Wait, do these games really count?

Apparently, Opening Day for the 2008 baseball season is today or tomorrow or soon. The reason why I can’t pin it down in my head is because the Red Sox and the A’s will play the opener in Japan. The Red Sox, in case folks have forgotten, play their home games in Boston. Though the so-called New England “hub” is home to all sorts of people from all over the world, it hasn’t picked up and moved to Japan. It’s still up there north of Cape Cod and south of New Hampshire last time anyone checked.

Oakland, the home of the A’s, remains in the United States of America, too. Out in California’s Bay Area, Oakland has the reputation as being the ugly cousin of next-door neighbor, San Francisco. But the truth is Oakland was named by Rand McNally as having the best weather in the U.S. And according to the 2000 U.S. census, Oakland is the most ethnically diverse city in the country.

Boston is also home to the most ravenous baseball fans in the country where the big-moneyed Sox have supplanted the deep-pocketed Yankees as baseball’s best team to hate. Perhaps winning the World Series twice in the past four years gives a team that kind of reputation.

The A’s, meanwhile, are the opposite of the Red Sox when it comes to buying the best players needed, but helped establish the blueprint for how modern baseball front offices are run. In essence, the Red Sox have cribbed the A’s and general manager Billy Beane’s notes only they have the cash to back it up.

However, in the early 1970s, the A’s were the most dominant and disliked team in baseball. With stars like Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue, the A’s won the World Series three years in a row with flamboyant and controversial owner Charlie Finley pulling the strings.

Plus, the A’s went to the World Series three years in a row from 1988 to 1990 and have been to the playoffs five times since 2000.

Needless to say the Red Sox and A’s have some impressive recent history and are clearly a pair of the better franchises in all of baseball. As a result, the fans in both cities are some of the savviest in the Major Leagues, which means a ballgame in Oakland or Boston – especially an Opening Day game – is as good a venue as any place in the world.

So why would the Red Sox and A’s want to play the first batch of baseball games of the season in Japan?

Well, actually they don’t, but the players got paid an extra $40,000 to make the trip to help Major League Baseball internationalize a game in a country where it already is king. The Japanese are as baseball crazy as any country in the world and the Japanese big leagues are more than just a proving ground for potential Major Leaguers.

It would be one thing if the Major League teams never staged exhibitions in Japan, but that’s not the case. In fact, U.S. ballclubs have been touring Japan since the 1930s when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig barnstormed through the Far East. Recently, big league All-Stars play Japanese All-Stars in a series up and down the island where they are just as well known as they would be in most big U.S. cities. After all, the American game is followed fairly closely in Japan. In fact, Japanese media outlets send teams of reporters to cover the dozens of Japanese players toiling away in the big leagues.

So why “internationalize” something that is just as ubiquitous there as it is here? Is MLB out-smarting itself again? Don’t you hate when that happens?

More importantly, the A’s are losing a pair of home games, which to the fans in Oakland is kind of like a kick in the crotch. Though there are 162 games in the baseball season, each one of them is precious and has equal importance. Think about how much wear-and-tear a team goes through by crossing the International Dateline in all-day flights just to play a game that feels like an exhibition but really counts toward the bottom line. And that’s not just the bottom line in the standings, either. It also counts in the stats ledger where ballplayers’ fortunes and futures are decided. Let’s just say a pitcher goes out and gets shelled because his body clock is all messed up from such a long trip. Or maybe he can’t shake the lethargy because he’s used to eating grits and home fries at the Waffle House on the way to the ballpark every morning and because he’s out of his tried-and-true routine, the pitches have no snap, his ERA balloons and he gets released at the end of the season.

Is that fair? And is it fair to assume that a Major League Baseball player knows there are no Waffle Houses in Japan. Come on… what was the first thing Kyle Kendrick asked the press when they played that little prank on him about getting traded to Japan? You remember — it was about the food.

“Do they have good food over there?”

Yeah, but don’t expect the International House of Pancakes to be truly international.

So the A’s and Red Sox opened the season in Japan and here in the U.S. fans are getting the shaft… again. Worse, the A’s are losing two games in their home ballpark, which can’t be replaced for any amount of cash.

Coming up: The Beijing Olympics followed by Jimmy Rollins. Later, we go to the ballpark.

The new dynasty?

So we live in a world where the Red Sox have won two of the last four World Series. Meanwhile, the White Sox, a club that had not won the Series since 1917, took the one of those titles during the Red Sox current “dynasty.”

What’s next? Will the Cubs finally win a World Series?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Anyway, two out of the last four counts for a pretty good dynasty these days. Though Major League Baseball does not have parity like the anti-American NFL, generally any team can win the World Series if they follow the Sox and Yankees’ formula. Since the institution of the Division Series in 1995, three teams have won the World Series more than once (the Yankees; the Marlins; and the Red Sox). That means any team can do it at least once… or at least get there. Only four teams (all of them expansion) haven’t won a pennant: the Mariners, Devil Rays, Rangers and the Nationals.

Of that four, one team clearly is not interested in winning.

The Red Sox second World Series title since 2004 makes one wonder what the hell they were doing for the 86 seasons between 1918 and 2004. No, there was no curse and people who believe in curses and jinxes in sports should put on their pink hat, untuck their jersey, sit down quietly in the club box seat, ask the waitress for another “Lite” beer and wait for the wave to come around again.

The real reason it took the Red Sox 86 seasons to win the World Series? They were stupid.

What’s the Phillies’ excuse? It approaching three decades since the Phillies’ last (and only) title, which would be worrisome if the Pirates had won since 1979, the Giants since 1954, the Indians since 1948, and, of course, the Cubs since ’08.

Ty Cobb was in his second full big-league season when the Cubs last won the World Series.

So how can the Phillies do what the Red Sox have done? Do they have to clean house of all the old-time thinking and get some new, fresh ideas like the Red Sox did? Do have to continue to build the team around their offense and the uber-cozy confines of their home ballpark? Hey, if the Rockies can win with good pitching at Coors Field, why can’t the Phillies do the same thing at Coors East?

Or do they need a manager like that Terry Francona who seems to always push the right buttons for the Red Sox over the last four seasons? Why can’t the Phillies ever get a guy like that?

***
As the World Series entered the late innings last night, whipper-snapper sideline dude, Ken Rosenthal, announced that Alex Rodriguez had opted out of his contract with the Yankees and will become a free agent.

No surprise there.

