Faithful (7 page)

In the mail there’s a promotional postcard for Steph, a handsomely designed riff on a fight poster that says SHOWDOWN IN BEANTOWN, touting Friday’s Yankee game on Fox—the network’s first regular-season game in prime time in years.

We’ve got Monster seats for Sunday’s Yankee game, and I’m hoping to cadge two field boxes from Steve for Friday’s “showdown.” Francona says he’s not going to use the off day to give Pedro an extra day of rest, meaning we’ll skip Arroyo and Petey will go in his normal slot Thursday night against the O’s (maybe a revenge game for him?). This way, Schilling stays on track for thirty-five starts rather than thirty-three, and Pedro sees the Yanks down in the Stadium the weekend after next. So Schilling will go this Friday, as he’s planned since February. Steph and I figure out we’ll see Wake on Sunday, and then, on Thursday against Tampa Bay, Wake again. (It’s a good thing Steph likes Tim-may. Last year we went through a goofy stretch where he saw five straight home starts of his.)

But that’s only if the weather holds. “It’s spring,” Steph reminds me. “We’re probably going to have some rainouts.”

A dark, cold day. It pours all afternoon, and the Sox cancel tonight’s game early. There’s no reschedule date, and no rush, since Baltimore comes through again in July and September. The rainout itself is depressing, as if a party’s been called off, and makes the day that much gloomier.

My 2004 Media Guide arrives, with a picture of D-Lowe on the cover, celebrating the Game 5 win over Oakland, except the background isn’t from that game, but from the wild-card clincher at Fenway, with the fans on their feet and the whole bench bolting from the dugout. Matted in below this are press-conference shots of Schilling, Francona and Foulke holding up their new Sox unis, the symbolism unmistakable, as if adding these three elements together will produce a championship.

Just for fun, the text of the guide is printed in blue and red ink this year, 627 pages of stats and oddball facts like: last year with the White Sox, Dauber stole home; in college Mark Malaska was a slugging outfielder; Cesar Crespo’s brother Felipe played for the Giants, and homered twice in the same game in which Cesar hit his first major league homer with the Padres. Among the career highlights and personal trivia, I recognize dozens of lines I’ve already heard from Don and Jerry.

As if 627 pages aren’t enough, I hit the local bookstore and pick up Jerry Remy’s
Watching Baseball,
just out. As a color analyst, he’s usually pretty good with strategy, and I’m always willing to learn. I’m not disappointed. While a lot of it is basic, he also talks a fair amount about setting the defense according to the batter, the count and the pitch, and how important it is not to give your position away. He also lays out the toughest plays for each position, and the slight advantages base runners can take of pitchers and outfielders.

I’m psyched to use some of my new knowledge watching the game, but the website says it’s been cancelled due to “inclement weather and unplayable field conditions.” It’s a letdown, as if I was supposed to play. After Sunday’s walk-off homer, I’m feeling a little withdrawal.

It’s raining when I wake up, but by midmorning the sun’s out, so I think we’re okay. Even better: in the mail are Steve’s dream seats for tomorrow night’s game, along with a parking pass. Look for me on Fox. (Last year, for one nationally televised game, we noticed that Todd Walker was miked, a transmitter tucked in his back pocket. Every time he was on deck, we yelled “Rupert Murdoch sucks!”)

Sunday’s game is On-Field Photo Day. I call up Sox customer service to find out more, but the woman there doesn’t know when it starts or what gate you need to go in or where the line will form.

In the paper, the Yanks asked UConn men’s hoops coach Jim Calhoun if he’d throw out the first ball at one of their games. Coach Calhoun’s a serious Sox fan; after his squad won it all in ’99 (beating a Yankee-like Duke team), he threw out the first pitch up at Fenway. “No chance,” he tells the Yanks. “Sixty years of torment is enough.”

The confusion the Yanks had is natural. The monied southwestern corner of Connecticut drains toward New York, and historically supports the more established Gotham teams. For a couple years, before moving to Jersey, the football Giants played in the Yale Bowl. The northern and eastern edges of the state, butted up against Massachusetts and Rhode Island, are country, decidedly New England. The suburban middle, where I live, is disputed territory. On the Sox website, there’s a petition for Connecticut residents to sign, pledging their loyalty based on “traditional New England values of hard work and fair play,” and denouncing the encroachment of, yes, the evil empire. I’ve signed, though what good it does against George’s bounty hunters and clone army, I have no idea.

The game goes on as scheduled. Ben Affleck’s in the front row beside the Sox dugout (he emceed the Sox Welcome Back luncheon the other day), and I expect he’ll be there tomorrow against the Yanks. With the rainouts, neither pitcher’s seen action for a while. Pedro gives up a leadoff home run to Roberts. He’s missing spots, walking people, giving up another run in the second, but Ponson loads the bases and Johnny singles to right, and then Bill Mueller breaks an 0-for-20 drought with a Pesky Pole wraparound, and we’re up 5–2. It’s early, but the game seems in hand, and the home folks have shows they want to watch, so we switch over to
Survivor
and then
The Apprentice
(don’t worry, Steve, we’re taping
Kingdom Hospital
), clicking back to NESN every so often.

