Championship Glow

It's still sweet.

It's hard to put it into words now, what this title means. It's hard to close the door on 2009. 2009 still seems alive and active and ongoing. We are the champions. "Are" is an active verb. We continue to be the champions, and I feel it every day.



I don't want the offeseason to begin. My interest in the Hot Stove, one of my favorite parts of the baseball calendar, is muted. I have no offseason nerves, no desperation, no anger, no angst. The Yankees are World Series Champions, and there is nothing that will change that until next October when, hopefully, we do this all again.

It was a great year.

To win the World Series, it feels like everything has to go right. Everything has to click. You can have a great team and lose 3-1 in the ALDS if your bats go cold or if your ace has an off-night or if your closer screws up and you lose home field. I know it seems trite, but its true. Your margin of error is so slim, and you have to replicate your good performance and good luck three separate times. It was excruciating, and it was awesome. It seems like a blur.

My favorite moment of the playoffs has to be ARod's home run off Joe Nathan in the top of the ninth, captured here:


And here:



My favorite part of the second video is the 0:13-0:14 span. The crowd goes from chanting and clapping to silent, as Nathan releases the ball, to engulfed in complete and utter mayhem.

"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD GET OUT! GET OUT! OH MY GOD!"

The redemption of Alex Rodriguez.



I'd be remiss not to include this wonderful moment with Mark Teixeira:





In other replays, you can see him screaming at the top of his lungs as he rounded second base.

There is too much to talk about, too much to remember, too much to put into words. But it's all in my brain, and it's never going away.




I didn't know if we could make it. But we did. And it was awesome. The Yankees won the World Series.

Baseball is a long way away now. A long, cold winter looms. And for once, I'm OK with that.