by Stephen King
He wobbles like a fighter trying to stay upright until people take him under the arms and sit him down. He looks dazed, mumbling that he’s all right. I’m already waving to security to get a trainer out here, medical staff, somebody.
Former Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan has been pacing the wall all BP, warning kids to keep their eyes on the batters. He gets a ball for the guy, and is standing there talking to me about how dangerous this place is—how Yankee Stadium’s the same way down third—when Polanco stings one right at us. It skips once on the track, Joe backs off a step, and I glove it.
When BP ends, I check on the bald guy. He’s sitting down, surrounded by security and a couple first-aid guys. On the side of his dome he’s got a purplish knot the size of a fried egg. I think he should go to a hospital—at the very least he’s got a concussion—but he’s talking with them, giving them his information. He wants to stay for the game.
Trudy’s over at Steve’s seats. She saw all the hubbub; people around her thought it might be a heart attack.
She shows me that the souvenir-cup makers have fixed the SHILLING. “He must have a good agent,” she says.
The pregame ceremonies pay tribute to all the middle-aged guys who took part in the Sox’s pricey fantasy camp. They fill the baselines, stepping forward and doffing their caps as Carl Beane announces their names. No one except their families is paying attention until two guys on the third-base line unfurl a messily spray-painted bedsheet that says YANKEES SUCK. It gets a big hand, but, in typical Fenway fashion, when the guys walk by us on their way off, someone behind me hollers, “Is that the best you could do with the sign?”
June 28th
Both the Sox and Yanks wanted Freddy Garcia, but the White Sox got him, for a second-string catcher and a pair of prospects. Like the A’s, even if they don’t take their division, they’ll be in the wild-card hunt, and they’ve made themselves stronger. Theo’s got another month to cut a deal. One more solid starter would solve a lot of problems. Jeff Suppan, who we let walk after last year, is 6-5 with a 3.75 ERA for the first-place Cards. (And Tony Womack, one of our spring-training invitees, is hitting .300 for them and running all over the place.)
Tomorrow we start a three-game set with the Yankees in the Bronx. Short of a sweep by either team (unlikely), it won’t change the standings much, but it could set the tone of the All-Star break. Looking back at the first half of the season, I’d say we’ve played well with a banged-up club. Ten games over .500 isn’t great but it isn’t bad either, given the team we’re putting out there. And yet they do seem like the same old Sox: a couple of great hitters surrounded by mediocre guys, zero defense, inconsistent pitching, and the usual June swoon. It could be 1987 or 1996 or 2001.
June 29th
Both Lowe and Vazquez have thrown well lately, so the opener’s an even matchup. To show how big of a game it is, Vice President Dick Cheney’s crawled out of his hidey-hole and is sitting in the front row.
Johnny D sets the tone, leading off with a home run. The Ghost of Tony Clark gets it back in the second with a two-out RBI single. To prove it wasn’t a fluke, Johnny hits another out in the third, and we’re up 2–1.
In the bottom, Lofton leads off with a ground ball to Millar’s right. He drops it, and by the time he recovers, Kenny’s beaten Lowe to the bag. Jeter singles, and Lofton scoots to third. On the first pitch, Sheffield flies deep enough to left-center to tie the game. Jeter steals second easily. A-Rod singles off the third-base bag, the ball popping straight up so that Bellhorn has to wait for it, and Jeter holds at second. With Matsui up, Jeter and A-Rod pull the double steal on 2-2—unforgiveable, with a lefty batting. On a full count, Matsui knocks a curveball that’s down and in (terrible pitch selection to any lefty, but especially this guy, who cut his teeth on breaking stuff in Japan) into right. It’s 4–2, and the rare weeknight sellout crowd is on its feet.
In the Yanks’ fourth, with one down, Lowe walks former Cardinal Miguel Cairo, who, on the very next pitch, steals Tek’s sign for a curve and swipes second.
“Does Varitek throw any runners out?” my father-in-law asks, and I have to defend him. Like Wake’s knuckler, Lowe’s sinker is a tough pitch to dig out.
With two down, Nomar kicks a grounder from Jeter that should end the inning, and Sheffield takes Lowe out to left-center for a 7–2 lead.
