There was a lot going on for the Yankees and Orioles in 1996. Making the ALCS was just one layer. You slice into the decadent cake that was the '96 Yankees-Oriole rivalry and you're gonna see off-season battles, spit flying, and a young yankee fan who does not respect vertical planes.
Both teams were rich and before the season they went after the same talent, like David Cone (Yanks), and David Wells (O's). The Davids, I like to call them.
The next layer of the cake would probably be Roberto Alomar spitting on an umpire and then implying the ump's dead child made him bad at his job. That's a think layer.
A bitter layer for the O's was the Jeffery Maier incident. That's the young Yankee fan who interfered and made himself a friend of Derek Jeter for life.
And it was Bernie Williams, once nicknamed "Zero," but now on the precipice of a breakout season who had the opportunity to add a layer so sweet it would overshadow the rest of the cake. Let's rewind.
Both teams were rich and before the season they went after the same talent, like David Cone (Yanks), and David Wells (O's). The Davids, I like to call them.
The next layer of the cake would probably be Roberto Alomar spitting on an umpire and then implying the ump's dead child made him bad at his job. That's a think layer.
A bitter layer for the O's was the Jeffery Maier incident. That's the young Yankee fan who interfered and made himself a friend of Derek Jeter for life.
And it was Bernie Williams, once nicknamed "Zero," but now on the precipice of a breakout season who had the opportunity to add a layer so sweet it would overshadow the rest of the cake. Let's rewind.
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00:00It's October 9th, 1996. We're in the Bronx for game one of the ALCS between the two
00:06teams with the highest payrolls in baseball. With that kind of money flying
00:10around, you'd expect a pretty good show, yeah? Well, the Yankees and Orioles have
00:14not disappointed. Starting in the offseason and continuing through right
00:18now, tied 4-4 in the bottom of the 11th, we've seen some truly wild and
00:24unprecedented shit. Let's go ahead and rewind. This episode is presented by T-Mobile,
00:30America's largest 5G network. Looking around, you're gonna see some
00:34new faces under Orioles' caps and Yankees' caps. And some faces who nearly traded
00:39their Yankees' caps for Orioles' caps. And some faces that sure seemed like they
00:44were gonna put on a Yankee cap, but then at the last minute the faces were like,
00:47no, no, give me an Orioles cap. Faces wear caps and this is perfect prose.
00:53The Orioles were big disappointments in 95. So yeah, open the wallets, use the money
01:00as fuel, and blow that old team up. Makes sense. The Yankees, on the other hand,
01:05exceeded expectations last season. They broke a 14-year playoff drought and were
01:10competitive in the ALDS. But they still exploded the team in the offseason.
01:16What you doing, George Steinbrenner? Fans didn't get it, nor did they like it.
01:22But apparently George Steinbrenner wasn't happy with half an inning away from the
01:26championship series. It's no fear t-shirt slogan logic. You know the one,
01:31second place is the first loser. And the Yankees weren't even second place when
01:3595 was all said and done. I'm surprised Steinbrenner was influenced by t-shirts,
01:39but seems to be the case. Regardless of their impetus, two rich rivals went after
01:44the same talent this winter. The Orioles nearly lured David Cohn away from the
01:48Yankees, but New York managed to keep him. Wasn't a terrible day for the O's,
01:53though. The day the Yanks signed Cohn, they signed B.J. Serhoff and Roberto
01:58Alomar. Alomar paired up with Cal Ripken? That looked pretty good... or bad,
02:05depending on who was doing the looking. During all this signing, both teams were
02:10trying to trade for lefty starter David Wells. This time, Baltimore got the guy.
02:14And in a knee-jerk reaction, Steinbrenner paid too much money to say,
02:19look, look, we got a new lefty, too. Fans in the New York media were so pissed at
02:25their meddling owner. And it wasn't just the Kenny Rogers thing. Don Mattingly
02:29retired, which, fine, wasn't necessarily Steinbrenner's fault. The Yankees decided
02:35they didn't need Jack McDowell. They got a new catcher who was worse than their
02:41old catcher. They were putting starting shortstop duties on the shoulders of a
02:46rookie who just finished a minor league season with 29 errors. Whereas the Orioles
02:52shortstop carried a streak of 70 errorless games into 1996. What is going
02:58on in New York? Steinbrenner really lost fans when he pushed out beloved Buck
03:03Showalter, the manager who took the Yanks from one of the worst in baseball to the
03:08door of the ALCS. In the hero manager's place, the owner hired Joe Torre, a guy
03:14who, in 15 years of managing, had been above .500 five times. The prognosis for
03:21the Yanks' season was bleak. Whereas the O's had added complimentary talent and
03:27were predicted to win the pennant. So, the Orioles won the offseason cup, a trophy
03:33shaped like a dollar sign. But obviously the Yankees busted predictions because
03:38here they are. And these are New York fans. They've got home field advantage.
