the 2004 ALCS, ten years later

[Pandemonium67]

I'm truly amazed by any Sox fan who wasn't a bunch of twisted, jangled nerves before and during Game 7.  I had huge hope but certainly nothing that could be construed as confidence.
 
Yes, the pressure was on the wanks. They were the ones faced with earning an all-time gag label.  But that's for players, not fans.
 
To me 2003 ALCS Game 7, with a lead, Pedro on the mound and an excellent bullpen behind him, the Holy Grail was well within reach.  To miss it, especially in the fashion they did (fuck you, Gump), was one of the biggest nut punches ever. It was a nut punch that could only be topped by something so improbable as to be completely and utterly unprecedented...
 
...such as coming all the way back from 0-3 only to lose it in Game 7.  That would've been the mother of all nut punches, and that's why I couldn't sleep.

 

[canyoubelieveit]

In a vacuum, I can see how one could be calm about Game 7 for the reasons described.  But anyone who had been emotionally invested in 2003 and 1986 (and 1978 and 1975 and 1967 and earlier...I was too young for those) had to either believe in the Curse or some less irrationally superstitious equivalent.
 
Late in Game 7, I realized that one way or another we were about to witness the worst collapse in baseball history, and I still wasn't sure which side it would be.

 

[Hendu for Kutch]

I can't say the utter confidence was entirely rational.  Naturally, how can anyone be justifiably confident in a 1-game scenario in a sport where the best teams traditionally lose 40% of the time?
 
But the unnatural fear that permeated Red Sox fandom had been stripped away from me by what had happened the 3 games prior.  As a Sox fan I was raised and conditioned to expect that the nut-punch was coming at some point.  But for 3 straight games, despite dozens of nut-punch scenarios, none were landed.  In fact, several were landed going the other way.  As others have said, there were SO many moments where the game/series hinged in the balance in games 4-6 and NONE of them fell the Yankees way.  The Bellhorn non-HR call and the slappy plays both immediately screamed out "oh shit, this is where it happens".  Tony Clark...that was the CHB dream nut-punch scenario.  But it didn't happen.  The fear was gone, rational or not.

 

[MakeMineMoxie]

I'm truly amazed by any Sox fan who wasn't a bunch of twisted, jangled nerves before and during Game 7.  I had huge hope but certainly nothing that could be construed as confidence.

 
Amen.  I never counted outs before Game 7.  Watching the last innings with Fox showing Yankee fans committing mental seppuku was like savoring a fine drink.
 
Before the DS started, my boss asked me how I thought the Sox would do.  Told him they would beat the Angles & to purge the ghosts, beat the MFY in the ALCS & beat St. Louis in the WS to atone for 1946 and 1967.  Should have bought a lottery ticket that day!

 

[JohntheBaptist]

I can't say the utter confidence was entirely rational.  Naturally, how can anyone be justifiably confident in a 1-game scenario in a sport where the best teams traditionally lose 40% of the time?
 
But the unnatural fear that permeated Red Sox fandom had been stripped away from me by what had happened the 3 games prior.  As a Sox fan I was raised and conditioned to expect that the nut-punch was coming at some point.  But for 3 straight games, despite dozens of nut-punch scenarios, none were landed.  In fact, several were landed going the other way.  As others have said, there were SO many moments where the game/series hinged in the balance in games 4-6 and NONE of them fell the Yankees way.  The Bellhorn non-HR call and the slappy plays both immediately screamed out "oh shit, this is where it happens".  Tony Clark...that was the CHB dream nut-punch scenario.  But it didn't happen.  The fear was gone, rational or not.

But... the series wasnt over yet. The nut-punch could have happened in Game 7. I'm not saying I dont believe you, I just dont understand it. None of 4-6 mean anything if they didnt get Game 7. The thought of being that effectively trolled, again, somehow one-upping the year before's already very high bar, was paralyzing. I started letting myself start to enjoy it after Damon's GS, and felt pretty solid after the 2nd HR, but I never relaxed until it was done.

 

[canyoubelieveit]

I had forgotten about this, but I actually tried to put money on the Yankees for this series.  It's repulsive in retrospect, but I was so sick and tired of losing I thought I should hedge my bets.  I asked myself how much I'd be willing to pay to have the Red Sox beat the Yankees (and how much I could afford, which wasn't much), and I think I decided on something like $500 or $750 or something.  I wanted to find a legal way to bet that so if the Red Sox lost, at least I'd have something to feel good about.
 
Anyways, I was (and still am) naive about sports betting and I couldn't figure out how to do it.  I even remember calling a casino in Las Vegas to ask them how I would go about it, and they explained that I'd have to be there in person.

 

[HriniakPosterChild]

But... the series wasnt over yet. The nut-punch could have happened in Game 7. I'm not saying I dont believe you, I just dont understand it. None of 4-6 mean anything if they didnt get Game 7. The thought of being that effectively trolled, again, somehow one-upping the year before's already very high bar, was paralyzing. I started letting myself start to enjoy it after Damon's GS, and felt pretty solid after the 2nd HR, but I never relaxed until it was done.

Exactly. It was Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football back then.

 

[joyofsox]

 
Bigger is better!

 

[joyofsox]

 
Matsui looks down a dark tunnel and sees the eyes of his god at 1:30:00 in the video.

 

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Bigger is better!

God damn right it is. Replacing my old tiny one on file...
 
Truly one of my absolute favorite images from that night. I fucking hate that shitstain.
 

 

[8slim]

I was at game 3 with my father, who hadn't been to a Sox playoff game since attending every home game of the '67 World Series.

On the T ride back to Riverside that night after the horrific beatdown we had a sincere, matter of fact conversation about how I would place a pennant on his grave *if* the Sox ever won a title in *my* lifetime.

He was 55 at the time and I was 31.

The next morning I drove back home to CT and made my peace with the Sox. I accepted that I wasn't a fan because I expected a championship, it was because the team was a part of my family history, going back to when my great grandparents immigrated from the old country.

Maybe that's what it took?!

 

[bosox188]

God damn right it is. Replacing my old tiny one on file...
 
Truly one of my absolute favorite images from that night. I fucking hate that shitstain.
 

 
I liked him in The Princess Bride.
 
