I got nothing.
I've read article after article after article.
Talking heads. Pundits. Sportswriters. Columnists. Bloggers
All left fundamentally shocked by the facts.
Even before Aaron Boone's home run landed in the outfield at Yankee Stadium we've been primed for this. The offseason shenanigans. The regular season. The roster changes. The predictions. The expectations.
The hype.
The only thing that is more surprising then these last days is that this series somehow found a way to not just exceed our expectations, but shatter them.
By now we all know the story. Down 3 games to none. Down a run in the bottom of the ninth. The greatest postseason closer of all time on the mound to get the final three outs and complete the sweep. Champagne on ice. All over but the shouting.
And then this happens.
****
This wasn't just about the Red Sox. This was an event that demanded your attention no matter where you're from. If you're from New England you were in, like it or not. Not from Boston or NY? The number of teams the Yankees had dispatched in the postseason over the past 25 years alone constitutes most of Major League Baseball. If somehow you still felt left out, then the Yankees were a tangible reminder of the inequalities that prevented your team from getting the opportunity to receive an October whupping--183 million dollar payrolls don't exactly endear you to the rest of the league.
Don't care about baseball? Two teams in all of the big four professional leagues had come back from being down 3-0, and one of those was during the Roosevelt presidency.
****
I won't even write the word. Not even to dispute its use. But suffice it to say it begins with C and rhymes with maps.
It's arrogant. It's the word of someone who thinks they're better than you. It's refusing to admit defeat. It’s denying your opponent had anything to do with what transpired.
There's only one word to describe what happened these last few nights. And it's not the one that's been all over the papers in Gotham.
Comeback.
****
Is the argument that baseball is boring sustainable anymore? Or that this somehow isn't the national pastime? I know about the numbers and stats and arguments. And in a world of Michael Moore and the Bush administration and Iraq and partisan election squabbles, football is the most appropriate representation of the American psyche. Ask someone in Europe about America and they talk about football, not baseball. I know this.
But the Astros and Cardinals just concluded an NLCS that any other year would have been celebrated as one of the best postseason series in memory. Roger Clemens on the mound for his hometown team--after retiring from the vaunted Yankees and convincing his friend Andy Pettite to join him in Texas. A Cardinals team that has the most wins in all of baseball, but wasn't even favored to win their division (did we really think the Cubs would be that good?). An Astros team that had to go 37-10 over the last two months of the season merely to make the playoffs. Kent's walkoff home run to cap off two clutch pitching performances--dueling shutouts through 8+ and 9 innings, respectively. A walkoff home run in the 12th innings to send the series to Game 7.
Yet somehow this series is several orders of magnitudes less exciting (for those of us without a stake) then the ALCS.
Night after night after night after night after glorious night of tense strategery. Crowds hanging on every pitch from the third inning on. Coworkers acting like kids describing the events of the last night. Sneaking out of work early so they can do it again.
****
My grandchildren will ask me about this someday. We say that about lots of things, but of this I am sure. Every time a team goes down 3-0, this series will come up. Every time the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry comes up, this will come up.
It's that big.
They're going to ask and I'm going to tell them about the facts. I'm going to tell them about the odds, what was stacked against them, what it was like to have this building up in the background the entire year.
I'm going to tell them about Schilling's bloody sock and Roy Hobbs.
I'm going to tell them about the couple I saw who had emerged from a Wrigleyville bar to get their picture taken in front of the red Wrigley Field facade minutes after Game 7 was over. Both of them in Red Sox jerseys and hats. I don’t know why but it seemed appropriate.
I'm going to tell them about the way that the nation seemed split between those who were Yankees fans--and everyone else.
I'm going to tell them that Francona brought Pedro into the House that Ruth Built—a mystifying decision considering they were already in the 7th, with a 7 run lead and a pitcher who was cruising--simply to show his contempt for New York.
I'll tell them about the sign I saw in the Divinity School coffee shop at the University I attend. Beneath the inscription, "where God drinks coffee" was a white board stating simply, "GOOD 10, EVIL 3"
Mostly I'll tell them about the phone call I made to my friend--born and raised in Boston, currently living down the street from Harvard Square--immediately after it was over. He finally picked up (after several "all circuits are busy now") and I have no specific recollection of what was said, senator, but I do remember what I heard in the background. You could give me 100 tries at describing it and I’d never get it right.
But I know that I walked home giddy. And it's a sound I don't think I'll ever forget.
