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Howard Bryant, ESPN Senior Author
AS A KID WHO grew up within the Dorchester part of Boston, the Pink Sox had been every thing to me. We performed baseball in a vacant lot off the nook of Callender and Lucerne streets. One of many greater children who batted left-handed would shout “Yaz!” after sending a blast throughout the road — hitting it throughout Callender was a house run — as a each day ode to Carl Yastrzemski. We had been a bunch of grade schoolers contorting ourselves into geometric shapes making an attempt to repeat Luis Tiant, the good right-hander who died Oct. 8.
That World Collection yr, 1975, was my first huge reminiscence of the Pink Sox. I used to be 6, and three years later, our fifth-grade lecturers rolled televisions into our school rooms so we may watch the beginning of the one-game playoff between the Sox and Yankees earlier than the afternoon college buses arrived.
The ’75 staff was about pleasure. There was a lament for not profitable, however there was no concern, no dread, no choke.
Then got here 1976. And 1978. And 1986, when the collapse was so devastating that it affixed itself to the previous and have become a curse — proof that dropping was each predestined and punishment for previous sins. One historic narrative transitioned into one other.
“The Comeback,” directed by Colin Barnicle, is a documentary commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the World Collection-winning 2004 Pink Sox. It debuted on Netflix this week. I served as an govt producer on the mission, and the expertise evoked feelings and revelations in regards to the significance of these clashes twenty years faraway from the combat.
I’ve at all times lived between two worlds. As a child, I rooted for the Pink Sox and, as a result of Dave Winfield was my favourite participant, the Yankees too. From 2001 to 2005, as an grownup, I coated the Yankees first for the Bergen Document after which the Pink Sox as a columnist for the Boston Herald.
Time ages all of us, in some circumstances a bit extra simply; Theo Epstein and Kevin Millar, Joe Torre and Roger Clemens do not look twenty years older. For others, the years have been laborious; well being points have taken their toll on Curt Schilling. With some others, time took away every thing: Tim Wakefield, Jerry Remy, Larry Lucchino, Dave McCarty, Johnny Pesky and Tiant have died within the years since.
Revisiting the period twenty years later, one evening particularly encapsulated the complete two years Pink Sox proprietor John Henry known as “an epic quest”: Recreation 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Collection.
There are too many recollections and moments to recount, however Recreation 7 of the 2003 ALCS is the very best baseball sport I’ve ever witnessed stay. Maybe that is nonsense as a result of I used to be additionally in attendance when Luis Gonzalez gained the 2001 World Collection for Arizona in Recreation 7 towards Mariano Rivera. I used to be additionally in attendance 10 years later, when the Texas Rangers erased the 1986 Pink Sox from the report books, changing them because the staff that got here closest to profitable a championship with out truly profitable it.
So, maybe it’s all hyperbole, however I stand by it. Listed here are seven tales from my expertise protecting Recreation 7 of the 2003 ALCS made that evening unforgettable.
ACT I: Willie Randolph
I BELIEVED the Pink Sox would win Recreation 7. I had no inside data, however nothing in regards to the 2003 Pink Sox made me imagine they could not deal with the second. They would not get devoured by their nerves, as Oakland did towards them within the division collection. The Pink Sox hit exceptionally properly in Yankee Stadium and had gained Recreation 6 dealing with elimination with a late rally the evening earlier than.
Strolling onto the sphere, I noticed Willie Randolph chopping fungoes to his infielders. Randolph had gained World Collection titles with the Yankees in 1977 and 1978 as a participant, and 4 extra as a coach in the course of the Torre dynasty. He summoned me over whereas he labored.
“Younger man.”
“Hey, Willie.”
“What do you consider tonight?”
“I believe the Pink Sox are actually good. They may even be higher than you this yr.”
Randolph didn’t break stride, simply slashing grounders throughout the diamond. He nodded slowly.
“Yeah, the Pink Sox are good,” he mentioned. “They may even be higher than us. However I have been round right here a very long time, and each time we have needed to beat them, we have overwhelmed them.
“Tonight will not be any completely different.”
ACT II: Jason Giambi
EARLIER THAT AFTERNOON, a water fundamental broke close to the sting of the Bronx. Visitors was snarled. Jason Giambi — he of the seven-year, $120 million contract, about whose presence Derek Jeter would not directly make the excellence between Yankees who had gained a championship and people who had not as a working protest towards the staff shifting on from his pal Tino Martinez (whom Giambi changed) — confirmed up late to Recreation 7.
When Giambi regarded on the lineup, he noticed Torre had him batting seventh. Giambi had not began a sport that season hitting wherever apart from third or fourth within the order. Twenty-one years later, Torre mentioned he by no means thought of batting Giambi seventh a punishment for being late to the most important sport of his life.
Giambi, the easygoing Californian enjoying as angrily as I would ever seen him, responded by hitting two residence runs off Pedro Martinez.
