They have been the home office for October for just about as long as there has been baseball in October. They have had so many moments, so many snapshots, just like these, pressed between the pages of the classiest scrapbook in sports.
Now, it had happened, again, in real time. The Yankees were reeling. They were down, 3-1, top of the eighth, and Cleveland had its closer, Emmanuel Clase, throwing 99-mph darts on the black. Progressive Field was loud, the roar spilling out into the Cuyahoga River. He got two quick strikes on Aaron Judge. Judge took one just off the corner.
And then …
“Oh, man,” said Stephen Vogt, the Guardians manager.
Oh, man, indeed. Judge’s tracer never got more than 20 feet off the ground. It didn’t need to. It landed just over the right field fence. The stadium hushed. The Yankees dugout exploded. And here’s the crazy thing: that was just the warm-up. Because a few minutes later Clase, for some inexplicable reason, abandoned his cutter with Giancarlo Stanton at the plate. He threw a slider. Hung it.
“And Big G,” Aaron Boone would say, “got it.”
Now they were opting for something stronger than “oh, man” all around Progressive Field. It was 4-3, Yankees. By the bottom of the ninth, it was 5-3. The Mets built a cottage industry on precisely these kinds of dramas all month. But the Yankees have been doing this kind of thing since Calvin Coolidge was president.
Now they’d done it again.
The Guardians were deflated. They were dead. Their dugout was a morgue, their ballpark a library. Luke Weaver — the Yankees’ version of Clase — had two outs, none on, bottom of the ninth. Lane Thomas hit one off the wall in left, and it felt like the worst kind of tease for the locals.
Then Jhonkensy Noel stepped to the plate. His nickname is Big Christmas. And there won’t be a more welcome present under any tree in northeast Ohio than the one he delivered in the bleak darkness of this Cleveland night.
And if you listened close enough, you could hear the ruckus on the Jersey Turnpike. It was 5-5. It seemed impossible. It felt unreal. But soon it was the 10th inning. Soon an ex-Met named Andres Gimenez was making one of the most breathtaking plays you’ll ever see, robbing Jazz Chisholm of a hit, robbing the Yankees of first-and-third, one out.
And soon, David Fry was stepping to the plate.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
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- Yankees’ catching shakeup provided spark before burning out just as quickly
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- Heroes, zeros from Yankees’ Game 3 loss: David Fry gives Guardians life
Fry, whose late-inning home run last week helped ensure that the Yankees were in Cleveland on this night, and not Detroit. Fry, kept out of the lineup by Vogt in favor of Kyle Manzardo at the start, but who now stared at Clay Holmes, man on third, two outs, bottom of the 10th, looking for a ball he could drive.
“And I got a ball I could drive,” he said.
When it landed, Progressive Field rattled to its girders and struts. When it landed, the Guardians had a 7-5 victory, had sliced the Yankees’ lead to 2-1 in this best-of-seven American League Championship Series, and had performed CPR on an entire city and its baseball season.
“That,” Fry said, “was fun.”
It was for him, and for his jubilant teammates, and for fans who weren’t eager to leave Progressive Field. For the Yankees? Maybe someday they’ll appreciate the fact that they participated in a game like this. For now, they were every bit as stunned at what they’d watched as you were. From depression to elation to devastation; not even the Cyclone is that nerve-jangling a roller-coaster ride.
“Lots of ups and downs, it’s always going to be like that in the playoffs,” said Judge. “Great at-bat after great at-bat, both sides. Back-and-forth battle, two good teams getting after each other. They were able to come away with one last big swing.”
He shook his head. Probably not for the first time. Certainly not for the last.
“I wish we were on the other end of it,” he said.
On the other end of it were the Guardians, and Fry, who moments after stomping on home plate was already talking about Game 4, about parlaying this moment, into extending a series that so many had already chalked away in their minds.
“Whenever anybody thinks we can’t do it,” he said, “we know we can do it.”
Said Boone: “The other team is pretty good, too.”
And Rizzo: “It’s a great baseball game if you’re a fan watching.”
It’s less so if you’re a team in a stunned loser’s clubhouse, listening to a jamboree bleed through the walls, a celebration you’d have bet your life was going to take place inside these walls. The Yankees should still be fine, of course. They’re still ahead. They’re still the better team.
“We’ll be ready to roll tomorrow,” Boone said.
He said that a few times. Mostly because he believes it. Partly because if they aren’t, then what they felt Thursday night will feel like a prom by comparison if the Guardians have an encore in mind.