03:44Winning in the offseason isn't much consolation if you lose in the baseball
03:48playing part of the season. At the end of April, our rivals met for the first time.
03:53The O's were on top by a few games, but not for long. Huh. Yankees sweep. That's not
04:01what we thought would happen. New York redefined themselves with this series.
04:05Both games were long, grueling affairs that saw the boys and stripes gut it out,
04:10come from behind, and slowly and steadily earn the W's. Whereas the Orioles were
04:16growing a reputation as the kind of team that blew leads and pouted about manager
04:21decisions. In the second game of the series, new manager Davey Johnson pulled
04:26Ripken for a pinch runner. It was the first time since his rookie year Ripken
04:30had been pulled with the game on the line. And he sat in the dugout glowering
04:34for eight angry innings. Johnson also kind of wrecked Bobby Bonilla. He tried
04:40to make him a designated hitter, but Bonilla said that was too much pressure.
04:43And his numbers backed up that theory. Now being an outspoken guy, Bonilla spoke
04:49out. And then Johnson was like, well I was gonna start you in right, but since I
04:55read that little comment in the newspaper, now I won't. Because that's
04:59good management. I'm paraphrasing of course. Meanwhile the gap between
05:04Baltimore and New York was growing. Jeter turned out to be more than his minor
05:09league errors, and there was a surprising boost from new invincible setup man
05:14Mariano Rivera. The rivals split their next series, but in a four-game series in
05:19early July, the Yankees, already up six games, brought out the brooms again. That's
05:24a ten-game lead. Bye-bye Orioles. Fly away and be free.
05:29Johnson said it was time to completely retool again, get some youth, and hope for
05:34a better tomorrow. Bonilla and Wells were on the trade block, and it looked like the
05:37Yankees had the last laugh. But wait a second. Bonilla's over here, and Wells is
05:43over here, and here is the whole team in the ALCS. So something must have happened.
05:51By September 1, the once-left-for-dead Orioles were gaining on the wait-I-
05:55thought-we-were-comfortably-in-first-place Yankees. How'd the birds do it? They
06:00traded for Eddie Murray, who could be DH, which fixed Bonilla. Their new
06:04expectations, that they'd die quietly, allowed them to relax a bit. Their big
06:09bats came through, and their opponents hit a slump. The Yankees' closer was
06:17injured. Kenny Rogers was stinking up the place. They'd been without Cone for
06:23most of the season because pitching gave him an aneurysm in his arm. Then New York
06:27made a trade with the Brewers that was supposed to fix everything, but did not.
06:33Well, at least they got Pat Lestat-oh, his foot's broken. Okay, mid-September, Baltimore's
06:39three games back, entering a three-game series with New York. So if the O's can
06:44sweep-oh, never mind. Yankees win the series. Orioles clinched the wild-card
06:49spot about a week later when Roberto Alomar hit a homer in the 10th against
06:52the Blue Jays. Oh, and speaking of Alomar, does this ump look kind of pissed? Have
07:00you noticed more than your average number of signs about spit? It's all
07:04connected to Roberto Alomar. September 27th, leading the wild-card race by three
07:10games, the O's were playing Toronto. Alomar strikes out. He disagrees with
07:15umpire John Hirschbeck, as you can see here. He is thrown out, which he very much
07:22disagrees with, as you can see here. Huh, spitting in an ump's face is about as
07:29low as you can go. Oh, is someone holding Alomar's beer? Because after the game, he
07:35said Hirschbeck was a bitter man ever since his young child died of a rare
07:39disease. Don't give Alomar back his beer. He doesn't deserve it. Make him drink
07:45Fresca. When Hirschbeck was made aware of Alomar's comments, he charged the
07:50clubhouse to, quote, kill Alomar. He was restrained and thus unsuccessful. The
07:55second baseman was suspended just five games, and all he had to do was appeal,
08:00and then the league would have to have a hearing before the suspension was
08:03enforced, and they likely can't organize a hearing until 97. So, he was free to
08:08send his team to the playoffs for the first time since 1983. He's a hero.
