Faithful Read online

  In St. Pete, the Yanks have beaten the D-Rays, so we need to hold on to stay in first. Pedro settles down. In the eighth he gives way to Embree, who throws a scoreless inning. J. J. Putz comes on for the M’s and gives up a smoked single through the middle to Manny (it makes Putz riverdance) and then, after a long at-bat, a double to Dauber off the bullpen wall. Bob Melvin decides to walk Tek to set up the double play, which Kapler foils by popping up. Putz goes 2-0 on Youkilis and has to come in with a strike; Youkilis slaps it down the right-field line for a double and two more insurance runs, and the PA plays the corny old Hartford Whalers theme, “Brass Bonanza.”

  Foulke closes, but it’s a battle. He throws 30 pitches and leaves runners on second and third for an 8–4 final. A tougher game than expected from the last-place M’s, but El Jefe (Big Papi, D.O., David as Goliath) brought us back.

  May 29th

  It’s Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but I’ve had all of Boston and Fenway Park I can take for a while—seven games in eight days is plenty, especially given the uniformly shitty quality of the weather. [16] And that’s not all. Hotel living gets creepy after a while, even when you can afford room service (maybe especially if you can afford room service). Also, my wife headed back to Maine after the PEN dinner on Wednesday, and I miss her. But as I run north under sunshiny, breezy skies, I keep an eye on the dashboard clock, and when 1 P.M. rolls around, I hit the radio’s SEEK button until I find the voices of Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano, comfort food for the ear.

  Listening to a baseball game on the radio may be outmoded in this age of computers and satellite television, but it hath its own particular pleasures; with each inning you build your own Fenway of the mind from scrap-heap memories and pure imagination. Today the wind is playing tricks, Wakefield’s knuckleball is staying up in the zone, and the usually lackluster Mariner hitters pounce on it right from the git. In the second inning a Seattle batter hits a towering fly foul of first, but the wind pushes it back into fair territory. Mark Bellhorn, today playing second, tries to stay with it, can’t. The ball bonks him on the wrist and falls for a double. I see all this quite vividly (along with Manny Ramirez’s homer to left, hit so hard it leaves a vapor trail, Troop assures me) as I drive north between Yarmouth and Freeport with that same wind pushing my own car. Since I can’t read a page of my current book between innings (the galley of Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves is now tucked away in my green 1999 All-Star Game souvenir carry-bag), I punch the CD button after each third out and listen to two minutes—timed on my wristwatch—of Larry McMurtry’s The Wandering Hill, volume two of the Berrybender Narratives. I have found that two minutes gets me back to the game just in time for the first pitch of the next inning.

  In this fashion, the 240-mile trip to Bangor passes agreeably enough. One wishes the Red Sox could have won, but it’s hard to root against Freddy Garcia, a great pitcher who is this year laboring for a bad ball clubin the Mariners. And the worst the Sox can do on the current home stand is 6-4; one may reasonably hope for 8-2.

  One may even hope the hapless Devil Rays will beat the Yankees tonight, and we will retain our half-game hold on the top spot a little longer.

  Waiting at home in the mail is the Nomar ball from the Nomar Bowl, a nice souvenir of his lost season. My e-mail in-box is sluggish, filled with pictures of Lisa at the Town Lanes with Nomar, with Dauber, with David Ortiz, with Mike Timlin, with Alan Embree, even with Danny Ainge. Everyone’s smiling, though I don’t see any players actually bowling.

  The Yanks beat the Rays 5–3, so they’re in first place. I smother my sorrows in a bowl of Reverse the Curse and read the sports page. My Pirates, amazingly, are at .500, thanks to a pair of walk-off homers to take a twin bill from the Cubs. And it says Nomar’s scheduled to start his rehab stint at Pawtucket tomorrow—the best news I could hope for.

  9:50 P.M.: I take my wife to the crazy-weather movie, which we both enjoy. I walk the dog as soon as we get back, then hit the TV remote and click on Headline News. Weekends, the ticker at the bottom of the screen runs continuous sports scores, and ohhhh, shit, the Yankees won again. They’ve regained the top spot in the AL East, one they’ve held for almost five consecutive seasons, leaving me to wonder how in the name of Cobb and Williams you pound a stake through this team’s heart and make them lie still. Or if it’s even possible.

