Faithful

July 1st

Now, if you substitute baseball for football and Red Sox for Giants, you have a very fair picture of my rooting geography.

Francona must be feeling the heat, because Ortiz is DHing and McCarty starts at first. Nomar’s not playing—to give him a night off, as ridiculous as that sounds. Youk plays, Trot sits, so essentially we’re fielding the team we had in May, minus Bill Mueller.

Petey’s feisty, plunking Sheffield and then glaring back at him when he takes exception. In the second, he walks Posada, and that damn Tony Clark waits on a change and puts it out. Meanwhile, rookie lefty Brad Halsey is setting us down. In the fifth, Posada takes five straight pitches before fouling off the payoff pitch, then lifts one into the upper deck. 3–0 Yankees, and things look bad.

In the top of the sixth, Ortiz leads off with a slicing fly to left. With the shift on, Matsui can’t get there, and the ball hops sideways into the stands for a ground-rule double. Manny steps in and crushes one to dead center—he pauses to admire it a second, watching Halsey as the rookie turns away. It’s 3–2 and the Yanks have to go to their middle guys.

In the seventh, Quantrill gives up a deep leadoff fly to right-center by McCarty. Lofton gets there, just short of the track, but one-hands it, and the ball pops out. Youk singles to left, so we’ve got first and third with no outs, and a big inning’s brewing. Pokey hits into an easy 4-6-3 DP, but McCarty scores to tie the game.

Pedro finishes the seventh, and they go to Tom Gordon, who’s solid. Foulke throws two innings for us, sneaking out of a one-out bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth. Mo gets us one-two-three in the tenth, while Embree has to battle Bernie with first and third to reach the eleventh.

We load them with no outs. Millar’s due up, but we’ve got Nomar and Trot available. Francona sticks with Millar, who hits into a 5-2 double play. McCarty flies out, and I think this one’s over, but Embree gets them one-two-three.

The Yanks go to Tanyon Sturtze, who puts runners on first and third with one out, but Bellhorn pops up (he popped up last night in a similar situation). With two gone, Francona decides to pinch-hit Trot, who flares one to left that Jeter snags on the run, then—weirdly—takes two strides and dives into the seats, banging up his face. On the replay, he’s got room to swerve or slide, but there he goes into the stands like a bad stuntman. In Japan they call that a hotu dogu.

We’re down to Curtis Leskanic, who gives up a leadoff triple to Enrique Wilson when Johnny misplays a hop off the wall. Giambi strikes out, looking bad on three splitters, but Leskanic hits Sheffield (Torre comes out to bitch), and we intentionally walk A-Rod to set up the DP.

We’re in the top of the twelfth right now and scratching like mad to salvage one game. The ESPN boys are saying that if we get skunked, we’re dunked. I don’t believe that, but a win would be nice…salvage a little of the ole self-respect. Garciaparra has been dog-bit in the field, and I really think Francona has been a bad choice as manager. Not in Daddy Butch’s league (at least not yet), but he’s not doing much to turn it around, is he? And if he’s looking for a team leader, who is he going to look to? The guyswho’ve been out all season and just came waltzing back in like they had a free pass? Manny? Don’t make me laugh. And Ortiz last night… Buckner all over again. Sign me, Just Plain Glum.

Meanwhile, in the game, runners at first and third, one out. As the old gypsy says, “I see handsome men on horseback.”

If it has to be anybody, let it be Tony Clark.

And if it has to be anybody else, let it be good old Tom Gordon.

With Millar as a fifth infielder, Bubba Crosby, who pinch-ran for Matsui, takes the count full before grounding to Pokey, who goes home for the force. Bernie Williams falls behind 0-2, and Leskanic gets him with a splitter and we worm out of it.

Manny leads off the thirteenth with a rocket off the camera platform in left-center, and suddenly we’re up 4–3. All we have to do is hang on.

Leskanic looks strong, striking out Posada, then making a nice play on a dribbler to the third-base side by Clark. I want him to finish off Ruben Sierra—a guy who strikes out a ton—but Sierra bounces a single up the middle. Now with two out, the outfielders have to play deep so nothing gets through to score the runner. Leskanic gets ahead of Cairo 0-2. His next pitch is on the corner, and I yell, “Got him!” but the ump blows the call. I hold my arms out wide, beseeching the TV. On the next pitch, Cairo hits a fly toward the right-center gap. Millar heads over. He may not have a shot at catching it, but at the last second he veers away from it and toward the wall, trailing it as it hops across the track. Sierra’s chugging around third; he’s going to score easily.

“What the fuck is Millar doing out there?”

Once again, Francona’s fucked up. He pinch-ran Kapler but didn’t pull the double switch. Kapler gets to that ball—at the very least he cuts it off.

John Flaherty, a backup catcher who played for us in the ’80s, pinch-hits. He’s hitting .150, but he lofts a double into the left-field corner, and the game’s over.

So we go from embarrassing to humiliating to painful, finding a new, more wrenching way to lose each night. I should have never mentioned the word sweep. We’re eight and a half back, and the tone of the break is definitely set.

In bed, still pissed off, I revisit the question of what the fuck Millar is doing out there in the thirteenth inning. The answer goes back to spring training, and the last man cut from the squad. Rather than keep Adam Hyzdu as a bona fide backup outfielder, Theo and Francona made the decision to go with Burks, Dauber, McCarty and Millar, understanding that Trot wouldn’t be back for a couple of months. None of those four gets to that ball. Hyzdu does. And why is Kapler watching the play from the bench? It’s like Francona has to learn the same lesson game after game—and it’s common sense: to protect a late lead you want your best defense on the field. It’s just fundamental baseball. Numbnut.

July 2nd

Shit.

The Yankees took all three games at the Stadium—swept us out, sent us packing, dropped us eight and a half games back in the AL East, and the second-to-last thing in the world I want to do this morning is write about baseball. The last thing I want to do is write about the Boston Red Sox. Since I have to, maybe the best thing to do is get it out of the way in a hurry.

It was clear from the Yankees’ jubilation that they really wanted the sweep, probably as payback for the humiliation of being beaten six of seven earlier in the season. For Boston fans, the series was a quick-and-dirty refresher course on how hard being a Red Sox fan can be. It’s not the sweep that hurts so much as the fact that we should have won last night’sgame (the Yankees took that one by a score of 5–4 in thirteen innings), we could have won the June 30th game, and I would argue that we might even have won the first game of the series, in which we were blown out, if not for the errors (the Sox committed three, two by Garciaparra, who committed three overall in the series—he didn’t play last night).

Being a Red Sox fan, particularly when playing the Yankees at crucial junctures of the season, can be such a filthy job. Two nights ago, with the Sox leading 2–0 but in a jam, Tony Clark hit a hard ground ball down to first. It should have been the third out. In the dugout, Tim Wakefield—down for the win, if the Sox could hold on—raised his hands joyfully. But instead of being an out, the ball squirted through David Ortiz’s glove and into right field.[25] Ortiz blamed his glove, claiming the webbing was defective. Boston fans, knowing where God and the Fates stand in regard to our benighted club, did not doubt it.

In last night’s game, Manny Ramirez hit a home run in the top of the thirteenth to put the Sox up, 4–3. In the bottom of the inning, the first two Yankees to bat went harmlessly. Then Sierra singled, Cairo doubled, and Flaherty doubled. Ball game. The loss doesn’t hurt so much as coming so close to winning. Twice during that nightmare inning we were only a strike away.

And so I found myself doing what I have done after so many Red Sox close-but-no-cigar losses in my lifetime: lying in my bed wide-awake until maybe two or two-thirty in the morning, seeing the key base hit that opened the door skip past the pitcher’s mound, then past the shortstop (Pokey Reese in this case) and into center field; seeing the celebrating Yankees; seeing our manager (Terry Francona in this case) hustling out of the dugout and into the clubhouse just as fast as his little legs could possibly carry him. Only this time I lay there also thinking that when I got up again after a night of bad rest, I was actually going to have to write about this fuckaree, thanks to my friend Stewart O’Nan, who got me into this.

Thanks, Stewart.

But there’s one very good thing about July 2nd. The Red Sox are on toAtlanta. Atlanta usually kills us, but they’re having a down year, and at least I don’t need to write about the damn Yankees for a while.

After blowing two we should have won in the Bronx, we head south to take on the Dixie equivalent of the Evil Empire, the Braves. They’re not that good this year, having lost most of that nibble-the-corners staff of the ’90s, but they play in the worst division in baseball, the NL East, so they’re still scrapping. Bill Mueller’s back, and to make room for him, the Sox put Crespo on waivers, with an eye toward assigning him to Pawtucket.

Arroyo throws well, as does former Cleveland phenom Jaret Wright. Ortiz goes deep in the first, and Bill Mueller knocks in a run in his first at-bat, but the Braves get solo shots from Chipper Jones and J. D. Drew to tie it at 2.

In the middle of the sixth, Steve calls. He’s watching up in Maine. “The Sox are playing like old people fuck.” He’s worried about the season going down the tubes.

“Hey,” I say, “we almost have our starting lineup out there for the first time all year. Bill Mill at third, Nomar at short, Trot in right. The only one missing is Pokey.”

“Is that a good thing, though, Stewart? Wouldn’t you rather have the other guys playing the way they were playing in April or May? Pokey’s not the one who hit .225 and made three errors this week. Nomar cost us a game.” (As he says this, Bellhorn whiffs, and a caption says that his 90 strikeouts lead the league.)

“And Francona cost us at least one.”

“I hate looking into the dugout and seeing him rocking back and forth.”

“Like Danny in The Shining. I keep looking for drool.”

“Redrum! Redrum!”

Steve says he couldn’t sleep after last night’s game, that he lay in bed, seeing Sierra’s ground ball up the middle. I confess to lying awake as well, as if we’re joined by a sickness, and we are.

When he hangs up, I feel like I’ve lost someone on the suicide hotline. I think I should have been able to cheer him up, but I can’t lie; we’ve looked awful lately. Just have to ride it out.

It’s 2–2 in the eighth when the starters give way to a roll call of relievers. It’s almost a replay of last night’s game, with each team putting runners on and then not being able to drive them in.

In the tenth Manny finally breaks the tie, knocking a single up the middle to score Johnny. In comes Foulke to close, even though he threw two innings last night. Rafael Furcal, who’s the second fastest person in the stadium, doubles to left-center, then takes third on what the replay shows to be a foul ball (Francona stands blankly at the dugout rail). Little Nick Green hits a sac fly, and we’re tied.

We do nothing in the eleventh or twelfth, and trust the game to Anastacio Martinez, recalled today to fill the spot left by Williamson, back on the DL. Anastacio looks good in the eleventh, but in the twelfth he gets no one out, giving up a single, a single and then a three-run homer to end it. 6–3, and we suck. At least the Mets beat the crap out of the Yanks, 11–2. Go Mets!

July 3rd

Walking on the beach this morning, we pass a couple on a towel. The guy spies our Sox hats and says, “How ’bout those Yankees?”

“How ’bout those Marlins?” I ask.

Later, driving on I-95, I’m cheered by the sheer number of Red Sox stickers and license-plate holders, even an official Mass license plate like Trot hawks on NESN. I pass a car that has one of the free BELIEVE stickers Cambridge Soundworks gives out by Autograph Alley, and I think: yes, it’s that simple. We may be down now, but this is my team, and I’m going to believe in them, whatever happens. Fuck the Yankees, and fuck their no-showing, front-running, fair-weather fans.

We all have our little strategies for dealing with loss, and right now I’m using all of mine. The Red Sox, who seem to be imploding, lost another heart-wrecker last night, this time in twelve innings, in Atlanta. That’s four straight, the last three close ones. Strategies for dealing?

One: Stop reading the sports pages. Right now I won’t even read about Wimbledon, lest my eye should stray to a baseball story, or, worse, the standings, on the facing page.

Two: Kill the sound. I watch the game every night on TV, but now with the MUTE function engaged, because I have conceived an active horror of what the announcers may be saying. MUTE doesn’t work when the game’s on ESPN, because their closed captioning kicks in, and in those cases, I have to turn the volume all the way down to 0.

