Faithful

April 4th

Opening Day: Notes on Addiction

I’ve written about substance abuse a good many times, and see no need to rehash all that in a book about baseball…but because this also happens to be a book about rooting, the subject at least has to be mentioned, it seems to me. These are a fan’s notes, after all, and when used in the context of rooting, the word fan ain’t short for fantastic.

I don’t booze it up anymore, and I don’t take the mind- or mood-altering drugs, but over a good many years of staying away from those things one day at a time, I’ve come to a more global view of addiction. Sometimes I think of it as the Lump in the Sofa Cushion Theory of Addiction. This theory states that addiction to booze or dope is like a lump in a sofa cushion. You can push it down… but it will only pop up somewhere else. Thus a woman who quits drinking may start smoking again. A guy who quits the glass pipe may rediscover his sex drive and become a serial womanizer. A gal who quits drinking and drugging may put Twinkies and strawberry ice cream in their place, thus adding forty or fifty pounds before putting on the brakes.

Hey, I’ve been lucky. No sex issues, no gambling issues, moderate food issues. I do, however, have a serious problem with the Boston Red Sox, and have ever since they came so damned close to winning the whole thing in ’67. Before then, I was what you might call a recreational Red Sox user. Since then I’ve been a full-blown junkie, wearing my hat with the scarlet B on the front for six months straight and suffering a serious case of hat-head while I obsess over the box scores. I check the Boston Red Sox official website, and all the unofficial ones as well (most of them fucking dire); I scoff at the so-called Curse of the Bambino, believing completely in myheart even though I know it is the bullshit creation of one talented and ambitious sportswriter.[1]

Worst of all, during the season I become as much a slave to my TV and radio as any addict ever was to his spike. I have been asked by several people if working on this book is a hardship, given the fact that I have two other books coming out this year (the final novels in the Dark Tower cycle), a television series still in production (that would be Kingdom Hospital on ABC, the Detroit Tigers of network broadcasting), and a half-finished new novel sitting on my desk. The answer is no—it’s not a hardship but a relief. I would either be sitting at Fenway or in my living room with the TV tuned to NESN (the New England Sports Network, the regional pusher that services addicts like me) in any case; this book legitimizes my obsession and allows me to indulge it to an even greater degree. In the language of addiction, the book’s publisher has become my enabler and my colleague, Stewart O’Nan, is my codependent.

Now, nine hours before Sidney Ponson of the Orioles throws his first pitch to the first Red Sox batter of the season, I can look at my situation coldly and clearly: I am a baseball junkie, pure and simple. Or perhaps it’s even more specific than that. Perhaps I’m a Red Sox junkie, pure and simple. I’m hoping it’s choice B, actually. If it is, and the Sox win the World Series this year, this nearly forty-year obsession of mine may break like a long-term (very long-term) malarial fever. Certainly this team has the tools, but Red Sox fans do not need the bad mojo of some false “curse” to appreciate the odd clouds of bad luck that often gather around teams that seem statistically blessed. Outfitted in the off-season with strong pitching and defense to go with their formidable hitting, the Sox suddenly find themselves short two of their most capable players: Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon. 2003 batting champ Bill Mueller, suffering supposed elbow problems (from swinging a leaded bat in the on-deck circle?—I wonder), has seen little spring training action. And Cadillac closer Keith Foulke has been, let’s face it, nothing short of horrible.

But for the true junkie—er, fan, I mean, true fan—such perverse clouds of darkness do not matter. The idea of starting 0 and 22, for instance (as the Orioles once did), is pushed firmly to the back of the mind.[2] There will be no Sopranos tonight at 9 P.M., even if the Sox trail byfive in the seventh inning; there will be no Deadwood tonight at 10 P.M. even if Keith Foulke comes on in the eighth, blows a three-run Sox lead, and then gives up an extra three for good measure. Tonight, barring a stroke or a heart attack, I expect to be in until the end, be it bitter or sweet. And the same could be said for the season as a whole. I’m going to do pretty much what I did last year, in other words (only this year I expect to get paid for it). Which is pretty much addiction in a nutshell: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Right now it’s only 10 A.M., though, and the house is quiet. No one’s playing baseball yet. I’m fever-free for another nine hours, and I’m enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll enjoy the baseball game, too. The first one’s always a thrill. I think that’s true even if you’re a Tigers or Devil Rays fan (a team that looks much improved this year, by the way). But by August, in the heat of a pennant race, I always start to resent the evenings spent following baseball and to envy the people who can take it or just turn it off and read a good book. Myself, I’ve never been that way. I’m an addict, you see. And I’m a fan. And if there’s a difference, I don’t see it.

Opening on the road sucks. You can’t feel the perfect newness of the season up close. A true home opener’s a pearl, smooth and untouched. Not this year. By the time the team gets to Fenway, whether we’re 4-0 or 0-4, the season will have been rubbed up, scuffed, cut. And it’ll still be cold.

It’s forty-three and breezy in Baltimore. Hot dog wrappers and plastic bags drift by behind the home-plate ump. I’m at home, digging the game on NESN from my cozy couch. Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy talk about Opening Day jitters, and to prove them right, in the first Bill Mueller throws one wide of Millar. Melvin Mora lets him off the hook by trying to take third on a bloop single, and Manny easily guns him down. In the top of the next inning, Mora lifts his glove and lets a grounder go through his legs.

The heart of the O’s lineup is made of their big off-season free agents—former MVP Miguel Tejada and All Stars Rafael Palmeiro and Javy Lopez. In the second, Lopez, seeing his first pitch as an O, plants a high fastball from Pedro in the left-field seats, and the crowd chants, “Ja-vy, Ja-vy.” Don points out that the fastball was clocked at 89.

Pedro’s missing the plate, pulling his hard curve a good two feet outside on righties. Gibbons singles, then Pedro plunks David Segui. There are no outs. Bigbie hits an excuse-me roller to Pedro, who checks second and goes to first. The throw’s to the home side of the bag, and looks like Millar can handle it, but it tips off his glove and skips away. Gibbons scores and the runners move up. “Payyyyd-rooooo, Payyyyd-rooooo,” the crowd taunts. He leaves a change-up up to Matos, who singles in Segui. Matos steals second. In the bullpen Bronson Arroyo is warming.

Don and Jerry debate the possibility that something’s physically wrong with Pedro; maybe he’s having trouble gripping the ball in the cold. Pedro quiets them (and the crowd) by striking out Roberts and Mora, bringing up Tejada, who looks thicker around the middle, positively husky for a shortstop. He hits one deep to right-center that Johnny Damon tracks down, and we’re out of it.

Jerry says we’re lucky to be down only three runs, and while he’s right, I don’t feel lucky. Two innings into the opener and the season’s turning to shit.

We get a run back in the top of the third when Manny rips a single off Ponson’s back leg. In the bottom, Bellhorn and Pokey turn a nifty two to end the inning and touch gloves on their way to the dugout. So some things are working.

In the fourth, on a ball to the right-field corner with two down and the number nine hitter coming up, Dale Sveum holds Kapler at third, though the throw goes into second without a cutoff man. “Don’t be stupid,” I plead, too late. And then Pokey, for no reason I can see, tries to sneak a bunt past Ponson and is an easy third out.

Pedro’s settled down, giving up only two hits since the second. It’s still only 3–1 in the seventh when David Ortiz launches one down the right-field line—foul.

In the seventh, Timlin comes in and walks two, gives up a bloop to Tejada and a Palmeiro single through a shifted infield, and it’s 4–1. Dave Wallace makes a visit to the mound but doesn’t take Timlin out. The next batter, Javy Lopez, hits a long fly to right-center that hangs up. Johnny D tracks it as the wind takes it away from him. Kapler’s angling in from right to back up the play. Johnny looks up, then looks over at Kapler. Kapler looks at Johnny. The ball lands between them. With two outs, everyone’s running, and Palmeiro hoofs it all the way around from first.

This is when everyone leaves, including Trudy. It’s eleven o’clock on a Sunday, and the game has been plain ugly. It continues that way. The reliever for the O’s walks the bases loaded and gives up a run on a fielder’s choice. Later, Cesar Crespo makes a throw in the dirt that Millar should scoop but doesn’t, letting in another run. In the top of the ninth it’s 7–2 and thirty degrees and Camden Yards is empty, yet the fans I see behind the dugout—this is so typical it makes me laugh—are all Red Sox fans. And here I am, the only one left awake in the house, watching to the bitter end.

Tom Caron and Dennis Eckersley break it down on Extra Innings, but really, what can you say about a game like this? The most obvious stat is 14 men left on base. Johnny D went 0 for 5 in the leadoff spot, Tek went 0 for 4. Timlin gave up three earned runs in two-thirds of an inning (and one of those outs was Tek cutting down a runner on a risky pitchout). They pick on Pokey, showing the bunt attempt. Eck says he understands the strategy but, “If it doesn’t work, it looks horrible.” They also examine Millar’s footwork on the throwing error charged to Pedro that kept the O’s rally going. Instead of posting up at the front corner of the bag with his right foot so he can stretch towards Pedro with his left (and his glove), Millar is facing the bag with his left foot in the center so that he has to reach across his body to handle the throw. Basically, he nonchalanted it and cost us a couple of runs.

I turn it off. What’s demoralizing isn’t losing—we’ll lose 60–70 games this year (knock wood)—it’s playing badly. If this had been the first week of the NFL season, the announcers would have said this team has a lot of work to do.

April 5th

I can’t help running a quick postmortem, scanning the story in the morning paper. Francona stands by his man Sveum, saying Kapler would have been meat if he’d gone. I hope this kind of denial isn’t indicative of the new emperor.

It’s Opening Day for the rest of the league, and ESPN has wall-to-wall coverage. I catch pieces of the Cubs-Reds game (Sean Casey, a Pittsburgh native, blasts a two-run double off of Kerry Wood); a rare TV appearance by the Pirates taking on Kevin Millwood and the Phils (my brother’s somewhere in the freezing center-field bleachers); and the Astros with Nolan Ryan in the dugout hosting Barry Bonds, Willie Mays and the Giants (lots of home run talk but not a word about steroids from Joe Morgan). I watch the games with mild interest, but can’t commit to any of them. I wish the Sox were playing today so we could get back on the winning track and ditch this bad morning-after feeling. It’s just impatience. I’ve waited all winter for Schilling. I can wait one more day.

April 6th

I have to do a reading over in Bristol, Rhode Island. It’s a gig I set up months ago, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with Opening Day. It won’t, but today’s game in Baltimore starts at 3:05, and I’m meeting a class then, and dining with the faculty at 5:30.

My host, Adam, says we could have a beer in between and catch a few innings. We find a bar down by the water with the sun flooding through the windows. The place must have six TVs. None of them is showing the game. We start some chatter about Schilling making his debut, and a pair of regulars join the chorus. The barmaid finds NESN for the big-screen on the wall. Beside it is a printout of a picture I’ve seen on eBay: a little towheaded boy about three years old in a Sox shirt on someone’s shoulders. He’s leaning toward the field, screaming and giving someone a tiny finger.

There’s Schilling, sitting on the bench, going over something on a clipboard. It’s 3–1 Sox in the seventh, and Embree’s in. The O’s only have six hits, so I assume Schilling threw well.

The two locals at the bar next to us start grousing about Pedro leaving Sunday’s game before it was over. “When are they gonna do something about him?”

In the eighth, Melvin Mora hits a medium-deep fly to right-center. Johnny D drifts over. It’s his ball, obviously, but Millar, unaccustomed to playing right, keeps coming. The memory of the pop falling between Johnny and Kapler Sunday night is still fresh, and neither takes his eyes off the ball. Johnny gets there first. As he makes the catch, his shoulder catches Millar flush in the face, knocking him on his ass like a vicious blindside on a kick return. Millar stays down.

The guys in the truck roll the collision between Johnny and Damian Jackson in last year’s playoffs, Johnny’s head snapping back and then the ambulance idling on the outfield grass. They show it twice, both times getting a vocal reaction from the whole bar. Then they show today’s collision two more times. Millar spits a little blood, but he looks more dazed than anything, blinking and squeezing the bridge of his nose. He comes out and Cesar Crespo makes his debut as a right fielder.

The next batter, Tejada, hits a fly to deep right-center. This time Johnny waves his throwing hand high above his head to call off Crespo, and that’s the inning.

Foulke is warming, but we have to go to dinner—we’re already twenty minutes late.

“They look like they’re in good shape,” Adam says as we head to the restaurant.

“Never say that,” I say.

April 7th

Not only did the Sox win, but the Yanks lost. The D-Rays beat on Mussina again, so they’re on top of the division. Go, you crazy Lou!

Schilling threw 109 pitches yesterday, topping out at 98 mph. I know the gun down there is fast, because it clocked Ponson at 97, but still, knowing Schilling’s strong makes me optimistic about the season.

While I was out yesterday, Matt from my agent’s office called and left a message with Steph that says he wants to talk about Opening Day. I’m thinking it has to do with tickets, but it’s about Opening Day in Baltimore. He went. A friend came up with tickets at the last minute, and he put everything aside and hopped on a cheap flight. He says the wind was crazy; the two big oriole weather vanes on top of the scoreboard in center were spinning in opposite directions.

He was surprised at the venom of the O’s fans. After Pedro hit Segui, they were chanting “Pedro Sucks.” I’m not surprised. Pedro can come off as arrogant, and after dominating for so long, he’s earned some payback. The same with the Sox lately. They’re a high-paid, high-profile club, and the second-division teams have a right to dislike them.

Tonight’s game is a pitching mismatch, D-Lowe versus the young Kurt Ainsworth. This is one main strength of the 2004 Sox. Over the last two years, Lowe’s won more games that any AL pitcher except the Jays’ Roy Halladay. Part of the reason: last year he led the league in run support, with over 7 runs a start.

Ainsworth looks okay through the first, getting Ortiz and Manny (batting cleanup again). In the second he has runners on first and second with two out when Pokey hits a hopper to the hole. Tejada nabs it cleanly. He’s moving toward third, and looks to Mora for the force, but Mora—not having the instincts of a third baseman—is lagging behind the runner, and Tejada has to plant and throw across his body to first. After hesitating, there’s no way he’s getting Pokey, so now the bases are loaded. Johnny D slaps a single to left. Sveum, bizarrely, sends Bellhorn. The throw beats him by twenty feet, but comes in on a short-hop and Javy Lopez can’t get a handle on it. 2–0, second and third. Bill Mueller hits a single to center. This time the trailing runner is Johnny, and he scores easily.

Ainsworth’s upset and can’t find the plate now, walking Ortiz. He goes 3-1 on Manny before Manny flies to center. It’s well hit but should be caught. Ainsworth takes a few steps toward the dugout, watching Matos, who holds up both arms as if beseeching the sky. He’s lost it in the twilight. It hits the track by the base of the wall and bounces high, giving Ortiz more than enough time to chug around. 6–0. Millar rips a single to center. Matos has a shot at Manny, but his throw is off-line.

And that’s it, that’s more than enough. Johnny goes 5 for 5 and makes a spectacular grab, going over the fence in front of the O’s bullpen to take a three-run homer away from David Segui; David Ortiz cranks a three-run shot down the line in right; Lowe throws well, and Pokey and Bellhorn do a nice job behind him; even Mendoza gets some work in; but really it’s a one-inning game. It’s the kind of win that makes you complacent—that makes you see the O’s as a bad club.

It’s not true. Like the opener, it’s just one game. We still have to beat them tomorrow with Wake to take the series.

April 8th

There’s an official tally of the Opening Day payrolls. Once again, the Yankees top the majors at 183 million. The Sox are second at 125, the Angels third at 101.

By three I’m getting antsy, and call Naomi. I call five times before I get her machine and leave a message. Before I pack the family in the car and drive a hundred miles, I want to know the tickets are going to be there.

At a quarter to five, Naomi calls. She’s still not sure of the exact location, and the seats may be piggybacked—two in front, two behind—but they’ll be there. Thank you, Naomi; you came through like Tommy Brady. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.

It’s sprinkling at Camden Yards and the stands are half-empty. Wake’s going against a young lefty named Matt Riley who’s coming off Tommy John surgery. Ortiz sits, Millar plays right, Burks DHs and McCarty gets a start at first. Mirabelli, who usually handles Wake, is behind the plate. Along with Bellhorn and Pokey, it’s not the most power-packed lineup, so I’m hoping Riley doesn’t have much.

He doesn’t need much. Through eight, our five through nine guys are 0 for 10. The starters leave with the score tied 2–2, and then it’s the game that won’t end. By the twelfth, only Dauber and Mendoza haven’t seen action (they show Dauber in the dugout in a Sox watch cap, bent over, his chin propped on the knob of his bat like the one kid who wasn’t picked). It’s been four hours now; everyone else has long since turned off ER and gone to bed, and with the Sox not scoring in the top of the innings, the bottoms are like a death watch, just waiting for the bad thing to happen.

The twenty-fifth man, Bobby Jones, is on for us, and gives up a leadoff single to Bigbie. Mazzilli chooses to play by the book and has Roberts bunt him over. With two outs and Jones behind 2-0 on Tejada, we walk him intentionally and then get Palmeiro to ground out on a nice charging play by Bellhorn that Todd Walker wouldn’t have made.

We do nothing in the thirteenth. It’s raining again, and it’s past 11:30. Jones, who’s been going deep in the count to every batter, walks Lopez to start the inning. Bautista tries to bunt him across only once, then strikes out. The ump’s noticeably squeezing the zone on Jones on righties, where, in the tenth, he called two pitches well up and in strikes to lefties Tek and Bill Mueller. On 3-1, Segui swings but steals a walk by running down to first. On 3-2, Matos takes an agonizingly close pitch. The ump gives him the home call, and with one out the bases are loaded. Bigbie’s up. Jones has him struck out on a 1-2 pitch—down the pipe, not a nibble job—but, again, the ump doesn’t call it. Part of it’s the lateness of the hour, part of it’s the weather, and part has to be just a lack of respect. Jones dips his head and walks in a circle behind the mound. Ortiz visits from first to calm him down. A borderline pitch and it’s 3-2. And then the payoff pitch is up and out, and the game’s over. The camera follows Jones off, expecting he’ll say something in the direction of the ump. To his credit, he doesn’t.

I only watch Extra Innings for a minute, just long enough to hear Eck say, “Not pretty.”

As I get ready for bed, I keep replaying the game in my mind, running over the what-ifs, worrying that we’ll need this game somewhere down the road. And it was winnable. There was no good reason we lost it, just a terrible ump. I make a note to find his name in the paper tomorrow.

April 9th

His name is Alfonso Marquez. It’s said an umpire’s done a good job when no one notices him or her. Hey, Marquez, I got my eye on you.

The paper says Nomar, though he’s still on the DL, will be in uniform for the opener today, as if that will placate the crowd.

We get going a half hour late, but still arrive a good hour before game time. Parking is horrific. The main lot by the hospital is full, and we cruise Beacon Street down to Coolidge Corner, then try the side streets. We find a spot in a quiet neighborhood about a half mile away and hump it in.

“Anyone sellin’?” the scalpers call, but no one is.

The Will Call windows are mobbed, and incredibly slow. I wait in line for half an hour, and fear we’re going to miss the first pitch.

As we cut in to get to our section, I realize we’re right at Canvas Alley, where the grounds crew hangs out. Up the stairs, and there’s the green of the field and the Monster and the jammed bleachers with the scoreboard on top. Our seats are right on the alley, about ten rows back. We’ve missed the first pitch from Arroyo, but he’s still working on the first batter.

“The milk bottle’s gone,” Trudy says, and I look up to the roof in right field. The light stanchion there is bare, looming above three tiers of new tables squeezed in beneath a long BUDWEISER sign. The Hood milk bottle used to flash whenever a Sox pitcher struck someone out, and Hood would donate money in the pitcher’s name to the Jimmy Fund. I guess milk and beer don’t mix.

Also new are Toronto’s black road uniforms, which I don’t like. They look exactly like the D-Rays’.

Arroyo gets through the first, but makes his own trouble in the second by walking two. The bases are loaded when Reed Johnson doubles off the Monster. 2–0 Jays.

Behind us are four guys in the brewpub business. One of them is constantly on the phone, trying to cut a deal, hollering as if he doesn’t believe the signal will reach. “We can bring a hundred thousand to start,” he says. “I want to say we can go one-ten, one-twenty if we have to.” He has this conversation with a dozen people, as if he’s clearing the deal with his partners. Buddy, it’s Opening Day. TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE.

In the third Bellhorn’s on second with two down when Johnny comes up. “Save us, Jebus!” a girl beside us yells, a nifty Simpsons reference. Johnny fouls one off his knee that puts him on the ground. He can’t be hurt, we can’t afford it, and everyone cheers when he stands in again and bloops one down toward us that drops, making it 2–1. The next batter, Bill Mueller, hits another bloop toward us, spinning foul. Delgado’s got no shot at it, but Orlando Hudson sprints all the way from second to the line and dives. I see the ball land in his glove just as he disappears, thumping into the padded wall. I have to check the first-base ump shadowing the play: he clenches his fist in the out sign. Hudson’s still not up, we can’t see him at all, and then Delgado pulls him to his feet. His whole left side including his hat is covered with dirt, and we give him a standing O. That is some major league baseball. I hope I catch the replay on ESPN to see how he did it.

By now the crowd’s settled and Trudy and Steph make a run to the concession stand. There’s a new 3-D cup this year with the four starters on it, along with Fenway, a flag and an eagle left over from the 2002 model. The company hasn’t proofread the thing: Schilling is spelled SHILLING. And will be all season long.

In the fourth, Arroyo lets in two more. He’s just not sharp. But in the bottom of the inning Manny turns on an inside pitch and rips one off of Hinske at third (the ball rolling into the dugout, giving him second—it’s not an error for Hinske, just a hard chance and a bruise), Ortiz doubles to knock him in, and with two gone we load the bases for Pokey. He hits a floating liner to left. It looks like it should be caught, but it sails over Frank Catalanotto’s head to the base of the wall, and the game’s tied at 4.

