Stephen King - Faithful

No team in major league history has ever come back from an 0-3 hole to win a postseason series (no team in an 0-3 hole has even forced a Game 7), but it’s been done twice in the NHL. The last time it was done, it was done to my team. I was a Pittsburgh Penguins fan in 1975 (I’m still a Penguins fan, dammit) when the New York Islanders came roaring back from 0-3 to shame us, winning by the slimmest of margins game after game, several of those in overtime. I was at Game 6 at the Civic Arena, and there was a dispiriting sense in the crowd that we were doomed to lose even though we had a 3-2 lead in games and were playing the last two on home ice. It was like a nightmare, knowing the horrible thing was going to happen but being powerless to stop it. Once we’d lost Game 6, there was hardly any point in playing Game 7, and everyone knew it. We were cooked, broken, useless. We barely showed up, and the Isles push-broomed us into the dustbin of history. Now, granted, the New York Yankees aren’t the Pittsburgh Penguins, but I must say that these Red Sox are as hungry as those young Islanders—a team, you might remember, that matured and went on to win four straight Stanley Cups.

SK:Almost game time. Will they play? I think maybe they will. And Mr. Schill? Father Curt? I think maybe he will. And if the Red Sox do instead of die, I’ve made arrangements to be in Yanqui Stadium tomorrow night for the kill. Drive those banderillas home, boys! One from Arroyo! Two more from the magickal Mr. Lowe! And one more—in the ninth—the killer—from Pedro, the Closer from Hell.

SO:It’s on. Gotta hit, and gotta field behind whoever’s on the hill. We’ve overcome big injuries all year, so why change now? I hope to hell you are there tomorrow, and the boys bring it home. And if not, we made ’em sweat blood.

Billy Mueller in the #2 slot—good move. Bellhorn and Cabrera weren’t getting it done. Billy Mueller, Yankee Killer!

At Fenway Park this morning, the groundskeepers will continue their little field-grooming chores instead of embarking on the larger chores that go with making a major league baseball field ready for winter. The concessionaires remain on standby, and the spectator gates will still be up on Yawkey Way. Incredibly, long after the baseball pundits on ESPN’s SportsCenter and the sports cannibals in the Boston media had given them up for dead, the Boston Red Sox remain alive; in the words of the immortal Huey Lewis, the heart of rock ’n’ roll is still beating.

Terry Francona kept Mark Bellhorn on the field and in the lineup even though the abovementioned pundits and cannibals [78] Not to mention one cannibalette. That would be Jackie MacMullan of the Boston Globe , who spanked Manny Ramirez for keeping the bat on his shoulder too much after Boston’s twelve-inning 6–4 victory in Game 4. In that game all Manny did was reach base five times in six at-bats, including the walk which preceded Big Papi’s walk-off. were by yesterday morning all but screaming for the manager to slot Reese in at second base, and Bellhorn responded with a three-run home run in the fourth inning. The rest of the night belonged to Father Curt, who dominated the Yankees for seven innings (his only mistake was a fat 3-1 pitch to Bernie Williams, who made him pay by stroking his 22nd postseason home run), and to Red Sox relievers Bronson Arroyo and Keith Foulke. The former ran into trouble when he gave up a double to Miguel Cairo and a single to Derek Jeter; the latter nearly gave me heart failure by walking Matsui and Sierra in the bottom of the ninth. In the end, however, Tony Clark ended the game by doing what he did so many times for the Red Sox in clutch situations—he struck out. Last night, and in the season’s most crucial situation, the Yankees stranded their comeback on first base.

The worst moment for Sox fans came during A-Rod’s at-bat in the eighth, following the Jeter single. Rodriguez hit a squibber between the pitcher’s mound and first. Arroyo fielded it, saw that his first baseman (Mientkiewicz, at that point) was out of position, and went to put the tag on A-Rod himself. Rodriguez [79] I have an acquaintance from Brooklyn who says that he and his friends call Rodriguez “Show Pony,” because of the seemingly ostentatious way he runs. slapped the ball from Arroyo’s mitt, and Jeter raced all the way around to make it 4–3.

After Sox manager Terry Francona came out to protest, the umpires put their heads together and reversed the original decision, which had Rodriguez safe at first, and ruled him out on interference, instead. A sulky Derek Jeter (who slapped a phantom tag on David Ortiz and got an out call in Game 5 at Fenway) was forced to return to first base. He was still there when Gary Sheffield fouled out, ending the inning. Fans pelted the field with various objects; police in riot gear lined the foul lines in the top of the ninth; eventually the Red Sox did what no team has ever done before, which is to come back from a 3-0 deficit to tie a postseason best-of-seven series.

Whether or not they can go all the way and win Game 7 tonight is very much in question, but I intend to be there and see for myself—I called around and wangled a ticket to the game. Yankee Stadium is a horrible place for a Red Sox fan to be at the very best of times, if not Hell itself, then surely the very lowest cellar of purgatory, but I think it must still beat television. After three cold nights at Fenway and one warm one in front of Harlan Ellison’s glass teat (when the Bronx fans were clearly freezing), I am prepared to testify in any court of law that being there is better. I think that if Fox had shown me one more shot of Curt Schilling’s bloody ankle last night I would have screamed—not in horror or pity, but in rage. And anyone with a lick of sense watches such big-money games only with the volume turned all the way down. Listening to the endlessly blathering announcers always makes me think of what my mother used to say about the village idiot when she was growing up in Prout’s Neck back in the late 1920s: “He’d talk about moonlight on a sunny afternoon.”

But never mind. That sounds bilious, and I’m not in a bilious mood this morning. Far from it. Now that the Red Sox have come so far, I find it nearly impossible to believe they will come all the way…yet not completely impossible. I know this much: if there’s to be a miracle, I intend to see it with my own eyes.

Time to hit save, eject the disc, and shut this machine down.

Ruth King’s boy is going to New York City.

SO:Marky Mark made those boo-birds from the other night eat their words.

A-Rod slapping Bronson’s glove off was a weird counterpoint to B-yo hitting him to start the brawl in July. What a bald-faced cheater.

And, man, Joe West has to be the worst umpire in the league—the 2-1 to Sierra was down the pipe.

But the person at Yankee Stadium I feel sorriest for is the fan who had Bellhorn’s homer in his hands and dropped it. Come on, dude! Nice that the umps finally got that one right.

Overfuckingjoyed,

Stew

SK:Thank God Tony Clark still owed us a couple of Special Ks.

Off to NYC.

SO:The rule book calls what A-Rod did “an unsportsmanlike act.” Fans everywhere are calling it an un man like act. So our 340K pitcher once again beat their 252M hitter. Justice prevails… for now. Just remember: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. And cheaters never win.