The next inning, Pokey (Pokey!) muffs a double-play ball, and Tony Clark goes long. It’s 9–2, and all the runs have come from hired guns: Sheffield, Matsui, Clark. Lenny DiNardo is warming, and short of a miracle, this one’s done.
Ortiz homers, and the Yanks tack on a pair for an 11–3 final. It’s hard to blame Lowe entirely, when he got enough ground balls to at least keep things close. By now I expect the occasional error by Millar (wherever you put him), and Pokey’s got a splint on his thumb, but Nomar’s got to do better. And, with credit to Vazquez (another new hire), three runs don’t cut it in Yankee Stadium.
It’s just one game (just one of those games, like the one against the A’s, or the Dodgers, or the Phils), but we’re six and a half back and playing badly, and being embarrassed there annoys me even more.
SO: Getting beat by a horse like Matsui is one thing, getting beat by a BALCO Boy and the Ghost of Tony Clark is another.
June 30th
I didn’t want to write this down, but after last night’s crushing loss to the Yankees, I suppose I really ought to. About five days ago—just before my trip to Boston, anyway—I discovered a nearly perfect crow-shit Yankees logo on the windshield of my truck. This is a true thing I’m telling you.
You’re asking do I have photographic proof?
Are you crazy?
What the windshield washer wouldn’t take care of immediately, I got rid of with a filling-station squeegee just as fast as I could (and it took a distressing amount of elbow grease; those big woods crows shit hard). Itold myself it wasn’t an omen, but look at last night. Dick Cheney shows up in a Yankees hat, the Red Sox commit three more errors, the Yankees hitters are patient, the Red Sox hitters aren’t. Derek Lowe, who has lately shown signs of his old craftiness, last night looked like an escapee from that old Spielberg film The Goonies.
Any halfway knowledgeable baseball fan will tell you there are three aspects to the game: you have to be able to throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball. Last night, the Red Sox did a bad job on all three. And the Yankees have changed since April; this is Frankenteam. But there is good news, and it isn’t that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. The crow-shit Yankees logo is no longer on my windshield, and at midnight tonight, June is officially over. I’m expecting the Swoon to be over with it. This team is just too good to keep playing as it has over the last dozen games.
I hope.
That’s right, I hope. Because that’s what Red Sox fans do.
Gloom and doom from Sean McAdam in the Providence Journal. I can’t imagine how hard the Globe is riding the team. The Sox need to demonstrate some character, the Sox need to show why they have the second-highest payroll in baseball, you can judge a team by the way it responds to adversity, etc. Hey, Sean, maybe you’ve forgotten, but we’ve had our adversity, and we responded by leading the division for a couple months.
It’s a case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, which for the beat reporter means a couple hours ago. We’re 6-2 against the Yanks so far, and we’ve played a big chunk of the season without Nomar, Trot and now Bill Mueller. As long as we stay close, we can pick it up in the second half like we did last year and make the playoffs, and in a short series, with Petey and Mr. Schill and Foulke to close, we’ve got a shot.
Tonight’s Wake-Lieber matchup is in our favor, considering how Timmy’s pitched in the Stadium. It goes that way through six, 2–0 Sox on a David Ortiz homer and RBI single. We hit Lieber but leave a lot of men on, while the Yanks can’t touch the knuckler.
In the top of the seventh, we load the bases with no outs, and Torre goes to his middle guy, Felix Heredia. He’s no
t a top-of-the-line pitcher, and we’ve got the top of the order up. With the infield drawn in, Johnny grounds to Tony Clark, who goes home to cut down the run—Kapler, running for Millar. Now, with one down, our man on third is Doug Mirabelli, the slowest guy on the team. Francona must want three more outs from Wake, because he doesn’t pinch-run, and Bellhorn’s fly to short left does nothing. On 2-2, David Ortiz takes an outside pitch and the ump rings him up. It’s a terrible call, and Ortiz stays at the plate, taking off his helmet and batting gloves, muttering, “Motherfucker,” while the ump walks away. When Ortiz takes the field, he’s still jawing at him.
I’m wondering where Francona is. Managers can’t argue balls and strikes, but there’s nothing more important, and we just got robbed. I don’t care if he gets tossed, he’s got to protect his players.
