Stephen King: Faithful

Along with those overarching dramas, there were questions about how the failed A-Rod deal would play out with Nomar and Manny Ramirez. The Yankees also picked up former Sox closer Tom Gordon, who they hoped would be the missing setup man they’d needed since promoting Mariano Rivera to closer. The Sox were still hoping Ramiro Mendoza would come around, and submariner Byung-Hyun Kim, but, emotionally, Sox fans were pulling harder for prodigal sons Brian Daubach and Ellis Burks. (Daubach’s drama started early: he was a nonroster invitee to training camp, and, as has been the case his entire career, had to scrap to stay in the majors.) And of course there was the question of Pedro and his shoulder, Pedro and his back, Pedro and his mouth. Plus whatever controversy came up. This Sox clubhouse, like the Yankees’ back when they had personality, was known for soap opera.

It would be an interesting year, whichever way it went. If the Sox contended, all of New England would catch pennant fever. If they tanked, the carnage would be spectacular. Either way, Steve and I would be following them, watching them, listening to them, taking in games at Fenway, reading the box scores, checking the website, discussing them endlessly with friends and family and total strangers. Like any devoted Sox fans, we’d been waiting for this season since the end of Game 7, and our hopes were both impossibly high and cautiously guarded. Because as much as we love them, the Sox had broken our hearts over and over, and that probably wouldn’t change.

But what if? No one expected the Patriots to ever win a Super Bowl, let alone two. Our rotation was the best in the majors, and we actually had a closer now. Last year’s offense had outslugged the ’27 Yankees. More than any team we’d fielded since ’78 (that wonderful, terrible season), this squad had a bona fide shot. In February, before a single pitch had been thrown, millions of us believed this would be the year.

This book should reflect the depth of our obsession as well as how quickly the tone of a season changes. To get the emotions while they were fresh, the book is in double diary form. We didn’t chase the team like journalists, looking for total coverage. We just did our best to have a regular Sox-filled summer. For each day or game that we naturally came in contact with the Sox and found something remarkable—from spring training to the very last out—we wrote separate entries or reflections.

Besides the diary entries, for games or streaks that especially thrilled us or pissed us off (and with the Sox, we didn’t lack for those), we’ve attached spur-of-the-moment e-mail exchanges that show us firmly in the grip of the beast, feeding it.

In baring our relationship with the Sox, we hope to illuminate readers’ feelings for their own favorite teams. We also hope there’s something funny about owning up to the silliness of obsession yet being unable to break free of it—like Woody Allen or David Foster Wallace being painfully aware of their neuroses even as they navigate situations bound to freak them out. Sox fans are like any anxious sports fans, except we have good reason to be paranoid, so that even an 8–1 laugher against Tampa Bay can turn—in a matter of a couple of base runners, a couple of knuckleheaded pitching changes—into pure torture. And like hardcore followers of any sport, Sox fans are expert at taking a game apart and examining its most intricate components, especially when the worst happens.

We knew all of this coming into the 2004 season, and yet, for all the heartbreak, there we were again, psyched that Tommy Brady and the Pats might show up on Opening Day the way they did in 2002. Fenway was sold out for the season, and ticket prices on eBay were through the roof. The Sox and Yanks were both stocked and talking smack, from the front office down to the scalpers. The waiting was over—finally, it was next year.

Stewart O’Nan,

February 29th, 2004

After the Schilling acquisition, and during the A-Rod negotiations, I felt distinctly weird…out of kilter as a Red Sox fan. I started to think, “I’m going to come back to a team of superhero strangers wearing Red Sox uniforms. Who are these guys?” It was a dreamlike feeling, both pleasant and unpleasant…like getting gas at the dentist and knowing it’s going to hurt like almighty hell later on. Then the A-Rod deal fell through—the same old Red Sox problem: lots of cash, just not quite enough cash. And the Yankees got him. And the tabloids gloated. And even the New York Times, that supposedly staid gray lady, got in a crack; the Yankees, one of their columnists said, continued to show the Red Sox how to win, winter and summer. That was when the unpleasant dreamlike feeling burst, and I woke up to real life, smelling not the coffee but the peanuts and Cracker Jacks: Ah yes, screwed again. Hello, world, I’m a Red Sox fan. For better or worse, I’m a Red Sox fan, and I’ve just been screwed again. Same as it ever was. So bring on the Yankees, and may Alex Rodriguez bat .240.

We’re going to spring training, the whole family. It’s a surprise, my birthday present, a long weekend in Fort Myers. I’ve always wanted to go, ever since I was a kid in Pittsburgh listening to the Bucs warm up in sunny Bradenton. Trudy says she’s sick of listening to me yap about it, so here it is, a folder with the plane tickets, the hotel reservations, the rental-car agreement. We can’t afford it, but I can’t say that.

And there’s the envelope with the game tickets and the diagram of City of Palms Park. We’re going to see the Sox play their traditional game against Boston College on Friday, then the first game of the year against the Yankees Sunday and finally a Monday game against the Twins, who also train in Fort Myers. I forget about the money for a second and check out where we’re sitting.

I hit the Sox website to find out more about the training complex. I figure my son Steph and I can hang out and watch the players while Trudy and Caitlin beach it. I check the schedule, thinking the BC game is the very first of the spring.

It’s not. We’re playing the Twins at their place on Thursday. I go to their website and buy four tickets for it.

We’re also playing Northeastern at home on Friday night. I buy four more.

My brother John calls from Pittsburgh and asks me who he should draft from the Sox for his AL fantasy team. He’s a Pirates fan and doesn’t follow the junior circuit closely. Personally, I don’t like fantasy leagues, the way they make you root for individual players over team performance, but I do my best for him.

“Keith Foulke should get forty saves no matter how badly he pitches.”

“Last year you told me Mendoza.”

“Bronson Arroyo.”

“He’s no good. At least he wasn’t when he was with us. Who else?”

“Pokey Reese.”

“We had him. He’s always injured.”

I hang up feeling unhelpful, all of my arcane knowledge useless.

Second base is the one big question mark this season, besides not having a lefty starter. Pokey Reese has missed the better part of the last two seasons with leg and thumb injuries. He’s a little guy, a speedster who played option QB in high school, but suddenly he’s become delicate. He could be the Gold Glover he was a few years back and hit a respectable .260, or he could tank. Already the Sox are looking at Mark Bellhorn, Tony Womack and Terry Shumpert as insurance policies.

Nomar says he’s excited about playing beside such a slick fielder. Every spring it seems he says the same thing, because it’s been ten years since we’ve had the same Opening Day second baseman in consecutive seasons. We let playoff hero Todd Walker walk. Rey Sanchez got the boot after a decent year. Before that we had Jose Offerman, ex–general manager Dan Duquette’s laughable answer to losing Mo Vaughn.