A Catcher Who's Match For Ex-Fireman Wally

Wally the Ex-Firefighter’s reputation as a Yankee fan of mythic proportions is sometimes tested by Jorge Posada.

The team’s catcher is one of the best offensively at his position. The area behind the bat, however, sometimes gets cramped, with Mr. Posada’s twin demons, in the form of media critics and pitchers who prefer having someone else guiding them, sitting like large chips on each shoulder.

One of those pitchers, A.J. Burnett, was on the mound for the second game of the American League Division Series against the Minnesota Twins as Wally and I settled into our seats down the right-field line in the second deck of the new Yankee Stadium Oct. 9. This prompted Yankee manager Joe Girardi to tap Jose Molina to catch him.

Mr. Molina, despite being the nifty answer to a trivia question as the last man to homer at the old Yankee Stadium, isn’t half the hitter Mr. Posada is. But he has a more-consistent throwing arm, calls a better game, frames pitches as well as anyone to get borderline strike calls and does not have Jorge’s penchant for passed balls. And so given Mr. Burnett’s comfort level with him, using him in place of Mr. Posada wasn’t that shocking.

MARIANO RIVERA: No doubt about it. An Unhappy Catcher

But the Yankees’ regular catcher made no effort to hide his unhappiness about the change, telling reporters somewhat ominously that he just hoped the team won the game.

Or what? Wally wanted to know. He went so far as to cast aspersions on Derek Jeter for speaking about how strange it would be not to have Mr. Posada—who had started every Yankee post-season game except one since 2005—behind the plate. It wasn’t as if the Bronx Bombers had a sterling record in all those contests, given their three straight exits from post-season play in the first round before missing the playoffs entirely last year. All of them occurring, coincidentally, after Wally had retired from the Fire Department, meaning he no longer had to juggle his schedule to make it to the Stadium.

JORGE POSADA: Confounding his critics. Some people might believe Wally’s discontent had been exacerbated by our treatment by the team in the area of tickets. Bad enough that after a decade of seats toward the front of the upper deck just to the right of home plate under a Sunday ticket plan, we had been hammered like a hanging curveball into a spot just to the right of the left-field foul pole, a change you could only like if you enjoy being sunburned while getting a lousy view of the action.

Adding injury to insult, we had lost our right to get tickets for one game of each playoff round. Worse yet, an even more-reliable playoff connection had gone sour, and so we were in the ballpark tonight only by the odd twist that a childhood buddy who grew up to be a millionaire had for some reason remained friends with me and sold us two of his seats.

Earlier in the season, contemplating how cruelly we had been treated, Wally said he was tempted to root for the Yankees to have a thrilling season in which the playoffs seemed a certainty, then have them collapse down the stretch and barely fail to qualify. “Only that,” he said, “would make me A MET FAN.” It wasn’t clear whether he meant strictly from a spite standpoint or because that is the normal fate for those of us who root harder for the team on the other side of the RFK Bridge, but Wally’s point was that he couldn’t indulge such childish emotions.

A Run on His Equilibrium

After all, he already had a multitude of such emotions churning away. For the first five innings, he kept them under control, although he needed an occasional reminder that being in a tie game when your team has the superior bullpen is no reason to feel a crisis is just around the corner. Then the Twins, who had squandered several earlier opportunities, scored a run in the top of the sixth, and Wally’s equilibrium began to grow pale.

Any doubts about whether this would be Mr. Burnett’s last inning on the mound vanished when, in the bottom of the sixth, Mr. Posada came out of the dugout to pinch-hit for Mr. Molina. He slammed a pitch to deep centerfield, but the crowd’s roar turned to groans when his drive settled into Carlos Gomez’s glove.

This was all Wally needed to castigate Mr. Posada for what most sane people would have regarded as a strong effort. Mocking the normal fan chant, he proclaimed, “Hip-hip baby!” causing persons all around us to stare. Undeterred, Wally shouted, “Back to the bench, Jorge!”

