How the West was lost
Lewis recalls Giants’ 103 wins got nothing
For a while, it looked great on paper: The Red Sox and Yankees were going to continue their steelcage match for American League East supremacy right up to the last weeks of the regular season, with a pair of three-game sets between the teams settling the matter once and for all.
The first-place finisher would get a couple of days of rest, relaxation and liniment before advancing to a best-of-five division series. The runnerup would be relegated to the one-anddone wild card game.
But at the rate the Red Sox are playing, and winning, they are going to take the division by 367 games. The Yankees are in a race for the wild card.
Next case, please.
Yet there’s something that remains mesmerizing about what the Red Sox and Yankees are doing, even if the “race” for first place continues its sad circling of the drain. It’s this business of both teams winning 100 or more games in a season. For all the knock-down, drag-out, bench-clearing, head-hunting, back-pageblarin’ mayhem that’s taken place between the two teams over the decades, we’ve never had a season in which both won 100 or more games.
We need for that to happen this year. Please.
For if there’s one season that remains one of the most riveting in history, it’s the National League Wild, Wild West race that took place in 1993 between the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants, only without the wild card.
It was the last season in which each league had two divisions, East and West. The ’93 Giants led the West by nine games on Aug. 11 (sound familiar, Sox fans?) and looked like a powerhouse, but what they didn’t count on was the resurgent Braves charging into contention after they’d acquired slugging first baseman Fred McGriff from the San Diego Padres.
Going into the final day of the regular season, the Braves and Giants each had 103-58 records. The Braves would play at home against the Colorado Rockies. The Giants would take on the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
If the Braves and Giants both won or both lost, there was going to be a one-game playoff. If one team lost and the other won, it would mean a team with 103 victories would be going home. The Braves won.
The Giants lost.
And Darren Lewis, who would later play four seasons with the Red Sox, was the Giants’ center fielder in ’93.
Guess what? It still hurts.
“It’s the best team I played on in my 13 seasons in the big leagues,” said Lewis yesterday. “I went to the playoffs in 1995 when I played for the Cincinnati Reds, and when I was with the Red Sox in ’98 and ’99. But that Giants team was better.”
Lewis, who turns 51 in two weeks, remembers it all so well. The Braves already had won their game against the Rockies. The Giants went into the Dodger Stadium finale with a banged-up pitching staff, turning to 21-year-old rookie Salomon Torres to take the mound. It was his eighth start in the majors. He lasted just 31⁄3 innings, allowing three runs. The Giants lost 12-1.
“It was devastating,” said Lewis. “One of the worst days of my career. Guys were in the clubhouse crying long after it was over. (Giants manager) Dusty Baker told us that when we went back to San Francisco to walk down the street with our heads up, because we had a great season.”
Lewis has had a busy life since his playing days ended. He coached amateur baseball for a few years, and he’s a founder and partner in a multimillion-dollar business that owns and operates airport restaurants.
But he takes no joy in having been a part of a divisional race in which two teams won 100 or more games. And he didn’t take up his manager’s invitation to walk the streets of San Francisco with his head held high.
“I hopped on a plane and went to Poipu in Hawaii,” he said. “I had to get away. That’s how much it hurt.”
Again, the difference this year is that the Yankees might win 100 games and end up as the wild card. They’d at least get the onegame playoff that would have awaited the ’93 Giants had they won their regularseason finale.
But know this, if the Yankees win 100-plus games and lose a wild card game, they’re going to be as devastated as the ’93 Giants were.
When you win 100-plus games and go straight home, that’s real pain.
When you win 100-plus games and then lose a onegame playoff, it ain’t much better.
If you’re any kind of baseball fan, you want the Yankees to win 100 games and have their season come down to one game.
How cool would that be?
‘It was devastating. One of the worst days of my career.’
— DARREN LEWIS On 1993 Giants missing playoffs with 103 victories