Change-up

by John Feinstein

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said finally. “I’ll be fine.”

  “We’re pulling into school, gotta go,” she said, slipping into the Southern accent she tried to lose north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

  “Talk to you later, Scarlett,” he said, unable to resist using the nickname he’d put on her when they first met.

  She clicked off. Stevie closed his eyes again, smiling. But all he could see was Doyle being sprayed by champagne. Oh yeah, Steve Thomas, sportswriting genius … A moment later he was asleep.

  The next few days crawled by for Stevie. After the excitement of the playoffs, being back at school was a complete bore.

  The weekend was spent writing an English paper, which wasn’t nearly as much fun as writing a sidebar on game seven—even a bad sidebar—Stevie thought. His spirits picked up on Sunday morning when he spotted a headline in the Inquirer’s “World Series Notes and Quotes” column. It read: “Doyle to Be Activated.”

  Stevie read the three-paragraph item raptly:

  Norbert Doyle, the 38-year-old rookie acquired by the Nationals in late August, will be on the team’s roster for the World Series, manager Manny Acta said today. Acta said he decided to put Doyle on the roster instead of fifth starter Tom O’Toole because Doyle is more comfortable coming out of the bullpen than O’Toole.

  “You really don’t need a fifth starter in postseason unless there’s an injury,” Acta said. “Tom only got into one game in the LCS [giving up two runs in 1⅓ innings of relief work in game three] and relieving really hasn’t been his role. Norbert’s been comfortable in any role we’ve put him in.”

  Doyle, who had never made a major-league appearance prior to being traded to the Nationals in late August, pitched six times in September—three times in relief and three times as a starter. He was 0–0 with an ERA of 3.23.

  That was it. Stevie was elated—for Doyle, who would now get to be part of a World Series as an active player, and for himself because he knew Doyle would be in Boston. Then it occurred to him that with Doyle on the active roster, he would be a natural story for anyone looking for a column or a sidebar. No one could resist the underdog-makes-good story line.

  Still, he did have a little bit of an in with Doyle, if only because the pitcher had twins his age—one of whom had a crush on Susan Carol. All of that might help him once in Boston. He wouldn’t miss the story twice, that much he knew for sure.

  When he wasn’t working on English or Spanish over the weekend, Stevie read everything he could get his hands on about the impending World Series. Once, the Red Sox had been baseball’s perennial hard-luck story: frequent contenders, never champions. Some years they simply collapsed in September. In others they made it to October only to break their fans’ hearts: they had lost the seventh game of a World Series four times—in 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986.

  The loss in ’86, especially, was a crusher. The Sox had had a three-games-to-two lead going into game six against the Mets and took a 5–3 lead in the tenth inning. When the first two Mets’ hitters in the bottom of the tenth were retired, the scoreboard operator at Shea Stadium, apparently forgetting there was still one out to go, flashed “Congratulations Boston Red Sox, 1986 World Champions” on the board.

  The third out never happened. The Mets got three straight singles, Bill Buckner made an infamous error, and the Mets won the game 6–5. Two nights later, with the Red Sox leading 3–0, the Mets came back to win game seven and crush Boston’s hopes once again.

  It all changed in Boston in the fall of 2004. That October the Red Sox came back from three games down to beat the lordly New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series and went on to finally win the World Series for the first time in eighty-six years.

  It was the end of the much-talked-about Curse of the Bambino. A year after winning the 1918 World Series, the Red Sox had traded the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Acquiring Ruth had turned the Yankees from a struggling franchise into a dominant one. Yankee Stadium was built in 1923, and it became known as the House That Ruth Built. From 1919 until 2004 the Yankees won twenty-six World Series; the Red Sox, none. The Sox’s long drought had begun with the trade of Ruth—and rumors of a curse were born.

  But now the Red Sox were four victories away from winning their third World Series title in six years. In a sense, they had become the Yankees: the team with lots of money, lots of stars, and the swagger of past championships. The Nationals, on the other hand, were the quintessential underdog. They had been awful for years—first while playing in Montreal, then after moving to Washington in 2005. They had been picked to finish last in the National League East before the season began and had shocked people by winning the division title.

