by Stephen King
SO: Doug also came through big-time Friday night against the Yanks. Amazing that he can be this hot when he sits four days between starts. And Tek’s hot too. But Pokey, oh my, he’s just struggling.
It’s still 3–2 in the eighth when Tosca brings in Valerio de los Santos once more to face David Ortiz. Last night de los Santos put David on his ass; tonight he hangs a breaking ball that David stings down the right-field line. It bounces fair and caroms off the stands right to the right fielder Reed Johnson, and David has to sprint for second. He’s a big man, and looks silly running way up on his toes, arms pumping. He slides headfirst, bouncing off the dirt, and he’s in there. We shouldn’t laugh but can’t help it. Part of it is how sweet his revenge is. De los Santos is scowling as Tosca comes to take the ball from him. David hustles over to third on a long sac fly by Manny (only a great leaping catch against the wall by Johnson saves extra bases), then, on a wild pitch, scoots for home, sliding feetfirst this time, safe, adding an earned run to de los Santos’s stats (the camera finds him brooding in the dugout).
We win 4–2. After the postgame show, Steve and I are still debating hope and fatalism.
SO: I think it’s neat how our attitudes are so different. After ’86, last year didn’t feel that drastic to me. I mean, sure, it hurt, but I’d been through worse, and we weren’t even supposed to get that far (we were at least three players away), so I thought everything after Trot’s shot was gravy and just dug the ride. This year I have higher hopes because of Schilling and Foulke.
And here’s some history: the Angels, prior to 2001, were all-time chokers. Remember? No, you can’t, at least not emotionally, because their win has forever changed the way we see the club and its past. It’s a line you cross, and when the Sox cross it, our hindsight will be softened, and all these close calls will lose their power to wound us. Like the Pats, we’ll no longer be hapless. Ask the old hard-luck UConn Huskies of Jim Calhoun, the 1980 Phillies, the last two Elway Bronco squads, etc., etc. So good-bye, Tony Eason, good-bye, Donnie Moore.
SK: “Donnie Moore.” Now there’s a horror story.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve decided that the age difference makes a difference here. What is it, fourteen years between us? Which means I remember Williams and you don’t. I remember Maz leaping joyously around the bases when he hit that home run and you’ve only seen the kinescopes. I’m not trying to pull rank or make you feel like a kid, I’m just trying to get a focus on how we can approach this so differently. Maybe I’ve got it. I’ve been suffering fourteen more years. Why, that’s almost a generation!
SO: I see it as partly geographical—that winning Pittsburgh experience—but part of it’s also that I waited for both the Oakland Raiders and New York Rangers to finally win their championships after years and years of their great (and heavily favored) teams choking, and for two truly hapless clubs, the Pats and Penguins, to win theirs (only to have lightning strike not once but twice). All four of these teams put a shit-load of history behind them with one big cleansing win, and that’s what the Sox will do too.
SK: But don’t you see? Your very argument proves what a striking anomaly the Red Sox are. All the clubs you’ve mentioned—in all the various sports—in this and in previous e-mails have won it all at least once in the last eighty or so years. Do I need to finish this thought? I mean, hello? “One of these things is not like the others / One of these things just doesn’t belong / One of these things is not like the others / Tell me while I sing this song.”
SO: By the same token, all of these teams were in our strikingly anomalous position (which we share with the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Mariners, Astros, Rangers, D-Rays, Padres, Expos, Rockies, not to mention dozens of NFL clubs (the St. Louis/Arizona Cards have never won one, or the Saints, or the Bills, the Minny Vikes, etc., etc.), dozens of NBA and NHL franchises, whole boatloads of NCAA Division I schools, etc.) up until t = +0, when all their troubled histories were redeemed by the one resource the world can count on: time. It’s inevitable. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but that just means our faith has to be strong.
Which is one reason why I dug “Butterfingers” so much—how you framed Earl Candleton’s life (and error) in terms of salvation or damnation. Take Me Out to the Ballgame/Shall We Gather at the River. Hail-Marymotherofgrace…“I thought I was in Hell.” You really made us feel for the guy, so when the dishwashing kids came out after you’d used the old rewind to redeem #11 and said, “Sometimes the good guys win,” damned if I didn’t get a little teary for Billy Buck and for all of us.
And Billy Buck, you know we don’t blame you. It was that lousy Schiraldi.
