Luck. It's What Counts Now.

Everyone's making a huge deal out of the whole Mr. November thing, and I can't blame them. I watched the highlight thing twice. It's actual Tino Martinez footage! It's the purple D-Backs uniforms! It's old Yankee Stadium!

So Derek Jeter's month is ushered in, and perhaps he can perform up to standards. Perhaps not. But when I watched that, I didn't realize that the WS had been pushed back a week because of 9/11 and that was why it was so late in the year. But...it's pretty amazing.

Doesn anyone else remember it? I mean, of course you remember it, it's the world series, but does anyone else remember it well? Obviously, I wasn't allowed to stay up that late, I was seven, but I remember my sister excitedly telling me about it the next day. It was the first person to bat in November, it was *Derek*, and he hit a home run! The Yankees won!

Which is about the extent to which I remember it.

But people forget that there are three other men who are to thank/blame for Mr. November's title: Tino Martinez, Bob Brenly, and Byung-Hyun Kim.

Obviously it's still a huge clutch performance, a great thing, and I am not trying to diminish that.

But people forget. They forget who tied the game in the ninth: Martinez. He did so with a two-run homer. Without Martinez, the D-Backs would have won and Jeter would not have had the oppurtunity to hit. And if Bob Brenly had not left in Kim after that first homer, then would another reliever have given up the second one? Perhaps, perhaps not.

And that's where the World Series is dependent on luck. No, the Yankees did not win that WS, but if one tiny thing had been changed then that game might have turned out differently. If Martinez hat not launched that ball, if Brenly had been cautious, if Kim had thrown that pitch just a tad differently...

But they didn't and it happened and Mr. November was made.

What if Brenly had managed much differently...say, Joe Girardi-style? Would he have won the series still? What if Martinez had slumped? Would the Yankees have gotten that far? What if Jeter had hit a double instead of a homer? Would he have scored? What if it took him a few more innings and he came up again, would he have hit the homer then? Would he still be Mr. November?

What if 9/11 had not happened? Would the Yanks be as fueled to win, would they have all that motivation from their city? Would something else have happened to push the series back? Would Jeter still have hit a homer at 12:04 in the morning?

We will never know.

I prefer having the Yankees fans shout "26! 26! 26!" to "27! 27! 27!" so I'm not sure I really want to.