Faithful (38 page)

As a Red Sox fan, I am of course aware that there is another baseball league, but my grasp of it is vague, like a European’s grasp of the New World in the seventeenth century or an American’s grasp of the solar system in the nineteenth. Yes, somewhere in the American Midwest there lives a fearsome wand-wielding wizard named Pujols, and I know that in California there be Giants, for my Red Sox did truly visit them once in the season which is now almost over. But like most Red Sox fans, my focus will remain fiercely fixed on what is sometimes called “the junior circuit” until—and if—we have to play one of those quasi-mythological Others in the World Series. And that’s okay, because in this final weekend of regular-season baseball, I find plenty to occupy me within the familiar geography of the American League.

Three of the four AL postseason teams have now been decided: the Yankees (AL East champs), the Twins (AL Central champs) and the Red Sox (AL wild card). The winner in the AL West will be decided this weekend, in Oakland, when the A’s and Angels, with identical 90-69 records, go head-to-head. It will be, in effect, a mini-playoff, one the Red Sox and their fans will be watching with great interest. We’ll play the team out of our division with the best record, but as I write this on Friday afternoon, Minnesota’s record is also 90-69. That means we could wind up facing any one of those three. All I know for sure is that I’m hoping Cleveland will put a hurtin’ on Minnesota this weekend, because we have to start by playing two away games no matter
who
our opponent is. Given that, I would prefer to steer clear of the Metrodome as long as possible.

Not to mention young Mr. Santana.

The Sox had last night off, ceding center stage (at least here in the East) to the Yankees, who clinched the division with their 100th win (so that’s what—16 against Tampa, 15 against Baltimore, 14 against Toronto…), beating the Twins’ second-line relievers late after Ron Gardenhire pulled starter Brad Radke in the fifth. By resting, in effect the Twins rolled over this whole series, handing the Yanks the sweep. With the Angels losing and the A’s winning, the West is knotted again, and the Twins, Angels and A’s all share the same record. Because the Angels and A’s play each other this weekend, the winner of the West will have at least 92 wins. The Twins lost their season series with both clubs, so to face the Sox they have to sweep their last three. I have to wonder: By losing this series, are the Twins purposely shooting for a rematch with the Yanks?

Last night the Angels humbled the A’s 10–0 at home, and today they come back late against setup guy Ricardo Rincon and new closer Octavio Dotel to win the West. Chokeland has done it again. Billy Beane, you are
not
a genius. With no defense, no smallball and no pen, and ace Mark Mulder denying an obvious hip problem, the A’s went into a September-longs woon that their fans will taste for the entire off-season. The Angels, missing Adam Kennedy with a knee injury, and suspending Jose Guillen for throwing his helmet and dissing manager Mike Scioscia, overcame everything to beat their rivals at the wire.

The Cubs, who had a two-game lead in the NL wild card a week ago, eliminate themselves by losing their sixth in seven games (including three blown saves by high-priced free-agent closer LaTroy Hawkins and crucial home losses to cellar dwellers the Mets and the Reds).

On the home front, the Sox sweep a meaningless doubleheader from the O’s—something we could never do when the games really counted. Mr. Kim picks up a garbage win. Ellis Burks plays in his 2,000th and most likely last game, adding a single to his career stats.

Afterward, Terry Francona announces that Arroyo and Wake will start in the playoffs and that Lowe won’t. Lowe leaves the clubhouse without a comment, and in the postgame, Eck says, “Will Derek Lowe be back next year? Who cares?”

And we still don’t know who we’re playing in the division series.

I continue to believe that it was our play against Baltimore—identified in my game notes from July on as the LEBs
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—that cost us the AL East. Now that
that
little matter has been decided, we’re doing all right against the LEBs, having already guaranteed ourselves at least a split in the season’s final, meaningless four-game series (please note that
they
has once again become
we
, and will now likely stay that way, for better or worse, until the season ends).

On the West Coast, the Athletics have suddenly—and rather shockingly—come unglued. Anaheim beat them last night, 10–0, and came from behind to beat them again today, 5–4. So the Angels win the West, and all the AL postseason teams are now decided. The only remaining question is who the Red Sox will draw in the first round—the Angels or the Twins. Today’s game between Minnesota and Cleveland would have settled that issue if Cleveland had won, but the game was suspended in the eleventh with the score tied, 5–5, so the groundskeepers could prepare the field for a University of Minnesota football game.

Say
what?

It’s the last day of the regular season, and in the majors, the last few games are being played out by the subs, scrubs, and—in a few cases—the stars of tomorrow.

In Chicago, disconsolate Cubs fans are telling each other—without much real hope—that next season may be better (on the South Side, the ChiSox fans gave up on this season long ago).

In Tampa, Lou Piniella has packed away his horrible snot-green pullover for another season and bid his hapless Devil Rays
adieu
.

