NEW YORK — The New York Yankees epitomize big. The brand, the payroll, the expectations, the excitement, the disappointment. It is an appropriate bit of casting that the largest star in baseball history, Aaron Judge, wears pinstripes. He is the physical embodiment of the Yankees franchise: too big to keep failing.

For the past 14 years, the Yankees have not functioned as the perpetual conquerors who have won more World Series titles than any franchise. They entered this postseason having lost 10 of their past 18 playoff series. They have fallen in their past five American League Championship Series appearances. The most recognizable franchise in baseball, whose caps are worn around the world, has been rendered just another team.

With Game 3 of the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians set for 5:08 p.m. ET on Thursday, the Yankees can taste their first World Series appearance since 2009, when they won their 27th championship. Their 6-3 win in Game 2 was New York’s fifth in six postseason games, giving them a 2-0 series lead on the Guardians.

Now is the time for them to deliver. Everything has lined up for the Yankees. They won the AL East. Their greatest tormentors, the Houston Astros, were knocked out in the first round, unable to wreck more Yankees dreams. They dispatched the pesky Kansas City Royals in the division series. And not much looks as if it will change in the ALCS. Among the five wild pitches in Game 1, the shoddy defense in Game 2 and the flaccid bats in both, the Guardians haven’t looked up to the task of beating a Yankees team that has found its groove in October.

For large chunks of the season, this team looked like a threat to win its 28th World Series. In the playoffs, New York has preyed on a pair of AL Central teams to reinforce they are the best the league has to offer. The Yankees this postseason have walked 37 times and struck out 44 times in six games. They feature a lineup whose Nos. 7-9 hitters in Game 2 went 5-for-10 and scored three runs. Their leadoff hitters have been on base in 25 of the 51 innings they’ve played in October. Their bullpen ERA is 0.77 over 23⅓ innings. They’ve given up only three stolen bases.

The only thing missing for New York had been Judge, whose failures in past Octobers — a career .769 OPS in the postseason compared to 1.010 in the regular season — are the lone ding on a pristine résumé. If he begins to perform like his MVP self — and perhaps he started something Tuesday with his first home run this October — Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. predicted nothing short of a gilded future.

“We’re World Series champions. No other doubt in my mind,” Chisholm said. “I’ve been saying it from day one, and that’s without him raking. He’s starting to come together. And now I see it.”

This has been the plan all along. They spent $360 million to re-sign Judge and gave up a boatload of talent to acquire Soto. They stuck with manager Aaron Boone and have seen him work wonders with a questionable bullpen. The Yankees are carrying themselves the way they haven’t in years — with a strut, a we’re-good-and-we-know-it attitude. Championship No. 28 is within reach. And now is the moment — first against the Guardians, then whomever wins the dogfight between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets — for 14 years of letdowns to give way and let the Yankees earn what they believe is theirs.

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LAST WEEK IN Kansas City, as the champagne celebration raged inside the Yankees’ clubhouse after their division series, one person remained in the dugout. Judge was missing the tail end of the revelry, by choice, because through the bowels of the stadium walked the players’ families, ready to celebrate themselves on the Kauffman Stadium field.

This is what Judge does, and this is who he is. Family matters as much as his teammates, and he wanted them to know that. Even as his struggles at the plate mounted, Judge hadn’t lost sight of who he is, what he means and why he is the face of the Yankees.

It was simultaneously gratifying and frightening, then, to see what happened in the seventh inning of Game 2 on Tuesday night. Cleveland’s Hunter Gaddis, one of the best relief pitchers in baseball this season, delivered a 95 mph fastball in a great location — the tippy-top of the strike zone, between the belt and the letters even on the 6-foot-7 Judge. It was the sort of pitch Judge saw dozens of times this season and batted .095 against.

He suffered no such frailties Tuesday. Even in the cold autumn air of Yankee Stadium, with the wind conspiring to knock down the ball, it kept flying, 414 feet, over the center-field fence, prompting paroxysms of joy among the 47,054 fans who witnessed Judge’s first major moment of this postseason.

The gratification comes from the Yankees’ immense respect for Judge — how much he cares and how he carried the team for months and how he holds people accountable without making them feel as if they’re being held accountable. As great of a player as Judge is, he is regarded as a similarly gifted leader, and to see their captain not performing to his capabilities vexed Yankees players. He had struggled for only 15 at-bats — nothing in a normal stretch, everything in October. Which is what made Judge showing signs of life frightening as well: If the Yankees were rolling through the postseason before Judge found his swing, imagine what they’ll look like if the home run off Gaddis portends more. Especially if the hitter in front of him keeps getting on base.

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EVERYTHING THE YANKEES envisioned when they traded for Juan Soto last offseason has become a reality. Rare is the deal with outsize expectations that are actually met, and yet here is the 25-year-old Soto, in the midst of another postseason run, able to relish it far more than he did the first time.

