Sox Diaries: From Despair to Hope

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2004: There really is not much to say the morning after a 19-8 massacre in a game that for all intents and purposes was a must win. Because faith is blind, I spent most of the afternoon wondering if we could not be the team to make history, to win a series after being down 3-0. These are the longest of odds and we are playing a team that knows how to keep its foot on the neck of its opponents once those opponents are down. Emily Dickinson once wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Hope, Ms. Dickinson, is the thing wearing the Red Sox hat today. And we still have hope. But it is fading.

Here are my first impressions of the game, written in an email to myself last night:

Immediate, if drunken, responses: I did not bring this upon myself. None of us did, really. You commit yourself to a team for reasons you never really understand, mostly related to geography, history, and perhaps a hint of daddy-did-it genetics. You wish and you hope and you love. And it sure enough is unconditional -- it is not as if you expect Derek Lowe to send you a card or Johnny Damon to call you on your birthday. All you ask is that they return it. That they return it with effort. That they return it with grit. That they fucking return it somehow. I am a 33 year-old man. I have a PhD, a good job, a great girlfriend, and frankly a life worth living. And yet . . . and yet. This team, this team I have yearned for and dreamed about and gushed over, this bunch of guys mostly younger then I, well, they can put me in this state. . . .And in this state, I am the bad guy -- I have lost faith. Never mind that I did not give up 19 runs. Never mind that I was well aware that a loss tonight meant we were done. Never mind that . . . oh, never mind. Some years just hurt more than others. (Oh -- and fuck Tim McCarver for railing on Manny in the second inning for trying to take third when, by the way, he was safe -- the ump fucked up, not Manny, you sanctimonious, out-of-touch ass) My affliction is one that is unconditional. Tomorrow I'll rationalize why they can win four in a row, despite the fact that no team has ever done so in baseball. Tomorrow I'll deal with the calls on my cell phone. Tomorrow I'll start dealing with, well, tomorrow.

So tomorrow is now today, and we have Derek Lowe going to the mound, most likely against an El Duque who will have no reason to feel any pressure. A win will give us one more game. Right now that is all we can play for – the chance to play one more time.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2004: At this point you’ve either given yourself over to belief or you have not. At this point you are either fer us or yer agin’ us. At this point you are hardened, cynical and jaded or you are willing to hang on to hope.

No one could honestly blame the hard hearted. I gave up hope briefly myself on Saturday night, as yesterday’s diary entry attests, but it did not last long. It was a test of faith, I was Job, and while I doubted, I never left the fold. I never strayed from the flock. But those of you who think you know better, well, you may simply be the wise ones. Or perhaps you are inuring yourself to the pain you fear. Or maybe you just hate puppies and children and goodness and America.

All I know is that last night’s game was reason enough to keep our dreams of October glory alive. How can I even try to capture the game in words? It was the sort of Sox-Yankees battle that everyone envisioned from the outset, with the Yanks taking a 2-0 lead, with us fighting back to go up 3-2, and with unlikely (but seemingly foreordained) hero Derek Lowe giving us a chance through five and a third. He gave up a triple in the sixth to Hideki Matsui who has just been unconscious, and Mike Timlin came in but could not hold the lead, and suddenly it was 4-3. Innings began slipping away as the Sox could not mount a rally. Then, against Rivera in the 9th, we drew blood. We got to the supposedly indomitable closer. We squeezed the tying run across when Millar walked to lead off the inning, Dave Roberts pinch ran for him, making it clear that he intended to steal second, and doing so. Billy Mueller then singled to drive in the speedy, intrepid Roberts and tie the score. I like Bill Mueller up against Rivera in a tight game. We had the chance to win that inning but Rivera shut the door, and one had to wonder how many more chances we’d have.

The key to the game was the stellar, inspiring work by the relief corps. While Timlin faltered and Mike Myers was unable to get out Matsui, the lone batter he faced, in the 11th, the rest of the guys came up big. None more than Foulke, who gave 2 2/3rds innings in which he silenced the Yankee bats, Embree, who evoked images of his performances in the 2003 postseason, and Curtis Leskanic, my favorite whipping boy of late, who kept the Yanks at bay long enough to set up the heroics of the 12th and to earn the win.

If David Ortiz was not already a Boston legend, climbing slowly and inexorably up the pantheon, he certainly is solidifying his claim now. In the wee hours of Monday morning, in the 12th inning, against former Sox righthander Paul Quantrill, Manny led off with a single to right field to become the potential winning run. Ortiz came up, the only Red Sox player who has done substantial damage against Yankee pitching this season. He had hit the two-run single to put us ahead 3-2 back in the fifth, but had looked horrible in his two appearances against Rivera. But against Quantrill, Ortiz got a 2-1 fastball over the inside portion of the plate, and he was able to drive it. It was a no doubter that blazed a path into the Yankee bullpen. 6-4. Bedlam overtook Fenway. Once again, his rapturous teammates mobbed Big Papi.

Now, of course, comes the question of what does this all mean? The teams meet again this afternoon, 5:00 Fenway time, for game five. Pedro will face off against Mussina, against whom we will have to do a whole lot better than we did last week when he stymied us with a perfect performance through 6 innings. Pedro needs to come ready to keep the Yankees off the scoreboard. We cannot afford to tax the bullpen. Even if we win, odds are long. Let’s face it – we are looking for a Rasputin-like performance from Schilling in one of the remaining few games, followed by a motley starter-by-committee approach in which we will throw Waker and Arroyo and Lowe and Mendoza and whoever else at the Yankees hoping to keep them at bay while we get to their similarly patchwork quilt of weary and wounded wings.

A friend (and non-Sox fan) called me last night and asked why major league baseball has not cracked down on Tim McCarver wearing his Yankees’ hat and “I (heart) Derek Jeter” t-shirt in a the booth. I did not have an answer. My friend thinks the former catcher’s naked Yankee support is all part of McCarver’s long-term goal to be Jeter’s personal fluffer (giving new meaning, I guess, to “naked Yankee support.”). But much to McCarver’s chagrin, no doubt, the Red Sox did what they have done all year – fought and rallied and believed and clawed until someone, or in the case of last night, many someones, could contribute and just get the job done.

There was much joy in Red Sox Nation due to the heroics not only of Ortiz, but of an entire group that never has given up, and that still believes. If they do, then we should too. Today, we have Pedro on the mound. We still are in a deep hole of our own digging. But we get one more game. At 4:00 today I will be in front of the television. I’ve cancelled my night seminar knowing that this game will not be done in three hours. No longer does it matter that no team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit. Now the math has for all intents and purposes changed. Now it is a 3-1 series. The odds may not be much better, but better they are, and 3-2 is even more surmountable. In a sense, there is no pressure on us now. They just need to go out, give Pedro some run support, and keep the magic coming.

We believe.