ACT III: Randy Levine
ROGER CLEMENS HAD NOTHING to offer that evening. The rematch of Recreation 3, when Pedro Martinez rolled Don Zimmer by his ears to the bottom and Clemens cemented himself as one of many nice enforcers of his time, was an early bust. Trot Nixon took Clemens deep. So did Kevin Millar. Boston shortly led 4-0 with Martinez on the mound. Boston was going to the World Collection. New York’s Mike Mussina, in aid, stored the sport shut whereas Giambi’s two insult-fueled solo homers lower the lead in half.
When David Ortiz hit a solo residence run off David Wells to make it 5-2 within the eighth, Ortiz and the Pink Sox thought they’d gained the pennant — and so did Wells (however extra on that later). Ortiz rounding the bases jogged my memory of earlier within the season. He hit .327 towards the Yankees with six residence runs that season. As Ortiz tortured the Yankees, proprietor George Steinbrenner would yell at Brian Cashman, his normal supervisor:
“Why do not we’ve got him?“
Ortiz sealed it. Then, in fact, got here Grady Little.
The Yankees tied it within the eighth because the Pink Sox supervisor caught along with his ace, Martinez; three innings later, within the backside of the eleventh, Aaron Boone despatched a ball over the fence. Boston’s Tim Wakefield walked off the mound, embodying Dennis Eckersley’s authentic definition of a “walk-off” — it is an epitaph for the pitcher, not a celebration of the batter. Boone ran the bases and Mariano Rivera, who, like Mussina, pitched three season-saving scoreless innings, sprinted to the mound and collapsed on it. That left photographers to seize an inconceivable sight: a Yankees hitter rounding the bases after a pennant-winning residence run — with a Yankees pitcher on the mound.
Whereas Boone rounded the bases and Rivera hugged the soil and the outdated Yankee Stadium shook — it was to be the final nice reminiscence of the outdated place — to my left had been members of the Yankees’ entrance workplace. There was Cashman, hugging his assistant GM, Jean Afterman, who was hugging Reggie Jackson, the legend and particular adviser to Steinbrenner. The three of them deliriously jumped up and down in a joyous circle.
The Yankees had gained the pennant. Willie Randolph was proper.
Strolling previous them towards the entrance of the suite was Yankees president Randy Levine, who clearly had no time for hugs. Enraged in victory, bored with Lucchino’s needling of the Yankees as “the Evil Empire,” Levine brandished a fist towards the sphere and shouted:
“Take that, you 1918 items of s—!!“
ACT IV: Mike Mussina
TWENTY YEARS LATER, no person talks about him, as a result of Grady and Pedro and Aaron Boone obtained high billing that evening — and since the Yankees ended up not profitable the 2003 World Collection — but it surely was Mike Mussina who saved the season within the ALCS. He pitched three scoreless innings. He relieved Clemens trailing 4-0 within the fourth with runners on the corners, no person out and a run already in. The Pink Sox may have led by 5-0 or 6-0, however Mussina stood tall.
Mussina had at all times been stoic, a bit moody with an opportunity of bitter. As soon as, throughout spring coaching, he and I stood within the clubhouse watching the NCAA males’s basketball match and his solely feedback on the sport weren’t about good pictures, performs or passes, however in regards to the infractions the referees missed. Once I coated the Yankees within the early 2000s, he was initially one in all my least favourite gamers to speak to, however thereafter he turned the alternative.
Lined in champagne after the sport, Mussina was so overcome he may barely discuss. Tears streamed down his face. The stoic, cerebral pitcher who sat at his locker and did crossword puzzles earlier than video games was caught in a second of pure, incoherent authenticity that writers and followers crave however hardly ever see, a departure from the enterprise and the skilled wall athletes should erect to guard their privateness and focus. Right here, Mussina revealed how a lot focus was required to excel and succeed. He revealed how a lot all of it mattered. It was sports activities.
ACT V: Theo Epstein
THE RED SOX CLUBHOUSE was silent, a shattered tail to Mussina’s elated head, an equal and reverse revelation of how a lot certainly all of it mattered. As I bear in mind, a bunch of reporters waited for Theo Epstein by the doorway. He had been crying so laborious his face regarded sunburned when he arrived. Nobody needed to ask a query. Exterior of sports activities, a funeral will not be adopted by a information convention.
For the season, Epstein stood tall, inflexible, due partially to his pure erect gait but in addition to the need to mission energy in a chilly, skeptical trade unimpressed by his meteoric rise. The trade had not but revered him — the aged profession males thought little of the rising star — and his very presence signified to the careerists a generational shift that will have an effect on their livelihoods. He was Moneyball. He was the longer term.
In his very first yr, he had additionally constructed a baseball staff that received as near a pennant as a staff may with out profitable it.
I don’t bear in mind how the ice was damaged, however there Epstein stood, face puffy, eyes bloodshot.