When the inning ends, I head for the restroom and the concession stand. Everyone else has the same idea, and after I’ve tracked down some commemorative Opening Day balls, a Cuban sandwich for Trudy and a bag of Swedish fish for Caitlin, I’m walking across the big concourse behind right field when a roar goes up from the crowd, and then a roar on top of that that makes everyone turn. I hustle with my arms full to a TV monitor in time to see Tek jog across the plate. He’s homered to put us on top, 5–4.

To preserve the lead in the seventh, Francona brings in lefty Mark Malaska, who didn’t even make the club, but who we’ve brought up from Pawtucket because we went through the entire pen last night. Malaska is asked to get the good-hitting Catalanotto and then last year’s #2 and #1 RBI guys, Vernon Wells and Carlos Delgado. And he does, one-two-three. Mystery Malaska!

In the Toronto eighth, righty Josh Phelps leads off, so Francona opts to go with Mike Timlin, who only threw two-thirds of an inning last night. Timlin Ks Phelps, but then has to face lefty Eric Hinske, who singles, and the switch-hitting Hudson, who doubles to the left-center gap, tying the game. Timlin gets pinch hitter Simon Bond, but number nine hitter Kevin Cash doubles to the exact same spot, and the crowd boos. There’s nobody warming—again, the effect of last night. Timlin hits Johnson with a pitch, and people are screaming. Catalanotto lines one over Millar’s head. Millar turns and does his impression of running, giving a blind wave of his glove. We’re lucky—the ball hops into the stands for a ground-rule double, and Johnson has to go back to third. When Timlin finally gets Wells to pop up for the third out, it’s 7–5 Toronto.

We do nothing with our half of the eighth.

Embree comes on in the ninth and gives up a rocket of a homer to Delgado. Phelps flies deep to right, and then Embree walks Hinske. Francona, I suppose to prove he has a sense of humor (and to test ours), brings in McCarty. “You should have brought him in for Timlin!” someone yells.

McCarty actually doesn’t look bad, throwing in the mid-to-high eighties and going to his curve. He gets Hudson to ground one to him, moving Hinske over. Two down. When he goes to a full count on Chris Gomez, the crowd rises, cheering the absurdity of it. McCarty reaches back and throws one by Varitek all the way to the backstop, walking Gomez and giving Hinske third. The crowd subsides, and then groans when Cash blasts a double to the triangle in center, scoring both runners. It’s 10–5, and the casual fans head for the exits, while the diehards sneak down to steal their seats.

The good news is that they’ve changed the numbers on the scoreboard for the Yankees–White Sox game. Chicago’s up 5–1 in the fifth.

In the bottom of the ninth, with one down and Bellhorn up, Brian Daubach comes out and walks over to the on-deck circle. Bellhorn flies out, and the crowd rises for Dauber (Eminem’s on the PA: “Guess who’s back, back again”), hoping he’ll give us something to cheer about. He grounds weakly to second, and we’ve lost the home opener.

The walk to the car seems long. At least it’s nice out. We mutter about Timlin, and laugh at how I missed the one great moment of the game. It’s still a good day.

On the Mass Pike, we pass a car with a bumper sticker that says JOB WAS THE FIRST RED SOX FAN, and it’s early enough in the year that it’s still funny. We tune into the PawSox playing Buffalo and catch the final of the Yankee game: White Sox 9, Yankees 3. It’s the Buffalo station we’re pulling in, and as we head west into the night and traffic thins, the signal grows stronger. The PawSox are leading 5–4, and mile after mile we get to catch up with Kevin Youkilis.

Today was the first game I missed from beginning to end: I even dipped into last night’s Late Show, catching the tenth and eleventh of the game versus Baltimore the Sox ended up dropping in thirteen. My younger son Owen called me with an update on this one in the fourth, with the Sox down 4–1 (“Whoa, make that 4–2,” he said in the middle of the call, adding that Manny had hit the hardest line shot he—Owen—had ever seen; claimed it even looked like a bullet in slo-mo). Red Sox ended up losing 10–5, according to the Fox New England Sports Network ticker, which I for some reason get down here in Florida (ubiquitous Fox!). Man, Stewart! I’ll wait for the highlights (lowlights? deadlights?), but that doesn’t sound like Moneyball, that sounds like Uglyball. I’ll bet you anything that what’s-his-face, the converted fielder, pitched at least two innings. And the Yankees lost again. The AL East is looking My-T-Sof-Tee, at least in the early going. If I can get the game tomorrow, I intendto be there for the whole deal. It’s pretty important, I think, that Pedro be able to play the stopper and get us back to .500 early. Can’t wait for the standings tomorrow; .500 should be good enough to lead this fool’s parade.

April 10th

While we were waiting in the Will Call line, we missed Nomar and Yaz and Dewey and Tommy Brady. Damn you, unwieldy ticketing process!

The paper says that Mendoza was moved to the DL, and that Johnny will be out for a few days with a “golf ball–sized lump” on his knee. Yesterday before his first at-bat, they played “Ironman” for him, and here a foul ball takes him out.

It also says the plane the Sox were supposed to take from Baltimore after the thirteen-inning game had mechanical problems, and with the delays, the team bus didn’t get to Fenway until 7:30 yesterday morning, which might account for their sleepwalking performance.

Because we spent all day at the park yesterday, I can’t persuade anyone to go to tonight’s game, even with the Pedro–Roy Halladay matchup. It frees me to leave early. I rocket across the Mass Pike and get there a full two and a half hours before game time. I’m the first one in the lot (now twenty-five bucks, though the attendant assures me they raised the price last August). I score my Will Call tickets and head for Lansdowne, thinking I might shag some home runs. Like a little kid, I’m lugging my glove.

On Brookline Ave a billboard with a big picture of Nomar asks us to KEEP THE FAITH.

Before I turn the corner, I find a scalper leaning against a wall, muttering, “Anyone buyin’, anyone sellin’.” I tell him I have one, and we haggle. Even though it’s hours before game time, it’s Pedro-Halladay, and I want at least face value. He lowballs so I walk, but there’s a young Korean tourist lurking behind him who steps forward and offers to trade me a Yankee ticket for it—the Patriots’ Day game, which starts at 11 A.M., way too early for us to get here. I jump on the trade, then turn and sell the $20 bleacher seat to the scalper for well more than the face value of today’s ticket, and walk away grinning. It’s rare that you scalp a scalper.

On Lansdowne the Sausage King and the souvenir guys by Gate E are setting up. A band of college kids wearing long dark wigs and beards walks by; their shirts say DAMON’S DISCIPLES. I stake my claim to a pillar by the entrance to the elevated parking lot, leaning against it to hide my glove behind my back, and watch the Monster. I’m almost under the Coke bottles, between them and Fisk’s foul pole, the perfect spot for dead-pull hitters. But nothing’s coming over. It’s too early; they’re still running the tour groups through.

A father and son join me. They’ve got standing rooms on the Monster and they’re hoping to catch a ball. I wish them luck and post up by Gate E, hoping to be the first one in so I can grab my favorite corner spot down the left-field line.

After a nervous five minutes waiting for them to roll open the corrugated-steel doors, I’m the second one through the turnstiles and the first into the grandstand. The Sox are already batting. As I make my way down to the empty corner, I see Johnny Pesky walking out toward left field with a fungo bat and hail him. Johnny joined the club as a shortstop in 1942. He’s eighty-five and still putting on the uniform. He waves back, a Fenway benediction.

Bending over the low wall and reaching with my glove, I can just touch the plastic left-field foul line (yeah, weird, not chalk but a permanent strip of plastic). I wait for a hot grounder into the corner, pounding my glove.

Nothing comes. The Sox finish and the Jays take the field. A liner hooks over us for Section 33—“Heads up!”—and bangs into the seats. A few balls off the wall end up in the corner, but these the outfielders toss up or hand to little kids.

Out in left, #27 for the Jays has been shagging flies. As he comes in for his turn in the cage, I see he has a ball in his mitt. “Hey, two-seven,” I holler, and he looks around and tosses it to me.

It’s Frank Catalanotto, their left fielder and number two hitter, whose triple started them off yesterday.

Still nothing down the line. A lot of balls are banging off the Monster or reaching the seats. One arcs down into the front row, where a big guy in a windbreaker catches it barehanded against his chest and gets a hand. It’s the dad from Lansdowne. The kid’s all excited.

Later, on his way back out to left, Catalanotto picks up a ball from the grass behind third and—amazingly—tosses it to me. When he comes off, I ask if he’ll sign one, and he does. It’s the only autograph he gives, and while he’s not a star, I feel lucky, singled out.

BP’s finished, and I wander over to Steve’s seats behind the Sox on-deck circle. They’re dream seats, so close that, say, Manny swinging his taped-up piece of rebar intrudes on your view of Ortiz at the plate. Julie, the assistant who’s babysitting Steve’s tickets, might be there, and I need to talk to her. I plant myself in his seat and admire the balls and Catalanotto’s illegible signature. As game time nears, I wonder if Julie’s coming. If not, fine. I’ll just sit here.

Before the game starts, there’s already good news on the scoreboard:

Pedro comes out throwing 89–90. Catalanotto singles sharply to center, but that’s it in the first. Halladay’s up at 93, 95. He’s 6′4″ with a patchy beard, and on the mound he looks Randy Johnson tall. Crespo leads off, and Halladay blows two by him, then freezes him with a backdoor curve. Bill Mueller and Ortiz barely get wood on the ball. Looks like it’s going to be a quick game.

Josh Phelps leads off the top of the second with a drive down the right-field line. It looks like it’s going to drop, but Kapler digs hard and dives, tumbles in the dust and comes up with it. It’s even bigger when the next batter, Hinske, rips a single. There’s some muttering in the seats, but Pedro bears down and gets Hudson, then gets a borderline call on Woodward, and the Faithful stand and cheer him off.

When Kapler stands on deck that inning, I call, “Great catch, Gabe,” and he turns in profile and nods. I’m so close I can read the writing on his T-shirt under his white home jersey. It’s a new tradition with the club; last year with Grady, the players wore all kinds of inside motivational slogans. Backwards across Gabe’s shoulders, it says ZAGGIN LAER. When he pops to third to end the inning, the ump inspects the scuffed ball and gives it to the Sox bat-boy (bat-man, really, because he’s a pro) Andrew. As Andrew’s coming back toward the circle, I call his name and hold up my glove, and he hits me. “Thanks, Andrew.”

Ortiz is wearing a slogan too. ARE YOU GONNA—That’s all I can get.

Both pitchers settle in. There are no rallies, no tight spots, just solo base runners stranded at first, and lots of strikeouts.

In the bottom of the sixth, Crespo leads off with a slow roller to short. He busts it down the line and dives headfirst for the bag—safe. It’s a spark. Bill Mueller rolls one to Delgado, who makes the right decision and goes to second to get Crespo. David Ortiz comes up (“El Jefe!”) and after seeing a few pitches blasts one deep to right that makes us all rise. It carries the wall and caroms off the roof of the Sox bullpen. In the stands we’re high-fiving. David touches the plate, lifts his eyes and points with both hands to God.

First pitch, Manny lines one for a single. Maybe Halladay’s tired. He’s thrown 80 pitches—120 Canadian. He blows away Kapler to end the inning.

Pedro’s having a quick top of the seventh when, with two down, he gets behind Hudson 2-1. Hudson’s the number seven hitter, a second baseman and not a big guy, so Pedro goes after him. He can’t get his 90 mph fastball past him, and Hudson parks it in the Jays’ bullpen.

It’s only 2–1 for one batter, as Bellhorn leads off the bottom with a slicing Pesky Pole homer.

Pedro Ks the first batter in the top of the eighth. It’s his last inning, and as he sometimes does, he’s going to sign the win by striking out the side. Except after Catalanotto takes a backdoor curve for strike three, here comes Francona from the dugout. Pedro looks around, surprised. He glances out to the bullpen where Foulke is warming, as if he had no idea. Francona chucks Pedro on the shoulder as if to say good job and takes the ball from him. Boooooo! Pedro high-fives everyone in conference at the mound, then, as he’s walking off, before crossing the first-base line, touches his heart, kisses his pitching hand and points to God. Huge standing O. At the top of the dugout steps he stops and points to God again, holding the pose a little too long, but hey, that’s Pedro. (This is the kind of showboating that gets him booed in other parks, but here, after taking on Halladay, it’s okay.)

Petey’s thrown 106 pitches, but I wonder if it’s more of a power move on Francona’s part, taking an early opportunity to show the media and the talk-radio fans that this is his club and he can make Pedro do something he doesn’t want to do (as opposed to Grady, who couldn’t take the ball from him when it was clear he needed to come out). Foulke gets Vernon Wells on a roller, so it’s a good move, or at least not a bad one.

Manager Carlos Tosca decides to close the Mike Scioscia way, bringing in a lefty to get Ortiz, then pulling him for a righty to face Manny. Manny uncharacteristically swings at the first pitch, and greets Aquilino Lopez with a bomb to center that just keeps going. It’s hit into the wind but ends up a few rows deep in Section 36, somewhere around 450 feet. 4–1 Sox. After that, Tosca says the hell with it and leaves Lopez in to finish.

As we start the ninth, the crowd’s singing “Sweet Caroline” a cappella long after Neil Diamond’s finished. It’s a party, and when the folks in the front row take off to beat the traffic, I move up and stand at the wall with my hands on the bunting (real cloth, not plastic, as you might expect) as Foulke closes.

It’s only 9:30. It’s been the fast, clean game you’d expect from two Cy Youngs, all the scoring on longballs.

The high floats me home. Traffic’s light, and I’m entirely satisfied. There’s nothing to nitpick or second-guess, no needling what-ifs. Pedro wasn’t dominant, but he was very, very good. Ortiz delivered the big blow, Manny was 3 for 4, Kapler made that great diving catch. And—this is silly, since it’s not even Easter yet—with Baltimore whipping up on Tampa Bay, I do believe we own a share of first place.

April 11th

Poor ol’ Dauber. Because we’ve been eating up the pen, we need fresh arms, and ship him to Pawtucket to bring up a ghost—Frank Castillo, who we dumped last year and then re-signed this February. Dauber will have to clear waivers before reporting. The odds are slim that anyone will claim him, but why take the chance if he’s really part of the team?

Johnny says he saw his disciples as he was coming out of the players’ lot. “They have shirts that said, ‘We have Jesus on our side.’”

It’s Schilling’s Fenway debut, and I’m not going. For the first time in my life I’m going to be a no-show, eating a pair of grandstands along with Easter dinner. I tell Steph that Schilling better not throw a no-hitter. “A perfect game,” he says.

Instead, it’s an extra-inning nail-biter that takes all day. Mystery Malaska battles again, taking us into the thirteenth.

“So who do we bring in next,” Steph asks, “Williamson?”

“We won’t have to,” I say. “We’re doing it here.” To seal the oath, we high-five around the room.

It’s Aquilino Lopez’s game. He walks Bill Mueller, bringing up David Ortiz. With Manny next, Lopez has to throw to him. He tries to nibble, then gives in and puts one over the plate. Ortiz hits a rainbow that brings us to our feet. “Get out!” It’s headed for deep left-center. It’s going to make the wall, and now it’s clear it’s going to carry it. The ball lands in the second row of the Monster seats, in the aisle between M7 and M8, ricocheting off a fan who scrambles after the magical souvenir. The Sox win 6–4, and the whole club gathers at home to pound David on the helmet and bounce up and down as a team. Too bad Dauber missed this one. Now I wish I’d gone—a walk-off job’s rare—but we’re celebrating here too, hooting and running to the kitchen to mob Trudy as if she hit it.

“Now it is officially a happy Easter,” I say.

The temptation is to see this as a defining moment, proof that we’re in for a wild year. It’s a win, that’s all, but a very satisfying one. Though it’s only April, with one swing, emotionally, we’ve made up for blowing both openers.

April 12th

In the mail there’s a promotional postcard for Steph, a handsomely designed riff on a fight poster that says SHOWDOWN IN BEANTOWN, touting Friday’s Yankee game on Fox—the network’s first regular-season game in prime time in years.

We’ve got Monster seats for Sunday’s Yankee game, and I’m hoping to cadge two field boxes from Steve for Friday’s “showdown.” Francona says he’s not going to use the off day to give Pedro an extra day of rest, meaning we’ll skip Arroyo and Petey will go in his normal slot Thursday night against the O’s (maybe a revenge game for him?). This way, Schilling stays on track for thirty-five starts rather than thirty-three, and Pedro sees the Yanks down in the Stadium the weekend after next. So Schilling will go this Friday, as he’s planned since February. Steph and I figure out we’ll see Wake on Sunday, and then, on Thursday against Tampa Bay, Wake again. (It’s a good thing Steph likes Tim-may. Last year we went through a goofy stretch where he saw five straight home starts of his.)

But that’s only if the weather holds. “It’s spring,” Steph reminds me. “We’re probably going to have some rainouts.”

April 13th

A dark, cold day. It pours all afternoon, and the Sox cancel tonight’s game early. There’s no reschedule date, and no rush, since Baltimore comes through again in July and September. The rainout itself is depressing, as if a party’s been called off, and makes the day that much gloomier.

April 14th

My 2004 Media Guide arrives, with a picture of D-Lowe on the cover, celebrating the Game 5 win over Oakland, except the background isn’t from that game, but from the wild-card clincher at Fenway, with the fans on their feet and the whole bench bolting from the dugout. Matted in below this are press-conference shots of Schilling, Francona and Foulke holding up their new Sox unis, the symbolism unmistakable, as if adding these three elements together will produce a championship.

Just for fun, the text of the guide is printed in blue and red ink this year, 627 pages of stats and oddball facts like: last year with the White Sox, Dauber stole home; in college Mark Malaska was a slugging outfielder; Cesar Crespo’s brother Felipe played for the Giants, and homered twice in the same game in which Cesar hit his first major league homer with the Padres. Among the career highlights and personal trivia, I recognize dozens of lines I’ve already heard from Don and Jerry.

As if 627 pages aren’t enough, I hit the local bookstore and pick up Jerry Remy’s Watching Baseball, just out. As a color analyst, he’s usually pretty good with strategy, and I’m always willing to learn. I’m not disappointed. While a lot of it is basic, he also talks a fair amount about setting the defense according to the batter, the count and the pitch, and how important it is not to give your position away. He also lays out the toughest plays for each position, and the slight advantages base runners can take of pitchers and outfielders.

I’m psyched to use some of my new knowledge watching the game, but the website says it’s been cancelled due to “inclement weather and unplayable field conditions.” It’s a letdown, as if I was supposed to play. After Sunday’s walk-off homer, I’m feeling a little withdrawal.

April 15th

It’s raining when I wake up, but by midmorning the sun’s out, so I think we’re okay. Even better: in the mail are Steve’s dream seats for tomorrow night’s game, along with a parking pass. Look for me on Fox. (Last year, for one nationally televised game, we noticed that Todd Walker was miked, a transmitter tucked in his back pocket. Every time he was on deck, we yelled “Rupert Murdoch sucks!”)

Sunday’s game is On-Field Photo Day. I call up Sox customer service to find out more, but the woman there doesn’t know when it starts or what gate you need to go in or where the line will form.

In the paper, the Yanks asked UConn men’s hoops coach Jim Calhoun if he’d throw out the first ball at one of their games. Coach Calhoun’s a serious Sox fan; after his squad won it all in ’99 (beating a Yankee-like Duke team), he threw out the first pitch up at Fenway. “No chance,” he tells the Yanks. “Sixty years of torment is enough.”

The confusion the Yanks had is natural. The monied southwestern corner of Connecticut drains toward New York, and historically supports the more established Gotham teams. For a couple years, before moving to Jersey, the football Giants played in the Yale Bowl. The northern and eastern edges of the state, butted up against Massachusetts and Rhode Island, are country, decidedly New England. The suburban middle, where I live, is disputed territory. On the Sox website, there’s a petition for Connecticut residents to sign, pledging their loyalty based on “traditional New England values of hard work and fair play,” and denouncing the encroachment of, yes, the evil empire. I’ve signed, though what good it does against George’s bounty hunters and clone army, I have no idea.

The game goes on as scheduled. Ben Affleck’s in the front row beside the Sox dugout (he emceed the Sox Welcome Back luncheon the other day), and I expect he’ll be there tomorrow against the Yanks. With the rainouts, neither pitcher’s seen action for a while. Pedro gives up a leadoff home run to Roberts. He’s missing spots, walking people, giving up another run in the second, but Ponson loads the bases and Johnny singles to right, and then Bill Mueller breaks an 0-for-20 drought with a Pesky Pole wraparound, and we’re up 5–2. It’s early, but the game seems in hand, and the home folks have shows they want to watch, so we switch over to Survivor and then The Apprentice (don’t worry, Steve, we’re taping Kingdom Hospital), clicking back to NESN every so often.

It’s 5–4 Sox in the fourth when we check in, just in time to see Johnny knock in Bellhorn. Ponson’s struggling, and Tejada doesn’t help him by dropping the transfer on a sure DP. Ortiz grounds to the right side and Pokey scores. 7–4.

When we check in again, it’s 7–7 in the top of the fifth and Pedro’s still in there. What the hell? (Palmeiro hit a three-run shot into the Sox bullpen.) He’s given up 8 hits and 4 walks. Yank him already!

Ponson’s gone after four, and Malaska comes on for us in the top of the sixth. It’s the big finale of The Apprentice, and for two hours we play peek-aboo with the relievers: Lopez, Williamson, Timlin, Ryan, Foulke, Embree.

The Apprentice ends just in time for us to catch the biggest play of the game. It’s the bottom of the tenth, bases loaded and two out for Bill Mueller. He lifts one high and deep to left-center that looks like it’ll scrape the Monster. I’m up, cheering, thinking this is the game—that we’ll have a little cushion going into the Yankee series—but the wind knocks the ball down. Bigbie is coming over from left, and Matos from center, on a collision course. Bigbie cuts in front, Matos behind, making the grab on the track in front of the scoreboard, and that’s the inning.

Arroyo starts the top of the eleventh against Tejada. He hangs a curve, and Tejada hits it off the foot of the light tower on the Monster for his first homer of the year. 8–7 O’s. In a long and ugly sequence, they pile on four more. We go one-two-three, and that’s the game, a painful, bullpen-clearing, four-and-a-half-hour extra-inning loss very much like last week’s in Baltimore. Not the way we wanted to go into tomorrow’s opener against the Yanks, and not how I wanted to go to bed—late and pissed-off.