Soto was 20 when the Washington Nationals won the World Series in 2019. He burst on the scene a year earlier, a 19-year-old wunderkind with the best eye since Barry Bonds and preternatural power who shot balls over the fence to all fields. Winning a championship only a year later spoiled Soto.

So he’s relishing this — the opportunity to make history with a franchise where history matters more than anywhere. The trade for Soto cost the Yankees dearly in talent. Not only did they give up Michael King, who threw 173⅔ innings of 2.95 ERA ball this season, but four other players as well. All for one season of Soto.

New York knew he would be headed for free agency this winter, and that didn’t stop general manager Brian Cashman from ponying up a gargantuan package. The pressure on Cashman and Boone, vise-like in a normal year, had tightened after they went 82-80 in 2023. The previous six seasons had ended in postseason losses, but at least they ended in the postseason. This was beyond the pale: fourth place and 19 games behind an AL East-winning Baltimore team with an Opening Day payroll $217 million lower than the Yankees’ $277 million.

Acquiring one of baseball’s finest hitters solved plenty, and the evidence revealed itself early. Soto drove in runs in each of the Yankees’ first four games this season, a sweep at Houston. He proceeded to hit a career-high 41 home runs, lead the AL with 128 runs scored and get on base in 138 of the 157 games he played. And he has been magnificent this postseason, leading the Yankees with seven hits, walking as much as he has struck out and further distinguishing himself as a unique offensive presence.

A player of Soto’s talent with hunger for the moment is about as good as it gets in the sport, and the seamlessness of his transition to New York only heightens what’s ahead of him. Soto’s free agency is primed to be a frenzy: He is a $500 million-plus player, and another World Series appearance would not only validate his rightful place as one of the highest-paid athletes in history, it would reinforce just how properly this Yankees team was constructed.

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HAL STEINBRENNER IS not his father. George, who bought the Yankees in 1973, won back-to-back World Series in 1977 and 1978, oversaw the four-titles-in-five-years dynasty from 1996 to 2000 and captured his final championship in 2009, a year before his death. The Yankees’ championship-or-bust standard is a George Steinbrenner creation that Hal inherited and can’t disavow.

Nor does he want to. As the Yankees barge toward a World Series berth, it’s worth remembering Steinbrenner has continued to spend money befitting the Yankees. It’s never as much as fans in New York desire, but their $296.6 million Opening Day payroll this year ranked second in MLB. Their payrolls ranks the nine years prior: 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 6, 4, 2, 2.

What’s most important — and where Cashman deserves credit — is that the players receiving the majority of that money have played central roles this postseason. Gerrit Cole ($324 million) pitched like an ace to clinch the division series. Carlos Rodon ($162 million) threw six brilliant innings in Game 1 of the ALCS, using his slider for strikeouts and inducing swings and misses on three of his four changeups. Judge is about to win his second MVP in three seasons and carried the Yankees through 162 games. Soto is Soto.

Best of all is Giancarlo Stanton, the 34-year-old slugger whose seven seasons in New York have been as much about the time he hasn’t spent on the field as the time he has. Trading for Stanton, who had nearly $300 million remaining on the final 10 years of his deal, was a risk.

Well, that’s the purpose of a giant payroll: it allows for moonshots. New York figured it was buying the best of Stanton for the first half of his time in pinstripes. The fact he has performed this October like a prime version of himself, with a 1.037 OPS and two home runs, is a reminder the Yankees do have an advantage and it is well within their rights to use it, just as the Mets and Dodgers have.

It also illustrates the biggest difference between the Yankees of past and present. Under George Steinbrenner, Stanton would almost certainly be wearing a different uniform. With Hal, patience is a virtue in which he truly believes. If he didn’t, the man running the team from the dugout almost certainly wouldn’t be there, either.

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AARON BOONE IS a very good Major League Baseball manager. This sort of statement angers a fair number of Yankees fans, but it is objectively true. Boone has the deep respect of players, he fights when it’s needed, he manages stars exceptionally, he’s strategically sound a vast majority of the time, he’s conscious of history and he’s good with the media. The Yankees job is the most scrutinized in baseball, and he does pretty much every part of it well.

This postseason has been Boone’s playground. It has been only six games, so there is plenty of time for him to push a button that detonates a game, but his tactical acumen has been exceptional. Three times already he has turned to Luke Weaver — his innings-eating-long-man-turned-closer — in the eighth inning of playoff games. And he has been rewarded with a four-out save and a pair of five-out saves.

Yes, it’s the sort of thing more and more managers are doing. But it speaks to Boone’s understanding of leverage. Sometimes the biggest outs in a game come in the eighth inning, and if you’re gifted a closer who can cover multiple innings and go multiple days in a row, use him and use him plenty.

And the presence of Weaver does feel like a gift. The Yankees are the 31-year-old’s sixth major league team. He arrived in the big leagues in 2016 as a 92-mph-throwing starter. He went to Arizona in a trade, stumbled there, wasn’t any better in Kansas City, scuffled with Cincinnati and Seattle last year and wound up making three starts for the Yankees at the end of their dismal 2023. New York brought him back on a one-year, $2 million contract, and it wound up as one of the best deals of the winter.