  They had won fourteen of their last sixteen games to sail past the Mets—who ended up making the playoffs as the wild card team—and the Phillies. The Nats’ young pitchers all seemed to come into their own at once, and they pulled out one improbable win after another, including a late-September victory in which Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in Mets club history, only to lose the game 1–0 when the Nationals scored in the ninth inning on an error, a stolen base, a sacrifice bunt, and a sacrifice fly.

  In the playoffs they had trailed the Chicago Cubs two games to none in the best-of-five Division Series before rallying to win, and then had pulled off their miraculous seventh-game victory in the League Championship Series.

  Now, amazingly, they were in the World Series. And Kelleher was interviewing Walter Johnson’s ghost for his Sunday column. Stevie wasn’t sure which story was more unbelievable.

  He was engrossed in his research when he noticed an IM coming in on his computer.

  “Did U C they activated Doyle?” Susan Carol was asking.

  “Yeah,” Stevie replied. “Now everyone will write it. But I’m thinking maybe talking to his kids will give me an angle no one else has.”

  “Great idea,” she answered. “Have U contacted Dever to set something up?” she asked, meaning John Dever, the Nats’ PR director.

  Stevie stared at the screen for a moment. As usual, she was a half step ahead of him.

  “Not yet. U still have his e-mail?”

  “Of course.”

  “Y R U always smarter than me?” he asked.

  “Because I’m a girl. Talk later. Bye.”

  Stevie sighed. He sent Dever an e-mail asking if he could set him up with Doyle and the twins, then decided to take a break. He pushed back from his desk and went to join his dad watching the Eagles and Redskins—which reminded him it was late October. The sports seasons just got longer and longer.

  3: FIRST NIGHT AT FENWAY

  BY THE TIME STEVIE’S DAD DROPPED HIM at the airport Tuesday morning, Stevie had a breakfast scheduled for Wednesday with Norbert, David, and Morra Doyle. There had been one condition in Dever’s return e-mail: “He wants to know if Susan Carol can come too.”

  Stevie laughed when he read that; David Doyle’s crush on Susan Carol was clearly pretty strong. “I think I can arrange that,” he wrote back. He then wrote to Susan Carol to make sure she was okay with it.

  “Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you,” she had written back.

  Stevie took a cab to the Marriott Long Wharf as soon as his plane landed. The cab ride was brief—Logan Airport was only a couple of miles from downtown, and at one o’clock there wasn’t much traffic. About sixty seconds after emerging from the Sumner Tunnel, Stevie found himself in front of the hotel.

  “Welcome to the Marriott, Mr. Thomas,” the doorman said as Stevie climbed out of the cab. Seeing the stunned look on Stevie’s face, he smiled. “This is Boston,” he said. “We’re all big sports fans. I’m Mike. Anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  Stevie took an escalator up to the lobby level and found Kelleher waiting.

  “Come on,” Kelleher said. “Tamara and Susan Carol are in the restaurant. We’ll get a bite to eat before we go to the ballpark so you don’t have to eat the box lunch.”

&
nbsp; “They serve a box lunch at the World Series?”

  “Yup. You can have the oh-so-appetizing dried-out apple for dessert.”

  The restaurant overlooked Boston Harbor. Stevie could see planes taking off directly across the water. Susan Carol got up to give him a hug. Stevie could never completely get over just how pretty she was, even with her hair tied back in a ponytail. Her hair, he noticed, was wet.

  “Did you just shower?” he asked.

  “After I swam,” she said. “Bobby got me into the pool at Harvard.”

  Stevie was baffled. Harvard, he knew, was in Cambridge.

  “Isn’t Cambridge a ways from here?” he asked.

  “Actually, it’s not,” Kelleher said. “Only about ten minutes. Nothing in Boston is very far. But the Harvard athletic facilities are all on this side of the river, in Boston.”

