Got root?

(Previously on Boston Red Sox Championship Run: the Sox drop two in the Bronx, and are heading home to tie up the Series….)

Game 3, ALCS

What was supposed to happen on Friday night ending up happening on Saturday night because of the torrential rains all day on Friday.

Even still, Saturday was nasty. It had rained during the day, it was damp and raw and cold, and all of that was somehow fitting for the massacre that would occur in Fenway that night. Ever since Wednesday evening’s close loss in the Bronx, the weather in New England was grey, dark and nasty. Fall in New England can be beautiful, with brilliant, flaming hues of foliage, Indian summer days, and crisp nights. But when it turns grey, and dark, and nasty and rainy, you can understand what Herman Melville was talking about when he used the phrase “November in my soul.”

The game that evening is hard to describe. Not because I don’t have the words, but because, due to other commitments, I had to be out. I did catch some of it at the end, and it wasn’t pretty. No, it wasn’t pretty, not by a long shot. In fact, it looked pretty damned ugly if you want the truth.

I guess you could say over the first three innings, the Sox and Yankees slugged it out like two heavyweights going toe-to-toe, giving up on all hope of blocking punches and just pummeling away at each other. After three full, it was 6-6.

Then the rout began. Over the next four innings the Yankees put up 11 runs to the Red Sox 2, and added two more for insurance, pasting a 19-8 drubbing on the Sox.

It was some ugly baseball. Period.

There was one small thing to note however, something that, when time had run its course, would turn out to be pretty huge. Tim Wakefield, the man who threw the final pitch in the ALCS the year before, the longest tenured member of the Red Sox, and the consumate team player, gave up his opportunity to start the Game 4 in order that he might throw some relief innings to try and stop the bleeding. Like I said, it didn’t seem like much at the time, but it would have a huge impact down the line.

Aftermath

I’d be flat out lying if I said anything other than the fact that on Sunday, which dawned beautifully sunny and cool, by the way, I had several main thoughts in my head:

1. First, I was dejected, because no team, save for a couple of hockey teams, had ever come back from being down 3-0 in a series. Hockey is a very different sport than baseball, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up.
2. It was a total bummer to have followed this team, that fought so brilliantly after the Nomar trade and dust-up between ‘Tek and A-Rod, that made it back to the ALCS to face their arch-rivals, and have them fail so miserably.
3. My only hope was for a victory to at least avoid a sweep.

A Sox Fan Turns To Prayer…
The day after the fiasco of Game 3, that sunny but cool Sunday, was the day my stepson was getting confirmed. My parish is very heavily Yankee country. Oh, there are a few of us who support the Olde Towne Team, but for the most part, the parishoners and pastor cut their baseball teeth on Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Maris and all the rest. My Yankee fan friends, my brother-in-law and our priest all consoled me with words of sympathy: “Gee, I don’t understand what has happened to the Sox — I really expected a lot more to handle than this.”

And so there I was, sitting there in the church, gazing at the beautiful figure of Christ in his Risen Glory on the stained glass window up behind the altar, (and truth be told realizing that to that point in time the “savior” of the Red Sox, Johnny Damon — he of the “What Would Johnny Damon Do? t-shirts and Christ-like haircut– was 1-for-13 with just 1 RBI.)

Then, I did something that I hadn’t done since I was 7 years old, and had only done that one time before in my life - I prayed for a victory. Oh, I wasn’t selfish. I didn’t pray for them to come back and win the whole thing, or anything silly like that.

When I was seven, I was rooting so hard for the Green Bay Packers in the NFL Championship game against the Cowboys (known these days as the Ice Bowl) that I actually knelt in church before Mass and prayed for a Packer victory.

Almost 40 years later, I knelt in church before the Bishop arrived to begin the confirmation Mass, and I prayed a simple prayer: “Please God, don’t let them get swept. That’s all, please just let them win one.”

And that was that. I let it go until game time……

Game 4, ALCS, Sunday October 17, 2004

Game Four. After the slugfest the evening before, a game that finished just a bit shy of the four and a half hour mark, the Yankees looked poised to sweep their way into another World Series.

And because of the length of the game, and the utter rout inflicted on the Red Sox, Derek Lowe was starting. Lowe, who’d been banished to the bullpen for poor starts down the stretch was an enigma to me. I always said he was Forest Gump’s box of chocolates — you never quite new what you were going to get. A no-hitter one time, a complete rout the next. Still, when his sinker was working, you got a lot of ground outs, and after the Nomar trade shored up the infield defense, that was not necessarily a bad thing.