A few minutes later, he gave me a crooked smile and remarked on how the couple in front of us had been “looking at me like,

What’s your problem?’ ’’

I replied, “If I didn’t know you, I’d be thinking the same thing.”

By then, Mr. Jeter was standing on second base with a double, and two batters later Alex Rodriguez singled him home with the tying run. Wally was calm again.

In the top of the eighth, however, with two men out the Twins strung together a walk and three singles to take a two-run lead. Wally took a certain perverse satisfaction in knowing that this meant that with Mr. Molina in the game, the Yankee team earned run average had been 1.50; with Mr. Posada replacing him for the past two innings it was 9.00.

When they failed to score in the bottom of the eighth, he said we should move down to the first level to watch the ninth inning so we could leave the stadium faster after the game.

I had objections for a couple of reasons. One was that while being in the third deck at the old stadium sometimes left you with a half-hour wait before you got out at the end of a playoff game, the new one has more exits and we were a level further down. The other was that while in the old stadium you could generally slide into vacated seats without much problem, ushers at the new ballpark were under strict orders not to allow anyone to move into those seats, one of those customer service touches that has further endeared the team’s management to its fans.

An Obstructed View

This meant we were going to be standing up, our views obstructed anytime the sitting customers stood, which occurred whenever something remotely interesting happened. You could, of course, follow the action on the TV monitors installed at the back of the seating area, but we could’ve done that in a bar outside the stadium and really saved time in the race for the car afterward. I could have refused to leave our seats and told Wally I’d meet him later, but then I would have missed out on his conversational musings.

And so, with Joe Nathan pitching in the bottom of the ninth, I did not see the ball jump off A-Rod’s bat; by the time the image appeared on a delay on the TV monitor, I had turned with the roar of the crowd to see Mr. Gomez climbing the wall in right-center but not even making a leap as the ball sailed over it to tie the score. There was an explosion of noise; total strangers were leaping in glee to deliver high-fives, and I was reminding Wally that, soothing as it might be to have the Yankees take a five-run lead early, it deprived you of the chance to see comebacks like this late in the game.

No Retreat for Wally

Some of the other standees were getting rowdy, making threats against someone in the vicinity wearing a Twins cap. Seeing the action on the TV seconds after the fans who could view the field had already reacted to it wore on me; I asked Wally if we could go back to the seats. He demurred, but we moved over a couple of sections to a less-obstructed area.

In the bottom of the 10th, Brett Gardner pinch-ran for Mr. Posada and stole second, then moved to third on a wild pickoff attempt. Mr. Jeter was intentionally walked and we began to sense victory as Johnny Damon stepped to the plate. But he lined a ball to the shortstop and Mr. Gardner got caught off third for an inning-ending double play.

The Yankees brought in Damaso Marte, who was on the playoff roster only to get out left-handed hitters. He caught a break when Joe Mauer’s soft liner to left ticked off Melky Cabrera’s glove but the umpire blew the call and signaled foul ball. Mr. Mauer then singled, and Jason Kubel did so, too, meaning Mr. Marte had faced two lefties and given up three hits. His replacement, David Robertson, gave up a sharp single to Michael Cuddyer, but to our astonishment, Mr. Mauer stopped at third. Even more amazingly, Mr. Robertson qualified for his own Yankeeography by retiring the next three hitters without a run scoring.

An Ending With a Bang

We were still talking with wonder about that development when Mark Texeira led off the bottom of the 11th with a fierce liner to deep left that figured to be either a double or a foul ball but somehow climbed into the lower seats for a game-ending homer. And the stadium erupted with joy, people running as if the Yankees had won the series rather than merely solidifying their position by taking a 2- 0 lead.

“Ya know,” Wally said with a gleam in his eye as we walked toward his car, “Posada just missed a homerun before.”

“You noticed, huh?” I replied.

He was ecstatic, asking whether this wasn’t the best walk-off hit we’d ever seen in a post-season game.

“Well, there was Aaron Boone,” I reminded him.

And so we drove home happily, plans already made to reconvene two nights later at the home of Billy the Lawyer to watch the third game in Minnesota.

