Hoffman Has His Bell Rung

They weren’t just content to come through the window in the dark of the eighth inning, taking some appliances, rummaging through some drawers.

Oh no. Once inside, the New York Yankees attacked the San Diego Padres in the one place they knew the Padres couldn’t stomach, going after the one thing the Padres couldn’t replace.

The crown jewel. They dug deep, ripped it out, tossed it up like it was fake, paraded it around like it a big joke.

In what was essentially the last 10 minutes of the 1998 Padre season Tuesday, the Yankees grabbed the home team’s most valuable possession, then glared up into the wide-eyed, prayerful crowd of 64,677.

And said, gong this.

His name is Trevor Hoffman, and he will never look the same.

Entering the game in the most dramatic fashion in recent World Series history, he left the same way, only they were carrying him.

The most unstoppable stopper in baseball, as dependable in this town as the sun and surf, walked Tino Martinez and gave up a three-run homer to Scott Brosius to allow the Yankees to steal a 5-4 victory in Game 3.

Thus, the World Series is over. It doesn’t matter if the Yankees lead three games to none, it wouldn’t matter if this were the opener.

The World Series is over because, after messing with the Padres’ minds in Game 1, and their sensibilities in Game 2, the Yankees stole their heart.

“When [Hoffman] comes to the mound, for me, the game is over with,” said Carlos Hernandez, the Padre catcher, speaking for an entire city.

After all, during the last two years, the Padres are 181-0 when leading entering the ninth inning.

So what if Tuesday, he came in the game in the eighth inning, with a runner on first and the Padres leading, 3-2.

Nobody thought anything different.

The gongs began ringing, signaling the beginning of Hoffman’s signature song, “Hells Bells.” Hoffman slowly jogged in from the bullpen. The fans stood and screamed and shook their towels for the entire time he was warming up.

“It’s been like that all year, but I have to separate it from what I’m doing, concentrate on my job,” Hoffman said later. “I have enough emotion going on as it is.”

This time, maybe he had too much emotion, considering this was his first World Series appearance.

Or maybe he didn’t have enough gas, considering this was his career-high 74th appearance.

Or maybe the pressure was too much, considering most of his appearances this year were at the start of an inning with no runners on base. In 66 games during the regular season, he inherited only 26 runners, meaning more than half the time, he was in control.

One excuse that should not be used was that Hoffman had not pitched two innings for a save this season, and was not accustomed to coming into a game before the top of the ninth.

This being the World Series, his team being on the ropes, Manager Bruce Bochy used Hoffman exactly where he should have.

Actually, there was at least one observer Tuesday--OK, me--who was screaming for him to be put into the game in the seventh inning.

“I felt good, I was very prepared,” Hoffman said. “I had the ball, I had to do my job.”

Who knows why he didn’t? Who will ever know? What happened next, by a pitcher who had converted 56 of 58 save opportunities before this, may confound this town until its team gets in another World Series. Which could be 14 more years.

“Things happen,” Hernandez said, still shaking his head. “I guess, things just happen.”

The first thing that happened Tuesday was, Hoffman wasn’t getting his marvelous changeup anywhere near the strike zone. And as we all know by now, the Yankees are no suckers.

He retired his first batter, Bernie Williams. But it took five pitches to do it, and Williams drove a ball to the right-field wall.

Then, after a first-pitch strike to Martinez, he walked him on four consecutive pitches, two of them wild changeups.

“I was kind of tinkering around, I wasn’t around the strike zone,” Hoffman said.

“And as they have shown, this is a very patient team, and you can’t do that.”

Up stepped Brosius, and for two pitches Hoffman was in command, fooling him on a half-swing strike and nearly getting him to dive for a changeup that was ball one.

Then, according to Hoffman, came the key pitch.

No, it was not the home run pitch, it was two pitches before that.

“A 50-foot changeup,” Hoffman said. “I fell behind 2-and-1 in the count, and that changed everything.”

Brosius fouled off the next pitch, but, by then, Hoffman no longer trusted the pitch that could have fooled Brosius into strike three.

So he threw a regular fastball, a little high, and Brosius calmly drove it through the heavy air and a city’s hopes.

“Swung the bat with all he’s got,” Hernandez said.

Even then, as the crowd put down its towels and gasped, at least one Padre didn’t believe.

“I didn’t think it was gone,” Tony Gwynn said. “I thought [Steve] Finley was going to make a play. I couldn’t believe he hit it that good.”

But Hoffman knew.

“It had that certain crack off the bat,” he said.

The cracking of a season. The cracking of a hero.

Trevor Hoffman was as brave in defeat as he has been in victory Tuesday, standing by his locker when the media entered, politely answering every question for as long as there were questions.

Is this devastating?

He didn’t have to think long on that one.

Neither him, nor the Padres, nor the city that today feels strangely violated.

“To say the least,” he said.