Faithful

by Stephen King

  It’s turned into a warm evening, and Yawkey Way is a carnival. A guy on stilts in a Sox uniform tosses a puffy ball to random people in the crowd. People are having their pictures taken with Wally in the big red chair on the sidewalk. The guys at Cambridge Soundworks are handing out their Sox bumper stickers—I BELIEVE and TURN IT UP—and we take a minute to gawk at the high-definition TVs in their little alcove. Then it’s the long walk out to the big concourse in right field.

  The stairs we take up to the roof are new, concrete and steep. The elevator shaft is in place, but there’s no elevator in it yet. The views of Back Bay and the park at every turning are spectacular. I’m puffing by the time we make it to the top, and the low sun in the west is blinding. We get to our home-plate-shaped table in the second row and test the swiveling seats, the same as on the Monster. But there’s not as much room as on the Monster—the wire fence digs into my knees when I try to turn toward home—and we’re much farther from the action. On the way up, we passed the very last row of the bleachers in Section 43, joking that the corner seat there was probably the worst seat in Fenway. We’re a good two stories higher, above the retired numbers attached to the roof’s facing, nearly eye level with the top of the Pesky Pole. The view is the one you’d have if they built a second deck, as they were threatening to with the New Fenway. It’s as far away as I’ve ever sat at a Red Sox game.

  It’s also windy, a breeze coming over the back of the deck whipping napkins off the tables and out over the front railing, where an updraft floats them high into the air. I’m glad it’s warm now, because it’s going to be cold later.

  Lowe’s going against lefty Damian Moss, a recent retread, so I think we’ve got the advantage. The first batter Lowe faces, speedburner Carl Crawford, bonks a double off the wall. Julio Lugo, known best for banging his ex-wife’s head off the hood of a car (“Hey, Lugo, restrain yourself!”), bunts, and Lowe misplays it. A grounder by Woonsocket’s own Rocco Baldelli scores Crawford, ending our scoreless streak, and the crowd’s not happy. We’re even less happy when Robert Fick doubles to right, scoring Lugo. Steph shakes his head; it’s just like the Yankee game we saw Lowe throw here.

  I overhear that Jeter’s homered in the first at the Stadium, breaking his hitless streak. All good things must come to an end.

  We come up to bat down 2–0. I realize the girls have forgotten to take my glove—for protection, seriously—and hustle down there. I’m underneath the grandstand when I hear the crowd cheer for Johnny. I guess that he’s on base. Another cheer, this time for Bill Mueller. So probably a single. A bigger cheer (it’s a long way), and I catch a monitor by a concession stand in time to see Johnny scoot home with our first run. I reach the seats as Manny’s batting. The girls think I’m nuts, bringing down the glove, but I insist. “Lindsay,” I say, “you’re getting a ball tonight.”

  Moss is all over the place. He throws one to the backstop, moving Bill Mueller and Ortiz over. “Watch the ball,” I tell the girls, because it’s scuffed. The ump tosses it to Andrew, who looks back and sees me and the girls. Lindsay stands and Andrew throws it right to her—only to have this linebacker-sized guy in a muscle shirt in the front row reach back and snatch it away from her. The section boos, and the poacher realizes what he’s done and dumps it in Caitlin’s lap. So Lindsay gets her ball.

  And Manny singles, scoring Bill Mueller to tie the game. Tek rocks a three-run shot. McCarty singles, Kapler doubles. That’s it for Moss—7 earned runs in one-third of an inning. For a guy trying to make a comeback, that’s got to hurt.

  In the top of the third, Rocco Baldelli stings a tailing liner to right that Gabe Kapler makes a great diving catch on. When Kapler comes up with two down in the bottom of the inning, he must still be pumped, because he bunts for a base hit, digging hard and diving headfirst to beat the throw.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and explain to Steph that with a big lead it’s generally a sign of disrespect for the other club to bunt for a hit. Then Kapler steals second. “We’ll see if they throw at one of our guys,” I say.

  Lowe’s done after seven. Not a great start, but he’ll get a W, thanks to good run support. Foulke closes, striking out Crawford and Lugo to finish it. It’s a 7–3 final, a relatively uneventful game, and a sweep of the D-Rays. The Yanks have swept Oakland, who should be seriously worried. But no one’s worried about the Yanks here, not tonight. We’ve won six in a row, and the crowd leaves the park happy. Even the talk radio guys on WEEI can’t gripe—and whom should we hear but Angry Bill, who says, “Smooth sailing—that’s what the captain of the Titanic said.”

