Amazin’ Night for New York

BOSTON — In the distasteful end, the New York Yankee bullpen was emptied, not by Boston Red Sox hitters, but by their fans.

“We were dodging stuff like land mines,” said Jeff Nelson.

At the awful conclusion, right fielder Paul O’Neill became a center fielder.

“I figured nobody could throw anything that far,” he said.

Upon the embarrassing finish of New York’s 9-2 victory over Boston in Game 3 of the American League championship series, the baseball disappeared under a tarpaulin of plastic bottles, police officers and pettiness.

It had been another splendid and dramatic game in a series that had embodied baseball’s most noble ideals.

Until Red Sox fans showed they didn’t have the character for it.

The perpetrators of Sunday’s incident--mostly Manager Jimy Williams and his 30,000-person Fenway Park fan club--will say that lawless anger was about 80 years without a world championship.

About the feeling that, of all things, it is now the umpires preventing them from beating their lifelong rivals.

About the curse of the you-know-who.

On that last point, judging from the ninth inning Sunday, maybe they are right.

The Red Sox fans acted like a bunch of bambinos.

“I think it’s inexcusable,” said Yankee Manager Joe Torre.

Agreed, and not just the part about showering the players with debris and causing catcher Joe Girardi to run from the field in full gear and requiring everyone to have police protection simply to get to the bus.

More inexcusable than all that is the part about blaming all this on the umpires.

It has been heartening this week to hear everyone involved with the Red Sox talk about trying to overcome all the years of inexplicable late-season failure.

But it becomes unsightly when they start pointing fingers at anyone but themselves.

In the ninth inning Sunday, Williams, in plain view of a crowd already teeming with anger and despair, pointed that finger.

Used it to throw his cap in the air. Used it to wave his hands in a windmill motion.

Used it to essentially direct the masses like the Boston Symphony conductor had directed the national anthem a day earlier.

Williams ran to first base to argue a too-close-to-call decision by umpire Dale Scott on a groundout by Nomar Garciaparra.

Did Garciaparra beat the throw from third baseman Scott Brosius, as some replays indicated, and other replays didn’t?

A bigger question is, did it matter? The Red Sox were trailing, 9-2, at the time. The game was essentially over, or at least no longer worth inciting what could have escalated into a riot.

But, you see, Williams wasn’t arguing that call. Oh no, this was about two other calls.

Williams was using the occasion to essentially continue to argue a terrible call in the eighth inning. Later, umpire Tim Tschida admitted on that play he incorrectly called out Jose Offerman on a phantom tag by second baseman Chuck Knoblauch.

He also was still arguing that admittedly blown call involving the same two players in Game 1, when umpire Rick Reed incorrectly ruled that Knoblauch had held onto a throw long enough to force Offerman out at second.

What Williams was doing in the ninth inning Sunday was not managing, it was grandstanding.

And the bottles flying from those creaky grandstands proved he had succeeded.

“I wonder if the manager pacing up and down like that incited it,” said George Steinbrenner, Yankee owner.

Another official type, Capt. Charles Cellucci of the Boston police, was apparently wondering the same thing.

“I’m not going to get into that,” he said, shaking his head after placing his Fenway force on a tactical alert.

Williams refused to be interviewed afterward, issuing only a 12-word statement: “It’s the first one to win four, and it’s not over yet.”

That would be true, perhaps, if he had remained calm and not allowed his players to let the umpires get into their heads.

But the umpires are there now, and at the first pitch of Game 5 tonight, it will be 10 Red Sox against 14 Yankees, a clinching advantage if there ever was one.

Yes, Tschida blew the call in the eighth inning. Knoblauch never got close to tagging Offerman before throwing to first to complete an unfair double play.

And yes, if the call were made correctly, Offerman would have been standing on second base with two out and powerful Garciaparra at the plate and the Red Sox only trailing, 3-2.

And, OK, the call flattened the Red Sox momentum quicker than you can say, six-run-Yankee-ninth.

But did that cost the Red Sox the game?

Maybe their fans were too busy chanting at the Yankees to notice that Offerman was foolishly sent home from second base on a one-out single in the third and was thrown out by three steps.

Or maybe those fans were too busy weeping over the memory of Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent to notice that their team committed not one, but two errors in the fourth inning that allowed the Yankees to take the lead for good.

At least one Red Sox security official certainly missed all of that. While the Yankees were lined up in their dugout during the eight-minute, raining-debris delay in the ninth inning, that official began cursing at them.

Nelson lunged at him but was held back by teammates.

Afterward, Torre was under no such restraints.

“The head of security for the Red Sox was screaming at my players about staying in the dugout,” Torre explained. “That was a disappointment, the show of absolutely no class whatsoever.”

And what did the Red Sox have to say for themselves?

“At some point, you feel like the umpires are taking away our ability to battle,” said Darren Lewis. “Whether purposely or not, no one knows.”

Let’s see, Darren Lewis. Three weak groundouts Sunday. A .143 batting average in this series. The umpires should be ashamed.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].