Joe Posnanski

I’m really not much for awards. I mean, of course, everyone likes winning them (and you already know it’s an honor just being nominated) but one of my core professional beliefs is that if I put a lot of stock in awards, I also have to put a lot of stock in the people who daily write in to say that I’m the single biggest idiot who ever walked on the face of the earth. And anyway, I’m just a goofball who likes writing about sports.

Still, there were a couple of surprising award things that apparently happened this week without my prior knowledge — a couple of people emailed me the info — and, heck, if you’re not going to mention surprising award things that happen to you, really, what’s the point of even having a blog?

Apparently, this very site was given the 2007 Editor’s Choice Performancing Blog Award for Best Sports Blog. I honestly cannot tell you what this means, but it was very nice and you can look it up here (since apparently none of you actually bothered to VOTE for me … come on, why do I pay you for people?).

In an equally cool thing, The Soul of Baseball was named a finalist for The Casey Award, given annually to the best baseball book (sponsored by Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine). As you will see by the list, the Casey has been given out to some really great baseball books, and I’m very serious when I say that it is really special to be nominated.

OK, enough self congratulations.

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Several of you are pretty insistent that Tino Martinez’s game-tying homer on Halloween 2001, Game 4 of the World Series or Derek Jeter’s game-winner that night as the clock moved past midnight — one of these two should be on the list of greatest homers ever. You’re probably right.

Let me tell you a a goofy story about that game … I was there, and it remains one of the odder experiences of my professional life. This is sort of an “inside baseball writing” story. The World Series — as you might guess by all the “How are the kids supposed to watch these late night games?’ complaints that surface every year — is one of the tougher deadline events for a newspaper sportswriter. As I recall, I had an 11:45 Eastern Deadline that night, with the caveat that if the game went longer than that (as, of course it did), I would have what we sometimes call the “hit the button” deadline, which means you must have the column done and you need to hit the send button precisely when the game ends.

The hit-the-button deadline, more often than not, is easier than it may sound. Games, for the most part, follow a somewhat predictable pattern. Much of the time, you know which team is going to win in the fifth inning, early in the the fourth quarter, midway through the second half, whatever. I had a “hit-the-button” deadline, for instance, for the BCS Championship Game this year, and since the game followed the predictable pattern — Ohio State scored early then got demolished — it was not an overwhelmingly tough deadline column.

And this is another point — even when the game is close, you usually have a pretty decent feel for what’s going to happen and can start writing accordingly. You can often sense when one team is tiring, or you can feel the momentum shifting, or you just have a sports’ fans intuition — I can tell you, for instance, that I’ve talked to a couple dozen friends about that New England-Baltimore game a few weeks ago, and they all said the same thing: “Oh you just KNEW that New England was going to find some cheesy way to win that game.” And so it came to pass. It doesn’t always work that way — and sometimes you guess wrong — but after a few years in the business you learn how to cover your tracks, keep things open-minded and give yourself an exit strategy.

Well, I can tell you that Oct. 31, 2001, as deadline approached, I felt absolutely certain what was going to happen. And I began writing the “Yankees are dead” column. It was so clear. In the top of the eighth, score tied, you will recall, Luis Gonzalez singled, Erubiel Durazo whacked a go-ahead double and went to third on the throw, Matt Williams hit the grounder that scored pinch-runner Midre Cummings, and that game was over. OVER. O-V-E-R. The Yankees was dead.

Arizona reliever Byung-Hyun Kim, who had been all but unhittable much of the year, came into the game in the eighth (D-Backs manager Bob Brenly had started falling in love with two innings of Kim at the end of games) and he struck out the side. O-V-E-R. I was sure. And I was feverishly writing about the end of a dynasty — you will remember that this was the Yankees fourth straight World Series appearance, they had won the previous three, they were seen as all kinds of invincible, like the Stengel Yankees, like the Damn Yankees, and now they were down 3 games to 1, and the whole series was O-V-E-R.

It was a rookie move, honestly, making that sort of writer commitment. On that sort of deadline, you really need to hedge your bets a little more, give yourself an ability to adjust the column should things drastically change. But I was REALLY sure. Bottom of the ninth, Jeter bunted into an out. Paul O’Neil hit what I felt sure was a meaningless single. Bernie Williams struck out. Two outs. Yankee Stadium sounding like a morgue. My column was done. I had my finger on the send button. The game was over. The Yankees Dynasty was done. Tino Martinez came up. He was hitting .170 for the postseason. He had not hit the ball out of the infield that day. O-V-E-R.

And then, of course, Tino hit the two-run homer that tied the game.

I cannot adequately describe the feeling. When Tino Martinez hit that home run, I looked at my computer screen, and realized that the 800 or so words I had just written were 100% useless. I mean USELESS, all capital letters again. There was no way to adjust it. There was no way to simply put a few “nots” in there as in, “The Yankees Dynasty is NOT over” and “The Diamondbacks DID NOT come to Yankee Stadium and beat the invincible” or whatever.

And to make matters worse from the writing perspective, Tino’s homer did not WIN the game … it only tied the game. So now, there was nothing to write. The Diamondbacks might still win, in which case the “Yankees are dead” column might still have some merit (although, it was now apparent that killing these Yankees would not be so easy). And the Yankees might win, which meant, as the announcers like to say, a whole new series, tied two games apiece. I would like to tell you that this is what was going through my mind. It was not.