Some say the Phillies could take a big step at building a World Series contender by signing Alex Rodriguez as the team’s new third baseman. In theory, this is a nice idea, but for one season of A-Rod, the Phillies would likely have to pay him 30 times what they paid Ryan Howard in 2007. Besides, if I had to bet, A-Rod will not be playing third base in 2008… he’ll be playing shortstop for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox third baseman will likely remain Mike Lowell, who priced himself out of the Phillies’ budget last night by being named MVP of the World Series. If I had to guess, the Red Sox other free agent on the Phillies’ radar, Curt Schilling, will likely return to Boston for one more run, too.

Schilling and Lowell would (could?) fit in nicely with the Phillies, but maybe Joe Crede could fit in nicely at third base as well? As far as starting pitchers go, free agents Livan Hernandez, Bartolo Colon and Carlos Silva will cost more than $10 million per season. Is that out of the Phillies’ budget? If it is, perhaps Randy Wolf would be a bargain at $8 million or so?

Better yet, maybe the Phillies can work on a trade.

Next: The Trials are four days away, which means we will have all sorts of running stuff coming this week.

This past weekend I watched the Centennial Conference cross-country championships, which (damn-near literally) took place in my back yard. If there were such a thing as a cross country video game, the designers should have pixelized Baker Field. That’s because the rain on Friday and Saturday morning turned the course into the quintessential mess, featuring standing water, slippery mounds and mud so deep in spots that when I ran the course on Saturday afternoon, my foot was buried up to my calf.

Though the World Series is over and the baseball season has come to an end until the middle of February, we will continue to write about baseball here. I’d write about sports outside of my realm (baseball, running, cycling, etc.), but I’m not so interested and I’m not good at faking it.

PSA for Red Sox fans

The first rule of Fight Club…

Here’s my Saturday night:

Sitting downstairs with my laptop, remote and 1,529 Comcast Digital Cable channels, I found myself drawn to two different shows that were on simultaneously. One was Game 6 of the ALCS where the Red Sox bludgeoned the Cleveland Indians thanks in part to a pair of players that were once tied to the Phillies. One, of course, was the pitcher Curt Schilling, who came up big in another huge game. The other was J.D. Drew, whose first-inning grand slam pretty much ensured that there was going to be a Game 7 on Sunday night.

As the rout carried on into the middle innings I flipped to the epic movie, Fight Club where I found myself riveted to that scene where Ed Norton pummels the holy living hell out of Jared Leto in a hard, spare concrete basement. Folks who have seen the film agree that it’s a pretty ridiculous scene. It’s where Norton as Tyler Durden beats Leto, a soldier to the “movement,” with an unbridled rage and fury that leaves the onlookers to ponder the meaning of the beating. With Leto prone and Norton forcing his knees onto his chest to gain leverage in order to rain blows onto his face well past the breaking point, the camera switches to Brad Pitt, Norton’s alter ego, who simply shakes his head with disgust at the sight of Norton’s handiwork.

Clearly Norton/Durden didn’t “get it” at all, Pitt/Durden implied.

Nevertheless, Leto returned to the so-called “Project Mayhem” undeterred. With his face grotesquely swollen and most of his teeth scattered back on that basement floor, Leto’s character chastises Norton in a later scene for not sticking with the Nietzsche/Robin Hood principles of Project Mayhem. The message seems to be that Leto is clearly a “believer” who realizes that everyone has to take a beating every once in a while. Norton, on the other hand, is conflicted about his role as leader of a “guerrilla terrorist of the service industry.”

So as I’m flipping back and forth between the two beatings I was trying to figure out if I could apply the scene in Fight Club to either the Red Sox or Indians. Are the Red Sox like Leto in that they remained resolute in achieving the goals of Project Mayhem despite the beatings in three straight games that left them on the brink of elimination?

Or are the Sox more like Norton, who in the end of the movie has to destroy his alter ego in order to (re)gain control of himself?

Quickly I realized that my inner dialogue was just talking bleep. I was just looking to spice up a Saturday night spent in front of a laptop and TV.

Yes, it was all a stretch. The Red Sox and Indians is just another baseball series that will come down to one, final Game 7 tonight. Fight Club is nothing more than a movie based on a novel that, according to the author Chuck Palahniuk, is about “a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.”

I suppose that’s one way to look at it. I also suppose that when it comes down to it I was looking for some way to make the ALCS meaningful and relate it to the esoteric – yet mainstream – pop culture.

And I failed. It just doesn’t work.

Be that as it may, it should be interesting to see the Red Sox Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch in Game 7. Remember when he first arrived in the U.S. last spring? Remember how he was supposed to be the second-coming of Walter Johnson because he could pitch 900 innings a season and throw 300 pitches a game with his wacky, gravity-defying “GiroBall?”

Yeah, well, Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA in 32 starts in 2007 for the Red Sox. From a statistical standpoint, Matsuzaka is less like Walter Johnson and more like Paul Byrd but with more whiffs per nine innings.

Speaking of Paul Byrd…

Game 5: Three outs to go

When the Red Sox were three outs away from beating the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series, I woke up my then six-month old son and made him sit there with me to watch it end.

I thought the proper fatherly thing to do was to make sure that my son could say that he watched the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918. After all, the last time the Red Sox had won the World Series, my grandmother was my son’s age.

But like my 88-year old grandmother, my son was born into a world where the Red Sox were the defending World Series champions.

Tonight, my son is 2½ and fast asleep. I’m not going to wake him even though the Cardinals are three outs away from winning the World Series after Jeff Weaver mowed the Tigers down in the eighth and picked up his ninth strikeout of the game. These days it’s just too hard to get him back to sleep, especially with the threat of monsters moving into hiding places in his room while he watches the end of the game.

Besides, he’s already seen the Red Sox win it all. I’d never seen it until my mid-30s.

Generally, though, I don’t root for teams, but I’ll admit that I’m happy for Scott Rolen. He’s my favorite player to watch and as I’ve stated on these pages before, if my son is ever interested in playing baseball and wants to learn how I’ll tell him to copy No. 27 for St. Louis.

It would be much more fun if I could say No. 17 for Philadelphia.

But there is no sense re-hashing all of that.

St. Louis sits on the verge thanks to eight errors by the Tigers. I suppose that’s how this series will be remembered. The Pirates in 1979 was the last time a team made errors in each of the first five games of the World Series. But unlike “The Family,” the Tigers didn’t have the fire power – or Willie Stargell – to overcome their ineptitude.

Three outs to go. The boy is fast asleep.

20 years ago today…

… the ball slipped through Buckner’s legs at Shea.

I believe there should be a plaque on the grass behind first base marking the site where it occurred, like a historical marker or something. Every time I’m in that tiny visitors’ clubhouse at Shea I think about the scene after that Game 6 when workers had to tear down the podium and put away the champagne by the time the Red Sox made it from the dugout, down the narrow, plank board covered hallway and into the clubhouse.