Three: Change the station when the game is over. Just as soon as the final out is recorded I punch in Channel 262, better known as Soapnet. No way am I waking up to NESN’s SportsDesk these days, even though I know I may be missing the always fascinating Jayme Parker. No, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be catching up on All My Children while I shave and do my morning exercises.

Meantime, good news—and it has nothing at all to do with me saving a bunch on my car insurance. It looks like the current BoSox skid is going to end at four—it’s the top of the ninth, and Boston’s leading Atlanta 6–1. Curt Schilling’s on the hill for the Sox, looking for number eleven. He’sbeen our most reliable pitcher, because that sucker’s not just good, he’s lucky. Tonight Doug Mirabelli came up with two outs and the bases juiced, and although the Sox have been horrible all year in that situation, tonight was Mirabelli’s night—he put one over the fence to dead center, and that should be lights out for this light-hitting Braves team.

Mr. Tripp, who owns the local general store, gave me a T-shirt today that says RED SOX on the front and I SUPPORT TWO TEAMS, THE RED SOX AND WHOEVER BEATS THE YANKEES on the back. I wore it for tonight’s game, and I intend to wear it again tomorrow. And every day until they lose. (I also intend to keep on watching All My Children on Soapnet instead of SportsDesk on NESN for the foreseeable future. Less stress.)

July 4th

After losing the other night, Anastacio Martinez is shipped back to Pawtucket, making room for Theo’s newest acquisition, former Pirate Jimmy Anderson, a finesse lefty who last pitched for the Iowa Cubs. He’s not the solution to our middle-relief problems, and I think Theo’s pulling a Dan Duquette, trying to get away with cut-rate band-aids. If he really wants a quality arm, he’s going to have to give up something.

I’m reading on the beach when my nephew Charlie says the Sox are winning 4–1. I wander into the house to see for myself and watch as Lowe gives up a walk, an infield single, another walk, a groundout by pitcher Mike Hampton that scores a run, a single, a double, a single. We’ve all seen how quickly Lowe can melt down, and throughout this sequence we’re begging Francona to lift him, yet for most of it there’s no one warming up. Francona lets him throw to lefty Chipper Jones, who predictably sticks one in the bleachers. It’s 8–4, and everyone around the set is swearing. Francona finally calls on new guy Jimmy Anderson, who walks his first batter on four pitches, then gives up a double to Andruw Jones and a triple to Charles Thomas. I’ve only been watching for ten minutes and Atlanta’s sent ten guys to the plate.

“Can they fire a manager in the middle of the season?” Charlie asks.

At least the Mets sweep the Yankees (their fans chanting, “We’re not Boston”)—and on a horrible call. Late in a close game, Cairo hits one to the right side that Piazza can’t reach. It gets by him and hits Posada. The first base ump rules him safe; the crew chief overturns it. Torre comes out to argue, to no avail. The rule is that if a fielder’s had a chance to handle the ball, then the runner’s safe. The crew chief decided that Piazza hadn’t had a chance in the official sense, and that the second baseman might, and was therefore deprived of the chance to put Cairo out by the ball hitting Posada. Torre protests the game. And while the Yanks were the recipients of dozens of homer calls from the umps during our last series (including the noncall on that 0-2 count to Cairo that would have ended Wednesday night’s game), I can’t help but be annoyed at the incompetence. Get it right, Blue.

July 5th

The All-Star teams are announced. Schilling, Manny and David Ortiz made it—no surprise. What is shocking is that the three players implicated in the BALCO scandal—Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield—are all starting. Nice job, fans. Way to clean up the game.

Is life simpler, as Americans like to believe, down on the farm? We’re hoping, driving through a monsoon to see the PawSox, whose ticket office assures us the weather will clear up and they’ll get the game in. They almost do. At one point the grounds crew has the tarp off and is raking sawdust into the infield dirt, and Anastacio Martinez and Ramiro Mendoza and Frank Castillo and Mystery Malaska warm up down the third-base line. But by the time we have the ceremonial pitches (it’s Latino Day) and Dauber and Adam Hyzdu and Big Andy Dominique come out to stretch, it’s misting again, then straight-out raining, and two hours after game time, they call it, to halfhearted boos. So it really is a day off: no baseball at all.

July 6th

Tonight the Sox open a three-game series with Oakland, one of their chief wild-card opponents, and for the time being, at least, Boston’s postseason hopes are all about the wild card. Tonight will also be Boston’s eighty-first game of the year, which puts them almost exactly at the halfway point of the season.

Any real analysis of the first half will have to wait until the All-Star break, but I think it’s fair to say that I have rarely seen the feeling in my little corner of New England turn so quickly, so decisively, and so almost poisonously against our only major league club. Who knows, by the time the All-Star break comes around, I may be willing to drop the almost. This sea change isn’t that hard to understand. What we have here is a team filled with high-priced talent, much of which started the season on the disabled list. The team did well out of the gate nevertheless, contending in rather spectacular fashion in large part with the scrappy hit-’n’-field skills of guys like Bellhorn, Youkilis and Reese to complement the booming bats of Ramirez and Ortiz.[26] Then, just as the big boys started getting well, the team got sick. If it’s going to get better again, the convalescence must begin soon.

How bad is it right now in what sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy has dubbed Red Sox Nation? I peeped in at NESN’s SportsDesk this morning (I felt I could do this without too much fear of damaging my fragile sports superego because the Sox were idle yesterday) and was horrified to hear Sox-approved commentator Mike Perlow bandying Red Sox–Marlins trade rumors concerning Nomar Garciaparra and Derek Lowe. Of course there will be trade gossip as long as there’s pro baseball, but because NESN is a quasi-official arm of the Red Sox organization, one is tempted to sense palsied fingers (perhaps on the hand of Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein) creeping toward that red button marked PANIC.

My decision to tune in NESN (Channel 623 on my satellite hookup) was clearly foolhardiness masquerading as bravery. The thought of Nomar in a Florida Marlins uniform is dismaying, almost nauseating. After no more than five minutes, I made haste to Soapnet and All My Children, where Erica is currently enduring the world’s longest alcohol intervention,Babe is in the hospital recovering from something her boyfriend JR (with a nickname like that you know he’s a rat) put in her drink, and no one, so far as I can tell, is in danger of getting traded to General Hospital. Right now that makes it a safer, comfier world.

Wake versus Barry Zito doesn’t sound fair, but in the second, Billy Mueller launches a three-run Monster shot. Zito loads the bases in the fourth and walks in two runs, then, after a smoked liner to third by Nomar, Millar doubles down the left-field line, scoring two more. It’s 7–0 and Zito’s thrown over 100 pitches. A’s reliever Justin Lehr gives up four more in the fifth, and it’s a laugher.

July 7th

Tonight Mark Belllhorn takes Mark Redman deep in the first for a 1–0 lead. Like Zito, Redman struggles. In the second he gives up a solo shot to Nomar, and then a batch of hits, including a big double by Tek and a two-out RBI single by Johnny, and we’re up 6–0 and on our way to a rare blowout behind Pedro.

July 8th

It’s Game 83, two past the halfway mark, and for the very first time (including spring training) we field our real starting lineup: Schill and Tek; Millar, Pokey, Nomah and Bill Mueller; and Manny, Johnny and Trot, with Big David at DH.

The Schilling-Harden matchup’s in our favor, and goes that way early. Ortiz busts out of his slump with a tater over the Sox bullpen in the first, and Harden throws one at Manny’s head. In the third, Manny retaliates with a three-run opposite-field shot. By the fifth it’s 7–1 and this one looks in the bag.

But the A’s don’t roll over. Schilling’s had a twenty-five-minute wait before the sixth, and they get a pair off him. In the seventh, Timlin gives up a two-out double to Erubiel Durazo and an RBI single to Bobby Crosby, and it’s 7–4. Francoma (as the press has been calling him) leaves him in in the eighth; he gives up another run, and with one out, we have to go to Foulke. He gets Byrnes with a change-up for the second out, but on 0-2, Scott Hatteberg slaps another change off the chalk behind third and it’s a one-run game. Jermaine Dye, 0 for his last 15, skies one to left-center. Johnny goes back toward the corner where the Monster meets the center-field wall and leaps, but it’s off the Monster and bounces across center toward Trot. Hatteberg scores to tie the game. Dye’s into third standing up, and Fenway’s grumbling. Durazo chases strike three to end the inning, but our six-run lead’s history.

Foulke throws a one-two-three ninth. Octavio Dotel looks tough, getting them to the tenth, but the A’s pen has thrown too many innings this series. They go to Justin Lehr, who gave up four runs in a single inning Tuesday. He gets Tek and pinch hitter Mark Bellhorn, but Johnny singles to left. The A’s move their outfield back so nothing gets through. It’s a shrewd move, as Bill Mueller lines one to the left-center gap. Kotsay ranges over from center to cut it off in front of the scoreboard, but bobbles it. Johnny’s going to try to score anyway—at home you make them make the play. The crowd’s up and loud. The relay’s good, Crosby to catcher Damian Miller, but Johnny belly flops and slides a hand across the plate, and David Ortiz is there to call him safe and wrap him in a bear hug. The dugout rushes the field, mobbing Johnny and Bill Mueller, and it’s a sweep. We’re 46-37 and tied with Oakland for the wild card, and on Extra Innings, Eck is pumped. “Oakland’s not going to do it,” he says. “They’re showing me nothing. They’re done. Remember, I was the one that said it.”

July 9th

Although things are heating up on All My Children, I was able to forego Babe’s struggles with the evil JR and JR’s equally evil (and well-heeled) daddy to relish the highlights of last night’s 8–7 Red Sox win over the A’s, completing the Sox sweep and returning Boston to a tie in the wild-card race. More important to me at this stage of the season, one three-game series away from the All-Star break, is the fact that we’ve managed to make up some ground against the Yankees, who have lost five of their last seven.

The papers made much this morning about Oakland’s surge in the late innings of last night’s game (they pounded out 17 hits, most of them against the bullpen and the key ones against Keith Foulke, who blew the save opportunity), but my take on it is more optimistic. Here’s a good Oakland team that gets blown out in the first two contests of a key series, their pitching touched up for 22 runs. Trailing by six runs in the final game, they do what good teams do: fight and scratch and claw their way back into contention, trying to come away with something. But in the bottom of the tenth, Johnny Damon singled to left, then scored when A’s center fielder Mark Kotsay bobbled Bill Mueller’s line shot. It was only the smallest of bobbles—only a step’s worth, surely—but Damon was running for all he was worth and that one extra step (and a hard slide across home) was just enough to win the game. It was a thrilling play, bringing the crowd at Fenway (and yours truly at home) to their feet, cheering. In the end, it was the good twin of the game Boston tried so hard to win against the Yankees and lost in thirteen innings.

So that’s three. That’s your little streak. Tonight we’re back to Arroyo. It’s up to you, Bronson: keep me away from All My Children.

Tonight it’s Bronson Arroyo versus the Rangers’ Joaquin Benoit at Fenway, yet another sellout crowd. In the dugout, the Sox are goofing with an oversized bobble-head doll of Pedro. The controversy is that Francona’s given him permission to go home to the DR, since he doesn’t pitch until after the break. “I bet a lot of guys would like to go home early,” Jerry grouses, and he’s right.

To start, Arroyo gives up a double to Soriano, but Kevin Millar makes a great snag of a liner at first to turn two and bail his pitcher out.

We win 7–0, and it’s a fast game, as quick as Pedro’s two-hitter against the Pods.

And in a briefly noted roster move, we send nice kid Lenny DiNardo down to Pawtucket and bring up veteran righty Joe Nelson, who didn’t pitch at all last year due to injuries. He’s the twenty-second pitcher we’ve tried in the first half.

July 10th

We’re driving the kids to camp in Ohio, a nine-hour jaunt. As darkness falls, we’re on I-90 west of Erie when Trudy’s cell phone plinks. It’s her father, excited about the game: Manny’s hit two out and we’re up 11–6 in the third. Bellhorn’s made two errors behind Lowe, but atoned with a homer of his own.

