"I told somebody I've taken more Extra Strength Tylenol in the last five months than any human being on Earth." -- BUD SELIG, commissioner in a pregame discussion of the game's economic problems

WHAT'S HE DOING HERE?: Dwight Gooden was sitting in the dugout before Sunday's game wearing pinstripes: a brown pinstriped suit. Gooden, an executive in the Yankees front office, was here as part of the team's official delegation. He joked that he was representing George Steinbrenner -- "I'm the boss, now," he said -- but then admitted that the joke could be on him. "If we don't win a game, I might have to buy a house out here," he said.

INTERESTING READING: Baseball columnist Jon Heyman writing Sunday in Newsday: "If any team looked as if it experienced stage fright in Game 1, it was the Yankees. If any team looked like a World Series neophyte, it was the Yankees, who turned in maybe the worst meaningful performance of the Joe Torre Era. The Yankees weren't just beaten, they were beaten up. They certainly didn't look like themselves. Actually, they looked more like the Devil Rays."

MUSICAL REVIEW: Ray Charles received a thunderous ovation after a spirited pregame rendition of America the Beautiful. ... Emmylou Harris sang God Bless America.

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From the Times sports desk

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