Faithful

everything they’ve got, and they’ve seen what we’ve got. I don’t mind playing them… but nineteen is just too many.”

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome once again to Super Pro Wrestling! For no other reason than he doesn’t like the way Doug Mientkiewicz is standing on the bag at first (or might it have something to do with Lofton’s mysterious ejection during the Tek–A-Rod brawl?), Kenny Lofton deliberately elbows him as he goes by—on a play that isn’t close, in a game that’s a runaway. Maybe Kenny’s frustrated, or just dumb, because he seems surprised—nay, outraged—when reliever Pedro Astacio throws behind him late in the game. The next inning, the Yanks’ kid reliever throws at Dave Roberts’s head. Uncool, and Roberts is justifiably pissed.

There’s a huge difference between throwing behind a guy and throwing at his head, and everyone in the game knows it. Likewise, if you purposely elbow someone, you had better expect to be thrown at. In both cases, the Yankees broke the unwritten code. If there’s any justice (and wrestling is all about poetic justice), the game will make them pay.

Side note: Today’s sellout was our 81st of the year. Only three other clubs in the history of baseball have sold out their entire home season. All three were playing in brand-new stadiums. [61]

September 27th

Hurricane Jeanne has knocked out the electricity in the Tampa Bay area, and for a while it looks as if the game may not be played. The juice is restored, but someone seems to have neglected to tell the Boston bats. Or maybe it’s just young Scott Kazmir, exerting the sort of limited but malign influence certain pitchers seem able to cast over certain teams. When Kazmir faced Martinez two weeks ago, you’ll recall, he won easily. He seems well on his way to a second win tonight, striking out batter after batter (Kevin Millar on egregiously high cheese), so when my youngest son—up on a wonderful extended visit from New York—suggests we turn off the game and go to a movie, I agree at once, even though the Sox technically have a chance to clinch a playoff berth. I now believe they will clinch; I just don’t believe it will be tonight.

The code is absolute, and beyond partisanship. Tonight Bronson Arroyo hits Aubrey Huff unintentionally with a curve that breaks down and in too sharply. No big deal, even though it puts Huff out of the game with a bruised shin, but then, a batter later, with men on second and third and first base open, Bronson drills Tino Martinez in the back, and Tino rightfully has some things to say.

Former Mets phenom Scott Kazmir, who has yet to give up a hit, retaliates, hitting Manny low. And Manny’s cool, Manny understands, and hoofs it down to first without a word. Now that things are evened up, the ump warns both dugouts. Any more of this and both the pitcher and the manager are going. But Kazmir—maybe on Lou Piniella’s orders—isn’t done. He hits the very next batter, Millar, in the ribs. Millar takes exception and the benches clear briefly. Good-bye, unhittable Kazmir. Good-bye, Lou.

It’s a foolish move. We jump all over reliever Jorge Sosa for five runs, including a drive to dead center by Manny that lands on the roof of the fancy restaurant out there, and go on to win 7–3 and clinch the wild card. See? That’s what happens when you go against the code.

And, ironically, since being on the same team overrides the code, during the locker-room celebration Manny hugs Terry Adams, who he came close to charging back in April after a little chin music.

It’s the late show of The Forgotten we go to, and in Bethel Station on a Monday night, my son and I are two of just six attendees. As we’re leaving, the guy cleaning up behind the candy counter tells me—casually—that the Red Sox were leading Tampa Bay by a score of 7–2 and he thinks that might be a final. Owen and I look at each other in delighted amazement, then hurry to his car and tune the radio to WOXO, Norway–South Paris (which advertises itself as Everybody’s Country…when, that is, they’re not broadcasting NASCAR racing, Boston Red Sox baseball, or Oxford Hills High School football). We discover that the game has indeed ended, and that the final score was 7–3. Bronson Arroyo hit a couple of batters (he leads the American League in that category), and Scott Kazmir retaliated. The umpires let him get away with drilling Manny Ramirez in the knee, but when Kazmir whacked Kevin “I Brake for High Cheese” Millar in the ribs, the kid was gone, taking an incipient no-hitter with him.[62] Three or four home runs later (Manny hit number 43), the 2004 Red SoxParty Boys are in a clubhouse so wrapped in plastic it looks like a condom, laughing and shouting and pouring beer on each other.

They all acknowledge that the regular season isn’t over as long as catching the Yankees remains a technical possibility (by winning, the Red Sox cut the lead of the idle Yanks to three games, and in that light the two we lost to the awful El Birdos during the last home stand look bigger than ever), but in their raucous celebrating, there is an undeniable sense that they feel the real work is now done. Given their lackluster level of play in June and July, that is understandable. In some ways, they are lucky to be here at all.

SO: The Sox are sudsing Manny with champagne. I’m toasting them with ginger ale. I’ve got a bottle of bubbly downstairs, but I’m saving it for something bigger. Still, to make the playoffs with the injuries we’ve had, I’m proud of this club. They gave us a great summer. (The punch line: now for a great fall.)

Looks like Minnesota and the great Santana. I’d match him up with Schilling, just go after him. Too bad those games will be on the road.

SK: Mathematically, it was the weirdest clinch ever. [What Steve means is that we didn’t whittle our magic number down to zero. We’re still at 1, but because our competition for the wild card is Anaheim, that 1 assumes they win the rest of their games, three of which are against Oakland, who they’re only one game behind now, and if they do that, they win the West and Oakland becomes our already-defeated competition. So our wish from a few months ago has come true: the A’s and Angels knock each other off without even playing the games. Thank you, unbalanced schedule (and unbalanced schedule-makers).]

SO: The rest of our games are most likely meaningless, but… it’s like Jim Carrey says in Dumb & Dumber when Lauren Holly tells him the odds of them being together are more like a million to one: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

Start carving your playoff roster, we’re going to the show!

September 28th

Tonight’s game against Tampa Bay is an audition for pitchers on the bubble. Derek Lowe pitches dreadfully, scuttling his chance to be the number three starter in the playoffs (Bronson Arroyo seems to have won that spot with his strong second half). Terry Adams throws two-plus ugly innings, so count him out. By the time Alan Embree comes in to throw one shutout inning, it’s 8–8. Scott Williamson, who’s been injured, walks one guy in his stint, but his velocity is still down around 89, so I doubt he’ll make the roster. Pedro Astacio’s just getting some work in before he starts half of Saturday’s doubleheader in Baltimore. Ramiro Mendoza, though, nails his assignment, pitching a perfect ninth and tenth, striking out two and giving us a chance to win it when Kevin Millar cranks a two- run shot off fireballing closer Danys Baez, who Lou has left out there throwing 96 (and then 94, 93, 92) for three innings. Foulke crafts a one-two-three eleventh and we’re two and a half back of the Yanks with five to go.

Much more exciting is the West, where the Angels and A’s are now in a dead heat with a three-game showdown looming on the season’s final weekend, the results of which will determine the playoff matchups. Right now the Central champs the Twins have a better record (by a mere one win) than Oakland and Anaheim, meaning they’d play us and have home-field advantage, and the Yankees would host whoever won the West (an easier task, given the Twins’ brilliant lefty Johan Santana). The Yanks have some control over the situation: tomorrow they start