In Baltimore, the baseball writers have already begun beating the MVP tom-tom on behalf of Miguel Tejada, but given what Gary Sheffield’s done for the Yankees and what Manny Ramirez has done for the Red Sox, I don’t give them much of a chance.

In Texas, the plotting has already begun to turn this year’s AL West dark horse into next year’s favorite.

In Oakland, wunderkind Billy Beane may, like Lucy Arnaz, have some ’splainin’ to do.

In Toronto, the wunderkind disciples of Billy Beane have probably left their offices for the year only after dropping their cell phones into their shredders.

And in Minnesota, the last playoff question was answered late this afternoon, when the Indians came up with two insurance runs in the top of the ninth and beat the Twins, 5–2. Thus it’s Minnesota opening against New York on the East Coast and Boston opening against Anaheim on the West,both the day after tomorrow. I’ll be at Fenway for the third game of the Sox-Angels series, and for the fourth, if needed (it probably will be). My heart beats a little faster, just writing that. At this point everything gets magnified, because when the second season ends, it does so either with shocking suddenness or—could it be?—with the sort of success of which Red Sox fans hardly dare dream.

The Twins win the resumption of their suspended game, but then lose to the Indians, making the last Angels-A’s game meaningless (though no less painful to those A’s fans who bothered to show up).

We lose our last game to the O’s (McCarty throws two scoreless, striking out three) and finish 98-64, our best record since 1978. Manny wins the home run and slugging crowns, Schilling has the best won-loss, though it appears the MVP will now go to Vladimir Guerrero for his big September, while Santana should take the Cy Young. Ichiro breaks George Sisler’s all-time record for hits in a season, but, coming for a last-place club, and most of them being singles, it doesn’t wow serious fans; he’s just the new Rod Carew. And the Astros win their final game, snatching the NL wild card from Barry Bonds and the Giants. It’s still possible we’ll see Roger Clemens in the World Series.

Twenty minutes before game time, the Sox announce their ALDS roster. Youk, Mientkiewicz and Leskanic made the squad. Mendoza and McCarty didn’t.

I try to take a nap before the 4:09 EDT start of the first Division Series game out in Anaheim and can’t do it. I’m not really surprised. Too many butterflies. That may sound stupid, but I’d argue there’s nothing stupid about it at all. The hell of spectating—a thing I’ve had to rediscover during several Octobers (although never enough)—is that when it comes to baseball, spectating is all I can do. The script is out of my hands.

Instead of a nap I settle for a brisk walk. I’ve got a bad hip as a result of an accident, but I ignore its protests of this unwonted late-afternoon exercise. My youngest son rescues me before it can really start to bellow, picking me up in his Jetta and taking me back to the house, where we settle with sodas, pizza, cookies and a homemade scorecard. Owen also has a crossword puzzle in which he tries (with varying degrees of success) to bury himself, admitting he can barely bring himself to watch the Angels bat, especially after the Red Sox secure a slim one-run lead on a suspect Manny Ramirez double (an
E-5 Figgins
on my pizza-besmirched scorecard) followed by a scratch David Ortiz single.

As it turned out, Owen and I didn’t have to worry,
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although the game remained close until the top of the fourth, and twice in the early going the Angels jockeyed the tying run into scoring position. Then, in the aforementioned fourth inning, Boston staged one of those multirun outbursts that characterized so many of their wins in August and September.Ortiz walked; Millar hit him home with a moonshot to left; Varitek singled; Orlando “I Know Every Team Handshake in the Universe” Cabrera walked; after Bill Mueller struck out, Gabe Kapler hit a single to short left field. Bases juiced, one out, Johnny Damon at the plate. And here’s your play of the game, brought to you by Charles Scribner’s, the publisher that made New York famous.

Johnny Damon, who hits Angels starter Jarrod Washburn about as well as toads do algebra, directs a seemingly harmless ground ball to Chone Figgins, a utility fielder today playing third for the Halos. Figgins double-pumps, then throws the ball to a location somewhere between home plate and the guy selling Sports Bars in the box seats to the left of the Angels’ dugout. Varitek and Cabrera score. One batter later, Manny Ramirez goes
pega luna
for the first time in the Series (but not, one hopes, for the last). It’s great, but by then the game is essentially over.

Father Curt was far from his best today, but the Angels—pretty much stuck with Washburn as a result of having clinched on the second-to-last day of the season—were not able to steal Game 1, as I’m sure they hoped to. The question, I think, is whether they are now blown out from their gallop to the divisional title, or if they will bounce back with Bartolo (as in Colon) tomorrow night. My son says they’ll bounce. If they’re going to, they had better get to Pedro fast or hope Terry Francona repeats the past and leaves him in too long. If neither of those things happen, then—to quote my collaborator, Mr. O’Nan—the Anaheim Angels are very likely going to be gone like Enron, toast on the coast.