In fact, he should have known better than anybody, when the Sox were down 0-3, they were only mostly dead.

 

[ToeKneeArmAss]

We were up 10-3 in the 9th and I was still curled in the fetal position rocking back and forth thinking "This is going to SUCK when they lose." I never believed it was really possible until it was over.

 

[dwainw]

 

In a vacuum, I can see how one could be calm about Game 7 for the reasons described.  But anyone who had been emotionally invested in 2003 and 1986 (and 1978 and 1975 and 1967 and earlier...I was too young for those) had to either believe in the Curse or some less irrationally superstitious equivalent.
 
Late in Game 7, I realized that one way or another we were about to witness the worst collapse in baseball history, and I still wasn't sure which side it would be.

 

I never believed in the curse.  I always just assumed God hated me.

As for 2004:  Numbness.  That's the feeling remember.  At least until about 2/3 of the way through game 6.  After all those years of heartbreak, and particularly after the cruelty of 2003 and game 3 of '04, I had programmed myself not to "feel" during many of those potential series ending moments of games 4 - 6.  I continued to watch, inning after inning, with some combination of morbid curiosity and incredulity.  But even those moments of elation I allowed myself to experience (following the Mueller hit and Papi's game winners) were tempered by that lingering sense of dread about the inevitable impending loss of yet another post-season to the Yankees. Something in my psyche shifted after the Slappy play, and after Foulke took care of Clark--and the historical significance of simply forcing a game 7--I gave myself permission to hope.  But unlike some of you, I never, ever relaxed.   

I also agree with the idea that the Red Sox had to win that World Series for it all to really matter.  Sure, it would have been a nice memory and a satisfying black eye rendered against the Yankees, but the angst and the agony would ultimately have continued to build.  For me, the biggest emotional release came after the World Series.  I rejoiced (to say the least) after game 7 of the ALCS.  But after game 4 of the W.S., I wept like a baby.

 

[canyoubelieveit]

One of the happiest, most cathartic experiences of my life was watching the ALCS games again for the first time after the World Series had ended.  At some point I think NESN replayed the games, and a friend of mine from Boston recorded them (on VHS!) and mailed them to me in California.  I still keep those tapes, along with a collection of Boston newspapers from every day from game 4 on (plus a random Jerry Trupiano signed scorecard from World Series game 4), in a box that looks like a pirate's treasure chest.
 
Like others have said above, winning the World Series was absolutely critical...both for its own sake, but also to allow us to completely savor what had happened in the ALCS without an asterisk.  Even after they won the ALCS, I was worried that something horrible would happen in the Series to taint the memory.  I half expected us to blow a 3 games to none advantage in the Series and immediately join the Yankees in infamy.  Then it would be right back to "1918", the 3-0 comeback distinction would be cruelly linked to another heartbreak, and the Yankees would still have all their rings.
 
From 2004 until about 2008 or 2009, every time I'd fold the laundry I'd pop one of those ALCS tapes into the VCR, or eventually a DVD into the player.  I still do sometimes.
 
One more brief anecdote (where else could I write about this and think that anyone else might care?):  During game 4 of the Series I was working a very easy moonlighting shift at a skilled nursing facility, and was able to watch the game almost uninterrupted.  For the last half inning I was on the phone with my brother in Boston, and I had the tv on mute while he held his phone up to the radio so I could hear Joe Castiglione make the call.  There was a delay in the tv signal and I got to hear the final out even before I saw it.

 

[JimD]

I don't know why the fear dissipated as Game 7 went on.  It was as irrational as the belief had been prior to this series that the MFY's would always find a way to break our hearts.  Once Damon hit his slam, I knew the Sox were going to win. 

 

[Punchado]

Wasn't everyone counting outs from the seventh on.
 
Anyone else have the frustration of dealing with MFY fans who now claim that they were "never comfortable" even when they were up "3-0" and that they had a feeling this might happen.  No fucking way they weren't sure they were winning that series. 
 
One of my great pleasures in life is watching MFY crowd reaction shots in Games 6 and especially 7.  Like, for real, I could just watch a compilation for hours.  Fuck them. It's been ten years and both teams sucked this year but now and forever fuck them fuck them fuck them.  

 

[joyofsox]

I don't know why the fear dissipated as Game 7 went on.  It was as irrational as the belief had been prior to this series that the MFY's would always find a way to break our hearts.  Once Damon hit his slam, I knew the Sox were going to win. 

Same here. Once it was 6-0, I was as calm as still water. Even with the Pedro appearance. I knew it simply would not matter.

 

[canyoubelieveit]

Happy official 10 year anniversary of those Four Days in October, the start of the greatest story in professional sports history.  
 
One decade ago, a loyal fanbase began to awaken from its dark night of the soul, as a SoSH poster named CabreraEra accepted the fool's errand of starting a game thread.  Nearly everyone acknowledged that he was all but certain to be the last to start a game thread that year, and...well...um...it turned out they were right.
 
 
 
  

 
 
P.S.  If I were that guy in the middle of the picture, I'd have this photo up on my wall blown up so big it would make ARod's centaur look like a baby seahorse.

 

[The Talented Allen Ripley]

I once leaned my head on a public restroom wall. The wool/poly blend of a New Era cap acted as a shield, but still. I had been standing over a urinal in the men's restroom of the Piccadilly Pub in Franklin, and as the reality of the 19-8 defeat at the hands of the Yankees tumbled over me like so many bricks, I kind of slowly leaned forward and my forehead gently met the wall in front of me. I think it was plaster, not tile, but don't hold me to that.
 
This is just not meant to be, I told myself.  Probably because of something I did.
 
Because it was personal, of course. How could it be any other way? The Sox, they had my name. They knew who I was. My Social Security number was on file somewhere in the bowels of their offices, a microchip had been implanted in the skin under my forearm, surely all of this was One Big Middle Finger to me and my existence, some sort of moral judgment on my activities to this point. I had not led a good enough life yet. I didn't deserve any sort of baseball happiness. All their postseason foibles were an attack on me, nobody else. Red Sox Nation? Pfft, what do they know? This is all on me. They're doing this to screw with ME. For my sins, my failings, my decayed humanity. Me.
 
