Red Sox

October 18

It all happened in one 24-hour period. The Red Sox were up against the wall. The year before, they'd lost the 2003 ALCS to the Yankees in characteristically cataclysmic fashion - in extra innings in Game Seven. They had earned a rematch, but nothing was going their way. They'd lost Game One and perhaps Curt Schilling for the series. They'd been defeated in Game Two, 3-1, despite having Pedro Martinez on the mound. And they'd been pounded and pummeled in Game Three, 19-8.

Doom had descended on Red Sox Nation. I was at Game Three, and I did something I hardly ever do, and which I despise others for doing: I left early. It was 17-6, and seemed (correctly, as it turned out) a lost cause. This was a playoff game - Red Sox vs. Yankees - and as I slunk out of the park, I felt like I should hold a folded newspaper in front of my face so no one would see.

I had a decent excuse. My 13-year-old son was home with a friend. The sitter hadn't shown up, so my friend Roy and I went to the game, leaving our sons home alone. They're good kids. We figured they'd be okay. And we checked in from time to time by telephone. With the game so out of hand, though, we figured we'd head home so we could get back before midnight and maybe even see the end on television. Everything was fine. Except for the 3-0 deficit the Red Sox found themselves in. And which all us diehard Sox fans found ourselves in. All I could think was: I did NOT want to go through another year of hearing that taunting, sing-song Yankees chant: "Nineteen - Eighteen."

This was the fate of a Red Sox fan. In my lifetime, the Red Sox had lost Game Seven of the 1946 World Series (okay, I was one at the time), the single-game playoff in 1948, the last game of 1949, Game Seven of the '67 Series, the next-to-last game of the 1972 season, Game Seven in 1975, the single-game playoff in 1978, Game Seven in 1986, and Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS. This didn't even approach respectability, though. To be swept by the Yankees in 2004? The humiliation!

My son and I had planned to go to Game Four. I didn't want to put him through it. And, frankly, I didn't want to put myself through it. I knew he wasn't totally into it, either. He's not really a baseball fan. So I offered a deal. "Emmet," I said, "If you'll agree to go on a trip with me next summer to someplace I choose, I'll go sell the tickets to tonight's game and you won't have to go." Deal. I drove over to the park about two hours before game time and sold my two tickets for face value, and then I drove back home to suffer from the sanctum of my own living room.

In the whole history of baseball, no team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win. If the Red Sox won Game Four, sure, I'd go to Game Five, but I wasn't holding out much hope. No team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit even to tie it 3-3. There was nothing to hold out for. I hope the guys who bought my tickets stayed for the whole game. They saw a great one. But it was a long one. Five hours and two minutes long, and it was the bottom of the twelfth inning - after The Greatest Closer Ever blew a save in the bottom of the ninth (Dave Roberts!) - when David Ortiz won it with a two-run home run. It was after midnight; the win occurred on October 18.

About 16 hours later, I was in my seat with another friend, Saul, who works for the Jimmy Fund. We didn't hold out much hope, but it felt good to have pierced Yankee armor the night before. The fifth game looked to peter out, with the Sox down, 4-2, coming into the bottom of the eighth. Lo and behold, Rivera blew another save! And the game went on and on - 14 innings, before David Ortiz singled in Johnny Damon with the winning run, just minutes before midnight. Twice on the same calendar day, the Red Sox had beaten the Yankees.

Now the pressure really was on the Yankees. And they folded. The Sox scored four runs in the top of the fourth in Game Six, and held on to win. In Game Seven, in front of a somber Stadium crowd, the Sox jumped out to a 6-0 lead even before the Yankees got up to bat in the bottom of the second. It was a 10-3 final, and it hardly mattered who would win the World Series. But the Red Sox won four in a row, sweeping St. Louis, the same Cardinals franchise that had beaten Boston in 1946 and again in 1967. The Red Sox were spared another Game Seven, which would have taken place under a full moon on Halloween.

Emmet and I went to Game One of the Series, the only time the Cardinals threw a scare into the Fenway faithful. Boston got a 4-0 lead in the first. It was 7-2 after three, but St. Louis tied it in the top of the eighth. Then Mark Bellhorn hit a two-run homer off the Pesky Pole in the bottom of the eighth and the rest of the Series was pretty smooth sailing. And Emmet and I enjoyed a week-plus on the Serengeti Plain and in the Ngorongoro Crater of Tanzania in July 2005.

Bill Nowlin
Cambridge, MA

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