They do, though it’s as fishy as Jonah’s old clothes—to my nose. The Twins are leading by one in the bottom of the twelfth with one out and closer Joe Nathan toiling through his unheard-of third inning of work. Nathan throws ten straight balls to put men on first and second, then grooves one to A-Rod. It’s hit deep to the left-center gap, and the whole Yankee dugout leaps up—except A-Rod’s missed it, and the ball barely makes the track (so why leap up when you’ve seen hundreds of flies to the track there and never moved an inch before?). Left fielder Shannon Stewart, playing back so nothing can get through, should have a bead on it but is uncharacteristically slow getting over and then doesn’t even make an attempt. It hits the track, and should win the game anyway, but bounces over the wall for a ground rule double, meaning the trail runner, Jeter, has to go back to third. So with a tie game and one out, Matsui steps in. He’s not patient, and ends up hitting a soft liner to right. Jacque Jones is playing in to cut down the run at the plate, and right field in Yankee Stadium is the smallest in all of baseball. Jones, with a decent if not spectacular arm, should have an excellent shot at getting Jeter. It’s a situation an outfielder dreams of: there’s no other play, no contingency. It can’t be more than 180 feet, and he’s got time to make sure he gets it there in the air so his catcher doesn’t have to deal with a hop. As long as he’s not way off-line to the first-base side, he should have Jeter by five steps, easy.

Instead, he
flips
the ball flat-footed to first baseman Matthew LeCroy, who relays it, late, and the Yankees win. ESPN’s commentators make no comment on this, which is just as bizarre. So the Yankees split.

The stuff between my ears feels more like peanut butter than brains this morning, and with good reason; the Red Sox–Angels contest that started last night at 10 P.M. East Coast time didn’t go final until five to two in the morning. That’s just shy of a four-hour baseball game. A
nine-inning
baseball game.

Part of the reason is national TV coverage—the breaks between half-innings are longer to allow for a few more of those all-important beer commercials—but in truth that isn’t the largest part. I’ll bet you could count the number of postseason games under three hours during the last seven years on the fingers of your hands, not because of the extra ads but because the style of baseball changes radically once the regular season is over. It becomes more about the pitching, because most managers believe the aphorism which states that in seven games out of every ten, good pitching will beat good hitting.
[67]
Games about the pitching become games about the defense. And games about defense and pitching in the field often become, for the offense, games about what is now called by the needlessly deprecating name of “smallball.” Few twenty-first century baseball teams are good at smallball, and their efforts to bunt the runner over are often painful to watch (although Doug Mientkiewicz of the Soxput down a beauty in Game 1, and it resulted in a run), but smallball certainly does burn up the hours. I bet they sold a sea of beer in Anaheim last night, and the hopeful fans had plenty of time to twirl their Rally Monkeys and beat their annoying Thunder Sticks, but in the end neither the monkeys or the sticks did any good. The Angels must now come to our park down 0-2, and their fans have only this consolation: for them, the game was over before 11 P.M., and they won’t have to spend much of this lovely fall day feeling like what Ed Sanders of the Fugs so memorably called “homemade shit.”

Pedro Martinez got the win in last night’s/this morning’s game, leaving with a 4–3 lead after seven innings, mostly thanks to a two-run Jason Varitek dinger and a scratch run provided by Johnny Damon. The invaluable Damon stole second after reaching on a fielder’s choice, took third when loser Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez (who bears a weird resemblance to movieland’s Napoleon Dynamite) uncorked a wild pitch, then scored on a Manny Ramirez sac fly. It turned out to be the winning run, because a relay of Boston relievers—Timlin to Myers, Myers to Foulke—were lights-out.

My reward for staying up long past my usual bedtime was watching Orlando Cabrera make the Angels pay for disrespecting him. With two on and two out in the top of the ninth, Brendan Donnelly, the final Angels pitcher of the night, walked Jason Varitek, loading the bases in order to get to Cabrera, who came to the Red Sox touted not only as a Gold Glove but as a “doubles machine.” He cranked one of those to left-center in the wee hours of the morning, taking third on a throw home that didn’t come close to nailing Varitek.

And essentially, that was your ball game. Foulke ended it by striking out Curtis Pride approximately one hour after the Yankees came up off the mat to put Minnesota away in the twelfth, and now the Red Sox come back to Fenway, hoping to hear “Dirty Water” tomorrow night.

And finally, from our Department of the Late Night Surreal, we have Angels manager Mike Scioscia, on the umpiring in last night’s game (by Jerry “I Ain’t Missed Many” Meals):

“I think as far as the strike zone, you know, if you are a good team, if you are a good team, you, is that my throat or is it a thing, I know I am hoarse, but you know, when you go through a…if you are ateam and you are a good team, then you absorb things like maybe a break bad, a line drive and doesn’t fall in or an umpire strike zone.”

Thus spake Zarathustra.