The Yankees’ bullpen looked like a mess in early September. Boone finally tired of Clay Holmes‘ blown saves and removed him from the closer’s role. The only pitcher New York acquired at the trade deadline, Mark Leiter Jr., flopped and didn’t crack the Yankees’ ALDS or ALCS rosters. Boone wasn’t comfortable with Jake Cousins (too many walks) or Tim Hill (too few strikeouts). He trusts Tommy Kahnle, but in 221 career games with the Yankees, he has only four saves, an indication of New York’s reticence to throw him in the ninth.

The job went to Weaver almost by default, and all he has done since is get hitters out. Since his first save Sept. 6, Weaver has thrown 18 innings, given up seven hits, walked four and struck out 33. His ERA is 0.50. He is not Mariano Rivera, but he’s doing one hell of an impersonation. And along the way, Holmes has righted himself: 14⅔ innings, nine hits, five walks, 13 strikeouts and 1.23 ERA — with nary a run scored in 6⅔ postseason innings.

Every championship team has its surprises, and the Yankees’ bullpen turning into a weapon — in similar fashion to Jose Leclerc and Josh Sborz having the October of their lives with Texas last season — qualifies. Yankees relievers have been so good that it might make a regular observer of baseball wonder: Can they really keep it up?

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NOW THAT THE Yankees find themselves here, two wins from the World Series, six victories from a parade down New York’s Canyon of Heroes. And with their path to a title as favorable as they’ve had in years, it’s incumbent on them to finish the job. Beating a pair of AL Central teams is one thing. Doing it against a National League team that survived the gauntlet of the far better league will require something different altogether.

Sure, Judge hit a home run — but his previous 26 plate appearances left plenty to be desired. Weaver and Holmes have been the best relief duo this postseason — but Boone’s reliance on them surely has an expiration date, and pitching both in each of New York’s six playoff games runs the risk of overexposure, regardless of how good their stuff looks. The Yankees have won tight, hard-fought games. Their victories against Kansas City came by one, one and two runs, and their two wins against Cleveland are by three runs apiece. Despite being gifted a dropped pop-up and bobble in right field by the Guardians, New York needed Judge’s home run to provide a decent cushion in Game 2.

Carrying a 2-0 series lead into Cleveland helps allay fears. There will be at least one more game played at Yankee Stadium this year, and the Guardians see Game 3 as a must-win. Teams that start a seven-game league championship series with a pair of wins are 32-5. Only once has a team fought from a 3-0 deficit to take an LCS.

And that, of course, was the Boston Red Sox‘s famous comeback against the Yankees in 2004. Cleveland will be hard-pressed to find the same sort of magic against this Yankees team. They’ll need to beat Clarke Schmidt, who, when healthy, was a nightmare for opposing hitters. Particularly terrifying for Cleveland is that against the Guardians’ mostly left-handed lineup, Schmidt, who ditched his changeup this season, will rely heavily on his cutter to saw off Guardians hitters. And no team in MLB this year had a lower OPS on cutters thrown by right-handed pitchers than the Guardians’ .653.

Schmidt is the Yankees’ No. 3 starter, and he finished the season with a 2.85 ERA, and it’s just another sign that for all the lamenting that New York was simply a two-man team with Judge and Soto, that was never true. There is substance to these Yankees. They’re not here just to do something. They’re here to do something big, the only way they know how.

On Jan. 1, 2019, two icons were set to meet at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. Yes, Georgia and Texas would face off, but that wasn’t the real draw. It was the meeting between the teams’ mascots — Georgia’s bulldog Uga and Texas’ longhorn steer Bevo — that ultimately captured the nation’s attention.

What began as a made-for-TV moment to fill airtime before kickoff ended up a near catastrophe, a showcase of the strength and majesty of the world’s most famous cow, a preview of the game to come and a tangible example of the incredibly thin line between comedy and tragedy. Above all, it became one of the iconic viral videos in bowl history.

Now SEC rivals, Georgia and Texas are set to play again this week for the first time since the great Bevo-Uga showdown, so we looked back on that famed meeting of mascots for a better understanding of what happened and why live mascots remain an indelible part of the culture of college football.

Lowell Galindo, Longhorn Network play-by-play announcer: People get caught up in the moment, and honestly, who’s thinking that’s going to happen? Surely they’ve talked this through and have it all figured out, and there won’t be any issues, right? Wrong.

Jim Sigmon, Texas team photographer: I was kind of thinking, this is odd because usually other schools don’t bring their live animal mascots over to Bevo. That’s a big-ass animal. I just thought the whole thing was bizarre.

Holly Rowe, ESPN sideline reporter: I saw Uga coming our way and thought, “Aww, what a sweet meet-cute for the mascots,” so I started filming it on my phone. Then things got wild.

