off the field, Bonds worked hard to improve

369. his image, telling San Francisco fans, "I love you.

370. You're beautiful."

371. On opening day 2001, Bonds slammed a 420-foot home run.

372. By the All-Star break, he had hit 39 and was on a pace to

373. break the single-season record of 70 that Mark McGwire had

374. said would never be broken.

375. Bonds was so masterful at the plate that many teams decided

376. it was simply safer to pitch around him.

377. I can remember thinking this is the most

378. feared hitter who ever lived.

379. Teams have never avoided a hitter like they have

380. Barry Bonds.

381. Not Ted Williams, not Babe Ruth,

382. Not Joe DiMaggio.

383. And then when there was that one pitch that happened to be

384. in the strike zone, he didn't miss it.

385. In baseball, you had Bonds and everybody else.

386. Bonds had a sensational summer.

387. Bonds hits one high, hits it deep, and he

388. hits it outta here!

389. The thing that goes through your mind mostly

390. is what's gonna happen if it's over today?

391. You think about that more than you know, what's happening

392. at this point in time now.

393. Are you a wonderful person because you hit a bunch

394. of home runs or are you an evil person because you

395. don't do it?

396. Uh-oh. Bonds. High fly ball...

397. On Sunday, September 9, 2001, in Denver, he slammed

398. a 488-foot shot in the 1st inning,

399. a solo home run in the 5th,

400. and a 3-run blast in the 11th.

401. Wow.

402. A 3-homer day for Bonds.

403. Boy, all you can do is stand and applaud and admire

404. the great talent of Barry Bonds.

405. 3 homers today.

406. He now had 63.

407. the plane fly into the World Trade Center.

408. It was a jet, it was a very large plane.

409. It crashed into the top of the tower.

410. I woke up the morning of September 11th.

411. I had an appearance in Manhattan,

412. waiting for a car service to pick me up.

413. My phone rings.

414. It's the car service saying, "You still going?"

415. I said, "Yeah, why?" I hadn't turned the TV on.

416. He says, "Well, a plane flew into

417. the World Trade Center."

418. Well, I turned on the TV, and then the second plane hit

419. the World Trade Center.

420. Can you see it?

421. Katie Couric: Yes.

422. The last thing on your mind is baseball

423. at this point in time.

424. Don Dahler: just collapsed.

425. Peter Jennings: The whole side has collapsed?

426. Don Dahler: The whole building has collapsed.

427. Peter Jennings: The whole building has collapsed?

428. Don Dahler: The building has collapsed.

429. The tragedy was too great to comprehend.

430. The country was in shock. No one knew what was going to happen next.

431. Planes were grounded.

432. Schools and businesses were closed.

433. The financial markets shut down.

434. Major League Baseball canceled all games indefinitely.

435. Over the next few days, the nation slowly began

436. to regroup.

437. Thousands made their way to New York to help search the

438. rubble for survivors— only a handful were found.

439. "They're still trying to find people," Derek Jeter,

440. a resident of Manhattan said.

441. "I really don't think it's the right time to play baseball."

442. On Friday, September 14th, Commissioner Bud Selig

443. announced that baseball would begin again

444. the following Monday.

445. And the following Monday when

446. they opened Wall Street the streets were ringed with men

447. with machine guns.

448. There was still smoke pouring out of the pyre of the World Trade Center.

449. After about 4 hours of walking around downtown,

450. a cop recognizes me.

451. He says, "How are you Keith?"

452. I said, "I'm alright. I'm alright.

453. How are you?" He said, "I'm worried."

454. I said, "Yeah, I'm worried too."

455. He said, "I'm worried about the Mets."

456. Then I sort of snapped out of it.

457. I said, "You're worried about the Mets?"

458. He said, "Yeah, well, I mean the season resumes tonight

459. "and I'm really worried. They're in Pittsburgh.

460. "Do you think they've got enough to get back

461. "in the Pennant race?

462. "I mean, they were doing so well.

463. Can they catch the Braves?"

464. I said, "How on earth could that

465. possibly matter?"

466. We're standing and there's smoke coming up from behind us.

467. And he says, "Well", he says "It doesn't matter.

468. "Of course it doesn't matter.

469. I got 300 friends dead. It doesn't matter."

470. He says, "But tonight 7:00 and all day

471. "the rest of today I can look forward to 7:00 where I can

472. put my feet up and pretend it does matter."

473. The New York Yankees' first game

474. was in Chicago.

475. The remarkable part was we go out there

476. and in the stands you see "We Love New York," and we're

477. in Chicago and you know that, you know, in Boston they were

478. playing "New York, New York.

479. That type of stuff just gave

480. you goose bumps when you realized that it was just

481. a country coming together.

482. And our baseball was there to distract the people from,

483. you know, thinking about the horrors that just went on.

484. In San Francisco, Barry Bonds announced that he

485. would donate $10,000 to 9/11 relief funds for each home run

486. he hit the rest of the season.

487. 63 home runs for Bonds.

488. Bonds... hits one high, hits it deep,

489. he hits it outta here!

490. Number 64, game tied.

491. "For a time," wrote the "Kansas City Star",

492. "Bonds became a symbol of American resilience,

493. of the country getting back to business."

494. By October 4th, Bonds had hit 69 home runs, one shy

495. of McGwire's record.

496. The Giants were in Houston, playing the Astros

497. at Enron Field.

498. Bonds with a drive.

499. Looks like number 70 for Barry Bonds, tying the all-time record

500. set in 1998 by Mark McGwire.

501. Barry Bonds hits home run number 70 at Enron Field.

502. He's now homered in every National League park this year.

503. The next day, the Giants were back

504. in San Francisco.

505. There's a high drive, deep into right center field,

506. to the big part of the ball park.

507. Number 71!

508. And what a shot!

509. Barely 3 years after Mark McGwire had broken

510. Roger Maris' 37-year-old record, Barry Bonds

511. was the new single-season home run champion.

512. And he wasn't finished.

513. Number 72 came later that evening.

514. There's a high drive... Grissom back

515. in centerfield. He's all the way back to the wall.

516. Number 72!

517. 72 and counting for Barry Bonds.

518. Then, on the last day of the season,

519. in his first at-bat, he hit his 73rd.

520. A floater to Bonds.

521. And he hits it high; he hits it deep; and it is outta here!

522. Number 73!

523. That's incredible.

524. Bonds' 2001 statistics were astounding.

525. He had hit a home run in every 7 at-bats.

526. His slugging percentage of .879 broke a record set

527. by Babe Ruth in 1920.

528. He had been walked 177 times, more than any batter

529. in history, and with 567 career home runs,

530. he was now 6th on the all-time list.

531. But in the aftermath of September 11th, the response

532. to Bonds' accomplishments was muted - most of the country

533. was not in the mood to celebrate.

534. Dan Rather: On the first night of Operation: Enduring Freedom,

535. the U.S. counterstrike against Osama bin Laden

536. and the ruling Taliban is underway, led by cruise missiles

537. and manned bombers.

538. In late October, as the war in Afghanistan began

539. and demolition crews removed rubble from the site

540. of the World Trade Center, the New York Yankees found

541. themselves in the World Series for the 5th time in 6 years.

542. They were led by their shortstop Derek Jeter,

543. who had emerged as one of the most popular and respected players

544. in all of baseball history, the epitome

545. of the Yankees' success.

546. New York would face the Arizona Diamondbacks,

547. an expansion team in only its 5th year of existence.

548. They were led by two overpowering pitchers: Randy Johnson,

549. whose fastball seemed to be halfway home before he even let go of it,

550. and Curtis Montague Schilling, a brash right-hander

551. known for pitching deep into games

552. and fooling hitters with a wicked split-finger fastball.

553. Between them, Schilling and Johnson led the National League

554. in wins, strikeouts, earned run average,

555. and innings pitched.

556. Together, they were responsible for nearly half

557. of Arizona's regular season victories.

558. When asked whether he was intimidated by the Yankees'

559. "mystique and aura," Schilling responded, "those are dancers

560. "in a nightclub, not things we concern ourselves with

561. on the ball field."

562. Johnson and Schilling are more dominant as a pair now than

563. anybody in the history of baseball has ever been,

564. and that's what the Yankees were up against.

565. They aren't up against a team, they're up against

566. two pitchers.

567. It would be one of the most memorable World Series

568. in baseball history— less for who won or lost,

569. than as a sign that the country and its national

570. pastime would endure.

571. In game 1, Schilling stifled Yankee bats.

572. Randy Johnson was even more dominant in game 2.

573. The 3rd game would be in New York City.

574. Security was tight. More than 1,000 police officers

575. guarded the stadium.

576. Fans were forced to pass through metal detectors,

577. and many were afraid there might be another attack.

578. Roger Clemens pitched the Yankees to a 2-1 win.

579. In game 4, the Diamondbacks were leading 3 to 1

580. in the bottom of the 9th.

581. Byung-Hyun Kim, a 22-year-old relief pitcher from South Korea,

582. faced Yankee first baseman Tino Martinez.

583. In 9 at-bats in the series, he had had no hits.

584. Kim had struck out the side in the 8th.

585. 1 on, 2 out.

586. Tino Martinez hits a ball right centerfield.

587. And what I can see, still visualize, is that ball

588. disappearing over the fence into the stands.