I leaned my head on a public restroom wall. Not something I'd advise doing, generally, even at a place as genteel as a suburban Piccadilly Pub.
 
It was just not meant to be.
 
Going into the evening the Yanks were up 2 games to none, but the Sox were back at Fenway and a win would make it a series again. It was a see-saw battle for 3 innings, then the Yankees became extremely rude guests and ran away with things, to the point where one might find themselves leaning against a filmy bathroom wall and wondering what the point of it all was.
 
Grady Little had horrifically botched things the year before, clutching defeat from the jaws of victory against these very Yankees at the most crucial moment possible, a rug-pull played on those Sox fans who truly believed the teams accursed past was simply due to random bad luck. Or bad management. Or personnel failings.
 
This indignity, this Grady, this Boone, piled on top of Buckner and Dent and Jim Burton and Armbrister and Ruhle and Aparicio and Jack Hamilton and Enos Slaughter. There were generations of men and women from the corners of New England and all points in between who were sick to their stomachs and looking at themselves in bathroom mirrors wondering why it ever had to be this way. Why? Why?
 
The Yankees had beaten the Red Sox 19-8, taking a 3-0 lead in the 2004 American League Championship Series.  There would be no World Series for the Sox that year, no redemption for those left prostrate by Grady Little's idiocy the year before. Baseball does not do karma. The game is its own reward, win or lose. A harsh but needed lesson, brutal in its finality.
 
I separated my forehead from the wall, exited the bathroom, and left the restaurant sometime after midnight on Sunday, October 17, 2004.

 

[CaptainLaddie]

Kevin, that was fucking great.

 

[CaptainLaddie]

My birthday is on October 18th.  All I wanted in 2004 was to see the Red Sox play on my birthday.  I worked at my job during the first 3.5 innings of Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS and by the time I got to my car in the 5th, the game was basically over.
 
I went home and drank what amounted to half of a bottle of Cachaca that night, which left me with a raging fucking headache the next morning.  It was awful.  Have you had Cachaca?  It's sugar-can rum meant to mixed heavily with mint and lime and not meant to be consumed straight.  Look, I've had worse hangovers, but none with less of an anger behind it.  I laid on the couch, halfway watching the Patriots game against the Seahawks.  Bethel Johnson made a game-saving catch and I frankly felt better, and my mother called me.  She lives down on Cape Cod.  She called me and said, "look, I know you're upset but why don't you watch the game tonight with me and then we can celebrate your birthday together?"  So, in my heavily hungover state, even at 4:30pm, I got in my car, and I drove down to the Cape, and I settled in with my twin sister (who was already down the Cape) to watch Game 4.
 
And it was awful.  Bellhorn (my favorite non-Dominican from that 2004 team) flubs the ball and I start pissing and shitting all over myself and I have to leave the room.  I end up listening to the last couple of innings in a different room on the radio, but as the clock hit midnight -- and my birthday began -- I decided to watch this team that I loved so dearly end their season.
 
Of course, they didn't.  After Ortiz homered in extras my sister and I went apeshit, and a few hours later, NJFan sold me a ticket to Game 5.  To this day, I owe him deeply.  I woke up early the next day, drove to Boston, and picked it up at the hotel that his family was staying at -- the reason he couldn't go being that he had to go back to New Jersey (and of course the Game 5 tickets were actually for Game 3, or "Home Game 1 vs Home Game 2" basically) and he left it with the concierge.  I sat next to JRedburn and WinRemmerswaal, and it was without a doubt, the best birthday of my life.  It was nerve-wrecking and horrible and wonderful and awful and great.  I got to watch the Red Sox win on my birthday in the most awesomely spectacular fashion and I can not, to this day, imagine a better birthday present -- my twin sister and I saw the Red Sox win two playoff games in one day.

 

[Tokyo Sox]

It is kind of like the Miracle on Ice in that beating Russia was the big deal and winning the gold was the post script

 
"Time to beat Finland."  - Theo Epstein, October 21st, 2004.

 

[Hyde Park Factor]

I remember settling in for game 4. My only real motivation to watch what would surely be a crushing defeat was that I refused to turn my back on that team. "I don't care what happens," I told myself, "but I'm watching every minute of this game no matter how painful. I can't quit on them now..." As a true Sox fan, I felt duty bound to watch the horror unfold.

I have never felt that way before or since, but something compelled me to sit down and commit to watching every tortuous second of that game (or what I assumed would be tortuous going in). When Papi hit the hr to end it, my sense was of 2 wrestlers, locked in a hold and unmoving for hours, until one of them got the tiniest little bit of leverage to exploit. Not everyone believes me, but I knew at that moment that we had just won the world series.

 

[Dan Murfman]

My birthday is on October 18th.  All I wanted in 2004 was to see the Red Sox play on my birthday.  I worked at my job during the first 3.5 innings of Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS and by the time I got to my car in the 5th, the game was basically over.
 
I went home and drank what amounted to half of a bottle of Cachaca that night, which left me with a raging fucking headache the next morning.  It was awful.  Have you had Cachaca?  It's sugar-can rum meant to mixed heavily with mint and lime and not meant to be consumed straight.  Look, I've had worse hangovers, but none with less of an anger behind it.  I laid on the couch, halfway watching the Patriots game against the Seahawks.  Bethel Johnson made a game-saving catch and I frankly felt better, and my mother called me.  She lives down on Cape Cod.  She called me and said, "look, I know you're upset but why don't you watch the game tonight with me and then we can celebrate your birthday together?"  So, in my heavily hungover state, even at 4:30pm, I got in my car, and I drove down to the Cape, and I settled in with my twin sister (who was already down the Cape) to watch Game 4.
 
And it was awful.  Bellhorn (my favorite non-Dominican from that 2004 team) flubs the ball and I start pissing and shitting all over myself and I have to leave the room.  I end up listening to the last couple of innings in a different room on the radio, but as the clock hit midnight -- and my birthday began -- I decided to watch this team that I loved so dearly end their season.
 

You're a better person than me. My birthday is today the 17th. In 2003 game 7 started on 16th but did finish after midnight so they lost on my birthday. That birthday was miserable so after 19-8 game I just couldn't take them losing on my birthday again so I didn't watch. I woke up around 3. I did check the score on the computer saw that they won and went back to bed not knowing how they did it. So because I was a big baby I missed one of the great Red Sox wins of all time. Moron

 

[sfip]

Anyone who is superstitious can thank SoSHer Buck Showalter for his role.

