from the high wall there, but I should be able to drag it closer and scoop it. I climb over the seats and section dividers until I’m in position above it. I can’t quite reach it, and stretch as far as I can with one hand, just nudging and then covering the ball—and drop the net.
It lies ten feet below me across the foul line.
What an idiot. Steph, I’m sure, is pretending he doesn’t know me. I figure the security guy will come out and confiscate it; at best, he’ll give me a lecture.
Gabe Kapler’s witnessed my embarrassment, and saunters over, shaking his head. I think he’s going to take the ball from under the net and toss it to someone more deserving to teach me a lesson, but he throws it right to me. Then he takes the net and jogs back out to left with it.
“He could have used it last night,” someone says.
For a while Gabe keeps his glove on and holds the net with one hand, but then he says the hell with it and tosses the glove. Manny and Nomar are up, spraying the ball around. When a Manny liner bounces to the side of him, he stabs at it and misses cleanly. See, it’s not as easy as it looks. After about five minutes of just standing there with the net, he brings it back over. I get a picture of him—proof for Trudy.
Another guy comes by and asks if that was me he saw up on the Monster a few weeks ago, and I find that I like this minor celebrity. Steph says a Sox photographer just took a picture of me.
We’re also visited by Chip Ainsworth, the reporter who interviewed me the first time I brought the net. He says we should see a game together from the press box. I worry a little about that blurry line between journalist and fan, but then I think: man, the press box!
Steve arrives in his YANKEES HATER cap, and I go over to hang out with him and Steph. On the endpages of the John Sandford novel he’s reading, he’s scored the last two games. It’s been a while, and we fall to talking, interrupted from time to time by folks who want to take a picture of him.
We’re sitting there discussing Manny’s hot streak and Wake’s last few starts when one of the Sox comes out and signs along the wall two sections down. From the inch-high brush cut, it can only be Tek. It’s his day off, with Mirabelli catching Wake. I excuse myself and climb over the section dividers and then wait in the crush. “Go ahead and take the sweet spot,” I tell him. “It’s all yours.”
Tek’s signature is neat and readable. Thanks to eBay, I’ve seen it dozens of times, both authentic versions and fakes. He never finishes the final kick of the k, so it reads
“I got a shot of you,” Steph says.
“Yeah,” Steve says, “we got a picture of you pushing those little kids out of the way.”
“Hey, they were pushing
Wake looks good in the first, striking out his first two batters. Batista looks awful, walking Johnny on four pitches around his ankles. Orlando Hudson doesn’t help him, booting Bellhorn’s easy grounder, and David Ortiz scorches a ground-rule double into the seats just past the Pesky Pole. 1–0 Sox. Manny Ks chasing a 3-2 pitch, Dauber walks, then Millar walks in a run. Batista’s thrown 25 pitches, only 7 for strikes.
After Youkilis strikes out, Mirabelli comes up with bases loaded and fouls one behind him, high off the facade of the .406 Club. Last year, a ball hit in that same spot ricocheted off the glass at an angle and landed in the row behind us. I turn, keeping my eye on it, and here it comes, right at me (Steph thinks I think this about every ball). The sun is blinding, and I’m not wearing shades, so all I see as it falls is a tiny black dot surrounded by white light. It’s going to be just short, and I reach above everyone. I feel it hit, then feel nothing, and I think it’s gone, that I’ve missed it—then look down, and there it is in my glove. Maybe because it’s the first inning, or because it was a crazy angle, or because the bases are loaded and we’re up two runs, but the crowd goes nuts. I hold my glove up and take in the applause—unexpected and exhilarating—and slap hands with Steph and Steve. When I sit down, my heart’s pounding and I’m shivery inside my skin. I thought I’d missed it, so it’s a guilty thrill—a freak accomplishment I doubt even now.
I don’t have time to think about it, because Mirabelli fouls off the next pitch the exact same way—caroming off the same pane of glass and dropping two rows behind Steve. I’m up and ready in case it bounces my way, but it’s smothered and picked up.