589. And boom, here we are.

590. The game was now tied.

591. 3 balls, 2 strikes.

592. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th inning,

593. Derek Jeter came to bat.

594. Byung-Hyun Kim trying to send this game

595. to the 11th.

596. It was 4 minutes after midnight

597. on November 1st.

598. .. taking care of the first two here in the 10th.

599. Jeter hits it in to right back at the wall.

600. Game over!

601. Yankees win and the series is tied!

602. Just 20 hours later, they were back at Yankee Stadium

603. for game 5.

604. Both teams played well, but in the bottom of the 9th

605. the Yankees were again trailing by 2.

606. Again, Kim was on the mound.

607. After last night, blowing the save in the 9th inning...

608. Putting Kim right back over the coals.

609. Got 'em. 2 gone.

610. For the second straight night, the Yankees

611. were down to their final out.

612. Now it's up to Brosius for New York.

613. Third baseman Scott Brosius came to the plate.

614. Tying run at the plate, runner at 2nd, 2 out,

615. 2-0 Arizona here in game 5.

616. A huge pitch for Kim.

617. Brosius hits one into left.

618. Back at the wall, the Yankees have tied it again!

619. Again, the game went to extra innings.

620. In the bottom of the 12th, Alfonso Soriano batted

621. for New York.

622. On 2 and 1, into right field, base hit.

623. Here comes Knoblauch.

624. The throw by Sanders, play at the plate, Yankees win.

625. They lead the series 3 games to 2.

626. The Yankees had come from behind again.

627. They say lightning doesn't strike

628. twice in the same spot.

629. It sure did that series.

630. And I'll never forget being in the Yankees' parking lot after

631. game 5 when the Yankees had done it again.

632. The players didn't wanna leave.

633. It reminded me of after a little league game after a big win,

634. you're all hanging out at the parking lot at Dairy Queen

635. just talking about the game.

636. These last two games defy description.

637. In game 6, Randy Johnson came through

638. again for Arizona and they beat New York 15 to 2 in Phoenix.

639. In game 7, for the third time, Curt Schilling started

640. for Arizona.

641. Roger Clemens again pitched for New York.

642. Curt Schilling, who last night guaranteed

643. a victory, saying, "We're going to win."

644. Through 5 innings, neither pitcher

645. let a runner past second base.

646. In the 6th, Arizona broke through.

647. Finley floats one to center for a leadoff hit.

648. Into left centerfield, Danny Bautista delivers again.

649. That ball's gonna put Arizona on top.

650. Going for third.

651. Out, but it's 1-0 Arizona.

652. The Yankees fought back in the 7th.

653. Runners at the corners, one out.

654. Martinez with a base hit to right, and the Yankees

655. have tied it.

656. Soriano into deep left field.

657. At the wall, Yankees on top 2-1.

658. Curt Schilling had been outstanding,

659. but he was tired.

660. Randy Johnson is coming in...

661. Randy Johnson, who had thrown 104 pitches the day before,

662. came out to pitch in relief.

663. Randy Johnson in the game...

664. The 1-2 punch for Arizona giving the Yankees

665. all they can handle.

666. Johnson kept the Yankees from scoring again.

667. As he had for most of the past 6 seasons,

668. Joe Torre again turned to his unflappable reliever

669. Mariano Rivera, who had already pitched 3 times

670. in the series without giving up a single run.

671. But in the bottom of the 9th, Arizona tied the game,

672. and then loaded the bases.

673. Rivera would face outfielder Luis Gonzalez, who had hit

674. 57 home runs that year.

675. The chance of a lifetime for Luis Gonzalez.

676. 2-2, bottom of the 9th, bases loaded,

677. infield in, one out.

678. Tim McCarver: The one problem is Rivera throws inside to

679. left-handers, and left-handers get a lot of broken bat hits

680. into the shallow part of the outfield.

681. That's the danger in bringing the infield in with a guy like

682. Rivera on the mound.

683. There's just enough time in baseball to see

684. tragedy or triumph headed your way.

685. But there it was. For Yankee fans, it was

686. they got him positioned wrong.

687. Season's over.

688. The Diamondbacks are world champions!

689. The New York Yankees, the team much

690. of America was rooting for, had lost.

691. Several of their stars, including Tino Martinez

692. and Scott Brosius, moved on or retired.

693. It would be 8 years before they would win

694. another championship.

695. It was just so sad saying good-bye to everybody.

696. I went around the room and hugged everybody and, um...

697. it was just a sad way to end our

698. relationship, basically.

699. Even though the memories were great, that night was about

700. as sad as it gets.

701. Man on radio: He developed a concept that pretty much everyone

702. in baseball knows now, that's VORP—Value Over Replacement Player.

703. And how did this come about?

704. VORP? Did he say VORP?

705. This guy's VORP is 350?

706. What the hell is VORP?

707. We could spend half the day explaining what VORP is.

708. But there are those who will tell you VORP is probably

709. the defining statistic of any player to tell you if he's

710. really good, if he's great, or not as good as we think.

711. I don't have a clue how they figure out VORP.

712. But it's something to do with the value of a player

713. over an average replacement for him at his position—VORP.

714. How that adds up and how they calculate it

715. I don't have a clue.

716. I'm still trying to get OPS, you know, O-P-S which is

717. slugging percentage added to on base percentage.

718. And that's OPS.

719. His OPS is 970.

720. I know that that's really good.

721. For decades, scouts and managers had relied on

722. gut instinct and accumulated experience when evaluating talent,

723. but in the new millennium, inspired by

724. the iconoclastic theories of statistician Bill James,

725. one club discovered a radically new way to compete.

726. By compiling and reinterpreting baseball's

727. unending stream of statistics, the cash-strapped Oakland A's

728. were able to identify players whose particular talents had

729. been undervalued or overlooked by wealthier clubs.

730. How batters got on base didn't matter, they realized,

731. compared to whether they got on base at all, and how often

732. they scored.

733. How many games pitchers won didn't matter as much as how

734. efficiently they got batters out.

735. strikes out.

736. The A's, despite having one

737. of the lowest payrolls in the game, made the postseason

738. 4 years in a row.

739. Before long, sophisticated data analysis would affect

740. every decision made by every team, on the field and off.

741. But many observers continued to believe that intangibles

742. like a player's heart and determination still had value,

743. that regardless of the numbers, some individuals did

744. perform better than others in "the clutch."

745. Derek Jeter with one of the most unbelievable plays you will ever see

746. by a shortstop!

747. The greatest home run hitter of all time,

748. Hank Aaron, opens trading today at the New York Stock Exchange

749. and the market promptly hits a home run

750. for investors, the Dow now up 23% for the year, NASDAQ

751. with all its "tech stocks" up an astonishing 71%

752. for the year.

753. At the beginning of free agency in 1975,

754. the average salary of a big league player had been $45,676

755. a season, just three times what the average American

756. earned in a year.

757. Now with revenue pouring in from cable and satellite TV,

758. radio, the Internet, international markets and new ballparks,

759. the average baseball salary had soared to

760. nearly 2.4 million, almost 50 times what the average

761. American made.

762. Who dreamed that players would make $25 million

763. for a season in a game like baseball?

764. And that creates a great amount of desire to get to

765. that place just as it created among us the sense that we

766. could all make a ton of money in dot com or we could take

767. make a lot of money in flipping houses or we could

768. get all these mortgages, all of these home equity loans

769. and buy whatever it is we wanted.

770. Other things were out of proportion, too.

771. It's hard to compare eras now, but I also

772. think that the balls are a little—go a little farther.

773. I won't say juiced, most of the parks are smaller,

774. but players today are bigger and stronger than before.

775. Bob Costas: The ball may be juiced, and some

776. of the players may be juiced.

777. I was trying in a general sense to call

778. attention to the fact that this stuff just doesn't

779. make sense.

780. And this was the part that I found especially galling.

781. People throughout baseball who pride themselves on knowing

782. the difference between the split-second it took Bill Mazeroski

783. to turn a double play as opposed to the average

784. second baseman, who pride themselves on knowing when

785. a guy's arm angle comes down ever so slightly because he's

786. fatigued in the late innings, who notice if a guy has moved

787. half a step in or half a step back at third base,

788. they didn't notice a damn thing when guys showed up

789. looking like they'd been inflated with bicycle pumps.

790. As the memory of the crippling strike of 1994 faded away,

791. baseball's popularity surged, but rumors

792. and suspicions about performance-enhancing drugs

793. kept surfacing.

794. Over the years, a few sportswriters and broadcasters

795. had tried to call attention to steroids' infiltration

796. of the national pastime.

797. But nothing was done, and doping became an open secret

798. in the game.

799. I don't think a bunch of owners or general managers

800. got into a room and they said, we got a great

801. thing going here.

802. Turnstiles are humming, fans love it, let's not

803. do anything.

804. I think what happened was, when they were clued enough

805. into what was happening it was already too late without

806. really getting their hands very dirty.

807. Cleaning it up meant taking down the biggest players

808. in the game.

809. And that was an undertaking they weren't going to touch

810. until somebody made them touch it.

811. In May of 2002, Jose Canseco, who would later

812. claim that without steroids he would have never even made it

813. to the major leagues, retired from baseball with

814. 462 home runs.

