Game 149: Boston Red Sox 6, New York Yankees 3
Game 150: Boston Red Sox 5, New York Yankees 4
It was 11:45 PM, the crowd slowly filling out of Yankee Stadium, Frank Sinatra blaring over the loudspeakers even though Mike Myers, Kyle Farnsworth and Jorge Posada conspired to give Boston their third straight win and I found myself at the tail end of a fantastic day for any New England sports fan. 10 hours earlier, I had left Brooklyn and traveled to the Meadowlands for the 4:15 contest between the Patriots and Jets, where the Pats took an early commanding lead in the first half, graciously allowed their hosts to get back in the game in the third, before reclaiming the game in the fourth. By the time my father and I left the Meadowlands and started north on the hell that is the post-game New Jersey Turnpike, it was approaching on 8:00. We knew the Sox won game one but with the journeyman (to put it kindly) Kevin Jarvis on the mound against Mike Mussina, a sweep of the doubleheader didn’t seem in the cards. “At least we don’t have to worry about an elimination party,” I thought.
10,000 years later, we arrived in the Bronx and started looking for parking. During our trip: a shaky first inning where the Yankees scored a run, with Boston striking back with a two run shot by Nixon in the top of the second. Miguel Cairo tied things up in the bottom of the inning with a sacrifice fly to score Bernie Williams, prompting Sterling and Waldman to have a minor orgasm over the ability of both Cairo and Nick Green (who moved Bernie over from second to third with a sacrifice bunt) to get the minor things done when it counted. It was now the fifth inning and we were discovering how incredibly difficult it is to get to Yankee Stadium an hour after the first pitch.
Finally we get in and all bitterness about arriving two-thirds of the way through the game, about having to drive 20 minutes to find a parking spot, about having to walk half a mile to get inside; all of it washed away when we discovered how awesome these seats were: first baseline, level with the first base umpire, maybe 15 rows back…it was an incredible place to be. Sure, the Yankees might have taken the lead with another two runs just minutes after we arrived and I might be contemplating “Splitsville” for a post title, but if we were going to go down, it was going to be in style. And then the eighth inning happens.
Loretta singles. Mike Myers comes in to do the one thing he’s on the Yankees to do: get out Big Papi (who by the way is the most popular person in the Bronx right now), who had already hit home run number 49 earlier that day. Myers walks Ortiz on four pitchers. Torre, perhaps as a punishment, leaves in Myers to face Lowell to get to Nixon. Lowell hits a blooper that falls in front of Abreu in right, moving Loretta to third. Somehow this plays gets ruled a fielder’s choice and Lowell ends up on first. Kapler pinch hits for Nixon, but Torre opts to stay with Myers and gets payoff when Kapler pops out. With two outs, up strides the Captain. Yankees fans, sensing the end of a comeback, start chanting “Season’s over!” but Varitek smacks a single to score Loretta, knocking the lead down to one run.
Pinch hitter: the Stud Who Hits Bombs, in place of rookie David Murphy. This move makes absolutely no sense to me; maybe Mirabelli gets the call because he’s got more experience hitting sidewinders than Murphy. In any case, three pitches later Belli leans into one and takes one off the shoulder. I’m now screaming something about key players getting the job done. Dustin Pedroia, who looks like a little kid next to the average baseball player, gets the job done himself when Posada flubs a pitch in the dirt, allowing Lowell to score. And yes, getting out of the way of a pass ball is getting the job done - the kid didn't strike out in the process (Wily Mo - take notes here). Sure, Pedroia grounds out with the next pitch, but Boston ties the game. I am now a ball of barely compressed excitement.
Javier Lopez somehow survives the bottom of the eighth unscathed, an even more remarkable feat in these times of bullpen insecurity. He gets a major boost from Coco Crisp’s leaping ability, as the much-maligned center fielder robs Posada of a two run home run with a leaping catch that plucks the ball from the air just as it’s about to sail over the wall. Johnny Damon, eat your heart out. It’s now clear to everyone in the park that the baseball gods have preordained this win to go to Boston, a feeling underscored in the top of the ninth when Carlos Peña greets Farnsworth with a double. Crisp moves pinch runner Cora to third on a bunt and Loretta knocks in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly before Farnsworth is able to get the final two outs.
The final three outs of this marathon day: Timlin gets Williams on a ground out, but then makes things interesting by giving up a single to Damon. A-Rod, comes to the plate, ignores the urge to hit into a double play (the Yankees fan in front of me pleading with him to “pretend it’s the fourth inning and you’re up by 10 runs”) and pops out instead, igniting such a rain of boos that I almost felt bad chanting “A-Fraud” as he rounded first base. Almost. When Melky Cabrera ended the game with a fly ball to left, it wasn’t surprising, it was destiny. Hell, for Red Sox fans, with little left to look forward to in the next couple of weeks, it was destination. GO SOX!!!
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