  May 30th

  We’ve got Monster seats and get going early. I’m taking the kids while Trudy’s bringing her parents from the shore. The weather’s clear, traffic’s light on I-84, and a cop stops me for speeding. So the morning, which started so promising, turns bitter even before we hit the Mass Pike. I worry that the feeling will linger and ruin the whole day, but there are enough miles to put it behind us.

  We hit Lansdowne Street, where the sausage vendors are open early for the family crowd. A woman Trudy’s mother’s age has a sweatshirt that says FOULKE THE YANKEES.

  * * *

  I’m sure that Stew was at the ballpark today for what turned out to be an extraordinary game, and probably in the prime real estate of my second-row seats next to the Red Sox dugout, but I enjoyed it fine at home in my living room with my wife close by, propped up on the couch with the computer on her lap and the dog by her side. I’ve come down with a fairly heavy cold as a result of my week of chilly carousal at Fenway, and there is something especially satisfying—akin to the pleasures of self-pity, I suppose—about watching a baseball game with the box of Kleenex near one hand and the box of Sucrets near the other, coughing and sneezing your way through the innings as the shadows on both the infield and your living room carpet gradually creep longer.

  This game had a little bit of everything. Curt Schilling flirted with perfection into the sixth; Keith Foulke blew his first save of the season (his first blown save in his last twenty-four attempts, it turns out) when Raul Ibanez hit a dramatic three-run home run, putting the Mariners up 7–5 in the eighth inning; the Red Sox came right back to tie it in the bottom of the eighth. Then, in the bottom of the twelfth, Sox sub David McCarty crushed a 3-0 fastball to what is the deepest part of the park to give the Red Sox the win.

  And at the risk of sounding like Angry Bill in Still, We Believe, I called the shot. Yeah! Me! I’d claim my wife as a witness to this feat of prediction, except she was pretty heavy into the computer solitaire by then and I doubt like hell that she was listening. The Mariners’ fourth pitcher of the afternoon, a young man with the unfortunate name of J. J. Putz, entered the game with a reputation for wildness, but was into his third inning of exceptional relief work (he struck out both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez in the eleventh) when the roof fell in. After getting the first out in the twelfth, he hit Jason Varitek with a soft breaking pitch. [17] Enter McCarty, inserted into the lineup mostly as a defensive replacement. The count ran to 3-0. Most batters are taking all the way on such a count, but Terry Francona gives most of his guys the automatic green light on 3-0. (I like this strategy as much as I loathe his refusal to bunt runners along in key situations.) I said—mostly to the dog, since my wife was paying elzilcho attention, “Watch this. Putz is gonna throw it down the middle and McCarty is gonna send everyone home in time for supper.” Which is just what happened, and thank God the camera did not linger long on the head-hanging misery of young Mr. J. J. Putz as McCarty went into his home run trot. These are the kind of games you either win or feel really bad about losing, especially at home. I feel badly for Putz (pronounced Pootz, thank you very much), but the bottom line? We won it. And the bonus? The Yankees lost to Tampa Bay (who just barely held on), which means we’re back in first place.

  There are three major milestones in a baseball season: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. The first of these milestones in the 2004 season comes tomorrow, when we play a makeup game with Baltimore, and for a team with so many quality players on the disabled list, we’re doing pretty damned well going into the first turn. Especially when we can look forward to two of those—Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon
—coming back between Memorial Day and the Fourth. A third, Bill Mueller, may return to the club between the Fourth and Labor Day.

  That brings us back to Kevin Youkilis, Mueller’s replacement, who has now begun to attract so much notice that Terry Francona has had to publicly state that no, Youkilis will not be keeping the job at third once Mueller’s fit and ready to play no matter how well the GGOW [18] does between now and the happy day of Mueller’s return.

