10 INNINGS Yankees 4 Twins 3 MINNEAPOLIS – Laying in the Metrodome’s dirt surrounding second base, Chuck Knoblauch had no way of knowing how severe the damage to his lower left leg was. Writhing in pain, the only thing Knoblauch ruled out was a broken tibia. Everything else was still a dark possibility.
“I broke my leg in high school and the leg was as hard as concrete but this time that didn’t happen,” Knoblauch said.
The damage inflicted on Knoblauch by a Corey Koskie roll block was immediately diagnosed as a badly bruised lower left leg after two X-rays revealed no broken bones. The second set of pictures were required after it was believed a chip on the ankle turned up but that wasn’t the case.
Watching Knoblauch dress and move to the team charter with a heavy limp, the Yankees exhaled after a taking a pulsating, 4-3 win over the Twins in 10 innings that upped their record to 18-9 and took some of the sting out of a 6-4 road trip on which they didn’t play well.
Today, the AL East leaders will find out more after Knoblauch is examined by Dr. Stuart Hershon, the team physician.
“The knee is fine and the ankle is fine, essentially he is OK,” trainer Gene Monahan said of Knoblauch who was injured when he tried to turn an eighth-inning double play with the bases loaded that was impossible to get because the ball wasn’t hit hard enough. “They have ruled out fracture and ligament damage here.”
If today’s test – which will likely include an MRI – confirms yesterday’s diagnosis, it will allow Knoblauch to avoid the DL.
Koskie, a 26-year-old former college hockey player turned infielder with 27 games of big league experience, not only crushed Knoblauch with a body roll, he cost the Twins a chance to take a 4-3 lead in the eighth when he was called out for interference by second base umpire Jim Joyce. So, instead of having runners at first and third and leading, 4-3, with two outs, the Twins went to the ninth tied, 3-3.
“He didn’t slide,” Joyce said. “There was no intent to go to second base and just try to break up the double play. He didn’t slide and he has to slide.”
David Cone was the only Yankee to question Koskie’s intent, saying he should have known he could have ended Knoblauch’s career. Everybody else was forgiving.
“There was no intent to try and hurt,” said Scott Brosius, who went 3-for-5 with a homer and delivered the game-tying run in the eighth with a booming triple to the gap in right-center off Rick Aguilera that scored pinch-runner Ricky Ledee from first.
“It wasn’t a good common-sense play because we wouldn’t have turned two on it. It wound up hurting [Knoblauch] and costing them the ballgame.”
Ledee, who didn’t start in left field thanks to an 0-for-11 slide, delivered the game-winning hit in the top of the 10th when he took an Aguilera fastball the other way to left for a single that scored Bernie Williams from third. Ledee was hitting in Chili Davis’ spot after running for Davis in the eighth.
Mariano Rivera recorded the final three outs for his ninth save in 10 chances. Jason Grimsley, who relieved David Cone with one out and the bases loaded in the eighth and got Ron Coomer to hit a ground ball to Derek Jeter that started the controversial double play, was the winner and improved to 3-0 with 12/3 innings of scoreless work.
“I was just trying to be aggressive and I didn’t want them to turn the double play,” said Koskie, who chatted briefly with Knoblauch before the previous two games and was a spring training teammate of Knoblauch’s in 1997.
“I was aimed on him and didn’t know how close I was to the bag. I got caught up in the intensity of the game. I feel terrible for what happened. I saw Chuck on the ground and I said, ‘Are you all right, Knobby? Are you all right?'”
Knoblauch, who missed Wednesday night’s game with a bruised left foot, wasn’t going to search the universe for a clip of the play. If he saw it, fine. But he wasn’t anxious to look at a play many of his teammates called ugly and one he only knows he got drilled on.
“I am sure he was just trying to play the game hard,” Knoblauch said of Koskie, who made an attempt to see Knoblauch in the Yankees’ clubhouse but arrived before Knoblauch returned from the hospital.
Not sure of what the medical term was for the injury, Knoblauch only knew it hurt.
“It’s definitely throbbing,” Knoblauch said. “Once they found out there were no fractures, Gino said to walk on it to get movement in it but there is definitely a good amount of pain.”