Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Thursday, October 21, 2004

I have a minute before we leave tonight for Vegas. My thoughts going in are along the lines of expecting us to do little things and to make smart choices in games. Even though it is fall ball I think we have simulated game situations to the point where I fully expect us to not beat ourselves with monotonous stupidity. I’ll take anything close to that.

BOOHSOX

I might have been having a hallucination or some kind of "flashback" the other night, but I think I might have witnessed a miracle, albeit on television. There was a frozen moment at a point where the New York Yankees were playing in Boston, and just a handful of outs away from winning the game and completing a four-game sweep of the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS. I’m sure the brooms were already out in the Bronx. In Fenway Park (and likely all over town) hands were squeezing their own faces. Any vision of hope was clouded by the desperation of the situation. There was an almost eerie feel. The fans didn’t quite know how to be of most help to their beloved Sox. Nary a sole had given up or left the park premises, though. It ain’t over til it’s over.

This is baseball. The Fall Classic(s). No matter how many lacrosse games I am ever a part of, and no matter how much I love the sport played with sticks and rubber balls, true confessions will reveal that my very first love in life (after Mom) was baseball, the one that is covered with stitched horsehide. I still love the drama of baseball as much as I ever did.

The Red Sox trailed by one run late in the game, but their fate was once again seemingly already sealed. This would be for the umpteenth time since 1918. They (Yankees) were preparing to celebrate the greatness of themselves and then they would have a week to prepare for the World Series. Mariano Rivera was on the mound for the Yankees. It was a done deal. Those Damn Yankees were bought and paid for, and it was looking like they (Boss) got a good return on their investments. They were also looking very much like "Everybody’s Daddy" now, and not just the absentee Godfathers of Boston. SURELY the Bronx Bombers would soon be the next World Champions of baseball, and we could quickly get back to watching football without distraction.

WAIT A SECOND SUCKER - and don’t call me Shirley

As I was saying, I think I saw something that might perhaps be "larger than life". The final drops of wasted water were swirling into the base of the toilet bowl that was the Boston Red Sox. They (Red Sox and their fans) had suffered every humiliation available in baseball (Bill Buckner in 1986 with only one out to go). This sudden, sour realization (2004 version) was now free falling like a blanket of woe, one about to suffocate the entire Bosox Community (again). To the true Faithful this possibility must have seemed somehow even more catastrophic than all the unhappy endings of the past 86 baseball seasons combined (the curse of the Bambino). This was to be THE YEAR after all.

The TV showed Creepy Story author Stephen King (8th inning?). They have shown him at Red Sox games before. This was not new. Usually he looks as though he is just sitting there passively thinking up his next bone chilling story based on God knows what. You can always count on the weather being weird when King is writing, however. This time the camera showed a completely different Stephen King. He was up and screaming, seemingly admonishing the Baseball Gods and the Curse of the Bambino and all that. Stephen Freaking King was sermonizing. Holy Halloween, Batman. In a few seconds he disappeared from the screen just as quickly as he had appeared.

I might be crazy, possibly just ranting my own self, but I swear that everything as we have known it in baseball began to change at that precise moment. Hell, they (Sox) scratched that one run off Mariano that they desperately needed as respirator, and from then on the collectively held breath of Boston became regular breathing, and it was now getting stronger by the minute. They finally won that one in extras. Then they did it (won) three more times, the last two in the Bronx.

The closest thing that I had ever seen to this was the "We are Family" Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1979 World Series. They came back from down 3-1, and the last two were in Baltimore.

So the Red Sox have now done what no baseball team has EVER done before, sweeping 4 games in a seven game series after being down 3-0. The feat is even more impressive considering the final two games took place at Yankee Stadium, The House that Ruth built. The thing is, though, that this just gives them the chance. After all that, they still have a mountain of work to do. If they don’t win 4 more games it was still all for nothing. I hope Boston has broad shoulders because win or lose it will need them for all that sighing or crying.

Oops, I gotta go……

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