[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 27426]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               NEW YORK YANKEES WINNING THE WORLD SERIES

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the New York 
Yankees on the occasion of their victory in Major League Baseball's 
World Series last night. In front of 56,752 fans, the Yankees defeated 
the Atlanta Braves 4-1 and clinched a series sweep in this best of 
seven series. Fittingly, ``The Team of the Millennium'' has staked its 
claim as the best franchise in the 1990's.
  As the season began, few seers in the sports world could have 
foretold the indelible mark this team would leave behind. The adversity 
these young men faced would have folded a team of lesser character. 
Their stalwart manager Joe Torre began the year in a hospital room 
rather than in the dugout as he battled prostate cancer. Teammates Paul 
O'Neill, Luis Sojo, and Scott Brosius all lost their fathers during the 
past season. In addition, the Yankee family was struck by the passing 
of baseball legends, Joe DiMaggio and Jim ``Catfish'' Hunter. Yet this 
team endured and reached its goal, giving New York an unfathomable 25th 
World Championship.
  For the past two seasons--and three of the last four--we have seen 
the Yankees go to the World Series. They emerged victorious after the 
minimum of four straight wins on both occasions. Starting pitchers 
David Cone, Orlando Hernandez, and Roger Clemens held the Braves to a 
meager six hits and two runs in 21\2/3\ innings. Reliever Mariano 
Rivera had saves in Games One and Two and won Game Three on his way to 
becoming the Series Most Valuable Player. Offensively, the team had 
Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch getting on base, and Chad Curtis came 
off the bench to hit two home runs in Game Three, with the second 
coming in the bottom of the 10th, sealing the victory for the Bronx 
Bombers.
  All in all, this team put forth admirable effort coupled with 
unmatched talent. This victory is a truly epochal moment that brings 
joy to the hearts of Yankee fans everywhere. An editorial appearing in 
today's New York Times puts it best, ``We are all fans now.'' In 
closing I would like to offer a possible slogan for next year's team: 
Thrice would be nice.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 29, 1999]

                            The Yankees Win

       Maturity in sports has many looks, but right now it looks 
     like the New York Yankees, who won their 25th World Series 
     last night against the Atlanta Braves. Clearly, the Yankees 
     were able to dominate the Braves, whom they swept, but just 
     as clearly they were able to dominate themselves and their 
     own fortunes. Patience is a word that has been much used 
     around the Yankees dugout this season, and what it means is a 
     privileged manner of looking at baseball. What this team 
     seems to see is not a game where one event cascades into 
     another as the innings slip by, the past steadily 
     commandeering the present. To this team baseball looks like a 
     game of constant renewal, with each pitch, each batter, each 
     defensive out.
       Baseball is, if anything, too rich in the grand themes, 
     especially during a World Series. You expect television to 
     turn grandeur into grandiosity, and it does. But a kind of 
     triumphalism thrives at Yankee Stadium too, where the World 
     Series pregame soundtrack included the theme from ``Star 
     Wars'' and the ``1812 Overture.'' But that mood is meant for 
     the fans, not the players. There is a difference between 
     destiny and opportunity, and the 1999 Yankees know it. They 
     will take opportunity every time, and in this Series, take it 
     they have.
       It is easy, in the high-wattage glare of a Series game, to 
     lose sight of the fact that baseball, even at Yankee Stadium, 
     can still have a pleasantly smalltown feel to it. Kofi Annan, 
     mayor of the world if not the city, throws out the first 
     pitch in New York, which bounces halfway to the plate. 
     Marching bands from South Jersey assemble on the warning 
     track--the outfield grass remaining inviolate--and play 
     ``Gimme Some Lovin'' and ``Louie, Louie.'' The notes of all 
     the instruments, except the base drums, gust away into the 
     evening, just as they would at a local homecoming game. Hand-
     lettered signs rise in the stands--``Dripping Springs, Texas, 
     Loves the Yankees''--and the stadium sparkles with camera 
     flashes going off, snapshots of a vortex where a batter steps 
     up to the plate.
       The fans roar with emphatic, if imprecise, knowledge. They 
     call balls and strikes from a mile away. The air is barbed 
     with advice, with schoolyard taunts, and then with the 
     exultation of the moment. The emotion so latent in the 
     players, so overt in the fans, gives way at the final out, 
     and at last, in the rejoicing, there is no distinction 
     between players and fans. We are all fans now.

                          ____________________