NEW YORK -- Are we sure it's still the House that Ruth Built?

There are nights when it seems like the House that Francis Ford Coppola Built. Or the House that David Copperfield Built.

And needless to say, Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium was another one of those nights. It was Yankees 4, Diamondbacks 3, in 10 epic innings. It was as breathtaking a sporting event as you can ever witness.

The October machine rolls on

If the Yankees go on to win their fifth World Series title in six seasons, their Game 4 win over the Diamondbacks may be seen as their biggest victory. Here are their other big wins since 1996: 1996 ALDS, Game 3 Yankees 3, Rangers 2 With the series tied 1-1, the Yanks scored two in the ninth off Darren Oliver and Mike Henneman. Won the series the next day. 1996 ALCS, Game 1 Yankees 5, Orioles 4 The Jeffrey Maier game. Trailing 4-3 in the eighth, Derek Jeter's flyball to right field was swiped away from Tony Tarasco by the 12-year-old Maier. Ump Richie Garcia blew the call and Bernie Williams won it with a homer in the 11th. 1996 World Series, Game 4 Yankees 8, Braves 6 Jim Leyritz's three-run homer off Mark Wohlers in the eighth tied the game at 6-6 (the Braves had led 6-0). Yanks won with two runs in the 10th to tie the series. Forgotten play: in the fifth, umpire Tim Welke prevented right fielder Jermaine Dye from catching Derek Jeter's foul pop. Jeter then singled, sparking a three-run rally. Yanks won 1-0 in Game 5 behind Andy Pettitte and then wrapped it up in Game 6. 1998 ALCS, Game 4 Yankees 4, Indians 0 Down 2 games to 1, New York's 114-win season was placed on the shoulders of Cuban rookie Orlando Hernandez. He delivered with seven innings and just three hits allowed. 1998 World Series, Game 1 Yankees 9, Padres 6 The Yankees trailed 5-2 entering the bottom of the seventh inning. Chuck Knoblauch earlier in the inning hit a three-run homer to tie the game at 5-5. Then four batters later, Mark Langston appeared to fan Tino Martinez with a fastball right down the pipe. Instead, it was called a ball by that familiar umpire Richie Garcia and Tino then went on to hit a grand slam on the next pitch. Game over. 1999 ALCS, Game 1 Yankees 4, Red Sox 3 The Yankees tied the game in the seventh when Scott Brosius jarred the ball loose from catcher Jason Varitek and won it on Bernie Williams' homer in the 10th off Rod Beck. 2000 ALDS, Game 5 Yankees 7, A's 5 In the deciding game, the Yanks scored six runs in the top of the first. 2000 World Series, Game 1 Yankees 4, Mets 3 Timo Perez doesn't hustle and gets thrown at home, Armando Benitez blows a ninth-inning lead and Jose Vizcaino's fourth hit of the night wins it in the 12th. 2001 ALDS, Game 3 Yankees 1, A's 0 Barry Zito allowed just two hits for Oakland, but one was a home run by Jorge Posada. Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera (with help from Derek Jeter) shut out the A's. Yanks win in five. 2001 ALCS, Game 4 Yankees 3, Mariners 1 Bret Boone's solo homer in the top of the eighth put the Mariners ahead, but Bernie Williams got the run back with a solo homer of his own in the bottom of the inning. Rookie Alfonso Soriano then hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to win it. --ESPN.com

But what else is new? This is life at Yankee Stadium, autumn after autumn, postseason after postseason, even when October turns into November before your eyes.

The cinematic moments never seem to end. The magic tricks seem to get more unbelievable every year.

Things that can't happen still find a way to happen. Games they can't win somehow turn into games they win.

"As much as it's happened," said Mike Stanton, after Tino Martinez and Derek Jeter had performed long-ball CPR on this Yankees season, "you still don't expect it to happen. You'd think, after it happens time after time, you'd start to expect it. But you don't. It's just amazing to watch."

We know, thinking logically, that sooner or later, this dynasty will end. We know, logically, that sooner or later, this team will reach for one more miracle and find the miracle bin out of stock. That's reality. That's life.

But how do we explain why it didn't happen Wednesday, in this game? How do we explain where this latest miracle came from?

On this night, the Yankees were one out away from being buried in this World Series, 3 games to 1. Four games into the Series, they were hitting .143, with almost twice as many strikeouts (36) as hits (19). With runners in scoring position, they were batting .067 (1 for 15) -- over four games.

They were one out away from being blown away by the astonishing Curt Schilling and the frisbee-master closer, Byung-Hyun Kim, to the tune of a 13-strikeout four-hitter. Kim had just struck out his fourth Yankee in 1 2/3 innings.

One out away from a 3-1 loss. Once-hopeful eyewitnesses trudged toward the exits. A dozen Diamondbacks leaned on the dugout rail, ready to celebrate. They were one out away from needing to win just once in three games, with Schilling and Randy Johnson all lined up to start two of them.

One out away. Here came Martinez. He had never faced Kim in his life. He was 0 for the World Series (0 for 9). He came to the plate enveloped by a silence in this stadium that said it all.

One out away. Paul O'Neill stood on first base, having dumped a broken-bat single into left. But where was he going? Where all these Yankees baserunners kept going, all night, all Series -- back to the dugout after another inning of frustration.