815. He told the press that 85% of major leaguers were

816. taking steroids.

817. "There would be no baseball left," Canseco insisted,

818. "if we drug-tested everyone."

819. But hardly anyone took his claims seriously.

820. Then, a few weeks later, "Sports Illustrated" published

821. a cover story by Tom Verducci which described players taking

822. a wide range of performance- enhancing drugs.

823. In the article, former Padres third baseman Ken Caminiti

824. confessed that he had taken heavy doses of steroids

825. for years, beginning in 1996, when he had been named

826. the National League's Most Valuable Player.

827. And what really, really struck me was first of all

828. the responsibility that he took for his own career

829. but also the fact that he had no remorse whatsoever.

830. And that's when it really hit home to me that it was

831. so pervasive in the game that given the choice he would

832. do it again.

833. In 2001, Commissioner Bud Selig had

834. imposed a drug-testing program on the minor leagues, where he

835. did not need the consent of the Players' Association.

836. But the union had refused to permit a similar program

837. in the major leagues.

838. Our view was there may well be

839. reasons to test people if you have some reason to believe

840. they're doing something wrong.

841. But if you have no reason at all that's an entirely

842. different set of circumstances and that there oughta be some

843. reasonableness factor.

844. It's sort of the industrial counterpart

845. of probable cause.

846. This is a subject of collective bargaining.

847. This is not something the Commissioner can do

848. unilaterally as much as I'd like to.

849. What took so long?

850. Some very long and difficult negotiation.

851. The union was in a very difficult position,

852. but at the same time they did not cover themselves in glory here.

853. And I think that the players hurt themselves by simply

854. believing that they were above accountability.

855. 3 months after the revelations about Caminiti

856. and Canseco, Selig and Fehr announced that the union had

857. agreed to limited drug testing.

858. Players would be tested anonymously, only once or

859. twice, and not at all during the off-season.

860. If more than 5% did test positive, a punitive plan

861. would automatically go into effect.

862. Thanks largely to the Players Association,

863. it was the weakest drug prevention program

864. in professional sports.

865. But in the first year, more than 5% did test positive.

866. From then on, those who failed more than once,

867. faced suspensions of at least 15 games.

868. After 5 positive results, they would be suspended

869. for an entire season.

870. They came to an agreement

871. about a drug testing policy that had so many holes in it

872. that there was no way a player, unless he was just

873. dumb as a rock, was gonna fail under the guidelines that they set forth.

874. Despite the negative publicity about steroids,

875. Bud Selig could justifiably take credit for the fact that

876. baseball was booming, enjoying a "renaissance" unparalleled

877. in its history.

878. And for the first time, the owners and players had

879. managed to negotiate a collective bargaining

880. agreement without a work stoppage.

881. In the new contract, the richest clubs also agreed to

882. share some of their profits with the poorest clubs,

883. and the players allowed a luxury tax to be imposed

884. on the teams with the highest payrolls —

885. the Mets, the Red Sox, and especially the Yankees.

886. Although no one could have predicted it at the time,

887. the disastrous strike of 1994 had ushered in a period

888. of unprecedented labor peace, as the players and the owners

889. finally learned how to work together.

890. Bud Selig: This is the golden era of baseball.

891. Average game today is drawing 33,000, 34,000 people

892. with all the games on television.

893. The popularity of the sport is just enormous.

894. And that's been the question.

895. Is it possible to have a renaissance and a calamity

896. at the same time?

897. It all depends on what your barometer is.

898. What is your measure?

899. If your measure is money and only money, then yeah,

900. it was possible because people in this game made

901. more money than ever.

902. But if your barometer is something more than that,

903. if your barometer is integrity, is in having people

904. look at you and believing in your sport, not just going to

905. the games, but believing in your sport, then it's

906. not possible.

907. I think fans have been able to

908. compartmentalize their disappointments

909. and still enjoy it the way they used to.

910. And I think we've built up the same sort of sieve for letting

911. experience through that we have with real people in our

912. real lives.

913. We don't expect them to be saints and we no longer expect

914. our athletes to be.

915. We expect them to be the same range of people that we see

916. in the rest of our life.

917. And I think that one of the reasons that baseball has not

918. only not lost popularity but gained it, is, as its flaws

919. become apparent, it actually gains depth and humanity even

920. as it loses its fairytale, um, mythic qualities.

921. Bonds swings.

922. There's a high drive, deep into centerfield...

923. I have done well in my career.

924. If it ended today I have nothing to be ashamed of.

925. The only thing is I would just feel very sad about not having

926. an opportunity to go to a World Series.

927. Because you can play 100 years of baseball and never,

928. ever have that opportunity to go to the World Series.

929. The World Series is what I want more than anything.

930. In 2002, Barry Bonds had another spectacular season

931. and would be named the National League's most

932. valuable player for the fifth time.

933. And now he was on his way to the World Series for the first time,

934. eager to prove he could perform as well

935. in the postseason as he did the rest of the year.

936. The Giants would face the Anaheim Angels.

937. Both teams had been their league's wild card, something

938. that had never happened in a World Series before.

939. I had the privilege of covering all

940. 7 games of that World Series for the Sacramento Bee,

941. my newspaper.

942. And it looked for all the world that the Giants were

943. finally going to win.

944. With Bonds leading the team, the Giants took

945. a 3 games to 2 lead.

946. Game 6 would be played in Anaheim.

947. Bonds has walked twice tonight, 26 times

948. in the post-season.

949. That is crushed!

950. Deep into the night and it's 4-0 San Francisco.

951. Just absolutely crushed.

952. 15 batters faced, 14 outs.

953. San Francisco starter Russ Ortiz pitched

954. brilliantly and the Giants took a 5-0 lead into

955. the bottom of the 7th.

956. We were all counting the outs.

957. And they were 8 outs away from winning the World Series

958. for the first time as the San Francisco Giants.

959. Russ Ortiz was pitching a shutout.

960. Here's the 2-2 pitch.

961. Swung on and missed by 3.

962. In the Giants' clubhouse, attendants iced

963. champagne in preparation for a celebration.

964. Russ goes into his wind-up.

965. And the pitch on the way to Glaus.

966. Line drive, that's a base hit.

967. And Troy Glaus has just the third Angel hit.

968. And I can remember being in the press box,

969. and I was thinking it's finally gonna happen.

970. It's finally gonna happen.

971. Ortiz delivers and it's ripped into right field!

972. At that point I was 40 years old.

973. Angels being shut out 5-0 at the moment.

974. I had been with these guys since I'm 8.

975. So that might be it for Ortiz.

976. He has a 4-hit shutout working.

977. You know, I'm trying to keep some sort of professional distance,

978. but I couldn't help to imagine a parade down

979. Market Street in San Francisco.

980. And you know and I was already thinking I was gonna take off

981. my jacket cause I didn't want it to stink of champagne

982. and the whole thing.

983. Big pitch coming up.

984. And then the bottom fell out.

985. The 3-2 pitch is belted to right field.

986. Back on it goes Sanders, he can't get it!

987. Home run!

988. Here's the pitch by Worrell.

989. Drive hit into right field.

990. That ball is gone!

991. And they are within 1!

992. Here's the 1-0 to Salmon.

993. A drive into centerfield.

994. Lofton can't get it.

995. Base hit!

996. And at a certain point the Angels rally kept going,

997. I sat back in my chair and I stopped writing.

998. The Angels take the lead, 6-5!

999. And then when the Angels went ahead, I did what all writers

1000. dread doing I highlight everything I had written

1001. and I hit delete.

1002. A 3rd strike, a 7th game.

1003. They're one strike away from all of that.

1004. The 2-2 pitch.

1005. Swung on and missed!

1006. The Angels win the game, 6-5!

1007. When game 6 was over, I knew it was over.

1008. I knew they weren't gonna win game 7.

1009. The next night, the Angels became world

1010. champions for the first time in their 42-year history.

1011. Barry Bonds had made 30 trips to the plate, hit 4 home runs,

1012. and was walked 13 times, a World Series record.

1013. But it hadn't been enough.

1014. It was like a morgue afterwards.

1015. There's so much media for a World Series.

1016. And we're all trying to cram into his locker.

1017. And at one point he's got his shirt off, this enormous

1018. physique and he wheels around and he says, "If you guys don't

1019. step back right now I'm gonna snap."

1020. I love them so much that every year,

1021. for 25, 30 years, I would write

1022. in the paper, in "The Globe" each spring, "This is the year",

1023. no matter how poorly they appeared to be as a team

1024. in spring training.

1025. And it was, it was the hope of a child because that's part

1026. of the gift of baseball.

1027. It's a child's hope.

1028. And I always had that hope.

1029. But also the reality that, you know, well, probably not

1030. gonna happen in my lifetime.

1031. The tension is so great for me

1032. that I'm embarrassed to admit that when the other team is up

1033. in a close game I cannot even watch the game.

1034. I run out of the house sometimes.

1035. And I know that's crazy.

1036. you have this sense that as long as you don't watch

1037. something bad is not gonna happen.

1038. and then you just pray that by the time you come back your

1039. worst fears will not be realized and you'll suddenly

1040. see them up at bat again.

