Yankees Love A Parade

An overflow crowd of New York Yankees fans released 18 years worth of frustration Tuesday in a pinstriped party that stretched from the House that Ruth Built to the Canyon of Heroes.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced 3.5 million people attended the city’s “biggest and grandest parade” ever, an unlikely estimate based more on civic pride than reality.

The Yankees’ six-game victory over Atlanta received the smallest share of television viewership of any World Series and the third-smallest rating.

The share is the percentage tuned to a broadcast at the time, while a rating is the percentage of television households watching a program. The Oakland-San Francisco series of 1989 is the lowest-rated ever, while the 1993 Toronto-Philadelphia is the second-lowest.

There was no major free-agent baseball news, but lawyers for players and owners extended the deadline for free-agent filing by four days to Nov. 14, allowing teams time to consider whether they will ratify the proposed collective bargaining agreement.

The Philadelphia Phillies will name Terry Francona their new manager today, sources told The Associated Press.

Francona, 37, was en route to Philadelphia Tuesday night and was not available for comment.