During the entire inning, Bob Costas saw the entire scene unfold and was prepared to hand the Series trophy to Jean Yawkey and then MVP Award to Bruce Hurst.

Such a wild, wild game.

Here’s a re-enactment:

Better yet, here’s the Sports Illustrated account by Ron Firmite about Game 6 and the aftermath from Nov. 3, 1986.

Here you can pick up the bottom of the 10th with two outs and one on:

It’s the end of the world as we know it

Sadly, the World Series has not shaped out to be the series most people expected. From my angle, it appears as if the Cardinals’ pitching has broken down. After a long season — and without their top pitcher Chris Carpenter and an extremely ineffective Matt Morris — the Cards look whipped.

Worse, the middle of the Cardinals’ tough offense has been reigned in. Albert Pujols has picked up a few hits, but hasn’t been able to leave the yard. Meanwhile, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds are 1-for-22. Throw in Reggie Sanders and the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 hitters are 1-for-31.

Forget Jeff Suppan’s base-running blunder, the hitting and poor starting pitching are the reason for the Red Sox being ahead 3-0.

Then again, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist or baseball writer to figure that one out.

Now, all of New England is on edge like Bahgdad the day before the bombs dropped. It’s like Apocalypse Now up there. After 86 years of waiting, living and dying, suffering with their Olde Town Team, it seems as if the inevitable is going to happen.

The better story, of course, will be a big fold, but there is no way that can happen now.

Right?

Dan Shaughnessy, the so-called inventor of the Curse of the Bambino, on a program aired by my employer, said: “This is the end of the Red Sox as we know them.” He added that this story has become the biggest thing in the history of Boston (I beg to differ, but whatever) and that it has transcended sports in New England.

As far as that is concerned, he’s right.

Is this really happening?

Is this really happening? Can it be true? Are the Red Sox really poised to win the World Series? Can they get much closer than this… well, yes, they have, but that’s a different story. In fact, they were one pitch away six different times in Game 6 of the 1986 series and we all know what happened there. Still, there are a lot of people who never thought they would be alive to see the Red Sox finally win the World Series. Is this a sign of the Apocalypse? Is this how the end of the world looks? Geez, it feels really weird. I thought I was going to see it once before and was robbed, it almost feels anti-climatic.

Either way, the planets are aligned… literally. There is a full lunar eclipse tonight, which has never occurred during a World Series game. Oh yes, there are more signs than can be seen in the stars and the moon. How about a leadoff home run by Johnny Damon? Does that work for you?

Maybe it’s true what Dan Shaughnessy said on Comcast SportsNet today: “The Red Sox as we know them no longer exist.”

Top of 1
Damon, as mentioned above, laced the fourth pitch of the game from Jason Marquis into the bullpen in right field. As Damon circles the bases, the Sox poured out of the dugout. It looks like they can taste it. After Manny Ramirez walks and most of Marquis’ pitches miss the strike zone badly, Tony La Russa calls down to the bullpen to tell Dan Haren to be ready.

Damon’s homer is the only run, but it was a big one. The dye has been cast. Statues of Terry Francona and Curt Schilling are in the works. Nineteen-eighteen is starting to become just another number.

The Sox are 27 outs away.

Bottom of 1
Tony Womack lines Derek Lowe’s third offering into left-center for a single. He moves up on a sacrifice bunt by Larry Walker that probably wasn’t meant to be a sacrifice. So desperate are the Cardinals to conjure any semblance of a rally that their most productive offensive threat in the playoffs attempts to get it started by laying down a bunt.

Who would have guessed that the offense would have been reduced to this?

Womack goes to third on a groundout by Albert Pujols and the inning ends on a swinging bunt by Scott Rolen in which the big third baseman attempted a sprawling dive to avoid Lowe’s tag at first.

The Sox are 24 outs away.

Top of 2
Trying to find significant moments in history that occurred in St. Louis leaves one grappling for answers. Of course, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark started their great expedition from St. Louis. After that it was pretty quiet, especially during the Civil War when St. Louis and its home state claimed they were part of the Union but more or less straddled the fence. It kind of sounds like St. Louis and the Midwest of today – milquetoast, non-offensive, polite… you know, boring.

Anyway, the Dred Scott trials happened in St. Louis, and so did the 1904 Olympics, which coincided with the World’s Fair. Scott Joplin came from St. Louis and the ice cream cone and iced tea were introduced at the fair of 1904. Chuck Berry and Yogi Berra come from St. Louis as well.

In 1967, the Gateway Arch was opened, and besides having good Italian restaurants, riverboat gambling, a Super Bowl champion and some pretty good baseball teams, not much has really happened in St. Louis. Excluding Chicago, St. Louis is the hub of “flyover America.” I can’t count the times I had layover at Lambert Airfield.

Anyway, the Sox put two on with one out in the frame, but Marquis wiggled out of it.

Bottom of 2
Lowe retired the side in order on just 10 pitches. None of the balls hit into play by Jim Edmonds (1-for-12 in the series), Edgar Renteria and John Mabry were hit especially hard.

The Sox are 21 outs away.

Top of 3
Marquis gets himself into trouble again. Ramirez singled to push his post-season hitting streak to 17 games, but was thrown out trying to score on a grounder to first. It seemed as if Marquis was about to dance away from another jam when he walked Bill Mueller to load the bases before Trot Nixon pounded one that came a few feet away from a grand slam.

The two runs made it 3-0.

Due to bat second in the bottom half of the inning, it seemed as if La Russa was trying to get through the inning without wasting an arm in his bullpen. Still, he is going to have to mix-and-match with his pitching the rest of the way regardless. It’s all hands on deck for the Cards.

Bottom of 3
Oddly, Marquis stays in the game to hit. Not unusual, he grounded out. Lowe retired the side in order again, this time on just nine pitches.

The Cardinals look whipped. The fans at Busch Stadium look as if they are at a funeral. In some sense, I guess they are.

The Sox are 18 outs away.

Top of 4
Maybe Marquis has finally settled down. He sat down the Sox in order on 15 pitches, but it wasn’t without incident. Mental midget Manny Ramirez – and we don’t mean to offend dumb people by comparing them to Ramirez – seemed to get into a verbal joust with catcher Yadier Molina. Apparently, Ramirez didn’t like how tight Marquis was pitching him. Molina must have told him to stop being a girl.

Bottom of 4
Between innings, La Russa went out to tell home-plate umpire Chuck Meriwether that he was doing a shitty job. According to the broadcasters, La Russa looked at video of the pitches Lowe was throwing for strikes and pitches Marquis was throwing for strikes and determined that his guy was getting pinched.

Either way, La Russa’s hitters are doing a good job of making Lowe look like Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez. Walker flied out to right, Pujols whiffed on a chintzy curve, and Rolen popped out weakly on a first-pitch.

