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There's no question: As we settle into our seats, we think we're going to win today. When Derek cruises the first on the swell of only eight pitches, we're sure of it. He's on, we're on, the future is afoot. Old Dom (You're Better Than Your Brother Joe) DiMaggio threw a perfect strike to start things off with his ceremonial pitch, and everything has carried on from there. Tonight, Manny goes yard (as they say), Nomar breaks out, Trot and Walker continue to do the things they've been doing this autumn, and then we hand it over the Williamson, who's got as much mo as Mo. So what if Wells got us in the first, too, now we're going to . . .
Issue a walk.
Another walk.
Oh, good, Boone.
0-2. Great.
Good, a grounder.
Jeezus, No!
So Derek's in the dugout holding his head in his hands, and we're down — somehow — 3-0. This was The Brutal Game, one of the most brutal I've ever experienced. It stayed 3-0 for so long, as Fenway sat with teeth clenched. Two men on and two outs and Nomar, who has batted .170 since Labor Day and has stunk — I mean, like bad cheese — gives us one of the worst at-bats in baseball history, fanning on a belt high fastball that the-Nomar-we-once-knew takes to the Monster seats. Nomar courageously walks a few innings later to load 'em up, and Manny immediately trickles one to . . . Boone! (After the game, the batting coach of the Sox will applaud — applaud — Nomar's two bases-on-balls.) Manny does go yard, once, but with the bases clear, rather than filled. And Nomar gets his first RBI in the postseason in the 8th. But here's how: Mo comes in and the recently Great Todd Walker gives us all hope by belting one down right that nearly goes out, and winds up being a triple. Nomar grounds out — way to go! — and Walker scores. My friend Chaz Scoggins of the Lowell Sun, who officially scores the games for the Sox, sounds desultory when he announces Nomar's RBI. And he should sound desultory. And, frankly, Nomar should go to California if, as he says, he doesn't like playing in front of all these people, with all this pressure and attention — and sainthood — being put upon him. He should go there with Mia (who's here tonight; Annie saw her; she's short) and J. Lo (who's also here, curiously, for we thought there were problems with her and the Boston guy). But we are not in California, where all of those folks can and no doubt will go, we are in Boston, and here we are, late in game five, losing, the Yanks batting under .200 for the series and about to go up 3-2, and I'm sick of Nomar, Pedro and Manny. Give me Todd and Trot and Tim and a teamful of guys like that. I'll take Derek, too, who Cowboyed Up after that mess in the second, and got us deep into this game. To scant avail.
Down in Section 8, the cotton-candy guy is giving cotton candy away for free. Millie says to Gail, "Well, no more games till April."
Gail's reflects upon several facts: that it's not over till it's over, that there will be another game tomorrow in New York no matter the outcome of this one and that the shelf life of cotton candy must be at least a month. She says: "We could still play here Saturday night. The World Series. He's giving up!"
Later she says to me, forlornly, "I just don't know why they can never win. You just sit there in the stands, watching, wondering."
We are back at her place at this point. She has put out cheese and crackers and Sam Adams for Millie, Annie and the guys. Not everyone gets back out to Wellesley — some don't feel like socializing, perhaps, but some do, and we munch and sip as Gail and Scott's kids, along with Millie's daughter, run amok till way past their bedtimes.
We schmooze for about a half hour, Bag and I recounting yet again how we had scored tickets to the Bucky Dent playoff game almost precisely a quarter-century ago, telling other sad jokes that gradually build context for The Brutal Game. Then Bag bids us adieu, and I repair to the couch to nurse my wounds and my nightcap. Slowly, I get into the Cubs-Marlins game that is on the tube. The camera keeps scanning the smiling, happy, giddy people in Wrigley Field, and I have conflicting emotions.
Good for them!
Why them, and not us?
I had been so deep into Sox-Yanks for a week now, I had barely realized that the Cubs had gotten themselves to the verge. And here they were. My sister goes upstairs, and I am alone with the final ballgame of a long day. Over the next several minutes, as I slouch, holding my glass on my stomach, lifting it occasionally to my lips, I watch a fan catch a ball in the left-field stands, a shortstop boot a grounder, Prior turn into a pumpkin, the Marlins score eight runs and the collective visage of the Wrigleyites turn into one which has just witnessed something concocted by Stephen King (who, by the way, failed in his efforts to de-hex Fenway only hours earlier; it has been a very spooky day all 'round). Now my emotions are even more conflicted than before:
Good God.
Poor kid; not his fault.
Well, they're at home and they've got flamethrowing Kerry Wood going tomorrow, and we'll be back in Yankee Stadium and we've got . . .
John Burkett, who I understand is a fine bowler in his spare time.
I am unhappy with myself, my miserableness and my meanness. It seems that if we can't win it all — or at least beat the Yankees — I don't want the Cubbies to win, either. I don't understand that Curse of the Billy Goat thing, but if we can't shake the Bambino, why should they be able to shed their goat? Let the world get Yanks-Marlins, and I hope the ratings crash through the floor. Hey, best of all: Let the Marlins win.
I am at this point, it does not need to be said, in a thoroughly foul mood. I go to bed after the carnage in Chicago has ended, and awake the next morning to a torrential downpour that reflects the state of all baseball affairs (as I am seeing them). My sister drives me to Logan, and I suffer a suitably bumpy plane flight down to New York. This stiff wind is probably blowing straight out at the Stadium, and will no doubt lift a couple of Bernie or Nick or Derek dingers later in the day.
Work is slow, and then at 3:30 I hop the D Train for the Bronx along with Bob, the friend and colleague who was briefly mentioned in Part II of this diary. I have those two seats in the bleachers again, and I figure if I didn't offer Bob one today — his pinstripe loyalty notwithstanding — then he wouldn't get to see a game. What a sport I am.
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