Later, during the Oakland-Cleveland game, we hear an update: Sox 14–6 over Texas in the eighth. Tek’s gone deep, and Nomar. Looks like five in a row, our second-longest streak of the season.

July 11th

Coming home, the only game we can pull in on the radio is the Buffalo Bisons and Durham Bulls, and all the way across the Southern Tier we listen to the Indians’ and D-Rays’ minor leaguers (including old Sock Midre Cummings) pay their dues. During a pitching change, the announcers dump the out-of-town scoreboard on us. “Up at Fenway, it was Texas beating the Red Sox six to five.”

“Shit,” I say. Notice that the first stage is anger, not denial—that comes later.

“The Yankees outlasted Tampa Bay—”

“Dammit.” I sag back in my seat, defeated. I really thought they’d pay the Rangers back with a sweep, maybe even pick up a game, but no, we win two out of three from a first-place team and lose ground.

July 12th

The recap in the paper is weirdly cheery, the writer giving us credit for fighting back, as if that proves the character of the team. We were down 5–2 in the bottom of the seventh when Doug Mirabelli hit a two-run shot and then Johnny D soloed to tie it. In the eighth, Foulke gave up a run, then in the ninth, Pokey, pinch-running, got picked off first. Everyone agrees that the ump blew the call, but they also agree that the ball beat him there, it was just a high tag. Shades of Damian Jackson pinch-running against the Yanks last year and getting picked off second. It’s great that we came back, sure, but that makes Foulke’s blown hold that much worse. He’s been shaky lately, one reason why the only games we win seem to be blowouts.

And Manny, listed on Francona’s lineup card, begged off at the last minute, saying his left hamstring felt tight, giving the columnists something to gnaw on.

In the wild-card race we’re still a game up on Oakland, with the Angels and Twins only a half back of them.

The Randy Johnson sweepstakes is on. The D-backs have the worst record in the majors, and Randy Jo’s forty years old and can’t wait for them to retool. The Sox and Yanks are interested, and possibly the Angels. The Unit seems to be having fun with all the attention, saying he can’t decide which chowder he likes best, New England or Manhattan. Really, it’s a no-brainer; Mr. Schill could tell him that. The guys who bring a title to Fenway will be folk heroes. In New York, he’d be just another hired gun. I mean, seriously, who’ll remember Jon Lieber?

Tonight’s the All-Star Home Run Derby, and Manny’s stepped aside to give David Ortiz his spot. El Jefe’s taken batting-practice pitcher Ino Guerrero with him to Houston as his secret weapon, but can’t find his groove. He hits a girder beneath the roof, a titanic shot, but it doesn’t count. He’s got five outs on him before he sticks one into the upper deck and ends up with three, not enough to make the semis. Manny jogs over and sticks a Yankee cap on Ino.

July 13th

Tonight is the All-Star Game, and I find that working on this book has turned me into a kind of ex officio ballplayer in at least one way: because my team isn’t playing, I have almost no interest in which show horse wins the make-believe contest.[27] Like the less stellar ballplayers, I’m just kicking back, watching some VH-1 (also some All My Children reruns on Soapnet) and enjoying my three nights off. Chillin’.

I had intended to write some sort of midseason summary, and find I have little to write. That’s a good thing. Boston ended the first half winning five out of six and putting all trade rumors (except for that sweetly wistfulone that has Randy Johnson in a Red Sox uniform) to rest. Their won-lost record is almost exactly what it was at the break a year ago, when they went into postseason as the AL wild-card team, and indeed they lead the wild-card race this year by a game (over the Oakland Moneyball boys).

But still… the gloom. Why?

Because that Reverend Dimmesdale–Hester Prynne jazz in The Scarlet Letter isn’t just romantic bullshit, that’s why. There is a very real streak of dour pessimism in the New England character, and it runs right down into the bedrock. We buy new cars expecting them to be lemons. We put in new heating systems and expect them not just to go tits-up but to do it stealthily, thereby suffocating the kiddies in their beds (but leaving us, their parents, to grieve and blame ourselves for at least fifty years). We understand we’re never going to win the lottery, we know we’ll get that unpassable and exquisitely painful gallstone on a hunting or snow-mobiling trip far from medical help, and that Robert Frost was fucking-A right when he said that good fences make good neighbors. We expect the snow to turn to freezing rain, rich relatives to die leaving us nothing, and the kids (assuming they escape the Black Furnace Death) to get refused by the college of their choice. And we expect the Red Sox to lose. It’s the curse, all right, but it has nothing to do with the Bambino; it’s the curse of living here, in New England, just up that Christing potholed I-84 deathroad from the goddamn New York Yankees.

With all that at work, it’s hard for the head to convince the heart how good this current Red Sox team is—the front three pitchers are solid, the hitting is fearsome from one to seven (I hate that Youkilis, an on-base machine, is sitting on the bench so much, though), and on a good night the defense is adequate. Terry Francona has shown mediocre managerial skills at best in the first half, but he’s also shown a willingness to learn. Sure, the Yankees are the elephant in the living room; at 55-31, they are the best team in major league baseball (given their incredible payroll, they better be). But let’s brush aside a little of our natural Red Sox/New England gloom here long enough to point that at 48-38, the Red Sox are ten games over .500, and that other than the Yankees, only Texas in the AL and St. Louis in the NL have better records[28]…plus we just beat Texastwo out of three. Now that we have our big guys back and starting to hit the ball, I think we’ll be in it till the very end, be it bitter or sweet. That’s as far as I’m willing to go right now, but I think in mid-July, that’s quite far enough. When I get the glooms, I just tell myself things could be a lot worse.

I could be writing a book about Seattle (32-54), for example. Case closed.

It’s 1–0 AL in the first inning of the All-Star Game, and Clemens is struggling (Jason Schmidt should have started for the NL, but politics is all). With one aboard, he gets two strikes on Manny. Yankee groupie and chucklehead blabbermouth Tim McCarver hasn’t brought up the fact that it was Clemens’s high fastball to Manny in the ALCS last year that sparked the Pedro-Zimmer brawl. He doesn’t have time now, as Clemens misses his location, serving Manny a thigh-high fastball on the inside of the plate, and Manny lines it into the left-field seats for a two-run shot. And while this is only a silly exhibition game, it’s a measure of vindication and revenge. Not a word from McCarver, as if his memory banks have been wiped clean.

Clemens gives up 6 runs in the first, and I wonder if batterymate Mike Piazza is telling the hitters what’s coming. Speaking of revenge.

Later, when the AL lead is 7–4, David Ortiz outdoes his amigo, going upper deck on former Sox prospect Carl Pavano for a two-run job, sealing the win. It’s the first time AL teammates have gone deep since Cleveland’s Al Lopez and Larry Doby in 1954. Not Mantle and Berra or McGwire and Canseco or even Lynn and Rice, but Ramirez and Ortiz. I’m thinking maybe they’ll give Manny and David a joint MVP award, but the game’s being played in Houston (at old Enron Field, with the elder Bush in the front row), and they give it to Texas’s Alfonso Soriano for his three-run shot, which was just padding at the time. Still, I’m proud that we represented, even with Mr. Schill not throwing. And, as I e-mail Steve, after playing on the road throughout the playoffs last year, we can sure use the home-field advantage.

July 15th

The newest Randy Johnson rumor has Theo shipping Nomar to Arizona. It’s too much, even if we don’t think we can re-sign him. The idea’s weird: Nomar reunited with his free-swinging pal Shea.

Meanwhile, due to league rules, Mendoza has to be promoted to the big club or released, so to make room for him, Theo and Terry send Kevin Youkilis down to Pawtucket—unfair. Since Bill Mueller’s been back, there’s no position for him, but it seems a shame not to carry him as a pinch hitter.

Tonight it’s Lowe versus Jarrod Washburn out in Anaheim, a 10:05 start. I’ve been jonesing for some ball since last Friday, and plan on staying up for it. Last time I did this, Vladimir Guerrero had nine RBIs; I figure this has got to be better. The Yanks have already beaten Detroit, so—again—we need this one.

From the start there are problems. Manny’s hamstring’s bothering him again, so Francona’s moved him to DH, Ortiz to first (scratching McCarty) and Millar to left—a shift that leaves us weaker at two positions. Unless his quad’s still iffy, Trot’s sitting because Washburn’s a lefty (weak, since even Dauber was allowed to hit against lefties in 2002), so we’ve got slightly better defense in right. Kapler proves it in the third, cutting off a ball toward the line, then spinning and gunning speedy Chone Figgins at second. But Millar just can’t cover the territory in left. A pop fly down the line falls between him, Bill Mueller and Nomar—just foul. The batter singles on the next pitch, and even though he doesn’t score, it means Lowe has to get four outs, and his pitch count is climbing. He’s throwing well, though, not walking people, fighting to the end of every at-bat.

In the fourth, with first and second and two down, at the end of a long battle on a full count, Figgins lofts a similar pop-up down the line. Bill Mueller goes hard, Nomar trailing him. Billy realizes he’s not going to get there and looks to Millar, who’s pulled up, running at half-speed, and by the time Kevin realizes it’s his ball, he can’t get there. The ball drops a foot inside the line, and Bengie Molina, who’s been jogging home out of sheer habit, crosses the plate, and the runners end up on second and third. The TV shows Millar back at his position. I’ve been pacing the room, stopping in front of the set for each pitch. Now I lean down and jab at the screen like Lewis Black. “Why do you suck so much?”

Shaken, on the next batter Lowe steps off the back of the rubber with the wrong foot, balking. Mike Scioscia’s up and out of the dugout, pointing. It should bring in a run, but the ump doesn’t call it, and we sneak out of a jam.

In the top of the fifth, we get the run right back, but in the bottom of the inning, Lowe tires. With Darin Erstad on second, Molina singles to left. Millar has the ball in his glove before Erstad rounds third, and Erstad’s just coming off a leg injury, but Millar’s a first baseman, and his throw is weak and low, bouncing three times as Erstad slips past Tek. Embree’s been up for a while, and Lowe’s over 100 pitches, so he’s done. He pitched well enough for a quality start. If he has a real left fielder, the game’s still 1–1.

Embree should be well rested, but can’t muscle a fastball by Adam Kennedy, who singles. Little David Eckstein, who has no home runs, misses one by five feet, doubling off the wall in left-center, scoring Molina. Figgins singles to center, and soon it’s 6–1. It’s midnight, and I think about going to bed, but hang in, only to see Curtis Leskanic groove one to Erstad for a two-run shot. We’re down seven runs and dredging the bottom of the bullpen, while the Angels can always call on twin closers K-Rod and Troy Percival, so good night, nurse.

In bed I’m still pissed off. It’s a demoralizing loss, with little good to point to, and against a club that—if we’re really contenders—we need to beat. We’re now 0-3 against them, and we’re plainly a sub-.500 club on the road. We’re eight back. I try not to overreact. Part of it is that I’d been waiting so long to see them play, and they played badly. It’s just one game, and it’s a four-game set. Pedro’s going tomorrow. The season’s long. Breathe.

July 16th

I must admit the second half of the season got off to an inauspicious start last night in Anaheim. The Red Sox, who rarely do well on the West Coast (at least during the regular season), put on a particularly vileshow against the Angels, losing 8–1. Derek Lowe, although victimized by poor defense behind him (not for the first time this year, either), did not exactly cover himself with glory, either. In other news, the Sox sent down the on-base machine known as the Greek God of Walks in favor of a middle reliever whose last name is Martinez. Any resemblance to the Sox starter of the same name simply does not exist.

This could be a long road trip.

Now the papers have Nomar going to the Cubs for prospects we then ship to Arizona for Randy Jo. Seeing as we’re eight games out, all this talk seems frivolous and off-target. We just need to play better. Now.

But the All-Star break is a good time to panic. Houston, right at .500 despite signing Clemens, Pettitte, Jeff Kent and Carlos Beltran, fires ex-Sox skipper Jimy Williams. Seattle, dead last in the West, continues its fire sale of high-priced veterans, tagging John Olerud, one of the best hitters of the era, for reassignment—meaning, essentially, they’re cutting him, hoping a contender like the Sox will want his stick (and Gold Glove at first) and pick up his salary.