  A piece in the Portland Sunday Telegram today by Kevin Thomas (who knows Youkilis from Youkilis’s days with the Portland Sea Dogs, the BoSox double-A affiliate) points out that Youkilis’s locker is on the far wall of the clubhouse, the traditional place for players who are just up for a cup of coffee in the bigs…as is undoubtedly the case with Andy Dominique, who delivered today’s game-tying hit in the bottom of the eighth. Thomas also points to previous Red Sox minor leaguers such as Wilton Veras, who came up to play third with high hopes, only to fade into obscurity.

  Obscurity would not seem to be in young Mr. Youkilis’s future, however. “I know I’m going to be playing,” he told Kevin Thomas in today’s interview, speaking with quiet certainty, and with every passing game his on-base percentage seems simultaneously harder to believe for a rookie and less like a fluke. Moved up to the two-hole today, all Youkilis did was gothree for five, with three runs scored. His batting average is .317, and his OBP is hovering right around .425. The fans know that Bill Mueller may have to battle for his old spot back, no matter what Terry Francona has to say on the subject.

  It sounds like they’re booing the kid when he walks to the plate, but the grin on Youkilis’s face says he knows better; that sound sweeping around the ballpark like a soft wind is the first syllable of his last name: Youk…Youk…Youk…

  Two weeks ago he was playing triple-A ball in Pawtucket; tomorrow, on Memorial Day, he’s going to be playing the Orioles before a packed house, for the first-place Boston Red Sox. And I don’t want to jinx the kid, but do you know what I think, after having watched him in almost all of those games?

  I think a star is born.

  After the McCarty walk-off job, Netman learns from fan services that the Sox have decided to ban his net from Fenway. Like the speeding ticket, it could taint the day, but I won’t let it. I’ve had a great run with the net, and it was a wild game today—half a no-hitter topped by a late-inning comeback and then the tension of extra innings released with McCarty’s game-winner. The Yanks lost at the Trop, so we’re in first place. Happy birthday, Manny.

  Hell, I’m better with the glove anyway.

  May 31st

  In response to flooding on the border of Haiti and the Dominican, David Ortiz, Manny and Pedro are joining with the Sox to collect donations for aid. I send a check, and while this book won’t be out for another six months, I’m sure the victims down there will still need the support then. The address is Dominican Relief Effort, Red Sox Foundation, Fenway Park, Boston, MA 02215.

  Of Boston’s four established starting pitchers—the other three being Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield and Curt Schilling—Derek Lowe has been the most obviously troubled. In his last three winning starts, all at home and all shaky, his teammates have been wearing their red jerseys instead of the usual white ones, so it’s no surprise that those were the onesthey were wearing when they took the field for their makeup game against the Orioles.

  It was Lowe’s best start in weeks, but this time the red tops didn’t help. The real problem today wasn’t Lowe so much as it was the middle relief. Like most teams in the wretchedly overstocked major leagues, Boston can’t boast a lot in that regard. Yes, there’s Timlin and Embree, but Francona doesn’t like to throw them in when the Sox are down by more than a couple, and both of them have worked a lot lately and needed the day off. So it was the PawSox Pitching Corps, mostly, and no way were they equal to the task. The Sox were down 9–0 before you could say Lansdowne Street. We’ve played from behind a lot on this home stand, and have come from behind a lot… but not from this far behind. Not against Oakland, not against Seattle, and not against Baltimore today.

  So now we’re off to the West Coast, Nomar’s almost ready to come back (always supposing his rehabbed ankle stays rehabbed after some actual game action with the triple-A club, where he went 0 for 3 last night), and the first third of the season is over. The biggest surprise—at least to me—has been how quickly, after the initial scramble, the teams aligned themselves just as they have in previous years. Pick of the first fifty: the Sox taking six of seven from the Bronx Bombers. And in spite of that, we’ve reached the Memorial Day marker fifty-one games into the season in a dead tie for first with them.

  Who woulda thunk it?

  Steve calls, and we dissect the game. They came out flat, we agree. But, overall so far, Steve says, we’re playing way over our heads. Look at these guys who’ve been getting it done for us: Youkilis, McCarty, Bellhorn. Nomar’s not too far away, and Trot. Sure, we’re headed out West and the Yankees are coming home, but historically we do okay out there.

  He’s more optimistic than I am—a rarity—but he’s right too. And yet, after I hang up, I’m still worried about Lowe, whose ERA must be pushing 7.00, and who hasn’t made it out of the sixth inning in over a month.

