Stephen King - Faithful

SK:“Maz’s homer is our Excalibur.” Mine too. I LOVED that series. Remember that Baltimore chop that hit Tony Kubek in the Adam’s apple? Of course you do, you devil, you.

SO:As Bob Prince used to say, “We had ’em all the way!”

SK:The game last night was the perfect antidote (except for Scott Williamson in the eighth…PRETTY SCARY, HALLOWEEN MARY). A measure of payback for Tim-MAY Wakefield after the heartbreaking home run to Aaron Boone. One game down, eighteen to go.

One luxury of having two bona fide aces is the constant possibility of a marquee matchup. Last Saturday it was Pedro-Halladay, this Saturday it’s Schilling-Mussina. With the watering down of pitching talent around the league, these games are rare, and I’d be at Fenway except that I have to tape an interview for Canadian TV.

Moose is rocky from the start, and Schilling’s solid. Bill Mueller goes deep, and Manny. It’s 4–1 in the seventh when Schilling’s 121st pitch freezes Jeter for the first out—and suddenly here comes Francona from the dugout. Like Pedro against Toronto, Schilling looks around, surprised someone is warming. He turns his head and swears, but gives up the ball and gets a big hand. A few minutes later the camera shows him in the dugout, going over his charts. Another power move by Francona? Or just notice that he won’t be like Grady? I think it’s no coincidence that he pulled both aces at home during high-profile wins.

Johnny doubles in an insurance run in the eighth, and the Yanks get a cheapie in the ninth, but this one’s over. Schilling beats Moose and we’ve taken the first two. On Extra Innings, Tom Caron says, “So the worst we can do is split.” Why think of the worst, especially right now? We’ve got D-Lowe going against Contreras tomorrow. It’s this kind of fatalism—from the Sox’s own network!—that drives me crazy. You never hear this kind of hedging from the Yankees’ YES-men.

We get going early so we can be the first ones on the Monster, but as we’re driving up I read in the Sunday paper that there’s no BP today. While it doesn’t mention it anywhere, and even the Sox ticket office and the guys who let us in through Gate C aren’t sure where we’re supposed to go, it’s On-Field Photo Day. We take a right toward the stairs up to the Monster and notice the garage door to center’s open. We fall in behind a staff member escorting two kids and then we’re on the warning track in the bright sunshine. A yellow rope cordons off the grass, but we can walk all the way around to the dugout, where Schilling is sitting, being interviewed by a writer.

The PA tells us the plan. The Sox will come out and walk all the way around so we can take photos. Each player has a handler to make sure they don’t sign autographs. Still, I’ve got to try. “No, I’ll get in trouble,” Bill Mueller says, like a little kid.

The guys are nice, shaking hands and posing. I get Steph with hitting coach Ron “Papa Jack” Jackson and Keith Foulke. Trudy’s being crowded and can’t get clean shots, so she moves out to the warning track in right where it’s empty. Johnny Pesky’s sitting in the dugout with Andrew, and I toss him a ball to sign. I notice Manny on the other end of the dugout, signing, and make my way over there, scissoring over the wall and then high-stepping over the railings between sections. The mob around him is packed tight, but I finally get through and have him sign my ball.

The Monster seats are a dream—a counter for your stuff, a swiveling barstool and room behind it to stand or lean against the wall. We’re in the second row. In the first row, there are new signs that read: WARNING: FOR YOUR SAFETY PLEASE DO NOT REACH OVER WALL. The one drawback is that we’re a long way from the plate. It’s a little breezy, but when the wind is blowing right you can smell the burgers grilling. The sun’s out, Lowry’s with us, and when Kevin Millar doubles into the corner in the first, scoring Bill Mueller, the day seems ideal.