  Stevie admired Susan Carol’s dedication to her sport—she always managed to find places to swim away from home. But if he was being honest with himself, he’d admit that it also bugged him just a little that Susan Carol was a much more accomplished athlete than he was. He was hoping to make the JV basketball team, and he knew that even if he did make it, he wouldn’t be a starter. Susan Carol, on the other hand, was a nationally ranked swimmer. Her 100-meter butterfly time ranked fourth in the country in the fourteen-and-under age group. If he didn’t love her, he might be inclined to hate her … just a little.

  They ate quickly and took a cab to Fenway Park to get settled in for game one. Stevie spotted the famous Citgo sign that loomed over the stadium. And they got out of the cab on Yawkey Way—a street named for Tom Yawkey, the former Red Sox owner.

  It was four hours before game time, but people were everywhere. There were all sorts of souvenir shops and bars and restaurants lining both sides of the street. Kelleher led them through the crowds—including the inevitable ticket scalpers, all screaming, “Anyone selling tickets?” which Stevie now knew was code for the fact that they were selling tickets but didn’t want to get nailed by a plainclothes cop—to a small door with a sign that said Media. None of the stadium’s gates were open yet.

  Stevie had come prepared with two different kinds of photo ID: his student ID from school and a passport. The first time he’d covered a major event, the guy handing out credentials had insisted on seeing a driver’s license, until more sensible heads prevailed.

  Stevie was about to pull out his various forms of ID when he heard Kelleher let out a shout: “Phyllis!” he said. “About time you showed up someplace.”

  He was giving a hug to a woman with dark hair who had walked up to the credentials pickup area just as they arrived.

  “I was at the American League playoffs, you know that,” she said, hugging Kelleher in return. “I can’t help it if you work in a National League city.”

  “You’re still an American Leaguer at heart, aren’t you?” Kelleher said.

  “Please don’t tell on me,” she said, flashing a wide smile.

  Spotting Stevie and Susan Carol, she gave a little gasp. “Now, these are the people I really want to meet.”

  “Stevie, Susan Carol, this is Phyllis Merhige,” Kelleher said. “I know there’s a general perception that Bud Selig runs Major League Baseball, but it’s not true. Phyllis does.”

  “Stop it, Bobby,” Phyllis said.

  She shook hands warmly with Stevie and Susan Carol and gave Tamara a hug. “I’ve followed you two since the Final Four in New Orleans,” she said. “The only reason I’d ask you for ID is because I can’t believe you’re both only fourteen.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” Susan Carol said, her Southern accent popping up as it often did when she wanted to charm someone. “Every time I see your name, it’s always something about ‘the great Phyllis Merhige’ or ‘the wonderful Phyllis Merhige.’”

  “That’s because she is great,” Tamara said.

  “Enough, enough!” Phyllis said.

  She turned to the three staffers sitting at the credentials desk. “Have we got the passes for these guys?” she asked.

  “Right here,” said one.

  “I need to make sure the kids have locker room badges,” Kelleher said. “That’s where they’ll do most of their work after the game.”

  “They’re not down for the locker room,” one of the women said.

  “Don’t worry,” Phyllis said. “They are now.”

  She reached into her pocket and produced two badges that said Postgame Locker Room and handed them to Stevie and Susan Carol. “If you have any trouble when you get to Washington, find me and I’ll take care of you. Anyone asks where you got ’em, say you don’t remember.” She winked.

  “I owe you one,” Bobby said.

  “You owe me a lot more than one,” she said. “Have fun tonight.”

  Stevie’s first impression of Fenway Park was simple: it was old. Walking through the dank hallways underneath the stands, Stevie found it hard to believe that this was the legendary place he had heard and read so much about.

  “This is it?” he said. “This is Fenway Park?”

  “Just wait,” Kelleher said.

  “Patience has always been Stevie’s strength,” Susan Carol said, smiling.

  They rounded a corner in the empty hallway, and Kelleher led them up a short ramp. As soon as they emerged, Stevie gasped.

  “Wow,” he said, even though he knew the word was completely uncool.

  “Worth the wait?” Mearns said, standing right behind him.

