Stephen King - Faithful

A great many things about baseball in general and the Red Sox in particular are about the bridges between past and present—this was just one more provided by a current Yawkey Way administration that seems pleasantlyaware of tradition without becoming enslaved to it. And when the Red Sox had put this one away in the cold mists of a late Sunday evening, the sounds of “Dirty Water” rang out again, this time with the tempo a little faster and the tones a little truer. And why not? This was the one recorded when the Standells were young. This is the version that hit the charts four months before Curt Schilling was born.

He was awesome last night. The word is tired, clapped-out from overuse, but I’ve had a 170-mile drive to try and think of a better one, and I cannot. The crowd of just over thirty-five thousand in the old green Church of Baseball knew what it was seeing; many of them may have been in Fenway Park for the first time last night (these Series-only fans are what Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy so rightly calls the “Nouveau Nation”), but even they knew. The galaxy of flashbulbs that went off in the stadium, from the plum dugout seats to the skyviews to the distant bleachers to those now perched atop the Green Monster, was chilling in its cold and commemorative brilliance, declaring by silent light that the men and women who came to the ballpark last night had never seen anything quite like it for sheer guts and never expected to see anything quite like it again. Not, certainly, with their own eyes.

Edgar Renteria, the Cardinals’ leadoff hitter, battled Schilling fiercely—first six pitches, then ten, then a dozen, running the count full and then spilling off foul after foul. [85] To prolong or deepen this drama, the pitch-speed display above the wall in left-center was tantalizingly blank for this half-inning. Who knew what Schill had? Only Tek and the hitters. SO He might have been the game’s key batter, and not the ones Schilling had to face following more Boston miscues (another four) that allowed the Cardinals extra chances upon which they could not capitalize.

Before finally hitting sharply to shortstop (and the often-maligned Kevin Millar made a fine pick at first to complete the play), Renteria tried every trick in the book. Every trick, that is, save one. He never attempted to lay down a bunt. In three starts on his bad peg—two against the Yankees and now one against the Cardinals—no one has tried to make Curt Schilling field his position. I’m sure the Red Sox infielders have discussed this possibility and know exactly how they would handle it…but it has simply never come up. And when this thing is over, when the hurly-burly’s done, all the battles lost and won, someone needs to ask the Yankee andCardinal hitters why they did not bunt. Of course I can imagine the boos that would rain down on a successful bunter against Father Curt at Fenway, but is it beyond the scope of belief to think that even Yankee or Cardinal fans might find it hard to cheer such a ploy for reaching first (well…maybe not Yankee fans)?

Could it have been—don’t laugh—actual sportsmanship ?

Whatever the reason, the Cards played him straight up last night—I salute them for it—and for the most part, Father Curt mowed them right down. Tony Womack and Mike Matheny had singles; Albert Pujols had a pair of doubles. And, as far as hits against Schilling went, that was it. He finished his night’s work by striking out the side in the sixth.

For the Red Sox, it was a continuing case of two-run, two-out thunder. Two runs scored after two were out in the first; two more after two were out in the fourth; two more in the sixth, the same way. [86] Respectively: Tek with a triple to the triangle that’s out if the wind isn’t blowing straight in; Marky Mark with a similar bomb off the wall in dead center; and O-Cab, who was uncharacteristically ahead in the count all night, bonking one off the Monster. SO By the end of the game (Mike Matheny, groundout), the deep green grass of the field and the bright white of the Red Sox home uniforms had grown slightly diffuse in the thickening mizzle. The departing fans, damp but hardly dampened, were all but delirious with joy. One held up a poster depicting a Christlike Johnny Damon walking on water with the words JOHNNY SAVES beneath his sandaled feet.

I heard one fan—surely part of Mr. Shaughnessy’s Nouveau Nation—actually saying he hoped the Red Sox would lose a couple in St. Louis, so the team could clinch back on its home soil (yes, Beavis, he actually said “home soil”). I had to restrain myself from laying hands on this fellow and asking him if he remembered 1986, when we also won the first two, only to lose four of the next five. And when a team is going this well (RED HOT RED SOX, trumpets this morning’s USA Today ), one loss can lead to others. Winning two at home, within a sniff of the River Charles, may have been vital, considering the fact that the Cardinals have yet to lose a single postseason game in their own house.

Tomorrow night, Pedro Martinez will face the Cards near the dirty water of a much larger river, in a much larger stadium. It will be his first World Series start, and given that no team has ever climbed out of an 0-3 World Series hole (and surely that sort of thing can’t happen twice in the same postseason… can it?), I think it’s going to be the most important start by a Red Sox pitcher in a long, long time. Certainly since 1986.

SK:Dear Stewart-Under-the-Arch: Here’s my idea of the doomsday scenario, also known as the Novelist’s Ending. The BoSox win one game in Saint Loo. Come back to Boston up three games to two. Lose Game 6. And… have to start Father Curt for all the marbles in Game 7.

Stewart, this could actually happen.

SO:I’m hoping we can steal one out there, and hey, if we get two, I won’t be crying about eating my Game 6 tickets. It’s just like the Yankee series: we just have to win one game—the game we’re playing.

SK:All lookin’ good. Now, if Pedro can only do his part.

You know, I think he will.

SO:Pedro remains inscrutable. We can’t hit like it’s a regular Pedro game; we have to pretend it’s John Burkett out there. Think seven or eight runs. Go Sox!

The Sox are up 4–0 as the game rolls into the ninth, and I find I can’t sit down. As Foulke comes in, I’m muttering the lyrics to his Fenway entrance music, Danzig’s “Mother” (“And if you want to find Hell with me, I can show you what it’s like”). He gets Edgar Renteria, then has Larry Walker 0-2 when he just lays a fastball in there, and Walker golfs it out. I watch Johnny turn and watch it, then I’m out of the room, swearing and pacing through the house. It’s okay, we’ve got a three-run lead and there’s no one on. Foulkie just has to go after hitters and not walk anybody. Pujols gets behind and jaws at the ump after a borderline call, then skies one deep to left (oh crap) that Manny settles under (whew)—that’s two. Scott Rolen, 0 for the series, is taking, gets behind, then inexplicably takes the 1-2 pitch, which, while slightly in, is clearly a strike, and the ump punches him out to end the game. We’re up 3–0 and I’m jumping around the room.

Petey came through so big, and Manny, and Billy Mueller hitting with two down. We’re a game away. I’ve been a strike away before, so I’m already trying to play it down, but, damn, I didn’t expect us to ever be up 3–0 on the Cards. The idea of winning it all sends me romping through the house, bellowing the Dropkick Murphys’ “Tessie,” even though I don’t know all the words: “Up from third base to Hun-ting-ton, they’d sing another vic-t’ry sooooooong—two, three, four!”