The Yankees struck first, though, in the 3rd inning. Jeter got on base, A-Rod blasted a home that ended up out on Lansdowne Street, and the Yanks took a 2-0 lead. This did provide one comic moment though, as the ball came sailing back from the street into center field. Johnny Damon fired it back over the wall and into the street. A few moments later, the ball came flying back into center field. The ump finally pocketed the ball.

The Sox, realizing their backs were against the wall, got a rally going in the fifth and plated 3 runs. The lead was slim, 3-2, and it was too early in the game. Those life-long “Sox jitters” came back, and I sat on the edge of my seat, guts churning, and worrying.

I didn’t have to worry long. Lowe gakked up a triple to Matsui in the top half of the next inning, and was relieved by Mike Timlin. He didn’t fare all that well, and by the middle of the 6th, the Yankees had regained the lead. It seemed to me that they had their killer instinct going, and the Sox were indeed going to get swept.

Foulke game in to replace Timlin in the 7th inning, and in retrospect, he did a helluva job, going 3 innings.

“Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned…”
I guess now would be a good time for me to belly up to the bar, and take a few lumps. In 2004 I had been a Sox fan for 38 years. I had seen them win the pennant in 1967 by half a game, then lose in 7 games to a superlative Bob Gibson and the Cardinals. I’d seen Carlton Fisk blast a home run for the ages in 1975, then lose the 7th game to the Reds. I’d gotten home just in time to see Bucking F-ing Dent deposit the ball in the the left field screen in 1978, and Yaz pop up to end it. And I was sitting in a room in the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC on a night in 1986 when the Sox were within a strike of winning the whole thing, and of course, all I need to say is one word: Buckner.

So, when it came down to the bottom of the ninth inning, with Mariano Rivera coming in to save it for the Yanks, I gave in to the bitter gall that rose up within me. I forgot how Rivera blew a save that lost the 2001 World Series. I forgot Billy Mueller’s home run in July that won the game. I lost track of the fact that Billy Mueller would be hitting in the bottom of the 9th. And worst of all, I gave into despair. The overwhelming thought in my head was “I cannot bear to see the smug, smarmy, cocky bastards in pinstripes jumping all over the mound in Fenway park.” I got up, I shut the TV off, and I went to bed……

To be continued……

(Previously on Boston Red Sox Championship Run 2004: the Sox sweep the Angels on the strength of Big Papi’s walk-off home run in the 10th inning…..)

So there we were, headed into the weekend (October 9/10 2004) with the ALCS opponent still to be decided. My co-worker Dave had a little open house at his place after doing some serious home improvement, and the Sox fans among us were trying to decide who we wanted to face — did we match up better against the Twins? Did we want to face the Yankees again? What was more important — getting to the Series and winning or beating the Yankees?

(For my money, it was beating the Yankees, getting to the Series and winning….)

By the end of the weekend, we knew — it would be the Yankees, and the series that every Red Sox fan had been hoping for would be starting on Tuesday night, October 12, in the heart of the Evil Empire, Yankee Stadium.

Game 1, ALCS

We were pumped. Curt Schilling against Mike Mussina. We didn’t want to just win, we wanted to crush the Yankees. We wanted to stun them the same way that they had stunned us the year before. We wanted them to feel the embarrassment of losing to the Red Sox for a change.

Yeah, Yankee fans are smug. You can be smug when you’ve collected 26 rings, and have hardly ever had to face adversity. Oh sure, there were those “lean years” between 1978 and 1996, but nothing like what the Sox had faced and dealt with. Adversity can make you strong — but the kind of snakebit luck the Sox had in 1947, 1967 (okay, not so totally bad), 1975, 1978 (Bucky’s middle initial will always be “F” to Boston fans) and, ohmygodpleasesayitwonthappenagain 1986, does some strange things to a fan.

As a result, no lead is ever big enough for a Sox fan. They could be up 6-0 in the top of the 8th, and the fans will still be waiting for some bizarre, unexpected, totallyfreakingweird turn of events that cause them to lose 7-6.

But, this was game one. I was pumped.