April 16th

The Sox are unveiling a statue of Ted Williams today outside Gate B—the gate no one uses, way back on Van Ness Street, behind the right-field concourse. The statue’s part of an ongoing beautification effort. We’ve already widened the sidewalks and planted trees to try to disguise the fact that Van Ness is essentially a gritty little backstreet with more than its share of broken glass. I’m surprised there’s not a statue of Williams already, the way the Faithful venerate him. During the Pedro-Halladay game, I chanced across a rolling wooden podium with a bronze plaque inlaid on top honoring Ted; it looked like something from the sixties, coated with antique green milk paint. It was pushed against a wall in the hallway inside Gate A next to the old electric organ no one ever plays. I’d never seen it before, and wondered why it was shoved to the side. In Pittsburgh there was a statue of Honus Wagner by the entrance of Forbes Field, and when the Bucs moved to Three Rivers, it moved with them, to be joined by a statue of Clemente, and now, at PNC Park, one of Willie Stargell. I wonder how long it will take the Sox to commission one of Yaz.

Because the game’s on Fox, the start time’s been pushed back to 8:05, giving me some extra time to deal with Friday rush hour. All the way up 84 and across the Mass Pike I see a lot of New York and New Jersey plates. When I pull into the lot behind Harvard Med Center a good hour before the gates open, it’s already half-filled.

I head for Lansdowne, but BP hasn’t started yet. There are some Yankee fans outside the Cask ’n Flagon having their pictures taken—skinny college girls in pink Yankee T-shirts and hats with a hefty dude in an A-Rod jersey. I pass a woman wearing a T-shirt that says THIS IS YOUR BRAIN (above a Red Sox logo), THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS (and a Yankees logo). TV crews are wandering around doing stand-ups, shooting B-roll of people eating by the Sausage Guy. Above, banner planes and helicopters crisscross.

I walk down Lansdowne past the nightclubs, figuring I’ll go around the long way and check out the statue. Fuel is playing the Avalon Ballroom; their fans are sitting against the wall to be the first in, and seem disgusted that their good time has been hijacked by a bunch of dumb jocks. When I turn the corner onto Ipswich, I find another line of young people waiting at the entrance of a parking lot. Everyone has an ID on a necklace, as if they’re all part of a tour group. Then I notice the yellow Aramark shirts hidden under their jackets. It’s the vendors, queuing up so they can get ready for a big night. It’s already cold in the shadows, and I pity the guys trying to move ice cream.

I expect the Williams statue to be ringed by fans taking pictures or touching it for luck, the way they do in Pittsburgh with Clemente and Stargell (if you reach up you can balance a lucky penny on Willie’s elbow), but it’s just standing there alone while a line waits about thirty feet away for day-of-game tickets.

It’s uninspired and uninspiring, a tall man stooping to set his oversized cap on a little bronze kid’s head. It’s not that Ted didn’t love kids (his work with the Jimmy Fund is a great legacy), it’s just that I expected something more dynamic for the greatest hitter that ever lived. In Pittsburgh, Clemente’s just finished his swing and is about to toss the bat away and dig for first; he’s on his toes, caught in motion, and there’s a paradoxical lightness to the giant structure that conveys Clemente’s speed and grace. Stargell’s cocked and waiting for his pitch, his bat held high; you can almost see him waggling the barrel back and forth behind his head. This Williams is static and dull and carries none of The Kid’s personality. He could be any Norman Rockwell shmoo making nice with the little tyke.

I take a couple of pictures anyway, then head back to Gate E to wait for my friend Lowry. Before a big game like this, people are handing out all sorts of crummy free stuff, and I accept a Globe just to have something to read (okay, and for the poster of Nomar). I buy a bag of peanuts and lurk at the corrugated door, and when Lowry comes, we’re first in line and then the first in and the first to get a ball, tossed to me by David McCarty in left. I snag a grounder by Kapler, and later an errant warm-up throw by Yanks coach (and former Pirate prospect) Willie Randolph—picking the neat short-hop out of sheer reflex.

A-Rod comes out to warm, and the fans boo. Some migrate over from other sections just to holler at him while he plays long toss, chucking the ball from the third-base line out to deep right-center. “Hey, lend me a hundred bucks, huh?” “How you liking third?” “Hey, A-Rod, break a leg, and I mean that.”

We boo Jeter when he steps in to hit. And Giambi (“Bal-co”) and Sheffield (“Ballll-coooo”).

The rest of the Yanks are friendly enough. Jose Contreras and Kevin Brown banter with the fans; even hothead Jorge Posada jokes with us. When Mussina comes by and chats and smiles, someone calls, “You’re the good Yankee, Mike.”

Miguel Cairo, one of the last Yankees to bat, smokes a grounder down the line. It’s mine. I catch it off-center, and it bends the fingers of my mitt back. The ball knocks off the wall and rolls away, out of reach, gone forever. It’s a play I’ll make 99 times out of 100, even if it was hit hard.

“Hey,” Lowry says, “you’ve got three.”

Yeah, I say, I know, but it’s always the one that gets away that you remember.

We stop by El Tiante’s for an autographed picture, saying hey to Luis and picking up some Cuban sandwiches, then fight the crowd to reach our seats. The choke point’s right behind home, where the concourse narrows to feed the first ramp to the stands. The crush is worse than Opening Day, and I think they’ve got to fix it somehow before something very bad happens.

The tide of people separates us. I find Lowry at our seats just as the anthem begins. As always, I’m overwhelmed by how good these seats are. One section over, one row in front of us, is the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.

The Yanks send Kenny Lofton, Jeter and A-Rod to face Wake in the first. The boos grow louder with each at-bat, peaking with A-Rod, who gets a standing excoriation—something only Clemens has managed over the years. “Gay-Rod,” some wags are chanting. When Tim’s first pitch is a strike, the crowd explodes, as if we’ve won.

Johnny opens with a hopper to first that hits Giambi in the middle and gets through him for an E. “Bal-co!” Vazquez has Bill Mueller 0-2, but gets impatient, aiming a fastball that Billy cranks into the Sox bullpen, and we’re up 2–0. Manny hits a slicing liner down the right-field line that disappears from view. The ump signals fair, then twirls one finger in the air for a homer. Somehow the Yanks are able to relay the ball in—they’re arguing that it never went out. We don’t get a replay. (Later, I hear that the ball hit the top of the wall and caromed back in off Sheffield, so it wasn’t a homer.) With two down and Ellis Burks on second, Doug Mirabelli grounds one to Jeter. It’s an easy play, but Jeter comes up and lets it through the five-hole and into left, and with two outs Burks scores easily.

Posada gets one back with a solo homer in the second. In the fourth, Mirabelli—who, like Wake, is only making his second start—takes Vazquez deep on the first pitch. 5–1.

A great moment in the sixth when the Yanks try a double steal (or is it a blown hit-and-run?). Sheffield doesn’t make contact, and A-Rod’s meat at third. The crowd taunts him into the dugout.

It’s 6–2 with two out in the eighth when Giambi lofts a fly to Manny in left. “Good inning,” I holler to Doug Mirabelli, heading off, and then I see the ball glance off Manny’s glove and bounce in the grass. He Charlie Browned it!

I look around to verify that this has actually happened. No one else can believe it either.

Things get a little shaky when Sheffield and Posada both work walks to load the bases. “A home run here and the game’s tied,” a neighbor says. I know where this is coming from, but come on, we’re up 6–2 with four outs to go. Have some faith.

Embree gets Matsui, and the Yanks never threaten again, and when Jeter makes the last out and the PA plays “Dirty Water,” all the different TV crews hustle to set up their tall director’s chairs for the postgame shows.

April 17th

Steve and I have been going back and forth about the Yankees’ place in our cosmos. I’ve been trying to argue that they’ve only gotten in our way a few times across our overall history. In the fifties and sixties (besides the Impossible Dream year), we were so bad that it didn’t matter. ’78’s a fluke, and people forget that after our big fold in August we came back and won our last eight to gain the tie for the division. The Winfield-Mattingly Yanks never gave us any problems; were, in fact, massive chokers, consistently finishing second to Toronto, Baltimore and us. In ’86 we stood in our own way (or Calvin Schiraldi did). In ’99, we were lucky to get by Cleveland, and last year we pulled a rabbit out of our hat to beat Oakland, and were playing on the road the whole time. Plus we took enough out of the Yanks that they had nothing left for the Marlins. We were their stumbling block, beating them twice at the Stadium, putting their weaknesses on display. All the Marlins had to do was mop them up.

One luxury of having two bona fide aces is the constant possibility of a marquee matchup. Last Saturday it was Pedro-Halladay, this Saturday it’s Schilling-Mussina. With the watering down of pitching talent around the league, these games are rare, and I’d be at Fenway except that I have to tape an interview for Canadian TV.

Moose is rocky from the start, and Schilling’s solid. Bill Mueller goes deep, and Manny. It’s 4–1 in the seventh when Schilling’s 121st pitch freezes Jeter for the first out—and suddenly here comes Francona from the dugout. Like Pedro against Toronto, Schilling looks around, surprised someone is warming. He turns his head and swears, but gives up the ball and gets a big hand. A few minutes later the camera shows him in the dugout, going over his charts. Another power move by Francona? Or just notice that he won’t be like Grady? I think it’s no coincidence that he pulled both aces at home during high-profile wins.

Johnny doubles in an insurance run in the eighth, and the Yanks get a cheapie in the ninth, but this one’s over. Schilling beats Moose and we’ve taken the first two. On Extra Innings, Tom Caron says, “So the worst we can do is split.” Why think of the worst, especially right now? We’ve got D-Lowe going against Contreras tomorrow. It’s this kind of fatalism—from the Sox’s own network!—that drives me crazy. You never hear this kind of hedging from the Yankees’ YES-men.

April 18th

We get going early so we can be the first ones on the Monster, but as we’re driving up I read in the Sunday paper that there’s no BP today. While it doesn’t mention it anywhere, and even the Sox ticket office and the guys who let us in through Gate C aren’t sure where we’re supposed to go, it’s On-Field Photo Day. We take a right toward the stairs up to the Monster and notice the garage door to center’s open. We fall in behind a staff member escorting two kids and then we’re on the warning track in the bright sunshine. A yellow rope cordons off the grass, but we can walk all the way around to the dugout, where Schilling is sitting, being interviewed by a writer.

The PA tells us the plan. The Sox will come out and walk all the way around so we can take photos. Each player has a handler to make sure they don’t sign autographs. Still, I’ve got to try. “No, I’ll get in trouble,” Bill Mueller says, like a little kid.

The guys are nice, shaking hands and posing. I get Steph with hitting coach Ron “Papa Jack” Jackson and Keith Foulke. Trudy’s being crowded and can’t get clean shots, so she moves out to the warning track in right where it’s empty. Johnny Pesky’s sitting in the dugout with Andrew, and I toss him a ball to sign. I notice Manny on the other end of the dugout, signing, and make my way over there, scissoring over the wall and then high-stepping over the railings between sections. The mob around him is packed tight, but I finally get through and have him sign my ball.

The Monster seats are a dream—a counter for your stuff, a swiveling barstool and room behind it to stand or lean against the wall. We’re in the second row. In the first row, there are new signs that read: WARNING: FOR YOUR SAFETY PLEASE DO NOT REACH OVER WALL. The one drawback is that we’re a long way from the plate. It’s a little breezy, but when the wind is blowing right you can smell the burgers grilling. The sun’s out, Lowry’s with us, and when Kevin Millar doubles into the corner in the first, scoring Bill Mueller, the day seems ideal.

The pitching matchup’s in our favor, or should be. Contreras is their fourth starter, and a weak link. The worry is that Lowe, working on ten days’ rest, will be too strong and leave the ball up. In the third that’s exactly what happens. After he walks A-Rod, he gives up a single to Giambi, a double to Sheffield, a single to Matsui and a double to Posada—all of them down the line in left. Lowe strikes out Travis Lee, but Enrique Wilson singles to right, scoring Matsui to make it 4–1. Jeter grounds out, scoring Posada, then Bernie Williams doubles down the left-field line. That’s it for Lowe: 2²/₃ innings, 8 hits, 7 runs.

The Sox get two back in the bottom of the inning, chasing Contreras. We should have more except for a blown call. With two on and two out, Tek slaps one down the first-base line that Travis Lee has to dive to spear. Reliever and ex-Sock Paul Quantrill beats Tek to the bag, but Lee has trouble getting the ball out of his glove, and by the time the throw arrives, Quantrill’s well past the base. The ump punches Tek out to end the inning, bringing Francona from the dugout to argue, though by then it’s pointless.

Also during this inning, the Yanks haul out their Cuban National Team tactics, slowing down the pace of the game in the middle of our rally to quiet the crowd and throw off the hitters’ timing. Posada visits the mound. They send the trainer out in midcount, as if the pitcher has some injury. He doesn’t, but because the trainer accompanies Torre, the visit doesn’t count as a visit by the manager. They send the pitching coach. They change pitchers. They have an infield conference. They send the pitching coach again in midcount. The pitcher himself wanders behind the mound to stall. They change pitchers again. Technically it’s only semilegal, a judgment call with the league’s new rules requiring umps to pick up the pace of the game. A good crew chief wouldn’t put up with this nonsense.

It stays 7–3. There’s not much action, and the crowd’s grumpy and distracted. From time to time the bleachers rise and roar, signaling a fight. The cops haul some Yankee fans away, and everyone cheers, “Yank-ees suck! Yank-ees suck!” In the seventh, Tom Gordon comes in to some moderate boos, but it’s hard to get too excited, down by four runs. The sole highlight of the late innings is an awkward sliding catch by Sheffield along the right-field line. The crowd salutes him with the old Atlanta tomahawk chop, with the finger attached.

We lose 7–3. It was basically a one-inning game, over after the third. The loss can’t ruin the day—walking on the field, seeing the guys, sitting on the Monster—but it makes for a quiet ride home. And tomorrow’s their matchup: Kevin Brown against Bronson Arroyo. Okay, now who’s the fatalist?

The Yankees have never beaten the Red Sox in the World Series; with both teams in the American League, that, of course, is impossible. Nevertheless, the Yankees (who are playing the Red Sox in the third game of their first four-game set of 2004 as I write this) have become the Sox’s principal rival over the last fifty or sixty years, and as someone who has written a great many scary stories during his career, I almost have to write about them. For Red Sox fans, the Yankees are the thing under the bed, the boogeyman in the closet. When they come to us, we expect bad luck on horseback; when we go to them, we expect, in our hearts, not to return alive.[3]

The rivalry has captured hearts in both Boston and New York, with fans cross-pollinating freely (and sometimes fistily) at the games. On April 16th, the New York Post’s front page showed a pin-striped Darth Vader with a Yankees logo on his helmet and a bat on his shoulder. It quoted Red Sox president Larry Lucchino, who in 2002 called the Yankees “the Evil Empire,” and trumpeted MAY THE CURSE BE WITH YOU. On the Fox Game of the Week that night (of course it was the Game of the Week, are you kidding), the announcers displayed a souvenir T-shirt proclaiming SHOWDOWN IN BEANTOWN. That one must have been officially sanctioned by Red Sox management. In the bleachers, the ones reading JETER SUCKS are much more popular. I understand there’s one featuring A-Rod with an even more obscene sentiment, but I haven’t seen that one yet (I’m sure I will). And how many fightin’ fans have been ejected by the security people over the years? I have no idea, but as Ole Casey used to say, “You could look it up.”

When there are fights, the first blows are usually thrown by Red Sox fans; the jeers and epithets chiefly come from Sox fans, too. Maybe Billy Herman, who managed the club from 1964 to 1966 (not stellar years), explained it best: “For Red Sox fans, there are only two seasons: August and winter.” Losing makes us sad… except when it doesn’t. Then itmakes us pissed. The attitude of your average pinstripe fan, on the other hand—unless and until directly attacked—tends to be one of indulgent, slightly patronizing good nature. Arguing with a Yankee fan is like arguing with a real estate agent who voted for Ronald Reagan.

I date the Sox/Yanks rivalry of the Modern Age from October 3rd, 1948, a day on which the Red Sox actually beat the Yankees, 10–5. What’s wrong with that, you say? Well, it got us into a one-game playoff game with the Cleveland Indians, one we lost, 8–3. That’s Heartbreak Number One.

Fast-forward past 1951 (Mickey Mantle makes his major league debut versus the Red Sox, Yanks win 4–0), and 1952–53 (the Red Sox lose thirteen in a row to the Yankees), and 1956 (Ted Williams fined for spitting at Boston fans after misplaying a Mickey Mantle fly ball, an incident Williams will never live down). Let us forget 1960, when the Yankees set the record for team home runs (192)…against Boston. And let us by all means wince past Roger Maris’s 61st home run, which came against Tracy Stallard…who pitched for Boston.

No, let’s move directly to 1978. “Nothing compares,” says Dan Shaughnessy in The Curse of the Bambino. “The mind calcifies. This was the apocalyptic, cataclysmic fold by which all others must be measured.” Yeah, and it was pretty bad, too. On July 20th of that year, the Red Sox led the Yankees by fourteen games.[4] Then came the infamous Boston Massacre, in which the Red Sox were swept—not at Yankee Stadium but at Fenway—by the Bombers in a four-game series. The Sox ended the season in a flat-footed tie with the Yankees, and lost the playoff game on Monsieur Dent’s Punch-and-Bucky home run, the pop fly heard ’round the world. That’s Heartbreak Number Two.

In 1999, the Red Sox went into postseason as the wild-card team and once again faced the Yankees. The Yanks won both of the first two games in the Stadium, both by one run; they qualify as Heartbreaks Number Three-A and Three-B. (Game 1 of this series, you may remember, wasthe one in which Chuck Knoblauch dropped a throw from Scott Brosius; the ump then ruled he’d dropped the ball while transferring it from his glove to his hand.) The third game, the first played at Fenway in the ’99 series, offered some small measure of revenge. In that game, Sox batters pummeled first Roger Clemens and then a parade of relievers, Pedro Martinez fanned twelve, and the Red Sox won, 13–1. It was the most lopsided loss in the Yankees’ postseason history, but in the end it made no difference; you can’t carry any of those runs over to later games, can you? In the following game, the Red Sox were victimized by another bad call, this time by Tim Tschida,[5] and the Red Sox ended up losing, 9–2. The Yankees won the final game, 6–1. That’s Heartbreak Number Three-C.

Whenever the eye of Red Sox management falls on a likely player, it seems that the Eye of Steinbrenner (like the Eye of Sauron in his tower) has also fallen there. It was very likely frustration as much as anything else that prompted Larry Lucchino’s “Evil Empire” comment following the signing of Jose Contreras[6] in 2002; there was even more frustration following the signing of Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod was willing to come to Boston; it was the Players’ Union that balked, citing a $15 million shortfall in Boston’s offer and claiming it would set a disastrous precedent (bullshit—ballplayers are even more egregiously overpaid than best-selling novelists). The fans understand the truth: George Steinbrenner’s your basic fat-cat owner. His pockets are deeper because his fan base is deeper. Current capacity at Fenway is about 35,000; at Yankee Stadium, it’s 58,000. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The differences carry over to all the ancillary goodies, from T-shirts to the big casino, TV telecast rights. Hummmm, baby…and while you’re at it, gimme that cable deal, sweetheart.

But enough dallying. We’ve reached Heartbreak Number Four, the one I’ve been putting off but can put off no longer. Worse than the Boston Massacre? Yes. Worse than the ground ball through Bill Buckner’s wickets? Yes. Worse, even, than the Bucky Dent cheap home run? Yes, because more recent. The wound is fresher; still bleeding, in fact. Part of me just wants to say, “If you don’t know what happened, look it up or go rent avideotape somewhere. It hurts to even think about it, let alone write about it.” Because, I think, we did more than come back; we were ahead. We were five outs away from beating the hated, feared Yankees (in their own house!) in the American League Championship Series and going back to the World Series for the first time since 1986. We had our fingers around that puppy, and it just… slipped… away.

The smart money had the Yankees winning that series, but the Red Sox took the first and fourth games behind Tim Wakefield, who simply bamboozled the Yankee hitters with his knuckleball… and who would issue the Final Heartbreak in the eleventh inning of Game 7. In between was the famous Game 3 rhubarb—more bad blood between two teams that have had it in for each other for what seems like a thousand years.

The trouble started when Pedro Martinez hit Karim Garcia in the back (narrowly missing his head). After Garcia was forced at second (taking Red Sox second baseman Todd Walker out with an ugly spikes-up slide), Yankee catcher Jorge Posada yelled at Martinez from the dugout. Martinez reputedly responded in charming fashion. “I’ll hit your head, too, smart-ass!” cried he.

In frame number four, Roger Clemens—never a gentleman—threw at Manny Ramirez, who responded by telling the Rocket he could go fuck himself. Roger responded by telling Manny that no, Manny could go fuck him self. A real meeting of the minds, you see. The benches erupted. Don Zimmer, the aging Yankee coach,[7] ended up rolling around on the ground, courtesy of Pedro Martinez. Later, Zim made a tearful apology… behavior which cost fellow New Englander Edmund Muskie his shot at the presidency, but maybe that’s neither here nor there.

In any case, the Yankees won the game. They also won Game 5 behind David (“Bostonians Are Psycho”) Wells. The 2003 ALCS returned to Yankee Stadium with the Bronx Bombers needing only one more win to go on to the World Series. But the Sox won ugly in Game 6, 9–6.