Tommy Tomlinson, Georgia fan and author of “Dogland: Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show”: What’s the old Mel Brooks line? Tragedy is when I get a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall into a hole and die. Depending on which side you were on in this story, it could’ve been both.

Charles Seiler, Uga’s owner and handler: People who’ve been in the mascot business, we don’t like to have problems with the mascots. But I can’t say they lost control because my butt was headed in the other direction.

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Part I: A history of live animal mascots

The story of Uga and Bevo’s meeting actually begins 140 years earlier. That’s when Yale’s bulldog Handsome Dan, widely regarded as college football’s first mascot, took to the field at Yale. The term “mascot” comes from the French word “mascotte,” which means “lucky charm,” and for dozens of schools around the country, Handsome Dan and other live animals were exactly that.

Tim Brown, football historian: It was mostly dogs originally. But as teams started coming up with mascots like badgers or buffalo, it was almost like a prank initially. Some students would decide to get one and bring it to the game.

Seiler: When my dad started this thing, he actually smuggled the dog into the Florida State game, and the [newspaper] took some pictures of it. That game was 3-0, and Coach [Wally] Butts, I think kind of tongue-in-cheek, said to my dad, “That game wasn’t very interesting, so it’s good you brought that dog.”

Nowadays, extreme care is taken in selecting just the right animal, and countless hours are spent training both the mascot and its handlers. But of course, incidents have happened along the way.

Taylor Stratton, handler for the Colorado Buffaloes’ buffalo, Ralphie: I talk to them as if they understand me, and the thing I was telling Ralphie VI is, “Oh no, all buffalo do this. It would be weird if you didn’t go to a stadium. This is normal.”

Ricky Brennes, executive director of the University of Texas Silver Spurs, handler for Bevo: A lot of it comes down to their natural temperament and disposition. Without that, it doesn’t matter too much. We took him to band practice, music playing in his pen, hung flags up in the barn to see how he’d react to different types of movement. The previous Bevo did not like flags at all.

Stratton: Because [Ralphie’s] so big and athletic, we do Division I-level strength and conditioning training. They’re doing sprint workouts, making sure their bodies are ready and functioning at peak athletic performance. … We go through different ways we run. Get your chest up and your knees up because you cannot run 25 mph, so you need to let the buffalo pull you while you’re in the air so when you hit the ground you can keep your feet and go as fast as you can.

Adam Harper, handler for SMU‘s stallion, Peruna: The only time he’s not used to loud environments are flyovers, and that’s something we have to plan for. Like, “Be aware guys, Peruna is going to hate that.”

Peter Cashman, handler for Army‘s mules: Mules are funny animals. Certain things bother them and certain things don’t. They can be standing next to the cannon when it goes off, and it’s no problem. But if the wave starts behind them, and it’s in their peripheral vision, that bothers them.

Harper: We form a kind of circle around [Peruna] where it negates anybody from possibly walking behind him. That’s our one big rule: Do not walk behind Peruna.

Cashman: We were at Army-Navy about five years ago, and for some reason, the whole Army team ran out right into the mules where we were standing. We had 50 football players amongst the mules, but nobody was hurt.

Seiler: Baylor used to bring out a bear cub. Uga walked up to sniff the bear’s butt, and he spun around and, damn if he didn’t spin Uga like a top. I don’t think they can possibly bring a cub anymore.

Cashman: The biggest part is keeping [the mules] hidden from Navy. On the road, I have to find a location that is secretive and nobody is going to tell Navy where the mules are. We go in with an unmarked trailer. And it’s the same with the [Navy] goats.

Harper: Before I took the job, one person pulled me aside and said, “This is what happened to me.” He was running with Peruna, and he tripped and fell. We’re tasked to hold on to the reins no matter what, because if Peruna gets loose, you’re not catching him. So if you fall, let him drag you. Just hold on. That’s all that matters. Anyway, he fell at the 40-yard line, and was dragged by Peruna all the way to the end zone. He scored a touchdown. He had a nasty bruise down the side of his body.

Brennes: We had a moment walking Bevo off the field against Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game, and he defecated on the word “Nebraska” when we were walking him off.

Harper: The pooping on TCU‘s field gets talked about still. People still come up and say, “Don’t let [Peruna] poop on the field.” It adds to the celebrity status.

Michael Griffin, former Texas player and Longhorn Network analyst: If I’m not mistaken, didn’t Uga bite somebody before?

Tomlinson: That’s the one where if you go into a dive bar in Georgia, that photo or a painting of it will be on a wall somewhere. That’s one of the top moments, because it’s a literal manifestation of the rivalry. We want to eat the other team. Uga stood in for all of us that day.

Seiler: Auburn hates that [picture]. For five years after that, they put someone on me to make sure I didn’t get that close to the field again.

Brennes: One of the funniest Bevo moments … was Jordan Shipley jumping into Bevo’s pit on a punt return [at Darrell K. Royal Stadium].

