16A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 21, 1999

Team of the 90's title up
for grabs at World Series

ATLANTA (AP) - At stake, the
World Series crown and this title:
Team of the Decade.
The defending champion New York
Yankees and Atlanta Braves, already
plenty familiar with each other, meet
again in Game 1 Saturday night at
Turner Field.
It's a rematch of the 1996 Series, in
which Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and
the Yankees rallied to beat Greg
Maddux, Chipper Jones and the
Braves in six games.
"We've got another shot at them,"
Jones said Tuesday night after the
Braves derailed any chance of a
Subway Series, beating the New York
Mets 10-9 in 11 innings to win the NL
Championship Series 4-2.
"We'll try to be team of the decade
if that's what we're playing for,"
Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "It
will be a lot of fun."
And it includes this twist - for the
first time, the World Series features
teams that played during the regular
season.
Right after the All-Star break, Tom
Glavine, Brian Jordan and Atlanta
won two of three interleague games at
Yankee Stadium.
I' don't think that would take away
anything," said Gene Michael, the
Yankees' director of major league
scouting. "They're both great clubs,
and this is what matters."
Michael was at Turner Field on

Tuesday night, a day after the Yanke
wrapped up their record 36th penna
with a 6-1 victory at Boston to ta
the ALCS in five games.
Manager Joe Torre, once fired1
the Braves, is taking New York oni
third trip to the Series in four yea
The Yankees will try to win the
record 25th title and become the fi
club to win two in a row since Toron
in 1993.
The Yankees and Braves both pos
ed the best record in their leagues th
season, and they did it the same way
strong pitching.
ALCS MVP Orlando "El Duqu
Hernandez, David Cone, Rog
Clemens and Pettitte lead New York
rotation, and closer Mariano Rive
has been dominant, especially durin
his postseason career.
Glavine, John Smoltz, Maddux a
Kevin Millwood lead the Braves, wi
excitable John Rocker in the bullpe
In three years of interleague pl
the Braves and Yankees have splitI
games.
This summer, Andruw Jones a
Ryan Klesko each hit two homers a
Jordan, who nearly signed with t
Yankees in the offseason, drove
five runs against New York. Rive
and Hernandez were hit hard for Ne
York.
For Atlanta, this is one last chan
to win that elusive second Series titi
The Braves reached the final eig

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NLCS of the decade and lead the
majors with an 860-532 regular-sea-
son record since 1991.
"We've persevered through so
much this year. Everybody's kind of
drained," Chipper Jones said.
"Luckily we've got a couple of days
off here."
For the Yankees, whose 784-607
record since 1991 is second-best in
the majors, this is an opportunity to
win their third Series title. New York
reached the playoffs in the last five
years of the decade.
Several key players have come and
gone from both teams since the '96
Series.
Among others, the Braves have
added Jordan, Rocker, Millwood, Bret
Boone and lost Marquis Grissom,
Mark Lemke, Fred McGriff and Mark
Wohlers, who served up the pivotal
home run to Jim Leyritz in Game 4.
"I think this is the best team we've
ever had," Atlanta owner Ted Turner
said after the Braves outlasted the
Mets. "We've got to go through both
New York teams. Nobody has ever
done that."
The Yankees have added
Hernandez, Chuck Knoblauch, 1998
World Series MVP Scott
Brosius, Clemens and designated
hitter Chili Davis - the DH will only

ice e usd a Yanee tadim -and ostAP PHOTO
cc be used at Yankee Stadium - and lost Atlanta centerfielder Andruw Jones celebrates after drawing the walk that secured the Braves' berth in the World Series. The
=c. Jimmy Key, Cecil Fielder and 1996 Braves will try to win their second World Series title of the decade when the Series begins Saturday in Atlanta.
ht Series MVP John Wetteland.
National League East dynas bunes
'Miracle Mets' in nailbiting thriller

ATLANTA (AP) - Hanging to
the precipice, the New York Mets
had been infused with a new sense
of their resiliency and immortality
by the victories over the Atlanta
Braves in Games 4 and 5 of the
National League Championship
Series.
They were coming back from the
grave again. They were returning to
Georgia convinced that fate and
destiny shared their charter.
Well, destiny turned to dust
Tuesday night. The magic finally
expired.
The Mets were finally left dead
and buried, but not before they had
the Braves seeing ghosts again, not
before they again underscored the
meaning of heart.
The Mets lost, 10-9, in an I1t-
inning encore to Sunday's 15-inning
thriller.
The Braves, winning a fifth
National League pennant in the '90s
advance to a Team of the Decade
confrontation with the New York

The Mets, who came back from 5-
0 against Kevin Millwood and 7-3
against John Smoltz, face a long
winter of'bittersweet memories.
Relief pitcher John Franco, a Met
for 16 years, reflected on the lost
leads of 8-7 and 9-8* following the
comeback.
"Right now it's very frustrating
and very demoralizing, but we had
our backs to the wall and came back
like champions. Everyone in this
room should be proud. So many
people counted us out the last 2
weeks."
So many people counted the Mets
out when they lost seven consecu-
tive games during the final two
weeks of the reg ular season and
when they lost the first three games
of this series.
No team in postseason history
had come back from 0-3 to force a
seventh game, let alone win, but the
Mets were within two outs of creat-
ing a seventh game when the Braves
tied it at 9-9 on Ozzie Guillen's sin-