After all of that waiting and speculating and looking forward to spanking the Yankees, all that happened was Curt Schilling (who arrived at the stadium with speculation about his ankle running rampant) just imploded on the mound, giving up 6 runs in 3 innings. That was a huge surprise, and made me totally uneasy. If Schilling was hurt (and clearly he was), then our chances were seriously affected. No, we were in deep doo-doo.

Meantime, Mussina was perfect — no, really, PERFECT, as in no hits, no runs, no errors, no baserunners — through 6 full. Wakefield, on in relief, gave up 2 in the 6th to spot the Yankees to an 8-0 lead.

Then, in what we all hoped would be a sign of things to come, the Red Sox got to Mussina, and their bats awakened. Over the next two the put up 7 runs to make the game interesting.

But, Timlin gave up 2 more in the 8th, and that was basically that. Final score: Evil Empire 10, Red Sox 8.

Aftermath

I was bummed, but not seriously so. The general wisdom usually is that if you’re starting a 7 game series on the road, if you can gain a split then the advantage swings back to you. And besides, didn’t the Red Sox go down 0-2 to the Mets in the 1986 World Series????

Pedro was going the next night, and inspite of all of the “Who’s Your Daddy” crap, I figured Pedro would pitch one helluva game and we’d be doing back to Boston tied at 1 game apiece. We could worry about Curt’s performance after that….

Game 2, ALCS

Petey was taking the mound, the Sox were going to tie up the Series with the Yankees, and all was right with the world.

And actually, it was through five and a half….kinda sorta.

Pedro gave up a run in the 1st. Nothing major, no reason to panic. Pedro gives up runs on occasion. The Sox have some might hefty bats and they’re going against Lieber, so again, no reason to panic.

By the time the bottom of the sixth inning rolled around, the Red Sox lineup looked like it was full of Pedro Ceranos from the movie Major League — “bats no like curve ball” and it was not looking good.

When Petey finally tired, giving up a two run homer to John Olerud in the bottom of the 6th, things began to look even worse. The Sox got one back, but then the Yankees pulled yet another little bit of magic out of their pinstriped butts….

Mariano Rivera had been back home in Panama for a funeral for a family member. He’d hopped a plane, and arrived at the stadium late. And of course, he came in the close the game out. It was such a “Yankee moment”……

Aftermath

Well, like I said, we’d been down 2-0 to the Mets in 1986, so there’s nothing to worry about right? Right? Right???

I was a bit nervous. Johnny Damon was 0-fer-the-series-so-far (0-8 actually). No one else was hitting, save Big Papi, and when they were it wasn’t at opportune times. One ace was hurting, our other ace had thrown a superb game but with no run support.

I took a deep breath and figured that maybe, just maybe, Fenway might be a bit more friendly. And we’d be back there on Thursday, October 14th…. The Sox were heading home.

Caught this via digg. I’m no math whiz, but this is fascinating, and is a good read.

It would seem that 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything (grin)…..

Seed: Prime Numbers Get Hitched

With the baseball season almost upon us (Opening Day is in less than three weeks now), I have been thinking a lot about the Red Sox 2004 World Series win. Okay, unless you were stranded on Mars for the last 90 years, everyone knows that it was their first WS win in 86 seasons. I know I will never forget it, even if they somehow win the next ten in a row…..

Now, it has been a year and a half, and I remember things pretty vividly. I also have the DVD collection of the ALCS and WS. But the way all those games personally affected me won’t have been captured on the DVD. The feelings I had, the utter “go for broke”, excitement of total abandon, won’t be captured anywhere but in my head. So, I decided to write about it.

So, here goes…. This is my retrospective on those three weeks in October of 2004.

October 16-17 2003
Okay, so I went back before 2004 for this one. We all know what happened. Probably the only notable thing about this game was the fact that the Sox had yet another seventh game opportunity to do it to us again. They were ahead by five runs. My wife, a baseball fan, but not a total strategy nut like me, was upbeat. I was nervous, very nervous.

Did you ever see a horror movie where the good guys (usually a couple of guys, and a least one well-endowed girl wearing a something that either starts out as very revealing or ends up that way after the all the crap they go through) are almost out of the “bad place” — you pick it: jungle, cave, haunted house. They’re mere yards away from safety when the monster or bad guy in a hockey mask, or whatever, manages to grab one of the guys and kill him.

