Stephen King - Faithful

A Red Sox Customer Service rep met us at Gate D with a wheelchair and escorted us—along with Sarah Jane’s oxygen bottle and a backup—to our seats, just to the left of the Red Sox dugout and only a row from the field, a perfect location for a lady who’s no longer up to much jumping around. I checked her oxy level before the game started, and the dial on top of the tank said three-quarters, deep in the green, very cool. She was good to go right through the eighth, but as the game neared the four-hour mark (we have discussed the grinding, defensive nature of postseason baseball games) and extra innings loomed, it seemed wise to switch her over to the spare tank, and she agreed to my suggestion that we leave after the tenth, if the score was still tied. With the fireballing K-Rod on the mound, that seemed likely, especially after he got Manny on a called strike three, with Pokey Reese (running for Bellhorn) still languishing on first.

Instead of leaving Rodriguez in to face David Ortiz, Scioscia elected to go with Jarrod Washburn, setting up the lefty-lefty match of which the conventional wisdom so approves. What followed was, quite simply, baseball history. I can’t report it here to any reader’s satisfaction because, although I saw it, my forebrain still doesn’t really believe I saw it. Part of this is because Big Papi so rarely hits with power to left; right field is usually his porch. Most of it, though, is simply that the man’s swing was so damn quick. The ball seemed to be off his bat and gone into the night before my ears even registered the crack of wood on horsehide.

The place went absolutely giddy-bonkers. “Dirty Water” was playing, but you could hear nothing but the bass line pumping out of the speakers. The rest was lost in the delirious chant of the crowd, not Papi, Papi but Da-VEED! Da-VEED! The cops in their riot gear, who came out to protect the sanctity of the field from marauding fans in their YANKEES SUCK T-shirts, tried to hold on to their stern don’t-tread-on-me frowns, but most of them couldn’t do it for long; they broke into delighted winner grins, smothered them, then had to do the smothering all over again as fresh grins broke out. Best of all, I turned around and saw the woman who’s been my mom since my own mom died, hands clasped below her chin, beaming like an eighty-one-year-old cherub. I had some doubts about taking her and her oxygen tanks to a potential clinch game with thirty-five thousand rabid Red Sox fans in attendance (and when I checked that second tank later, I saw that she used as much oxygen in the half an hour following Big David’s home run as she had during the entire previous four hours of the game), but now, an hour later, there’s not a doubt in my mind that tonight I did her a mitzvah. And she did me one. And the team did one for both of us and all of Red Sox Nation. There’s more work to do, but tonight there are plenty of mitzvahs to go around.

After El Jefe’s walk-off we hang around, dancing on our seats, singing along with “Shout” and “Joy to the World” and “Glory Days” as the locker-room celebration plays on the JumboTron. WHY NOT US? Pedro’s T-shirt reads. Euky Rojas empties the bullpen ballbag, tossing its contents to our suddenly lucky section. Thanks, Euky!

Down at the dugout, Ellis Burks does the same. We’ve moved to the tarp along the first-base line to get closer to the celebration. Dave McCarty (not even on the roster!) comes out and sprays us with beer. Gabe “The Babe” Kapler gives us some skin. Manny and Kevin Millar jog past, slapping hands, and Mike Myers, in a Dominican flag do-rag. Johnny sits in the passenger seat of a groundskeeper’s cart while David Ortiz rides in back, kicking his legs and waving to us as they go all the way around the track to the garage door in left. It’s a good hour since the game ended, and there are only a couple hundred of us diehards. Unforgettable.

In quiet counterpoint, the Angels, in their street clothes, walk in broken single file across the grass behind short, across right field and out a gate beside their bullpen, headed for the team bus and their hotel, maybe even the airport. We wave to Vladi and David Eckstein, and give them a polite hand. It’s true what I told Percival: they’re a much better club than they showed in this series, and deserving of much respect.

Outside, at the players’ lot, an even rowdier crowd presses against the barriers to watch the Sox leave. With each car, a new wave of screaming, pushing, a galaxy of cameras flashing. There are riot cops in helmets everywhere, and people literally falling down drunk. Pedro comes out and shoots us Manny’s gunslinger fingers, and we go nuts.

After he leaves, a man holding a baby on his shoulder shoves by me, then sets the baby down, and the baby stands and walks away. It’s a little person with the wizened face of Scatman Crothers in The Shining —it’s Pedro’s good-luck buddy Nelson de la Rosa, two feet tall and waddling up Yawkey Way like a hobbit.

But the best is Tek. He comes out in his uniform, carrying a plate of food from the postgame spread. Some relatives of his are leaving in an SUV, and he wants to catch them to say a final good-bye. “VAR-i-tek, VAR-i tek!” we cheer. Security stops them and Jason gives the woman driver (maybe his aunt?) a kiss on the cheek to Jerry Springer cheers (“Kiss her ! Kiss her !”), then pads back towards the clubhouse with his plate, and I think, it’s just like Little League when we’d go to the Dairy Queen, still wearing our cleats. It’s the same game.

SO:Jefe say: Somebody got-ta pay. That’s why he’s the chief.

I’m hoarse, my hands are swollen from clapping, and my mitt smells like beer. I’m a most happy fella.

SK:It was a great game.

And yes, we’re getting a shot at redemption, because the Yankees beat the Twins, though “beat” is maybe too strong a word. In Game 4, down 2–1, Ron Gardenhire throws Santana on three days’ rest. With the score 5–1 Twins after five, he inexplicably pulls Santana, meaning—like in that last regular-season series in the Bronx—the Yanks have four innings to get to the Twins’ pen. It’s totally incoherent, given Gardenhire’s now-or-never strategy. Santana’s around 85 pitches and has been sharp, and the Twins’ pen is thin and tired. Predictably, the Yanks come back against instant goat Juan Rincon and then win in extras, ensuring Major League Baseball and Fox of their greatest ratings ever. Is it a tank job? I sure get a whiff, but who except a Twins (or Rock Cats) fan would complain? Finally we’ve got our cage match, our Thunderdome. Two teams enter, one team leaves.

SK:My feeling about having to face the Yankees is extremely conflicted. I heard twenty fat cats (not to mention a very grizzled toll-taker on the N.H. turnpike today) say “Ayyy, Stevie! We got the Yankees, just like we wanted!”

Did we want them?

The fan in me sort of wanted Minnesota, especially after Santana had been bent, folded, stapled and mutilated by the patient Yankee hitters.

The sibyl in me says the Yankees have been our Daddy and will continue to be our Daddy; that we are the Pequod, they the great white whale.

The commercial writer in me says this is just the matchup we need to sell the book; that after this, the World Series would be so much wavy gravy.

SO:All we’ve got to do is go 8-6. Can Mr. Schill, Petey and B-yo with the curve working go 8-6? I dare say they can, with some run support. Will they? Only the baseball tiki gods know for sure.