Knuckler (33 page)

"It means a lot that Joe would actually mention my name in his interview when they were packing up going home," Wakefield said. "I have a lot of respect for that man. I've played against him for a long time and watched him win a lot of championships over there. And for
him to say something that nice about me really shows how passionate he is for not only the game, but for other players on other teams.

"You know, I'm excited. This is the first time I've ever experienced a World Series, and it's the first time the city of Boston has experienced the World Series since '86. I think it's a real honor that I'm getting the nod for Game 1. It's kind of ironic that, you know, if Derek [Lowe] doesn't pitch as well as he does in Game 7, I don't get to start. So I have him to thank for that. He pitched his tail off in Game 7 to give us a chance to win, and it's really amazing what he accomplished."

Of course, Wakefield was right. As much as anyone, he understood the realities of being part of a team, and Wakefield also knew that Lowe's career had included a transition from starter to reliever and back with which he himself was quite familiar. Wakefield wanted to make that clear. In Lowe, he saw some of himself. Entering Game 7, Lowe was operating on a mere two days of rest. In a best-case scenario, the Red Sox hoped Lowe could give them five innings; in a worst-case scenario, Wakefield was one of their many options in the bullpen. As it turned out, Lowe gave the Red Sox six sterling innings during which he allowed just one hit, one run, and one walk while throwing a mere 69 pitches, all while the Red Sox built a bulging 8–1 lead.

Over the course of his Red Sox career, more often than not Wakefield had been the one making the same sacrifices that Derek Lowe also had made.

And everybody knew it.

"I think I spoke about it after Game 3 [of the ALCS, the 19–8 loss], the traumatic night here. We got kicked around a little bit," Francona said. "I know I told Wake after the game that as tough as that night was, I was so proud of him and what he did for us that it really helped get me through that night.... He saved a couple of our pitchers, and that actually helped us win [Game 4]. Dave [Wallace, the pitching coach] and I were in the dugout trying to figure out where we're going in [Game 3], and [Wakefield] was over my left shoulder with spikes on and his glove. It wasn't halfhearted—he was ready to go—and an inning later he was down in the bullpen throwing. That's the type of guy he is. Joe Torre commented on how happy he was for Wake to be in the
World Series. On the flipside of that, not only is he a very good guy, but he's a very good pitcher, and he's feeling very good about himself. There were some periods this year that were a little rough on him. He feels good about himself. His confidence is high."

Said Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek of Wakefield: "We asked a tremendous amount of him in the last series, and he threw a lot of pitches in different ways. Tim's been through the war quite a bit, and he's been through the war in this city for a long time, and I couldn't be happier for him."

By the time Game 1 finally started at precisely 8:09 PM, the New England weather, precisely as one would expect, was something of a factor. The game-time temperature was a crisp 49 degrees, but of far greater concern to Wakefield was the wind blowing in from the northeast. At Fenway Park, that meant Wakefield would take the mound with the wind at his back, which was always something of a concern for him. While conventional pitchers preferred to have the wind behind them—which made it far more difficult to hit home runs and allowed them to operate with a greater margin for error—Wakefield preferred a slight wind blowing
against
him. Though this increased the likelihood for home runs—particularly because knuckleballs produced more fly balls than ground balls—Wakefield found that wind resistance increased the movement on his pitches. Again, it was a matter of physics. A well-executed knuckler, thrown against the wind, resulted in more acute movement of the pitch. The ball might travel farther if it was hit into the air, but it was also much harder to hit squarely. Wakefield had long since discovered the benefit of this trade-off.

By contrast, when the wind was at his back, Wakefield had great difficulty controlling the pitch. The knuckleball frequently would sail when aided by any significant gust of wind, which worked against Wakefield on multiple levels. For one thing, wind made it even harder to throw strikes with a pitch that was extremely difficult to harness in the first place; for another, if the ball sailed, it was less likely to have the sharp, downward movement that Wakefield needed to get outs. Instead, his ball would remain elevated through the strike zone, and every hitter knew the mantra with regard to hitting the knuckler.

If it's high, let it fly. If it's low, let it go.