That’s the way any tried and true, dyed in the wool, Red Sox fan felt that evening when they were up by five. You just knew it was coming. You knew that Buckner, Bucky F-ing Dent, or a phenomenally fired up Bob Gibson was going to appear.

I kept telling my wife that they’d find a way to let it slip away. When Grady Little came to the mound after Pedro had given up a couple of doubles, my wife said to me, “Phew, they’re taking him out!” I had wished they’d gone to their solid bullpen to start the inning, but I too was relieved. When Little walked back to the dugout, leaving a tired Pedro in, well, you know that monster was getting closer and closer.

The Yankees tied it up, and a journeyman infielder parked a Wakefield knuckler in the 11th, and that was that.

Truth be told, that monster hadn’t just gotten the guy and chewed him up — no, that monster reached out of the movie screen and punched me right below the belt just before the final credits rolled……

It took me a lot of hours before I could finally get to sleep. It took me a lot of months before I could finally say “Well, maybe next year.”

Regular Season 2004
So much has been written about the entire Red Sox season in 2004. They started off with so much promise in April and May, then went into a long stretch of mediocre .500 baseball. It was maddening, becuase you had a feeling that they had even more talent than in 2003.

The big turning points obviously were the Nomar Garciaparra trade — which brought much needed defense — and the game against the Yankees on July 24. That game saw the Sox get into a brawl with the Yanks, started by A-Rod and Jason Varitek. It ended with a two run walkoff homer by Billy Mueller against Mariano Rivera. I don’t think anyone knew it at the time, but something changed that day.

The Sox came close to catching the Yanks, ended up clinching the Wild Card spot down in Tampa, and celebrated just a little bit, before finishing up the season. Down the stretch, the playoff picture took a long time to form so we (my wife, my friends and other Sox fans) talked and debated who we thought the Sox would get, and who they might match up with. Beneath it all, we all wanted one thing — a chance to pay back the Yankees.

Red Sox vs. Angels
The Sox first playoff game since the Night of Agony in 2003 was on the afternoon (late afternoon Eastern Standard time) of October 5, 2004. We had to suffer through Chris Berman doing play-by-play for ESPN, and had to listen to all the talking sports-heads discussing how difficult it would be for the Sox to beat the Angels.

Now, I like Chris Berman, but he’s a lousy play-by-play guy. And I was at work when the game started anyway, so I caught a lot of it on the radio on the ride home with Castiglione and Trupiano.

Sox got out to a big lead, thanks to a 7 run 4th inning, Curt Schilling appeared to hurt his ankle a little and the Sox went up 1-0 in the best of three series by winning 9-3.

Game Two was a late game on October 6. Couldn’t stay up that late and still be remotely functional at work the next day so I went to bed. About an hour later (I guess) a barking dog woke me. I was awake, and curious, and snuck down to the living room to see how my Sox were doing.

It was close. I got sucked in. It reminded me of when I was a kid and had to go to bed, but I’d strain to stay awake trying to hear how the Sox were doing when my Dad was listening on the radio or watching on the TV. I was trying to stay awake, trying to keep the TV down low.

It was a pretty good battle, with the Sox holding a 4-3 leading going into the 9th. A one run leading going into the 9th inning will make any Sox fan nervous, even on opening day, no matter how good the bullpen is. But this Sox team had a good bullpen AND a ton of offense. They scored four in the 9th to take the second game 8-3. They were headed back to Fenway up 2-0 in the series, and I was headed to bed around 2am, knowing I’d be worthless in the office the next day.

The 3rd game of the Series was on Friday, October 8. I managed to watch a short bit of the first inning on the small TV in the exercise room at work. Unfortunately, all of us from work had a retirement dinner to go to that evening — watching would be impossible. Being a techno-geek, I set up my phone to get text messages of the score. Unfortunately, there was one guy who was TiVo-ing the game and didn’t want to know anything at all about it, so I had to be very poker-faced when my texts would come in.

All of the angst was for naught though, because by the time the dinner was over, the Sox had been way ahead, given up a grand slam to Vlad, and were tied going into extra innings. So it was into the car for the ride home, and on went Castiglione and Trupiano.

I didn’t get far from the restaurant before David Ortiz, “Big Papi” came up in the bottom of the 10th.

The first pitch went into the Monster seats and it was over. The Sox were headed back to the ALCS and I was headed home on Friday night with a couple of days to contemplate who would be our opponent!

To be continued….