17 Years Ago Today....

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
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Apr 12, 2001
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I'll always remember Derek Lowe walking off the mound after the seventh inning and Pedro coming out of the dugout to greet him and what a great chuckle they both had over what had been accomplished. Sometimes the cameras do catch the good stuff.
The fact that Lowe was the winning pitcher in the clinching games of the ALDS, ALCS and World Series is almost as shocking as the Sox coming back down 0-3 against the Yankees. I mean there was chatter that the Sox would be better if he wasn't going to be on the postseason roster. What a turnaround by him.

Edit: a few things that I remember, after Game 3 I was so annoyed and despondent about the Red Sox that I blew off free tickets to the Pats/Seahawks game and a Living Colour/Public Enemy show at the House of Blues and put away my Sox hat. I wore a 1986 Seattle Mariners hat that day and did not take it off until the final out of the World Series.

My wife and I were engaged but weren't living together. She's a Yankees fan, so she could not care less and was at her place while my life-long friends and I were at Oulde Magoon's Saloon in Somerville. It was almost exactly how I imagined the Sox winning the World Series to be. Bedlam and flanked by friends as we jumped up and down, spilling booze and not having a care in the world. Anyway, I called up my wife (she was asleep so i went to voice mail) and just screamed as loud as I could because I was so happy. The next morning she heard the message and proceeded to call me over and over and over again. I didn't pick up because I got home very late. She thought that I was dead. Which after she witnessed what the Sox did to her Yankees weeks prior, she should have known that it's damn near imposible to kill a Bostonian.
 
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JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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Lowe's arc in 2004 and his October redemption was like something out of a sports movie. During the last few Sox postseason runs, I've found myself wondering who might be the next down-on-their-heels Sox player to enjoy a similar resurgence and bask in unexpected postseason glory (I thought that Ryan Brasier had a decent case this year, but alas).
 

Dick Drago

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Mar 28, 2002
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I'll always remember Derek Lowe walking off the mound after the seventh inning and Pedro coming out of the dugout to greet him and what a great chuckle they both had over what had been accomplished. Sometimes the cameras do catch the good stuff.
I remember that as well, great moment.
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
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deep inside Guido territory
Lowe's arc in 2004 and his October redemption was like something out of a sports movie. During the last few Sox postseason runs, I've found myself wondering who might be the next down-on-their-heels Sox player to enjoy a similar resurgence and bask in unexpected postseason glory (I thought that Ryan Brasier had a decent case this year, but alas).
I guess the closest thing since has to be the JD Drew grand slam right?
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Mar 11, 2007
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I guess the closest thing since has to be the JD Drew grand slam right?
JD was already a good player in '07. Watching him play baseball was about as fun as watching banana pudding sit in a bowl..... I still forget that he was a Red Sox.
He did at least "seem" to struggle with getting an important hit but I don't think there was any possibility of his being left of the playoff roster and his defense was indisputably good.
Maybe JBJ in '18?
 

Archer1979

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Jul 18, 2005
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Lowe's sinker, when it was on, was devastating. The announcers kept drumming it into our heads during Game 7, that sinkerballers are better when they're tired.

His start in Game 4 of the ALCS, while it wasn't lights out, he actually left the game with the lead in the sixth after 88 pitches.

He was lights out in Game 7.

So maybe they knew what they were talking about.
 

Daniel_Son

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May 25, 2021
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Lowe's arc in 2004 and his October redemption was like something out of a sports movie. During the last few Sox postseason runs, I've found myself wondering who might be the next down-on-their-heels Sox player to enjoy a similar resurgence and bask in unexpected postseason glory (I thought that Ryan Brasier had a decent case this year, but alas).
I think Price had a somewhat-similar postseason redemption in '18. Struggled for years in the postseason, had a god-awful ALDS... but my god, he turned it around and was absolute nails the last two rounds. 7 innings of 1-run ball in Game 5 to close it out.
 

chrisfont9

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Lowe's sinker, when it was on, was devastating. The announcers kept drumming it into our heads during Game 7, that sinkerballers are better when they're tired.

His start in Game 4 of the ALCS, while it wasn't lights out, he actually left the game with the lead in the sixth after 88 pitches.

He was lights out in Game 7.

So maybe they knew what they were talking about.
It's too bad, for the purposes of this narrative, that his greatest thrown pitches were in 2003. For years I remembered his last pitch of the ALDS to Terence Long as his finest, but it was actually the pitch where he struck out Melhuse for out #2 that was even more ridiculous. Given that he was pitching to keep their postseason alive with the winning/eliminating run on second in the 9th, I don't think it got any more intense for Lowe than that. So maybe the narrative in 2004 isn't so much that he came out of nowhere as he was just turning on Postseason Derek again.
 

