On this day in New York · November 4, 2009
Godzilla Wins It: The Yankees Take Their 27th Title
At the brand-new Yankee Stadium, a soft-spoken slugger from Japan hit like nobody had in a World Series clincher in half a century, and the Bronx got its first parade in nine years.
The facts
- Final score
- Yankees 7, Phillies 3
- Where
- Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, in its first season open
- Attendance
- 50,315
- Series MVP
- Hideki Matsui, 6 RBIs, first Japanese-born player to win it
On November 4, 2009, the Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-3 in Game 6 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, clinching their 27th championship and their first since 2000. Designated hitter Hideki Matsui drove in six runs, tying a World Series record set by Bobby Richardson in 1960, and was named the Series MVP, becoming the first Japanese-born player and the first full-time DH to win the award. Andy Pettitte, pitching on short rest for the third straight start of the postseason, got the win, pushing his own record for career postseason victories to 18. Pedro Martinez started for Philadelphia and, ever the needler, had already told reporters before the game exactly whose side New England was on.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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I know that they don't like the Yankees to win, not even in Nintendo games.
Pedro Martinez, Phillies starting pitcher, before Game 6
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
It was the last Yankees parade before a decade-plus title drought, and it made Matsui, a quiet veteran nobody in the Bronx expected to be the story, the answer to a trivia question for good: the only Japanese-born World Series MVP.
Sources
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