Wednesday, October 19, 2005
I didn't get to edit it this because of work but I wanted to get it up to be timely so just enjoy it in all its messy goodness.
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One year ago today Curt Schilling took the mound in Yankee Stadium with sutures in his ankle.
There would have been enough drama involved if all he was pitching against was 86 years of pain and futility to a team and fan base that could only find sufficient comparisons in phrases like "passion play" or "Shakespearean." The opponent alone would have provided the necessary drama to make it more than a game. Not just a rival, but the most bitter rival in all of sports, a rival that epitomized all that was wrong for Red Sox fans. A history between two teams so awful and so one-sided that it defied logic and reason, probability and statistics, fairness and God, or better yet, Grady Little. Of course, two days prior the Sox trailed these tyrants 3 games to 0, a deficit no baseball team had ever even forced a game 7 against.
But here was Curt Schilling, trying to do just that on the mound of Yankee Stadium in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. All of that history would have been enough. Instead, Curt Schilling gingerly made his way to the mound of Yankee Stadium amidst the ghosts of 86 years with a few stitches holding his foot together, bleeding enough to turn his sock red. The poetry of the moment would have been too wonderful to take had it not been all too important and real for too many people.
Even one year later, it all seems so improbable: beating the Yankees, coming back from three games down, winning the World Series. And right in the middle of it arguably the most amazing, clutch performance in sports history.
(What else could possibly measure up? Willis Reed? Scored the first two baskets and that was it. If Wilt wasn't afraid to be the bad guy the Lakers win. Bill Russell would have MURDERED Willis Reed in this game; Russell even said so. Maybe Jordan's flu game? Schilling had a medical procedure done that had been invented a day or two before and had never been done on a human, only a cadaver. I think that easily trumps anything that can be treated with chicken soup and sleep. Kurt Gibson? In terms of sheer drama, nothing might ever top it considering it was a 2-out pinch hit homerun by a guy who couldn't walk, and off the best closer in the game. But there's no way it is even close to Schilling performance considering Gibson had one at bat whereas Schilling had to PITCH every pitch for 7 innings. And that's it, right? That's the list? The only other major injury I can think measures up is Bobby Baun in the 1964 Stanley Cup finals who played on a broken leg. But I think people have to know it happened for it to count, so tough luck Bobby. At least some of us know and care.)
It wasn’t like he was gutsy and the Sox scored enough runs to win. It was 3-1. He dominated a team that just a few days before had scored 19 runs at Fenway Park and was a live fantasy baseball lineup. If Schilling struggles in one inning of that game and gives up 3 or 4 runs, that’s it. Nice effort by the Sox, tough luck again and one more year of waiting.
But the man said he was coming to win a damn World Series and no damn ankle was going to stop him.
(Something I am afraid will be lost about this game and this series, Mark Bellhorn, who had been booed so loudly at Fenway and had to endure constant chants of “Pokey Pokey”, hit the game winning homerun on a ball initially ruled a double before the umps got it right. Then they called A-Rod out for interference, correctly, and even though we couldn’t have known it then, that was the series.
In fact, looking back, this game was far more entertaining than either 4 or 5 because in Game 4 we were pretty comatose from being firebombed down 3 games to 0 and were pretty close to death, and Game 5 almost caused me to die. I really thought my chest or head was going to explode by the thirteenth when knuckleballs were bouncing off Varitek like super balls.
But Game 6 had goofy stuff happening that had ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS gone against us, including the demise of Alex Rodriguez as a man, the redemption of Mark Bellhorn, and the heroics of Curt Schilling.)
One year later it still brings tears to my eyes to see clips from any point in Game 4 of the ALCS to Game 4 of the World Series. I wondered if the feeling would wear off at all and it hasn’t. And every year from now I’ll think back in October to 2004 and recall how all it took on the 19th was a guy wearing a red sock to push the Sox that much closer to the impossible.
I can’t believe after 86 years it was that simple.
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One year ago today Curt Schilling took the mound in Yankee Stadium with sutures in his ankle.
There would have been enough drama involved if all he was pitching against was 86 years of pain and futility to a team and fan base that could only find sufficient comparisons in phrases like "passion play" or "Shakespearean." The opponent alone would have provided the necessary drama to make it more than a game. Not just a rival, but the most bitter rival in all of sports, a rival that epitomized all that was wrong for Red Sox fans. A history between two teams so awful and so one-sided that it defied logic and reason, probability and statistics, fairness and God, or better yet, Grady Little. Of course, two days prior the Sox trailed these tyrants 3 games to 0, a deficit no baseball team had ever even forced a game 7 against.
But here was Curt Schilling, trying to do just that on the mound of Yankee Stadium in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS. All of that history would have been enough. Instead, Curt Schilling gingerly made his way to the mound of Yankee Stadium amidst the ghosts of 86 years with a few stitches holding his foot together, bleeding enough to turn his sock red. The poetry of the moment would have been too wonderful to take had it not been all too important and real for too many people.
Even one year later, it all seems so improbable: beating the Yankees, coming back from three games down, winning the World Series. And right in the middle of it arguably the most amazing, clutch performance in sports history.
(What else could possibly measure up? Willis Reed? Scored the first two baskets and that was it. If Wilt wasn't afraid to be the bad guy the Lakers win. Bill Russell would have MURDERED Willis Reed in this game; Russell even said so. Maybe Jordan's flu game? Schilling had a medical procedure done that had been invented a day or two before and had never been done on a human, only a cadaver. I think that easily trumps anything that can be treated with chicken soup and sleep. Kurt Gibson? In terms of sheer drama, nothing might ever top it considering it was a 2-out pinch hit homerun by a guy who couldn't walk, and off the best closer in the game. But there's no way it is even close to Schilling performance considering Gibson had one at bat whereas Schilling had to PITCH every pitch for 7 innings. And that's it, right? That's the list? The only other major injury I can think measures up is Bobby Baun in the 1964 Stanley Cup finals who played on a broken leg. But I think people have to know it happened for it to count, so tough luck Bobby. At least some of us know and care.)
It wasn’t like he was gutsy and the Sox scored enough runs to win. It was 3-1. He dominated a team that just a few days before had scored 19 runs at Fenway Park and was a live fantasy baseball lineup. If Schilling struggles in one inning of that game and gives up 3 or 4 runs, that’s it. Nice effort by the Sox, tough luck again and one more year of waiting.
But the man said he was coming to win a damn World Series and no damn ankle was going to stop him.
(Something I am afraid will be lost about this game and this series, Mark Bellhorn, who had been booed so loudly at Fenway and had to endure constant chants of “Pokey Pokey”, hit the game winning homerun on a ball initially ruled a double before the umps got it right. Then they called A-Rod out for interference, correctly, and even though we couldn’t have known it then, that was the series.
In fact, looking back, this game was far more entertaining than either 4 or 5 because in Game 4 we were pretty comatose from being firebombed down 3 games to 0 and were pretty close to death, and Game 5 almost caused me to die. I really thought my chest or head was going to explode by the thirteenth when knuckleballs were bouncing off Varitek like super balls.
But Game 6 had goofy stuff happening that had ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS gone against us, including the demise of Alex Rodriguez as a man, the redemption of Mark Bellhorn, and the heroics of Curt Schilling.)
One year later it still brings tears to my eyes to see clips from any point in Game 4 of the ALCS to Game 4 of the World Series. I wondered if the feeling would wear off at all and it hasn’t. And every year from now I’ll think back in October to 2004 and recall how all it took on the 19th was a guy wearing a red sock to push the Sox that much closer to the impossible.
I can’t believe after 86 years it was that simple.