SK: I think Schiraldi might have been in some form of analysis or therapy following that season—I’m almost sure of this. And he was my daughter’s first crush…a young man, and fair.
SO: He shoulda gone into analysis before the Angels series. And McNamara should have had his head examined for using him in both.
I guess some young girls just dig troubled guys.
SK: “Brewers, Mariners, Astros, Rangers, D-Rays, Padres, Expos, Rockies.” Johnny-come-latelies.
“But Pokey, oh my, he’s just struggling.” Yeah, but he’s a PR Mastuh!
SO: I’ll cop to the Rocks and Rays being latecomers, but the Pods and Spos are looking at 30+ years of futility, the Stros at 40+, and the Rangers (as the Senators) have to go back to 1924 for their sole crown (compared to our five during that era).
Y’know, I just flat-out LIKE Pokey, despite him hitting .182 (67 points higher than Ellis Burks). He’s got a major league glove, and we haven’t seen much of that over the years.
SK: So do I—you just can’t NOT like him, can you? And he’s been steady-Eddie with the glove.
April 22nd
The Yanks won, but the O’s lost, so guess who’s all alone in first?
So far Doug Mirabelli has 3 homers in 9 at-bats. He sees his success as a product of his extra preparation. Playing once every five days, “I can put all my focus into that pitcher and watch video or whatever for four days and try to get a little edge for myself to feel confident going in there.” Which at least partially explains why over his career he’s a .270 hitter as a Sock and .213 as a Giant and Ranger.
The matchup tonight is in our favor again—Schilling-Batista—and the game goes as planned early on. Ortiz hits a two-run shot in the first and we hang on through six, when Toronto goes to their pen. Francona’s said that he’ll close with Williamson instead of Foulke, who’s thrown three straight days now, and maybe he’s worried about conserving the pen for this weekend in New York, because he leaves Schilling in too long in the seventh, and the Jays tie the game with four straight hits. “Take him out!” we’re screaming at the set.
In the eighth, Schilling comes back out. We just look at each other. Would Francona have done this at Fenway?
Mystery Malaska’s the only one warming as the Jays load the bases. Schilling’s pitch count’s above 120, and he’s consistently leaving the ball up. Number nine hitter Chris Gomez makes the decision for Francona, hooking a grand slam over the left-field fence, and Toronto wins their first home game, 7–3.
Put this one on the list of games we should have won. When Schill struggles in the seventh, go to a stopper like Embree, then use any of your setup guys in the eighth and close with Williamson. What’s the point of carrying extra arms if you don’t use them?
At least the Yankees lost. The ChiSox got to Moose early and hung on, 4–3. It’s slight consolation. I’m so disgusted I don’t even watch the postgame, just turn the channel, as if I can make the loss go away.
SO: Captain, I’m detecting high levels of Gradium.
SK: Boy, you got that right.
April 23rd
The O’s beat the D-Rays, so they’re in first again.
The Courant’s all excited about the Sox-Yanks rivalry. Because Hartford’s halfway between the two cities, the paper has a beat writer for both teams. The Yankee guy’s a total homer, while the Red
Sox guy, as befits the tradition, is a skeptic. Both dwell on Aaron Boone and Game 7, as if that’s the only thing that happened last year.
We’re headed down to New York to spend the weekend with Trudy’s parents before they leave from the West Side piers for the transatlantic cruise they’ve always talked about. Trudy’s sister and her boys will be there. We’ll go to a few museums, take in a show, wander around Chinatown, but one thing we won’t be doing is going to the games.
Tonight it’s Red Sox–Yankees, Round 2, Game 1. So far the advantage goes to the Red Sox—they’re up 6–0 in the fifth inning, courtesy of home runs by Millar, Bellhorn, and a three-run job by Bill Mueller. Do I need to bother with all this in-game detail? Probably not; O’Nan will have it. In fact I’m starting to suspect that O’Nan is going to finish the season with roughly seven hundred pages of manuscript. That man takes his baseball seriously.
The question I’ve been asking myself is whether or not I need to bother with a diary at all. I can hear my mother asking me, “Do you have to jump in the lake just because Stewart O’Nan does?” No, Ma. And certainly I don’t expect to be scrivening away at this on every game day, but it seems to me that I do have to add something from time to time. Call it a kind of balance. Stewart’s the brains of the operation, no doubt. He knows where all the fielders are playing at any given time, and who’ll be covering second, Bellhorn or Reese (Garciaparra soon, if God is good), in any given situation. I’m more of a from-the-gut guy.
