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July 24, 2004


Stolen Win
by Larry Mahnken

Well, I for one had yesterday's game marked down as a loss.  In ink.

Jon Lieber has had his good outings this year, and he's had his bad outings.  Curt Schilling has had his bad outings, too, but fewer of them, and more great ones than Lieber.  It would have been insane to expect the Yankees to win.

And if they were going to win, you'd expect it to be because Lieber pitched almost flawlessly, because they weren't going to beat up on Curt Schilling.  But that's exactly what they did, and while they couldn't hold that lead, it led to the winning run being scored off of Keith Foulke, making the victory even sweeter.

That you didn't expect this win makes it that much sweeter.  It was a game that didn't really mean that much to the Yankees, and meant a whole lot to the Red Sox, and the Yankees won it.

At game's end, Schilling was alone in the dugout, head in his hands, apparently sobbing, certainly disconsolate.  Although I may have to get flogged by Yankee Nation for this, I really did feel for him then.  The guy has won a World Series and Series MVP, has made more money than he could have ever dreamed of, and yet he cares that much about a loss in July.  He knows he let the team down -- and while his defense let him down, he knows he's the type of pitcher that should be able to make the defense irrelevant.

In a sport where you see so many players acting in an arrogant, unsportsmanlike manner, overcelebrating when they accomplish things of relatively little importance, it is inspiring to see a player care that much about doing what they're there to do.