Tonight’s another 10:05 start, and despite my history, I decide to stay up and watch this one to the end. The Yanks have already lost to Detroit, Mike Maroth one-hitting them, so we have a chance to make up a game. Manny’s not starting, and—one day too late—Francona’s figured out the right lineup: Trot in right, Kapler in left, Ortiz D’Hing, Millar at first, Pokey at second. It’s the same lineup Trudy proposed last night before quitting on the game. “How much is he getting paid?” she asks.

Kelvim Escobar’s throwing 95, Pedro 94. Home-plate ump Matt Hollowell is squeezing both of them, and Nomar takes advantage of it, leading off the second with a first-pitch homer to left-center when Escobar tries to get ahead with a fastball down the pipe. Here’s how much Hollowell’s squeezing them: in the bottom of the inning, Pedro issues back-to-back walks to their number six and seven hitters.

With the tight strike zone, both pitchers’ counts are rising. In the bottom of the fourth, Pedro has Guillen 0-2 with two down and decides to challenge him. Guillen catches up to the fastball and sends it to deepest center. Johnny goes back to the wall and leaps. Jerry thinks he has the ball when he comes down, but Johnny takes off his glove and flips it to show it’s empty.

Pedro looks tough, despite the umpiring. In one stretch through the middle innings, he strikes out six of his last seven batters (in one cruel at-bat, he throws five straight changes to Jeff DaVanon, then gets him on a 3-2 fastball down Broadway), but with two down in the sixth he walks Guillen, who steals second (that’s smallball, running with two out and a decent hitter at the plate) so Erstad’s single brings him in. It’s a one-run game and Pedro’s thrown 115 pitches. This one’s down to the pen.

In the top of the seventh, Scot Shields gets a gift third-strike call against David Ortiz on a pitch up and in that’s been a ball all night. Ortiz turns on Hollowell—he’s not the first to have words with him—and by the time Francona can run out and get between them, Hollowell’s tossed him. Ortiz wants a piece of him, and Sveum, bench coach Brad Mills and Papa Jack have to help Francona restrain him. He’s still mad when they bull him over to the dugout. He yanks two of his bats out of the rack and flings them in the direction of home plate. They nearly hit two other umps standing on the first-base line. It’s a dumb move—he’ll probably end up getting suspended, and we need his bat. At the same time, Jerry and Sean agree that Hollowell’s been so bad that it was just a matter of who was going to blow up on him.

Curtis Leskanic gets two quick outs in the seventh on two hard-hit balls, then gives up a single to Eckstein before being pulled for Embree. Like last night, Embree gives up a hit to the first guy he sees. It’s first and third for Garret Anderson, and I’m having flashbacks. He’s 1 for 10 lifetime against Embree, but that doesn’t comfort me. He grounds to the hole between first and second, a tough play for a mortal second baseman—an adventure for a Todd Walker—but Pokey makes it look routine, and once again I’m glad we have him. He could go 0 for 200 and I’d still want him out there.

It’s a four-game series, and Scioscia wants two innings out of Shields. Shields has his fastball popping, but for some reason tries a curve on 3-2 to Kapler. It hangs belt-high, and Gabe puts it into the third row in left for his second of the season, and we’ve got some breathing room.

Timlin sets up, with McCarty at first, and gets a brilliant play from Pokey on a chopper, snagging a short-hop a foot from the bag at second and gunning Guillen. Foulke’s the recipient of a tumbling shoestring grab by Kapler on his way to a one-two-three ninth. We win, and look good doing it. I’m surprised to see it’s 1:17: it’s been a tight game all night, well played if poorly umpired, definitely worth staying up for. The Angels are a good club; it took everything we had to win this one, and that’s satisfying. Let’s come back and play this way tomorrow.

July 17th

Saturday night, and by the time we switch over from the hilariously stiff They Are Among Us on the Sci-Fi channel, the resurrected El Duque and the Yanks have beaten Detroit and Wake’s given up three runs in the first. Colon walks the bases loaded in the second, but Johnny flies out. Vladimir Guerrero, looking like an MVP candidate, bombs a high knuckler onto the rocks, and it’s 4–0. Not only is Manny not playing, Bill Mueller is nowhere to be seen, and because it’s Wake throwing, Mirabelli’s catching, meaning (with the shift of Bellhorn to third) we’ve added Kapler, Pokey and Doug to a lineup already struggling to score runs.

A scary play in the fourth, when hefty Jose Molina lines one at Wake’s head. He ducks, and it nails him in the back, just above the 9 in 49, and ricochets—still playable—high into the air. Nomar snares it coming across the bag for a pop out, but Tim’s still down. On the replay it catches him solidly, and I think he’s got to leave the game, but he takes some warm-up tosses and stays in. On his first pitch, Adam Kennedy cranks a flat knuckler into the right-field seats.

In the fifth, Johnny gets one back with a line-drive homer down the short right-field line, but that’s it. New guy Joe Nelson relieves. #57, he features “The Vulcan,” a breaking ball gripped between his middle and ring fingers so his hand is split like Spock’s live-long-and-prosper sign. In the sixth, Nelson loads them, and Francona, considering this one finished, calls on Jimmy Anderson, who throws two straight wild pitches, then gives up a single to Garret Anderson. It’s 8–1 and 12:30, and I’m done.

July 18th

The final last night was 8–3. All I missed was a pair of solo shots by Johnny and Big Papi. Today’s a 1:05 Pacific time start, meaning I won’t have to stay up till one-thirty. And Mr. Schill’s on the hill, though I must say I’m getting a little grumpy with the club only winning his and Pedro’s starts (they’re a combined 13-1 since mid-May). Wake and Lowe have been shaky, sure, but we’ve also given up 40 unearned runs behind them.

Manny’s sitting again, with Kapler filling in in left, McCarty at first and Bellhorn at second. Good news, though: the Tigers have beaten the Yanks, so we can get back to seven with a win.

As the game gets under way, the TV presents us with a mystery. Anaheim’s a fine team, we’re a marquee club with a large following, and it’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon, yet the outfield sections are half-filled and there are empty rows all around the ballpark. Do the Angels fans deserve this team (this day, this game)?

In the first, David Ortiz powers one off the wall in left-center. Mike Scioscia’s resting everyday left fielder Jose Guillen, and veteran Tim Salmon can’t get over quick enough to back up the carom, giving David a gift triple. Right-hander John Lackey, a number four starter at best, strikes out the side, and comes back in the second to strike out two more.

Schilling’s cruising too, and then in the third he hangs a curve to hefty Bengie Molina, who puts it into the left-field stands for a 1–0 lead. Lackey bears down, snapping off a curve that gets lefties like Tek and Trot and Bill Mueller; by the fifth he’s struck out a season-high 7.

Entering the sixth, both pitchers have given up two hits, but Schilling’s pitch count is rising. With one down, Johnny works a walk. Bellhorn follows with a single through the right side. Maybe Lackey’s tired, because his fastball to David Ortiz is knee-high and in, right where David likes them, and Big Papi golfs it over the fence in right.

With his next pitch, Lackey drills Nomar in the elbow. The ump warns both benches, and Scioscia hustles out to argue. It’s stupid, since the warning hurts us more than them. Now if Schilling retaliates, he gets tossed. The ump should wait till we even things up, then say, “Okay, boys, that’s enough.”

Lackey flags. He loads the bases and gets out of it only because McCarty hits a bullet to Figgins at third. For some reason Scioscia leaves him in, and Kapler greets him in the seventh with a leadoff homer on another knee-high, 90 mph fastball. Johnny doubles down the line, and, too late, Scioscia goes to Scot Shields. Ortiz singles Johnny in for his third hit and fourth RBI of the day, then scores when Nomar triples off the scoreboard in right.

With a 6–1 lead, Schilling goes after Guerrero in the seventh, blowing him away with a 94 mph fastball down the pipe. He strikes out the side, like Pedro signing a win. He’s up to 100 pitches, so I’m surprised when he comes out in the eighth. He Ks Salmon, then plunks Molina (who hit the home run earlier) right in the ass. Molina looks out at him with both hands open—what’s up? Schilling’s had great control all day, and there’s no doubt this one’s payback. With the warning in place, the ump should toss him, but, inexplicably, doesn’t. Scioscia storms out of the dugout and plants himself in front of the ump, one hand on his hip, the other jabbing the air as he unleashes a stream of profanity we can easily lip-read. The ump tosses him, and while it’s unfair—maybe because it’s so unfair—we laugh.

Timlin closes—poorly, opening the ninth by giving up back-to-back singles to Figgins and Garret Anderson and a run on a sac fly by Guerrero (about thirty feet short of the rocks), but finally gets out of it with a pair of ground balls, and we’re off to Seattle to face the terrible Mariners.

Manny Ramirez is day-to-day with sore hamstrings (any number of sportswriters seem to think he’s malingering, but let’s see some of those overweight juiceheads get out there and run around left field for a few days) and Tim Wakefield took a fearsome line drive in the back last night, but we split four with Anaheim in their house, and to me that’s a great escape. We may even have picked up a game on the Yankees, who continue to struggle—go figure—against the Tigers. Still, the Red Sox look maddeningly lackadaisical, a befogged team of grizzled male Alices in baseball Wonderland.

But Schilling was great again today. As my younger son would no doubt say, he’s so money he doesn’t know he’s money. Two more like him and never mind the World Series; the Red Sox would be ready for the Super Bowl.

July 19th

Another 10:05 start, another sleepless night. The Yanks have already lost to Tampa Bay, and when Tek breaks a 1–1 tie with a three-run bomb off J. J. Putz in the eighth, it looks like we’ll be six back. Arroyo’s thrown brilliantly, striking out 12 (including 11 straight outs by strikeout at one point), and the only run Seattle scored was due to some typical sloppy fielding.

Because Schilling went so deep yesterday, the pen is rested. Embree and Timlin set up and combine to let in a cheapie, abetted by Bill Mueller winging a double-play ball past Bellhorn into right field, but Timlin gets a big strikeout with two in scoring position to end the inning.

Foulke comes in to close. With one down, he gives up a solo shot to Miguel Olivo.

“They sure don’t make it easy on us,” I tell Steph and my nephews. All the other adults have long since gone to bed.

Edgar Martinez is next. At forty-one, he can’t run, so all Foulke has to do is throw him three low changes and he’s meat. Instead, Foulke throws him an 88 mph fastball over the heart of the plate. Edgar’s been killing this pitch since he was fifteen, and doesn’t miss. Johnny and Kapler both leap at the wall in right-center, but it’s gone, the M’s have gone back-to-back, and the game’s tied.

“Unbelievable,” I say. The boys are angry and want Francona to take him out, but we don’t have anyone else. Embree, Timlin, Foulke—this is our A-team.

Foulke gets the last out on a long fly to right, then struggles so much in the tenth that the boys quit. It’s 1:15 in the morning and we have to get up early tomorrow. Overall, Foulke throws 41 pitches. After starting the year 10 for 10 in save opportunities, he’s 4 for his next 9, and that shaky streak started against Seattle, that Sunday game when Raul Ibanez took him into the pen and McCarty bailed him out in extras with a walk-off job.

In the eleventh, McCarty, leading off, gets on on an error. Kapler bunts too hard down third, and they get the force at second. Again, we’ve got no smallball. Kapler takes second anyway on a wild pitch, but Bellhorn looks at a very wide strike three, and Johnny flies to left.

Since Foulke’s gone two, we have to bring in Leskanic. He gets behind Olivo 3-1, and Olivo singles through the hole. Dave Hansen wants to bunt him across. Curtis does the job for him, walking him. Then, in what must be seen as team play in Japan, on the very first pitch Ichiro bunts them over. Francona intentionally walks Randy Winn and pulls the infield in for Bret Boone. On 0-1, Boone hits a fly to left-center. It’s deep enough to score the run, so the fielders ignore it and jog in as the ball clears the wall for a walk-off grand slam. It’s 1:45, and I’m so pissed off that I’m glad they lost, because they suck. (See—it’s not we now, it’s they; the loss is so deranging that for a few minutes I have to separate myself from the team.)

