Quickly. I'm waiting to hear Torre explain what the hell happened. I'll update this post in a few minutes....
I've never seen anything like this before in my life. A hoard of pestilence descended upon Cleveland stadium and attacked Joba Chamberlain while he was trying to pitch the eighth inning with the Yanks winning 1-0 in an all time classic playoff game. Joba, who came in with two on and one out in the bottom of the seventh dominated the Indians with an unbelievable slider and fastball and picked up an equally incredible Andy Pettitte to leave Cleveland scratching their heads and the Yanks clinging onto that one run lead going to the eighth. Then came " The Swarm."
They had to stop the game while every player and umpire was being sprayed with bug repellent so they could try and play the game of baseball. I don't know the rules, but Torre or the umps should have removed the players from the field until the Canadian Soldiers died down. It was ridiculous. That wasn't baseball. Chamberlain was covered with them as he tried to concentrate on the Cleveland hitters. The flies were crawling up his nose, in his ears, in his mouth, in his eyes...covered his neck as he quickly walked walked Grady Sizemore. While batting the bugs, he then threw two wild pitches which scored the tying run without a hit.
That was like a hail storm or blizzard. Where was Major League baseball? What the heck were the umpires doing. I'll back back in a few...
[editor's note, by John Amato] Joel Sherman asked Torre if they ever thought about stopping the game until the bugs went away and Joe waffled. Torre said he never saw anything like it. He said that he told the umps he was worried that the kid couldn't see. The umps did nothing. He said that Joba didn't lose his composure and they played on.
Carmona was awesome and the Yankee bats went to sleep again. Viz was horrible and lost the game because as usual, he walks people. Posada makes an error on dropping a third strike to Grady Sizemore and then threw the ball over Manky's head to put him first with no outs in the tenth. That made Mariano waste a bunch of pitches that he could have used for a third inning of work if Joe decided to go that route. Man, what a mess...
[editor's note, by John Amato]The have stopped play in Jacobs field before because of "bugs." ESPN: