Wilkes-barre Academy Will Host Holiday Fair On Saturday

PATRICIA (LELLO) BROOKS, 62, of Dupont, died Friday, October 5, 2

N.Y. faces must win vs. Tribe in what could be last time Torre, Rocket and A-Rod are Yanks.


NEW YORK &mdash; The Cleveland Indians could end a few eras tonight.
Roger Clemens could be taking the mound for the last time. Alex Rodriguez could be playing his final game in pinstripes. Joe Torre could be managing for his future with the New York Yankees.
Ahead 2-0 in their best-of-five AL division series after swarming the Yankees at the Jake, the youthful Tribe could be starting a run of their own: The Indians need just one win to advance to their first AL championship series since 1998 &mdash; and to send the Yankees home without a World Series title for the seventh consecutive season.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not going to relax,&rdquo; Indians first baseman Ryan Garko said. &ldquo;We want to put this away.&rdquo;
Cleveland made the playoffs six times in seven years from 1995-2001 and in 1997 was within two outs of its first World Series title since 1948 when Jose Mesa blew a ninth-inning lead in Game 7 against Florida. These Indians are just starting to fathom how far they can go and what it&rsquo;s like to play in October.
&ldquo;I think we could definitely put together a string of four or five years,&rdquo; said Jake Westbrook, Cleveland&rsquo;s Game 3 starter.
Yankees veterans, bugged by their deficit, like to say they&rsquo;ve seen every situation &mdash; well, perhaps not the B-movie insect attack of Game 2. They cited their comeback from a 21-29 start this year and an 0-2 deficit against Oakland in 2001&rsquo;s opening round.
&ldquo;That is the first thing we looked to last night in the clubhouse,&rdquo; Andy Pettitte said. &ldquo;The first thing that goes through your mind is, we&rsquo;ve done this. We can do this. We can pull this off.&rdquo;
They haven&rsquo;t been swept in the playoffs since 1980, but they haven&rsquo;t overcome much in the postseason since their epic collapse from a 3-0 lead against Boston in the 2004 ALCS, losing 12 of their last 15 playoff games.
&ldquo;Been there, done that&rdquo; seems to apply especially for Alex Rodriguez, and not in a good way. He&rsquo;s 0-for-October, hitless in his last 18 playoff at-bats and 4-for-50 with no RBI in the playoffs since his Game 4 2004 homer versus Boston.
A $252 million man during the regular season, he hasn&rsquo;t been worth $2.52 in the playoffs, striking out three times and hitting three infield popups against the Indians. A-Rod has become A-Wreck once again, and if he threatens to exercise that opt-out clause next month, Yankees fans might respond like Dirty Harry, &ldquo;Go ahead, make my day.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to get back home, feed off the energy of the crowd and play Yankee baseball,&rdquo; Rodriguez said after Game 2. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re better than that.&rdquo;
Doug Mientkiewicz took time Saturday to keep A-Rod&rsquo;s spirits up.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been texting him back and forth to keep his mind right,&rdquo; Mientkiewicz said. &ldquo;We need him to be him and then let everybody else do our own thing.&rdquo;
Rodriguez might never make it to the top of the heap in New York, New York, but he&rsquo;s not the only struggling hitter on a team that led the big leagues in scoring but is batting .121 against the Indians: Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui are each 0-for-7, Derek Jeter 1-for-8 and leadoff man Johnny Damon 1-for-9. Baseball&rsquo;s highest-scoring team has four runs in two games &mdash; one run and four hits in the last 15 innings &mdash; and Torre might start Jason Giambi, thus far a $21 million pinch hitter. New York canceled batting practice Saturday, hoping to break its routine.
Westbrook is quite familiar with Yankee Stadium. He was traded by the Yankees in 2000 as part of the deal that sent David Justice to New York. This year he&rsquo;s 0-2 against them but hopes to follow C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona in turning pinstriped lumber to sawdust.

It’s Do-or-die Game 3 For Yankees