Ten Favorite World Series: 2001 World Series (#9)

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And so baseball concludes for another year. It was a great year, and it's only 103 days until pitchers and catchers report (not that I'm counting or anything)! I'm looking at the ten best series that I have seen (not "read about" or "watched highlights of," so these are all in my lifetime). Here's the next series on the list. #9: 2001: Diamondbacks/Yankees If ever we needed a great World Series as a diversion, it was 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Arizona Diamondbacks, the youngest franchise to make the series (only four years old at the time, having come into being with the 1998 expansion along with the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays), played the New York Yankees, the "Evil Empire," in a series that featured November baseball for the first time. And, maybe for the first time, the "Evil Empire," the team most Americans love to hate (including me), was the sentimental favorite, given that the attacks happened in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Many things made the series memorable: it was a home-team series (meaning the home team won every game), the D-backs put a couple of major butt-whippings on great Yankee pitchers (Mike Mussina lost the 9-1 opening game, and Andy Pettitte's six-run meltdown in game six as Arizona won a laugher, 15-2), and the high drama of the final half inning. The Yankees were up 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth with legendary closer Mariano Rivera on the mound. The lockers were probably already covered in plastic, and the smell of champagne was filtering through the noses of Yankees players. Their main man was on the mound, and he had made quick work out of the D-backs in the eighth inning. As Chris Berman used to say, that is why they play the game. The D-backs came back (the third home team bottom-of-the-ninth heroics of the series) to score two runs and give the Diamondbacks, and the state of Arizona, a professional sports title. The D-backs were part of the playoffs this year. They look to be good for several years down the road, and maybe one day they'll get back to the Fall Classic. I don't know if they'll ever have a more exciting series, though, than the one they gave us in 2001. 2001 World Series Arizona Diamondbacks (NL) / New York Yankees (AL) Winner: Diamondbacks, 4 games to 3 Best game: game seven (Diamondbacks won, 3-2) Who I was pulling for: Diamondbacks The ninth-inning comeback in game 7: