A Good Day in New York

Bleacher Creatures, Spike Lee wannabees, Firemen Eds, and every other fan in love with New York sports... I give you The Back Page.

On this page, I will wax (kind of) eloquent about all sports New York. Yanks, Mets, Knicks, Jaspers -- PSAL baseball, I don't care. If it's sports-related, interesting, and about New York, it's fair game. So for all you CCNY fans wanting to relive the 1950 NIT-NCAA double or Bassy Telfair diehards who don't care how hard it's been for him because he's still got it, this is the place for you.

Let's kick things off with a look back at a sensational 24 hours for the New York Yankees.
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For about an hour on Saturday afternoon, a crowd of 48,796 at Yankee Stadium had a chance to witness Part 2 of one of the best two-day periods in the history of New York sports. Instead, it turned out to be a cut below.

Allow me to explain.

On Friday, the Yanks won a 5-hour, 33-minute, 15-inning Instant Classics where the only runs came on the game's final swing. Not only did A.J. Burnett and the Yankee bullpen completely shut down the Red Sox offense, but A-Rod -- A-Rod -- was the hero, blasting a line drive over the left-center field wall for a 2-0 win.

Saturday's pitching matchup seemed to favor the Bombers -- C.C. Sabathia against the mercurial Clay Buchholz -- but how could it possibly be as good as Friday's thriller?

Answer: A no-hitter.

Or at least that's what it looked like for a while. C.C. was mowing down the Boston lineup, topping out in the high 90s with pinpoint accuracy. For a couple innings, it looked like it just might happen. But Jacoby Ellsbury laced a two-out single up the middle in the sixth, and it became just another Yankee-Red Sox game.

The whole thing got me thinking about other great 1-2 punches in New York sports history that occurred on consecutive days. For me, nothing could match Games 4 and 5 of the 2001 World Series, when the Yanks hit two-out, two-run homers in the bottom of the ninth off Byung-Hyun Kim to tie the score two games in a row.

I was at Game 4, and it remains the best sporting event I've ever seen live. When Tino Martinez took Kim deep to tie the game, the upper deck literally shook because people were going so crazy. When Scott Brosius did the exact same thing one day later, I raced around my apartment emitting a cackling sound reminiscent of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Other great ones I remember include Games 6-7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals (Matteau! Matteau! Matteau!) and Games 4-5 of the 1996 World Series. (The flip side is led by Games 6-7 of the 2004 ALCS, and everything else is a distant second).

But I know this is an incomplete list, and I haven't been alive that long. So weigh in. Throw a couple suggestions out there yourself, or tell me how full of crap I am for missing one example or another.

That's how it's gonna be, folks. I write, you respond. And we're just getting started.

Spreading the news,
Jake Simpson