IThe World Series|
Agbayani’s hit helps Mets take one from Yankees
By Ronald Blum
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Benny Agbayani
made the fans in Shea Stadium
dance.
No, the Mets aren’t going to ful
fill his pre-Series prediction and
beat the Yankees in five games.
He merely got the hit that sent
the Mets to their first World Series
win since 1986 and stopped the
Yankees’ record Series winning
streak at 14.
“I didn’t definitely say we were
going to win in five,” he said Tues
day night after his tiebreaking dou
ble led the Mets to a 4-2 win. “I just
blurted it out.”
With the score tied at 2 and the
Mets needing to bust up Orlando
Hernandez’s perfect postseason
record, up to the plate stepped Ag
bayani in the eighth inning with a
runner on first.
The chubby 28-year-old Hawai
ian, whose 13th-inning homer beat
San Francisco in Game 2 of the first
round, was supposed to be on the
bench. Manager Bobby Valentine
was supposed to start a left-hander
against El Duque.
“We’re here because of him,”
Valentine said. “He’s been one of
many key players our team.”
On the top of his locker in the
Mets clubhouse in a sign, a con
stant reminder to the Mets of what
it takes, what he tries to provide:
“Faith, Passions, Consistency will
give us VICTORY!!”
He took a ball, then drove El
Duque’s second pitch, his 133rd of
the night, into the left-center field
gap. Todd Zeile, not the speediest
of runners, scored from first.
Valentine never wavered in his
support, not even after Agbayani’s
Mets-in-5 prediction made front
pages and was tacked up in the
Yankees’ dugout last Friday.
“He always has faith in me,” Ag
bayani would say later. “He put me
in today, and everybody told me I
wasn’t playing todav before he
even told me.”
Seattle loaded its lineup with
left-handers against Hernandez.
Some said the Mets should have
put Darryl Hamilton in left and put
Agbayani on the bench.
“I was a little bit baffled by peo
ple who followed our team all year
thinking that maybe he shouldn’t
play today,” Valentine said. “I nev
er considered him not playing. I
never considered pinch hitting for
him, and I’m glad about that.”
With the first-round series
against San Francisco tied 1-1, with
the Mets and Giants battling into
extra innings to gain control of the
series, Agbavani homered off
Aaron Fultz for a 3-2 New York
win.
While bigger names grab the
headlines, Agbayani manages to get
his hits, day in and day out.
He has hit in all 12 postseason
games now, no hit bigger than the
one that ended El Duque’s 8-0 mark
of postseason perfection.
Back in Hawaii, Agbayani’s a
star. A TV station there sent a cam
era crew all the way to New York to
cover his World Series exploits.
And when the crew goes home,
so does he.
“I don’t want to go back home
yet,” he said. “I don’t want to pack
mu Vipcrc uot ”
Former ace Franco gets biggest win of his career at age 40
By josh Dubow
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — John Franco had
probably never gotten so much joy
out of pitching the eighth inning.
In a career filled with saves,
Franco had never come up with a
bigger win in 17 years.
Franco escaped an eighth-inning
jam — retiring his nemesis Gle
nallen Hill to get out of it — and
helped the Mets get back into the
Subway Series with a 4-2 victory in
Game 3 Tuesday night that cut the
Yankees lead to 2-1.
‘It doesn’t matter who gets the
win or who gets the save. We need
ed this game,” said Franco, 40, the
second oldest pitcher to win a
World Series game. “We knew we
couldn’t go down 3-0.1 was just in
the right place at the right time.”
Franco, whose 420 saves are the
second most in major league histo
ry, is no longer the pitcher manager
Bobby Valentine chooses to close
games. The eighth has become his
domain, and this might have been
his most important inning.
He relieved a wild Dennis Cook
with no outs in a 2-2 tie with Tino
Martinez on first. Franco came out
throwing strikes.
He got in front of Jorge Posada 0
2. before Posada hit a hard
grounder to third baseman Robin
Ventura, who started a double play.
“Johnny’s been pitching great all
year,” Ventura said. “He won’t get a
double play bigger than that one.”
After Paul O’Neill singled, Yan
kees manager Joe Torre turned to
Hill in the matchup he wanted.
Hill, a powerful right-handed hit
ter, had been 6-for-12 with three
homers — including two game
winning shots — in his career
against the left-handed Franco.
Hill hit a harmless fly ball to right
field to end the inning.
“He’s gotten me over the years on
some big hits,” Franco said.
The Mets scored two runs in the
eighth off Yankees October ace Or
lando Hernandez to win the game
and get back into the series.
It was only fitting that Franco got
the Mets’ first World Series win in
14 years. A Brooklyn kid who grew
up adoring the Miracle Mets in the
1969 World Series, was making his
first trip to the Series.
“Johnny’s got to be like a kid in a
candy store right now,” teammate
Todd Zeile said. “He’s waited all
his life to get here and now he is
shutting guys down in front of his
home family. I can’t imagine the
pride he must feel.”
But this win was for his father, a
Dodgers fan who died of a heart at
tack before he ever got a chance to
see his son pitch in New York.
Franco wears an orange Depart
ment of Sanitation shirt under his
jersey every game to honor his fa
ther, who spent his life working
there.
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