 

[AB in DC]

 
 
 
I never believed in the curse.  I always just assumed God hated me.

As for 2004:  Numbness.  That's the feeling remember.  At least until about 2/3 of the way through game 6.  After all those years of heartbreak, and particularly after the cruelty of 2003 and game 3 of '04, I had programmed myself not to "feel" during many of those potential series ending moments of games 4 - 6.  I continued to watch, inning after inning, with some combination of morbid curiosity and incredulity.  

 
 

The next morning I drove back home to CT and made my peace with the Sox. I accepted that I wasn't a fan because I expected a championship, it was because the team was a part of my family [...]

Maybe that's what it took?!

 
These two posts sum up my feelings as well.  Exactly ten years ago, I stopped being a Red Sox fanatic.  I resolved myself to no longer feel either the highs or lows of being a diehard.  Ten years ago is when I finally I told myself, it's just a fricking game, it's not worth all this emotional energy.
 
The next week and half were filled with a sort of eerie detachment that I still can't really describe.  I still rooted for the Sox, of course, but in a way, it was like watching any other TV show.  I never let myself believe, or even doubt, that this was happening.  I never got back on that roller coaster.  I just watched.  I was happy to see the next eight wins, of course, but it was more like finding out that my favorite TV series was saved from cancellation and I was getting to watch a few more episodes.  
 
And while that means i never felt the kind of elation that I've been reading about, to this day, I am convinced that this was God's reward for realizing that baseball just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.  It was as if I couldn't truly enjoy a World Series victory until I put it in the proper perspective, like I didn't deserve it as long as I still felt that the Red Sox were "my" team or that somehow their victories were my victories too, in the way that a real fanatic might.

 

[glasspusher]

 
My heart still races whenever I even think of Wakefield pitching to Sierra. That at-bat is the sports-tension against which all others is measured.

 
I showed that inning to a friend who, at the time, was not aware of the "third strike caught or tagged" rule. Of course, he got caught up in the drama of the whole inning.

 

[joyofsox]

At Over The Monster:
 
Let's relive the Red Sox 2004 ALCS: Dave Roberts steals Game 4
 
I could watch this vine for hours:
https://vine.co/v/OqYq5W79MXx

 

[8slim]

 
 
 
These two posts sum up my feelings as well.  Exactly ten years ago, I stopped being a Red Sox fanatic.  I resolved myself to no longer feel either the highs or lows of being a diehard.  Ten years ago is when I finally I told myself, it's just a fricking game, it's not worth all this emotional energy.
 
The next week and half were filled with a sort of eerie detachment that I still can't really describe.  I still rooted for the Sox, of course, but in a way, it was like watching any other TV show.  I never let myself believe, or even doubt, that this was happening.  I never got back on that roller coaster.  I just watched.  I was happy to see the next eight wins, of course, but it was more like finding out that my favorite TV series was saved from cancellation and I was getting to watch a few more episodes.  
 
And while that means i never felt the kind of elation that I've been reading about, to this day, I am convinced that this was God's reward for realizing that baseball just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.  It was as if I couldn't truly enjoy a World Series victory until I put it in the proper perspective, like I didn't deserve it as long as I still felt that the Red Sox were "my" team or that somehow their victories were my victories too, in the way that a real fanatic might.

 
The peace I came to wasn't about becoming detached, though.
 
I was still fully emotionally invested in all things Sox.  I simply realized that I needed to take joy in the moment, not the promise of some ultimate payoff.
 
My path to that started during that epic Memorial Day Weekend game that pitted Pedro vs Roger in 2000.  The night Trot Nixon hit a homer at the Stadium and we won and we vanquished that scumbag traitor who not only rubbed our noses in it by winning Cy Youngs with the Blue jays, but then forced his way out of Canada to the Bronx in his personal quest for a title.
 
I vividly remember thinking to myself that night that this might be as good as it gets.  That I should savor these kinds of moments, because a title might not ever happen, and why not fully enjoy the great times instead of holding back, waiting for a payoff that may never come.
 
Anyway, it just meant that I desperately wanted to win game 4 so those bastards wouldn't have the pleasure of sweeping us.  And it meant that I desperately wanted to win game 5 because if we got to a game 6 with an injured Schilling and got beat because he was ineffective, well then what can you do?  And it meant agonizing through that Clark at bat in game 6 because it meant being able to play with house money in a game 7 and watch those awful Yankee fans spend 24 hours contemplating that their vaunted franchise just might choke in the most epic way imaginable.
 
So yeah, I was at peace, but still all in, if that makes sense.

 

[behindthepen]

Crappy screencap:

 

I had forgotten about that moment.  Sitting behind the bullpen, I can say that it really amped up the incredible vibe in the park.
 
It's funny how the switch flipped at different times for different people.  I didn't grow up as a Sox fan, so maybe having a little less luggage helped.  But when Bill Mueller knocked in Dave Roberts 10 years ago, that was the single greatest, most elational (?) sports moment I have ever experienced.  Everything in the world felt different after that moment.  Everything.
 
Game 5 was excruciating.  We all knew we should win, so why did it take 5 1/2 hours?  why they hell was Papi stealing in the 12th????  TOP OF THE 13TH, 3 PASSED BALLS IN ONE INNING!
 
But when that was all over, one of my favorite moments of the year ... standing on my seat, and high-fiving people as they streamed out of the bleachers.  All I kept saying was "see you Saturday night".   
 
All of my friends bagged out of Game 4.  When I explained why I was going, I said it's like going to church.  Logically, it didn't make any sense to believe that Game 4 would matter, just like you can't explain God.  but I still go to church, and I still went to Game 4.  After going to 30 something games (that season), there was no reason to skip that one.