So, Game 7. The Red Sox got off to a 4–0 lead behind Pedro, the ace of the staff. Jason Giambi then hit a pair of solo home runs for the Yanks; David Ortiz hit one for the Sox. It was 5–2 Red Sox in the eighth inning. Mayor Rudy Giuliani thought the Red Sox were finally going towin it.[8] Martinez got the first batter (Nick Johnson) he faced in that inning, and the Red Sox were five outs away from the World Series. For we Red Sox fans, that was the 2003 equivalent of Pickett’s Charge: as close as we ever got. Jeter (Jeter the Horrible, to Sox fans) doubled to right. Bernie Williams singled, driving in Jeter. Matsui hit a ground-rule double after Grady conferred with the tiring but game Martinez and decided to leave him in (hell, it had worked once or twice during the regular season). And still left him in to face Posada, who dumped one over second base to tie the game. The Red Sox manager finally came with the hook… but Red Sox Nation would pretty much agree it was too Little, too late. In the bottom of the eleventh inning, Mayor Giuliani told his wife and daughter, “You’re going to see your first walk-off home run”.[9] The batter was Aaron Boone, and he made the mayor a prophet. Tim Wakefield, the man who was arguably the most responsible for getting the Red Sox as far as they were able to go, served up the fatal pitch, but had nothing to hang his head about. The real damage was done with one out in the eighth.

And is there a reason to drag all this history into a book about the 2004 Red Sox? There sure is. More than one, actually. First, baseball is a game of history, and those who don’t learn from it are condemned to get drubbed by it. Second, even in a much improved American League East, the Yankees and Red Sox still seem, at this point in the young season, like the two dominant teams.[10] The tradition and history will hang over each of these matches like grandstand shadows over the infield at 5 P.M. The Red Sox half of the tradition, unfortunately, is one of losing the big games. The history half is one of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as on the night of October 17th, 2003.

Looking the other way, into the future (into the outfield, where the shadows have not yet reached, if you will), is the simple fact that the landscape of the American League East has changed since 2003; even two weeks into the season, that seems apparent. The lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays (the previously lowly D-Rays) are at .500, and the previously lowly Baltimore Orioles are in first place. Those things will very likely change, but I think it’s likely that the Blue Jays, also improved, won’t finish thirty games below .500, as they would if they continued along at their current pace.

What all this means to the Sox/Yanks rivalry is that one team is apt to be called when the postseason bell rings, but probably not both. And that makes the knees of every Red Sox fan tremble, no matter what they may tell you, no matter what sentiments they wear on their T-shirts, no matter what vile canards they may call down upon Yankee outfielders from the Monster seats high above.

There is no calculus here; the math is simple. We all hate what we fear, and sensible Red Sox fans fear the Yankees. Now, on the eighteenth of April, the Red Sox lead the nineteen-game regular-season series two games to one. A great many other games will be played with a great many other clubs before the dust settles and the 2004 season is in the record books…but in my heart, I believe the American League East will come down to Them, or to Us. And because we fear what we hate, in my heart I always dread it when they come to us. The only thing I dread more is when we must go to them. I suppose it would be different if I could play, but of course I can’t; I’m helpless, doomed to only watch. To believe in the Curse of the Bambino even though I don’t believe in it. And to think of the late Stephen Jay Gould, who somehow rooted for both teams (maybe in the end that was what killed him, not the cancer), and who once said, “The deepest possible anguish…[is] running a long hard course again and again to the very end, and then self-destructing one inch from the finish line.”

This is Patriots’ Day, which is a holiday only in Maine, where it chiefly means no mail delivery, and Massachusetts, where it means the Boston Marathon and an 11 A.M. Red Sox game at Fenway. Today the Red Sox spotted the Yankees leads of 3–0 and 4–1, but “Bronson Arroyo settled down and pitched a good game,” in ESPN SportsCenter argot, and the Red Sox won it by a final score of 5–4.[11] I’m happy to report that A-Rod’s woes continue; he went 1 for 17 in the four-game series (hee-hee), the one hit was a meaningless single, and he made a throwing error in today’s tilt that basically cost the Yankees the game. So now we’re 3-1 with the Yanks, and can get back to the more normal business of playing baseball.

Whew.

April 20th

I read in the paper that in his first home game Dauber hit two homers, leading the PawSox to a 3–2 victory over Rochester. And to replace Frank Castillo, the Red Sox have activated lefty Lenny DiNardo, giving us four lefties in the pen for the first time I can remember. Must be setting up for this weekend’s series in the Bronx, that short porch in right. I hope these PawSox can get it done. I’d start resting Embree now.

The crowd in the Skydome tonight is around 6,000, despite the Pedro-Halladay rematch. The Maple Leafs are playing the Ottawa Senators in Game 7 of their playoff series, and at one point Eric Frede, NESN’s new man-in-the-stands, says there are more people in the concourse watching hockey than there are in the seats. Oh, Canada.

Pedro throws well and we win easily, but there’s a little bad blood in the ninth when reliever Terry Adams goes up and in on Manny. Manny ducks away, tossing his helmet aside, and stands squared with the mound, arms out, calling, “What do you want?” Earlier, reliever Valerio de los Santos knocked Ortiz on his ass with a pitch aimed at his face, so it’s not an over-reaction on Manny’s part, as Jerry claims. When their no-name pitchers throw at your big three and four guys, it’s on. The benches clear, and while there are no punches thrown, it’s a signal that we’re not going to take that shit. Expect newbie Lenny DiNardo to dust someone like Delgado tomorrow, or Timlin to plunk Wells or Phelps.

April 21st

A package arrives from the Souvenir Store (which is in fact Twins Enterprises now; the Sox have made it their official store) with the glossy 2004 yearbook, a blue windbreaker made in Korea and a T-shirt made in Uzbekistan. Now I’m outfitted for the summer. The yearbook must have been put to bed in late March, because there, sharing the same page, are Shump and Tony Wo.

UPS brings another present, a rough cut of a future episode of Kingdom Hospital called “Butterfingers.” The story line is familiar to Sox fans: Earl Candleton, the first baseman for the long-suffering New England Robins, drops a pop-up that would have won them the ’87 World Series. From then on he’s hounded by fans who call him Butterfingers and pelt him with balls. He descends into alcoholism, living in a fleabag of a mission in Lewiston. When the Robins go to Game 7 of the Series, with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth, Earl holds a revolver to his temple. If the Robins win, he lives; if they fold, he dies.

Of course, they fold and he pulls the trigger and drops into a cobwebby purgatory as the doctors and kinder spirits of Kingdom Hospital try to save him. (The F/X haven’t been matted in yet, so there are scenes where a grip follows the waif ghost Mary around with the head of the benevolent beast Antubis on a stick.) In the end, the spirits, with the help of Peter, the artist in a car-crash-induced coma, allow Earl to go back to that moment in ’87 and make the catch, changing himself and the world. The two Down syndrome dishwashers who serve as oracles have the last word: “Baseball’s not always a sad game. Sometimes the good guys win.”

Tonight the matchup is Wake versus Ted Lilly, who beat us on Opening Day. Wake’s sharp and Doug Mirabelli, happy to be starting, wallops two homers to give us a 3–0 lead, but the Jays chip away.

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.

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.

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, before 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.

The Yanks are, I should add, something of an anomaly: the only team against which I actively root (it was true for a while of Cleveland in the early nineties, but no more). And it seems to me that the Yankees almost have to have this third game, not to keep from falling five games off the pace early (although five really is quite a few, at any point in the season), but because it’s the hated Red Sox and they are at home.

In the third inning, the story still seems to be young Vazquez, who gets six of the first nine outs by way of the K. Then, in the top of the fourth, Mark Bellhorn, batting today in the two-hole, walks (because that’s what Mark Bellhorn does). After Ortiz strikes out looking—number seven for Vazquez—Manny Ramirez comes up. After getting ahead of Manny 0-2, Vazquez attempts to waste a curveball. He wastes it out over the plate, and…see ya. Over the Yankee bullpen and into the Bleacher Zone. We’re up 2–0 in the middle innings.

Bottom of the fifth, Yankees threatening with runners on second and third, two out and Jeter (0 for 23) at the plate. Takes called strike one, outside corner; chases a fastball way up and out of the zone for strike two. Pedro sets, fires, teases Jeter outside, 1-2. Pedro’s ready to go again but Jeter steps out, commanding right hand up to the ump in the old familiar gesture. Now he’s back in, and Pedro immediately strikes him outlooking with high, hard cheese. Jeter is 0 for 24, and the Yankees once more fail with two in scoring position (before Jeter, Enrique Wilson, who usually beats Pedro like a drum, popped out to Pokey).

Sweet!

In the sixth, A-Rod doubles with one out and goes to third on a Giambi groundout (Cesar Crespo in short right field—an almost comical overshift—makes the play on Giambi). Rodriguez, at least, has begun to come around (his average has crept up to something like .252), but it does the Yankees no good; Gary Sheffield fouls out to Varitek, and it’s still 2–0 Sox, going into the lates.

Pedro’s done after seven: his game to win, the bullpen’s to lose. The bullpen hasn’t given up a run in twentysome innings, but now Williamson’s on, and he’s a scary guy. Here’s Jeter again. He tries to bunt; no joy. Fouls one away, and it’s 0-2, a place Derek has gotten all too familiar with just lately. Let’s see how Williamson plays this. He throws a low fastball, a true waste pitch, but Jeter goes fishing and strikes out. This time the crowd does boo, and even the resolutely upbeat Yankee announcers finally take notice. “Like booing Santa Claus,” one of them remarks reprovingly.

It’s the bottom of the ninth and last call for the Yankees. Here’s Alex Rodriguez, and it’s still Williamson to face him—no Keith Foulke, a little surprising. Williamson runs the count full on A-Rod, who has 7 of the last 22 Yankee hits; so much for that slump. Rodriguez, after fouling off one 3-2 pitch, grounds out, third to first. Now Jason Giambi grounds to Pokey Reese. Two out. Here’s Gary Sheffield, who has one of the Yankees’ four hits today. This time he strikes out, and suddenly—incredibly—the Red Sox have taken six of seven from the AL champs. The camera sneaks a look into their dugout, and the look on Jeter’s face is one of pure amazement. And it’s justified; this is the first time the Red Sox have beaten the Yankees six out of the first seven since 1913.

Sweet!

April 26th

Tonight’s the premiere of the Red Sox movie: Still, We Believe. Alyssa, my former student, has lined up a press pass for me, and while I’ve put together a short list of questions and fitted fresh batteries in the minicassette recorder, I’ve still got mixed feelings about crossing the line between fan and journalist.

We get to the Loews on the Common right on time, check in at the press table and claim a spot behind the velvet rope next to the red carpet. I’ve never had a press pass before, and I have no idea what secret powers it gives me. Outside, WEEI is doing a live feed from the street. It’s raining and cold out, and the crowd’s thin. As more people filter in, we’re boxed and jostled by TV cameras. NESN’s well represented, ESPN2, NECN, all the Boston channels. Nothing’s happening, but there’s some serious jockeying for position. Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar are definites, but those are the only two names mentioned. I’m hoping for Eck, maybe Yaz, Tim Wakefield, Pokey Reese.

Wally the Green Monster shows up in a tux, mugging for the cameras. “Hey Wally, who are you wearing?”

The fans featured in the film arrive, and the cameramen blind them with their lights, the sports anchors do their stand-ups. I’m not really interested in the fan-stars. I know I’ll get their stories from the movie anyway.

Tom Caron stops at the press table, and Dan Shaughnessy. Big Sam Horn signs a ball for me—something a real journalist would never ever ask him to do—and there’s Tom Werner and John Henry and Larry Lucchino, and Luis Tiant. Everyone but the players.

Outside, rented searchlights twirl across the night sky. It’s nearly show-time when Kevin Millar arrives in a vintage Western print shirt, jeans and shiny black cowboy boots. He smiles as he shakes hands and signs, doing stand-up after stand-up as he inches down the red carpet. I bypass the clot of reporters and set up at an open spot a little farther down.

I catch him just as he’s bouncing out. He’s trailed by a guy my age dressed head to toe in Sox paraphernalia, with his huge, naked beer gut bulging out and painted with the Red Sox logo and STILL WE BELIEVE. WEEI has judged him the most outrageous fan and given him a ticket to the show. He shakes Millar’s hand, pleased to meet him.

“Kevin,” I say—and he talks to me just because I’ve got this recorder; it has power, like a gun—“what were you like as a fan, when you were younger?”

“Like this guy.”

“You’re kind of the official fan of the Sox with the Cowboy Up, but who was your team?”

“Dodgers. Grew up in Los Angeles. Dodgers were my team.”

“Favorite player?”

“Steve Garvey.”

“You wear the jersey?”

“Never had a jersey, but I was a big fan of the Dodgers. I’d go to a lot of games.”

“Listen a lot on the radio?”

“Vin Scully.”

“Ever get the autographs?”

“Went and got the autographs, did it all.”

“Are you still a fan now? Can you be a fan now that you’re a player?”

“No doubt about it.”

“Are you still a Dodger fan?”

“Still a Dodger fan, still a fan of baseball.”

“You check their box score every morning?”

“No, I don’t check ’em, but I pull for ’em when I see ’em.”

“So you hope to see ’em this fall?”

“That’d be nice.”

And that’s it, I thank him and he’s gone to the next mike, the next camera. I’ve definitely crossed the line with my impersonation of a journalist, but, as a fan, it’s my duty to take advantage of whatever access I can get, for the sheer thrill of it.

Johnny Damon’s not here yet, but they’re going to start the movie, so we crowd into the theater with Kevin Millar and the owners and everyone else. Down front, a radio team introduces all the Sox VIPs, who stand in turn to receive their applause. When they call Johnny Damon’s name, Big Sam stands up as a joke. Finally the filmmaker, Paul Doyle, thanks everyone who helped and says, “The fans are the Red Sox,” a sentiment which seems true even before he presents his evidence. When I was talking to a real journalist earlier, I mentioned that I’ve only been a Sox fan for twenty-five years, so I’m new. I was here before Clemens, and I’ll be here long after Pedro. I’ve got a no-cut contract.

Steve’s in the film—briefly, a shot of him chatting with John Henry before the ill-fated season opener in Tampa Bay. That was the one Chad Fox blew, and while the movie doesn’t have the time to tell the rest of the story, after we dumped Fox he went on, along with former Sox closer Ugie Urbina, to defeat the Yanks and become a World Champion.

In trying to squeeze the whole season (and eight very different fans’ lives) into two hours, the film can’t connect all the dots. What strikes me most are all the Sox from last year’s squad who are gone: Shea Hillenbrand, Todd Walker, Brandon Lyon, Damian Jackson, John Burkett, Jeff Suppan, Scott Sauerbeck and of course manager Grady Little, who, since we’re in a room with the people who fired him, gets laughed at more than I find necessary. We witness Theo informing our number one prospect Freddy Sanchez that he’s being traded to Pittsburgh (for Suppan and Sauerbeck, neither of whom panned out).

The main tension and source of comedy in the movie is the tug-of-war between hope and pessimism. Angry Bill, a diehard who’s become a fixture on local call-in shows, vows that he’ll never believe in the Sox again, and sees disaster everywhere—until we take the A’s. Fireman Steve Craven is more laid-back. “We’ll get ’em tomorrow,” he says, and caps the film, after the disaster of Game 7, with his observation that all the losing will make finally winning it all that much sweeter, “don’t you think?”

It’s a fun film, but there’s so much missing. Where’s Bill James and his ridiculous bullpen-by-committee idea? Where’s BK giving us the finger? Where’s Roger’s last win in Fenway? Where’s Todd Walker’s 2-out, 2-strike shot against Baltimore? Even the intricacies of the playoff games are glossed over, so while it gets some of the emotion of being a Sox fan, it still just skims the surface, and being a Sox fan is about total immersion.

The after-party at Felt is crowded and loud, but there’s free Sam Adams, good hors d’oeuvres, and, for the brave, Fenway Franks served out of actual vendors’ steamers. Beside us, Luis Tiant is chowing down. I want to talk to Larry Lucchino, maybe interview him about growing up a Pirates fan in Pittsburgh, but he’s lost in the crowd, and then when I see him, he’s on his way out. We’ve got to get going too. Tomorrow’s a school day, it’s raining like hell and we’ve got a long drive.

On the way home, Trudy says she was disappointed that only Kevin Millar showed. I am too, but big props to Mr. Millar, who did it all cheerfully. In his business a night off’s a cherished rarity. I know I get on him for his lack of speed in the outfield, but, as with that difficult assignment, tonight he stepped up when no one else did.

April 27th

Ellis Burks’s knee is hurting him, and his .133 batting average is hurting us, so he’s on the DL and the Dauber’s coming up from Pawtucket. In ten games there, he hit .350 with 5 homers and 11 RBIs, including a walk-off shot. “In baseball, you’ve got to keep plugging—until forever, I guess.” Is there any wonder why we love this guy?

A strange front must be moving over New England, because it’s been sunny all day here, but up in Boston it’s pouring. To cheer us up during the rain delay, NESN shows clips of Nomar and BK working out at Fenway earlier today. Nomar’s in shorts, taking grounders at half-speed and then talking with Mia Hamm over the low wall along third. BK’s also in shorts, playing catch in the outfield grass; you think of him as this whip of a kid, but his thighs are massive and cut like early Arnold. Don and Jerry make it sound like he’ll be our number five guy and Arroyo will go to the pen.

A good hour and a half after game time, the Sox call it.

April 28th

The team’s so excited about BK’s rehab that he’s going to skip his last minor league start and pitch the first game of tomorrow’s day-night doubleheader. Schilling will still go tonight, and Lowe tomorrow night, meaning Wake is sacrificing his start, something he’s done throughout his long tenure with us, unselfish of him, and extremely valuable, giving his manager more flexibility.

Though he’s running and taking infield, the team says Nomar’s still at least two weeks away.

April 29th

After a rainout on the 27th, Schilling (and the bullpen) tossed another gem last night, beating Tampa Bay, 6–0. Tampa Bay only got a single runner as far as third base, and while I like the D-Rays (I sometimes think of the Red Sox as my baseball wife and Not-So-Sweet Lou Piniella’s Devil Rays as my baseball mistress), I have to admit they are reverting to type after a hopeful start. But of course the Red Sox’s 13-6 start is also part of a pattern I have observed over the years; call it BoSox Happy Hoop Days. The way it works is simple enough: the Red Sox have a tendency to tear up the American League until the NBA playoffs wrap up; after that, more often than not they sputter. And leave us face it, a two-game lead over Baltimore and a four-game lead over the Yankees, while better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, really ain’t all that much. Of course it beats being behind, but I think I’ll wait until after July Fourth to decide whether or not Schilling and Company are for real.

Footnote A on today’s entry: Our Mr. Kim, he of the restless middle finger, is back from sore-shoulder woes (and a stint in Pawtucket) today. He’s supposed to be limited to seventy-five pitches, after which Tim Wakefield will come in to relieve. Damn! It’s a day-night doubleheader, and I was kind of hoping Timmy would pull a Wilbur Wood and start both games (nor am I joking).

Footnote B on today’s entry: Although Derek Jeter’s hitless streak has now reached 0 for 32, tying a Yankee record (the immortal Jimmy Wynn, in 1977), the Bombers beat the Oakland A’s for the second straight night. They’ve only picked up half a game on Boston (because of that rainout), but the wins suggest that Boston’s weekend sweep in the Bronx mayhave had more to do with Red Sox pitching, defense, and the bat of Manny Ramirez than it did with any Yankee funk. It may be too early to declare the Red Sox the class of the AL East, but it may not be too early to at least suspect that this year they out class the New York Yankees.

I check the standings to see how many games up we are on the O’s (2) and discover we’ve got the best record in baseball. I think that’s got to be wrong, since we opened 3-4, but no, only the Twins and the pitching-rich Marlins are anywhere near us.

Game 1 is BK versus Victor Zambrano, who’s had some success against us. Dauber’s starting at first base, and on the first play of the game lets a grounder slip under his glove for an E. Welcome back, Dauber.

It’s a brilliant spring day, sunny, in the mid-seventies. Because this is a rainout of a night game, the Sox have to let ticket-holders sit in Sections 34 and 35 in dead center, which normally for day games are sealed off with a black tarp for the hitter’s backdrop. The Sox have solved the problem by giving everyone sitting in the sections a T-shirt the same forest green as the seats.

Both pitchers are throwing well, but the defenses behind them are scuffling, as if the idea of playing an extra game today doesn’t agree with either team. Bill Mueller and Doug Mirabelli lose a foul pop in the sun; it drops not between them but ten feet to the side. Later, Billy and Cesar Crespo go back for a short fly in left; Manny comes racing in, calling them off, almost collides with Crespo and drops the ball.

A play you rarely see in the second: Jose Cruz Jr.’s leading off first when Tino Martinez hits a screamer right at him. Cruz doesn’t have time to go right or left, he just ducks. The liner skims off his back, barely nicking him, but Dauber points to let the ump know. The first-base ump says it never touched him, bringing Francona out to argue—at which time, without consulting anyone, the second-base ump calls Cruz out. Go Blue!

Kim looks sharp, getting groundouts with the ball down, then climbing the ladder with a good rising fastball. I saw his first start for the Sox last year in Pittsburgh, an efficient win, and he looks much the same. He’s up to 70 pitches after five, and finishes the inning with a strikeout. As he walks off, the fans stand—remarkable, since this is the first time he’s pitched since giving us the finger. Five innings, one hit, no runs. Come home, Byung-Hyun, all is forgiven.

Zambrano’s cruising too, striking out the side in the fourth, but in the fifth, with a man on, he gets behind David Ortiz 3-0. Zambrano obviously hasn’t read the scouting report, because David’s always got the green light. He plants a meatball in the sea of green shirts in Section 35.

It’s all we need, as Wake comes on to baffle the D-Rays for two more innings, then Timlin, then Embree. The final’s 4–0, our third straight shutout. The pen hasn’t been scored on in over 30 innings.

We get on the road to Game 2 just as Game 1’s ending. We’ve got a table up in the new right-field roof terrace, and Steve’s dugout seats. Trudy has papers to grade, so Caitlin and her friend Lindsay will take the good seats first and we’ll switch after the fourth.

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.”

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

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

May 5th

Mr. Kim’s going tonight, his second start of the season. He’s shaky, but Big David hits a solo homer and then a three-run shot to give him some breathing room. Which we immediately give back when, on three consecutive plays, Kim uncorks a wild pickoff throw, Bellhorn lets an easy grounder through his legs, and Millar kicks a single around right field. It’s 5–5 and time for Mystery Malaska, who shuts Cleveland down. Bronson Arroyo’s next out of the pen. He’s in direct competition for the number 5 spot with Kim, and makes a statement by throwing two scoreless innings while risky David Riske comes in for Cleveland and surrenders a first-pitch three-run rainbow to Bill Mueller.