1041. I mean it makes no sense at all but there is this strange

1042. dynamic that the fans feel that their actions have

1043. something to do with what the players are gonna do

1044. on the field.

1045. In 2002, hedge fund owner John Henry

1046. and television producer Tom Werner bought the Boston Red Sox

1047. for $700 million.

1048. Neither of them was from New England and locals were

1049. skeptical about their motives.

1050. But rather than tear down Fenway Park, the team's home

1051. for 90 years, Henry and Werner decided instead to

1052. renovate the cherished ballpark.

1053. And, most important, they promised to bring a world

1054. championship to Boston.

1055. They had their work cut out for them.

1056. The Red Sox had not won the World Series since 1918,

1057. and always seemed to find new ways to break their

1058. fans' hearts.

1059. I would say the Boston fans are

1060. the most loyal fans I've ever seen.

1061. I got very familiar with some

1062. of the comments that they "Is gonna be the year?

1063. Is this gonna be the year?"

1064. Every year.

1065. "This is the year".

1066. It was a comment that we will hear almost every season.

1067. In 2003, the Red Sox made it to the postseason as

1068. the wild card.

1069. They were led by their hugely popular shortstop, Nomar Garciaparra,

1070. their designated hitter, David Ortiz,

1071. and Manny Ramirez, one of the greatest right-handed hitters

1072. in the game.

1073. The pitching staff included the nearly invincible Pedro Martinez,

1074. sinker-baller Derek Lowe, and Tim Wakefield,

1075. who had mastered the knuckleball after failing to

1076. make it as a first baseman.

1077. In the American League Championship Series, they would

1078. face their dreaded rivals, the New York Yankees, whom Red Sox

1079. CEO Larry Lucchino had christened "The Evil Empire."

1080. People have said it's been the

1081. greatest rivalry in sports,

1082. but I don't know how much of a rivalry it can be when it's

1083. been very one sided.

1084. You know, to be a great rivalry the other team has to win some

1085. of the time and knock people off their perch.

1086. The Yankees to the complete infuriation of Red Sox fans

1087. seem to come out ahead every single year.

1088. The two teams were almost perfectly matched; the Yankees

1089. won 2 out of the first 3 games, but Boston battled back

1090. to tie the series at 3 games apiece.

1091. Everything came down to Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, enemy

1092. territory for Red Sox fans.

1093. It was the 26th time they had met.

1094. No two teams anywhere, in any sport, had ever played each

1095. other more in a single season.

1096. And I remember talking to Willie Randolph

1097. who back then was the third base coach.

1098. And I'd said to him, "So what do you think?"

1099. And he said, "Listen, every single time we've had to beat them

1100. "we've beaten them.

1101. Tonight's not gonna be any different."

1102. Roger Clemens, Boston's one time ace, pitched

1103. for New York; Pedro Martinez took the mound

1104. for the Red Sox.

1105. Nixon into right centerfield.

1106. Did he get enough?

1107. Yes, he did. The Red Sox strike first.

1108. To the left side for Enrique Wilson.

1109. His throw sails into the seats.

1110. And that'll make it 3-0.

1111. Millar hits one to left field.

1112. That ball back into the corner, up and out.

1113. Home run Millar.

1114. And the Red Sox and their fans have to be

1115. thinking, "Finally!"

1116. We have not seen the Yankees hit anything

1117. crisp so far here tonight against Pedro Martinez.

1118. Martinez was masterful through 7 innings,

1119. and going into the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox

1120. had a 5 to 2 lead.

1121. But all season long, Martinez had struggled after he had

1122. thrown more than 100 pitches.

1123. When Pedro came back out

1124. in the 8th inning, we all started screaming, "No, no,

1125. you can't be doing it!"

1126. I mean, fans think they know more than

1127. the managers and often we don't.

1128. But at that point, everybody knew the pitch counts that

1129. Pedro would suddenly fall off the cliff if he were over that

1130. pitch count.

1131. He was way over that pitch count. And so there was this

1132. huge sense of dread the minute he came to that mound.

1133. And with one out here in the bottom

1134. of the 8th inning, he works to Derek Jeter, with the Red Sox

1135. 5 defensive outs away from heading to

1136. the World Series.

1137. Jeter flies into right, Nixon back, on the run,

1138. it's over his head.

1139. Jeter will dig for second and hold there with a double.

1140. The 2-2, into centerfield.

1141. Damon will play it on a hop, Jeter will come to the plate.

1142. It's a 2-run game.

1143. Manager Grady Little went out to the mound.

1144. The Red Sox bullpen had been all but unhittable that year

1145. and Martinez had already thrown 115 pitches.

1146. Little left Martinez in the game.

1147. He gave Martinez the chance to say "yea or nay"

1148. and he said, "yes."

1149. Ripped into the right field corner, fair.

1150. Bernie Williams will dig. It's a ground rule double.

1151. It's 2nd and 3rd with one out here in the 8th.

1152. Boy, is it strange that Little is not going to

1153. his bullpen?

1154. I mean that is absolutely weird. His bullpen...

1155. I was just trying to do it.

1156. And that's what a lot of people don't understand.

1157. Well, why didn't Pedro give away the ball?

1158. Well, they didn't ask me to give away the ball.

1159. They asked me if I could face the guys.

1160. I said yes, of course I can.

1161. I'm in the middle of the game.

1162. And I'm here to do this.

1163. A base hit ties the game, 2nd and 3rd,

1164. 1 out.

1165. The pitch.

1166. Swung on and looped to shallow centerfield.

1167. It is a base hit!

1168. One run scores Bernie!

1169. Here's Matsui, he scores!

1170. Posada goes to second with a double.

1171. It is a true run double by Posada and the Yankees have come all the way back

1172. to tie the game at 5 in one of the greatest

1173. comebacks you'll ever see!

1174. The game went into extra innings.

1175. The Red Sox turned to knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.

1176. The odds were favoring

1177. a hitter in a slump, because a hitter in a slump is already—

1178. his timing is already off.

1179. A knuckle ball pitcher throws your timing off.

1180. Put a guy with bad timing and add more bad timing to him

1181. suddenly he has good timing.

1182. It's a zero sum game in terms of timing.

1183. So you're thinking who on earth is gonna get the base hit

1184. for the Yankees?

1185. Who can do anything against Tim Wakefield?

1186. Boone.

1187. In the bottom of the 11th, 3rd baseman

1188. Aaron Boone, whose grandfather, father,

1189. and brother had all played in the major leagues,

1190. came to the plate.

1191. In 31 postseason at-bats, Boone had managed just

1192. 5 hits.

1193. Now we are tied at 5 as we go to the bottom

1194. of the 11th.

1195. Here's Aaron Boone to lead off.

1196. His first at-bat of the game.

1197. There's a fly ball, deep to left, it's on its way!

1198. There it goes, and the Yankees are going to the World Series!

1199. My son Timmy was then 11, and I always

1200. used to say, when the baseball season was over,

1201. it's time to put the storm windows on.

1202. So it became time to put the storm windows on in a split-second

1203. after an incredible game.

1204. And the crowd was going berserk in Yankee Stadium,

1205. and my son Colin, who was then 20, tapped me on the shoulder

1206. and said, "Dad, you better take care of Tim."

1207. And I looked down at this 11-year-old child,

1208. one of the loves of my life, and he had tears the size

1209. of hubcaps streaming down his cheek.

1210. And I started crying and I hugged him, and, you know,

1211. in my heart of hearts I was thinking, "What have I done?

1212. What have I done?"

1213. Harry Caray: All right! Let me hear you!

1214. Good and loud!

1215. I became a Cub fan at age 7 in 1948.

1216. That year, Mr. Wrigley, who owned the Cubs, took out

1217. ads in the Chicago papers apologizing for the team.

1218. It was not an auspicious beginning.

1219. Uh, the day I was born they lost, by the way.

1220. I've looked it up.

1221. Like the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs played

1222. in one of oldest and most beloved ballparks in America.

1223. But they hadn't appeared in the World Series since 1945,

1224. and hadn't won since 1908.

1225. Their loyal fans still showed up at Wrigley Field each spring

1226. no matter how poorly their team played.

1227. But in 2003, the Cubs finally put together a contender.

1228. They made it all the way to the National League

1229. Championship Series, where they faced the Florida Marlins,

1230. an expansion team that had already won the World Series

1231. in 1997, only their 5th year of existence.

1232. The Cubs won 3 out of the first 5 games and returned

1233. to Chicago for game 6, needing just one more win to

1234. get to the World Series.

1235. In the top of the 8th, they were leading 3-0,

1236. with 1 out and a Marlins runner on 2nd.

1237. And the Marlins beginning to run out of outs

1238. against Mark Pryor.

1239. Again in the air down the leftfield line, Alou reaching

1240. into the stands, and couldn't get it and he's livid

1241. with a fan.

1242. We've seen this happen here before.

1243. That's awfully close to fan interference right there.

1244. The offender was a lifelong Cubs fan named

1245. Steve Bartman.

1246. If Alou has to reach into the stands,

1247. it's fair game for the fans to catch the ball.

1248. That is very, very close.

1249. Florida would score 8 runs before the inning was over.

1250. The Cubs never recovered.

1251. The Marlins won game 7 and headed to the World Series,

1252. where they beat the New York Yankees.