 

[S. H. Frog]

The thing about 2004, for me, is 2003.  Lowe's closing out of the A's in the ALDS was my most nerve-wracking moment as a Sox fan.  I could not believe they took the Yankees to seven games, but I was sure they would win that night.  The offseason was slow-burning fury about the bad decision that kept it from happening, plus Schilling and all that ARod bullshit (the special hatred that we reserve for someone we thought we liked), but nothing kept me from the feeling that the Sox could have won and were going to win in 2004.  Everything leading up to the Yankees in October was a formality, a marking of time between the present and the 2004 ALCS.  When the Sox dropped the first three, I was stunned.  When they won the next three, I was elated.  For game seven, I was exactly where I had been in 2003, except more so.  I was absolutely sure the Sox would win that game.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

Looking back I'd not change a thing.  I was 15 in '86 and was absolutely crushed by Game 6.  Crushed.  Then I experienced actual hate more so than I ever had towards Gump for depriving my favorite player of all time his legacy for finally slaying the Yankees.  But 2004 made up for all of that for me, and it wouldn't have been nearly as sweet had they pulled off '86 or '03 (forgetting '67, '78, or any number of close calls in previous years).  I honestly wouldn't change any of the previous outcomes if I could.

 

[behindthepen]

There's something else that I think usually gets missed about that 9th inning of game 4.  Millar walks and Roberts goes in to pinch run.  On the first pitch to the plate Mueller squares around for a bunt and after that pitch the camera goes to Francona in the dugout for just a couple seconds and you can see that he's pissed off.   I always wondered if the third base coach had misread Francona's signal and given Mueller the sign to bunt or if Mueller had done that on his own.  I sort of suspect the former.  Anyway, I think it really helped the Sox because my impression is that Fruitbat saw this and said, oh they're gonna bunt, fine and maybe to some degree didn't throw quite his best cutter wanting to take the out and not accidentally walk him.  And Mueller lined a bullet past him maybe with the help of it being a pitch that Fruitbat figured would be bunted.   I don't know, see what you think.

I thought Seth Mnookin covered this somewhere.  In Feeding the Monster (p.297) he talks about that at-bat, but not in the detail I remember.  Maybe it was in his Vanity Fair article.  But the advantage of squaring to bunt on strike 1 was that Rivera clearly positioned himself for a bunt on strike 2, which I think made him look awkward on that play.  In the book Epstein talks about it like it was planned.

 

[Punchado]

 
 
 
These two posts sum up my feelings as well.  Exactly ten years ago, I stopped being a Red Sox fanatic.  I resolved myself to no longer feel either the highs or lows of being a diehard.  Ten years ago is when I finally I told myself, it's just a fricking game, it's not worth all this emotional energy.
 
The next week and half were filled with a sort of eerie detachment that I still can't really describe.  I still rooted for the Sox, of course, but in a way, it was like watching any other TV show.  I never let myself believe, or even doubt, that this was happening.  I never got back on that roller coaster.  I just watched.  I was happy to see the next eight wins, of course, but it was more like finding out that my favorite TV series was saved from cancellation and I was getting to watch a few more episodes.  
 
And while that means i never felt the kind of elation that I've been reading about, to this day, I am convinced that this was God's reward for realizing that baseball just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.  It was as if I couldn't truly enjoy a World Series victory until I put it in the proper perspective, like I didn't deserve it as long as I still felt that the Red Sox were "my" team or that somehow their victories were my victories too, in the way that a real fanatic might.

 
I happen to think baseball is that important in the grand scheme of things -- because we choose to make it important. We project importance on to it.  And that shared projection gives us a sense of place and community and a "safe" place to worry and suffer.  It's all sports fandom is, really.  It's an imaginary friend we get to keep when we grow up.  And the more we commit to the idea of it being real by letting ourselves feel, the more real it becomes.  Which is why being a Red Sox fan was/is such a specific experience.  Because in 78 and 86 and 03 we could have just said, this is imaginary, this is not real, I am going to disconnect from this projection because it causes me too much pain, but we did not. Instead we doubled down on it.  We said, yes, this is fucking real and I am going to die I feel so bad and my heart is so broken but even though there is such an easy relief to this pain, I can just take the blue pill and it will all be fine, I won't, I'm going to suffer because (and this is what we always told ourselves) one day it will be different and when that day comes I want to be able to believe that that feeling of elation and joy and release is real too.  I tried to explain this to douche Yankee fans who said that all of their WS victories felt as good as 04 did to us.  Bullshit.  2004 was a perfect storm.  It was the release of the pain of a GENERATIONAL projection.  It wasn't just our pain being soothed. It was grandparents pain, parents pain, children's pain.  The pain of the living and the dead.  The pain of saints and sinners, doctors and toll booth operators and hookers and nuns.  Senators and murderers and teachers and ten year olds.  So many people who had nothing in common but the shared choice to make something inherently unimportant into one of the most important things in their lives.  I can say from personal experience that my life and how I see the world is different because of that October.  It sounds insane (to anyone not here) but I felt released of a burden, I felt a different, more expansive sense of what is possible, that I didn't have to wait for the other shoe to drop because sometimes, it doesn't.  I have still never seen Boone's HR land and I can't watch anything from the 86 WS to this day but I savor the pain of those losses because the were the wounds that provided for the grand healing that started ten years ago today.  I am so glad I didn't sleep for those ten days in October.  I am so glad I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Clark came up in Game 6 or when that ground rule double just barely made it into the stands or when Wakefield kept throwing passed balls.  If I had been anesthetized during the pain of it, I would have been numbed for the pleasure.  And it was all so worth it.  

 

[Huntington Avenue Grounds]

I was in a downtown Manchester, NH bar for Game 7 in 2003.  A pair of 20-something babes were whooping it up through the game; "We're going to the World Series", "Got a friend that can get us in", etc.  I was feeling confident but not cocky, they needed to be careful and close the deal, then Grady happened.  I've never been part of a lynch mob, but if it ever comes to pass I imagine it will feel just like the bar that evening when Pedro is back on the hill in the 8th and then again leaving him on the mound after that visit.  Never saw Boone's HR land, soon as it left the bat I was out the door and by the time I was on the sidewalk was yelling into my phone what a fucking moron Grady was.  Drove home, parked the car across my front lawn and proceeded to lay waste to 3/4 of a bottle of Jameson's; initially imbibing, then as an accelerant where every stitch of clothing I was wearing;hat, Red Sox t-shirt with "Ortiz" on the back, jeans, socks, shoes and yes, even underwear,  was destroyed.  This was not a "renounce you fandom" moment but an attempt to block that evening from memory.  It was a dark, dark night.  But I got up the next day, dusted myself off and though simultaneously; "next year" and "I'll never live to see the Sox win a World Series" (34-year old me figured to live a long life too).
 
