ASNN

those glorious red sox

Well, they did it. Even after they won Games 4 and 5, I couldn't allow myself to think the unthinkable. There was no way the Red Sox could win twice at Yankee Stadium.

Then they won Game 6. Certainly it was a fluke. The Sox were carried by the sheer studliness of Curt Schilling for Game 6. Schilling had his ankle sutured before Game 6, with his skin being stitched to the sheath of his ankle tendons. This was to prevent his ankle tendons from snapping across his ankle bone as it was in Game 1. The shot of his blood-soaked right sock was epic. He threw 99 pitches in seven innings of one-run ball in the gutsiest performance in all of sports, ever. EVER.

But certainly that was a fluke. The Yankees know how to win when the chips are on the table. They are the biggest closers in the history of sports, having won 26 championships since the '20s. Certainly they would show up for Game 7 of the ALCS. Certainly they would smack their pesky little brother, that "other" northeastern team around and dash the hopes of myriad Sox fans yet again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Yankee Stadium. "The House That Ruth Built", for one night, became "The House That Sox Broke". Johnny Damon, he of the .103 batting average in the leadoff position, hit two bombs for six runs, including a grand slam that broke the game wide open. Derek Lowe, he of the "why are you guys always calling me a basket case?!" press conference a while back and the 5.42 ERA this year, pitched six innings of ONE HIT baseball.

The Red Sox won.

They beat the Yankees. In Yankee Stadium. They won the ALCS. They won a Game 7. They came back from being down three games to none. They beat the Yankees.

It's likely many of you, o faithful readers, will be unable to truly grasp what this means in the overall context of history. Even the non-fans among you have probably heard, in some cursory fashion, of the Red Sox' futility. But you cannot have a full understanding of the gravity of this win in terms of the last 86 years. There is no curse.

"But surely", I hear some of you saying, "the curse is not banished until the Sox have won the World Series." Ah, good point... to you, I say, "Go to hell." Let us enjoy this one. ;-) Seriously, the curse has historically been a Red Sox versus Yankees thing. World Series Championships since the trade of the Babe: Yankees 26, Red Sox 0. But the curse can be considered in a different light: the Sox have not beaten the Yankees in the postseason since the trade in 1920. In that light, the curse is OVER.

I would really love if the Sox would win the World Series. But I'm not ready to write off their season and invoke the curse if they don't. For now, I'm content to say congratulations to the most riveting comeback team in the history of sports. GO SOX!

Posted by pcg at October 20, 2004 10:34 PM