Faithful (6 page)

While we were waiting in the Will Call line, we missed Nomar and Yaz and Dewey and Tommy Brady. Damn you, unwieldy ticketing process!

The paper says that Mendoza was moved to the DL, and that Johnny will be out for a few days with a “golf ball–sized lump” on his knee. Yesterday before his first at-bat, they played “Ironman” for him, and here a foul ball takes him out.

It also says the plane the Sox were supposed to take from Baltimore after the thirteen-inning game had mechanical problems, and with the delays, the team bus didn’t get to Fenway until 7:30 yesterday morning, which might account for their sleepwalking performance.

Because we spent all day at the park yesterday, I can’t persuade anyone to go to tonight’s game, even with the Pedro–Roy Halladay matchup. It frees me to leave early. I rocket across the Mass Pike and get there a full two and a half hours before game time. I’m the first one in the lot (now twenty-five bucks, though the attendant assures me they raised the price last August). I score my Will Call tickets and head for Lansdowne, thinking I might shag some home runs. Like a little kid, I’m lugging my glove.

On Brookline Ave a billboard with a big picture of Nomar asks us to KEEP THE FAITH.

Before I turn the corner, I find a scalper leaning against a wall, muttering, “Anyone buyin’, anyone sellin’.” I tell him I have one, and we haggle. Even though it’s hours before game time, it’s Pedro-Halladay, and I want at least face value. He lowballs so I walk, but there’s a young Korean tourist lurking behind him who steps forward and offers to trade me a Yankee ticket for it—the Patriots’ Day game, which starts at 11 A.M., way too early for us to get here. I jump on the trade, then turn and sell the $20 bleacher seat to the scalper for well more than the face value of today’s ticket, and walk away grinning. It’s rare that you scalp a scalper.

On Lansdowne the Sausage King and the souvenir guys by Gate E are setting up. A band of college kids wearing long dark wigs and beards walks by; their shirts say DAMON’S DISCIPLES. I stake my claim to a pillar by the entrance to the elevated parking lot, leaning against it to hide my glove behind my back, and watch the Monster. I’m almost under the Coke bottles, between them and Fisk’s foul pole, the perfect spot for dead-pull hitters. But nothing’s coming over. It’s too early; they’re still running the tour groups through.

A father and son join me. They’ve got standing rooms on the Monster and they’re hoping to catch a ball. I wish them luck and post up by Gate E, hoping to be the first one in so I can grab my favorite corner spot down the left-field line.

After a nervous five minutes waiting for them to roll open the corrugated-steel doors, I’m the second one through the turnstiles and the first into the grandstand. The Sox are already batting. As I make my way down to the empty corner, I see Johnny Pesky walking out toward left field with a fungo bat and hail him. Johnny joined the club as a shortstop in 1942. He’s eighty-five and still putting on the uniform. He waves back, a Fenway benediction.

Bending over the low wall and reaching with my glove, I can just touch the plastic left-field foul line (yeah, weird, not chalk but a permanent strip of plastic). I wait for a hot grounder into the corner, pounding my glove.

Nothing comes. The Sox finish and the Jays take the field. A liner hooks over us for Section 33—“Heads up!”—and bangs into the seats. A few balls off the wall end up in the corner, but these the outfielders toss up or hand to little kids.

Out in left, #27 for the Jays has been shagging flies. As he comes in for his turn in the cage, I see he has a ball in his mitt. “Hey, two-seven,” I holler, and he looks around and tosses it to me.

It’s Frank Catalanotto, their left fielder and number two hitter, whose triple started them off yesterday.

Still nothing down the line. A lot of balls are banging off the Monster or reaching the seats. One arcs down into the front row, where a big guy in a windbreaker catches it barehanded against his chest and gets a hand. It’s the dad from Lansdowne. The kid’s all excited.