Fast forward a year to the late innings of Game 3 and that bottle, untouched since that fateful night, finds its way onto the coffee table and one shot poured, then two, then the realization that I can't relive the hurt and pain again in the same spot, so pack up to drive to my Girlfriend's apartment in Jersey City.  Yes, at that moment, being around MFY fans was preferable to staring into the abyss in NH.  Game 4, at the time, was simply "Don't get swept".  Thoughts of a comeback were so far outside the realm of possibility.  Sure, they hadn't lost 4 games yet, but c'mon, nobody had ever even forced a game 7, let alone win the series.  Listened to the 1st 8 innings in the car on the drive down, got home for the top of the 9th, feeling like I needed to be there to see the end.  Those who weren't around, or who might be losing the Roberts steal to the murky waters of history, can't fully understand the moment of The Steal was the 2004 Red Sox saying "Not here.  Not tonight".

 

[DeltaForce]

 
Anyway, I got to Yankee Stadium about two hours early for game 7.  And the first thing that hit me was the realization that game 6 had eliminated the swagger and attitude that I always got from Yankee fans.  They were incredibly anxious and defensive, as if the thought of losing to the Sox after being up 3-0 was worse than death.  Now, I'm not saying this had anything to do with the outcome, but I was calm enough after game 6 to think rationally about the game to come and I realized that the Yankees were in a bad place.  They used all their bullets trying to put the Sox away in games 4, 5 and 6 and they had nothing for game 7.   As you can imagine, this realization was very soothing.  After ortiz hit the HR in the first, I could not have felt more confident. 
 
It was a strange feeling for this lifelong Sox fan.

I had the same impression walking into Yankee Stadium that night.  I was at Game 7 in 2003 also, and the mood then was completely different -- even though the Yankees had lost Game 6 at home and were facing Pedro in Game 7, there was still a very upbeat vibe at the stadium.  The fans were there for a party, and certainly weren't about to lose a Game 7 at home to the Red Sox.  The Papi homer in the 8th made them falter a bit, but there was still an energy in the park entering the bottom of the 8th, which only increased as Gump refused to go to the bullpen.  (And I'll never forget how violently the upper deck shook when Posada tied it.)
 
In 2004, however, the mood in the stadium was dark.  A little desperation, a little resignation, and a fair amount of open hostility.  I'd love to say that I enjoyed seeing the change in mood, but forget that -- I was scared to death.  I couldn't shake the feeling that only the Red Sox could come back from 0-3 and still figure out a way to lose the series.  Even after Papi's home run and Damon's slam, all I could think was "had Sveum not gotten Damon thrown out at home, we'd be up 7-0, not 6-0.  I hope we don't need that run."  I'd love to say I relaxed when Damon made it 8-1, but the Sox then loaded the bases with one out and didn't score.  And I'm telling myself, "now it should be at least 10-1"!  I guess I started to relax a little when Cairo flew out in the 7th and Bellhorn hit the foul pole in the 8th, but I don't think I truly relaxed until the Sox got that first out in the 9th.  
 
In hindsight, I wish I had enjoyed Game 7 a little more, because it was beautiful.  

 

[dwainw]

Looking back I'd not change a thing.  I was 15 in '86 and was absolutely crushed by Game 6.  Crushed.  Then I experienced actual hate more so than I ever had towards Gump for depriving my favorite player of all time his legacy for finally slaying the Yankees.  But 2004 made up for all of that for me, and it wouldn't have been nearly as sweet had they pulled off '86 or '03 (forgetting '67, '78, or any number of close calls in previous years).  I honestly wouldn't change any of the previous outcomes if I could.

This captures my perspective perfectly, right down to being a 15-year old experiencing his first truly broken heart during the '86 disaster.  Ridiculous as it may sound to "outsiders," that experience changed me, not just as a sports fan, but as a person.   The ensuing years, highlighted by '99 and '03 (the years that directly involved the Yankees) had an impact as well, albeit not quite as profoundly.  All of it perfectly set the stage for 2004, which was nothing less than sublime.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.
 

 
I happen to think baseball is that important in the grand scheme of things -- because we choose to make it important. We project importance on to it.  And that shared projection gives us a sense of place and community and a "safe" place to worry and suffer.  It's all sports fandom is, really.  It's an imaginary friend we get to keep when we grow up.  And the more we commit to the idea of it being real by letting ourselves feel, the more real it becomes.  Which is why being a Red Sox fan was/is such a specific experience.  Because in 78 and 86 and 03 we could have just said, this is imaginary, this is not real, I am going to disconnect from this projection because it causes me too much pain, but we did not. Instead we doubled down on it.  We said, yes, this is fucking real and I am going to die I feel so bad and my heart is so broken but even though there is such an easy relief to this pain, I can just take the blue pill and it will all be fine, I won't, I'm going to suffer because (and this is what we always told ourselves) one day it will be different and when that day comes I want to be able to believe that that feeling of elation and joy and release is real too.  I tried to explain this to douche Yankee fans who said that all of their WS victories felt as good as 04 did to us.  Bullshit.  2004 was a perfect storm.  It was the release of the pain of a GENERATIONAL projection.  It wasn't just our pain being soothed. It was grandparents pain, parents pain, children's pain.  The pain of the living and the dead.  The pain of saints and sinners, doctors and toll booth operators and hookers and nuns.  Senators and murderers and teachers and ten year olds.  So many people who had nothing in common but the shared choice to make something inherently unimportant into one of the most important things in their lives.  I can say from personal experience that my life and how I see the world is different because of that October.  It sounds insane (to anyone not here) but I felt released of a burden, I felt a different, more expansive sense of what is possible, that I didn't have to wait for the other shoe to drop because sometimes, it doesn't.  I have still never seen Boone's HR land and I can't watch anything from the 86 WS to this day but I savor the pain of those losses because the were the wounds that provided for the grand healing that started ten years ago today.  I am so glad I didn't sleep for those ten days in October.  I am so glad I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Clark came up in Game 6 or when that ground rule double just barely made it into the stands or when Wakefield kept throwing passed balls.  If I had been anesthetized during the pain of it, I would have been numbed for the pleasure.  And it was all so worth it.  

