Midway through a conversation about the most famous play of his baseball career, Tony Tarasco gets philosophical. "You can't stop the universe," Tarasco says, smiling. "Maybe it was written that the Yankees were supposed to do what they did."
Tarasco, of course, was the Orioles' outfielder poised to perhaps catch what became a Derek Jeter home run in the opener of the 1996 American League Championship Series when a then-12-year-old named Jeffrey Maier got involved. Tarasco is the man who points toward Maier, who reached over the right-field wall in the eighth inning and deflected Jeter's drive into the stands.