GB5

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Aug 26, 2013
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Lowe was in bad standing. There were rumors of alcohol, but they became really loud after he couldnt get out of the 2nd inning on a Saturday afternoon at the toilet after a huge Friday night late inning comeback by the Sox, when Cabrera poked a tying ground ball single to right, and I think Damon hit a blooper to center off Fruitbat in which Kenny Lofton decided to pull up on and not risk getting his uniform dirty on. the usually unflappable Fruitbat was openly pissed at him and for once it seemed like the Yanks were the ones collapsing. I thinktthe Sox had shaved about a 10 game leas down to about 1.5 games and Lowe was on the mound on Saturday afternoon with Pedro going Sunday. Lowe got nuked and once of the writers suggested that they heard he was out drinking all night Friday and was physically and mentally unprepared for his big start. Pedro lost the following day and the Sox dream of catching the Yanks for first was gone. This story stayed with Lowe for a while, and helped contribute to his nickname MIMBO (male bimbo)
 

BravesField

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Oct 27, 2021
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For me it was "Just give me one....one Championship title in my lifetime." So many of our parents who suffered for years waiting and waiting, never saw it. And when I came, I was content that no matter what else happened in the future....I had 2004. Little did I know that I'd have 3 more, but 2004.....You were the best......
 

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
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He was terrible during the regular season and there were rumors about heavy drinking IIRC. He was so great in '02 when he was converted to a starter. Took a step back in '03 but still very good. I think if he performed as he was expected to (or hoped to) during the regular season, that Sox team would likely have won over 100 and ran away with the division. His big back slide I suspect was the difference in 5,6 wins.
I know he had a bad regular '04 season (there on BBREF for all to see forever), plus the seen in bars stuff. But I figured the great years he'd had both as reliever and starter would make him a shoo-in for the 25. Worked out in any case, to say the least.
 

GlucoDoc

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Dec 19, 2005
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My dad was born in 1910. He had memories of the 1918 Red Sox world series win, about as clear as one might expect from an event at age 8, looking back decades later. He had been more of a Braves fan initially, but when they left town, it was the Sox. As he aged, the family joke was "Hey, Dad, you gotta live long enough to see the Sox win another one!" As time passed, however, we weren't sure he'd make it. During that season, he was in and out of rehab, not really able to read well, and with a failing memory. I would visit and read the newspaper sports reports to him.

But after that WS win, the first thing he said when I called him was "See, I made it!"

To which I replied, "That's just fine, dad. But you can't check out just yet. Lets discuss another goal for you to stick around for!"

He lived another year. I'm not sure whether or not trying to live to see another WS win really contributed to his longevity. But it didn't hurt! And on that day 17 years ago, we had no doubts that it was a factor.
 

Cornbread55

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Jul 16, 2005
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The Promised Land
I was living in Israel at the time, going to sleep at 10, waking at 2 or 3 a.m. to watch the playoff games, returning to bed for 1/2 hour before getting up at 6:30 for school (I'm a teacher). That morning, I woke my oldest daughter (11) up to watch the 9th inning with me. She wasn't so into baseball, but knew what it meant to me, so we sat and watched the final 3 outs, and then danced around in a circle on the round rug in our living room, silently, so as not to wake my ex-wife and younger daughter. I couldn't even go back to sleep at that point. The next day at school, where I'd been teaching for 7 years, a bunch of teachers and students congratulated me. Even though we were out in the boondocks (below sea level on the Jordanian border), they knew how much the Sox meant to me. Although I was working on about 4 hours of sleep I was so energized that day, that it just flew by.
 

grsharky7

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Jul 15, 2005
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I was a senior in college and watched it in my apartment. When they got the final out my roommate (Pirates fan from Pittsburgh) celebrated just as hard as I did. He had been there with me the year before for the game 7 collapse and saw the pain. In August he died unexpectedly of a congenital heart defect, it was just him and I in the apartment but he shared in one of the top 5 moments of my life. That connection to the moment is now gone, but still a great memory we had together. Then we went out with some other Sox fans at WVU and drank the night away on High St.

The one thing I remember vividly when they went up 3-0 was almost wanting them to lose game and clinch in 5. For some reason I was convinced that they’d turn around and blow a 3-0 lead themselves. The day of game 4 I had class with my buddy Chris Sedenka and I remember we were acting like expecting parents, discussing what we would do if they won that night. Of course they clinched and we celebrated accordingly.