After a 19-8 pummeling in Game 3, the Yankees went up 2-0 in Game 4, and the coffin was being nailed. Cabrera and Ortiz knocked in a few in the 5th to make it 3-2 Sox, but the Yanks reclaimed the lead in the next frame, going up 4-3.
Rivera started the 8th for New York, allowing a lead-off single, but then retiring the side. In the bottom of the 9th, Kevin Millar worked a walk, and was then pinch-ran for by Dave Roberts. Then...
Bill Mueller knocked a single into center, and the fleet-footed Roberts came round to tie the game. The ALCS was not going to end in four games, at least not four 9 inning games.
It went to 12. The Sox had Curtis Leskanic on the mound in the top of the inning, obviously getting desperate in that bullpen. But Manny and Ortiz were due-up in the bottom half. Leskanic did his job.
Manny singled, go-ahead run on. Just needed an extra basehit from Ortiz, or at least something to move the runner along. We got...
Great moments rarely have their greatness immediately appreciated. When George Patton first commanded a tank in combat, few historians were there to take note. When Abraham Lincoln ran for the Illinois General Assembly in 1823, no monuments were constructed. And when the Sox won Game 4, we all enjoyed it, but we had no idea of the epic chain of events that had been ignited.
The next night, a 14 inning, nearly 6 hour double-marathon of baseball once again ended with David Ortiz's bat...
Game 6 gave us one of the most indelible images in sports history...
It also gave us an inning of baseball played with riot police lining the field...
Then there was Game 7...
And the World Series...
But the magic all started with Game 4 of the ALCS. The Game of the Decade.
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