And then it happened. Kim lurched into his windup, arms flying everywhere. He whirled one final first-pitch fastball toward the outside corner. But this one wasn't one of those unhittable sailers that devour hitters alive. It stayed flat and true and out over the heart of the plate.

Martinez coiled and swung, and another miracle began soaring toward history. Center fielder Steve Finley tried to climb the fence until there was no more fence to climb.

The baseball dropped into the land of hopes and dreams that always come true for this team. This game was tied. These Yankees were rising from the dead again.

Stanton, who was this one swing away from being the losing pitcher, and fellow reliever Mark Wohlers watched on TV in the clubhouse. They watched this home run disappear beyond Finley's desperate leap. They looked at each other in disbelief.

"You shake your head," Stanton said. "We did it again."

"These are the days you dream about when you're 5 or 6 years old, swinging a bat in your back yard," O'Neill said. "These are the nights you play out in your mind."

Except this night wasn't over. They would head for the 10th. The clock would pass midnight. The scoreboard would flash a greeting never before seen in a major-league ballpark: "Welcome to November baseball."

And Jeter would march to the plate. Never had he looked any worse in any postseason than he has looked these last two weeks. He was 3 for his last 32. His only hit in 15 World Series at-bats was an infield single.

He'd felt so confused just by the sight of Kim in their first go-round, in the eighth inning, that he'd tried bunting for a hit, with no luck.

"He's weird, man," Jeter said of Kim. "The way he throws, it takes a while to get used to."

So Jeter gave himself a while, grinding out an exhausting nine-pitch at-bat, barely fouling off three two-strike pitches, almost falling down to avoid hacking at Kim's duck hooks just off the plate.

And then Kim wound again and delivered his 62nd pitch of the night -- the most pitches he'd thrown since Sept. 29, 2000 -- 85 appearances ago. He seemed to let go of this pitch from six inches above the ground. It was designed to rise like an ascending jet and elevate north of Jeter's bat.

But after four games of watching the Diamondbacks jam him to take away his inside-out stroke, Jeter got one he could extend on -- and thumped it toward the right-field foul pole.

Had a Diamondback hit it, had a Mariner hit it, had anybody from Boston hit it, you know it would have hit the top of the wall. But this was the World Series. This was the Yankees. This was Derek Jeter.

So of course, it cleared the fence by the approximate length of Jeter's after-midnight stubble. And of course, it stayed fair. And of course, the Yankees had won a game they couldn't win. Because that's what they do. That's all they do.

And that's all Derek Jeter does. It wasn't enough this time just to win. This time he had to become the first-ever Mr. November.

If it isn't one Yankee, it's another. It's who you expect. It's who you don't expect. It's the hottest Yankee. It's the coldest Yankee. What does it matter? In the end, it all comes out the same: Yankees win.

"I guess he is," Stanton said. "There's not a lot of competition right now for that award."

Jeter floated around the bases, fist pumping, his smile as wide as Queens, his teammates sprinting toward home plate. He ran until he reached them, then leaped into their arms, leaped into the magic of the night.

"There's a lot of emotion involved when you play in a World Series," O'Neill said. "If you can't have fun out there when you win a game like that, there's something wrong. We weren't trying to show anybody up. But a game like that takes you back to Little League."

We've seen it before. They've done it before. We've seen Jim Leyritz homer and Chad Curtis homer against the Atlanta Braves. We've seen Bernie Williams' game-tyer against the Mariners and Alfonso Soriano's trot of a lifetime.

If it isn't one Yankee, it's another. It's who you expect. It's who you don't expect. It's the hottest Yankee. It's the coldest Yankee. What does it matter? In the end, it all comes out the same: Yankees win.

"The one thing you realize after a while," Jeter said, "is that in these games, the stats don't matter. Who cares what the scoreboard says your stats are when you come to the plate? The beauty of the postseason is that, regardless of what you've done, every time you come up, you have the opportunity to do something special."

So they do. They don't know how not to anymore. They've won nine straight World Series games at Yankee Stadium. They've won 11 straight one-run games in the postseason. They've won nine straight one-run games in the World Series.

When they've taken a lead into the ninth inning in the postseason these last six years, these Yankees have gone 41-1. When they've even taken a lead into the seventh, they're 37-1.

But in that same period, they've now won three games they've trailed in the ninth inning, nine games they've trailed as late as the eighth and four games they've trailed as late as the seventh. That's 16 games in which they were losing in the seventh or later -- and won.

And this one might be the best of them all.

"Some day, when we look back on this, there will be a few games that really, really stand out," O'Neill said. "I'm sure this one will be fresh in everyone's mind."

"A lot of guys were saying," Stanton chuckled, "that this one will be on ESPN Classic -- tomorrow."

Yeah, if it takes that long. To find the last World Series game in which a team won after trailing by two runs in the bottom of the ninth, you have to travel all the way back to 1929, when the old Philadelphia A's did it in Game 5 against the Cubs. It was also done once by the 1911 Giants. But that's it.

Until now. When you watch them do this stuff, you begin to think this can't be happening in real life. Real life doesn't work this way -- not for anybody else.

"It almost feels like Billy Crystal wrote this one," Stanton said. "Regardless of how many times you see this happen, you still shake your head and say, 'That's unbelievable.' "

After six years of these miracles, there's no other word for it. So we asked Stanton if he thought that some day, when he told his grandchildren about these things he's seen, they'd believe it.

"Hmmm," he pondered. "I'll probably have to break out the video."

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.