Stephen King - Faithful

And the Angels and Rangers both won, so our magic number remains 5—it’s the Curse of Nomar!

When Yankee starting pitching goes south, as Roger Clemens replacement Javier Vazquez did last night in the fifth inning, Joe Torre now has essentially two choices in the matter of middle relief: Tom Gordon (whose loss from the Red Sox I understand and accept but still lament in my heart) and the Bronx Delicatessen Brigade. Having used Gordon to get to Rivera in the first game of this late-season Yanks-Sox series, Torre was stuck with the Deli Brigade last night. After Vazquez came Tanyon Sturtze; after Sturtze came Heredia. And lo, Heredia begat Quantrill and Quantrill begat Nitkowski; so too did Nitkowski begat Proctor, also called Scott. By that time the Yankees were pretty well baked, and the usually crafty Quantrill—left in far too long last night [59] Ah, but under the circumstances, the always crafty Joe Torre really had little choice; by then it was a fool’s mate. —took the loss by default.

This was a good night to be at the ballpark and a good game for the Red Sox to win. Although the Angels and the Rangers, now tied for wild-card runners-up (and nipping at the heels of the Athletics in the AL West), both won their games, we reduced our magic number for clinching a playoff berth to three. Better yet, we have made it impossible for the Yankees to clinch this year’s AL East flag on ground taxed by the State of Massachusetts. Best of all, at least for the head sitting beneath the bright red YANKEES HATER hat I see in the mirror, is this: no matter how we do against our long-time nemesis this Sunday afternoon, in 2004’s last regular-season game at Fenway Park, we will have won the nineteen-game season series. The worst we can do is 10-9, and if Father Curt is on his game, it will be 11-8. This isn’t as good as it could have been—especially for a team that was at one point 6-1 against the pinstripers—but when it comes to the Yankees, we take our satisfactions where we can get them.

7:00 P.M.: It’s by no means a sure thing that the Red Sox and Yankeeswill meet in the ALCS for the second year in a row—I am sure that baseball stat wizards like Bill James will tell you it’s odds against, given the fact that the opening postseason series are nasty, brutish, and short [60] Three out of five rather than four out of seven. —but given the level of competition between the two clubs this season, I have to believe that such an American League Championship Series would be a boon to that larger faithful that loves not just the Red Sox or the Yankees but the game itself.

Last weekend at Yankee Stadium, the Sox won a close one Friday night and then endured two shellackings, to the glee of packed Stadium crowds. At the Fens this weekend, it was the Yankees winning a close one Friday night and the Red Sox winning the two weekend games by lopsided scores, today’s final being 11–4, with a woefully unready-for-prime-time Kevin Brown taking the loss (and not escaping the first inning). At Yankee Stadium, the joint resounded to sarcastic choral cries of PEDRO! PEDRO! as Martinez left his game on the mound; today at Fenway Park, the cry was JEE-TER! JEE-TER! as the New York shortstop flubbed a potential double play and then made way for a pinch hitter in the eighth after going one for a dozen (.083) over the three games.

In the end, Boston took the season, 11-8, but in the crucial runs-scored category, there was in the end almost no difference: 106 for the Sox, 104 for the Yanks. When you think about 171 innings of baseball (excluding games that may have gone beyond the regulation nine), that’s an amazingly small margin; hardly more than a coat of paint.

In terms of playing into October, the team’s job is now clear-cut (if slightly complicated by Jeanne, the fourth hurricane to strike Florida in the last five weeks). Of the seven games remaining on the regular-season schedule, the Red Sox need to win only a pair to assure themselves of a postseason berth. Another (and more meaningful) meeting with the Yankees may or may not lie ahead; in the meantime, let Trot Nixon, Boston’s rejuvenated right fielder, have the final word on this exhaustive (and exhausting) regular-season slate of Red Sox/Yankees matchups. “Nineteen is too many,” he said flatly in a postgame interview this afternoon. “We’ve seen everything they’ve got, and they’ve seen what we’ve got. I don’t mind playing them… but nineteen is just too many.”

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome once again to Super Pro Wrestling! For no other reason than he doesn’t like the way Doug Mientkiewicz is standing on the bag at first (or might it have something to do with Lofton’s mysterious ejection during the Tek–A-Rod brawl?), Kenny Lofton deliberately elbows him as he goes by—on a play that isn’t close, in a game that’s a runaway. Maybe Kenny’s frustrated, or just dumb, because he seems surprised—nay, outraged—when reliever Pedro Astacio throws behind him late in the game. The next inning, the Yanks’ kid reliever throws at Dave Roberts’s head. Uncool, and Roberts is justifiably pissed.

There’s a huge difference between throwing behind a guy and throwing at his head, and everyone in the game knows it. Likewise, if you purposely elbow someone, you had better expect to be thrown at. In both cases, the Yankees broke the unwritten code. If there’s any justice (and wrestling is all about poetic justice), the game will make them pay.

Side note: Today’s sellout was our 81st of the year. Only three other clubs in the history of baseball have sold out their entire home season. All three were playing in brand-new stadiums. [61] The Indians at Jacobs Field, the Rockies at Coors, and the Giants at Pac Bell.

Hurricane Jeanne has knocked out the electricity in the Tampa Bay area, and for a while it looks as if the game may not be played. The juice is restored, but someone seems to have neglected to tell the Boston bats. Or maybe it’s just young Scott Kazmir, exerting the sort of limited but malign influence certain pitchers seem able to cast over certain teams. When Kazmir faced Martinez two weeks ago, you’ll recall, he won easily. He seems well on his way to a second win tonight, striking out batter after batter (Kevin Millar on egregiously high cheese), so when my youngest son—up on a wonderful extended visit from New York—suggests we turn off the game and go to a movie, I agree at once, even though the Sox technically have a chance to clinch a playoff berth. I now believe they will clinch; I just don’t believe it will be tonight.

The code is absolute, and beyond partisanship. Tonight Bronson Arroyo hits Aubrey Huff unintentionally with a curve that breaks down and in too sharply. No big deal, even though it puts Huff out of the game with a bruised shin, but then, a batter later, with men on second and third and first base open, Bronson drills Tino Martinez in the back, and Tino rightfully has some things to say.

Former Mets phenom Scott Kazmir, who has yet to give up a hit, retaliates, hitting Manny low. And Manny’s cool, Manny understands, and hoofs it down to first without a word. Now that things are evened up, the ump warns both dugouts. Any more of this and both the pitcher and the manager are going. But Kazmir—maybe on Lou Piniella’s orders—isn’t done. He hits the very next batter, Millar, in the ribs. Millar takes exception and the benches clear briefly. Good-bye, unhittable Kazmir. Good-bye, Lou.