They didn’t hit or field for Arroyo. The three-run shot by Tek was a gift. All they needed was six outs, against the worst team in the league.

I want to blame someone, and the obvious target is Foulke. But I know that closers blow games. Even Eric Gagne blew one the other day. And while it’s true that the pen hasn’t looked good lately, Theo hasn’t helped matters by picking up retreads like Anderson, Nelson and Leskanic. Mendoza, who should be covering some of these middle innings, is taking up a roster spot but may never pitch another meaningful at-bat in the majors. But Theo didn’t give up back-to-back jacks.

It’s just a loss, a brutal, late-night, extra-inning loss of a game we should have won, a game we needed (since we need all of them now), and there’s nothing to do but eat it and go on.

July 20th

It’s also the kind of loss that makes you nervous the next time the game’s on the line, and tonight we get a nightmarish rerun of last night when Lowe has to leave early with a blister and Seattle chips away at our 8–1 lead until it’s 9–7 in the ninth, with two on and no out and Foulke sweating buckets. Seattle has 18 hits, including 4 from Ichiro (along with 4 stolen bases), but has left 14 on.

Because of last night, I don’t believe in Foulke at all. He could give up another walk-off job to Boone here, and I’d just shrug. Because I’m still pissed off at him (at them). The Yanks have already won, so a loss would drop us 8 back, and I think, fuck it. 7, 8, 9—it doesn’t matter. If we keep losing on the road like this, we don’t deserve to be in any race.

Foulke doesn’t try to nibble like last night. He leads with his fastball to get ahead, then goes exclusively to the change. He strikes out Boone. Strikes out Edgar. Strikes out Bucky Jacobsen for the game.

For an instant, as the ump rings up Jacobsen, I’m excited, but I cool off just as quickly. We barely squeaked this one out, and it should have been a laugher, after an eight-run fourth (David Ortiz with a three-run bomb, then Manny going back-to-back). Same problem as always: no middle relief. Leskanic let two of Lowe’s runners score. In his one inning, Timlin gave up a run. Nelson allowed two runs and only retired one man. Mendoza sat on the bench and watched. Kim was in Columbus with the PawSox. I have no idea where Theo was.

July 21st

No, only till the sixth inning, when Tejada breaks a 3–3 tie with a bases-loaded single to left. Pedro, who’s been missing his spots all night, nearly gets out of it, but Johnny’s throw on Javy Lopez’s short sac fly is weak and up the first-base line, and it’s 6–3. Earlier, Johnny misjudged a Tejada liner into a triple, leading to their first three runs, and later, in a whacky play, he relays a David Newhan shot to the wall in center toward Bill Mueller (who started, bizarrely, at second, with Youk at third), but Manny—in another classic Manny move—intercepts it, diving, then relays it to Bellhorn (who started at short), and by the time Mark guns it to Tek, Newhan’s in with the easiest inside-the-park homer you’ll ever see. It’s 8–4 and the Faithful boo. Melvin Mora follows with a single, and Petey’s done. Mendoza throws a third of an inning and gives up two hits, and Malaska has to save him. Then Jimmy “I’m the Boss” Anderson comes on and gives up his usual two runs before recording an out. It’s a 10–4 final, and with the Yanks stomping Toronto, we drop to 8 back.

The only Sock who comes out of this one looking good is Gabe Kapler, who made a tumbling catch in right in the fourth, then hit a three-run shot onto the Monster to tie it at 3. The rest of the team looked like they’d gotten about three hours of sleep, which they did, since their plane got in at three in the morning (shades of Opening Day).

Meanwhile, lots of roster moves right before game time. Pokey to the DL with a pulled rib-cage muscle, Youkilis up from Pawtucket. Joe Nelson down, Malaska up. And to have a backup for Nomar, Theo picked up journeyman shortstop Ricky Gutierrez from the Iowa Cubs. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2004 Iowa Red Sox!

July 22nd

It’s a day-night doubleheader today, and since Wake’s scheduled to start and the Yanks are coming in tomorrow, we can’t shift the rotation to cover the extra game. We don’t announce a starter till late morning: Abe Alvarez, a lefty from double-A Portland (Jimmy “I’m the Boss” Anderson is designated for assignment). #59, Abe’s pipe-cleaner skinny and looks about seventeen. He wears his cap cocked to the side like C. C. Sabathia, but throws soft—fastball topping out at 88, slow curve, change. He has trouble finding the plate in the first and gives up three runs, two on a Monster shot by Tejada, who is just murdering us this series.

It’s hot—sweaty hot, heatstroke hot—and we’re in the sun. Over the course of the game I buy ten bottles of water for Steph and the nephews. We squirt them in our hats and down our collars and at each other. “Hey, frozen lemonade!” “Hey, sports bah!”

Ortiz hits two triples, a kind of miracle, but doesn’t score either time. Melvin Mora lofts a shot toward the Sox bullpen that Trot has the angle on, but at the last second he gets alligator arms and shies away from the wall, and it goes over. The Faithful boo him—very rare.

We also boo villain Karim Garcia every time he steps in. It’s his first visit to Fenway since he jumped the bullpen wall during last year’s ALCS to punch and kick a groundskeeper his buddy Jeff Nelson was already assaulting. “You’re a goon, Garcia!” we holler. When he strikes out midway through the game, the crowd behind the O’s dugout stands and jeers at him—maybe the most satisfying moment of the day.

Abe Alvarez leaves with the score 5–1. He hasn’t pitched well, but he’s battled, and for a double-A guy the beefed-up O’s are a tough assignment. Francona goes to a triple-A guy, Mystery Malaska, who gives up a run. Millar, who’s been booed every at-bat since he hit into an early rally-killing DP, crushes a two-run shot to bring us within three, but in the ninth Francona goes to Mendoza (our washed-up guy), and Mora pounds a two-run bomb to put the game out of reach.

All afternoon we’ve been watching the New York–Toronto score, 0–0 in the third, the fourth, the sixth. It’s been stuck in the eighth for more than an hour, as if they’re purposely withholding it. Now that we’ve lost, it changes to a 1–0 Yankees final. We’re nine back, the deepest hole we’ve been in all year, and 2-6 against the O’s.

After the game, as we’re fighting traffic on Storrow Drive and then 93 and 95, the Sox option Abe to Portland, making room for Ricky Gutierrez. Trudy wonders how much they paid him for the guest spot.

Between games, Bill Mueller, who went 0 for 5, decides to shave his head for luck like Trot and Tek and Gabe.

And the league office informs David Ortiz that he’s received a five-game suspension for throwing his bats the other night in Anaheim.

For the nightcap, the O’s roll out their kid pitcher with a high number, #61, Dave Borkowski. Gutierrez gets the start at short, Youk at third, McCarty in left. McCarty’s a revelation. We know he’s got a great glove as a first baseman, and an arm that can top 90 mph. In the first, he puts those together, snagging what ought to be an easy sac fly and nailing speedy leadoff man Brian Roberts at home with a perfect one-hop peg. It kills what could be a big inning, and in our half, with two down, he slices a bases-loaded single to right to give us a 3–0 lead.

Wake’s crafty tonight, or maybe the O’s are tired. Both teams are listless, and it’s a quick one. Youk hits a solo shot into the second row of M5. Timlin sets up with a one-two-three eighth, then Embree gets a double-play ball in the ninth, and a strikeout to close it. A neat 4–0 final, and it’s only 9:30.

It’s a win, but losing two of three to the O’s before the Yanks roll in is disheartening. Like Steve said, they’re miserable, and I’m miserable, and the rumors that we’ll trade Nomar while we can still get something for him are more miserable still.

July 23rd

The crowd around Fenway before game time is typical of a Yankee–Red Sox game: more loudmouth drunks, more shutterbugs and gawkers, more shills handing out free stuff, but at eight and a half back it’s hard to muster any showdown spirit. Call this one a grudge match, with the Sox trying to save some face. WEEI’s K posters say: SCHILLING IS THRILLING, and we hope he has enough to beat retread Jon Lieber.

Outside Gate E, a guy’s wearing a T-shirt that says DAVID ORTIZ FAN CLUB with a picture not of Big Papi but of Esther Rolle as Florida in Good Times. On the back it has what I hope is a fictional quote from him: “This is not hot sauce, this is not barbecue sauce, this is the Boston Red Sauce.”

Steph and I are the first in and man the corner for BP. A lot of the Sox have their kids with them in the outfield, wearing miniature versions of their uniforms.

Jeter and A-Rod throw, and Jeter backs up till he’s right beside me. He’s wearing Nike spikes with the logo of the leaping Michael Jordan.

“Now, the way Michael Jordan hit,” I ask, “isn’t it bad luck to wear his spikes?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jeter says dully, as if he doesn’t care.

After BP, we roll around to the Sox dugout. It takes a while, since the aisles are clogged with newbies and Yankee fans who can’t find their seats. They stop and stare at their expensive eBay tickets and then up at the poles of the grandstands, as if having difficulty reading numbers. “Keep it moving,” we say.

We make it to Steve’s seats in time for the anthem, which is live and not Memorex (as it has been in the past), the proof being the guest Irish tenor botching the words—“the last twilight’s glea-ming,” “the rockets’ red glares.” Nice job, Dermot.

As the game starts, again I have this sense of letdown. It’s Friday night, a packed house, Schilling on the mound against the Yanks, but we’ve played so poorly lately that it’s sapped the drama out of the matchup. We still chant “BAL-CO” when Sheffield steps in, but halfheartedly.

When he takes Schilling out, hooking a Monster shot, all of that changes. Maybe it’s a sense of fair play, honest outrage at Sheffield getting away with his steroid use, or maybe it’s just hurt, but for the rest of the game, whenever Sheffield or Giambi come up, we greet them with “LIFE-TIME BAN, LIFE-TIME BAN” and “Mar-i-on Jo-ones! Marrrr-i-ooonnn!”

Lieber’s hittable, and in the second Trot doubles in Nomar, then Bill Mueller launches one into the bullpen, and we’re up 3–1. Millar tacks on a solo shot in the fourth, and with Schilling only up to 54 pitches, we’re looking good.

In the fifth, Mr. Schill gives up a leadoff single to Posada, then another to Matsui. Enrique Wilson flies one to left that looks like trouble, but it quails and Manny hauls it in on the track. Kenny Lofton follows with a ripped single to right. It should score the runner, except the runner’s Posada. Trot fires a one-hopper to Tek. Posada beats the throw, but Tek’s got the plate blocked. We can hear the plastic clack as Posada knocks into his shin guards. Tek spins and tags Posada’s shoulder, and he’s out.

No, he’s safe—ump Tim Timmons is calling him safe. Tek looks down at the plate openmouthed with shock. Schilling races from his backup position, pointing. Francona trots over from the dugout. The crowd’s been booing the whole time, but the argument’s quick and civil, Timmons laughing, as if there’s no way he could be wrong.

Our neighbor Mason later sees the replay upstairs. “He was out,” he says, “but it was a tough call.”

“Yeah,” I concede, “you’d have to be a professional umpire to make it.”

The run throws Schilling off, and he loads them before overpowering Jeter (who looks lost at the plate) and getting a force on Sheffield.

In the sixth, A-Rod takes Schilling to 3-2 and then fouls off a few fastballs before singling up the middle. Giambi goes to 3-2 and fouls a few over the second deck, then walks on a curveball that stays up—terrible pitch selection. Posada goes 3-2, fouls off a couple, then singles through the right side. Bases loaded, nobody out, and Schill’s pitch count is in the high 80s. He works deliberately to Matsui and gets a hard hopper to Millar at first. It should be a double play, but Millar’s throw to Nomar is high and off the bag to the infield side, and Schilling doesn’t get over to first fast enough. Nomar holds the ball rather than risk throwing it away. 4–3 Sox, runners at the corners.

Formerly washed-up Ruben Sierra pinch-hits for Enrique Wilson. Schilling has him 0-2 quickly, and Sierra has to fend off a good inside pitch with a protective swing. It’s a nubber down first, a swinging bunt. Millar fields it on the run. It looks like he’s got a play right in front of him at home on Giambi, but he glances back at first—Schilling’s assumed he’ll go home and hasn’t covered—and has to eat the ball. The Faithful boo.