In the middle of the game, we switch to ESPN to check on the Pirates, who are facing Clemens, and find out that Piazza’s hit the homer he’s been waiting for so long, finally overtaking Pudge. The commentator says he’s now “the greatest home-run-hitting catcher in history.”

“No,” I correct him, “he just has the most homers.”

Each time Manny comes to the plate, everyone in Jacobs Field boos except for a woman’s tiny voice picked up by the microphone: “We love you, Manny.” With two down and two strikes on him in the ninth, the crowd rises, hoping for some payback, and Manny hits a screw-you double off the wall in right-center. When Tek singles, Sveum—up three runs—gets aggressive and sends Manny. Manny doesn’t expect it; he hasn’t been running hard from second and has to turn it on. The throw from Jody Gerut’s a two-hopper, in time, but Victor Martinez is too worried about Manny and drops it. 9–5 Sox, and a very quiet crowd.

May 6th

When I went to bed last night, the Yanks were losing late in Oakland to Barry Zito. The first thing I do when I wake up is hit ESPN, and, perfect timing, they’re showing the highlights. Both BALCO boys went deep for the Yanks. They’re down 3–2 in the ninth when A-Rod’s up with no outs and no one on. He swings, and just the way the camera pans toward the stands, zooming on the crowd, lets me know the ball’s gone. Then with two down and two on, Tony Clark hits a quail toward the gap in left that the A’s outfielder can’t quite get to. 4–3 Yanks. And then there’s Mariano Rivera dealing with two on and two out, and the A’s last hope pops to second.

Not the way I wanted to start the day. So the Yanks are playing like the regular season means something. And the A’s, for all of Billy Beane’s genius, still haven’t figured out that great starters are useless without a decent pen.

A nice matchup for the final game of the Cleveland set: Pedro, who’s undefeated lifetime in Jacobs Field, against their young ace C. C. Sabathia. Sabathia comes out blazing, while Matt Lawton puts Pedro’s first pitch over the wall in dead center. Two hits and a grounder later, we’re down 2–0.

It’s a fast game, with both aces going right after batters. Old-time hockey, eh? Lou Merloni’s playing third for them, which is just weird. Pokey triples, but we strand him.

In the sixth, Bellhorn doubles. Kapler singles, and Sveum, down two runs with nobody out, holds Bellhorn. Ortiz grounds into a DP, but Bellhorn scores, and then Manny, who owns Sabathia, plants one in the right-field stands to tie the game. Meanwhile, Pedro’s only given up one hit since the first inning.

In the seventh, McCarty’s on first with two down and Pokey at the plate. I tell Steph that Pokey’s going to hit a double to the gap and we’ll get to see big, gangly McCarty come wheeling all the way around. Unlike most of my hip-shot predictions, this one comes true—McCarty pumping his arms like a crazed windmill—and we’ve got the lead. Bellhorn comes up and doubles down the line in right, and Pokey scores easily. 4–2.

Pedro’s been waiting awhile and struggles in the bottom of the inning, putting two on with one out, and who should step in but Lou. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lou, but we need a win here. He grounds one to Pokey—tailor-made double-play ball—and I’m pissed when Bellhorn loses his grip on the transfer. Millar, of all people, bails him out with the glove, making a tough catch in foul ground down the right-field line.

We add a run in the eighth, and on comes Embree to set up and Foulke to close.

May 7th

As the great Criswell predicted, the Yankees did indeed lose. Vazquez faltered in the middle innings, so we’re a game up on them. The buzz is just temporary, since it appears now that Nomar won’t be back till June, and Trot has problems with his left quad and is sitting. “We need those guys,” David Ortiz says, “like a human being needs to be fed every day.”

Last night Steph noticed that Ron Jackson was coaching first. The paper has the answer: Lynn Jones hurt his eye at home in northwestern Pennsylvania. It sounds serious, because Francona says, “There’s a chance they can save some of his eyesight.”

Our league-best record is long gone, obviously, but I’m shocked to find that distinction now belongs to the Angels, with the surprising White Sox right behind them. The season’s so young that one hot streak puts you on top.

Tomorrow we’ve got Monster seats, front row, and I call the Sox customer service line to see if I can bring my fishing net for BP. The woman who answers doesn’t know. She asks around the office; the consensus is that security will probably not let it in, but there’s no set policy. I tell her I’ll try. Got to make them make the play, right?

Tonight it’s Wake and his 2.25 ERA against Jeremy Affeldt, who’s yet to win a game. I’m thinking we should score a bunch of runs, but it’s Wake who struggles. It’s a windy night—usually good for a knuckler—but his ball looks awful straight. It also doesn’t help that in the third we have Carlos Beltran picked off first but Bellhorn—maybe distracted by Desi Relaford trying to score from third—drops Millar’s toss. It’s 2–0, but not for long. In our half, Johnny answers with a leadoff shot over the Royals’ pen. Bellhorn singles, Manny singles for the second time, Millar doubles. Tie game.

Between innings, the camera finds Trot in the dugout—a nice surprise—and there’s Prince Nomar. Neither’s close to being ready; it’s more of a token appearance to raise morale.

Word on Lynn Jones is that somehow he gouged his eye with a screwdriver. They’re still not sure if he’ll regain sight in it. While he’s out, former Sox catcher Bill Haselman, who played with the PawSox last year, will coach first.

In the sixth, Wake gives up five hits and Bill Mueller rushes a throw on a chopper, sailing it into the stands. The Royals score four runs before the creaky Benito Santiago grounds into a round-the-horn double play.

By the eighth Affeldt’s pitch count is pushing 110. He’s a young guy but he’s never gone this deep in a game before. Tony Pena must want to conserve his pen for the rest of the series, because he leaves him in. Manny singles for the third time. Kapler hits a short fly to left that the wind takes away from Matt Stairs; it falls, and we’ve got first and second for Mirabelli, who lines one into the left-field corner. Stairs fires the ball in to second, but it’s wide and gets by Relaford, and Kapler scoots in to make it 6–4.

Timlin throws a perfect top of the ninth. Before Johnny can lead off the bottom, two fans run out on the field, delighting the crowd. When Johnny finally gets up, he’s laughing and loose, and walks on a pitch that’s really too close to take. MacDougal, the Royals’ young closer, stares in at veteran ump Joe West; West whips off his mask and stares back. A passed ball puts Johnny at second, so we don’t have to worry about the double play. With Bellhorn up, I expect we’re in for a long at-bat, but he gets a pitch belt-high and yanks it deep to right. Juan Gonzalez runs a few steps toward the corner, then pulls up as the ball lands a dozen rows in. The game’s tied at 6 and Fenway’s on its feet. Here in Avon, we’re hollering and trading high fives.

They don’t want to pitch to Manny with the game on the line, but they don’t intentionally walk him either, just nibble a little and then stay away on 3-2.

MacDougal’s gone and righty Scott Sullivan’s on. With two down, Francona pinch-hits the switch-hitting Tek for the righty Kapler. Tek rips Sullivan’s first pitch down the right-field line for a sure double. Manny’s running on contact. The ball skims along the wall instead of kicking out. “Don’t touch it!” I coach the fans past the Pesky Pole. I see other fans along the wall doing the same with their neighbors, holding their arms out wide as if to prove they’re not fouling anyone. Gonzalez scoops the ball and fires to Relaford, whose relay to Santiago is just enough off the plate to the first-base side to let Manny tiptoe in standing up. He leaps into the arms of Kevin Millar and the Sox win 7–6. Here at home, Steph and I are jumping and high-fiving, slapping at each other like first-graders.

It’s a huge win—a steal, really. Two in the eighth, then three in the ninth off a cold closer. Manny ran hard all the way and Sveum sent him in—classic strategy at home: play for the win and make them throw you out. I watch Extra Innings, wallowing in the highlights and locker-room interviews. Sox win, Sox win!

May 8th

What’s better than the Sox winning? The Sox winning and the Yanks losing. Last night the Mariners rocked Jon Lieber, so we’re two games up. And we can’t forget the O’s, just a half game behind them. Toronto’s under .500, and Tampa Bay’s already in a death spiral. That’s the kind of year a fan fears—out of the chase by May (like the Pirates, who got one-hit last night). As Sox fans, we need to remember how lucky we are.

And we’re damn lucky today, with front-row seats on the Monster. All along Lansdowne, people stare at the net; Trudy pretends she’s not with me. The guy at the turnstile asks me what I think I’m going to do with it, but just laughs and lets me through. Trudy and the kids can’t believe I’m getting away with this.

The Royals are hitting, clumps of players spread around the outfield. It’s a bright cool day up on the Monster, and the wind’s in our faces, perfect for home runs. We’re in M9, next to the second light standard, but that’s too far toward center. I stake my claim to an empty spot in M5 above the power alley.

I’ve just started to extend the handle when a ball comes right at me. It’s going to be short. I reach out and down. I’d have it if the handle were fully extended.

“Hey, no fair!” Trudy calls from M9. “That’s cheating.”

With the handle fully extended, the net’s about ten feet long, giving me incredible range. It really is unfair.

Mike Sweeney’s taking his cuts. He sends one directly over my head. I raise the net straight up and even jump, but the ball carries over it, banging off the third-row facade and then back past us and down to the field again.

A few swings later, Sweeney hits one just to my right. It’s going to be close. I scoot a few steps and swing the net over. The ball clanks off the handle and drops at my feet. Inelegant, but hell, it’s a ball, and Sweeney’s as good a player as they’ve got.

I’m not sure who hits me the next one. It’s right at me, and a few feet out from the lip, so I’m not taking it away from anyone, but I misjudge it and it bangs off the handle a good foot from the head of the net, and falls back to the field. The boos and laughs shower down, and I slump back in a stool and hang my head. “Nice going, Netman.” “Netguy, you suck!”

The guy beside me points out a dent in the handle. It’s a good-sized ding, the metal buckled inward. I can’t close the handle all the way anymore.

Juan Gonzalez puts a bunch out by the Coke bottles, and then some guy in a blue fleece sweatshirt hits another right at me. It rises past the solid background of the roof and up into the blue sky, then falls fast. It’s going to be short, and I dip the net out and down. I don’t think I’ve got enough reach, but I must, because it’s a swish, just a gentle tug on my arms and then the ball swinging in the mesh, caught. The crowd goes wild. “Yeah, go ahead, Netman!” “Hey, gimme one—isn’t it catch and release?”

The ball has a pink stamp on the sweet spot: KCR enclosed by a thin circle, like something on special at CVS. The hitter was Benito Santiago—the BEN from his bathead’s imprinted backwards across the cowhide.

Like Mark Bellhorn, I had a chance to redeem myself. And just in time too, because that’s it for BP. Packing up, I’m visited by two people. A burly security dude who tells me I’ll have to surrender the net to him before game time (so I don’t interfere with play), and a reporter for the Greenfield, Mass, paper who saw the catch and wants to interview me. I get to use my Bellhorn analogy. “You’re down one minute and the next you’re up again. That’s baseball.” And, canned and corny as that sounds, it is: as long as you keep at it—stubbornly, dumbly—something good might happen.

It’s a beautiful day, we’re in the front row, and Schilling’s on the mound. He’s throwing 92–93, with great location. KC’s throwing another kid, Jimmy Gobble, and I’m proud of the Faithful for not making turkey noises at him. He’s throwing well too, mostly soft breaking stuff. We get a run off him in the third, Bellhorn doubling in Johnny. The Royals get it back in the fifth when Santiago homers to the exact spot in M5 where I was fishing. It’s 1–1 in the fifth and the game’s not even an hour old.

In the bottom of the fifth Pokey stings one down the right-field line. Gonzalez gets over to the wall by the Pesky Pole in time to cut the ball off—trying to hold Pokey to a single—but the ball slips through, bouncing past him along the wall and curling into the corner. Pokey’s rounding third as the ball comes in to cutoff man Desi Relaford. The crowd’s up—Sveum’s sending him. Pokey’s chugging now, and the throw’s on the mark. Santiago lunges with the tag as Pokey dives flat-out and slides a hand across the plate—safe! The place goes insane, a good three-minute celebration that lasts halfway through Johnny’s at-bat, and while we don’t score again that inning, we’re on our feet to salute Pokey when he trots out to short.

“I’ve never seen an inside-the-park home run live,” Steph says. Neither have I.

Schill is cruising, really stretching his arm out, throwing 94 and 95 now. He’s only given up three hits.

In our sixth, Gobble’s breaking stuff stays up. Millar doubles, Manny doubles, Tek singles, Bill Mueller singles. It’s 5–1, and Mr. Gobble is cooked. For the second straight game former Yankee Jason Grimsley provides little relief. With two down and Kapler on, he leaves one in Pokey’s wheelhouse (it’s a very small wheelhouse, but it still works), and Pokey turns on it and sticks it in M3. “PO-Key, PO-Key!” He comes back out of the dugout and tips his cap. Two homers in two innings—it looks awesome on the scorecard.

In the eighth, McCarty hits a two-run shot that keeps the party going, but the real ovation is reserved for Pokey. When he comes to bat the last time, the entire park rises. He’s never had a two-homer game in his career, but he’s been such a great defensive player, filling in for Nomar. Pokey pauses outside the batter’s box, soaking in the moment, and I think it’s a day he’ll always keep—the way we will.

May 9th

Another matchup to love: D-Lowe against weak lefty Darrell May. After a brief rain delay, Bill Mueller gets us on the board in the second, driving a high change-up into M3 with Tek on base. 2–0 and all the mothers in the stands are happy.

The next inning, after Desi Relaford walks, David DeJesus hits a chopper to McCarty, who spins and fires to Pokey. DeJesus runs well, so the chances for two are slim, but it’s a good play, cutting down the lead runner. The throw’s perfect. Pokey comes off the bag for a look at first (there’s no one there), and though the ball beat Relaford by a good five feet and the neighborhood play’s in order, umpire Joe West calls him safe. Pokey can’t believe it. Francona comes out to argue, but it’s pointless. The replay shows that Pokey did indeed slide-step off the bag an instant before receiving the ball, so technically the runner would be safe, but in practice it’s an out 99% of the time. Lowe battles and gets two outs, but then Sweeney pulls a grounder down the line past Bill Mueller for a game-tying double. On the replay, broken down, it makes no sense: Sweeney’s a dead pull hitter and Lowe’s been working him down and in, yet Bill Mill’s playing him well off the line. Why isn’t someone in the dugout waving him over?

The next inning, Pokey makes a leaping snag of a Joe Randa laser they have to show two or three times. In slow-mo it’s even more impressive; Pokey heads back on contact and does a little stutter-step before going up for it like he’s timing an alley-oop, leaps and snares it backhanded. The momentum of the ball sends him twisting around so he lands facing the Monster. “It’s like watching The Matrix,” Steph says.

It’s a sedate game otherwise. May is spacing out the hits and Lowe’s struggling with his control but seems to get a ground ball whenever he needs one.

That changes in the sixth. Joe Randa singles, and with two down, Lowe walks their eight and nine guys to load the bases. After Dave Wallace pays Lowe a visit, Angel Berroa, their leadoff man, hits a smash that Bill Mueller has to dive to stop. With Berroa’s wheels, there’s no chance at first, so he goes to Bellhorn for the force, but DeJesus is hustling and ties the throw. 3–2 Royals. Lowe’s gone and Mystery Malaska’s on to face the dangerous Carlos Beltran, now batting righty. He gets behind 3-0 and on 3-2 throws a fat pitch that Beltran pulls past Bill Mueller into the corner, clearing the bases. 6–2 Royals.

It’s 8–3 in the bottom of the ninth and Steph and I are playing catch in the backyard, listening to the dregs of the game on the radio when Johnny knocks in Pokey. With two outs and Johnny on, Tony Pena—in a move I can only call paranoid, since he’s up four runs—changes pitchers. It works—der—and the winning streak is over. We turn it off and keep tossing, dropping balls and making plays, banging throws off the downspout, off the porch railing, off the shed.

What’s worse than the Red Sox losing? The Red Sox losing and the Yankees winning, which they do, coming back from a 6–0 deficit to nip the Mariners 7–6. Back to a one-game lead. Baltimore won as well. If this three-team race keeps up, we’re in for a wild summer. It’s kind of strange, knowing we won’t see the Yanks again till the end of June, or the O’s till late July. I’m ready now.

May 10th

Brigham’s ice cream is coming out with a new flavor, Reverse the Curse. Vanilla with fudge sauce, caramel, chocolate and peanuts, the product looks suspiciously like their Big Dig, but I appreciate the sentiment. They say that after the Sox win this October, they’ll have a contest to rename it.

The paper says Nomar took batting practice in the cage yesterday, another hopeful sign, but there’s still no schedule for his return. Trot’s headed back to Florida for more rehab on the quad. Also headed to Florida is Manny, to Miami, to become an American citizen. He’ll miss tonight’s game against Cleveland.

He’s lucky. This one’s a mess from the very beginning. Besides Lou Merloni’s return to Fenway, there’s not much to cheer about. Kim’s ineffective, and the Indians can hit. They bang on the Monster three times in the first, giving Dauber a crash course in left field. He looks terrible on the first one—getting caught too close to the wall so Johnny has to come over and back him up—but on the last one he throws Ben Broussard out at second to end the inning.

Dauber provides some offensive highlights as well, lining a two-run double off the wall and later homering into the Indians’ bullpen; he even backs up Johnny nicely on a double off the Bob’s sign, but the story of the game is Kim. He’s topping out at 86 and can’t find the plate. He and Tek get their signs mixed up, and an elusive passed ball scores two more. When Kim leaves with one out in the top of the fourth, he’s thrown 80 pitches, 46 for strikes, and it’s 4–4 with the bases loaded. The sellout crowd boos. Lefty Lenny DiNardo comes in and gives up a single to outfielder Coco Crisp.

Cleveland leads the rest of the way, and the rest of the way is mighty ugly, a parade of relievers for both teams. DiNardo gives up a run of his own, Embree gives up a pair (thanks to Timlin, who walks the first guy he sees and can’t wriggle out of the jam), Malaska lets one in. Foulke, at least, throws a clean inning. It’s a long game, lots of base runners. Cleveland’s line score says it all: 2 2 0 2 0 1 2 0 1.

The final’s 10–6. No alibis, no one play to point to, we just plain stunk. The whole Kim-Arroyo debate’s sure to heat up. I try not to overreact. It’s just one game, and tomorrow we’ve got Pedro going.

May 11th

Theo and Francona don’t waste any time: Kim’s out of the rotation, Arroyo’s in. They must have made the decision after the game, since it’s in the morning paper.

Tonight it’s Cleveland at the Fens, and a rematch of Pedro versus C. C. Sabathia, who has to be the pimpest pitcher in the American League (maybe in all of baseball): big, baggy uni, hat worn cocked arrogantly to one side. We’re not off to a good start. After striking out the first batter, Pedro has allowed three straight hits (the second one tainted, a bouncer from Omar Vizquel off first baseman David Ortiz’s glove) and Cleveland leads, 2–0.

At least it’s a decent night for baseball. I may have said this before, but it bears repeating: spring baseball in New England is usually rotten for the fans and sometimes dangerous for the players (especially the pitchers). I mean, night baseball in April? In Boston? Where the temperature’s forty-six degrees and the wind blowing in off the Back Bay makes it feel like twenty-seven? I’d say you’ve got to be kidding me, but we all know I’m not, just as we know it’s all about the money. Baseball is a lazy game, meant to be played on long, lazy summer afternoons and into the purple twilight—when fans so inclined can exchange their iced tea or Cokes for cold beer—but money has changed all that. Tonight at least we have a foretaste of summer: eighty degrees at game time, according to Joe Castiglione inthe radio booth, and coincidentally or not, it’s also Boston’s eightieth straight home sellout. Stewart O’Nan’s there tonight, I think. Lucky dog. This older dog will be there a little later on this month, when the warmth may be a little more reliable.

Meantime, I have to look back on my own preseason musings about how much the AL East has improved—Orioles, Jays, D-Rays, blahblah-blah—and smile a little bit. Because now, as the Red Sox play into the second inning of their thirty-second contest of the season, it’s starting to look like a case of same as it ever was: Red Sox and Yankees, duking it out for first, with the long, hot summer stretching ahead. The Sox had a five-game bulge over the Yanks not long ago, but it’s been years since Boston seemed comfortable with anything like a real lead; they went into tonight’s game with just a half-game pad over the second-place Yankees and first place on the line. Baltimore is still in it, too, a game and a half back.

My mother-in-law, meanwhile, with whom I watched a good many games in Florida, is now in the hospital with respiratory problems, but I know she’ll be watching on NESN. They’re watching all over New England, tonight and every other night, in the hospitals, nursing homes, rehabs, and hospices. It’s what we do, what we’ve done for going on a century now. They’re hitting Pedro pretty well tonight, and we’re down 2–0 in the second, Cleveland with two more in scoring position, but Pedro has also struck out the side in the first inning, and two more in the second. I pause in front of this keyboard every time he throws. I want him to get those six Ks. So does my mother-in-law, Sarah Jane, over in St. Joe’s, not to mention Leo the short-order cook at Nicky’s Diner down on Union Street, and Keith Jacubois at the Texaco station over in Montpelier. This is what we do, and we’ve finally got a decent night to do it on, and we may be behind, but there are no damn blackflies yet, and for the time being, we’re still in first place.

Pedro walked Jody Miller, but now he’s 0-2 on Red Sox killer Victor Martinez. He comes to the belt…and strikes Victor out swinging. And all over New England they’re cheering in the hospitals, hospices, and roadside restaurants. When the Sox finally win this one two hours later, Pedro Martinez doesn’t get the W; that goes to Alan Embree, who gives up a go-ahead gopher ball and then vultures the victory when the Sox come back in the bottom of the eighth.

The win allows the Sox to stay in first, because the Yankees beat the Angels—finally, after two rain delays, in front of approximately sixteen remaining fans—in the Bronx, in ten. The final score is high and Kevin Brown doesn’t get the win. The Yankees have finally started to roll, but their pitching remains suspect as ever—a good sign.

