Monday, October 25, 2004, 8:26am
Monday, October 25, 2004, 8:26am
Forgetting a new plastic spoon this morning, I’ve finished my yogurt in a complex operation – scooping with yesterday’s broken handle and today’s aluminum foil container lid folded awkwardly into a makeshift spatula. The last dregs I’ve licked from cap end of a ballpoint pen (as awful as that sounds) and likely ate as many germ molecules as food.
Today I’m home from my trip to Virginia – a time where I set aside the crucible of this train journal and left this file closed. Except for brief periods flying above the clouds I haven’t seen blue sky or direct sunlight in nearly a week – like a returning adventurer from an expedition beneath the cloud tops of Jupiter.
Of course this journal is not immune to local events while I’m away. I may not have passed Fenway Park all this past week, but the trains still did, and on this basis I suppose I’ll allow a few reconstructed events.
A week ago I made vague predictions about the potential for an epic confrontation between the Red Sox and the Yankees. The first few games went so badly for the Sox that I quickly ignored the topic – assuming that my predictions had been nothing more than wishful thinking and hardly worth dissection.
Unknown at the time, during the Anaheim series Curt Shilling ruptured a sheathing in his right ankle used to guide an important tendon, and by the time he was lifted in the third inning of game 1 against the Yankees the game was already getting out of hand at 6-nothing. The score went to 8-zip while the first 19 Sox hitters were set down in order by New York’s Mike Mussina. Later in the game the Sox rallied making the score to 8-7 before the Yankees pulled away again. I’d seen and felt this before. It wasn’t pretty. Losing to the Yankees never is.
Game two on Thursday the score was much lower and even though Pedro Martinez pitched well, “Who’s Your Daddy” taunting notwithstanding – the Red Sox could muster little offense against the terrific pitching of John Lieber, of all people – hardly known to be dominant under pressure.
At least the Sox were heading home to play the next three games at Fenway. Yet in Game 3 the slugs were humiliated once more 19 to 8. And now, with the Yankees leading the series 3-0, the home team was backed against a near certain wall of quick elimination. Except for the formality of losing just one more game in this best of seven series they were finished, and I was none too unpleased to be leaving on a jet plane within 24 hours.
Twenty-six times a major league baseball team has been down 3 games to 0 and 26 times they’ve failed to overcome the deficit. In fact, only two teams down 3-0 have won even two games after this, much less four. So when the Red Sox trailed late in game 4, I went to bed. The thrill of victory might be worth some lost sleep but the likely agony of defeat was not worth the ordeal. I had a plane leaving early Monday – perfect timing. Get out of town to avoid the gloom that would soon descend upon the city.
On Monday morning I heard that Dave Roberts had pinch-run in the 9th after a Kevin Milar walk. He’d then stolen second base in what might be remembered as the greatest theft in baseball history – at least Red Sox history.
To quote Roberts…
”Maury Wills once told me that there will come a point in my career when everyone in the ballpark will know that I have to steal a base… When I got out there, I knew that was what Maury Wills was talking about.”
Bill Mueller’s single up the middle scored Roberts to tie the game. And in the bottom of the 12th, David Ortiz won the game with an opposite field walk-off two-run homer over the green monster.
To my relief they had not died in the night and in the ignobility of a four game sweep.
From my hotel room in Virginia I watched game 5. This was the “early” game of the two being played that day. Later in the day the Astros would battle the Cardinals and the schedule was set up so the Red Sox – Yankees game would be ending just as the National League game was getting underway.
By the 8th inning the Red Sox were behind again, this time by two runs. And once again they rallied to tie the game sending it into extra innings. Inning after inning rolled by with near misses on both sides as the epic nature of this series began to materialize. The Houston – St. Louis game had been playing for more than two hours and was nearing its own conclusion while the Boston – New York contest continued.
Finally, in the 14th inning David Ortiz blooped a single to center scoring Johnny Damon from second base to win the game. At 5 hours and 48 minutes, it was the longest playoff game ever played ending just thirty minutes before the conclusion of the National League game that had started three hours later. The Yankees still lead the series 3 games to 2, but that was the beginning of the end for a team about to re-write the meaning of the Bronx Bombers.
It would not be easy. All weekend speculation swirled around Curt Schilling like a cloud of mosquitoes – as though he’d stepped upon some giant bug nest set afire. Shoe companies and orthopedic surgeons alike suggested ideas ranging from high-top cleats to an ankle brace heavily taped from just below the knee. No one seriously hoped for anything to come of this.
Serious talk surrounded who might pitch in Schilling’s place. Rarely mentioned was the obvious – that without a legitimate outing from Curt Schilling the Red Sox didn’t have much of a chance. There was no real hope. The last two wins had simply prolonged the agony.
Dr. Morgan, the team physician, concocted a drastic idea – use temporary sutures to guide the loose tendon with a row of stitches tying the skin into deeper tissue – keeping the tendon from snapping across the bone. In an experiment tried on a human cadaver, it seemed promising. Then it was Schilling’s turn – but would it hold?
No one knew.
Tuesday night Schilling took to the mound as I was having dinner in Virginia with a bunch of Boston area colleagues – and a web enabled cell phone began to receive the answer. No runs in the Yankee first inning, then again in the second. Meanwhile at Yankee Stadium the Sox were inching ahead.
The third inning came and went, then the forth. Schilling gave up a meaningless solo homer to Bernie Williams, but kept on cruising – a growing red spot of blood on his white sock notwithstanding.
After seven innings Shilling was done – having given up only four hits and one run. Then with relief from Embry and Timlin the Sox wrapped the loose ends.
History was in the making and Game 7 on Wednesday evening would either be one of the greatest moments for the Red Sox and their fans or their most crushing of defeats. Dr. Morgan and Curt Schilling had saved the season for one more night. But would that be enough?
In the end it was another pitcher, Derrick Lowe, who faced the Yankees for the American League Pennant. Lowe had been terrible at times this year – and so bad down the stretch that his role in the playoffs had been reduced to bullpen relief. But he had pitched well during the Anaheim series and got the nod over knuckleballer Tim Wakefield for game 7.
From the start Lowe was simply masterful while Johnny Damon and David Ortiz demolished the Yankee’s pitching. The final score was 8-2. The Red Sox had pulled off the greatest comeback in North American sports history against their arch rivals in the most fitting of ways. Beyond the wildest imagination of their long-suffering fans the Boston Red Sox had defeated the Evil Empire, and for the next two hours Red Sox Nation partied at Yankee Stadium and throughout the entire world far into the night.
In the end it was more than merely epic – it is personal – because when this story is retold in the years ahead recounting the names of every key player from both teams, in many pubs and bullshit sessions aboard communing trains it will be remembered as the greatest baseball series ever played.
Of course if the baseball gods are paying any attention, there will be hell to pay sometime down the road for such insolence.