1253. "There are few words to describe how awful I feel,"

1254. said Steve Bartman.

1255. "I am so truly sorry from the bottom of this Cub fan's

1256. broken heart."

1257. "I'm angry at the guy," said Illinois' governor

1258. Rod Blagojevich.

1259. Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, offered the beleaguered

1260. fan asylum.

1261. That winter, the "Bartman Ball" was auctioned off

1262. for $106,000, and then blown up as thousands of approving

1263. fans looked on.

1264. There is gonna come a day when the Cubs

1265. win a World Series.

1266. It has to happen.

1267. They've had a bad century. It's time to rally.

1268. Alex Rodriguez joins Andre Dawson

1269. as the only players to ever win the MVP award while

1270. playing for a last-place team.

1271. And an hour after winning, A-Rod confirmed the Rangers

1272. have talked to him about trading him.

1273. It was almost like a black hole where

1274. everything got sucked into these two franchises.

1275. And the players around the league bought into it.

1276. When Alex Rodriguez was going to get bought out

1277. of his contract, he only wanted to go to Boston or New York.

1278. And so when that happens. the Red Sox and Yankees were

1279. playing in a separate league.

1280. And there was a lot of resentment around the league

1281. because no one else could compete with this aura that

1282. these two superpower teams had created.

1283. It was the stage in baseball.

1284. It was the place where everybody wanted to be.

1285. After their devastating loss to New York

1286. in 2003, the Red Sox tried again to beat free-spending

1287. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner at his own game.

1288. They sent general manager Theo Epstein to Arizona

1289. for Thanksgiving dinner with Diamondbacks' ace pitcher Curt Schilling,

1290. who had helped defeat the Yankees

1291. back in 2001.

1292. Schilling quickly agreed to be traded to the Red Sox,

1293. and with characteristic bravado vowed to lead the team

1294. to a World Championship.

1295. But in February of 2004, after several failed attempts

1296. by Boston to sign him, George Steinbrenner brought one

1297. of the game's biggest stars, shortstop Alex Rodriguez,

1298. to baseball's biggest stage.

1299. Rodriguez was the highest paid player in the history

1300. of the game, having agreed to a 10-year, quarter-of-a- billion-dollar contract

1301. with the Texas Rangers back in 2001.

1302. To get that contract, Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras

1303. liked to quote one reporter's assertion that

1304. Rodriguez would one day "save baseball."

1305. In Texas, he had more than proven his worth, batting

1306. above.300, averaging more than 50 home runs,

1307. and winning an MVP.

1308. Despite his achievements, the Rangers had finished dead last

1309. in the American League West 3 years in a row,

1310. and Rodriguez was eager to jump to a winning team.

1311. Now he was with the Yankees.

1312. When the 2004 season began, Boston and New York picked up

1313. right where they had left off.

1314. Alex Rodriguez is drilled, and he says something

1315. to Bronson Arroyo.

1316. And we know what he said.

1317. Here we go.

1318. Varitek and A-Rod going at it.

1319. Schilling is right in the middle of it.

1320. Now another fight off to the side.

1321. The Red Sox, now managed by Terry Francona,

1322. played as if their humiliating loss of 2003

1323. had never happened.

1324. They were scrappy, wore their hair long, and goofed

1325. around in the dugout.

1326. What is this?

1327. I don't know.

1328. That is unbelievable is what it is.

1329. "What you see is what you get," said first

1330. baseman and team ringleader Kevin Millar.

1331. The heart of the team was Boston's designated hitter,

1332. David Ortiz, known to everyone in Red Sox Nation as Big Papi.

1333. Here was a Red Sox player who really did

1334. instill fear in the heart of the Yankees.

1335. Here's a guy, he went out and when he was up you were afraid

1336. if you were a Yankee fan.

1337. If you were a Yankee you were afraid of what this guy was

1338. gonna do because he was doing things that most Red Sox

1339. players had never done before.

1340. He represented the sea change that, "Look we don't fear you.

1341. We know we're better than you, and we're going to beat you."

1342. That one's not coming back any time soon.

1343. Led by the dominant pitching of Curt Schilling,

1344. Boston again faced the Yankees in the American League

1345. Championship Series.

1346. Solid strikeout by Curt Schilling.

1347. But in game 1,

1348. Schilling, hobbled by an injury to his ankle, lasted

1349. only 3 innings, the shortest postseason outing

1350. of his career.

1351. No one knew whether he would be able to pitch again

1352. in the series.

1353. New York took game 2, as well, 3-1.

1354. Game 3 in Boston was a blowout.

1355. Yankee hitters hammered one Red Sox pitcher after another.

1356. The final score was 19 to 8.

1357. The New York Yankees were just one win away from going to

1358. the World Series for the 7th time in 9 years.

1359. No team in baseball history had ever come from 3 games behind

1360. to win a best-of-7 series.

1361. I was so angry at the 0 and 3 start to the

1362. playoffs against the Yankees.

1363. I was humiliated.

1364. I was embarrassed.

1365. I was thanking God for Caller ID, all the calls from area code 212 on the cell phone.

1366. You'd push ignore 'cause you knew what it was gonna be,

1367. just another winter of verbal abuse.

1368. But you know what? You cannot count the Sox out.

1369. But the irrepressible Kevin Millar was

1370. not about to let his teammates give up.

1371. Don't let us win this game tonight.

1372. Then they get Peedy, then they get Schill in game 6,

1373. and game 7 anything happens.

1374. Derek Lowe pitched for Boston in game 4.

1375. Orlando Hernandez was on the mound for New York.

1376. It was a back and forth game.

1377. A-Rod goes into left centerfield,

1378. back at the wall.

1379. Alex Rodriguez has hit one over the Monster to make it

1380. 2-0 New York.

1381. Ortiz, into right center, and the Red Sox have taken

1382. the lead in game 4.

1383. Timlin's thrown quite a few pitches in the dirt.

1384. He grounds to the right side.

1385. Bellhorn knocks it down, can't make a play,

1386. and the Yankees lead again. It's a 2-run, 6th inning,

1387. and a 4-3 Yankee lead.

1388. Once again, Joe Torre brought in Mariano Rivera

1389. to finish off the Red Sox.

1390. Mariano Rivera in the post-season, 6 for 6

1391. in save chances.

1392. With Boston down by 1 run in the bottom

1393. of the 9th, Rivera faced Kevin Millar.

1394. Walk, and there's life for the Red Sox.

1395. A pinch runner, Dave Roberts, is gonna come in for Boston.

1396. He can run.

1397. Picked up from the Dodgers.

1398. Good lead for Roberts.

1399. The great base stealer Maury Wills had once

1400. told Dave Roberts the day would come when he'd have to

1401. steal a base with everyone in the ballpark expecting it.

1402. "When I got out there," Roberts said, "I knew what

1403. Maury was talking about."

1404. are just average.

1405. And holding baserunners.

1406. Rivera to the set.

1407. He Goes!

1408. The pitch taken outside, here's the throw,

1409. Roberts dives! And he is safe!

1410. Stolen base, Dave Roberts, tying run at second base.

1411. He went in with a hand tag.

1412. Jeter took the throw, it was close.

1413. Dave Roberts, knew that moment was coming.

1414. Had studied Mariano Rivera and knew every single one of his

1415. moves to home plate.

1416. And you have to love the fact that he took off on that

1417. first pitch.

1418. You know, the Red Sox down to their last breath—we're gonna

1419. go down fighting and being aggressive.

1420. And that's gonna be the stolen base that's gonna

1421. be remembered in Boston forever.

1422. Up the middle.

1423. Roberts will come to the plate.

1424. The throw by Williams.

1425. Bill Mueller has tied it.

1426. The game was tied, and it stayed that way into

1427. extra innings.

1428. Manny Ramirez led off the bottom of the 12th.

1429. The 2-1.

1430. Ramirez will start it with a hit.

1431. And the Red Sox put their leadoff man on.

1432. Now it's David Ortiz.

1433. Ortiz, so many times the hero

1434. for the Red Sox.

1435. The 2-1 pitch.

1436. Swing and a drive, deep to right, way back, and this

1437. ball is gone.

1438. Jump on his back, fellas.

1439. It was 1:23 A.M.

1440. The Red Sox were still alive.

1441. a home run that went in the crowd,

1442. and the Red Sox live to play again.

1443. It was one of the most exciting

1444. moments in my whole history of the game.

1445. And you then began to feel, even so,

1446. I mean, all you are now is 3 to 1.

1447. But still there was hope because of that happening.

1448. If it could happen in the last part of that inning,

1449. then maybe it could happen again.

1450. With a tying run at 3rd,

1451. the go-ahead run at 1st.

1452. In game 5, the Red Sox again came from

1453. behind to force extra innings.

1454. That should tie it. Roberts will tag and go.

1455. The throw into 2nd and it's a 4-4 game.

1456. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 14th, and men

1457. on first and second, David Ortiz came to the plate.

1458. Ortiz bounced it off centerfield.

1459. 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 14 pitchers into game 5,

1460. Ortiz had done it again.

1461. It was his second walk-off hit in less than 24 hours.

1462. But Boston still had to win the next 2 games

1463. at Yankee Stadium.