When Lofton sneaks a soft double past Millar that McCarty would have stopped, we boo harder.

That’s it for Schilling, a frustrating end to a promising start. Usually our defense backs him up better than this, but if he can’t get a fastball past the “intestinal parasite”–weakened Giambi, then he didn’t have it anyway.

Timlin comes on, and washed-up Bernie Williams rips a double into the right-field corner, scoring two. 7–4 Yankees, and more booing, curses, then a disappointed (disapproving) silence.

When Millar comes up in our sixth, the crowd boos him lustily. “He hit a home run his last at-bat,” Steph points out. You can see Millar’s pissed off in the on-deck circle, focused, his teeth clenched. He rocks a Paul Quantrill fastball onto the Monster for his second solo shot, and when he crosses the plate, though the kids in the front row do the we’re-not-worthy salaam, his expression hasn’t changed.

In the seventh, Johnny singles, then scores on Tek’s double to left-center when Matsui boots the ball. Ortiz walks, and we’ve got first and second, nobody out, and Manny up. So far Manny’s 0 for 3 with 2 Ks, but we rise and chant his name, expecting deliverance. He grounds into an easy 6-4-3 DP, and the crowd mutters. Formerly washed-up Tom Gordon then hits Nomar in the shoulder, but Trot flies to center.

Curtis Leskanic comes on in the eighth, causing some consternation, and throws a one-two-three inning. Then Millar (cheered now) leads off with a blast onto the Monster to tie the game, his third homer of the night, and the place is louder than it’s been since the playoffs. We’re watching a great game, fuck the Yankees, fuck the standings. We stand and cheer through half of Bill Mueller’s at-bat, but Millar—justifiably—doesn’t come out for a curtain call.

Billy singles, and since he’d be the go-ahead run, Kapler pinch-runs for him. With nobody out Bellhorn needs to bunt him over. Is there anyone on the bench who can bunt better? No, not with Ricky already done and Pokey on the DL. Bellhorn fouls off two, then hits a weak grounder and has to hustle to avoid being doubled up.

“Simple fundamental baseball,” I say.

“Little League baseball,” Mason says.

Johnny doubles. Instead of Kapler scoring, Bellhorn is held at third. We still have two shots at getting him in, but Tek—batting second for some crazy reason—chases a slider from Gordon in the dirt on 3-2, as does Ortiz, and we go to the ninth tied at 7.

Foulke’s in to hold it. After several questionable ball calls by Timmons (and no argument at all by Francona), Sheffield arcs one toward the Monster that looks gone. A couple fans in the front row reach down, and it hits ten feet from the top for a double. A-Rod singles him in—it’s that simple, a poor pitch by Foulke, a good swing by the Mariner shortstop—I mean the Texas shortstop…you know what I mean.

It’s 8–7 for Mariano Rivera in the ninth. Timmons’s blown call at home has been big all game, but it’s massive now. Mo has no problem getting Manny, Nomar and Trot, leaving Kevin Millar in the on-deck circle. As he stalks back to the dugout with his bat, I call, “Great game, Kev,” but his face is still clenched and he ignores me.

We’re nine and a half back and behind the White Sox in the wild card. That’s not drama, that’s desperation.

July 24th

Together the Sox and Yanks have spent over 300 million dollars on their rosters. Is Bronson Arroyo versus Tanyon Sturtze really the best they can do?

Today’s the family picnic, and it’s raining at the beach, so all of Trudy’s aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews are crammed into the one main room of the cottage to watch the game. They’re lifelong New Englanders from Woonsocket and Westerly, and watching the Sox is like watching home movies—it gives them a chance to remember how Uncle Vernon rooted (optimistic all the way to the last out) or Trudy’s grandfather Leonard (watching TV with the sound down because he hated the announcers, a transistor radio pressed to his ear, and he would never go to the games).

We watch Arroyo get behind hitters, and get behind two-zip. I go out to shoot some hoops, and as I’m dribbling around, a shout comes up from the house next door: “Fight! Fight!” My nephew Sam comes tearing out. “Uncle Stew, there’s a bench-clearing brawl!”

We run inside just in time to see the replay. Arroyo hits A-Rod on the elbow with a pitch inside—nothing new: Arroyo’s second in the league in hit batsmen. A-Rod jaws at him right out of the box, though the pitch wasn’t up or behind him; in fact, it hit him on the elbow pad. Tek says something to A-Rod. A-Rod says, “Come on,” and Tek shoves him two-handed in the face, then ducks and grabs A-Rod around the upper thigh and lifts him, bulling him backwards. The whole room cheers and laughs. What kind of idiot challenges a guy in a mask and shin pads to a fight? Obviously he’s never played hockey.

The benches clear. It’s a harmless scrum except for Sturtze getting Gabe Kapler in a headlock from behind—a bad move when you’re on the opposing team’s side of the scrum. No idea how their starting pitcher ended up by our on-deck circle, but David Ortiz is nearby and won’t see his teammate treated this way. He grabs Sturtze and flings him to the ground. In the replay, as they fall, gravity gives Kapler some revenge as his knee lands in Sturtze’s crotch. Trot piles on, but by then things have settled, and they’re pulled apart.

Tek’s ejected, as is A-Rod, and Kapler. Sturtze has a bloody scratch near his ear, but stays in the game. In the dugout, Kapler’s pissed. “He grabbed me!” he shouts, demonstrating. (Later I discover that Kenny Lofton’s been tossed, though only he and the ump know what he did.)

The game’s on Fox, and the idiots in the booth say that maybe this will change New Yorkers’ minds about A-Rod’s lack of toughness. I keep looking for evidence in the replays (because they show it ten times), but all I see is Tek shoving him in the face and lifting him off the ground. They also say this is a case of the Red Sox’s frustrations boiling over, except A-Rod started it. They run a montage of Sox-Yanks brawls going back to Fisk slugging Munson after their collision at home. In every clip, the Sox are whipping their asses.

When order’s restored, the Sox come back over the next couple innings to take a 4–3 lead. Sturtze’s gone and Juan Padilla is on. In the fifth, there’s a terrible call on Johnny at second when Enrique Wilson drops a pop-up in short right and throws late to second for the force. Johnny, who’s always a gentleman, says, “No!” and he’s right. Francona comes out to argue, and no doubt he’s arguing about last night’s blown call at home too, and Timmons’s awful work behind the plate. Francona actually gets excited for once, swearing and spitting at the ump’s feet, and gets tossed.

He’s in the clubhouse to watch the Yanks come back in the sixth. Wilson slices a spinning Texas leaguer over third. Posada pokes a low wall-ball and is meat at second on a perfect throw by Manny, except Bellhorn sets up too far behind second (not expecting Posada to try it) and waves at the in-between hop. Matsui doubles to put them ahead. Arroyo battles for two outs, but Cairo hits a quail off the end of the bat that floats over Bellhorn, and it’s 6–4. Dave Wallace visits the mound. Bernie Williams singles. Brad Mills, as acting manager, pulls Arroyo for Leskanic. Curtis threw well last night. Today he can’t find the plate. He walks Jeter (0 for his last million and groveling for a walk) to load them, then walks Sheffield to bring in a run. He goes full on Wilson, who singles to right, scoring two more. 9–4. He walks Posada, and that’s it, he’s gone (0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 3 BB), and Mystery Malaska’s on to face Matsui. On 3-2 Matsui takes a strike down the middle for the third out. Before this, I considered Matsui the most professional of the Yankees, but what is anyone doing taking a pitch on 3-2 with a five-run lead? That’s bush, and even in the bush leagues will earn you some lumps.

Nomar leads off the Sox sixth with a ripped single. When Padilla goes 2-0 on Trot, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre goes to the mound to calm him down (and stall). Padilla’s way off the plate, as if he’s afraid of lefties, and walks Trot. On a 1-1 count to Millar, Torre interrupts the flow of the game by bringing in Quantrill. It’s the old Cuban slowdown, but even in the Pan-American games, where the umps let you do anything, I can’t remember two mound visits on consecutive batters in midcount. After a five-minute delay for warm-ups and commercials, Millar singles to load them. On 3-1 Bill Mueller has a fat pitch to hit but skies it to center for an unsatisfying sac fly. Bellhorn strokes a wall-ball double, and it’s 9–6. Johnny singles to left—9–7. Because Tek got ejected, Mirabelli’s batting second, and we don’t have a backup catcher, so we can’t pinch-hit Youkilis for him. Mirabelli Ks, and Torre brings in Felix Heredia, who walks Ortiz to load the bases for Manny. Stottlemyre visits the mound again (their fourth visit this half-inning). Heredia goes 3-2 on Manny, who’s hit like crap this series, then misses with a pitch a good foot up and out. 9–8, and Nomar’s up, but look, what’s this, it’s Joe Torre plodding out to the mound. Another five-minute delay while Scott Proctor of the Columbus Clippers warms. Home-plate ump Bruce Froemming, who’s built like Violet in Willy Wonka after she turns violet and the Oompah-Loompahs roll her away, makes it easy for Proctor, giving him a first strike call on a ball nowhere near the zone, and after all the waiting and screwing around, Nomar’s pissed and just swings at anything (hey Joe, the tactic worked!) and strikes out to end what has to be the longest inning I’ve ever seen. One hour and seven minutes, according to Fox’s clock.

While I think the Yankee/Cuban National Team stuff is crap, and definitely unsporting, it’s legal. But it’s also the home-plate ump’s responsibility to control the game, and in the rule book there’s a powerful clause that says the umpire can penalize any behavior that he independently deems “makes a mockery of the game.” The classic example is running the bases backwards. I would submit to the league office that the slowdown not only makes a mockery of the game, it makes for bad TV, since that’s the only thing the league office seems to care about. Steroids, what steroids? (In other sports, not only are players banned, but their teams’ victories are retroactively forfeited and their championships taken away, their records expunged. Just a warning, Sheff, in case we ever have a real commissioner again.)

Ruben Sierra (career, what career?) leads off the seventh with a Monster shot off Malaska to make it 10–8. The crowd in the humid room groans. I go out to the beach, where there’s a little kid in a Red Sox T-shirt with a Wiffle bat hitting stones into the ocean in the rain. Stone after stone: clack, clack, clack. Finally, some perspective. The game’s not about the slowdown, or the TV contract, or the groan, it’s about how fun it is to swing a bat and make contact. That clean ping.

Embree, who worked out of a jam in the seventh, is angry in the dugout because Mills pulled him for Mendoza. I’m horrified to see Mendoza myself, since he hasn’t thrown a clutch inning since last June, including his season-long stint in the minors. Somehow—physics won’t explain it—he does today, and not just one, but two of them.

We go to the ninth down 10–8, facing Mo, as always. He’s converted 23 straight save opportunities, the Yanks are 56-0 when leading, blah blah blah. With two strikes, Nomar doubles on a particularly flat cutter. Rivera goes 3-1 on Trot, who crushes the next pitch to right. “Get OUT!” we yell, rising from our chairs. Sheffield goes back sideways, then backwards, crablike, and hauls it in on the track. In any other park it’s a game-tying home run. Fenway giveth…Nomar moves over, and while we’re still talking about Rivera’s ineffectiveness, Millar bloops one to right, making it a one-run game. Mo’s not Mo. He’s missing high, missing wide, all over the place. He goes 3-1 on Bill Mueller, then gives him the same flat pitch he threw Trot, and Billy gets it. “That’s gone!” I say, and Sheffield knows it too, turning to show us his number as the ball lands in the glove of Sox bullpen catcher Dana LaVangie. The Sox jump up and down at home, slapping Billy on his shaved head (for some reason he pulls his helmet off just before he touches the plate—maybe he wants to really feel it to remember it forever). In the room, we’re all up and shouting, trading high fives and hugging. “I told you!” Steph says. “You did,” I admit, because he’s been behind Billy all the way, even when he hit into a rally-killing DP early on.

So it’s a double win, a TKO by Tek and a walk-off shot by Bill Mueller, enormously satisfying, and just.

