October 20, 1998: Game 3 of the World Series, in front of 64,667 at Jack Murphy – excuse me, Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Having hosted Super Bowl XXXII in January, this becomes the 1st time the Super Bowl and the World Series have been played in the same stadium -- or even in the same metropolitan area -- in the same calendar year.
The Metrodome in Minneapolis hosted the World Series in October 1991, Super Bowl XXVI in January 1992, and the NCAA Final Four in April 1992. But no stadium has hosted a Super Bowl and a World Series in the same calendar year since. Detroit in 2006, Dallas in 2011 and Houston in 2017 have hosted both in the same metro area in the same calendar year, but not in the same stadium.
In the pre-Super Bowl era, World Series and NFL Championship Games had been played in the same city in the same calendar year as follows: New York in 1936 (including both at the Polo Grounds), 1938, 1956 (including both at the original Yankee Stadium) and 1962 (including both at Yankee Stadium); Detroit in 1935; and Cleveland in 1954 (including both at Cleveland Municipal Stadium).
The New York Yankees had beaten the San Diego Padres in the 1st 2 games of the Series, at Yankee Stadium. In Game 3 in San Diego, the Padres take a 3-0 lead on the Yankees, but 3rd baseman Scott Brosius, having the season of his life -- it was the only time in his 11-season major league career that he made the All-Star Game -- hits a home run to make it 3-2. In the top of the 8th, with the Yankees threatening with 2 men on, the Padres bring in their closer, Trevor Hoffman.
The Padre fans, believing him to be the world's greatest relief pitcher, wave their white towels and cheer wildly. The words, "TREVOR TIME" appear on the scoreboard. The public-address system blasts the song "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC.
Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, not familiar with the hard rock music of the 1970s and 1980s -- and also not familiar with the legally-forced change of name to the WWE -- tells the New York beat writers, "When they played that death march, it sounded like the WWF, when The Undertaker comes in. That's who I thought they were bringing in!"
Certainly, for NL batters that season, Hoffman might as well have been an undertaker. The whole production had become one of the most intimidating scenes in baseball.
But these are not NL batters, these are the New York Yankees, and they fear nobody. Brosius takes him over the center field wall for a 5-3 Yankee lead, soon to be a 5-4 Yankee victory. The actual best closer in the game, Mariano Rivera, finishes it off, and the Yankees wrapped up the Series with a sweep the next night.
Brosius played 4 seasons for the Yankees: 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. In each of those seasons, the Yankees won the Pennant. In each of the ensuing World Series, Brosius hit a home run. (In this case, 2 of them.) He took a ground ball at 3rd base for the last out of Game 4, and of the Series, as the Yankees finished off the sweep. But it had already been decided that he would be named the Series' Most Valuable Player.
Hoffman would become the major leagues' all-time saves leader with 601. Rivera would surpass him, and raise the record to 654. Both were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and both had their numbers retired by their teams: Hoffman's 51 by the Padres, and Rivera's 42 for the Yankees. (Number 42 had already been retired for all of baseball for Jackie Robinson, but players then wearing it were allowed to continue wearing it. Rivera was the last one.)
The 1998 Yankees were the greatest team in baseball history. The case for them is not just the 114-48 regular-season record, or the 125-50 record counting the postseason. It's this: In 1998, the Texas Rangers had probably the best team in franchise history to that point. The Cleveland Indians had perhaps the best team franchise history to that point. The San Diego Padres had absolutely the best team in franchise history to that point. And the Yankees went into the postseason, and went 11-2 against those teams.
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October 20, 1998 was a Tuesday. The NFL was in midweek. The NBA team owners had locked the players out, and the season probably wouldn't have started this soon, anyway. There were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-1 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.
* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-1 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina.
* And the Dallas Stars beat the Calgary Flames, 3-1 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.
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