Batista gets Mirabelli and gets out of it. In the second he has to strike out Dauber to leave them loaded again.
“This guy’s terrible,” I say. “We should be up at least four nothing.”
“We’re not hitting with men on,” Steve complains, and Mason, a neighbor in the front row, shows us a thirty-page stat sheet that has the season completely broken down. So far with the bases loaded, we’ve hit two doubles and twelve singles. Johnny and Pokey have the doubles. Johnny and Pokey also have the most hits with bases loaded, three each. Kapler and Bill Mueller are 0-4, Ortiz, Dauber and Crespo 0-3.
Wake throws an easy third, and we finally cash in on Batista, scoring four. Ortiz has the big hit, a two-out, two-run double, making him 3 for 3 with 3 RBIs. It’s 6–0 and Batista’s thrown 90 pitches.
Now that Wake has a big lead, he gets sloppy, loading the bases with no outs and going 3-0 on Delgado. Delgado singles, bringing in two, before Timmy gets a double-play ball from Phelps and a first-pitch flyout from Hinske.
A sudden roar and wave of applause from the third-base side. It’s someone famous climbing the stairs between two grandstand sections. Because it’s Vermont Day, I think maybe it’s Fisk, a Vermont native, but the tall gray-haired man’s surrounded by so much security that I know without even seeing his face that it’s John Kerry. As if to prove his loyalty, he’s wearing a Sox warm-up jacket. Later, when he comes back from the concession stand, I see he’s in the second row, and I think: our seats are better.
We pick up another run in the seventh to make it 7–2, and Timlin and Embree close it with little difficulty, but two things happen that are worth noting. In the eighth, Cesar Crespo, who’s turned three double plays today, and missed a fourth only because Bellhorn’s throw pulled Ortiz off the bag, makes an error and is loudly booed. Then in the ninth, when Francona puts in the hands team and Pokey’s name is announced, the crowd gives him a sustained ovation. It’s taken Pokey three years to get here, but now that he is, he’s a favorite. Even among skeptics like Steph and Steve and myself, whenever a ball skips through the middle or drops in short center, we say, “Pokey woulda had it.”
We win, but on the out-of-town scoreboard, the Yanks are up 7–3 on the Rangers. In the car, it’s a final, 8–3 Yanks, so we’re still only a game and a half up.
When we get home, I find out that Bill Mueller wasn’t even there today. He was out in Arizona, getting a second opinion on his knee. Regardless of the result, it’s bad news. Youkilis better take some extra grounders.
My third straight game at Fenway and my third straight win. I’m starting to feel like if I’d been here from the start of the season, we’d be ten games in first (God will get me for saying that). Stewart came with his son, Steph, both of them equipped with gloves. Doug Mirabelli banged a foul off the glass facing of the .406 Club in the first inning; Stew turned, stretched and caught it neatly just as the sun came out. The crowd up the first-base line gave him a spirited ovation. Stew had class enough—and wit enough—to tip his cap. It was a nice moment, and I’m glad his son was there to see it.
So Wakefield gets the win, the Red Sox sweep the Blue Jays, and our bullpen was pretty much untouchable throughout. Kevin Youkilis? Glad you asked. The Greek God of Walks reached base three times (one fielder’s choice, two bases on balls) and scored once.
May 24th
Seems like we always have a day off just when we’re getting hot. It gives me time to prepare for tomorrow’s first meeting with Oakland since last year’s Division Series—bound to be loud. It’s a sweet matchup: Schilling versus Tim Hudson, who’s 5-1 with a 2.90 ERA. It’s Foulke’s first game against his old club, and Terry Francona’s, and of course Scott Hatteberg will get a couple of hits, and maybe Johnny Damon. Mark Bellhorn was also an A once, though a low-profile one. With all the turnover lately (and Dan Duquette’s endless fire sale of our best prospects), it’s hard to find a club that doesn’t have some Sox connection.
Tonight’s the Nomar Bowl in Malden, where dozens of Boston sports celebrities and their fans get together