And a rather endearing postscript having to do with our other Ramirez: to wit, one Manny. In Cleveland, he was usually silent and often viewed as sullen even when he was clearly enjoying the game. In Boston—a town where the sports reporters are often compared to the shark in Jaws—he has become more expansive with each passing year; not even management’s efforts in the off-season to trade him for A-Rod seem to have fazed him in the slightest, and by the kickoff of the 2004 festivities, Manny was downright chatty. Not stupid, though. Asked for a comment following the Sox five-game massacre of the Yankees, Manny’s deference was both charming and diplomatic: “They got all the World Series rings, man,” he said. “We got nothing.”

He has been the one completely dependable hitter in the Red Sox lineup this year, at this date in May batting roughly eighty points higher than Alex Rodriguez, the man for whom Theo Epstein hoped to trade him. He has played in every game of the season except for this Monday’s (May 10th) trouncing by Cleveland, his old team. Manny was unavailable to play on that day because he was taking the U.S. citizenship test…which he passed. At the start of tonight’s game he ran out to his position in left field with a big grin on his face and a small American flag in his right hand. Manny’s People in left gave him a standing O.

Way to go, Manny Ramirez—welcome to the real big leagues.

May 12th

Mr. Kim’s headed for Pawtucket, where they say he’ll throw only two innings at a time. Supposedly this will help him get back his velocity faster. Theo says BK’s shown he can dominate major league hitters, and that that quality doesn’t just go away, but it’s hard to tell if he truly believes this.

A note in the Courant’s Sox column says that Trot took BP yesterday and hit some out, and that Nomar knocked a couple over the Monster. It’s possible, since the Sox were batting a little before the gates opened. I didn’t see Trot until after the game, congratulating the line of guys coming off, but I saw Nomar take around thirty swings, and nothing was close to going out.

The website says right-handed reliever Jamie Brown will be taking Mr. Kim’s spot on the roster, making him something like our twentieth pitcher this season. Whatever happened to Bobby Jones? Instead of all these kid relievers, I’d rather see them bring up a big righty stick like perennial triple-A prospect Andy Dominique for late-inning situations. Twelve pitchers seems like a luxury, and I’m not sure we’re getting anything out of it. There’s such a traffic jam in the pen that Williamson hasn’t thrown in six days.

Tonight it’s Wake versus Cliff Lee, a young lefthander who’s 3-0 with a nifty ERA. It seems every time the Indians have someone on, they take advantage of Wake’s slow delivery and steal. Twice Bellhorn lets throws from Mirabelli skip by him into center. The Indians get a run in the second, and the third, and the fifth, and two in the sixth on a Monster shot by Tim Laker. Wake’s just not sharp, and Lee is. In the ninth, down four, the crowd rallies. It’s louder than it’s been all night when Dauber’s pinch double scores Bill Mueller. Johnny hits a hopper up the middle; Vizquel and Belliard look at each other, and it rolls into center, scoring Dauber. It’s 6–4, and up to the plate steps the tying run in the form of Mark Bellhorn. The count goes 2-0, David Ortiz is on deck and Betancourt is sweating like Calvin Schiraldi. Just last week, Bellhorn hit that two-run shot in the ninth to tie the game against KC—at the same score too, 6–6. He must be thinking the same thing, because he goes fishing for a couple balls well off the plate and Ks to end the game.

So Cleveland takes two out of three from us, and we go 3-3 on the home stand. Now it’s off to Toronto for four games—all against righties, mercifully.

Please, please, let the Yankees lose.

May 13th

In the mail, a phantom piece: a pennant with the Sox logo and printed signatures of all the players surrounding WORLD CHAMPIONS 1986. Earlier this week I received a phantom soda cup that would have been sold at Wrigley during the much anticipated Sox-Cubs World Series last year. They’re not fakes, just survivors of large runs, the majority of which were destroyed by reality. On eBay I’ve seen phantom tickets for playoffs and World Series dating back to the sixties, including some years in which we never even came close (say, 1970, 1987). There’s a twinge of pain attached to these no-longer-possible futures, but also, by the pieces’ existence, a validation of what should have happened.

Unless something weird happens, we’re done for the season with Cleveland, and considering that we finished 3-4, that’s probably a good thing. “Looks like Wakefield’s carriage turned back into a pumpkin, Dad,” my son Owen said during last night’s postgame call. (Not so fast, kid—Wake’s been down before, but he’s never been out.) Now we’re on to Toronto, and what my other son likes to call the CreepyDome, because it’s been so empty over the last three or four years…and especially now, while playoff hockey is still wending its slow way through the lower intestine of bigga-time sport.[12] Schilling is starting for us tonight, and since Toronto beat him last time when Schill insisted on holding on to the ball in the late innings, this should be a game worth watching. But first I have to watch Jeopardy. This is Political Gasbag Week, and I have to root for Keith Olbermann, himself a recent émigré from the Land of Bigga-Time Sport.

Later: “This one’s no masterpiece,” Jerry Remy of the TV crew opines in the seventh inning of tonight’s tilt, and that’s an understatement. Every pitcher seems to have one team he just can’t seem to beat, and for Curt Schilling, it’s the Jays. He went into this game with only one victory against them in something like half a dozen tries (that one win came in his Diamondback days), and he’s not going to improve on that record tonight. The final score is 12–6. Schill struggled, and he’ll probably get tagged with the loss, but that’s not the real story of this game; he only gave up three runs, and the Sox have already scored twice that many as we play into the eighth.

The story of the game isn’t even the Red Sox defense, which has been horrible—a Johnny Damon error in center let in two runs, and Mark Bellhorn’s failure to snag Frank Catalanotto’s foul pop cost another two (Catalanotto singled on the next pitch). No, the real problem, it seems to me, is that the Sox have turned lackluster in their last five games, playing catch-up in four of them and only successfully in one of those. The Yankeeswon earlier today, beating the Angels (Mariano Rivera was shaky, but had just enough gas to survive a bases-loaded jam in the ninth), and if things don’t turn around, the Red Sox are going to find themselves with a 5-9 mark for the month of May…and in second place. They need a shake-up. This may be where our new manager really starts earning his paycheck…assuming he can, of course.

Two final notes (unless the Sox pull it out, that is): Orlando Hudson has scored five of the Jays’ runs, tying a team record. (Ask me if I give a shit.) And on the radio, color commentator Jerry Trupiano has been reduced to wondering how the sitcom Frasier, which finishes its run tonight, turned out.

It’s been that kind of game.

May 14th

7:40 A.M.: Ordinarily I tune in to NESN’s morning sports show, which runs on a constant fifteen-minute loop from 5 A.M. to 9 A.M. seven days a week, while I do my push-ups and crunches, but not today. Not even the thought of Jayme Parker, who’s blond and very good-looking, can motivate me into picking up the remote this morning. The Yankee win and the Red Sox sloppy D, combining to put the Bombers back into first (thank God I didn’t have to look at the New York Post today), is bad enough; that look of lackluster, who-cares sloppiness over the last few games is worse. Last night it even seemed to have gotten to Curt Schilling; I fancied I could read it in his dispirited dugout sprawl after he was lifted.

Dammit, don’t you guys know that O’Nan and I are counting on you to win the pennant? I want to shout, “Wake up! It gets late early in this game so wake the hell up!”

Grumbling in the paper about Francona going to DiNardo and Malaska with games on the line. Why, Courant beat writer David Heuschkel asks, are we relying on our number eleven and twelve pitchers when we’ve got a stocked pen?

The answer’s obvious, and goes back to the off-season. For several years we’ve been short on lefties, and we haven’t had a reliable middle guy since Rich Garces—El Guapo—hurt his elbow. Theo never went out and dealt for a lefty, so in spring training we saw a logjam for the last bullpen spot, won, finally, by retread Bobby Jones, who lasted all of a week. The guy right behind him, Tim Hamulack, hasn’t made it up yet, while DiNardo, Malaska and Phil Seibel have all seen work. Theo probably thought the middle relief was covered by Arroyo and Mendoza. Mendoza’s on the DL (as always); Arroyo’s now part of the starting rotation. Our only major league lefty, Embree, is a situational and setup guy who throws best when going an inning or less. So when Francona needs a lefty in the sixth to hold a game, he has to go with the kids.

9:50 P.M.: Once upon a time (and it doesn’t seem so long ago), there were no Eastern, Western, and Central Divisions; there was just the American League and the National League, with eight or nine teams each. The bottom four or five of these were known as the second division, and the bottom couple of teams were the cellar-dwellers. (Red Sox fans from the late fifties and early sixties came to know these terms well.) Last night and tonight, the Red Sox and the Blue Jays have played like second-division teams from 1959—Boston and Washington, let’s say, battling it out for a sloppy nine in front of a few thousand dozy afternoon fans (many of them more interested in their newspapers than the game unfolding in front of them) while the Yankees cruised the stratosphere twenty or so games above them both in the standings.

Tonight the Red Sox are leading 9–3 as we go to the bottom of the ninth, but Derek Lowe was once more miles from sharp (it’s Alan Embree’s game to win, he of the bright blue eyes, scruffy beard, and amazing cheekful o’ chaw), and the Sox scored most of their runs in one inning during which the hapless Jays chucked the pill everywhere, including into the stands.

The best things you can say about tonight’s performance are that we’ll keep pace with the Yankees, who are also winning, and that better days are coming, both defensively and on the mound. Meantime, at least it’s a win at SkyDome.

May 15th

It’s eighty-nine degrees, a record, and my old car, which I just got back from the shop, breaks down on the commercial strip in town—maybe vapor lock? While I’m outside Party City waiting for the wrecker, a guy pulls up with the game on and waits while his wife runs inside.

“Who’s winning?”

“I just turned it on,” he says. “I know McCarty has an RBI.”

He sees my Fenway 1912 shirt, I see his—from last year’s ALCS—and he gets out to talk. In February he went down to the Civic Center to see the Sox Winter Caravan and got autographs from Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller. “I was worried it would be weird, you know, the big-kid thing, but once I got up to the table, I got this smile on my face, and the guys were cool.”

We weigh our chances for the season.

“Now there’s a rumor Nomar might have a tear,” he says, “not just a strain like they’ve been saying.”

He also wonders why Trot’s taking so long to come back from a hamstring, and we bat around the possibility of him being on steroids (or off them now).

His wife returns, and they’ve got to run. “Go Sox!” she calls, and they’re gone.

The tow truck comes, finally, and Trudy, to drive me home. It’s too hot upstairs, so I go down to the cool basement and watch the rest of the game on her parents’ old TV. It’s 4–0 Sox, and Arroyo’s only given up three hits. He’s going after guys with his fastball, dropping his sweeping curve in for strikes. Toronto’s a good-hitting club, and the SkyDome’s a launching pad, but he’s putting down Wells, Delgado and Hinske in order.

There’s a grounder to third, and to my surprise, Kevin Youkilis fields it. Bill Mueller’s knee is aching, so Francona doesn’t want him playing on Toronto’s hard turf. When Youkilis comes up to bat, they show him earlier in the game, hitting his first major league home run and then trotting back to the dugout, where the guys give him the silent treatment—a tradition with rookies. Youkilis gets it, giving phantom high fives. Only after he sits down do the guys break up and congratulate him.

Arroyo’s making his case to be the number five starter. Yesterday, in Pawtucket, in the first inning of his first start, Kim gave up a three-run homer. Trade rumors are cropping up, the most notable, Kim and Johnny D to Seattle for Freddy Garcia, who we then ship to KC for Carlos Beltran. Beltran’s a serious five-tool player, but I’d hate to lose Johnny’s laid-back personality. He’s a fan favorite, especially with the ladies, and great for the clubhouse. Though I’d love to see Beltran in right and Johnny in center.

But look at the team we have on the field right now: Arroyo and Mirabelli, Youkilis, Crespo, Bellhorn and Ortiz, McCarty, Damon and Millar. And we’re winning—on the road.

Arroyo goes eight, giving up 3 hits, walking none and striking out 6. Foulke closes easily (something I’m getting accustomed to), and though my car broke down and I’ve gotten nothing done today, I’m happy.

In the Bronx, the Yanks are in extra innings against Seattle, tied 7–7. I watch for a couple innings, but not a lot’s happening, and there’s yardwork to be done. After dinner, when I check ESPN, the final’s a lopsided 13–7, Seattle. Once Rivera was gone, the Mariners feasted on Gabe White.

So we’re in first again, barely.

May 16th

And the O’s lost again, so we gained ground on them too. I know it’s pointless to be scoreboard-watching in May, but I can’t help it, just as I can’t help looking for the Pirates’ score (we beat the Giants again) and seeing if we’re still in the cellar.

In their search for a number five starter, the Yankees pick up former Devil Ray Tanyon Sturtze from the Dodgers for a player to be named later. Sturtze’s 3-0 for triple-A Las Vegas, but is that really the best Brian Cashman and George can do? Wait till July and the trade deadline.

In Toronto, it’s Pedro-Halladay III, a series I’m growing fond of. Pedro won the first two, and Manny gives him a 1–0 lead with an RBI single in the first. Both aces look good, setting the sides down quickly. In the bottom of the fourth, Youkilis misplays a carpet hopper from Vernon Wells. “You can’t do that in a close game,” I tell him through the TV. “Especially with Carlos up next.” Delgado makes my fears a reality, taking a high fastball over the right-field fence. 2–1 Toronto. Besides that one mistake to a quality hitter, Pedro looks good. In the sixth, he gives up another run on a blooper by Reed Johnson that Johnny gets a late jump on.

Halladay’s over 120 pitches and finished after seven. Likewise, Pedro’s over 100 and done. We have two full innings to go after their relievers. With one out in the eighth, Ortiz doubles. Rather than let Manny tie the game with one swing, Carlos Tosca decides to put him on. It’s an easy decision. Dauber goes down looking, Tek goes 0-2 before popping to first, and that’s our best chance. Terry Adams works a scoreless ninth and Doc Halladay finally beats us.

It’s not disappointing. I’m sure Pedro’s not happy, but Roy Boy threw well. It was a good, tight game with Hall of Fame matchups like Halladay-Manny and Pedro-Delgado. Major League Baseball, and you can’t gripe about that.

The Yanks play a similar game, but get it done, Kevin Brown going to 5-0 as they beat the M’s 2–1 and move back into first.

After a brief return to first place (one day—a cup of coffee, really) the Red Sox gently subside once more to second, half a game behind the Yankees. The most notable event of our final two games in the CreepyDome—which was actually pretty full for the weekend games—was the major league debut of Kevin Youkilis, subbing for Bill Mueller (sore knee). Youkilis hit a home run in his first at-bat and will bear watching if only because he personifies the Moneyball mind-set and strategy, which can be defined as a way of thinking that both arises from and revolves around on-base percentage. Youkilis, the so-called “Greek God of Walks,” tied a minor-league record, reaching base in seventy-one straight games,[13] and it’s sort of a wonder it’s taken him as long as it has to reach the bigs, especially under the umbrella of Major Theo. It will be interesting to see how he develops, and how much PT he gets as the season heats up.

May 18th

In the mail, a box from Steve with a YANKEES HATER cap in Sox colors. The logo, yh, is designed so it looks the same upside-down. “Cool hat,” Steph says, and once he puts it on, it’s his.

Driving him to his sax lesson, I tell him about another YANKEES HATER cap I saw Steve wearing earlier in the year. It was black with an orange logo, like a Giants cap.

“Do the Giants hate the Yankees?” he asks.

I try to remember if the Yanks ever beat those great early Mays teams (just once, in ’51, when they were still the New York Giants). It takes me a minute to recall the ’62 World Series, when Bobby Richardson snagged Willie McCovey’s liner. It was the Yanks’ last pre-Steinbrenner championship.

“No,” I say, “they’re too busy hating the Dodgers.”

And then I realize that, though you never hear them bandied about as a cursed or hard-luck club, the San Francisco Giants have never won a World Series.

Although it might have just been my imagination (I’ve been accused of having an overactive one), I thought I heard cries of “Dead team walking!” tonight in the hollow air-conditioned confines of Tropicana Field. How avidly Lou Piniella, fiery competitor that he is, must be dining upon his own liver these days! The Devil Rays (until further notice to be called the hapless Devil Rays in this fan’s notes) looked much improved on paper, but as one wit or another has surely pointed out, baseball games aren’t played on paper, and the D-Rays—excusez-moi, the hapless D-Rays—have the worst record in the majors, just 10 wins against 27 losses after tonight’s contest, which the Red Sox won, 7–3.

In a game last week, new citizen Manny Ramirez trotted out to his position carrying a small American flag. Tim Wakefield declined to go out to his tonight with a burp-rag over his shoulder, but maybe he should have; it was his first game as a new dad, and what better place to celebrate than the Trop, where he’s never been beaten?

As for the Yankees, they’re on the West Coast, so I can go to bed safe in the knowledge that we’re at least tied for first place.

May 19th

First thing in the morning, I walk down the driveway to the road for the paper, pull it out of the box and unfold the front page. The header’s in red—PERFECT GAME FOR RANDY JOHNSON; YANKS LOSE IN 11. I laugh and head back to the house. It’s already a good day.

Tonight it’s Schilling versus Rob Bell, just brought up from triple-A. Bell’s all over the place and Schilling’s solid. It’s tied 1–1 in the third when Johnny goes deep, and a fan makes a nice barehanded catch of it in the right-field stands. Of course, there’s no one near him to interfere. Later Don will announce the paid attendance as 13,690, but the Trop looks even emptier than last night.

Two batters later, Bell is 3-0 to Ortiz and throws too nice of a strike. David has the big green light and doubles, adding to his league-leading total. Bell falls behind Manny with two down and first base open, but Lou decides to pitch to him, even though Manny hit a 390-foot fly to dead center his first time up. After Bell throws one to the backstop on the fly, Manny hits a 420-foot homer to dead center, and it’s 4–1.

After seven, Schilling gives way to Embree, who gets an out and then a Rocco Baldelli grounder to Bellhorn that should be the second out. Bellhorn bobbles it and throws to first. It’s a close play, but the ump calls Baldelli safe. Bellhorn’s puzzled; he thought he got him. It’s not until we’re well into the count on Aubrey Huff that a second replay shows that he did indeed get him. Huff then hits a nubber to the right side that Embree thinks he has a shot at. He doesn’t. Ortiz fields it and turns to throw the ball to Embree, but Embree’s brain has short-circuited, and he’s stopped. Bellhorn races over to cover but it’s too late. Tino Martinez flies to center, advancing Baldelli to third, and with runners on the corners and two out, Francona goes to Foulke.

It’s one of Bill James’s pet theorems that the most important at-bat often isn’t in the ninth, so there’s no reason to hold off bringing in your closer. In this case, it’s a no-brainer: Foulke’s a better pitcher than Embree, and all we’re asking him for are four outs. On a 3-2 count, Robert Fick hits a smash off Ortiz’s chest that ricochets into foul ground. Ortiz scrambles after it, and, unlike Embree, Foulke hustles over to cover and makes the play to end the inning.

Foulke throws a one-two-three ninth, and that’s the game, another uneventful win. Besides the two homers, the only play to savor was Pokey ranging to the right-field side of second to steal a hit from Geoff Blum, and Pokey’s played so well that we’re almost used to that kind of highlight. And used to winning this kind of game: a quality start, just enough hitting for a cushion, then a shaky setup and a solid close. I suppose I shouldn’t complain about the lack of drama.

Later, checking my e-mail, I come across a story that says the Yankees are dropping Cracker Jack from their concession stands, going instead with Crunch ’N Munch, which they say tastes better (and still comes in a box). George, you’re insane.

May 20th

Yanks won, O’s won, so the East remains the same. Lieber looked good, which is a worry. Contreras is iffy, so the Yanks still don’t have a real number five guy, but if Brown and Vazquez and Lieber throw as well as they have, they’ll stick around. At some point the O’s hitters are going to fall into a slump, and their pitching won’t carry them.

More injury woes. Williamson, who’s been complaining of soreness in his elbow for a few weeks, finally gets it checked out. Bill Mueller’s knee was hurting him again last night, so he’s flown back to Boston for an MRI. And Manny’s at DH again because of “a tender groin.” This is turning into the photo negative of last year, when everybody was healthy.

The Sox won last night and so, out on the Left Coast, did the Yankees, so Boston maintains its half-game fingerhold on the top spot. It’s far too early to worry about who’s in first (although never too early to worry about who’s on first), but it’s important to keep pace, and so far we’re doing that. I stand by my belief—or maybe it’s an intuition—that the wild-card team won’t come out of the AL East this year, but if the race were over today, the Yankees would be that team, beating the White Sox in the Central Division for the spot by a mere half a game. Anaheim—the team the Yankees beat last night, and one the Sox have yet to play—has the best record in baseball, at 26-13.

The Red Sox, not far behind at 24-16, have cobbled together a winning team—and, perhaps just as important, a winning chemistry—out of what amounts to spare parts, and I have to wonder what happens when Trot and Nomar come back (in last night’s pregame show, Theo Epstein said they were both getting close). The question isn’t whether or not they’re good enough to play for the Red Sox; that’s a no-brainer. The real question is how quickly they can get up to speed, and who goes where once they do. I think that the original plan was for Pokey Reese to play second and Mark Bellhorn to ride the bench, but Bellhorn has been clutch for the Sox during the first seven weeks of the season. Not spectacular, like Manny Ramirez, who’s currently batting something like one point for every day of the year, but clutch just the same. So who rides the pine when Nomar comes back? Probably it will be Bellhorn, but I hate to lose his bat (and his discerning eye at the plate). And while I won’t miss Kevin Millara bit in right field—he made another one of those absurd shoestring attempts last night, during Schilling’s rocky first inning—I am anxious about how quickly Trot and Nomar can ramp up their bats.

No matter. On to the important stuff. Baseball is a great game because you can multitask in so many ways and never miss a single pitch. I find I can read two pages of a book during each commercial break, for instance, which adds up to four an inning—more if there’s a pitching change. Thus it’s sometimes possible to read as many as forty pages a game, although it’s usually less, because there are always bathroom breaks and fridge runs.

