Otsapa Victory
“with O’Neill crying as he hugged him’: Joe Torre Shares Heartfelt Moment with …
On October 23, 1999, all the pageantry was out at Turner Field in Atlanta for the start of the World Series. It was the final Fall Classic of the century and as enticing a matchup as Major League Baseball could have imagined for that season.
The New York Yankees were the defending World Series champions and seeking to capture a title to match the legendary 1998 club. It would also be their third championship in four seasons, as they had pulled off an upset back in ‘96 to start this dynastic run. The team they beat, the Atlanta Braves, had been heavy favorites since they were in their fourth Fall Classic of the decade at the time and had won it all in ‘95. The stage was set for a grudge match, which began 25 years ago this week.
The two teams stood on the foul lines for the national anthem before Game 1 on October 23rd, eagerly awaiting first pitch. However, there was one player missing from the Yankees’ side of the diamond: infielder Luis Sojo. Playoff roster spots are precious and even beyond his status as a beloved figure in the clubhouse, Sojo was valued as a potential late defensive sub, but manager Joe Torre elected to play a man down for at least the first couple games in Atlanta.
The problem was that there was no bereavement list at the time, and Sojo had suddenly lost his 72-year-old father, Ambrosio.
It had been a trying month for Sojo. His dad had been visiting him from Venezuela but had gone to the hospital with heart trouble. Sojo actually had to miss most of the 10-inning American League Championship Series opener against Boston because it turned out that Ambrosio needed emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. Luis returned to the team after the procedure and played in two of the final four games as the Yanks closed out the pennant.
Thanks to their relatively quick elimination of the Red Sox, the Yankees had a few days off prior to the World Series. Father and son could spend more time together as he recovered. Indeed, Ambrosio appeared to be doing better, and as he changed hospitals, Luis fully anticipated joining his team on the Friday flight to Atlanta with the Fall Classic opener set for Saturday.
Fate can be cruel. A liver infection hit Ambrosio hard and fast. He went from happily chatting with his son early on Friday to gone in a hurry. “My dad was my buddy,” said Sojo to the New York Times. ‘’He was talking to me the whole time. He was excited because he could see the World Series. I went home and I came back and he was dead.”
Luis had to scramble through the heartache. He quickly made plans to travel to Venezuela to join his mother and five siblings for his father’s funeral (not to mention a cortege of 1,000 people who had an affection for the gregarious taxi driver and the Sojo family). Since he wanted to play in Ambrosio’s memory once the team returned to New York for Game 3, he hoped that the Yankees would still roster him.
GM Brian Cashman tried to get a special exemption from the league in these pre-bereavement days, but MLB denied it. So the Yankees decided “to hell with it” and took the field with just 24 active players. They won the first two games by a combined score of 11-3. Sojo indeed returned to the team afterward, and was moved by the compassion he felt. “My teammates give me a lot of support,” he recalled to the New York Post. “That was important because when this happened, you feel so alone. Your teammates are your family, too.”
Scott Brosius had been on top of the world in 1998. Yes, his baseball career had been revitalized by a surprise trade from Oakland to the Yankees and he made the All-Star team before becoming a World Series MVP. More importantly to him, his father Maury had seemingly survived a “grapefruit-sized tumor” and colon cancer. Brosius’ mother, Jenni Montee, had lost her cancer battle years ago. Maury made it through the surgeries, and months later in remission, the man who grew up in awe of Mickey Mantle got to see his son jump for joy on the field and join Mantle on the Yankees’ all-time roll call of champions.
“This is special,” said Scott to the Tampa Bay Times in the celebration. “He hasn’t been feeling too good lately, so it’s kind of nice to have some moments like this, where he can kind of stop thinking about the real things in life and share a little of the dream.”
These moments must have felt like reaching the oasis, but it was only the eye of the hurricane. As many of us know, cancer pulls nasty tricks like that. The colon cancer returned to Maury Brosius and he spent much of 1999 in dire straits. By March, he had already been told that the cancer had spread too far and that this was a terminal diagnosis. So it understandably became an awful summer for Scott with his father in pain, far away from him.
Torre knew that his third baseman was often playing through a daze of sorts. He encouraged Brosius to take the time that he needed to spend with his father while he still could. That meant going away from the team to Oregon on several occasions, but all sides agreed that this was more important than a game. After one last visit prior to Labor Day, Scott got the call at Yankee Stadium on September 12th: Maury Brosius had passed away. He was 55.
The last seven or eight days since I’ve been back, probably as difficult as any days I’ve been through,” said Brosius afterward to the New York Daily News. “You are thinking about him and the struggles he’s going through. I really had a sense of peace with what happened (though). He was ready and it was very peaceful for him so there is some comfort knowing that his pain is over.”
So Brosius knew exactly what Sojo was going through when he had to leave the Yankees just before the Fall Classic. When his fellow infielder returned for Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, it was reasonable to hope that the worst was behind them. Hours after a walk-off victory and a 3-0 series lead that put the Yanks on the brink of a repeat, the real world came back with another bucket of cold water.
At 3 AM on October 27th, Paul O’Neill got the call, too. His dad, Charles “Chick” O’Neill, had died at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side.
Chick’s passing was simultaneously a shock and yet also unsurprising. He had suffered from coronary artery disease for many years prior to suffering heart attacks in both June and September of 1999 (the first leading to heart surgery). Paul spent many nights with his father at Lenox Hill as summer turned to fall, and Chick—a minor-league pitcher in the ‘40s—was always determined to at least stay awake for his son’s games on TV. His condition worsened as the playoffs continued. A nasty one-two punch of a staph infection and pneumonia hit him and his lungs and kidneys began to fail.
For O’Neill to lose his father in the middle of all the World Series, though? Players and many involved in the commotion have talked about how life feels like it happens in a vacuum during this time. Almost by necessity, the outside world blurs for awhile. It was jarring, and he had been especially close with his father. (I can’t truly do justice to their close bond when O’Neill himself has his own memoir about it.)
Torre, Brosius, Sojo, and the rest of the Yankees consoled O’Neill. No one really expected him to start, but O’Neill decided to play in Game 4, if not only to “concentrate and maybe escape for those two or three hours.”
So for 2 hours and 58 minutes, baseball was O’Neill’s sanctuary. He felt that he was where his dad would’ve wanted him to be and stayed locked in for as long as he possibly could.
As the final out was recorded of the Yankees’ 25th World Series title, O’Neill darted in with his emotions overwhelming him. Torre found his right fielder and with O’Neill crying as he hugged him, Torre told him, “Your dad got to watch this one.”