  June

  THE JUNE SWOON

  June 1st

  Last night in Louisville Nomar went 2 for 3 with a walk, a reason for some optimism. I know he’s not going to solve all our problems when he comes back, but having a live righty bat won’t hurt.

  We’re playing late in Anaheim, a 10:05 start. I catch some of the pregame—Jerry the former Angel back where he started—but by game time I’m so busy finishing up everything I didn’t get done during the day that I miss the first couple of innings. When I tune in, it’s bedtime, 11:30, and it’s only the top of the third. We’re up 2–1 and Colon has runners on first and second with one out. Millar singles to left, and Sveum sends Manny, but Manny decides not to go. Good thing, because the throw from Jose Guillen is a strike. Youkilis steps up, and I think we’re going to break the game open, but the first-base ump calls an obvious check swing a strike and then the home-plate ump rings him up on a pitch well outside. Youkilis swears, and Jerry says the rookie’s got to be careful not to get tossed. Colon goes 3-1 on Pokey before unleashing his good stuff, and we come away with nothing. Through three we’ve left seven men on base.

  I’d love to stay up and see how it turns out, but it’s almost midnight. It’s a defeat, in a way, voluntarily leaving an interesting game in progress. I’ll feel disconnected and behind until I read the score in the paper tomorrow morning. For now, I just have to trust Arroyo will hold them and that our big guys will get to Colon.

  June 2nd

  We lost, 7–6, though only a ninth-inning two-run shot by Dauber off Troy Percival made it look that close. We had a three-run lead at one point, but Arroyo didn’t make it out of the sixth. With the score tied, Vladimir Guerrero ripped a two-run double, and we never really threatened after that. And the Yanks beat the Orioles again, running their record against Baltimore to 1,000–0 over the last couple years, so we’re a full game back.

  And while the paper agrees that Nomar could join the big club as early as Tuesday against the Padres, it also says that Trot’s had yet another setback with his quad and will sit out several extended spring-training games. Fifty games into the season, it’s hard to imagine there are that many guys still stuck down in Fort Myers. The facility must be a ghost town, lots of empty parking spots. Even while he’s sitting out, Trot will take batting practice; one of the pitchers he’ll be facing—Ramiro Mendoza.

  SK: We’re on the West Coast, graveyard of many great Red Sox teams, and we blew a lead last night while the Yankees were holding on to one. Also holding sole possession of first place. I think that in the steamy depths of July, we may look back on May, when the Yankees kept pace, and shake our heads, and say, “Sheesh, won’t anything stop them?”

  SO: Hey, don’t ascribe them any
superpowers. That’s what they’re going to be saying about us. Already around the league people are wondering how we’re doing it with all these supersubs.

  Since I missed last night’s game, I make a point of staying up for tonight’s, even scoring it on a Remy Report sheet. Johnny’s not playing; I’d heard his knee is still bothering him from the ball he fouled off it—and that had to have been a month ago. On the mound for the Angels is lefty Jarrod Washburn, who was Cy Young material two years back but hasn’t thrown well since. We’ve got Pedro going. He’s said he hasn’t been able to throw his curve much because of the cold weather (the grip, I suppose), so I’m discouraged in the first when Vladimir Guerrero yokes a hanging curve over the wall in left for a two-run shot.

  Don Orsillo takes this opportunity to inform us that the Yanks have come from being down 5–0 to beat the O’s 6–5. I don’t know who I hate more, the Yankees for being the Yankees or the O’s for rolling over.

  Manny gets one back in the second with a solo blast to dead center, and in the third an Ortiz sac fly brings in Bellhorn to tie the game (to a healthy “Let’s go, Red Sox” chant). But in the bottom of the inning Guerrero puts the Angels in the lead again with a two-run double.

  Neither starter has anything. The Sox chase Washburn in the fourth with six straight hits, scoring five. We’d have more, but Ramon Ortiz comes on and gets Millar to bounce into an easy 6-4-3 DP. Still, we’ve come back to take a 7–4 lead on the road, and I’m happy I stayed up to watch this one.