Very, very poor.

Lowe retired 12 in a row.

The Sox are 15 outs away.

Top of 5
Marquis walked Ortiz to start the inning, but rallies to retire the side in order after that. Still, La Russa finally got Haren up.

Bottom of 5
After retiring his 13th hitter in a row, Edgar Renteria lines a double to left-center. He advanced on a wild pitch, but was left stranded when John Mabry whiffed on what he thought was a foul tip. An argument ensued, but it got nowhere with Meriwether. I seem to recall players’ saying they thought Meriwether was one of the worst umpires in the big leagues in a Sports Illustrated.

Anyway, Lowe continues to deal. Through five innings, he’s thrown just 54 pitches.

The Sox are 12 outs away.

Top of 6
Johnny Damon picks up a two-out triple, but the Sox appear to have put it in cruise control. Like us, they are just counting outs now.

Marquis, likely, has pitched his final inning. He rebounded nicely, but the rough start appears have done him in. Baring something dramatic, the Cardinals are going to lose.

Bottom of 6
Quickly, just as he’s done all night, Lowe got ahead of every hitter and retired the first two he faced. However, Walker drew a walk to bring up the mighty Pujols. But Pujols appears to have caught the anemia that has plagued the Cards’ bats. After working an 0-2 count to 3-2, Pujols popped weakly to second base.

The Red Sox are nine outs away.

Top of 7
Haren finally gets in the game after Marquis threw 121 pitches – 58 for strikes – and blows away Ramirez to start the inning. He continues the solid pitching by getting a ground out and fly out to retire the side in order.

Hey, where was he earlier in the game? Then again, where have the Cards’ bats been?

Bottom of 7
It seems like this could be the last chance for the Cardinals. With the way Lowe and the Sox bullpen has been pitching, it doesn’t seem as if the heart of the biggest run-producing lineup in baseball will get a chance to hit again.

So it looks like Rolen will go hitless in the series after popping out to center. Edmonds will go 1-for-14 after doing the same thing. Though Renteria lined another hit to right, Mabry ended the inning by striking out again. This time there was no claim that he tipped the ball.

Lowe is dealing. A writer in Boston wrote that he had earned $8 million by beating the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS. My guess is that he got an extra $2 million for beating the Cardinals tonight.

The Red Sox are six outs away. The clouds are moving in… the night is eerily quiet.

Is this the end?

Top of 8
Haren stays in and gives up a single to Mueller to start the frame. Fox has started comparing life in America in 1918 compared to now. They have also started to show all the near misses by the Red Sox through the years.

But after Nixon laces his third double of the game to make it second and third with nobody out, it appears as if the party has begun in New England. La Russa calls on Jason Isringhausen to relieve Haren in a double switch which brings Reggie Sanders and his 0-for-9 hitting display into the game.

Interestingly, Isringhausen, the closer, gets into the series for the first time. He marks his debut by issuing a walk to Mark Bellhorn. But with the bases loaded, Isringhausen bounces back to blow away Kevin Millar. With Damon up, Isringhausen gets a grounder that Pujols fields going to his right, which causes him to make an off-balance throw to the plate to get the force.

After a nine-pitch battle with Orlando Cabrera, Isringhausen strikes out the shortstop with a high fastball.

Wow. The Cards made a stand and got out of a major jam.

Can it carry over to the offense?

Bottom of 8
Francona goes with Arroyo to pitch after a great job by Lowe. If the Sox hold on to win, Lowe will have pitched in all three of the team’s clinching victories as well as have earned himself some dough on the free-agent market.

Arroyo gets the first hitter out, but walks Sanders before Francona brings in the left-hander Alan Embree to face lefties Womack and Walker. However, despite some serious post-season experience, La Russa uses Hector Luna to hit for Womack.

Luna whiffs and Walker pops up to end the inning.

Just like that and the Sox are three outs away. Boston is now on alert.

Top of 9
Pretty easy for Isringhausen in his second inning of work. Wonder if he could have started for the Cardinals?

With two outs, Fox showed the Buckner play. I don’t think people in Boston care about that any more. It’s just a happy footnote now. Nothing more than part of the lore.

Here it comes…

Bottom of 9
Keith Foulke enters. Flashbulbs pop and I have pulled my six-month old son out of bed to watch the last three outs.

Amazingly, he opens his eyes from deep sleep and watches Pujols single. For a moment it appears as if the Cardinals have a little life in them. But Rolen flied to right and Edmonds whiffed before Renteria slapped one back at Foulke. As he calmly gloved it and trotted toward Doug Mientkiewicz at first, I felt chills go down my spine. The hair on my arms felt prickly and my heart skipped two beats.

Wow. So this is what it looks like to live in a world where the Red Sox are the champions.

As soon as Mientkiewicz squeezed it and the pile up started on the green infield grass, my thoughts raced a mile a minute. I felt as if I should cry or something like that as I thought about my grandfather and all the time we spent together watching games and hanging out at the track or his restaurants or at sportswriters banquets with who I thought were my heroes. Who would have guessed that the man I was with was really my hero instead of those ballplayers?

I thought about my old pal Johnny Pesky and all the years he spent wearing that uniform, never wanting to do anything else but contribute to his team and make the Red Sox world champs. I thought about how nice he was to me when I was a boy and how his patience with me and his devotion to the game made me love it as much as I could. I thought about how his devotion to the game made me want to do the same thing. How could I have a life that didn’t include baseball? Seriously, I would have to be crazy to want to have a job that didn’t include the game.

I thought about Bob Costas standing in the tiny visitor’s clubhouse at Shea Stadium with two outs in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Bob was getting ready to hand the World Series trophy over to club owner Jean Yawkey and the MVP trophy to Bruce Hurst. Soon after the big scoreboard in center field flashed the “Congratulations Red Sox… 1986 World Champs” message, all hell broke lose and Costas had to shuffle Yawkey out of the clubhouse and have the podium torn down and the World Champs t-shirt hidden before the shell-shocked Red Sox made it back from watching the ball squirt through Bill Buckner’s legs and into right field.

I wonder how often Costas thinks about that, because the whole image of it freaks me out. Someday I hope to ask him.

I also thought about myself as a little boy and other little kids who are now the way I was and how they will never know a world like the one I lived in. The 1986 World Series will mean nothing to them. It will just be another footnote in Red Sox and baseball history. Another bump in the insignificance of people playing games and making too much of a big deal about them.

I thought about Terry Francona and walking into his office for the first time during the summer of 2000. Even though everyone was taking shots at him and questioning his ability while writing him off as a loser, he never sold out his players nor stopped being a gentleman. It’s funny to see what happened when old Tito was given a good team to manage. Throughout the whole thing, he never let his players feel the heat. He took all of the arrows and never stopped treating people with dignity.