In the hours leading up to Game 1, Wakefield treated the outing as he would any other game, though his concerns centered on one highly unusual variable: the flashbulbs. Wakefield wasn't quite sure how he would deal with them. The first pitch of every World Series all but went off like a starter's pistol, no matter where the game was played, and flashbulbs inevitably flickered like fireflies the moment the ball left the pitcher's hand. Wakefield wondered if it would break his concentration. He wondered what would happen if leadoff man Edgar Renteria swung and made contact, whether he would be able to see the ball coming off the bat, whether the ball might just look like one of the many bursts of bright light at Fenway Park. That moment, Wakefield knew, was something he simply could not prepare for.

Beyond that, the knuckleballer had shown up at the ballpark, as always, and changed into his uniform before sitting at his locker and finding ways to pass the time. Because the media was prohibited from access to the team before postseason games, the clubhouse was more controlled, less chaotic. Only players, coaches, and team personnel milled about. Wakefield had seen many players develop superstitions over the course of their careers—Garciaparra had been one of the most obsessive—but he always resisted becoming a slave to them himself, joking with people that he found superstitions to be "bad luck." Baseball was baseball. As much as anyone else who played the game—or more so—a knuckleballer knew there was only so much he could control. And so Tim Wakefield focused on the things he could.

Wakefield had nerves, to be sure, but he wasn't
nervous,
per se, at least not about anything other than flashbulbs.

The first pitch, as it turned out, was far less worrisome than Wakefield expected: his knuckleball fluttered to home plate amid the succession of camera shutters that popped like corn kernels. Renteria did not swing.
Strike one.
Renteria swung at the second pitch and missed, took the third for a ball, then swung at and missed the fourth pitch, recording the first out of the 2004 World Series by strikeout in what would be a scoreless first for the St. Louis Cardinals.

By the time Wakefield took the mound for the second, the Sox had
a 4–0 lead courtesy of yet another home run from David Ortiz and a run-scoring single by Bill Mueller. Over the next two and two-thirds innings, a span covering 15 batters, Wakefield allowed just two hits, but he also hit one batter and walked five others. The Red Sox were supporting him with tremendous offense—Boston scored three more times in the third and had a 7–2 advantage going into the fourth, Wakefield's final inning—but Wakefield simply could not harness the knuckler. When Wakefield issued his fifth and final walk—this one to Renteria with two outs in the fourth—Francona felt he simply could not wait any longer. The score was now 7–5, and even though Wakefield was at least partially victimized by an uncharacteristically poor defensive game—the Sox had committed four errors—the manager summoned right-hander Bronson Arroyo from the bullpen.

"You know, going into the game, we thought it had a chance to be tough because the wind was blowing straight in, which doesn't help his effectiveness," Francona said. "But he came out and threw the ball very well. And then the start of the [fourth] inning with the walks, I mean, when you score, the last thing you want to do is walk somebody, and you walk three. Once he did that, he started getting outs, but we started to throw the ball around and put ourselves in a tough spot. But, you know, when you have a four-run lead or five-run lead, it's hard to walk people and get away with it."

Still, the Red Sox ultimately did. Though the Cardinals tied the game twice—at 7–7 and 9–9—both times the Red Sox immediately took back the lead. The second time came in the bottom of the eighth inning, when Boston second baseman Mark Bellhorn hooked a drive to right field that struck the foul pole for a two-run home run. The home run was the final blow in an eventual 11–9 Red Sox victory that extended the club's impressive postseason winning streak, leaving Wakefield with the only thing that really mattered whenever a pitcher took the mound: a win for his team.

As it turned out, Wakefield did not pitch again in the World Series because the Red Sox simply did not need him to.

