Background
The Arizona Diamondbacks reached the Series in just their fourth season of existence, breaking a record previously held by the Florida Marlins, and took on the three-time defending champion New York Yankees, who had won the World Series in four of the last five years and tried to become the first team to win four straight titles since the Yankees' five consecutive titles from 1949 to 1953. Arizona captured the Series, four games to three, thereby dethroning the defending World Champions and earning their first title.
Arizona won the first two games at home handily, but New York won the next three in close contests at Yankee Stadium, including two dramatic ninth-inning comebacks against Arizona closer Byung-Hyun Kim. Arizona won the sixth game behind Randy Johnson, who then came in to pitch in relief of Curt Schilling in Game 7. The Diamondbacks won the game 3–2, with Jay Bell scoring the winning run on a bloop single by Luis Gonzalez, in the bottom of the ninth inning off the Yankees' ace closer, Mariano Rivera. Johnson, credited with the Game 7 win, became the first pitcher to win three games in the same World Series since Detroit Tigers' Mickey Lolich in 1968.
The home team won every game in the Series. This had only happened twice before, in 1987 and 1991; in both cases, the Minnesota Twins won the Series. This Series was the subject of an HBO documentary Nine Innings from Ground Zero in 2004.
Though the series went to the maximum seven games, the Diamondbacks outscored the Yankees 37–14 as a result of large margins of victory achieved by Arizona in Bank One Ballpark relative to the one run margins at Yankee Stadium. Arizona held powerhouse New York to an .183 batting average, the lowest in a seven-game Series. The previous record was .185 by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1985 World Series when they lost to the Kansas City Royals.
Read more about this topic: 2001 World Series
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