Random Sports Thoughts

October 27th, 2004

The impossible, the improbable, the unbelievable - they all came true.

My God.

It really happened.

Thank you.

I can honestly say that I am at such a loss for words to describe what is taking place right now.

I am so caught off guard about what might take place very soon.

I always figured I would know how to feel, or what to expect. But the truth is I am so bewildered that I actually appear calm. Almost like these games are being played in April.

I always hoped this day might come, but I always feared it wouldn't. I always said, "It will be amazing when they do it," but in the back fo my head rested thoughts like, "How could they ever do it?"

I can't even imagine what I might feel like tomorrow.

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One quick Game 3 thought. I was happy for Pedro. Pedro was a once-in-a-lifetime athlete, and watching those skills slowly fade over the last couple years hasn't been easy. But last night, in the biggest stage, and his biggest game as a Red Sox player, he came through beyond what we could hope and ask for.

If it was his last game in a Sox uniform - well it certainly is a nice way to remember him.

Go Sox.

Forget the 3-0 deficit, forget the incredible extra inning games in 4 and 5, or Schilling's Lazarus-like performance in 6, even Johnny Damon's grand slam in the 7th, by the end of the series one very simple but very incredible fact was true: the Boston Red Sox had beaten the New York Yankees.

There it was. It was over and the Boston Red Sox had beaten the New York Yankees.

One year after a lost so devastating it seemed as though sports would never offer anything so good to be comparable to its bad. And yes, the loss was that bad. It made you question why the hell you even cared in the first place, let alone why you cared so much at the end. People walked around Boston for weeks with broken spirits. And it never quite went away, just like it had never gone away after 78 or 86.

And now it is gone. It's gone. And in its place something so good you couldn't possibly begin to describe it, so why try?

Instead, just know that in the early hours of Thursday, grown men cried because of how happy they were. Sons thought of their fathers, fathers thought of their fathers, and generations thought of generations.

Being a Red Sox fan, whether age 10, 20, 50 or 80, you don't hold your history on your shoulders, you hold the entire history of the team on you. Fans of the 67 team didn't just feel a loss then, you feel it now with them. Bucky Dent might have hit a homerun before you were born, but it's one of the worst moments of your life.

So when Alan Embree induced a Ruben Sierra grounder to Pokey Reese, you didn't yell or cheer because you had seen it, you yelled or cheered because the team had seen it. Boston had seen it. WE had seen it. Almost nine decades of us had seen it, even if we weren't all here together, those of us who were saw it for the them - and we remembered.

Actually, if you were like me, you didn't yell or cheer at all. You welled up, smiled, shook your head, and hugged the closest person to you. You couldn't describe what you felt, so why try?

Maybe, like me, you've welled up over the last few days as ESPN and WEEI played montages, reminding you of Ortiz heroics or of a Bellhorn opposite field home run.

All I know is that the Boston Red Sox have beaten the New York Yankees, in the most improbable of ways possible, in the most inspiring of ways possible. And while no one is ready to say we're done, or that we don't have a long journey left, no one will ever be able to take it away from us.

We beat the New York Yankees.

I mean, we beat the New York Yankees.

I won't try to describe it, but I sure as hell won't ever forget it.

I might have a new entry in me.

Haha.

Just the most incredible thing I've ever seen in sports in my lifetime.