And weird, the way Mendoza was suddenly unhittable (where in Pawtucket the Rochester Red Wings were wearing him out), and Mo so hittable—and wild, very much unlike him. The fight’s great for ratings too, and reinvigorates the rivalry, after being down nine and a half games. As a novelist, I’d say the plot’s too pat, designed for the big finish, like some of the NFL playoff games the last couple years. The more I think of it, the less I like it.

July 25th

ESPN’s showing the rubber game of the series, meaning it’s an 8:05 start. It also means ESPN’s built a temporary stage just past the third-base dugout, and the screen that’s usually at third has been moved to protect Peter Gammons, Harold Reynolds and John Kruk. When Miguel Cairo smokes a rope right at me in BP, I realize why the screen is there. The ball’s hit so on-the-nose that it knuckles, and I have to follow it all the way into my glove. I actually catch it in the pocket with a satisfying smack, getting a hand from the crowd and a few glances from the Yankees gathered at short, but it’s hit so hard that my index finger—which sticks through the Holdster opening and is cushioned by at least three layers of leather—is numb and then tingly.

“How’s it feel?” a guy behind me jokes.

“Good,” I say, and in a way it does. I’ve played a fair amount at goalie and at third base, and it’s the hardest shot I’ve ever stopped.

Here’s how big the game is: instead of the Hood blimp cruising low over us like Friday night, it’s the Met Life blimp. We’ve gone from regional to national.

I get a ball that A-Rod kicks taking grounders, then I’m off to Autograph Alley where Oil Can Boyd is signing, accompanied by a beefy, bleached-blond guy with a bright Hawaiian shirt and ten pounds of gold jewelry, like a wrestler’s manager. The Can is gaunt but stylish, fringes of gray in his close-cropped hair.

“Nineteen eighty-six,” I say as he’s signing my ball, “ALCS Game Six. You were here, I was here. Thanks, Dennis.”

The concourse is gridlocked, and I miss the Marine honor guard unfurling a massive American flag that covers the Monster, and then John Kerry throwing out the first pitch. (Kerry/Edwards campaign aides are handing out SOX FANS FOR KERRY signs throughout the park—a by-product of owner Tom Werner’s support of the Democrats.)

I reach my seat in time for Derek Lowe’s first pitch. Right from the beginning, the ump’s squeezing him. Lowe has Kenny Lofton struck out, but there’s no call. Lofton grounds a single to left that somehow makes it to the wall and becomes a double. Lofton takes third when Jeter—in a Zoolander-stupid move—bunts him over. Sheffield hits a fly to center that’s short enough for an interesting play at the plate, but Johnny waves both arms as if he doesn’t see it. Bellhorn’s going out, Kapler’s streaking in from right. Kapler dives, an instant too late. Lofton scores; Sheffield, jogging, ends up at first. A-Rod nubs one that Bill Mueller has no play on, then Lowe bounces one that just nicks Posada on the foot (Andrew tosses me the traitorous ball). Matsui hits a fly deep enough to get Sheffield home. Bernie Williams flies to Manny—a nice running catch in the corner—but it’s 2–0 Yanks, and Lowe is red-cheeked and unhappy.

Jose Contreras’s ERA at Fenway this year is over 20.00, and he shows us why. Johnny legs out an infield single, then moves to second when a pickoff throw gets past Tony Clark. Contreras quickly walks Bellhorn and Ortiz, bringing up Manny with bases loaded and no out. Manny rips a grounder to third, and Johnny’s off. A-Rod thinks he has a play at home, but he rushes the throw, yanking it to the infield side, and Posada has to lay out to get it, his foot coming off the plate. Johnny’s in there—but ump Hunter Wendelstedt punches him out.

What? I’m out of my seat and screaming at him, trying to keep my language clean so I don’t get kicked out. Trudy’s embarrassed but amused too. Our neighbor Mason laughs, shaking his head. “That’s the third horrible call that’s gone against us this series.”

“And two were for runs!”

Bases are still loaded for Nomar. He jumps all over a Contreras fastball and lines a bullet to Matsui in left, too short to score Bellhorn. Two down, and it looks like we’re going to blow another opportunity, but Millar, who’s been blazing lately, dumps one into center that Lofton can’t quite get to. They should have a play on Manny, but it never materializes, and the game’s tied.

Lowe has no problem with the bottom of their order (Bernie, Tony Clark and Enrique Wilson will go a combined 1 for 10), and in our half of the second, Contreras hits Mirabelli, gives up a smoked single to Kapler and then serves up a pretty Pesky Pole shot to Johnny, the ball rising into the night, then hitting the woven metal skirt of the pole and dropping straight down. We’re still celebrating when Bellhorn takes one out. It’s 6–2 and only the second inning.

Contreras picks up his second hit batsman of the inning when he throws behind Millar. The crowd is pissed and loud. After Friday night’s game, and how blatant the pitch was, I expect he’ll be heaved to keep order, but no, Wendelstedt just issues a warning to both clubs. So the Yanks get two free ones. When a pitch gets through Mirabelli and knocks Wendelstedt’s mask off, sending him to one knee, there’s a sense of frontier justice.

Torre decides to save the pen and let Contreras hang, and it works for the most part. The unstoppable Millar hits a Coke bottle shot in the fifth, and the two runs we tack on in the sixth are partly reliever Felix Heredia’s fault, and partly Matsui’s, when he gets fooled by a fly to left. Earlier in the series, he got caught too close to the wall and a ball hopped over his head; now he plays too far off it and David Ortiz’s slicing fly hits the padding about five feet off the ground, and a catchable ball becomes a run-scoring double. Millar singles Ortiz in for his fourth RBI. It’s 9–2, and the game’s turning into a party.

John Kerry’s sitting two sections over from us, right by the end of the Sox dugout, along with John Glenn, Joe Biden, Tom Brokaw, Tim Russert, and a gaggle of other Democratic National Convention celebrities. Between innings, the teenage guys sitting in front of us gesture to him with a ball they want signed. Kerry waves it on. The kid’s throw is short, hitting Katie Couric. Kerry signs it, and since I’m the only one with a glove, he throws it back to me. When the next half-inning’s over, I catch Kerry’s eye with the ball I snagged from Miguel Cairo and toss it to him—the right distance, but wide. I think it’s going to bounce onto the field, but Kerry reaches over the wall, stretches and makes a sweet one-handed grab. I point to him, surprised; he points back and nods. After he signs, his toss is perfect, head-high, and again we point at each other. Oil Can Boyd and John Kerry in one day!

In the top of the seventh Bellhorn pulls up on a grounder by Kenny Lofton. Lowe gets Jeter (“Zooooooooo-lan-derrrrr!”) and Sheffield (“Juice! Juice! Juice!”), but Lofton steals second and A-Rod walks. Lowe’s pitch count is around 120, so Francona goes to Timlin, and I go to the bathroom, figuring a six-run lead is safe. It’s quiet in the bathroom, too quiet, I think, and then there’s a cheer. Then nothing. When I get out of the stall, there are maybe five guys at the long line of urinals, and I know something’s wrong.

When I sidle my way up the ramp, I check the scoreboard: Sox 9 Yanks 6.

“What happened?” I ask Trudy. “I go away for five seconds and everything goes to hell.”

“Timlin happened,” she says. “Matsui hit a grand slam.”

So it’s a game again, and the newly acquired Terry Adams (yikes) makes it even more torturous in the eighth by walking number nine hitter Enrique Wilson (now batting .215). Lofton spanks a double down the right-field line, and they have second and third with one out. Foulke comes in to face Jeter, who rips the first pitch off Foulke’s shin, and in a very un-Red-Sox-like sequence, the ball ricochets directly to the one man who can throw Jeter out: catcher Doug Mirabelli. Mirabelli even has time to glance at third, then guns it to first. The ball hits Jeter in the shoulder and rolls into right.

Wendelstedt is on the play immediately, waving both arms to one side, like a football ref signaling a field-goal try wide right. It’s interference: Jeter’s out for running to the infield side of the baseline, purposely trying to block the throw. The runners have to return to their bases.

“It’s the Ghost of Ed Armbrister,” I say, conjuring up another demon to be exorcised.

Joe Torre pads out to argue, but it’s pointless. Jeter the Cheater finally got busted; the Sox finally got a call, and just in time too.

Sheffield’s up next, and smokes a hooking line drive—right to Manny, and we’re out of it.

Foulke throws a quick one-two-three ninth, the crowd on its feet for every pitch. It’s another big win, and after last night, maybe the start of the turnaround we’ve been waiting for. We’re 8-4 against the Yanks on the year and back in front in the wild card, with Pedro going tomorrow. Let’s go Sox!

July 26th

I rarely in my life wanted to be at Fenway as much as I wanted to be there for the three-game series between the Red Sox and the Yankees that just concluded. Not because John Kerry threw out the ceremonial first pitch in prime time last night; not because there’s always a chance the two teams will go at it (as they did, and full-bore, on Saturday); not even because the atmosphere when these two teams play is always crazy-scary-electric, like Victor Frankenstein’s lab about twenty seconds before the monster on the slab opens its eyes. I wanted to be there because it was an absolutely crucial series for the Red Sox, if they are to maintain any thin chance of winning the AL East. Lose two, I thought, and the players can probably forget about that part of it; get swept, and the fans can start questioning the team’s commitment to winning anything.

Well, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first—I think Mahatma Gandhi said that. Instead of being in Boston, I found myself on the West Coast, three thousand miles from Fenway Park, speaking to a bunch of doctors about how it feels to get hit by a small van (not good) and how long it takes to get over it (quite a while).

Still, Red Sox fans can’t escape the Red Sox; that is the basic fact of our existence. Even in L.A., I went to bed sick at the 8–7 loss on the night of the 23rd. Distance didn’t lessen the pain; it made it worse. With no NESN, I was reduced to the coverage in the Saturday Los Angeles Times—which, due to their ridiculous infatuation with the Dodgers, was skimpy. Still, there was enough to make it clear that Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke—our supposed Yankee-killers—both played a part in the loss. It’s hard to blame Schilling, who all season has worked like a railway yardman in need of overtime and has been consistently effective. It’s also hard to blame Foulke, but easy to be exasperated with him. I think that goes with the role of closer. And of course it had to be Alex Rodriguez, The One Who Got Away, who delivered the game-winning hit.

Ironically, it was also Rodriguez who seems to have galvanized the Red Sox since, and all because he couldn’t just put his head down and trot to first. Nope, he had to jaw at Bronson Arroyo, who plunked him on the shoulder pad. Jason Varitek got between pitcher and batter, telling A-Rod in “a few choice words” (Varitek’s version) to take his base.[29] Rodriguez told Tek where he could stick his base, Tek pushed A-Rod’s pretty face, and the rumble was on. By the time it was over, Yankee pitcher Tanyon Sturtze had sustained a healthy cut on the side of his face (David Ortiz might have had something to do with that), four or five players had been ejected, and Varitek ended up sitting out Sunday’s game. Probably just as well, from a catching standpoint; John Kerry threw out the first pitch, and while he may be a helluva politician, his slider needs serious work. (Can you even trust a politician with a good slider?—just asking.)

Following the rhubarb, the donnybrook, and the ejections, the Sox finally woke from their stupor, winning one of the most thrilling games of the year in the bottom of the ninth on a Bill Mueller walk-off home run. They won Sunday’s game 9–6, and are schooling the Orioles tonight behind Pedro: the score is 12–5 in the bottom of the seventh. If this is the place where the season turns around—and stranger things have happened—then you can give Jason Varitek the MVP for getting in Alex Rodriguez’s face.

July 27th

Trot’s on the DL, I discover, having aggravated the quad. The team makes it sound like a brief stay, just to let him rest, and to make room on what’s now a crowded roster. Yesterday in Pawtucket I watched Cesar Crespo play badly, and I wonder if it’s the effect of us signing Ricky Gutierrez, knocking Cesar that much further down the depth chart.

My neighbor Dave was at the Saturday brawl game and says one reason why the fight started wasn’t shown on TV: after A-Rod started barking, Bronson Arroyo walked toward home plate, tugging at his crotch. Ay, I got ya 252 million right here.