  SK: Last time I looked in on the nightcap, the Sox were up 7–3, and Lowe was throwing in that queerly careless way he sometimes has, as though only a quarter of his mind is on the game. If we’re going to lose one we should win, this would be my candidate. Second half of a doubleheader? D-Rays feeling embarrassed (by Gabe Kapler, for one)? Sure.

  SO: So you caught Kapler’s bunt and steal too. At first I thought it was unsporting, but hell, it was only the third. He didn’t get plunked, but late in the game the ump rang him up on three pitches, only one of which was decidedly a strike. I guess the game polices itself.

  April 30th

  Thinking of Kapler last night, I wonder—with Trot due back soon—if he was trying to remind management of his special abilities. With Ellis Burks on the DL, he may be safe for a while, but there are no guarantees. So far Francona’s shown he’s willing to start Millar, Crespo and McCarty in the outfield, and I imagine we’ll see Dauber out there eventually.

  In the mail is a stack of scoresheets from the Remy Report. Now, instead of having to buy the same $4 program all month, I can just flip a single sheet over and fold it into my pocket when I’m done.

  Also in the mail, a talisman: a ball signed by Sox playoff and World Series hero (how often do you hear those words together?) Dave Henderson. I add Hendu to the ball case like the crucial ingredient in a witch’s brew.

  We’re still in a rain delay with Charlie Moore, NESN’s Mad Fisherman, when the Yankee final crawls by—they beat KC for their fourth straight. And ten minutes before midnight, when the Rangers finally call it (after the crowd’s waited through a three-hour delay), the Yanks pick up a half game on us. The game’s rescheduled for tomorrow at five Central time, meaning we’ll be playing our second doubleheader in three days. Good thing our starting pitching’s deep.

  May 1st

  SK: Good pitching = lots of wins. Also = short losing streaks, and hopefully = postseason. Nomah in thirteen days and counting. Speaking of days, I’ll be out of touch for the next five or so as I drive back to God’s country.

  SO: Really, Nomie in thirteen days? That would be sweet. I expected Trot back first.

  Last night after the game was called, Pedro mouthed off to reporters about his lack of a contract. He’s pissed at the Red Sox for spreading rumors about his shoulder to drive his price down around the league. He says that he’s decided to go free agent after the season, and that, if the situation’s right, he could see signing with the Yankees. (All this I pick up from the Courant; later, when I see him making comments at his locker on TV, he says, “I want the fans to know my heart is here in Boston. I want to finish in Boston.” He shrugs. “But I have to make a living.” None of this is in the paper.) He also makes reference to Larry Lucchino’s tenure with the Orioles, when they went from being a contender to a second-rate club. “Who was behind the Orioles?” he asks. “I’m not going to mention any names.”

  It’s bad timing, with the Sox riding so high. Usually I’ll stick up for Petey, but in this case all a fan has to do is look at Dauber or McCarty or Crespo. There are a lot of guys on this team who are just glad to be here, and rightfully so.

  Jon Lieber’s glad to be back pitching for the Yanks. He’s the one wearing Roger Clemens’s #22. Maybe it’s an act of faith on the Yankees’ part. It’s unnecessary today; Lieber gets tons of run support and the Bombers whomp Tony Pena’s struggling Royals 12–4
.

  I only catch the first inning of Game 1 against Texas before we go out to see Kill Bill, Vol. 2. By the time we get back, Game 1’s over, and we’ve lost 4–3. Arroyo threw well, but the pen finally gave up some runs (it was just a matter of time; you can’t throw scoreless ball forever). Williamson gave up the big hits, but it’s Mystery Malaska, who faced only one batter, who gets the L. Manny, suddenly going cold, K’d four times.

  I figure we’ll get the split, with Pedro taking on green Joaquin Benoit, but Petey’s awful from the start, giving up an opposite-field job to Hank Blalock in the first, then melting down in a 5-run third. Every pitch is up, nothing’s working, as if he jinxed himself with last night’s hissy fit. “Payyydro,” the sparse crowd taunts. He’s gone after four, and DiNardo’s on for some garbage time. The final’s 8–5, but it was never that close.

  May 2nd

  After the sweep yesterday, I’m ready for a solid win. Tonight’s game is ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball feature, and starts an hour later than usual to make prime time. Once again, the pitching matchup’s in our favor, Wake vs. R. A. Dickey, a junk-balling righty. His off-speed stuff looks hittable but isn’t. Our whole lineup (except Bellhorn, who adds to his league-leading walk total) chases it. Dickey even throws a low knuckler called The Thing, the seams never turning. Wake, throwing his high, floating knuckler, matches him till the fourth, when Johnny misplays a liner into a triple, giving them a cheap run.