The pitching matchup’s in our favor, or should be. Contreras is their fourth starter, and a weak link. The worry is that Lowe, working on ten days’ rest, will be too strong and leave the ball up. In the third that’s exactly what happens. After he walks A-Rod, he gives up a single to Giambi, a double to Sheffield, a single to Matsui and a double to Posada—all of them down the line in left. Lowe strikes out Travis Lee, but Enrique Wilson singles to right, scoring Matsui to make it 4–1. Jeter grounds out, scoring Posada, then Bernie Williams doubles down the left-field line. That’s it for Lowe: 2 2/ 3innings, 8 hits, 7 runs.

The Sox get two back in the bottom of the inning, chasing Contreras. We should have more except for a blown call. With two on and two out, Tek slaps one down the first-base line that Travis Lee has to dive to spear. Reliever and ex-Sock Paul Quantrill beats Tek to the bag, but Lee has trouble getting the ball out of his glove, and by the time the throw arrives, Quantrill’s well past the base. The ump punches Tek out to end the inning, bringing Francona from the dugout to argue, though by then it’s pointless.

Also during this inning, the Yanks haul out their Cuban National Team tactics, slowing down the pace of the game in the middle of our rally to quiet the crowd and throw off the hitters’ timing. Posada visits the mound. They send the trainer out in midcount, as if the pitcher has some injury. He doesn’t, but because the trainer accompanies Torre, the visit doesn’t count as a visit by the manager. They send the pitching coach. They change pitchers. They have an infield conference. They send the pitching coach again in midcount. The pitcher himself wanders behind the mound to stall. They change pitchers again. Technically it’s only semilegal, a judgment call with the league’s new rules requiring umps to pick up the pace of the game. A good crew chief wouldn’t put up with this nonsense.

It stays 7–3. There’s not much action, and the crowd’s grumpy and distracted. From time to time the bleachers rise and roar, signaling a fight. The cops haul some Yankee fans away, and everyone cheers, “Yank-ees suck! Yank-ees suck!” In the seventh, Tom Gordon comes in to some moderate boos, but it’s hard to get too excited, down by four runs. The sole highlight of the late innings is an awkward sliding catch by Sheffield along the right-field line. The crowd salutes him with the old Atlanta tomahawk chop, with the finger attached.

We lose 7–3. It was basically a one-inning game, over after the third. The loss can’t ruin the day—walking on the field, seeing the guys, sitting on the Monster—but it makes for a quiet ride home. And tomorrow’s their matchup: Kevin Brown against Bronson Arroyo. Okay, now who’s the fatalist?

SK:Not quite s’good t’day, and with KBrown tomorrow, the Yanks look good for the split, curse them.

SO:It was a dull game, even up on the Monster. The wind was blowing in hard, and knocked down two balls from Manny that would have been gone any other day.

Saw the new Williams statue by Gate B—pure schmaltz. He deserves better.

SK:Yep. Putting his hat on the little kiddie’s head. Cute. And, out of the side of his mouth: “Now get outta my way, you little rat-bastard.”

SO:Hey, imagine what Steinbrenner’s statue’ll be doing.

SK:Cast in bronze with his wallet out.

The Yankees have never beaten the Red Sox in the World Series; with both teams in the American League, that, of course, is impossible. Nevertheless, the Yankees (who are playing the Red Sox in the third game of their first four-game set of 2004 as I write this) have become the Sox’s principal rival over the last fifty or sixty years, and as someone who has written a great many scary stories during his career, I almost have to write about them. For Red Sox fans, the Yankees are the thing under the bed, the boogeyman in the closet. When they come to us, we expect bad luck on horseback; when we go to them, we expect, in our hearts, not to return alive. [3] In the first two meetings of this year, we beat them by scores of 6–2 and 5–2, and the Yankees’ big off-season acquisition, Alex Rodriguez (who Red Sox fans see, rightly or wrongly, as a player stolen out from under our very noses by George “I’ll Spend Anything” Steinbrenner) went 0 for 8. Well enough. In the third game, however, The Team That Will Not Die is leading the Sox 7–3 in the fourth inning.