Wake hits Sheffield with his first pitch. After A-Rod Ks, BALCO Boy steals second. On 3-2, Wake walks Matsui on a borderline pitch that gets past Mirabelli. Francona goes to Williamson to get Bernie Williams, and he does, on a splitter down. Posada—so typical—works the walk, loading the bases for the switch-hitting Tony Clark. Clark’s a hundred points better lefty. We should have Embree warm, but he’s just getting up—and now Williamson’s complaining of arm pain, and trainer Jim Rowe, Dave Wallace and Francona converge on the mound. Either it’s ridiculous coincidence, or Williamson is acting. It’s ruled an injury, so our reliever can take as long as he wants to warm up.
I think it’s going to be Embree, but when we come back from commercial it’s Timlin. He gets Clark to hit a one-hopper to Ortiz, who stumbles as he bends to glove it, and the ball goes through him into right, and all I can think is, He pulled a Billy Buck.
Two runs score, and we’re tied.
“Where’s McCarty?” I ask the TV.
Ortiz gets a new glove, as if that was the problem.
Cairo grounds out to end the inning, but they get two runs without a hit.
Tom Gordon throws a perfect eighth against Manny, Nomar and Trot, reaching 96 mph.
Lofton leads off their eighth with a grounder to the hole that Nomar backhands. He leaps, twisting, and throws. It’s short and to the right-field side, but well in time. Ortiz misses the pick and it ricochets off his arm and into the stands.
“Where is McCarty?” I yell.
Jeter bunts Lofton over to third, then Sheffield fouls off seven fastballs on 0-2 (later Eck will say, “I might think about mixing in a breaking ball there—you know, that’s just me”) before pulling one past Bellhorn for a 3–2 lead. Embree comes on to face Matsui, even though Matsui’s 3 for 8 lifetime against him. Make that 4 for 9, and we’re down 4–2.
Mo takes care of the ninth—ironically, McCarty’s the last batter, and never puts on his glove—and we lose one we should have won. The loss is on Ortiz, but also on Francona for not having his hands team out there late in a close game. You can always stick David at DH. Instead, he had the hobbling Trot at DH (obviously that quad’s still bothering him), Millar in right and Youk on the bench. His use of Timlin and Embree seemed a little whacky, and after Wake left the game, Timlin and Mirabelli had trouble communicating during Sheffield’s at-bat, shaking each other off several times before the last pitch. Why not go to Tek, who usually catches Timlin? And what about the philosophy of using your closer for the most important at-bat of the game? We didn’t even see Foulke warming. Terrible. If yesterday’s loss was embarrassing, this one’s humiliating. They didn’t win, we actively lost. Now Petey’s got to be tough if we’re going to avoid the sweep. That we’re 6-3 against them is no consolation, seven and a half back.
July
TURN THE PAGE
July 1st
“Why did football bring me so to life? I can’t say precisely. Part of it was my feeling that football was an island of directness in a world of circumspection. In football a man was asked to do a difficult and brutal job, and he either did it or got out. There was nothing rhetorical or vague about it; I chose to believe that it was not unlike the jobs which all men, in some sunnier past, had been called upon to do. It smacked of something old, something traditional, something unclouded by legerdemain and subterfuge. It had that kind of power over me, drawing me back with the force of something known, scarcely remembered, elusive as integrity—perhaps it was no more than the force of a forgotten childhood. Whatever it was, I gave myself up to the Giants utterly. The recompense I gained was the feeling of being alive.”
Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes
Now, if you substitute baseball for football and Red Sox for Giants, you have a very fair picture of my rooting geography.
Francona must be feeling the heat, because Ortiz is DHing and McCarty starts at first. Nomar’s not playing—to give him a night off, as ridiculous as that sounds. Youk plays, Trot sits, so essentially we’re fielding the team we had in May, minus Bill Mueller.
Petey’s feisty, plunking Sheffield and then glaring back at him when he takes exception. In the second, he walks Posada, and that damn Tony Clark waits on a change and puts it out. Meanwhile, rookie lefty Brad Halsey is setting us down. In the fifth, Posada takes five straight pitches before fouling off the payoff pitch, then lifts one into the upper deck. 3–0 Yankees, and things look bad.
