| | NEW YORK -- Three years ago, Bernie Williams won the opening
game of the American League Championship Series with a leadoff home
run in the bottom of the 11th inning.
On Wednesday night against Boston, with Yogi Berra in the house,
it was deja vu all over again for the New York Yankees cleanup
hitter.
Williams nailed reliever Rod Beck's second pitch in the bottom
of the 10th inning, giving the Yankees a 4-3 victory over the Red
Sox. And, he admitted that when Paul O'Neill grounded out to end
the ninth inning, he remembered the 1996 playoff shot.
"It was all I was thinking about when Paul grounded out,"
Williams said. "It was the same situation. I tried to keep it off
my mind. This was a different pitcher and a different team. What
are the chances of it happening twice?"
Very good, in fact.
Williams took a strike on a first-pitch fastball inside and Beck
decided to go right back there with the second pitch.
"If I would have been guessing, I probably would have pulled it
foul," Williams said. "The last time I faced him, he threw me a
pitch off the plate inside and broke my bat. I think the way to
approach it is just to stay inside and not try to pull it and
that's what I did. I tried to stay inside the ball and hit it with
the good part of the bat and put my hips into it and it went out."
Williams connected and the ball headed to straightaway center
field where Darren Lewis turned and raced to the wall.
"I didn't think it would be gone," Williams said,. "He had
his back to me. I figured he'd play it off the wall. When it went
out, I was surprised."
It was Williams' 11th postseason home run, and like so many long
balls, Williams said he wasn't swinging for the fences.
"I was trying to get on base, have a good at-bat," he said.
"I was the first guy up, leading off the inning. There were so
many good batters behind me."
Just like 1996, when Williams' leadoff at-bat ended the same
way.
During the offseason, it seemed Williams was headed for Boston
as a free agent. "I was very close," he said. There were a lot of
conversations."
Manager Joe Torre figured his cleanup man was gone.
"I really didn't pay attention to where he was going," Torre
said. "My concern was he wasn't going to be with us. We had to
look and see where our production was going to come from."
Williams signed with the Yankees at the last minute and the
production came from the same place it had come all along -- the
center fielder with the sweet swing and the talent for game-winning
home runs.
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ALSO SEE
Yankees vs. Red Sox series page
Bernie blasts Beck for game-winner
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