Knuckler (37 page)

If I pitch and get hurt—and if that costs us the World Series—I'm not sure I can live with that.

And so Tim Wakefield did what he almost always did.

He thought of the group first.

And he pulled the plug on himself.

***

The 2007 World Series, like the one in 2004, was a landslide. The hottest team in baseball, the Colorado Rockies were entering a best-of-seven set with the Red Sox having won 21 of their 22 previous games in the regular season. The Rockies won 14 of 15 to end the regular season before sweeping their way through the first two rounds of the playoffs, at which point they encountered a long layoff as they waited for the Red Sox and Indians to play out the ALCS.

When the Rockies finally returned to the field, they encountered a Red Sox team that was hotter.

With the rotation now shuffled to accommodate Lester, who would go in Game 4, the Red Sox won by a 13–1 score behind the steamrolling Beckett in Game 1. In order, Schilling, Matsuzaka, and Lester then closed out a series in which the Red Sox outscored the Rockies by a 29–10 margin, bringing Boston's lopsided scoring edge to an incredible 62–15 over the final 67 innings of the postseason. Lester pitched 5⅔ scoreless innings in Boston's 4–3 victory in Game 4, a game in which Wakefield joined the large majority of onlookers rooting for a young man who was one of the brightest prospects in the Red Sox system.

Like many of the Red Sox, Wakefield took a particular interest in Lester, a highly regarded prospect who had joined the major league team in 2006. Late that same year, Lester had been diagnosed with large cell lymphoma, a treatable form of cancer. A native of Tacoma, Washington, Lester spent the subsequent winter being treated at the Fred Hutchinson Center in Seattle, then returned to the Red Sox in 2007. The team brought him along slowly. From the very start, Wakefield liked Lester's work ethic and attitude, and he found the young man to be understated and respectful, different from some of the brash young players coming up from the minor leagues.
This kid gets it.
Wakefield had spent countless hours visiting children in Boston-area hospitals during his career with the Red Sox, and he had lost his grandfather, named Lester, to cancer.

Throughout Lester's Game 4 performance, Wakefield said nothing to him during the course of the game. Baseball etiquette generally calls for pitchers to be left alone in the middle of an outing, and so Wakefield stayed away, silently pulling for Lester from the dugout.
Attaboy, Jon. Keep it going.
Only when Lester was lifted from the game, with 17 outs to his credit, did Wakefield rise from his seat and climb to the top steps of the dugout, where he greeted his young replacement with a handshake and a hug.

You've made us proud.

In the immediate aftermath of the victory at Coors Field in Denver, Wakefield celebrated with his teammates on the field, just as the Sox had done in St. Louis. Longtime Sox veteran Mike Timlin placed his arm around Wakefield and, in plain sight of television cameras, commended his teammate for doing the right thing and making the ultimate sacrifice. The image further enhanced Wakefield's rightful reputation as a
team guy,
not a
me guy,
and the expression on Wakefield's face and his watery eyes delivered a clear message to Red Sox fans who had long since learned what he stood for.

You have no idea how hard this was for me.

In Boston, during the victory celebration that followed, the Red Sox once again rode duck boats through the city streets to reward a fan base that had gone, seemingly overnight, from destitution to an embarrassment of riches. Devoid of a World Series championship for 86 years, the Red Sox now had won
two titles
in four years.
The significance of the fact that the Red Sox had a cast of young players who had performed well in the series—from Lester and Matsuzaka to second baseman Dustin Pedroia to center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury—was impossible to overlook. The Red Sox were not about their past anymore, but about the future.

Wakefield took a great deal of pride in that development. During his career, the Red Sox had changed.

For the better.

Though Wakefield had pitched in just one game during the postseason—Boston went 11–3 in the playoffs, the same record the team posted in 2004—Red Sox fans hardly overlooked him, applauding him for his decision to effectively withdraw from the World Series. The signs carried by some fans that declared him the "unsung hero" of the 2007 Red Sox made Wakefield very proud. He had been in Boston for 13 seasons, longer than any other member of the Red Sox, and he had
immersed himself in the community. He had never claimed to be a superstar. He tried to show up every day and do his job, to invest in the community, to become one of
them,
and the support shown by Red Sox fans in the aftermath of the World Series assured him that they understood, that they recognized his sacrifices, and that they had accepted him as readily as he had accepted them.