  It’s 1–0 most of the game, with few base runners. Wake tires in the seventh, giving up several foul-ball home runs. Francona wants him to finish the inning, and with two out and two strikes (including another foul-ball homer), David Dellucci straightens one out, and we’re down 2–0. In the eighth Embree comes on and promptly gives up two runs.

  In the ninth, the crowd chants, “Sweep, sweep,” waving brooms. Buck Showalter leaves Dickey in to get the complete-game shutout, even though he’s visibly tired. With one down, Manny hits a bloop single, Dauber crushes a liner right at the right fielder, Millar walks, and that’s it for Dickey, no complete game. For the third time in two days, on comes Francisco Cordero. Bellhorn works the count deep, turns on a fastball and sticks it in the upper deck—foul—then walks to load the bases. The crowd’s edgy now, and they’re as pissed as Dickey when Cordero walks Tek to blow the shutout. 4–1, bases still loaded for Crespo, who, despite ample playing time, has yet to drive in a run. Our thin bench is showing, because Francona literally has no one to go to, and Crespo flies to center to end it.

  A weak game, and that includes the Yankee-style rally in the ninth, groveling for walks. Ortiz and Bill Mueller aren’t hitting, and Manny’s in a rare cold spell. Last year the bottom of the order could pick us up, but that’s when Bill Mueller was batting eighth and Trot ninth. Now we’re trying to get run production out of Kapler, Crespo and Pokey, and it’s not happening.

  May 3rd

  In anticipation of Saturday’s front-row Monster seats, I drive around town in the rain trying to find a fishing net so we can haul in shots just short of the Wall. I go to Sears, figuring they might have a Ted Williams model in his fishing line. The floor associate there tells me they no longer carry fishing gear—or baseball gear, for that matter. All they have is home fitness equipment.

  I find a net with a telescoping arm at the Sports Authority. It’s big, and I doubt the gate attendants will let me in with it, but what the hell. Worst case, I take it back to the car. At home, the dogs are afraid of it. Trudy shakes her head. “How much?”

  It’s cold in Cleveland, and Lou Merloni’s in the wrong dugout. Schilling’s just getting warm in the first when he grooves one to cleanup man Victor Martinez, who cranks it into the right-field seats for a 2–0 lead. Schilling settles down after that, but we’re just not hitting. The Indians’ pitcher is Jake Westbrook, a kid who didn’t make their rotation until last week. Ortiz ends two innings with men on; Bellhorn hits into a bases-loaded double play to kill a rally. I’m tired of being behind and wanting something good to happen.

  We don’t score till the seventh, and then it’s on two walks given up by the aptly named David Riske and a blast to center by David Ortiz off retread reliever Rick White. The ball’s deep, but it looks like center fielder Alex Escobar’s going to make a great leaping catch against the wall. He’s worried about the wall and jumps too early, and the ball bounces off him. The runners have to wait, and only Johnny scores. Even though we’ve had trouble scoring runs, Sveum’s right not to send Bill Mueller. Ortiz ended up at second, and with first base open, it’s a no-brainer to walk Manny and go after Dauber and Tek. White’s a righty, but he’s got a big twelve-to-six curve. That’s all he throws to Dauber, and gets him easily. He quickly goes 0-2 on Tek, who at least fouls a few off for drama before striking out on one in the dirt.

  Embree throws a scoreless eighth, and we try to tie it in the ninth against former Sox farmhand Rafael Betancourt. Johnny slaps one through the left side. Bill Mueller Ks, but Johnny’s running, and the throw from Martinez sails into center. Johnny at third with one down and Ortiz and Manny coming up. I think we’ve got a real chance to steal one here when Betancourt goes 2-0 on David. Here’s where a hitter cuts his strike zone in half and only swings at a ball he knows he can drive. A fly ball’s a run, and David’s the guy we want up in this situation. He chases one at his knees and grounds out to second.

  Two down, and it’s up to Manny. Cleveland fans will never forgive him for taking the money and slouching off to Boston, and they’re on their feet, cheering for some poetic justice. Betancourt (and manager Eric Wedge) foolishly pitch to him. Down 1-2, Manny fights back and finally walks. So there’s no delicious revenge. First and third, two down. Dauber steps in and skies the first pitch to center, and the game’s over.

