INDIANAPOLIS — In retrospect, these things always seem inevitable, a part of some great narrative, paeans to belief and faith, and a little bit of prescience, too. History is written by the victors, after all, and always has been. If the re-telling can include an elegant yarn about facing, and then overcoming, steep odds? Even better.
But there’s really no secret sauce to any of it, other than this: The team that was in the hole, facing steep odds, simply started playing better. Started playing much better. The rest is the stuff of rubber-chicken dinners and “30-for-30s” and Old-Timer’s Day reunions.
One of the great tales of the Joe Torre years was how George Steinbrenner declared Game 2 of the 1996 World Series a must-win after getting blasted by the Braves in Game 1, 12-1. Torre responded by telling Steinbrenner the Yankees were probably going to lose Game 2, too, with Greg Maddux on the mound (which they did, 4-0).
“We’ll go to Atlanta and take care of business because Atlanta is my town,” Torre famously said, famous because that’s exactly what they did, and that silenced Steinbrenner, and it became a permanent part of Torre’s legend when the Yankees capped the comeback and won Game 6 back in The Bronx, too.