  The ballpark was completely empty except for some maintenance guys and a few security people who were just beginning to fan into position. The grounds crew was just setting up the batting cage so the Red Sox could start batting practice. Standing ten rows behind home plate, Stevie felt as if he could reach out and touch it because the stands were so close to the field. The place was tiny. A lot smaller than Nationals Park in Washington. But he could see instantly why it carried the aura that it did.

  The first row of seats were so close to the field they seemed to almost be in fair territory. The seats around home plate were all red and glowing in the late-afternoon sunlight. The famous Green Monster loomed in left field, looking even bigger than it did on television.

  “Everything is so close,” Susan Carol said, echoing Stevie’s thoughts. “What an incredible place to watch a game.”

  “There are two places left in baseball that are really special,” Kelleher said. “This place—”

  “And Wrigley Field,” Susan Carol said, finishing the sentence for him.

  “Exactly,” Kelleher said. “Some of the new parks—Oriole Park, Safeco Field in Seattle, the place in San Francisco—can be charming. But not like Fenway and Wrigley.”

  “What do they call the park in San Francisco now?” Tamara asked.

  “Not sure,” Kelleher said. “They keep changing corporate names on it every few weeks.”

  “This place will never have a corporate name on it, will it?” Stevie asked.

  “God, I hope not,” Kelleher said. “But most owners will do anything to make a buck these days. Come on, let’s go up to the press box and drop our stuff off. We can’t go on the field until BP starts anyway.”

  They walked back under the stands to an elevator that whisked them to the top of the ballpark. The press box was glass-enclosed and seemed to be about nine miles up from the field.

  They made their way to the seats assigned to Kelleher and Mearns. “In the old days this was a one-tier ballpark, and the press box was on the roof,” Kelleher explained. “Then they built all these corporate boxes on top of it and put the press box on top of them. We went from the best view in baseball here to one of the worst.”

  “We don’t get a lot of sympathy about it, though, do we, Bobby?” a voice said behind them.

  Kelleher turned and smiled at the sight of a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and a big grin. Stevie wasn’t sure why, but he looked familiar.

  “No, Richard, we don’t, do we?” he said, sh
aking hands with the man.

  Richard laughed. “I tell my friends back home that October’s a tough month for me because I’m away from my kids covering the playoffs and the World Series. They just look at me and say, ‘Yeah, tough life you lead, pal.’”

  “Ever call one of them at about two o’clock in the morning when you’re trying to get a cab outside a ballpark?” Kelleher said.

  “Thought about it,” Richard said. “But I still don’t think I’d have a lot of people crying for me. So, are you going to introduce me to these two guys or not? That’s the only reason I came over here—to meet them.”

  “Figures,” Kelleher said. “Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle and PTI, meet Susan Carol Anderson of the Washington Post and Steve Thomas of the Washington Herald.”

  As soon as Kelleher mentioned PTI—the one ESPN show Stevie watched regularly—Stevie knew why Justice had looked familiar.

  “I’m a big fan,” Justice said, shaking their hands.

  Susan Carol gave Justice the Smile, the one guaranteed to charm anyone and everyone who came into its range. “Why, thank you. As much as I enjoy you on PTI, I really love your writin’ in the Chronicle,” she said. “I read you online all the time.”

  Once, hearing Susan Carol rhyme “laan” with “taam” would have made Stevie shake his head. Now he got a kick out of it.

  “Speaking of PTI,” Tamara said. “Rumor has it that Mr. Tony may actually show up at a game when the series moves to Washington.”

  Justice laughed. Mearns was referring to Tony Kornheiser, the PTI co-host whom Stevie had met at the Final Four in New Orleans. “If they send a car to his house and if they give him four extra credentials so he can be carried in by litter, he may show up,” he said.

  “What about Wilbon?” Mearns asked, referring to Kornheiser’s co-host.

  “Michael’s checking his schedule,” Justice said. “He’s got golf with Chuck one day, and something with Mike another day, and I think he’s supposed to give the keynote address at the NBA owners meetings, but he’ll try to make it if he can.”