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 Wednesday, October 13
Williams again turns postseason hero
 
Associated Press

 NEW YORK -- Three years ago, Bernie Williams won the opening game of the American League Championship Series with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

On Wednesday night against Boston, with Yogi Berra in the house, it was deja vu all over again for the New York Yankees cleanup hitter.

Williams nailed reliever Rod Beck's second pitch in the bottom of the 10th inning, giving the Yankees a 4-3 victory over the Red Sox. And, he admitted that when Paul O'Neill grounded out to end the ninth inning, he remembered the 1996 playoff shot.

"It was all I was thinking about when Paul grounded out," Williams said. "It was the same situation. I tried to keep it off my mind. This was a different pitcher and a different team. What are the chances of it happening twice?"

Very good, in fact.

Williams took a strike on a first-pitch fastball inside and Beck decided to go right back there with the second pitch.

"If I would have been guessing, I probably would have pulled it foul," Williams said. "The last time I faced him, he threw me a pitch off the plate inside and broke my bat. I think the way to approach it is just to stay inside and not try to pull it and that's what I did. I tried to stay inside the ball and hit it with the good part of the bat and put my hips into it and it went out."

Williams connected and the ball headed to straightaway center field where Darren Lewis turned and raced to the wall.

"I didn't think it would be gone," Williams said,. "He had his back to me. I figured he'd play it off the wall. When it went out, I was surprised."

It was Williams' 11th postseason home run, and like so many long balls, Williams said he wasn't swinging for the fences.

"I was trying to get on base, have a good at-bat," he said. "I was the first guy up, leading off the inning. There were so many good batters behind me."

Just like 1996, when Williams' leadoff at-bat ended the same way.

During the offseason, it seemed Williams was headed for Boston as a free agent. "I was very close," he said. There were a lot of conversations."

Manager Joe Torre figured his cleanup man was gone.

"I really didn't pay attention to where he was going," Torre said. "My concern was he wasn't going to be with us. We had to look and see where our production was going to come from."

Williams signed with the Yankees at the last minute and the production came from the same place it had come all along -- the center fielder with the sweet swing and the talent for game-winning home runs.

 


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Yankees vs. Red Sox series page

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