“Sure, they received us,” he mentioned. “Good for them. … We will win it subsequent yr.”
When he walked away, a couple of reporters checked out one another and quietly began laughing. Not humorously, however incredulously. He could not presumably be critical. Boldness soothing the damage.
No method does any franchise get better from this.
ACT VI: David Wells
THE STORIES WERE written, and the interviews achieved, however the drunken exhalation on the Stadium was not. Strolling up the steps from the clubhouse, holding onto a brown paper bag concealing some bottled spirit, carrying a pair of sun shades, was the left-hander David Wells. He was drunk and critical, caught between self-flagellation and the incredulity of the evening.
He checked out me and mentioned repeatedly, “I f—ing blew the season and we’ll the World Collection. I f—ing blew the season.
“I gave up that residence run to Ortiz and I am standing on the mound considering I f—ing blew the season.
“We will the World Collection!“
ACT VII: George Steinbrenner
WELLS HEADED TO THE PARKING LOT. I rotated to move again as much as the press field when a closing, towering determine entered the chaos.
It was George Steinbrenner. Rising from the identical stairwell as Wells, he too was carrying sun shades though it was round 2 a.m. Sporting his America’s Cup or U.S. Olympic Committee windbreaker, Steinbrenner walked previous me after which stopped, shut sufficient to counsel he was going to say one thing.
He did not. He was surveying his empire: delirious New Yorkers. Demoralized Pink Sox. The Pink Sox staff bus was unable to tug out as a result of it was surrounded by Yankees followers chanting “1918! 1918! 1918!” Yankee Stadium safety labored to maneuver followers away from shaking the bus and create a pathway for the defeated Pink Sox to depart.
George stood subsequent to me and started to stroll slowly. Towards the gang. As one of many longest-tenured homeowners — he purchased the Yankees in 1973 — I assumed he was going to make use of his affect to be a statesman and urge the gang to let the bus by way of. He didn’t. As a substitute, he walked towards the Pink Sox bus, stopped and waved at it, shouting in his basic high-pitched voice:
“We win once more!“
The start of the tip
HAVING BUSES JEERED out of city, homeowners of ethical victories and dedication — that is the way it ended for the Pink Sox. It was their previous, future and searing current. It was additionally the start of this portion of historical past.
The official finish would come a yr later, with the ultimate out of Recreation 3 within the 2004 ALCS, when the Yankees gained 19-8, went up 3-0 within the collection — and didn’t win one other sport. In the course of the playoffs, the Pink Sox provided the writers the chance to purchase ALCS tickets. I had tickets to the well-known Recreation 4, the Dave Roberts sport, the start of a brand new historical past sport — and no person in my circle needed them. Nobody needed to be there for the funeral once more. Nobody needed to see the Yankees celebrating on the sphere at Fenway Park as they did in 1978 and 1999. With all my diehards declining, I gave my tickets to a stranger, my son’s pediatrician. I gave tickets to essentially the most iconic sport ever performed in that stadium to a lady I had identified just a few weeks.
The main target of “The Comeback” is rightfully on 2004. With out the final word slaying of the beast, there isn’t a story. However for me, it was Recreation 7 of the 2003 ALCS that gave 2004 its bigger that means and its drama. It raised the stakes and made it all of the extra attention-grabbing, particularly on reflection. John Henry responded to devastation by persevering with the epic quest. The staff would half methods with Grady Little, ending the period of managerial hunches — the century-old historical past of managers like Joe McCarthy and Leo Durocher and Tommy Lasorda because the decision-makers in a baseball sport.
Since that day, the Pink Sox have 4 World Collection titles. The Yankees have one. The Yankees haven’t overwhelmed Boston within the playoffs since. Since being down 3-0 in 2004, the Pink Sox and Yankees have performed 9 playoff video games over three collection. The Pink Sox are 8-1.
First, from 1903 to 1918, the Pink Sox gained 5 World Collection and by no means misplaced one. Then, from 1919 to 2003, they might not win one. The essence of The Comeback, to me, was the Pink Sox not merely stating, however proving, their absence of concern. Sure, the Pink Sox got here again from 0-3. Sure, they gained the World Collection. Sure, it’s known as the best comeback of all time. And sure, the Sox broke an 86-year championship drought a bit over every week later, however the legacy of that border warfare 20 years in the past is that the everlasting specter of the Yankees that hung over the Pink Sox was killed.
The Yankees gained the pennant this season and face the Dodgers within the World Collection. Sooner or later, the Pink Sox will beat the Yankees and lose to them. They may end forward of the Yankees, and they may not. The Pink Sox would possibly at all times hate the Yankees, however they not concern them. The Yankees not loom because the staff destined to destroy no matter monuments the Pink Sox have constructed.
That a part of the story is over.
Recreation 7 in 2003 ended the 1918-2003 period, the final time everybody thought they knew the end result of a season earlier than the playing cards had been dealt.