The Jeffrey Maier game

[Just Regular]

A painful one, to be sure.  But my DVR did pick up its rebroadcast on NBCSN, and it is rare to have a vintage rebroadcast that isn't a handpicked MASN classic with the hometown announcer spin - Costas, Morgan and Uecker in the booth.

I've only done the Top of the 1st, and 2020 me has...

cringed at Todd Zeile and his 91 OPS+ batting 2nd, even as a righty masher vs. Pettitte. 

-been Costas reminded also we picked up Incaviglia too to remedy issues v. LHP, and that the '96 Orioles were MLB's first playoff team with a 5.00 ERA.

-observed Parent batting 9th (along with Jeter) that day, though Hoiles was the regular that year.  Hoiles in Game 2, guess Parent was Erickson's personal catcher.

Skimming the series on B-Ref, I knew we took Game 2, but hadn't remembered in the 9th Davey had to pull Myers (had given up Bernie 11th inning walkoff yesterday) in favor of Benitez (had given up Jeter 8th inning fly out).

Of course a fresh cavalcade of Alomar boos in the Top of the 1st, as the spitting incident recent then.

 

[Just Regular]

And on the first play of the Bottom of the 1st, Raines "doubles" to LF Surhoff on a batted ball can of corn with probably 0.1% hit probability.

Morgan thinks lost in upper deck white shirts.

[Just Regular]

Costas tidbit that Surhoff's NBA dad played 3 minutes in the Knicks 1953 Finals loss to Mikan's Minneapolis Lakers.

[WillyM]

Tony Tarasco, seeing that he was going to be able to catch Jeter's ball just in front of the wall, made no effort to jump for it.  Such an effort would have been totally unnecessary if not for Maier's interference, which Tarasco wasn't anticipating.

I have a dim recollection that a former Yankee (Dave Winfield, maybe) who was noted for making spectacular leaping efforts to catch fly balls near or above the top of the wall, commented afterwards that Tarasco should have jumped for the ball, since by doing so he might have contacted Maier's hand and made the interference more apparent.

Tarasco had just entered the game as a defensive replacement for Bobby Bonilla.  Bonilla probably didn't cover as much ground as Tarasco, but he was three inches taller and might have been able to jump a little higher.

I guess we can speculate forever whether Bonilla would have jumped for the ball if he had been left in the game.