  “You guys suck!” I say, and change the channel. I don’t want to hear the recap—I don’t need to. We’re 0 and 4 on the road trip, and have squandered that cushion from sweeping the Yanks. It’s not that we’re not hitting with men in scoring position, we’re not hitting at all. Bill Mueller’s not getting it done in the two slot, Ortiz and Millar are struggling, and there’s no one to protect Manny. At least Francona acknowledged how desperate we are, running Pokey and Johnny to get something going in the late innings, but he may need to shake up the lineup. Trot and Nomar are still a long ways away.

  May 4th

  My brother John’s visiting, and my friend Phil’s flying in from Tokyo. His brother, Adam, has scored tickets to the only major league game within five hundred miles, the Mets and Giants at Shea. None of us is a Mets or Giants fan, but baseball’s a fun way to spend time together—“a tonic,” Phil calls it, and he’s right. Watching baseball is the only way I naturally relax. If I care about the teams playing, I’m anxious, but the rest of my worries vanish.

  The paper promises that Barry Bonds will play, but he has a sinus infection and sits. The only star on the field is Mike Piazza, but he’s catching, and he can no longer play the position, he’s just there until he breaks Fisk’s home run record. Everyone knows it too, and in the second inning we’re treated to some classic National League action as the Giants bunt three times, scoring an unearned run when Piazza throws wild down the first-base line.

  It’s a dull game, and a quiet crowd—very un-Fenway-like. Half the seats are empty, half the concession stands shuttered. Worse, the crowd expects nothing from the team. The biggest cheer is for the girls shooting bundled T-shirts into the stands with a CO2 bazooka. On the small scoreboard, between innings, they run today’s Wall Street ticker.

  The one Met who impresses me is shortstop and Japanese import Kazuo Matsui, who has a coterie of fans right in front of us eating homemade rice balls. Kaz is 2 for 2 and makes a slick play in the hole. When he comes up next, Phil, a veteran of the Tokyodome, shouts, “Ganbatte!”—meaning “Persevere!” or “Do your best!”

  “Ganbatte, Kaz!” we yell.

  For me Shea’s a break from the grind of the Sox’s losing streak, but right beside us is
the scoreboard. Cleveland’s beating Lowe 2–0 in the second. 2–1 in the fourth. 3–1 in the fourth, 5–1, 6–1, 7–1—and Lowe’s still in there. The way we’ve been hitting, I don’t hold out much hope.

  Here it’s 6–2 Mets in the seventh, and the stadium’s clearing out. By the middle of the eighth, there can’t be more than 10,000 people, and it’s not even ten o’clock.

  In Cleveland the Sox rally in the ninth. Suddenly it’s 7–6, and the Indians have changed pitchers. A couple minutes later they change again, to #63, Betancourt. I let the Mets distract me from the scoreboard. I keep thinking I’ll look up and find us winning, but then the red light beside BOS goes out, the 9 turns into an F, and we’ve lost five in a row.

  Ganbatte!

  May 4th

  SK: I got back to Maine this afternoon around 2 P.M. Spent the other night in a desperate little Quality Inn about five hundred yards off Route 84 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, where every droning semi sounded like it was coming right through the bathroom wall, stacks blowing smoke and headlights glaring. But the first thing I did was to seize the little laminated channel card on top of the TV, and yes! Sho nuff! NESN on channel 37! Talk about your welcome back to New England! And a Red Sox welcome it was, as our guys managed to drop their fourth straight, this one by a score of 2–1. A real heartbreaker for Curt Schilling, who pitched like a hero after giving up that dinger.

  Now a little editorial about Theo Epstein and his Moneyball-inspired gospel of the on-base percentage. I don’t know how much or how little of his team-staffing strategy comes from that book, but I do know you only have to look at the roster and listen to the chatter from the sportswriters to know that on-base percentage is very important this year. In the last four games (and, to some extent, in the Oakland Athletics’ postseason misadventures) you can see the strengths and weaknesses of the philosophy. God knows we’ve put enough men on base in this little skid; I count a total of twenty-seven left on in the four losses. Because, see, a player’s on-base percentage will never guarantee that player’s ability to get a key hit at a key moment. You saw it again and again in the game against Cleveland last night. Ortiz got it done once, with a double (I think on a warm summer night that ball’s a home run), but he wasn’t able to get Damon in with the tying run in the ninth. And who followed him? Was it Millar? Whoever it was just popped out, and there’s your ball game. You can argue that this five-game skid is just one blip in a long season and I would tend to agree—working on this book really makes it clear what a long march a season of baseball is; the first pitch already seems a year gone—but all those men left on base is an interesting statistic, isn’t it? It’s like cooking enough to feed a family reunion and then only actually serving three people.