"I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee." -Joe DiMaggio

"This team, it all flows from me.  I've got to keep it going.  I'm the straw that stirs the drink." -Reggie Jackson

"I swing big, with everything I've got.  I hit big or I miss big.  I like to live as big as I can." -Babe Ruth

"At a ball game, as in a place of worship, no one is alone in the crowd" -John Thorn

"Everything looks nicer when you win.  The girls are prettier.  The cigars taste better.  The trees are greener."  -Billy Martin

"Wait until Tommy meets the Lord and finds out that He's wearing pinstripes." -Gaylord Perry (on Tommy Lasorda's belief that God wears Dodger blue).

by Seth Wenig - AP

It ends here.

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"Have you ever seen Gattaca?"

"Um. Oh. Yeah. With Halle Berry?"

"Huh? No..you're thinking of Gothika. Wait, you've seen Gothika?"

"No."

"Then why did you say--ok, nevermind, the point is, there's this part in the movie where these 2 guys, who always have these swimming competitions with each other, are like treading water in the middle of the ocean, and one guy says, 'How did you do it? How do always, always beat me?' and the other guy says, 'You know how I did it? I never saved anything for the way back.'"

That was a conversation I had with my sister after Game 5.

The Yankees don't need Game 7. The 2009 baseball season ends tonight.

Put everything in. Andy Pettitte with short rest. Pedro Martinez with long-history. A Yankee line-up whose made a living just-besting their postseason opponents. A fanbase that's teetered on nerves, anxiety, but always hope.

A team that's been waiting for this for 9 years.

Never save anything for the swim back.

Because it ends tonight.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock.  You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance.  That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."  ~Earl Weaver