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Jason Collette posted this tweet a little earlier this afternoon, and I thought that it would be a good jumping point for an open thread tonight.
Via @reddit -- if you could change outcome of 1 pitch in history, which would it be? Me - Bass HRs off Orosco to force Gm 7 w/ Mike Scott.
— jasoncollette (@jasoncollette) January 6, 2014
Obviously, the Yankees have had incredible success during their 110 years in New York, so I'm sure fans of other teams would snort about Yankees fans wishing something in their past had gone their way way. It makes for an interesting thought experiment regardless though. What pitch outcome would you change?
Some contenders off the top of my head are relatively easy. Even before Luis Gonzalez's series-winning single in 2001, Tony Womack doubled with runners on first and second to tie the game at two. If he grounded into a double play, the Yankees would have been World Series champions for the fourth year in a row. Hell, if Scott Brosius had turned two on Jay Bell's bad bunt instead of holding the ball after the forceout at third, it could have been a whole different story, too. What if Mariano Rivera had been able to spear Bill Mueller's grounder up the middle in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS? Maybe the Yankees go on to sweep the Red Sox and take down the Cardinals in the World Series. Bill Mazeroski's series-winning homer in 1960 nullified? Carl Everett swings over Mike Mussina's pitch and Moose gets his perfecto? Edgar Martinez fouls out instead of destroying Donnie Baseball's last postseason chance with a double? What other pitches would you change?