1464. After the Red Sox won game 5, Boston's team doctor

1465. sutured the skin around Curt Schilling's ailing tendon

1466. to hold it in place, a procedure that he had tried only once before...

1467. on a cadaver.

1468. Like a scene from "The Natural," Schilling climbs

1469. the mound and prepares to take on this Yankee line-up.

1470. A 2-2 now.

1471. Sierra strikes out, and that's the first strikeout

1472. of the night for Curt Schilling.

1473. When Schilling came out in game 6,

1474. we already knew that there was trouble with his ankle.

1475. One wasn't sure at all that he'd be able to pull this off.

1476. Despite the pain, Schilling managed to quiet

1477. Yankee bats.

1478. With 2 outs in the 4th, Kevin Millar started a rally

1479. for Boston.

1480. With 2 out, Millar hits it down the left

1481. field line, into the corner.

1482. Matsui gives it a look.

1483. That's a fair ball and Millar digging for second.

1484. The throw, too late.

1485. Varitek has put Boston on top.

1486. That's down the left field line.

1487. Big trouble.

1488. Matsui on the run.

1489. And it's a homerun, 4-0 Boston.

1490. Schilling lasted 7 innings and gave up

1491. just 1 run.

1492. The bullpen took over.

1493. Let it go. Red Sox force game 7.

1494. A tremendous pitching performance by Schilling,

1495. Arroyo, and Keith Foulke, who does it again.

1496. It's now tied 3 to 3.

1497. Two of my boys are in Washington.

1498. Timmy is here with us.

1499. I call them up and I say, "We're goin' back."

1500. We went back for game 7.

1501. For the second year in a row, the American League

1502. pennant would be decided in a 7th game between Boston

1503. and New York.

1504. More than 31 million people were watching on television.

1505. And here's Ortiz.

1506. He rips one into right field.

1507. Boston came out swinging.

1508. Damon hits it in the air to right field.

1509. Sheffield back in the corner.

1510. A grand slam! Johnny Damon.

1511. Goes deep. 4 more...

1512. There's another one into right field.

1513. Johnny Damon is going off.

1514. Bellhorn hits it into right.

1515. It's fair, it's gone.

1516. It is gone.

1517. Home run Bellhorn.

1518. And throughout the park you could see people

1519. who had been huddled with winter jackets and sweatshirts

1520. against the autumn chill remove them, and they had Red Sox

1521. shirts underneath.

1522. And Tim stood on the chair in Yankee Stadium and a friend

1523. of ours was with us, and he turned to me and said,

1524. "I've never seen a kid with as happy a look on his face as

1525. Timmy Barnicle had."

1526. This would be the 5th pennant for the Red Sox since that 1918 season.

1527. Here it is.

1528. Ground ball to second.

1529. Reese.

1530. The Boston Red Sox have won the pennant!

1531. It was the greatest comeback in baseball history.

1532. This was the victory we'd all been waiting for,

1533. even though there was still the World Series to go.

1534. The Red Sox would now have to face

1535. the formidable St. Louis Cardinals

1536. who had twice before broken Boston hearts

1537. in the 1946 and 1967 World Series.

1538. For the first time in my baseball life

1539. I watched every play of every inning.

1540. I don't think there was a single time when I ran away,

1541. closed my eyes, went out of the room.

1542. I began to no longer think we were gonna lose.

1543. I felt brave.

1544. The team, I think, had transformed the fans.

1545. It was almost as if they believed

1546. in themselves so much, and if they could get us

1547. through that Yankee series on the brink of disaster at every

1548. moment and come back at the last minute, who were we not

1549. to believe in them?

1550. The Red Sox are 1 out away from winning it all.

1551. Boston swept St. Louis.

1552. The Cardinals never led in any of the games.

1553. Ground ball back to the mound.

1554. Foulke with it!

1555. Got 'em at first base and the Boston Red Sox can

1556. finally say it!

1557. For the first time in 86 years, for the first time

1558. since 1918, they are champions of the world.

1559. For the Red Sox "next year" is finally here.

1560. If you ask me about my World Series ring

1561. with Boston, I will not trade that one for 3 anywhere

1562. because it meant so much.

1563. I think grown ups, small ones, little boys, little girls,

1564. old people, everybody cried in Boston I think when we got

1565. that World Series.

1566. I think about all the people who lived their

1567. entire lives without seeing that moment.

1568. it wasn't just about 2004.

1569. It was about people's fathers and grandfathers and mothers

1570. and grandmothers and all these people who had waited all

1571. these years.

1572. They were all connected.

1573. And I've never seen a championship in any sport that

1574. meant more to people in a region than I saw with the Red Sox in 2004.

1575. It had been 31,458 days since Boston's last title.

1576. From Bangor, Maine to New Haven, Connecticut,

1577. from Burlington, Vermont and Charlestown, New Hampshire,

1578. to Providence, Rhode Island, millions rejoiced.

1579. The next morning, in corner stores and offices, barber shops

1580. and on factory floors across New England,

1581. fans were greeted by newspapers announcing Boston's victory.

1582. Vendors who normally sold 1,200 papers in a day sold 8,000.

1583. At the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, miniature Red Sox flags

1584. appeared beside headstones as fans shared the

1585. happy news with relatives who had spent a lifetime hoping

1586. for a championship.

1587. The joy of it really didn't seep into me,

1588. I think, until they came back home.

1589. And the explosion of emotion couldn't be contained.

1590. On October 30th, 3 million people,

1591. 5 times the population of the city of Boston, turned out

1592. for a victory parade through the streets of the old town.

1593. One of our most enduring memories,

1594. my brother and I, was my mother sitting

1595. on the stoop of her house in Fitchburg, Massachusetts,

1596. in the shade of a single tree on a busy street with her

1597. nylon stockings rolled down to her ankles in order to,

1598. get some cool breeze, and the radio on the front porch

1599. and she would keep score

1600. on a piece of paper.

1601. Not the score book, on a piece of paper.

1602. And when the Red Sox won the World Series, my brother took

1603. a scorecard out to the cemetery from game 4 in St. Louis

1604. and put it on the grave.

1605. John McCain: We are here today because this sport is about to

1606. become a fraud in the minds of the American people.

1607. You have a serious public relations problem here.

1608. Mr. Fehr and Commissioner Selig, all I can

1609. say to you is, this issue has reached the level where

1610. the President of the United States discusses it

1611. at a State of the Union message to the American people.

1612. Your failure to commit to addressing this issue straight on

1613. and immediately will motivate this Committee to

1614. search for legislative remedies.

1615. I don't know what they are, but I can tell you and your players

1616. that you represent, the status quo is not acceptable.

1617. If you look at the history of the game,

1618. it takes an outside influence to really get baseball to ask

1619. the tough questions—

1620. you know, going back to the gambling problem in the early

1621. 20th century, going back to cocaine in the 1980s,

1622. going back to Pete Rose's gambling problem,

1623. and now with steroids.

1624. In every case, it took an outside agent like the Federal Government

1625. or Congress or a court case, a legal case,

1626. to really get baseball to move.

1627. In the fall of 2004, when fans wanted nothing more

1628. than to revel in one of baseball's greatest post seasons,

1629. the game's steroid problems hit the front pages

1630. and airwaves once again.

1631. Now this: a report in the "San Francisco Chronicle"

1632. that Bonds admitted before the grand jury investigating

1633. the BALCO steroids case, that he did take substances now

1634. identified as steroids.

1635. An ongoing federal investigation of BALCO,

1636. a laboratory in Northern California that sold

1637. nutritional supplements to athletes, had implicated some

1638. of the biggest names in sports.

1639. BALCO was run by a former funk musician named Victor Conte.

1640. He had joined forces with Patrick Arnold, an avid body builder

1641. and brilliant chemist who had already introduced

1642. Andro, an over-the-counter steroid, to the American market.

1643. Arnold had also done something that made the blood of every

1644. anti-doping expert run cold.

1645. He had created an untraceable steroid called "the Clear."

1646. When taken with a meticulously orchestrated combination

1647. of other drugs, it enabled BALCO's clients,

1648. some of the greatest athletes in the world, to become greater still:

1649. Olympic medalist Marion Jones, NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski,

1650. as well as baseball sluggers Jason Giambi,

1651. Gary Sheffield, and Barry Bonds.

1652. How much testing do you welcome in baseball?

1653. They can test me every day if they choose to.

1654. You know, like I tell everybody—

1655. you want to be on top, you have to have broad shoulders

1656. to be on top, let me tell you that right now,

1657. because as fast as you get there is as fast they try

1658. to knock you down.

1659. And so I have broad shoulders. I can deal with it.

1660. In San Francisco, many fans were reluctant to

1661. believe that their favorite player had taken performance- enhancing drugs,

1662. but some critics pointed out that his head

1663. had gotten bigger, and his shoe size had

1664. increased from 101/2 to 13.

1665. Bonds, according to his lawyer, was told by his trainer

1666. that "The Cream" rubbed on his skin was rubbing

1667. balm for arthritis, and that "The Clear," taken orally,

1668. was flaxseed oil.

1669. Bonds testified that he had taken steroids

1670. inadvertently, and later complained that he was being

1671. unfairly singled out.