Later, on his way back out to left, Catalanotto picks up a ball from the grass behind third and—amazingly—tosses it to me. When he comes off, I ask if he’ll sign one, and he does. It’s the only autograph he gives, and while he’s not a star, I feel lucky, singled out.

BP’s finished, and I wander over to Steve’s seats behind the Sox on-deck circle. They’re dream seats, so close that, say, Manny swinging his taped-up piece of rebar intrudes on your view of Ortiz at the plate. Julie, the assistant who’s babysitting Steve’s tickets, might be there, and I need to talk to her. I plant myself in his seat and admire the balls and Catalanotto’s illegible signature. As game time nears, I wonder if Julie’s coming. If not, fine. I’ll just sit here.

Before the game starts, there’s already good news on the scoreboard:

CWS 7

NYY 3

Pedro comes out throwing 89–90. Catalanotto singles sharply to center, but that’s it in the first. Halladay’s up at 93, 95. He’s 6′4″ with a patchy beard, and on the mound he looks Randy Johnson tall. Crespo leads off, and Halladay blows two by him, then freezes him with a backdoor curve. Bill Mueller and Ortiz barely get wood on the ball. Looks like it’s going to be a quick game.

Josh Phelps leads off the top of the second with a drive down the right-field line. It looks like it’s going to drop, but Kapler digs hard and dives, tumbles in the dust and comes up with it. It’s even bigger when the next batter, Hinske, rips a single. There’s some muttering in the seats, but Pedro bears down and gets Hudson, then gets a borderline call on Woodward, and the Faithful stand and cheer him off.

When Kapler stands on deck that inning, I call, “Great catch, Gabe,” and he turns in profile and nods. I’m so close I can read the writing on his T-shirt under his white home jersey. It’s a new tradition with the club; last year with Grady, the players wore all kinds of inside motivational slogans. Backwards across Gabe’s shoulders, it says ZAGGIN LAER. When he pops to third to end the inning, the ump inspects the scuffed ball and gives it to the Sox bat-boy (bat-man, really, because he’s a pro) Andrew. As Andrew’s coming back toward the circle, I call his name and hold up my glove, and he hits me. “Thanks, Andrew.”

Ortiz is wearing a slogan too. ARE YOU GONNA—That’s all I can get.

Both pitchers settle in. There are no rallies, no tight spots, just solo base runners stranded at first, and lots of strikeouts.

In the bottom of the sixth, Crespo leads off with a slow roller to short. He busts it down the line and dives headfirst for the bag—safe. It’s a spark. Bill Mueller rolls one to Delgado, who makes the right decision and goes to second to get Crespo. David Ortiz comes up (“El Jefe!”) and after seeing a few pitches blasts one deep to right that makes us all rise. It carries the wall and caroms off the roof of the Sox bullpen. In the stands we’re high-fiving. David touches the plate, lifts his eyes and points with both hands to God.

First pitch, Manny lines one for a single. Maybe Halladay’s tired. He’s thrown 80 pitches—120 Canadian. He blows away Kapler to end the inning.

Pedro’s having a quick top of the seventh when, with two down, he gets behind Hudson 2-1. Hudson’s the number seven hitter, a second baseman and not a big guy, so Pedro goes after him. He can’t get his 90 mph fastball past him, and Hudson parks it in the Jays’ bullpen.

It’s only 2–1 for one batter, as Bellhorn leads off the bottom with a slicing Pesky Pole homer.

Pedro Ks the first batter in the top of the eighth. It’s his last inning, and as he sometimes does, he’s going to sign the win by striking out the side. Except after Catalanotto takes a backdoor curve for strike three, here comes Francona from the dugout. Pedro looks around, surprised. He glances out to the bullpen where Foulke is warming, as if he had no idea. Francona chucks Pedro on the shoulder as if to say good job and takes the ball from him.
Boooooo!
Pedro high-fives everyone in conference at the mound, then, as he’s walking off, before crossing the first-base line, touches his heart, kisses his pitching hand and points to God. Huge standing O. At the top of the dugout steps he stops and points to God again, holding the pose a little too long, but hey, that’s Pedro. (This is the kind of showboating that gets him booed in other parks, but here, after taking on Halladay, it’s okay.)

Petey’s thrown 106 pitches, but I wonder if it’s more of a power move on Francona’s part, taking an early opportunity to show the media and the talk-radio fans that this is his club and he can make Pedro do something he doesn’t want to do (as opposed to Grady, who couldn’t take the ball from him when it was clear he needed to come out). Foulke gets Vernon Wells on a roller, so it’s a good move, or at least not a bad one.

Manager Carlos Tosca decides to close the Mike Scioscia way, bringing in a lefty to get Ortiz, then pulling him for a righty to face Manny. Manny uncharacteristically swings at the first pitch, and greets Aquilino Lopez with a bomb to center that just keeps going. It’s hit into the wind but ends up a few rows deep in Section 36, somewhere around 450 feet. 4–1 Sox. After that, Tosca says the hell with it and leaves Lopez in to finish.

As we start the ninth, the crowd’s singing “Sweet Caroline” a cappella long after Neil Diamond’s finished. It’s a party, and when the folks in the front row take off to beat the traffic, I move up and stand at the wall with my hands on the bunting (real cloth, not plastic, as you might expect) as Foulke closes.

It’s only 9:30. It’s been the fast, clean game you’d expect from two Cy Youngs, all the scoring on longballs.

The high floats me home. Traffic’s light, and I’m entirely satisfied. There’s nothing to nitpick or second-guess, no needling what-ifs. Pedro wasn’t dominant, but he was very, very good. Ortiz delivered the big blow, Manny was 3 for 4, Kapler made that great diving catch. And—this is silly, since it’s not even Easter yet—with Baltimore whipping up on Tampa Bay, I do believe we own a share of first place.

Poor ol’ Dauber. Because we’ve been eating up the pen, we need fresh arms, and ship him to Pawtucket to bring up a ghost—Frank Castillo, who we dumped last year and then re-signed this February. Dauber will have to clear waivers before reporting. The odds are slim that anyone will claim him, but why take the chance if he’s really part of the team?

Johnny says he saw his disciples as he was coming out of the players’ lot. “They have shirts that said, ‘We have Jesus on our side.’”

It’s Schilling’s Fenway debut, and I’m not going. For the first time in my life I’m going to be a no-show, eating a pair of grandstands along with Easter dinner. I tell Steph that Schilling better not throw a no-hitter. “A perfect game,” he says.

Instead, it’s an extra-inning nail-biter that takes all day. Mystery Malaska battles again, taking us into the thirteenth.

“So who do we bring in next,” Steph asks, “Williamson?”

“We won’t have to,” I say. “We’re doing it here.” To seal the oath, we high-five around the room.

It’s Aquilino Lopez’s game. He walks Bill Mueller, bringing up David Ortiz. With Manny next, Lopez has to throw to him. He tries to nibble, then gives in and puts one over the plate. Ortiz hits a rainbow that brings us to our feet. “Get out!” It’s headed for deep left-center. It’s going to make the wall, and now it’s clear it’s going to carry it. The ball lands in the second row of the Monster seats, in the aisle between M7 and M8, ricocheting off a fan who scrambles after the magical souvenir. The Sox win 6–4, and the whole club gathers at home to pound David on the helmet and bounce up and down as a team. Too bad Dauber missed this one. Now I wish I’d gone—a walk-off job’s rare—but we’re celebrating here too, hooting and running to the kitchen to mob Trudy as if she hit it.

“Now it is officially a happy Easter,” I say.

The temptation is to see this as a defining moment, proof that we’re in for a wild year. It’s a win, that’s all, but a very satisfying one. Though it’s only April, with one swing, emotionally, we’ve made up for blowing both openers.