2004 ALCS Thoughts - Game 6
“I literally can't handle this. I'm about 3/4 of the way into a nervous breakdown.
If you're reading this, please do me a favor. Regardless of the outcome of Game 7, please don't call me, and give me a few minutes after it's over before trying to contact me. I'll probably be in the fetal position for most of the game anyway.”
That is my away message at home right now (Well, with a few spelling errors, I was half asleep when I put it up), and it has been since the final strike to Tony Clark in Game 6 of last night’s ALCS.
I have to admit, I haven’t formed a coherent thought in roughly nine and a half hours now, so this might be a bit disjointed. There has yet to be a moment, waking or sleeping, in which the ALCS wasn’t in my head. I'm not even going to attempt to describe my reaction after Strike Three to Tony Clark. I actually yelled at my dogs this morning for jumping up to lick my face and blocking the television while I was trying to watch the highlights of a game I’d seen just seven hours earlier. (Don’t worry, I apologized and gave them each a cookie. Now get the MSPCA off my back…)
Speaking of cookies, I knew something good was going to happen last night somewhere around 1PM. We ordered Thai food for lunch in my office to celebrate a birthday, and when I opened my fortune cookie, I smiled, then grinned, then tucked the fortune into my wallet for luck. Not for the fortune - that was totally irrelevant – but the back of the cookie had it’s own little message. In the “Learn Chinese” portion of the fortune, one word was written – Bang-qiu. Translated to English, it means “Baseball”. Go ahead, try to tell me that wasn’t a sign from above, I dare you…
Anyway, back to last night. Curt Schilling’s bloody red sock immediately gets its own place in the Red Sox Hall of Fame in Fenway, if not in Cooperstown itself. Yesterday, I asked for a line of 6IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 8K. What I got was even better - 7IP, 4H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 4K. Considering the magnitude of the game, and the injury situation, that line is ludicrous. It's something out of a comic book, not a Major League Baseball game.
On a historical level, the Red Sox have already won. In fact, no matter what the outcome tonight, I can’t feel bad about this team. They’ve done the unthinkable, they’ve risen up to meet the empire, and they now stand toe to toe on a ledge so precarious that after tonight, only one team will still be on its feet, while the other tumbles to the rocky floor below.
Yes, I’m speaking in metaphors. And yes, I understand that much of it may not make sense. Please note the disclaimer in the second paragraph about not having a coherent thought in awhile. But none of that matters. What matters is that the Red Sox have done something that no team in the 100+ year history of the Major League Baseball playoff system has ever done. They’ve climbed completely out of the shallow grave that the Yankees had dug for them after Game 3. And they’ve brought the spirits of an entire region, wait, no, that’s not right. They’ve brought the spirits of an entire nation right along with them.
These aren’t the things that happen to the Red Sox, these are the things that happen to the Yankees. Any other year, and the ball that Posada crushed in the first inning isn’t left floating in mid-air by Jorge, it’s left floating by Jason Varitek, twisting back to earth and landing squarely in the glove tucked to the left side of Gary Sheffield’s waist rather than the glove just above Trot Nixon's right shoulder. The Bellhorn homerun is not a homerun, but a ball that is caught by a leaping Hideki Matsui, or even worse, a foul ball resulting in another pitch and a called third-strike. In any other year, the umpires don’t get together to get two game-altering (and life-altering) calls correct, they stubbornly tell Terry Francona to shove it because they got the call right the first time and they know it. In years past, it’s a Red Sox player who deliberately tries to interfere with the game in order to get on first because he’s suddenly fallen into a horrible slump. These things just DON’T happen to the Red Sox…
Alex Rodriguez made an ass of himself in a way that only a $25-million-a-year arrogant prick could do, and he disgraced the game he plays. I wrote earlier that although I hate the Yankees, I respect each of them. Well, my respect for A-Rod went out the window somewhere around the bottom of the eighth inning last night. Not only is that a dirty, sneaky, cheating play, but it’s a play on which he easily could have broken Arroyo’s arm. He should be fined, suspended, and not allowed to play for the rest of the playoffs. Plenty of first basemen have injured their glove hands reaching out to make tags on runners barreling down the line (Cliff Floyd’s gruesome broken wrist comes to mind), but for Rodriguez to INTENTIONALLY go after Bronson is just iniquitous, and he needs to pay for it. If Wakefield starts tonight, the first relief pitcher buzzes A-rod. If anyone else starts tonight, Alex takes one the first time he bats with no one on.
I’ve got to admit, Mark Bellhorn saved this team last night. And I’ll take a full mea culpa for being one of the millions of people screaming at Tito to put in Pokey during the first four games when the Great Horned Strikeout Machine pulled a disappearing act, going 1-14 with 8 K’s in Games 1-4. But in Games 5 & 6, he’s 3-9 with 2 K’s, a walk, and that out-of-nowhere opposite field shot last night. Not stellar, but I’ll certainly take it.
No matter what happens tonight, I’m cheering my team on. I’m sitting in a corner, ignoring any and all attempts to contact me, and cheering my team on. Do they have it in them? I have no idea. Do we, as fans, have it in us? Well, I can’t speak for you, or really even for myself at this point, but I think so.
Personally, I need a couple of Xanax to calm my nerves. Hell, screw that. I need a bottle of Xanax, and a case of beers, and a nice, looooooooooooooooooong nap.
Damn, I love bang-qui.
posted by Big D @ 12:00 AM
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