Raising Arizona

PHOENIX â€”  And so, after seven months, the baseball season comes down to two words.

Two perfect words.

Game Seven.

And so, after a week of running and stumbling and soaring around grass fields in a marvelous game of World Series tag, the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks finally have each other cornered.

Today. Bank One Ballpark. Dinnertime.

Winner take all. One play take all. One hero take all. One mistake cost all.

A season boiled into three hours shrunk into a moment.

Game Seven.

It’s the sweetest sound in baseball, the most compelling sight in sports.

It’s the sort of justice we rarely find anywhere else, spoken in a language everyone understands.

“Put it this way,� Diamondback pitcher Brian Anderson said. “Growing up, you never dream about stepping up to the plate in Game 4 .�

Teammate Greg Colbrunn put it another way. “What’s a Game 7 like? I’ll tell you tomorrow, because I’ve never been part of one,� he said nervously. “I’m trying not to think about.�

The Diamondbacks’ 15-2 victory over the Yankees on Saturday in Game 6 has created dream for some, a potential nightmare for others.

For Diamondback pitcher Curt Schilling, it could be both.

After acknowledging this week that his career was changed 10 years ago after a harsh pep talk from Roger Clemens, he now faces Clemens in a battle of arguably the game’s two best pitchers.

“Like Obi-Wan Kenobi facing Luke Skywalker,� Anderson said.

With two beaming footnotes.

First, after pitching seven innings in Game 4 on three days rest, Schilling complained that Manager Bob Brenly took him out too soon ... then complained of arm soreness and said he might not pitch Game 7, which would vindicate Brenly ... and is now telling everyone to forget he ever said anything.

“I feel fantastic tonight,� he said Saturday. “I’m taking the ball for all it is worth.�

He apparently feels it’s going to be worth a lot. In a second footnote, Schilling appeared on television Saturday guaranteeing a victory.

As if that wasn’t juicy enough, he later guaranteed the guarantee.

“What I said before the game stands,� he said afterward. “I said if we could get by tonight, we would win the World Series. I believe that. I really believe that.�

Right about now, the three-time defending champions are believing he’s nuts.

Said Derek Jeter of the boast: “I don’t care. People guarantee stuff against us all the time.�

Yeah, such as when, in the seventh inning Saturday, the Diamondback fans started chanting, “Nah-nah-nah, hey-hey-hey, goodbye ... “

Um, folks, you’re a tad early.

“You know, Seattle beat the hell out of us the one game [14-3 in the championship series], and, you know, we were able to bounce back,� Manager Joe Torre said.

As perplexing as the chant was the ballpark loudspeaker playing “New York, New York� when the game ended.

The 49,707 fans jeered until the song stopped a few seconds later with a loud clang.

Jerry Colangelo, Diamondback owner, said he felt the Yankees rubbed the Diamondbacks’ noses in the song in New York.

Again, the Yankees shrugged.

“The fans are having fun,� Torre said.

Aren’t we ever.

We’ll all be fans tonight, everyone waiting for history, everyone watching for that moment.

The rest of the country hates New York, but how can you not love the resilient Yankees? This is not about Sept. 11, this is about .186, their batting average this series, and yet they have still scuffled to within one game of another crown?

The rest of the country doesn’t know much about Phoenix, but how can you not love the aging, last-chance Diamondbacks? No sooner did Randy Johnson walk off the mound after throwing 105 pitches Saturday than he was thinking about returning to the mound today in relief.

Said Johnson: “Nothing is out of the question.�

Said teammate Anderson: “We should send him down to the bullpen in the sixth or seventh inning, even if he’s not going to pitch, just as a big deke, something to get the crowd going. Why not? This series has seen everything else.�

And now, it will see something only seen twice in the last 10 years.

Something that, whenever seen, is never forgotten.

In baseball’s last World Series Game 7, in 1997, Florida defeated Cleveland, 3-2, in 11 innings.

Remember Edgar Renteria’s line drive up the middle and Craig Counsell’s dash to the plate?

In 1991, Minnesota defeated Atlanta, 1-0, in 10 innings.

Every inning pitched, unforgettably, by aging Jack Morris.

It is not a good Yankee omen that probably the greatest Game 7 finish ever was a home run that beat them.

Of course you remember 1960, when Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth-inning blast to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 win.

Who can forget those grainy old films of Maz grabbing his cap as he rounded third?

Who will make the moment tonight?

Said the Diamondbacks’ Luis Gonzalez: “Our team can smell it, our fans can smell it.�

Said the Yankees Mike Stanton: “We knew it would not be easy. Nothing has ever come easy for us this year. We will be ready.�

Seven months. One game. Batter up.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected].