Back in October of 2000, nearly 18 years ago, Joe Torre described a trip to Oakland Coliseum as the “flight from hell” that no member of the Yankees wanted to make. Derek Jeter even admitted that most of his teammates weren’t prepared or packed to travel out west, since the expectation was to win in New York, with home field advantage at their disposal.
The Yankees had no intentions of playing Game 5 of the ALDS against the scrappy Oakland Athletics that year, no desire to take part in a daunting winner-take-all, loser-go-home, do-or-die postseason game as the visiting team.