July 28th

Three days from the trading deadline, the papers say the Yanks are close to finalizing a deal for Randy Johnson, and the Twins and Pirates are ready to swap former Rock Cat Doug Mientkiewicz and Kris Benson. Theo so far has been quiet. Whether that means he’s being secretly effective or coming up empty remains to be seen, but it would not bode well if our big midseason acquisition was Terry Adams.

At 45-54, the Orioles are sleepwalking through another disapponting season. You wouldn’t know it by the way they’ve played against the Red Sox, though. Behind Pedro, and still pumped up from beating the Yankees two out of three, we shellacked them two nights ago, but the O’s batters had touched Tim Wakefield for four quick runs last night before the game was washed out. Tonight they got four more against Curt Schilling, and sorry, no rain.

We are 4-7 so far against Baltimore this year, and I’d love to be able to comfort myself by saying we just play lousy against the Birds, but it ain’t so, Joe. The fact of the matter is that the Birds play lousy against the rest of the league and like World Champions against us. Schilling (12-4) against Dave Borkowski (1-2) was a mismatch on paper, but for the last time, baseball games aren’t played on paper and tonight Borkowski—who we’d already beaten once this year—pitched like Steve Carlton in his prime, setting down the first thirteen Red Sox batters to face him before giving up a single to Nomar in the fifth. He pitched seven strong and left the game with a two-hit shutout. The only Boston run came on an Ortiz dinger with two out in the ninth, and Javy Lopez—a Red Sox nemesis from his Atlanta Braves days—hit a pair off Schilling, getting three of the four Baltimore RBIs.

So we’re a game behind Oakland in the wild-card race, and we have the unpleasing prospect of three games against the red-hot Minnesota Twins in the immediate future and eight more against the O’s before the season is over. And if we finish the season series with them at something like 7-12, and lose the wild card by two games, we can blame the Birds. Hell, it beats blaming the Bambino.

July 29th

Now the papers say Theo might try to piggyback that Twins-Pirates deal, shipping Youkilis to Pittsburgh for Mientkiewicz. Just the idea makes me queasy. Trading Lowe or Nomar would be bad enough, even if we have no intention of signing them, but Youk’s the future. After what happened with Freddy Sanchez (though he’s been hurt the last year or so), they ought to know better.

The Sox have a travel day, so to get my daily dose I take Steph and the boys over to Norwich for a doubleheader against the Trenton Thunder. Like New Britain, Norwich has a pretty little park that holds around six thousand, but the food is better here. I get a ball during warm-ups and have former Sox closer and current Norwich pitching coach Bob “The Steamer” Stanley and his former batterymate and current first-base coach Roger LaFrancois sign it.

The Thunder are the Yanks’ double-A club. They used to be ours before we acquired Portland from the Marlins, and the Navigators used to be the Yankees’, so for long-term fans there are some mixed (if not to say confused) feelings. But it’s Camp Day, so most of the fans are too young to care. It’s a brilliant blue afternoon, everyone receives a coupon for free ice cream, and as we leave, the ushers hand out flyers telling us Willie Mays is coming next week. Makes me wish I could be here for it.

July 30th

It’s the big party for Trudy’s parents’ fiftieth anniversary, a real production, and I can’t get away with the sneaky Pirates radio and earphone. A good half of the guests are New Englanders and diehard Sox fans—the men mostly, with memories of the ’46 club, and the old Braves. To a man, they think Francona’s just another patsy. “The last manager we had with any spine was Dick Williams. You saw, everywhere he went he was a winner.” The women roll their eyes.

After the band’s packed up, we have a nightcap downstairs in the bar. The TV’s silently playing Extra Innings, and Eric Friede and Sam Horn and Jayme Parker are all smiling, so my guess is we won. The Yanks did too, and the Rangers, so we’re behind the A’s again.

They also list a pair of big trades. The Mets have won the Benson sweepstakes. Not only that, but in a five-team deal, somehow they also picked up Tampa Bay ace Victor Zambrano and put themselves in a position to win the wimpy NL East. The other trade is an eight-player swap between the Marlins and Dodgers, the principals being Brad Penny and Charles Johnson, Guillermo Mota and Paul Lo Duca.

No news from Theo.

July 31st

The Yankees have reversed themselves on Giambi’s intestinal parasite and are now saying he has a benign tumor and may be out for the season. Also, during Fox’s Yankee Game of the Week, an announcer says that Trot will miss the rest of the year (instead of the week or two the Sox originally reported). If that’s true, we’re screwed.

All the friends who came to last night’s party are here for a day at the beach, and there’s a revolving audience for the Yankees-O’s game. A-Rod takes home on the back end of a double steal that the Orioles fall for, and for the rest of the day the announcers crow about how A-Rod stole home as if he’s Jackie Robinson.

I’m just watching the game for any late trade news, since the deadline’s almost upon us. Soon it’s past four—no news—and the Yanks are winning, so I go pack my things to drive Steph home for a friend’s birthday party.

I get the news from my daughter-in-law, a once-upon-a-time Yankee fan (like once-upon-a-time Protestants who convert to Catholicism, lapsed Yankee fans who become Red Sox partisans are the ones who REALLY MEAN BUSINESS), and she sounds the way I feel: shocked but somehow not all that surprised.

The player most commonly identified with the Boston Red Sox, the one whose number most fans probably expected to see someday up on the wall along with Williams’s, Pesky’s, and Yaz’s, is no longer with the Red Sox. Number Five has been traded, and probably the only consolation to be taken by fans who place tradition and heart above salary and statistics is that he’s been traded to the one other team in baseball whose long World Series drought has become not just the stuff of history but that of myth. That’s right folks; at game time tomorrow, Nomar Garciaparra—Boston’s surviving marquee player from the days of Dan Duquette—will take the field as a Cubbie.

Does the deal make sense? I don’t think so; I think that two years from now it will look like a panic move made by a young GM who saw his high-priced (and supposedly high-powered) baseball team treading water eight or nine games behind the monolithic Yankees in the AL East and a game or two behind the Oakland A’s in the wild card (but still more advantageouslyplaced than their closest competition). In other words, I think that Theo Epstein probably pulled the pin on a big deal at the trading deadline mostly because everyone in Boston’s howling oh-God-my-ass-hole’s-on-fire sports community was yelling for it to happen

What exactly did we get for our usually dependable, sometimes brilliant, and (I admit it) at times erratic shortstop, who was batting .321 at the time of the trade? We got two Gold Glove infielders, one with a name that can be both pronounced and spelled—that would be Orlando Cabrera—and the other with a name that can at least be pronounced: Doug Mientkiewicz (man-KAY-vitch). Putting the bat on the little white ball has seemed a little harder than catching it for these gentlemen, at least so far this season. Both are hitting around .250.

According to Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, the fact that Cabrera and Mientkiewicz currently have batting averages seventy points below Garciaparra’s doesn’t matter. As a disciple of Billy Beane and a follower of Bill James, he likes these men for their defense and their on base per centage (OBP).[30] He also likes them because Nomar Garciaparra is in the last year of a contract currently paying him $11 million a year, and resigning him probably would have been très expensive. Stories about how Nomar’s feelings were hurt during the failed A-Rod deal are probably no more than the usual baseball bullshit, but here’s something that isn’t: both Nomar and his agent know that baseball is a business. They also know that an athlete’s period of top earning ability is severely limited when compared to, say, that of a corporate CEO (or a best-selling novelist), and I have no doubt that Nomar and his man of business were determined to Make ’Em Pay this fall, whoever ’em turned out to be. Theo Epstein just decided ’em wasn’t going to be us.

Does that make sense? I’m sure it does to Theo Epstein, and it probably does to those of the Billy Beane bent. It does, in other words, if you see big league baseball as a business…and nothing else. Who it does not make sense to is my five-year-old grandson, who was watching ESPN when SportsCenter announced the trade. Ethan is a big Nomar fan. He always pretends to be Nomar when he’s hitting in the backyard, when he’s throwing, when he’s running the bases.

So it’s Ethan I’m thinking about as I write this—not his mother (the converted Yankee fan), not Nomar himself, not even the Red Sox, the putative subject of this book. Nope, I’m just thinking about Ethan.

“Nomar’s a Cub,” he said, then watched the TV for a while. Then, very softly, he said: “I guess I like the Cubs.”

Good call, Ethan.

Very good call.

I’ve just finished my good-byes when my sister-in-law says I’ve got a phone call. It’s Steve.

“They traded Nomar,” he says.

“Aw shit,” I say, partly because they fooled me. It’s almost five o’clock. I thought I was safe.

“To the Cubs. I think we got their shortstop and maybe a pitcher.”

Alex Gonzalez is a decent shortstop, and we’ve been looking at starter Matt Clement, maybe to take Arroyo’s place or to assume the middle role. I relay the news to the boys, and they switch back to the game.

Steph runs in. “We got Cabrera and Mientkiewicz.”

“So it was a three-team deal.”

“So Nomar’s gone to Red Sox West,” Steve says. “My five-year-old grandson’s been in tears. ‘But I still like Nomar,’ he says. ‘I guess I’m a Cubs fan now.’”

I think we must have gotten Clement, since our real need is middle relief, but Steve can’t find anything on the website. Nomar for Mientkiewicz and Orlando Cabrera of the Expos (so it’s a four-team deal). It doesn’t seem like enough—and we’ve already got three first basemen and three journeyman shortstops. It must have been a panic move on Theo’s part, dumping Nomar before he could walk (it’s just like the Yawkeys: not wanting to pay a star top dollar and getting nothing for him).

While I’m still on the phone, Steph tells me the Yanks have gotten last year’s Cy Young runner-up Esteban Loaiza from the White Sox for Jose Contreras. It’s a steal, even with George’s three million thrown in—a panic move on Chicago’s part that doubly benefits the Yanks. So we got hosed on both deals.

Steve’s off to see The Village, I’m off to drive a hundred miles. After I hang up, I feel like the season’s over, like we’ve given up.

On the road we tune into ESPN radio and hear that we got speedster Dave Roberts from the Dodgers for outfielder Henri Stanley, who just signed balls for us in Pawtucket on Monday. It’s a good deal, but not large enough to make up for the loss of Nomar.

The Sox without Nomar. It seems like a defeat, whoever’s fault it is.

During the pregame, Theo talks about how we needed to fix our defense, as if that’s what drove the deal. Then, because we have nowhere else to put him, we start Millar in right even though Kapler’s been hot. (Steph notes that the music behind his highlights from last night is Tenacious D’s “Wonderboy.”)

The game is anticlimactic after the video of Nomar leaving the clubhouse for the airport. The announcers—all of them paid by the Sox—put the best face on the deal they can, picking at Nomar’s attitude and his heel. Where’s Eck when you need him? (Cooperstown, being inducted.)

Lowe throws okay, so does Radke. The biggest moment is when Doug Mientkiewicz steps to the plate for the first time in a Red Sox uniform. Mientkiewicz is a lifelong Twin, and the Metrodome rises and gives him a noise-meter-worthy ovation. He has to step out to collect himself, and I realize we never had a chance to say good-bye to Nomar (we didn’t know it, but that Sunday-night game against the Yanks was his last home game).

It’s a close game late, tied in the eighth when Embree comes in with one down and the bases empty to face lefty Jacque Jones. He gets behind him, then aims a fastball. Jones cranks it, flipping his bat away. The ball lands ten rows back.

Joe Nathan, throwing 98, closes with the help of Francona. Mientkiewicz singles to open the inning; Kapler pinch-runs. Millar, who should be bunting, swings away. On an 0-1 count, Kapler goes and Henry Blanco guns him by ten feet. Millar flies out. It’s a terrible at-bat on all counts, an embarrassment. Bill Mueller then steps in and pulls a long shot down the line—foul. He singles (it would have easily scored Kapler), then takes second on a wild pitch before Youkilis strikes out.

Overall, just a tough day to be a Red Sox fan. Seems like everywhere we turned we did something stupid and got our asses kicked.

There are sixty games left, and we’re pretty much where we were last year. It’s time to put a stretch drive together. Or else.