NEW YORK -- This is an entire team of Mr. Octobers and Mr. Novembers and Mr. Can-You-Believe-Its and Mr. Amazings.

	Alfonso Soriano's game-winning hit was set up by his game-saving defensive play an inning earlier.

Maybe you saw it on television. Maybe you heard it on the radio while working the late-night shift. Maybe your son or daughter off at college phoned after the bottom of the ninth inning and asked if you were watching this baseball game being played in the House That Ruth Built, the stadium where more championships have been won and more dreams of glory created than any sports arena in the country.

But if you were actually there? How to describe Game 5 of this World Series, a night after the dramatic events of Game 4?

Put it this way: Even after Scott Brosius tied the game 2-2 with his ninth-inning, two-run, two-out homer, the Arizona Diamondbacks actually had a glimmer of hope to win. They loaded the bases with one out in the 11th inning. The invincible Mariano Rivera appeared in danger of giving up the go-ahead run.

Cue up Alfonso Soriano to rescue the Sandman.

Reggie Sanders, who had struck out his first three times up and then grounded into a fielder's choice in his fourth at-bat, stepped to the plate. Arizona manager Bob Brenly left David Dellucci on the bench, a good left-handed hitter and also a better contact hitter than the strikeout-prone Sanders.

And when Rivera blew a 94-mph fastball past Sanders and then fired a nasty 93-mph cutter through Sanders' bat, it appeared Joe Torre's strategy to intentionally walk Steve Finley to load the bases would pay off. Rivera would pump up another of his famous cut fastballs and escape the jam.

The two-strike pitch was another cutter -- hey, it's the only pitch Rivera throws. Sanders hit it solid, a liner up the middle. He didn't drill it, got it a little too much at the end of the bat, but it appeared to be going into center field. Danny Bautista would score from third base, Erubiel Durazo would have a chance to score from second base. It would be 4-2 and there would still be two runners on base. The Sandman would not sleep this night.

But there was Soriano, diving to his right after four cat-quick steps. He laid out as far and as long as his skinny frame would take him. The ball was his. How?

Well, for starters Torre didn't bring his infield in to cut the run off at the plate. Some managers might, but Rivera's cutter makes him an extremely good groundball pitcher. He had 113 groundball outs this season, 55 flyball outs -- the best groundball ratio of his career. So Torre had the middle infielders playing bunched to the middle at double-play depth.

And that's why Soriano was in position to make this freeze-frame of a catch, the third straight night with a spectacular defensive play from the Yankees that saved a run, helped save the game, helped keep this magic going.

Oh, Rivera had to get another out. Mark Grace grounded out to third base on an 0-2 pitch and you knew. The game was still tied, but if you were here, you knew. It was over.

It didn't happen immediately. It took another inning, until the bottom of the 12th.

Albie Lopez, a pitcher who lost 19 games between two teams this season, was pitching for the Diamondbacks. You expected what was about to happen.

Chuck Knoblauch lined the first pitch he saw from Lopez softly into center for a single, his first hit of the World Series. Brosius fouled off his first bunt attempt and then put a nice bunt down the first-base line to get Knoblauch to second.

Up next? Alfonso Soriano, of course. As if the diving catch wasn't enough for the rookie second baseman on this night, he played the hero again with the game-winning hit. After taking a pitch in the dirt and a fastball up in the zone, he fouled off a pitch and then lined a single into right field. The ball tailed just enough away from Sanders -- two extra steps -- to make his throw home just a little more difficult. It was a good throw, but hit a divot a few feet in front of catcher Rod Barajas, skiped high and Knoblauch slid home with the winning run.

Yankees 3, Diamondbacks 2.

Cue up the sound system. Sinatra was singing again.