I thought about Bill Buckner and the hell he went through because he made a mistake in front of so many people. I thought about how his life must be different now. Perhaps he will be remembered as the guy who nearly collected 3,000 hits and won a few batting titles. Maybe people will remember that he was once recognized as one of the most feared hitters in the National League. Maybe they’ll find out that he was one of the game’s greatest competitors and not the guy who made a famous error.

And while were at it, who cares about Bucky Dent anymore either.

What about Nomar Garciaparra? I guess it looks like the Red Sox had to get rid of him if they wanted to win the World Series. Maybe his moodiness and arrogance just didn’t fit in with a team hell-bent to win a championship.

Then I thought about Johnny Pesky’s friend Ted Williams and how he never saw the Red Sox win a World Series. Then again, all of those great Red Sox players never saw their team win it. The list of names is endless.

And that racist Sox owner and the whiny, woe-is-us fans… what must they be thinking? What do they all do now?

Most of all, I thought about my boy, who was sitting on my lap watching it all unfold. He’ll never remember what he saw or that I got him up so that he can watch along with his dad something that had not occurred in neither his grandmother nor great-grandmother’s life. At one point he looked up at me with those beautiful blue eyes as if to say, “I know why you’re doing this dad, and no, you’re not crazy. One day when I’m older I’ll brag that my dad sat me on his lap when I was six months old to watch the Red Sox do something that was a big deal at the time. Thanks dad.”

I hope that there will be many more times that my son and I get to sit together and watch a game. That part feels better than any championship.

WP: Lowe
LP: Marquis
HR: Damon
Series MVP: Manny Ramirez

The Boston Red Sox have won the World Series.

We were all here to see it.

World Series Game 2

Good old Johnny Pesky was a part of the pre-game show on the Fox telecast. He also threw out the first pitch with his former teammates Bobby Doerr and Dom DiMaggio.

Pesky’s story, of course, is well known by Red Sox fans. But in the late 1950s, he managed the Lancaster Red Roses, who were a farm team for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time. It just so happened that my grandfather was a front-office type with the team and a local restaurateur, who catered to the town’s politicians, media types and athletes.

Essentially, my grandfather was the Toots Shor of Lancaster, Pa.

Anyway, because of the family connection, I got to know Pesky pretty well. In fact, the first time I met him was at the Cross Keys hotel in Baltimore where the Red Sox were staying during an important September series against the Orioles. Little did I know that Pesky’s Sox – he was the first-base coach – were in the middle of a colossal collapse that would culminate with Bucky Dent knocking one into the screen above the Green Monster in a special playoff game. All I knew was that I got to hang out in the hotel lobby with Don Zimmer, sat in a hotel room with a real big leaguer, got to go in the clubhouse before the game where I got a ball signed by the whole team, and then got kick-ass seats behind home plate for the big game. I remember Jim Rice blasting a home run that seemed to carry out of Memorial Stadium and little-used Larry Harlow hitting two homers to add to the Sox’s September woes.

Throughout my teens I wrote letters to old Johnny and he always wrote back and sent me autographs of the players. Yes, I still have them all.

One summer he called me at home from the clubhouse in Pawtucket, where he was managing, to answer questions for a story I was writing.

This past June, Pesky and I had a chance to catch up in the clubhouse before a game against the Phillies. Needless to say, that conversation is one of the highlights in all of my time covering Major League Baseball. I heard enough stories during that short time with Pesky in the Red Sox clubhouse to fill a couple of chapters of a book. It was a great, classic moment that I quickly ran upstairs to the press box to tell all of the other scribes, but won’t relate in here for obvious reasons.

Lets just say that neither Pesky nor I were too bashful about passing along information.

If the Red Sox win the World Series, I hope Pesky is on the bench so that he can take part in the celebration on the field. He deserves that much.

Game stuff
Joe Buck talked about how starter Matt Morris has had a very inconsistent season and a very shaky playoffs. In my opinion, Buck is being kind. Morris just plain stunk this season. A former 22-game winner, who seemed poised to become a perennial Cy Young Award candidate, Morris has battled nagging injuries and bad outings during the last two seasons. After winning 39 games through 2001 and 2002, Morris won just 26 games during the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Set to be a free agent at the end of the World Series, Morris really could pushed his financial worth to the level it was in 2001 with a strong postseason. Instead, he is 0-1 in three starts, and has a 5.29 ERA in 17 innings. Worse, opponents are hitting .270 against him, which about how well the opposition hit him during the regular season. It would be hard for a general manager to justify paying him more than the $12.5 million he’s making this season when more consistent pitchers will also be available in the free-agent market.

Once an automatic win for the Cards, Morris’ starts are similar to Derek Lowe’s for Boston.

Top of 1
Curt Schilling and his balky ankle don’t get into much trouble in a drizzly, chilly opening frame. Albert Pujols laces a two-out double in the left-center gap, but Scott Rolen gets robbed by third baseman Bill Mueller to end the inning.

It could be the first really good swing Rolen has had since the big homer off Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the NLCS.

Edgar Renteria started the game with a 12-pitch at-bat before grounding out to short.

Bottom of 1
Morris got the first two hitters to quickly ground out before suddenly losing all knowledge of the strike zone. He issued back-to-back walks to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz before catcher Jason Varitek blasted a long triple to the triangle in center.

Just like that and it’s 2-0. Oh, those bases on balls.

Morris walked Kevin Millar but rediscovers his magic ground-out pitch to end the inning.

Top of 2
Knowing that the TV cameras will zoom in his cadaver-sutured right ankle, Schilling wrote “K ALS” with silver marker near the injury. That, folks, is Curt Schilling in a nutshell. He knows where the cameras are at all times.

Schilling gets a lot of help when Mueller makes another nice play by turning a sure RBI double for Mike Matheny into an inning-ending, unassisted double play.

Good pitching is fifty percent good fielding.

Bottom of 2
Morris gives up a leadoff single to Mueller and appears to shake off Matheny on two straight pitches before settling on one he likes and coaxing a double-play grounder out of the Game 1 hero Mark Bellhorn. When he strikes out Johnny Damon, Morris looks like his old self.

Top of 3
Schilling retires the side in order on just nine pitches. Believe it or not, it looked easier than that.

Bottom of 3
It didn’t take nine pitches, but Morris tore through the Sox hitters to retire the side with just 14 pitches. Interestingly, Morris had stuck with his fastball and changeup instead of his bread-and-butter curve. Either way, he ahs retired six in a row.