Why do I feel the urge to do a Tech post today?
Jordan Shipley visits Bevo after a 46 yard Punt Return TD against Texas Tech
Sept 19, 2009#HookEm pic.twitter.com/uvFsvYc1sb

— Longhorn🤘Highlights (@LonghornClips) August 24, 2023

Jordan Shipley, former Texas player and Longhorn Network analyst: It was a short punt, and I already had some speed built up. It ended up being a footrace to the pylon, and I hit the end zone running full speed. In the moment, you don’t think about it, but I had to hop over a couple things, and by the time I look up, I’m literally right in front of Bevo. I put my hands up and hit his horns and jumped back out of there. He was pretty lethargic that day, thank goodness. It was a quick, “OK, I’m going to get out of here.”

Harper: Peruna killed a mascot in the 1930s. I stepped on campus, and the first thing our administration told the new students is that our mascot is Peruna, and he killed the Fordham ram. That’s legendary.

Breckyn Hager, Texas defensive lineman: Well, it’s good Bevo kept it classy.

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Part II: The photo op

In college football history, few mascots resonate among the masses like Uga and Bevo, who’ve been a part of their respective programs for generations. The history between bulldogs and bulls, however, goes back much further.

Tomlinson: Wild bulls are huge, ornery animals that are hard to control, especially in frontier days. These dogs were bred to be fearless, and bred physically to have flat faces so they could literally run up to the bull, grab its nose with its teeth and drag its head to the ground.

Brennes: Bevo doesn’t hate dogs. Bevo’s not familiar with what bulldogs are bred for, and let’s be honest, that was bred out of English bulldogs a long time ago.

Seiler: My breeder, she’d get day-old bread and give it to the bulldogs, and they’d go down the fence line and give it to the cows twice a week. Bulldogs don’t care about cows. They’re used to them. A cow is no big deal to a bulldog.

Tomlinson: In some ways, I’d like to think Bevo was striking a blow for his side after all that history. Clearly in that moment, neither bull nor dog had any experience in that sort of thing, but maybe somewhere deep in Bevo’s DNA, he remembered that those dogs used to get the best of his kin.

Before the Sugar Bowl, the Longhorn Network was less concerned with the history of bulls and dogs, and more about filling a little airtime before kickoff, so TV worked with Brennes and Seiler to arrange what was actually a second meeting of the mascots.

Seiler: We were staged right behind Bevo in the parade the day before. We went to go talk to Rick and his guys, and we could see Bevo in the trailer, but his butt’s facing out at me. In order to get a picture of Bevo without getting a butt shot, they had to pull him out backwards. It took him a while to do it, but Bevo was super chill. We took our dog over, and me, my wife and our son got a picture with Bevo and Rick and the owners, and it was no fuss, no muss.

Rowe: [Bevo] is one of the iconic mascots in all of sports — the literal logo for Texas, the Jerry West of college football. I have a fearful and respectful relationship with him, because let’s be honest — I’m 5-8, and the horn span is bigger than me.

Danny Davis, reporter for Austin American-Statesman: At Texas games, the pen he stays in is right in the corner where the media stands for the last five minutes of the game, and he’s usually chill. I don’t know what his problem was that one day. Maybe he wasn’t happy to see the cute, little puppy.

Seiler: We roll up. We’re not quite on time for TV yet. I’ve got the dog in his kennel on the golf cart. I look over at Bevo, and they have him in some makeshift corral, but he’s staring at a concrete wall.

Angela Wang, photographer for The Daily Texan: We all heard Uga was being brought over and thought it would be a great photo opportunity. I was squatting down behind the barricade, facing Uga, with no idea what was happening behind me.

Davis: I was standing around with other journalists and saw Uga come up, and I decided to do a video. Then, of course, all chaos broke loose.

Sigmon: It’s like being at a car wreck. Everything’s perfectly fine, then all of a sudden, s—‘s weird and you’re like, “What happened?” Some of the best TV moments are that way.

Nick Wagner, photographer for Austin American-Statesman: You have the overhead camera, three or four other angles, it was the most perfect setup to catch a viral moment.

Galindo: It was straight out of “Anchorman.” Like, that escalated quickly.

Tre Watson, Texas running back: All we hear is people yelling. I think somebody told us Bevo had just tried to attack the bulldog, and we were lit. We were yelling, “Let’s go Bevo!”

Temple Grandin, animal expert: A longhorn can learn to tolerate that environment, but this was a brand-new stadium, and that’s part of the problem. At home, he’d be used to it, but now you’ve got him in a strange place in a makeshift enclosure, and that probably led to the problem. I’ve seen show steers get upset at just trade show banners on tables. Sudden novelty scares him.

Sigmon: Bevo’s butt was facing where the dog was, and he spun around, and when he saw the dog, he flipped the New Orleans police barricade, just one-horned it, and flung it like it was a bug.

Galindo: I’m shocked there were photographers near the pen with their backs toward Bevo at that moment.

Seiler: There were cameras on tripods. There were people laying down. Some of those sideline guys are nuts. They get taken out by players all the time.