This is what was going through my mind: “AAAAAAAAAEEEIIIII! BLUGBLUGBLUGBLUG! AVOOPEEEEEE!”

One inning later, Jeter hit the most dramatic home run I’ve ever seen or probably will ever see — dramatic in that larger-than-baseball sense, dramatic in that he hit it in New York, barely two months after 9/11, with Ground Zero still smoking, with America still trying to come to grips with the world. I’m not one of these people who often sees sports as a microcosm of real life — most of the time, I see it as the opposite, an escape from real life — but all of that emotion was palpable and breathing when Jeter hit the home run. Jeter ran around the bases to preposterous cheers — wailing, really. Everyone in Yankee Stadium started singing “New York, New York” with Frank Sinatra. When the record ended — and at Yankee Stadium, New York, New York SOUNDS like a record, scratches and everything — it started again, and everybody sang again, and then again, and again, and nobody wanted to leave, and people were openly weeping, and the stadium felt like it was shaking, and it was one of the emotional experiences I will never forget.

I would like to tell you that this is what was going through my mind. But in fact, while everyone was singing, while people were hugging and crying, while Jeter was taking curtain calls, I was looking at my useless mishmash of a column, trying desperately to at least taking the swear words out of it, and I was thinking: “AAAAAAAAAEEEIIIII! BLUGBLUGBLUGBLUG! AVOOPEEEEEE!”

The next night, of course, Scott Brosius hit the two-run homer to tie it right on deadline with my column already written, and that got me babbling to myself again. In Game 7, it was Mariano Rivera who (impossible still to believe) blew the game in the ninth with my “Hail to the Yankees” column written. After the greatest World Series I ever saw live, I was ready to check into a sanitarium.

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Some of your suggestions on the greatest home run have led me on a YouTube search for really cool sports things. This could take up much of your afternoon. Enjoy.

Here is the Albert Pujols homer off of Brad Lidge, and yes, absolutely, it’s one of the 20 greatest. It’s one of the few times I can remember impulsively jumping to my feet while watching a non-hometown sporting event on TV (Music City Miracle, Flutie’s pass, a couple of March Madness finishes, etc). You know that old line, “I’m going to hit you so hard, I’ll hurt your whole family.” Pujols hit that ball so hard, Lidge has never been the same. I know Lidge says that there were a lot of other factors involved, and I have no doubt that he believes that.

I have my mixed emotions about soccer. I tend to think that there isn’t much that is more boring than BAD soccer. But the good stuff is pretty special. I’ve got five soccer links, which you are more than welcome to skip. Here’s the most famous goal of them all, Maradona vs. England. LIsten to the announcer: He calls it “A goal for the Gods.”

Here’s an amazing goal in Tel Aviv. I love how the goalkeeper is yelling at someone — like that goal was somebody else’s fault. It reminds me of a friend of mine who played left tackle at Kansas State and once faced Washington’s Steve Emtman — remember that beast? Emtman came around on a stunt, and picked my my friend, threw him out of the way — my friend weighed almost 300 pounds at the time — and got to the quarterback. When my friend came to the sideline, the coach said, “No! You have to move your feet! Get down low! Use your hands!” And my friend was like, “Um, he PICKED ME UP AND THREW ME. I’m not sure better fundamentals was going to help me in that situation.”

I also love how the goalkeeper gets tangled up in the net like he’d been webbed by Spiderman.

Here’s Darren Huckerby scoring a remarkable goal. I don’t get the impression that Darren Huckerby is some sort of superstar player — I apologize if I’m wrong about that. But I get the sense that this was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, sort of his Ed Sprague homer. (Now I’m going to get like 493 comments from the Darren Huckerby fan club … hey, I’m a clueless Yank here people).

I love this shot where the goalkeeper scores — my favorite part is watching the other goalkeeper’s face which looks like, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! DAMN!”

Here’s Ronaldinho doing the soccer equivalent of the Tiger Woods bouncing golf ball trick. You have to get about a minute into it before it starts getting good. Even if you’re not a soccer fan, I think a YouTube search for Ronaldinho is always worth the time. OK, no more soccer.

One hockey thing — here’s a ridiculous Sidney Crosby goal.

Here’s punt returner Dante Hall and one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen live (guaranteed, I will get at least five emails/comments from Broncos fans who want to point out all the clips on this play). Dante, from what I recall, had an even better touchdown on a pass reception, but I couldn’t find it on YouTube. It’s probably there somewhere.

This made the Internet rounds before (all of these did) but it’s always worth the time to watch the Reggie Bush high school tape.

And here’s one of my all-time favorites, Earl Campbell with some funky NFL Films music. I still think at his peak, he’s the best I ever saw (having coming a little too late for Jim Brown). The whole video is worth watching, but it’s at 1:05 that you will see the most insane run-over in NFL history, when he ran over LA Rams Isaiah Robertson. I remember 15 years ago talking to Earl Campbell about that play, and he said, “I don’t like to talk about that play … I think that he never quite got over that hit.” A few months ago, Campbell said the same thing to Bob Costas.

Most NFL players from the 1960s look dated. For some reason, Gayle Sayers and Jim Brown do not.

One tennis link … here’s the Top 10 Roger Federer moments, and you know it’s good because No. 3 is a through-the-legs passing shot. Repeat: That’s No. 3.

And finally, it’s a good time killer, watching Rocky Marciano maul people. At 1:10 you will see a glimpse of perhaps the greatest punch ever thrown in a heavyweight title fight.