Top of 4
Pujols leads off with another double and smartly moves up to third when Trot Nixon tumbled to catch a flare by Rolen. If Pujols had not moved up, he would not have been able to score when Mueller booted a slow roller by Sanders.

The defense giveth and it taketh away.

Schilling is starting to find his groove. Aside from Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds had some sloppy looking swings. It appears as if Schilling’s two-seamer has a lot of bite.

Bottom of 4
Just as quickly as Morris found his good form, he lost it. A curveball got away from the right-hander and plunked Kevin Millar. Then, with two outs, Morris gave up back-to-back doubles to Millar and that wily Bellhorn.

There are two more RBIs for Bellhorn and a 4-1 lead for the Sox. So far, the unsung second baseman is the MVP of the series.

Top of 5
Schilling gives up a first-pitch single to Matheny, but quickly strikes out former teammate Marlon Anderson before coaxing a 6-4-3 double play from Renteria.

Yeah, Schilling is starting to look tough to solve. Since he has only thrown 73 pitches (48 strikes), the big righty will probably be out there for a while.

Bottom of 5
The unraveling of Morris continued with a leadoff walk to Orlando Cabrera. Though he almost plunked Ramirez before retiring him on a fly, Morris gets the hook in favor of Cal Eldred. But while Eldred is making his way in from the bullpen, the folks at Fox are too busy talking to Tom Hanks and Jimmy Fallon atop the Monster.

Hanks is cool and is an admitted Oakland A’s and American League fan, but Fallon could be doing more with the tiniest bit of talent than any man in America. For that he deserves kudos, but we don’t want to watch him shill a shitty movie while Cal Eldred is on his way in… come on. Think of how hard Eldred worked to get to the World Series only to have it ruined because a talentless actor is doing a faux Southie accent.

When Eldred finally gets the stage, Ortiz slams a long and loud foul past Pesky’s Pole for a scary strike before getting the big fella to fly out. Then he drills Varitek on his elbow armor to put two on with two outs.

However, Eldred gets out of the jam with a nasty hook to catch Millar looking on a 3-2 count.

Come to think of it, as far as stars go Tom Hanks could be as big as they get. Who cares about Cal Eldred?

Top of 6
Schilling gets Walker to whiff on a splitter that was neatly set up by a four-seam fastball. He moves that four-seamer in and out to Pujols, getting him to fly weakly to right. Then with two strikes, Rolen reaches on another error by Mueller though Schilling had his old teammate on his heels using a mix of two and four-seamers.

Nevertheless, Mueller tied a World Series record with three errors in one game.

When Rolen reaches, lefty Alan Embree starts warming up in the ‘pen. The reliever looks on as Bellhorn boots one to give the Sox their fourth error of the game, but Schilling pitches around it by getting Sanders to ground out to Mueller.

That’s eight errors in 15 innings for the Red Sox. Surprisingly Mueller, who I remember as a pretty good fielder and someone I talked to about various types of infielders gloves when he was with the Giants, is struggling out there.

Bottom of 6
Fox showed Terry Francona huddling with Schilling when the inning ended, which allowed Buck and Tim McCarver to speculate whether or not big pitcher was finished for the night. Embree, the Civil War officer look-alike, is ready to go in the ‘pen.

Chatty Ray King looks loose and ready to go, but he is most likely going to face Ortiz. Perhaps La Russa should have used him earlier because Eldred gave up a pair of two-out singles to plate two more runs. After Ramirez collected a wind-blown single, King finally got to face Ortiz.

King gets a strikeout on Ortiz, but the Cards are in a hole because they can’t get that elusive third out. All six of the Red Sox’s runs have come with two outs. Because of this, it would make sense to pull Schilling and let the bullpen take care of the five-run lead.

Top of 7
Stonewall Embree enters for Schilling and so does Pokey Reese to shore up the Sox defense. But the fielders could have taken a seat on the grass after Embree whiffed the side in order to send the game into Donna Summer’s rendering of “God Bless America.”

Probably the most interesting part of the game so far was an interview with a 79-year old fan sitting in the bleachers named Annie. Old Annie really knew her stuff and was scoring the game when Chris Myers started talking to her.

Bottom of 7
La Russa brings in the probable Game 4 starter Jason Marquis to give him some work and calm his World Series nerves. Buck says he likes the move, but forgets to mention that Marquis pinch ran and scored a run in Game 1.

Still, it doesn’t stop Varitek to bash another one to the triangle that Edmonds had to make a tough over-the-shoulder catch to save extra bases. After two walks, Marquis’ maiden is officially broken with a scoreless inning.

Top of 8
It’s do-or-die time for the Cardinals. If they are going to make a dent into the lead it better happen now or it’s going to be a 2-0 series.

With that in mind, Renteria draws a leadoff walk off reliever Mike Timlin and Pujols gets his third hit with a one-out single. But Rolen lifts a sacrifice fly for the second out to make it 6-2 as Timlin gives way to Keith Foulke.

That’s bad news for the Cards. Foulke comes in and quickly strikes out Edmonds to end the minor threat.

Bottom of 8
Al Reyes sits down the Sox in order – Damon, Cabrera and Ramirez. Buck points out that Reyes was the pitcher who plunked former Sox’s star Nomar Garciaparra on the wrist that started a string of injury-filled seasons for the star-crossed shortstop.

It was also noted that Reyes was left off the roster for the first two rounds of the playoffs and was only added when Steve Kline was deemed too hurt to pitch in the series. Needless to say, Kline was pretty pissed off.

Top of 9
The cardinals appear to be in some real trouble. Down 2-0, they now must go to St. Louis and beat Pedro Martinez to avoid an insurmountable 3-0 deficit. That’s going to be tougher than normal because these Sox can feel it. They know they are just two more victories away from finally doing it.

Yessir folks, maybe the world really is coming to an end.

Still, no one has mentioned that the Red Sox had a 2-0 advantage over the Mets in the 1986 World Series.

We all remember how that one ended, don’t we?

WP: Schilling
LP: Morris
HR: none

World Series Game 1

I can think of only two World Series that have piqued my interest as much as the 2004 matchup between the Cardinals and Red Sox. Oh sure, I’ve been interested in all of them and probably have watched every single series since 1978, but I get the feeling that something great is going to happen this season. Maybe it’s because my favorite former Phillie player and manager are involved.

Then again, there is a very real chance that the Red Sox could finally win the World Series. I thought I was going to see it happen back in 1986 as I sat on a reclining chair at my parent’s house on Woods Avenue in Lancaster, Pa., but that life-changing 10th inning of Game 6 unfolded like a bad horror movie.

That game from that anticipated series between the Mets and Red Sox is probably my favorite ever. Yes, I rooted for the Red Sox, but there was so much drama, plot twists and turns and fateful plays that I have rehashed it and re-played it in my head so many times.