In the top of the sixth, Ortiz leads off with a slicing fly to left. With the shift on, Matsui can’t get there, and the ball hops sideways into the stands for a ground-rule double. Manny steps in and crushes one to dead center—he pauses to admire it a second, watching Halsey as the rookie turns away. It’s 3–2 and the Yanks have to go to their middle guys.
In the seventh, Quantrill gives up a deep leadoff fly to right-center by McCarty. Lofton gets there, just short of the track, but one-hands it, and the ball pops out. Youk singles to left, so we’ve got first and third with no outs, and a big inning’s brewing. Pokey hits into an easy 4-6-3 DP, but McCarty scores to tie the game.
Pedro finishes the seventh, and they go to Tom Gordon, who’s solid. Foulke throws two innings for us, sneaking out of a one-out bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth. Mo gets us one-two-three in the tenth, while Embree has to battle Bernie with first and third to reach the eleventh.
We load them with no outs. Millar’s due up, but we’ve got Nomar and Trot available. Francona sticks with Millar, who hits into a 5-2 double play. McCarty flies out, and I think this one’s over, but Embree gets them one-two-three.
The Yanks go to Tanyon Sturtze, who puts runners on first and third with one out, but Bellhorn pops up (he popped up last night in a similar situation). With two gone, Francona decides to pinch-hit Trot, who flares one to left that Jeter snags on the run, then—weirdly—takes two strides and dives into the seats, banging up his face. On the replay, he’s got room to swerve or slide, but there he goes into the stands like a bad stuntman. In Japan they call that a hotu dogu.
We’re down to Curtis Leskanic, who gives up a leadoff triple to Enrique Wilson when Johnny misplays a hop off the wall. Giambi strikes out, looking bad on three splitters, but Leskanic hits Sheffield (Torre comes out to bitch), and we intentionally walk A-Rod to set up the DP.
We’re in the top of the twelfth right now and scratching like mad to salvage one game. The ESPN boys are saying that if we get skunked, we’re dunked. I don’t believe that, but a win would be nice…salvage a little of the ole self-respect. Garciaparra has been dog-bit in the field, and I really think Francona has been a bad choice as manager. Not in Daddy Butch’s league (at least not yet), but he’s not doing much to turn it around, is he? And if he’s looking for a team leader, who is he going to look to? The guyswho’ve been out all season and just came waltzing back in like they had a free pass? Manny? Don’t make me laugh. And Ortiz last night… Buckner all over again. Sign me, Just Plain Glum.
Meanwhile, in the game, runners at first and third, one out. As the old gypsy says, “I see handsome men on horseback.”
If it has to be anybody, let it be Tony Clark.
And if it has to be anybody else, let it be goo
d old Tom Gordon.
With Millar as a fifth infielder, Bubba Crosby, who pinch-ran for Matsui, takes the count full before grounding to Pokey, who goes home for the force. Bernie Williams falls behind 0-2, and Leskanic gets him with a splitter and we worm out of it.
Manny leads off the thirteenth with a rocket off the camera platform in left-center, and suddenly we’re up 4–3. All we have to do is hang on.
Leskanic looks strong, striking out Posada, then making a nice play on a dribbler to the third-base side by Clark. I want him to finish off Ruben Sierra—a guy who strikes out a ton—but Sierra bounces a single up the middle. Now with two out, the outfielders have to play deep so nothing gets through to score the runner. Leskanic gets ahead of Cairo 0-2. His next pitch is on the corner, and I yell, “Got him!” but the ump blows the call. I hold my arms out wide, beseeching the TV. On the next pitch, Cairo hits a fly toward the right-center gap. Millar heads over. He may not have a shot at catching it, but at the last second he veers away from it and toward the wall, trailing it as it hops across the track. Sierra’s chugging around third; he’s going to score easily.
“What the fuck is Millar doing out there?”
Once again, Francona’s fucked up. He pinch-ran Kapler but didn’t pull the double switch. Kapler gets to that ball—at the very least he cuts it off.
John Flaherty, a backup catcher who played for us in the ’80s, pinch-hits. He’s hitting .150, but he lofts a double into the left-field corner, and the game’s over.
So we go from embarrassing to humiliating to painful, finding a new, more wrenching way to lose each night. I should have never mentioned the word sweep. We’re eight and a half back, and the tone of the break is definitely set.
