NEW YORK -- The ball carried just far enough.

Far enough to send Yankee Stadium into pandemonium. Far enough to even up this World Series at two games apiece. Far enough to erase hope from the minds of Yankees fans and create expectation that, yes, it will happen again. Far enough to teach Diamondbacks fans what others have already learned in Atlanta and Oakland and Cleveland and Seattle.

Just far enough to send Reggie Sanders on the slowest, saddest-looking walk you'll ever see a major leaguer take on a baseball field.

	Byung-Hyun Kim wraps up the feelings of the Diamondbacks after their crushing defeat to the Yankees.

Do you wonder what it was like when Ralph Branca served up the famous "Shot Heard 'Round the World" 50 years ago? Look at Reggie Sanders as he trudged off the field on this night, barely able to get his legs to move the 350 feet from the right-field corner to the third-base dugout and into an Arizona locker room where you had to dig up the courage to look a teammate in the eye.

When Bobby Thomson hit his home run off Branca to win the 1951 National League playoffs, the Brooklyn pitcher had to walk all the way to the clubhouse at the Polo Grounds, located in center field. He had to walk through New York Giants fans who had stormed the field. The Brooklyn clubhouse was on the other side of a thin wooden wall from the New York clubhouse. He could hear the Giants celebrating.

All Sanders heard was Frank Sinatra bellowing out, over the Yankee Stadium public address system, "I want to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep / And find I'm king of the hill -- top of the heap / These little town blues ..."

Blues? Reggie Sanders felt the blues, that's for sure. Heck, he looked the blues.

He had drifted back as Derek Jeter's flyball off Byung-Hyun Kim drifted into history. As Jeter sailed around the bases, mounted policemen stormed the field in hordes, before Jeter could even reach home plate. And there was Sanders, emerging from the shadows of the right-field corner, one slow step after one slow step, oblivious to the horses and security personnel. The Arizona relief pitchers jogged in from the bullpen beyond the outfield fence in left-center. Steve Finley, the center fielder, slowly ran in from his spot in the outfield.

Sanders had barely reached the infield cutout when the rest of his teammates were already off the diamond. He appeared to be serving a sort of self-punishment, as if the slower he walked and the louder the Yankee Stadium crowd sang, the more likely the agony and demons of this loss could be exorcised.

Of course, it wasn't Reggie Sanders who lost this game, a contest full of more frozen moments than a package of rainbow Popsicles.

Right from the first inning, when Yankees starter Orlando Hernandez loaded the bases with a single, a hit batter and a walk but got Matt Williams to strike out and Steve Finley to pop out, this game provided one exciting play after another. The fans spent most of the game standing instead of sitting.

There was Shane Spencer's chip shot home run down the right-field line in the third inning to get the crowd going. And Mark Grace's long blast the following inning to silence the crowd.

There was Tony Womack trying to score from third base on Luis Gonzalez's shallow fly to left in the fifth. Jorge Posada made a miracle short-hop stop and tag to get Womack. Orlando Hernandez, backing up the play, got so excited he bumped into Womack as he yelled and pumped his fist.

But the crowd was silenced again when Paul O'Neill grounded out to first base with two outs in the bottom of the inning, missing by half a step of scoring Scott Brosius from third base.

There was Womack's double play with two runners on in the seventh. Roars. There was Posada's double play in the bottom half of the inning. Groans.

And in the meanwhile, the crowd would get pumped up when a Yankee pitcher got two strikes on an Diamondback hitter. Or one strike. Or anytime in-between.

A game of inches? Erubiel Durazo's double in the eighth flew over Bernie Williams' glove by an inch to score the go-ahead run. Then, pinch-runner Midre Cummings scored when he beat Jeter's throw home on Matt Williams' grounder by another inch.

When Cummings scored, the Stadium suddenly hushed. It was quieter than during the pregame moment of silence for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

It would get loud again.

Just ask Reggie Sanders.

David Schoenfield is the baseball editor at ESPN.com