Sigmon: I’m behind the golf cart. The golf cart is between me, the dog and Bevo. The people with wide-angle lenses right up front, I wasn’t going to be one of those people.

Wang: Initially, I heard a woman start screaming. At that time, Uga had started squatting, so I thought it was because she thought he was going to use the restroom on the field.

Kirby Smart, Georgia head coach: I was worried for Uga, to be honest.

Seiler: Uga was sitting down waiting to have his picture made, and I don’t even think he knew Bevo was behind him. Then I heard a lady scream, and I turned around, and saw people dashing. I wasn’t going to wait around, so I just pulled away the dog. In some of those pictures, it looks like Bevo’s like 2 feet from us, but actually he was never within 10 feet of us.

Griffin: The biggest thing I really remember was his horn went over this — I think she was a photographer. I just remember her ducking, and the horn going right over her head.

Wang: I started standing up and thought, “Oh, it’s fine,” so squatted back down, and if you watch the video in slow-mo, you’ll see me kind of duck and the horn barely scrapes by me. I didn’t realize the horn hit me until someone pointed it out on Reddit.

Griffin: She was still doing her job. That’s funny. I thought she was ducking like, “Oh my god.”

Tomlinson: The thing that makes me laugh every time is there were like three announcers, and they’re clearly mocking and enjoying this moment as it leads up to it, talking about it being like the royal wedding. But when it happened, they reverted to football announcers, because one of the guys immediately said, “That’s targeting.”

On the TV feed, the incident is largely played for laughs. Galindo compared it to the meme of Joe Rogan reacting at a UFC fight — hugging, laughing, screaming, chaos.

Galindo: We’re actually on the sideline with a monitor in front of us. We saw Uga come behind us to go see Bevo, but then we’re just watching everything on the monitor.

Griffin: They take Uga out of his crate, and all of a sudden, Bevo is out to destroy.

Shipley: Bevo just kind of squared up and went after him, and he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer.

Griffin: You’re like, “Oh s—, if Bevo gets loose, where the hell is he going?”

Pre-Game things getting heated 👀 between @FootballUGA and @TexasFootball #bevo #uga pic.twitter.com/K1eNw4Ir4S

— Holly Rowe (@sportsiren) January 2, 2019

Shipley: One of the things they thought was funny about it was the game I ran into Bevo, and they were saying, “It’s a good thing Bevo didn’t treat you like he treated Uga.”

Galindo (on the ESPN broadcast): Can live television get better than that? No!

Hager: The only thing I’ve ever really showed my girlfriend from my football career is that video.

Galindo: I love it, man. That’s what college sports are about — the insanity, the fans, the mascots, the players. So if I’m associated with [the Bevo call] more than anything, I don’t care. I think it’s hilarious.

Ultimately, the entire incident lasts just a few seconds before Bevo’s handlers, the Silver Spurs, get control of the situation, and the TV clip ends with Galindo and Co. repeating the phrase that’s now tethered to the incident in college football lore: That. Was. Awesome.

Watson: I didn’t see it until after the game. We were all talking about it. Bevo really tried to go get him. I just thought it was a nice easy buck. No. That boy was about to lose his life on live television.

Wagner: People right there understood the gravity of it, of how it could’ve been. It was just chaos. That moment, the entire night, the following day. It was a story I’ll tell for the rest of my life.

Griffin: That whole conversation that’s always been said, “Is Bevo drugged up and that’s why he’s so tame during the games?” Now you see that and you’re like, “No, I don’t think he’s drugged.”

Hager: I was actually a Silver Spur. I’ve been very close to Bevo, and there was never, in the four years I was playing, a moment when I thought Bevo was going to do anything out of the ordinary, let alone attack the other team’s mascot. It’s really impressive how they’re able to handle an animal like that, especially in a time when that skill of the true cowboy is kind of lost.

Sigmon: They professionally took care of it. They got the dog safe, and they got Bevo back behind the barricade. But I’m guessing that won’t happen again.

Rowe: I think there was a moment we were all talking and saying, “Wow, that could have gone really badly.” Kudos to the handlers.

Galindo: I want to make sure people know how professional and well trained all the people around Bevo are. But at the end of the day, it is a massive animal. But Ricky Brennes and all those guys, it is shocking how detailed everything is. It’s like the Secret Service preparing for the president to arrive somewhere.

Seiler: At some point, I took the dog back over there, and we did get a picture.

There was, of course, still a game to play, and while no one can say for sure whether Bevo’s charge changed the outcome, the folks at Texas certainly believe it did. Texas, a 12.5-point underdog, pulled off the upset win, 28-21.

Griffin: It was a lot for Texas getting into the Sugar Bowl, but everybody was talking about Georgia being upset, because they weren’t in the College Football Playoff.

Hager: I just remember them being overhyped, and Georgia was going to kill us, and all my friends from Georgia were telling me we were going to get beat pretty bad. And before kickoff, to see our beloved Bevo setting the tone, I think it helped us go out there more relaxed and excited and aggressive.

