Faithful

And even a little something extra: tonight we have a magic number in the wild-card race. It’s eight. Any combination of Boston wins and Anaheim losses adding up to that number puts us in the postseason.

September 22nd

NESN, in a strange late-season move, changes the format of their morning SportsDesk to thirty minutes and replaces beloved girl-next-door anchor Jayme Parker with heavily coiffed and tailored Hazel Mae, formerly a postgame analyst (read: talking head) with the Toronto Blue Jays. In an introductory guest spot between innings with Don and Jerry, she lays down a swinging patter, trying to be chummy and knowledgeable, but comes off as slick and insincere as a game-show host, without a touch of irony. She’s a pro, no doubt, but her style is wrong for dumpy, low-budget NESN: we New Englanders distrust fast-talking outsiders. And she’s talking mighty fast now, flying out ahead of herself as if she’s nervous—as if she suddenly realizes what she’s gotten herself into. I can smell the flop sweat through the TV. Don tries to help, feeding her cues to lighten and redirect her spiel. Jerry just stands there, giving her enough rope.

SO: What have they done with our Jayme? And with our 15-minute quick-repeating SportsDesk? Is nothing sacred?

SK: Hazel Mae? What kind of name is that? And, to misquote Bob Dylan, “Hazel, you look so HARD!!”

Foulked again. For the second straight night, he gives up a bomb in the ninth to tie the game, this time to the literally hobbling Rafael Palmeiro. We go to extras, where Curtis Leskanic makes us hold our breath before getting out of a bases-loaded jam with an improbable 3-2-4 DP (Pokey alertly covering first), and then Orlando Cabrera, who had a chance to win it in the ninth but ducked a pitch that would have hit him with bases juiced, knocks one onto the Monster for a walk-off and another bouncing celebration at home.

SO: Yi yi yi.

SK: All’s welle that endes welle.

September 23rd

The Birds are making it outrageously hard, and Keith Foulke has blown a pair of saves (one with the help of outrageously bad home-plate umpiring, ’tis true), but the Red Sox pulled out another one last night (walk-off home run in the bottom of the twelfth, advantage Mr. Cabrera), and the Angels dropped another one. The magic number thus drops to five, and with the Yankees’ loss to Toronto and New York’s impending weekend visitto our house, even the AL East gold ring seems within our reach. This September still ain’t a patch on August…but I’d have to say it’s improving.

SK: 5

This magic number brought to you courtesy of the Seattle M’s. And by the way, have you checked dem crazy Tejas Rangers lately?

SO: Baby, can you dig your Rangers? Dead and buried last week, but after winning four straight (and going for the sweep of the A’s tonight), they’re a mere three back in the West, and the A’s and Angels still have to tangle six times. It would be sweet to see the one truly surprising club of this season sneak in on the final weekend.

And I’m sure you noticed the milestones last night: El Jefe’s 40th homer and Bellhorn’s 163rd K. Just numbers. Like 5.

Grady Little is no longer the Red Sox manager, ostensibly for his mistrust of the bullpen in an important game. Tonight new manager Terry Francona shows his faith by resting the hard-ridden Mike Timlin and Keith Foulke and letting lefty specialist and submariner Mike Myers pitch to a right-handed hitter with bases loaded and the score tied in the eighth. Then in the ninth, he lets righty specialist and submariner Byung-Hyun Kim (no, that’s not a typo) pitch to a left-handed batter with two on. Bill James—hell, any Strat-O-Matic junkie—could have told you these were low-percentage moves. Francona’s trust in his idiotic luck costs us four runs, and, when Manny gets two of those back in the ninth and David Ortiz’s two-out, two-strike blast to right settles into David Newhan’s glove, proves to cost us the game. Wake up the talk-radio cranks, it’s Grady time!

(A side note: Ellis Burks, who’ll be retiring after the season, pinch-hits in the ninth for what may be his last major league at-bat. When he first came up from Pawtucket in 1987, he was a reedy outfielder just beginning to develop power. Since then he’s ripped over 2,000 hits and 350 home runs (nifty trivia: he’s homered against every club in the majors). This year he was hurt and wasn’t really part of the on-field effort, but he’s a clubhouse presence and sentimental favorite. After receiving a warm standing O, Ellis fights B. J. Ryan deep into the count before blooping a single to center. At forty, on creaky knees, he’s still a professional hitter. We applaud long and loud as he’s lifted for a pinch runner, and he goes into the dugout with a smile. Thanks, Ellis.)

SK: We almost took three of four. Papi came up four yards short. Mr. Kim still with the bad karma. My daughter-in-law calls me to ask if it would be all right for her to have ORLANDO tattooed on her ass (I said sure). And consider, S2: THEY COULDA SWEPT US! Baltimore’s the only team in the AL with the nuts to leave Fenway feeling bad about “just a split.” Holy shit, I’m so glad to see the Birds hoppin’ somewhere else, and I feel so bad about having to finish the season back where we started. The Great Wheel of Ka turns…

SO: If Francoma uses the pen by the book tonight we probably win and take three of four. Seems like he wrote this one off in the seventh with the score tied at 5. What good is the forty-man roster if you don’t take advantage of it?

Rangers sweep the A’s and we’ve got a wild-ass race in the West.

The Magic Number remains Nomar.

September 25th

Was there the slightest hitch in Terry Francona’s walk last night in the eighth inning when he finally went out to take the ball from Pedro Martinez’s hand, and the boos began raining down from the Fenway Faithful? I was sitting in my usual place, just a row up from foul territory between home and first on the Sox side of the field— just about the best seat in the house—and I say there was. If so, such a hitch would indicate surprise. And if Francona was surprised, it would indicate that not even a full season at the helm of this team has taught him the most fundamental thing about the clientele it and he serves: this is no ordinary hardball fan-base. The New Englanders who follow the Red Sox are as deeply scarred by loss, particularly loss to the Yankees, as they are loyal to their club. But it’s more specific than that. They are especially scarred—traumatized would not betoo strong a word—by loss to the Yankees in the late innings, with Pedro Martinez, long regarded as the team’s ace, on the hill. If Francona cannot grasp that, he cannot succeed in Boston.

The Red Sox lost to New York last night 6–4, in spite of home runs by Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, and the fiery, not-to-be-denied Trot Nixon. That they played otherwise with remarkable dullness for a team