Faithful

June 30th

I didn’t want to write this down, but after last night’s crushing loss to the Yankees, I suppose I really ought to. About five days ago—just before my trip to Boston, anyway—I discovered a nearly perfect crow-shit Yankees logo on the windshield of my truck. This is a true thing I’m telling you.

You’re asking do I have photographic proof?

Are you crazy?

What the windshield washer wouldn’t take care of immediately, I got rid of with a filling-station squeegee just as fast as I could (and it took a distressing amount of elbow grease; those big woods crows shit hard). Itold myself it wasn’t an omen, but look at last night. Dick Cheney shows up in a Yankees hat, the Red Sox commit three more errors, the Yankees hitters are patient, the Red Sox hitters aren’t. Derek Lowe, who has lately shown signs of his old craftiness, last night looked like an escapee from that old Spielberg film The Goonies.

Any halfway knowledgeable baseball fan will tell you there are three aspects to the game: you have to be able to throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball. Last night, the Red Sox did a bad job on all three. And the Yankees have changed since April; this is Frankenteam. But there is good news, and it isn’t that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. The crow-shit Yankees logo is no longer on my windshield, and at midnight tonight, June is officially over. I’m expecting the Swoon to be over with it. This team is just too good to keep playing as it has over the last dozen games.

I hope.

That’s right, I hope. Because that’s what Red Sox fans do.

Gloom and doom from Sean McAdam in the Providence Journal. I can’t imagine how hard the Globe is riding the team. The Sox need to demonstrate some character, the Sox need to show why they have the second-highest payroll in baseball, you can judge a team by the way it responds to adversity, etc. Hey, Sean, maybe you’ve forgotten, but we’ve had our adversity, and we responded by leading the division for a couple months.

It’s a case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately, which for the beat reporter means a couple hours ago. We’re 6-2 against the Yanks so far, and we’ve played a big chunk of the season without Nomar, Trot and now Bill Mueller. As long as we stay close, we can pick it up in the second half like we did last year and make the playoffs, and in a short series, with Petey and Mr. Schill and Foulke to close, we’ve got a shot.

Tonight’s Wake-Lieber matchup is in our favor, considering how Timmy’s pitched in the Stadium. It goes that way through six, 2–0 Sox on a David Ortiz homer and RBI single. We hit Lieber but leave a lot of men on, while the Yanks can’t touch the knuckler.

In the top of the seventh, we load the bases with no outs, and Torre goes to his middle guy, Felix Heredia. He’s not a top-of-the-line pitcher, and we’ve got the top of the order up. With the infield drawn in, Johnny grounds to Tony Clark, who goes home to cut down the run—Kapler, running for Millar. Now, with one down, our man on third is Doug Mirabelli, the slowest guy on the team. Francona must want three more outs from Wake, because he doesn’t pinch-run, and Bellhorn’s fly to short left does nothing. On 2-2, David Ortiz takes an outside pitch and the ump rings him up. It’s a terrible call, and Ortiz stays at the plate, taking off his helmet and batting gloves, muttering, “Motherfucker,” while the ump walks away. When Ortiz takes the field, he’s still jawing at him.

I’m wondering where Francona is. Managers can’t argue balls and strikes, but there’s nothing more important, and we just got robbed. I don’t care if he gets tossed, he’s got to protect his players.

Wake hits Sheffield with his first pitch. After A-Rod Ks, BALCO Boy steals second. On 3-2, Wake walks Matsui on a borderline pitch that gets past Mirabelli. Francona goes to Williamson to get Bernie Williams, and he does, on a splitter down. Posada—so typical—works the walk, loading the bases for the switch-hitting Tony Clark. Clark’s a hundred points better lefty. We should have Embree warm, but he’s just getting up—and now Williamson’s complaining of arm pain, and trainer Jim Rowe, Dave Wallace and Francona converge on the mound. Either it’s ridiculous coincidence, or Williamson is acting. It’s ruled an injury, so our reliever can take as long as he wants to warm up.

I think it’s going to be Embree, but when we come back from commercial it’s Timlin. He gets Clark to hit a one-hopper to Ortiz, who stumbles as he bends to glove it, and the ball goes through him into right, and all I can think is, He pulled a Billy Buck.

Two runs score, and we’re tied.

“Where’s McCarty?” I ask the TV.

Ortiz gets a new glove, as if that was the problem.

Cairo grounds out to end the inning, but they get two runs without a hit.

Tom Gordon throws a perfect eighth against Manny, Nomar and Trot, reaching 96 mph.

Lofton leads off their eighth with a grounder to the hole that Nomar backhands. He leaps, twisting, and throws. It’s short and to the right-field side, but well in time. Ortiz misses the pick and it ricochets off his arm and into the stands.

“Where is McCarty?” I yell.

Jeter bunts Lofton over to third, then Sheffield fouls off seven fastballs on 0-2 (later Eck will say, “I might think about mixing in a breaking ball there—you know, that’s just me”) before pulling one past Bellhorn for a 3–2 lead. Embree comes on to face Matsui, even though Matsui’s 3 for 8 lifetime against him. Make that 4 for 9, and we’re down 4–2.

Mo takes care of the ninth—ironically, McCarty’s the last batter, and never puts on his glove—and we lose one we should have won. The loss is on Ortiz, but also on Francona for not having his hands team out there late in a close game. You can always stick David at DH. Instead, he had the hobbling Trot at DH (obviously that quad’s still bothering him), Millar in right and Youk on the bench. His use of Timlin and Embree seemed a little whacky, and after Wake left the game, Timlin and Mirabelli had trouble communicating during Sheffield’s at-bat, shaking each other off several times before the last pitch. Why not go to Tek, who usually catches Timlin? And what about the philosophy of using your closer for the most important at-bat of the game? We didn’t even see Foulke warming. Terrible. If yesterday’s loss was embarrassing, this one’s humiliating. They didn’t win, we actively lost. Now Petey’s got to be tough if we’re going to avoid the sweep. That we’re 6-3 against them is no consolation, seven and a half back.

July TURN THE PAGE

July 1st

“Why did football bring me so to life? I can’t say precisely. Part of it was my feeling that football was an island of directness in a world of circumspection. In football a man was asked to do a difficult and brutal job, and he either did it or got out. There was nothing rhetorical or vague about it; I chose to believe that it was not unlike the jobs which all men, in some sunnier past, had been called upon to do. It smacked of something old, something traditional, something unclouded by legerdemain and subterfuge. It had that kind of power over me, drawing me back with the force of something known, scarcely remembered, elusive as integrity—perhaps it was no more than the force of a forgotten childhood. Whatever it was, I gave myself up to the Giants utterly. The