Enjoyable post.  I must say, you're a stronger man than I.  After game 3, as I'm guessing many folks here can relate to, I felt like a broken man.  I had to dull my senses, and not just from the use of alcohol since that would just end up making me more depressed.  For the sake of self-preservation, I did my best to program myself not to feel the pain when the inevitable loss of the series happened (I may very well have been kidding myself--but I certainly tried).  It didn't stop me from watching, of course, and I still squirmed my way through inning after inning, hour after hour, in increasing amazement about what was unfolding.  And in respectful contrast to your point, I still felt intense relief and elation after games 4 and 5, but only because "at least they didn't get swept," and then because "at least they're taking it back to NY."  By the end of game 6, however, they snapped me back.  I'd seen things from this Red Sox team that I hadn't seen before.  Things that restored that most dangerous of all things as a Sox fan:  hope.  My emotions were yet again laid bare and I shudder to think what would have happened had they lost game 7.  But they didn't, and the joy they brought me that year is only surpassed by the birth of my children.  Without exaggeration, the memories provided by the Red Sox in 2004 are almost that precious.

 

[Bozo Texino]

Same here. Once it was 6-0, I was as calm as still water. Even with the Pedro appearance. I knew it simply would not matter.

 
This is where I was, too.
 
Honestly, Foulke v. Clark was the last time I remember being worried during the series.  There was more than enough anxiety up to that point.

 

[Average Reds]

I had the same impression walking into Yankee Stadium that night.  I was at Game 7 in 2003 also, and the mood then was completely different -- even though the Yankees had lost Game 6 at home as were facing Pedro in Game 7, there was still a very upbeat vibe at the stadium.  The fans were there for a party, and certainly weren't about to lose a Game 7 at home to the Red Sox.  The Papi homer in the 8th made them falter a bit, but there was still an energy in the park entering the bottom of the 8th, which only increased as Gump refused to go to the bullpen.  (And I'll never forget how violently the upper deck shook when Posada tied it.)
 
In 2004, however, the mood in the stadium was dark.  A little desperation, a little resignation, and a fair amount of open hostility.  I'd love to say that I enjoyed seeing the change in mood, but forget that -- I was scared to death.  I couldn't shake the feeling that only the Red Sox could come back from 0-3 and still figure out a way to lose the series.  Even after Papi's home run and Damon's slam, all I could think was "had Sveum not gotten Damon thrown out at home, we'd be up 7-0, not 6-0.  I hope we don't need that run."  I'd love to say I relaxed when Damon made it 8-1, but the Sox then loaded the bases with one out and didn't score.  And I'm telling myself, "now it should be at least 10-1"!  I guess I started to relax a little when Cairo flew out in the 7th and Bellhorn hit the foul pole in the 8th, but I don't think I truly relaxed until the Sox got that first out in the 9th.  
 
In hindsight, I wish I had enjoyed Game 7 a little more, because it was beautiful.

 
It was beautiful and after the Ortiz HR, I enjoyed every last minute of it.  Don't get me wrong, it was still tense until Damon hit the slam, but as discussed, something in the air felt different and I just rolled with it.
 
I've posted this before, but when Browne was lifted I ran to the Men's room under the right field stands.  Then I waited in the tunnel to see the first pitch from Vazquez before heading back to my seat, because I didn't want to miss even one moment.  In the old Yankee Stadium, there was an aisle right over the right field fence, and when Vazquez threw his first pitch, I began to walk in the aisle while keeping my eye on the action.  As the ball flew over my head I raised both hands straight over my head, stood completely still and began screaming as loud as I could - "FUCK YEAH!" - again and again and again.  (You can see me on the MLB DVD if you look closely.)  Just minutes of mindless, profane exclamations borne from decades of frustration and despair.  And the shocked Yankee crowd just sat there in disbelief as I ranted and raved all the way back to my seat, high fiving a Sox fan every ten feet or so.  (There were a lot of us there.) By the time Damon hit his second home run you could watch the disappointed Yankee fans begin to stream out of the stadium like cockroaches running for cover while we celebrated.
 
I guess this is why I have such a different perspective of Pedro coming into the game.  The Yankees were beaten and everyone there - or at least everyone around me - knew it.
 
That night we were kings of Yankee Stadium and no one could touch us.  I still have chills.

 

[chrisfont9]

Anyway, I got to Yankee Stadium about two hours early for game 7.  And the first thing that hit me was the realization that game 6 had eliminated the swagger and attitude that I always got from Yankee fans.  They were incredibly anxious and defensive, as if the thought of losing to the Sox after being up 3-0 was worse than death.  Now, I'm not saying this had anything to do with the outcome, but I was calm enough after game 6 to think rationally about the game to come and I realized that the Yankees were in a bad place.  They used all their bullets trying to put the Sox away in games 4, 5 and 6 and they had nothing for game 7.   As you can imagine, this realization was very soothing.  After ortiz hit the HR in the first, I could not have felt more confident. 
 
It was a strange feeling for this lifelong Sox fan.

Agree with this. I vividly recall the experience changing completely after game 6 for me. This is totally subjective, of course, but it's nice to hear evidence like this that many people were of the same view, including the other side. Before game 6, I saw Lieber -- who was excellent in G2, vs. the injured Schilling. But for G7, not only had we beaten them so horrifically for three days, but they were running out a broken-down Kevin Brown to stent the blood-letting. As bad as G3 was, we had pummeled the shit out of Brown. He had nothing.
 
I think for me it wasn't the acceptance of mystique or momentum or whatever, it was the realization that the Yankees as they then stood simply weren't that good. Or as you say, they were out of bullets. I was not particularly worried going into the game, and when Papi blasted that early homer, I felt in my bones we were taking it. I'm sure I hadn't felt that way since we grabbed the lead in G6 of the '86 series, so I guess I should've taken that with some caution, but these weren't the Mets.