Also a superstitious guy. I don’t necessarily know where the fielders are, but I do know enough to hit the MUTE button on the remote control when the opposing team’s up, because everyone knows it’s unlucky to listen to the announcers when the opposing team’s at bat. They always score when fans do that. You should know that I’ll be doing the MUTE thing for the Sox all season long, so relax. I’ll also be turning my cap around when we’re a run or two down in the late innings, and charting pitches when the opposing guy is really good—it’s a helluva jinx. I got Moose Mussina that way, and expect to get Victor Zambrano (Devil Rays ace, currently 3-1) in the same fashion when he pitches against us.
And okay, quite often when the Red Sox are only up by a run or so in the late innings, I simply turn the idiot box off for a few minutes. Every superstitious fan knows that not watching for a while can also be good mojo, but basically I do it because I’m too scared to watch. Especially if there are men from the opposing team on base. I made it through Nightof the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but baseball—especially stretch-run baseball—shreds my nerves. Now, though, it’s 6–0 Red Sox in the fifth, and Derek Lowe doesn’t look too bad (don’t worry, I knocked on wood when I said it).
Oh yeah… and when Alex Rodriguez grounded out weakly, pitcher to first, in the fourth, the disgruntled fans in Yankee Stadium actually booed their preseason darling. Music to my ears. I’m also an emotional guy, at least when it comes to The Game. There’s really nothing like baseball, especially when you don’t have to freeze your ass off on a cold, rainy night in the Bronx.
And a postscript. Today the New York Post had fun comparing Johnny Damon, with his new beard and extralong hair, to a Cro-Magnon cave-man. Johnny just scored Boston’s seventh run of the night.
We take the Cross Bronx, driving by the Yankee Stadium exit right around game time. I don’t turn on the radio. I’ll let this one be a surprise—like opening a present or a door (the lady or the tiger?). There’s so much chatter in New York, I figure I’ll pick up bits of the game on the street, like a pulse underriding the city.
Our first hint is in the hotel bar—where I notice Steph is bravely wearing his Wake shirt. As we pass the bar, a TV tells us it’s 6–0, but I’m not sure in whose favor. I see Billy Mueller make a nice off-balance throw to close an inning, and Lowe making a fist, so I’m hopeful. We’re sitting so far in the dark back of the lounge that we can’t see the TV, but when we come back out, it’s 6–0 Sox and Donovan Osborne’s in for the Yanks.
We make some noise, attracting the attention of a drunk Mets fan. “Red Sox, huh? All I gotta say is Bill Buckner, okay? Bill, Buckner.”
“I hope you guys have a better year this year,” I say.
Downstairs, the doorman’s shaking his head at how bad the Yanks have been so far. “They’ll be all right,” he says. “George will pay.”
A billboard for an investment firm in Times Square says BRAVE AS A RED SOX FAN IN THE BRONX. But all around me I’m seeing people in Sox caps and shirts laughing and giving each other the thumbs-up—something I’ve never experienced before in New York.
We’re finishing dinner when Trudy’s sister and her boys arrive with a new score: 10–2. The two were on a homer by Matsui, their only clutch guy. We stop at a liquor store on the way back to the hotel for some champagne, and I can’t resist asking the guy behind the counter in a Yanks hat who’s winning the game.
As I write this, it’s 11–2 in the eighth, and the only reason it isn’t 11–0 is because Derek got a little tired there. I think we’re gonna go up on ’em 4–1, which would be very swede. Knock on wood.
Uh-oh, who’s Lenny DiNardo? Still worrying even with one out.
Red Sox win, 11–2… and Eckersley’s on Extra Innings! Whee!
Down in the city I don’t get Eck, but at one in the morning I do get WCBS replaying the entire game, so here I am, half-buzzed and headachy from champagne, watching a game that’s already long over in a darkened hotel room while everyone else sleeps, just for the sheer pleasure of seeing how we did it. Bill Mueller with a three-run shot, and, basically, they didn’t throw a quality pitcher at us all night. Looks like Torre wrote this one off, knowing he’s got the matchup tomorrow and hoping Vazquez can get Sunday’s game to the pen.