Davis: College football fans will rally around anything. Bevo charging a little puppy became a rallying cry that night. It became a symbol before they beat a Georgia team no one thought they’d beat.

Watson: Our mascot was ready to go to war with their mascot on full live television. Bevo got us rolling. That was the start and set the tone that we were going to step on some Bulldogs’ necks that day.

Charlie Woerner, Georgia tight end: I remember them showing it on the Jumbotron. Bevo knocked over a fence. It was crazy. I was like, “Dang, I’m glad Uga is OK.”

Hager: Coming in from warming up, it went viral around the locker room. And the main point was, “How can we lose if Bevo’s bossing up like that?”

Griffin: Texas goes on to win the game, and everybody’s like, “It’s because Bevo showed attitude.”

Smart: The incident comes to light because of all the videos since, but I don’t recall it having any impact on us or seeing it prior to the game.

Bijan Robinson, top recruit and future Texas tailback: I wasn’t there when Bevo attacked, but I saw it live on TV. I was like, “That’s the scariest thing for that dog to get attacked by an absolute gigantic mammal.” From that moment, I was like, “I’m going to Texas.”

Rodrigo Blankenship, Georgia kicker: There was a whole lot of content that said, “This sums up the Texas-Georgia game.”

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Part III: The aftermath

The game itself became something of an afterthought, while the clip of Bevo’s brashness was a sensation. It spread across social media like wildfire, led “SportsCenter,” and it was Scott Van Pelt’s “Best Thing I Saw” that night. Texas fans immediately adopted the image as the perfect symbol of the state and the school’s ethos of toughness.

Seiler: Rick called me and apologized. I said, “Did you get some good pictures?” He said he thinks that, because Bevo got to the arena like six hours before the game started and hadn’t moved from that spot, he just got worn out from staring at a wall. He just wanted to go for a stroll. I don’t think the cow ever even saw the dog, because there were too many people around.

Galindo: In the moment, we thought it was hilarious and cool and funny. But we really didn’t realize it was that big a deal until we got back to the hotel and at the bar, every TV was on “SportsCenter,” and they’re showing basically my play call.

Davis: This probably says a lot about the industry or how terrible a person I am, but this happens, and the first thing I think is, “Did I get it on camera?” And then, “This is content gold I have here.”

Seiler: I had a photographer come up and say, “Look what Bevo did to me.” He pulled up his shirt, and the guy had a big gash down his back.

Wagner: People were just coming up to me in the press room like, “Can I see your back?” My brother, Peter, had a good line that night in the family group text: “Nick I’ve seen your back more times today than I have in my entire life, and we used to share a room.”

Davis: Nick’s health and wellbeing, I didn’t even think about it at first. Then someone was like, “What happened with Nick?” and I was like, “Oh, s—, I should check on him.”

Wagner: On the workman’s comp form, it asks why you’re receiving treatment, and I just wrote, “Hit by cow.”

Wang: Nick and I always joked that we really wish our careers were something more than this meme, but at the same time, I’ll share it.

Griffin: [Wang] probably has a bright future ahead of her, but now she’s known as the lady who almost got killed by Bevo. When she has kids, they’ll be like, “Hey, you know my mom almost got killed by Bevo, right?”

Davis: It’s been a long-running joke that I peaked that night.

Bevo is not here for this mascot meeting. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/KXgaQzGm0W

— Danny Davis (@_dannydavis) January 2, 2019

Wang: When it first happened, I’d get responses on dating apps like, “Was that you?” My résumé at the bottom on special interests says, “Dodging mascots.”

Galindo: Every year we’d do three or four Longhorn Network promos before the start of the football season. We wanted to play off it, so we did a piece where it was, “Bring your dog to work day.” It was Ricky [Williams], Ship, me and Griff, and we’re all walking our actual dogs on the field at DKR. Ricky and Ship have bulldogs. So we’re walking our dogs, then cut to a shot from behind us of Bevo coming in frame. We all turn and walk the other way like, “Nope, not a good idea.”

But ultimately, there’s no arguing the color, tradition and, occasionally, unpredictability, live mascots bring to the sport.

Stratton: I do think [Ralphie] enjoys it. She’s a 1,000-pound animal, and we use only positive reinforcement, so at the end of the day, we’re not making this buffalo do anything she doesn’t want to do. We can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. … I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, no matter how many times they see Ralphie run, they still get goosebumps. These animals are so special. They’re domestic, but they’re still just a little bit wild. And I think that speaks to our campus. It just gets your adrenaline going to watch four or five crazy college kids hold on to a buffalo for dear life. Who thinks that’s a good idea? But it’s me. I did it, and I love it.

Smart: So many people respect the long history and tradition of each Uga. They’re buried in our stadium. They’re right there. He’s part of the fabric of our culture.