 

[chrisfont9]

This captures my perspective perfectly, right down to being a 15-year old experiencing his first truly broken heart during the '86 disaster.  Ridiculous as it may sound to "outsiders," that experience changed me, not just as a sports fan, but as a person.   The ensuing years, highlighted by '99 and '03 (the years that directly involved the Yankees) had an impact as well, albeit not quite as profoundly.  All of it perfectly set the stage for 2004, which was nothing less than sublime.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.

+1. I'm maybe 5-6 years older and have '75 and '78 on my fanhood resume. We live in Seattle now and I have insisted my kids become Mariner fans, because there is NO way they can appreciate the Sox from 2004 onward the way I do. But the Mariners are doing their best to make their fans earn it -- and love it when it happens. So that's their best bet, by far.

 

[Skiponzo]

 
I happen to think baseball is that important in the grand scheme of things -- because we choose to make it important. We project importance on to it.  And that shared projection gives us a sense of place and community and a "safe" place to worry and suffer.  It's all sports fandom is, really.  It's an imaginary friend we get to keep when we grow up.  And the more we commit to the idea of it being real by letting ourselves feel, the more real it becomes.  Which is why being a Red Sox fan was/is such a specific experience.  Because in 78 and 86 and 03 we could have just said, this is imaginary, this is not real, I am going to disconnect from this projection because it causes me too much pain, but we did not. Instead we doubled down on it.  We said, yes, this is fucking real and I am going to die I feel so bad and my heart is so broken but even though there is such an easy relief to this pain, I can just take the blue pill and it will all be fine, I won't, I'm going to suffer because (and this is what we always told ourselves) one day it will be different and when that day comes I want to be able to believe that that feeling of elation and joy and release is real too.  I tried to explain this to douche Yankee fans who said that all of their WS victories felt as good as 04 did to us.  Bullshit.  2004 was a perfect storm.  It was the release of the pain of a GENERATIONAL projection.  It wasn't just our pain being soothed. It was grandparents pain, parents pain, children's pain.  The pain of the living and the dead.  The pain of saints and sinners, doctors and toll booth operators and hookers and nuns.  Senators and murderers and teachers and ten year olds.  So many people who had nothing in common but the shared choice to make something inherently unimportant into one of the most important things in their lives.  I can say from personal experience that my life and how I see the world is different because of that October.  It sounds insane (to anyone not here) but I felt released of a burden, I felt a different, more expansive sense of what is possible, that I didn't have to wait for the other shoe to drop because sometimes, it doesn't.  I have still never seen Boone's HR land and I can't watch anything from the 86 WS to this day but I savor the pain of those losses because the were the wounds that provided for the grand healing that started ten years ago today.  I am so glad I didn't sleep for those ten days in October.  I am so glad I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Clark came up in Game 6 or when that ground rule double just barely made it into the stands or when Wakefield kept throwing passed balls.  If I had been anesthetized during the pain of it, I would have been numbed for the pleasure.  And it was all so worth it.  

This is exactly why I feel a little sad for my kids Red Sox experience.  Yes I am glad they never have to hear 1918 or go through life waiting for the other shoe to drop but they will also never feel or understand the sheer elation of that victory.
 
Shit, I still cry when I think about actually winning the WS.

 

[8slim]

I cannot believe you guys were not worried going into game 7. We were starting Derek Lowe on TWO days rest.

My stomach was is knots all day.

 

[Foulkey Reese]

 
Honestly, Foulke v. Clark was the last time I remember being worried during the series.  There was more than enough anxiety up to that point.

I've posted this before, but I legit thought that I was having a heart attack during that at bat. It feels stupid to say now, but at that point in my life nothing had ever scared me as much as that at bat did. I was SURE Clark was going to become the next Boone/Dent. God damn it's even stressful to talk about now. 

 

[canyoubelieveit]

Mr. Ripley, your post above is genuinely outstanding.  Members and lurkers, please make a point to scroll up and read it before it gets too far buried in the thread.
 
I read it to my wife, who is not at all a sports fan, but appreciates quality writing and has grown to understand the significance of 2004.  She also remarked at how incredibly well it was done.  The final sentence literally gave me goosebumps the first two times I read it.  The essay ends, but not really...

 

[dwainw]

I cannot believe you guys were not worried going into game 7. We were starting Derek Lowe on TWO days rest.

My stomach was is knots all day.

Amen, brother.  I mean, I get the logic involved in some people's confidence what with the huge momentum shift in the series and Kevin Brown forced to take the mound.  The Yankee "mystique" was disintegrating before the eyes of the world.  But still, anything and everything had happened in the series and at the end of the day, who couldn't have had the possibility of another epic Red Sox failure somewhere in the back of their mind, at the least?  I know it was very much in the front of mine.

That said, the historical significance generated by coming back to force a game 7 was an incredibly powerful and unique force that did give game 7 a very different feel.  I remember writing a note to my wife (who was unable to "hang" for the end of that game) after game 6, inviting her to join me the next night for an unprecedented sports experience.   It started with "The Boston Red Sox made history tonight..."  I wish we would have saved it.  It was cheesy but sincere and composed entirely in the emotion of the moment.  With the way this rivalry had evolved and the way this series went down it wasn't difficult for a non-sports fan like my wife to understand how sports can occasionally transcend its place as simple entertainment.  She was happy to join me the next day to watch "history in the making" and even happier to see how it ultimately unfolded.  To me, that exemplifies how that series was much more than a game even for the casual fan.  It was an historical fucking event, a sense of which was pervasive throughout, even as I fretted and sweated until the very end.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Yeah, I think I'm the kind of person who can't take comfort in the "no way they win today, sure thing" approach. Because of course "they" could. That's why they play the games, etc. That is why Game 7 was freaking me the fuck out, though I'm also not one of those "I was a puddle on the floor until the final out!" guys either. After Damon's 2nd HR, I knew, and I did get to enjoy it. 

 

[glasspusher]

Wanted to post this as close as possible 10 years to the minute after it happened:
 
"Eleven fifty-nine PM on Sunday the seventeenth of October, and it's do or die for the Red Sox, if they want to extend the season, they have to score here."
 
- Joe Castiglione's radio call

 

[soxhop411]

http://champagne.atspace.org/
 
Was this 2004 site created (SOSH and Yankeefans 2004 ALCS posts) by someone at SOSH?