COLLAPSE: To break down suddenly in strength or health and thereby cease to function.
The 2004 Yankees COLLAPSE against the Red Sox in the second round of the playoff is the greatest CHOKE by any baseball team in the playoffs, but it is far from the greatest collapse or choke in baseball history. The premise is simple, it is one that until recently had been a baseball axiom, and despite the media brainwashing most fans, it is still valid. The most important series is the World Series and the most successful season a team can have is one in which it wins the World Series.
There is no excuse for the 2004 Yankees' performance in the last four games of the playoffs, but the results of the 2003 and 2001 World Series were exponentially worse because in those years, they lost the final game of the World Series, not the final game of the playoffs. Simply put, if the Yankees had won Game 7 against Arizona in 2001, they would have been World Champions. If they had won Game 7 against the Red Sox in 2004 they would have been give a chance to play in the World Series. That makes a world of difference.
The greatest choke in baseball history occurred in Games 6 and 7 of the 2002 World Series when the pressure suffocated the San Francisco Giants. Wild card San Francisco led the wild card Angels, three games to two and going to the Angels half of the seventh inning, held a 5-0 lead. The Angels scored three runs in the seventh, three more in the eighth to go ahead by a run, San Francisco was retired in order in the ninth, and there would be a Game 7. No team ever led a potential World Series clinching game by five runs in the seventh inning and lost---until San Francisco.
San Francisco was finished. They went ahead by a run in the second inning of Game 7 but the Angels came back with one of their own and then scored three runs in the third inning that San Francisco never answered. The Angels won, 4-1.
San Francisco had the chance to win the World Series by winning a game they led by five runs with nine outs to go. The 2004 Yankees had four chances to win one game in order to GET to the World Series. Both teams choked, but the consequences of the San Francisco choke were not comparable to the consequences of the 2004 Yankees choke simply because there was more pressure on San Francisco since the prize was bigger. The greater the pressure, the greater the choke.