Steve Sarkisian, Texas head coach: Bevo brings a ton of pride to our program and is such a great symbol of the power, strength and determination of Texas football. One of our mantras is “Tough All Day,” and that’s what Bevo is and represents.

NEW YORK — Sometimes, one pitch in the second inning can save a baseball game. Sometimes, it can salvage an entire season for a player.

In the bottom of the second of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night, Walker Buehler faced Francisco Lindor, bases loaded, two outs, Buehler’s Los Angeles Dodgers leading Lindor’s New York Mets 2-0.

It’s been a trying season for Buehler, the one-time postseason star who returned after missing most of 2022 and all of 2023 following the second Tommy John surgery of his career. He made 16 starts in the regular season — and won once, posting a 5.38 ERA. This is a pitcher who won 16 games in 2021 with a 2.47 ERA, a pitcher who threw seven scoreless innings in a World Series game as a rookie, who allowed three runs over a 21-inning stretch in the 2020 postseason when the Dodgers won it all.

He’s in the playoff rotation now only because the Dodgers didn’t have any other healthy options. In his start against the Padres in the NL Division Series, he allowed six runs in one inning.

Wednesday night, the count ran full to Lindor, as Buehler stuck with his four-seam fastball and knuckle-curve. With the count 3-2, catcher Will Smith called for the curve. Buehler threw it, it dived wonderfully below Lindor’s knees, and the Mets star swung and missed.

It’s not the pitch Buehler would have turned to when he was at his peak as one of the hardest-throwing young right-handers in the game.

“Oh, in 2018, 2019, 2020, I would have thrown a fastball. Yeah,” he said after the game.

The Dodgers rolled from there to an 8-0 victory and 2-1 series lead — their remarkable fourth shutout in five playoff games, going back to blanking the Padres in the final two games of the NLDS. Buehler and four relievers combined for the shutout this time as the Dodgers matched the 1905 New York Giants and 2020 Atlanta Braves in throwing four shutouts over a five-game postseason span.

While Buehler’s final line of four scoreless innings may not enter Dodgers lore, he’ll take it at this point of his season.

“Honestly, the only point of pride I’ve had in the past couple of months has been trying to get deep in the games and be efficient,” he said. “To only throw four innings is like the complete opposite of that. But I’m proud just for a different reason in terms of being able to get through some big spots and tough spots.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts spoke to Buehler’s season and agreed that the game turned with the Lindor strikeout.

“I think it’s been a lot of lessons that he’s had to learn, and appreciating, understanding the pitcher he is today,” Roberts said. “And also appreciating the fact that you just can’t give in to Lindor in that moment. Right there, that was the pitch of the game. Obviously, the crowd was into it. They were gaining momentum. To get the breaking ball down below the zone and get a great hitter out was huge. And I think that just kind of speaks to experience.”

On a cold — 56 degrees at game time — and windy night at Citi Field, the weather may have helped Buehler record a season-best 18 swings and misses, matching his career playoff high. He had reached double figures just three times all season, and in his five-inning outing against the Padres in the NLDS had just eight.

“I think the cold really affects the ball weirdly,” he said. “The ball moves really well here, or kind of always has. I think the cold just makes the ball act a little bit funky.”

Facing a Mets lineup that featured seven right-handed batters, Buehler also relied more heavily on his sweeper than he has of late, throwing it a season-high 21 times out of his 90 pitches. He escaped a two-on jam in the third inning by getting J.D. Martinez to wave helplessly at a 2-2 sweeper.

“I guess it was the colder weather,” Smith said. “It was moving a lot. It was just consistent-count situations where he just kind of needed to lean on it. I felt like it was working, and it was, so lean on it a little more than normal.”

The Mets agreed with the cold-weather assessment, as well.

“From the last time I faced him, yeah, his ball was moving more,” Lindor said. “I feel like he executed his pitches. He made me chase when he wanted me to chase, and he threw strikes when he wanted to throw strikes. Bottom line, it came down to who executed the most, and he did that.”

After Buehler’s departure, the bullpen took over — Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier, Blake Treinen and then rookie Ben Casparius for the final two innings. Maybe they, too, benefited from the weather.

“Our relievers that came in, I was looking at their big-boy metrics,” Buehler said. “I don’t know the crosswinds and what happens, but all five of my pitches were kind of a little bit bigger or weirder or acted different than normal. I don’t think it was just a curveball. Yeah, it’s just an interesting environment to pitch in here in the cold.”

The Dodgers will take it.

Kiké Hernández‘s two-run home run and then Shohei Ohtani‘s towering three-run blast allowed Roberts not to use Evan Phillips and Daniel Hudson, two of his other top relievers. No doubt, we’ll see plenty of that bullpen again in Game 4 on Thursday night, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting and not expected to go very deep into the game.

Until then, Buehler can enjoy playing a key role in an important Dodgers victory.

“I try not to give into in the playoffs especially and sometimes that leads to a pitch count problem or walking more guys than you typically would,” he said. “But this game in October is about having zeros, and I’m proud of the fact that I was able to do that four times.”