Stephen King - Faithful

Walking on the beach this morning, we pass a couple on a towel. The guy spies our Sox hats and says, “How ’bout those Yankees?”

“How ’bout those Marlins?” I ask.

Later, driving on I-95, I’m cheered by the sheer number of Red Sox stickers and license-plate holders, even an official Mass license plate like Trot hawks on NESN. I pass a car that has one of the free BELIEVE stickers Cambridge Soundworks gives out by Autograph Alley, and I think: yes, it’s that simple. We may be down now, but this is my team, and I’m going to believe in them, whatever happens. Fuck the Yankees, and fuck their no-showing, front-running, fair-weather fans.

We all have our little strategies for dealing with loss, and right now I’m using all of mine. The Red Sox, who seem to be imploding, lost another heart-wrecker last night, this time in twelve innings, in Atlanta. That’s four straight, the last three close ones. Strategies for dealing?

One: Stop reading the sports pages. Right now I won’t even read about Wimbledon, lest my eye should stray to a baseball story, or, worse, the standings, on the facing page.

Two: Kill the sound. I watch the game every night on TV, but now with the MUTE function engaged, because I have conceived an active horror of what the announcers may be saying. MUTE doesn’t work when the game’s on ESPN, because their closed captioning kicks in, and in those cases, I have to turn the volume all the way down to 0.

Three: Change the station when the game is over. Just as soon as the final out is recorded I punch in Channel 262, better known as Soapnet. No way am I waking up to NESN’s SportsDesk these days, even though I know I may be missing the always fascinating Jayme Parker. No, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be catching up on All My Children while I shave and do my morning exercises.

Meantime, good news—and it has nothing at all to do with me saving a bunch on my car insurance. It looks like the current BoSox skid is going to end at four—it’s the top of the ninth, and Boston’s leading Atlanta 6–1. Curt Schilling’s on the hill for the Sox, looking for number eleven. He’sbeen our most reliable pitcher, because that sucker’s not just good, he’s lucky . Tonight Doug Mirabelli came up with two outs and the bases juiced, and although the Sox have been horrible all year in that situation, tonight was Mirabelli’s night—he put one over the fence to dead center, and that should be lights out for this light-hitting Braves team.

Mr. Tripp, who owns the local general store, gave me a T-shirt today that says RED SOX on the front and I SUPPORT TWO TEAMS, THE RED SOX AND WHOEVER BEATS THE YANKEES on the back. I wore it for tonight’s game, and I intend to wear it again tomorrow. And every day until they lose. (I also intend to keep on watching All My Children on Soapnet instead of SportsDesk on NESN for the foreseeable future. Less stress.)

After losing the other night, Anastacio Martinez is shipped back to Pawtucket, making room for Theo’s newest acquisition, former Pirate Jimmy Anderson, a finesse lefty who last pitched for the Iowa Cubs. He’s not the solution to our middle-relief problems, and I think Theo’s pulling a Dan Duquette, trying to get away with cut-rate band-aids. If he really wants a quality arm, he’s going to have to give up something.

I’m reading on the beach when my nephew Charlie says the Sox are winning 4–1. I wander into the house to see for myself and watch as Lowe gives up a walk, an infield single, another walk, a groundout by pitcher Mike Hampton that scores a run, a single, a double, a single. We’ve all seen how quickly Lowe can melt down, and throughout this sequence we’re begging Francona to lift him, yet for most of it there’s no one warming up. Francona lets him throw to lefty Chipper Jones, who predictably sticks one in the bleachers. It’s 8–4, and everyone around the set is swearing. Francona finally calls on new guy Jimmy Anderson, who walks his first batter on four pitches, then gives up a double to Andruw Jones and a triple to Charles Thomas. I’ve only been watching for ten minutes and Atlanta’s sent ten guys to the plate.

“Can they fire a manager in the middle of the season?” Charlie asks.

SK:Sox getting roasted 10–4. When I snoozed off, it was 4–1 good guyz. This be bad. Another day, another shellacking by a sub-.500 club; another series lost to same. It’s time for Terry to go while there’s still a season to save.

Bring back Tollway Joe.

SO:Francona the Terryble. Bet the Globe and Herald scribes are sharpening their instruments.

At least the Mets sweep the Yankees (their fans chanting, “We’re not Boston”)—and on a horrible call. Late in a close game, Cairo hits one to the right side that Piazza can’t reach. It gets by him and hits Posada. The first base ump rules him safe; the crew chief overturns it. Torre comes out to argue, to no avail. The rule is that if a fielder’s had a chance to handle the ball, then the runner’s safe. The crew chief decided that Piazza hadn’t had a chance in the official sense, and that the second baseman might, and was therefore deprived of the chance to put Cairo out by the ball hitting Posada. Torre protests the game. And while the Yanks were the recipients of dozens of homer calls from the umps during our last series (including the noncall on that 0-2 count to Cairo that would have ended Wednesday night’s game), I can’t help but be annoyed at the incompetence. Get it right, Blue.

The All-Star teams are announced. Schilling, Manny and David Ortiz made it—no surprise. What is shocking is that the three players implicated in the BALCO scandal—Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield—are all starting. Nice job, fans. Way to clean up the game.

Is life simpler, as Americans like to believe, down on the farm? We’re hoping, driving through a monsoon to see the PawSox, whose ticket office assures us the weather will clear up and they’ll get the game in. They almost do. At one point the grounds crew has the tarp off and is raking sawdust into the infield dirt, and Anastacio Martinez and Ramiro Mendoza and Frank Castillo and Mystery Malaska warm up down the third-base line. But by the time we have the ceremonial pitches (it’s Latino Day) and Dauber and Adam Hyzdu and Big Andy Dominique come out to stretch, it’s misting again, then straight-out raining, and two hours after game time, they call it, to halfhearted boos. So it really is a day off: no baseball at all.

Tonight the Sox open a three-game series with Oakland, one of their chief wild-card opponents, and for the time being, at least, Boston’s postseason hopes are all about the wild card. Tonight will also be Boston’s eighty-first game of the year, which puts them almost exactly at the halfway point of the season.

Any real analysis of the first half will have to wait until the All-Star break, but I think it’s fair to say that I have rarely seen the feeling in my little corner of New England turn so quickly, so decisively, and so almost poisonously against our only major league club. Who knows, by the time the All-Star break comes around, I may be willing to drop the almost . This sea change isn’t that hard to understand. What we have here is a team filled with high-priced talent, much of which started the season on the disabled list. The team did well out of the gate nevertheless, contending in rather spectacular fashion in large part with the scrappy hit-’n’-field skills of guys like Bellhorn, Youkilis and Reese to complement the booming bats of Ramirez and Ortiz. [26] Nor has it hurt that Johnny Damon is off to what may be a career year at the plate. Then, just as the big boys started getting well, the team got sick. If it’s going to get better again, the convalescence must begin soon.