It was 12:07 A.M. and my cell phone was ringing. On the other end was my son who had snagged a ticket to the seventh game and had flown down to New York to meet a couple of friends earlier in the day. He said that NewYork by Frank Sinatra was playing in the background and it never sounded better. How good was this, the Babe’s curse is broken and a member of the family was there on hallowed Yankee ground to see it happen and even better, it happened on Mickey Mantle’s birthday.
This was absolutely the best script for a true believer. Down 3 games to zero and holding onto the last shred of hope. In the back of everyone’s mind was the fact that no team in baseball history had ever come back from that deficit to win the series. The third game had been a complete debacle. In the face of this, came the two extra inning games and there seemed to be a perceptible change in momentum. The Ortiz heroics in games four and five provided excitement and hope. In addition things which had never happened before began to happen. Back to back extra inning games lost by the Yankees? The great Rivera blowing saves? Two walk off game winning hits by the same player, David Ortiz? Curtis Leskanic the winner in game five?
Back down to the heart of the empire for game 6 and now the impossible happens in Yankee Stadium. The umpires blow two calls and they are both over turned! Again the improbable happens when the much maligned Mark Bellhorn hits an opposite field home run. To top it all off, Schilling has a little bit of surgery to temporarily hold his balky ankle tendon in place for seven glorious innings. Remember the Natural, when Roy Hobbs has a blood stain on his shirt from his old gunshot wound? Didn’t that come to mind when you saw Schilling’s sock?
Now comes game seven and all the negative remembrances of a life time of Yankee achievement and Red Sox failure. How could they possibly win this? The flappable Derek Lowe on the mound and Manny Ramirez without an RBI over 6 games. The Yankees had Bucky Dent throw out the first pitch just to make sure those ugly memories of years gone by were thoroughly refreshed. Well, apparently David Ortiz has a short memory. He was only remembering the fact that he is a terrifying hitter. Coming up after Johnny Damon had been thrown out at the plate on an ill advised attempt to score, Ortiz hit a laser beam off Kevin Brown into the right field stands for a 2-0 Boston first inning lead.
The Yankees night worsened as Brown had to be relieved with the bases loaded in favor of Javier Vasquez. All baseball fans know that you shouldn’t bring in a starter to relieve with men on base. They are familar with opening an inning pitching from the wind up with nobody on. Up comes Johnny (3 for 29 in the series) Damon and the first pitch was deposited in the right field stands and as the camera scanned the crowd I could see terror in the face of the Yankee fans. The realization had been driven home that the impossible was about to happen. The house that Ruth built was going to be the scene of the worst collapse in Yankee history. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the Boston Red Sox were the team administering this utter humiliation.
Hell has indeed frozen over.
