Stephen King - Faithful

Two—During the wee-hours postgame celebration outside Fenway Park, a twenty-one-year-old Emerson College student named Victoria Snelgrove was killed when she was struck by a plastic ball filled with pepper spray. Boston police commissioner Kathleen O’Toole accepted responsibility for the young woman’s death (handsome, and no doubt of great comfort to her family), and in the next breath condemned the “punks” who seized upon the Red Sox victory over the Yankees as “an opportunity for violence and destruction.” Running beside this story is a picture of the late Ms. Snelgrove, looking not like a punk but a Madonna.

Boston mayor Thomas Menino says the city is considering a ban of liquor sales during the World Series (think how proud his Puritan predecessors would be of that ), and also of banning live TV coverage of the games in bars and restaurants, because it incites fans. [82] No word yet on whether or not Menino is considering a ban on pepper-spray-filled plastic balls, which seem to incite Boston police. This is causing the predictable howls of outrage from bar and restaurant owners, and they may have a point, especially since Menino failed to mention the sale of beer within Fenway Park itself while the games are going on.

Three—It’s going to be St. Louis rather than Houston when the Series convenes tomorrow for another of those hateful (perhaps even beerless?) night games. The Rocket gave it his best shot last night in Game 7 of the NLCS, and the Astros even led for a while, but in the end the Roger Clemens tradition of just not being able to win the big game again held true.

Red Sox rooters looking for additional reasons to believe—and surely any would come in handy, considering that the 2004 Cardinals won more games than any other pro baseball team—might consider this: in theNLCS, the home team won every game. And in this World Series, the Red Sox have the home field advantage.

And have it thanks to Manny Ramirez’s first-inning home run in the All-Star Game off of… Roger Clemens.

SK:I think Wake is a GREAT choice for Game 1. Sure he’s a risk, but he’d be MY choice; he might tie those big thumpas in knots. Even if he doesn’t, I give Francona kudos for giving Timmy the ball. And for God’s sake, he’s gonna put Mirabelli behind the plate, right? Right.

Seeya 5:30,

Steve “I Still Believe” King

I’d violently disagree with Steve—Wake is his boy as much as Dave McCarty is mine, and Wake’s been plain awful this year, besides the few usual wins in Tampa; the best thing he did was volunteer to mop up in Game 3 against the Yanks and give Lowe his spot in the rotation [83] All right, I’m no ingrate: he saved our bacon in extras in Game 5, holding the Yanks scoreless for three nervous, passed-ball-filled innings and picking up the win. —but I’m out the door and sailing across I-84 before Steve’s e-mail reaches me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a World Series, and I aim to get my fill.

The souvenir shops around the park don’t open until noon. At eleven-thirty, lines of eager buyers stretch far down the block. The amount of free junk people are handing out is astounding—papers, posters, buttons, stickers, pictures, temporary tattoos, Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Fans are staggering around with bags of the crap, in total material overload. When the stores open, barkers with bullhorns herd customers into switchbacked ropes—“This line only for World Series and AL Champion merchandise—this line only!”

Hanging out by the parking lot eight hours before game time, the autograph hunters are treated to an impromptu concert by Steven Tyler as he runs his sound check for tonight’s anthem. Steven doesn’t actually sing the song, he just blows an A on his harmonica and runs through an ascending series of bluesy scales, and sounds great—a cool reminder that Aerosmith started out as an electric blues band influenced by the early Stones, the Yard-birds and Muddy Waters.

After that, PA announcer Carl Beane warms his pipes, rumbling: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome… the National League Champion, St. Louis Cardinals,” over and over, as if he might have trouble with it later. He goes through a fantastical lineup: “Batting first, number one… Carl… Beane.” A minute later, “Batting fourth, number nine… Ted… Williams,” and the crowd outside applauds. “Batting fifth, number six… Stan… Musial.”

And speaking of old-timers, rumor is that Yaz is throwing out the first pitch, a sentimental touch, and overdue, since it’s said that Yaz and the club haven’t had the best of relationships since he retired. The new owners may be trying to patch things over. We also witness—well in advance—the return of Lenny DiNardo and Adam Hyzdu, two guys who spent time with the club early in the year. It’s nice to see the Sox are giving them a taste of the big show (though, of course, the guy we really want to see is Dauber).

Two other early arrivals of note: team physician Dr. Bill Morgan and, fifteen minutes later, wearing a brace on his right leg and no shoe in the cold, Curt Schilling. Before Game 6, Dr. Morgan sutured Schill’s tendon to his skin, a procedure he practiced first on a cadaver. Rumor (again, rumor, the outsider’s substitute for information) is that he’s going to stitch him up again for tomorrow’s start in Game 2. On those few threads, our whole season may depend.

Inside, there are more banners than I’ve seen all year—a lifting of the normal ban, for TV’s sake, I expect. It’s cold, with a wind whipping in from straight center, which should give Wake’s knuckler more flutter. Even the stiff wind isn’t enough to keep David Ortiz in the park tonight. In the first, in his very first World Series at-bat, El Jefe busts out with a three-run golf shot OVER the Pesky Pole. We chase Woody Williams early, giving Wake a 7–2 lead going into the fourth.

Beside me, Steve is smiling. Kevin, the usher who comes down between innings with a camp chair to keep people off the wall, is overjoyed with how things are going. “No,” I say, glum, “just watch: Wake’ll start walking people. He always does when we give him a big lead.” And I don’t say this to jinx anything, I say it because I’ve seen Wake all year long, and that’s just what he does.

And that’s just what he does—walking four in the fourth to break a World Series record, and soon after he’s gone it’s 7–7. It’s like they used to say about Fenway when it was a launching pad: no lead is safe here.

“Man, that was ogly,” Orlando Cabrera said in a postgame interview. He paused, then added, “But we won.” Ogly pretty well sums up the first game of this year’s World Series, which ended with a thing of beauty: Keith Foulke striking out Roger Cedeno a few minutes after midnight.

Speaking of ogly, Orlando wasn’t looking so good himself in that interview, and he seemed uncharacteristically solemn. A Woody Williams pitch hit him on the shoulder in the first inning, then bounced up into his face, leaving him with a bruised chin, a fat lip, and a temporary inability to smile—which, under ordinary circumstances, Mr. Garciaparra’s replacement does often. Pain or no pain, Cabrera must have been at least tempted to test that smile when the Red Sox finally escaped with an ogly but serviceable 11–9 win in spite of four errors (one by Bronson Arroyo—starter Tim Wakefield’s fourth-inning relief—one by Kevin Millar, and two by Manny Ramirez). Every one of those errors led to runs, leading me to wonder if any of the Red Sox players felt tempted to visit the Cardinals’ clubhouse after the game and assure them on behalf of the home team that Boston doesn’t play that way every night.