Then there’s the Face Game. I play this by keeping an eye on the faces of the spectators behind home plate. Some nights I’ll run a ten-point Nose-Picking Competition, which can be played solitaire or with a friend (you get the odd innings, your friend the even ones). Ten is a good number to play to in this game, I’ve found, but when playing Cell Phone, you have to play to at least twenty-one, because these days almost everyone has one of those annoying little puppies. (“Hi, hon, I’m at the ballpark…. What? Oh, not much, Rays are down by three…I hear people whispering ‘Dead team walking’ under their breath… it’s a little spooky… Bring home a quart of milk?… sure, okay, call you later… gotta pick my nose on national TV first… okay, love you too… bye.”) And last night—remember, I never lost the thread of the game during this, that’s the beauty of baseball—I had this wonderful idea for a story. What if a guy watches a lot of baseball games on TV, maybe because he’s a shut-in or an invalid (or maybe because he’s doing a book on the subject, poor schmuck), and one night he sees his best friend from childhood, who was killed in a car crash, sitting in one of the seats behind the backstop? Yow! And the kid is still ten! He never claps or cheers (never picks his nose or talks on his cell phone, for that matter), just sits there and watches the game…or maybe he’s watching the main character of the story, right through the TV. After that the protagonist sees him every night at every game, sometimes at Fenway, sometimes at Camden Yards, sometimes at the CreepyDome up in Toronto, but every time there are more people the poor freaked-out guy knew, sitting all around him: this guy’s dead friends and relatives, all sitting in the background at the ballpark. I could call the story “Spectators.” I think it’s a very nasty little idea.

Meanwhile, Derek Lowe goes for us tonight, and here is an interesting little factoid: the hapless Devil Rays are almost forty games into the baseballseason and haven’t yet won two games in a row. Lou Piniella must be finished with his liver and thinking of moving on to his kidneys. It’s a shame, but we’ve got a job to do here, and hopefully Dee-Lowe will do his part.

For the final game in Tampa it’s Lowe versus Victor Zambrano, a decent matchup, at least until they take the mound. Zambrano has a weird first, alternately walking and striking out hitters, finally getting Tek looking to leave the bases loaded. Lowe responds by giving up a single through the middle to former option QB Carl Crawford, then letting him steal second and third. With one out, the infield’s back, and another grounder scores him.

Both pitchers settle down in the second, but in the third, with one down, Lowe gives up a single to Brook Fordyce. Then, on 0-2, he leaves a pitch up to Crawford, who doubles down the line. With the infield in, Baldelli bounces one through the middle. 3–0 Tampa Bay. Huff nearly skulls Lowe with a line single, then Tino singles on a pitch above the waist. 4–0. Dave Wallace visits, meaning we’re going to leave him in. It’s a mistake. Jose Cruz Jr., who’s hitting under .200, doubles to left-center. 6–0. Lenny DiNardo’s warming, but Francona can’t get him in quick enough, as little Julio Lugo takes Lowe off the wall in left for the seventh straight hit. 7–0 D-Rays, and that’s it for D-Lowe.

Zambrano follows with his own nightmare inning, loading the bases with nobody out and giving up three runs. In the fifth, Tek puts one on a catwalk and Johnny doubles in two more.

That’s as close as we get. Timlin and Jamie Brown conspire to give up two runs, putting it out of reach. The D-Rays’ pitchers walked 10, but they also struck out 15, including Manny four times, while the only pitcher of ours who had any success was DiNardo. A complete mess, cancelling out Schilling’s easy win last night. A bigger worry: Lowe, supposedly the best number three starter in baseball, hasn’t won this month.

May 21st

It’s the revenge of the header: MUSSINA LEADS YANKS PAST ANGELS, 6–2. We lose ugly to a last-place club while they beat the team with the best record in baseball (and on top of that, beat their ace, Colon). At least the O’s lost; otherwise it would be a total wipeout.

I’m trying to be optimistic and look ahead, but tonight it’s Arroyo versus Halladay. Our travel day knocked the two rotations out of sync, so Pedro’s facing the lefty Lilly tomorrow. On Sunday, the game we’ll be at, we get the far less interesting Wake versus Miguel Batista. We need two out of three from these guys, but right now the pitching matchups are in Toronto’s favor. Halladay’s stronger than Arroyo, and we have trouble against lefties and historically don’t give Pedro much run support. Wake-Batista’s a toss-up.

Maybe it’s just last night’s game that’s bothering me. If Arroyo can match Halladay and get us to their pen, we should win, and Pedro’s flat-out better than Lilly. Batista’s ERA’s around 5 and, like Zambrano, he walks a lot of batters. If we hit and Wake has the knuckler fluttering, we could sweep.

The off-field news is that Johnny’s shaving his beard for a literacy program at the Boston Public Library. Gillette’s sponsoring the event to kick off their new line of razors. A crowd gathers on the plaza by the Prudential Center to watch some hot models lather him up. He sits still while they take the blades to his face, but in the end he finishes the tricky spots himself. He looks younger, baby-faced, and with his long mane he’s got the Elvis-as-Indian-brave thing going on.

Dee-Lowe was dee-readful, but tonight the Red Sox are back at the Fens, and for the first time this year I’m in the house. It’s a beautiful night for baseball, too, sixty-nine degrees at game time.

Ray Slyman, who works for Commonwealth Limousine and has been driving me and my family to Red Sox games ever since the kids were small, is usually an optimist about Boston’s chances, so I’m surprised—no, I’m shocked—to find him sounding downbeat tonight, even though last night’s loss coupled with the Yankees’ win on the West Coast has left us only half a game out of first. It makes me uneasy, too. Partly because Ray’s in the car all day and listens to all the radio sports shows (discounting the crazies who call in as a matter of course); thus he’s hip to all the current gossip. Mostly because Ray’s one smart cookie. It’s from Ray that I first hear the idea that Nomar should be back right now, and DH-ing. It’s also from Ray that I hear a lot of fans are beginning to lose patience with Nomar; once the season begins, major league baseball quickly becomes a game of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, and in Boston, cries of “Play him or trade him!” are beginning to be heard.

Coming into the ballpark, lots of folks tell me hi. Most call me Steve.One woman tells her boyfriend, “Look, there’s Steven Spielberg!” This is more common than you might think, and I sometimes wonder if people point at the famous director and tell each other that it’s Stephen King. The guy selling programs just outside Gate A pauses just long enough in his spiel to ask me how I’m feeling. I tell him I’m feeling fine. He says, “Do you thank God?” I tell him, “Every day.” He says, “Right on, brutha,” and goes back to telling people how much they need a program, how much they need a scorecard, just two dollars unless you’re a Yankee fan, then you pay four.

Do you thank God?

Every day.

Yes indeed I do. I’m blessed to be alive at all, and have the sense to know it. It’s especially easy to give thanks walking into Fenway Park under my own power on a beautiful spring night in May. (“We’re inside the TV,” I once heard a wondering child say after getting his first look at all that green.) I’m still considering the novel idea of Nomar Garciaparra as the designated hitter when a woman cardiologist throws out the first pitch. She may be a hell of a doc, but she still throws like a girl. We all give her a big hand, and we give the Red Sox a bigger one when they hit the field in their fine white home uniforms. I feel the same thrill I did when I saw them go out there for the first time, at the age of eleven or twelve, on an afternoon when the Tigers were their opponents and Al Kaline was still playing for them, and my arms prickle when John Fogerty starts singing “Centerfield” over the PA. They prickle again at the end when the Red Sox put away the Jays, 11–5, and the crowd starts out with the Standells singing “Dirty Water.”

Every ballpark has its eccentricities. One of my Fenway faves—many fans hate it—is the late-inning playing of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” I have no idea when this started or why fans took it to their hearts (it’s such a forgettable song), but there you are; it’s just a Fenway Thing, like The Wave.[14] The first notes of this song cause great excitement.When Neil sings “Sweeeeet Car-o-line!” in the chorus, thirty thousand people respond at once (and with no apparent prompting), “WHOAHO-HO!” at the top of their voices. And when he adds, “Good times never seemed so good!” the crowd responds, “So good! So good! So good!” How do these things get started? There’s simply no telling, but such things—which occur when the TV-watching world is stuck with yet another “Meet me at Foxwoods” jingle—are very much a part of not just the ballpark experience but your ballpark experience: what makes home home.

Man, I had a great time tonight. Manny Ramirez hit a moonshot, Mike “The Hardest Workin’ Man in Showbiz” Timlin got the win, and I was there to see it all with my friend Ray. Oh, and Kevin Youkilis, aka The Greek God of Walks, was up to his old tricks. In the bottom of the second inning, after getting behind 0-2, he fouled off a bunch of pitches from Roy Halladay, last year’s Cy Young winner, and finally worked a walk. He scored. Later, in the eighth, he walked and scored again.

It’s an OBPC thing: on-base per centage.

May 22nd

When they don’t announce the game-time temperature at Fenway, you know you’re in trouble, and tonight they didn’t. It was overcast and raw at 7:05 P.M., when the game started; raw and downright cold[15] when it ended at about ten past ten. I still haven’t warmed up. At 10:45, I’m typing this with hands that feel like clubs. Tingly clubs. Still, it’s all good. We won, the Yankees lost down in Texas, and all at once there’s a tiny bit of daylight (a game and a half) between us and second place.

Ted Lilly pitched extremely well for the Blue Jays tonight, and had a two-run lead going into the sixth inning. That was when Manny Ramirez launched his second home run in the last two games over the left-field wall and into the night. It’s the big dinger that’ll get the ink in the newspapers tomorrow, but the key hit of the inning—and probably the key to the whole game—was Mark Bellhorn’s infield single in the sixth, which caromed off Lilly’s shin, hurried him from the game, and thus got us into Toronto’s less than reliable bullpen. Without Bellhorn on first, no chance for Manny to tie things up; QED. And an inning later, Youkilis, the rookiewith the big on-base-average reputation, led off with a single and scored what proved to be the winning run. Keith Foulke was once more lights-out in the ninth—nine saves in nine opportunities—and I’m two for two this year at Fenway Park.

And my hands are finally starting to warm up. See? It’s all good.

May 23rd

It’s Vermont Day at Fenway, and we’re the first ones in Gate E. Last time out I was discouraged by my net play, and the usher in Section 163 told me not to give up. He’s glad to see me back, and I’m glad for the support. Steph thinks I’m nuts.

We get the good spot on the corner, but there’s a portable screen set up at third base so only a hooking liner can reach us. And the security guy says I can’t go after any balls in fair territory, a rule which seems arbitrary to me.

The only balls I’ll have a shot at will be liners that bounce off the Monster and back along the wall, and about ten minutes in, that’s exactly what Nomar hits. The ball rolls to a stop twenty feet behind us. No one can reach it from the high wall there, but I should be able to drag it closer and scoop it. I climb over the seats and section dividers until I’m in position above it. I can’t quite reach it, and stretch as far as I can with one hand, just nudging and then covering the ball—and drop the net.

It lies ten feet below me across the foul line.

What an idiot. Steph, I’m sure, is pretending he doesn’t know me. I figure the security guy will come out and confiscate it; at best, he’ll give me a lecture.

Gabe Kapler’s witnessed my embarrassment, and saunters over, shaking his head. I think he’s going to take the ball from under the net and toss it to someone more deserving to teach me a lesson, but he throws it right to me. Then he takes the net and jogs back out to left with it.

“He could have used it last night,” someone says.

For a while Gabe keeps his glove on and holds the net with one hand, but then he says the hell with it and tosses the glove. Manny and Nomar are up, spraying the ball around. When a Manny liner bounces to the side of him, he stabs at it and misses cleanly. See, it’s not as easy as it looks. After about five minutes of just standing there with the net, he brings it back over. I get a picture of him—proof for Trudy.

Another guy comes by and asks if that was me he saw up on the Monster a few weeks ago, and I find that I like this minor celebrity. Steph says a Sox photographer just took a picture of me.

We’re also visited by Chip Ainsworth, the reporter who interviewed me the first time I brought the net. He says we should see a game together from the press box. I worry a little about that blurry line between journalist and fan, but then I think: man, the press box!

Steve arrives in his YANKEES HATER cap, and I go over to hang out with him and Steph. On the endpages of the John Sandford novel he’s reading, he’s scored the last two games. It’s been a while, and we fall to talking, interrupted from time to time by folks who want to take a picture of him.

We’re sitting there discussing Manny’s hot streak and Wake’s last few starts when one of the Sox comes out and signs along the wall two sections down. From the inch-high brush cut, it can only be Tek. It’s his day off, with Mirabelli catching Wake. I excuse myself and climb over the section dividers and then wait in the crush. “Go ahead and take the sweet spot,” I tell him. “It’s all yours.”

Tek’s signature is neat and readable. Thanks to eBay, I’ve seen it dozens of times, both authentic versions and fakes. He never finishes the final kick of the k, so it reads J Varitel, #33. On the pearl it looks superclean, and I thank him and carry it by the seams like some weird breaking ball, making sure not to smudge the ink.

“I got a shot of you,” Steph says.

“Yeah,” Steve says, “we got a picture of you pushing those little kids out of the way.”

“Hey, they were pushing me.”

Wake looks good in the first, striking out his first two batters. Batista looks awful, walking Johnny on four pitches around his ankles. Orlando Hudson doesn’t help him, booting Bellhorn’s easy grounder, and David Ortiz scorches a ground-rule double into the seats just past the Pesky Pole. 1–0 Sox. Manny Ks chasing a 3-2 pitch, Dauber walks, then Millar walks in a run. Batista’s thrown 25 pitches, only 7 for strikes.

After Youkilis strikes out, Mirabelli comes up with bases loaded and fouls one behind him, high off the facade of the .406 Club. Last year, a ball hit in that same spot ricocheted off the glass at an angle and landed in the row behind us. I turn, keeping my eye on it, and here it comes, right at me (Steph thinks I think this about every ball). The sun is blinding, and I’m not wearing shades, so all I see as it falls is a tiny black dot surrounded by white light. It’s going to be just short, and I reach above everyone. I feel it hit, then feel nothing, and I think it’s gone, that I’ve missed it—then look down, and there it is in my glove. Maybe because it’s the first inning, or because it was a crazy angle, or because the bases are loaded and we’re up two runs, but the crowd goes nuts. I hold my glove up and take in the applause—unexpected and exhilarating—and slap hands with Steph and Steve. When I sit down, my heart’s pounding and I’m shivery inside my skin. I thought I’d missed it, so it’s a guilty thrill—a freak accomplishment I doubt even now.

I don’t have time to think about it, because Mirabelli fouls off the next pitch the exact same way—caroming off the same pane of glass and dropping two rows behind Steve. I’m up and ready in case it bounces my way, but it’s smothered and picked up.

Batista gets Mirabelli and gets out of it. In the second he has to strike out Dauber to leave them loaded again.

“This guy’s terrible,” I say. “We should be up at least four nothing.”

“We’re not hitting with men on,” Steve complains, and Mason, a neighbor in the front row, shows us a thirty-page stat sheet that has the season completely broken down. So far with the bases loaded, we’ve hit two doubles and twelve singles. Johnny and Pokey have the doubles. Johnny and Pokey also have the most hits with bases loaded, three each. Kapler and Bill Mueller are 0-4, Ortiz, Dauber and Crespo 0-3.

Wake throws an easy third, and we finally cash in on Batista, scoring four. Ortiz has the big hit, a two-out, two-run double, making him 3 for 3 with 3 RBIs. It’s 6–0 and Batista’s thrown 90 pitches.

Now that Wake has a big lead, he gets sloppy, loading the bases with no outs and going 3-0 on Delgado. Delgado singles, bringing in two, before Timmy gets a double-play ball from Phelps and a first-pitch flyout from Hinske.

A sudden roar and wave of applause from the third-base side. It’s someone famous climbing the stairs between two grandstand sections. Because it’s Vermont Day, I think maybe it’s Fisk, a Vermont native, but the tall gray-haired man’s surrounded by so much security that I know without even seeing his face that it’s John Kerry. As if to prove his loyalty, he’s wearing a Sox warm-up jacket. Later, when he comes back from the concession stand, I see he’s in the second row, and I think: our seats are better.

We pick up another run in the seventh to make it 7–2, and Timlin and Embree close it with little difficulty, but two things happen that are worth noting. In the eighth, Cesar Crespo, who’s turned three double plays today, and missed a fourth only because Bellhorn’s throw pulled Ortiz off the bag, makes an error and is loudly booed. Then in the ninth, when Francona puts in the hands team and Pokey’s name is announced, the crowd gives him a sustained ovation. It’s taken Pokey three years to get here, but now that he is, he’s a favorite. Even among skeptics like Steph and Steve and myself, whenever a ball skips through the middle or drops in short center, we say, “Pokey woulda had it.”

We win, but on the out-of-town scoreboard, the Yanks are up 7–3 on the Rangers. In the car, it’s a final, 8–3 Yanks, so we’re still only a game and a half up.

When we get home, I find out that Bill Mueller wasn’t even there today. He was out in Arizona, getting a second opinion on his knee. Regardless of the result, it’s bad news. Youkilis better take some extra grounders.

My third straight game at Fenway and my third straight win. I’m starting to feel like if I’d been here from the start of the season, we’d be ten games in first (God will get me for saying that). Stewart came with his son, Steph, both of them equipped with gloves. Doug Mirabelli banged a foul off the glass facing of the .406 Club in the first inning; Stew turned, stretched and caught it neatly just as the sun came out. The crowd up the first-base line gave him a spirited ovation. Stew had class enough—and wit enough—to tip his cap. It was a nice moment, and I’m glad his son was there to see it.

So Wakefield gets the win, the Red Sox sweep the Blue Jays, and our bullpen was pretty much untouchable throughout. Kevin Youkilis? Glad you asked. The Greek God of Walks reached base three times (one fielder’s choice, two bases on balls) and scored once.

May 24th

Seems like we always have a day off just when we’re getting hot. It gives me time to prepare for tomorrow’s first meeting with Oakland since last year’s Division Series—bound to be loud. It’s a sweet matchup: Schilling versus Tim Hudson, who’s 5-1 with a 2.90 ERA. It’s Foulke’s first game against his old club, and Terry Francona’s, and of course Scott Hatteberg will get a couple of hits, and maybe Johnny Damon. Mark Bellhorn was also an A once, though a low-profile one. With all the turnover lately (and Dan Duquette’s endless fire sale of our best prospects), it’s hard to find a club that doesn’t have some Sox connection.

Tonight’s the Nomar Bowl in Malden, where dozens of Boston sports celebrities and their fans get together at Town Lanes and roll a couple of strings for charity. My friend Paul’s wife Lisa is taking some balls for Nomie to sign, and one of them’s for me.

May 25th

It’s eighty degrees in Hartford; in Boston it’s fifty. I thought I’d be warm enough in a corduroy shirt, but I’m not. Waiting with me outside Gate E is a guy with a giant black wig. I think he’s one of Damon’s Disciples, but it’s a Manny-as-Buckwheat wig, a wild, lopsided ’fro. He and a friend are sitting on the Monster; tomorrow they’re in the .406 Club—they shelled out for the very tickets I’d seen on eBay and seriously contemplated buying, just ’cause I’ve never sat there.

The .406 Club has rules: no jeans, and you have to bring a credit card to buy drinks (there’s a free buffet). During the standard tour of Fenway, the guide says when they finished construction, they realized that because of the thickness of the glass, the room is virtually soundproof. They had to install speakers so customers could hear the game. Any other day, I’d say the .406 Club is no place to watch the Sox, but tonight the idea of being inside is tempting.

The gates roll open and I hoof it down to the corner in left. I nab a couple of balls in BP and report my haul to my favorite usher Bob, then stop by Autograph Alley to see who’s signing. It’s Rich Gale, a pitcher who was with us briefly in ’84, then came back to coach in the early nineties. I remember that he pitched in Japan, and ask him to sign his picture with “Ganbatte!”

“You mean ‘Ganbatte mas!’” he says.

It turns out he pitched for the Hanshin Tigers.

“The Red Sox of Japan!”

“That’s right—and I was there in ’85, the first year we won it.”

“That must have been pretty wild.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, and stops writing, as if he hasn’t thought of that time in a while, and his expression is both ecstatic and guilty, as if he’s recalling infinite, ultimate pleasures.

I have him add HANSHIN TIGERS 85–86 and leave him with a loud “Ganbatte!”

Over at the seats, Steve’s reading a suspense novel. Our neighbor Mason delivers the bad news: Bill Mueller’s having arthroscopic knee surgery and will be out at least six weeks. It’s another blow, but Youkilis has done such a good job offensively that there’s no panic. If Nomar gets back soon, we can put Pokey at second, as planned, slide Bellhorn over to third, and still have a solid backup.

Again, we’re all thinking of that magical day when Trot and Nomar come back, when right now we’re playing fine without them.

“Temperature at game time,” Carl Beane announces, “forty-eight degrees.” It makes me think of spring training, and how happy those Minnesotans were to escape their weather. Here we’re proud of it. Forty-eight? It’ll get down to forty-two by game’s end. Tack on the windchill and we’re talking mid-thirties.

It’s overcast and very chilly tonight—shit, call a spade a spade, it’s cold. My colleague Stewart O’Nan is undaunted. He shows up apple-cheeked and grinning, toting a bag of scuffed balls he shagged in BP. (Proudest acquisition: a David Ortiz swat.)

The Weston High School Chorus—all nine thousand of them, apparently—line the first- and third-base lines to sing the national anthem, and the sound, which comes bouncing back from the Green Monster in perfect echoes that double each line, is spooky and wonderful. Stewart, meanwhile, is off trying to give Gabe Kapler a photo of Kapler holding Stew’s custom fly-shagging net… which, some wits might argue, Kapler could put to good use during his tours of duty in right field.

The Red Sox (who will go on to romp in this one) put up just a single run in the bottom of the first—not much, considering that they once again send seven men to the plate. The Sox stats this year with bases loaded and two out are pretty paralyzing: just 12 for 54, only two of those for extra bases (both doubles), all the rest mere singles. This time Kevin “Cowboy Up” Millar is the goat, grounding weakly to first. He leaves two more on base in the third, and leaves ’em loaded again in the fourth. The Sox score three that frame, but Millar has stranded eight men all by himself, and the game isn’t half over. I bet his agent won’t be bringing that stat up at contract time.