At that moment, Tim Wakefield was a man who, after spending much of his career feeling alienated because of his affiliation with the knuckleball, felt as if he truly belonged.

I don't want anybody to panic. I'm not pitching. I'm just throwing out the first ball.

—Phil Niekro, prior to a ceremonial appearance at the World Series

F
ROM
R
OGER
C
LEMENS
to Mo Vaughn to Nomar Garciaparra to Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield had seen a succession of superstars leave the Red Sox by one method or another. He could hardly have been surprised when Manny Ramirez joined the list.

Ramirez's time in Boston had had its share of controversial events, though most of them were disputes with management stemming from Ramirez's general unhappiness in Boston. Wakefield never had a single problem with the slugger. Ramirez was not the kind of player who developed close relationships with teammates, but Wakefield generally found him to be a positive presence on the field and in the clubhouse, where Ramirez's feats and antics could be, to say the least, entertaining. As a right-handed hitter, in Wakefield's eyes, Ramirez was peerless. As for his comedic value, that often spoke for itself.

Once, during a tense game with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ramirez dropped a routine fly in shallow left field, allowing the tying run to score in a game the Red Sox had led, 1–0, with two outs in the top of the ninth inning. Upon returning to a dugout where the tension was palpable, a self-deprecating Ramirez quietly placed his hat and glove on the bench, then sarcastically wondered aloud whether he had just
cost himself a Gold Glove. Wakefield and the rest of the Red Sox exploded with laughter. (The Sox then went on to win that game, 2–1.) Moments like that became customary with Ramirez during his time in Boston, and Red Sox officials, players, and fans alike were willing to chalk up Ramirez's shenanigans to nothing more than
Manny being Manny.

And yet, Wakefield was among those who noticed a change in the player in 2008, when Ramirez's frustrations over his contract status reached a new level and he became so unhappy in Boston that he was involved in a pair of physical altercations.

The first, in early June, came during a game between the Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park. Wakefield was seated in the dugout, not far from Ramirez, when Kevin Youkilis returned to the dugout after a frustrating at-bat. Known for his volatility, Youkilis began slamming equipment, and Ramirez chastised his teammate for childish behavior. Wakefield sensed tension building.
Uh-oh.
Ramirez and Youkilis suddenly began shoving each other before Wakefield leaped from the bench and wedged himself between his two teammates, all as television cameras caught the Red Sox in a
boys-will-be-boys
moment that turned out to be so much more.

Indeed, the incident would not be the last time that season Wakefield sprang from his chair to wonder what silliness Ramirez was up to now.

Only a few weeks later, Wakefield was sitting at his locker prior to a game with the Houston Astros when he heard shouting from what players sometimes referred to as the
food room
, an area that effectively served as the kitchen.
What the hell is that?
Again, Wakefield got up from his seat. This time a flock of teammates had beaten him to the spot: Wakefield found Ramirez being held away from 60-something traveling secretary Jack McCormick, whom Ramirez had angrily pushed to the ground during a heated dispute. Ramirez's request for more tickets had been denied on a day when McCormick's supply was decidedly thin.

The matter was quickly settled, but Wakefield, like most everyone else around the Red Sox, saw this incident as being entirely different from past episodes of
Manny being Manny.

He really wants out this time.

Indeed, for all of Ramirez's behavioral flare-ups during his time in Boston, almost everyone agreed on two points: Ramirez generally had remained harmless, and the team, overall, was not affected. Wakefield was not the only one who found it astounding that Ramirez could continue to enter the batter's box and hit as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had just taken place. Once coupled with Ortiz, in fact, Ramirez became part of such a potent tandem that it was impossible to mention one without the other. During the five full seasons Ramirez and Ortiz were full-time lineup mates—from roughly June 1, 2003, to May 31, 2008—the Red Sox scored 4,475 runs, second in all of baseball to only the New York Yankees (4,499). They
averaged
5.5 runs per game. The Sox had won two World Series and been to the playoffs four times, and the performance of their dynamic duo in postseason play was positively mind-numbing.