Andruw Jones' bases-loaded walk
in the 11 th.
'Exhilarating," general manager
John Schuerholz said as he waited
for an elevator that would take him
to the champagne celebration in the
Atlanta clubhouse.
If that has become a ritual, it is
still one the Braves soak up, and
particularly this year when they had
the best record in baseball and are
still playing in the postseason
despite the loss of Andres
Galarraga, Javier Lopez and Kerry
Ligtenberg, among others.
Now they have another chance to
make a claim to the Team of the
Decade against the leading chal-
lenger to that label.
The Braves are pounded by some
for having won only one World
Series title in the '90s despite eight
division championships and the four
previous pennants, but Schuerholz
said he is not into labels and that the
Braves have nothing to prove.
"We're one of only four teams in
1.. to* win A100 (mes for three

straight years," he said. "We ye
have the highest win percentage in
the 90s, eight division champa-
onships and now five pennants. I
think all of that is a much more
meaningful criteria than any other
statistic.
"I mean, we're frustrated and dis
appointed not to have won mor
World Series titles because we havc
clubs that were good enough to
it, but how can you not be proud a
satisfied with what we've accom-
plished.
".Just getting to the World Series
is the biggest challenge. We've now
played in the LCS eight times in the;
decade against seven differet
opponents.
"If it was so easy, you'd think we
would have played the same oppo-
nent three or four times or at leaW
two or three times.
"If it's so simple, you would think
somebody else would have figured.
out how to do it. That's another pret-
ty good criteria of what we've
done."

.,

Yankees in the World Series gle in the i0th and won it on hisi o wiivvzuxtvim ,
Manager Torre 'still crazy after all these
years' for his pinstripes and the Bronx
BOSTON (AP) - For months, Houk (three). "You go through that - and when the first time since joining the major


k

AP PHOTO
Brian Jordan and the rest of the Braves were given quite a scare by the Mets
before ending New York's improbable playoff run in Game 6 of the NLCS
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COLLEGE WITH A
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UNFO RTUNATELY,
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Some people simply don't iH E R D E .
"grow out" of their acne. It remains well into their twenties. Sometimes
longer. Truth is, it's a medical condition. Right now, if you are a male
between the ages of 18 and 35 and have moderate to severe acne.

Joe Torre didn't know if he cared
enough to keep managing.
Cancer will do that.
Then, last month in Toronto's
SkyDome, with the Yankees' divi-
sion lead dwindling, he learned
something about himself.
"All of a sudden, my stomach
started hurting and I realized the
passion was there," he said early
Tuesday after leading New York past
Boston and into the World Series for
the third time in his four seasons.
He is the fifth Yankees manager to
win three pennants, joining Casey
Stengel (10), Joe McCarthy (eight),
Miller Huggins (six) and Ralph

And now the 59-year-old New
Yorker will face a World Series
opponent that fired him, the Atlanta
Braves.
But for a while, he wasn't sure he
belonged.
He was diagnosed with cancer
during spring training and left the
team March 10. He had surgery
eight days later and didn't rejoin the
Yankees until May 18.
"When that whole thing started
with the prostate cancer in spring
training, you really didn't care about
baseball," he said under the Fenway
Park stands, trying to put his team's
season and his life in perspective.

you're going through your recovery,
you're not sure if you're going to
care when you get back. Then, once
I got back, it was sort of like, let me
study myself."
When Torre rejoined the team, he
kind of drifted along, as his team did
for much of the 1999 season.
"I know a lot of my players had
said I was a little bit different
because I sort of had this philosophy
or perspective that it's only a game
of baseball," Torre said.
New York opened a comfortable
lead and wasn't really pressed until
the Red Sox swept a three-game
series at Yankee Stadium from Sept.
W0-12. David Wells beat them the
next night, and the Yankees were los-
ing 5-1 - knowing Boston was ahead
and could close to 2? games - before
Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill
hit grand slams.
"That," Torre said, "probably was
an emotional turnaround for me and
I realized how important this was for
me."
In 1996, his brother, Frank, had a
heart transplant. The story of the
Torres riveted New York, with Joe
finally making the World Series for
Yule lhdl Rhil

leagues in 1960.
Last year, Torre felt tremenddus
pressure to win the Series after 'the
team went 1 14-48 during the regular
season, setting an AL record for
wins.
But since that night in Torol,
Torre has felt he belonged.,.
"In the postseason, it's identicalto,
last year, maybe even a little. more,.
so," he said. "I'm all the way back as
far as the emotion of what 1m
doing. But it's been a wild year."-
Even George Steinbrenner,.who
spent the 1970s and 80s changngg'
managers as often as some teams
changed their starting rotatiops,
praises Torre. Of course, it's easy 41
The Boss. Torre wins.
"When your manager comes
through like that, he inspires them,",
Steinbrenner said early Tusayd
"He's definitely been an inspir-a
tion."
Players agree. Torre has a kna'[r
say exactly the right thing, aj,
time.
"He knows how to handle every
player individually," Derek J4
said. "But he also knows how, to
handle people collectively."
Torre knew the year would be dif-
ficult before he went to Florida in
February, but he was thinking only
about the baseball part. New VY;k
has spent the better part of the last