08:13Umpires, as a whole, were pissed. They threatened to strike, but MLB got a judge
08:18to say they couldn't. So, in protest, they showed up to the Baltimore-Cleveland
08:22Division Series 17 minutes late. Speaking of the ALDS, the Orioles upset the
08:27best-in-the-league 99-win Cleveland team, clinching the series on Alomar's Homer
08:33in the top of the 12th, Game 4. There goes our hero. Now, the city of New York seemed
08:39to take the second baseman's spitting almost personally. Before Game 1, the
08:44press tried to dissuade fans from throwing things onto the field. Mayor
08:49Rudy Giuliani, who, wow, he has really nice dark hair, tried to convince fans that
08:54giving Alomar the silent treatment was more punitive than throwing things. And
08:57tonight, there have been boos, there have been signs, but nobody's thrown anything.
09:02Guess the fans don't want to interfere with the playing field. Well,
09:05respectable. And besides, the booing was pretty effective. Alomar struck out three
09:10times in six at-bats, and has only had one hit thus far. What also might be
09:15effective, the umpire's hating him. The umpire enthusiastically called this
09:21strike three in the top of the first, and can I just see another angle of that one?
09:25Huh. But other Oriole bats have stepped up, and the Birds carried a 4-3 lead into
09:32the bottom of the 8th. But that's when the AL Rookie of the Year, whom nobody
09:36ever doubted, what errors, stepped up to the plate, swung, and this little fellow
09:42leaned forward and swiped his stupid little glove at the ball, I'm from
09:47Maryland, sending it into the stands. The ump got it wrong,
09:50Jeter touched the plate, the child was hoisted aloft, which is essentially
09:55admitting wrongdoing. You don't celebrate someone that much who doesn't catch a
09:59ball that was hidden to the stands. But the umps can't go off fan reactions, and
10:04they can't go off replays that clearly show interference, they can only go with
10:08a call. So it's complete bullshit, but we're tied. And it's still a tie game in
10:15the bottom of the 11th, with Bernie Williams up. Does he look nervous? Cuz
10:20there was a time when he could not handle pressure. Bernie Williams, now 28,
10:25was signed by the Yankees on his 17th birthday, as early as they could legally
10:29sign him. But it took him a long time to get good. 93 was his first full season in
10:35the majors, and he wasn't so bad. But he had a bad time. The introverted, quiet
10:42jazz guitarist lacked confidence. For some notoriously cruel veterans in the
10:47Yankee clubhouse, those qualities put a target on his back. Mel Hall, that's the
10:53notoriously cruel one, called Williams zero, and said, shut up zero, anytime
10:58Williams tried to talk. To the extent that Hall almost made the guy cry. The GM
11:03had to get involved and be like, stop. The rejection in the locker room affected his
11:10game. He was always worried about messing up, a strong fear of failure governing
11:14his every move. Steinbrenner didn't like him and tried to get rid of him a couple
11:18times, most recently last season. But good thing that didn't pan out, cuz Bernie
11:25had a breakout performance in this year's ALDS against the Rangers. In
11:28decisive game four, he homered from both sides of the plate. Lefty Bernie tied the
11:34game in the fifth. Righty Bernie homered for an insurance run in the ninth. And it
11:38wasn't just his sparkling double-sided bat. In game two, he scored off clever and
11:43speedy base running. And in game three, he robbed a Ranger homer. Tonight he's
11:48been solid, but not spectacular. Leading off the bottom of the 11th, the count
11:53one-on-one, he's batting righty against the lefty closer Randy Myers. Does he
11:58look like the shy baby deer of his old derogatory nickname? Or does he look like
12:03the Great Prince of the Forest, Bambi's father's real name, that he was in the
12:07Division Series? The Orioles wouldn't mind a win here to make up for some
12:12unpleasantness. The Yankees wouldn't mind a big play right here to help nullify
12:16some unfairness at the hands of an insufferable child. One of these teams is
12:22capturing game one, pulling ahead in the final stretch of the race to the World
12:25Series. A race that began in the front offices this winter and continues as we
12:31speak. Welcome to a moment in history.
12:52you