It’s 5–4 Sox in the fourth when we check in, just in time to see Johnny knock in Bellhorn. Ponson’s struggling, and Tejada doesn’t help him by dropping the transfer on a sure DP. Ortiz grounds to the right side and Pokey scores. 7–4.

When we check in again, it’s 7–7 in the top of the fifth and Pedro’s still in there. What the hell? (Palmeiro hit a three-run shot into the Sox bullpen.) He’s given up 8 hits and 4 walks. Yank him already!

Ponson’s gone after four, and Malaska comes on for us in the top of the sixth. It’s the big finale of
The Apprentice,
and for two hours we play peek-aboo with the relievers: Lopez, Williamson, Timlin, Ryan, Foulke, Embree.

The Apprentice
ends just in time for us to catch the biggest play of the game. It’s the bottom of the tenth, bases loaded and two out for Bill Mueller. He lifts one high and deep to left-center that looks like it’ll scrape the Monster. I’m up, cheering, thinking this is the game—that we’ll have a little cushion going into the Yankee series—but the wind knocks the ball down. Bigbie is coming over from left, and Matos from center, on a collision course. Bigbie cuts in front, Matos behind, making the grab on the track in front of the scoreboard, and that’s the inning.

Arroyo starts the top of the eleventh against Tejada. He hangs a curve, and Tejada hits it off the foot of the light tower on the Monster for his first homer of the year. 8–7 O’s. In a long and ugly sequence, they pile on four more. We go one-two-three, and that’s the game, a painful, bullpen-clearing, four-and-a-half-hour extra-inning loss very much like last week’s in Baltimore. Not the way we wanted to go into tomorrow’s opener against the Yanks, and not how I wanted to go to bed—late and pissed-off.

The Sox are unveiling a statue of Ted Williams today outside Gate B—the gate no one uses, way back on Van Ness Street, behind the right-field concourse. The statue’s part of an ongoing beautification effort. We’ve already widened the sidewalks and planted trees to try to disguise the fact that Van Ness is essentially a gritty little backstreet with more than its share of broken glass. I’m surprised there’s not a statue of Williams already, the way the Faithful venerate him. During the Pedro-Halladay game, I chanced across a rolling wooden podium with a bronze plaque inlaid on top honoring Ted; it looked like something from the sixties, coated with antique green milk paint. It was pushed against a wall in the hallway inside Gate A next to the old electric organ no one ever plays. I’d never seen it before, and wondered why it was shoved to the side. In Pittsburgh there was a statue of Honus Wagner by the entrance of Forbes Field, and when the Bucs moved to Three Rivers, it moved with them, to be joined by a statue of Clemente, and now, at PNC Park, one of Willie Stargell. I wonder how long it will take the Sox to commission one of Yaz.

Because the game’s on Fox, the start time’s been pushed back to 8:05, giving me some extra time to deal with Friday rush hour. All the way up 84 and across the Mass Pike I see a lot of New York and New Jersey plates. When I pull into the lot behind Harvard Med Center a good hour before the gates open, it’s already half-filled.

I head for Lansdowne, but BP hasn’t started yet. There are some Yankee fans outside the Cask ’n Flagon having their pictures taken—skinny college girls in pink Yankee T-shirts and hats with a hefty dude in an A-Rod jersey. I pass a woman wearing a T-shirt that says THIS IS YOUR BRAIN (above a Red Sox logo), THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS (and a Yankees logo). TV crews are wandering around doing stand-ups, shooting B-roll of people eating by the Sausage Guy. Above, banner planes and helicopters crisscross.

I walk down Lansdowne past the nightclubs, figuring I’ll go around the long way and check out the statue. Fuel is playing the Avalon Ballroom; their fans are sitting against the wall to be the first in, and seem disgusted that their good time has been hijacked by a bunch of dumb jocks. When I turn the corner onto Ipswich, I find another line of young people waiting at the entrance of a parking lot. Everyone has an ID on a necklace, as if they’re all part of a tour group. Then I notice the yellow Aramark shirts hidden under their jackets. It’s the vendors, queuing up so they can get ready for a big night. It’s already cold in the shadows, and I pity the guys trying to move ice cream.

I expect the Williams statue to be ringed by fans taking pictures or touching it for luck, the way they do in Pittsburgh with Clemente and Stargell (if you reach up you can balance a lucky penny on Willie’s elbow), but it’s just standing there alone while a line waits about thirty feet away for day-of-game tickets.

