NEW YORK – As Aaron Boone often states, the opportunity was right in front of them: a chance for the 2024 New York Yankees to etch a new chapter in the dusty records of baseball history. No team had ever come back to win the World Series after losing the first three games. Early on Wednesday, the Yankees had hope.

But then it all fell apart. The season crumbled in a disastrous fifth inning, marked by mistakes that will go down as some of the most significant in the 120-year history of baseball’s championship. These Yankees made their mark, but not in the way they desired—they became the first team to squander a five-run lead while facing elimination in the World Series.

“All of us know this is something we’ll remember for a long time,” said Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle, who took the loss in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 7-6 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, but it’s going to be a tough one to forget.”

While the loss was Kahnle’s, the critical inning was a collective disaster that rivaled any Halloween fright. After four innings, the Yankees led 5-0, and Gerrit Cole had held the Dodgers hitless. Then came a single, followed by Aaron Judge dropping a line drive in center field. Shortly after, Anthony Volpe misplayed a grounder at short, throwing it away at third.

With the bases loaded, Cole managed to strike out two batters. But then came a potential disaster: a soft roller along first base from a player named Mookie in a World Series game in New York.

In 1986, Mookie Wilson’s dribbler rolled under Bill Buckner’s glove, allowing the Mets to stage a miracle comeback against the Boston Red Sox in Game 6. We’ll never know if Buckner or pitcher Bob Stanley could have made the play in time.

This time, we do know: Mookie beat it out—Betts, that is. Had the Yankees simply made the play, the inning would have ended with the score still 5-0. Instead, by the end of the inning, the game was tied, and by midnight, the Yankees’ season was over.

“You give a team like the Dodgers a couple of extra chances, they’re going to take advantage of it,” Judge remarked. “But ultimately, it comes down to me. I need to make that play, and if I do, maybe the other two errors don’t happen.”

The Dodgers once clinched a pennant in the 1978 NLCS thanks to a dropped fly by Garry Maddox, a Gold Glove center fielder. While Judge has yet to earn a Gold Glove, he had just made an impressive leaping catch to rob Freddie Freeman in the fourth and hadn’t committed an error all season.

Judge couldn’t pinpoint what went wrong. Did the ball take a strange bounce?

“I just didn’t make the play,” he admitted.

Will Smith followed up with a grounder to Volpe, who bounced his throw to third. With Kiké Hernández sprinting toward the bag, the ball ricocheted off Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s glove.

“I thought that was my only option and just pulled the throw,” Volpe explained, but Freeman had a different perspective.

“I know they gave Volpe an error,” Freeman noted, “but if you watch how Kiké ran to third, that’s what set up the play—his incredible base running awareness.”

Even so, after two strikeouts, the Yankees might have survived the errors if not for a slow roller that defied expectations, coming in at 49.8 mph.

“I took a bad angle,” Cole reflected. “I wasn’t sure how hard he hit it off the bat. I approached it as if to cut it off, but by the time it passed me, I wasn’t in position to cover first. It was just a poor read.”

Anthony Rizzo added that he had to play cautiously due to the ball’s spin. He noted that grounders like that can be the trickiest for a first baseman. Communication breakdowns also contributed.

“Pitchers are always taught to cover, no matter what,” Rizzo said. “It was just a weird, spinning play. Even if I had made a clean move to first, I’m not sure I would have gotten him. When a right-handed batter hits a ball like that, you just have to track it closely; it can change direction unexpectedly.”

The outcome was disastrous. Freeman, behind in the count, hit a two-run single to center, and Teoscar Hernández followed with a two-run double that tied the game. Before Betts’ at-bat, the Yankees had a 92.6 percent chance of winning. Now, the odds had shifted dramatically in favor of the Dodgers.

Losing to a superior team like the Dodgers—who had the best record in baseball—is not shameful. However, when asked about the surprising errors, Chisholm replied, “As a professional baseball player, I’ve made errors myself, so it’s not super surprising. But that’s baseball; sometimes, in a split second, everything can change.”

For the Yankees, that moment of uncertainty cost them the season. With a 5-0 lead and their ace on the mound, they should have been preparing for a flight to Los Angeles—a feat never before achieved by a team that lost the first three games of a World Series.

But the Yankees were like a sleek car ignoring a warning light. The signs of trouble—sloppy fielding, questionable base running, fundamental mistakes—were always present, yet they hoped to continue on their path. This kind of failure was strangely fitting.

This marked only the seventh time in World Series history that a team lost after leading by five or more runs. In previous cases, the losing team had more opportunities to recover. Unfortunately for the Yankees, they were done.

“This is as bad as it gets,” Cole stated. “It’s the worst feeling. You have to keep believing and pushing yourself to give it a chance. We kept trying, but ultimately, we fell short. It’s brutal.”

The grounder hit by Betts and its fallout will now be referenced whenever a pitcher fails to cover first base. Though it was just Game 5, the proximity to a potential Game 6—one that would have significantly increased the pressure on the Dodgers—makes the Cole/Rizzo play and its preceding errors memorable.

Fred Snodgrass’ dropped fly ball in 1912. Mickey Owen’s dropped third strike in 1941. Don Denkinger’s blown call in 1985. Buckner’s error in 1986. Mariano Rivera’s wild throw on a bunt in 2001. The Fateful Fifth Inning of 2024.

Nonetheless, remember that Cole battled through that inning and pitched into the seventh. The Yankees managed to score a go-ahead run in the sixth, only to lose the lead for good in the eighth. Furthermore, no team had won after dropping the first three games of a World Series in 54 years.

“We fought hard,” Rizzo said. “No one here should hang their heads. Winning is tough, and reaching the top of the mountain is even tougher. We were close.”

Close enough to glimpse a World Series finale that will never be realized.