And yet, personality-wise, Ortiz and Ramirez could not have been more different. Wakefield found that somewhat amusing. Where Ramirez would withdraw from the team, Ortiz was a much softer sort who engaged with people. Most people on the team, including Wakefield, became friendly with Ortiz. "Big Papi" did not give his manager headaches, did not antagonize management, and was far more apt to put his arm around a frustrated teammate than confront him in the dugout, as Ramirez had done with Youkilis. Wakefield saw Ramirez and Ortiz as being complete opposites.

The only thing they really have in common is that they can hit.

By the end of July, albeit for reasons beyond anyone's control, even that was no longer true. Ortiz was on the disabled list with a wrist injury. And so, on July 31, 2008, in a move that was shocking on some levels and entirely unsurprising on others, the Red Sox executed a three-team trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates that sent Ramirez to the West Coast (and not so coincidentally, the National League) while bringing talented, hardworking outfielder Jason Bay to Boston. The deal may have sent ripples throughout major league baseball, but Wakefield was hardly surprised when he learned about the trade from media reports on a day when the Red Sox had no game scheduled.

I think we all saw this coming.

While Ramirez's departure signified the end of yet another era in Boston, Wakefield wondered if it also triggered the start of a new one, particularly with the Red Sox in another race for the playoffs and, perhaps, a World Series championship. He had played with Clemens, Vaughn, and Garciaparra, all of whom had been drafted by the Red Sox. During his time with the team, Martinez and Lowe had been brought in and then cast off. Schilling, as it would turn out, had pitched his last game in the 2007 World Series—a shoulder injury would force his retirement later in 2008—and now Ramirez had come full circle during his time in Boston, too.

Incredibly, Tim Wakefield and his unpredictable knuckleball had become the hub around which the Red Sox carousel had been turning for years.

He had outlasted them all.

When he arrived for the start of the season, before the Ramirez drama, Wakefield had known there would be questions. He was approaching his 42nd birthday. A shoulder injury had prevented him from pitching down the stretch in 2007. Wakefield had spent the winter reconditioning himself, and time had worn away some of the versatility he once possessed as a knuckleballer.

I'm just not as durable as I used to be.

Wakefield opened some eyes that year when he said that one of his goals was to "make my 32 starts and give the club 200-plus innings," but that objective was not so far-fetched. Only a few years earlier, when Wakefield had totaled 225⅓ innings during a 2005 season in which he celebrated his 39th birthday, he had joined a group that, since 1980, included just 27 pitchers who had compiled at least 225 innings at the age of 38 or older. Of those 27, nine—or one-third of them—had been knuckleballers. By then, everyone knew that knuckleballers constituted maybe 1 percent of all pitchers in baseball at any given time, yet depending on where one drew the line, they could constitute an amazing 33 percent of a list like this one.

Tim Wakefield was feeling every bit his age—he was now a father of two—but he also had history on his side.

And even Wakefield himself admitted that he began giving thought to his legacy.

"I wanted to get to 200 wins, and I wanted to maybe tie or break Cy Young's and Roger Clemens's record for all-time Red Sox [victories]," Wakefield said, "but I didn't know if it was possible."

Not long after the July 31 trading deadline, Tim Wakefield's shoulder flared up again, in essentially the same area that had ailed him at the end of the previous season. The problem reached an apex during an August 6 game at Kansas City that produced an 8–2 Red Sox victory and in which Wakefield contributed six strong innings for his seventh win of the season. To that point in the season, Wakefield had been
averaging
6⅓ innings per start, compiled 147 innings, and posted a 3.67 ERA, numbers suggesting that, when healthy, he was still quite effective.

The Red Sox, fearing a flameout like the one that had derailed Wakefield the previous season, immediately pulled the plug on him and gave him a cortisone injection in hopes of preempting a larger issue. Wakefield was all too eager to comply. He did not want to go through the prior season's pain again. Meanwhile, the Red Sox were having other issues with their pitching staff—a not uncommon problem for teams that advance deep into the playoffs a year earlier. Ace Josh Beckett was ailing, and the innings were beginning to pile up on every Red Sox pitcher. As the Red Sox had learned in 2005, if the pitching staff's postseason sacrifices were going to come due, it was likely to happen late in the year, when fatigue invariably became a factor.