I can’t help but think about Bob Costas and Jean Yawkey standing on a makeshift platform every time I walk into the visitor’s clubhouse in Shea Stadium. How surreal must have that been?

I believe there should be a historical plaque marking the spot in the Shea Stadium turf behind first base where the ball skipped through Buckner’s legs. Looking out at that spot from a close vantage point is like examining the crack in the Liberty Bell or something.

More than the 1980 series and the 1993 series, which I attended as an employee of the Phillies, the ’86 series stands out. Forget Buckner, what if Clemens hadn’t got that blister in Game 6? Or what if the manager John McNamara had gone with another reliever instead of Calvin Schiraldi to pitch the ninth? Better yet, what if McNamara had put in Dave Stapleton at first instead of leaving Buckner out there so he could be on the field for the celebration?

Like he wouldn’t be able to hobble out to the pile from the third-base dugout.

What about our friend Pesky? Was he there? Did he see it? What did he think? (Ed. Note: nice touch by the Red Sox for including him in the pre-game introductions. This group of Sox management gets it.)

So many questions. So many answers. It never ends.

Anyway, more on other memorable series’ later. First, however, a note: the Sox and Cards have both gone to the seventh game in all of their recent appearances in the World Series. The Red Sox went to seven in 1986 against the Mets, in 1975 against the Reds, and in 1967 and 1946 against the Cardinals.

For the Cardinals, they went seven games in 1987 against the Twins, in 1985 against the Royals, in 1982 in a win over the Brewers, in 1968 against the Tigers, the winning 1967 season, the breakthrough victory over the Yankees in 1964, and the victory in ’46.

The Red Sox are 5-4 in the World Series, while the Cardinals are 9-6. From 1903 to 1918, the Sox were the Yankees before the Yankees were the Yankees. They won five titles before anyone even knew what the hell the World Series was.

Now, here’s Game 1.

Top of 1
Tim Wakefield has the knuckler knuckling. Edgar Renteria whiffs to start the game, but Wakefield recovers after Larry Walker’s double to the right-field corner by getting Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen to weakly pop up.

I guess Rolen didn’t follow his adage for hitting a knuckle ball. He once told me, “If it’s low let it go – if it’s high let it fly.”

Wakefield gets out of the first on 18 pitches.

Bottom of 1
Johnny Damon pokes a double down the line in left to start it off for the Red Sox on what Tim McCarver called “an exquisite” at-bat. Damon fouled off three 3-2 pitches in a row before dropping his bat head on a low and outside pitch from Woody Williams.

It was “exquisite” indeed. Damon made Williams throw 10 pitches, which gave his teammates a good chance to see Williams’ repertoire.

Orlando Cabrera attempted to bunt Damon to third, but was drilled on a 0-2 pitch that got away from Williams. The fans at Fenway booed, but they’re idiots. The last thing Williams wants to do is put runners on base.

Clearly Williams is rattled. Manny Ramirez lines a screamer toward Pesky’s Pole in right that Walker somehow grabs. Then David Ortiz wrapped one around the pole for a loud and long three-run blast. Before Ortiz could find his seat in the dugout, Kevin Millar pokes one high off the Monster for a double.

Ouch.

As if that wasn’t enough, Bill Mueller laced one inside the third-base bag for an RBI single. Mercifully, Doug Mirabelli – the No. 8 hitter – strikes out to end the inning after four runs, four hits and 28 pitches.

None of those pitches were more important than the 10 Damon saw to set up the inning.

Top of 2
The Red Sox employed the old over shift for left-handed hitting Jim Edmonds, so the slugger dropped a bunt down toward third for a single.

“If he would have bunted it harder he would have had a double,” McCarver quipped.

After Reggie Sanders walked, Tony Womack bunted both runners over to set up Mike Matheny’s sacrifice fly. Talk about a National League run.

Wakefield ends the threat with another strikeout and keeps the 4-1 lead.

Bottom of 2
Mark Bellhorn drops in a flare to left for a single and makes me think that he could turn out to be the wild-card player of the series in the mold of former light-hitting middle infielders. Brian Doyle, Bucky Dent, Mark Lemke, Buddy Biancalana and David Eckstein spring to mind as players who often had a difficult time at the plate but smashed the ball all over the place in the series.

Then there is Marty Barrett, the old Red Sox second baseman who got 12 hits in the 1986 World Series. Maybe Bellhorn will turn out to be Barrett. Then again, maybe he won’t get another hit and give way to Pokey Reese.

Williams gets into some two-out trouble when Ramirez singles and Ortiz walks. Millar comes up and takes a vicious cut with the sacks juiced. Looks like the Sox are on to Williams. No worries though, Millar grounds to Rolen and Tony La Russa gets Danny Haren up in the ‘pen. Then again, he should – Williams has thrown 48 pitches through two frames.

Top of 3
Walker homers around the pole in right to cut the lead in half. It appears as if Walker has figured out Wakefield.

How tough is the Cardinals’ lineup if Larry Walker is hitting in the two-spot?

Wakefield follows the homer by plunking Pujols with a curveball, but Rolen grounds into an around-the-horn double play to end the threat before it even got started.

Bottom of 3
After coaxing a groundout to start the inning, Williams loads the bases on a pair of walks and a single high off the wall in left by Mirabelli.

“He’s in a ton of trouble,” McCarver says.

After Damon’s RBI single, La Russa gives Williams’ trouble to 24-year old Danny Haren. Cabrera greets the kid with a hard single to left, and now the right-hander is knee-deep in the mess. Ramirez grounds sharply into a fielder’s choice to drive home his first run in two weeks. After Ortiz walks on four pitches, Haren got Millar – the ninth hitter of the inning – to ground out.

Fox showed Williams blowing a bubble in the dugout, which is funny because it had already popped.

Geez, it’s 7-2.

Top of 4
Went downstairs to get something to eat so I missed Wakefield walk the bases loaded on 14 pitches. However, I saw Matheny lift a sacrifice fly to right to score Edmonds and Millar’s throwing error on the cut-off to score Sanders. Then I saw So Taguchi hit a chopper to third that Mueller fielded cleanly, but couldn’t get out of his glove in time to throw Womack out at the plate.

Then I saw Wakefield walk Renteria on five pitches, and get the hook before Bronson Arroyo came in to give up a single to right to Walker. Oddly enough, the Cards tacked on three more runs on just Walker’s hit. Wakefield’s four free passes more than Millar’s throwing error helped St. Louis get back in it.

Bottom of 4
Pretty freaking cool… Fox just aired a miked conversation between Sanders and Cabrera where Sanders said: “I know you weren’t trying to throw elbows (on a takeout slide in the third), but it looked like you were trying to throw elbows.”