Wally showed up for the second inning in a merry mood. He had left his car just as the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots with a field goal in overtime, and one of his first thoughts upon entering the house was what the mood must be like in every bar in Boston. A few hours earlier, the Red Sox had blown a two-run lead with two outs in the ninth inning and been eliminated from the playoffs by the Angels, and now the Pats had coughed up a 10-point second-half lead.

Pretty, Pretty Depressing

“If the Yankees score a run or two,” I said, “every TV in Boston will be on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ by nine o’- clock.”

But Carl Pavano was working his way easily through the Yankee order, striking out six men in the first four innings. Andy Pettitte was working on a perfect game, but Wally was too perplexed by Mr. Pavano’s effort to enjoy that.

We had made it through the Chinese takeout and were back on Billy the Lawyer’s couch when Mr. Mauer drove in the first run of the game in the bottom of the sixth. But when the Yankees came up in the seventh, ARod homered with one out to tie the score. Two batters later, Mr. Posada lofted a long fly to left-center that barely cleared the railing and put them up 2-1. Everyone in the room turned to Wally.

“Hip-hip Jorge!” he shouted, arm thrust in the air.

His euphoria was interrupted, however, in the bottom of the inning when, after Mr. Pettitte struck out Mr. Kubel, Mr. Girardi decided to make a pitching change. We were all mystified: Big Game Andy was still going strong and had thrown just 81 pitches, and when Delmon Young greeted Joba Chamberlain with a double, Wally looked primed for a meltdown. Joba recovered, though, to retire the next two hitters.

Posada Doubles Down

Phil Hughes replaced him in the bottom of the eighth and surrendered a leadoff double to Nick Punto. Denard Span followed with a bouncing ball up the middle, which Mr. Jeter speared before it could reach the outfield. He had no chance to throw out the speedy Mr. Span, but Mr. Punto rounded third and headed home even though there was nobody out. Mr. Jeter made a one-bounce throw to the plate, leading Mr. Punto to turn and head back to third, but Mr. Posada gunned a strike to A-Rod, who slapped the tag on, and the threat was over.

Wally was thunderstruck; after years of deriding Mr. Posada’s abilities, particularly in clutch situations, here was a big homerun and an equally big throw in successive innings to provide and preserve a one-run lead. His excitement further intensified when four Twins’ pitchers combined to give up two more runs in the top half of the ninth. But when rightfielder Steve Swisher pulled away from a high inside pitch from Mr. Nathan with the bases loaded, Wally started shouting at the TV set.

“You gotta take one for the team and let it hit you in the shoulder!” he exclaimed.

I try to be patient with Wally, but this was too much. “You want him to risk a broken collarbone for a run they don’t need?” I said. “It’s 4-1 and you got Mariano coming in for the bottom of the ninth. The game is over, and if Mariano can’t hold a three-run lead, they deserve to lose the whole series.”

Tempting Fate

Wally looked at me in horror. Had I forgotten that Jonathan Papelbon, the Red Sox ace closer, had given up three runs in the ninth inning that afternoon?

“Mariano,” I said, “ain’t Papelbon.”

Billy the Lawyer and his daughter’s boyfriend were laughing. I turned to the kid and said, pointing at Wally, “Ya know, there are people who pay a lot of money to sit next to him and watch ballgames.”

“I can see why,” the kid said.

Mr. Swisher and Mr. Cabrera both struck out to leave the bases loaded, but it was academic: after permitting a bloop single by Mr. Cuddyer, Mr. Rivera disposed of the next three hitters, and the series was over.

The happiest person in the room should have been Billy the Lawyer: during a summer stop in Las Vegas, he had made a bet on the Yankees to win the World Series at 7-2 odds. But Wally, who didn’t have a dime on them, was so excited you could see the sweat glistening on his face.

Let the team’s management close off all our ticket options. We didn’t need to be in the ballpark to get the full Wally as they moved on to face the Angels.

By the middle of last week, he was trying to figure out how to find semiaffordable tickets for Game 7 while also offering a prediction: “We’re beating them in five.”

Go figure. Hip-hip Jorge!