Even without Millar doing much (anything, really), it’s 9–1 after five, Tim Hudson’s gone, Oakland’s baked, and I’m on my way to my fourthstraight Fenway win. Mark Bellhorn gets 5 RBIs, Manny Ramirez hits another home run, and Kevin Youkilis reaches base four times in five at-bats, scoring twice.

There are lots of things to like about this game in spite of the cold. But maybe the best…there’s this little kid, okay? Ten, maybe twelve years old. And late in the game, after a lot of people have taken off, he grabs one of the front-row seats, and I spot him and Stewart deep in conversation, cap visor to cap visor. They don’t know each other from Adam, and there’s got to be thirty years between them, but baseball has turned them into instant old cronies. Anyone looking over their way would take them for father and son. And what’s wrong with that?

May 26th

Two number fives on the downward slide: Mr. Kim returns to Korea for unspecified treatment of his back and hip, while the Yankees give Donovan Osborne his outright release. It’s late May, and the Yankees haven’t figured out their rotation. Having Bronson Arroyo definitely gives us the edge.

Tonight it’s the struggling Derek Lowe against Mark Redman, 3-2 with a 3.60 ERA. By comparison, Lowe’s ERA is 6.02.

We have Steph’s sax recital and then dinner after, and get back in the A’s fifth. It’s 6–2 Sox with two down and no one on. I figure Lowe must be throwing okay. Kotsay doubles, Byrnes singles him in. Chavez homers off the wall behind Section 34, and it’s 6–5.

I wonder if it’s me—if I should turn the TV off and come back later.

I’m glad I don’t. In our sixth, Johnny’s on third with one down. Ortiz can’t deliver him, and with two down and first open, Macha has Redman walk Manny. At this point, Redman’s thrown 120 pitches. The switch-hitting Tek is coming up, so with his relievers up and warm, Macha can choose which side of the plate he hits from. He lets Redman pitch to him. Tek hits one onto Lansdowne Street and we’ve got a four-run cushion again.

Anastacio Martinez relieves Lowe, giving up three straight hits and a run before Embree comes on and gets out of it with a double-play ball.

In the A’s eighth, they have two on and one out when Billy McMillon stings one down the first-base line. McCarty gloves it behind the bag in foul territory; his momentum takes him halfway to the tarp before he spins and throws to Timlin covering. McMillon slides and gets tangled up with Timlin—he’s out! The replay’s crazy: I’ve never seen anyone make that play so far in foul ground, and perfectly. That’s exactly why McCarty’s on the team. It makes me wish I could send him back to 1986 to spell Billy Buck for an inning.

In the ninth, McCarty shines again, with a sweeping snatch of a bounced throw by Bellhorn, helping Foulke to a one-two-three inning for his tenth straight save.

On the postgame show, Eck tries to figure out Lowe’s problem. Of the fifth, Eck says, “It’s a mystical inning,” and we crack up. Groovy Eck with his Farrah Fawcett wings. But he’s right too (right on, Eck!): “When you win a game and your ERA goes up, you know you didn’t pitch too good.”

May 27th

9 A.M.: Neither Stew nor I made it to the ballyard last night. I had a PEN dinner in Boston’s Back Bay and Stewart had his son’s saxophone recital—which, he assured me, is nonnegotiable. The Red Sox did not miss us. Derek Lowe was once more far from perfect, but the Sox bats stayed hot and in his start against Oakland, Lowe was just good enough to go six and eke out the win. The Red Sox rolled to their fifth straight, their seventh in their last eight games.

But I watch SportsDesk this morning musing on my Yankees essay—the one where I talked about how we hate what we fear—and looking at my new hat, which was sent to me from yankeeshater.com. Because the Yankees have also been winning, and while we’ve been doing it at home, they’ve been doing it on the road, which is a tougher proposition. They came from behind last night at Camden Yards not just once but twice, finally putting the Orioles away 12–9. So in spite of this nifty streak of ours, we’re still only a game and a half in front. Two Sox losses combined with just two Yankee wins, and we’re back in second place. This is what the Yankees do. They hang around.

Those suckers lurk.

10:30 P.M.: The summer’s disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, opens this weekend, but disaster struck tonight at Fenway Park, as Boston’s brave little five-game winning streak went bye-bye in a big way. Oakland beat the Red Sox like a drum, pounding out 17 hits on their way to a 15–2 win. Me, I knew it was going to happen. I went to the game with my nephew, Jon, who goes to school in Boston. He came over to my hotel room before the game and tossed my hat on the bed, which everyoneknows is just about the worst luck in the world—talk about bad mojo! But I don’t blame him; the kid just didn’t know.

Also, most (or maybe all) major league teams now insist on a five-man pitching rotation, and our fifth man, Bronson Arroyo, while promising, is still very much a work in progress. That fifth man in the rotation is about stre-et-ching the starting pitching…and that, of course, is all about the money. We’ve been there before in this book, and will undoubtedly be there again. But I can remember a time, children—I believe it was 1959—when the White Sox went to the World Series with what was essentially a three-man rotation. Of course, those were the days when a good pitcher still got paid in five figures and a man could take his whole family to the ballyard for twenty bucks, parking included (and smoke a White Owl in the grandstand, if he was so inclined). I’m not saying those were better baseball days…but I’m not saying they weren’t, either.

In the midst of all this, Kevin Youkilis drew a walk in his last at-bat. He still hasn’t played in a major league game where he’s failed to reach base.

A final note before I pack it in for the night: I took myself off this afternoon to see Still, We Believe, an entertaining documentary which chronicles the star-crossed Red Sox team of 2003, the one that voyaged so far only to tear out its hull (not to mention the hearts of its fans) on those cruel Yankee reefs in the seventh game of the American League Championship Series. This film is currently playing in theaters all over New England, plus a few New York venues (where it is attended largely by sadists in Yankee caps, one would suppose), and probably nowhere else. It’s a charming, funny, sweetly poignant film. Its token efforts to explore the Mind of Management—always supposing Management has a Mind, a hypothesis with little evidence to support it—aren’t very interesting, but when it focuses on the fortunes of four fans, it’s a lot more successful. One is a young man who is wheelchair-bound due to an accident; two are semidaffy (but very endearing) young women I kept thinking of as Laverne and Shirley; the fourth is Angry Bill.

Angry Bill is a piece of work: overweight, hypertensive (he suffers persistent nosebleeds during the ’03 postseason), full of nervous energy, bursting with cynical pronouncements that barely cover his bruised baseball fan’s heart. This guy has lived and died with the Sox for so long (mostly the latter), that he sums up an entire New England mind-set when hestates, in effect, that the Sox are always gonna lose, he knows they’re gonna pull an el foldo in August just as sure as he knows the sun’s gonna come up over Boston Haaabaaa in the east, and if they don’t pull an el foldo in August they’ll pull a tank job in September, just as sure as the sun’s gonna go down over Attleboro in the west.

And yet, with Boston ahead during the early going of that climactic Game 7 in October of 2003, Angry Bill briefly allows himself to become Hopeful Bill… because the Red Sox do this to us, too: every year at some point they turn into Lucy holding the football, and against all our best intentions (and our knowing that those who do not learn from history are condemned—fucking CONDEMNED!—to repeat it) we turn into Charlie Brown running once more to kick it, only to have it snatched away again at the last moment so we land flat on our backs, screaming “AUGGGH!” at the top of our lungs.

And when, after Grady Little leaves Pedro in long after even the most casual baseball fan knows he is toasty—fried, broiled, baked, cooked to a turn, stick a fork in ’im, he’s done—when the coup de grâce is delivered by Aaron Boone long after Pedro has trudged to the shower, Angry Bill stares with a kind of wondering disbelief into the documentarian’s camera (at us in the audience, seven months later, seven weeks into a new season later, us with our tickets to tonight’s shellacking by the Oakland A’s in our pockets) and delivers what is for me the absolute capper, the jilted Red Sox fan’s Final Word: “Don’t let your kids grow up to be sports fans,” Angry Bill advises, and at this point the movie leaves him—mercifully—to contemplate the Patriots, who will undoubtedly improve matters for his battered psyche by winning the Super Bowl…but I’m sure Angry Bill would admit (if not right out loud then in his heart) that winning the Super Bowl isn’t the same as winning the World Series. Not even in the same universe as winning the World Series.

Meanwhile, the Yankees—the Evil Empire, our old nemesis—have come from behind to beat Baltimore once again, and our lead in the AL East is down to a mere half game. I’m off to bed knowing that the boogeyman has inched a little bit closer to the closet door.

May 28th

It’s the big holiday weekend. Once the kids get home from school, we’ve got to drive down to the Rhode Island shore and help my in-laws open up the beach house, so after lunch I run around town trying to fit in my last errands. I’m at the Stop ’n Shop when I remember the new Reverse the Curse ice cream, and there it is in the freezer section. The carton is boring and generic. I’d hoped for more interesting packaging, maybe a nod to the Monster that I could use for a penny bank. Still, the ice cream should be good.

We poke along I-95 with all the other Memorial Day traffic. Trudy and her parents have been lifting and cleaning all day, and don’t feel like cooking, so we go out for dinner. By the time we make it back, the Sox are down 4–1 to Seattle in the fifth. Ichiro’s just driven in a run, and steals third on Pedro, who has that dull, long-suffering look he gets when things aren’t going right. There’s only one out, and Edgar Martinez is up. Pedro gets him swinging, then gets the next guy to pop up.

In our fifth, Millar and Youkilis tag Joel (pronounced Joe-El, as if he’s from Krypton) Pineiro for back-to-back doubles, making it 4–2. See, all the Sox needed was us watching. Pokey Ks, but with two gone Pineiro walks Johnny and Mark Bellhorn to load them for Big David. On the first pitch, Ortiz lofts a long fly to right. Ichiro goes back sideways, and keeps going, all the way to the wall, where he leaps. He hangs there, folded over the low wall, only his legs showing. We can’t see the ball, but the fans behind the bullpen fence are jumping up and down—it’s gone, a grand slam, and we’re up 6–4.

In St. Pete, the Yanks have beaten the D-Rays, so we need to hold on to stay in first. Pedro settles down. In the eighth he gives way to Embree, who throws a scoreless inning. J. J. Putz comes on for the M’s and gives up a smoked single through the middle to Manny (it makes Putz riverdance) and then, after a long at-bat, a double to Dauber off the bullpen wall. Bob Melvin decides to walk Tek to set up the double play, which Kapler foils by popping up. Putz goes 2-0 on Youkilis and has to come in with a strike; Youkilis slaps it down the right-field line for a double and two more insurance runs, and the PA plays the corny old Hartford Whalers theme, “Brass Bonanza.”

Foulke closes, but it’s a battle. He throws 30 pitches and leaves runners on second and third for an 8–4 final. A tougher game than expected from the last-place M’s, but El Jefe (Big Papi, D.O., David as Goliath) brought us back.

May 29th

It’s Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but I’ve had all of Boston and Fenway Park I can take for a while—seven games in eight days is plenty, especially given the uniformly shitty quality of the weather.[16] And that’s not all. Hotel living gets creepy after a while, even when you can afford room service (maybe especially if you can afford room service). Also, my wife headed back to Maine after the PEN dinner on Wednesday, and I miss her. But as I run north under sunshiny, breezy skies, I keep an eye on the dashboard clock, and when 1 P.M. rolls around, I hit the radio’s SEEK button until I find the voices of Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano, comfort food for the ear.

Listening to a baseball game on the radio may be outmoded in this age of computers and satellite television, but it hath its own particular pleasures; with each inning you build your own Fenway of the mind from scrap-heap memories and pure imagination. Today the wind is playing tricks, Wakefield’s knuckleball is staying up in the zone, and the usually lackluster Mariner hitters pounce on it right from the git. In the second inning a Seattle batter hits a towering fly foul of first, but the wind pushes it back into fair territory. Mark Bellhorn, today playing second, tries to stay with it, can’t. The ball bonks him on the wrist and falls for a double. I see all this quite vividly (along with Manny Ramirez’s homer to left, hit so hard it leaves a vapor trail, Troop assures me) as I drive north between Yarmouth and Freeport with that same wind pushing my own car. Since I can’t read a page of my current book between innings (the galley of Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves is now tucked away in my green 1999 All-Star Game souvenir carry-bag), I punch the CD button after each third out and listen to two minutes—timed on my wristwatch—of Larry McMurtry’s The Wandering Hill, volume two of the Berrybender Narratives. I have found that two minutes gets me back to the game just in time for the first pitch of the next inning.

In this fashion, the 240-mile trip to Bangor passes agreeably enough. One wishes the Red Sox could have won, but it’s hard to root against Freddy Garcia, a great pitcher who is this year laboring for a bad ball clubin the Mariners. And the worst the Sox can do on the current home stand is 6-4; one may reasonably hope for 8-2.

One may even hope the hapless Devil Rays will beat the Yankees tonight, and we will retain our half-game hold on the top spot a little longer.

Waiting at home in the mail is the Nomar ball from the Nomar Bowl, a nice souvenir of his lost season. My e-mail in-box is sluggish, filled with pictures of Lisa at the Town Lanes with Nomar, with Dauber, with David Ortiz, with Mike Timlin, with Alan Embree, even with Danny Ainge. Everyone’s smiling, though I don’t see any players actually bowling.

The Yanks beat the Rays 5–3, so they’re in first place. I smother my sorrows in a bowl of Reverse the Curse and read the sports page. My Pirates, amazingly, are at .500, thanks to a pair of walk-off homers to take a twin bill from the Cubs. And it says Nomar’s scheduled to start his rehab stint at Pawtucket tomorrow—the best news I could hope for.

9:50 P.M.: I take my wife to the crazy-weather movie, which we both enjoy. I walk the dog as soon as we get back, then hit the TV remote and click on Headline News. Weekends, the ticker at the bottom of the screen runs continuous sports scores, and ohhhh, shit, the Yankees won again. They’ve regained the top spot in the AL East, one they’ve held for almost five consecutive seasons, leaving me to wonder how in the name of Cobb and Williams you pound a stake through this team’s heart and make them lie still. Or if it’s even possible.

May 30th

We’ve got Monster seats and get going early. I’m taking the kids while Trudy’s bringing her parents from the shore. The weather’s clear, traffic’s light on I-84, and a cop stops me for speeding. So the morning, which started so promising, turns bitter even before we hit the Mass Pike. I worry that the feeling will linger and ruin the whole day, but there are enough miles to put it behind us.

We hit Lansdowne Street, where the sausage vendors are open early for the family crowd. A woman Trudy’s mother’s age has a sweatshirt that says FOULKE THE YANKEES.

I’m sure that Stew was at the ballpark today for what turned out to be an extraordinary game, and probably in the prime real estate of my second-row seats next to the Red Sox dugout, but I enjoyed it fine at home in my living room with my wife close by, propped up on the couch with the computer on her lap and the dog by her side. I’ve come down with a fairly heavy cold as a result of my week of chilly carousal at Fenway, and there is something especially satisfying—akin to the pleasures of self-pity, I suppose—about watching a baseball game with the box of Kleenex near one hand and the box of Sucrets near the other, coughing and sneezing your way through the innings as the shadows on both the infield and your living room carpet gradually creep longer.

This game had a little bit of everything. Curt Schilling flirted with perfection into the sixth; Keith Foulke blew his first save of the season (his first blown save in his last twenty-four attempts, it turns out) when Raul Ibanez hit a dramatic three-run home run, putting the Mariners up 7–5 in the eighth inning; the Red Sox came right back to tie it in the bottom of the eighth. Then, in the bottom of the twelfth, Sox sub David McCarty crushed a 3-0 fastball to what is the deepest part of the park to give the Red Sox the win.

And at the risk of sounding like Angry Bill in Still, We Believe, I called the shot. Yeah! Me! I’d claim my wife as a witness to this feat of prediction, except she was pretty heavy into the computer solitaire by then and I doubt like hell that she was listening. The Mariners’ fourth pitcher of the afternoon, a young man with the unfortunate name of J. J. Putz, entered the game with a reputation for wildness, but was into his third inning of exceptional relief work (he struck out both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez in the eleventh) when the roof fell in. After getting the first out in the twelfth, he hit Jason Varitek with a soft breaking pitch.[17] Enter McCarty, inserted into the lineup mostly as a defensive replacement. The count ran to 3-0. Most batters are taking all the way on such a count, but Terry Francona gives most of his guys the automatic green light on 3-0. (I like this strategy as much as I loathe his refusal to bunt runners along in key situations.) I said—mostly to the dog, since my wife was paying elzilcho attention, “Watch this. Putz is gonna throw it down the middle and McCarty is gonna send everyone home in time for supper.” Which is just what happened, and thank God the camera did not linger long on the head-hanging misery of young Mr. J. J. Putz as McCarty went into his home run trot. These are the kind of games you either win or feel really bad about losing, especially at home. I feel badly for Putz (pronounced Pootz, thank you very much), but the bottom line? We won it. And the bonus? The Yankees lost to Tampa Bay (who just barely held on), which means we’re back in first place.

There are three major milestones in a baseball season: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. The first of these milestones in the 2004 season comes tomorrow, when we play a makeup game with Baltimore, and for a team with so many quality players on the disabled list, we’re doing pretty damned well going into the first turn. Especially when we can look forward to two of those—Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon—coming back between Memorial Day and the Fourth. A third, Bill Mueller, may return to the club between the Fourth and Labor Day.

That brings us back to Kevin Youkilis, Mueller’s replacement, who has now begun to attract so much notice that Terry Francona has had to publicly state that no, Youkilis will not be keeping the job at third once Mueller’s fit and ready to play no matter how well the GGOW[18] does between now and the happy day of Mueller’s return.

A piece in the Portland Sunday Telegram today by Kevin Thomas (who knows Youkilis from Youkilis’s days with the Portland Sea Dogs, the BoSox double-A affiliate) points out that Youkilis’s locker is on the far wall of the clubhouse, the traditional place for players who are just up for a cup of coffee in the bigs…as is undoubtedly the case with Andy Dominique, who delivered today’s game-tying hit in the bottom of the eighth. Thomas also points to previous Red Sox minor leaguers such as Wilton Veras, who came up to play third with high hopes, only to fade into obscurity.

Obscurity would not seem to be in young Mr. Youkilis’s future, however. “I know I’m going to be playing,” he told Kevin Thomas in today’s interview, speaking with quiet certainty, and with every passing game his on-base percentage seems simultaneously harder to believe for a rookie and less like a fluke. Moved up to the two-hole today, all Youkilis did was gothree for five, with three runs scored. His batting average is .317, and his OBP is hovering right around .425. The fans know that Bill Mueller may have to battle for his old spot back, no matter what Terry Francona has to say on the subject.

It sounds like they’re booing the kid when he walks to the plate, but the grin on Youkilis’s face says he knows better; that sound sweeping around the ballpark like a soft wind is the first syllable of his last name: Youk…Youk…Youk…

Two weeks ago he was playing triple-A ball in Pawtucket; tomorrow, on Memorial Day, he’s going to be playing the Orioles before a packed house, for the first-place Boston Red Sox. And I don’t want to jinx the kid, but do you know what I think, after having watched him in almost all of those games?

I think a star is born.

After the McCarty walk-off job, Netman learns from fan services that the Sox have decided to ban his net from Fenway. Like the speeding ticket, it could taint the day, but I won’t let it. I’ve had a great run with the net, and it was a wild game today—half a no-hitter topped by a late-inning comeback and then the tension of extra innings released with McCarty’s game-winner. The Yanks lost at the Trop, so we’re in first place. Happy birthday, Manny.

Hell, I’m better with the glove anyway.

May 31st

In response to flooding on the border of Haiti and the Dominican, David Ortiz, Manny and Pedro are joining with the Sox to collect donations for aid. I send a check, and while this book won’t be out for another six months, I’m sure the victims down there will still need the support then. The address is Dominican Relief Effort, Red Sox Foundation, Fenway Park, Boston, MA 02215.

Of Boston’s four established starting pitchers—the other three being Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield and Curt Schilling—Derek Lowe has been the most obviously troubled. In his last three winning starts, all at home and all shaky, his teammates have been wearing their red jerseys instead of the usual white ones, so it’s no surprise that those were the onesthey were wearing when they took the field for their makeup game against the Orioles.

It was Lowe’s best start in weeks, but this time the red tops didn’t help. The real problem today wasn’t Lowe so much as it was the middle relief. Like most teams in the wretchedly overstocked major leagues, Boston can’t boast a lot in that regard. Yes, there’s Timlin and Embree, but Francona doesn’t like to throw them in when the Sox are down by more than a couple, and both of them have worked a lot lately and needed the day off. So it was the PawSox Pitching Corps, mostly, and no way were they equal to the task. The Sox were down 9–0 before you could say Lansdowne Street. We’ve played from behind a lot on this home stand, and have come from behind a lot… but not from this far behind. Not against Oakland, not against Seattle, and not against Baltimore today.

So now we’re off to the West Coast, Nomar’s almost ready to come back (always supposing his rehabbed ankle stays rehabbed after some actual game action with the triple-A club, where he went 0 for 3 last night), and the first third of the season is over. The biggest surprise—at least to me—has been how quickly, after the initial scramble, the teams aligned themselves just as they have in previous years. Pick of the first fifty: the Sox taking six of seven from the Bronx Bombers. And in spite of that, we’ve reached the Memorial Day marker fifty-one games into the season in a dead tie for first with them.

Who woulda thunk it?

Steve calls, and we dissect the game. They came out flat, we agree. But, overall so far, Steve says, we’re playing way over our heads. Look at these guys who’ve been getting it done for us: Youkilis, McCarty, Bellhorn. Nomar’s not too far away, and Trot. Sure, we’re headed out West and the Yankees are coming home, but historically we do okay out there.

He’s more optimistic than I am—a rarity—but he’s right too. And yet, after I hang up, I’m still worried about Lowe, whose ERA must be pushing 7.00, and who hasn’t made it out of the sixth inning in over a month.