It’s uninspired and uninspiring, a tall man stooping to set his oversized cap on a little bronze kid’s head. It’s not that Ted didn’t love kids (his work with the Jimmy Fund is a great legacy), it’s just that I expected something more dynamic for the greatest hitter that ever lived. In Pittsburgh, Clemente’s just finished his swing and is about to toss the bat away and dig for first; he’s on his toes, caught in motion, and there’s a paradoxical lightness to the giant structure that conveys Clemente’s speed and grace. Stargell’s cocked and waiting for his pitch, his bat held high; you can almost see him waggling the barrel back and forth behind his head. This Williams is static and dull and carries none of The Kid’s personality. He could be any Norman Rockwell shmoo making nice with the little tyke.

I take a couple of pictures anyway, then head back to Gate E to wait for my friend Lowry. Before a big game like this, people are handing out all sorts of crummy free stuff, and I accept a
Globe
just to have something to read (okay, and for the poster of Nomar). I buy a bag of peanuts and lurk at the corrugated door, and when Lowry comes, we’re first in line and then the first in and the first to get a ball, tossed to me by David McCarty in left. I snag a grounder by Kapler, and later an errant warm-up throw by Yanks coach (and former Pirate prospect) Willie Randolph—picking the neat short-hop out of sheer reflex.

A-Rod comes out to warm, and the fans boo. Some migrate over from other sections just to holler at him while he plays long toss, chucking the ball from the third-base line out to deep right-center. “Hey, lend me a hundred bucks, huh?” “How you liking third?” “Hey, A-Rod, break a leg, and I mean that.”

We boo Jeter when he steps in to hit. And Giambi (“
Bal
-co”) and Sheffield (“
Ballll
-coooo”).

The rest of the Yanks are friendly enough. Jose Contreras and Kevin Brown banter with the fans; even hothead Jorge Posada jokes with us. When Mussina comes by and chats and smiles, someone calls, “You’re the
good
Yankee, Mike.”

Miguel Cairo, one of the last Yankees to bat, smokes a grounder down the line. It’s mine. I catch it off-center, and it bends the fingers of my mitt back. The ball knocks off the wall and rolls away, out of reach, gone forever. It’s a play I’ll make 99 times out of 100, even if it was hit hard.

“Hey,” Lowry says, “you’ve got three.”

Yeah, I say, I know, but it’s always the one that gets away that you remember.

We stop by El Tiante’s for an autographed picture, saying hey to Luis and picking up some Cuban sandwiches, then fight the crowd to reach our seats. The choke point’s right behind home, where the concourse narrows to feed the first ramp to the stands. The crush is worse than Opening Day, and I think they’ve got to fix it somehow before something very bad happens.

The tide of people separates us. I find Lowry at our seats just as the anthem begins. As always, I’m overwhelmed by how good these seats are. One section over, one row in front of us, is the governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney.

The Yanks send Kenny Lofton, Jeter and A-Rod to face Wake in the first. The boos grow louder with each at-bat, peaking with A-Rod, who gets a
standing
excoriation—something only Clemens has managed over the years. “Gay-Rod,” some wags are chanting. When Tim’s first pitch is a strike, the crowd explodes, as if we’ve won.

Johnny opens with a hopper to first that hits Giambi in the middle and gets through him for an E. “
Bal
-co!” Vazquez has Bill Mueller 0-2, but gets impatient, aiming a fastball that Billy cranks into the Sox bullpen, and we’re up 2–0. Manny hits a slicing liner down the right-field line that disappears from view. The ump signals fair, then twirls one finger in the air for a homer. Somehow the Yanks are able to relay the ball in—they’re arguing that it never went out. We don’t get a replay. (Later, I hear that the ball hit the top of the wall and caromed back in off Sheffield, so it wasn’t a homer.) With two down and Ellis Burks on second, Doug Mirabelli grounds one to Jeter. It’s an easy play, but Jeter comes up and lets it through the five-hole and into left, and with two outs Burks scores easily.

Posada gets one back with a solo homer in the second. In the fourth, Mirabelli—who, like Wake, is only making his second start—takes Vazquez deep on the first pitch. 5–1.

A great moment in the sixth when the Yanks try a double steal (or is it a blown hit-and-run?). Sheffield doesn’t make contact, and A-Rod’s meat at third. The crowd taunts him into the dugout.

It’s 6–2 with two out in the eighth when Giambi lofts a fly to Manny in left. “Good inning,” I holler to Doug Mirabelli, heading off, and then I see the ball glance off Manny’s glove and bounce in the grass. He Charlie Browned it!

I look around to verify that this has actually happened. No one else can believe it either.

Things get a little shaky when Sheffield and Posada both work walks to load the bases. “A home run here and the game’s tied,” a neighbor says. I know where this is coming from, but come on, we’re up 6–2 with four outs to go. Have some faith.

Embree gets Matsui, and the Yanks never threaten again, and when Jeter makes the last out and the PA plays “Dirty Water,” all the different TV crews hustle to set up their tall director’s chairs for the postgame shows.