With the wind now indisputably at their backs—the Game 1 victory was Boston's fifth straight after trailing the Yankees by a 3–0 series
count in the ALCS—the Red Sox did not let up. Boston won the next three games of the World Series by scores of 6–2, 4–1, and 3–0, completely dominating a series in which they outscored St. Louis by a final count of 24–12. During the entire four-game set, the Red Sox never trailed. Even in Game 1, St. Louis was always chasing. Three outs from postseason elimination late in Game 4 of the ALCS, the Red Sox had improbably rallied for eight straight wins, outscoring the Yankees and Cardinals by a combined 38–15 over the final six games of the playoffs. Since Jason Varitek's game-tying sacrifice fly against Mariano Rivera in the eighth inning of ALCS Game 5, the Red Sox had been no worse than tied for their final 60 innings of the 2004 baseball season.

In the bowels of an aging Busch Stadium following the Red Sox victory behind Derek Lowe—yes, him again—in Game 4, reporters once again were lined up outside the visiting clubhouse, just as they had been in New York. The lockers were once again draped in plastic. Officials from Major League Baseball rushed commissioner Allan "Bud" Selig past reporters and into the room for the official presentation of the Commissioner's Trophy, a ceremony that took place every October in the clubhouse of the victorious team. Baseball lifer Selig understood the magnitude of what the Red Sox had accomplished in the context of baseball history, and he offered reporters a succinct assessment of the seeming chain reaction that had delivered Boston to the world title.

"Wow," Selig said without breaking stride.

Inside the walls of the Red Sox clubhouse, the scene was very much like the one that had taken place in New York, though Francona had no reason to remind anyone that there was still baseball to be played. Redemption for the Red Sox was now complete. The season was over. Boston effectively had run the table and finished the 2004 campaign by going a sensational 45–15 in its last 60 games, 46 during the regular season (during which the Red Sox went 34–12) and the final 14 in the playoffs (during which the Red Sox went 11–3). The most senior members of the Red Sox had an intimate understanding of what this outcome truly meant, their sentiments bouncing from one to another amid a clubhouse filled with otherwise deafening revelry.

"We're finally winners," said Lowe. "We're not the happy guys that came in second, the so-close-but-so-far kind of thing. There are so many people who deserve credit for this. I was happy to see Johnny Pesky here, and I saw a tear in his eye. I hope the Red Sox bring everybody back (from the past to celebrate). This isn't just the 2004 Red Sox. This is 86 years here."

Said Wakefield from the opposite side of the celebration: "We'll never hear the '1918' chants again. It's huge for the franchise. Ever since Mr. [John] Henry and Mr. [Tom] Werner and Larry [Lucchino] took over, they've pointed us in the right direction. People that have lived there longer than I have had too many sad days. Now they can rejoice in the city of Boston."

Tim Wakefield was all too happy to join them.

There are two theories on hitting a knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them works.

—Renowned hitting coach Charlie Lau

T
HE CHAMPIONSHIP PARADE
was everything Tim Wakefield had imagined in every respect but one: it was too darned short.

Projecting crowds of Red Sox fans in the hundreds of thousands, Boston city officials responded to the team's first World Series win in 86 years by organizing a
rolling rally,
eschewing the standard celebration at City Hall Plaza for a road trip on
duck boats
through the city's streets and neighborhoods, even venturing into the Charles River. Despite cold temperatures and light, persistent drizzle, an estimated 1.6 million fans turned out. Wakefield rode on a float with fellow veteran starters Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Derek Lowe—one of the teams within the team—and stood alongside his wife, Stacy, while toting their six-month-old son, Trevor. Fans seeking autographs tossed items into the boats with the hope that each would be signed and tossed back, and three-fourths of the starting rotation found it particularly amusing when one fan tossed a baseball that plunked an unaware Pedro Martinez on the head, the oft-accused head-hunter getting a playful dose of his own medicine.

Then it was all over, and the Red Sox quickly dispersed after an event that Wakefield somehow had expected to endure.

Is this it?

Wakefield's ears were ringing, as if he had just left a rock concert, and reentry would require some time, for him and for all of the Red Sox. The subsequent days and weeks featured a succession of opportunities to sign memorabilia in one hotel conference room after the next, and Wakefield agreed to some, passed on others. Similar ripples of the championship extended into winter and beyond, and when the Red Sox finally arrived in Fort Myers, Florida, the following spring, in some ways it felt as though the 2004 season had not yet ended.