1672. Bonds has been certainly singled out,

1673. but that's what happens when the results of your

1674. cheating are so lurid.

1675. It attracts attention if you hit 73 home runs.

1676. What do you expect?

1677. I mean, if some middle infielder tries to buy another year

1678. scuffling in the big leagues with performance- enhancing drugs,

1679. it doesn't get as much attention.

1680. This is not complicated.

1681. Then, in February of 2005, Jose Canseco published

1682. a tell-all autobiography.

1683. In it he extolled the benefits of anabolic steroids, detailed

1684. his own extensive use of them, and named many other stars—

1685. hitters and pitchers— who he said had also been "on the juice"

1686. Wilson Alvarez, Ivan Rodriguez, Bret Boone,

1687. Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire.

1688. Now people listened.

1689. Let me start by telling you this:

1690. I have never used steroids, period.

1691. Do you think that the team trainers,

1692. the managers, the general managers, and even the owners

1693. might have been aware that some players were

1694. using steroids?

1695. No doubt in my mind, absolutely.

1696. So it's not a secret that...

1697. Many people sneered,

1698. "Doesn't Congress have something better to do?"

1699. Well, sometimes they may poke their nose into sports where

1700. they don't belong, but in this case it actually led to

1701. a good outcome.

1702. Even if there was some grandstanding involved, it was

1703. very clear that Don Fehr and Bud Selig felt the whip

1704. from Congress, and they had to respond.

1705. It is rather an infamous occurrence that

1706. in the year you were breaking the home run record,

1707. a bottle of Andro was seen in your locker.

1708. Well, Sir, I'm not here to talk about the past.

1709. I'm here to talk about the positive and not the

1710. negative about this issue.

1711. As far as this being about the past, that's what we do.

1712. This is an oversight committee.

1713. If the Enron people come in here and say, "Well, we don't

1714. want to talk about the past," do you think Congress is

1715. going to let them get away with that?

1716. I have accepted, by my attorney's advice,

1717. not to comment on this issue.

1718. And you could just see him deflate

1719. like a giant balloon in a Thanksgiving Day parade

1720. with a pin stuck through it.

1721. And that's very sad and also unfair to some degree.

1722. 'Cause Mark McGwire never had the kind of ego that could say,

1723. "Let's see you try and do this on steroids."

1724. Bonds had that ego but he didn't have that ego.

1725. And so he couldn't come back and say,

1726. "You can't take this away from me."

1727. It looked as if he was shattered as a consequence.

1728. Without the Federal Government, you still

1729. have people like Mark McGwire telling you there's nothing

1730. in a bottle that can help you hit a home run

1731. or Barry Bonds just telling you to get out of his face

1732. because he's bigger than you.

1733. It was about time that somebody bigger than them

1734. held them accountable.

1735. Mr. Sosa, what obligation do you think you have

1736. if you are aware that someone is using drugs

1737. on your team.

1738. I'm a private person.

1739. I don't really go, you know, ask people whatever it is.

1740. In the fall of 2005, Major League Baseball

1741. and the Players Association finally took decisive action.

1742. The anti-doping program they put in place for the 2006 season

1743. would be the toughest in professional sports.

1744. Players who failed a drug test once would be suspended

1745. for 50 games.

1746. The second time, 100 games.

1747. And the third time, they would be banned for life.

1748. It's now time for realism, and the realism is this:

1749. the stakes of athletic excellence, the financial stakes

1750. are now so high, and the incentives for cutting corners

1751. therefore so great, that we are in an endless competition

1752. between the chemists trying to devise non-detectable

1753. performance- enhancing drugs,

1754. and the enforcers trying to devise detection.

1755. And it will probably never end.

1756. The baseball world may have hoped the stigma

1757. of steroids would go away, but the most dominant player

1758. implicated in the scandal was making that an impossibility.

1759. The pitch.

1760. Bonds hits one high, hits it deep to center.

1761. Outta here!

1762. 715.

1763. Bonds passes Babe Ruth.

1764. He is second on the all-time home run list.

1765. So he does it where he wanted to do it,

1766. at home in front of his friends.

1767. He's larger than life and had to fall

1768. for that reason.

1769. He was reaching like Icarus, he's reaching for something he

1770. can't reach for and he had to fall for that reason.

1771. He was good enough without that. Everybody says it.

1772. I'm not even sure what he wanted was public adulation,

1773. although behind all that is an insecurity that is really sad.

1774. He comes into the world not trusting anybody.

1775. And then desperately wants to change that and then gets angry

1776. when he can't trust you.

1777. The problem with me, like my dad told me before he passed away,

1778. he said, "The biggest problem with you, Barry,

1779. "is every great athlete that has gone on for great records,

1780. everyone knows their story."

1781. And I'm sorry.

1782. I was raised to protect my family, keep my mouth shut,

1783. and stay quiet.

1784. But it doesn't make me a bad person.

1785. It doesn't make me an evil person.

1786. I'm an adult and I take responsibilities for what I do,

1787. but you know what, I'm not going to allow you guys to

1788. ruin my joy.

1789. Barry Bonds began the 2007 season just 21 home runs

1790. shy of Henry Aaron's career mark of 755.

1791. He was 42 years old.

1792. As he approached the record,

1793. fans, writers, and Major League Baseball

1794. struggled with how to honor the man who was

1795. about to become the game's new home run king.

1796. And it was sort of like Bonds—oh, my goodness,

1797. we never liked you and we never wanted you to

1798. break the record.

1799. And the steroids just added insult to injury, I think,

1800. with all that.

1801. Some suggested Bonds should retire rather than

1802. presume to play long enough to break Aaron's record.

1803. And as he approached Aaron's record,

1804. every game was sold out not just in San Francisco,

1805. but Chicago, in L.A.,

1806. every city the Giants went into, couldn't get a ticket for those games.

1807. So those fans I don't think were hoping he was gonna retire

1808. before he got to their city 'cause they'd already

1809. bought the tickets to see him play and I think they were

1810. hoping to see him hit one.

1811. Henry Aaron, who in 1974 had received racist hate mail

1812. and death threats as he approached Babe Ruth's home run record,

1813. grew tired of answering awkward questions

1814. about Bonds and decided to be elsewhere when his record

1815. was broken.

1816. Bud Selig, a close friend of Aaron's, said he wasn't sure

1817. he would be there either.

1818. Thee whole thing was a joyless march toward

1819. the inevitable.

1820. Baseball powerless, Selig with his hands in his pockets

1821. watching obviously in some pain, not just because of what

1822. had happened to the game but what had happened to his

1823. lifelong friend Henry Aaron and Aaron's mark.

1824. Bonds got threats and hate mail, too.

1825. Fans in opposing ballparks taunted him, booed when he was

1826. announced as the hitter, then booed louder when their

1827. own pitchers walked him.

1828. Boo me, cheer me— those that are going to cheer me

1829. are going to cheer me, and those that are going to

1830. boo me are going to boo me.

1831. But they still come see the show.

1832. And I'm happy. L.A., Dodger Stadium is the best show

1833. I ever go to and watch baseball.

1834. They say, "Barry sucks" louder than anybody out there.

1835. And you know what, you'll see me in left field going just like this,

1836. because you know what, you've got to have some serious talent

1837. to have 53,000 people saying "you suck."

1838. And I'm proud of that.

1839. On August 4, 2007, Bonds faced Clay Hensley,

1840. who had once been suspended for 15 games after

1841. testing positive for steroids.

1842. There it is.

1843. Number 755.

1844. Barry Bonds has done it.

1845. He has tied Henry Aaron.

1846. His 755th career home run.

1847. On August 7th, a sellout crowd crammed into

1848. AT&T Park in San Francisco to see the Giants play

1849. the Washington Nationals.

1850. In the bottom of the 5th, with one out and nobody on,

1851. Bonds faced lefthander Mike Bacsik.

1852. and Bacsik deals.

1853. And Bonds hits one high, hits it deep.

1854. It is outta here!

1855. 756!

1856. Bonds stands alone.

1857. He is on top of the all-time home run list.

1858. What a special moment for Barry Bonds and what a special moment

1859. for these fans here in San Francisco.

1860. There it is.

1861. Hank Aaron: I would like to offer my congratulations to

1862. Barry Bonds on becoming baseball's career home run leader.

1863. It is a great accomplishment, which required skill,

1864. longevity, and determination.

1865. I'll move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry

1866. and his family on this historical achievement.

1867. When Hank Aaron's record went down, I felt nothing.

1868. I can't tell you where I was.

1869. I didn't wake up my son to let him watch the moment.

1870. I didn't care.

1871. And I think that a lot of people felt the exact same way

1872. I did because of all that had been lost.

1873. This was not supposed to be this way.

1874. If you care about the sport, no matter how you felt

1875. about the man, when you achieve the all-time home run record,

1876. this is supposed to be a moment of celebration.

1877. This is supposed to be a moment where everybody drops

1878. their swords and they recognize the history that

1879. they've witnessed.

1880. And none of that happened.

1881. And to me that told you more than anything else

1882. about what's been lost in this sport.

1883. Some people have suggested that this record is—

1884. the word, you've heard that word "tainted".

1885. Do you feel at all it's tainted, and what would you say—

1886. This record is not tainted at all, at all, period.

1887. I'm not a big believer in putting

1888. an asterisk next to records.