How’s that for a polite, “Don’t do that shit again, or we are going to come gunning for your scrawny shortstop ass.”

Good work by Fox.

Not so cool, at least as far as the Cards are concerned, was the pair of walks Haren dished out to start the inning. But he got three straight flies, including one snagged by Walker that got hung up in the wind, to wiggle out of trouble.

Top of 5
Hey what happened? Bronson Arroyo is dealing. He retired the side in order with two whiffs, but still looks like he needs a pair of glasses when peering in to see the signals.

Bottom of 5
Haren still in there and throwing OK. The Red Sox are getting some pretty good swings at him, but good pitching comes thanks to good fielding. Where the Cardinals might have the edge in this Series is with the leather – they can really go get it. Rolen, Matheny and Edmonds will win the Gold Glove at their positions, while Renteria and Walker have won a few in they day as well.

Top of 6
It was 49 degrees at game time and it’s starting to get a little windy. During the past few innings, balls hit to right field are a bit of an adventure.

More of an adventure has been Arroyo. Clearly the Cardinals appear to be baffled by his sweeping, high leg kick and breaking pitches. Still, Taguchi beats out a bleeder and takes second when Arroyo’s boneheaded throw to first skips past Millar and into the seats.

Still, Arroyo made Renteria look uncomfortable with his breaking pitches, quickly getting two strikes on the shortstop. But then Arroyo leaves one out over the plate and Renteria, savvy World Series vet that he is, laces it in the gap for a double. Not to be outdone, Walker gets his fourth straight hit and second double to drive home another run.

Suddenly, just like that, it’s tied.

Lucky No. 7 for both clubs.

Bottom of 6
Haren is still in there. In fact, he retired the side in order. Since entering the game with one out in the third, Haren has allowed just a pair of walks and hits. He’s also retired nine of the last 10 hitters he has faced.

I just thought of something: the announcing team of Joe Buck and McCarver has some tight St. Louis ties. Buck, as everyone knows, is the play-by-play man during the season for the Cardinals, while McCarver played for the Cardinals from 1959 to 1969 and then again from 1973 to 1974.

McCarver also played parts of the ’74 and ’75 seasons for the Red Sox so I guess that evens it out.

Top of 7
Mike Timlin relieves Arroyo and faces Rolen to start the inning, who, coincidentally, were traded for one another. Timlin, obviously, got out of Philadelphia after an unhappy half season there. He was very bummed out about being traded from St. Louis to Philly. I think he got into a fight on the street on his first day in town.

Yeah, fun guy.

Either way, he retired the side in order so that Kelly Clarkson could sing “God Bless America.”

Bottom of 7
La Russa yanks Haren after 69 pitches in favor of right-hander Kiko Calero, who immediately walks Bellhorn. Lefty Ray King is warming up in the bullpen, presumably to face Ortiz. The cameras show King (big friendly and chatty guy) standing there with his hands on his hips ready to come in, while Calero walks Cabrera and then allows Ramirez to belt a run-scoring single to center.

Edmonds had a chance to nail Bellhorn with a good throw, but he airmailed it. So with runners on the corners, King finally comes in to face Ortiz, who promptly hits a grounder at Womack at second that takes a weird hop and nails the Cardinal square on the sternum just below his throat.

Womack has to leave the game, they give Ortiz a single and moody Marlon Anderson enters. Had the ball not taken such a nasty bounce, King and the Cardinals would have escaped the inning trailing by just one run. Instead, King had to give way for Cal Eldred after Millar popped out and skipper Terry Francona called for right-hander Gabe Kapler to pinch hit for Trot Nixon.

After Kapler whiffs, Fox shows Ramirez celebrating on his way to first after his hit instead of digging hard for second. What they didn’t say is that it was a typical Manny move. To call Ramirez dumb would be an insult to dumb people.

It’s 9-7 with the bottom third of the lineup coming up for the Cardinals.

Top of 8
Matheny singled with one out and as I was marking it in my book I noticed that he has two sacrifice flies in the game. I bet that’s a World Series record.

From here on out, both managers will be making moves based on matchups. As soon as La Russa sends pitcher Jason Marquis to run for Matheny and Roger Cedeno to hit for Taguchi, Francona pops out of the dugout to hook Timlin and bring in lefty Alan Embree.

Is it me or does Embree not look like a Civil War officer with his droopy mustache and big chaw of tobacco? Either way, Stonewall Embree gives up a flared single to right and exits as quickly as he entered. Interestingly, Francona taps closer Keith Foulke to get the final five outs. Still, if Foulke is going to earn the tough save, he’s going to have to do it against the meat of the Cardinals’ order… with two on, no less.

Nevertheless, Foulke has not allowed a run in his last 11 outings (since Sept. 22), and has only given up five hits over that same span. Still, that doesn’t stop Renteria from slapping a single to left that somehow got Marquis home.

Marquis made it to third easily enough, seemed content to stop there, but then appeared to have run through a stop sign and head home. He would have been out by a step if catcher Jason Varitek had been able to get the tag down.

TV replays didn’t show what happened, but Ramirez was charged with an error on the play.

TV replays did show Ramirez’s next error. As the absent-minded left fielder was attempting to slide to catch a fast-falling fly by Walker, his knee got stuck on the turf causing him to lurch forward as the ball bounced off his glove and toward the corner.

Just like that, it’s all tied again.

Bottom of 8
Julian Tavarez enters and his fastball seems to be moving all over the place. Unfortunately for him, and perhaps a water cooler and bat rack a bit later, he stuck one over the inside portion of the plate and Bellhorn crashed it off the Pesky Pole for a two-run donger. If this series is going to continue to be played this way, there are going to be a lot of nervous and sick people at the end of next week.

Geez. What was it that I wrote about Bellhorn? Am I a sage or what?

Top of 9
Tavarez quietly sat down in the visitor’s dugout at Fenway, but you know he wants to firebomb the place. Instead he gets to sit there and watch Foulke whiff Sanders on three pitches. Moody Marlon’s double to left forced the tying run to the plate, but Foulke got Yadier Molina to pop up and Cedeno to fan to end the game.

The Red Sox are three wins away.

WP: Foulke
LP: Tavarez
HR: Ortiz, Walker, Bellhorn.

Fox just showed that 13 of the last 16 World Series winners have taken the first game and 59 of the 99 World Series winners have taken the first game. What they didn’t show was that the Red Sox have won Game 1 in 1986, 1975 and 1946. They lost all three of those.

The didn’t forget to mention that the 20 runs are the most ever scored in a Game 1, or that Ortiz tied a club record with four RBIs in a World Series game. Carl Yastrzemski drove in four against the Cardinals