April 24th
In the hotel, as I’m getting on the elevator to go down to Times Square, a woman in a Sox hat and shirt gets out—obviously going to today’s game. And in the Guggenheim, as I wind my way down, I pass two boys in Sox hats, and their dad wearing a cherry red COWBOY UP T-shirt.
In the taxi on the way to Chinatown, the radio’s on low, but I can still hear that the Sox are up 2–1. Go ahead, Bronson (named, yes, after Charles Bronson).
Hours later, back at the hotel, two decked-out Jets fans get on the elevator. I’d completely forgotten that today’s the NFL draft. I’ve been seeing lots of Pats hats, but I just expect that now.
It’s almost five when we get back to the room. The game should be over, so I pop on the TV for the score. It’s in extra innings, 2–2, and Foulke’s on. There are two down in the eleventh and Sheffield’s on first. I’m supposed to get dressed for dinner and the theater tonight, then jump a cab out to the airport to pick up Caitlin, and time’s tight, but I sit on the edge of the bed with the boys and watch Tek gun down Sheff trying to get in scoring position for Bernie, with a nice slap tag by Crespo at second.
In the top of the twelfth, Manny doubles to the base of the wall in right-center. Tek fights off three or four outside pitches from Quantrill before he gets one he can pull to the right side, moving Manny over with a ground out. Quantrill just nicks Millar’s shirtfront with a pitch, and the double play’s in order, but Bellhorn drives one medium deep to center, and Bernie, with his weak arm, has been playing in and has to go back to get it. Manny scores easily, 3–2 Sox.
Timlin comes on to close, but we’ve got to go. We call up from the lobby because we’ve forgotten Caitlin’s flight information, and there are two outs, nobody on and a 1-2 count on Jeter, and then, in the cab, we hear that the Yanks have just lost to the Sox. This is the kind of demoralizing game we’ve already lost two of to Baltimore, and it’s sweet to win one, especially in someone else’s house. It’s even sweeter because we’re in New York, as if the city’s ours now.
The local news at eleven has found a way to soften the blow. They open the sports with a long segment on the Giants trading for #1 pick Eli Manning, then show A-Rod making a nice backhand and getting Millar, then A-Rod homering, befor
e showing Bellhorn’s sac fly and the final score. The homer was the only hit Bronson Arroyo gave up in six innings, but you’d never know that.
Holy moly, the BoSox did it again. It took them twelve innings today, but they beat the Yankees 3–2. Keith Foulke got the win in relief (“vultured” the win is the term baseball players use for this type of win, I believe; Timlin pitched the bottom of the twelfth and got the save). If it were possible to feel sorry for the Yankees, who are now four full games out of first place—although whether behind us or Baltimore I don’t at this moment know—I would feel almost sorry for them. Life being what it is, I don’t feel a bit sorry. Derek Jeter—known in my household as Great Satan Jeter—is now 0 for his last thousand or so. The fans don’t boo him, though. Jeter seems truly beyond the boo-birds. But the Yankees, man…I mean, how long can you go on saying, “Don’t worry, it’s only April”?
Another six days, actually.
Meanwhile, we’re throwing Pedro at them tomorrow, and going for the sweep. We’re only five wins away from taking the series…that’s the series for the year. Man, I can’t believe this. Something’s gotta go wrong.
Unless dead or insane, I will be writing about tomorrow’s game.
April 25th
It’s the last game of Round 2, with the BoSox going for the sweep over the Yankees. In the top of the first inning, the young Yankee pitcher, Javier Vazquez, looked terrific—determined to be the stopper. Ortiz touched him for a single, but that was it. Now Pedro Martinez is on the mound for us, and the real question is which Pedro is going to show up: the mound-wise sharpie who pitched in Toronto last time, or the mediocre rag-arm who started the season against Baltimore at Camden Yards (and then left the park early, sparking a minor media flurry). He’s 3-2 to Jeter to start with; Jeter, 0 for his last 21, strikes out to make that 0 for his last 22. It’s the worst streak of Jeter’s career, and given that sort of funk, tells us very little about the state of Pedro. But even as I write the words, there goes Bernie Williams, 3 to 1. That looks a little better, and has silenced the massive chant (another sellout today at the Stadium) of “Pedro sucks.” And Kevin Millar just made an incredible sliding catch on A-Rod to finish the first: no runs and no runners for the Yankees.