1889. You start pulling on this one thread, say it's Barry Bonds,

1890. and it leads to another thread.

1891. The pitchers he hit against; the players who were in the field;

1892. the players who were competing against him.

1893. Who was clean? Who was dirty?

1894. You're not gonna be ever able to answer those questions.

1895. But I think in some ways the asterisk is already there.

1896. There are no asterisks.

1897. There's no asterisk next to the name

1898. of the Cincinnati Reds who won the 1919 World Series

1899. that was thrown.

1900. It doesn't say they didn't deserve to win, you know,

1901. asterisk, they should have lost.

1902. The asterisk is whatever exists in the minds of the fan.

1903. "No asterisk," Henry Aaron said.

1904. "Let's just congratulate Barry and give him his due."

1905. Many baseball fans disagreed.

1906. Although other players had used performance-enhancing drugs,

1907. Bonds had become the symbol of the "Steroids Era."

1908. Barry Bonds finished 2007 with 762 career home runs.

1909. Although he remained one of the toughest outs in the game,

1910. San Francisco decided not to offer him a contract for 2008.

1911. Other teams stayed away, too.

1912. He never played again.

1913. For more than a decade there has been

1914. widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids by players

1915. in Major League Baseball.

1916. This has not been an isolated problem

1917. involving just a few players or a few clubs.

1918. In December 2007, a commission set up by Major League Baseball

1919. and led by former senator George Mitchell

1920. to investigate the steroids scandal, released its report.

1921. It was a damning indictment.

1922. Players on every team illegally took drugs to

1923. enhance their performances, and club owners, general managers

1924. and managers routinely considered players'

1925. possible steroid use when discussing their injuries

1926. or strategizing about trades and contracts.

1927. I thought the Mitchell Report was good

1928. insofar as it provided an official declaration that

1929. there was a steroid era, that it was long-lasting

1930. and pervasive, that it wasn't isolated, and that it affected

1931. contemporary competition and distorted the game's history.

1932. So far so good.

1933. But beyond that, there's a randomness to it, which is not

1934. to say that any of the individual accusations are

1935. inaccurate, but it's so selective and random.

1936. Off the top of my head I could name 100 guys who likely

1937. could have wound up in the Mitchell Report, and just by luck escaped.

1938. Although 89 players were named, the most

1939. sensational section of the report was devoted to

1940. allegations of extensive doping by the most successful

1941. pitcher of the previous 15 years, Roger Clemens—

1942. winner of 354 games and 7 Cy Young awards.

1943. So now with Roger Clemens they got a white player

1944. with comparable accomplishments

1945. in the game to Bonds.

1946. it gives baseball an out.

1947. First, you have a position player and now you have

1948. a pitcher.

1949. You have a black and you have a white and both of them are

1950. big stars who normally would make the Hall of Fame and now

1951. it's kind of clouded and you don't know whether they'll

1952. make it or not.

1953. In the coming months and years, other players,

1954. including some of the greatest stars in the game, would also be exposed:

1955. Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro,

1956. and Manny Ramirez.

1957. Mark McGwire, saying it was now time to "talk about the past,"

1958. admitted what many had long suspected,

1959. that he had used steroids for most of his career,

1960. including 1998, the year he was so celebrated for breaking

1961. the single-season home run record.

1962. Roger Clemens vehemently denied doing anything wrong.

1963. Barry Bonds, under indictment for perjury in the BALCO

1964. investigation, said nothing.

1965. Yeah, it's a bad thing.

1966. Baseball had a black eye but I'm not sure that everybody should have been named.

1967. It's a sad time but it's something we have to deal with,

1968. we have to get through it and,

1969. you know, hopefully there's sun shining on the other side of this thing

1970. because this game is too beautiful

1971. to, you know, have a lasting scar on it.

1972. When you look at the Mitchell Report,

1973. and you look at the minor league program, and you

1974. look at the major league program, and you look

1975. at the people who've been suspended, doesn't matter who they are,

1976. we're gonna clean this sport up.

1977. I'm the commissioner.

1978. I'll take full responsibility to everything that's gone on

1979. in my tenure.

1980. I'll take credit for all the great things and I'll take

1981. responsibility for these things.

1982. And I think that's fair.

1983. The moralist wants to decide what's right and wrong.

1984. The artist wants to see things exactly as they are, even if

1985. there are so many shades that right and wrong isn't a place

1986. that you get to.

1987. John Keats wrote in a letter— and he was talking

1988. about William Shakespeare— he said that the feature that

1989. distinguished Shakespeare the most and made him the greatest

1990. of all writers was what Keats called negative capability,

1991. which he described as the ability to remain in tension,

1992. undecided between opposing poles.

1993. And he said that Shakespeare

1994. had that negative capability—the ability to see everything

1995. and not jump to one side of the question

1996. to a greater degree than any other artist.

1997. Now we live in a sports age and a baseball age where

1998. nothing's more valuable than negative capability,

1999. because if we're just in a rush, if we can't wait to see

2000. Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or whoever it is as right or wrong,

2001. then we're missing the complexity of these people

2002. and the difficulty of the age that they're living in.

2003. A groundball up the middle.

2004. Sliding stop.

2005. Jack Wilson flips it to Castilla.

2006. Throw to first base!

2007. How did they do it?

2008. Slicing foul.

2009. Byrnes dives.

2010. Got it.

2011. An amazing catch by Byrnes.

2012. Jason Varitek a swing.

2013. A fly ball into centerfield,

2014. and Ichiro going back to the running track.

2015. to the wall, reaches back, and he makes the catch!

2016. Holy smokes!

2017. An amazing running catch by Ichiro! Right into the wall...

2018. At the end of the day, I think most people

2019. have found a way to make their peace with the sport they love

2020. because they don't wanna say good-bye to it.

2021. The fan has decided that the game is more important than the players,

2022. that the game is more important than the owners.

2023. The game is more important than steroids.

2024. It's more important than money.

2025. It's more important than all of it.

2026. Here's the 1-2 pitch to Palmeiro.

2027. A ground ball, past Jenks, up the middle of the infield.

2028. Uribe has it, he throws.

2029. Out! Out! The White Sox win!

2030. And a World Championship!

2031. The White Sox have won the World...

2032. Swing and a miss!

2033. The Cardinals are world champions for 2006!

2034. The 10th world championship in their illustrious history.

2035. Game over, Series over, and the Red Sox are world champs again!

2036. The 0-2 pitch.

2037. Swing and a miss! Struck him out!

2038. The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 world champions

2039. of baseball!

2040. In 2009, in the midst of the worst economic crisis

2041. since the Great Depression, baseball gloried

2042. in one of the most exciting World Series in years,

2043. reminding the country and the world of the joyousness,

2044. the unpredictability, and the surpassing beauty of the game.

2045. The Yankees, having bolstered their old guard of homegrown talent

2046. with a new crop of lavishly paid free-agents,

2047. faced the Philadelphia Phillies,

2048. the defending champions.

2049. The MVP of the series was Hideki Matsui, a former

2050. outfielder for the Yomiuri Giants, who led New York to

2051. their 27th championship.

2052. And there's number 27.

2053. The Yankees have won it all again.

2054. It just seems to be eternal.

2055. You know how they say that forest fires are good for forests?

2056. Every year you think there's possibility in the ground.

2057. There's new trees there.

2058. We can be a forest one day.

2059. dives and makes the catch.

2060. I don't know why that is in that sport.

2061. Maybe it's the number of games, maybe it's the right

2062. number of players, more than in basketball, less than

2063. in football.

2064. What a catch by Tory Hunter!

2065. There's nothing quite like it, and it still takes my breath away

2066. after 50 years.

2067. I can't not feel that way.

2068. I've looked for the next generation of ball players

2069. to be less serious, to be less craftsman-like,

2070. to be less committed to be less reckless—

2071. a virtue sometimes— but they haven't.

2072. It's wonderful how the game revitalizes itself, reshapes itself,

2073. shows a different facet of itself

2074. and yet essentially doesn't change.

2075. What a wonderful touchstone to return to—always the same,

2076. always changing.

2077. When my children have children—we have our

2078. first grandchild now, a little girl—I'm gonna teach her how

2079. to keep score, and hopefully someday my children and their

2080. children will remember going to games with me

2081. just as I remembered going to games with my father.

2082. They'll tell stories about me and funny stories the way

2083. I do about my father, which means that those lives don't

2084. really come to an end, that you really can live

2085. on in the memory of others.

2086. And to the extent that baseball is a continuing thread

2087. through many of our lives, then the stories that

2088. will be told will keep the memory of us alive.

2089. I do love this game.

2090. I love being there.

2091. Other than my home, other than being with my family, it is,

2092. I can honestly say, the one place I truly feel at home,

2093. at peace, comfortable, is at Fenway Park watching

2094. the Red Sox play.

2095. I always have, through losing years, winning years, I just

2096. feel it's a piece of my home.

2097. Man on radio: Well, let me ask you, do you think the Red Sox have

2098. any appetite to trade some of these young arms?

2099. They've got 3 who are just off the charts and...

2100. I mean, the Yankees obviously

2101. are a very talented team.

2102. They have some issues, but I do think they will be in it.